LITMIR.BIZ

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For the first time in her life she was actually enjoying working for praise, and aware of how horrid it felt to be criticised and told off. Poor Sasha, was that how she had sometimes felt when she, Lou, had got them both into trouble? She’d make it up to her, tell her how much she had learned and how sorry she was for the way she knew her own past rebelliousness had sometimes upset her twin.

      Sasha. Only now could Lou admit how desperately she had been longing to see her twin. But now she wasn’t going to. She’d been thinking about her parents too. Her mother had been upset over Christmas when she’d told them out of the blue that she’d joined up, and her father had been angry. Then she’d shrugged aside their reaction, but even though she’d written to them telling them how happy she was, and had received loving letters back from them, Lou felt that she owed them an apology for not discussing her plans with them first and for not being grown up enough to explain how stifling and depressing she had found the telephone exchange, instead of going off like that and joining up behind their backs.

      ‘Halt.’

      Obediently Lou stopped walking. They were outside the WAAF guardhouse again. Her stomach was churning with misery in a way that reminded her of being a little girl and wanting to cling to her mother and Sash on the first day at school, but there was no Sasha here now to share that feeling with her, and no mother either to hold them both tight for a few precious extra seconds of comfort.

      Her mother would be disappointed and upset when she learned that Lou wasn’t going to be home at Easter. For a few desperate seconds Lou tried to think of some suitable excuse she could make that would enable her to conceal the truth from everyone, but there was no story she could tell that her mother would accept. She had felt so proud about being able to go home and tell them how well she was doing, but now that wasn’t going to happen.

      At least Sasha’s boyfriend would be pleased, Lou reflected bitterly, as she heard the guardhouse door being locked with her inside it.

      Doing jankers would no doubt mean that she’d be set to work in the mess, peeling potatoes, washing up and scrubbing dirty floors, and of course everyone who saw her there would know that she was being punished.

      Now that she was finally on her own, a solitary tear was allowed to escape.

      ‘Oh, Mum, it’s so good to see you,’ Grace greeted Jean as they exchanged hugs in the Campion kitchen.

      ‘Here, let me have a look at you,’ Jean demanded, holding her eldest daughter at arm’s length. ‘Your face looks thinner.’

      ‘Well, if it is it isn’t for any lack of food,’ Grace assured her, as Jean turned to hug Seb. ‘You’d never guess what a difference it makes living in the country, Mum. I had a farmer’s wife come round the other day and bring me some of her own butter as a thank you for me bandaging up her little boy’s leg after he had fallen almost outside our front door. I suppose I should have refused, but, well, with me coming home I thought that you could use it.’

      ‘I dare say you should have said “no”,’ Jean agreed, her eyes widening as she saw the good half-pound of butter Grace was handing over to her. Two ounces was the ration, that was all. ‘But I have to admit that I’m glad you didn’t. Best not say anything to your dad, though, love. He’s just gone down to the allotment to water his lettuces but he should be back any minute. He’s been asking me since first thing what time you were due.

      ‘I hope she’s feeding you properly, Seb,’ she smiled warmly at her son-in-law.

      ‘Impossible for Gracie not to be a good cook with a mum like you,’ Seb assured her.

      ‘Where are the twins?’ Grace asked, as she took off her coat and the pretty, rather gay little hat that had been perched on top of her curls – both 1939 buys, but Grace had a good eye and was now learning to be clever with her needle, thanks to treasured copies of Good Housekeeping that one enterprising member of the WVS had organised to be handed on to those who put their name down on the requisite list and paid a penny for the privilege of reading it.

      Jean’s expression changed immediately to one of disquiet. ‘We got a letter from Lou on Thursday telling us that she’s been put on a charge, ‘she began as she went to light the gas under the kettle she had filled earlier. She was using her special tea set, the one that Grace had given her for Christmas the year she and Seb had got engaged.

      Grace and Seb exchanged glances.

      ‘You can imagine how your dad reacted to that, Grace. I’m just glad in a way that Lou wasn’t here, because he’d have torn a strip off her and no mistake.’

      ‘What did she do? To get put on a charge, I mean?’ Grace asked as she went to get the milk from the cold slab in the larder to fill the milk jug, mother and daughter working harmoniously together. Grace was a housewife herself now, after all.

      ‘Well, as to that, from what she wrote – and of course the letter had been censored – it seems she was involved in some sort of prank that went wrong. It’s like your dad said, that’s Lou all over, acting first, without thinking, being too high-spirited. I don’t know, Grace. I just wished she’d talked to us first before going and joining the WAAF. She’s never taken kindly to rules and regulations and I’ve been dreading something like this happening. I just wish …’ Jean looked out of the kitchen window, her hand still on the handle of the teapot she had just filled.

      Grace knew what her mother wished: that Lou had stayed at the telephone exchange with Sasha.

      ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Seb tried to reassure Jean, stepping in in a calm reassuring way that made Grace smile gratefully at him. ‘The services are tough on sticking to the rules, but they aren’t the place for people with no back bone, and Lou has plenty of that.’

      ‘Yes, Mum,’ Grace agreed quickly, picking up on Seb’s attempt to cheer her mother up. ‘And from what Lou wrote to me in the letter I got the other week, she’s taken to this course she’s on like a duck to water.’

      Jean had begun to lift the teapot but now she put it down again, smoothing her hand absently over the scarlet poppy embroidered on the starched white linen tray cloth. The tray cloth and its matching napkins had been a Christmas present from the twins before the war.

      ‘Oh, well, yes, but that’s another thing. Your dad isn’t happy at all about this business of her training to mend aircraft. He doesn’t think it’s women’s work at all.’

      Grace pulled a face, setting about buttering the bread her mother had already cut and covered with a cloth.

      ‘Well, you know Dad, Mum, but the fact is that women are having to do men’s work because the men are fighting for this country, and I dare say that the pilots and crews are glad enough to have their aircraft working properly not to turn up their noses at a woman doing that work.’

      ‘You’re right, of course, love, but it might not be a good idea to say too much to your dad.’

      Grace had been married less than four months but already she seemed to have grown up so much, no longer a girl, but a woman with her own opinions and ready to state them, Jean thought, torn between a sense of loss and pride.

      ‘Your dad’s temper’s a bit on the end at the moment, with all this bad news from the desert,’ she warned Grace.

      ‘Have you heard from Luke recently?’ Grace asked immediately.

      ‘We had a letter in March saying not to worry and that he’s well, but of course we do worry.’ A look at both Seb and Grace’s sombre faces confirmed to Jean that they shared her feelings.

      ‘Rommel’s a first-rate commander,’ Seb said at length, ‘but our lads are good fighters, good men.’

      Jean nodded. Of course they were good men – her Luke was one of them – but being ‘good men’ wasn’t going to keep them safe from Rommel’s tanks, was it?

      ‘I’ve got to admit that I’m still ever so sad about Luke and Katie splitting up,’ Jean told them in a valiant attempt to

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