A Christmas to Remember

by Katie Flynn

  Satisfied, Snowy slid into bed. His fears had proved groundless, and if he dreamed of Marilyn Thomas he did not remember doing so when he woke next morning.

  Chapter Eleven

  MORE THAN FOUR years had passed since Tess’s Pets had been opened for the first time and Tess was just unlocking the door of the pet shop when she saw, through the glass, a large figure with what looked like a box in his arms approaching her door. She pulled it open before the man had a chance to knock, and ushered him inside. ‘This’ll be my day-old chicks,’ she remarked cheerfully. ‘Morning, Mr Haslett. Isn’t it a grand day?’

  ‘Aye. We’d better make the most of it – summer will be over before we know it,’ Mr Haslett agreed. He eyed Tess’s grey suit and white blouse with interest. ‘Where’s you off to? Or haven’t you had time to put on your overall yet?’

  ‘I’m off to Wales to interview a new supplier,’ Tess told him. ‘Mitch can cope, though if he does need help Gran’s only a shout away.’

  Mr Haslett put his burden down carefully on the counter. He delivered all manner of things, coming up from the country on most days with everything from foodstuffs to live animals, and Tess was a regular on his route. ‘Who’s your new supplier? Don’t say someone’s begun to do exotics, ’cos I know that’s what you’re after.’

  Tess laughed. ‘I shan’t be doing exotics for a while yet, if I ever do; there’s not much call for exotics in Everton. It’s more the cheaper end of the market.’

  The large man laughed too. ‘Cheep, cheep, as them chicks would say,’ he commented. ‘Tell you what, miss, I supplies three or four pet shops now in the city and none of ’em shift their stock as fast as you do. Why is it, d’you think?’

  Tess smiled. ‘It’s because I know how to treat the animals and birds I sell, and now that I’ve had over four years’ experience of the trade I know better than to let day-olds go to people who won’t look after ’em right. But I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor cockerels, who are fed like princes until Christmas is just a few days off . . .’

  ‘Aye, well, most folk like a bird for Christmas if they can afford it,’ the man said, producing a bunch of rather mangled papers and beginning to sort them out on the countertop. ‘Have you ever thought of selling piglets?’

  Tess groaned. ‘Imagine cleaning the cage out at the end of the day,’ she said. ‘Puppies are bad enough, not like kittens, who seem to be born with lavatory habits and always use the sand tray.’ As she spoke she had been opening the till and extracting the money for the chicks, and now she handed it to Mr Haslett, watching as he scrawled Paid on the bottom of the invoice and added his signature. How wonderful it was to be solvent, she told herself. Four years ago, when the shop had first opened, even paying for a box of chicks would have been a headache. Then, she had juggled bills and invoices and the tiny amount of money in the account she had opened for Tess’s Pets, grateful for every customer, and appreciating more than ever the generosity of those friends who had lent money to keep her head above water. Now, Tess’s Pets was a viable business, paying everyone’s wages and enabling her to repay loans and buy in stock knowing that it would be sold soon after it arrived. Mitch, who was now fourteen, was employed full time, and though Gran still did the books and cashed up she was no longer needed on a regular basis.

  ‘There you are, miss, there’s your copy,’ Mr Haslett said, shoving the remaining papers back into his pocket. ‘How old’s the lad now? I see’d him a couple of weeks ago; it’s astonishin’ how he’s shot up.’

  ‘You’re right there; he’s a proper beanpole,’ Tess agreed. ‘He’s only fourteen, but he’s taller than I am, not that that’s saying much.’ She swung the door open. ‘Ah, here he comes, with Elsie in tow. See you soon, Mr Haslett.’

  Mitch entered the shop, closely followed by his small sister. She had started school the previous September and was making the most of the holidays, though since Mrs Roberts was now working full time at Tate and Lyle’s this chiefly meant accompanying her brother to his place of work. Fortunately, Elsie was happy enough to help clean, feed and water the animals and birds, and speedily became fond of her charges; in fact she was forced to go into the stockroom when one of them was sold, in order to shed bitter tears.

  There had been a never-to-be-forgotten occasion when Elsie had asked a customer, leaving the shop with a large buck rabbit, what he intended to call his new pet. ‘I call him Fatty Arbuckle. What’ll you call him?’ she had asked.

  The man had stared down at her for an uncomprehending moment before his face cleared. ‘I’m gonna call him Sunday dinner,’ he said airily, and was gone before the true horror of this statement had sunk in. Mitch had pretended it was just a joke, but with meat on ration and hard to come by they all knew that the man had spoken the simple truth.

  Now, the two Robertses entered the shop cheerfully, Elsie dancing over to the medley of rabbits in the big cage which stretched along the back of the counter. ‘Good morning, bunnies, how are you today?’ she asked in her shrill little voice. ‘Shall I start by cleaning the big cage, Tess? Only Mitch will have to take them out for me and carry them through to the stockroom ’cos of the kicks.’

  Tess, remembering her small helper’s effort to carry a fat grey rabbit, smiled. Elsie had done her best but the rabbit knew an amateur when it met one. A couple of wriggles, several hearty kicks, and the rabbit was belting towards the back door and freedom whilst poor Elsie ran in his wake, pleading tearfully, ‘Come to Elsie like a good boy! Oh, please, Mr Bunny, come to Elsie!’

  Mr Bunny, bewildered by the juvenile cries – and the height of the wall between it and the jigger – had bolted into the outside lavatory, and was easily captured by Mitch, but it had taught all concerned a lesson: small children and large rabbits do not go together. So now Elsie was allowed to sit quietly on her little stool holding a baby rabbit or kitten in her lap, but larger animals, though she might clean their cages, fill their water pots and provide them with their daily bread, were taboo as far as taking them out of their cages was concerned.

  ‘I think the puppies could do with fresh sawdust. If your brother lifts them out into the playpen you can give an eye to them when you’ve finished the rabbits’ cage,’ Tess decided. ‘Then when Mitch has done the puppies the pair of you can get started on the guinea pigs, hamsters and gerbils. We’ve plenty of clean sawdust and straw, and when their cages are clean you can feed them, only they mustn’t have anything which Mitch hasn’t given you. Remember what I told you?’

  She watched with amusement as Elsie’s cheeks grew pink and she hung her head. ‘Hamsters is greedy pigs and will eat themselves inside out,’ she recited. ‘Like they did when I give ’em all that grain. It were ’cos they looked so hungry, poor little dears. And – and their tummies fell out of their bottoms, and Mr Vet had to put ’em back. So I won’t ever do that again, Tess.’

  ‘I know you won’t, and I shouldn’t have teased you,’ Tess said remorsefully. ‘You’re a good girl, Elsie, and when you’re grown up you shall have a proper job in the shop, and earn proper money, because I trust you with my animals. Indeed, I’m going to give you a choice for today. I’m going off into the country to meet a man who’s breeding angora rabbits. They have wonderful long fur, soft as silk, so I want to see what his rabbits are like, and whether we would find a sale for them. You see, people don’t just want them as pets. With angora rabbits they comb the fur out every few weeks and weave it into yarn. Then the yarn is made into lovely soft clothing . . .’ She stopped talking, since it was plain that Elsie was no longer listening.

  ‘Mitch telled me,’ she said excitedly. ‘He said I could be his dep – dep – deputy, and have my dinner at Lyons Corner House . . . Ooh, Tess, I’d rather do that than anything in the world.’

  Mitch, already starting to move the rabbits from their big cage into an even bigger one in the stockroom, grinned at Tess. ‘So if you was hoping for company on your trip into the country, hard luck! You did say you’d pay for Elsie’s
dinner and your gran said she thought we might close for an hour so that she could come with us. If it’s all right by you, of course,’ he added hastily.

  Tess was about to say that it would be fine by her when the door opened again and Sammy Higgins came into the shop. He was an old school friend of Snowy’s and had always been a keen bird fancier, and now he bred budgerigars and canaries in a large aviary which took up most of his back yard. Because he was genuinely fond of his birds he declared he would only sell them through Tess, knowing that she would take great care of them while they were with her and would make sure buyers knew what they were taking on when they were sold.

  ‘Mornin’, Tess. How’s me old pal Snowy gerrin’ on?’ he asked. ‘I keep meanin’ to write to him, but somehow I never get round to it.’ He was carrying a large and well-appointed cage containing three bright-eyed little occupants which he now put carefully on the counter before turning his attention to Tess once more. ‘Snowy were always interested in birds, so when he comes home mebbe he’ll come into partnership wi’ me. I could put up an aviary at the end of his garden, if Mr and Mrs White would agree, and we could share the profits.’

  Tess pulled a doubtful face. Snowy’s parents lived a good half-mile away and had a proper back garden. She could not imagine either of them taking kindly to an aviary on their spotlessly maintained lawn. Since Snowy had gone to Malaya she had visited his parents several times and liked them both. Mr White had congratulated her on her business acumen, whilst she and Mrs White had talked of make-up, clothes and other feminine matters, and Tess thought they approved of her. Naturally enough, when she visited they had compared notes about their son’s letters, and Mr White had suggested jobs in the teaching profession which he thought might suit him.

  The last time this had occurred Mrs White and Tess had exchanged quick, apprehensive glances, which proved to Tess that Snowy’s mother, like herself, had reservations about Snowy’s ever taking to such a post. Had he gone into one straight after leaving university it might have been different, but by the time he came home he would have lived in the real world, as he put it, for more than two years, and Tess thought that he might find academia both unexciting and tedious after life with the army.

  Sammy cleared his throat. ‘I axed you how me ol’ pal Snowy was gerrin’ along,’ he reminded her rather reproachfully. ‘I really will write him a line one of these days . . .’

  ‘He’s doing fine,’ Tess said quickly. ‘He’s in Malaya, you know, doing what he describes as “clearing up”. He loves Singapore, which is where they go when they’re off patrol for a day or two, but of course he’s only there for another six months.’ She laughed. ‘Poor Snowy. He wanted to go somewhere tropical all right, but he hadn’t bargained for the flies and having to work in a temperature of a hundred degrees, and of course he’d not thought of putting up with the rainy season. Apparently the fellers were washed out of their tents in one particular downpour.’

  ‘He’ll be rare glad to get back to England, then,’ Sammy observed. ‘Though in six months’ time we’ll be in the middle of winter and likely up to our knees in snow . . .’

  ‘But not in steamy, hot, jungly rain,’ Tess reminded him. ‘The army makes Snowy take some sort of medication which turns his skin yellow and is supposed to save him from being bitten by a malarial mosquito. He went off all cock-a-hoop, looking forward to moonlit beaches and tropical maidens, and all he’s got is mosquito bites, greasy food and a yellow face, poor old lad.’

  Mitch and Elsie came through from the storeroom and began to admire the new arrivals. ‘Do any of ’em talk yet, mister?’ Mitch asked eagerly. Then he frowned. ‘Ain’t you the feller what’s a mate of Snowy White’s?’ And when Sammy nodded he gave a satisfied smile. ‘I thought you was; we’re mates of his too, ain’t we, Elsie? When he comes back he’s goin’ to be a teacher and marry our Tess here. Ain’t that so, Tess?’

  Tess leaned over and tried to put her hand across his mouth, but he resisted, giggling. ‘It’s true that he’s my boyfriend, but marriage is a whole different kettle of fish, and don’t you forget it,’ she said. ‘And don’t put words into Elsie’s mouth, because she couldn’t possibly remember Snowy. She was three when he left and she’ll be a proper little schoolgirl by the time he comes back.’

  ‘That’s right. And I does remember him. He’s a tall feller,’ Elsie said excitedly. ‘Will you let me be bridesmaid, Tess? Oh, say I can, ’cos I’ve never been a bridesmaid.’

  Tess and Sammy both laughed, though Tess shook her head reprovingly. ‘Since I’m not considering marriage I’m not choosing my bridesmaids either,’ she said. ‘But if I was, you’d be first on the list. Now let’s release these birds into the aviary. We’ll deal with them properly later.’

  She paid the asking price without hesitation, noting the amount and getting Sammy’s signature on the receipt. Then she waved him off and returned to her work. Nice, she thought, to have something to tell Snowy in her next letter. She wrote once a week and often found it difficult to fill her pages. Snowy enlivened his with descriptions of the Malayan countryside and stories of the other men in his regiment, but she had to rely upon events which took place in the pet shop. Because of her promise she went to the cinema only with Lucy or with Gran, and though she had been to dances at the local ballrooms she never mentioned such outings to Snowy. It would not have seemed fair with him far away in a foreign land and apt to imagine her clasped in someone else’s arms, even though the men she danced with were always just friends.

  Checking once more that the aviary door was securely latched, she smiled at her two young helpers. ‘And now I must catch a bus to Central station.’

  In the country bus from Bidston to her destination, Tess glanced at her watch and sighed. If Snowy had been home, she reflected, this entire tedious journey could have been shortened by as much as a couple of hours. The army had taught him to drive and Snowy had said in one of his letters that he meant to buy himself wheels just as soon as he could shake the British army dust from his boots. A mental picture of him sprang into Tess’s mind: tall and fair, his skin bronzed by the hot sun, his teeth looking whiter than ever against the tan. Dear Snowy! Letters arrived rarely, but when they came he always signed off Your loving Snowy, which, to Tess at least, indicated that he was as faithful to her as she was to him.

  Gazing out of the window, Tess congratulated herself on the fact that there appeared to be few women in Malaya anxious to grab themselves a British soldier, even one as attractive as Snowy. Most of the women he mentioned were nurses or worked in the offices, and though there were occasional dances and presumably other social events it appeared from Snowy’s letters that he did not indulge in such pastimes. In fact, in one letter he had written that the nurses all had faces like horses and the office workers were pale and pimply. Knowing Snowy as she did, furthermore, she discounted the local girls as competition. In the secret depths of her mind she had to acknowledge that she thought Snowy was a snob. She remembered a jeering remark he had once made regarding the slanting eyes of a friend, and also his references to Jonty as the ‘ploughboy’. No, if she feared any competition, which she did not, it was unlikely to come from a beautiful coffee-coloured maiden, no matter how tempting her wiles. Besides, Snowy was fighting a war, albeit a strange one. It was referred to as ‘the emergency’ and she gathered, from Snowy’s cautious comments, that his platoon patrolled the jungle, pushing the insurgents back whenever possible, and feeding and protecting the natives in the tiny, pathetically poor villages. They would do this for a matter of weeks and would then be recalled to Singapore for what they called R and R – rest and recreation – during which they might enjoy such entertainment as the showing of old British films, the odd dance at which men outnumbered women by ten to one, or a meal in a local restaurant.

  Remembering how indignant Snowy had been upon discovering that she kept Jonty’s letters, she had acquired a smart green folder for Snowy’s correspondence. Some of his letters were short, stain
ed with sweat and occasionally depressing, for two of Snowy’s platoon had died, and though he had not given her any details she supposed it to have been from a tropical disease such as malaria. Tess’s heart bled for him; a friend, badly wounded, had been in hospital for several weeks before he had been invalided home to Britain and Snowy had said, frankly, that he envied the bloke. I’d give a good deal for a cold beer and a night’s sleep undisturbed by the whining of mosquitoes, he had written. Still, I’ve served just over two-thirds of my sentence, so roll on the New Year. It can’t be too cold or too blowy for this little soldier boy!

  The bus began to slow as it reached the outskirts of the village, and Tess dismissed thoughts of Snowy as she thanked the conductor and jumped down. It was a nice village, with half a dozen shops including a bakery and a blacksmith’s forge, and it reminded her sharply of Jonty and the Bells. She decided that when she got home she would write to Jonty and tell him all about the angora rabbits. He would be interested, not in what sort of profit she might make from them, but in the animals themselves: what they ate, how they bred and how best to treat their long silky fur. Snowy, on the other hand, would only be interested in how much money she would get for each one. But she must not judge Snowy unfairly, because he was not a country boy and had no real interest in country matters.