mother up. ‘And from what Lou wrote to me in the letter I got the other week, she’s taken to this course she’s on like a duck to water.’
Jean had begun to lift the teapot but now she put it down again, smoothing her hand absently over the scarlet poppy embroidered on the starched white linen tray cloth. The tray cloth and its matching napkins had been a Christmas present from the twins before the war.
‘Oh, well, yes, but that’s another thing. Your dad isn’t happy at all about this business of her training to mend aircraft. He doesn’t think it’s women’s work at all.’
Grace pulled a face, setting about buttering the bread her mother had already cut and covered with a cloth.
‘Well, you know Dad, Mum, but the fact is that women are having to do men’s work because the men are fighting for this country, and I dare say that the pilots and crews are glad enough to have their aircraft working properly not to turn up their noses at a woman doing that work.’
‘You’re right, of course, love, but it might not be a good idea to say too much to your dad.’
Grace had been married less than four months but already she seemed to have grown up so much, no longer a girl, but a woman with her own opinions and ready to state them, Jean thought, torn between a sense of loss and pride.
‘Your dad’s temper’s a bit on the end at the moment, with all this bad news from the desert,’ she warned Grace.
‘Have you heard from Luke recently?’ Grace asked immediately.
‘We had a letter in March saying not to worry and that he’s well, but of course we do worry.’ A look at both Seb and Grace’s sombre faces confirmed to Jean that they shared her feelings.
‘Rommel’s a first-rate commander,’ Seb said at length, ‘but our lads are good fighters, good men.’
Jean nodded. Of course they were good men – her Luke was one of them – but being ‘good men’ wasn’t going to keep them safe from Rommel’s tanks, was it?
‘I’ve got to admit that I’m still ever so sad about Luke and Katie splitting up,’ Jean told them in a valiant attempt to take their attention away from the desert and the fact that the British Army was being beaten back by Rommel and his tanks. ‘I’d have liked to keep in touch with her but, bless her, being the thoughtful girl she is she said that it wouldn’t be right or fair to Luke …
‘Oh, we’ve got Vi and Bella coming round for tea. Vi’s running poor Bella ragged, and her with that nursery to run. Not that I don’t feel for Vi, I do, but she doesn’t make it easy for herself or for anyone else. Anyway, Grace, love, tell me your news. Are you liking it at the hospital in Whitchurch?’
‘Yes, I love it,’ Grace answered her truthfully. ‘I wasn’t so sure at first, because it’s so much smaller than here, but you do get to see a bit more variety. Mind you, I had ever such a moment a few weeks back, Mum. We had a POW in, a German – a nice chap,’ she emphasised when Jean frowned. ‘Speaks good English and seemingly was one of those forced to enlist. Anyway, he was sent in by a local doctor because he’d got a puncture wound to his leg that had gone bad. The POWs are sent out to work for the local farmers and this chap had had a pitchfork in his leg – an accident. I really thought he was going to lose his leg and it brought it all back to me how Seb had been so poorly with his own wound.’
‘So what happened to the POW?’ Jean asked, concerned on the man’s behalf in spite of herself.
‘Oh, he’s made a full recovery. The doctor is a friend of a friend of someone who wanted to try out this new stuff. Penicillin, it’s called. It’s like a miracle, Mum, but it’s all a bit hush-hush at the moment.’
‘Well, I dare say it’s all right giving him something like that, since he’s got better, but I wouldn’t have wanted them trying it out on one of my own. Say it hadn’t worked?’
Grace exchanged looks with Seb. She loved her mother dearly, but Jean could be a bit old-fashioned about some things.
Emily could hardly believe what had happened. It was like something out of a book, or a film – well, almost – and she was still all aflutter over it. She’d hardly slept last night and now here she was, all fingers and thumbs over her knitting, as she set about making socks for Wilhelm, who had come round yesterday afternoon to say especially to her how much he appreciated the pair she had already knitted for him, and asking her if she would let him come back to work on the garden. If she minded! A pink glow warmed her face, a slightly dazed but very happy smile curving her mouth.
Who would have thought yesterday morning, when she and Tommy had set out for church together, what the day would bring?
Of course, there’d been a good turnout for the eleven o’clock service, it being Easter Sunday, and not just from the congregations. All the scouts and guides and the like had been there, along with the Boys’ Brigade and a band. Those members of the WVS who had wanted to do so marched into church in their uniforms. Emily had chosen instead to wear her own clothes and stay with Tommy, but she had still felt a thrill of pride seeing her fellow WVS members looking so smart and businesslike.
There’d been a handful of young men and women in uniform, those lucky enough to have leave, and of course there’d not been a dry eye in the church when, after the service, their vicar had read out the names of the newly fallen from the parish.
It hadn’t been until after the service, when people were chatting outside the church, that Emily had allowed herself to look discreetly in the direction of the POWs with their uniformed escort. Wilhelm hadn’t been to church since she’d given him the socks, and she had known why. It was because he hadn’t wanted to see her.
But then yesterday he’d been there, and she’d been so taken by surprise to see him that she’d flushed up like a fool and looked the other way, wanting to get Tommy away before he noticed and said something or, worse, wanted to go over and talk to Wilhelm.
Shamefully she hadn’t even noticed that Wilhelm was using a crutch until Ivy from next door had commented on it, saying, ‘Well, I never. There’s that POW that used to come and do your garden, Emily, and he’s been in some kind of accident, by the looks of it.’
Of course, that had her forgetting her own feelings and turning round immediately to look anxiously at Wilhelm. And sure enough, there he’d been, standing with the other men.
She’d seen often enough at the pictures what she had thought of as daft scenes in which a couple would look at one another in silence whilst some soppy music played and you’d just know that this was IT, but she’d thought it was all so much nonsense, especially after her experience with her own husband. A right one for giving those kind of looks, he was, and to any pretty girl who took his eye. But then Wilhelm had looked right at her, and she’d looked back, and then he was saying something to the soldier guarding them, who had looked across at her and nodded, and then Wilhelm had come towards her, and Ivy had given her a bit of a nudge in the back and said, ‘Go on, he wants to say something to you and you surely aren’t going to make him walk all the way with that bad leg?’ And somehow they had met in the middle of the lane, still thronged with churchgoers, and he had explained to her about having had a nasty accident and being too poorly to come to work, and she had been so concerned that she had asked him a lot of anxious questions and then she had been jolted by someone by accident and Wilhelm had reached out to steady her – he had ever such a lovely touch – the feel of his hand on her arm warm and steady and kind.
Of
