The Heart of the Family

The girl – because she was only a girl really, Jean thought – was, plainly relieved to have got her guilt off her chest. Poor thing, Jean thought sympathetically as she ushered her back to the main hall.

But even though she had been listening to what the girl had had to say, Jean had still been thinking about what Sam had said to her this morning about wanting to have a talk with her.

The small knot of anxiety in her stomach tightened. She was pretty sure she knew what it was Sam wanted to say, but she hoped that she was wrong.

‘Charles’s release papers arrived this morning,’ Vi told Bella in a pleased voice, indicating in the direction of the front-room, where an official-looking buff envelope was propped up on the mantelpiece, against the clock. ‘And about time too, with less than a month to go to the wedding. Your poor father hasn’t been home for the last four nights and it will be a relief to him once Charles is out of the army and back here in Wallasey working for him. You’re going to have to get your skates on, Bella, about getting your things moved back here and the house left nice for Daphne and Charles.’

Bella’s mouth compressed. She wasn’t at all pleased about being forced to give up her home to her brother and his wife-to-be.

‘It isn’t as simple as that,’ she to her mother. ‘I’ve got refugees billeted on me, remember.’

‘Haven’t you told them to find somewhere else yet?’

‘It isn’t up to me to tell them anything. Daddy will have to tell the council, and they won’t be very happy, not with Jan being a bomber pilot and a war hero,’ Bella pointed out.

Vi gave her daughter a sharp look. The restrictions of the wartime diet, with its lack of protein and its hunger-appeasing carbohydrates, meant that Vi, like so many of the country’s older women, had put on weight around her mid section. As a family the Firths were luckier than most in that Edwin’s money and his contacts ensured that they were able to buy goods on the black market that others could not afford, when such goods were available, but everyone was beginning to feel the pinch now. Vi’s floral summer dress bought the previous year was straining slightly round her waist. Vi’s mouse-brown hair was also beginning to show touches of grey, although she still had it washed and set every week in the sculptured iron-hard waves she favoured. Her nails were painted with clear nail varnish, bought on the black market. The leader of Vi’s WVS group disapproved of the volunteers wearing nail polish at a time when the country was in such a dire position, although Good Housekeeping magazine was urging its readers to try to look their best to boost everyone’s morale.

Carefully checking one of her rigid waves with her fingertips, Vi warned, ‘There’s no point in you being difficult, Bella. It is your father who owns the house, after all, and I fully agree with him that it makes sense for Charles and Daphne to live there and for you to come home. Your father’s got enough to do as it is without having to sort out your refugees, and if I were you I wouldn’t risk getting on the wrong side of him. He’s been very generous to you, and I do think you might show a bit more gratitude.’

Gratitude for what, Bella wanted to say – taking her home off her? But she had learned some hard lessons these last few weeks, and she knew that she could no longer rely on her mother’s support and indulgence.

She looked at her watch. ‘I must go. We’re having to double up as a rest centre as well as the crèche, and since Laura is still on leave visiting her parents, I’m in charge of everything.’

Laura Wright was in charge of running the government-organised crèche where Bella worked as her deputy.

A note of pride had crept into Bella’s voice. Against all the odds, during these last few days she had discovered that she not only had a talent for organisation but that she was also thriving on the need to get things done and make decisions. She had been up this morning at first light, hurrying out to the school, almost in one way actually rather thrilled to see the line of people forming outside – victims of the bombing in Liverpool who had made their way over the water to Wallasey, prepared to sleep rough if it meant a decent night’s sleep, and now patiently waiting for a hot drink.

Queuing with them had been ARP workers, and fire watchers, and Bella had dealt with everything and everyone with calm efficiency – until the mothers had started arriving, bringing their little ones to the crèche, and amongst them she had seen him, smiling at her as brazen as anything, just as though … as though what? Despite what she had told him he actually still expected her to go off for that weekend with him?

‘Bella, you aren’t listening.’ Her mother’s protest broke into her angry thoughts.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Bella repeated. ‘I only came round to ask if you’d managed to get in touch with Auntie Jean to see if everyone’s all right. I know it was Bootle that got the worse of it last night but they are in Liverpool.’

Bella could see immediately that her mother wasn’t pleased by her remark.

In fact, if she was honest, her concern for her mother’s sister’s family’s safety had surprised Bella herself. She had put it down to the fact that since she was now involved in the war effort herself it was only natural that she should be more aware of what was happening.

‘Well, of course they’ll be all right. Why shouldn’t they be? It’s poor Charles you should be worrying about, after what happened to him, being set on like that and left for dead … Oh, that will be your father,’ Vi announced as they heard the front door being opened. ‘Now you’ll be able to tell him about those refugees, but I warn you he isn’t going to be pleased.’

Her father already didn’t look pleased, Bella acknowledged as he came into the kitchen, not even when her mother announced happily, ‘Charles’s release papers have arrived, Edwin.’

He greeted that news with a mere grunt, before saying that he was going upstairs to get changed and then he was going back to work. ‘And don’t expect me back tonight if there’s another air raid.’

‘Hadn’t you better open Charles’s letter, Edwin? There might be something he needs to sign, and if there is, Bella can go into Liverpool and take it to him. I do wish the hospital would say when he can come home. Poor brave boy. Bella, go and fetch the letter for your father.’

It was easier to comply than to argue, Bella decided, retrieving the envelope and handing it over to her father with an angry swish of the skirt of her cotton dress, thinking to herself: Poor brave boy nothing.

‘I’m so glad that Charles will soon be out of the army. He should never have gone in,’ Vi told Edwin, as she tried to smooth her dress over the curve of her hip. Thank goodness it was May with the summer ahead of them, during which she could try to lose a few pounds. Presenting a smart appearance to the world was important to Vi. Not that a little extra weight would have mattered if she’d been able to buy herself some new clothes, but with Lewis’s bombed there was now a shortage of shops where one could buy smart clothes. Vi certainly didn’t intend to go shopping somewhere like Bon Marche, Liverpool’s more price-conscious and less stylish department store.

‘Well, he did and according to this letter he’s going to have to stay in,’ Edwin announced, causing Vi to gasp and Bella to look at him.

‘But that’s not possible,’ Vi protested, her face flushing with anger. ‘You must have read it wrong, Edwin. He can’t possibly stay in the army. He’s getting married.’

Edwin shrugged, handing the letter over to Vi, saying curtly, ‘Here then, read it for yourself.’

Bella was surprised that her father wasn’t making more of a fuss. It wasn’t like him to take bad news so calmly.

‘You’ll have to do something, Edwin,’ Vi told him when she had read the letter.

‘Like what?’ he demanded testily.

‘Well, surely there’s something you can do,’ Vi insisted. ‘After all, you can’t possibly continue to manage with only that dreadful young woman to help you.’

‘Well, it looks like I’m going to have to, doesn’t it?’ Edwin responded.

‘But, Edwin …’

‘Don’t start, Vi,’ he warned her sharply. ‘I’ve got more than enough to worry about without you carrying on.’

‘But what will Daphne’s parents say? And poor Daphne too – she’s expecting to move up here with her new husband and how can she do that if the army won’t release him?’

‘Well, she’ll just have to lump it or leave it, won’t she?’ said Edwin unsympathetically, opening the kitchen door and disappearing into the hall.

Bella looked at her mother as they heard him going up the stairs.

‘I really don’t know what gets into your father at times,’ Vi complained. ‘I know he’s busy, but you’d think that would make him realise how important it is that he does something about getting Charles out of the army as quickly as possible.’

Vi’s pursed lips and flushed face warned Bella that there was likely to be a row when her father came back downstairs. She didn’t want to be dragged into it, not when Charlie getting out of the army and coming home with his new bride meant that she had to give up her house.

‘Look, Mother,’ she told Vi firmly, ‘I’d better go. We’re going to be inundated with requests to take in more children with all this bombing. I’ve already requisitioned extra supplies and I want to get back to the school and see if they’ve arrived.’

‘Your father is going to have to do something to get Charles out of the army. He’s getting married,’ Vi repeated, plainly still too concerned about the bad news in the letter to pay attention to what Bella was saying.

‘Being in the army doesn’t prevent him getting married,’ Bella pointed out, ‘and there’s nothing to stop Daphne staying where she is with her parents, seeing as Charlie is based closer to them than he is to Wallasey. It’s what plenty of newly marrieds are having to do, after all.’

‘I might have expected you to say something like that,’ said Vi crossly, ‘but I wouldn’t go counting any chickens if I were you, Bella. I’m sure your father will be able to sort something out. It means so much to him to have Charles home and working with him. He’s been looking forward to them working together as father and son ever such a lot. He’ll be dreadfully upset.’

Her father hadn’t looked particularly upset to her, Bella reflected, as she kissed her mother on the cheek, and then paused to ask her, ‘You won’t forget to find out if Auntie Jean’s all right, will you?’

The look of affronted astonishment her mother gave her was well-deserved, Bella admitted, as she stepped out of the back door and into the May sunshine. After all, she wasn’t close to her aunt and uncle and their family – not even to Grace, who was a similar age to herself – and in fact rarely gave them any thought.

A pall of grey across the sky to the south obscured the horizon, and in the air there was a smell that reminded Bella of the scent of the morning after Bonfire Night, only this was much stronger.

She wrinkled her nose. There’d been civil defence workers coming into the newly created rest centre this morning telling tales of bomb blasts that left people covered from head to foot in soot from collapsed chimneys, and Bella had seen for herself the now dispossessed-looking, disgustingly dirty and down at heel. She looked at her own immaculately clean summer frock and gave a small fastidious shudder. She simply didn’t know how she could possibly cope without her lovely clean bathroom and her freshly laundered clothes.

Bella’s comment about Jean had left Vi feeling thoroughly cross. Since when had Bella had any interest in the welfare of her auntie Jean and her family?

The freedoms that widowhood and having her own roof over her head, not to mention an allowance from her father, had given her were encouraging her daughter to get rather above herself, and all the more so since she’d got involved in this crèche, Vi decided. That was the trouble with this war, it was encouraging young women like Bella to do all manner of things they would not normally have been doing. Vi had heard other mothers of grown-up daughters saying exactly the same thing. The war was giving Bella’s generation far more freedom than Vi and her contemporaries had ever enjoyed. Too much freedom, in fact.

It was a great pity that Bella wasn’t more biddable and dutiful like dearest Daphne.

Edwin would have to do something about getting Charles out of the army.

Vi heard her husband coming down the stairs and went into the hall, but before she could say anything he told her irritably, ‘Not now, I haven’t got time.’

Vi opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late: Edwin was already opening the front door and on his way out. She certainly couldn’t say anything to him now when the neighbours might hear.

She’d have to go into Liverpool and tell Charles the bad news herself. Poor boy, he would be devastated.

Grace’s heart sank as the first person she saw when she came back on the ward after her break was her aunt, but it was too late for Grace to avoid her.

‘Poor Charles, I hope you’re looking after him properly, Grace. He has been through a very bad time, you know. Of course he’s been fearfully brave, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t recommended for a medal of some sort. He certainly deserves one.’

He certainly did, Grace thought grimly. She could agree with her aunt on that point, but the medal she would like to pin on her cousin wouldn’t be for bravery. Oh, no, it would be for swinging the lead and flirting with any nurse gullible enough to be taken in by him.

‘He’s just had a terrible shock, you know. I’ve had to give him some dreadful news, but he’s borne it bravely.’

Grace glanced towards the bed where Charlie was lying, his face turned away from them as he watched the new probationer who just happened to have a very good pair of legs.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Aunt.’

‘Well, yes, of course. How is your mother?’

‘She’s fine. I’ll tell her that you were asking after her.’

Asking after her but not making any mention of going to visit Mum, Grace thought critically. But then that was her aunt all over.

As he lay watching the probationer with the good legs, whilst his mother stood talking to Grace, Charlie realised that he was by no means as bothered about having failed to convince the Medical Board to discharge him from the army as he had pretended to his mother he was.

Stationed where he was in barracks with easy access to London, and on home duties, might not give him as much money in his pocket as working for his father would have done, but it gave him one heck of a lot more freedom, and besides, there were always ways and means of making a bit of money if you knew how to go about things. There were always spivs hanging about the barracks ready to buy a chap’s drink and cigarette allowance – every soldier got either a bottle of Scotch or a bottle of gin a week – and anything else that might be going that could be sold on the black market. A brisk business was conducted selling items that had found their way out of the stores, and then there were the card schools, and one or two other wheezes.

Being here in hospital had given Charlie time to think and what he had been thinking was that he might have been a bit rash in letting his mother persuade him into getting engaged to Daphne. Typically for Charlie, it was always someone else who was responsible for those things in his life for which he did not want to take responsibility. He had conveniently forgotten how pleased with himself he had been when it had first occurred to him that proposing to Daphne would be a good way of getting himself into his parents’ good books and getting out of the army.

Now in Charlie’s memory of events it was his mother who had urged him to propose to Daphne, and his father who had urged him to leave the army, whilst he had simply and good-naturedly allowed himself to be carried along by their enthusiasm.

Army life was really a bit of a doddle if you knew how to work things in your own favour, which Charlie boasted to himself that he did. He and a few other like-minded lads had scarcely missed a weekend in London the whole time he’d been at the barracks, and even when he had, there had still been some fun to be enjoyed locally, what with the townspeople eager to entertain them and the prettiest girls in the town eager to dance with them.

Marriage was all very well, and something that a chap naturally had to do at some stage, especially with the country being at war, and a chap’s parents making a fuss, but lying here in hospital with pretty nurses everywhere made a chap think, it really did, and what it had made Charlie think was that he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to get married yet.

The fact of the matter was that he’d actually been thinking about suggesting that he and Daphne put things off for a while. They could stay engaged, of course, but as he’d planned to remind Daphne, her own mother had originally suggested that they should wait. However, when he’d outlined this plan to his mother a few minutes ago, she’d opposed it immediately, getting herself into one of her states, and protesting that it was far too late for him to talk about delaying the wedding now, and reminding him of how lucky he was to have such a sweet girl to marry as Daphne Wrighton-Bude, and how generous his father had been on account of him marrying her.

Listening to his mother had suddenly brought home to Charlie just what his life would be like if he did leave the army and come back to Wallasey to work for his father, which was why right now he was actually feeling rather relieved that his discharge had been refused, and that he was to report back to camp as soon as he had been declared medically fit to leave hospital.

The pretty nurse with the good legs and the knowing smile, with whom he’d already indulged in a bit of harmless verbal flirtation, walked past the end of his bed and, after a quick look to make sure that his mother was still deep in conversation with his cousin Grace, he winked at her and congratulated himself mentally on being one of those people for whom life always had a way of working out well.

‘Well, tell your mother that I was asking after her, won’t you?’ Vi reminded Grace, for all the world, Grace thought indignantly, as though her mother was nothing and her auntie Vi was something very special indeed.

They might be twins but her mother and her auntie Vi were as different as chalk and cheese in nature; you’d never even have thought they were sisters, never mind twins. Privately Grace was glad that her mother’s twin lived in Wallasey and not closer at hand, and that they didn’t have to see much of her or her family. It might have been through her cousin Bella that she had first met Seb, but she and Bella certainly weren’t close and neither were Luke and Charlie, whilst her dad made no secret of the fact that he had no time for Auntie Vi’s husband, Edwin.

‘Yes, I’ll tell her that, Auntie Vi,’ Grace agreed politely, proud of the nurses’ training that enabled her to keep her composure and not give her real feelings away.

‘I dare say your mother wishes she’d listened to me when I warned her to evacuate into the country, especially now. What are those sisters of yours going to do now that Lewis’s has been bombed?’

‘Lewis’s is still going to be doing business, Auntie Vi. They’re moving across into a warehouse.’ Grace smiled serenely but inwardly she was thoroughly irritated by her auntie’s manner.

What she had said about Lewis’s was true, but it was also true that the twins had been told that the department store would have much less floor space, and that with the combination of the fire and the lack of goods to sell thanks to rationing, Lewis’s wouldn’t be keeping on all of the staff.

She had, Grace decided, had enough of her aunt. Perhaps she felt more irritated by her than she should, because not only had she been on nights throughout the bombings, she had also had to come back on duty after only five hours’ sleep to fill in for a sick colleague. At least when she finished this shift, since she was starting days again tomorrow she could go straight to bed and get some sleep before the Luftwaffe started dropping their bombs again. She consulted the watch she wore pinned on a chain to the inside of her dress pocket, and then addressed her aunt briskly in her best no-nonsense voice.

‘Visiting time’s over now, Auntie, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, otherwise we shall both be in trouble with Sister.’

‘What?’ Somehow, before Vi could voice her indignation, her niece was walking her down past Charles’s bed and through the ward doors, and saying calmly to her, ‘I’ll tell Mum that you were asking after her.’

Really, the modern generation of young women were most disrespectful to their elders and betters. She would certainly have something to say to Jean about her daughter’s behaviour the next time she saw her.

As she left the hospital Vi pressed a handkerchief to her mouth in an effort to keep out the dust. How foolish some people were walking around without their gas masks. Vi never went anywhere without hers. How dreadful Liverpool looked with its bombed-out buildings and its shabby citizens. Thank heavens she did not live here any more. She couldn’t wait to get back to Wallasey. She just hoped there wouldn’t be any delays with the ferry now that one of them had been sunk by the Germans. Such a nuisance, you’d really have thought that someone would have made sure that the ferry boats were properly protected.

Poor Charles. He had taken his bad news so well, even being gentlemanly enough to suggest putting off the wedding for a year to give Daphne time to grow accustomed to the idea of being married to a serving soldier. How noble he was. Fortunately she had managed to make him see that Daphne would not want him to make such a sacrifice. She would have to make sure that Daphne’s mother understood just how noble he had wanted to be, of course, when she telephoned her with the sad news that Charles was not after all going to be discharged from the army.

‘So what do you think we should do then?’

Lou and Sasha had just been told that, reluctantly, Lewis’s was going to have to let them go – news that wasn’t unexpected but that now meant that they would have to find new jobs. Now they were in the cloakroom, changing their shoes and collecting their cardigans.

‘Well, we can’t join the ATS or anything like that. We’re not old enough yet. Dad would have to sign the forms ’cos we aren’t twenty-one and you know that he wouldn’t.’

Sam was a loving and protective father, and it was true that he would not want to see them enlisting and going into uniform, preferring to keep them close to home. Their mother would support him in that decision as well.

‘We could lie about our ages. I heard of someone who did that and—’

‘But they probably looked older; we don’t even look sixteen properly,’ Sasha pointed out to her twin.

It was always Lou who came up with the ideas and Sasha who pointed out the pitfalls in them.

But now it was Sasha who said quietly, ‘We could always try to find out if—’

And Lou who stopped her with a quick, ‘No, we can’t do that. I know we said that we wanted to join ENSA but we can’t now, not after what happened. It wouldn’t be fair to Mum and Dad.’

‘No,’ Sasha agreed.

The twins had been mad on music and dancing for as long as they and their family could remember. They had driven their father to distraction with the music they played upstairs in their bedroom on their gramophone player as they practised the dance routines they had seen at the pictures, adapting them and even making up their own routines – and they were good, they both knew that.

With their mum’s youngest sister, their auntie Francine, already a singer and a member of ENSA, they had reasoned that if they could just get a bit of stage experience themselves then they could end up famous, and even perhaps go to Hollywood and be in pictures themselves.

But things had gone badly wrong, and five nights ago, on the night that should have been their big moment, they had quarrelled very badly. Whilst Liverpool was being bombed they had come close to losing one another for ever, and they both knew they would never forget how that had felt.