Christmas with the Queen

Chapter 12 Olive

Chapter 12

Olive

London, December 1952

M y visit to Sandringham wasn’t the roaring success I’d hoped it would be, and I was disappointed that I hadn’t found any interesting new angles on the royal Christmas. I had nothing refreshing and insightful to present to Tom Harding. Even my additional piece on the royal chefs was rather thin on detail. I should have been happy to have finally met the queen properly after years of sticking pictures of her into my scrapbooks, but even that had been something of a letdown. Even worse, I’d lost my grandmother’s locket necklace somewhere on the way home and was annoyed with myself for fiddling with it.

At least Mrs. Leonard had given me some information I could use, and Evans had shared a few extra nuggets on the drive back to the station, although he mostly talked about how wonderful Mrs. Leonard was and how lucky the royal family were to have her.

But far more from anything I’d achieved professionally from my trip to Sandringham, it was my conversation with Jack Devereux that had left the most lasting impression. I still couldn’t believe it. After all this time.

Our brief conversation had left me wanting to know so much more: where he’d been, what he’d done in the years since I’d last seen him, whether he and Andrea had a family. Seeing him again had brought everything rushing back: how much I’d enjoyed his company, how much we’d laughed together, the hopes and dreams we’d shared with each other. Jack Devereux was a loose thread on the end of a seam. If I pulled, I didn’t know where it would lead, or what I’d unravel in the process. So, I decided not to try. Jack belonged in my past, and that was where he should stay.

Preparing my report for Tom Harding was a welcome distraction from any further thoughts of Jack, but even that wasn’t enough to knock Rosie off the scent.

“You’re acting funny,” she said as I typed up my piece on Sandringham’s kitchens and chefs. “What happened at Sandringham? You didn’t kiss one of the footmen, did you? Did you?”

“No, Rosie. I definitely did not kiss one of the footmen!”

“Well, something happened. I can tell. You have that look about you.”

I turned to her and pulled a silly face. “What look?”

We both laughed, which earned us a barking reprimand from Maguire. He was in a worse mood than usual.

“Nothing happened,” I whispered. “I promise.”

Rosie narrowed her eyes at me, clearly unconvinced. I could tell she wasn’t going to let it go until I confessed.

“All right then. I bumped into an old friend.”

“Which friend? How old? Who was it?” She stared at me, trying to work it out. It didn’t take long. “Not... him ?”

I nodded and struck the typewriter keys to spell out J A C K onto the empty drum.

Rosie reached for my arm. “Oh, Olive.”

“Carter? Do you have that piece ready yet?”

I flinched as Maguire breathed down my neck, and turned in my chair. “Just finished. I’ll take it up to Mr. Harding now.” I turned to Rosie as I gathered up the pages. “We’ll talk later.”

I was nervous as I knocked on Harding’s office door and stepped inside.

“Ah, Carter. How did you get on? Managed to not get yourself thrown into the Tower, I see.”

I smiled. “I had an interesting time,” I replied. I put the typed pages on his desk. “I hope you like it.”

He studied the pages for a moment before reading out the title. “ MENU FOR A MONARCH—BBC royal correspondent, Olive Carter, goes behind-the-scenes of the royal kitchens at Sandringham. ” He peered at me above his spectacles. “Royal correspondent?”

I bit my lip. “I meant to type a new title page. I’m afraid I got a bit carried away—I’m sorry.”

He carried on. “ Christmas is about family and tradition: keeping old traditions and establishing new ones. And never has that been truer than for our new queen as she faces her first Christmas as our monarch and prepares to give her first Christmas message from Sandringham, just as her father and grandfather did for many years before her. And, let us not forget, that as well as being our queen, she is a young woman—a wife and mother—facing her first Christmas without her beloved father. But among so much change, some things remain reassuringly the same. The small army of chefs in Sandringham’s kitchens are hard at work preparing the many meals the royal family will enjoy over the festive period. ”

Harding put the pages down on the desk. “Take some notes for Bullen. The usual format. Wasn’t that the brief?”

“Yes, Mr. Harding, but I met the queen, you see, and...”

“You did?”

I nodded. “I felt it was important to emphasize the changes and challenges she faces this Christmas—as a young woman and a new queen—rather than stick with ‘the usual format.’” I knew I was on thin ice. Harding was a generous man, but he was no pushover.

“Well, I’ll be the judge of that, shall I?”

“Of course. I added all my notes on the usual things at the back.” I took a deep breath. “How is Charlie? Any progress?”

“Still sick as a dog.”

“Oh. That’s a pity.” I waited a moment to see if Harding could guess what I was going to ask next. He looked at me, daring me to speak. “I was wondering who will record the piece for the broadcast in his place?”

“I’ll find someone.” He stood up and took his hat and coat from the stand. “I have to run, or I’ll be late for a very important lunch appointment with my wife, and if I’ve learned anything over thirty years of happy marriage, it is to never leave your dear wife sitting alone at a restaurant table wondering where you are.”

I thought about my parents, and how tired their marriage seemed in comparison. I couldn’t even remember the last time they’d gone out together. I wondered what sort of marriage I’d have had if things had worked out differently. Would my husband still enjoy taking me out for lunch after thirty years, or would we sit in silence, hardly able to remember why we’d fallen in love in the first place? Rosie was of the firm opinion that it wasn’t too late for either of us to find a husband, even though we’d fallen behind most of our friends, who were already married. But, unlike Rosie, my situation was complicated. Any man who fell in love with me would also have to love Lucy, too.

“Carter?”

I stirred from my thoughts and looked at Mr. Harding. He was holding his office door open, waiting for me to leave. “Sorry. I was miles away.”

“Still at Sandringham?”

“Maybe?”

“I was thanking you for getting us out of a hole this week,” he added. “It’s always good to maintain our connections with the royal family.”

“Will you use it?” I asked. “My piece?”

He ushered me out of the door. “That’ll be all, Carter.”

I couldn’t shake off the sense of frustration after my meeting with Mr. Harding, or the creeping sense of dread I’d brought back from Sandringham after seeing Jack. As I got off the bus and walked down Buckingham Street toward home, I felt restless and anxious. I stopped to stroke a neighbor’s cat, taking a moment to collect my thoughts. I’d made a promise to myself to always leave work behind so that I could give Lucy my full attention. But some things weren’t as easily put away or ignored.

I took a deep breath and walked on toward our modest red-brick terrace—“a palace of our own,” as my father always said. Number 25 was my safe harbor—the place I always returned to when life threw another storm my way. I envied my friends with homes of their own, but 25 Buckingham Street had become more than my childhood home. It was now Lucy’s home, and for that I would always be grateful to my parents, difficult as it was at times to all share the same cramped space.

After chatting with Lucy and admiring some snowflake decorations she’d made out of old newspaper, I put the kettle on. My mother was at her sister’s, so it was just the three of us.

“I was thinking earlier, Dad. You should take Mum out somewhere nice for lunch,” I said as I added tea leaves to the pot. “Surprise her with an early Christmas present.”

He laughed. “ Lunch ! I see. You spend one day at Sandringham and come back all lah-di-dah, with fancy airs and graces.”

“Dinner then. It doesn’t matter what you call it—I just think it would be nice to do something romantic.”

He folded his newspaper over. “I’ll take her to The Feathers for a pie and mash supper. How’s that? Romantic enough for you?”

I sighed. “I’m sure you can make more of an effort than that. There’s a French place near work called Maison Jerome. Why don’t I book a table for you both?”

He peered at me over his spectacles. “What are you up to?”

I laughed. “Nothing! I was just thinking. That’s all.”

He reached for my hand. “I know you’re only trying to help, love, but me and your mother are fine. Don’t worry about us.”

But I did worry. My mother was a difficult woman, but I knew she was doing her best. My father could be stubborn at times, but he had a big heart. Selfishly, I needed them to be happy, because my happiness depended on theirs. Between them, they walked Lucy to and from school, and took care of her when I was at work or when I went out with the girls. Without my parents’ support, I would struggle to work, and without work, I would struggle to fulfill the promise I’d made to Lucy: that one day, we would have our very own home, with a tree for her to climb, and a dog to play with in the garden. The simple fact was that my parents allowed me to do a job I couldn’t afford to lose, in order to keep a promise I couldn’t afford to break.

I called Lucy downstairs. “Come on, you. We’re going for a walk.”

Lucy loved our evening walks when I got home from work, just the two of us. Well, almost just the two of us.

“Can Alfie come too?” she asked as she ran downstairs.

Alfie was Lucy’s imaginary dog, conjured to replace the actual dog she desperately wanted and which we couldn’t have on account of my mother being allergic to dog hair—or so she claimed.

“Of course he can.” I made a performance out of fetching an imaginary lead and attaching it to an imaginary collar. “Hurry up then. He’s busting for a wee.”

Lucy laughed, and my heart smiled in response. I wasn’t good at many things, but being Lucy’s mother was one of them, even if I’d once doubted myself and been terrified of raising a child on my own. I often wondered if she was missing out by not having a father in her life, but I did my best to fill the gap. I had never lied to Lucy about her father, reserving my “dead husband” story for nosy parkers, and those outside my close circle of immediate family—and Rosie—but she had said things once or twice that made me realize she assumed he had died. She knew plenty of children at school whose fathers had died in the war, so it seemed quite natural to her that if she had no father, that was the reason why. I knew she would inevitably ask more questions as she grew older, and might want to know more about him one day. It was a day I dreaded. A day that felt suddenly much closer.

Wrapped in coats and hats, gloves and scarves, we walked along the terraced streets and found our favorite bench in the park. We took turns to look for the constellations, tipping our necks back as we searched out the distinctive shapes.

“Do you think we’ll see Father Christmas and his sleigh?” Lucy asked as she leaned into my shoulder.

“Not tonight, darling. It isn’t Christmas Eve yet. He’ll be getting ready at the North Pole. Wrapping up all the presents.” I pulled her hat over her eyes. “And no peeking! Have you written your list yet?”

“I’m almost finished.” She swung her legs beneath the bench, hesitating for a moment before she turned to look at me. “Can Father Christmas really bring anything you ask for?”

I chose my words carefully. “Well, he’s very clever. I think he brings children the things they’ll like the most, and maybe some of the things they need, too.”

“I think I might have asked for something even Father Christmas can’t bring.”

I pulled her close to my side. “Oh? Well, let’s make a wish and see what he can do.”

Lucy wasn’t the only one with a difficult request for Father Christmas that year. I closed my eyes and wished for my parents to fall in love again, for better opportunities at work, and, most of all, for someone to love me the way Tom Harding loved his wife.

And none of that could be easily wrapped and placed under the tree.