Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (51 page)

1944

The news seemed to be getting slightly better; even Terence, on his leave, had seemed more cheerful. The tide was turning, everybody said. The Germans were in retreat. The war was going to finish
.

Lilian couldn’t believe the war would ever be over. She had been a child when it started. Now, she felt about a hundred years old. People lost, people moved – she had taken a bus, a four-hour journey, to see Margaret’s baby, and they had discovered, once she had oohed and aahed at his little fingers and toes and round chunky cheeks, that they had very little in common any more
.

Margaret kept asking her if she was stepping out with someone, and Lilian didn’t know how to answer; the very thought of it seemed unbearable. Not that men didn’t ask; didn’t come in looking for sweets on the top shelf to make her climb up, or casually ask if she wanted to go to a dance. But, having refused that first dance, Lilian didn’t know if she ever wanted to go to another. They seemed to cause nothing but trouble. Margaret urged her to find a beau – there’s no men left, you know, ducks, she said. There’s going to be a right scramble once this is all over – and pushed her in the direction of the American GIs, who seemed so tall and exotic and handsome. ‘Go wi’ one of them,’ she said. ‘You’ll get a whole new life.’ Gerda Skitcherd was talking about going to America; it sounded thrillingly exotic
.

But Lilian didn’t want a whole new life. She wanted her brothers back round the table, and her da happy, and Henry back. The fact that these were impossible wishes didn’t seem to have any bearing on the way she felt about it at all. And she knew Margaret was giving her good advice; good within the ways of her world. Her George was a decent enough chap too, she knew. But it was as if she were frozen; she could feel all this good advice, but she couldn’t seem to move, to take it
.

Gordon came home one honeysuckled spring evening. Henry had now been away for one year and four months, or 432 days. Rosie assumed Ida was getting word of him; she never heard and was far too proud to ask. She hoped he wasn’t scared out there. She hoped he wasn’t seeing terrible things. She wondered if he thought of her as much as she thought of him, while knowing, deep down, that that couldn’t possibly be the case. But she had changed now. She knew he wasn’t coming back to her, he couldn’t. Dorothy was toddling about now, while remaining quite the most thrawn child anyone in Lipton could remember. Her mouth was a permanent kidney bean of dissatisfaction. Ida was developing frown lines between her eyes. Lilian had seen Henry, once, on leave. The family was walking down the high street. Ida was obviously displeased at something; she was shouting at Henry, who had lost weight and gained muscle, and looked tall and rangy and somehow older in his army suit. He wasn’t saying anything. Lilian had hidden behind her bedroom curtains until he’d gone away
.

But now, she told herself, all she cared about was that he was safe. That he wasn’t bleeding in a field somewhere; or with half a leg missing like Dartford Brown’s youngest, hopping about the streets, trying to make jokes about how it could have been worse, but with an ocean of pain behind him. Still, all she cared about, Lilian told herself, was that Henry came home safe. When the war finished. If it ever did
.

‘Look what I have for you,’ said Gordon, ebullient as ever, dragging his huge heavy kitbag over the flagstones of the kitchen floor. Their da looked up from his ledger
.

‘What’s this then, son?’

Gordon flashed his cheeky grin. He’d been promoted, twice, and was now a lance-corporal, but to Lilian he was still a fat-bottomed boy in short trousers, getting away with murder
.

Gordon drew two bottles out of his kitbag, and their da wolf-whistled. ‘Is that …’

‘Certainly is,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s pure champagne. From the vineyards of Sham-pag-nee itself.’

‘I’ve never even seen it,’ said Da, shaking his head. He picked the bottles up very carefully. ‘You carted these back all the way?’

‘Slept on them like a pillow,’ said Gordon. ‘Case anyone nicked ’em. I’ve been doing a bit of, well, nod nod wink wink on the side for the men, like. Making sure they get some decent grub. And these came my way. Thought I might need ’em for a bribe coming home, but I forgot what a straight old place England still is. So here they are!’

Da sent Lilian down to the dairy for an ice block. Then he insisted they laid a bottle in it for an hour to get cool. Mostly, they sat around and watched it
.

‘Put the other one away in the larder,’ said Da. ‘We’ll keep it for a special occasion.’

Lilian tucked it right at the back of the top shelf
.

For when Henry comes home, she said to herself
.

They decided, wisely, to steer clear of the vodka experiments this time. To let Lilian join in, Tina brought half the contents of her wardrobe over, and they tried on everything.

‘When did you ever need a cocktail dress?’ said Rosie.

‘Well, you never know,’ said Tina. Rosie raised her eyebrows.

‘OK, OK,’ said Tina. ‘So when Todd was going through his worst phase I maybe became a bit … shop-a-holicky. Apparently it was my way of getting him back for his illness. So his counsellor told me.’

‘Revenge cocktail dresses,’ marvelled Rosie, pulling them out. They really were beautiful. But however many they tried on Rosie – Tina was insisting on a little black sleeveless number – none of them was quite right. Most of them fitted OK as Rosie’s bust and small waist worked very well in a frock, but none was really
her
.

‘Oh well,’ said Rosie, coming and going for the sixth time. ‘The black one with the little bit of lace at the top – that’s probably the best we’re going to get.’

‘If you’d spoken to Lady Lipton before, we could have gone
shopping
,’ said Tina reproachfully. ‘In Derby they’ve got an Arndale.’

‘I don’t think you need to do any more shopping,’ said Rosie, looking at all the shoes.

‘No,’ said Tina. ‘I just need to go to more parties. Hurrah!’

Lilian sighed. ‘The black is no good. It works on little Tina, but—’

‘She’s not six any more!’ said Rosie.

‘She is to me,’ said Lilian.

‘Thanks, Miss Hopkins,’ said Tina.

‘But it’s no good for you. You need something to make you stand out. Make him notice you.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Tina.

Rosie felt herself grow uncomfortably hot. She’d forgotten Lilian would have overheard the entire conversation she and Tina had had about Stephen.

‘Well, he won’t,’ she said.

‘Why not?’ said Lilian. ‘Stranger things have happened. Sometimes the handsomest man in the village
does
notice the girl with the dark hair.’

‘Not if it’s me,’ said Rosie.

‘I think Jake’s the handsomest man in the village,’ said Tina.

‘Yes,’ said Rosie. ‘Closely followed by Moray.’

‘Yup.’

But they’re not the ones I like, Rosie found herself thinking. They’re not the ones I want.

‘If Hetty thinks her son is too good for my great-niece, she’s got another think coming,’ said Lilian. ‘Go into my bedroom. The large armoire.’

‘The what?’

‘What do they teach you at school these days? The wardrobe. Tch!’

Rosie did as she was bid. It was a huge old thing. Inside it smelled of camphor and beeswax. The clothes were packed so closely together it was hard to see what was in there.

‘Count six from the far right side,’ said Lilian. ‘No. Seven.’

Everything was in dry-cleaning bags, immaculately ironed and hung. Rosie gasped as she started to leaf through them. There were beaded gowns in jewel shades; bright hot fuchsias; a jacket with a proper fox trim. Tina came charging in and her eyes widened.

‘Oh my God,
look
at this stuff.’ She popped her head back into the sitting room. ‘No wonder you always look so immaculate. This is a treasure trove in here.’

Lilian shrugged and tried not to look pleased.

‘Well, everyone needs a hobby,’ she said.

Tina pulled out things here and there, unheeding of Lilian’s commands not to. But it was the dress seventh from the end that drew the eye. Lilian had been absolutely right.

There was a faint, not unpleasant hint of perfume as Rosie pulled the cool green silk over her head. It shimmered; almost iridescent. It wasn’t a forest green, or a racing green; more of a dark emerald, but the material itself was so light it seemed to dance before the eyes. Rosie was convinced it would be too small, but there was ruching along the back, cleverly concealed at the waist.

‘It’s to allow room for dancing,’ grumbled Lilian when she saw her. ‘Of course you stretch it out.’

‘You were bigger then though,’ argued Rosie.

‘I was,’ said Lilian. ‘You’d think you’d be happy that being terribly old helps you lose weight. I assure you, you won’t be.’

Finally, however, Rosie wriggled and shrugged and felt the material flow over her hips with a soft swooshing sound. She
could tell by the way Lilian and Tina had gone silent that they approved.

‘What?’ she said. Lilian, suddenly, quickly, found herself wanting to look away. Rosie was a softer-looking girl than she had been; not so angular; her nose not so long, her shoulders not so pointy. But something in the long, dark curling hair and the wide pink mouth caught and tugged hard on Lilian’s memory; the memory of a hopeful young woman in front of a full-length mirror, waiting, and waiting, until there was no point in waiting any more, and then continuing to wait, in pretty dresses, even when she knew that what she was waiting for would never come …

‘You look
amazing
,’ said Tina. ‘That colour is gorgeous on you!’

Rosie dashed off to the full-length mirror over the bath. She couldn’t help smiling at what she saw there. Odd, really – and, frankly, annoying when you thought about it – but a few months of staying off the late nights, and getting a bit of fresh air, and not eating takeaways, or nicking all the chocolates patients brought into the wards; of not working nights, or wrestling catheters at 4am, or blearily making her way home through the dawn and trying to sleep through car alarms and buses and parties and deliveries and noises in a busy London street; it had changed her. She could see it. Her skin looked soft and creamy, with a pink blush in her cheeks that she identified, correctly, as excitement. Her grey eyes were clear, and the green in the beautiful silk dress made them shine. Shed of her practical clothing and slouching demeanour, she felt …

Well. Beautiful would be silly, she told herself. But really, this was as good as it was going to get.

She went back into the sitting room, grinning.

‘All right, all right,’ said Tina. ‘Look at you, cat who’s got the cream. OK, so you look lovely.’

‘Sorry,’ said Rosie. ‘I will go back to being my normal grumpy self immediately.’

She caught sight of her great-aunt’s stricken face.

‘Lilian,’ she said, darting forward. ‘Lilian! Are you all right? Are you feeling all right? Show me your left hand.’ She turned back to Tina. ‘I’ll have to stay behind, I can’t go.’

‘Stop being daft,’ said Lilian. ‘I was just thinking how nice you look. Now, go into the larder and look behind the mustard box on the highest shelf. Carefully.’