Joanna Toye - Heartache for the Shop Girls

‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘You look all in. Tea and toast coming up.’

Lily was her mother’s daughter, all right – and as always, Dora’s prescription was right. As he ate, Jim revived enough to tell her what he’d left behind.

‘A right lash-up,’ he sighed. ‘But it’s the best I can do. Mrs Dawkins is coming in early, to help Mother wash and dress. She’ll make breakfast for her and Dad, do some chores, make them a sandwich, then come in again at night to help Mother make some kind of meal—’

‘Help her? I thought she could only move one side of her body?’

‘Her leg’s not too bad. It drags, and she won’t use a stick, of course. She can sort of get around by holding on to things.’

‘With her good arm, so how can she possibly do anything else?’

‘She’s got exercises to get the muscles in the bad one working again.’

‘Is she doing them?’

Jim pulled a face.

‘What do you think? Says she’ll only get better by actually doing things.’

‘Oh, Jim! She should! It’s going to be very frustrating – the things she can’t do. And if she overdoes it—’

‘Do you think I haven’t said? You try telling her she can’t do things for herself in her own house. I’d rather argue with an angry rhino. Or you!’

Lily grinned – even a fed-up Jim could make her smile. Jim grinned too, but sadly. He took his plate and cup to the sink and spoke facing away from her.

‘Look, Lily. I’ll have to go back every weekend now. I’m not going to be much fun. If you want to call it a day – between us, I mean—’

‘What?’

He came back to the table, sat down and took her hand.

‘This isn’t how I thought it would be. If you wanted me to – what’s the phrase? – release you from your obligation—’

Lily burst out laughing.

‘Hah! Nice try, but if you think you can get rid of me that easily, think again!’

‘Really?’

‘For goodness’ sake, Jim! We’re not in the nineteenth century! You’ll still be here most of the time, anyway!’

‘Yes, but we’ll be at work all day, in the evenings there’s ARP and fire-watching, and all these ideas I’ve still got to work up with Mr Simmonds—’

Jim had been given a project by Cedric Marlow. As a result, the staff were doing more for the war effort, and to compensate, there were sports and social clubs to boost morale. The next phase was to think up ways to bring in more custom.

‘Jim!’ Lily took his face in her hands and made him look at her. ‘Stop it! We’ll be fine.’

He leant forward and touched his lips lightly to hers.

‘Thank you. Thank you. And I promise I’ll try and put my folks out of my mind the days I am here. Because there’s one good thing … Margaret says she’ll keep an eye.’

‘Margaret …?’

‘You know,’ said Jim. ‘Ted Povey’s daughter from Broad Oak Farm.’

Broad Oak Farm had come up in conversation on the one occasion Lily had visited Bidbury.

‘Oh, I remember. That’s good of her.’

‘It is. It’s some reassurance anyway.’

There was no more to say. It was how things were, and how they’d stay till Jim’s mother improved. The alternative – that she didn’t – was something Lily didn’t want to think about. For now, Jim would be here some of the time, and that was lots more than most people had of the person they cared for. She leant forward into his hug.

Later that afternoon, across town, Dora was settled in at Ivy’s enjoying one of what Sid called their ‘tea-and-tattle’ sessions.

Dora had dispensed the news, such as it was, on Jim’s mum; now it was Ivy’s turn.

‘There’s some good news, anyway,’ she announced. ‘Les has been for an interview – and it looks like he’s got that job at Marlow’s!’

‘Oh, I am pleased!’ exclaimed Dora. ‘That’ll put a spring in his step!’

‘Already has! Him and Beryl were straight out to the pictures last night, and a drink afterwards at the White Lion, if you please!’

The White Lion was Hinton’s smartest hotel.

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Dora sipped her tea, wondering why Ivy sounded a little sour. ‘He must be feeling better. He certainly looks it.’

‘Oh, he is, twice the lad who came home. And in his oil tot about the job; all smiles! And her!’ Ivy sniffed. ‘Not home till gone eleven, if you please, and me up and down to the babby all evening, and only half an inch of gripe water in the bottle! My legs are killing me!’

‘Ivy …?’

Ivy inserted two thumbs in the top of her corset and loudly expelled some air.

‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Oh, take no notice of me, Dora. I’ve got one on me today.’

‘Come on. What’s up?’ Dora persisted.

‘It’s this business of Beryl’s,’ sighed Ivy. ‘Taken over the entire front room, she has. Taken down my Stag at Bay and the sampler my mum made and instead we’ve got wedding dresses hanging from the picture rail. Display, she calls it! And to cap it all there’s a notice in the front window, didn’t you see? “Beryl’s Brides – Wedding Dresses, Bridesmaid Dresses and Occasion Wear for Hire—”’

‘Occasion Wear?’

Ivy took a long gulp of tea and clattered the cup back on the saucer.

‘You know what Beryl’s like for wearing a high hat. Says she’s branching out. And you haven’t heard the best. Then it says, “Enquire Within”! The liberty!’

‘What about when she’s out?’ Dora frowned. ‘Taking Bobby for some air, or to the clinic?’

‘It’s Muggins here that has to answer the door! And I’m to be polite, mark you, she’s told me all the patter. Name and address, telephone if they’ve got it, all got to be written down in a little book!’

‘She’s very business-like, Ivy. You have to hand it to her.’

‘Do I? I could show her the back of my hand sometimes.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ chided Dora.

Despite their forceful personalities, Ivy and her daughter-in-law had got on surprisingly well when Les had been away, but with him coming home and Bobby getting bigger – he’d be crawling soon – the house was obviously starting to feel crowded. Ivy’s husband, Eddie, was in the Merchant Navy, and rarely, if ever, at home, but there was Susan to think of as well, of course.

‘It’s all for the good, isn’t it, Beryl’s little enterprise?’ Dora soothed. ‘Les has got a job again, and the more she can make, the sooner they can get a place of their own. Then they’ll be out from under your feet and she can do what she likes with her own picture rails and front windows.’

‘And when will that be?’ challenged Ivy. ‘You seen many houses going begging round here? Or flats? Rooms, for that matter? They’re all full of people that’s been evacuated! There’s folk come from Croydon and Mitcham and Hackney – lots from Hackney, they’re over the back from us. A right rowdy lot, they are, and all.’

‘Well, yes, but when they’ve been bombed out and got nothing, and London’s the mess it is, what’s the authorities to do? They’ve got to go somewhere. We’re lucky still to be under our own roof.’

Even in the worst of the Blitz, Hinton had got off pretty lightly – it had no major factories to bomb. They’d had their fair share of incendiaries, of ‘tip and run’, but serious damage had been limited to a few high explosives that had landed near a smallish factory making aircraft parts, and a hit on a row of houses and a pub. Of course the sirens still went off at night, and it was a toss-up whether to head for the miserable damp darkness of the Anderson in the neighbours’ garden or to crouch under the kitchen table or under the stairs. Dora was too superstitious ever to stay in bed with the covers pulled up, like some people, or to let Lily or Jim do the same. Whatever you did, there was the straining of your ears for the planes, let alone the shrill whine of a bomb, the dropping off exhausted and jerking awake seconds later, the bone-weariness the next day … but for all that, they still had a home to call their own. Some of these displaced families had been bombed out not once but twice, buried alive, their houses wrecked then looted, even their poorest possessions gone.