I want to do—’
‘You’re going to move her in with you?’ Lena guessed, adding immediately, ‘You’ll want me and Gavin to find somewhere else, I expect.’ Lena tried not to sound as low as Bella’s news made her feel. She knew how lucky she and Gavin were, and how generous it had been of Bella to let them live with her.
‘Would you mind, though, Bella, if just for now perhaps me and Gavin could move into Janette’s room with her? I don’t want to put you out, not when you’ve been so good and generous to us, but Gavin was only saying the other night that Mrs Stone, his old landlady, has let his room, and—’
‘No, Lena, please stop,’ Bella pleaded, holding up her hand to stem Lena’s outpouring of words, horrified that Lean would think that she would ask them to leave. ‘Of course I don’t want you and Gavin to find somewhere else. Lena, I thought you knew me better than that.’ Bella gave Lena’s arm a loving shake. ‘Haven’t we both already agreed that we are the sisters to one another that neither of us ever had? And isn’t little Janette here my niece, my own flesh and blood, and Gavin so clever and kind about doing things around the house and here at the nursery that he saves me a small fortune?’
All of which was true, Bella thought, mentally running through all the small jobs that Gavin did so willingly, often noticing that they needed doing before Bella did herself, and not just at the house but here too at the nursery, fixing rattling windows, cleaning out gutters and downspouts.
But more important than any of that was the love Lena gave her, the kind of generous freely given love that Bella had never known before, and that Bella truly believed had changed her and her life for the better.
‘Do you really think I would want to lose any of that, and most especially you? No,’ Bella answered her own question, ‘what I have decided to do is to make you and Gavin my official tenants for my house. That way you’ll have a spare room for when Gavin’s mum wants to come and stay, and I will move in with my own mother.’
For a few seconds, as she struggled to take in the generosity of Bella’s offer, Lena couldn’t speak. When she could she protested, ‘Oh, Bella, no. You’ve always said as how you value your own independence and how you could never go back to living under your mum’s roof.’
‘That was before,’ Bella replied calmly. ‘Mummy can’t possibly be left on her own any more and I’d never forgive myself if … well, if anything happened.’
As Bella’s voice fell away she couldn’t bring herself to look at Lena, knowing what she would see in the younger girl’s eyes. But she had no choice, Bella reminded herself firmly.
Lena’s tenderly sympathetic, ‘Oh, Bella …’ prompted her to admit, ‘I haven’t said anything before, but to be honest, Lena, Mummy isn’t looking after herself or the house properly. When I went round the other day there wasn’t a clean cup anywhere, and Mummy was looking dreadfully untidy. When I think of how smart she was, and how house-proud.’ Bella bit her bottom lip. ‘I feel guilty, Lena, because I’ve been pretending not to know how bad things are, not to see how much Mummy needs me to be there with her. I’ve been trying to blame my father—’
‘And why not? It was his fault, after all,’ Lena defended her best friend fiercely.
‘Yes, but, well, I’ve made up my mind, Lena, and tonight when I come in I shall start packing up my things so that I can move in with Mummy. It is all for the best, for you and Gavin and Baby, as well as for Mummy. You are a newly married couple, after all, and you should have a home all to yourselves,’ she told Lena generously.
‘Oh, that is so typical of you, Bella – that you put everyone else before yourself,’ Lena told her emotionally. ‘I shall miss you dreadfully, you know.’
‘And I you,’ Bella admitted. ‘But we shall see one another every day here, and I dare say that you and Gavin will invite me round for tea some Sundays,’ she added teasingly.
Lena’s ‘Oh, Bella,’ was muffled as she reached out and hugged Bella tightly.
After Lena had gone Bella turned to go to her office and then stopped, unable to resist giving the nursery a swift look of pride. The air was filled with the hum of quiet industry and sounds of contented babies and children. Bella had even managed to expand the facilities modestly in order to provide simple little lessons for those children who were ready for them – just learning their letters and that kind of thing, Bella had explained earnestly to Mr Benson, the senior civil servant in charge of the Government administration of nursery care for the area, an initiative allowing young women to work to help the war effort.
He had been very generous in his praise for her expansion, and had even managed to find her nursery some little slates and an easel from somewhere.
It was Bella’s ambition to have ‘her’ little ones ready for school, with their letters and figures all learned by the time they were ready to leave the nursery.
Their small kitchen provided simple nourishing meals for the children, satisfying the Government’s stringent rules and directions on nutrition. There was no cost-cutting in Bella’s nursery so that those who worked there could benefit at the children’s expense, and in fact Bella had a growing number of little ones under her wing who by rights should not have been there, but who, Bella had learned, were in need in one way or another, and who she had felt compelled to help: little ones who might not otherwise have had a good hot meal, or a bath, or a clean bed, to sleep in.
She had been astonished, and more than a little wary at first, when her auntie Francine had turned up at the nursery with her young American husband during their visit to Liverpool to attend Bella’s cousin Grace’s wedding, and had shown such an interest in the children and their welfare. The Bella she now was had been acutely aware of the sadness in her aunt’s face when she had played with the children, knowing how terrible it must have been for her to lose her own little boy – not once but twice – the first time when she had given him up to her sister, Bella’s mother, to bring up, and the second time when he had been killed when the farmhouse to which he had been evacuated had been bombed.
Bella looked at her watch. Her mother’s neighbour, Muriel James, had agreed to keep an eye on her mother until Bella could move in herself later this evening. Privately Bella was dreading going back to her childhood home to live. It had taken Lena to show her how devoid of true family love and happiness that home had been, and now Bella’s heart was chilled by the very thought of that emptiness. How she would miss the happy, chatty atmosphere of her own kitchen with her and Lena cooking together; the evenings when they read their books and listened to the radio, or sometimes played cards.
It was selfish to feel so low, Bella warned herself. It would do Lena and Gavin good to have some time to themselves. Gavin was a really decent sort who loved Lena and little Janette, and who deserved to have his wife to himself. It wasn’t as though she was never going to see Lena and her baby again, was it?
‘Four kings.’
The young American was sweating with triumph as he placed his cards down on the rickety baize-covered table in the upstairs room of the Pig and Whistle pub. He and Con were the only ones left in the game now. The other four Americans, and two stagehands from the Royal Court Theatre to whom Con gave a few quid to join the game so that he wasn’t the only one at the table not in uniform, had dropped out. Con knew he must be careful. The last thing he wanted was to arouse anyone’s suspicions. Con might like winning at cards and might not mind cheating to do so, but he certainly didn’t like the kind of trouble that involved fists and accusations flying everywhere.
‘Sorry,
