Secrets in Store

Chapter 3

Africa! In the wintry dusk of a Midlands’ backyard, Lily closed her eyes and she was there.

Africa! Heat, dust, the spice smell of the bazaars; snowy-robed Arabs haggling over brass coffee pots; captive cobras swaying to snake charmers’ fluting; tall, half-naked Nubians in marble halls, waving ostrich-feather fans over doe-eyed women reclining on cushions …

But before her fantasy could get any more, well, fantastic, Lily pulled herself up. Stupid! Africa, North Africa at least, was nothing like that. Her dimly-remembered geography lessons had taught her that. Most of it was desert, unpopulated because it was uninhabitable, and the vast sand dunes and midnight oases she might have gone on to imagine were only a tiny part of that. The rest was stony desert scrub, more like the surface of the moon than the setting for a romantic encounter with a real-life Rudolph Valentino. And now, the desert meant other things too. It was The Western Desert – those capital letters said it all – it was—

‘The Desert War, then?’

Thank goodness Jim was there. The words had formed in her mind, but she hadn’t seemed able to organise her lips, tongue and teeth to get them out. Maybe it was the cold. Or maybe it was because she couldn’t bear to hear herself say them out loud.

Reg pulled a face.

‘Sounds romantic put like that, doesn’t it? Well, I’m about to find out.’

Lily swallowed hard.

‘But Reg, you’re a mechanic, you’re not a … a sapper or a gunner or anything. You said yourself the drivers can do most of their own maintenance. You’re going to be well back behind the lines. Aren’t you?’

She saw Reg and Jim exchange another of those looks. But it wasn’t the same man-of-the-world look they’d exchanged before, a look that Lily had felt was to shut her out. This was a look of recognition, and of resignation. She needed to know.

‘What do you want me to say, Lil?’ said Reg. ‘Tell you we should all believe in the Tooth Fairy, and Father Christmas is real?’

‘You mean he isn’t?’

She was trying to make light of things, but she knew in her heart of hearts it was hopeless.

‘I’m not going to lie to you,’ said Reg. ‘You’re a bright girl, so think about it. If a jeep or a truck breaks down on ops, or takes a proper pounding, it’s stuck where it is, isn’t it? If you leave it there, the Jerries or the Eyeties’ll have it, you’re better off torching it.’ He gave her a kind smile. ‘But we can’t afford to waste kit like that, can we? So they need blokes like me out with the fighting units, of course they do.’

‘Yes, they do. But equally,’ said Jim quickly, seeing the dismay in Lily’s face, ‘it’s all the luck of the draw. You might be in the thick of things. Or …’

He looked at Reg again, a look that this time said, ‘Help! You’re the mechanic!’

Reg got the message.

‘Or … I might be in a cosy billet in Alexandria, changing the spark plugs on the brigadier’s car and come night-time quaffing beer in a nice little bar while a belly dancer whirls her tassels at me. OK?’

They were doing their best, Lily knew. Jim was kindly trying to reassure her in the same way he had before, over the puppy being a rescue dog and not a bomb-detector. Lily knew the chance of Reg being assigned to such light duties was probably about as likely as Hitler shaving off his moustache and joining the Mothers’ Union. But they were doing their best. She’d better do hers and make it as easy for Reg as she could. She took a deep breath.

‘Well, make sure you are,’ she said firmly. ‘Make sure when you put your hand in that bran tub, you pull out a lucky ticket.’

Reg put his arm round her shoulder and gave her a hug.

‘I’ll make sure it’s got my name on it.’

Lily leant her head against his. She hadn’t taken that much interest in The Desert War till now – what had been happening in Europe, in Norway, even in Russia, seemed that much closer and more real, somehow. Africa was – well, stupid to say it, but it was a foreign country – a foreign continent. She could see the shape of it … almost a heart-shape, ironically – with Egypt, held by the British, in the top right-hand corner, and next to it Libya, which had become the rope in a tug-of-war first between the British and the Italians, and now between the British and the Italians and Germans together. She wasn’t entirely sure how or why it had all started in that part of the world, or why getting hold of Libya and holding on to it was quite so vital. All that mattered now was that Reg was going out there, and soon.

‘What are you three up to?’ It was Dora, calling from the doorway. A thin beam of light lay like a bright bar on the blue bricks of the yard. ‘Come inside. I’m letting the cold in and the light out! I don’t know how you can see your hands in front of your faces! And you must be frozen!’

Lily suddenly realised that she was. Her teeth would have been chattering if her jaw hadn’t been clamped tightly shut for fear of saying – no, shouting – what she really felt. ‘Don’t, Reg! Don’t go – please, don’t go!’

But for goodness’ sake! If she felt like this about Reg, who was so self-contained, somehow, who she didn’t feel she knew as well or was as close to as Sid, her lovely Sid – what was she going to be like when he was posted? She dreaded to think how her mum would take it when Reg told her. And how on earth could Beryl be so calm when Les was likely to be posted abroad so soon?

‘Maybe she doesn’t realise he could be off straight away,’ reasoned Reg later, when she asked him the same question.

Tea was over and their mum had gone out to a Red Cross meeting – she’d upped her voluntary work now that even more younger women were being called up. Jim was out too. He was attached to a local ARP unit, and even though, thankfully, with Hitler occupied on other fronts, the threat of constant night-time bombing over England seemed to have gone away for now, he still had to patrol to give anyone not observing the blackout a good ticking-off.

The beastly blackout! At Marlow’s, they’d had to install double doors to stop any chink of light escaping as customers left in the dark winter afternoons. And at home, every night, every single night, the scratchy, stiff material had to be put up – and every single morning, taken down. Lily hated the way it made the house so stuffy and tomb-like, but most of all she hated herself for hating it. She’d have liked to be more noble, somehow, to rise above it. It was a small thing, after all, when you thought of what other people in other countries were suffering. Terrible things, persecution, starvation … but even so … it was the small things that so often got you down. The chilblains because coal was rationed; the bra strap that broke or sagged, and no chance of any elastic to replace it.

Reg was looking at her, waiting for a response.

‘Oh, I don’t know what Beryl thinks any more,’ she said. ‘When they announced they were getting married she went all soppy, and I remember thinking then that her brain had turned to mush. I thought it was just about the wedding, but maybe it’s being pregnant that does that to you.’

‘I wouldn’t know about any of that,’ shrugged Reg. ‘You’re asking the wrong bloke.’

Lily felt suddenly awkward. Reg had been courting before he joined the Army: he and his girl had been going steady for over a year. But when Reg had signed up, distance hadn’t made the heart grow fonder, it had just made things very difficult, and she was engaged now to someone else, who worked at the Town Hall and was in a reserved occupation.

‘Things are pretty sticky out there beyond Hinton, you know, Lil,’ said Reg gently. ‘They need blokes desperately. They can’t make any exemptions now, compassionate or otherwise. Or everybody’d be trying it on.’

‘No, I suppose they can’t,’ said Lily reluctantly. ‘But I don’t like to think of Beryl having the baby on her own.’

‘She won’t be on her own, will she?’ reasoned Reg. ‘There’s you and Mum and her mum-in-law … like I said, Lil, she’s not the only one, not by a long way.’

‘No, I know. But when it’s someone you really know, it’s different.’ Lily sighed. ‘There’s so many people I know around here or at the shop – their husbands and sons and brothers are away fighting. I thought I understood how awful it must be. But now, with you going – well, I don’t know how they stand it.’

‘Blimey, I haven’t even gone yet! Wait till Sid gets posted! Then what’ll you be like!’

‘Don’t!’ the word was out before she could stop herself, and Lily was embarrassed that for all her dismay on hearing Reg’s news, it was obvious that Sid’s eventual posting would affect her far more. She quickly backtracked. ‘Anyway, that’s not for ages. He’s not even nineteen yet.’

‘Listen,’ said Reg even more gently. ‘When I said things were a bit sticky, I wasn’t just saying it for effect. We’re in a mess, frankly. They can’t keep fit blokes in England square bashing and saluting all day. They’re sure to lower the age for sending blokes overseas.’

Lily gaped.

‘But – I don’t understand!’ she cried. ‘America’s in the war now! What about all their thousands of troops?’

‘Lily,’ said Reg patiently. ‘They’re still collecting their dead from Pearl Harbor. Well, not literally,’ he reassured her when she looked horrified. ‘But the Japs knocked out eighteen of their ships, for heaven’s sake. They’ve got to regroup, get organised. The Yanks aren’t going to come riding to our rescue tomorrow.’

That was that, then.

‘The Japs are ripping through the Far East like a dose of salts,’ Reg went on. ‘They’ve got their eye on India, you know. The Americans and the Aussies can’t do it all. So if we’ve got the blokes already trained up … I’m sorry, Lil, but there it is. It’s going to be every man jack of us soon.’

Lily got up – and wished she hadn’t. Her legs were shaking.

‘I’m going to make some cocoa,’ she said. Her voice was thin and weedy, even thinner than it had sounded in the cold air of the yard. ‘Do you want some?’

‘You bet! And let’s cheer ourselves up. See what’s on the wireless, eh?’ Reg leant forward to switch it on.

Their old set exploded into voice: it did that sometimes, catching you off guard. It was the evening service – the middle of a hymn.

‘Through many a day of darkness,’ sang the congregation,

‘Through many a scene of strife,

The faithful few fought bravely

To guard the nation’s life—’

‘Blimey,’ said Reg. ‘That’s all we need. Let’s find something brighter … Oi! Careful!’

Blundering out, Lily had knocked against the standard lamp. It wobbled crazily.

‘Sorry.’

She made her escape. In the scullery, she sat down on the hard wooden chair and pressed her knees together.

She was already losing Reg. In the next year she could lose, then, not just Sid, but Jim as well. He’d be turning eighteen, and would have to join up, and he wouldn’t be sorry about it, she knew. More and more these days he kept saying that selling reconditioned sideboards to the good ladies of Hinton wasn’t exactly a reserved occupation, and he felt increasingly guilty about it. She’d had time to get used to the idea that Jim would be called up, but she’d thought at least that he’d be in the country. There’d be letters, and he’d get regular leave, and for the first few months, maybe years, he’d be doing something menial, and relatively safe. But the thought that he might be sent overseas almost straight away, into the thick of the fighting … Jim? Really?

It would be the Army, for sure: he’d said that much. Jim, who she was used to seeing either in his work suit or in old flannels and a tatty shirt digging the veg bed, in a stiff khaki uniform. Jim, pushing his glasses up his nose as he wrote out price tickets at the shop, or did the crossword at home, instead shouldering a rifle, or on the march, or charging at someone with a bayonet. Jim, over six-foot tall, bent double inside a tank, loading shells. Jim under fire, or laying explosives to blow up a bridge, or defusing bombs. Jim broiling in the desert, sweating in the jungle, freezing somewhere in Eastern Europe … Jim, hungry, thirsty, exhausted; captured, injured, dead …

Lily found she was shuddering all over. And five minutes ago, all she’d had to worry about had been the blackout.

Chapter 4

When Jim came home, Lily was still up, and being soundly beaten by Reg at dominoes. She didn’t say anything to him about what Reg had told her, and next morning, after a restless night, what with her and Jim rushing to get to work, and Reg getting in the way of them having their breakfast, she didn’t say anything either, or any more to Reg.

But Reg caught her in the hall as she was putting on the ankle boots she couldn’t believe someone had actually been mad enough to give to the WVS jumble. All right, so the suede uppers were worn shiny, but they had a neat little cuff, a smart toggle fastening and a decent sole with only a couple of splits. But with a layer of cardboard inside, which mostly kept the wet out, they were at least warm.

‘Sorry if I worried you last night, Sis.’ The pleading look in his eyes intensified the apology. ‘But it’s no good being an ostrich, now, is it?’

‘No, you were quite right, Reg,’ Lily said firmly. ‘I need to face facts. It’s no good pretending.’

‘That’s what I think.’ Reg seemed relieved. ‘Just got to get on with it, haven’t we?’

Lily nodded. ‘I don’t envy you telling Mum about your posting, all the same.’

‘Oh, I expect she knows the score,’ said Reg. ‘You know what our mum’s like. She’s read your mind before you’ve even had the thought.’

Lily smiled. It was true that you couldn’t get much, if anything, past Dora.

‘At least it’s different for you – you’re years off call-up,’ Reg added consolingly. ‘Anyway, you’re far too valuable for Marlow’s to let you go!’

‘Definitely! Every time I put a boy’s sailor suit on the rail I feel I’m doing my bit!’

Laugh it off, that was the only way. ‘Keep smiling through’, as Vera Lynn had been singing last night, when Reg had finally found something cheerier to listen to.

‘Essential war work! Vital for morale!’ he assured her. ‘Now give us a kiss, ’cos I’ll be gone by the time you and Jim get back tonight.’

‘Bye, Reg,’ said Lily. She gave him not just a kiss, but a big tight hug as well. ‘Look after yourself.’

It was completely inadequate, of course, but it was what everyone said.

‘Will do. And make sure you write, once I’ve got an address.’

‘Of course I will. And you must tell us if you need anything.’

‘Well, it won’t be balaclavas,’ grinned Reg. ‘Though they say it gets cold at night, out under the stars and that big desert moon.’

‘Steady on,’ said Lily, ‘you’ll be writing poetry next!’

She was getting quite good at this ‘making light of it’ approach.

‘What, smoking a pipe and wearing a cravat? I don’t think so!’ countered Reg. He wasn’t so bad at it himself. ‘But it’s an adventure, eh – join the Army and see the world?’

Neither of them was really convinced, she could tell, and it rang even more hollow now she’d realised how soon ‘seeing the world’ might happen for Sid and Les – and for Jim too. Maybe ‘making light of it’ wasn’t the way forward after all.

Reg gave her another quick hug, then added, ‘Say hello to Gladys for me, won’t you?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

Gladys was her very best friend at Marlow’s. She was the other junior on Childrenswear and had generously shown Lily the ropes from her very first day. Reg had met her on the short leave he’d had in the autumn when Gladys had come to tea.

It was nice of Reg to remember Gladys, and she’d be touched, Lily knew. Shy, and to be honest rather plain, Gladys wasn’t someone who usually made much of an impression.

‘Are we going? Or is there an all-out strike I don’t know about?’

It was Jim: they needed to get moving, or they’d be in the late book!

They’d only reached the corner when Jim dropped his bombshell.

‘I’m leaving you here. I’m going in the other direction.’

‘What … why?’ queried Lily. ‘Is there an all-out strike that I don’t know about?’

‘I’m not going to work,’ he replied. ‘I’m going for a medical. An Army medical.’

Lily stared at him. After the realisation she’d had last night, this was too much.

‘But … already? Why? You’re not eighteen yet. Not for weeks.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I decided last week. Get the medical out of the way, then as soon as it’s my birthday, I’ll be ready to go.’

Lily swallowed hard, as best she could around the lump in her throat.

‘Hang on. You’ve done all this … without telling us?’

What she really meant was ‘without telling me’, but she could hardly say that.

‘Come off it, Lily. You’ve known it was coming. Anyway, I’m telling you now.’

‘I hate it when people say that! That’s no answer!’ Lily burst out. ‘And never mind me, what about Mum? Don’t you owe it to her to have said something? And why – why on earth didn’t you say anything last night? Reg gave you the chance – he fed you the line when he was talking about your call-up!’

Now she remembered the half-smile, the shrug, and the lack of a straight answer to Reg’s question. Now they spoke volumes.

‘Lily,’ said Jim evenly, ‘be fair. It was Reg’s first leave for ages, and his last for a good long while, from what he told us. Yesterday was about him being home with his family. I didn’t want to shove myself into that. And for goodness’ sake, it’s only a medical, there’s nothing to say till I pass!’

Lily looked at him, disbelieving. If he really thought that … and she’d thought they were friends! Didn’t friends share things? Jim looked straight back at her. Fine, thought Lily, if he wants a challenge … she certainly wasn’t going to be the first to look away – and she wasn’t.

‘I have to go,’ he said finally, unpeeling his eyes from hers. She’d won – but if there was ever a case of winning the battle but not the war, this was it. ‘You should too. Or you’ll be late.’

‘Thanks for your concern.’

Jim obviously noted the sarcasm but said nothing and took a step away. One step, but the first of many, perhaps.

‘I’ve cleared it with the staff office,’ he said calmly. ‘I’ve booked the whole day off. I don’t know how long it’ll take.’

‘No, well, you’ll want to be measured for your kit straight away, I expect, and put your name down for the most dangerous mission they’ve got,’ said Lily, seething at his forethought, furious that the typist in the staff office had known what she hadn’t. ‘Might as well get on with it, eh? The sooner you get issued with your bayonet and battledress the better.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘That’s another pointless and annoying thing people say!’

Because ‘like what’ exactly? How dare he presume to know what she was feeling? If he’d had any thought for her feelings at all, they wouldn’t be having this scene in the first place.

‘Lily,’ he spoke to her as if she were a child, ‘I’m going. There’s no talking to you in this mood.’

‘Well, what do you want me to say?’ Lily retorted childishly, then added, ‘Oh, I know. Of course. Good luck.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jim levelly. ‘See you tonight.’

And he was gone, straightening his glasses, pulling down his cuffs, tall and lanky in his threadbare overcoat. Oh, why had it come out like that? Angry and bitter and sullen, when what she really felt was … what was it? She felt betrayed – he’d betrayed their friendship, the closeness she’d thought they had. But more than that, she felt … bereft. And in a flash, she knew she felt for him far more than she’d properly feel for a friend.

Lily blinked – hard – and looked down at her feet. She could still see Jim walking away, but this time he was wearing an Army greatcoat and he was walking away down a crowded station platform to the troop train. She blinked again. Can’t cry, won’t cry, she thought, looking even more determinedly down. But the pavement was slimed with dirt from the melted snow, and her boots, which just a short while ago she’d been so proud of, looked shabby and pathetic, and she hated, hated this war.

Lily made it to work in time – just. She’d been there for six months now, but having a job, and a job at Marlow’s at that, was still enough of a novelty for her to feel a secret thrill every morning when she walked through the door, even at the staff entrance around the back, and even on a cold, dark Monday. Every morning – until this one.

It had never before seemed like dull routine, but it did today; clocking in with the timekeeper, taking off her outdoor things and stowing them in her locker in the clatter and din of the women’s cloakroom, always especially loud at the start of the week as everyone swapped stories of their precious Sunday off. Waiting her turn for the speckled mirror to check her appearance, brushing stray hairs and lint from her skirt, and hurrying along the long corridor past the goods lift and up the back stairs with the rest of the staff …

Even stepping through the double doors on to the sales floor didn’t give her heart its usual joyful lift. The store always looked so beautiful first thing, so pristine and tidy, with the faint strafe marks on the carpet from the cleaners’ vacuums, the counters gleaming and the goods deftly displayed. Though the heating was turned to its lowest setting, some of the overhead lights had had their bulbs removed – another Government order – and the stock on the rails was thin, the first floor at Marlow’s, in comparison with the increasing drabness of everything else in life, still looked impressive, glamorous, even.

She glanced automatically across to Furniture, as she usually did. Though they walked to work together and clocked in at the same time, Jim always beat her to the sales floor, because men never had to spend so long over their appearance, did they? Lily had seen it done enough times at home – a quick duck in the front of the mirror, smooth their hair, and that was it. It was a source of much envy to Lily. Even though she’d got much better at managing them for work, her strong-minded blonde curls still required a lot of handling and were the subject of many silent prayers – and curses.

She wouldn’t be the only one who’d miss Jim when he left, Lily thought. With his absence today, it had fallen to the new junior on Furniture to try to anchor a stand-up price card on the bilious green satin waves of an eiderdown. He was not making a very good job of it. He eventually gave up and propped it drunkenly against the headboard.

That was always one of the first jobs of the day, making the stock look its best. On Childrenswear, that meant taking the dust sheets and tissue-paper covers off the more delicate baby clothes, lifting every hanger and polishing the rails beneath. She’d better get to work.

Gladys was already there, brushing the velvet-collared coats – a mere seven (seven!) coupons, plus the marked price, a pretty steep one in this case. But at least when you shopped at Marlow’s you knew you were getting quality – or the best quality that was available these days. ‘Nothing but the best’ was the store’s motto – so if you bought a big enough size for your child, a Marlow’s garment would last and last. Anything else was a ‘false economy’. That, at least, was the sales pitch Lily had heard many a time from Miss Thomas and Miss Temple. They were the department’s two salesladies – or salesgirls, as they were called – absurd when they’d both been summoned out of retirement to replace younger staff who’d volunteered or been called up.

Lily mouthed a ‘hello’ to Gladys, found a duster, and started working her way around the rails. If she concentrated really hard, perhaps she could stop thinking about Jim and how he was getting on. She knew what he’d be going through from what Sid and Reg had told her about their medicals: breathing in and out under the cold disc of the stethoscope, sticking out your tongue and saying ‘Ahhh’, being quizzed about your bowels. She wondered if Jim knew what Reg had also told her last night, that once Jim had been trained, he might be sent abroad sooner than young men had been until now. But she knew he would. Jim wasn’t daft. No wonder he’d kept his decision to himself.