he’d inveigled Jim into a game of pontoon. They all swivelled to look at him as he laid down the pack.
‘There’s no other way to put this, Beryl, but frankly Les did his bit last summer. Even if he was here, the maternity home’s no place for a bloke! He’d have most likely been down the pub if he’d got any sense.’
Dora shot him a look that would have quelled, if not felled, anyone less robust, but Sid, being Sid, got away with it. Beryl gave a damp smile.
‘You’re right there,’ she admitted. ‘He’s said as much!’
‘Exactly! So when you’re screaming in agony bringing the little one into the world, far better that he’s throwing up over the side on the high seas or in some miserable billet suffering as well, don’t you think?’
Lily had to hand it to Sid. Whenever she’d tried to make a joke of anything serious, like Reg’s posting or Jim’s medical, she hadn’t convinced even herself, but somehow, annoyingly, he managed it. Beryl even half-laughed.
‘Yeah – and serve him right!’ she sniffed. ‘I mean, he’s looking forward to the baby and everything, real excited he is, but even if he was here, it’s not like he’d be changing the nappies, is it, or doing the feeds?’
‘In my experience, not in a rain of pig’s pudding.’
Dora had pronounced, and after that, no one was likely to disagree.
Gradually the evening got its usual rhythm back. Dora swept Sid’s cards and matchsticks off the table – she didn’t approve of gambling, either, however harmless. Lily re-laid the cork mats and got out the pudding spoons – five of them, because Beryl bravely thought she might manage ‘just a bit’ of the blancmange that was on offer.
With Beryl accepting her second helping (typical!), the conversation turned to naming the baby. That was something that would have to be decided, surely, Lily asked, before Les went away? Or had they already chosen?
Boys’ names, it seemed, were still a subject of discussion – Ivy was pushing for Cuthbert, her father’s name, and Beryl was resisting – but she and Les had settled on a girl’s name – sort of.
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