Women at War

by Jan Casey

  Speak; one of you speak. Her lips twitched; she rubbed her tongue raw against the back of her teeth. Next to her, Fred sounded as if he was breathing through an underground grate. The wind shifted direction and rain hurtled against the glass, puddling around the French doors. For a moment, they were all mesmerised as a thin stream meandered towards the middle of the room, yet none of them made an attempt to stop the flow.

  Look at us, Viola thought, a sense of disgust akin to nausea overwhelming her. Look how foolish we are. Standing on ceremony. Waiting to see who will go first and what they will say. Not wanting to offend when we are already deeply offended. Lacking the courage or wherewithal to give a voice to our thoughts; our feelings; our fears; our betrayal and bewilderment.

  Leaning across the table, Viola grabbed the water jug and filled her glass. She drank in slow, steadying gulps then put the glass down with care. ‘Well,’ she was able to say in a controlled voice, ‘I suppose I will have to start, as no one else appears to want to step up. So, needs must and all that.’

  ‘Viola,’ Dad said. ‘I ask you to listen to me.’

  After a moment, Viola turned to him, but made no response.

  ‘Very well,’ Dad continued. ‘I will begin by repeating what I stated earlier. We are on the cusp of another war. It is looming and inevitable.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sssh.’ Dad’s command was sharp. ‘I cannot allow you to become engaged to a man who is a citizen of Germany and that is that.’

  Viola was distressed to see Fred hang his head, as though ashamed. and she placed her hand on his.

  ‘Not because I don’t think the world of him. We do approve. Don’t we, Edith?’

  Mum nodded in agreement.

  ‘But because…’ His grey eyes narrowed and became hard and obdurate. ‘Your life will be a misery if we allow an engagement to go ahead.’

  Viola sucked in her breath.

  ‘Arthur, really,’ Mum said. ‘I think you’re being a bit…’

  A hiss again from Dad. ‘That is not a harsh statement, it is a matter of fact. I’m sorry for it, Fred, but my daughter must be my first consideration.’

  Fred did not raise his eyes from his lap.

  ‘You would be vilified and called names. Traitor, renegade, turncoat. And worse. Believe me. And it pains me to say this, but I must. People will accuse Fred of absconding in order to avoid his responsibility as a young British man. He will be denounced as a deserter. We would be subject to white feathers through our door.’

  At this, Viola, Mum and Fred all drew a gulping breath. Viola and Fred both rose to their feet, their palms planted on the table; Mum sunk lower in her chair.

  ‘Sir, I must protest,’ Fred shouted. ‘I would give anything to stay here and fulfil my duty.’

  ‘Dad, you must rescind that statement. How can you even think it?’ Viola shouted.

  Dad raised his flat hand to each of them in turn. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But others will. And I will not subject my beloved daughter to that kind of abuse.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Viola said. ‘I only care about being married to Fred.’

  ‘I care,’ said Dad. ‘And your mother cares.’

  ‘So do I,’ Fred added, his voice a harsh whisper.

  The rain had let up to a steady drum on the terrace. Apart from the occasional barb of lightning, the sky was dark. Mum picked up a serviette and flapped it in front of her face. They sat in silence.

  If this was a play, Viola thought, the musty, velvet curtain would close now and everyone in the audience would feel terribly sorry for all of them.

  It became clear that none of them had anything else to say. There was a bit of shuffling and coughing and then Viola asked her parents if they would give her and Fred some time on their own. They did not hesitate and Viola could sense relief in their brisk movements toward the door.

  ‘Use my study,’ Dad said. ‘And the port. Please.’

  Fred stood and said, ‘May I say goodbye to both of you now?’

  ‘Why, yes.’ For a moment Mum looked confused. ‘Won’t we see you for breakfast?’

  ‘Sadly, no,’ Fred answered. ‘I must be on my way very early.’

  The leave-taking was fumbling and clumsy. Hands and arms and cheeks that had met and fit comfortably together on numerous occasions now looked awkward and unfamiliar.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Fred turned to Viola and put his arms around her. ‘The study,’ he said, taking her hand and leading the way.

  Viola shook her head. ‘We have a few hours left. Quietly,’ she said, a finger on her lips. And they crept up the stairs to her bedroom and locked the door behind them.

  *

  The many times Viola had daydreamed about sharing a bed with Fred, she’d imagined herself waking and reaching for him in one fluid movement before she allowed the moment to pass. But whether because his presence the previous night had been unexpected or because his being next to her was not a habit ingrained in her psyche, as she hoped it would be in time, her first action of the day was to sit on the edge of her bed and lift a corner of the curtain to establish the weather.

  Cooler this morning and fresher after the storms of yesterday evening. Movement around the tennis court should be easier and she smiled when she thought David was in for a good thrashing. Then: Fred. She turned and reached for the outline of him on the sheets, but the cotton was already cold.

  Then a violent surge of dread started in her stomach and spread, like stabs of electricity, to her limbs. What was she doing sitting here wasting time? They had murmured promises and shed tears before they fell asleep last night, but if she was quick… She fumbled for the skirt and blouse, cardigan and undergarments she’d discarded under the bedclothes and on the floor. Feeling under her pillow for a misplaced stocking, her fingers touched something small and round. When she drew it out, she was holding a dainty ring with one tiny diamond inlaid flush with the gold. She’d seen it before. Fred had shown it to her and explained that it was his mother’s engagement ring, but Viola had presumed it was for Annie in time. With trembling hands, she tried to push it onto her ring finger, but it wouldn’t go past her knuckle.

  The rush of adrenaline was ebbing, but she was left with wobbly limbs that made piling on her things difficult. Clutching the ring in her fist didn’t help. The hooks refused to find the eyes on her brassiere, her vest went on and stayed on back to front, she missed a button on her blouse and fumbled to rectify the mistake but gave up, stockings would have to wait.

  Flinging open her bedroom door, she hurtled herself down the landing to the top of the stairs, where she watched her feet descend two at a time. Mum was passing through the hall and caught her by the shoulders. ‘Take a deep breath, my dear,’ she said softly.

  When Viola looked up Mum shook her head and pulled her daughter’s head onto her shoulder. There she stroked her hair and Viola could hear the sort of soothing noises her mother had used to pacify her when she was a child; how very many years ago that seemed now. Prising themselves apart to wipe their noses, Mum unfurled each of Viola’s fingers to reveal the ring, twinkling on her palm.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Vi. But you know you can’t wear it yet, don’t you?’

  Viola nodded, her eyes fixed on the unbroken circle that encompassed so much promise. ‘And even if I could, it doesn’t fit.’ She demonstrated by trying the ring on her finger again.

  Mum took Viola’s hand and led her upstairs to where she found a delicate linked chain amongst her jewellery and threaded the ring onto it with care. Then she clasped it around Viola’s neck and burrowed it under her vest.

  3

  3 September 1939

  Perhaps it would have been better to do as Dad had tried to insist and stayed at home to hear the inevitable declaration of war when it was transmitted over the wireless. But Viola had been more adamant, arguing that if the announcement was imminent and certain, then they were already informed and she would be better off heading back to Cambr
idge to prepare for the new term. So she sat in a threadbare, overstuffed armchair opposite Lillian, each of them with a gin in one hand and a cigarette in the other, silently listening to the news.

  Viola tipped her glass towards the ceiling and said, ‘Cheers,’ in a flat tone.

  Lillian drained her drink and reached for the bottle on the low table between them. She filled her glass and the one Viola held out to her.

  ‘No ice? No slice?’

  ‘Neat or nothing,’ Lillian said.

  ‘Shall we turn him off?’ Viola nodded towards the radio.

  ‘Now then, Miss Baxter, enough of your cheek. Don’t be disrespectful to old man Chamberpot.’

  Viola flicked her snake of ash into a saucer and turned the dial on the wireless until it clicked, putting a stop to Prime Minister Chamberlain’s voice. The room was hushed and empty although the last words they’d heard him speak hung in the air with ever-diminishing reverberations. ‘Now may God bless you all.’ His voice had been grave. ‘May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression…’

  Viola breathed deep into her lungs and felt the cold in her nostrils; she shivered and wrapped her cardigan around her chest. ‘Shall we light a fire, Lil? What do you think?’

  Lillian looked startled, as if she’d never before laid eyes on Viola or the minuscule flat they shared. ‘It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it?’ she said at last. ‘Third of September? Besides, it’s really quite warm.’ She walked to the window and pushed aside the net curtain. ‘But pouring horribly. Warm rain, the most annoying and irritating of all weather systems.’

  Viola threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘You sound like a report from the Met Office,’ she said.

  Turning, Lillian smiled. ‘It’s so nice to hear you laugh,’ she said. She tossed her own cardigan towards Viola and said, ‘It’s probably the shock, but this should help. Pop it on.’

  Viola did as she was told and layered up with Lillian’s brown, many times darned, buttonless woolly. She brought a handful of the material to her face and sniffed Vol de Nuit, tobacco and Pears: the comforting blend that belonged to her friend. She paced around the room from the window to the fireplace, the door to the narrow hallway that led to the bedrooms; opening the concertinaed door to the cupboard that served as both larder and kitchen, she perused their provisions, but couldn’t remember, when she turned her back, what she had seen. ‘These flowers have had their day,’ she said, pointing to a vase balanced on top of a pile of books. ‘Who were they from? Remind me.’

  With a wave of her hand, Lillian dismissed the question. Her light grey eyes, dark hair against fair skin and that way she had of puckering her nose meant she was used to attracting so much attention from men that she could afford to forget the names and faces of her suitors. Viola, too, had engendered her fair share of male interest and like Lillian she’d played around with courtship rituals until Fred had come along. She stared down at the wilting bouquet of red roses, tied with a blue ribbon, and felt a stab of loneliness.

  Once, Fred had arrived at the library with an arrangement large enough for him to hide behind. When she came close, he’d bobbed around the pink and white blooms and said, ‘Boo from the bouquet.’ She had laughed until her stomach ached and whenever she thought about it she smiled, although no one else she told seemed to think it was amusing in the slightest. Now there wouldn’t be any more flowers or shared jokes or surprise visits for what might be a very long time. The lump in her throat seemed to increase in size until it threatened to choke her and she turned away from the vase and reached again for the gin.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea instead,’ Lillian said. ‘My shout.’

  ‘All the cups are dirty.’ Viola attacked her drink. ‘And there’s dust all over the books and we can’t get to the rug to sweep it.’

  ‘I know,’ Lillian said. ‘And there’s mildew around the windows.’

  ‘And in the bathroom. Is it our turn to clean it?’

  ‘Probably, but stuff and nonsense to housework.’

  Jumping up again, Viola said, ‘I think perhaps I’ll go for a walk. Clear the cobwebs.’

  ‘Oh, Vi.’ Lillian’s voice had a pleading edge to it. ‘Are you sure? I’ll come with you.’

  But Viola needed to be alone. She felt a crushing urge to get out of the claustrophobic flat and stride across the parks and commons and think – or not think, if she could possibly help it. ‘No.’ She shook her head until she could feel the chain that secured Fred’s ring trembling against her neck. ‘I shall be just fine, thank you.’

  ‘Well, take your coat at least. You have been shivering after all.’ Lillian followed Viola to the hallway and watched as she put on her outdoor things. ‘Shall I meet you at The Eagle? In say, thirty minutes’ time?’ Lillian checked her watch.

  Viola hesitated, then thought the atmosphere in the pub might be cheering. Everyone in the same boat and all that. ‘Can we make it an hour?’ She managed a much too thin smile, which she knew would probably worry her friend rather than bring her the reassurance she had been aiming for. She was sorry for it, but that was the best she could manage.

  *

  Lillian had been right; the day was unseasonably warm, but the rain fell in droves. Viola made no attempt to shield herself from the relentless downpour, shaking her head and letting fat drops cover her eyelashes, cheeks and shoulders with muffled plops.

  She strode across Lammas Land with purpose. Rain clung like a shroud over the river, but she could make out the form of a punt gliding across the Cam, the punter bending and straightening in rhythm to the projection of his pole in and out of the water. Cadences of laughter rose and fell from what sounded like two young women who were probably languishing in the body of the punt and being answered by a male voice, which only served to incite the girls to giggles again. She wondered if they were aware of the news that had been announced or if they were making an almighty effort to rise above it. Either way she could not stand their joviality that sounded forced and contrived to her ears.

  Waiting for a chance to cross Fen Causeway, she stamped with conviction into a filthy puddle and dirty brown water soaked her stockings and brogues. She studied her lower legs for a minute and the muddy blotches she saw gave her a sense of satisfaction. ‘Hit,’ she mumbled, stomping down again. ‘Ler.’ This time she aimed her heel with vengeance at the dead centre of the quagmire and shouted. ‘Bloody—’ her foot hit the puddle ‘—Hitler.’ She pounded again and again until the mucky pool was no more than a thin veil of scum and still she carried on, the sole of her shoe scraping across the asphalt.

  The screech of a bike reached its maximum pitch in front of her and came to a stop. ‘Viola, what on earth…?’

  Viola looked straight at a young woman, her face framed with a tartan headscarf tied under her chin. At the same moment they both looked down to take in Viola’s stockings and the hem of her mackintosh, now caked in thick, sludgy slime.

  ‘Oh dear, Amanda,’ Viola said. ‘What a dreadful sight I am.’ When she peered at her friend’s worried face, it was through a film of tears that had collected more in anger than in sadness. She pushed a sopping strand of hair behind her ear.

  Amanda hesitated then replied, ‘Don’t be silly. We’re all the same in this deluge. Where are you off to?’

  Viola shook her head and shrugged.

  ‘Well, come along with me,’ Amanda said, flinging her leg off her bike. ‘I’m on my way to the office to sort out some files. We’ll have a nice cuppa there and get dry.’ She scooped Viola’s elbow into her palm with a bit too much force for Viola’s liking. ‘What do you say?’

  Viola shook off Amanda’s stranglehold and made to cross the road without looking either way. Another bike swerved to miss her, the rider calling out a piercing, ‘Oi!’ and two pedestrians tutted loudly from under their umbrellas. She jumped the puddles slopping around the kerb on the opposite side and made towards Coe
Fen and the Cam. ‘Viola,’ she heard Amanda shout. ‘Wait a minute. Let me…’

  But Viola didn’t hear the end of Amanda’s plea as she found her way through the overgrown cow parsley to the footpath. She batted her way through damp grasses and around squelchy cow pats until her way was blocked by the river. She stopped, hands on her hips. From here, the swish of traffic was muffled and she was aware of her own blood drubbing in her temples, wrists and against the sinews in her neck. Breathing in time to the rhythm of the arterial beat, she felt the anguish pass, followed swiftly by embarrassment and guilt. She looked around to see if Amanda had followed her, but all she saw was a small herd of cud-chewing kine, observing her with non-judgemental curiosity, a couple in the distance walking arm in arm, the pinprick of a few bicycles close to Silver Street Bridge and an elderly professor-type muttering to himself.

  She sighed and reached for the tip of a reed, thinking it would break under the pressure, but it bent until it pinged back and spattered drops of rain over her face. Closing her eyes against the shower, the tears that welled up again turned, unnervingly, to laughter and oh well, she thought, what are a few more splotches of mud?

  Hugging the river, she made her way towards the bridge. Fighting the urge to stamp in more puddles, she walked around them instead with studied decorum and headed towards the Backs. The view of King’s College Chapel, always sombre and imposing, was now bleak with the effects of the weather and, she supposed, the grim news. War. The country was at war. Pins and needles attacked her arms and legs and her breathing accelerated. She hesitated for a minute as the realisation hit hard. When, she wondered, would it become commonplace to refer to the state of the Empire as: at War. Part of her wished she could be that matter-of-fact soon – now. But another part was appalled to think that she would ever consider war as routine or anything other than a heinous aberration.

  The rain was slowing and a minute break in the clouds flashed momentary light across a few of the stained-glass windows. It made her sad to think their beauty would soon be boarded up or removed from eyes that needed nothing more at this period of time than a glimpse of the splendour and elegance humans could create.