The Victory Girls

by Joanna Toye

  If the reason for her new domestic duties hadn’t been what it was, she might almost have laughed. Lily Collins, housewife – there was a role she felt totally unsuited for! A good job that was something else she and Jim had talked about, she thought, as she shrugged on her coat – she certainly intended to keep working after they were married. It was true that some of the Marlows staff who’d gone off to do war work might want their jobs back – the men, almost certainly, though Jim was senior enough now not to be under threat. As for the female staff – well, some would have married and be happy to give up work, some would be mothers, while others might have got a taste for a different way of life and find Hinton too much of a backwater, so Lily hoped her job would be safe too. But that was all for the future. For now, she had more pressing problems – like getting enough food in to feed Sid’s legendary appetite, and without the help of his ration book, which wouldn’t arrive till he did.

  The shopping and the housework occupied her all morning and by ten to two, she was at the hospital with a clean nightdress and Dora’s toothbrush, soap, and flannel, pacing the corridor outside the Surgical Ward with the other impatient visitors.

  At two o’clock exactly a nurse propped open the swing doors and they all pressed in. Lily was shocked to see her mother still lying there with her eyes closed, a drip still taped to her hand and a sign saying ‘NIL BY MOUTH’ above the bed.

  Lily gently pressed Dora’s free hand.

  ‘Mum,’ she said softly. ‘It’s Lily. I’m here.’

  ‘Lily …’ With what seemed like a monumental effort, Dora opened her eyes. She turned her head on the pillow and smiled. ‘Hello, love.’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’

  Lily was so relieved to hear her speak, she couldn’t manage anything more. As it was, her voice was almost as weak as Dora’s.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, love. And your wedding …’

  ‘Mum, that’s the least of my worries!’ It wasn’t entirely true but it was certainly second on the list. ‘And you don’t have to say sorry! Except for ignoring the signs!’ Lily drew up the hard chair and sat down by the bedside. ‘I think you had had signs, hadn’t you?’

  Dora closed her eyes and shook her head. Lily changed tack. It was no use lecturing. What was done was done.

  ‘How are you feeling anyway?’ she asked. ‘Pretty sore, I expect.’

  Lily could well imagine it – remember it, rather. When she and Jim had been caught in the bomb blast, they’d been trapped under three floors of shattered masonry. Lily had been bruised and battered all over. She’d felt as if she’d been run over by a tank and at this moment she suspected that her mother might well be feeling the same.

  Dora licked her lips, which were dry. There was a glass of water on the locker with a sort of lolly stick in it, wrapped round with lint. Lily remembered those. She pressed the swab against the side of the glass to squeeze out some of the liquid, then touched it to her mother’s mouth.

  ‘Nice,’ said Dora gratefully.

  ‘Good. We don’t have to talk,’ she said. ‘You have a rest, that’s what you need. And Sid’s coming. He’ll be here soon.’

  Her mother nodded. The usual Dora would have protested that he shouldn’t have; that she was being such a nuisance; that she didn’t want to put anyone out. That she didn’t was a sign of how far removed she was from her usual self.

  They sat there quietly, Lily holding and stroking her mother’s hand, Dora responding with a feeble squeeze of her own, until there was a kerfuffle in the doorway. It was Sid, of course, incapable of doing anything without a bit of a fanfare. He was in his uniform, looking more striking than ever, blond hair slicked down, blue eyes scanning the beds. At his elbow was a fluffy-haired probationer who must have shown him the way to the ward and was clearly angling to get to know him better. But he politely ditched her as Lily waved and jumped up to give him a hug. She noticed his raised eyebrows when he approached the bed – in Sid always a sign of concern – but when he spoke, he did a brilliant job of hiding it.

  ‘Hello, you,’ he said, bending to kiss his mother’s forehead. ‘What have you been doing to yourself, eh, putting us to all this trouble?’

  Lily remembered he’d used exactly the same tone with her when she’d been in hospital with her injuries.

  A lump rose in her throat. Thank goodness for Sid!

  Chapter 28

  Visiting ended at three; ten minutes before that a nurse came round ringing a bell. Dora had become a little more animated when Sid arrived – there wasn’t much choice with his personality – but she was still visibly weak, pale and clammy, and talking tired her. As they stood up to go, Sid and Lily assured her they’d be back at seven for evening visiting, but once they were outside, Lily turned a worried face to her brother.

  ‘Oh, Sid. She doesn’t seem very bright.’

  Sid didn’t patronise her by brushing off her fears. Now they were out of sight and earshot of their mum, he was more serious too, but he smiled and said, ‘It’s a big op, Sis. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  He led the way to the stairs. When they got outside, Sid lit up a cigarette.

  ‘You can’t expect miracles,’ he said. ‘It’s only been twenty-four hours. And Mum … well, she’s not got a lot of resources, has she? None of us has – everyone’s worn thin since the start of the war, and we’re all tired out, frankly. Especially people like Mum who’ve been doing more than ever for the past five and a half years.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Again Lily felt guilty. So much had changed for her over the course of the war, and in a good way – starting work, meeting Jim, making new friends, doing new things. There’d been tough times, anxious times, lots of them, but she still had so much to look forward to – the rest of her life. But for older people, of her mother’s age and over, the war had brought only hardships, really – managing a home with rationing and shortages while ‘doing their bit’ as well. They’d been through four years of the Great War in their youth and had seen that snatched away – now they’d had to endure more years of worry and weariness.

  ‘She’ll buck up.’ Sid linked her arm through his. ‘Give her time. Now come on, what do you say to tea and buns at the ABC tearoom? We’ve got to keep our strength up, anyway.’

  It made such a difference having Sid there – you couldn’t help but be reassured by him. Over their tea and buns – very welcome – he told her about life in London and asked about goings-on at the store. He’d realised straight away that plans for the wedding would have to be put on ice. Lily explained that Jim had taken on the sorry task of unscrambling the arrangements and uninviting their guests.

  ‘It’s a big disappointment for you, Sis. Can you fix another date?’

  ‘No,’ Lily replied firmly. ‘It’s all off till Mum’s properly better. Jim and I have already decided.’

  Sid nodded.

  ‘That’s my girl. We can nip into the White Lion on our way home; I’m sure they’ll return my deposit. Or hold onto it if we promise them another date.’

  ‘Thank you, Sid. It was such a kind thought.’

  ‘Well, the offer still stands when you name the day. Take Two as they say in the movies!’

  Sid had always been a film fan – one of the many attractions of his American friend Jerome, Lily was sure, was that he’d worked on film sets before joining up.

  But first and above all else, their mum had to get better. Till then, life itself was on hold.

  They went back to the hospital in the evening, armed with flowers, magazines, and, at Jean’s recommendation, arrowroot biscuits which Lily had scoured Hinton to find. At seven o’clock precisely, the same ritual was enacted: the doors were pinned back and the visitors surged forwards. But the curtains were drawn round Dora’s bed.

  Sid was unperturbed.

  ‘They’ll be dolling her up for us,’ he said. ‘Getting her in her own nightie, brushing her hair, I expect.’

  Then the curtains parted and the ward sister �
�� the same one Lily had met the day before – bustled out.

  ‘Ah, it’s you,’ she said in her usual brusque manner. ‘Doctor’s with her.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ Lily was immediately on alert. It seemed rather late for the doctor to be doing his rounds.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the corridor, he won’t be long.’

  At that moment the curtains parted again and the doctor appeared. He was young – even younger than the one who’d attended Gladys. Were they getting them straight from medical school? The sister smiled at him, softening like wax in a flame.

  ‘This is Dr Lee,’ she explained. And to the doctor – Dr Mark Lee, it said on his badge – she said, ‘Mrs Collins’s son and daughter.’

  ‘Ah, pleased to meet you.’ Dr Lee shook Sid and Lily by the hand, almost breaking her wrist with his grip. ‘Nurse is just making your mother comfortable. Shall we have a word outside?’

  Lily glanced at Sid, who shrugged. Dr Lee bounced off briskly, the pair of them following, Lily’s heart in her mouth. But when they got there, Dr Lee turned round, frowning, but at the same time looking almost excited.

  ‘A very interesting case,’ he said. ‘I gather from your mother she’d been having stomach pains and ignored them. Very silly, giving herself peritonitis like that, but that’s mothers for you, isn’t it? Mine’s the same, whiff of burning martyr! A proper mess she presented us with, the surgeon said, bits of appendix all over the shop!’

  Lily wished he’d stop sounding quite so pleased about it. He was practically rubbing his hands.

  ‘And?’ frowned Sid.

  ‘What’s happened is what usually happens – the chance of a nasty infection. Bits of gunk end up where they shouldn’t, you see, and then—’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Septicaemia!’ said Dr Lee, almost triumphantly. ‘So you have to leap in PDQ.’ He leaned in conspiratorially. ‘I’ve only been here six months’—that fitted with Lily’s medical student assumption—‘but to be honest,’ he went on, ‘they can be a bit slow on the uptake. I’ve come from London and the minute her temperature started going up over the afternoon, I suggested sulphonamides—’

  ‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Sid. ‘That’s what they use on the troops, isn’t it?’

  The doctor brightened even more, if that were possible.

  ‘That’s right! Are you a medic? Army? Navy? RAF? Or civvy street?’

  ‘Navy,’ said Sid. ‘And no, I’m not. But you pick things up, don’t you?’

  ‘They’re amazing drugs,’ enthused Dr Lee ‘Apparently, at Tobruk—’

  ‘Yeah, that’s where I first heard they used them,’ Sid agreed. ‘And Monte Cassino—’

  Lily interrupted.

  ‘Before this turns into a Pathé newsreel, could someone please explain to me, whose medical knowledge stops at aspirin, what you’re on about? What are these … sulphonamides?’

  Dr Lee turned his puppyish enthusiasm on her.

  ‘Antibacterial, antimicrobial, they act as competitive inhibitors, you see—’

  ‘They stop an infection in its tracks,’ Sid intervened helpfully. ‘Ideally before it’s really taken hold.’

  ‘There you are. In a nutshell,’ said Dr Lee. He beckoned them into a huddle again. ‘You remember when the Prime Minister disappeared for a while in the winter of ’43? They said he had a heavy cold?’ He shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘Pneumonia. It was sulphonamides that pulled him through.’ He stood back to let the full import of this revelation sink in. ‘So they’ve been tested on about the most important guinea pig in the country! Your mum’s lucky to get them. And she will get better on them. She’s picking up already – give it another twenty-four hours and you’ll see a real difference.’

  He seemed happy to carry on chatting, but Sister, seemingly jealous of the time away from her, came and called him to her office with some story about paperwork. Lily and Sid followed them into the ward.

  The curtains round Dora’s bed had been drawn back. After that build-up, Lily almost expected to see her out of bed and executing a tap dance. She wasn’t, of course, but she was propped up, hair brushed and in her own nightie, as Sid had predicted. She was still clearly unwell, but thanks to Dr Lee’s wonder drugs, did look a little brighter. And she now had the energy to say all the things Lily had expected earlier in the day.

  ‘I’m being such a nuisance to everyone,’ she said feebly. ‘And your wedding, Lily …’

  ‘I’ve told you, you’re not to worry about that!’

  ‘But I do. You and Jim must still get married, you really must. Everything’s in place.’

  ‘Everything except you!’ Lily shot back. ‘What kind of wedding would that be? Tell her, Sid!’

  Sid backed Lily up.

  ‘Nothing is happening in this family till you’re on your feet again. And fully better.’

  Dora sighed.

  ‘I hope it won’t be long. I just want to get home.’

  Lily leant forward and gave her a careful hug.

  ‘And I can’t wait to have you back! Look at my washday hands already!’

  But the other thing Dr Lee had impressed on them was that Dora’s recovery would take time and when she came home she was to have complete rest – bed rest at first. She was not to exert herself, or in any way put pressure on the scar.

  Lily resolved one thing: she wasn’t going to take Dora, and everything she did, for granted again.

  True to Dr Lee’s word, the miraculous sulphonamides did their work and Dora made steady progress. First they got her out of bed and sitting in a chair; then, she reported proudly, she’d taken a few steps, leaning on a nurse. Gradually her world expanded. She walked up and down the ward with the nurse, then with Lily, and finally by herself, first from bed-end to bed-end, and eventually, slowly, without any support. But she was still stooped and her hand often went to the site of the operation as if for reassurance that the scar was still closed and the dressing in place. Dora was always resolutely cheerful, but it was hard for Lily to see her mother, usually so fit and able, reduced like this.

  In the meantime, of course, the first day of spring – the day of the wedding – had been and gone.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Dora said on the day she came home to Brook Street, as Lily settled her in her own bed. Her new blouse was still hanging up on the back of the bedroom door, so it didn’t get creased in the tiny wardrobe. ‘Your day all in ruins because of me!’

  ‘Mum, you didn’t plan it!’ said Lily. ‘And it’s fine. Did you see the weather on the 21st? Pouring! We had a lucky escape!’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we’re not in any rush to rebook. I want to know that you’re properly better before we pick another date.’

  ‘We want to know.’ Jim spoke from the doorway where he was hovering with a tray of tea.

  ‘Oh, Jim!’

  ‘Enough. We’re not even going to think about it for a couple of months, are we, Lily?’

  ‘No. You’re the priority now.’

  Pale from the exertion of the journey from hospital and the stairs, trapped in bed and helpless for the first time in her life, Dora had no option but to agree.

  Neither of them was quite as chipper as that, of course, and neither were their guests. When Lily and Jim had told everyone about Dora, after concern and sympathy for her, everyone had been desperately sorry for them and their abandoned plans. Gladys had actually cried – but then Gladys cried at anything – a greeting in a birthday card, pictures of kittens, someone’s painful chilblains – while Beryl had flown into a panic that her leopard-collared suit would be ‘too wintry’ for the late spring or summer wedding which looked most likely now. Miss Frobisher had been sorry, too, when Lily went back to work.

  ‘You must be so disappointed,’ she sympathised.

  ‘Worse things happen at sea,’ said Lily gamely, quoting Sid.

  But when Jim held her close she often thought of the n
ight they’d spent together, how lovely it had been to have him near her, and longed for the time when it could be lovelier still. But for now it was best foot forward, shoulder to the wheel, and all the rest of it.

  She’d been back at work since the third day of Dora’s hospital stay, but now her mum was home, she had weightier responsibilities. She’d never realised before quite how much her mother did, and she marvelled that she managed it all. Of course, Dora didn’t have a full-time job, but she had all her voluntary work, which took up almost as much time. Jim helped a bit, doing the washing-up, taking out the ashes and the slop pail, but Lily was exhausted. She was getting up early to do odd bits of washing before she left for work, ironing in the evenings after trying to cook tasty and nutritious invalid meals, and all the time trying not to let her mother see how frazzled she was. Jean and Gladys were doing the food shopping and checking on Dora in the day when they could manage it, but as Dora gradually improved enough to get dressed and come downstairs, Lily had even more concerns.

  By now it was early April, but full recovery would take at least six weeks Dr Lee had said – and she knew her mother. There was no chance of Dora Collins sitting around waiting for people to do things for her; stuck at home without supervision, Lily knew she’d find endless jobs to do, clearing out drawers, taking everything out of the larder and wiping down the shelves, even cleaning the windows. And she was proved right.

  One day, knowing Jean was at the WVS tea bar and Gladys at the baby clinic, Lily got a pass out at dinnertime and went home to make her mum some lunch. She found her with a pile of scrunched-up newspapers and a bottle of vinegar at the ready.

  ‘What are we going to do with you?’ Lily demanded. ‘Sit down!’

  ‘As if I can sit here and look at that!’ Dora indicated the window overlooking the yard. ‘Now the sun’s shining, it shows up every smear!’