33

28 February 1953

‘That was such a lovely wedding,’ Freda sighed as she kicked her shoes off and collapsed onto the settee in her front room.

Sarah joined her while Alan and Tony took the armchairs. ‘Maisie pulled out all the stops with the beautiful bridal gown; Clemmie looked as pretty as a picture. And what about Betty? I’ve never seen her look so glamorous.’

‘Fancy a beer?’ Tony asked Alan. ‘It looks like the girls will be talking about the wedding for hours.’

Freda threw a cushion at her husband. ‘We’ll have a drink as well, there’s some port in the cupboard. I thought your song at the reception was wonderful, Alan. You sounded just like Mario Lanza when you sang ‘Be My Love’ and all the old dears were swooning,’ she laughed.

‘I was singing to my lovely wife. Do you know she sold three washing machines in the last week? At this rate I’ll be able to retire in another year or at least buy Maisie and David’s house, rather than rent it.’

‘Would you do that?’ Tony asked as he handed Alan a beer.

‘There’s always that option. Sarah loves the house; it’s what she’s always dreamt of. Did you see that I had a couple of rose bushes planted on each side of the front door? Granted, it’s still winter, so they aren’t flowering yet, but it’ll look lovely in the summer.’

‘Look at you, getting all romantic,’ Freda giggled. ‘You’ll have to have a new dream, now that Alan’s fulfilled these ones, Sarah. Sarah? Oh, bless her, she’s fallen asleep.’

Alan shook his head. ‘She does that a lot these days. I’ve found her dropped off over the accounts some evenings.’

Freda frowned, as that wasn’t like her friend at all. ‘You’d best get her home. At least you don’t have far to walk and, with Georgie and Buster going home early from the reception with George and Maureen, you can have some time to yourselves, so let her have a lie-in tomorrow; she deserves it.’

Alan laughed as he pulled a complaining Sarah to her feet. ‘Fat chance of that, as we are stocktaking in the morning.’

Ruby spotted Sarah in Woolworths as she sneezed into her handkerchief. ‘Don’t you go into the hospital with that cold or you’ll give it to Bob, and they’ll cancel him going to that convalescent home next week. He’s looking forward to his visit to Margate,’ Ruby scolded her. ‘You shouldn’t even be at work in that state.’

‘I’ve got no choice, Nan, and when I finish here, I’ve got to put in a couple of hours at our shop,’ Sarah sniffed into her handkerchief. ‘It’s only a head cold. I’ll soon shake it off, I’m young and healthy.’ She tried to grin.

Ruby gave her a stern look. ‘You’ve lost weight and are as pale as a ghost. Get yourself sorted out or I’ll be having a word with Alan. He’s working you far too hard.’

‘I’m fine, Nan, please don’t worry about me; you concentrate on Bob. Now what are you here for?’

‘I’m picking up some navy-blue darning wool; your Buster has gone through the elbows on the last one I knitted.’

Sarah was downcast. ‘I’m sorry, I’d not noticed.’

‘That’s what comes of working too many hours. A mother should be putting her children first, not spending all her time at work,’ Ruby scolded.

Sarah stood listening to Ruby until she’d run out of things to tell her off about, then waved goodbye to her before going back upstairs to her office. She checked the time; she had two hours before she needed to be at Alan’s shop. Time to check the work rotas and sort out applications for holiday leave, then have some lunch . . . She gave herself a shake and reached for the telephone, which seemed to have been ringing incessantly. ‘Sarah Gilbert,’ she said, still trying to clear her fuzzy head.

‘Sarah, it’s Alan. You should have been here an hour ago – what’s going on?’

Looking up at the clock, she was shocked to see that she’d slept at her desk for over two hours. Whatever was wrong with her? ‘Sorry, Alan, I’ll be with you in ten minutes,’ she apologized.

‘I just need a tonic,’ Sarah explained to old Dr Baxter later that day when she popped into the surgery. ‘I can’t seem to shake this cold off and I feel so tired all the time. It’s probably because I’m putting in extra hours at work and we recently moved house,’ she said, almost apologizing for wasting his time. ‘On top of that, I’m on the committee for our street party in June.’

‘Be quiet,’ he said as he listened to her chest with his stethoscope. ‘There’s no congestion, your chest is clear,’ he went on, as he put a thermometer under her tongue while feeling her pulse. ‘I can’t find anything wrong with you, but I will give you a tonic, as you requested. My suggestion is that you don’t work such long hours and stay at home with your children.’

Silly old fool, Sarah thought as she queued up in the chemist to hand in the prescription. He sounded just like her nan. Wasn’t something said about the old doctor when Bob first went into hospital after the floods? She couldn’t remember what, as her brain felt so foggy. She’d take the tonic and would be well in no time.