Christmas on the Home Front

‘Ah there’s always a delay.’ Iris shook her head. ‘But we’re all in the same boat. Finch pays some of us one week, and the others the next. He’s always catching up with himself.’

‘I think he’s betting it on the horses.’ Connie offered a devilish smile. They laughed, but in reality they knew that the one thing Finch would never be dishonest about was their wages. He valued what they did on the farm and was happy that it didn’t personally cost him anything to have them doing it.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, concentrating on excavating the holes for the fence posts. It was hard to dig down into the frosted soil; the clay underneath was solid and unyielding.

‘Oh, I had a look for some dried fruit,’ Joyce said, apropos of nothing. ‘For the Christmas cake. We’ve got enough sugar put by for the icing, but there will be no point doing it without fruit in the middle.’

‘If there’s none around, my mum cuts up apple and puts in a few raisins.’ Iris mimed the act of cutting an apple, just in case they didn’t understand what she was saying.

‘Where did we get it from last year?’ Connie asked.

‘Finch got it from Birmingham. Mind you, he had to wait forty minutes in the queue for it. Do you not remember all the swearing when he got back? Very festive!’

Connie laughed, shaking her head. ‘I don’t listen half the time.’ She lodged a fence prop into the first hole.

‘Very wise.’ Iris held the base of the prop. ‘Some of those words were an education.’

‘So can we send him over to Birmingham this year?’

‘There’s no way he’ll do it.’ Joyce hammered in the post as Iris and Connie kicked in earth around the base. ‘Is that vertical? It doesn’t look very vertical.’

‘Yes! It’s vertical.’ Connie squinted at the post. ‘It looks wonky because your head’s at an angle!’

Joyce smiled and straightened her neck and assessed her handiwork with a fresh perspective. The post stood proud and upright in the hole. She watched as the other women finished tamping the earth down around it.

‘Maybe there will be dried fruit in the village?’ Iris ventured; her open and childlike face full of hope.

‘No, Mrs Gulliver and all those harpies will have snatched it all by now.’ Connie frowned. ‘Face facts, one of us will have to go to Birmingham at the weekend.’

‘Sounds like you’re not volunteering?’ Joyce smiled.

‘You’re correct. I don’t mind drawing lots though. Loser spends all day waiting in the queue.’

‘Deal.’ That sounded a good arrangement to Iris.

Joyce considered for a moment and nodded. ‘Go on then.’

Connie scoured the ground for some twigs and found three of a similar size. She broke one of them, so it was shorter and bunched the three in her closed hand for the others to pick.

‘Whoever gets the short one has to go.’

‘Who goes first?’ Iris asked.

‘Shall I do it?’ Joyce volunteered.

‘Go on, Joycie, be lucky!’ Connie proffered her hand with the sticks clenched in her fist. ‘Or don’t! Actually don’t be lucky at all. I don’t want to be lumbered!’

Joyce took a deep breath and pulled out a twig. To her relief, it wasn’t the short one.

‘Thank goodness for that.’ She jumped up and down and taunted Connie and Iris with her twig.

‘Look at her! It’s like she’s won a flaming Oscar!’

‘Just you and me then, Connie.’ Iris’s face was taut with concentration.

‘You and me, Iris.’ Connie moved her closed hand towards the youngest Land Girl. Iris mumbled to herself as she looked at both the twigs. For her part, Joyce had no idea which was the shortest but she was just glad she was out of the running.

Iris cautiously plucked a twig from Connie’s hand.

It was the short one.

Connie laughed and Iris’s face fell in mock anger. Joyce suspected that Iris didn’t really mind the prospect of a trip to Birmingham. It would be a chance to look in the shops. She could queue for the dried fruit and then perhaps stop for a cup of tea and a cake in Butler’s Tea Rooms near the station off Stephenson Street.

Butler’s Tea Rooms.

Joyce hadn’t thought of that place in years.

Why had it popped back into her head now?

She’d only been there once herself back in November 1940, before she joined the Women’s Land Army. And although the tea and cake had been lovely, that visit had turned out to be an unhappy experience. She thought back to that time. It had been the day before she discovered that her home in Coventry had been destroyed in the blitz of the city. So by rights, that afternoon in the tea room should have been the last time she’d been truly happy; unburdened by the effects of the war, unburdened by loss. But something else had happened in the tea room that had marred even that final sunny day.

She’d been away in Birmingham with John. Ostensibly it had been a business trip as John was scheduled to see a motorbike parts manufacturer for a discussion about supplying the Triumph factory where John worked in Coventry. But John and Joyce had used the opportunity to turn it into a mini-honeymoon – after all, they’d not managed to get away after their wedding. They’d stayed in a small hotel and John had gone to his meeting leaving Joyce alone. She’d looked at the wallpaper with its busy design of roses and vines, flicked through the bible on the bedside table and, bored of waiting, had decided she needed some air. Butler’s Tea Rooms had been visible from her window and she’d seen a steady procession of well-dressed people amble inside for afternoon tea. Joyce decided to put on her best clothes and join them. Why shouldn’t she live a little?

When she arrived at the tea rooms, Joyce was dressed in her smart dress – an eggshell blue frock with a white collar and a white belt blooming out to a full skirt. She sat at a table for four, her handbag occupying the seat next to her. She imagined she was a toff as she surveyed the smart and impressive establishment with its central atrium where a grand piano stood on the black and white tiled floor. Tables were arranged all around with a selection of large potted plants to add a splash of colour. For some reason the lower section was closed, so Joyce was seated on a table on the balcony that overlooked the atrium. All around her, other patrons sat around tables, chatting and smoking. On the plate in front of her was a business card for Butler’s Tea Rooms. Joyce put it into her purse as a memento. And while a proper toff wouldn’t have done that, Joyce didn’t care. Then she perused the menu and ordered tea and a sponge cake. The elderly waiter explained in a low voice that would have conveyed the reverence of a funeral parlour that the cake was made with dried egg and honey due to rationing. Joyce had assumed that would be the case and said she didn’t mind.

Joyce smiled at some people who were crammed in around a table nearby. She indicated the three free chairs at her own table, wondering if they would like to spread themselves out, but they were too busy chatting to notice her gesture. To her surprise, when Joyce turned back to her menu, a woman was already sitting down with her. The woman was catching her breath as if she had run from somewhere and had seemingly appeared out of thin air. She was a similar age to Joyce but stick-thin and glamorous despite her shorter hair and lack of makeup. She wore a simple black suit with trousers. On her shoulders sat a fur wrap, making her ensemble a curious mix of business and evening attire. Joyce noticed the worn cuffs on the woman’s jacket and wondered if the woman was down on her luck.

‘Hope you don’t mind.’ The woman had an accent that was hard to place. Was that a faint Manchester twang? ‘Say if you mind and I’ll move. But they didn’t have any other tables, see?’

‘I don’t mind.’ The truth was that Joyce would enjoy having someone sit with her. It would save her having to keep reading the menu to pass the time. ‘I’m Joyce Fisher.’

‘I know.’ The woman stared straight into Joyce’s eyes.

Joyce felt her mouth fall open in total shock.

‘How could you—?’

‘No, I’m joking,’ the woman laughed. ‘I’m always doing that. You should have seen your face!’

‘Yes, well,’ Joyce replied grumpily. She didn’t enjoy practical jokes. She remembered when her brother-in-law, Charlie, had excitedly claimed that John had won a prize in the Mayor’s raffle and made him get dressed up for a non-existent prize-giving ceremony. John had found it funny, but Joyce hadn’t appreciated it.

‘I’m Alice Ashley.’ The woman extended a black-gloved hand across the table.

‘I know,’ Joyce countered half-heartedly, feeling slight irritation at this woman’s manner. Hopes of passing the time with someone’s company she might enjoy were diminishing.

Alice smiled back, amused at Joyce’s comment and seemingly not noticing any weariness in her new companion’s voice. Alice promptly collared the passing waiter and ordered a pot of tea.

‘Why were you running?’