Home Sweet Home (17 page)

Bettina looked down into her teacup, turning it slightly in the saucer so it made a tinkling sound. She had an inkling Stan was hiding something. ‘Do you know where her mother is?' she asked pensively.

When Stan hung his head, Bettina immediately knew she'd guessed right.

‘You do know.' She fixed him with a slightly accusing look.

He nodded. ‘Yes. I do.'

‘I won't ask you where she is,' Bettina said resolutely. ‘All I will say is that you have no choice. Frances is at an age when she's searching for who she is. She wants to fit into the adult world, and in order to do that, she has to know where she comes from and why she's where she is.'

Just like Bettina to cut straight to the chase.

Stan eyed the handsome face of his dearest female friend and the serene expression in Bettina's powder-blue eyes. Like her eyes, she was soft, slightly fluffy but steadfast. He couldn't quite recall the exact colour of her hair when she was a girl, perhaps because he quite liked the colour it was now, gloriously pale grey and still swept up into the cottage loaf style of her youth.

Stan sighed. ‘I don't relish talking to our Frances.'

‘You don't have to relish it. It's your responsibility to do it.'

‘You're right,' he said, nodding his head in agreement, though he still couldn't help feeling reluctant. ‘I have to do it.'

‘I saw Frances pushing Charlie up the High Street,' Bettina commented, changing the subject tactfully. ‘I thought he didn't like being put in his pushchair any longer.'

‘That's another worry. He's a bit out of sorts at present. We think he's teething, but we're not sure. I'll see how he is tonight and if there's no improvement, I'll take him to the morning surgery.'

‘Poor little mite. Still, better to be safe than sorry.'

Her knees made a clicking sound as she got to her feet. Stan's knees made a similar sound when he got to his. They looked at each other and shook their heads.

‘Sounds like we're two of a kind,' he said, with something close to a smile.

‘Or at least our knees are,' exclaimed Bettina.

As he escorted her to the door she thought about their friendship and their past. They had known each other most of their lives, though she had only returned to the village a few years ago. In Stan's case, there was much pain in his past, what with the Great War, losing his wife Sarah, his brother and his son Charlie.

In Bettina's case, there was a secret she would take to her grave, involving an action she'd taken that she thought few people would understand. Now that her friendship with Stan had deepened, she sometimes considered unburdening herself to him, but so far had drawn back. Today she had come as close as she ever had to doing so, especially seeing as Gertrude Powell had been mentioned.

I'm a coward, she thought. Yet again I drew back, but I won't always. The day will come when I will whisper that secret into somebody's ear. But not now, not until the time is right.

Stan watched as Bettina made her way across the road. The day was fresh and the air smelled as though rain was imminent. Just right for the garden, Stan thought.

Bettina was almost lost to his sight, by which time he'd planned his jobs for the rest of the day. Stack earth around the spuds, fork the earth around the carrots and take a peek in the ramshackle greenhouse he'd built to see how the tomato plants were doing.

Just as he turned to go back into the shop, the sound of whistling made him pause. Melvyn Chance, the village postman, was striding along towards him, his face cheery and his baggy trousers flapping around his skinny legs.

Not only was Melvyn Chance the village postman, he was also their air-raid warden. The former occupation gave him some respectability and went a little way to blotting out his infamous past when he'd been a member of the National Socialist Party, its leader, Oswald Mosley, a great admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Melvyn had resigned from the party just after war broke out, but no one had forgotten or forgiven his involvement with people who were now their enemies.

Melvyn smiled, though a wary look flickered in his eyes. ‘Good morning, Mr Sweet.'

Stan grunted a response. As far as he was concerned, Melvyn Chance didn't deserve to be acknowledged. He for one had never forgiven him his nefarious allegiance.

Stan would never warm to Melvyn and never forget what he had once been. Melvyn was alive and kicking, but it was thanks to Hitler and the Nazis that his son, Charlie, was dead.

Stan snatched the post from Melvyn without a word of thanks. Melvyn, who knew better than to linger, dashed off. He didn't resume his whistling until he was posting letters through letterboxes a few houses along and beyond Stan's reach.

Stan scowled at Melvyn's retreating figure, the hunched shoulders, rounded body and stiffly striding legs. If it were down to him, the man would be locked up. Even if he hadn't been a member of Oswald Mosley's outfit, he would still have disliked him. A weasel born a weasel remained a weasel. That was his opinion.

Once back inside the shop, he glanced briefly at what he'd been given. There were the usual manila envelopes bulging with advice from the Ministry of Food and other official bodies.

It wasn't until he was back behind the counter and, there again, not until he had served a few customers, that he noticed the postcard that had slipped between the bulky envelopes. He frowned at it, noticing it was addressed to his daughter, Ruby. It was plain, grubby and stamped with the insignia of the Red Cross. A sudden roll of apprehension rumbled in his stomach. Official. Swiss postmark.

Switzerland! Never in his life had he received any item of mail from a foreign country. The feeling of apprehension rolled in his stomach even more determinedly than when he'd spotted the insignia of the Red Cross. Wasn't it based in that country?

His hand shook as he turned it over, saw the scribbled writing – in pencil by the look of it. In the lower right-hand corner he saw what looked like a reddish muddy-looking smudge. On closer examination, he deduced the convoluted lines of a thumbprint. The postcard was addressed to Ruby, though he couldn't help but read it. She wouldn't mind.

As he read the words, his eyes filled with moisture and it felt as though something sharp was stuck in his throat.

Dear Ruby. I am a prisoner of the Japanese but am being treated well. Love, Johnnie Smith.

That evening, the smell of cottage pie filled the kitchen. Frances had been careful to put it into the oven early enough so it would be ready to dish up by the time Ruby got in. The smell alone was enough to tell her it was ready, and anyway Ruby's instructions had been quite specific.

A blanket of heat reddened her face as she reached in with both hands. ‘Stand back. It's piping hot.'

‘I am stood back,' Stan grumbled, wondering when it was that he'd started taking orders from the younger members of his family. He purposely kept his attention fixed on what was happening around him, anything rather than let his gaze stray to the postcard from Switzerland, currently sitting behind the clock on the mantelpiece with the rest of the post. Get supper over first or nobody would eat a morsel.

Thrusting out her bottom lip, Frances blew upwards at the tress of dark hair falling over her forehead as she manoeuvred the pie dish on to the cast-iron trivet standing in the middle of the scrubbed pine kitchen table.

Stan Sweet stood silently studying her, thinking to himself that she'd suddenly grown up without him really noticing it. Dark hair and soft brown eyes, a girlish though developing figure. His head throbbed from the array of thoughts crashing through it – like dodgem cars at the fairground, bumping and banging and not really going anywhere. He felt exasperated, worried. Most of all he tried to recall the last time in his life when he'd felt as helpless as he did now. Ruby would welcome the postcard, but it said nothing, and in doing so said a lot. Reading it might worry her even more. As for Frances and her present mood …

The arrival of the postcard this morning only added to his feeling of helplessness. Although Johnnie had written that he was a prisoner of the Japanese and was being well treated, he couldn't shift the nagging doubt that things might not be that way at all. Johnnie would have said more. He was sure of it.

The sound of the small car chugging to a halt outside the shop door only served to make his thoughts rush around in his head at a greater speed than before. If anyone had said at the beginning of the war that his daughter Ruby would bear the burdens of this household with uncommon efficiency while holding down a very responsible war job, he would never have believed them.

Because it was too dark to go round the back of the bakery and into the kitchen, Ruby habitually came through the shop door, the old bell above it jangling as she opened it just enough to slip through before closing it behind her.

He made a mental note to silence that bell on a night so it wouldn't wake anybody up. Then he wondered why he should suddenly think of doing that. The answer came swiftly: because its jangling gets on your nerves. Since when had it affected him so badly?

Ruby's smiling face, flushed by the night air, appeared around the door. ‘Oh, but it's good to be home.' With a determined grip on the handle, she closed the door firmly behind her.

Stan felt a clutch of nerves knot in his stomach. The postcard. He would have to tell her about the postcard, but dare he also tell her his thoughts on the message?

The first thing Ruby noticed was the pie and the bowl of carrots and swedes Frances had added to the table.

‘That looks good.'

She did not notice the pensive look in her father's eyes. She was tired, hungry and very glad to be home.

Home wasn't just about warmth, good food and loving faces. Familiar things counted too, all contributing to what made a house – or even a bakery – a home.

Coals glowed in the grate of the old range, tapestry-covered cushions were plumped up in the fireside chairs, plates and cutlery gleamed with welcome: she relished them all.

Her first task on taking off her hat was to make a big fuss of Charlie. Although today had been enjoyable and well received by the factory workers, Charlie had never been far from her mind.

The little boy's bottom lip stayed petulantly thrust forward, his small knuckles rubbing at his eyes.

Face creased with concern, Ruby leaned over him. ‘Charlie. Are you still not feeling well?'

For a moment he stopped grizzling as she stroked his hair back from his face.

‘My beautiful boy. Your cheeks are very hot.' She frowned, certain he had a temperature.

‘He won't eat,' said Frances. ‘He hasn't had much to drink, either.'

With a pain in her heart, Ruby surveyed the dish of cottage pie, the ingredients well mashed up and set in front of him in his own little dish. She frowned as she ran the back of her fingers down his flushed cheeks. ‘I hope it is just his teeth, though there's always something like measles and chickenpox going around.'

For a moment, the two cousins were silent with their own thoughts. Ruby was worried about Charlie more than she was about Frances. In fact, she felt resentment towards her cousin. Couldn't she have remained her old sweet, though slightly rebellious self for another year at least? Best of all, stay a child until the war was over?

Her resentment continued to simmer and might have stayed that way except that Frances was suddenly her old self again, asking her how her day had been.

‘Fine,' Ruby replied, all signs of resentment kept firmly subdued. ‘They were a nice crowd.' Funny, she thought. I'm getting so het up over Charlie and Frances, I'm forgetting about Andrew's offer and the possibility of seeing Mary sometime soon. On the drive home, Ruby had practised announcing that she was going to see Mary, thanks to an invitation from the Ministry of Food to go to London. Now didn't seem the right time to mention it.

Frances persisted in trying to persuade her young charge to eat. ‘Come on, Charlie. It's lovely. See?' She pretended to taste the contents of the spoon before again proffering it to the little boy. The spoon was pushed away. The child continued to grizzle, rub his eyes and look increasingly red-faced.

‘Perhaps he's just over tired,' said Stan Sweet. As a widower who had chosen to bring up his children all alone without the aid of a new wife, he prided himself on knowing as much about childish ailments as anybody. Thanks to his efforts, his children had turned out well and he was proud of them. His son Charlie had been the apple of his eye before he'd drowned courtesy of a German U-boat attack in the North Atlantic. Mary was married to Flight Officer Michael Dangerfield, and now had a little daughter. Ruby was a respected Home Front Economist. Even his brother's daughter, Frances, had turned out well. She was a bright girl and loved the baby, his grandson, with all her heart.

Ruby frowned. There was something about the way her father spoke that made her think he wasn't really stating what he was thinking or that there was something else on his mind. ‘Let me feel his face again.'

She laid her hand on one cheek then the other. The little boy seemed to appreciate the coolness of her palm, quieting for a moment before she removed her hands and he began grizzling again.

Ruby looked at her father and knew immediately that he was as worried as she was. ‘His cheeks do feel hot. Perhaps it's more than teething. Perhaps he's got a cold.'

Her father stared blankly, so immobile that she was half inclined to go over and shake him to make sure he hadn't turned to stone. Instead, she turned back to her nephew.

‘Is that what it is, Charlie? A bit of a cold and those nasty teeth making it worse?'

Sighing, she clenched her hands in front of her, fingers tangled, and saw the deepness of her father's frown.

‘I can't help thinking it's got worse,' she said to her father. ‘I'm worried.'