liquid again. It was a good job they’d arrived at Lyons and Bill was holding open the door. Gladys didn’t want to blub in front of him. She knew she would when they parted, but for now, all she wanted was for his whole leave to be happy.
‘You’ll never guess, but Sid’s home today, as well!’ she informed him as the waitress put their plates down.
‘Is he, the crafty beggar?’ Bill shook salt enthusiastically over his fish and chips. ‘Good job I didn’t run into him. He’d only have tried to persuade me to go for a drink!’
Gladys passed him the tartare sauce in its little silver sauceboat. So refined, Lyons.
‘I’d have turned him down, though, don’t you worry.’ Not so worried by the niceties, Bill slopped out a hefty dollop of sauce. ‘I know where my priorities lie!’
Gladys looked at him from under her eyelashes. On Beryl it would have been a flirtatious look, but Gladys could no more have been flirtatious than have ridden the winner in the Grand National. On her, it was a shy look of sheer incredulity at her good fortune.
‘I still can’t get over you being here,’ she marvelled. ‘This is such a treat. Thank you.’
‘And you needn’t miss the film,’ Bill assured her, tucking in. ‘We’ll go tonight.’
For himself, he’d have preferred something with a bit of humour or a lot of action, but there were advantages to seeing a romance with Gladys. They both fell silent for a moment, thinking of the pressure of his knee against hers, his arm round her shoulders, and the way he could nuzzle her neck when she clung to him in any especially sad bits.
‘Eat up,’ he said, waving his fork. ‘You know I can’t tell you what I’ve been doing – it’s all boring technical stuff anyway. So tell me all about this Mr Whatsisname, the new floor supervisor feller, and these changes he’s making.’
So, between mouthfuls – the chips were very good – Gladys did, relaying Jim’s idea about starting a Fowl Club and all the eggs it would produce.
‘And I thought hens only laid powdered egg now!’ grinned Bill. ‘So what else? What about inside the store? You said something about keeping the staff happy?’
‘Like Mr Churchill says, it’s all about keeping going and keeping cheerful.’
‘Morale, yeah. Always banging on about it.’
‘Yes.’ Gladys nodded eagerly. ‘So there’s going to be sports clubs, football, and netball, and cricket and rounders in the summer – and maybe a sports day, even! There’s going to be a doctor once a week, for free.’
‘What, for the twisted ankles and groin strains?’ asked Bill wryly. ‘Go on!’
‘And a barber coming in, and a hairdresser.’ Gladys, like Lily, had days when she despaired of her hair, though for different reasons – hers was mousy and unbendingly straight – so she was especially pleased about this. ‘On Wednesday afternoons,’ she added. ‘So in our own time – but very cheap.’
‘Blimey, I won’t recognise you next time! Gladys the Glamour Puss!’
Fearing she might have raised his expectations a little too high, Gladys blushed and looked down.
‘I do try to look nice for you, Bill. I mean, if I’d had a bit more notice today …’
Bill speedily backtracked.
‘And you do! You do already! I didn’t mean anything by it …’ Remorseful, he grabbed her hand. ‘Gladys. I truly didn’t … I didn’t mean … I love you just the way you are.’
The words had spooled from his mouth before he could reel them back, but as Gladys stared at him, he realised he didn’t want to, even if he could.
‘There, I’ve said it,’ he added quietly.
Gladys started to tremble. She turned their joined hands over, stroking the fine, almost transparent, hairs on his fingers. ‘Do you really?’
‘Blimey, give a bloke a chance,’ protested Bill, blushing. ‘I just said so, didn’t I? Want me to spell it out in Morse Code? Or flags?’
‘No, of course not!’
Gladys screwed up her courage. She’d wanted to say it for so long, but now the chance had come … Still, if Bill had managed it …
‘I love you too, Bill, I do, I really, really do. So much. I only didn’t say, because … oh, Bill.’
Leaving one hand in his, she sat back and put the other to her chest.
‘Ooh, my heart’s hammering! I’m sorry, I don’t think I can eat any more. Do you want the rest of my chips?’
At the Collinses’ that evening, there was another surprise, though perhaps on a slightly lesser plane.
There was a new delicacy on the table, something that had sat in the larder all day with Dora peeking at it occasionally as if it might explode.
‘They call it Spam,’ she said, as Lily cut into the thick fritter of bright pink meat on her plate alongside the cauliflower and potatoes.
‘Special Processed American Meat,’ said Sid, who knew everything, or managed to give that impression. ‘We’ve had it in the NAAFI since last year. But if it’s reached Hinton, I’m telling you, it really has arrived.’
‘Well,’ said Jim, chewing thoughtfully. ‘It’s a funny texture. Sort of slimy, like a face flannel. But it doesn’t taste too bad.’
‘And at least it brightens things up,’ added Lily.
The colourlessness of the wartime diet was as much a trial to her as its sheer repetitive blandness. Everything looked beige and tasted beige. Never mind moaning about vanished brands of knitting wool or soap, how she longed for a vivid orange or a banana. She’d even have sucked on a lemon.
Dora made no comment. She’d acquired this tin quite legally, but Ivy, with her many and various ‘contacts’ about which Dora never enquired (‘Don’t ask a question to which you don’t want to know the answer’ was another of her mottoes) had offered her up to three more, and she was seriously wondering, after the family’s reaction, whether to take her up on it. Best change the subject.
‘Still nothing from Reg in the post,’ she observed sadly.
‘And it’s been a whole month since they left,’ objected Lily, looking to Sid for his superior knowledge of shipping.
‘They’re probably not there yet.’ Sid took a swig of tea. ‘No news is good news. If they’d run into trouble, we’d have known about it by now.’
Indeed they would: it had been a dreadful winter at sea. Ever since last November, when they’d sunk the Ark Royal, the Germans had seemed unstoppable, and January had been one of the worst months for shipping since the start of the war. German U-boats had sunk more ships than there were days in the month – thirty-five in all.
‘Where should his ship have got to by now?’ asked Jim.
‘Should
