If Edie was upset about the engagement she didn’t show it once. She was polite and warm to him and kind to Beth and acted as though she was happy for them both. It only made him love Edie all the more. So for three years he had sat and allowed himself to imagine he was one of them and during those three years he saw how devoted Edie and Paul were to Gracie. He understood that she was Lucy’s gift to them and he pushed what that cost him aside and let their family love wash over him and let himself believe he was a part of it.
Now, standing at the window, looking out over the street at the grass white with frost and the bare empty trees, he realised it was time to make a decision. He couldn’t hold Beth off forever. He had to break with her or marry her, and believing in being honourable, he knew which he had to choose.
He put on his dressing gown and slippers and walked into the kitchen where Lilly was stirring a pot of porridge. He thought she had put on even more weight over the last three years. Everyone said he was becoming thinner.
‘Mum, I have some news,’ said Theo.
‘It’s so hard now the war is on,’ said Lilly. ‘I heard there is going to be rationing of food. Do you think I will still be able to get oats, cocoa and sugar? Or flour? I mean, if there’s no flour, well, you just can’t bake, can you?’
‘Mum, I need you to sit down because I have to tell you something.’
She stopped stirring and looked at him. ‘Well, if it’s important I better put the kettle on first, hadn’t I?’
Theo sighed. He wanted to tell her now while the words were clear in his head. Once he said the words, his plan could begin, the words would start it. If she needed a pot of tea to feel comfortable, then perhaps it was just as well he let her make it. He got up and got two cups and saucers and poured some milk into a small jug.
‘The bowls, Theo,’ said Lilly, ‘for the porridge and plates for toast.’
She poured porridge into the bowls and passed him the full one.
‘Way too much for me,’ he said.
‘Oh, go on with you,’ she said, ‘you’re skin and bones.’
She sat down and poured the tea and he reached over and spooned three teaspoons of sugar into her cup. She would need the sweetness to calm her nerves.
‘Well,’ she said after she had taken three sips of tea, ‘I’m ready for this news then.’
‘Well, Mum,’ said Theo, ‘I’m going to marry Beth.’
‘We all know that, dear, you’ve been engaged for three years.’
‘Well, I had to wait for her to turn twenty-one,’ he said.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Since when has that been a requirement for marriage? I know you, son. I don’t just cook, I can see, you know.’
Theo took her hands in his and they sat together in the silence, knowing each other, the porridge bowls between them like a shared communion.
‘I know you know what’s in my heart, Mum, and sometimes I’m ashamed.’ Theo held Lilly’s small plump hands in his own. Her hands were warm and soft like a young girl’s.
She pulled one hand away and brushed his hair back from his face. ‘Oh son,’ she said, ‘you deserve to be happy and Edie Cottingham has chosen another life. And who can blame her with that poor child to look after and an ageing father. Beth loves you, Theo — isn’t that enough for you?’
‘Well, Mum,’ he said, ‘that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I think it is enough and I am going to set a date. We will marry on the seventh of November.’
Lilly wriggled her ample bottom out of the chair and walked around the table and put her arms around him and kissed his head.
‘I think it’s the right decision,’ she said. ‘It’s the only decision. You deserve a love you can actually have.’
He stood up and pulled away from her arms. ‘Mum — there’s more.’ His voice was full of sorrow for her.
She began shaking, he hadn’t even told her yet and she was trembling. She knew what was coming. He sat her down and moved the tea over towards her.
‘The whole last week I have been worrying you would do this.’ She was already crying.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘you’ve eaten three apple cakes. Mum, come on, I have to. You know I have to.’
‘But you’re thirty-eight years old, Theo — they want young boys. You’re not a young boy any more.’
‘As long as you have at least a thirty-four inch chest and are five foot six they’ll take you, Mum.’ He didn’t tell her that thirty-eight was the oldest you could be to enlist.
‘You’re my boy. My only boy,’ she was sobbing and he passed her the chequered tea towel. He squatted down in front of her. ‘Mum, I will be okay — you know me. I can wait out any strife.’
Twenty-Two
Gracie
Wednesday, 19 August 1914, when Gracie refuses to budge.
Gracie spun around in circles turning her pale blue dress into a parachute and then collapsed noisily on the wooden floorboards. When her head had recovered and stopped spinning she clambered up and did it again, twirling until she fell helplessly in a tangle. Shopping for material was boring for a nine-year-old girl and Beth was taking an inordinate amount of time. Gracie spun herself dizzy
