The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(72)
“You’re tired,” the Colonel said, getting up. “Let me make you a cup of tea.” He went and filled the kettle.
“I’ve just been thinking about Hattie and Prim, wondering why I’ve spent my life working away to make other people happy. Why didn’t I make my own life more fun and happy, and more purposeful?”
He sat back down. “Now look here,” he said in a very authoritative way. “You have a great life. You have a lovely home, brought up David—”
I broke him off to say, “Who is at war and may not come back alive.”
“You have a son,” he went on. “And you are an incredible help and support to everyone around you.” He put his hands on the table emphatically. “Can’t you see how much this village needs you? They’d be lost without you!”
I put my head down, feeling self-conscious, and then I suddenly got up and snatched my dishcloth brusquely. “Enough of this self-indulgence,” I muttered. “I need to get on with dinner. I’m afraid I’m a little behind today.”
He came up beside me, guiding me back to the table with his firm, big hands on my shoulders.
“You just sit back down,” he said gently. “I can make dinner tonight.” And he went over to the larder and took stock of the contents. “Excellent news! We have some eggs, and eggs are my specialty.” He took the box out and promptly started looking for a pan. “Scrambled or boiled?” he asked, as he opened the cupboard and began banging around.
“Scrambled,” I replied, smiling. I can’t remember the last time someone cooked me dinner, even if it was only eggs.
“Excellent choice, madam,” he smiled. “My girls swear that I make the best scrambled eggs in the whole of Oxfordshire.”
Albeit a little overcooked, he made them very well indeed, singing a dreadfully out-of-tune rendering of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Of course I felt obliged to sing along, as he kept getting the words wrong and coming into the chorus too soon. It was ridiculous, us singing around the kitchen while cooking the scrambled eggs, but it cheered me up no end.
And so, dear diary, as I go to bed tonight, I feel that this war has become a turning point for me. I need to be more sure of myself, make the most of the time I have left.
Stand up and make myself heard.
LITCHFIELD HOSPITAL,
LITCHFIELD,
KENT.
Tuesday, 6th August, 1940
Dear Sister,
Why has this happened to me? My house was ruddy well bombed, and I’m stuck here in bleeding Litchfield Hospital with no way of finding my money, which is buried in the rubble of my house, waiting for the looters to find it first.
You’re probably wondering what happened. A sodding great bomb did, that’s what! Thursday night and there was I all tucked up nicely in bed, when next thing I hear the air raid going and have to hoist my exhausted body up. I was just going for the floorboard to get the money, when blam! Nothing, until I wake up in this dreadful place with the biggest pain in my hip you’d ever know, and my leg in bandages, too.
“Please remain calm and quiet, Miss Paltry,” the nurse told me in her patronizing manner. “It’s only a fractured hip. You’ll be out in a few weeks. We have patients in with far more severe wounds than you.”
What about my money? I felt like yelling.
But instead, I sniveled into my hands and started thinking up a plan. And then it came to me. The woman in the next bed is one of those horrible hop pickers from Dawkins Farm, and she has a few young fellows visiting her. Yesterday I asked her if her nephew might be able to do me a favor, that there would be money in it for him. If he could be trusted. The next day she got him to come to my bed to find out what it was about.
“What d’you want me to do then, missus?” he said plainly. I looked him over and wasn’t at all sure. He was tall and gangly, scruffy as a chimney sweep, with floppy loose hands and a pasty, moist complexion.
“It’s Tom, isn’t it?” I said, trying not to crease my forehead. Was this really the best I could do? “Now, can I be sure you can keep your word, Tom? As I have a great task for you, but you have to reassure me that I can depend on you.”
“You can trust me, missus,” he replied easily, hands on hips. Hardly the thing to fill me with confidence, but I proceeded nonetheless.
“You see, I have an amount of money hidden in the remains of my house. Not a large sum, you know. But, you see, I have been saving up for my poorly sister, who is in need of a wheelchair.”
“Maybe you’ll be the one to need it now, with your leg and all,” he said, not meaning to be impertinent. I felt like giving up there and then.
“Maybe I will need it, and then she can use it afterward. But the long and short is that I am trapped here in hospital, and my house is likely to be looted. I need you to get the money and bring it here to me. I will give you some of the money for your trouble.”
He looked at me, sucking in his lips. “How much?”
“Ten shillings,” I said in a final way.
“Righty-ho,” he sniffed, wiping his nose with his shirt sleeve. “Where is it then?”
I stalled, asking him to fetch some water for me. His easy attitude unsettled me. He was fine with ten shillings now, but once he saw the thick wodge he’d change his tune as quick as a jackrabbit. Would I even see the money again? His lack of haggling made me doubt him.