Chapter 5 Lilias
Lilias
“Don’t let the dog lick your fingers, David,” Nadine ticked off her son as she bashed about at the sink.
The pair had been at Marsh House almost a fortnight now, but Lilias still hadn’t got used to Nadine’s style of washing up. To divert her mind from the fate of the china that had been used by her family for generations, she crossed to the pantry to fetch offal for Compass’s breakfast.
“He’s doing what Snowy does,” David said with a giggle, and she looked around to see Compass sitting on his haunches with his front paws raised, unashamedly begging.
“Who’s Snowy?”
“The dog who lives next door. He got sent to the country to be safe, just like me.”
“That’s nice.”
“David, go and wash your hands.”
Obediently, David pushed his chair back and left the room, and Nadine collected his plate and cup to wash up, taking them over to the sink.
Lilias, meanwhile, fetched the plate of offal from the pantry and took it to the table to cut it up.
There was rather less of it than she remembered, and it was starting to be a bit whiffy, so it would probably make sense to use it up all at once instead of making it stretch to two meals.
“Snowy wasn’t sent to the country,” Nadine said without turning from the sink. “He was put down the same as all the other pets in our street.” Now she turned briefly to Lilias, a look of challenge in her face. “Had to be that way, didn’t it? No way on earth to feed ’em all, with a war on.”
Lilias felt as sick to the stomach as when she’d first heard stories of the mass euthanasia of pets.
It had all started with a government pamphlet—Advice to Animal Owners—which had suggested that the destruction of pets might be the kindest course of action in view of the likelihood of food shortages, and the British public had responded overwhelmingly.
To Lilias, a confirmed animal lover, it had been horrific.
“Yes, well, at least you’ve managed to shield poor David from the truth,” she said now, but Nadine sniffed, turning back to the washing up.
“That was his father’s doing. Far too soft on him, he always is. I believe in treating boys like boys myself.”
Not trusting herself to speak, Lilias filled the dog bowl and put it outside the back door. Compass didn’t normally eat outside, but, then, he wasn’t normally in close proximity to a woman who appeared to wish him dead.
“One of the benefits of living in the countryside is the seemingly endless supply of rabbits,” she said, coming back into the kitchen. “And fresh air. It’s an excellent drying day today. Mrs. Symonds’s mother’s ill, so I told her we’d do all the washing today. I do hope that’s convenient for you?”
Nadine frowned, rubbing her back in a way that emphasised the swell of her stomach.
Lilias suspected she’d had plans to meet one of the other evacuee mothers she’d quickly become friends with—they’d established the habit of getting together in the mornings.
But Monday was wash day, war or not, and Lilias didn’t think it would be any different if Nadine were back in London.
It wasn’t as if she’d been helpful when Lilias had been completing blackout curtains for the windows the previous week either.
Everyone was obliged to have blackouts at their windows so that no chink of light showed outside at night as a target for any enemy bombs—it was the law, enforced by the local ARP Warden, who was due to make an inspection of the house any day.
Symonds had made wooden frames to fit all the downstairs windows, and Lilias had carefully stretched fabric over these and stained them with black pigment.
This way, the frames could be removed during the daytime to give them light.
Upstairs was a different story. Here the windows were covered permanently with black material, making the bedrooms perpetually dark.
Accustomed to making canvases for her paintings, Lilias didn’t find the task particularly difficult.
But it had been time consuming, and it would have been nice to have had even an offer of help from Nadine.
But no such offer had been forthcoming. Surely she didn’t really expect somebody else to do all the domestic work?
When Nadine did come outside to help with the washing half an hour later, Lilias had just dragged out the first of the steaming tubs of rinsed sheets into the yard ready for the mangle, which was already set up in the yard.
In a few months, when the weather turned colder, putting the clothes through the mangle would be an indoor activity, which made wash day a claustrophobic affair, but for now, it was still possible to do it out in the fresh air, which made it halfway tolerable.
“Good, you’re just in time,” Lilias told Nadine. “If you could pop that lot through, I’ll get cracking on the next load of washing.”
But Nadine just stood there with her hands on her hips, staring at the mangle in undisguised horror. “Lord Almighty,” she said. “My granny had one like that. I didn’t think there was any of ’em left.”
The mangle, with its well-used wooden rollers, had been a part of the fixtures and fittings of Marsh House for as long as Lilias could remember.
“Ruin your sheets, them things do. Leave marks over everything.”
“Not if you wrap things in linen first. Here, it’s all ready and waiting for you.”
Lilias couldn’t understand what the problem was.
It was true the wooden rollers could stain the sheets and clothes as they passed through, but wrapping them in linen first sorted the issue out.
She supposed Nadine must have one of the new lightweight A-frame mangles with rubber rollers, but really, it couldn’t make that much difference, could it?
At least their water came out of the tap at Marsh House, which wasn’t the case for many properties in the area.
Nadine was still standing there in the yard with her hands on her hips, staring at the mangle.
Lilias wasn’t sure whether she was going to go over and kick the thing, which would surely hurt, since it was so solidly built, or turn and storm back into the house.
Then a sudden thought struck Lilias, pricking her conscience.
“Are you worried about using the mangle because of the baby?” she asked.
“No,” Nadine answered on a sudden wail, her face puckering.
“I just bloody hate it here. I bloody sodding hate it. There’s nothing but dark nothingness and there’s sod all to do.
Back in the bloody ark, it is. An’ I know I oughta be grateful ’cos you’ve taken us in, but I don’t want to be grateful the whole time.
I want my house, my things. I want to know what my husband’s getting up to while I’m not around.
I don’t want there to be a sodding war!”
Lilias had moved towards Nadine during this outburst, but didn’t quite dare touch her, even in comfort. “Oh, my dear . . . it must be terribly hard for you.”
Nadine took her hands from her face and glared at Lilias fiercely. “Lena Briggs found out her husband was doing the dirty on her after she’d only been gone a week!” she wailed.
Lilias’s hand dropped. “How awful,” she said, recalling Lena, a small redhead with twin babies, who had gone to lodge with the Timpson family on a nearby farm.
“But you surely don’t think your husband will do the same thing, do you?
From the way you and David speak about him, he doesn’t seem the type. ”
“Who knows what bloody type anyone is with a war on?” Nadine said, wiping her face on her dress sleeve, more in control now.
“I need to be there to make sure. And I want my mum and my sister and brother. Family, not God-awful dogs and miles of sodding marshes. Mangles that come out of a museum and your bloody sister acting like we’re joined at the hip when she don’t know me from Adam.
I want to go home!” This last word came out as another wail, a precursor to the tears starting up again, but Lilias had lost any sympathy she might have had for Nadine at the scathing mention of Ruth, who had been nothing but friendly and welcoming to the woman.
Not to mention Compass, who had, very wisely, done his very best to give Nadine a wide berth.
“Well then, my dear,” Lilias said, moving away to begin wrapping one of the wet sheets in linen in preparation for its transit through the mangle, “in that case, since we are unable to change who we are and where we live, you must return home. But what do you want to do about young David? Surely you don’t want him to return to London with the threat of bombing raids? ”
Nadine sniffed. “There ain’t been no bloody bombing raids, though, have there?”
Lilias manoeuvred the wrapped sheet towards the mangle. “True, but it’s the very early days, isn’t it? I imagine the Luftwaffe are getting themselves into gear.”
“Better a quick death at home than dying gradually here,” Nadine retorted, and Lilias began to crank the mangle handle, putting more force into the task than usual.
“Well, David’s very welcome to stay here if you want him to.
Let me know what you decide. And perhaps it would be a good idea to reclaim your clothes before they go into the washing tub. ”
By early afternoon, it was all decided. Nadine was to return to London the very next day, leaving David to stay on at Marsh House with Lilias and Ruth because, “His dad would have a fit if I brought him home.”
Lilias wasn’t sure what the boy thought about his mother leaving him behind, although she could guess.
Certainly, he’d gone very quiet, and didn’t seem to have much of an appetite for lunch.
When Nadine went upstairs to start packing, Lilias took him with her to the henhouse to collect the eggs. He liked the hens.
“Do you want to take the eggs out of the nesting boxes today?” Lilias asked him, after they’d let themselves in and carefully closed the gate behind them.
“Can I?” he asked, a spark of interest lighting up his face, and she smiled.