The Daisy Club

by Charlotte Bingham

  Johnny looked up at Branscombe, who nodded encouragingly, so Johnny deemed it safe to look back up again at Maude and nod.

  ‘Yes, please, miss.’

  Maude bent down and retrieved a present wrapped in old wallpaper found, along with so much else, at the back of the laundry cupboards. She presented the parcel to Johnny, who scrabbled at it eagerly, eventually exposing a box, faded by the years, but inside of which was a beautiful train and carriage.

  Johnny looked at it in silence. Maude, knowing something of what he must be feeling, was also silent. Branscombe frowned, wishing that Miss Jessica, who had taken such an interest in young Johnny, was there to see the little chap’s face.

  Johnny looked up at Maude.

  ‘Father Christmas is a good un, int’ he, miss?’

  ‘I think he knew you liked trains, didn’t he, Johnny?’

  Johnny was silent once more, clutching the box against his thin little chest.

  ‘I fink so, miss.’

  ‘Did you put that you would like a train on your letter to Father Christmas, the one that you posted up the kitchen chimney?’

  Johnny nodded, leaning closer to Branscombe.

  ‘I dun want to go back from ’ere,’ he announced, in a low voice.

  ‘You want to see your mum, I expect, and you will be going in a motor car with a kind lady. And remember your mum, she wants to see you.’

  Silence greeted this statement, such a long silence that it gave Maude time to think.

  ‘I know why you wanted that train, Johnny,’ she told him, eventually. ‘It was because you knew it would bring you back to us, wasn’t it?’

  Johnny looked up at this, and after a second he nodded.

  ‘You knew that a train may take you to Peckham, but it will bring you back to the Hall, to us here, too, won’t it? That’s why you wanted a train, wasn’t it?’

  Johnny nodded, and for a second the sad look in his eyes changed.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ he agreed.

  ‘Come on then, young man, the lady from the WVS is out there waiting for you, just arrived, I see. She’s going to take charge of you, and she’s probably got some sweeties set aside for the journey. I heard someone say those volunteer ladies have always got a sweetie or two in their handbags. And there’s another little boy with her, he’s probably like you, going back to see his mum at Christmas, so that’ll be good, won’t it?’

  The sad little duo turned away, and walked down the hall, and out into the bitter winter day, Johnny on his way back to who knew what.

  Maude turned away. War was a blasted thing, a really awful, blasted thing, but then she said silently to God ‘sorry for swearing’ but really, it was true, war was a blasted, blasted thing.

  Of course Gervaise would have been too diplomatic to turn Daisy away. Knowing this only too well, Daisy was far too proud to admit to anyone that she was going to be on her own at Christmas, so as the cold, cold weather set in, bringing with it yet more misery, Daisy crouched in her basement flat, the air so damp and miserable that once or twice she thought it might have been cosier, and certainly more cheerful, to spend Christmas down the Underground singing and making tea, helping babies being born, anything rather than being on her own at Christmas.

  Before they went down to the Hall for their Christmas, Laura and Aurelia were due to drop by for a shot of gin, and a giggle.

  There was much that was new about the little basement flat, not least the sign above the door.

  It read: ‘THE DAISY CLUB. MEMBERS ONLY! NO NAZIS!’

  Where Daisy had found the paint to do what she had done, or managed to borrow or steal the bright rugs, or the cushions, they none of them thought it quite right to ask, but from the moment they walked down into the basement, duly signing the new visitors’ book, it felt just a little like being back at Twistleton Court in their shared flat in the stables.

  ‘How have you done this? Have you found an Indian gentleman with a monkey across the way to send you all these lovely things?’

  Daisy laughed.

  ‘That is exactly what I have done, Laura ducks, and no mistake.’

  ‘You’ve made this place look like a home from home, Daisy. Despite the fact that two doors down has gone, and opposite is no more, it is so cheerful here you wouldn’t even know it,’ Aurelia stated, as Laura crouched by the one bar of the electric fire, practically burning her still-gloved fingers on it, in her urgency to get warm.

  Daisy, who had been too busy taking coats and making stiff drinks to notice the change in Aurelia, looked up quickly.

  ‘Apparently it was a bit noisy last night, and we were lucky the gas mains didn’t blow up,’ she admitted. ‘So much so that when Gervaise rang and told me, I thought I might stay on ops rather than pelt down here, but then I thought I’d cock a snook at Hitler, and I strong-armed Gervaise’s people upstairs to lend me things that he will never notice have gone AWOL, make it as much like Twisters Court as perfectly possible. Cheers!’

  ‘Bottoms up, whatever that means! I say, don’t let’s ask!’

  They all clinked glasses, and it was only as they did so that Daisy really took in Aurelia’s wan face.

  ‘Why the look of the drowning maiden, Relia? Nothing happened to Guy, has it?’ she asked as Laura downed her gin and left them to go to the telephone in the upstairs hall, in an attempt to call headquarters about something that was concerning her.

  ‘Guy.’ Aurelia said his name so flatly that Daisy knew at once that her passion for the famous man must have abated considerably. ‘No, nothing to do with Guy Athlone, Daisy, no.’ She looked away, struggling to speak, not knowing what to say, but having knocked back her gin too quickly she burst out: ‘It’s being in SOE. I shouldn’t say this, not a word, because I mean they are all great people, of course, great people, and a great mix. And one thing and another. But. But. Well. You see everything. Maps! People there, and not there.’

  Daisy looked at her, her expression sombre.

  ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’

  They both knew how bad.

  ‘It’s not as if they – you know. I mean, every time I hand them—’ She stopped. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t heard,’ Daisy assured her. ‘I’ll just telephone the War Office and have you arrested once Laura’s through with the phone.’

  Aurelia leaned forward, glass in hand, which Daisy instantly filled.

  ‘Every time I have to give them their Goodnight Vienna pill, as I call it, I keep hoping that they’ll take the damn thing, whatever happens. I even find myself praying for that, praying for that for them, that they will have time to take their Goodnight Vienna, not be captured. So where is the sin of Judas, then, Daisy? I mean to say, and I really hate to say it, but I don’t believe in much any more, and I don’t think I ever will, not after this. It’s turned everything upside down for me, truly it has.’

  ‘Well, it would,’ Daisy said, and she put out a hand and touched her arm.

  Aurelia had always been a bit of an hysteric, the least likely of all people to cope with so much that happened in a war.

  ‘That is what I keep hoping, that they have time to take their pill, have time,’ Aurelia repeated.

  ‘Well, you would,’ Daisy agreed, again. ‘After all, that really is a better fate, to die by your own hand rather than – well, anything else . . .’

  ‘I have been trying not to think about any of them, trying not to remember anything. Once I leave the place for a few hours’ kip, I put it out of my mind, what they looked like before they went off, that kind of thing. And I was doing quite well, until, well, until the awful news came through!’

  Daisy turned away. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to know.

  ‘You had better stop there, Relia, or we really will both end up with our heads on a spike above Tower Bridge.’

  Aurelia looked shattered. It was true. It was treason to speak of what she knew, but she couldn’t help it.

  ‘I have to tell s
omeone.’

  Daisy wanted to say, ‘Yes, but not me, please, please, please, not me.’

  Aurelia leaned forward.

  ‘If I whisper it, it will be easier.’

  She whispered.

  Daisy leaned back, appalled.

  ‘Dear God. Not true?’

  Aurelia nodded.

  ‘I am afraid so,’ she went on, still whispering. ‘I don’t think Laura ever knew that – that, well, that her father and stepmother, were, well – not ever. At least I knew about mine, so it was less of a shock when they were thrown into jug. A little less of a shock,’ she went on, thinking back. ‘Still a shock, of course, but at least I knew what they were, or are, at least I knew.’

  ‘You can’t tell her, of course.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Agony.’

  Aurelia nodded quickly as Laura came back into the room.

  ‘Agony?’ Laura asked, over-brightly. ‘What is agony?’

  ‘Childbirth,’ Daisy said raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. ‘Catch me having a baby. We were just talking about poor Jean. Any minute now. Big baby on the way.’

  ‘She tried to get the Huggetts to acknowledge it, but they won’t. Just won’t. Can’t stand the thought that a grandchild of theirs is being brought into the world whose mother is from The Cottages. Just won’t acknowledge her at all.’

  ‘Poor Jean.’

  Jean was enjoying life at the Hall. Somehow, within the courtyard atmosphere of the stables, there had grown up a camaraderie not unlike that she had known when she was growing up cheek by jowl with Dan Short and the rest. The two, now three, land girls who had been sent to help were a bit of a mixed bunch, inclined to flop out at a moment’s notice if you didn’t watch them, so unused were they to hard work; but they, too, seemed determined to make the best of their situation, despite the fact that they wouldn’t be going home for Christmas.

  ‘It’s only one day of the year, Jean,’ they all kept saying, repeating it so often that by the time Christmas week did finally come about, Jean, more than anyone, was convinced that they almost believed it. ‘Nature doesn’t stop for Christmas. There’ll be lambing and calving all too soon after that, and Boy has to be groomed and put to the plough, the pigs fed, the milking done every day and the vegetables dug, if we can dig them, that is. It is non-stop down on the farm, isn’t it, Jean?’

  The basic problem of hunger was being solved at the Hall, thank God, Branscombe thought, busy as ever in the kitchen, by the countryside itself. They were not in for as lean a time as the towns and cities, for while it was almost impossible to dig up root vegetables from a ground that was frozen enough to break precious spades, nevertheless unlike the cities there was much meat to be had, from wild rabbit to pork and mutton, and this, accompanied by milk and precious stored vegetables, did at least give them enough energy to get them through the long hard days when, gas masks at the ready still, Jean and her land girls toiled to keep the farm going. Happily, the harvest having been good before the onset of such a harsh winter, they had flour back from the local mill, and much else for which, with so many mouths to feed, they had to be truly thankful.

  ‘Very thick jam this, boys . . .’ Branscombe said, speaking to the motley collection of dogs collected in the old kitchen.

  He stared at some plum jam sent from the local Women’s Institute, and shook his head. He knew it had to be sturdy to stop it from spilling when it was being carted about, but this lot looked like cement. ‘But thick or runny, into the tarts it will have to go, and when all is said and done, thank God for it.’

  Once autumn had come Branscombe and Jean had set the Lindsay brothers to pick blackberries by the ton from the hedgerows, and every apple that had ever fallen into the orchard grass. All this Jean had duly delivered by pony trap to the Women’s Institute centre at Wychford. She had turned a blind eye to the Lindsay brothers, under darkness, secretly picking apples and pears – and plums, of course – from the abandoned gardens in the village. These also had been taken up by pony trap to the centre, Boy pulling the trap across the uneven fields, well away from the prying eyes of army guards, whose boredom at being landed in such a quiet country place was all too evident.

  ‘Now, Algy, Bertie, Trump, George and Dixie, mustn’t forget to make a very small apple pie for Johnny’s teddy, must we—’

  Branscombe stopped. What a thing! So ingrained was he in always making a little pie for Johnny’s toy, he had, momentarily, forgotten that Johnny wasn’t at the Hall any more, no longer playing at the back of the kitchen, or trotting after Branscombe with a large feather duster as they attempted the usual household chores.

  Branscombe sighed. It seemed that even quite new habits died hard. His thoughts ran to where he imagined Johnny must now be, on his long, long tiring journey home. With a bit of luck, quite a lot of luck, by now Johnny should be making his way across London. Branscombe imagined the little fellow, clutching his small cardboard suitcase which contained hardly more than a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and inevitably his precious new toy train. At least the WVS ladies were used to those journeys, even if they did take for ever to do them once they arrived in a city or a town, what with the sirens and the all-clears sounding, and re-sounding. Doubtless Johnny would have forgotten London, but doubtless, too, he would be looking forward to seeing his mum, and the rest of them, spending Christmas with them in the old way.

  Branscombe turned away. Christmas. Sometimes he wished it didn’t happen, somehow it always seemed to highlight everything all too much, especially in war: loneliness, dashed hopes, other happier days – before the war.

  Despite her transformation of the basement, despite the gaiety of her hand-painted notice over the door announcing her club, Daisy tried not to think of how lonely she felt, how much she would have liked to have been with Freddie and all the rest at the Hall, how good the old tree that they dug up every year would be looking, how Aunt Maude would insist on climbing a ladder at the start, to put the angel at the top. She tried not to remember how she and Aunt Maude, and all the maids, poor souls, would all sing hymns on Christmas Eve very badly indeed, their reedy voices trying to follow Aunt Maude, who would seat herself at the piano and lead the well-known carols in a very pretty singing voice.

  Daisy smiled. At least that was something that the maids would not be missing, having to sing no matter what, although they would miss the lovely presents Aunt Maude had always chosen for them.

  Her one cheerful thought was that David had promised to try and visit her, if he could, which was another reason why Daisy had not asked to spend Christmas Day with Gervaise. She was hoping against hope to see David just this one more time. She had promised it to herself, and after that – well, it would have to stop. Just have to.

  She recognised with a dull guilt that she should have told Laura about knowing David, and left her to guess the rest, but after what Relia had told her (which of course she never, ever should have) it had simply not been possible. Once Laura had found out about her father and stepmother for herself, well, things would be different, but just at that moment Daisy simply did not have the courage to face her. Besides, she had convinced herself that when Laura had left Daisy and Aurelia, and gone up to make a telephone call in the hall, that that call had been meant for none other than David Moreton. And, of course, the fact that Laura herself now never mentioned his name was in itself an indication that she was still in love with him. Freddie had always said that. She had always insisted that when a girl was in love with a man she never talked about him, that the only men a girl really talked about were the ones that were of no interest whatsoever, the hangers-on, and that they used them as distractions, as feints.

  Daisy lit a cigarette. Guilt was piling very nicely on guilt now, and piling on thick, too. But what could you do? When you fell in love, you fell in love – particularly in war.

  That was one thing which she had discovered. Love was not like anything else. It was irrational, inconvenient, and da
ngerous. Only a few days ago, she had been so busy thinking about David’s latest thrilling note to her, saying that he was going to try to meet her in the basement of her godfather’s house on Christmas Day, that she had just missed slicing the Hurricane she was taking to Scotland in half on an overhead cable.

  ‘Daisy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Daisy stared hazily out at the face she could see beyond the half-glassed door.

  ‘It’s me, David.’

  ‘David?’

  ‘Yes, you know, David Moreton? Remember we met – I wrote to you that I would try to come, remember?’

  Daisy swayed a little. She had been dreaming of someone, but she couldn’t quite remember who, or what had happened in the dream – it had all been tumbling buildings, faces, strangers, people that she had never met before. Where had they all come from, those very real people? Disembodied faces, voices and clothes that were so lifelike that they were more vivid to her than the voice coming from the darkness beyond the door.

  ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning—’

  ‘I know, Daisy. I should do. I don’t know how I got here. Do you think you could open the door, and let me in? I have driven through the night to get here, and I am dying for a great many things, most of all a drink. Please, old girl. Let me in.’

  ‘Old girl’ was so very RAF. Daisy was suddenly completely awake. Good God! It was David. David! She wrenched the door open, and they stumbled against each other in the dark.

  ‘Come in, come in! I fell asleep waiting for you. Actually I never thought you would come, that you could come, that you would get compassionate leave.’

  ‘I had to come: twelve hours with you was such a spiffing thought, worth everything.’

  He kissed her so hard that Daisy – which was not at all her – started to feel faint.

  ‘Just a minute, just a minute.’ She stepped back, knocking into the sitting-room door. ‘I have to make sure you really are who you say you are—’