THE JOURNEY HOME was long, with another extended wait due to a problem on the line, and not a sandwich to be had anywhere. By the time I got on the Tube to go down to Woman’s Friend, several nights of very little sleep together with the high emotions of the morning were beginning to have their effect. I wearily trudged into the office and began to put some work into my bag so that I could spend the evening catching up on my day spent playing truant.
Kathleen told me I looked as if I needed a decent rest, which I couldn’t disagree with, and I promised her I would be on far better form the next day. For now, I just wanted to go home, have a warm bath if there was any hot water, and then sit on the sofa and try not to nod off while I worked. I was also rather hoping Bunty might be cooking dinner.
By the time I got back to Pimlico, I was fit for nothing. It was well after blackout as I pushed open the front door and fumbled my way through the heavy curtain into the darkness of the hall.
To my surprise, music was coming from the drawing room. That was odd as it was a rather grand room and never used, mainly because it was far too big and always very cold. Billy Cotton and His Band were playing, and I could hear Bunty hooting with laughter, with what sounded like Thelma. They were joined by a man, whose voice I recognised at once as Charles’.
I’d had no idea he was coming. It was a smashing surprise at the end of a long couple of days and an immediate pick-me-up. I found the light switch, flicked it on and rushed down the hall, flinging open the drawing room door to greet them. The door though, didn’t fling, but walloped into the back of Bunty.
‘Ooof,’ she cried as she nearly went flying. ‘Oh, Emmy, it’s you.’ She sounded a little flustered.
‘Sorry, Bunts,’ I said. ‘Did I whack you? Hello, darling, what a lovely treat. Hello, Thelma. Goodness, what are you all doing?’
I looked round the room to see that some of the furniture had been pushed to the sides and several of the dust sheets removed. A gramophone had been set up on a side table and several empty glasses sat beside it. To my travel-weary eyes, quite a party appeared to be taking place.
‘I popped in to talk about food,’ said Thelma.
‘Darling!’ said Charles very brightly. ‘I was just leaving,’ which was a peculiar greeting. ‘I had a meeting in town so called in as a surprise. I’m so sorry I’ve missed you.’
He came over and kissed me.
‘The trains were up the spout,’ I said.
‘Charles helped us move the furniture,’ said Bunty. ‘So we could see if it will work for your reception.’ She was flushed. ‘I may have overdone it,’ she added and then laughed.
I couldn’t quite see the joke. ‘Right ho,’ I said. Entirely unreasonably, I felt cross that I hadn’t been there, and then I realised I was being petty and felt even crosser at myself for that. ‘Well, it looks as if it will. Work, that is,’ I managed, flatly.
‘How did it go?’ asked Charles. ‘Shall I get you a drink? Come and sit down, darling, you look worn out.’
He was being quite lovely. Interested in my work, concerned that I was tired. But I wasn’t in the mood for drinking, and the last time we had spoken it had been to talk about him going off to war. A cheery greeting and Shall I Get You a Drink, as if I had turned up late to a cocktail party, didn’t sit agreeably with me.
‘I wish I’d known you were coming,’ I said, churlishly. ‘It’s a shame it had to be today. Still, you’ve had a jolly time, I see.’
I was trying to say that I was disappointed I hadn’t been able to see him, but instead I sounded like a spoilt brat. Bunty and Thelma looked slightly awkward. Charles didn’t say anything.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Charles, did you say you have to leave?’
He looked at his watch. ‘I really should,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, darling. I rather hoped you might be here.’
‘No, I was being shouted at by a Factory Director who wanted to call the police,’ I said.
Anyone nice, or possibly less tired, would have been pleased to see him having fun with their friends. But I didn’t feel nice.
‘Sorry,’ I managed.
‘Actually,’ said Charles, ‘I’ve got some good news. That’s why I wanted to see you. I rather hope you’ll like it.’
He had the broadest smile and was looking both chuffed and excited at the same time. My grumpy heart melted.
‘Thel, shall I put the kettle on in the kitchen?’ said Bunty, diplomatically.
‘You might want to hear it as well,’ said Charles.
‘It must be good,’ I said, feeling much cheerier. ‘But I really have to sit.’ I pulled a dust sheet off a fancy antique chair and plonked myself down.
‘Well,’ said Charles, ‘I won’t drag it out any longer. I’ve just been over to St Gabriel’s and managed to see Reverend Lovell. This is the good part. He said if I can get us a licence, he can marry us before Christmas.’
Charles was absolutely right. It was the very best news. The last remains of my crossness disappeared entirely.
‘Darling, that’s wonderful. Thank you!’ I cried, throwing myself into his arms and kissing him. Now I knew why he looked as if he had just won the Derby.
Bunty and Thelma, meanwhile, were cheering loudly.
‘When?’ I asked. ‘We need to tell everyone. What’s the actual date?’
‘It’s the last Saturday before Christmas,’ said Charles. ‘A festive wedding and with a bit of luck, people will still be able to come. What’s the matter?’
‘Saturday the twentieth?’ I said.
‘That’s right. Two o’clock. And I’ve managed to get a seventy-two-hour pass so we can even have a honeymoon of sorts. That’s not by the book at all, but the CO has been terrifically decent.’
I didn’t know what to say. He looked so very happy.
But there was no way to dress things up.
‘That’s the day of the march,’ I said.
Charles’s face fell.
‘But it was cancelled,’ said Bunts.
I shook my head. ‘Not now. They’re going ahead. I’ve just promised Anne I’ll be there as a reporter.’
‘It didn’t enter my head,’ Charles said. ‘That’s rotten luck. I’m afraid Reverend Lovell said that was the only time we could possibly have.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Em, I’m so sorry but I really do have to go.’
Rotten luck?
That did get my goat.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you out.’
‘I’ll tidy up,’ said Bunty, who seemed far more aware of the enormity of the situation than my fiancé.
‘I’ll help,’ said Thelma quickly. ‘Cheerio, Charles.’
He said Cheerio back and followed me out, shutting the drawing-room door behind him.
When I handed him his coat from where he had hung it up in the hall, he didn’t put it on, but instead, tucked it under his arm and fixed me with a stare.
‘You are going to come?’ he said. ‘To our wedding.’
‘Of course, I am,’ I said, crossly. ‘That’s a silly thing to say. Anyway, I don’t have much choice. I’ve just missed a fleeting chance to see you and I don’t know how many I’m likely to get. So if a wedding is the only way to make sure we get more than five minutes together, I suppose that’ll have to do.’
I winced as I said it. Even if it was the truth, I sounded bitter. It wasn’t an attractive trait.
Charles took it on the chin but didn’t rise to it. Instead, he tried to be placatory. ‘I know it’s not easy,’ he said. ‘My job never is.’
I wondered if I was being slow on the uptake. He was so pleased about managing to bring the date forward and I knew I should have been thrilled about it as well. I tried not to be unreasonable, but I couldn’t help but think of the morning’s events.
‘Well, at least you have a job,’ I said. ‘I’ve just come back from a group of people who probably haven’t.’
I was already wondering how I was going to tell Anne about not being at the march.
I’d promised them, ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t miss my own wedding.
‘Em, I’m really sorry about the date,’ said Charles. ‘Truly. But now that the Americans are involved, and the Japanese are causing chaos, everyone’s plans have gone wild. I’m pretty sure we’ll ship out before the New Year. Darling, I could be gone in two weeks.’
That was a punch in the gut.
‘So, if we can’t do the wedding on that date . . .’ he began.
‘Of course we will,’ I snapped. It came out angrily which wasn’t how I had meant to say it at all. Gone in two weeks. It made me feel sick.
Charles sighed heavily. ‘Look, I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but could you go to the march first?’
It was a decent enough thought, but impossible. ‘I’ll never get back in time,’ I said. ‘It’s taken me nearly three hours today, and that’s on a weekday. Don’t worry. I’ll tell them I won’t be there. They’ll be fine.’
It wasn’t true and he knew it.
If anyone had ever sounded less enthusiastic about setting a wedding date, I was yet to hear of them. I hated myself for that. But I hated myself almost as much for letting Anne down.
‘I’d better go,’ said Charles, dully. ‘If I miss this train I’ll be put on report and then I won’t be going anywhere.’
I didn’t dare say a word.
He shoved his arms into his greatcoat and shrugged it on. Then he stopped and we stood staring at each other until I sighed and shook my head.
‘Thank you for trying,’ I said. ‘Don’t miss your train.’
Charles nodded. He couldn’t look less like a man who was marrying someone he loved.
‘I’m sorry the surprise hasn’t been what I hoped,’ he said.
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t say anything.
Charles picked up his cap from the hall table and gave me the briefest of kisses on my cheek.
Then, as I didn’t say goodbye back, he walked to the door and was gone.
*
I had watched Charles carefully pull the blackout curtain behind him and then listened as he shut the front door, wishing all the time that I could somehow find the will to raise my voice and call out, ‘Goodbye.’ But it just wouldn’t come.
I walked slowly back to the drawing room and tried to gather my thoughts. Just a few hours before, I had raged at Mr Terry, in part inspired by the thought of my boy going off to war. And now, when that same boy had made a lovely effort to surprise me with a new date for our wedding, I had hardly managed to agree to turn up. I couldn’t blame that on just being tired.
Bunty had turned off the gramophone and was now smoothing a dust sheet over a chair. She turned round as I came in.
Thelma had put her coat on. ‘I’ll get going, love,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry about tonight.’
‘It’s OK, Thel,’ I said. ‘Sorry you got dragged into it.’
‘See you soon,’ she said, giving me a concerned squeeze on the arm. ‘Bye, Bunty. I’ll see myself out.’
As Thelma left, I sat down, put my hands over my face and shook my head.
‘I’m sorry, Em,’ said Bunty. ‘It must have looked as if we were having a beano while you were having an utterly rotten day.’
It was her way of excusing me for being so off.
‘It wasn’t that,’ I said.
I looked around the room, trying to find the right words. With its tall Georgian windows permanently curtained and all the furniture in shrouds, it wouldn’t have been out of place if Miss Havisham had been sitting in the corner next to a mouldy old wedding cake. Despite that, I knew the room would soon be transformed. A ton of elbow grease would bring it up to scratch and it was easy to imagine it filled with festive trimmings and even more festive family and friends celebrating Charles and me getting married. I should have been the happiest girl in the world.
‘I just wish he’d checked,’ I said, finally. ‘Am I being horrible, Bunts? Oh, it’s not just the fact it’s now an awful clash with the march, although that’s bad enough.’ I grappled with how to explain. ‘Now that Charles has sorted a new date he’ll go back to his billet, back to planning how to head off with the chaps to goodness knows where, while you and I will re-arrange everything so that the day is still lovely and then he will leave and all I get to do is wait here and hope that one day I might be lucky enough to see him again.’
I paused to draw breath.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’ said Bunty.
‘No, thanks.’ I looked up at her. ‘I’m being vile, aren’t I? Bunts, I love Charles. I really, really, love him. And now I’ve just ruined his big surprise.’ I groaned. ‘I’m rubbish at this.’
Bunty frowned. ‘At what?’
‘I don’t know – romance. I had one fiancé who dumped me and now I’ve just had a scene with a lovely one who wants to get married as soon as we possibly can.’
‘The last one doesn’t count, because he was a stupid, boring fool,’ said Bunty, matter-of-factly. ‘You are right though, this one is lovely. And if you want my view, you aren’t being vile at all.’ She got up from the chair and came and sat next to me. ‘Look, you’ve only just heard that Charles is being posted. On top of that you have two jobs and you’re trying to help Anne. That’s tons on your mind.’
She smiled kindly. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Em. At least you two have now had your first lovers’ tiff. It is the first, isn’t it? Please tell me you haven’t been secretly rowing for weeks?’
She said it with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Never,’ I admitted.
‘Thank goodness for that. So, what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to marry him.’
‘And the march?’
I chewed my lip for a second. ‘I can’t let them down, Bunts. There may only be the four of them there. Betty said she’d resign if she had to, but they won’t let Anne do it alone. But I haven’t enough time.’
Bunty and I sat quietly for a moment. I knew she was thinking about Anne and the girls too.
‘Right then,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘You’re on.’
‘What do you mean?’
My best friend smiled. ‘What kind of a chief bridesmaid would let the bride go off on her own on her wedding day?’ Bunty looked resolute. ‘We both know full well that you’re going to try to get to the march, and I’m pretty sure you told them I would be with you.’
She knew me too well.
‘I did think you’d want to.’
‘Of course I do,’ spluttered Bunty. ‘I’ve no intention of letting them down either.’ She looked at me sternly. ‘I’m getting you a drink whether you like it or not. Having to organise a wedding and a round trip to the back of beyond is going to take us some time.’
Bunty got up.
‘Get your thinking cap on, Emmeline Lake,’ she said. ‘We’re going to work out how you can do both.’