Sisters at War

by Milly Adams

  ‘In a minute. I need to eat something, and I can just sling that dress of Mum’s on, you know, the woollen one. The children have planted the flags.’

  April entered. ‘Yes, I know, on pea sticks. I hope you get them back for planting up the peas. You know how these things get forgotten.’ Over her arm she had a dress, deep blue satin.

  Bryony finished the toast, and wiped the crumbs from around her mouth. ‘I’ll try to remember to pull them out before I leave, but if not . . .’

  April nodded. ‘I will. Now, forget your mother’s old dress, this is for you. Catherine and Anne knocked it up between them, using a ball gown I found in my wardrobe. I’d forgotten I had it.’

  Bryony looked from the dress to April. ‘Hey, what’s wrong with you? I don’t need a special dress.’

  April shook her head. ‘Indeed you do, it’s your farewell party. You must pack it and take it with you. After all, you’ll probably be dashing into the London clubs night after night like the rest of the ATA girls who seem to burn the candle at both ends.’

  Bryony reached for the dress, sighing. ‘Oh I can’t be bothered, you know me, April. Leave it and wear it yourself, I’ll just drag the woollen one on. But thank them, please.’

  April kept the dress well clear of her grasp. ‘Wash those hands, if you don’t mind, and go upstairs. I’d like to see you as a smarty pants, just for once in your young, and my old, life. We have the same size feet, so here are some blue shoes. They’re not the same shade, but close enough. Come on, the girls have worked hard on this. It’s their gift to you, so accept with good grace, if you don’t mind. We might find that Cissie thinks you’re just as much a princess as Wendy.’ She grinned.

  Eddie, who had arrived at three in the afternoon, now walked into the kitchen. ‘What’s up, why aren’t you two changed? The children have helped me open the doors between the dining and sitting rooms, the long table is set up on the south wall, the gramophone opposite. Eric is going to operate that. Chairs are ranged around the room so we just need the food on tables. Chop chop, get changed, for heaven’s sake. Bee, before I forget, I double-checked your billet before I left and Pearl has you on the floor below mine. I suggest we get the train at about midday.’

  Bryony dried her hands. She didn’t want to think of leaving here. But she would be back, of course she would. She said, ‘What if I don’t pass the training? What if it’s been too long since I’ve flown?’

  Eddie was standing by the door into the hall, gesturing again and again, waving her through. ‘Don’t be absurd, you can fly in your sleep, so none of that. Will you please, please go and change and I’ll organise the team. But actually, before you go, just check the children, would you, and make a fuss. They’re upstairs with clean nails, brushed hair, and their best clothes, courtesy of the vicar’s trunk, where he keeps a million “could be useful” things. He will be here this evening at six o’clock prompt. You know how he hates it when people are late for church, and he thinks we all feel the same.’

  By the time Bryony had talked to the children in their attic room, and admired their outfits, and retied Cissie’s bows because the child felt they were not quite right, it was almost 5.45.

  Eddie appeared, panting, in the doorway. ‘Bee, what are you doing? Look in, I said, not faff about. I’m not having you wearing those overalls. Look at that dress you’ve just slung on Cissie’s bed, it’s probably creased to buggery and looking as though it’s been dragged through a hedge backwards.’

  The children gasped and Frankie said, ‘You swore.’

  Eddie picked up the dress. ‘Sorry about that, gang, but just look at it. What do you think? Should we iron it again?’

  Cissie cocked her head, and crossed her arms, examining it. ‘Hang it up, run your hairdryer over it, Bee. The creases will drop out . . . And hurry up, or—’

  Eddie hushed her. She coloured, and put her hand to her mouth. She said, ‘Or the others will be here. Wendy blows away creases with the ’air dryer.’ Frankie looked bored, Betty was interested. Sol was picking his nose.

  ‘Use your handkerchief,’ Bryony said. He sighed and did.

  Eddie checked his watch. Bryony realised he’d been doing it for the last few hours.

  ‘Calm down, it’s just a party.’

  Eric was in the doorway now, checking his watch too. ‘Come on, Bee, do as the man says.’

  As she went down the stairs, April was starting up them, and stopped, retracing her steps. ‘It’s bad luck to cross on the stairs. I don’t want anything to go wrong.’

  Bryony said, ‘You’re not to worry. I will be fine, as Eddie said, I’m experienced, and haven’t had many accidents.’

  April looked confused, then her face cleared. ‘Oh that. Yes, of course.’

  She too checked her watch. ‘Hurry up, Bee, this is ridiculous. Your guests will be here long before you appear.’

  Bryony slipped into the bath, regretting that she could only run it to the depth of the two inches suggested in aid of the war effort. A wallow would be a good thing with all this tension around the place. But if it was Cissie who was going off to the ATA she’d probably be as jumpy. She washed her hair and as she emerged from the bathroom in her dressing gown, the music began downstairs as the doorbell rang. It was the vicar, so it must be six o’ clock exactly. She shrugged; the others would cope.

  In the bedroom she pulled down the blackout blind and drew the curtains, before turning on the light. She had hung the dress on a hanger, and hooked it over the wardrobe door and now ran the hairdryer up and down it, almost drowning out the music and the arrival of the villagers. She was grateful for the pause, for being left alone to say goodbye to her room, and, in her heart, to her family – all of them. But not Adam, of course, not the one she missed so badly that her heart felt pummelled most of the time.

  He must have forgotten she was leaving tomorrow, for there had been no telephone call, but perhaps he was still at sea. He could have written before he embarked, though. Didn’t he care that accidents did happen? That the weather just might close down and the aircraft fly into a hill, or the pilot become lost, or run out of petrol or make an error, or run into a Nazi bomber, because the ATA aircraft were not armed, and neither did they have radios.

  She turned the hairdryer on to her hair now until it was dry. There was a knock on the door. It was April. ‘I’ll put your hair up,’ she told her.

  ‘I can do it.’ April looked strange, perhaps because she and Eddie would both now be flying. ‘I’ll be there to keep an eye on Eddie,’ she said, as April brushed and put up her hair, taking the hairpins from her mouth and tucking in the pleat.

  ‘I know you will, but you need to be downstairs.’ She put in the final pin, and fetched the dress. ‘Come on, put this on. Climb into it or you’ll muss your hair, let’s have you like a princess, Bee, just for me.’

  ‘Calm down. What’s the matter with everyone?’

  She heard a motorbike coming up the drive, but April was pulling up her zip and talking about how she’d keep an eye on Cissie, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if Wendy came in the spring? Bee thought about the motorbike. The only person she knew with one, was Sid. Surely not, not tonight.

  ‘You haven’t ordered anything from Sid, have you? Is that what everyone’s so nervous about? Because if you have, I don’t want it.’

  April said, ‘Don’t be absurd, we have more sense. There, look at yourself in the mirror.’

  Bryony did, and just stared. The woman in the reflection didn’t look like her. She was too pretty and elegant. April insisted, ‘On with the shoes and no moaning. Pretty shoes are always uncomfortable. Let’s give our friends a really good vision to keep with them when you clamber back into flying boots and Lord knows what.’

  The shoes were indeed uncomfortable. She tried walking in them, and she could, no trouble. April sighed with relief. ‘Perfect. Now, I’m going down, so you follow in two minutes.’

  ‘Oh no, you don’t. If you get everyone to sing some daft son
g, I will never forgive you.’

  April laughed. ‘Oh come, give us a bit of fun. Two minutes, remember.’ She left.

  Bryony moved to the dressing table. She opened the top drawer and her hand closed over her father’s watch. She picked it up, and held it against her cheek remembering her father, his kindness, his strength, his confidence in her, his pride in his pretty Hannah. ‘I love you, Daddy. I’ll go and fetch Hannah, I promise. I haven’t forgotten.’

  She replaced it, and closed the drawer. She checked her own watch. Thirty seconds to go. She waited, and then opened the door on to the landing, and there was Adam standing at the top of the stairs, in a weary-looking uniform. He looked at her, and his colour rose. She stared, and at last found her voice. ‘You? How?’

  ‘The motorbike.’ He said. ‘We came into Pompey. Geordie Gilchrist has a friend who owns one. I was pillion. The blokes on High Ground pooled their petrol ration. It was a bit bloody cold but worth it. I telephoned here a while ago, when we nipped into a port, and cooked this up with Mum, though I expect the whole shower came in on the act.’

  She came to him, wiped a smear of dirt from his cheek, and the goggle marks. ‘Cold and dirty,’ she said.

  He grabbed her hand. ‘That doesn’t matter. What does is you. Am I too late? Have you and Eric . . .’ He stopped. ‘Well, I don’t care, because I’m telling you it would be a mistake. I don’t think you’d be happy, and I know I wouldn’t.’

  Bee tried to pull her hand free. ‘What on earth are you talking about? If you mean, have we fetched Hannah, well, of course not. That’s for you and me, if you can bear the thought.’

  He kept a hold of her hand. His was freezing. ‘Oh, leave the wretched girl out of it. You. You and Eric, I mean. I’m such a fool. I shrugged you off. You fell. I would have taken you to play darts when you came home from hospital, not to Frank’s restaurant.’

  She listened, weaving through the chaos of his words, wanting to believe what she thought he was saying, but was he?

  Eddie’s shout came from the bottom of the stairs, ‘For goodness’ sake, get it out, boy.’

  Another shout reached them: ‘I didn’t drive you this far, in this weather, with a hangover, for this messing about and neither did the blokes pool their— ’

  Adam shook his head. ‘Oh shut up,’ he bawled at them. He turned back to Bryony, and now he grabbed her other hand. ‘Oh God, Bee, can’t you see how much I love you? I couldn’t see it, not really, but then you were so hurt, and I knew you were my everything. Can’t you see that?’

  She watched his face, the anxiety, the tiredness, the love which she had longed to see for so long, and felt a great peace – not creep over her, but deluge her in one great shower. At last. It was there in his eyes, in his beautiful face, in the tightening of his hands. ‘I can see it,’ she whispered. ‘Can you see that you are my everything?’

  He pulled her to him, enfolding her in his arms, kissing her hair, her eyes, her mouth, saying against it, ‘I love you. I always have, and I always will.’ He smelt of the sea and his uniform was cold from the ride over.

  ‘At last,’ she heard April say, from her bedroom door.

  Cissie stood with her, warning, ‘Mind her bloody dress, you’ll crease it and she’ll ’ave to ’air-dry it again.’

  April, Bee and Adam shouted, ‘Language!’

  Frankie, Sol and Betty laughed, crowding out from April’s bedroom too. ‘We had to keep the secret, it wasn’t ’alf hard,’ shouted Sol. Eric stood on the bend of the stairs. ‘Do come on, you two. The gramophone’s set up for a waltz, a smoochie one, just to embarrass us all. She’s my mate, Adam, and I love her, but not like that. She’s good for a darts match is all.’

  Adam’s mouth was on hers again, and then they were both laughing, and she pulled away, whispering, ‘We just have to stay safe, to make it worth all their efforts.’

  ‘Indeed we do.’ He turned, his arm still around her, pressing her to him, and together they went down the stairs to meet their friends, who were waiting there, singing ‘Here comes the bride’.

  She groaned. He said, turning and whispering, ‘You will marry me, won’t you? It will make Old Davy so happy.’

  She leaned further into him, if that was possible. ‘Oh yes, I most certainly will, and we can call our business Adam and Eve’s Apple. Do you remember?’

  He did, but no one else knew what they found so amusing. They danced together and it was as she had known it would be. He kissed her hair, and tightened his grip on her hand. ‘All the time I’ve wasted,’ he murmured.

  She shook her head and pressed close. ‘No, it’s not been wasted, we’ve been together all these years, and know all there is to know about one another. It means I can trust you with my life, because I know that you will always catch me if I fall, and you know I will catch you.’

  He nodded. ‘And that you’re a good darts player, so you can always be on my team.’

  She slapped him, just as Eddie cut in on their dance. ‘A twirl round the floor, Bee, if you please, before those shoes of yours become agony and you have to put your boots back on – but not the overalls, please. Not tonight.’

  She felt almost as safe in Eddie’s arms as she had in Adam’s and said, ‘You’ve always caught me too, Eddie.’

  Somehow he knew what she meant, and smiled down at her. ‘You’ve done your fair share of catching, my love.’

  It made her think of Hannah. She’d dropped her sister, but would gather her up, one day soon, and then she’d be free to live her life. Well, for as long as anyone had one in this day and age.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bryony and Eddie took the bus to the station the next morning, 2 January. Dan looked tired, and rattled the gears a few times, but that was not to be wondered at. He and Myrtle had danced until the bitter end of a party that should have finished at ten so the children could get to bed. It had in fact wound up with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ as the clock struck two and by rights they should all have turned into pumpkins.

  As they trundled around a bend, Bryony removed her flying gauntlets and examined her engagement ring, which was in fact a curtain ring April had found on the spur of the moment. On it, Cissie had stuck a lump of plasticine for a jewel. Eddie nudged her. ‘Are you happy?’

  She nudged him back. ‘Do you have to ask?’

  He slipped his arm around her shoulder. ‘Dearest Bee.’

  She leaned into him, her head aching, wishing that she had not had so much of the scrumpy cider Barry Maudsley had liberated from the back room of his barn, the rest still stored until they achieved victory. She said, ‘So, we can end this nonsense about you and April? She’ll move into your room, and you’ll marry the woman.’

  He laughed, then winced. ‘In that order? The scrumpy was not a good idea, it really wasn’t.’

  She shook her head. ‘In whatever order you wish.’

  ‘But there are the children, so it should be done properly, surely?’

  ‘Then get on and marry her but until you do, remember that they’re up in the attic and you’re one floor down. Don’t be so stodgy.’

  Eddie groaned as they screeched to a halt at the station. They had to run for the train, giving their hangovers no quarter.

  Once they arrived at Hatfield they caught a taxi to Number 12, Harlow Street. Mrs Bates, the plump landlady, met them at the door. She was wearing a floral pinny, her white hair curled into a tight perm. ‘Just in time, my dears, I have a soft cheese and sage casserole ready. I’m so pleased to meet you at last, young Bryony. Your Uncle Eddie seems to mention you at least once in every conversation. Leave your bags there, the two of you. Eat first, sleep next. It’s nine o’clock and time all good men and women were thinking of bed.

  ‘Ah,’ Eddie said. ‘But there aren’t many of those Goody Two-Shoes here, are there, Pearl?’

  She slapped his arm and led the way into the dining room. Two young women sat opposite one another in silence, as though waiting in a state of animated grace, thought Bryo
ny.

  Mrs Bates clapped her hands. The two girls jumped, Bryony winced, and beside her Eddie groaned. ‘Now, Bryony dear, these two are here for the training course too. Joyce and Trixie, here we have Miss Bryony Miller, and First Officer Eddie Standing. The girls stood.

  Eddie laughed. ‘No, no, sit down, it’s not like that in the ATA.’

  Bryony slipped on to a seat next to Joyce. Eddie sat alongside Trixie. Mrs Bates dished up. The talk was stilted. Trixie’s hands trembled as she held her knife and fork. ‘I’m nervous,’ she whispered as she climbed the stairs behind Bryony.

  ‘My stomach is inhabited by butterflies,’ Bryony replied, and it was. She had hardly been able to eat. They took turns in the freezing bathroom, but then, everywhere was freezing. It was winter, after all. She shared a room with Trixie, who tossed and turned as Bryony crept into bed, having had a brisk and shallow bath.

  ‘You’re engaged?’ Trixie murmured from the depths of the eiderdown she had pulled up around her ears.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Interesting ring.’

  ‘Yes, spur of the moment, but I’ve waited a long time and it was all we could rustle up.’

  ‘The plasticine might detach. You must keep it if it does, or your luck will ebb. Someone has obviously made it with love.’

  Mrs Bates had put a hot-water bottle into her bed but Bryony wore socks as well, and burrowed down. ‘Goodnight, I’ll tell you the story as we cycle to the aerodrome tomorrow.’

  Alone at last with her memories of Adam, her fiancé, her love, she walked down the stairs of Combe Lodge again, his arm around her, her friends grouped in the hall, his friend Geordie Gilchrist grinning up at her.

  After she and Adam had danced their third waltz Geordie had broken in, sweeping her off into some sort of jig which had nothing to do with the rhythm being played. He had told her of Adam’s misery, of the crews plotting because of it, the bets being taken. He had won a tenner, and thanked her kindly for accepting the daft lump. Then he’d twirled her round, laughing.