A Christmas Promise Read online

  ‘He’s in wonderful shape now after they gave him that penicillin,’ Sally answered, pouring tea. ‘He’s shore-based in Portsmouth until the doctor says he can go back on board.’

  ‘That’s nice for him,’ Dulcie said. ‘What’s penicillin, then?’

  ‘It’s a fungus and it has miraculous effects on infection. You wouldn’t believe the thousands of servicemen who have been saved because of it – and if the boffins can manage to make enough of it then it could go to the general public.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Dulcie, her eyes wide, ‘if it had been around when David was injured he might still have his legs.’

  ‘That is a possibility, Dulcie. It’s being hailed as a miracle cure-all – and we are seeing the results within days of it being administered.’ Sally put her hand to her mouth and tried to suppress a yawn but it didn’t work.

  ‘I must say, though, Sal,’ Dulcie sounded concerned, ‘your eyes look like buttonholes. You look dead on your feet.’

  ‘If you don’t mind I’ll just take this tea upstairs,’ Sally said, her voice groggy after a busy night and even busier morning after a bomb went off on the debris of a bomb site where, nearby, munitions workers were playing football on the makeshift pitch. But sleep wasn’t the only thing on her mind right now: there was Callum’s letter, of course.

  ‘You go up, love – what time shall I call you?’

  ‘I’m not on duty tonight, Olive, so I may sleep the clock around.’ Sally made a good stab at being upbeat. ‘If I look miserable it’s because I just haven’t got the strength to put an expression on my face …’ She laughed, and moments later she was gone.

  As her dry, gritty eyes tried to focus on the words that Callum had written, Sally could feel her eyelids growing heavy and she decided to close them, for just one moment so she could clear them and see the beautifully written words more clearly …

  Olive settled herself down for the evening after putting Alice to bed. Sally was fast asleep and Barney was up in the room Olive now thought of as his own so, as she’d got a new accumulator for the wireless, she was looking forward to listening to Tommy Handley. But before then, she had time to wash her hair with that new shampoo Dulcie had brought this afternoon. She needed something to cheer herself up and take her mind off the gnawing guilt that was snarling her insides. The leaden feeling was even encroaching on her sleep of late: her worry that Tilly might have been happier with Drew. Not only that, her only daughter may even have stayed at St Barts, working in the Lady Almoner’s office. Olive sighed, thinking Tilly might have been promoted to Lady Almoner herself. Who knew what could happen in these strange times when promotions were given out all the time, and Tilly certainly had the brains to go far.

  But it was no use worrying about what might have been. If she was taking that route she might have wondered why Archie hadn’t been calling as often for his late night cocoa and their usual catch-up on anything and everything. There was no use worrying about what didn’t happen, though, Olive mused, as she went to the kitchen and took from the cupboard the small bottle of shampoo that Dulcie had brought this afternoon.

  Olive marvelled at Dulcie’s ability to be able to purchase a whole bottle of shampoo. Usually, Olive washed her hair with green soap, which had no perfume. Olive smiled as she opened the bottle and inhaled the floral fragrance of the shampoo. This was the real stuff and not some make-do concoction that had been mixed in secret and sold for five times the normal price.

  She poured hot water from the boiling kettle into an enamel bowl and topped it up with cold water from the tap, then took the galvanised jug from the cupboard. Humming a song from the Deanna Durbin film she had seen earlier in the week, she decided that she would be daring, go the whole hog and have a facial, too.

  Dulcie had told her this afternoon that women were expected to keep themselves nice.

  ‘It’s our duty, Olive – I read it in Woman’s Own – we have a duty to our country to keep up the morale of our menfolk … And did you know hairdressing is a reserved occupation? That’s to keep the spirits of the women up while the men get on with it,’ Dulcie had said, and, remembering, Olive smiled again. Not a vain woman, she still liked to keep herself neat and tidy. She recalled Dulcie saying that the white of an egg, smeared onto the face and allowed to dry, pulled out any little lines that may be creeping in around the mouth or forehead.

  At the time, Olive had said if there were any eggs going spare, they would be given to the neighbours. However, she had been in the doldrums since Tilly had gone back after her birthday nearly three months ago … And she was desperately in need of something to cheer her up since Archie had stopped calling in … What harm could it do? She would give up her own boiled egg for tomorrow’s breakfast …

  After shampooing her hair and wrapping it turban-style in a towel, Olive proceeded to crack an egg and poured the white gloopy insides into a small basin, keeping the yellow in a handy cup and covering it with a saucer; she would use the yolk in a pancake tomorrow. However, knowing the egg would be put to good use didn’t prevent the little voice inside her head telling her that wasting good food caused the deaths of many sailors.

  ‘I will go without an egg for a week,’ Olive said, knowing most people were rationed to one egg a week anyway. ‘Surely I can do as I please with my ration?’ she told her reflection in the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece. But as she smeared the egg white onto her skin, Olive knew the joy had been taken from the beauty treatment and she felt a little foolish. She decided against the oatmeal and honey face mask that would make her complexion glow – she only had to remember how she had wasted an egg to bring a blush to her cheeks.

  And what in heaven’s name made her think she could ever look as desirable and modern as Dulcie? She had the money and the high-flying husband to help her. Annoyed with herself, Olive took strands of hair and brutally twisted them around her index finger before flattening the pin curls to her scalp with much treasured hairgrips. After she completed her rows of flat curls, she went out to the kitchen where she intended to sluice off the dried, crisp egg white with cold water …

  It was late when Archie got back. Article Row was deserted and in darkness, due to the blackout. He had left the squad car back at the station for night patrol and made his way from the station on foot. Walking past his own house now, he could smell the freezing smog descending and knew it was going to be a busy night, especially for the ambulance brigade, who would be called out to accidents in the thick fog.

  He had done Olive a massive discourtesy believing that she would ever do anything that was not straight up and above board. She wasn’t that kind of a woman. He was certain of that now and hated himself for ever doubting her. The last weeks had been more miserable than any he could ever remember – almost as bad as losing his first wife.

  Of course Olive wouldn’t have anything to do with the black market! It had taken every inch of coaxing to persuade her to accept the tray of eggs sent from Agnes’s father last Christmas.

  His thoughts raced along like a late locomotive as he put his hand on the gate of number 13. He knew what he had to do now. He had to go and apologise to Olive for neglecting their friendship because of some imagined transgression she didn’t even know about .

  Of course she wouldn’t accept stolen goods – he knew that now – and if he was honest he’d doubted it even when he thought he’d heard the proof for himself. He had no idea of the time but realised it must be late, much later than he had intended to call. Maybe it was too late to knock now. Olive might be in bed. He might wake the children. But he would have to come clean and apologise. Maybe it would be better to do it tomorrow. He didn’t want to disturb Olive tonight. She would be settled by now.

  Taking his hand off the latch, Archie turned from Olive’s gate and, head down, he made the lonely journey back to his cold, dark house. He would explain everything tomorrow.

  When Sally opened her eyes again, the room was freezing cold and she shivered in the half-light, sti
ll clutching Callum’s letter tightly to her chest. She scrambled to retrieve her woollen dressing gown as the cold seeped into her stiff bones. Quickly clambering into the equally cold confines of her dressing gown, Sally tried to contain the teeth-chattering shivering that was making the bed shake. She must have nodded off, she thought blearily; it was almost night-time.

  Her throat was dry as she blinked in the gloom, just able to make out the shape of the wardrobe and the dressing table where all of Callum’s letters were now piled. She was glad they were back on speaking terms, knowing that he had suffered just as much as she had. Of course he had! Callum had lost his sister and there was nobody he could confide in, nobody who knew her as he did – except herself. And she was too full of her own misery to let him in or to give him support and comfort in his hours of need. She was more ready to help a stranger than she had been to help the man who at one time she imagined would be the only man she would ever love. When George died, she had cut Callum off without a word because her guilt would not let her continue communicating with a man she had once felt she was in love with and who still made her feel as if she was the only person in the room when he was talking to her.

  Her toes made figure-of-eight patterns on the icy linoleum under the bed as she searched for her slippers, and when she found one she hooked it onto her foot. The icy inner sole of the slipper felt wet, it was so cold, and Sally shivered as she stood up, knowing her feet would soon get used to the inside of the slippers if she moved around. She was dying for a cup of tea and to greet little Alice. She hadn’t seen Alice for two days; the child would think she had left her too.

  As she went through the hall into the kitchen she could see Olive beavering away at the stove. The kettle was boiling and Sally thought she could smell toast.

  ‘Ah, you’re up,’ said Olive, standing at the stove, her hair covered with a turbaned scarf beneath which was a head full of pin curls. ‘I didn’t want to call you as you were so exhausted yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’ Sally’s eyes widened, especially when she realised she had slept right through in her uniform. ‘I thought I’d only dozed off for a moment or two.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you go for nights on end without rest – your body shuts down, you can’t concentrate, you can’t cope with everyday things.’

  ‘I feel awful,’ Sally said, putting her hand to her aching head, ‘and I certainly don’t feel as if I’ve had a full night’s sleep.’

  ‘Your body will tell you what you need, not the clock,’ Olive smiled, as Sally sat at the table and she handed her a cup of hot tea. ‘You must be starving. You didn’t eat yesterday, and when I went up to check you were well away. I did cover you up but …’

  ‘The cover must have slipped off during the night. I woke up dithering.’

  ‘You must have slipped into a very heavy sleep not to feel that cold last night. The fog seemed to seep through every crack. I went around stuffing newspaper under the doors and around the windows. It looks like we’ll have a hard winter this year.’

  ‘It’s been a hard winter every year since this war began, and with rationing on there’s nothing you can buy to cheer it up.’

  ‘Here, we’ll have none of that defeatist talk. Drink your tea and get some toast down you, Sal. It’ll make you feel much better.’

  ‘Is it all right if I have a bath after breakfast, Olive?’ Sally asked, feeling grubby after sleeping in her clothes all night.

  ‘Of course it is. There should still be enough hot water – the fire was going all day yesterday.’ Although how long that was going to carry on for Olive didn’t know, as the news came through that coal was at its lowest level since the beginning of the war.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be in the bath that long; it’s too cold and we’re only supposed to use three inches of water. I’ll be more cold than hot!’ Sally began to feel a bit better as the hot tea worked its magic and the toast made her realise she hadn’t eaten for nearly two days.

  ‘Are you at the hospital today?’ Olive asked, taking her seat opposite Sally.

  ‘No, I’m on duty tonight,’ she sighed. ‘You are so good, looking after Alice for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Olive.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, Sally, but the raids have been gradually increasing again of late. Don’t you think it would be safer if Alice was evacuated to the countryside?’ ‘I’m sure it would be, Olive, but I can’t bear the thought of her being so far away, being brought up by strangers – what if they didn’t look after her properly? She’s been through so much already.’ And what would Callum say about his only sister’s daughter being farmed out to strangers?

  ‘Callum, above any of us, knows the dangers of another raid,’ Olive said gently, reading Sally’s thoughts and knowing it was difficult for Sally to let her half-sister go after losing her own mother and father. ‘Alice will be safer away from here. She was lucky before – she might not be next time.’

  FOURTEEN

  The dirty hearth, full of grey, fallen ash that had not been brushed away was the first thing that caught Agnes’s attention on entering the still richly furnished room her father had once occupied, and the shock of seeing the room in such filthy disarray was evident in her low gasp. It was almost the same sound as the one she made on her first visit, but for very different reasons. She was sure her father would not have allowed this room, the one he had occupied with her mother all those years ago, to fall into such a disgusting state of grubby disorder.

  ‘You must be out of your tiny mind if you think I ’ave no rights to this farm,’ Darnley, her father’s old retainer, said when Agnes told him she had come to take over. ‘You city folk can get proof of anything at any time – I knows the drill,’ he said, scratching the bristles on his chin, ‘and you can’t fool me. I’ve lived in the country all my life; you can’t just walk in ’ere an’ take over. It don’t work like that.’ Agnes had to lean forward and concentrate to understand Old Darnley’s broad accent.

  Beside him, his son leaned on his crutches, his eyes menacing as they bore into her, missing nothing in her demeanour.

  ‘I told you, Mr Darnley,’ Agnes replied, shifting nervously now, ‘I have come to work on the farm – I have a right—’

  ‘Every Tom, Dick and Henrietta thinks they’ve got a right to work on a farm these days, my girl, but I’s got to tell you – I’ll be the judge of whether you stay or not.’

  The highly polished furniture was covered in a veneer of dust and the rich oxblood colour of the high-winged chair, where her father had sat, was now hidden beneath a patina of grime. The dull grate, which had looked welcoming before – when the high-banked fireplace had been alive with brilliant flames – was now dying.

  She had once thought of it as the kind of room a gentleman would use, but now it looked like it was used for the pigs to live in. The room wasn’t warm but it did feel as if it was closing in on her somehow.

  ‘I’ll be outside if you need me,’ said young Darnley, taking himself and his scowling face out of her sight.

  ‘Do you mind if I open the window?’ Agnes said, forcing the small bay windows outward. Darnley, whose nose almost met his chin and whose legs were so bowed they could not stop a pig on the run, gave a low grunt as he shuffled over to the mantelshelf, where he took a pipe from the rack and began to fill it with tobacco from the pouch in his waistcoat pocket. Agnes wondered if the pipe had belonged to her father.

  ‘You’ll mind your manners,’ Darnley said in a low growl, ‘War Ag. or no!’ He obviously was still thinking she had come from London, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, which had been set up just before the war to ensure that prices and produce were regulated and that supplies could be guaranteed. Darnley was getting riled now, Agnes could tell. By the looks of it he didn’t like the authorities coming around poking their noses in. She wondered why. But no matter how annoyed he got she was going to take her place at her father’s farm whether he liked it or not!

  He pulled
at the muffler wrapped around his throat. Agnes realised that it had probably seen better days – in fact the whole place looked like that. Agnes knew he hadn’t recognised her, and as he lit the pipe, his head bent and his eyes suspiciously raised to meet hers, he looked every inch like a man who was in charge and meant to make that clear.

  He had been away when she’d arrived, but his son had not hesitated to let her know that she would be on the train to London as soon as his father got back.

  ‘Is there something I can ’elp you with?’ Darnley asked as he took her father’s seat by the fire. Agnes felt the sudden rise of silent outrage, especially when he added, ‘I’s a busy man an’ ’ave a lot to do, so tell me what you want and make it fast.’

  ‘I don’t think I can make it fast, Mr Darnley,’ said Agnes, ‘but first of all I would like to know who is running this place now.’

  ‘You’re from the War Ag., you should know who runs it!’ Darnley’s reply confirmed Agnes’s suspicions. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Agnes said firmly. ‘Who runs this place?’

  ‘Why, my younger son do, o’ course. I’m too old … and the other son’s a war hero, home to rehuperate after ’avin’ his big toe blown off in a grenade attac—’

  ‘Old man!’ Young Darnley’s voice was so loud it stopped his father in the midst of his satisfied explanation, and Agnes turned to see him standing in the doorway. ‘You know what they say about careless talk … think on. And the word you are lookin’ for, Da, is “recuperate” – not “rehuperate”!’ Then, turning to Agnes, he said pleasantly, ‘Is there anything we can do to help you, miss?’ Agnes was surprised by his sudden change of tone towards her.

  ‘I thought you were from the army,’ said young Darnley, which, Agnes surmised, was the reason he was being polite now. He had suspected she might be ‘official’ and now he thought she had come for a job! But she wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

  ‘Can you tell me if there is running water?’ Agnes said, ignoring the younger man now.