Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings by Julia Stoneham

Author:Julia Stoneham [Julia Stoneham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749011307
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2011-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

The following Saturday was Edward-John’s tenth birthday. As Iris’s twenty-second had fallen during the previous week it was decided that the two occasions should be jointly celebrated with a cake and candles at teatime.

James Todd had sent his son a selection of additional pieces to add to the already comprehensive Meccano set with which the boy played in an attic directly above the bathroom. Here, after the evening meal, well muffled against the cold, Edward-John spent as much time as his mother would allow him, meticulously constructing bridges, cranes and towers while the pipes gurgled, the lavatory cistern hissed, the distant strains of the gramophone, the untuned piano and from directly beneath him, the rise and fall of the girls’ voices as they took their shared baths and rinsed out their smalls, floated up through the ill-fitting floorboards.

As Rose carried the birthday cake through to the recreation room, its candles illuminating the gloom of the cross-passage, Margery Brewster delivered Winnie back from the hospital.

Alice greeted them and invited them to join the birthday party. But Winnie declined and Marion took her friend by the arm.

‘I’ll see to her,’ she said, drawing her towards the narrow staircase.

‘Light duties for a week,’ Margery brusquely informed Alice. ‘Then she should be as good as new. I’ll let Roger have the certificate.’ She smiled at Edward-John and agreed to stay long enough to eat a slice of his birthday cake.

In their room Marion and Winnie exchanged glances.

‘You OK, Win?’ Marion asked, lighting their cigarettes. When her friend nodded she continued anxiously, ‘At the hospital… Did anyone…?

‘No. No one guessed what happened. When they told me I’d lost it,’ Winnie said, exhaling, ‘I made out it happened natural.’ There was a pause.

‘I’m ever so sorry, Win.’

‘Not your fault.’ Winnie said dully.

Marion stared at the floorboards. ‘What bugs me is that sergeant! Struttin’ around, not knowin’ what he’s done or what’s ’appened!’ she said bitterly.

‘Well, nothin’ ’as, ’as it! Well, not to ’im any road!’

‘And here’s you, looking like you’ve been hit by a Sherman bloody tank!’

Winnie drew in smoke. She was safely back in their room. She felt tired and her legs were a bit wobbly but she had survived. She felt almost magnanimous.

‘It might not have been the sergeant…’ she murmured, ashing her Woodbine in a saucer on their overcrowded dressing table. They sat, one on each of the two beds, and looked at each other. They heard a burst of applause from the recreation room, then, to a piano accompaniment, the girls sang ‘Happy Birthday’. There was a tap on the bedroom door and when Marion asked who was there it was Mabel who pushed it open with her foot. She carried two plates of raspberry jelly, each decorated with a blob of Devonshire cream but her usually sunny face was overcast.

‘Mrs Crocker said I was to bring you these,’ she announced flatly. ‘And Edward-John and Iris says do you want some of their cake…’

‘So why the po-face, Mabel?’ Marion’s tone was defensive.

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