night?’ Anne Morrison asked Olive after the vicar had poured her a class of elderberry wine.
‘Yes. We all went down to have a look at St Paul’s,’ Olive replied.
The sitting room door opened again, bringing a fresh draught of cold damp air against Olive’s legs as she stood with her back to it.
‘Oh, it’s Sergeant Dawson. No Mrs Dawson, though,’ Anne informed Olive with a small sigh. ‘Poor woman. One does feel sorry for her.’
‘Yes,’ Olive agreed without turning round. Drat Nancy for going and making her feel so self-conscious when she had no need to feel that way. Those who said that Nancy was a bit of a troublemaker certainly had a point.
‘Good evening, ladies.’
‘Good evening, Sergeant Dawson,’ Anne acknowledged the policeman’s greeting happily. ‘I was just saying to Olive here how very lucky we were to have you teach us both to drive. My husband said so at the time although I know there were those – no names mentioned but she’s a neighbour of yours, Olive – who were inclined to disapprove of females learning to drive, despite the fact that they have benefited from us doing so.’
Anne was a large, solidly built, jovial woman, and when she laughed, as she was doing now, her whole body seemed to shake with good-natured mirth.
‘All the credit doesn’t lie with me,’ Sergeant Dawson responded with his own smile, tactfully avoiding her reference to Nancy, much to Olive’s relief. ‘I had two very able pupils.’
‘Oh, excuse me, will you, please,’ Anne stopped him. ‘Only I’ve just seen Vera Stands and I need to have a word with her about the church flower rota.’ With another smile she strode off, leaving Olive on her own with the sergeant and no ready excuse to take her own leave. She was about to ask politely if the Dawsons had had a good Christmas and then just in time she remembered that the sergeant had once told her that Christmas was naturally a very difficult time for them both, but especially for his wife, because of the loss of their son.
Instead, she asked him, ‘Is it definitely all official now, I mean about you and Mrs Dawson taking Barney in?’
‘Yes. He had to spend Christmas in a children’s home outside the city, much to his disgust, but he’ll be coming to us in time for the new school term. Mrs Dawson’s been getting his room ready for him. She’s had me giving it a coat of distemper to freshen it up a bit.’ A rueful look crossed the sergeant’s face. ‘I just hope that she isn’t going to spoil him too much.’
Olive could tell from both his expression and the sound of his voice how much the sergeant was looking forward to Barney’s arrival.
‘Oh, and there’s something I ought to tell you,’ he continued. ‘It’s about Reg Baxter and that vacancy there was going to be at the ARP station, the one that I thought you should put your name forward for?’
Olive nodded. She’d felt both surprised and a bit overwhelmed when Sergeant Dawson had suggested that she volunteer to fill a vacancy at their local ARP unit, but the sergeant had insisted that she would be an ideal candidate.
‘It seems that Reg Baxter has decided not to retire and move after all,’ the sergeant told her, ‘and the other vacancy, the one that Mrs Morrison had applied for, that’s gone to a chap from Court Street.’
Olive was surprised to discover how unflatteringly she was thinking of the men who had turned down the opportunity to have someone as capable as her fellow WVS member join them. Before the war such a thought wouldn’t have crossed her mind. The war, though, had shown her just how capable and resourceful her own sex was, and how proud she was of what women were doing to help with the war effort.
That neither she nor Mrs Morrison had been offered the membership of the local ARP unit wasn’t Sergeant Dawson’s fault, however, and Olive could see from his expression that he felt slightly uncomfortable about the news he had had to give her.
Even so, she couldn’t resist saying with a small smile, ‘Sergeant Dawson, the ARP unit doesn’t know what it will be missing in not taking on Mrs Morrison. She’s a first-class organiser, and she makes the best hotpot I’ve ever tasted. She regularly brings one round for our WVS suppers.’
‘Archie, please, Olive. We agreed when I was teaching you to drive that we had known one another long enough to be on first-name terms. Hearing you address me as “Sergeant Dawson” makes me feel that you think of me as someone of your late in-laws’ generation.’
‘Oh, no, I would never think that.’ Was she blushing? Her face certainly felt hot, and no wonder after such a silly gauche remark, far more suitable to someone Tilly’s age than her own. Of course she didn’t think of Sergeant D— Archie … as someone of her late in-laws’ age. How could she when it was perfectly obvious that he wasn’t? His dark hair might be greying slightly at the temples now, whilst fine lines fanned out around his eyes when he smiled, but he was still tall and lean, with a very manly bearing and …
And nothing, Olive stopped herself firmly, allowing herself to say only, ‘Somehow I don’t think that Nancy would think it proper for me to call you Archie. You know how she is about such things.’
‘Yes, I know how she is,’ he agreed, ‘but in private, when we are talking to one another, then surely it can be Olive and Archie?’
She ought to say ‘no’ but that would be rude. He didn’t know, after all, about that silly awareness of him she had developed – or those secret, dangerous, unwanted and unacceptable thoughts of envy she sometimes had for the obvious contentment of the marriage he and his wife shared.
‘Very well,’ she agreed.
Nestled in Drew’s arms, her head tucked into his shoulder, as they moved slowly together on the dance floor, Tilly gave a small sigh as the final strains of ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ died away. The song had been one of the hits of the year and now, on New Year’s Eve, as the dancers and those sitting out broke into applause, and the band stood to take their break, she told Drew, ‘It’s such a lovely song that it always brings a lump to my throat. But it’s hard to imagine any kind of bird singing in any of London’s squares right now, thanks to the Blitz.’
‘It’s a song of hope for the future, for better times ahead,’ Drew reminded her, his arm round her as the lights came up over the darkened dance floor and they started to make their way towards their table – Dulcie’s favourite table, which she had bagged the minute they had arrived.
‘Dulcie’s brother seems a nice guy,’ Drew commented. ‘He was really friendly last night back at Ian’s when I was asking him about the desert campaign. Of course, there was stuff he couldn’t tell me but he gave me a real good idea of what it’s been like for them out there. I’ve noticed that you don’t say much to him, though. Don’t you like him?’
Tilly felt a pang of guilt, her straightforward nature making it impossible not to be honest with Drew when she loved him so much.
‘It isn’t that. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with Rick, it’s just, well, I had a bit of a crush on him for a little while, when I first met him.’ She pulled a small face. ‘So silly, and I’m ashamed of myself now. I’d grown out of it even before I met you, but I was just a girl then. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want you to think—’
‘What I think is that he’s the one who is keen on you, not the other way around,’ Drew
