by Annie Groves
He’d have to get used to her wearing slacks around the house. They gave her freedom to work and warmth round the ankles. She could work faster without corsets and stockings. It saved on clothes. Muhammadan women wore trousers all the time in Bible lands, Diana said. Besides, everyone was glad enough of women in trousers during the war, shinning up buses and factories, aeroplanes and batteries. Why did they want them all back in skirts now it was all over? Were they afraid they could do jobs as well as the men? Maybe better?
‘You didn’t mean all that, did you?’ she asked, looking across at him. He was hacking stubborn undergrowth with his knife and a steely eye.
‘Not another word on the matter, Lil. Let’s just get this garden sorted before it rains.’
Ana was hacking at the undergrowth with a furious satisfaction. The hand scythe sheared down the grass and nettles of the vegetable plot. Whack went Ivy’s head! Whoosh went Levi’s torso! Here, she could vent all her frustration on the hapless weeds.
It had taken the patience of a diplomat, the cunning of a black marketeer and the persistence of a marathon runner to get the committee to make a decision in her favour. Allotment Billy had proved to be versed in all three.
Just as she began to dig over the neglected soil, wheelbarrow tons of cow dung to enrich the neglected soil, came the news that Mother Winstanley was leaving, and who knew where they would be next year? Just when she had begun to settle in to this strange climate, this rough northern town and understand some of their ways, along came uncertainty again.
She had such plans for her plot. Here she would grow vegetables-beans and peas, salads, thyme and mint, sage and onion sets, soft fruits; fresh food. She loved free afternoons when she could wheel up Dina and busy herself just digging, thinking and dreaming. Here she was closest to the earth, and when the sun shone on her shoulders, it was easy to pretend this was Cretan soil. Here all the sadness of hospital duties, the aching limbs and the memories of her wartime suffering were forgotten once she got down to work.
It had been on May the twenty-first, the name day of St Konstantinos and his mother, Agyia Eleni: the name days of her sister and her daughter, that she’d taken possession of the plot. It was a good omen. At home they would bring cakes and little gifts to Dina; drink sherbet water. No one here understood how special that day was. They were all too busy shouting and fighting.
She brought orange juice and biscuits and a special picnic to the allotment, for her and Dina to celebrate together. ‘We must never forget who we are, Konstandina: daughters of Crete. “Freedom or death” is our island cry in times of trial. Your grandmother searched for the body of my papou, when the Turks fought him in the hills. She dug up his body with her bare hands from the rocky grave and brought him home. We are strong and proud. Your Aunt Eleni died a hero for our freedom. I named you well.’
Together they had sat sprinkling crumbs and good wishes over the plot and now all her efforts would bear fruit. Dina was toddling, engrossed by the ladybirds. Here they could speak their own language without interruption.
Now Ana didn’t notice Su standing behind her until a shadow fell over her patch.
‘I always know where to find you. How can you bear to get your hands so dirty? We have to talk.’
‘What about?’ Ana snapped, not wanting to hear what was coming next.
‘What we do when Daw Esme leaves.’
‘Do we have any choice?’
‘I think so. I pray every night for guidance. I think, mango among fruits, pork among meat, tea among leaves are the best, and Waverley amongst houses is the best lodging house.’
‘How can we stay?’
‘If Daw Esme will let us rent, then we can find plenty of good customers to live in. You have room, I have room and the rest we let. What do you think?’
Ana put down her spade. ‘You wanna share with me?’
‘Yes, I think we make better friends than enemies. We have enough of them,’ Su replied. ‘Our daughters are half-sisters. We share the same man who never came back and chose between us. We must make the best of a bad job, I think, and never tell the truth about Freddie. That must be our secret, yes?’
What could she say? ‘I am not going to do the cooking. I wanna be a nurse.’
‘Then I will learn to make a good English breakfast. The lodgers bring their own ration card and buy their own food. They use the kitchen. I think it’s a very good idea, yes?’
It was the best of ideas to stay put, and Ana need not give up the plot. Both would have separate space, and no Ivy sneaking around making trouble.
‘I shake your hand,’ Ana smiled, reaching out to grasp Su’s tiny fingers.
‘Ouch! You have the paw of a bear. How will you get a man if you crush him to death?’ Su winced.
‘I didn’t have much trouble in Athens…’
Su gave her a fierce look but said nothing. It would always hang between them, this rivalry, this envy of the time each had shared with Freddie, but somehow it didn’t hurt so much now. Better to live together than hang separately, went the proverb. It could work. It must work, for it was the only solution on offer.
‘Do you like them, Brown Owl?’ Ten faces were beaming in the circle as Lily unwrapped their wedding gifts with care. There was a striped tea cosy with a pompom, six knitted dishcloths, and six embroidered coaster mats. ‘We got our knitters’ badges. We unravelled two jumpers to make them. You do like the colours?’
‘They’re lovely.’ She beamed at the black and yellow football colours of the Grasshoppers.
Everywhere she went people kept shoving gifts into her hands: a tray cloth with tatted lace edges from Dolores Pickles, a lovely glass vase from Mrs Pickvance across the road, and now this. She suspected her little pack would be forming a guard of honour when she and Walter came out of Zion Chapel. All this kindness was making her weepy.
Esme had given her a hundred pounds.
‘Don’t spend it on the house. Buy something for you. It’ll go towards a second-hand car. I don’t want you stuck out in the wilds for the want of some wheels.’
Speechless, shocked by such generosity, Lily had burst into tears again.
‘It’s not like you, Lily. You do look a bit peeky. Have you collected your dress yet?’
Now was not the time to tell Mother that the idea of a long white gown had never appealed. It would drain what little colour she had from her cheeks. Anyway, what an extravagant waste of coupons to wear a dress only once. It smacked more of Victorian custom than the modern ways of doing things. All the extra coupons had been spent on beautiful material for the little bridesmaids and Neville’s pageboy suit in cornflower-blue satin and velveteen-if Ivy could be persuaded to let him come.
It felt mean to have kept everything a secret from Mother but it was Lily’s day and she was determined to do what she wanted for a change.
After all that had happened this year, it was only a minor rebellion. Elsie Platt would take one look at the colourful suit and think she had something to hide. Sadly she was still ‘virgo intacta’. There was no shifting Walt once he got an idea in his head. She just trusted he was worth the wait.
Su was helping her put together a two-piece linen suit in a deep rose pink that warmed her complexion and lightened her hair. Ana was spending hours embroidering blue flowers on the pockets and collar. All that was needed was the borrowed hat to arrive in a hat box from Diana Unsworth; a hat that had once graced Royal Ascot before the war; an extravagant straw affair straight out of a Gainsborough portrait. She felt like Anna Neagle in it.
‘Something old, something new, something borrowed something blue.’ Everyone was making quite sure that she would look the picture on the big day.
‘You must have a rehearsal so you feel comfortable and I can adjust those sleeves,’ Su ordered.
Since Ivy and Levi’s sudden departure into rooms near Albert Avenue across town, and Mother’s impending move, Su was planning to open the spare rooms to commercial travellers. Waverley House was going to have to earn it
s keep now.
‘I have a gift for you,’ she whispered, ushering Lily upstairs on the night of the party in King’s Park. ‘But first you must try on your outfit.’
Lily stood in front of the mirror, not recognising the reflection staring back at her. Who was this willowy blonde in the stylish dress, her hair softly curling around her face? Since the fashion parade she had gone the whole hog and had one of Lavaroni’s permanent waves. No more curlers and rags and wave clips torturing her scalp. She was a modern woman now.
‘Here, you like it?’ grinned Su, handing her a shoebox tied with ribbon. ‘It is for your wedding night.’
Inside the tissue paper was a film of soft silk, a whisper of coffee-coloured gauze, a nightdress that would add the finishing touch to her trousseau. Lily gasped and held it against her body in disbelief. ‘It’s gorgeous. Where did you get such stuff?’ She was blushing at the thought of wearing such an exotic extravagance in front of Walt on her wedding night.
‘It is from Auntie Betty. She sent it in parcel for you for all your kindness to me and Joy. You like?’
The tears came gushing again. ‘I don’t deserve such a lovely gift. Thank you.’
‘It is nothing. Come downstairs now. All is ready,’ Su ordered.
What was going on? There was the sound of voices in the hallway and the dinner gong was ringing a summons. She hung the wedding suit back in the wardrobe out of sight and put on her best summer cotton dress with bolero cardigan. It could be chilly in King’s Park after dusk.
They were all standing at the foot of the stairs, chanting, ‘Here comes the bride, sixty inches wide!’ Queenie and Maria, Rosa, Joy and Dina, Diana and Eva, Stefania, a new Polish recruit to the club who was training at the technical college, Ana and Mother, smiling from the doorway. Everyone was dressed up and raring to go.
‘Not so fast, Miss Winstanley We have a little something from us to you,’ said Diana, producing a parcel from behind her back.
‘It needs a bit of explanation,’ said Queenie.
They pushed forward a large box wrapped in brown paper and string. Lily tore it open. Inside was a leather suitcase with safety straps and brass buckles. It was a work of great craftsmanship. She fingered it with astonishment. ‘It’s beautiful. How thoughtful.’
‘Well, not exactly…We know how you want to travel abroad. It’s not exactly modern, but pre-war. My hubby knows someone in the tannery who buys up bits of leather and sews up bags. This is one he had made up out of pre-war hide. I got him to have it embossed with your initials but the daft happorth forgot you were getting wed and put L. W on it. I hope Walt won’t mind it’s not L. P.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Lily sniffed. ‘You shouldn’t have…’
‘Hey, none of that! We’ve got a supper to eat, come and see.’
It was all too much, the table groaning with pies and salad greens. There was a bowl of home-grown strawberries, trifle and a homemade sponge cake.
‘We thought we’d do English this time, in honour of the bride,’ Maria laughed. ‘No olive oil or garlic when we’re off dancing. Ana got eggs from Billy to make a proper sponge.’
Queenie sat down at the piano, playing a selection from ‘Bless the Bride’, and they all sang while Lily smiled through a veil of tears. She was too churned up to eat much.
What was going on? It felt like standing at the top of a huge cliff and the time to jump was nigh. But why must she jump off? This was where she belonged, right here, right now, not stuck on a moor miles from her friends.
For one brief second she wanted to stop the clock, unwind the hours, forget all the plans for the future. Why get wed when everything she wanted was right here? Oh, heck. She was going crazy. Nothing was making any sense.
Ana produced a handkerchief made of lace, and wild poppies from her allotment were pinned into Lily’s hair. ‘In Greece we dress up the bride-to-be like this,’ she laughed.
Tonight she would be paraded around the town. There was nothing to be done but to grin and bear it. It was only a bit of tradition, after all. No one begrudged a bride-to-be a little fun and games before her big day. You do this only once, she sighed, so make the most of it!
22
Dancing in the Park
The arboretum in King’s Park was strung with fairy lights. There was an avenue of plane trees lining the walkway festooned with banners left over from VE Day. Crowds thronged up towards the entrance to the sports field where the last remnants of Zion Chapel Brownie pack, those not away on holiday, were scampering towards the racing tracks to compete in the fun sports. In the distance a brass band was playing a Souza march. It was going to be a hectic evening.
There was no escaping from Lily’s gang of giddy minders as they marched her up to the gate. Someone pinned a card to the back of her cardigan saying: ‘Here comes the blushing bride.’
‘I’ve got to see to the races and cheer the girls on first,’ she insisted. This was her ploy to get rid of all the dressing up, but the others were sticking to her like limpets. Diana was searching the crowds, hoping to gather in all the stray Olive Oils. Maria wanted to watch her Santini nephews racing for Our Lady of Sorrows School, before she dashed off with Su to dress Joy and Rosa for the fancy dress tableaux when Joy’s dancing costume would be on show; hoping for first prize, after all those months of work, for her Burmese headdress. Ana pushed Dina along to watch the show in the very pushchair that had started their friendship all those months ago. Soon she would be old enough to join in the class.
No one could miss the fact that since Sylvio had left Grimbleton, all the sparkle had gone out of Maria’s eyes, and the fire from her face. Her skin was drawn over her cheeks and her black shirt and skirt hung loosely over her frame. Her hair was scraped back in a widow’s bun. They were all worried about their friend, whispering their concern behind her back.
Rosa sensed the atmosphere and whined for attention but Maria was lost in her own thoughts, pushing the go-chair grimly on.
Su looked like an oriental princess in her festive longyi skirt of printed flowered cotton edged with a rich emerald border and neat boxed jacket. Diana was in her Guide uniform, busy rounding everyone up like a sheep dog, pushing Lily ever forward into the crowds. It was going to be a long evening.
The sports races were duly run, the Brownies dispatched to their parents, and then it was time for the dancing display. Queenie was standing thumping out the tunes on the piano as turn after turn of Liptrot tinies cartwheeled and somersaulted over the grass in an exhibition of formation acrobatics and solo turns.
The fancy dress parade, on a British Empire theme, drew admiring crowds as the Union Jacks fluttered and each country of the Empire was represented by a little girl in costume-Britannia with her shield, South Sea island girls in grass skirts, an Indian wrapped in a sari and many other gaily dressed children in kilts and Welsh hats paraded past them. They cheered loudest when little Joy shuffled across the stage and struck her pwe pose in her sequins and silk, a tiny figure dwarfed by the other contestants, smiling and waving from the podium.
‘Already she is bright star,’ Su sighed.
‘Why is no Greek girls? We have nice costume,’ sniffed Ana.
‘You are not Empire. I am a British Empire citizen,’ snapped Su.
‘If they have countries of Europe then Ria and me, we dress the girls, and you can watch for a change.’
‘No squabbling in the back there, you two. We’re all citizens of the world now,’ Lily said.
Was it possible those two could ever be friends? They’d always be rivals after what her brother did to them. Yet in a funny way that’s what united them against the world. Who else understood just what they’d been through? Not even Maria, who was treading her own lonely path, could imagine their plight or the secrets that bound them together.
Ana and Su were chained together by memories and promises betrayed, but also by their golden girls, Dina and Joy, who’d never know they shared the same father.
No Winstanley
must ever tell them. Esme insisted on that. What would become of them in the future? That’s why she had to live close by, to help them through. They were family no matter what Walt said. He could like it or lump it. Hark at me: a right Bolshie these days, Lily smiled to herself. A far cry from Doormat Lil.
After the fancy-dress parade, the judges walked around with their clipboards deliberating. This was holiday time and no one must be disappointed so all the children were given sixpences in little brown envelopes. Su was not impressed.
‘They are all winners,’ Lily tried to explain. ‘It’s the taking part that counts.’
‘Someone must get the cup. It should be my Joy. She is beautiful,’ Su insisted.
What was it with every mother that she thought only her child was the best, the most deserving? If ever she had kiddies, Lily decided, she would not want to brag about them all the time.
The cup was given to Britannia and her retinue, and everyone cheered.
‘That’s not fair!’ Su grumbled.
Lily walked away in frustration to listen to the madrigal singers who were fal, lah, lahing and trilling to everyone’s enjoyment in the evening sunshine.
It was almost like a pre-war summer fair, but Merry England on the green was now shabby and full of make-do-and-mend clothes. Candy floss and ice cream, hot pies and peas, crisps and pop were in short supply. The summer frocks on display were darned and tired, faded with washing, but who cared when the sun shone?
Lily kept thinking about the Winstanley outings of the past and memories of happier times: Freddie and Levi in the wheelbarrow race and the three-legged run, Mother and Dad strolling together, arm in arm, admiring the bedding plants made into a clock with plant dials. It was the little details long forgotten that tinged this event with sadness.
No amount of persuasion would make Esme come and join them. In the past they brought Neville to displays, but he was banned from contact with Lily until the wedding. She was still not sure if Levi’s family would turn up, having moved out of Division Street in a huff and a puff, but already the atmosphere was lighter.
