Chapter 25
Lilian and Tony arrived in the late afternoon. What with preparing for Topsy’s wedding and her own imminent departure, it had been over a month since Bobby had last been to Bradford to see her sister. She stared as Lilian struggled to get her huge frame through the door.
‘Oh my word! You’re enormous, Lil.’
Lilian laughed. ‘Thank you, darling sister.’
Tony followed her in with their suitcases.
‘I’ll put these in your room, shall I, Bob?’ he said.
‘It’s your room now,’ Bobby said, smiling rather wistfully. She turned her attention back to Lilian as he disappeared with the cases. ‘I’m serious though. You must have at least four babies in there.’ She frowned. ‘It couldn’t be twins, could it? They do say they run in families.’
‘Oh, don’t say that. Wouldn’t it be just my luck?’ Lilian said with a groan. ‘The doctor seems to think it’s just the one, at any rate. He’s going to be a strapper.’
Bobby smiled. ‘You look good though. Glowing and all that. How do you feel?’
Lilian winced as she put a hand in the small of her back. ‘Sore. I’m glad we’re here finally. The Wicked Mother-in-law’s been looking daggers at me ever since I got too big to help much around the house.’
‘Oi. That’s my mam you’re talking about,’ Tony said as he came back in. He slipped an arm round his wife and gave her a kiss. ‘It’ll be nice to have you all to myself though.’
Bobby smiled. They seemed happy enough, in spite of a shaky start to married life. That was something.
‘Did you see the cot?’ she asked. ‘A gift from Reg and Mary.’
‘Aye, very smart,’ Tony said.
‘It belonged to their little girl. I was surprised they wanted to part with it, but Mary said she’d love to see it used for another little one.’
‘That’s kind of them,’ Lilian said. ‘We’ll thank them later. Is Dad at work?’
‘Yes, but he could be back any time now.’ Bobby took a piece of paper and a key from her pocket.
‘Now, I’ve written out my daily itinerary – everything I do in the morning before Dad gets up and in the evening before he gets home.
I know you won’t be able to manage much of it, but Mary’s going to help, and I’ve arranged to pay Ida Wilcox a shilling a day to come and char for you.
I’ve tried to repair as much of the roof as I can, but Tony, you and Dad will need to pitch in as well.
And…’ She held the key out. ‘This is yours now.’
Lilian reached for it, but Bobby’s hand instinctively closed around it.
Lilian frowned. ‘Bobby?’
‘Ugh. Sorry, I don’t know why I did that.’ She dropped the key into Lilian’s palm. ‘It just suddenly occurred to me that I was really going.’ Bobby glanced around the cottage. ‘I’ll miss this place,’ she said softly. ‘I hadn’t realised until now quite how much.’
That night, Bobby slept better than she had for some time.
She was tired after her walk, and the smell of Charlie in the box room, which had caused her such mental turmoil the last time she had slept there, felt strangely comforting after so many days of not hearing from him.
She enjoyed a dreamless, restful sleep, feeling as though he was there at her side – although there was an emptiness when she woke and found that he wasn’t.
She awoke the next morning – the morning of Topsy’s wedding – some time before her alarm clock, and after washing and dressing, went downstairs to the parlour to type up an account of her walk. Reg hobbled in on her an hour later.
‘You again?’ he said, taking a seat at his desk. ‘I thought you’d resigned to go to war.’
‘I wanted to get this walk typed,’ Bobby murmured, not looking up.
‘That’ll keep while tomorrow. Go get your breakfast, lass. You work too hard.’
Bobby glanced up to smile. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’
‘Aye, well, I’m an old man. Nowt else to do with missen at my age.’ He nodded to her typewriter. ‘Taking it with you when you go?’
Bobby looked at the old Remington as if seeing it for the first time.
It had been a gift from her parents when she had graduated from Pitman’s College many years ago, second-hand even then, but old though it was, it had served her well.
For the past fifteen months it had sat here, on her desk in the Athertons’ parlour.
The idea of it not being here… for some reason, that felt even more final than when she had handed over the cow house key.
She was going. She wouldn’t be here any more. Tony would sit at this desk, doing her job. It was Tony and Lil who would sleep in her bed at the cow house, and take care of her father. And Bobby would be… who knew what she would be doing?
‘I don’t know,’ she said in a slightly choked voice. ‘I suppose I’ll leave it at the cow house. Tony’s got his own machine and I won’t need it where I’m going, will I? I’m sure the WAAF have got plenty of typewriters.’
‘Nay, take it with thee. Never know when you might have a bit of time to do some writing. Don’t want to let those skills stagnate, eh?’
‘I suppose not,’ Bobby said vaguely.
‘Oh. While I’ve got you here.’ Reg took a fat envelope from a drawer. He limped to her desk to hand it to her.
‘What is it?’ Bobby asked.
‘Leaving present.’
Bobby slid her hand into the envelope and drew out a book. It was a hardback edition of the memoir of her hero, Dorothy Lawrence: a woman reporter who had disguised herself as a man in the last war and served at the front.
‘For me?’ she said, running her hand wonderingly over the dust jacket.
‘Aye, so you won’t forget what you’re really good at.’ He summoned a rare smile. ‘Stand up, will you? I’d rather say my goodbyes now than in front of the rabble.’
She did so, and Reg reached over the desk to shake her hand.
‘Good luck, Bobby. You’ve been a right decent worker. Doubt I’ll ever find better.’ He looked a little awkward. ‘And… well, you’re a good lass. Come back to us when it’s done, won’t you? You and that brother of mine. Like I said before, we’ll always have a home for the pair of you here.’
Bobby smiled. This was the closest Reg had ever come to admitting he valued her not only as a reporter but as a member of his family. She knew he would be embarrassed beyond belief if she hugged him, however, and contented herself with shaking his hand heartily.
‘I’ll miss you too, Reg,’ she said.
‘Aye, well, no need to talk soft about it. Go get some breakfast, eh?’
Bobby started to go, but Reg put a hand on her shoulder.
‘And don’t forget what I said,’ he told her. ‘Keep that writing brain of yourn working hard, like your pal Miss Lawrence did.’
‘Don Sykes said something very similar the last time I saw him.’
‘Don always recognised summat in you it took me a long time to see. Too long a time.’
‘What was that?’
Reg smiled. ‘A newspaperman.’
Bobby met his eye. ‘Is there any point keeping my skills honed though, Reg, if I’ve got no job to come back to?’
‘I thought you might say that,’ Reg said. ‘Look, I can’t promise I’ll take you back – wish I could. I don’t even know if we’ll still be here. But if there’s still a Tyke and there’s still a Reg Atherton responsible for it… well, we’ll see where we are, eh?’
Topsy’s wedding was to take place at the Anglican church in the village, St Peter’s, that afternoon. Bobby had offered to help her prepare, but Topsy had wanted no one with her on the morning of her wedding but Mrs Hobbes.
‘Someone ought to tell that girl it’s only the groom it’s bad luck for her to see before the ceremony,’ Mary observed as she, Lilian and the two Parry girls helped Bobby get ready.
Bobby’s maid of honour dress was a smart floral one that Topsy had loaned her.
The fact she had something new and pretty to wear rather than her best, but increasingly shabby, blue crepe was creating at least a little festive atmosphere in her heart.
She was doing everything she could to banish preoccupation about her imminent departure so she could fully share in her friends’ joy.
‘I think Topsy wants to make a big entrance in her silk gown,’ she said with a smile. ‘It was her grandmother’s apparently, although it’s been refashioned into something a little less Victorian. Topsy’s absolutely refused to let anyone but Mrs Hobbes see it before the wedding.’
‘Are you and the other bridesmaids not to walk down the aisle with her?’
‘There are no other bridesmaids. She only wanted me, and she didn’t want to be attended down the aisle.’
Mary smiled. ‘Topsy will do things her own way.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ Bobby said. ‘I’d hate to have everyone looking at me. It’s going to be bad enough on my own wedding day.’
‘Bobby, may I brush your hair?’ Jessie asked, giving the chestnut waves hanging loose over her shoulders an awed look. Lilian had lent her sister a little hair oil, and for once Bobby’s tresses were smooth and manageable, free from their habitual frizz.
‘No, Bobby said I could do it,’ Florrie insisted.
Lilian smiled. ‘How about if you brush Bobby’s and Jess does mine? It isn’t quite as long, I’m afraid, but it’s just as thick.’
‘Oh, yes please!’ Jessie said, clapping her hands.
They were in Mary and Reg’s bedroom, with Bobby sitting on the edge of the bed facing the mirror. Lilian sat down next to her. The two little girls clambered up behind them, brandishing a hairbrush each.
‘Now, be gentle,’ Mary warned them. ‘You know how you both shout when I pull at your knots.’
‘We will,’ Jess said solemnly as she started brushing Lilian’s shoulder-length hair.
Lilian laughed. ‘I could get used to this. My own personal salon. Girls, I shall expect regular beauty treatments now I’m to live here, in all the most fashionable styles.’
‘Oooh, yes,’ Florrie breathed. ‘I wish Bobby could stay too, then we could do her hair to match.’
‘I’ll be home on leave before you know it,’ Bobby said. ‘I’ll tell you all about life in the Air Force and we can make up some games about it.’
‘And will you let me wear your WAAF hat?’ Jess asked eagerly.
Bobby smiled. ‘All right. But you must be very careful with it, and you’ll have to take turns with your sister.’