Wartime for the Chocolate Girls by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan

Thirty

September

‘If they said he was “Missing in Action”, at least we’d know something,’ Joy said to Norma as they sat in Hilda and Roy’s kitchen, Norma with her little girl Lizzie in her arms. Norma’s already creamy complexion looked even more so at the moment and motherhood had filled out her cheeks. It did not take a genius to work out that Norma must have been pregnant at the wedding, and she blushingly confessed that it must have been so.

‘I didn’t know though,’ she told Joy. ‘I mean, I felt a bit funny, but I didn’t realize that was what it was.’

None of these things seemed to matter as much as they once would have done. Norma and Danny were still living with Hilda and Roy, as there was nowhere else available to set up on their own.

As soon as she started talking about Alan, Joy could hardly ever hold back her tears. ‘I can’t stand not knowing anything. Sometimes I have crazy thoughts, like . . .’

‘What?’ Norma reached over and gently stroked her arm.

Joy wiped her eyes, trying to get herself under control and not sob out all her grief and worry yet again. ‘Well, what if Alan’s run away and set up home with some other woman? What if he’s not even in the Army any more?’

‘I don’t think—’ Norma began.

‘I know it’s stupid, but . . .’ Joy shrugged helplessly. ‘I just go mad sometimes, with it all going round in my head.’

It was nearly six months now since Alan’s last letter, and all of them were trying not to give in to the inevitable thoughts about what might have happened. Joy found it a comfort visiting Sycamore Road, being with her old friends and cuddling little Lizzie: a new life, innocent of all that was going on in the world. However, she could not help sometimes comparing her life with Norma’s – here with her husband and child, safe and sound, when Joy herself did not even know if Alan was still alive.

Why had they not been told anything? That was the question that went round and round in her mind. She had been to see Irene and Ivy Bishop, Alan’s sister and mom, twice more and they had not heard a word from the Army or anyone else.

That morning – and every morning – if the post arrived before work, Joy rushed to the doormat, her heart pounding with expectation, only to be disappointed again. Dad had picked up the one letter that had arrived. She saw his jaw clench and he went into the kitchen, from where a delicious smell of frying bacon was drifting.

‘It’s from him, isn’t it?’ she heard him say. His voice sounded forced out between clenched teeth. ‘I told you to end it. Didn’t I?’

Joy had stood listening, her own daily punctured hope of a letter forgotten for a moment. She heard no reply from her mother, only the sizzle of the frying pan, and then, ‘Here’s your breakfast.’

‘What you need,’ Norma said now, ‘is a good dance.

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