Free Only a Mother Knows by Annie Groves Page B

little tap on the door earlier, giving Dulcie an old-fashioned look when she made no effort to get up, then she put a sanitary towel, a Beecham’s pill and a glass of water on the bedside table, and told her she would be back later. Dulcie had said she just needed a long sleep; she didn’t need any pads or powders today, thank you very much.
    Thoughts were lazily drifting through her rising consciousness, and as she became more alert questions formed. When was the last time she had been in need of a sanitary pad? Sitting up quickly in bed, she realised it must have been about seven weeks ago! She put her lateness down to the upset caused by Wilder running off with her sister, Edith.
    She knew she wasn’t the world’s most regular girl so it didn’t bother her too much that she hadn’t seen her ‘visitors’, as she always called her monthly period; after all, nothing had happened between her and Wilder. She’d made sure of that, and now she was glad the cheating airman hadn’t been able to chalk her up as another willing English girl eager to catch herself a handsome, love-’em-and-leave-’em American. And she was sure that Reece Redgrave didn’t count.
    Dulcie had put her air-raid shelter tryst with the young airman down to nothing more than an accidental misunderstanding. It had only been the once and everybody knew that girls could not get caught the first time – and anyway, it had only lasted for moments, not even minutes. Nobody got caught that fast. Dulcie’s heartbeat raced, and beads of perspiration broke out on her top lip and her forehead. You couldn’t get caught that easily, surely?
    ‘Dulcie, did you hear me? There is someone here with a letter for you.’ It was only when she heard Olive’s obvious impatience that she realised the urgency. Her mind automatically darted to her brother, Rick, whose regiment had been deployed to the desert; she knew because she had actually seen him on the Pathé newsreel at the pictures. His regiment was in Tobruk and had been taken by surprise and captured by the Axis forces. They had got word that he had been taken as a prisoner of war.
    Dulcie’s mind was racing as she pulled back the sheets and blankets. She knew that the authorities would send a telegram to her parents if anything had happened to Rick – but they had moved from the East End! Scrambling from the bed her foot got caught in the bedclothes making her stumble. What if he had been involved in an accident? Surely his platoon sergeant would come to her in person. No! They would go to Edith now. Her parents! What if something had happened to them? Oh lord, she thought, there was a war on, people were dying and she was laid up with a stomach bug! She had to do her bit, no matter what. Keep calm and carry on, that’s what the posters said. What if something had happened to her family? The niggling voice persisted. All self-pitying thoughts suddenly went out of her head now as she scrambled into her pink dressing gown she’d bought second-hand from a stall in Portobello market.
    Berating herself for her unkempt appearance as she lurched from the room, Dulcie felt her stomach heave again. She hadn’t felt this bad since … In her haste to be downstairs she realised she had never felt this bad. Tying the belt of her dressing gown around her so tightly she could hardly breathe, she saw Olive at the bottom of the stairs.
    ‘There’s a young American airman in the front room and he wants to see you.’ Olive looked calm and motherly now as Dulcie almost fell on the final step.
    ‘Who is he?’ Dulcie asked as her heart began to race. Olive knew Wilder so it couldn’t be him. She watched as her landlady shrugged her shoulders. ‘What does he look like?’ She surmised Reece Redgrave had come to visit. Well, she thought, if he had she would give him a piece of her mind. Coming here unannounced and uninvited! How dare he!
    Turning, she checked her appearance in the oval oak-encased mirror on the wall