‘I was only thinking this morning of the way things work out.’ Gina shook her head. ‘If you and I hadn’t gone to Bath when we did, then we would never have met Leonard and Eddie.’
‘You and Leonard were obviously meant to be,’ Katie responded gently. She knew from what Gina had told her when they had first become friends, just after Katie had transferred to the Holborn Office of the Postal Censorship Department, that Gina had expected to marry another young man before she had met Leonard. That young man had been killed in action and it had taken courage on Gina’s part to risk loving another man in uniform.
‘What about you and Eddie?’ Gina challenged her. ‘After all, one day he will inherit his father’s title.’
Katie laughed and shook her head. Eddie was Leonard’s younger cousin, Leonard’s mother and Eddie’s father being sister and brother. Like Leonard, Eddie was also in the navy. Terrific fun and an equally terrific flirt, Eddie made Katie laugh and she liked him as a friend, but that was all.
‘Eddie and I are just friends. I’m glad that you’ve asked me to go with you,’ Katie responded to Gina’s initial comment. ‘I know this sounds selfish of me but it will be a pleasant change to go out and be a guest instead of being the one running around after others.’
‘You, selfish?’ Gina scoffed. ‘You are the least selfish person I know, Katie. You’re working far too hard, you know, all day at the Censorship Office and then nearly every single evening at Rainbow Corner. I thought you were only going to be there three nights a week?’
‘I was, but they’ve got so busy with all the Americans being brought over that they’re desperately short of volunteers.’
‘Do you think it’s true, Katie, what everyone’s saying about the Forces getting ready to invade France?’ Gina asked.
‘Well, we shall have to if they’re going to defeat Hitler,’ Katie answered.
‘I know,’ Gina acknowledged, ‘but after what happened to the poor men in August last year when the invasion of Dieppe failed and so many men were killed and wounded…’
The two girls exchanged sad looks. The young men who had gone so bravely to their deaths had all been Canadian volunteers from overseas, who had wanted to do their bit for the country with which so many of them had family ties.
‘I’ll come to you for six o’clock, shall I? Then we can walk round to the American Embassy from your billet?’
Katie agreed.
‘I’m hoping to visit Leonard’s parents next weekend,’ Gina told her as they both stood up. ‘I promised Leonard that I’d try to go and see them and the children as often as I can whilst he’s away.’
Leonard had two children from his first marriage to a Frenchwoman, a son and a daughter of four and three. Odile, their mother, had been killed in a car accident with her lover, and the two children lived in the country with Leonard’s parents.
‘The children are so sweet,’ Gina confessed. ‘Little Adam asked me ever so seriously the last time I saw them if he and Amy could call me Mummy. Poor little things. Leonard told me that Odile didn’t have much time for them. I’ve never thought of myself as maternal, but now…I’m really beginning to miss them when I’m in London.’
‘I think that they are very lucky to have you as their stepmother, Gina.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Gina protested, but Katie could see that she was pleased.
‘And Tommy’s housemaster at the Grammar School has said as how he thinks that Tommy is a very bright boy and that I should be thinking about him perhaps going on up to Oxford if he works hard. He says that Tommy’s got a really good ear for languages.’ Emily couldn’t help boasting a little as she worked alongside the other women on that week’s rota for doing the church flowers, at Whitchurch’s historic Queen Anne church, St Alkmund’s.
‘He’s a lovely lad and no mistake, Emily,’ her friend and neighbour Ivy Wilson agreed loyally. ‘Looks ever so smart too in his uniform.’
The Grammar School divided its pupils into four houses, each house represented by its own uniform colour. Emily had been lucky enough to have been told by the dressmaker, who altered her own clothes, that she had another customer whose son had just finished school and who no longer needed his uniform. Acting as a go-between, the dressmaker had negotiated a price for the uniform that was acceptable to both parties, and so Tommy had been able to start Grammar School in a proper uniform.
‘Don’t worry about the blazer being a bit big for him,’ the dressmaker had reassured Emily ‘He’ll grow into it soon enough. Grow like weeds, young ones do.’
‘Well I never, Emily, that was ever such a good idea of yours to add a bit of greenery to the flowers to make them go a bit further. A real asset to the flower rota, you are, and no mistake,’ Ivy continued warmly.
Listening happily to her neighbour’s praise, Emily congratulated herself, not for the first time, that moving here to Whitchurch was definitely the best thing she had ever done.
The church, with its square tower, had been rebuilt from sandstone in the early 1700s, and blended perfectly into its surroundings, the graveyard with its time-worn gravestones testament to the many generations of local families who had worshipped there. Its main claim to fame was that beneath its porch the heart of Sir John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, made famous by Shakespeare, was buried.
The vicar and his wife were a kind, well-thought-of couple, and the female members of the congregation were enthusiastic about doing their bit for the war. In general Emily had found them a friendly group, who had welcomed her warmly amongst them. Apart from Ina Davies, who was eyeing her disparagingly now as she sniffed, ‘Personally I wouldn’t have said that all them leaves are right for church flowers. Not that my opinion matters, of course, but to my mind there’s something a bit common about them.’
Emily and Ivy exchanged looks. For some reason Ina Davies had taken against Emily right from the start when she had first moved to Whitchurch, often making critical and sometimes hurtful comments about Emily in Emily’s own hearing. According to her neighbour, Ina wasn’t well liked in the community but people put up with her out of their good nature.
‘Give over, Ina,’ Ivy protested. ‘They set off them dahlias a treat.’
‘And as for that son of yours being good at languages,’ Ina continued, ignoring Ivy’s comment, ‘I should think he would be, given the amount of time that German POW spends at your house. I don’t think I’d want any lad of mine spending so much time with someone like that, a Nazi! ‘Oo knows what he might be telling him.’
‘Wilhelm is not a Nazi. He was forced to join up and fight,’ Emily protested.
‘That’s easy enough for him to say now. Stands to reason he’s going to want to protect himself by pretending he was forced to support Hitler. Mind you, I’ve got to say that it seems to me that there’s something funny going on when someone who reckons to be British starts defending a German. My Harry says he’s never seen the like of it,’ Ina continued. ‘A German POW coming and going like he does, making himself at home, brazen as anything and acting like he isn’t a POW at all…’ She pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘My Harry says he’s surprised that someone
