A Ration Book Christmas

by Jean Fullerton

  ‘All right,’ said Tommy, feeling it would be ungallant to argue further. ‘But keep close.’

  He took her hand. Shining his dimmed torch on the pavement before him, Tommy led her though the dark streets until they reached his front door. Retrieving the key from his pocket, he let them in.

  Walking into the front room he flicked the light switch. Nothing!

  ‘Power’s down.’ Crossing to the window, Tommy pulled back the blackout curtains. The light from the blazing docks a few streets away bathed the room in a red glow. ‘Let’s hope the gas isn’t so we can have a cuppa.’

  He turned.

  Lou had discarded her coat and was perched on the arm of the sofa with her legs crossed and her figure-hugging dress hitched up over her knees.

  ‘I’d rather have something stronger,’ she replied, giving him a wide-eyed smile.

  He went to the sideboard and picked up a bottle of Gordon’s.

  ‘Perfect,’ she said as he held it aloft.

  Unclipping her handbag, Lou took out a packet of Benson & Hedges and offered him one.

  Tommy shook his head. ‘I don’t.’

  She looked surprised as she lit her cigarette.

  ‘I used to swap my fags for extra grub in Borstal and got out of the habit,’ he explained, handing her the glass.

  She took it and her fingers slid over his. ‘You not having a drink yourself?’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough,’ Tommy said. ‘I’ve been up since six so I’m ready for my bed.’

  Her smile widened as she gazed up at him. ‘So am I.’

  A tingle of interest crept up Tommy’s spine.

  ‘You make yourself comfortable,’ he said, moving away from her. ‘I’ll sort things out.’

  Leaving her sipping her drink, Tommy raced upstairs.

  Knowing Reggie had entertained at least three of his women friends in the past couple of weeks without changing the sheets and that his Continental girly magazines were scattered over the floor, Tommy went straight into his own room.

  Overlooking the back yard, his was the smaller of the two upstairs rooms and was situated above the kitchen. Although the furniture only just fitted in the space, the room was tidy and clean. The brass bedstead had the counterpane smoothed over it, his clothes hung in the wardrobe, his underwear and socks were in the drawers and, other than the one on his bedside table, his books were on the alcove shelves. Even the mantelshelf over the cast-iron fireplace had only his cufflinks and loose change on it.

  Opening the ottoman at the foot of his bed, Tommy grabbed a blanket but as he stood up, he came face to face with Lou standing behind him.

  ‘All done. You have my room and,’ he held the blanket aloft, ‘I’ll kip down on the sof—’

  ‘You know, Tommy,’ she stepped closer and a mixture of flowery perfume and beer drifted up, ‘I think you’re ever so handsome.’

  Tommy took a step back.

  ‘Do you?’ he said, feeling the bedframe pressing against him.

  ‘I do.’ She placed her hands flat on his chest. ‘You’re the sort of man that makes a girl forget everything her mother told her not to do,’ she continued, smoothing her fingers upwards.

  Tommy swallowed.

  Although he’d been barely able to keep his eyes open when he’d walked through the front door twenty minutes before, all of him was wide awake now.

  Gazing up, Lou gave him a crotch-tightening smile.

  ‘And,’ her hands finished their exploration of his chest and snaked around his neck, ‘you don’t have to sleep on the sofa.’

  The ack-ack guns rattled off a round somewhere to the south of them as another blast shook the house and rattled the windows.

  Moulding herself into him, Lou stretched up and pressed her mouth onto his. Excitement pulsed through him and his arms wound around her. Without her lips leaving his, Lou’s fingers walked down his arm then slipped between them. Delving down, her hand closed around his rigid penis.

  ‘Oh, Tommy,’ she murmured breathlessly.

  The ground rumbled again as another bomb found its target nearby. Tommy’s arm tightened around her and her mouth opened under his.

  Suddenly a memory of brown flashing eyes, a throaty laugh and another kiss, less practised and charmingly hesitant, flashed through his mind.

  Although every part of his body urged him on, Tommy tore his lips from the woman in his arms.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, taking her hand from his throbbing crotch. ‘I can’t.’

  Her eyes heavy with latent desire, Lou looked puzzled. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there’s someone else,’ he replied, moving out from her embrace.

  ‘But we could be dead under the next bomb, Tommy.’ An explosion sent a flash of red and gold across the bedroom.

  ‘So why not? At least we’d arrive at the Pearly Gates with smiles on our faces.’

  She reached out to grasp him again but Tommy caught her.

  Hesitation hovered around him but he forced it and her hand aside. ‘I’m sorry, Lou.’

  Holding the blanket in front of him like a shield, Tommy forced his legs to move and walked out of the room before his crotch got the upper hand.

  The house trembled again as Tommy hurled himself down the stairs and into the lounge, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  Then he crossed to the sofa and flung himself on it.

  As another explosion shook the foundations he shoved a cushion under his head and wrapped himself in the blanket and tried not to imagine the willing woman between his sheets above. Tommy stared up at the fringed lampshade swaying overhead and took several long deep breaths.

  Of course, when he stepped off the train in Essex only to discover that Jo had found someone else, then Tommy knew he’d be cursing himself for being a love-sick fool by turning down such a tempting offer. However, with the memory of Jo Brogan’s sweet lips responding to his kisses, and the feel of her shapely body in his arms never far from his mind, Tommy knew he would curse himself more if he betrayed her.

  Chapter Seven

  BENDING DOWN TO check her hair in her dressing-table mirror, Jo picked up her Cherry Frost lipstick and applied another coat.

  ‘For the Love of Mary, Jo, get a move on,’ bellowed her mother up the stairs.

  ‘Coming,’ she called back.

  ‘So’s Christmas,’ Ida shouted. ‘And I was ’oping to get to Cathy’s before then.’

  It was about ten o’clock the following morning. The all-clear had sounded at 5 a.m. and although her mother had gone straight to her cleaning job and her father to harness the horse, she and Billy had spent four blissful hours asleep. All the better, as far as Jo was concerned, because Mattie had gone straight to Post 7 from the shelter. Not that it mattered that she wasn’t speaking to her sister: since Jo’s return she’d hardly seen Mattie for more than a minute or two.

  She had been woken by the council workmen drilling at the end of the road as they attempted to reconnect the street’s water supply, which had been damaged in the night’s bombing.

  It was also the day after her run-in with Rita on the phone. As it was clear none of her messages would be passed on to Tommy, Jo had decided she’d have to go and seek him out. It was for that reason she’d tried on and discarded three outfits before settling on her three-quarter-length-sleeved apple-green dress with the white scalloped collar and matching cuffs.

  Taking the bottle of Cote d’Amour, Jo dabbed a splash behind each ear. She then grabbed her handbag from the candlewick counterpane, hooked it over her arm and hurried downstairs.

  ‘About time too,’ said her mother, as she walked into the front room.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jo said, slipping on her coat which she’d lifted from the hall stand as she whizzed past.

  Rolling her eyes, Ida headed off towards the kitchen and Jo followed. Gran was standing by the sink scraping potatoes for dinner; she looked up as they walked in.

  ‘We’re popping around to Cathy’s for a cuppa,’ said Ida,
as she picked up her handbag from the table. ‘We won’t be long.’

  Queenie nodded and then her gaze shifted to Jo. ‘You’re a bit dolled up for a trip to your sister’s, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, you know, Gran,’ said Jo, smiling light-heartedly at her Gran. ‘Just trying to keep my chin up.’

  Amusement twinkled in her gran’s eyes and Jo’s cheeks grew warm.

  ‘Come on then if you’re coming,’ Ida called from the yard.

  Telling herself that it was a scientific fact that even Irish grannies who believed in the little people couldn’t read minds, Jo followed her mother down the side alley and out into Mafeking Terrace.

  After her mother had stopped half a dozen times to catch up with gossip and news of the latest casualties they finally turned into Dorset Street and found their path completely blocked.

  What had been a neat row of terraced houses at the end of the street was now little more than a pile of rubble. In amongst the shattered brick work and timber, the residents of the houses scrambled over the wreckage of their homes, salvaging what they could. Alongside, welfare officers took the names of those who were missing as a stout matron dressed in the green uniform of the WVS comforted a bewildered mother with two small children clinging to her skirts.

  ‘The bloody Germans,’ muttered her mother.

  Letting an ambulance go by, they crossed the road but as they reached the other side, a police officer with gold embossing on his peaked cap marched around the corner, closely followed by another four policemen with a sergeant at their head and an inspector alongside.

  ‘Right, line everyone up,’ barked the senior officer. ‘And look sharp about it; they’re only around the corner.’

  The officer rushed over and herded Jo and her mother along with the handful of residents and the odd member of the rescue service not actually digging people out of the wreckage into some semblance of order then stood to attention behind the little gathering.

  Her mother looked at her and Jo shrugged.

  She turned to one of the other officers standing next to her. ‘What’s happening?’

  He didn’t answer but his eyes darted meaningfully past her.

  ‘Oh Gawd, luvva duck,’ whispered her mother. ‘It’s . . . it’s . . .’

  Jo’s head snapped around just as the King and Queen walked around the corner.

  They were flanked by the mayor, wearing his corporation chain, and H Division’s police commander, while behind the royal couple was a group of well-heeled individuals.

  The King, dressed in a naval uniform complete with gold encrusted cap and five or six rows of medal ribbons on his chest, started chatting to the rescue workers standing to attention next to the shovels. While her husband was otherwise engaged, the Queen, wearing a lilac dress with a matching coat and a cockade hat with a diamond brooch pinned to the upturned brim, offered a gloved hand to the woman holding a baby standing at the end of the line.

  ‘What shall I say?’ hissed Ida.

  ‘Well, it sort of depends what she says to you,’ Jo replied in the same hushed tone.

  The Queen moved on to the next woman in line.

  ‘Should I curtsy?’ Ida asked.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Jo replied. ‘But don’t fall over, whatever you do, Mum.’

  ‘I wish I’d put my best hat on,’ Ida replied, as the Queen shifted on to the next in line.

  ‘Just be thankful you aren’t wearing your overall,’ Jo whispered.

  Smiling and bidding the woman she was talking to farewell, the Queen took a couple of steps and stopped in front of Jo and her mother.

  Ida started to curtsy but lurched to the side so Jo caught her elbow and pulled her up.

  ‘Good morning,’ the Queen said, in clipped tones, smiling coolly at them. ‘Do you live around here?’

  ‘N . . . no . . . Yo . . . Your . . .’

  ‘Majesty,’ hissed the police inspector to them.

  ‘No, Your Majesty,’ said Ida, a crimson flush spreading up her throat. ‘We live across the road.’

  ‘And were you bombed out like these poor unfortunate people?’ the Queen asked.

  A photographer stepped forward and a flashlight popped.

  ‘No, we were lucky,’ said Ida, as white specks danced in Jo’s vision. ‘But I ’eard the palace was struck last night.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Queen. ‘It was frightful. Tell me, do you and your family go to the shelter?’

  ‘Me, Billy and Jo do but me husband is out with the Home Guard and our Mattie’s an ARP Warden,’ Ida replied.

  ‘Marvellous,’ said the Queen. ‘Our civil defences are doing a simply splendid job, don’t you think?’

  Jo and Ida nodded.

  ‘So where are you off to now?’

  ‘To see to my daughter around the corner,’ Ida replied.

  ‘How delightful,’ said the Queen, patting the half-dozen rows of pearls around her neck into place.

  ‘I have three,’ said Ida. ‘This is Jo.’ Grabbing Jo’s arm she pulled her forward. ‘She’s my youngest.’

  The Queen’s attention shifted to Jo and she gave her stiff-upper-lip smile. ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment,’ said Jo.

  The Queen’s smile slipped a little.

  ‘She was evacuated, Your Majesty, and ’as only just come home,’ said Ida quickly.

  ‘Well, I hope you sign up for war work,’ said the Queen. ‘The country needs everyone to do their bit to defeat the Nazis.’

  ‘She will,’ said Ida, scowling at Jo as if her inaction was jeopardising the whole country’s freedom. ‘My boy Charlie’s in the army.’

  ‘You have a son, too,’ said the Queen.

  ‘I have two,’ Ida replied. She stole a quick look at those around her. ‘That’s to say,’ she continued in a hushed tone, ‘Charlie’s mine but Billy’s my sister’s. No one knew she was having him until she went into labour in the bog at Liverpool Street Station. She didn’t want him so she left him in the workhouse, well, it was called the children’s home by then but . . . well . . . anyways, when I heard wot she’d done I went and fetched him so now ’e’s mine.’

  The Queen’s heavy eyebrows rose and there was a long pause before she adjusted the silk embroidered clutch bag under her arm.

  ‘Jolly good show,’ she said, as her polite, brittle expression reformed. ‘So nice to have met you both.’

  She moved on to the next person in the line-up.

  Ida gazed after her as the monarchs and their entourage made their way down the street.

  ‘What on earth did you have to go on about Billy like that?’ asked Jo as soon as the Queen was out of earshot.

  ‘We were just chatting, that’s all,’ said her mother defensively, as the group around them started to disperse. ‘And fancy them coming all this way to see the likes of us.’

  ‘Well, it’s only about five miles to the palace and I don’t think they caught the bus,’ said Jo.

  Her mother shot her an exasperated look and slipped her basket into the crook of her arm.

  ‘Say what you like, Josephine Margaret Brogan, but I think it’s good of them to put themselves out and,’ a smirk spread across her mother’s face, ‘I can’t wait to see the look on Breda O’Conner’s stuck-up face when I tell her I’ve met the King and Queen.’

  ‘I still can’t believe that you actually met the Queen, Mum,’ said Jo’s sister Cathy.

  Ida puffed out her bosom and a satisfied smile spread across her face. ‘Well, I did and they’ll be a photograph in tomorrow’s Daily Sketch to prove it.’

  It was some thirty minutes since their encounter with royalty and Jo and her mother were now sitting in Cathy’s lounge drinking tea.

  Cathy’s jaw nearly scraped the floor when Jo walked in beside her mother but having given her the biggest hug she and Cathy had been chatting away as if it was three days not three months since they’d last seen each other.

  Her sister lived in an Edwardian terraced house in Sen
rab Street, which was situated on the other side of the Commercial Road and a twenty-minute walk from Mafeking Terrace. It was Cathy’s mother-in-law’s house and she and her husband Stan had moved in with Mrs Wheeler after they’d got married, but now Stan was away Cathy and the baby lived there with Stan’s widowed mother.

  With its leather three-piece suite, just a few years old, matching sideboard and occasional tables and tastefully arranged china figurines on the mantelshelf, the room was comfortable and spotlessly clean.

  Unlike Mattie, Charlie and Jo who all had dark complexions and hair, Cathy, with her blonde curls, smoky-blue eyes and freckles dotted across her nose, favoured their mother’s side of the family. However, her sister’s angular hips and modest bust-line had rounded off since Jo had last seen her, mainly due to three-month-old Peter who was having his mid-morning nap in his pram in the back garden.

  Cathy had had her baby while Jo and Billy had been stuck in the back of beyond in Melton Winchet, so this was the first time Jo’d actually seen her new nephew. She had oohed and aahed over him when she arrived, but as Cathy said it had taken her thirty minutes to get him to sleep, Jo resisted the urge to scoop him out of his pram for a cuddle.

  ‘Was there much up this way last night?’ asked Jo, setting her plate aside.

  Cathy nodded, dislodging a bright curl from behind her ear. ‘I was surprised to see anything left standing when I came out after the all-clear.’

  ‘Buckingham Palace was hit last night,’ said Ida.

  ‘Yes, I heard it on the nine o’clock news this morning,’ said Cathy.

  ‘The Queen said it was frightful,’ said Ida.

  Cathy and Jo exchanged amused glances.

  She and her mother had only been at Cathy’s for fifteen minutes and Ida must have mentioned the Queen at least as many times since.

  ‘How’s young Peter taken to spending his nights in the Anderson shelter?’ asked Jo.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to notice,’ said Cathy. ‘Although even he felt the one that landed next to the coal yard in Prescott Street the night before last. It took me a full hour to get him back to sleep.’

  ‘Poor little lamb.’ Ida sighed. ‘I wonder if the bombing keeps the two princesses awake?’