to stare.
Few words passed between them as they walked along the tree-lined avenue to the nearest main road. In fact, the avenue ran between two main roads, one end being quite genteel, almost countrified in appearance, and enclosed in its view a quaint redundant windmill upon a rise – having once formed a village west of York, prior to urban spread. But with their house being situated nearer the more industrial highway, it was there they must head. Nell’s aunt lived in the adjacent district, about a mile or so away. Before the war they might have walked there on an evening such as this, but now, with a thought to conserve shoe leather, they went only so far as the nearest bus stop.
Being Sunday, there was little traffic about, though still enough army vehicles to irritate Nell, who remained piqued at having her own jaunt vetoed. On the opposite side to the bus stop, behind a wall that extended from the carriage works, ran a vast network of railway lines, at this point in the road some of them bulging out from the main track, like an aneurism in a blood vessel, to serve another part of the city, before joining the chief artery again. Even today, the locomotives made for a great deal of soot, and Thelma Spottiswood puffed gently at her white glove to expel such a fleck.
Nell had something to broach to her mother, but it might not go down too well. Anyway, the bus came then.
There was a wasp on board, floating up and down the aisle and generally causing a nuisance, until a grim Mrs Spottiswood rose and squashed it with her bag against a window.
Five minutes later, mother and daughter alighted, to undergo the rest of their trek along a straight, wide avenue that had lesser groves branching off to right and left, the occasional shade of a tree, and a variety of building styles, some Edwardian, but most of them modern semi-detached residences, with leaded lights and neatly planted beds of marigolds, roses, white alyssum and blue lobelia. The avenue was around a mile in length, though Nell and her mother did not have to walk half so far.
Upon reaching her aunt’s gate, there was a warning. ‘Stop making it so obvious you’d rather be somewhere else! I won’t have your aunt and uncle offended. You never know, you might enjoy it.’ With Nell tagging behind, Mrs Spottiswood approached a door not dissimilar to their own, Buckingham green, half-glazed, with a circular formation of stained glass, and a cast-iron letterbox. Singing could now be heard from behind it, which presaged a livelier affair than usual.
‘Goodness, Phyllis,’ Thelma Spottiswood announced above the rowdiness upon entering, with a smile to her sister-in-law, ‘you do have a full house!’
Nell perked up too, there being several more guests than she had anticipated, her main focus being the young men in uniform who had commandeered the gramophone, and were leading a rousing chorus of ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, to which Ronald and his sisters and other relatives were happily singing along.
At such extraordinary sight, her mouth fell open. Whilst she continued to gawp, her mother waved and smiled to family members, and enquired somewhat dubiously over the din, ‘Are those Ronald’s army colleagues?’
‘Yes – at least two of them are,’ mouthed her sister-in-law, a mousey dumpling of a woman, not half so smart as the other Mrs Spottiswood, with a kinder though less intelligent face. Then, unable to speak without having to shout, she drew Thelma and her daughter aside, and divulged, ‘The others he met in town and just hit it off with. They were billeted in York after Dunkirk. Such grand young chaps. I don’t think any of them is over twenty, I could weep when I think what a terrible time they must have had, but they’re putting such a brave face on it – as you can hear!’ She issued a quick laugh. ‘And what with them being so far from home – from London, two of them – Ronald thought it would be nice to extend some local hospitality. He’s such a thoughtful boy. Look at our Daphne and Margaret, can’t even peel themselves away to greet you. I’m sorry about that – and the noise. I’m afraid they’re all rather merry, let’s hope they’ve left you something to drink – you should have come sooner.’
Missing Thelma’s blameful glance at Nell, Aunt Phyllis tried to catch her husband’s eye, waving above the sea of heads and summoning him. Eventually he came, holding his bottle aloft as he forged a passage towards the latecomers, a similar height and build to Nell’s father, though less poker-faced.
But even as Nell returned his kiss, she was gazing intently over his shoulder at the others.
‘Right, let me go and collar them!’ Upon the final line being hollered, Phyllis wobbled back to the gathering. ‘Settle down, boys, settle down!’ Then, with order half-restored, she led forth her sister-in-law and the mesmerised Nell to introduce them. ‘Ronald, I don’t want to curtail your fun, but let me just acquaint your pals with Aunty Thelma and your cousin.’
Tall and bony, the image of his father, except with pimples, Ronald bade a cheery greeting to the new arrivals, as did his sisters – all three cousins older than Nell, in their twenties – whilst their mother turned to those in khaki and began counting them off on her fingers. ‘Now, let me see if I can remember all their names – no, don’t tell me, Margaret!’ Her elder daughter had been about to leap in. ‘This is George, Sid – no, Stan, oh, I’m so sorry! – John, Reg, and last, but by no means least, Billy.’
Nell’s heart was already spinning, having flipped over in shock at her first glimpse of the latter, who epitomised the phrase ‘tall, dark and handsome’ – if a little chubby. Formally introduced to the young soldiers, she could only blush as Billy extended a confident handshake to her mother, his accent most definitely from the heart of London.
‘Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Spottiswood!’ Then, just as quickly, whilst Nell remained slack-jawed, he grasped her hand too and shook it firmly, smiling with genuine warmth – some might say impishness – into her face. ‘You too, Miss Spottiswood.’
‘Nell.’ She managed to find her voice, and smiled as she withdrew her hand, which felt as if it had touched a live wire, then moved it along the row to be shaken by the rest, one after another.
‘It’s Eleanor,’ corrected Mrs Spottiswood, though her exasperation was mild, and to her sister-in-law and the rest of the gathering she jokingly complained, ‘Really, you give your child a lovely name and what does she do but adulterate it!’
‘A rose by any other name!’ Billy’s eyes were warm and mischievous as they rested on Nell’s blushing face, only to receive a mute warning for this blatancy.
But her mother seemed very taken with the tall and good-looking young man, indeed with all of those who surrounded her, beaming in that coy fashion which always embarrassed Nell. ‘You’re not from round here, Billy!’ She wagged her plump finger at him. Nell wanted to drag one of Aunt Phyllis’s antimacassars over her head.
‘Ah, I can see there’s no fooling you, Mrs Spottiswood!’ Billy, with his sparkling blue eyes, had one of those faces that looked as if it were permanently laughing, but there was such kindness in it too, that no one could take offence at its teasing. ‘No, I have to confess I’m one of your perishing southerners – so is Johnny here.’
‘Nonsense!’ tinkled Thelma Spottiswood. ‘We’re very happy to have you in our midst, all of you.’ Inconveniently overwhelmed by a hot flush, she shed her hat and tried to fluff up the dark-grey waves beneath, which were soaked in perspiration, at the same time wafting her face. ‘Goodness, I thought it was hot enough out there – do excuse me!’
‘I’ll fetch you a drink of water!’ Billy shot off, soon coming back to press a glass into her hand. A crimson-faced Thelma sipped at it gratefully until recovered. Following which, the bout of polite interrogation continued, most of it directed at the handsome Billy, with whom she was obviously smitten – as were Margaret and Daphne, saw Nell, for they clung on his every word.
‘And are you and your friends liking it in York?’
‘Oh, you bet,’ vouched Billy, with a smiling glance at Nell. ‘Not to mention it’s a darned sight safer than the capital at the moment, what with Jerry creeping nearer by the day. Can’t help worrying about my old mum, though.’
Thelma