A Christmas Promise Read online

  ‘I can’t think of anything just now,’ Agnes answered, feeling a little shell-shocked.

  ‘Well, don’t think I’m going to wear myself out begging for something to do because I ain’t!’ Mrs Jackson said as she waited for the next course. ‘Unless you want me to dish up that roast pork?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Jackson,’ Agnes said sweetly. ‘We’ll have the next course when we are all ready.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve got any room for more,’ said the youngest of the Jackson girls.

  Mrs Jackson leaned over and said directly, ‘You’ll eat what’s put down to you – even though it could have done with more seasoning –’ she looked around the table – ‘and have to eat with the enemy.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Tilly and Janet embarked on a nameless ship, not even knowing where they were heading, though they guessed it must be somewhere exciting as American forces arrived on board with the same destination code on their kitbags as they had on theirs.

  ‘I hope you girls like Naples,’ said one of the friendly, if somewhat loud and enthusiastic, Yanks, dumping his kitbag on the deck of the ship. The sound of his voice made Tilly’s heart ache a little more as it reminded her of Drew. She couldn’t go or do anything without his voice or his face popping into her head, and she longed now to tell him that she was sorry she hadn’t tried harder to get in touch with him. But she didn’t know he had been hurt.

  How could fate be so cruel? Yesterday, she had everything to look forward to: Christmas with her mother, who had just become engaged to a wonderful man …

  Sitting down heavily at an empty table in the mess, and lowering her head, Tilly thought that nothing could take away this gnawing ache from her heart, and she wondered when this hurt would ever end. But, as the miles between home and wherever lengthened, her black mood began to recede.

  She shouldn’t have left the farm so quickly, and especially without saying goodbye to her mum. That was unforgivable. Mum would have kept Drew’s mail only to save her from getting hurt. Tilly knew that now because Janet had drummed it into her all the way back to London and all the way here. She promised herself she would write a letter to her mum, to straighten things out – when she felt the time was right.

  But what she couldn’t understand was why her mother had never told her that Drew was in London. She couldn’t make sense of that at all.

  Oh, Drew, Tilly cried silently, I miss you so, so much.

  ‘Sitting on your lonesome, doll?’ An American voice broke through her thoughts, although Tilly did not raise her head, as a constricting lump in her throat prevented any form of conversation, long or short. She wasn’t in the mood to be chatted up by lonely servicemen. She wished he would just go away and leave her alone.

  ‘I can’t see anybody else here, can you?’ She hadn’t meant to snap but he had no intention of moving, by the looks of it. She was in no mood for company, and as Janet brought them each a cup of tea, Tilly heard, rather than saw, the American move away from the table.

  ‘Naples!’ Janet’s eyes lit up, unaware Tilly had just been so rude to a complete stranger. ‘We could have a marvellous time there when we are off duty. We’re due to dock about Valentine’s Day. We could go sight-seeing!’

  But they were disappointed when another American said in a low drawl, ‘It ain’t nothin’ like the way you remember it.’

  ‘I ain’t never bin.’ Janet couldn’t help herself when she imitated his accent perfectly. ‘So it don’t really matter.’ She batted her eyelashes coquettishly. ‘So I don’t have a clue what it was like in the first place – wouldn’t ya know?’ And then she burst into that raucous laugh that usually turned heads in a crowded room, causing the American servicemen to laugh out loud, too. As a ghost of a smile crossed Tilly’s lips, thawing her cold resentment, she knew that she had to try to put Drew to the back of her mind. There were hundreds of thousands – no, millions – of women who were separated from their sweethearts, husbands and menfolk. What made her so special? She had to do her duty to her country and she had to carry on.

  ‘Six weeks!’ Tilly said eventually after Janet had finished being wooed by the Yank. ‘Is that how long it’s going to take for us to get to Italy?’

  ‘No, you Pippin.’ Janet, smiling, looked over Tilly’s shoulder, giving her new American friend the glad-eye. ‘We have to stop at other ports, to drop off and pick up – usually soldiers and supplies – so we might as well settle down for the duration, and as soon as we get close to anywhere hot, I’m going on the top deck to get a bit of sun on this milky-coloured flesh.’

  ‘You won’t be allowed,’ Tilly said in alarm, imagining her friend being marched off to jankers with a gun in her back – or worse, being made to walk the plank! ‘I heard one of the officers telling some of the other girls the top deck was out of bounds to females,’ Tilly insisted, thinking Janet was the most bull-headed girl she had ever met when she put her mind to it.

  ‘Oh, did he? Well we’ll soon see about that,’ said Janet in her usual rumbustious way. Tilly laughed, not knowing what her friend had in mind and caring even less. Janet was a grown woman who could look out for herself. ‘Don’t expect me to get you out of hot water,’ Tilly said, knowing invariably that she would.

  ‘How do you think Veronica and Pru are getting on in the Isle of Wight?’ Janet said, stretching her legs and closing her eyes, her arms folded across the khaki jacket of her ATS uniform and looking rather comfy.

  ‘Well, they’ll probably be the same colour when we next see them – unlike us,’ Tilly laughed as the hungry gulls screeched overhead and the smell of the sea filled her nose. ‘I can’t wait to get a tan. It’ll save putting cold tea on the old legs.’

  ‘I usually go all freckly, like I’ve been sunbathing under a camouflage net,’ said Janet, and then she laughed. ‘My ma always used to say, when I had my nose stuck in a book, “Janet, get your face out there and get those freckles joined up.” She’s a card, my ma; you’d love her.’

  ‘I feel as if I know her already,’ Tilly laughed, regretting more than ever the argument with her own mother.

  ‘When we go back to blighty, I’ll take you to our ’ouse in Seaforth. We’ll go to St Jimmy’s dance on the Saturday night; you’ll love it. There’s a fella there called Red Flynn; he’s had his eye on me for years.’

  ‘Why do they call him Red?’ Tilly asked, dreamily thinking of the last dance she’d been to. ‘Has he got rusty hair like you?’

  ‘No,’ Janet answered in a tone that suggested Tilly was not firing on all cylinders just now. ‘He supports Everton football team!’

  ‘But I thought Everton played in …’

  ‘Blue – yeah, you’re right,’ Janet answered, anticipating Tilly’s comment, ‘but his mates called him Red to wind him up, and it stuck.’ She gave a delicious little shiver. ‘You want to see him on the dance floor, Tilly. He moves like Fred Astaire, he’s gorgeous … Merchant Navy … He promised me a fur coat, once …’

  ‘Just the once?’ Tilly laughed, and very soon, as their chatter continued, thoughts of Drew were locked away in that special place in her heart once more.

  ‘Scharnhorst has been sunk! Nearly two thousand lives lost.’

  Suddenly their jovial banter was brought to a halt.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Janet said under her breath. There was no cheering or jubilant hand waving at the sinking of the German battleship; instead, there was a silent regret; acceptance that it could be their turn next.

  Sally still remembered how awkward and excited she had felt when Morag had first introduced her to her elder brother, Callum, with his dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Callum still looked as handsome as any film star, even more so now, in his Royal Navy uniform. His smile made her insides quiver with delight.

  ‘Hello, Sally, it’s wonderful to see you again.’ Callum put his arm around her in his open, amiable way, which always caused little ricochets of delight to course through her body, even on the very rare occasions when sh
e was angry with him.

  ‘How long have you got?’ Sally asked. They had agreed to meet here when he last wrote, and Sally had been looking forward to his ship docking in Liverpool all over Christmas. She had volunteered for Christmas Day duty so she could have the rest of the time off while Callum was on leave.

  ‘I have twenty-four hours’ leave before I have to join the ship,’ he said, love shining from his beautiful eyes, ‘if you want to go somewhere after we’ve paid our respects?’ There was something so touchingly unassuming in Callum’s expression.

  ‘Of course.’

  Callum had come to pay his own respects to Morag and Sally’s father’s memory.

  Sally acknowledged now that her own mother would have been so happy her husband had been able to find somebody to share the last years of his life, because she loved him so much.

  Their love had not been a selfish one – Sally knew that now – it was a mutual sharing of adoration, and their hearts were big enough to allow more loving unity to grow. In the sharing of her father and her best friend’s love, Sally had been given the one most precious of gifts in her half-sister, Alice, whose picture she now placed upon the marbled headstone.

  ‘She is so like her mother, now,’ Callum said, and when Sally smiled, agreeing with him, his shoulders relaxed as if he had been standing stiffly to attention, and the strain that had momentarily creased the golden skin around his eyes disappeared.

  ‘She has a beautiful nature, like her mother, too,’ Sally whispered, her heart full, ‘so gentle and caring … everybody loves her.’

  ‘I’ll leave you alone for a while,’ Callum said, resting his hand on her arm momentarily with the lightest touch. ‘I’ll meet you at the gates – or where the gates used to be before they were taken for salvage – if that’s OK?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sally was grateful for the short time she had to ‘tell’ her loved ones she was sorry. Sorry for being so bull-headed that she had missed out on her friend and her father’s last days; sorry she had missed Alice’s first year and in doing so had ignored the love that had created her. And as she stood gently whispering her words of regret, two little peach-faced birds landed on the headstone. At first, Sally thought they were budgerigars until she saw their little parrot-like beaks but when she looked closely, she realised they were lovebirds. It was then she knew she had been forgiven. She had laid the past to rest.

  ‘Shall we go somewhere to eat?’ Callum asked, as Sally neared the gateway where he was leaning on the sandstone pillar waiting for her, and as he straightened up he put his hand in his pocket and looped his arm for her to link up with him. In doing so, she made a commitment to herself, realising that she had wasted enough time on feelings of bitterness as she threaded her hand through his arm.

  ‘I’d love to go somewhere to eat,’ Sally said, knowing that she and Callum were the only two people that mattered today.

  ‘You can’t let her get away with it!’ Olive announced when, once again, Agnes had been run ragged around Mrs Jackson, pandering to her every whim. ‘The woman is an expert manipulator – I’ve never seen such clever exploitation in my life!’

  Archie and David, along with the rest of the party, were relaxing. Carlo had blindfolded Barney and they were now playing Pin the Moustache on Hitler, which was much like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but much more fun.

  ‘But what am I supposed to do, Olive? She’s been bombed out and their home is damaged,’ Agnes said, having taken Ted’s mother and her two daughters hot cocoa in bed as they were too tired to come downstairs. ‘She’s in shock.’

  ‘Who told you she’s been bombed out?’ asked Olive, who had received a full report of London damage when Archie got back after dropping Tilly at Whitehall. ‘If you’re talking about the Guinness Buildings, I think you mean then they haven’t been touched – by bombs or anything else. Archie went round to have a look and see if there was anything he could salvage for Mrs Jackson.’ Olive knew Ted’s mother had no time for Agnes when her son was alive, terrified that he would leave home and she would have to join the millions of other hard-working women, and get a job to support her family.

  ‘Why hasn’t Marie got a job? She’s fifteen, and should have been doing something to earn a crust since last year!’ Dulcie added in a whisper. She didn’t like the way poor Agnes was being treated either.

  ‘Mrs Jackson said she was having trouble with her chest and was too fragile to work.’

  ‘My eye she’s too fragile,’ Dulcie retorted, ‘I saw her chasing after Barney with all the energy she could muster as I came through those gates there, and that mother of hers was having a fine old time sitting under the tree sipping tea, which I assume you made?’

  Agnes nodded. She was glad that Ted’s mother had slipped out of the house for a while; as well as getting some colour in her cheeks it stopped her getting under Agnes’s feet.

  ‘Well, you can tell her, Agnes,’ said Dulcie, ‘or I could have a word, if that’s what you would prefer? But, darling, there is no such thing as free board and lodging.’ Dulcie looked pained now. ‘Has she even given you her ration books?’

  Agnes shook her head; she hadn’t given it a thought, as all their food came off the farm and there weren’t as many shortages in the countryside as there were in the city. Anyway, Mrs Jackson had been here only a couple of days.

  ‘And days turn into weeks turn into months – I gave you our ration books as soon as I got here; it’s what you do. Sally has to give her ration book in at the hospital when she’s going to be eating and sleeping there – nobody gets away with it –nobody! I thought as much,’ said Olive, puffing up her chest like a canary going into battle.

  ‘Maybe we could leave it for now, Olive,’ Agnes smiled, and watched Olive relax. ‘She must be so worried about her home and her family.’

  ‘By the looks of it,’ said Dulcie, ‘Mrs Jackson has taken a wily advantage of you, Agnes, my girl.’

  ‘She could teach a fox a thing or two,’ Olive said. Then, in more gentle tones: ‘Agnes, darling, you have a business to run. You have to do your bit to keep this country going – this is not a holiday camp and you cannot carry passengers. Look at the Darnleys: they were getting rich while your farm was given only a “C” grading because it wasn’t producing.’

  ‘The War Ag. could take my farm any time they like,’ Agnes said as the enormity of the situation dawned.

  ‘But that will change now you have good workers and no hangers-on, but you don’t need Mrs Jackson and her girls eating you out of house and home and not pulling their weight.’

  Then, Dulcie added firmly, hands on hips, ‘So if she has to stay, Agnes, you have to put her straight. She works or she goes, it is as simple as that!’

  ‘I asked her if she’d consider helping us lift the last of the sugar beet but she wasn’t having any of that,’ said Agnes, realising at last that the other two women were talking sense.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Dulcie said as if it had been her idea to evict Mrs Jackson all along.

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ Agnes decided. She had to make a go of this place, otherwise it would be commandeered and a more experienced farmer installed – and as it was the first place she could ever call her own she wasn’t going to lose it because of Ted’s mother. Agnes gave herself a good talking to – what was she thinking, running around after that dragon? Ted’s mother couldn’t have cared less about her when her son was alive. The woman was a scrounging menace!

  The following morning, Agnes had her chance when she caught Mrs Jackson carrying a home-made bun-loaf and some butter up to the girls, who had not yet surfaced. It was ten o’clock, and Agnes had been up since four thirty to milk the cows, check on the sheep and bake bread for lunch. Suddenly, she could truly see Mrs Jackson for what she really was: a work-shy cadger who would live while others starved.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Jackson, I was wondering,’ Agnes began, as Ted’s mother was halfway up the stairs, doubtless not to be seen again until lunchtime, ‘could you come down
here so I can have word, please?’

  ‘A word?’ Mrs Jackson’s long nose wrinkled. ‘What kind of a word?’ She half turned on the stairs but made no attempt to come down.

  ‘It would be much better if we could talk in private,’ Agnes said in a low voice, not wanting to embarrass the older woman.

  ‘What d’you mean, in private – if you’ve got anything to say, you can just spit it out.’ She had the same haughty expression Agnes remembered from when she first met the woman.

  ‘Well, if it’s all the same with you, I need your ration books.’

  ‘My ration books? What d’you want them for? You don’t go to no shops!’

  ‘I do have to buy supplies, though, and if you don’t have Wellington boots for yourself and the girls, your shoes will very quickly wear out and you will not be able to buy any more.’

  ‘I ain’t wearing no Wellington boots,’ said Mrs Jackson. ‘What do you think I am, some kind of peasant?’

  ‘It is for your own good, Mrs Jackson. Olive and Dulcie surrendered their ration books as soon as they got here.’

  ‘Surrendered, did they?’ Mrs Jackson gave a self-satisfied nod. ‘I thought as much. We’ll be expected to pull the ploughs next …’

  ‘We all have to do our bit, Mrs Jackson. Even young Barney is up before the crack of dawn to help out feeding the pigs and the chickens.’

  ‘I ain’t feeding no chickens – squawking flea-bags!’

  ‘They supply your breakfast, Mrs Jackson, the least we can do is feed them and keep them warm and secure.’ It was the least anybody could expect in return for the hard work they did. ‘And the pigsty needs to be cleaned out, too, if Marie or—’

  ‘You want my Marie to clean a bleedin’ pigsty with her chest?’

  ‘I’d prefer it if she uses hot water and a mop, Mrs Jackson.’ Agnes tried so hard to keep a straight face and managed only a stilted grin.

  ‘I have never been so insulted in all my life!’