A Girl Called Thursday

by Lilian Harry

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

A terrifically compelling wartime story of love and loss from the author of A SONG AT TWILIGHT. Born at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, Mary and Walter Tilford's baby daughter is named Thursday. It was meant to be a message of hope for the future - but they could not foresee that by the time Thursday celebrated her twenty-first birthday, Britain would once again be at war with Germany. Thursday is determined to help in the war effort and volunteers as a Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. She is attached to the Royal Navy, and begins her service at Haslar Hospital on the shores of Portsmouth Harbour. The realities of war are brought home to her when the casualties begin to arrive from Dunkirk and Thursday begins to understand the true meaning of courage. While experiencing all the natural hopes and dreams of any young woman, finding pleasure and joy as well as sorrow in her work, Thursday is given her own opportunity to show strength and bravery in the face of war - and find a lasting love.

Release date: August 19, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 337

Sample

11 November 1939

‘Twenty-one today!Twenty-one today!She’s got the key of the door,Never been twenty-one before . . .’

The little house in Waterloo Street rocked to the sound of singing, and Thursday Tilford laughed, blushing at the attention. The song ended with cheers from the rest of the family, and Thursday’s father gave her a smacking kiss, his moustache bristling against her cheek.

‘There you are, love. There’s your key.’ He handed her a wooden key about a foot long, painted bright red. ‘Made it myself.’

‘Oh, Dad!’ Thursday took it in her hands and almost collapsed under the weight. ‘Am I supposed to carry this about in my bag?’

‘Well, only if you want to.’ He fished in his pocket and brought out another, an ordinary Yale this time. ‘You can keep that for best if you like and use this for every day.’

Thursday grinned at him and slipped the Yale into her purse. ‘And can I stay out after ten o’clock at night now?’

He rubbed his round, balding head and pursed his lips. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. Me and your mother will still worry about you, you know. That don’t stop just because you’re of age. Maybe we’ll say eleven on Saturday nights to start with, eh?’

The rest of the family laughed. ‘Go on, Walter, you know young Thursday’s been able to twist you round her little finger since she was a baby,’ Thursday’s grandfather called out from the front room. There wasn’t space for everyone in either of the two downstairs rooms so they’d opened all the doors and spread between the two. ‘Not like in my day. Girls knew what was what then. Knew they had to toe the line, or else.’

‘Like our Flo, you mean,’ Walter retorted, grinning. ‘If I had a pound for every time I had to let her in on the quiet when she’d been out with Percy, so you wouldn’t know what time it was—’

‘All right, our Wal, no need to give away secrets,’ his sister cut in. She touched her fair hair, newly waved for the occasion with a fashionable bang on her forehead – not that Auntie Flo needed much of an excuse to do herself up, Thursday thought with an inward giggle. That was a new jumper she had on too, pale blue in a lacy pattern, and she’d knitted one for Thursday’s mum as well, only in pink, as well as Leslie’s Fair Isle pullover. ‘Stop your nattering and cut this birthday cake into slices. It’s Thursday’s day, she doesn’t want to hear all about ancient history.’

The cake stood in place of honour on the sideboard, flanked by a pile of plates. It had been iced and decorated by Flo, who was clever at that sort of thing. The family had already admired it and sung ‘Happy Birthday’ as Thursday blew out the candles, and now they gathered round again as Walter picked up the big carving knife. Flo’s two younger children, Leslie and Denise, stood by with a proprietorial air.

‘I helped Mum make the icing,’ Denise told Thursday. ‘It took I don’t know how many egg whites. And I made two of the roses on top – those two, see?’

‘The ones with wobbly petals,’ Leslie said, and she gave him a push. ‘Well, they are. And I helped too, it wasn’t just you. I helped beat up the icing.’

‘Sounds like you were in a fight with it,’ Walter remarked. ‘Move over now, let the dog see the rabbit.’ He lifted the knife and poised it above the centre of the cake. Thursday’s little mongrel dog, Patch, moved into the best position for catching crumbs and sat bright-eyed, his tail thumping the floor. ‘I didn’t mean you, you silly chump!’

‘I’ll have a bit with icing down the sides,’ Thursday’s younger sister Jenny said, her eyes fixed on the white sugar.

‘You’ll have what you’re given, my girl,’ her father told her. ‘Your Auntie Flo made that for your sister, not you. And stop that shoving, young Steve, or I’ll end up cutting slices of finger.’

‘And the icing’ll get blood all over it,’ Steve told his sister ghoulishly. ‘And if it does, that’ll be your bit. And you know what you’ll be then? You’ll be a cannibal!’

Jenny made a face and squealed. ‘Yeugh! That’s a horrible thing to say! Tell him not to say things like that, Mum.’

Mary Tilford frowned at them, but it was a tolerant frown. Nothing was to be allowed to spoil this special day, Thursday thought affectionately. ‘Don’t start squabbling, now. Give your dad some elbow room.’ She looked at her husband, cutting the cake, and at her elder daughter, tall and grown-up with her dark brown hair cut in a long wavy bob, wearing that new green frock she’d made specially for the occasion. You could catch quite a strong likeness in their expressions sometimes, even though in colouring Thursday was more like herself, and it was there now as they concentrated on the cake. She smiled, and then her face saddened.

‘It’s a beautiful cake, Flo, and it’s been a lovely party,’ Thursday heard her say quietly. ‘But it’s not the birthday I wanted for her, not really.’

‘Nothing’s the way we wanted it,’ Flo said. ‘Nobody wanted this war, for a start. Except for Hitler, of course, he’s been wanting it all along only nobody could see it.’

Thursday handed them both a plate with a slice of cake on it. ‘Bet we won’t see many more cakes like this for a while,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s a good job we saved up all the fruit beforehand.’ She sat down beside them and bit into her own slice.

Mary nodded. ‘They say there’ll be a lot of shortages from now on. You know they’re talking about rationing. I reckon people will start hoarding all sorts of things.’

‘They already have,’ Thursday said through a mouthful of cake. ‘My friend at work says her gran’s got a cupboard full of tins. Ham, peas, baked beans, plums – she’s got enough to keep her for six months, Annie says.’ She bent and slipped a scrap of cake into Patch’s waiting jaw.

‘Well, she shouldn’t have. It’s taking food away from people who might need it. And that dog doesn’t need it, either.’

‘She thinks she’ll need it,’ Thursday pointed out. ‘And Patch deserves a treat, same as anyone else.’

Jenny had managed to secure a piece of cake with icing down the side, and went into the front room to sit on the floor at her grandmother’s feet to eat it, curling her legs under her. She always preferred the floor, and in any case with the whole family squashed into the small room there wasn’t room to sit anywhere else. Her grandmother, Walter’s mother, ate a few crumbs of her cake and then slipped her the rest. ‘Can’t be doing with all that fruit,’ she whispered, ‘and the icing makes me teeth ache.’

Jenny giggled. Granny had had false teeth since she was quite young and loved sweets, but Jenny was her favourite and could always rely on being given little extras. She went round to see her grandmother every Sunday morning after church, and passed on all the gossip from Waterloo Street as well as from the grocer’s shop where she worked.

Steve had sat down beside his cousin Mike, who was in army uniform. He’d been in the Territorials before the war started, and joined up straight away, as a private. So far, all he’d done was basic training but already he was behaving as if he were in the front line, and Steve was half envious, half thankful that as yet he hadn’t been called up. It couldn’t be long, though, if the war really did get started as they seemed to think it would.

‘What sort of guns do they give you, Mike? D’you have your own special one?’

‘Course you do. You’ve got to look after it, see – clean it and make sure it works properly. I wouldn’t want to use another bloke’s gun, just in case he hadn’t bothered. Not that the sarge would let anyone get away with not bothering!’ He made a face which conveyed to Steve exactly what the sergeant’s reaction would be to ‘not bothering’. ‘It’s Lee Enfields we’ve got. Rifles. But we’re learning to handle mortars as well, and then there’s machine guns and howitzers and stuff like that. There’s a lot to learn. It’s not just about pointing it at a Jerry and pulling the trigger. You’ve got to think about the weather – wind can make the bullets drift, see – and you can’t always see what you’re shooting at. That’s where the observers come in, they go forward of the line and register the targets.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I don’t know as I should be telling you all this. We’re not supposed to talk about what we do.’

‘Go on, I’ll be joining up myself before long,’ Steve said, hoping his mother couldn’t hear him in the other room, but Mike shook his head and refused to say any more.

Thursday heard, however, and she felt a sudden chill as Mike’s words brought home to her the fact that there really was a war on and that young men like her cousin and brother could get killed – boys who had never even thought of joining the Forces, having to learn about guns and fighting, having to go to war. And girls too – not fighting, but helping in different ways, doing jobs they’d never even have dreamed of, so that the men could go away.

It was something she’d been thinking about more and more just lately, and she knew that soon she was going to have to tell her family about her own decision.

Being twenty-one wasn’t all fun and cake and keys of the door, she thought. You’ve got responsibilities as well. Responsibilities for your own life, and what you did with it.

Soberly, she collected the plates and took them out to the kitchen. There was already a large pile of crocks waiting to be washed up, and she rolled up her sleeves and turned on the tap. Her mother followed her and turned it off.

‘Here, what are you doing? It’s your birthday, you’re supposed to be the guest of honour, not a skivvy.’

‘And you did all the work getting everything ready,’ Thursday told her. ‘Anyway, you can’t boss me about any more, not now I’m twenty-one.’ She turned the tap on again and ferreted in the cupboard under the sink for the washing soda. ‘You go and sit down and have another cup of tea with Auntie Flo. I bet it’s the first time either of you’s sat down all day.’

‘Well, I won’t say I’m not a bit tired,’ Mary admitted. She regarded her daughter fondly. ‘Mind you, I still can’t believe I’m old enough to have a daughter of twenty-one.’

‘Nor can I.’ The enamel washing-up bowl was full now and Thursday turned off the tap again and swished the dishcloth into the water. ‘You don’t look much more than twenty-one yourself, Mum. Not a grey hair on your head.’

Mary looked into the scrap of mirror they kept over the sink. It was true that her hair was still the same rich brown, and even though she’d never bothered with her looks as much as her sister-in-law it suited her brushed smooth over the top and permed into neat curls at the side. She sighed. ‘There’ll be a few before this war’s finished, I’m afraid. It’s going to be a bad business, Thursday.’

‘D’you really think so?’ She thought of Mike, learning about guns, and pushed the thought away. ‘Nothing much has happened yet, and they say it’ll be over by Christmas.’

‘Christmas? That gives it five weeks!’ Mary snorted. ‘I lived through the last lot. They said that one’d be over by Christmas too, and it dragged on for four years. I can’t see this one ending any quicker, and it’ll be worse if we get the air raids they’re talking about. They had a few of those last time, over on the east coast, but we’ll all get a share this time.’

‘Not here in Worcester, surely?’ Thursday piled plates rapidly on the draining board.

‘Why not? Why d’you think we’ve been dished out with all these gas masks and air-raid shelters?’

‘Yes, but we’re right in the middle of the country. The Air Force will get them long before they get this far.’ She wasn’t sure if she really believed it or just wanted to, but it was better than looking on the black side. ‘They won’t let the Germans bomb us, Mum.’

‘Well, let’s just hope you’re right.’ Mary picked up a tea towel and began to dry the plates. ‘I tell you, our Thurs, the idea of air raids frightens me to death, it does really. I can’t bear to think about them.’

Flo poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘What are you two doing, skulking out here? You shouldn’t be working anyway, it’s your birthday. Leave that for now – we’re listening to the wireless. The Queen’s going to make a broadcast. Come in and hear it.’

Thursday couldn’t remember ever hearing the Queen’s voice before. The King had made a broadcast at Christmas, his voice stumbling a bit over the words – it was said that he had a dreadful stammer, as if he was very shy. It seemed odd to Thursday that a king should be shy, but then he’d never been meant to be one. It was supposed to have been his brother David, the Duke of Windsor now, who had fallen in love with an American divorcee and had had to give up the throne to marry her.

It sounded romantic, but Thursday could remember all the fuss and palaver there’d been at the time and she thought that by the time they’d got to the altar it couldn’t have seemed romantic at all. They must have just wanted it all to be over so that they could go back to normal life – whatever that might be for kings who had just abdicated.

So Prince Albert, the Duke of York, had become King George the Sixth, and his wife Elizabeth was now Queen. And they were very popular, they and their two daughters, Princess Elizabeth – who would be Queen one day, unless another baby was born and turned out to be a boy – and her sister Margaret Rose.

Walter switched on the wireless. He had built it himself, carefully cutting out a fretwork pattern in front of the speaker, just like you saw in the shops, and it stood on a high shelf in one of the fireplace alcoves. It looked a bit like something off the instrument panel of an aeroplane, and when it was turned on needles quivered across little dials and it made little burbling and whistling noises before the crackling stopped and the announcer’s voice came through. Walter had also fixed up a loudspeaker in the front room, and he turned this on for his parents and the boys and Jenny, who were still in there.

The Queen’s broadcast was aimed at women. ‘We, no less than men, have real and vital work to do,’ she said in her precise, cut-glass accent, and Thursday felt a tiny surge of excitement, which turned to disappointment at her next words. ‘It is the worries and irritations of carrying on wartime life in ordinary homes which are often so hard to bear.’ How did she know that? How did she know what life was like in an ordinary home? Had she ever queued for groceries, or peeled potatoes? But Mary and Flo were nodding in agreement, and Thursday could see that they were touched by this reference to their own problems. ‘The king and I know what it means to be parted from our children.’ That was true – the little Princesses were hundreds of miles away at Balmoral, in Scotland. ‘All this has meant sacrifice and I would say to those who are feeling the strain: You are taking your part in keeping the Home Front, which will have dangers of its own, stable and strong.’

‘Don’t it make you feel proud,’ Mary whispered, and brushed a tear from her eye.

‘She’s a lovely speaker,’ Flo agreed. ‘And she really seems to know what it’s like to be ordinary, doesn’t she? As if she’s done all the things we’ve done. You feel as if you could ask her in for a cup of tea and not have to worry about a speck of dust.’

The wireless programme continued, talking this time about women who had joined the Forces. Nearly fifty thousand had joined up so far, most in the ATS and the rest evenly divided between the WRNS, the WAAFs and the nursing services. There were so many wanting to join the WRNS that they’d actually stopped recruiting. You could still join the ATS, though, or the WAAFs.

‘I can’t remember what all these initials stand for,’ Thursday’s grandmother complained. ‘ATS this and WAAF that. Which is which, for goodness’ sake?’

‘ATS stands for Auxiliary Territorial Service,’ Jenny said importantly. ‘That’s the women’s branch of the Army. And WAAF means Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. And the Wrens are the Navy—’

‘And JAT stands for Jabbers All the Time,’ Steve butted in. ‘That’s why Mum and Dad called you Jennifer Ann. They knew what you were going to be like but the man said it had to be a proper name, so they chose Jenny because wrens chatter too.’

Jenny made a face at him. ‘They wanted to call you Stupid. And Crackers for a middle name, but he said it had to be Charles.’

‘Well, you can both thank your lucky stars you weren’t called Sunday Morning and Boxing Day,’ Thursday called out with a grin. ‘Look what I got landed with –Thursday!’

Everyone laughed, but the older ones’ faces soon sobered. ‘It was meant to be a sign of hope,’ Walter said. ‘Born on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month – they must have been signing the Armistice at the very moment you gave your first cry. We had to give you some sort of name to mark that, didn’t we? That’s why we called you Rosemary, for Remembrance, see – but we wanted something more as well so we had Thursday for a middle name.’

‘That’s right,’ Mary agreed. ‘And if you ever feel embarrassed about it, that’s what you ought to remember. Mind you, we never really meant to call you by it. That was our Maudie. Being your godmother, she thought she had a right, see, and she always called you Thursday, right from the start, and then we all did. It seemed to suit you, somehow, and it seemed right – not much point in marking an important occasion if you hide it away, is there?’ She paused and smiled. ‘And you can thank your lucky stars, too, that you didn’t get called something worse.’

‘Why?’ Thursday asked. ‘What else did you think of ?’

‘November!’ Mary said with a smile. ‘That was what your dad wanted, to start with. I did put my foot down over that – but I was still half scared he’d do it, the day he went off to register you. I had to look at the birth certificate the minute he got back to make sure he hadn’t.’

‘Now, when have I ever gone against your wishes, Mary?’ her husband asked, and everyone laughed again as she gave him the sort of look that suggested that he always went against her wishes. He laughed too and gave her a quick kiss. ‘All right, we all know who’s boss in this house!’

‘Well, I’m glad you called me that,’ Thursday said stoutly. ‘I get a bit fed up having to explain it whenever I meet someone new, but I am proud of it, really, and I like having an unusual name. There’s hundreds of Rosemarys about. Pity Auntie Maud’s on duty at the hospital, I could have thanked her for making sure I didn’t get stuck with it.’

‘She said she’d look in tomorrow for a bit of cake, and to bring you your present,’ Mary said. ‘You can thank her then.’

‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ Thursday said. ‘I shan’t see her, I’m going straight from work to meet Sidney at the Scala at six o’clock. We’re going to have tea and see the new Joan Crawford picture. I’ll see her next Sunday, we’re going over to tea with her.’

Walter switched off the wireless and sat down beside his wife. They looked fondly at their family.

‘Well, there it is,’ Walter said after a few moments. ‘The first of the brood grown up. I don’t reckon we’ve done too bad a job, do you, gal?’

Mary shook her head. ‘I don’t reckon so, love, no. Mind you, we’ve still got to see how the other two turn out. There’s still time for them to go off the rails.’

‘Not too much,’ Steve said, coming in to look for another piece of cake. ‘It’ll be my twenty-first next year.’

‘And mine in five years,’ Jenny said, picking up scraps of icing. ‘Gosh, I wonder where we’ll all be then. All sorts of things could happen in that time.’ She broke off at the look on her mother’s face. ‘I don’t mean bad things, Mum. The war’ll be over in a few months, everyone says so. You’ve only got to listen to the news. Practically nothing’s happened.’ She pouted a little. ‘I bet it’ll all be finished and done with by the time I get old enough to join up.’

‘Well, I just hope it will,’ her mother said. ‘I hope it’ll be over before any of you has to join up.’

But everyone knew this really was a faint hope. Flo and Percy’s eldest son Mike was already in the Army and Steve, at twenty, could well be called up soon. Women didn’t have to enlist – at least, not yet – but a lot of them were volunteering. Thursday knew that her parents dreaded hearing that she had decided to go. Maybe this was the moment to tell them.

‘We’ve got to do our bit, Mum,’ she said gently after a moment or two. ‘We can’t let other people do the fighting for us.’

‘They won’t let women fight!’ Mary’s voice was so sharp they all flinched. ‘Even the Germans haven’t come to that.’

‘No, but we can do a lot of the jobs men do, so they can go. Anyway, I know what I want to do.’ She looked around at them. ‘I’ve decided to volunteer as a nurse.’

There was a surprised silence.

‘A nurse?’ Mary repeated at last. ‘Like your Auntie Maud, you mean? Here in the Worcester Royal Infirmary?’

Thursday shook her head. ‘No. I’ve been talking to the lady in charge of the First Aid Post. She says as I’m in the Red Cross and have done the first-aid course and everything, I can volunteer as a VAD—’

‘Not more initials!’ Ada Tilford protested from the front room, and Thursday smiled and moved over to the door so that she could talk into both rooms at once.

‘It means Voluntary Aid Detachment, Gran. It’s part of the Red Cross, and you can be either a mobile VAD – that means you can be moved – or—’

‘I know what mobile means, thank you very much,’ the old lady said tartly. ‘It’s all these initials I can’t be doing with. There won’t be any proper words left, at the rate we’re going on. So what do these Voluntary – what was it? – these VADs do, then?’

Thursday grinned. ‘Well, they’re nurses. Not registered nurses, of course, like Auntie Maudie, they’re not trained as much as them, but they work in the wards and help look after people. Mostly servicemen, I think. That’s what it’s all about, you see, it’s to work in the Forces’ hospitals.’

‘So you wouldn’t be working in Worcester, then?’ Mary tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. ‘Or would you? There’s Norton Barracks, they must have nurses there.’

‘She said there’s non-mobile ones as well,’ her husband reminded her. ‘That’d mean you could live at home, wouldn’t it?’

This was the moment Thursday hadn’t been looking forward to. ‘Well, I thought I’d volunteer to be a mobile one, actually. See a few other places while I’m at it.’

Mary stared at her. ‘You mean you want to leave home?’

‘It’s not a question of wanting to, Mum. It’s just – well, if I’m going to give up tailoring to do this, I might as well get some benefit out of it. Get a bit of experience, that sort of thing. See a bit more of the country, meet some different people.’ She gazed appealingly at her mother. ‘It’s a chance, don’t you see? I mean, what will I do if I stay here? Work at the tailor’s until I get married, and then leave to be a housewife and have children. That’s all, isn’t it?’

‘It’s what I did, and it’s always seemed all right to me,’ Mary said.

Thursday sighed. ‘I know, Mum, and I never meant there was anything wrong with it. It’s just that nowadays – with this war and everything – well, it’s different. I’d just like to take the chance, that’s all. It’s only while the war’s on. It doesn’t mean I’m going away for ever and you’re never going to see me again.’

Mary sniffed. ‘Seems to me you’re just looking on the war as a chance to throw away everything you’ve got – your home life, your job, everything. And that’s another thing. Tailoring. You’ve finished your apprenticeship and got a good trade at your fingertips. Why chuck all that away? You could stop where you are and help the war effort – they’ll be turning over to making uniforms full time, if I know anything about it. Why waste all that training and start learning something else?’

‘Well, if you want the truth,’ Thursday said, beginning to feel exasperated, ‘I’m getting fed up with tailoring. I was never all that keen in the first place. It was you got me into it, just because I was all right at sewing at school.’

‘And what’s wrong with that?’ Walter demanded. ‘That’s what mothers and fathers do, isn’t it, see that their children are set up in a decent job? Your Uncle Percy did it for Mike here, and I did it for Steve down at the porcelain factory, and we’d have got young Jenny into a hairdresser’s only the premium was too much and she said she didn’t mind going into the grocery shop.’

He was starting to sound really angry and Thursday wished she had never started this. The rest of the family was silent, and Jenny looked almost ready to cry. The party’s spoilt now, Thursday thought miserably, and it’s all my fault. I should have waited till tomorrow, only I’m going to the pictures with Sidney then, and I thought with everyone here together it would be better . . .

‘So what’s wrong with tailoring all of a sudden?’ her mother demanded. ‘I haven’t heard you complain before, and you do plenty of sewing at home – made that frock you’re wearing and that new blouse you had on yesterday, and—’

‘Nothing’s wrong with it, Mum, and I really do appreciate all you did, getting me the apprenticeship and everything. It’s just that everything’s different now. Girls have got a bit more chance to do something interesting before they settle down.’

‘Interesting!’ Walter exclaimed. ‘Since when have we had a right to expect to do interesting jobs? Earning a living’s what we’ve got to do, my girl, and if it’s interesting as well, we can think ourselves lucky, but we don’t chop and change just because we’re a bit fed up. There’s been a Depression, if you remember – people thought themselves lucky to have a job at all, never mind being interested.’

‘But wouldn’t you rather have a job you were really interested in?’ Thursday asked. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be doing something you enjoyed? I mean, you never seem to think anything could be any better. You think everything’s got to go on being the same as it’s ever been. Like that time the union wanted you to go on strike—’

‘We won’t start talking politics,’ Walter broke in, his face reddening with anger. ‘You know what I think about strikes and unions. They might have done a good job at one time, but now it’s all greed, that’s all, and if you ask me it was the General Strike started the rot in this country. And if I hear any of you talking about going on strike, ever, well—’

‘All right, Walter,’ Mary said quickly.’ No need to get aeriated. Nobody’s talking about going on strike. I don’t know how we ever got on to the subject.’ She turned back to Thursday. ‘And that’s another thing. You talk about girls settling down. What do you think Sidney’s going to say about this?’

‘Sidney?’ Thursday echoed. ‘What’s it got to do with Sidney?’

‘Well, he’s your chap, isn’t he? I thought you’d probably be getting engaged now you’ve turned twenty-one. What’s he got to say about you swanning off to goodness knows where? Or haven’t you consulted him either?’

‘No, I haven’t, as a matter of fact. And I don’t know what made you think we’re getting engaged. I’m not thinking of marrying Sidney, and what’s more I don’t think he wants to marry me. He hasn’t asked me, anyway.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Steve observed. ‘We don’t want a wet like that in the family.’

‘But you’ve been going out together for the past eighteen months!’ Mary cried. ‘Surely you must have some sort of understanding.’

Thursday stared at her. It had never even occurred to her that her mother had begun to see Sidney as a future son-in-law. She glanced quickly around at the rest of the family, feeling embarrassed and annoyed. Honestly, if she’d thought all this would be dragged out she wouldn’t have said a word about volunteering. How had they got around to Sidney anyway? He was nothing to do with the family. She hadn’t even asked him to her party. To tell the truth, she’d only ever gone out with Sidney in the first place because she’d felt a bit sorry for him. She’d never meant it to become a regular thing, but somehow it hadn’t been possible to give him the push without hurting his feelings, and he didn’t deserve that. He wasn’t such a bad chap, after all.

‘Yes, we have got an understanding,’ she said curtly. ‘We like going dancing and we like going to the pictures and maybe for a walk of a Sunday afternoon, and that’s it. It’s just a couple of evenings a week, Mum. We’re not talking about spending the next fifty years together.’ She thought of Sidney in fifty years’ time, balding like her father only thin and stringy instead of round and smiling – not that Dad was smiling much now! No, that wasn’t what she wanted.

Mary stare