The Christmas Soldier

Christmas 1917 is full of trepidation and hope...

Quickly, Mama. Let’s see if he’s there. Teddy’s voice echoes in my ear as I walk into Selfridges. That little boy has long since gone, but his spirit is with me as I take a basket and make my way through the crowds.

Three years into the war they said would be over by Christmas 1914, it seems not even the Kaiser can dampen London’s tradition of festive shopping, though as the sparsely stocked shelves attest, it is not through want of trying.

Come, Mama. Quick. We must get there before someone takes him.

Ignoring the phantom child’s pleas, I remove my kid gloves and consult the list I had drafted at home that morning:

Cologne for Albert.

Aslim diary for Lydia.

Handkerchiefs for Mother.

A bottle of sherry for Reverend Hobson.

Candied peel and cherries for the pud. And then a blot of ink where, out of habit, I had gone to write Teddy’s name,

forgetting for a moment.

Grief wraps its hands around my heart as I fold the list again and make my way solemnly towards the fragrance department, the air ripe with the scent of lavender and rose.

“May I| interest you in a demonstration of our latest rouge, Madame?”

Looking up, I see that I have paused beside the cosmetics counter. An elfin-faced young woman, chestnut hair piled up on her head, is beaming at me from behind the vast glass cabinet and proffering a small silver pot.

“This is Coty’s new shade,” she says, removing the lid and placing a delicately manicured finger into the rose-tinted cream. For ladies with a pale complexion, like you, it gives a most flattering flush of colour.”

As she extols the virtues of the rouge, I let my mind drift off, wondering when it was that I lost my bloom.