My Sweet Valentine

by Annie Groves

  Upstairs in her bedroom she kneeled down on the floor to pull Jim’s battered suitcase from underneath her bed. Since Olive kept a spotless house there wasn’t so much as a speck of dust on the case, the familiar lock clicking open beneath her fingers. Fingers that trembled slightly as though she were still that young girl he had courted with so much love and tenderness. She couldn’t remember the last time she had done this, Olive acknowledged as she opened the case.

  Inside it was Jim’s greatcoat and the medal he had received for his bravery in the field. ‘Everyone gets them, if they live long enough,’ he had told her. There had been so much pain in his eyes on that leave home – his last before the end of the war. She’d found out later from his nightmares that he’d been the only member of his platoon to survive when the trench they were in had come under attack, and that he’d stayed with two of his dying fellow soldiers until the end rather than make his own escape. That had been Jim all over, always thinking of others before himself. It had been the gas from those attacks that had damaged his lungs, which had ultimately led to his death. The man who had come home to her after the war had been a shadow of the young man with whom she had fallen in love, but today it wasn’t that sick dying Jim she wanted to remember. Today she wanted to remember the handsome young soldier who had brought her a Valentine’s card from Paris, and with it a special bottle of scent.

  Very carefully Olive folded back Jim’s greatcoat, smoothing the front of the fabric, much as she had smoothed Jim’s poor damaged chest in those last awful months and weeks of his life.

  Beneath the coat, carefully wrapped in tissue paper and tied in blue satin ribbon, were the letters he had written to her and the cards he had sent her.

  That special Valentine’s card, though, wasn’t with the others. Instead it was in the box in which she had received it – a lovely silver-coloured box with a red satin heart on the front of it and the words ‘To my Sweetheart’ written on it.

  Was it her imagination or did even the box still smell of foreign places and war? For a moment tears blurred Olive’s eyes as she opened the box to reveal the card inside it. On top of a delicate cream lace underlay, hand-painted pink and blue flowers on their green stems twined all round the red satin heart decorated with tiny seed pearls at the centre of the card. Inside there was a small verse: ‘Here is my love, from a heart that’s true. A true blue heart that beats just for you.’

  Jim had told her that there was a shop in Paris that sold cards made especially for the British servicemen to send home to their girls. Olive’s hand shook, a tear rolling down her face. Quickly she brushed it away, her desire to protect her precious memento overcoming her emotions.

  What was she doing up here behaving like this? She was far too old for this kind of silliness. And too old to sometimes miss and long for the comfort of a protective loving pair of male arms to hold her, for that special something that a loving couple shared?

  Yes. She really didn’t know what was getting into her these days, Olive berated herself, as she replaced the card in its box and put it back in the case, closing it and pushing it back under the bed.

  ‘I thought you said that it was a good train service to this East Grinstead place and that it didn’t take long. Not much, it doesn’t. We’ve been on this train for three hours now,’ Dulcie complained to Sally as she glowered from the February landscape beyond the dirty train window to her companion who was seated opposite her in the full compartment.

  ‘It is – normally,’ Sally responded. The train crash in which she had been involved on her way back from Liverpool before Christmas had left her feeling a bit on edge when she had to travel by train, but she was determined that no one else was going to know that. Not when she had survived that crash almost without a scratch whilst others had lost their lives.

  Even without the anxiety of the train journey she was regretting having invited Dulcie to come along with her. The other girl had done nothing but complain from the moment she had agreed to come. Even as late as this morning Sally had been hoping that Wilder would get in touch with Dulcie to say that he had got leave after all. Dulcie might be the one who was complaining volubly that he hadn’t, but privately she wished every bit as strongly as Dulcie that the opposite was the case, Sally reflected grimly. She must have been crazy to have actually felt slightly sorry for Dulcie because Wilder had let her down. George had certainly thought so when she had told him during yesterday’s telephone call that she was bringing Dulcie with her.

  ‘I can’t see her doing much to cheer up our chaps,’ George had protested.

  ‘She can be fun, and she is very pretty,’ Sally had defended her decision and her fellow lodger, but in her heart she knew that George was probably right, especially if Dulcie continued in the mood she was in right now.

  They were sharing their carriage with a pale, thin young woman with an anxious expression, who was dressed in what were obviously good quality although rather dull-looking clothes and who was sitting primly in her seat with a shopping basket on her knee covered with a white cloth that now had several smoke smuts on it from the open window. The window had been opened by a young boy travelling with his mother, who was having to give more attention to her baby than her infant son. An older respectable-looking couple, occupying the remaining seats, exchanged speaking looks at the little boy’s boisterous behaviour.

  ‘Oh, you’re going to East Grinstead as well, are you?’ the young mother asked, looking relieved. ‘Going to the hospital, are you?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Only this is my first time. My Lance got took there after his plane was shot down. Got burned, he did, according to what I’ve been told, but they say that he’s going to be all right. First time I’ve been able to visit him, this is, what with the kiddies.’

  Sally’s sympathy was immediately aroused. Having seen the patients at the hospital, she knew the terrible injuries most of them had suffered. At the hospital they received the very best, not just of medical care but, thanks to Mr Archibald MacIndoe’s innovative method of treating his patients, of emotional and psychological care as well. For the families at home, though, there was very little support, and even her one brief visit had been enough to show Sally how badly affected many of the relatives were by the injuries suffered by their loved ones.

  ‘This is your first visit to your husband then?’ she double-checked.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Brought the kiddies with me ’cos I ain’t got no one to keep an eye on them. Besides, Lance hasn’t even seen the baby yet.’

  Dulcie gave Sally a cross look. Why she was getting involved with this badly dressed woman with her runny-nosed children Dulcie did not know. She stuck her own nose up in the air to signal that she wasn’t going to follow suit. And as for that dim-looking girl seated opposite her, with her basket on her knee, she smelled of mothballs and looked like she was wearing something more suited to her grandmother, Dulcie thought unkindly.

  ‘We’re going to the hospital as well,’ the man joined the conversation.

  ‘Our son’s a patient there,’ added his wife. Her hand trembled as it rested on his arm, Sally saw.

  ‘Mr MacIndoe is very pleased with his progress so far. He’s having skin grafts. It’s a long process and Bryan gets impatient.’

  ‘That’s a good sign that he must be starting to heal,’ Sally offered gently, before explaining, ‘I’m a nurse. My … my boyfriend is a doctor at the hospital.’

  She didn’t normally disclose that kind of information – the minute you said you were in the medical profession people always wanted to discuss symptoms and operations with you – but on this occasion she knew that she would feel uncomfortable listening to harrowing tales of awful injuries from people who might assume that she was ‘one of them’ when she wasn’t.

  ‘Yes. We’re going down there to a dance,’ Dulcie chipped in, suddenly realising that she was being excluded from the conversation. Dulcie did not like being excluded from anything.

  ‘It’s for the patients,’ Sally felt bound to e
xplain hastily when she saw the pained look on the older couple’s faces. ‘As you know, Mr MacIndoe believes that it is very important to get his patients as involved with normal everyday life as he can, even whilst they are still having treatment.’

  ‘Yes,’ the girl with the basket unexpectedly spoke up, her cut-glass accent making Dulcie bridle slightly. ‘They’ve begun to call East Grinstead “the town that doesn’t look away”.’

  ‘You’re visiting someone yourself?’ the young mother asked.

  ‘Yes. My … my brother.’

  ‘Well, since we’re all travelling to the same place,’ Sally said with a smile, ‘perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I’m Sally, and this is Dulcie,’ she announced promptly, extending her hand to each of the others in turn.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ the young mother replied. ‘I’m Joyce, and that’s William over there, and this here is Pauline.’

  ‘Edna and Harold Chambers,’ the male half of the elderly couple introduced them.

  ‘Persephone Stanton,’ the other girl included herself, in her very upper-class accent.

  A faint wash of pink brightened her pale face when Dulcie demanded, ‘Persephone? What kind of a name is that?’

  ‘It’s Greek,’ she explained. ‘Daddy is a Greek scholar.’

  Thankfully, before Dulcie could put her foot in it again, Joyce called out wearily to her little boy, ‘William, don’t keep on touching them windows. I keep telling you they’re dirty.’

  ‘But I like touching them,’ the little boy protested, ‘and there’s nothing else to do.’

  Opening her bag, Sally delved into it for the pencil and notepad she always carried with her, tearing out a sheet of paper and handing it to the boy with the pencil and a smile as she suggested, ‘Why don’t you count how many houses you can see from the window, William?’ her kindness earning her a grateful look from Joyce, who told her in a confiding undertone, ‘He’s such a handful at the moment. He’s only at school in the mornings, see, on account of his proper school being bombed. Running wild all over the place, he is, with a gang of older boys. I’ve warned him that he’ll get himself into trouble and then where will we be? Of course I can’t say anything to his dad, not wanting to worry him.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any family who could help?’ Sally asked her sympathetically.

  ‘Not really. I’m from the north but I’ve moved down to London ’cos it’s easier to get to the hospital but I don’t really know anyone there yet.’

  ‘A boy that age needs a man around to teach him his manners,’ Harold Chambers announced firmly. ‘Need a bit of strong handling, young boys do.’

  Seeing the stubborn look crossing the little boy’s face and the anxious guilt on his mother’s, Sally stepped in hastily, asking the first thing that came into her head in an effort to change the direction of the conversation.

  ‘How old is your little girl?’

  ‘Pauline. She’s nine months. Born in May, she was.’

  May. The same time as her half-sister. Pain spiked through Sally, catching her off guard. Normally she refused even to think about her half-sister, even to acknowledge within her own thoughts that she existed. Nine months old. That meant that she would have had nine months of love from Sally’s own father that she had had no right to have at all.

  Sally shivered and turned towards the window.

  ‘So where are we going then?’ Tilly asked Drew, as they left the house arm in arm.

  ‘I’m not telling you until we get there. It’s a surprise,’ Drew insisted. ‘Oh, damn!’ he exclaimed ruefully. ‘I’ve gone and left part of your surprise on the kitchen table at Ian’s. We’ll have to call in there and get it.’

  Tilly nodded.

  ‘I’d better check on the fire whilst we’re here,’ Drew added as he unlocked the front door to let them both into the house. ‘Ian’s gone down to his in-laws for the weekend, so I’m in charge of keeping in the fire.’

  ‘You mean you’ve got the house to yourself?’ Tilly asked as she followed him into hall.

  Ian employed a cleaner to keep the place tidy but it lacked the well-polished special look that her own home had, that touch that came from a home having a woman in charge who loved it, she recognised. When she and Drew had their own home she would keep it every bit as spick and span as her mother kept number 13. Their own home … The thought of having the right to share a house with Drew as his wife brought the now familiar surge of giddy excitement and anticipation mixed with urgency.

  ‘Yes,’ Drew confirmed, ‘and that being the case, we had better not stay here for very long. I’ll bet that Nancy is keeping a watch out. You know what she’s like, and your mom will have something to say if she thinks I’m breaking the rules.’

  Tilly pulled a face. ‘Nancy’s so nosy. Anyway, we’ve got a perfectly legitimate reason for being here.’

  ‘You mean these,’ Drew asked her, reaching for the carefully wrapped box of chocolates he’d left on the kitchen table.

  ‘No, I mean this,’ Tilly told him, sliding her arms round him and raising her face to his for a kiss.

  ‘That is not a perfectly legitimate reason,’ Drew told her several minutes later, his voice thick with emotion as he finally stopped kissing her.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Tilly whispered to him, placing her fingers against his lips. ‘Just kiss me again instead, Drew.’

  ‘Tilly …’ he began to protest, but Tilly silenced him in the most effective way she could, kissing him again with passionate intensity.

  The only thing that Drew had told her about their special Valentine’s evening out had been that she should wear the lovely dress she had worn on New Year’s Eve, which Tilly knew must mean that he was taking her out dancing. Now, as she pressed herself closer to him, the rich plum-coloured silk velvet shimmered in the hall light as their bodies moved closer together and Tilly wound her arms tightly around Drew’s neck.

  ‘I want to stay here – with you – just the two of us … together,’ she told him fiercely.

  Drew shook his head. ‘You know we can’t do that.’

  ‘I thought you loved me,’ Tilly protested.

  ‘I do,’ Drew assured her, ‘but you know what I promised your mom, Tilly. What we both promised her. Don’t look like that,’ he coaxed her, adding firmly, ‘Wait here. I’ve got something special to show you.’

  As he released her and turned away to start to climb the stairs, Tilly made to follow him but Drew shook his head and told her firmly ‘No, Tilly. You must wait down here. Otherwise, I’m not going to show you.’

  He meant it, Tilly could tell.

  Reluctantly she stood in the hallway and watched as he bounded up the stairs two at a time. She heard a door open and then close. Drew’s bedroom door. Her heart turned over and then started to race. She looked at the stairs. If she followed him up to that room; if she kissed him as she had done before, then …

  Then it wouldn’t be fair to Drew, she warned herself. Because he had promised her mother, and she loved him too much to want to make him break that promise, knowing how badly he would feel about it if he did.

  The bedroom door opened and then closed again, and then Drew was coming downstairs toward her carrying a sheaf of typed papers.

  ‘I’ve started writing the book,’ he told her, shaking his head when she reached out to take the pages from him. ‘No, I’m not going to let you read it – not yet.’

  ‘When did you start? You never said anything.’

  ‘The night we went to see St Paul’s.’

  Silently they looked at one another and Tilly knew that he too was remembering how close she had come to losing her life.

  She stretched out her hand towards him and Drew took it, wrapping his large hand around her small one, making her feel safe and protected, and loved just as he had done then.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything yet, because I’m not sure … well, I don’t know how you’ll feel about it, but it just feels so right, even though it�
��s not exactly what I planned.’ He looked away and then back at her. ‘It’s about us, Tilly, about you and me and our war as well as the people of London’s war – the brave ordinary people of London – and I’m writing it so that we’ll never forget. I never want to forget what our war has been like, just as I know that I shall never be able to forget that moment when I thought that I might lose you.’

  ‘You’re writing about us … about me? I’m going to be in a book? But I’m not important enough to be in a book.’

  ‘Yes, you are, Tilly. You are the most important person in the world to me.’

  ‘When can I read it?’

  ‘Not yet. Not until it’s finished.’

  Tilly’s heart swelled with loving pride. She just knew that Drew’s book was going to be wonderful.

  ‘I’m going to take this back upstairs and then you and I are going to go out and enjoy our Valentine’s evening,’ Drew told her.

  ‘However lovely my treat is, Drew, it can’t make me any happier than you’ve already made me,’ Tilly told him.

  When he came downstairs again, though, Tilly remembered that she had something else to tell him – a message from her mother.

  ‘Mum’s decided that she’s going to go ahead and set up this fire-watching team for Article Row. She wants to ask you and Ian to join the team.’