Chapter 21 Lilias
Lilias
“Harry! Hello; how lovely to see you.”
He put his head on one side to study her. “You did get my letter saying I was coming?”
“Oh, yes.” Lilias sighed. “I’m sorry; to be honest with you, we’re all at sixes and sevens.
I’m afraid poor Ruth received some very bad news last week.
Someone she was extremely fond of has been killed in a bombing raid in London.
And right on top of that, I’ve just had a letter from my aunt in Paris to say that Etienne, her son, has been sent to a coal mine.
Her son was captured during the early days of the war, and now this.
She’s utterly distraught about it, as you can imagine. ”
There hadn’t been time to put Harry off from coming to visit, not that Lilias would have wanted to do so in any case. Harry was due to report for active service the following week. It was only right that he and David see each other before he left.
Besides, despite the current uproar in their lives, or perhaps because of it, it was so very good to see him, even if seeing him was making her feel emotional.
Poor, poor Gloria. It was unbelievable that she could have been here only days ago, and now she was gone forever.
She had been so vital; so pretty and full of life.
And she had brought Ruth so much joy. And poor Etienne. He must be so very afraid.
“I’m so sorry to hear all that.” Harry took off his hat and held it respectfully. But before he could say anything else, David pounded down the stairs like a herd of elephants, shouting, “Dad! Dad!”
“Hello, my old mate!” Harry swept David up and swung him around, and while Lilias smiled, she quickly became aware their exuberance wasn’t really appropriate with Ruth upstairs sobbing her heart out.
“Come,” she said, ushering them into the kitchen and shutting the door. “I have an idea the two of you would be better going off somewhere together for the afternoon. How about showing your father around the area, David?”
Harry nodded. “Good idea. Fancy being my tour guide, son?”
David was already tugging at his father’s hand. “C’mon, then, Dad. Let’s go!”
“Have you got your gas mask, David?” she asked, and he held the cardboard box to show it to her.
“Yes, Auntie Lilias.”
“Good boy.”
Harry lifted a hand. “See you later.”
“Yes. Don’t be alarmed if you hear any explosions. It’s just the antiaircraft training down on the marshes. And do look out for Compass, would you?”
“Gone missing again?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” he promised, and then he and David were gone, David’s excited voice reaching her through the open door as he led his father along the garden path towards the gate.
Leaving the door open in case Compass returned, Lilias set the kettle to boil and made a cup of tea for her sister, carrying it carefully upstairs, rattling on its saucer. “Here you are, my dear; I’ve brought you some tea.”
Ruth was lying face down on the bed, and her voice was muffled and hoarse as she replied. “Oh, well, then, all’s right with the world, isn’t it? If there’s a cup of tea.”
Lilias set the teacup down on the bedside table with a sigh. “No, of course not. I just thought you might be thirsty, darling.”
She sat and stroked her sister’s back, remembering how she, too, had believed the searing grief of losing Geoffrey would endure forever.
And the truth was, she still missed him.
The loss of him would always be a part of her.
Only now it had become one with new memories and experiences, the old and new knitted together.
These days she was able to think of their time together with affection and gratitude, instead of wondering how she would go on living with the stark magnitude of it.
But she knew Ruth wouldn’t be ready to hear this now, so she sat silently and was simply there for her sister in her grief.
“How Ralph will gloat when he hears the news,” Ruth said bitterly, starting to weep again.
“I’m sure he’ll do nothing of the kind. In any case, he’s unlikely to hear about it, isn’t he? Not unless you tell him.”
After a while, Ruth sat up and blew her nose. “Did I hear Harry arrive just now?”
Lilias kissed the top of Ruth’s head. “Yes, he and David have gone out exploring.”
“You ought to have gone with them.”
“They need some father-and-son time together. And besides, where would I be today but here with you?”
Ruth looked back at her with anguish-filled eyes. “Oh, Lilias, how will I bear it? I feel as if I’m dying. Can one die from grief, do you think? I’d like to.”
“Sh,” Lilias said, hugging her as she began to sob all over again.
Later on, Ruth fell asleep, so Lilias went downstairs to find herself something to eat.
She ate at the kitchen table, feeling sad and alone, and longing for Compass to return from his travels, for the warm reassurance of his little body pressed up against her leg.
But, when she got up to look out into the garden, there was still no sign of him, so she took out her sketchbook and began to draw Gloria from memory instead, recreating her playful expression as she’d spoken about the prank the factory girls had played on her father.
If only Cook hadn’t seen her with Ruth, she would never have gone to London.
And if she hadn’t gone to London, she would still be alive today.
Hateful, hateful man. Lilias thought of Harry and David and wished she’d thought to warn them to stay away from Percy Cook’s house, and suddenly she longed for them to return.
When they did so, at four o’clock, Lilias was just putting some tea on the table, having spent much of the afternoon drawing.
“That’s good timing,” she said, looking up with a smile. “Have you had a good time?”
“We made bows and arrows. They worked really good. We tried to get a rabbit, didn’t we, Dad? Only they were all too fast.”
Lilias smiled. “Oh, well, better luck next time. I’ll just go and see if Auntie Ruth wants to join us for tea.”
But when Lilias reached Ruth’s room, it was to find her sister sitting at her dressing table dressed in a shimmering green evening dress, putting the finishing touches to her makeup.
“Oh,” Lilias said, surprised. “Are you going out somewhere?”
Ruth didn’t look round. “There’s a tea dance up at the barracks. I told you about it.”
Lilias sat down on the end of the bed. “So you did.” But that had been before the telegram had arrived. Before they’d known about Gloria.
“I have to do something, Lily; something to help me forget. So, I’m going. It’s all arranged. My lift will be here at any moment.”
She got to her feet to slip on her shoes. Lilias watched her, concerned. “Are you sure you’re up to it, darling? I can tell them you’re indisposed if you like.”
Ruth’s smile was brittle as she picked up her wrap. “No. I shall have my evening of forgetfulness. It’s what Gloria would have done if our positions were reversed.”
Outside, a car horn hooted.
“That sounds like my lift now,” Ruth said, making for the door. “Don’t worry about me. I shall be fine.”
But Lilias was worried, and she confessed as much to Harry while David was washing his hands.
“I think it’s too quick, Harry. This morning she couldn’t stop crying. I’m just not confident she’ll be able to keep this bravado up.”
He sat thoughtfully for a moment, then he said, “Well, why don’t you and I go to the dance a bit later? Check she’s all right?”
Lilias experienced a thrill right down to her toes at the idea of going to a dance with Harry, but the sensible part of her felt obliged to ask, “But what about your train?”
He shrugged. “I can go back tomorrow. If you don’t mind me bunking down here, that is. Nadine’s staying at her mother’s this weekend. I can be home tomorrow before she even knows I didn’t come back.”
“All right then,” she said with a smile. “You can have Father’s room. It would be a weight off my mind, if you’re sure you don’t mind?”
Harry shot her a grin. “Mind going to a dance with a beautiful woman? I reckon I’ll cope.”
Lilias, who had no idea how to respond to that, felt her cheeks start to flame. Fortunately, Harry kept on speaking.
“Me and David came across a right grumpy git this afternoon, if you’ll excuse my language. Spoke so nastily to David, I threatened to thump him one.”
She sighed. “That would have been Percy Cook; I ought to have warned you to keep clear of his property. The man’s evil; there’s no other word for it. A complete blight on the neighbourhood. It was his son David had a fight with at school.”
“So I gathered. I told him if he so much as looked at David again, I’d be back with a gang of East End mates to take care of him.”
“Oh,” said Lilias, slightly taken aback. “Do you have such a gang?”
Another cheeky grin. “No, but he doesn’t know that, does he? Scurried back into his house like a frightened mouse.”
Lilias laughed, imagining it, and after they’d finished their tea, she popped down the road to ask Mrs. Symonds if she would mind looking after David for the evening while they went to the dance.
They walked the two miles to the barracks, falling in step easily together, and while they did so, Lilias asked Harry about his forthcoming posting.
“When do you have to report for duty?”
He sighed, making her wish she hadn’t brought up the subject.
“On Tuesday morning. Thought I’d escaped this lot, being the age I am, but it wasn’t to be.
Still, needs must and all that. Don’t want to be ruled by the führer, do we?
And at least I’ve had experience of getting through it.
I’ll do what I did during the last lot.”
“What was that?”
Another shrug. “I sort of distanced myself. Went somewhere else in my mind. One time, I can remember I pictured a seashell I’d found as a boy, every last detail of the thing.
The lustre of it, and the edge that had been battered about on the rocks.
” He laughed. “Bet that sounds proper daft, doesn’t it? ”