Constance waited until he had disappeared into the inky night before turning and heading back inside with a sprightliness to her step. She had no idea how she was supposed to survive five whole days before she saw him again.
͠
The bus chugged to a halt seeming to almost sigh with relief as its grumbling engine stilled. Constance, who had chosen to sit down the back as was her custom, was holding on for grim death as she was bounced along the craterous roads. She liked to keep an eye on the trailer hooked onto the back carrying the gas bags. They were used for fuel, and although she knew it was an unreasonable fear, it was a real one to her mind, nonetheless that the trailer might dislodge itself. How would the driver know what had happened if she wasn’t there to call out?
So many strange sights had become the norm these past years, like seeing the little ones carrying their gas masks to school with the same nonchalance as if it were a lunch box. Off they’d trot of a morning, straps slung over their shoulder for convenience to carry those hideous, alien masks housed inside the brown boxes. Or, the sight of the planes flying low overhead and the ships decorating the Solent. Then there was this evening, she thought, thanking the driver and stepping down onto the pavement; it was not the norm. In fact, it was decidedly, deliciously different because she was stepping out with Henry Johnson! It was as though Mother Nature had decided to wave her wand over the day too with it being gorgeous for this time of year. The unseasonal early spring heat promised to linger well into the evening.
Constance felt as if she’d been holding her breath since Monday night willing the days away for Friday. Then and only then would she be able to exhale. All week she’d felt as though, one sharp prod and she’d combust with the pent-up nervous excitement fizzing around inside her like bubbles in lemonade. How she’d wished she could click her fingers to make time speed up but here, at last, it was Friday evening!
She clipped her way home from the bus stop nodding good evening to the familiar faces but having no wish to stop and chat. She was in a hurry, and she picked up her pace as she neared Pier View. As she ran up the stairs, she heard her mother and Ginny chatting in the kitchen, and she paused popping her head around the door. They were sitting with a cup of tea each between them and once she’d said hello she raced on up to her room. The whiff of boiling cabbage nipped at her heels, and she hoped she wouldn’t smell of it when Henry called.
Constance clambered out of her overalls and threw her slip on over her head before whipping off her turban. To her relief, she saw the pin curls she’d set her hair in the night before had held up well. Her best dress was laid out on the bed. It had been Evelyn’s, but she’d grown out of it and knowing how much Constance loved the rose-pink colour, her mother had remodeled it for her birthday. Ginny had placed her white cardigan, the one she knew Constance coveted next to it, and she felt a surge of gratitude toward her mother and sister-in-law.
She slipped the dress over the top of her head, and as she smoothed her hair back into place, she wondered whether hers and Henry’s conversation would be as easy as it had been on Monday. Perhaps it would it be stilted and awkward with the expectation of having made an arrangement? Oh stop it, Constance Downer, she said to herself in the mirror, wondering if she should risk a slick of the lipstick she’d pinched off Evelyn. She heard her mother’s voice call for her. Best not, she decided venturing back downstairs.
‘You look pretty as a picture, Connie,’ her mother exclaimed, before gesturing to Ginny. ‘Go on then.’
Constance looked from one to the other wondering why they both looked so pleased with themselves. Ginny looked up at her. ‘I’m having Ted’s baby—isn’t that wonderful!’
Constance’s eyes widened, she hadn’t expected that. ‘But how?’ slipped out of her mouth and she flushed as the two women looked at one another and laughed. ‘I mean—’
‘It’s all right. I know what you mean. I must have fallen just before Ted left. I thought it was grief making me sick and then it dawned on me my courses hadn’t come on in ages either. I paid a visit to the doctor, and he confirmed it. The baby’s due early August.’ Ginny’s eyes were bright for the first time since she’d opened that awful telegram.
‘A summer baby.’ Constance breathed, still stunned by the news but gathering herself enough to give her sister-in-law a hug and kiss on the cheek. ‘Ginny, that’s wonderful. I’m so very happy for you. Mummy, you’re going to be a grandmother!’ She scooted around the table to where her mother was sitting looking as pleased as punch and squeezed her shoulder. ‘It’s wonderful!’ she reiterated.
Arthur who’d shut the shop for the day appeared in the kitchen. He looked at his wife who was smiling but crying at the same time and at his daughter and daughter-in-law both of whom had silly grins plastered to their faces with bewilderment. Daddy, Constance thought a minute later seemed to stand a little straighter at the news he was to be a grandfather. A shiver coursed through her and she saw that her skin had gone goosy. She rubbed at the fair hairs on her arm that were standing on end beneath the soft wool of Ginny’s cardigan, not liking the sudden sense of foreboding
