All in the Mind

Chapter 7

Later, over the washing-up, Tilly told Dorothy all about it. They had just finished a splendid feast of roast pork with crackling and all the trimmings. To her great regret, Tilly had been incapable of eating a second helping. Her stomach was as tight as a drum.

"I never thought you'd do your own cooking and washing-up," Tilly said. "I thought people who lived in stately homes had servants."

Dorothy spluttered with amusement. "This isn't a stately home. It's just a manor house. Anyway I do have servants. Mary comes in in the mornings to do the breakfast for the boys and she does all the cleaning and some of the laundry. Then Sarah comes in in the afternoons to do the boys' lunch and dinner and she does the rest of the laundry. I just prefer to do my own housework in the bit we live in. Otherwise, I'd have nothing to do." She inspected a glass and then gave it another rub with the tea towel. "And the boys help out on the farm, of course. Those who can. We're really rather spoilt. Most of the other farmers have to make do with land girls. Not that I've anything against land girls, you understand. A lot of them are good hard workers. It's just they can't do all the heavy work and there's a lot of heavy work on a farm. Now," she said, as she dried the last plate and untied her pinny, "we should go and get changed. We've got a few people coming round for drinks."

Tilly was stricken. "I haven't got anything to change into," she said.

"Oh, don't worry about that," said Dorothy. "We're about the same size. I'm sure I'll have something that will fit you. It really is too bad of Johnny not to tell you. We thought we'd have a little celebration and you could meet a few of our friends."

"No, I mean..." Tilly hesitated. "I really don't have anything at all to change into. This is the only frock I've got apart from my uniform. Most of my clothes were in the house, you see."

And so she ended up telling Dorothy everything. How she had been on her way home when the sirens sounded and she'd gone down into the underground station. There she had sat in the warm semi-darkness with a lot of other strangers and they'd all ended up have a jolly singsong and trying not to listen for the crump of the bombs over their heads.

And when the all clear sounded and she came out, it had all changed. There were fires burning everywhere and people rushing about, silhouetted against the flames. The sound of gushing water from the fire hoses. Smoke and soot everywhere. And rubble where the houses had been. She came to the end of the street and turned right and the next street - her street - wasn't there. There were a few walls still standing, leaning drunkenly against each other in the midst of the fire. Some of the houses had just caved in, leaving their neighbours standing. She could quite clearly see Mrs Brett's house, the dividing wall sliced off and the bedroom left open like a doll's house, the bed still standing in the middle of the room, blood red in the flickering light.

She started forward and someone stopped her, grabbing her arm. "I wouldn't go down there, love," a voice behind her said. "There's nothing left."

"But," she said. "But ..." But her house was gone. And the man was right. There could be nobody left alive in that h*******t. And it would be suicide to go in and look. Here and there people stood around, neighbours, people she knew. But her parents weren't among them. She went from one to the other, desperately asking after them, but they all shook their heads, their faces blank with shock.

She waited the rest of the night, watching the firemen putting out the flames. Mr Johnson from the corner shop came and stood beside her, his eyes hollow and sunken. "Have you seen my Betty?" he asked, and she shook her head, exactly as all the others had when she had asked for her parents. Mr Johnson put his arm around her shoulders and he began to cry, silently and hopelessly, not even bothering to wipe way the tears that ran down his cheeks or the dew drop that hung from the end of his nose.

"They wouldn't let us go in," Tilly said. "Not even the next morning. They said the ground would still be too hot."

She had gone to a nearby shelter and they had given her a cup of tea. It had tasted funny. She thought they might have put brandy in it. And then, eventually, she watched as they brought the bodies out. Dozens of them, broken by the falling masonry and blackened by the fire. They laid them carefully out in neat rows at the end of the street and Tilly was reminded irresistibly of a cat she used to have, who used to bring dead mice and lay them out just like that, in a neat row on the doorstep. Sickened, she turned away.

"If I had been on early shift, I would have died with them," she said. "At first I thought that might have been better. No, it's all right," as she saw the alarm on Dorothy's face. "I don't feel like that now. Especially not now I've met Johnny. It's just," her mouth twisted with remembered pain, "there was nothing left, you know. Not even a photograph. Not a piece of furniture. Not even one of my old toys. My whole life was wiped out in one go, and," she swiped at her eyes with the dishcloth, "it felt like none of it mattered, you know. Like my life was pointless."

Dorothy smiled at her. "But?"

"Yes, there is a but. I had my job and that felt worthwhile. And the other girls were very kind. One of them gave me this dress." She looked down at the faded print. "And she didn't have much herself. And then I moved into the nurses' home."

"Well," said Dorothy. "Let's see what we can find. I think I can find you something a bit more special for the evening. And she took Tilly upstairs to look through her wardrobe.

It was amazing. Two big wardrobes full of clothes hanging neatly on racks.

"What about this?" Dorothy pulled out a long dress in crimson silk.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly" Tilly reared back as if Dorothy were offering her a red hot coal rather than an item of clothing.

"Why not? Is it too big, do you think?"

"No, it's too beautiful. Too expensive. This is from some big fashion house in Paris, isn't it?"

Tilly gazed longingly at the dress. She could tell the quality even without trying it on. There was something about the way a really perfect garment was cut. Girls like her didn't wear dresses like this.

Then she realised Dorothy was laughing at her. "Well, Polly will be pleased."

"Polly?"

"Polly from the village. She made this. In fact she made most of them."

"Polly ... from the village," Tilly repeated, wonderingly.

"Here, try it on. You don't have to keep it if you don't like it. There are plenty of others."

"Um," Tilly was suddenly gripped by panic as she remembered the state of her underwear. Her knickers and vest were grey and baggy with age and many washings. She felt trapped like a hunted animal.