War Baby

by Lizzie Lane

  She looked up at him. He appeared to be looking over the heads of the crowds towards his carriage, as though he was anxious to get away. She couldn’t blame him. ‘Wedding-night nerves,’ she said plaintively. ‘I’m sorry.’

  The tension left Mike’s face and he managed a weak smile. ‘And I got drunk. And then the job got in the way. Never mind.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘Another time, another place.’

  He turned to go. ‘No.’ Mary grabbed his arm, then the nape of his neck bending his face down to hers so she could kiss him.

  The kiss was breathless. She never wanted it to end and she felt his urgent need, hard against her belly.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered once they’d broken apart.

  He nodded. ‘I know.’

  Somebody blew a whistle. The train was about to move out.

  He gave her one last wave before melting into the crowd. She committed the look in his eyes to memory. Would he be back?

  The thought seemed to have come from nowhere, slamming into her mind. He was off to do his duty for King and country, flying over enemy terrain, dropping bombs and being shot at.

  She prayed then, prayed as she’d never prayed before. ‘Bring him back. Please, God, bring him back home safe.’

  The station platform was shrouded in steam as the train pulled out. She watched it until the guard’s van had cleared the end of the platform, tears streaming down her face. He was off again and that in itself saddened her, but more so that when she’d told him she loved him, his only response had been, ‘I know.’ He had not said that he loved her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DAWN WAS A long way off when Stan Sweet swung his legs out of bed and went down to the bakery. The bread oven was up and running in no time, its comforting warmth pervading the whole house with the smell of fresh bread. Mary and Ruby weren’t far behind him, and neither was Frances, even though she was knuckling her eyes and yawning.

  ‘Go back to bed, Frances. We can manage,’ said Ruby.

  Frances took no notice. ‘What time are you going?’

  Mary was packing sandwiches for the trip to London where they would collect the baby from the adoption agency. ‘As soon as we can.’

  ‘I want him to call me Auntie Fran,’ Frances declared emphatically after loading her toast with a day’s butter ration, which Mary promptly scraped off and returned to the butter dish.

  ‘You’re his second cousin, not his auntie. Charlie was your cousin,’ Ruby reminded her.

  Frances frowned. Being a second cousin didn’t seem half as exciting as being an auntie.

  Stan Sweet had been standing in the doorway, taking in the scene. He was like a dog with two tails, his face crinkled into good-humoured amusement. ‘I don’t see why he can’t call you Auntie Fran. In fact, I think it’s heaps better than calling you second cousin Fran.’

  Frances burst into smiles. ‘Oh good!’

  After Mary and her father had gone, Ruby headed out into the back garden. She was hot and sticky and the yeasty smell of baked bread had steamed throughout the house and into the back garden. Loaves of crusty bread, golden and hot from the oven, had been set out to cool before being placed on the glass shelves behind the bakery counter.

  Ruby leaned her head against the back wall of the house. The morning air smelled sweet and fresh, an antidote to the heat of the baked bread and the retained heat of the oven. Her gaze fell to the soft pink petals torn from the rose bush by a sudden breeze and rolling over paths and earth alike. They were falling from the rose bush, Charles Stuart, the only one left in a garden that was now given over to growing vegetables. It was funny how often rose petals entered her life nowadays, some scattered among Mary’s things in the suitcase she’d taken with her on honeymoon – Frances had seen to that. As though Charlie was telling them that he wasn’t far away.

  Charlie had been a keen gardener, the rose bush bought for him as a present the Christmas before his ship had been torpedoed. The bush was planted among a whole bed of vegetables, mostly potatoes that gave it shade. So far the rose bush seemed to like the arrangement and the potatoes weren’t complaining.

  It had become her habit to check the bush. She liked to know how many buds and fully blooming roses the bush had.

  ‘One, two, three …’

  She smiled. Seven blooms and twelve buds, an appropriate quantity on a day like today.

  For Charlie, she thought. For little Charlie, her nephew, her brother’s son.

  ‘Ruby. We have to open the shop.’ As today was a special day Frances had been allowed to stay home from school.

  Ruby could see her out of the corner of her eye hanging on to the open back door. The light of excitement shone in her eyes. She couldn’t wait to see the baby and had wanted to go to London to collect the child. As the baby’s grandfather, Stan Sweet was the one who had to sign the papers and had to go. He’d also thought it a good idea that as a married woman, Mary should go with him.

  ‘I shall need a hand with setting the bread on the shelves. They won’t get there by themselves,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I’ve done some,’ said Frances. ‘Two at a time, one in each hand.’ She held up her hands expressively.

  Ruby smiled. It was usual for a whole tray of bread to be taken out into the shop, but it was a bit cumbersome for Frances, so she’d compromised by carrying two loaves at a time.

  Once the loaves were set on the shelves, Ruby added the ‘specials’: pasties, cakes, pies and tarts, all from her and her sister’s recipes. They baked just enough so that none were left on the shelf and besides, their ingredients were rationed.

  The morning dragged. Ruby kept glancing at the clock. Frances fidgeted, torn between wanting to go out and see if any of her friends had been kept home from school. A lot of families in the village kept their children home when there was work to do in the fields, especially in the autumn when there were lots of apples to be pressed. Because they were at war there was more work to do and not enough hands to do it. A few, like Frances, missed a few days at school because they weren’t far off leaving anyway.

  Frances decided to stay put just in case she missed something, though as Ruby pointed out to her travelling to and from London took some time.

  ‘It’s not a flying carpet. It’s a train they’re on.’

  Frances pouted. ‘I’m not stupid. I know that!’

  For the sake of peace and quiet, Ruby let her serve in the shop.

  ‘I want to serve somebody all by myself,’ Frances declared.

  ‘Are your hands clean?’

  Frances held up both hands. ‘I’ve already washed them. You told me to earlier.’

  Ruby had to admit she had no excuses not to let her serve and besides she did have some recipes and demonstration notes to write up before starting back to her war work once the baby was settled in.

  ‘Will you go back to work straightaway?’ asked Frances while counting the fairy cakes Ruby had whisked into being from the things she happened to have to hand.

  ‘Tomorrow. I have to.’

  ‘But you’ll miss all the fun.’

  Ruby had set her mind on not getting too attached to the baby. After all, she was considering her options. She fancied herself in a uniform, and then there was Johnnie Smith, still waiting for his posting to come through. Not much of a romantic, he admitted he didn’t like dancing, and was downright cantankerous at times.

  Bettina Hicks was one of the first customers to come into the shop.

  Frances pushed herself against the counter in front of Ruby, her pert nose lifted as though she were trying to make herself look taller.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Hicks. What can I get for you?’

  Usually Mrs Hicks’s complexion was quite pale, a little powder enhancing her cheekbones and just a hint of lipstick. Today her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

  ‘I had to come in. I’m so looking forward to seeing the baby.’ She addressed Ruby. ‘How was your father this morning?’

  Annoyed becau
se Bettina didn’t seem to want to buy anything, Frances rested her chin in her hand and her elbow upon the counter, not that Ruby and Mrs Hicks appeared to notice.

  ‘I don’t think he slept a wink all night and this morning I caught him rearranging the bedding on the cot. He brought the cot down from the attic weeks ago when he first heard about Charlie. It used to be our cot – Mary at one end of it and me at the other.’ Ruby frowned suddenly. ‘I do hope we’ve got everything the baby will need. I’m still not sure Dad remembered to get a feeding bottle.’

  ‘Any bottle will do in an emergency,’ said Bettina. ‘I used to use a cleaned out coffee bottle for mine. You can still buy the teats separately. It didn’t do him any harm.’

  Just for the slimmest of moments a look Ruby could only regard as regret flashed into Bettina’s eyes and was gone again. It was a pity Bettina Hicks’s son was so far away, but at least he was away from the war doing munitions work in Canada.

  ‘Thruppence,’ Frances said suddenly thrusting forward a cone-shaped paper bag she’d made from a sheet of paper. There was something in the bottom.

  ‘Oh!’ Bettina regarded the bag appraisingly. ‘Now what on earth have I bought?’

  Ruby looked at her cousin disapprovingly. ‘Frances! Mrs Hicks has already said that she doesn’t want to buy anything. Give me it this minute!’

  Ruefully, Frances handed it over. Ruby looked into the bag. During their talk about milk bottles Frances had slipped a fairy cake from the shelf and into the bag.

  Bettina looked up from rummaging in her purse. ‘Is it something really nice?’

  ‘A cake,’ stated Frances.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Bettina. ‘A celebration is in order. I think I’ll eat that with my mid-morning cup of tea.’ Smiling broadly, all hint of regret dismissed from her countenance, Bettina handed over a threepenny bit.

  Before opening the shop door, she paused, the paper bag clutched in one hand and a great longing in her eyes. ‘Let me know when I can see the baby. I don’t want to intrude, but … well … I was very fond of Charlie and very fond of Gilda. The things that girl went through …’ Her voice trailed into the same sadness reflected in her eyes. The German army had marched into Austria where Gilda lived with her husband and children. They had experienced the Nazi regime’s brutality first hand.

  ‘I’ll send Frances over the moment they arrive. You’ll do that, won’t you, Frances?’

  Frances promised her cousin Ruby that she would.

  The shrill sound of the telephone ringing was easily heard from the hallway separating the baking area from the kitchen. ‘You’re in charge,’ Ruby said to Frances, dashing off to answer it. She knew who it was. Her father had promised to telephone the moment Charlie was in his arms.

  Halfway there, Ruby turned and threw Frances a stern warning. ‘But no pressing cakes on people unless they genuinely want to buy. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes. I heard you, cousin Ruby,’ Frances shouted back in a cheeky singsong tone.

  Ruby cradled the telephone to her ear and said hello. She heard the sound of pennies dropping into the box and the garbled sound of the station announcer at Paddington Station.

  ‘We’ve got him!’

  Ruby instantly wanted to know more. ‘What’s he like? Does he look like Charlie?’

  ‘He’s wonderful. Not the same colouring, but our Charlie all the same.’

  She heard the trembling in her father’s voice. He wasn’t usually a man of few words, but on this occasion he most certainly was. The sound of the station announcer disappeared. She guessed the door of the telephone box was now closed behind him. She imagined Mary sitting in the station buffet with the baby on her lap, perhaps having a cup of tea. As for her father, well, she knew that he would be overcome by emotion.

  The stilted conversation – one way for the most part – was interrupted by the sound of the pips indicating the end of the call.

  ‘Bye, Dad,’ she said softly although she knew they’d already been cut off. The telephone clicked as she returned it back into its cradle.

  Getting out her handkerchief, she swiped a tear from each eye before telling herself to get a grip. The shop would get busy soon; in fact, it sounded as though somebody was already in there. She could hear Frances talking to somebody on the other side of the door connecting the hallway to the shop. Best get in there, she decided. Just in case Frances was trying to get them to buy something they really didn’t want.

  Wearing a smile to placate the surliest of customers, Ruby pushed open the door.

  Frances was chattering away as though she were thirty not thirteen.

  ‘We’re having a baby today. My cousin Mary has gone to fetch it with my uncle Stan. Me and Ruby had to stay here to run the shop. That was probably my uncle Stan on the phone. They’re on their way. I can’t wait to have a baby. Neither can my cousin Ruby; can you, Ruby?’

  Ruby was speechless. She hadn’t moved from the door. On the other side of the counter stood a man of average height with the deepest blue eyes and a familiar smile. He was also wearing an RAF uniform. On the shoulders were the insignia of the Free Polish Air Force. Ivan Bronowski was becoming a habit.

  His grin almost split his face in half. An infectious grin. His hair was like ripe corn.

  ‘Have you any more pasties?’

  He had a quirky glint in his eyes that made her think he might be teasing her. Not that she cared. He was here and she was glad that he was here.

  Seeing as Ruby was standing there speechless, Frances carried on talking to the Polish pilot as though she wasn’t there.

  ‘We don’t have enough flour to make cheese pasties and fish pasties today. Sometimes we’ve got rabbit pie but not today. Or we might have pheasant or pigeon pie but that all depends on Mr Martin running over a pheasant or shooting a pigeon. Quite a few pigeons sometimes …’

  Frances was chattering on like a train rattling on the rails.

  ‘Shut up, Frances,’ Ruby said.

  ‘But all I was saying—’

  ‘Here. Take this sixpence and buy some sweets at Miriam’s shop. There’s enough there to cover your week’s rations I don’t doubt. Don’t forget your book.’

  The prospect of buying bull’s-eyes and any other sweet she fancied might once have appealed to Frances. But that was when she was younger. She was not far off fourteen, and not so easily swayed by sweets, besides which adult conversations were becoming increasingly attractive.

  ‘Now,’ snapped Ruby.

  Frances sighed with an air of disconsolate boredom. ‘All right.’

  ‘She is your sister?’ Ivan asked once the door had banged shut behind Frances.

  ‘My cousin. Her name’s Frances. She’s thirteen years old and thinks she knows it all.’

  He rested one arm on the counter, one ankle crossed over the other. By doing that he was slightly lower than she was, his face looking up into hers.

  ‘She did not want to leave us alone?’

  Ruby blushed. ‘She’s at an awkward age. She wants to know everything I’m up to and listen in on every conversation I have.’

  ‘Are you up to anything at present?’

  His eyes sparkled. Her heart leapt. She had no doubt as to what he was really asking her: did she have a regular boyfriend.

  Ruby rested her folded arms on the counter so her face was level with his and there were only inches between them. She loved the way his flesh crinkled at the side of his eyes, the way he smiled as though he knew the biggest and best secrets in all the world. He made her skin tingle. He made her heart beat faster and her pulse race.

  She smiled beguilingly. ‘I could be. Depending who I was with.’ She said it huskily, just like a film star when out to get her man.

  ‘How about I take you out tonight?’

  Ruby smiled at the same time as wishing she’d renewed her lipstick after answering the phone. It had to be smudged by now. She only hoped her eyes weren’t too red from her earlier tears or the lipstick hadn’t left smears
of red on her teeth.

  ‘How could I resist?’

  ‘I have a motorbike. I will collect you at seven?’

  It could have happened then and there, the lightest of kisses, but it didn’t. Perhaps it was the uniform, perhaps it was the cheeky grin or the glint in those sparkling eyes, but Ruby wanted to wait for that kiss. Waiting until this evening would heighten her excitement and thence her enjoyment. Kissing Ivan, she decided, was worth waiting for.

  The shop door closed behind him.

  Too late she remembered baby Charlie’s imminent arrival. Flicking the thumb of her nail against her mouth, she weighed up whether she should run after her Polish pilot and arrange another time for their date but she didn’t want to put him off. She wasn’t expecting her father and sister to be back until later, though she guessed they’d likely be tired after the journey. Were they expecting her to take charge? Coping with a baby was something her father hadn’t done for years and her sister had never done, after all Frances had been a toddler when their father had taken her in.

  Be here for them or out with her newfound beau? The choice was perilous. It was her duty to be here awaiting their arrival. On the other hand, she had been left to run the business. I’ll be tired too, she told herself. I’m here all day looking after the store, even mixing up a fresh batch of dough this afternoon and setting it out to prove by the time they get back.

  Anyway, Frances would be here and there was always Bettina who couldn’t wait to see the baby. Besides the baby wasn’t going anywhere.

  She made her decision: Ivan Bronowski was too good a chance to miss. She deserved to go out and enjoy herself. She vowed not to be too late home. It didn’t matter if the baby was in bed by the time she got back – she could volunteer to get up for him during the night. She’d be there for him and for everyone else later.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE TRAIN PULLED out of Paddington on time, but the journey was ponderously slow and the carriages packed with people, most of whom were in uniform.