The Victory Girls

by Joanna Toye

  ‘Older people do form friendships, you know,’ Lily told him. ‘Attachments, even. Fond attachments. Look at Mum and Sam.’

  ‘That’s different. Your mum’s years younger.’

  ‘Well, whatever, it’s none of our business.’

  ‘Huh! That’s rich, coming from you! You’re usually the first to go jumping into everyone else’s affairs!’

  ‘Not this one. Now come on, as we’re here, let’s go and look at our favourite view. I’ll race you to the top of the hill!’

  When they’d first come over to Juniper Hill, Jim had discovered that at the top on Mrs Tunnicliffe’s side of the road there was a magnificent view. Beyond the edge of Hinton lay the wider countryside, the houses dwindling away into a few cottages in a valley between green hills and a road winding into the distance. After the terraced streets they usually tramped through, the uninspiring park and the canal, it was a literal breath of fresh air. It was a view to make you throw your hat in the air and dance a jig. It made you feel you’d taken your brain out and given it a wash.

  Emerging from the overgrown footpath that led to it, the sun beaming down, the view was more splendid than ever. Jim let Buddy off the leash and he shot off like a greyhound in search of his own imaginary rabbit, though he’d find none this close to town. Jim and Lily flopped down on the grass.

  Jim lay back and Lily snuggled into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Remember when we first found this place?’ he asked. ‘Two whole years ago now.’

  ‘Funny, isn’t it? It seems like longer. And it seems like yesterday.’ She flipped onto her side to look at him. ‘That was the day we first properly admitted we liked each other. It took us long enough, didn’t it!’

  ‘Yes.’ Jim’s face was just inches from hers. ‘I was a bit slow off the mark.’

  ‘Well, we got there in the end. Oh Buddy!’

  The dog had come back, all slobbering enthusiasm. Lily pushed him gently away and sat up. Jim sat up too.

  ‘Lie down, Buddy, lie down.’

  Buddy took a moment to think about it, then, surprisingly, did as he was told, settling with his chin on his outstretched paws. Jim cleared his throat.

  ‘I, er, I’ve got something to say to you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment but I can’t wait any longer and … Stand up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stand up.’

  Lily scrambled to her feet, Jim too. He stood to face her and took her hands in his.

  ‘I want to say this looking into your eyes. I love you, Lily, and I want us to be together forever. So will you—’

  ‘What?’ Lily interrupted. ‘No, no, no, no, no, hang on! If this is what I think it is, if this is my big moment, can we please do it properly?’

  ‘Properly? Oh, you don’t mean …?’

  ‘I do,’ grinned Lily. ‘Go on! It won’t kill you!’

  Sighing, shaking his head, muttering something about her being impossible, Jim went down on one knee.

  ‘I love you, Lily,’ he repeated. ‘Always have, always will.’ Reaching into his pocket, he produced the ring box, opened it and held the ring up to her. ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘Oh Jim! Yes, yes, of course yes, you know I will! Oh, you can stand up now! But let me see …’ She drew back as Jim stood and held the ring out to her again. ‘And a ring! You got that too! Oh, it’s lovely! Will you put it on for me?’

  Jim slid the ring onto her finger. Lily looked at it in wonderment.

  ‘It’s perfect! Beautiful! Oh Jim! You did all this by yourself, the ring and everything! I wondered why you had to fetch your jacket when it’s so warm! Oh, I love it and I love you! I love you so!’

  She threw her arms around his neck and even Buddy, who’d leapt up and was running round them in frantic circles, barking his congratulations, couldn’t interrupt their kiss. Finally breaking away, Lily turned the ring on her finger, letting it catch the sun and examining it properly.

  ‘It’s an aquamarine,’ Jim explained.

  ‘Beautiful,’ murmured Lily again.

  ‘And different,’ said Jim. ‘Just like you.’

  Time passed, as it does when the man you love has just asked you to spend the rest of your life with him, and especially when you can’t believe it has actually happened. They stood, they sat, they lay, they kissed, they looked out at the view, and Lily looked at her ring. They were alone on the hillside, in their own world, on top of the world. In all the time they were there, only a couple of people came past – two men with rucksacks and stout boots, hikers on their way to some unknown destination. They had to pass right in front of Lily and Jim, who were sitting entwined, so they could hardly not speak to them.

  ‘Afternoon,’ they said in a stilted way, seeing they were interrupting, and scuttled off so quickly that one almost lost his footing on the sloping downward path and stumbled into the bracken. Lily and Jim had to stifle their laughter.

  ‘If they were French or Italian they’d have smiled and kissed their fingertips to the sky and gone on about l’amour and whatever the Italian word is,’ Jim smiled. ‘You could tell they were English. Thoroughly embarrassed.’

  ‘More fool them,’ said Lily, turning her ring on her finger again and then turning her face to be kissed once more. ‘Whatever you call it in whatever language, I can’t get enough of it. Oh, Jim. I’m so happy I could burst.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Jim. ‘If you haven’t gathered, I rather like you the way you are.’

  Chapter 14

  ‘The first person we’ve got to tell is Mum,’ said Lily as they walked home grinning like idiots at each other and at everyone and everything they passed. Dogs, trees, shop fronts – even sandbags basked in the glow of their happiness.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Jim easily. He’d expected to feel happy, but he hadn’t known how much the feeling of sheer relief – that he’d done it and that she’d said yes – would add to it. He’d been planning to wait till Lily’s eighteenth in a couple of weeks – now he didn’t have to. He squeezed Lily’s hand. ‘Now, as we’re nearly there, how about one more kiss – just a little one?’

  It wasn’t a little one, of course, and when they finally got home, Dora was in the middle of a mammoth letter-writing session. The table was littered with paper, envelopes, and stamps for Sid, and air letters for Reg in North Africa, and Sam in Canada.

  She looked up as they came in, and Lily ran towards her, hand extended. Dora knew at once what it must mean. Jim hadn’t asked her permission, but she’d given him that at Christmas, over the proxy ring.

  ‘Oh that’s wonderful!’ she cried, jumping up and hugging them both. ‘Some proper good news! Oh, where’s my hanky?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, don’t cry!’

  ‘They’re happy tears!’ Dora tucked her hanky back in her sleeve. ‘And let’s see. Oh Lily! What a beautiful ring!’

  ‘It’s an aquamarine.’ Lily rolled the word around her mouth, drinking in the bounty of all the world’s oceans. ‘I can’t stop looking at it, can I, Jim?’

  ‘I had to stop her walking straight out in front of two vans and a Jeep!’

  Dora clucked, then added, ‘Look, I haven’t sealed these letters yet. Do you want to put a PS?’

  ‘Mum! I can’t fit how I feel into a PS!’ Lily gave a huge, happy sigh. ‘You do it; it’s your good news as well. I’ll write properly to Sid and Reg later. Anyway, we’ve got stuff to do before tea – I must tell Gladys and Beryl!’

  ‘Now?’ queried Jim.

  ‘Oh, looking for a get-out already?’ teased Lily. ‘This isn’t the kind of news that’ll keep! Or are you going to change your mind?’

  Jim took her in his arms. They were always discreet in front of Dora – affectionate, but never wanting to embarrass her. Today, however, was different.

  ‘Step outside and say that!’ he challenged. ‘But look, you go, if you don’t mind. I’ve got stuff to do myself.’

  ‘Lie down in darkened room, I expect,’ observed Dora wryly from the
table. Having used up every inch of available space on the air letters already, she was squeezing a PS up the side in tiny writing. ‘I know what your brothers’ll say – they never expected anyone’d be mad enough to take you off our hands! And Sam’ll be thrilled. He’s very fond of you both.’

  A celebratory cup of tea, a quick brush-down of the back of Lily’s cardigan – strangely covered in tufts of grass – and Lily and Jim were off out again.

  ‘What’s this “stuff” you’ve got to do?’ Lily asked as they parted on the street corner.

  ‘That’d be telling.’

  Jim wasn’t about to tell her that he wanted to go back to the jeweller’s to thank the old man and share with him what a success the ring had been. And to put down a deposit on the wedding ring to go with it.

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ Beryl shrieked. ‘He’s finally done it! D’you hear that, Les? Jim, who’s too slow to catch cold! And look at this ring! Isn’t it gorgeous? I hope you’re taking note!’

  Les, who’d been building a tower of bricks with Bobby, got up from the rug and dutifully came to inspect.

  ‘Very nice,’ he judged.

  ‘It’s more than nice, it’s a one-off,’ said Beryl sternly. ‘So the dress’ll have to be as well. Not something I’ve already got in stock that’s been worn a dozen times. You shall have new, Lily – well, you know what I mean, new if I can find any liquidated stock, or worn once, and new for around here if not. You must tell me what you fancy.’

  ‘Yes, and then you’ll go and find me something completely different!’

  ‘There is a war on, you know!’ chanted Beryl, the standard excuse. ‘Anyway, you’ll love it, whatever I find!’

  After Beryl’s years of experience in the business, Lily had to admit that this was probably true. She had a knack of knowing what would suit.

  ‘So when’s the big day?’ Beryl persisted. ‘How long have I got?’

  ‘Give us a chance!’ laughed Lily. ‘I’ve only been engaged a couple of hours!’ She repeated it in wonder, ‘Engaged. I’m engaged …’

  Beryl snapped her fingers in front of her face.

  ‘Oy, you on cloud nine! Give me a clue! What’s your thinking? This year, next year, sometime, never?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ insisted Lily, smiling. ‘We haven’t talked about it!’

  ‘Oh, come on! This side of Christmas?’

  ‘I shall have to consult my fiancé,’ said Lily primly, to more shrieks from Beryl.

  Gladys was less forthright, but more specific.

  ‘When you do set a date, Lily,’ she said, after the congratulations, the happy tears and several milky hugs were over, ‘if Bill can’t be there – and he probably won’t be, let’s face it – can you try and pick a time to coincide with the twins’ sleep? I don’t want to miss a second, and if they need a feed and start yelling, I’ll have to take them out, so as not to spoil things for you and Jim, and then …’

  Lily held up her hands in mute appeal.

  ‘Gladys,’ she said firmly. ‘Jim and I haven’t given it a thought. I’d like to enjoy being engaged for a bit before we think about all that, please!’

  ‘And you shall! Do you hear that, Joy? Victor? Your Auntie Lily’s engaged!’

  So she could hug Lily, Gladys had propped the twins up with cushions in an armchair. On hearing the news, Victor yawned (‘typical man’ said Lily) but Joy gave an obliging gurgle.

  As Lily left, her heart was light. Gladys’s worries, Beryl’s quest for a dress for her and heavy hints about a ring for herself … they were all for another day. Right now, she wanted how she felt at this moment to last forever.

  Across town, in contrast, Peter Simmonds had his eye on the time: he was trying to hurry young John along. On his afternoon off, he’d agreed to help Eileen by collecting John after school and taking him to the park. She had some housework to do – to wash the windows and tackle some mould in the bathroom.

  Peter had armed himself with a bat and ball but John hadn’t wanted to play cricket; he said he’d rather look for ‘treasures’ to swop at school. They’d found a stripy stone, a few tiny conkers fallen early, and a miraculously intact snail shell. Honour had been satisfied. Now, Peter felt, John was trying it on.

  ‘Come along now,’ he urged as the boy lingered by the duckpond.

  ‘I’m watching the dragonfly.’

  ‘And I’m watching the time. Mummy said to be back by six o’clock, didn’t she? For your tea.’

  John stuck out his bottom lip.

  ‘You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my daddy.’

  Peter blinked. John had never said anything like it before.

  ‘No,’ he said slowly. He knew Eileen had always been straight with the boy when he’d asked about his father. ‘I’m not. You know your daddy went away before you were born. That happens sometimes.’

  John scuffed his sandal on the tarmac.

  ‘If you lived with us would that make you my daddy?’

  That brought Peter up short. He crouched down so he was at John’s level.

  ‘Would you like that? If I lived with you? All the time?’

  John’s grey-green eyes met his. His face was serious.

  ‘If it stopped Jessie Walters teasing me at school.’

  Playground insults, so that was it. At the same time …

  ‘Is that the only reason?’

  John gave it some thought.

  ‘I suppose you could read me more stories. And we could play football or cricket every night, not just when you came round.’ He thought some more, then added. ‘And we could finish my Hurricane quicker. You’re better at making models than Mummy. She hasn’t got the patience.’

  Peter bit back a smile. That was true enough; Eileen was the first to admit she hated the fiddly things. But had Jessie Walters, whoever she was, with her jibes, cleared the way to asking the question Peter had been putting off? Was John giving him permission?

  ‘If I was to live with you,’ he said carefully, ‘I’d have to ask your mummy to marry me.’

  ‘I know that!’ said John impatiently. ‘Why don’t you then?’

  Peter could have hugged him. The ring was in his pocket; he carried it everywhere, every day, in case the moment arose.

  ‘Do you want to know a secret?’ he asked.

  John nodded vigorously.

  ‘Then let me show you something,’ Peter said.

  ‘Hello? We’re back!’ called Peter as he let himself and John into the flat, John dancing about like an excitable puppy.

  ‘Already?’ From the echo, they could tell that Eileen was in the bathroom. ‘You’re early, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, bang on time.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I haven’t done anything towards tea yet!’ She sounded cross. ‘And don’t come in here, I’m still scrubbing! I stink of bleach and—’

  John couldn’t contain himself any longer. He tugged on Peter’s hand, dragging him along the hall. Peter pulled him back.

  ‘Shall we wait till Mummy’s finished?’ he said quietly. ‘Till after tea?’

  ‘No!’ hissed John. ‘You said you were going to do it right away! You’re not scared, are you?’

  ‘Me?’ As a regular soldier, Peter Simmonds had served in the Far East and in Palestine. He’d had some scary moments in his time, but this one knocked them all into a general’s cap. At the thought of what he had to do, his throat was closing like a clam shell. ‘Of course I’m not scared.’

  ‘Well, come on then!’

  John dragged him into the bathroom. With her back to them, Eileen, in a pair of old slacks and a shapeless shirt was on her knees in the bathtub, scrubbing at the grouting on the tiles. Hearing them come in, she turned her head. Her hair was swathed in a turban from which a couple of strands had escaped. She blew them out of her eyes. Her cheeks were pink from her efforts.

  ‘I said not to come in!’

  Peter knew she’d be embarrassed to be seen like this – she was always immaculate, even off-d
uty. To him, she’d never looked lovelier; in her view, she might as well have had blackened teeth and be dressed in stinking rags.

  John jabbed Peter from behind.

  ‘He’s got something to ask you.’

  ‘What? Can’t it wait?’

  Peter gulped. John gave him a glare.

  ‘No,’ said Peter abruptly. He dropped to his knees beside the bath and produced the ring box from his pocket. He opened it and held it out.

  ‘Eileen,’ he said. ‘Will you do me the honour of being my wife?’

  ‘Honestly,’ Miss Frobisher smiled next day as she and Lily ticked off a delivery, ‘as romantic proposals go, it was hardly on a level with Mr Darcy! But to be fair, I wasn’t very gracious myself to begin with. And John’s thrilled, bless him.’

  Miss Frobisher angled her hand so that her ring caught the lights – she was doing a lot more with her left hand than usual, but then Lily was doing the same herself. She stole a glance at her own perfect ring. The weight of it there still felt strange, but in a way that gave her a shiver of excitement.

  ‘I’m so happy for you.’ Lily turned to stow some baby leggings in a drawer. ‘It’s strange that they both got galvanised into action on the same day!’

  ‘From what I can gather, my son practically bullied Peter into it! But I’m very happy, as you can tell. And I’m very happy for you too, Lily.’

  Certainly Miss Frobisher had never looked so visibly happy, and she’d certainly never spoken to Lily so openly before at work, using Mr Simmonds’s first name and everything. She probably never would again, but today she was like a young girl asked out for the very first time. But getting engaged did strange things to people, as Lily could testify.

  ‘Have you thought any further?’ Miss Frobisher asked. ‘Set a date?’

  ‘Not you as well!’ Lily wanted to say, but she simply shook her head.

  ‘We haven’t really thought about it. It’s taken Jim years to get round to proposing – hardly a whirlwind romance – so I doubt he’s going to rush me down the aisle!’

  ‘I’d pretty much given up hope of Peter getting round to it at all.’ Miss Frobisher examined the stitching on an envelope-neck vest and snipped off a tiny thread with the scissors attached to her belt. ‘But having got this far, we … well, we don’t want to hang around. I’m telling you because as first sales’—she smiled—‘you won’t be able to take any leave at the same time. We’d like to get married in October and have a few days away. It’ll be John’s half-term, you see.’