to let her see out. ‘Crikey.’ She could see nothing but beautiful paintings by one Mr Jack Frost on the window-pane. Daisy breathed on the glass and rubbed it with the sleeve of her nightgown until she had a peephole.
Outside lay a frozen world. The year had blasted in accompanied by snow storms that seemed determined to maintain their icy grip. The snow that had fallen over the weekend and been churned into muddy heaps by the traffic was now frozen solid. Daisy grabbed her clothes, washed her face and such parts of her neck as she thought might be seen, dressed and slipped out. She looked towards the kitchen door. No time to boil the kettle for some scalding tea. She crept down the stairs, pulled on her heavy outdoor coat and the cheery hat and now-finished scarf that her mother had knitted for Christmas, grabbed her hated gas mask – there weren’t going to be gas attacks; there was no sign of any attacks – and hurried out.
Her breath seemed to freeze in her throat and, for a second or two, she panicked. It was cold, colder than she had ever known. Then she pulled herself together and began to stumble over the frozen sculptures to a stretch of fairly clear road.
Slithering and sliding, Daisy battled on to the little cottage where Grace lived with her half-sister. Grace opened the door and ushered her in. It was obvious that she had been crying.
‘What’s up, Grace? Ever so sorry I’m late; road’s treacherous.’
Grace shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter. They’re all ruined. Come on through.’
In her hurry, Daisy put her gas mask haphazardly on a chair. It landed on the wooden floorboards with a loud thump. Daisy winced and looked towards the ceiling.
‘She didn’t come home last night and, anyway, takes more than a noise like that to wake our Megan.’
Daisy followed her friend through the cold little house. Grace was almost fanatically tidy but Daisy had time to see at least three pairs of fully fashioned pure silk stockings hanging from a wire across the fireplace in the kitchen. She looked down at her lisle-covered legs. ‘Bet they feel ever so wonderful on, Grace.’
‘Much, much too expensive for me, Daisy, and you an’ all, I should think, if you get my meaning. I saw some in Kerr’s Stores. Three shillings a pair.’
‘Nine shillings spent on stockings. Who’s got that kind of money, Grace?’
Grace said nothing but opened the door to the back garden, and she and Daisy stood for a moment looking at the disaster that had been their pride and joy, their garden. Even Sally had risked her precious long scarlet-painted fingernails to work there.
‘It’s froze solid, Daisy. Not so much as a sprout fit to eat.’
The previous evening Grace had gathered two cabbages, one for the Brewers, one for the Petries. She had admired the amazing number of plump firm Brussels sprouts that were still on the stocks. Now, less than twelve hours later, she saw disaster. ‘Damn it, Daisy, it weren’t that great to start with but look at it now.’
‘We’ve had lovely fresh veggies for weeks, Grace, and I’m sure Mum will make soup with this lot. It’ll be delicious.’ She looked at Grace, wondering how to read the expression on her face. ‘What is it, Grace? It’s not just a few frozen sprouts.’
‘No, I suppose. It’s just … I was really happy working here, Daisy. It were special somehow, a good feeling, being in touch with the soil, putting in a little seed and weeks later frying up my own cabbage. I planned to be really serious this year: better beds, deeper digging and not just doing the safe old stuff like cabbage, but peas – can you imagine fresh peas, Daisy. And why not rhubarb and strawberries?’
‘And lovely fresh lettuce, maybe even tomatoes.’
‘You are going a bit far,’ smiled Grace, and Daisy was pleased to see her looking happier, but she was serious.
‘I think I saw tomatoes growing down The Old Manor once,’ she said. ‘You’ll do it, Grace, and I’ll help you. We’re stronger than we look, you and me. Come on, let’s put these ruined sprouts in the bag with any of the kale worth keeping.’
‘Glad we finished the spuds at Christmas,’ interrupted Grace. ‘Frozen spuds are the worst. They fall apart and they smell something awful.’
‘Where did you learn that?’
‘Dunno, musta read it somewhere.’ Grace sliced a stock bearing several sprouts off at the base and popped it into Daisy’s bag.
Since Grace was due at the munitions factory where she worked in the office, Daisy left her to close up and she walked home with the bag.
Flora was in the shop. She ignored the bag. ‘Who was it said something about rationing, Daisy, love?’
‘The vicar, I think, Mum. Why?’
‘Why’s sugar so scarce? Between that and the shortage of butter and bacon, some customers is saying they’ll take their custom elsewhere.’
‘One thing at a time, Mum. Sugar’s scarce because it’s shipped into this country – we don’t grow it. Ships are needed now for other things – munitions, soldiers, I don’t know – but there’s no space for sugar. Same with bacon and butter.’
‘We know Nancy Humble makes lovely butter up at the farm and there’s two farms near her as keeps pigs.’
‘Not enough to feed the whole country. I don’t know where these things come from, but could be as far away as New Zealand; the Commonwealth, you see. But, Mum, more important right now, can you do something with poor Grace’s veggies?’
‘’Course, waste not, want not, and are we not going to be singing that song a lot more? If that freeze was all over the country last night and not just in poor old Kent, then there’ll be greengrocers closing faster than you can run upstairs with those vegetables.’
Daisy picked up her shopping bag of unpleasantly defrosting vegetables and, two stairs at a time, soon reached the kitchen where she dumped them unceremoniously in the sink.
‘Porridge on the back of the fire,’ her mother’s voice floated up to her, and so Daisy helped herself to a bowl of porridge. She put a scraping of Nancy’s Christmas butter on top to melt and pulled her father’s comfortable chair up to the fire. What a lovely smell a fire had; simply smelling wood smoke made Daisy feel warm.
A few well-fed minutes later, Daisy, washed properly in hot water, dressed in a warm woollen skirt and a fair-isle jersey, descended to take her turn in the shop. In the short time that she had been upstairs, the store had filled with people all talking and gesticulating. At first Daisy thought there must have been an accident.
‘You all right, Mum?’
‘’Course I am, love. Vicar’s just brought some unwelcome news.’
Daisy looked around until she could see the kindly, wrinkled face of the local Church of England vicar. ‘Good morning, Mr Tiverton, bad news, is it?’
He smiled, a particularly sweet smile, and Daisy smiled back. She couldn’t help it; there was something about that smile – the smile reserved, according to Sam, for saintly Church of England vicars.
‘Well, my dear,’ said Mr Tiverton, ‘that will really depend on how we deal with it. Rationing came into force this morning: sugar, butter and bacon. From today we are officially allowed four ounces each of butter and bacon or ham, and twelve ounces of sugar, per adult per week. We will each be given a jolly little ration book that must be registered with local shops. I’m quite sure that soon everything but the air we breathe will be rationed.’
‘If there are indeed to be gas attacks, Vicar, we won’t want our air.’
Daisy and Flora stared at each other in disbelief. Miss Partridge had a sense of humour. Who’d have thought it?
Fred, who had been stocking up at the strangely empty wholesalers, came in the back door just as the last customer went out the front. As wife and daughter began to speak Fred