‘DARLING,’ SAID MY mother, ‘I’ll put a penny to a pound that nothing has changed since factories in the last war. Thousands of perfectly capable women being managed by a lot of silly old men without an ounce of sense between them. Don’t start me.’
Father gave Bunty a look as if to say, ‘Too Late’, and she stifled a smile. It was the weekend after my visit to Chandlers, and Bunts and I were visiting my parents in Hampshire, as it was my mother’s birthday. As was always the case, we had been greeted with open arms. My parents had known Bunty since she was tiny, and she was as much a part of the family as my brother and me.
‘The problem is,’ continued Mother, sitting on the sofa in a new cardigan and hardly giving the impression of leading a workers’ revolt, ‘that most men haven’t the faintest idea how to cope with women in an industrial setting.’
She glanced at my father. ‘Alfred, you’re making a face.’
‘My face can’t help it,’ said Father, fondly.
My mother turned to Bunty.
‘When I was working in the first war, I gave the men in charge some suggestions on how I thought things could be done a little better. They weren’t enormously keen.’
‘What was wrong with them?’ said Bunty. ‘Idiots.’
‘Thank you,’ said my mother, squeezing Bunty’s hand. ‘I knew you’d understand.’
‘And the moral of the story,’ said my father, grinning, and gesticulating with his pipe in a learned way, ‘is that this is where Emmy gets her somewhat direct approach from. Chip off the old block.’
‘Hurrah!’ I said.
‘Hear, hear,’ added Bunty.
Mother smiled at us all. She knew Father worshipped the ground she walked on.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘It’s the best present I could have had.’
‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘We’ve brought proper ones.’ I handed over a small package. ‘These are from me. I made them.’
‘You shouldn’t have, darling,’ said Mother, untying the string as I watched with anticipation. I had worked on them all week. ‘Thank you very much. You’ve knitted something splendid. I love them.’ She looked up at me. ‘What are they?’
‘Mother, they’re mittens,’ I said, trying not to look crestfallen. Knitting was not my forte.
‘Of course they are!’ cried Mother. ‘Now I can see it. Thank you. Look, Alfred. Mittens. Just what I wanted. I shall wear them to church. Which hand is which?’
She started to try them on. Even though I had unpicked them both several times, one was still considerably larger than the other.
‘I’ve done a matching hat,’ said Bunty, giving my mother her present. Bunty could knit in her sleep. ‘Emmy did the pompom,’ she added, loyally.
‘Yikes,’ said Father.
‘Alfred, stop teasing,’ said Mother happily. She held out her mittened hands, one of which was now the size of a hot-water bottle. ‘I love them. And we know Emmy is awful at knitting, so it makes them all the more special.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, unsure exactly as to why.
‘Now,’ said Mother. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Ten past eleven,’ I said. It was the third time she had asked in an hour. ‘Are you expecting someone?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she replied.
There was a loud knock on the front door.
‘That can’t be for me,’ said Mother. ‘Emmy, would you go and see who it is, please?’
‘It’s probably a patient for Daddy,’ I said, getting up.
‘I’ll be there right away,’ said my father, not moving an inch from his armchair.
I made my way out of the living room and down the hall. Even though it was a Saturday, my father, a doctor, would always see people if they needed him. It was probably someone with a colicky baby, or a grateful patient with something from their vegetable garden as a thank you.
Tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear, I opened the heavy front door, thinking how nice it would be to be greeted by a bunch of parsnips.
But it was something even better than parsnips.
‘Hello, Em,’ said the man on the doorstep, taking off his army cap.
‘CHARLES!’ I shouted. I hadn’t a clue what he was doing here. I threw myself into his arms. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks.
‘Am I interrupting?’ he asked as he kissed me and then hugged me into his chest. ‘I heard there was a birthday.’
‘You rat,’ I said, taking his hand and dragging him into the house. ‘You kept this quiet.’
Charles laughed as we went into the living room and everyone got up to greet him. Bunty was as surprised as me to see him, but my father shook his hand warmly and Mother admitted they had known all along.
‘Many happy returns, Mrs Lake,’ said Charles, handing her a pot of jam. ‘My landlady said I couldn’t come empty-handed. It’s plum. I hope that’s all right.’
‘It’s my favourite,’ said Mother, which I was fairly sure wasn’t true, but I knew how much she liked him. ‘Thank you.’
‘How long do you have off?’ I asked Charles, still in a delight at seeing him.
‘Just this afternoon, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘It was late notice and as I knew you were visiting your parents, I phoned up and they very kindly said I could call in.’
‘It’s my best present so far,’ said Mother. ‘Other than the mittens. We must make the most of your time. Why don’t you and Emmy go for a walk? I need to call into next door to thank them for the piccalilli.’
‘Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea first?’ I said to Charles. He hadn’t even sat down.
‘Of course not,’ said Mother. ‘Charles can have tea later. You two don’t get any time together – go and make the most of it.’
I looked at Bunty.
‘I’m going to sit here and have another biscuit,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ said my father. ‘And I want to bore Bunty about my chickens. Go on, Emmy. If you have to pretend you’re not about to go pop at seeing Charles for much longer, I’ll be treating you for an embolism when I should be enjoying an oatmeal button.’
I needed no encouragement at all. ‘Let’s walk down to the canal,’ I said. ‘We can easily get there and back in time for Mother’s birthday lunch.’
Charles was quick to agree and a few minutes later I was wrapped up in my coat and we were walking along the lane arm in arm.
‘This is the best ever surprise,’ I said. ‘I really hadn’t a clue.’
‘Ha,’ said Charles, not giving anything away. ‘I must say I am chuffed to see you.’
Even though he and I had only been together a few months, as my friend Thelma had once said to me, time worked quite differently during war, and it already felt as if Charles and I knew each other enormously well. He was intelligent and kind, quieter than me and more measured, but he could make me laugh with almost no effort at all. We were quite different in some ways, particularly as I had a tendency to charge into situations without thinking things through first, but I could make him laugh even more than he did me, and modesty aside, I wasn’t a dimwit. We could hold our own with each other and I liked that very much. Falling in love with him had been the easiest thing in the world.
‘I can’t quite believe it,’ I said. ‘Although you’re looking at me in an odd way. Is it my new beret?’
Charles broke into a smile. ‘Not at all. It’s delightful! Very red.’
He ran out of steam.
‘You’re hopeless,’ I said.
‘Thank you. I always think it must be such a relief living in Russia where everyone seems to wear the same thing.’
‘Communist,’ I said and a man walking past gave me a look as if he was about to call the police.
Charles rolled his eyes. ‘Only sartorially,’ he said. ‘Now then, we need to get cracking.’
He began to pick up some speed, which as I was half a foot shorter than him, threatened to turn my part of the walk into a jog.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, pulling him back. ‘We’ve lots of time. We could be late for lunch and no one would mind. Let’s just wander for a bit and pretend we’re two normal people who see each other all the time.’
Charles stopped and for a moment looked at me, his blue eyes quite serious. Then he broke into a smile. ‘You’re right. I’m gabbling on and being a twit. I’m just glad to be spending some time with the girl that I love. That’s you by the way,’ he added, taking my hand.
‘That’s a relief,’ I said, smiling back.
‘It’s only because of that hat. I can’t resist a girl in a beret,’ he said. Then he kissed me.
‘Bloody war,’ I said, and holding tightly on to the beret with one hand, I kissed him back.
*
We walked on, past the church where Reverend Wiffle shot by us on his bicycle with a wobbly wave, and then down to the towpath by the canal. In the weak winter sun, it was the loveliest walk. There had been little rain, so the ground was more than dry enough without a galosh. A small flock of swans, along with one rather bossy goose, patrolled down the centre of the water and if it hadn’t been for the occasional plane flying overhead it would have been almost possible to pretend everything was right with the world. As much as I loved living in a city, I always enjoyed coming home to the countryside. You could never forget the war in London. Here, sometimes, you could forget almost anything apart from being together.
Despite the letters and phone calls, whenever we saw each other it always felt as if there was tons to catch up on.
Charles knew about the Ministry, of course, and how much I wanted to make a good fist of things for Woman’s Friend. I’d told him about Freddie and Diane, and while he had assured me not to worry about Guy, as he said that beneath the writerly exterior his brother was used to this sort of pettiness, it was quite clear that Charles was as eager as I was to put them smartly back in their place.
‘I’ve written my first war work article,’ I told him, trying not to sound too proud of myself. ‘I did it after I got back from the factory, so everything was still fresh. Guy said he’ll read it this weekend. I hope he thinks it’s all right.’
‘Have faith,’ said Charles. ‘He wouldn’t have sent you if he hadn’t thought you could do it. How was the place?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Interesting.’
We were quite alone as we continued to walk along the towpath, and I was able to tell him about Chandlers without being overheard. Charles listened quietly, occasionally asking questions, but letting me get my thoughts off my chest.
‘I told my parents about it just now,’ I said, dropping my voice as we followed the canal under a brick-arch bridge with 1802 written on it. ‘Not where it is or what they do or anything of course,’ I whispered, as my words echoed slightly. ‘Just about Irene and what Anne’s friends had said. Mother says men don’t know what to do with women.’
Charles laughed.
‘I’m not saying a word,’ he said, stopping to hold up a branch which was overhanging the path by the bridge. ‘I say, is this near the ruins you’ve mentioned?’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘I thought you might like to see them.’
We walked a few yards and then turned off from the canal and through a kissing gate onto a narrow path next to a field that then turned into woodland. Although Charles had been to my parents’ house once before, we hadn’t been down here together, and I was eager for him to see where I had spent some of the very happiest times of my childhood. We stopped talking about work and the war, and turned to simpler times as I pointed out where my father had first taught me and my brother Jack how to pitch a tent, during what had become the grand adventure of sleeping outside for a whole night.
‘That’s where Bunty tried to get on a cow,’ I said, pointing across the field. ‘She was about eight and convinced it was the same as riding a pony.’
‘And was it?’ asked Charles.
‘Not at all,’ I laughed. ‘The cow was quite clear about it.’
We walked on as Charles told a funny story about a friend, and I updated him on the state of some hardy annuals Bunty and I had found at the back of the garden shed.
They were light, meaningless topics filled with gentle exaggerations and self-deprecation to make each other laugh.
As we made our way through the woods and along to the ruined house where as children we had pretended to be King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, I embarked on a long and, I thought, funny story involving Kathleen’s cousin and a pair of curtains that nearly caught fire. The build up to the punchline took some time, but it had made Bunty laugh like anything when I’d told her earlier, so I felt confident Charles would find it hilarious as well. Admittedly it was a very long story and after a while I realised he had gone quiet, but when I got to the end it was rather a blow when Charles didn’t seem to get the punchline at all.
‘Blimey, Phyllis, you’re not saying they used to be my slippers?’ I said and then roared at my own joke. ‘Do you get it? Slippers?’ I repeated, proving that I would make a hopeless comedian by bashing the point home whether it was funny or not.
‘Oh yes,’ said Charles. ‘Slippers. Sorry. Yes. Ha.’
He clearly hadn’t been listening. I laughed a bit more to prove he’d missed a belter and then said, ‘Ahhhh dear,’ in the way people do to make a laugh carry on if there’s an unfortunate hush.
‘Ha!’ said Charles again, trying to make up. ‘Yes.’
‘Kath said they all laughed for ages,’ I said, and then gave him a slight shove with my shoulder. ‘You are a swine,’ I said. ‘You stopped listening. I’d been saving that one especially.’
Charles nudged me back and sighed.
‘Only you, Emmy Lake, would wallop a poor hard-working serviceman for not laughing at your joke. Whatever happened to romantic silences, long gazes and batting your eyelashes?’
I looked into his eyes and tried to bat my eyelashes.
‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘I bet it just looks as if I’m getting a stye.’
Charles shook his head.
‘I give up,’ he said, not looking as if he did in the least.
We walked over to the old building. What was left of the little house sat bravely holding itself together, while the sun eased its way through windows that were no longer there. The path from the wood went back to the canal, and years ago it must have been the nicest place to live. I’d taken off my beret as we’d walked, and a slight breeze blew through my hair.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ I said, forgiving him for not laughing at my joke.
‘Utterly,’ said Charles. ‘It’s almost as if we’ve escaped from everything. Do you know, ever since you first told me about this place, I’ve wanted to come here with you.’
‘To enjoy the silence?’ I said, aware that I hadn’t given him a chance on that front.
‘Something like that,’ he smiled. ‘It’s all right though. I don’t know if you noticed but I slowed down to a crawl so you could finish the thing about the curtains.’
I tucked my arm into his. ‘That was kind,’ I said. ‘You should have told me to shut up.’
‘Not at all,’ said Charles. ‘That’s the thing, Em. Actually, I don’t want you to shut up.’
He turned to face me.
‘In fact, I’d rather like it if you would tell me bewilderingly complicated stories forever.’ He paused and I didn’t interrupt. ‘You see, Emmy, I love you. And I want us to tell each other ridiculous jokes and make each other laugh, and to let each other know about things that bother us and sometimes, somehow even manage to forget the rest of this entire nonsensical world altogether. As if it’s just us two.’
He took hold of my hand. ‘My darling, darling, Em,’ he said as he got down on one knee. ‘Would you do me the honour of being my wife?’
I gazed at him with astonishment and he very gently spelt it out all over again.
‘Emmeline Lake,’ said Charles. ‘Will you marry me?’
*
Of course I said yes.
The two of us looked at each other rather incredulously for a second, and then Charles stood up and we kissed and hugged each other for ages and I for one got a bit watery, which I think was allowable under the circumstances.
While I was sniffing, Charles said, ‘Thank God you didn’t say no,’ and, ‘That was the longest walk I’ve ever been on.’
The sun seemed to get brighter even though it probably didn’t, and the sky even seemed bluer which it definitely wasn’t, and it was just us on our own, laughing and being amazed at how wonderful this was and how incredibly lucky we were.
‘Oh, grief. I nearly forgot,’ said Charles. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m really not very good at this.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘I wondered if I might give you this? Only if you like it of course. It was my grandmother’s. On my mother’s side.’
I opened the little red velvet box to find the most beautiful engagement ring, Victorian in design, a dark sapphire with a diamond on each side. When I tried it on, it fitted perfectly.
‘Oh, Charles,’ I said. ‘I love it.’
I put out my hand and we both admired it as if it had magically appeared without anyone doing anything.
‘I say, darling,’ said Charles, very cheerfully indeed. ‘Looks like we’re engaged.’
Even looking down at my hand, it felt hard to believe. I loved Charles more than anything, and now we were going to be married. I felt overwhelmed.
‘Does anyone know?’ I asked.
Charles grinned. ‘Your father gave me the all-clear. I came to see him last week. I have to say I was almost as nervy as just now, but he was very good about the whole thing and said yes, straight away.’
‘He was probably relieved,’ I laughed.
‘That’s what he said,’ said Charles, warmly. ‘Actually, he was awfully kind. Your mother is pleased too I think.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve all been in on the secret,’ I said. ‘No wonder Mother virtually marched us out of the house.’ Then I paused. ‘Um . . .’
Charles waited, and when I didn’t continue, said, ‘I talked with Bunty. I hope you don’t mind. I asked her what she thought of the idea of you and me making a go of things. She was jolly good about it and said I have to tell you that she’s as pleased as Punch. Actually, she told me I should hurry up and get on with asking you. Oh, and if I mess you around in the slightest, she will track me down and happily swing for me.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I would like you to know that consequently I most solemnly swear that I will not mess you around.’
Charles smiled the tiniest bit. ‘I love you, Em, and I think we could be happy. Once this wretched war’s over, there’s no end to the adventures we can have.’
If I hadn’t thought I was the luckiest person alive already, now I knew I most certainly was. Here was a man who loved me and had asked me to marry him, but who knew that my best friend’s feelings would be uppermost in my mind. I wondered how many men would understand that. It might have sounded strange, but that he had thought to talk to Bunty meant more than anything to me. It was little more than seven months since she had been the one getting engaged. Sometimes it felt like no time at all.
Charles and I sat quietly on what was left of a wall of the old house. I wanted to marry him with all my heart, and I was still almost breathless that he had asked, but there was no doubting that for all our joy, there was a bitter sweetness to it all. This was the year my best friend should have been married. This was supposed to be Bunty and William’s year.
Since Charles and I had become closer, Bunts had been the most enormous brick about things. Not once had she begrudged my happiness, and even though I had tried to play it down, she had been adamant that I shouldn’t. As she trudged through the agony of bereavement, forcing on a brave face when I knew that even getting up was often a trial, she always, always wanted me to be happy.
Bunty was the most extraordinary of best friends, and to his eternal credit, the man who wanted to marry me knew it.
‘I’ll speak with Bunty of course,’ I said. ‘But it sounds as if the two of you have pretty much sorted everything out.’
‘That was the plan,’ said Charles. ‘Now then, might I suggest we head back? If you’d like to speak with her before we say anything, I can wait in the front garden if that helps.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But the fact Bunty has threatened you with murder has put my mind at rest. She wouldn’t do that unless she was taking you seriously.’ I looked up at him and felt the happiest I had ever been. ‘Darling Charles,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and tell everyone we need to start planning a wedding.’