Home for Christmas Read online

  ‘Our first Christmas dinner together,’ George smiled. ‘But most definitely not our last.’

  Outside Selfridges, as the staff leaving streamed round them in the gloom of the late December afternoon, Dulcie quickly found Wilder. He was wearing his leather flying jacket with its American Eagle badge, a white silk scarf thrown nonchalantly round his neck. It was no wonder that other girls were pausing to give him a second look. Dulcie felt very pleased with herself because he was waiting for her. Not that she intended to let him know that she’d noticed those admiring looks.

  Instead she greeted him with a frown and demanded, ‘What’s that?’ as she looked at the square box Wilder was holding in its bright red and silver Christmas wrapping paper, tied with a matching red and silver ribbon. Both the paper and the ribbon were new and expensive, suggesting to Dulcie that they and the gift inside the box must have come from America, since paper and ribbon were luxuries hard to find in London. Earlier in the week she had watched Olive carefully ironing the paper she had saved from last Christmas, and now although she wasn’t going to let Wilder see it, she felt a thrill of satisfaction at knowing that what she guessed must be her present looked so very obviously smart and professionally wrapped.

  ‘It’s for you,’ Wilder informed her, handing the box over to her.

  ‘I can’t open it until after midnight. It won’t be Christmas until then,’ Dulcie told him.

  ‘I’ll just have to take my thank you kiss before you open it, in that case,’ he responded boldly.

  Again a small thrill ran through her body, but this time it was the kind that came from the excitement of doing something that you knew was dangerous.

  Tossing her head she demanded, ‘Who says that it deserves a kiss?’

  ‘Of course it does. I wouldn’t give a girl something that didn’t.’

  ‘A girl’, not ‘my girl’, Dulcie noted.

  ‘And I don’t give kisses to men just because they give me a present,’ Dulcie responded, but she kept a firm hold of the box as she did so.

  ‘Tell me again where we’re going?’ Wilder demanded

  ‘To a Christmas party at our local church hall,’ Dulcie reminded him. ‘Then you’re staying overnight with Drew at Ian Simpson’s, and then you’re having Christmas dinner with us at number thirteen tomorrow.’

  ‘Come on, open it,’ Wilder tried to persuade her.

  ‘Not until after midnight,’ Dulcie refused. ‘Look, there’s our bus. Hurry up otherwise we’ll miss it.’

  The children had played Pass the Parcel, and dived into the bran tub to retrieve the small stocking fillers provided and wrapped up by Olive and the other WVS workers. Soon it would be time for the buffet and then the grown-up dancing, but first Father Christmas had to arrive.

  Now they were watching and waiting, wide-eyed with excitement, Agnes delighting in the relaxed happiness she could see in Ted’s sisters’ faces. With their mother’s attention occupied by Olive, Agnes had finally had a chance to get to know the two girls and now they were smiling happily at her and chattering away nineteen to the dozen.

  In the room off the kitchen, Tilly and Dulcie were in fits of giggles over Drew’s struggles with his cotton wool Father Christmas full beard. Wilder, who had been co-opted in to help manoeuvre the heavy parcel-laden sledge, stood to one side with his arms folded, looking irritated and bored.

  ‘Come on, it’s time to go, otherwise we’re gonna have those kids making a mass attack on us in here,’ Wilder announced, his patience finally running out. Unfolding his arms he leaned down to push the sledge from behind.

  The sledge started to move. Tilly ran to open the door, a signal to the vicar to clap his hands and demand silence from the children for the arrival of Father Christmas.

  The sight of the awed expressions on the faces of the children young enough still to believe in Father Christmas brought a lump to Tilly’s throat and filled her with pride that it was Drew – her Drew – who had volunteered for the role.

  ‘Look,’ one little voice piped up, ‘Father Christmas has got a sleigh.’

  ‘That’s not a sleigh, it’s a sledge, innit, and he ain’t got no reindeer, has he?’ an older boy replied cynically.

  But it didn’t matter, and neither did the absence of the reindeer. The children who had been hanging back surged forward en masse when Drew kneeled down beside the sledge and reached for the first present.

  ‘Jimmy Smithers. Is there a Jimmy Smithers here?’ he called in a deep Father Christmas voice.

  As luck would have it, it was the older boy who had made the cynical comment who stepped forward, his face a picture: a mixture of disbelieve, wariness and hope.

  The WVS ladies had carefully written down a list of all the children who were expected to attend the party several weeks earlier; in the main, children who had been evacuated but who for one reason or another had now returned home. Labels had been written with their names on them. Thanks to Drew and his mother and sisters, each child would receive a toy, the labels having been placed on them by Mrs Windle and her team of helpers while the games of Pass the Parcel were taking place.

  Tilly found that she was holding her breath, every bit as excited as the watching children, as Jimmy Smithers took his present.

  Jimmy looked more bored than excited as he unwrapped his gift. He was at that age where boys felt they had to behave with a certain cockiness, but then once the wrapping had gone and he was staring down at the box in his hands, he dropped to his knees, totally engrossed in removing its contents, his disbelieving, ‘It’s a Hornby Double 00 engine, and it’s brand new,’ bringing the other children to cluster round him in excitement. Then Drew seized control of things and called out another child’s name.

  Within half an hour the floor was covered in discarded paper whilst an increasing number of very happy children were gazing starry-eyed at their presents – presents of far greater size and value than were normal for such an event.

  Now there were just a handful of presents left. Ted’s sisters, who had been leaning against Agnes’s knees in silence, looked at one another with excitement when Marie’s name was called out, before turning to their mother for permission to go up.

  ‘I think you’re going to need a bit of help with this,’ Drew told her in his gruff Father Christmassy voice, but before he could ask for help Ted, who had seen the size of the large box being pushed towards his sister, was already on his feet, picking it up to carry it over to the table where the three adults were sitting.

  ‘Open it!’ Sonia demanded excitedly, but Marie shook her head.

  ‘Don’t you want to see what’s inside?’Agnes asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘but I’m afraid that it might not be what I asked Father Christmas for.’

  Agnes felt a tug on her heartstrings. She recognised that awful feeling of anxiety that came from knowing that a present couldn’t possibly be what you really wanted, mixed with not wanting to let others know that you were disappointed.

  ‘Sonia Jackson,’ Drew called out, looking towards their table.

  More confident that her older sister, Sonia immediately ran forward, giving Drew a wide smile. ‘I know what my present is,’ she told him. ‘It’s a dolly with real hair and eyes that close.’

  ‘Poor little tyke,’ Ted murmured to Agnes and his mother. ‘She’s too young to know how much dolls like that cost.’

  ‘Come on,’ Sonia urged her sister, having returned with her present. ‘Race you to open your present.’

  The box containing Marie’s gift was so large that Agnes offered to help her remove the paper, getting down on her knees to do so, when Marie nodded her head.

  After the paper was finally removed, though, Agnes was every bit as disbelieving as Marie when they saw the picture of a doll’s pram on the outside of the box. Marie’s face went pink, then white. She looked at Agnes as not though daring to hope.

  ‘See, I told you it would be a dolly,’ Sonia cried out triumphantly, holding out for inspe
ction a lovely ‘baby’ doll that not only had soft brown hair, and bright blue eyes, which did indeed open and close, but that also cried ‘Mama’ when her middle was pressed.

  Ted had taken Agnes’ place on the floor, to open the cardboard box, but it wasn’t pleasure Agnes could see in his eyes when he lifted out the doll’s pram, although his sister was speechless with delight.

  ‘Ted, what is it?’ Agnes asked him worriedly.

  ‘Where’s this stuff come from and who’s paid for it? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘Tilly told me earlier that Drew had asked his mother and sisters to ask round amongst their friends for toys their children had grown out of,’ Agnes told him.

  ‘This stuff isn’t second-hand, it’s new,’ Ted told her. ‘Charity, that’s what it is, and I’m not having it.’

  ‘Ted . . .’ Agnes protested. She had never seen him like this before, looking so angry. Not like her lovely Ted at all.

  ‘Ruddy American, thinking he can come over here and patronise us, telling folk that we can’t afford to give our kids Christmas presents.’

  ‘I’m sure that Drew didn’t mean anything like that, Ted. I expect he just wanted to help. I suppose it’s my fault really, because I told Tilly how much the girls wanted a pram and a doll, and what a problem you’ve had trying to get hold of them.’

  ‘Trying to afford them, you mean. There’s plenty available for them with the money to buy them.’

  Agnes was getting more upset by the minute. ‘Oh, Ted, you could have afforded them too if you hadn’t bought me an engagement ring.’

  ‘. . . and we can put my dolly in your pram and then—’

  Ted’s mother interrupted Sonia’s happy plans, announcing grimly, ‘And who’s going to carry a thing like that up and down the stairs to the flat, I’d like to know, never mind where it’s going to go? Waste of money, it is, when the pair of you need new winter coats.’

  Agnes felt her heart sink even lower. It was her fault that Ted was cross, and her fault that his mother was cross as well. She thought of the carefully knitted dolls clothes she had wrapped up for Sonia, and the blankets and sheets she had made from some offcuts of fabric Olive had given her, just in case Ted had been able to buy a second-hand pram for Marie, and wished that instead she had got the girls something serviceable like new gloves and scarves.

  The wrapping paper and toys had been cleared from the floor, the buffet eaten and Father Christmas had reverted to being Drew before Olive was able to find the time to take the young American by the arm and lead him into a quiet corner of the room.

  ‘That was very generous of you and whoever else supplied them, Drew,’ she told him quietly. ‘I know that those presents you gave the children were not second-hand; they were new. New and rather expensive.’

  Drew’s face burned self-consciously as he moved his weight from one foot to another.

  ‘Gee, I hope I haven’t offended anyone, Mrs Robbins,’ he said worriedly, ‘only when I wrote my mom and sisters, my mom told her friends that she lunches with and . . . well, to cut a long story short, they decided that it would easier to wire over the money for me to buy the kids their presents than to collect some second-hand stuff and then get it shipped over.’

  ‘That was very generous, Drew,’ Olive repeated, privately thinking that whilst some of the parents might have been surprised to see their children receiving such expensive gifts, the joy with which their children had received them had quickly made up for their qualms, as more than one mother had already told her.

  ‘We might not be in this war with you officially, but there’s plenty of folk back home who aren’t comfortable with that. I guess this was just a way of showing you folks here how we feel,’ Drew continued.

  ‘And it was a very kind way, as well. No parent likes to see their child being disappointed at Christmas. We adults might understand how important it is that essential materials for the war are given precedence over everything else, but children don’t. I have to admit that my initial feeling was one of concern. I knew your motives would be good ones, but people’s pride is easily bruised, and all the more so when they have very little. However, as so many of the mothers have already said to me, it was a true joy to see the children’s faces when they unwrapped their presents.’

  Olive could see from the look on Drew’s face that he understood both what she had said and what she had not said. She waited a few seconds and then covered his hand with one of her own. He was such a very nice kind young man. Exactly the sort of young man that she would welcome as a future husband for her precious daughter? Olive’s heart gave a small anxious thump. She didn’t want Tilly to marry young, especially not in wartime, but young hearts were impatient and clamoured with the strength and longing of their feelings, as she knew all too well. All around them the sounds of young voices filled with excitement and happiness filled the faintly dusty air of the hall. It seemed only a few blinks of her eyes ago that Tilly had been a child herself. Part of her half wished that she still was. A mother could protect a young child by knowing what was best for her. But a mother couldn’t necessarily protect her child from war, Olive reminded herself, acutely aware of the grief she had witnessed in mothers who had lost children.

  This was Christmas, she reminded herself. This was a time for being grateful for everything that she had to be grateful for. Tilly loved Christmas, and she loved Tilly.

  ‘Please do tell your mother and her friends when next you write how appreciative we all are for their kindness,’ she told Drew, removing her hand from his. ‘Did you choose all the presents yourself?’

  ‘Sort of. I wanted to ask Tilly to help me but there wasn’t really time, so I took that list you gave me of all the kids names and ages, and Ian and I went to your Harrods to get everything, including thank you gifts from me to his kids for letting me stay in their house.’

  ‘Well, the pair of you did very well,’ Olive praised him. ‘Jimmy’s face when he saw that engine is something I’ll remember for a very long time.’

  It wasn’t like dancing at the Palais – how could it be when her mother was sitting a few yards away chatting to some of the other mothers, whilst Mrs Windle valiantly bashed out a popular dance tune on the piano – but at least she was in Drew’s arms, Tilly thought happily.

  ‘You’re so kind and I’m so proud to be your girl,’ Tilly whispered to Drew as they circled the floor together.

  ‘I’m the one who’s proud to have you as my girl,’ Drew corrected her, bending his head to her ear. ‘About this special present I’ve got for you, Tilly, that’s if you’ll have it . . .’

  ‘I can’t wait for tomorrow,’ Tilly responded happily.

  Drew shook his head. ‘This isn’t a present I can give you in front of anyone else, especially not your mom.’

  Soft colour flushed Tilly’s face, her eyes widening and her lips parting. This was new territory indeed but it was one she was very willing to explore – with Drew. So without hesitation she began breathlessly, ‘I’d love to, but if we try to sneak back to Ian’s so that we can be on our own, Mum is bound to notice.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ Drew told her, flushing a little himself, as he realised what she had thought he meant. ‘Not that I wouldn’t like . . .’ His voice became semistrangled with emotion as he told her, ‘When the time comes for that, Tilly, it will be somewhere special, and something that we’ve talked about and planned, both of us together, not me suggesting . . . No, it’s just . . .’ He looked down at his right hand and for the first time Tilly realised that he wasn’t wearing his graduation ring.

  ‘There’s a custom that a guy sometimes gives his girl his graduation ring to wear on a chain round her neck. It signifies that they are a couple. I’d like you to have my ring, Tilly. That’s if you want to wear it.’

  ‘Oh, Drew.’ Tilly’s eyes shone like stars, and Drew held her closer. ‘Of course I want to wear it. You’re right though, Mum will only worry that we’re getting too serious too qu
ickly if she knows. Besides,’ Tilly added with new emotional maturity, ‘some things should only be between us and for us, as a couple.’

  It was over an hour later after the midnight carol service when they were all making their way back to number 13, that Tilly and Drew could finally take advantage of Olive being deep in conversation with Sergeant Dawson, who had come off duty in time to attend the service, to slow their walk to put some distance between themselves and the others. They were all heading for number 13, and the mince pies and sherry Olive had promised to celebrate both Christmas and Agnes and Ted’s engagement.

  ‘Keep still,’ Drew warned Tilly as he reached behind her to fasten around her neck the gold chain he had just slipped from the velvet pouch he’d had in his pocket.

  The ring felt warm, warm and heavy and meaningful, a symbol of their private commitment to one another and the future they both knew they wanted to share, Tilly thought as she lifted it to her lips to kiss it, her fiercely passionate gaze fixed on Drew as she let the ring and chain disappear to hide beneath her blouse.

  ‘Tilly, come on, hurry up,’ Dulcie shouted back to them. ‘It’s gone midnight and I want to get back so that I can open my present from Wilder.’

  ‘Is there any news about the boy Barney, Sergeant Dawson?’ Olive asked. She suspected that Nancy would have something to say on Boxing Day about the fact that she had walked home from church with the sergeant, but Olive’s anxiety for the boy she had found in her kitchen was greater than her concern about Nancy’s meanness.

  ‘As it happens there is,’ Sergeant Dawson answered her. ‘I’ve had a few words here and there and it’s been agreed that the lad will come and live with me and Mrs Dawson. Of course, Mrs Dawson took a bit of persuading, but I reckon it will help cheer her up a bit having a young lad around, although I’ve warned him it will be straight back to the council if he gets himself into any trouble with the good folk of Article Row. ‘