by Ellie Dean
‘You’re family and he loves you,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘And for Stan, family’s the important thing. Everything else can take care of itself.’
April finished the tea, took one last call and removed the headphones. She knew Miss Gardener wouldn’t appreciate any emotional sort of farewell, so stuck out her hand. ‘Thank you again for everything, Miss Gardener. I really appreciate all that you’ve done for me.’
The older woman warmly shook her hand. ‘Goodbye, April, and good luck.’ Before April could reply she’d taken her place before the board and was settling the headphones about her ears. ‘Just make sure you close the front door securely. I don’t want Winston to get out.’
April pulled on her cardigan and headed for the door. Winston eyed her balefully from the front room, and she closed the door firmly on him and sighed. Her working days were over until the baby was born, and after that . . . She shook her head and strode away from the exchange, determined to face whatever fate had in store for her with courage.
Peggy’s day had been filled with chores, and she was grateful to Ron for taking Daisy out, as it meant she could really get on. She’d scrubbed out the bathroom and kitchen, put fresh linen on the beds and even cleaned the windows, for there was something about a lovely June day that energised her and made her want her home to sparkle.
She nodded with satisfaction as she squeezed out the mop, for the hall tiles looked lovely when they were clean, and then carried the bucket out to Ron’s water butt.
‘For goodness’ sake, Peggy,’ said Cordelia from the depths of her deckchair, ‘sit down and draw breath. You’ve been on the go all day.’
‘I’ve still got Daisy’s outfit to iron, and then there’s tea to organise, and the button to sew back on my skirt which I meant to do last night,’ she replied, emptying the bucket and stowing it with the mop in the scullery.
‘You’ll run yourself ragged and be in no state for tomorrow,’ said Cordelia sternly.
‘I’ll be fine. It’s Ron I’m worried about.’ Peggy plumped down on the doorstep and lit a well-earned fag. ‘If he and the others consume as much beer as they usually do on such occasions, we’ll have him rolling home at dawn, and dead to the world until lunchtime.’
‘Then you’d better make sure he has something hearty to line his stomach before he goes out.’
‘Mmm. I just hope Stan doesn’t go overboard after doing so well on Ethel’s diet. It would be a shame after she’s worked so hard to get him well.’
‘I’m sure one night off the wagon won’t hurt him,’ said Cordelia. ‘Ethel will soon bring him into line again.’
They both looked up at the sound of the latch on the back gate and saw April waving her hands in the air. ‘Look,’ she called in delight, ‘no plaster.’
‘How does it feel?’ asked Peggy once she and Cordelia had inspected the slightly pale and withered arm.
April laughed. ‘Rather strange, as if my arm’s so light it will just float away.’
Peggy smiled and patted her cheek. ‘It’s lovely to see you so cheerful, dear, but now I must get on with putting the final touches to our tea.’
‘I’ll help you,’ April replied quickly and they went up the steps into the kitchen, leaving Cordelia to bask in the late afternoon sunshine.
Ron stumped home soon after, and Peggy’s concern over lining his stomach was eased by the fact that he’d treated himself and Daisy to fish, chips, peas and pickled onions at the local British Restaurant. He’d washed it down with three cups of tea and four slices of bread and margarine, and was ready for anything – which in itself was rather worrying, for Peggy knew Ethel didn’t want Stan arriving at the church hungover and looking like death warmed up.
Peggy and April got on with making a pie with the scraps of fish Ron had managed to buy from Fred that morning, and once they’d topped it with a generous layer of mashed potato, it was placed in the slow oven to cook through.
‘I’ll look after Daisy for you if you want to go to Ethel’s party,’ said April as they joined Cordelia in the garden for a cup of tea and watched Daisy playing in the old bathtub Ron had converted into a sandpit.
‘I’m not going to that,’ Peggy replied. ‘It’s for the factory girls, really, and not my cup of tea.’ She smiled at April. ‘But thanks for the offer, dear. I might take it up another time.’
‘Please do,’ she replied earnestly. ‘You’ve done so much for me and I want to repay you somehow.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ murmured Peggy. ‘I do what I do out of love, and don’t expect anything in return.’
As April took the tea things into the kitchen Peggy sat in the last of the sunshine and mulled over all that had happened in the past few weeks. The confirmation that Ethel could be downright nasty when it came to girls like April and Shirley hadn’t come as too much of a shock, for Peggy had long suspected Ethel was that way inclined. Thankfully, Stan had managed to keep his mouth shut, but Peggy was concerned by his blindness to Ethel’s faults, and his willingness to sweep any unpleasantness under the carpet and pretend it didn’t exist.
She shifted in the deckchair, her thoughts making her restless. Stan was a loving, open-hearted man who was simply trying to protect those he loved, but keeping secrets from Ethel – especially such momentous ones – was not the best way to begin a marriage.
She finished her cigarette and crushed it beneath her shoe. Ethel had become very frosty where April was concerned, despite the fact that Stan was clearly delighted to have his niece back in his life and wanted them all to live in harmony. Her whole attitude had grated on Peggy, to the point where she simply couldn’t go to that party tonight and laugh and talk and pretend that everything was all right. And yet it was the knowledge that Stan was probably making the biggest mistake of his life that really upset her, and she was dreading tomorrow’s wedding.
‘That tickles,’ giggled April as she stood on the kitchen chair the next morning.
Fran continued to draw a pencil line down the back of her leg. ‘To be sure, April, it will be worth it. But you must keep still.’
April endured her attentions and then gratefully clambered off the chair. The other girls were still waiting for the gravy browning solution to dry on their legs, and they were standing about the kitchen in their dressing gowns with their hair in rollers, rifling through each other’s make-up bags in the faint hope they might find the end of a lipstick or a bit of eye shadow and mascara. Rationing meant that make-up was in short supply and cost lots of coupons, so everyone was in the same boat.
‘Have you got any beetroot, Peggy?’ asked Ivy.
Peggy looked up from where she was ironing Ron’s best shirt. ‘Beetroot? Whatever for?’
‘It’s a brilliant substitute for lipstick,’ Ivy replied with a giggle. ‘And if you’re really clever, you can even use it as rouge.’
‘Well, I’ve heard it all now,’ said Cordelia, having admired her newly stained legs. ‘When I was a girl we used to use strawberries or raspberries to give our lips a bit of colour. Lipstick was very frowned upon, you know.’
The girls giggled and teased her while Peggy hunted out a jar of beetroot she’d preserved the previous year. ‘Just don’t spill it,’ she warned. ‘I’ll never get the stains out.’
April was relaxed and happy amid the bustle and chatter. It reminded her of her days in Portsmouth when everyone was getting ready for a party. She experienced a momentary pang of sadness as she thought of Paula and then determinedly focused on the present. This was her Uncle Stan’s wedding day, and nothing must be allowed to spoil it. She would even attempt to soften Ethel’s attitude towards her, though going by the way she’d been these past couple of weeks, she suspected it might be a lost cause.
Stan opened his eyes and groggily took in the familiar rafters and plasterwork of his bedroom ceiling. At least he’d made it home last night, he thought gratefully, but he did wish he hadn’t drunk quite so much. It was the whisky chasers Rosie had provided at the
end of the rowdy evening that had done the damage and now there was an entire band of drummers marching in his head.
He rolled over and struggled to focus on the bedside clock. When he saw that it was almost eleven, he threw back the bedclothes and leaped to his feet. He swayed alarmingly as the room spun and his head pounded, and he sank back down again until he felt steadier.
Dragging on his dressing gown and gingerly making his way down the narrow staircase, he tottered outside to find his day replacement sitting on a garden chair being closely watched by the cat as he ate what looked like a marmalade sandwich. ‘You should be on the platform waiting for the eleven o’clock,’ he said to the elderly man, whose eyes looked huge behind the very thick lenses of his spectacles.
‘And you should be having a wash and shave and preparing for your wedding,’ he replied with a wry smile. He studied Stan from head to foot as he munched his sandwich. ‘It strikes me someone had a real skinful last night.’
‘Yes, well, a man doesn’t get wed every day,’ Stan muttered. ‘Ethel would kill me if she saw me now.’
‘I can’t say I’d blame her,’ he muttered, wrapping the rest of his sandwiches in newspaper and stuffing them in the pocket of the oversized uniform jacket. ‘You leave the trains to me and concentrate on how you’re going to get through the rest of the day alive,’ he said gruffly before plodding down the path to the station.
Stan ran trembling fingers through his hair, yawned expansively and turned back into his kitchen, almost tripping over the cat as it shot past him. There didn’t seem to be any recurrence of his indigestion, which was a blessing, but his head was still pounding. ‘A cup of tea and a couple of aspirin will soon sort me out,’ he muttered.
He silenced the cat’s strident demands by filling its bowl and then set about trying to sober up. Turning on the cold tap, he ducked his head and gasped as the icy water hammered down. He shook his head and dried it vigorously with a kitchen towel and then made a pot of tea. Leaving it to brew a bit while he used the outside lav he then cleaned his teeth in the kitchen sink and gargled with a peppermint-flavoured mouthwash in the hope it might sweeten his breath and unfur his tongue. Feeling a little better, he sat down to enjoy his tea and mull over the night before – or at least what he could remember of it.
Rosie had laid on a terrific spread at the Anchor, no doubt helped by Ethel having raided the factory canteen kitchen, and Stan had well and truly broken his diet. Ron had rounded up all his old pals, including Chalky White, Fred the Fish and Alf the butcher, and they’d supped their beers and reminisced with stories of their youth, the parts they’d played in the last war, and all the adventures they’d had since. Fran had come in to play a few Irish jigs with the help of some of the visiting servicemen, and there had been a great deal of laughter and a feeling of warm comradeship as they’d competed at darts, dominoes and shove-ha’penny in their favourite corner by the inglenook.
Stan smiled at the memory despite his headache. It had been a grand do, but he was certainly paying for it this morning.
Ron was feeling surprisingly sprightly considering he hadn’t got to bed until after two this morning, and had certainly drunk his share of the beer and whisky. He’d risen at five and taken Harvey for a walk – the cat decided she was not going out at that silly time of the morning – and after a brisk walk over the hills, had returned home and cooked himself a large breakfast of egg, Spam and fried bread, followed by a gallon of tea and a stack of toast.
The house was in chaos as six females dashed about, bickered over whose turn it was in the bathroom, and who’d pinched the last of the hairspray, so he and the animals had taken themselves off to the peace and quiet of the basement bedroom, glad to be out of it all.
Ron brushed back his thick, greying hair, smoothed his shaggy brows down with a wet finger, and regarded his reflection in the fly-spotted dressing-table mirror he’d balanced on his chest of drawers. Peggy had pressed his suit and tie and he was wearing a freshly ironed white shirt. His shoes had been polished to a shine, but unfortunately he couldn’t find a matching pair of socks, but as black was very similar to dark blue, he didn’t think anyone would notice.
He winked at his reflection. ‘Ach, to be sure you’re still a fine figure of a man, so y’are,’ he said. ‘The ladies had better watch out today.’
Queenie paused mid-wash of her glossy coat and eyed him with disdain, and Harvey snorted as if he didn’t approve of Ron’s showboating.
‘You’ll be minding the house today,’ Ron informed Harvey sternly. ‘Weddings are no place for a fine fellow like you.’ He grabbed his freshly brushed dark blue fedora – it was actually Jim’s, but as he was in India, he’d surely not mind him borrowing it – and hurried upstairs to the kitchen.
‘I’ll be off to Stan’s,’ he said to Peggy who was wrestling Daisy into her best dress while she threw a tantrum. ‘We’ll see you at the church.’ Before Peggy had time to reply or think up some sort of job for him to do, he ordered Harvey to stay in the kitchen and firmly closed the scullery door behind him.
Upon his arrival at the stationmaster’s cottage, he didn’t bother to knock, but strode straight in. There was no sign of Stan, although the teapot and china on the draining board revealed that he’d made it out of bed at some point this morning. ‘Stan! Stan, where are you?’
‘Up here trying to get these blasted buttons done up,’ he yelled back.
Ron plodded up the stairs to find Stan out of breath and red-faced as he stood in the middle of the room in his shirtsleeves, his best suit trousers at half-mast. ‘To be sure that’s not a pretty sight at this time of day, Stan, my old friend,’ he muttered, taking in the glaring white underpants and equally white thighs.
‘I thought they’d fit now I’ve lost almost half a stone,’ he moaned. ‘What am I going to do, Ron?’
Ron hauled up the trousers and tried to get them to meet beneath the overhang of Stan’s belly, but it was patently clear he was not going to get those fly buttons done up. ‘I’ll hold onto the waist and you do up the ones you can,’ he suggested.
Stan struggled and fumbled, but he couldn’t get more than one button done up.
Ron eyed the situation and thought for a moment. ‘Have you got any elastic, and some safety pins?’
Stan was sweating from the effort of trying to hold in his stomach and do up the buttons. ‘If I have, they’ll be in Barbara’s sewing box,’ he gasped, tilting his chin towards the top of the wardrobe.
Ron stood on a stool and after fumbling about for a bit located the sewing box. He rifled through it, and found a length of broad knicker elastic and a handful of rusting safety pins. ‘Right,’ he said, advancing on Stan, ‘I’ll fasten the elastic to the waistband with some of these pins, and use the others to try and keep you decent at the front.’
‘You’re a real pal, Ron,’ sighed Stan.
‘Aye, to be sure, Stanley Dawkins,’ he muttered through a mouthful of safety pins, ‘it’s only a real pal who’d be willing to be on his knees pinning flies together when good drinking time is being wasted.’
‘Watch what you’re doing down there,’ warned Stan in alarm as Ron wielded scissors and pins.
‘If you stood still it would be easier,’ grunted Ron. ‘To be sure, Stan me old pal, ’tis a good thing these trousers have broad seams, so it is.’ Having pinned the elastic firmly to the outer edges of the chasm left in the waistband by Stan’s stomach, Ron folded open the seams of the fly so it covered the white expanse of his underwear and began to pin them firmly together. When he’d finished, he rested back on his heels to survey the result.
‘How does it look, Ron?’
The trousers now had more metal in them than an armoured tank, but it all seemed to be holding, and luckily Stan’s stomach masked the makeshift repairs. ‘You’ll pass muster as long as you don’t eat anything or go for a pee,’ he replied. ‘And whatever you do, don’t sit down too quickly. You’ll put too much strain on that lot and risk getting stabbed if
the pins give out.’
Stan hitched his braces over his shoulder and gingerly tested the trousers out by doing a few gentle knee bends. ‘Thanks, Ron. I wish I’d tried them on when Ethel told me to, and then I wouldn’t have this worry. It’s no wonder my indigestion is playing up again.’
Ron made no comment, for he suspected it had more to do with the lashings of beer and the mound of Rosie’s delicious food he’d got through the previous night than worries over his attire. He waited for Stan to slip on his suit jacket – which mercifully fitted as long as he didn’t try and fasten the buttons – then followed him down the stairs.
Dipping into his own suit jacket he held out a brandy flask. ‘Take a sip of this,’ he advised. ‘It’ll settle your stomach and put hairs on your chest.’
Stan grimaced and shook his head. ‘I had enough booze to sink a battleship last night, Ron. That would be a step too far.’ He reached over to the vase on the window sill and plucked out the two perfect red rosebuds he’d picked the previous day.
With the rosebuds safely pinned into their buttonholes the two old friends grinned at one another and awkwardly embraced. ‘Thanks for getting me home last night,’ muttered Stan. ‘I’d never have made it on my own.’
‘Ach, get away with you. That’s what friends are for.’ Ron regarded Stan with affection and could only hope that his old pal wasn’t about to make a terrible mistake by getting himself hitched to Ethel. Deciding Stan was old enough and ugly enough to know his own mind, he gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘Ready?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ he replied, his nervous fingers running over the phalanx of safety pins.
‘Then let’s be off. Don’t want to keep your bride waiting, do we?’
Stan put on his best black hat and chuckled. ‘No fear.’
They left the cottage and set off at a comfortable pace for the church. It was just past one, so even if there was a malfunction with the pins they’d still have plenty of time until the service at two-fifteen.
‘Are you nervous?’ asked Ron as they ambled past the children’s playground.
