The Victory Girls

by Joanna Toye

‘I think we’re ready!’ the photographer called. Lily and Jim hung back as he posed the bride and groom first on their own, then with John, then with their witnesses. Then Mr Simmonds beckoned to Lily and Jim and they posed for a picture too, Lily pleased that she was wearing her blue coat and not her shapeless winter tweed. Then it was time to go – there were clothes to be changed, bags to be collected, and trains to be caught if the honeymooners were to get to the Lakes before dark.

  ‘I’m so pleased you could come!’ Miss Frobisher kissed Lily on the cheek.

  ‘So am I,’ said Lily. ‘You can count on me, Miss Frobisher. I won’t let you down in the next few days. How could I when you’ve taught me all I know!’

  Miss Frobisher smiled.

  ‘You remind me so much of myself at your age,’ she said. ‘Always up for a challenge, never standing still.’

  ***

  ‘There, there,’ crooned Gladys, ‘there, there.’

  She was pushing the pram backwards and forwards – the big old pram that had done service for so many babies before. Beryl had used it for Bobby, and now Victor and Joy were laid end to end in it. Their tiny fists were curled up, Joy already asleep and Victor, always the harder one to settle, giving the little grunts that meant he was dropping off too. Gladys yawned. She’d have given anything to go back to bed, like her gran had with her My Weekly, a cup of tea, a slice of bread, and the last of the jam. It was only carrot jam, but even so … Did she dare to stop pushing yet? She risked it. Victor immediately opened his eyes and gave her an accusing stare. Gladys smiled at him, made a clucking noise in her throat, rocked the pram and began to hum ‘Bye Baby Bunting’. It was making her feel sleepy if nothing else. But finally … another five minutes and Victor was off in the land of nod.

  Gladys flopped into a chair. She’d changed them on the rug and the wet nappies were still in a heap, along with a towel, a soiled bit of rag, two muslins, a stray mitten, Victor’s hat, and Joy’s little cardigan. Gladys yawned again. The clock struck one – it couldn’t be that time! But it was. Too bad … she had to have a sit down. She’d deal with the mess in a minute.

  One o’clock … Miss Frobisher and Mr Simmonds would be married by now! It was a shame Lily and Jim couldn’t have gone, or any of the other staff, but Gladys knew from her time at Marlows how staff numbers had dwindled thanks to people joining up and not being replaced. Lily had known from the off that there wouldn’t be anyone to cover. Still, there were bound to be photographs … Miss Frobisher would have looked a knockout, as usual.

  Gladys looked down at her own stained skirt and trodden-down slippers. You had to laugh. It was a far cry from her own wedding day, when she’d been a vision in lace and chiffon, and Bill had, he said, been ‘blown away’ by her. But fifteen months and two babies later, despite the exhaustion, despite the constant round of feeding and changing and clearing up, she wouldn’t have changed a thing. The joy – she’d named her daughter well – she got from the twins sometimes overwhelmed her. She wrote it all out for Bill in her letters, every detail, how much milk and how many nappies, how they got bigger and better week by week and month by month, smiling and gurgling, sounding as if they were trying to talk. In his letters back, Bill’s pride in them and in her, his love and his longing to see them all surged off the page. And it couldn’t be long now. It had even been in the papers that HMS Jamaica was coming out of service for a while. Bill was bound to be in touch soon. Even though she knew he’d have to be debriefed and deloused and medically examined as well as formally reassigned before he could even think about asking for leave, it couldn’t be long.

  Gladys yawned again. Just five minutes. The twins were safe, her gran was out of the way … she closed her eyes. Bliss.

  She woke with a start. Someone was standing over her, saying her name. Gladys blinked away her sleepiness and tried to focus – since that funny business with her eyes, it still sometimes took a while. A freckled face, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, was looking at her from under a sailor’s cap. She was dreaming. It was Bill, but it couldn’t be …

  ‘Hello, my darling,’ he said, dropping to his knees by her chair and pulling her close. ‘Oh, Glad, I’m so happy to see you, so happy to be home! And as for this pair’—he nodded his head towards the pram—‘I’ve been stood here staring at them the last five minutes. I can’t believe them. I can’t believe I’m here and they’re here – and you did it all on your own! You’re wonderful!’

  ‘Bill …’ Gladys finally managed to stutter. ‘Oh, but I look such a mess! The place is a tip and—!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Bill. He took her face in his hands; they were rough, she noticed, chapped by the Arctic winds. ‘You’ve never looked so beautiful. I’ve seen a lot of the world, me – too much these past few years – but you and these two … trust me, you’re the only world I want. Ever.’

  Chapter 18

  Later, when Gladys had sobbed and gulped into his shoulder, gasped into it as they had their urgent but tender reunion, and then giggled into it as they lay happily together afterwards and she realised what they’d done right there on the rug, she held his face as he’d held hers.

  ‘I can’t believe we just did that! With the twins right by us as well!

  ‘So?’ Bill grinned his crooked grin. ‘How do they think they got here in the first place, eh?’

  ‘Not to mention Gran over our heads!’

  Bill pulled away slightly.

  ‘Yeah, your gran. How is she?’

  Gladys had said nothing in her letters, but Bill wasn’t daft. He could tell from the way Dora’s name had come up that she’d been spending a lot of time at the house.

  ‘Oh, you know. The same, bless her.’

  There was no ‘bless her’ about it as far as he as concerned. But Bill was in a difficult position. Her gran was Gladys’s only living relative and as far as she was concerned blood was thicker than water. That was why she’d been so keen on tracking down his own mother, who’d put him in a Barnardo’s home when he was a baby.

  Bill’s mother had been widowed young and forced to find work which meant she couldn’t have Bill with her. After a time, she’d remarried, and remarried well, but her husband had turned out to be a dictatorial type with Victorian values. She’d had two daughters with him but her hope of bringing young Bill into the family as well had been quashed – she’d never even been able to confess that she had a son. She was now – bravely – divorcing her husband, but Bill knew from the few awkward meetings they’d had when he’d been home at the beginning of the year that it made little difference. There was too much time and distance between them for her to be anything to him, and certainly not now he had a family of his own. It was, unfortunately, too late for him, and he’d had to tell her so.

  He knew it had saddened Gladys, who loved nothing more than a happy ending – look at the soppy films he’d sat through when they were courting! But the excitement of her pregnancy and his assurances that she was all he needed had allayed her disappointment and she’d had to accept that Bill didn’t feel about blood ties the way she did. Bill had let his mother know that the twins had arrived safely, of course, and she’d sent Gladys a postal order for them, but neither of them was expecting much, if any, more contact with her. All of which meant that for Gladys’s sake, Bill had to try to get along with her gran.

  ‘She’ll be banging on the floor with her stick any minute then,’ grinned Bill. ‘Asking where her dinner is!’

  ‘You’re right, I’d better do her something!’ Gladys stood up and checked on the twins. ‘They’ll be good for another half hour. There’s bread and dripping in the larder, if you don’t mind, Bill. I’ll tidy up in here, then I’ll take it up to her.’

  ‘I’ll take it up,’ Bill insisted. ‘I’m here to look after you now, and don’t you forget it!’

  ‘I know you are. I can’t believe it though. I’ve missed you so much.’

  Bill took her in his arms again.

  ‘Not as much as I�
�ve missed you.’ It was their special saying – what they always said when they’d been apart, and he’d never meant it more than now. ‘We’ve got a lot to catch up on. I want to hear all about it, right from the start.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘From the night you had them – a thunderstorm, wasn’t it? I dunno, we don’t do things by halves, do we?’

  Gladys smiled and snuggled against him. How little he knew – the weather had been the least of it. She’d have to tell him the full story, the blood pressure, the problem with her sight. He’d be horrified, and he’d ask why he hadn’t known before, but it didn’t matter now, any of it. It was all in the past. Now Bill was home it was only their future that counted.

  ***

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ said Jim as he and Lily walked home that evening. ‘Not thinking about weddings, are you? Thinking “it should have been me”?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Can you see me in a fox-fur cape?’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it,’ Jim swung their joined hands. ‘But we can get on and set a date now. How does January 1st grab you?’

  ‘What? We said spring!’

  ‘I can’t wait that long. And we’d never forget our anniversary.’

  Lily smiled up at him. ‘We can’t get married till February at least,’ she said. ‘There’s the January sale, remember. We’re not allowed to take leave.’

  ‘So we nip out and get married in our dinner hour.’

  ‘And what about my honeymoon?’ demanded Lily. ‘Where would we go for a honeymoon at that time of year?’

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ protested Jim, ‘but I wasn’t planning to spend it sightseeing. We’ll have other things to do.’

  To prove his point, he pulled her into a shop doorway and kissed her. She slid her hands under his jacket and held him close.

  ‘I know we will,’ she said. ‘I’m not finding the waiting easy either. I do want you, Jim.’

  He kissed her again, for longer this time, and she felt the shiver in her heart and the surge of heat through of the rest of her body, and his.

  When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers.

  ‘Let’s set a date,’ he said. ‘Please, Lily. If I’m counting the days it might give me something else to think about, at least.’

  ‘As soon as we get home,’ she promised.

  But they didn’t, because when they got home, there was a surprise waiting. Who should be there, feet up, best chair, flicking through Picturegoer magazine, but Sid!

  ‘Where’ve you been, anyway?’ he demanded, when all the hugs had been done and ‘what are you doing here’ and ‘you might have told us you were coming’ had been said and he’d explained that he hadn’t warned them because his leave could have been cancelled at the last minute, as had happened before. ‘Mum said you’re usually home just after six.’

  ‘We, er, got a bit delayed, didn’t we?’ said Jim, trying to tuck his shirt in at the back as unobtrusively as possible. ‘Where is Dora?’

  Sid jerked his head in the direction of the Crosbies’.

  ‘Nipped next door. She’s told me about this Kenny bloke that’s landed himself on them and now Walter’s got a bad head cold come on and he’s making the most of it, like he would. Jean’s worried Trevor’s going to go down with it – she’s at the end of her rag. Mum’s taken round some soup and some Friar’s Balsam.’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘She never stops. You know she’s been at Gladys’s every day since she had the twins?’

  ‘I’m sure she’s loved every minute,’ said Sid easily. ‘But she can slack off there now.’

  ‘Yes, once Bill comes home.’ Jim held his hand out for Lily’s coat so he could hang it up in the hall.

  ‘He’s home!’ said Sid.

  ‘What?’ Lily stopped halfway through unpinning her hat.

  Sid loved to be the one to deliver a headline and he made the most of this one.

  ‘The Jamaica docked at Portsmouth ten days ago and the refit started last Monday. Gladys and Bill came round with the babs about four o’clock. I’d only just got here myself. Lucky I’d got a couple of beers with me so we could wet the babies’ heads. Little smashers, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Lily, outraged. ‘We’ve been here all the time, doing all the work, supporting Gladys, trying to help Jean out, you turn up like a bolt from the blue, and you’re the first to know everything!’

  ‘You haven’t heard the best,’ said Sid smugly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Sid. ‘I’m not telling the same story twice. I’ve made Mum wait all afternoon, you’ll have to wait till she gets back!’

  ‘It had better be something good!’ warned Lily.

  ‘Have I ever let you down?’ Sid raised his innocent blue eyes to hers, and she had to admit he hadn’t. But he certainly knew how to spin things out.

  To fill in the time till Dora got back, they laid the table, heated up the pilchards and cut the bread for toast. Once she was back, it was time to eat.

  ‘Now, can we get to this exciting news of yours?’ pleaded Lily as they took their seats at the table. ‘And if it’s just that you’ve got a new pencil sharpener or a bigger desk, I warn you I’m going to be highly disappointed!’

  ‘Prepare to be amazed,’ said Sid. He tilted on his chair and pulled an air letter from his pocket.

  ‘From Reg?’ asked Jim, stirring his tea as if it had sugar in it. No chance of that, the ration had been cut again.

  Sid withdrew three sheets of airmail paper.

  ‘He’s got so much better at letter-writing since he’s been away, even more so since he’s been with Gwenda,’ said Dora with satisfaction. Reg’s fiancée was a spirited girl. She kept Reg up to the mark. ‘Like I said, Sid, we had a nice long letter from him the other week. Dated a month ago, mind, took its time getting here, but still a nice change from an air card.’

  ‘That’s why I knew this’d be a surprise.’ Sid announced smugly. ‘This is dated a week ago.’

  ‘Come on, Sid, enough’s enough,’ Jim chided. ‘They’ve been very patient.’

  ‘OK. OK. Now, do you want me to read it out or—’

  ‘Oh, give it here!’ Lily held out her hand. ‘Honestly, even when you wouldn’t swap your sweet cigarette cards with me, you weren’t this annoying!’

  She shook out the sheets of paper and began to read.

  Dear Sid,

  I’m writing the same letter to Mum and Lily, don’t know whose’ll arrive first, but I’ve got some big news for you all.

  ‘He can’t have got another promotion yet,’ said Dora. Reg was a sergeant. ‘Maybe some commendation or something?’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ said Lily, stunned. She’d read ahead to the next line. She read out loud:

  Me and Gwenda got married! I hope you all don’t mind, but it could be ages yet till the both of us got home to do the deed. I got myself some leave, and we got married in Cairo.

  Lily stopped there to see how everyone was taking it – well, not Sid, who already knew, or Jim, particularly, but her mum. Dora was dabbing her eyes with the corner of her apron. Lily reached out her hand.

  ‘Oh Mum, don’t cry. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there.’

  ‘It’s all right, love.’ Dora swallowed hard. ‘I can see why they wanted to get on with it. And I’m happy for them, I really am. Think of it, our Reg … married!’

  ‘And you’ve still got our wedding to come,’ said Jim. ‘You’re not going to miss that!’

  ‘Exactly, think of this as a rehearsal,’ said Sid, cheerily but gently at the same time. ‘Get some of the blarting … the emotion, I mean, out of the way before Lily and Jim’s big day.’

  No one, of course, said anything about Sid getting married. Nothing had ever been said explicitly to Dora, but she knew her son. She knew as well as anyone that Sid was not the marrying kind. To cover any awkwardness, Lily asked quickly: ‘Shall I go on?�
��

  When Dora nodded, she continued:

  Had a night at Shepheard’s Hotel (dead posh, right up your street, Sid, with your high-falutin’ tastes!). Photo is us in the courtyard and then the four of us – a mate of mine who was best man and Gwenda’s sister, Bethan, who was her bridesmaid. The dresses were made in the bazaar in 24 hours, how’s that for service? Beryl had better take note!

  ‘There’s photographs? Show us, Sid, quick!’

  From the envelope, Sid produced two small black and white snaps. Dora and Lily pounced on them and Jim got up to crane over their shoulders.

  There was Reg in his uniform, very smart, hair slicked down, looking pleased as punch and Gwenda on his arm, small, dark, and pretty in a long, silky dress with what looked like orange blossom in her hair. The fronds of a palm tree waved behind them and a man in a white waiter’s jacket and a fez was passing with a tray of drinks.

  ‘Never going to mistake it for Hinton, are you?’ teased Sid.

  In the second photo, the foursome was seated round a table of some beaten metal with drinks – possibly the same ones the waiter had been carrying – in front of them. An exotic climbing plant tumbled down a wall at their side and in the middle of the courtyard a fountain played.

  Lily was quiet. It looked so glamorous, and – well, grown-up. Miss Frobisher and Mr Simmonds married, Reg and Gwenda married, Gladys and Bill reunited … all the omens were lining up for wedding bells, marriage vows, and happy couples. Sid noticed.

  ‘You’re very quiet, Sis,’ he said. ‘You’re pleased for our Reg, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Lily. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

  ‘He’s beaten you to it, and you don’t like it,’ guessed Sid.

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘Never mind him!’ Jim, still standing behind her, put his hands on Lily’s shoulders. ‘Remember, we’re next.’

  Chapter 19

  But with all the excitement of the evening to digest on top of the pilchards, Lily and Jim didn’t, after all, get out their diaries, which had next year’s calendar in the back, and pick a date.