Lizzie's War by Rosie Clarke Page B

night out together, Lizzie.’
    â€˜Well, we have to help out with making the sandwiches and serving the men, but we shan’t be working all the time and it is a way of getting out…’
    â€˜We’ll do it,’ Beth said and laughed in relief. ‘I thought she’d come to have a row with you – she looked so angry.’
    â€˜Angry with her husband, not me,’ Lizzie said. ‘Perhaps things will start to get better now. She said Bert Oliver had a shock when the police went there so perhaps he might stop telling lies about me…’
    *
    â€˜It will do the pair of you the world of good,’ Beth’s mother said when they told her about Aunt Miriam coming to babysit one evening a week. ‘You know I’d have done it if I could, Beth, but I couldn’t manage evenings or weekends.’
    â€˜We wouldn’t dream of asking,’ Lizzie told her. ‘We are so grateful for all you do, and I know I would prefer you to anyone else – but Aunt Miriam is to be trusted. She wanted children but couldn’t have them and she adores Betty – she’s more likely to spoil them than neglect them.’
    â€˜Well, that would be easy enough to do,’ Mrs Court said and smiled at her. ‘I popped in with the children to see Mary this afternoon. She was just sitting there staring at the wall, but she cheered up when she saw the children.’
    â€˜That must have been hard work for you – pushing all three in the pram together?’ Beth said and frowned.
    â€˜I used to have three of mine in together when the twins were babies.’
    â€˜You were younger then,’ Beth objected. ‘You shouldn’t wear yourself out like that, Mum.’
    â€˜Well Mary carried Matt home in her arms because he was screaming,’ her mother said, ‘it wasn’t so bad – and it cheered your sister up a bit. You mustn’t grudge her a little happiness, Beth.’
    â€˜I don’t,’ Beth replied but she was uneasy.
    Lizzie looked at her anxiously as they fed the children and then popped them into the bath before taking them up to bed.
    â€˜You’re worried about Mary, aren’t you?’ Lizzie asked.
    â€˜Yes, because… she’s not right,’ Beth said and shook her head. ‘I don’t mind her helping Mum with the children sometimes, but I’m nervous of what she might do if she was alone with them. She’s so intense, Lizzie.’
    â€˜Beth! You can’t think she would hurt your babies? She’s grieving because she lost hers, but that doesn’t make her a monster.’
    Beth nodded but she turned away and didn’t answer.
    Later, when she was in bed she dwelled on the answers both Lizzie and her mother had given her. They both seemed to think she was being unfair to Mary, even though Lizzie had understood how she felt. Beth’s mum was bound to feel for Mary, because she’d lost her baby – Beth was sorry for her too, but she didn’t quite trust her sister. She couldn’t have said why, but when Aunt Miriam came to babysit for the evening, she would make certain she knew never to leave Mary alone with them. If her sister called round on some pretext, she wasn’t to be left with the children…
    *
    â€˜Why don’t we ask Mary if she’d like to come to the social club too?’ Lizzie said as they travelled to work the next morning, after a night that had been remarkably quiet. The sirens had gone but they hadn’t heard any bombing and then the all-clear had sounded. No one believed it meant the blitz was over, but perhaps they were going to get a bit of a rest; it was certainly needed, because the fires were still burning from one of the worst nights London had ever seen. ‘It might take her mind off her loss and perhaps she would enjoy it… it could be her salvation, being around men who’ve endured hell…’
    â€˜We could ask her