gaped.
‘But – I don’t understand!’ she cried. ‘America’s in the war now! What about all their thousands of troops?’
‘Lily,’ said Reg patiently. ‘They’re still collecting their dead from Pearl Harbor. Well, not literally,’ he reassured her when she looked horrified. ‘But the Japs knocked out eighteen of their ships, for heaven’s sake. They’ve got to regroup, get organised. The Yanks aren’t going to come riding to our rescue tomorrow.’
That was that, then.
‘The Japs are ripping through the Far East like a dose of salts,’ Reg went on. ‘They’ve got their eye on India, you know. The Americans and the Aussies can’t do it all. So if we’ve got the blokes already trained up … I’m sorry, Lil, but there it is. It’s going to be every man jack of us soon.’
Lily got up – and wished she hadn’t. Her legs were shaking.
‘I’m going to make some cocoa,’ she said. Her voice was thin and weedy, even thinner than it had sounded in the cold air of the yard. ‘Do you want some?’
‘You bet! And let’s cheer ourselves up. See what’s on the wireless, eh?’ Reg leant forward to switch it on.
Their old set exploded into voice: it did that sometimes, catching you off guard. It was the evening service – the middle of a hymn.
‘Through many a day of darkness,’ sang the congregation,
‘Through many a scene of strife,
The faithful few fought bravely
To guard the nation’s life—’
‘Blimey,’ said Reg. ‘That’s all we need. Let’s find something brighter … Oi! Careful!’
Blundering out, Lily had knocked against the standard lamp. It wobbled crazily.
‘Sorry.’
She made her escape. In the scullery, she sat down on the hard wooden chair and pressed her knees together.
She was already losing Reg. In the next year she could lose, then, not just Sid, but Jim as well. He’d be turning eighteen, and would have to join up, and he wouldn’t be sorry about it, she knew. More and more these days he kept saying that selling reconditioned sideboards to the good ladies of Hinton wasn’t exactly a reserved occupation, and he felt increasingly guilty about it. She’d had time to get used to the idea that Jim would be called up, but she’d thought at least that he’d be in the country. There’d be letters, and he’d get regular leave, and for the first few months, maybe years, he’d be doing something menial, and relatively safe. But the thought that he might be sent overseas almost straight away, into the thick of the fighting … Jim? Really?
It would be the Army, for sure: he’d said that much. Jim, who she was used to seeing either in his work suit or in old flannels and a tatty shirt digging the veg bed, in a stiff khaki uniform. Jim, pushing his glasses up his nose as he wrote out price tickets at the shop, or did the crossword at home, instead shouldering a rifle, or on the march, or charging at someone with a bayonet. Jim, over six-foot tall, bent double inside a tank, loading shells. Jim under fire, or laying explosives to blow up a bridge, or defusing bombs. Jim broiling in the desert, sweating in the jungle, freezing somewhere in Eastern Europe … Jim, hungry, thirsty, exhausted; captured, injured, dead …
Lily found she was shuddering all over. And five minutes ago, all she’d had to worry about had been the blackout.
When Jim came home, Lily was still up, and being soundly beaten by Reg at dominoes. She didn’t say anything to him about what Reg had told her, and next morning, after a restless night, what with her and Jim rushing to get to work, and Reg getting in the way of them having their breakfast, she didn’t say anything either, or any more to Reg.
But Reg caught her in the hall as she was putting on the ankle boots she couldn’t believe someone had actually been mad enough to give to the WVS jumble. All right, so the suede uppers were worn shiny, but they had a neat little cuff, a smart toggle fastening and a decent sole with only a couple of splits. But with a layer of cardboard inside, which mostly kept the wet out, they were at least warm.
‘Sorry if I worried you last night, Sis.’ The pleading look in his eyes intensified the apology. ‘But it’s no good being an ostrich, now, is it?’
‘No, you were quite right, Reg,’ Lily said firmly. ‘I need to face facts. It’s no good pretending.’
‘That’s what I think.’ Reg seemed relieved. ‘Just got to get on with it, haven’t we?’
Lily nodded. ‘I don’t envy you telling Mum about your posting, all the same.’
‘Oh, I expect she knows the score,’ said Reg. ‘You know what our mum’s like. She’s read your mind before you’ve even had the thought.’
Lily smiled. It was true that you couldn’t get much, if anything, past Dora.
‘At least it’s different for you – you’re years off call-up,’ Reg added consolingly. ‘Anyway, you’re far too valuable for Marlow’s to let you go!’
‘Definitely! Every time I put a boy’s sailor suit on the rail I feel I’m doing my bit!’
Laugh it off, that was the only way. ‘Keep smiling through’, as Vera Lynn had been singing last night, when Reg had finally found something cheerier to listen to.
‘Essential war work! Vital for morale!’ he assured her. ‘Now give us a kiss, ’cos I’ll be gone by the time you and Jim get back tonight.’
‘Bye, Reg,’ said Lily. She gave him not just a kiss, but a big tight hug as well. ‘Look after yourself.’
It was completely inadequate, of course, but it was what everyone said.
‘Will do. And make sure you write, once I’ve got an address.’
‘Of course I will. And you must tell us if you need anything.’
‘Well, it won’t be balaclavas,’ grinned Reg. ‘Though they say it gets cold at night, out under the stars and that big desert moon.’
‘Steady on,’ said Lily, ‘you’ll be writing poetry next!’
She was getting quite good at this ‘making light of it’ approach.
‘What, smoking a pipe and wearing a cravat? I don’t think so!’ countered Reg. He wasn’t so bad at it himself. ‘But it’s an adventure, eh – join the Army and see the world?’
Neither of them was really convinced, she could tell, and it rang even more hollow now she’d realised how soon ‘seeing the world’ might happen for Sid and Les – and for Jim too. Maybe ‘making light of it’ wasn’t the way forward after all.
Reg gave her another quick hug, then added,
