Joanna Toye - Secrets in Store

Lily had only joined the store the previous June. She hadn’t been expecting anything extra in her pay packet, so the few extra shillings had been a very welcome surprise. But Marlow’s was like that. It prided itself on looking after its employees, even though profits must be well down – for the simple reason that as the war ground on there was less and less to sell. Still, the buyers, like Miss Frobisher, Lily’s boss on Childrenswear, did the best they could, and the shop’s reputation meant that if anything did become available, from tea trays to tobacco, children’s coats to combinations, Marlow’s was one of the first places a supplier would contact.

Reg crossed the yard. Sid, again, would have bounded over and wrapped his mum in a hug, regardless of the rough, chilly wool of his tunic, but Reg, like Dora herself, was more reserved. He looked like her too, with soft brown hair, though his was now cropped short. Sid and Lily, on the other hand, had inherited their father’s mop of fair curls.

Reg kissed his mum on the cheek before she stood back to let him in.

‘Come in, love, out of the cold,’ she urged. ‘And let’s have a good look at you.’

Only that telltale ‘love’ told Lily, and Reg himself, how much their mum had missed him and how very pleased she really was that he was home.

In the scullery, Jim was lifting the kettle from the gas and wetting the tea: he was going to make someone a wonderful wife someday, Sid always joked. Jim wasn’t a member of the family, but as their lodger, he was starting to feel like one. He was another employee at Marlow’s, seventeen and already Second Sales on Furniture.

The arrangement suited them all. Widowed when Lily was still a baby, Dora had learnt to be tough and independent. But with both her sons away, she felt happier and safer with a man about the house – and Jim wasn’t only useful for the odd pot of tea. There was no doubt that the two raised beds in the yard were going to be a lot more productive this year under his watchful eye. Not only that, he’d even built them a henhouse. They now had fresh eggs – gold dust, nectar and ambrosia all at once – and useful as currency for bartering as more and more things went on the ration or disappeared altogether.

Jim held out his hand to Reg. They’d met once before, in the autumn, when Reg had been passing through on his way to yet another training camp.

‘How’s things?’ Jim asked. ‘Fair journey?’

‘Oh, you know.’

It was yet another way in which Reg and Sid were polar opposites. Where Reg was circumspect, Sid would have treated them to a minute breakdown, complete with music hall impressions of grumpy guards and a star rating for the station tea bar.

‘Well, the tea won’t be long.’

Reg slung his haversack down on a chair.

‘I’ve been saving some of my rations, Mum. And there’s a bit of stuff from the NAAFI.’

He unbuckled the straps and took out a couple of lumpy parcels.

‘Jam … chocolate … a bit of ham.’

Lily’s mouth watered, but Dora wasn’t letting Reg get away with that.

‘Reg! You shouldn’t have! No wonder you’ve lost weight!’

Weight loss was a crime on a par with sedition in Dora’s eyes. Though the Army got first dibs when it came to rations, which was partly why ordinary households were having to cut back, she was naturally convinced that her boy wasn’t being fed as well as she could have fed him if he’d been at home.

Reg gave one of his rare smiles.

‘I haven’t lost weight, Mum, far from it. I’ve toned up, put on muscle, that’s all.’

Dora sniffed disbelievingly.

‘Irish stew for dinner,’ was all she said. ‘I’d better have a look at it.’

She opened the door of the Belling and concentrated on extracting the promising-smelling pot of stew while Lily and Jim discreetly stowed Reg’s offerings in the pantry.

‘Thank you,’ Lily mouthed.

Reg grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.

Lily might not be as close to Reg as she was to Sid, but jam, ham, chocolate or not, she realised just how pleased she was to see him too.

‘All right, Mum, you win, hands down,’ Reg conceded as he laid down his knife and fork. ‘There might be plenty of it, Army food, but it’s not a patch on your cooking.’

‘Oh, get away with you! You’d eat horse manure if it was wrapped up in pretty paper!’

Lily bit back a smile. Their mum was no more capable of accepting a compliment than Lily had been of not shrieking her head off when she’d sensed Reg was at the gate.

‘There’s no more where that came from, you know!’ Dora added, in case she hadn’t dismissed the praise quite emphatically enough.

‘I couldn’t eat it anyway!’ Reg protested. ‘I’m stuffed!’

Dora’s eyebrows shot up.

‘That’s all they’ve taught you in the Army, is it, that sort of talk?’

Lily saw Jim and Reg exchange knowing, ‘man of the world’ looks.

‘I should think that’s the least of it, Mrs Collins.’ Jim gave one of his wry, twisty smiles. ‘Right, Reg?’

‘You don’t know the half of it! But don’t worry, Mum, I won’t be using any language while I’m home. Especially not now Lily’s gone all posh on us, working at Marlow’s. I didn’t see you crook your little finger drinking your tea, though, Lil. Tut, tut!’

Lily flapped her hand at him and Reg ducked out of the way, laughing. He was relaxing now; they all were, with the warmth of some food inside them and the fire nicely banked up.

‘So tell me, what’s new at the swankiest store in town? What’s the best-dressed baby wearing this winter, Lil? Had a run on cut-glass decanters for the folk with cut-glass accents, have you, Jim?’

This time Lily and Jim were the ones to exchange looks. So much had happened in Lily’s first few months at Marlow’s that the last few, apart from the flurry before Christmas and the January sales, had seemed quite tame in comparison.

She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could begin, they heard the latch on the back gate click, followed by footsteps across the yard and then by someone opening the back door itself.

Lily’s heart leapt. Surely not! It couldn’t be, could it? Not Sid? Though it would be just like him to take them all by surprise. And who else could it be, turning up right in the middle of Sunday dinner?

‘Only me!’ trilled a voice approaching though the scullery.

Of course! Beryl! That’s who.

Shy, tactful, reserved – not words you could ever use to describe Beryl. But what could she possibly want this time?

As it turned out, on this occasion simply a free meal – or at least a pudding.

‘How does she do it?’ Lily demanded as she and Jim washed up. ‘She must be able to smell Mum’s cooking from right the other side of town!’

‘I know. The War Office should use her as a sniffer dog. Perhaps she could do the same with explosives.’

‘I always think that’s so hard on the poor things,’ fretted Lily. ‘Imagine being a little puppy, thinking life was all chasing your tail and gambolling about with your brothers and sisters, then going to some nice family as a pet – instead you’re crawling about on a battlefield or a bombsite.’