An Orphan’s Wish. Molly Green
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me more or less said they’d welcome me with open arms as an experienced driver. Some welcome.’
‘Well, at least you haven’t got anything serious,’ her mother said calmly. ‘You had me worried for a moment.’
‘You don’t understand, Mum. Joining up was going to change my life. Pay back those bloody Germans for killing Dickie.’ She absentmindedly fiddled with her engagement ring, now on the third finger of her left hand.
‘Don’t swear, dear,’ her mother said mildly. ‘I know how you must feel but if I may say so … and don’t get cross with me, but that isn’t quite the right spirit. You want revenge for Dickie’s death but that’s going to keep you bitter. Not all Germans are Nazis. I’m sure many of them don’t want to fight any more than our boys. I do understand your feelings but—’
‘I’m sorry, Mum, but you don’t understand at all,’ Lana said, her voice rising as she sprang to her feet. ‘I’ll never forgive them – never!’
Knowing she was behaving badly but not being able to stop herself, she rushed from the room.
‘You shouldn’t take it personally, Lana,’ her father said when she’d calmed down a little and stepped into her parents’ grocery shop a quarter of an hour later. ‘They haven’t rejected you – it’s just one of those things.’
It was pointless to argue with her father. She knew he was right anyway. But it didn’t make it any less hurtful.
‘Your mother and I have been talking. The last thing we want is to keep you at home now Mum’s getting better. Working in the shop is not for you – it would be a waste of all your training. Now Marjorie has left to join up, I’ve put an advertisement in the paper for a replacement assistant.’ He glanced at her, and she saw the love and concern reflected in his eyes. ‘You have to decide now what you want to do. Personally, I think you should go back to teaching. Your mum says the same.’
‘You sound like Dickie,’ Lana said, more than a little annoyed.
‘I’m not surprised. Dickie was right. We all know how the children loved you. I reckon they thought you were a little eccentric – different from any of their other teachers – but that was why they adored you.’ His eyes twinkled with humour and she couldn’t help giving him a small smile in return. ‘I think that’s where you’re needed. Not fighting Jerry.’
She couldn’t think of a reply so she busied herself undoing a box of tinned sardines that had just been delivered.
‘Any eggs this week?’ she asked, more for something to say, as there wasn’t much hope of any.
‘We’re expecting our allowance tomorrow,’ her father said.
‘Well, at least that will stop Mrs Mason from her perpetual moaning.’
Her parents’ words tumbled over in her mind the rest of the morning. Maybe they were right. Maybe her strength lay in teaching. And if she was honest she’d missed it terribly these last few months when she’d come home to look after her mother. A severe case of influenza had turned into pneumonia. Lana closed her eyes for a moment. It had been touch and go. At one stage she’d thought she was going to lose her mother as well as her fiancé. Now her mother was finally regaining her strength, Lana had some thinking to do. She was uncertain as to whether the headmaster would give her back her old job, even though they knew her slightly unconventional ways and couldn’t deny how much the children responded to her.
She remembered standing in the headmaster’s office when she’d asked him if he could hold her position by having a temporary teacher for the time it took her mother to recover. He couldn’t guarantee it, he’d said. It depended upon who came in her place. What their situation might be. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. At that moment in his office she’d made up her mind never to go back to that school, whatever the circumstances.
‘Even if he offered it to me it would be going backwards,’ she said aloud as she checked the list of items they were waiting to be delivered. She’d always taken pride in trying something new if things didn’t turn out as expected or if she was unhappy. Begging for her old job would be admitting failure.
When Marjorie Drake had suddenly announced to Lana’s father that she was joining the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and would be leaving in a week’s time, Lana had felt a spurt of envy. She’d decided then and there to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service. To fight Jerry. For Dickie’s sake. But now that had been cut from under her.
‘The library was shut today,’ Lana grumbled to her father after supper a few days later when her mother had retired early. ‘Staff shortage, I suppose. It’s so annoying. I’ve finished my book and I’ve got nothing else to read.’
‘Try these.’ Her father put down his newspaper and tossed a couple of magazines over to her. ‘Mrs Randall-Smith dropped them in this afternoon when she came to see your mother. You might find something of interest.’
They were sitting in opposite easy chairs in the parlour, which they used more these days since her mother had been ill. Lana had lit a fire but the room was still chilly even though the ugly blackout curtains were disguised by a second thick pair of richly flowered ones. Lana shivered. All the curtains did was give the impression the room was cosier than it felt.
Lana flipped through one of The Lady magazines her mother’s friend had left, then looked up. ‘No response yet for an assistant?’
‘Not yet. Everyone seems to have joined up.’ He looked suddenly contrite. ‘Sorry, love. That was a bit tactless of me.’
Lana gave a rueful smile. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m all growed up now.’
Her father’s face broke into a grin. ‘You certainly are, Topsy. I’m hoping it won’t be long before we have some replies – then you’ll be free to continue your own life.’
It was her father’s old nickname for her when she was still a child. Impulsively, she sprang to her feet and kissed her father’s cheek. ‘You’re the best father in the world,’ she said, ‘but you’re encouraging me to be the most selfish daughter.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, giving her an affectionate kiss back. ‘You haven’t had an easy time with this war and—’
‘No different from thousands of others,’ Lana interrupted, her expression grim. ‘I so badly want to get back at the Germans for what they took away from me, Dad, but Mum thinks I’ll end up a bitter and twisted old maid.’
‘Did she actually say that?’ Her father looked at her in surprise. ‘Doesn’t sound like your mother.’
‘Not exactly those words but that’s what she meant,’ Lana grimaced. She went back to her chair and picked up the magazine again, but she couldn’t concentrate. She sat thinking while her father quietly read his paper, until he folded it and yawned.
‘I think I’ll turn in,’ he announced.
He’d been a handsome man, she thought, as she watched him struggle to his feet, but the strain of another war – the first one where he’d lost a brother, and now two sons away at sea – had begun to tell on his features. His mouth had lost some of its fullness and his cheeks were a little sunken, but his eyes still held their teasing sparkle. A lump came to her throat.
‘G’night, love.’
‘Night, Dad. Sleep tight.’
‘And don’t let the bed bugs bite,’ he finished, smiling.
It was how they’d always finished saying goodnight when she was a little girl.
She grinned back.
In bed, she opened the magazine and read a couple of articles, wrinkling her nose at the ‘Let’s Make Do & Mend’ article. If this war went on much longer she’d need to improve what little sewing skills she had. Idly, she turned to the ‘Situations Vacant’ pages and her eye