A Soldier's Girl

by Maggie Ford

  That done, he went and bought six chickens off a workmate who had been bombed out, had got sick of going back to his devastated house and garden to feed them and was now being rehoused in Becontree Heath, much to Dave’s chagrin. The buy comprised two hens well past laying but good boilers at a pinch, one cockerel, the rest of them already having provided a few dinners for his workmate, and three younger hens. ‘Ain’t seen one egg orf ’em fer weeks so I won’t charge yer much for ’em,’ said the workmate, but when their new owner got them home they excelled themselves by beginning to lay straight away.

  ‘Prob’ly a change of scene,’ he said.

  ‘More like a bit more better grub,’ Annie told him. ‘Poor things was ’alf starved, ’im only going round there when it suited ’im. Don’t you tell ’im though or ’e’ll be askin’ fer ’em back.’

  From bits of wood lying about he constructed a chicken coop almost overnight and a small run at the bottom of the garden next to the air raid shelter.

  By Christmas, with the hens laying regularly, the cockerel’s neck having been wrung to make a proper Christmas dinner, together with the vegetables stored from Dave’s allotment during the summer, the Wilsons felt thoroughly self-sufficient.

  Once the light was on, it all looked quite festive. The roast chicken was on the table, and a Christmas pudding made with dried dates, prunes, their own eggs, a bit of suet begged from the butcher’s and put in flour to keep it, plus sugar and black treacle hoarded bit by bit from the ration.

  ‘’Elps yer forget there’s a war on, don’t it?’ Mum, still in her wraparound apron, said as she tucked into her homegrown Christmas dinner.

  Brenda, delving into the food on her own plate, gazed round the assembly. It was a squash in such a small space. Brian, Davy and Vera had all managed to get leave. As if that wasn’t enough there were her aunts Grace and Kath and uncles Herbert and Norman and their kids. Her gran sat wrinkling her nose from time to time at the persistent taint of burnt wood, of which she had complained the minute they got her in the house. Mum said testily, ‘If yer don’t like it, Mum, yer can always go ’ome.’

  But of course that wouldn’t have happened. Gran now lived in with Aunt Kath who didn’t want to see her mother fetching for herself. Everyone seemed to be living in with other members of their families these days, except Brenda, who was alone again.

  Mum had been concerned for her. ‘I don’t like leavin’ yer all on yer own, love. Yer’ve put up with us all this time and it feels like we’re walking out on yer.’

  ‘You mustn’t feel that way, Mum,’ Brenda told her. ‘You had to go back ’ome some time. Nothing like yer own ’ome.’

  ‘S’pose not,’ Mum had admitted. ‘But not even someone down there in the shop. I can’t ’elp thinking it won’t ’alf feel strange to yer. Yer goin’ ter feel lonely?’

  Brenda had put on a brave face. ‘I’ll be fine, Mum. An empty shop ain’t going ter worry me. And you ain’t far away, are yer?’

  But she hadn’t felt fine. She had thought she’d be able to cope after they’d left, but the flat felt all the more empty after those months of crowding. And every so often it would idly cross her mind to pop down to John only to realise he was no longer there, the knowledge leaving a great hole inside her which even people coming to have their hair done couldn’t fill. In the same way, it was hard to venture down into what was a shop in her name now. When Christmas was over, she’d have to pull herself together and face it. At the moment it was hard to know where to start, so terribly strange to adjust to the idea that the premises were hers.

  Meanwhile she intended to enjoy her Christmas Day among her own family, except of course that Harry wasn’t there. He was still in North Africa and the way things were going out there, no sign of his coming home.

  She would be going to his parents for Boxing Day, still loyally keeping up the tradition of one day with one family and one with the other. She was not looking forward to facing the inquisition about the shop being put in her name. She had all her lies prepared, and hoped to convince them of having saved up enough for rent and stuff. Even so, she wondered how her mother-in-law would take it. The woman seemed prepared to see ill in anything her son’s wife did without his say-so.

  So far she’d done nothing to the place. Before John left she’d heard lots of hammering and from her window saw men taking out dismantled bookcases and shelves and dumping them in a horse-drawn cart as if valueless.

  The books must have gone when she wasn’t watching for she saw none of them go out. Then suddenly the shop was closed.

  She had not gone down immediately in case he had lingered behind. To meet would have caused all sort of complications. They had said their goodbyes at that final meeting, in the total darkness of the blackout, keeping their distance from each other, each wary of even a last kiss. Why hadn’t she made the first move? Why hadn’t he? What fools lovers were, hating to be parted yet fearing to be together for what the world might say. Had he kissed her at that crucial moment she’d have begged him to stay, promising herself to him forever. But it hadn’t happened.

  When she ventured down after the men had gone, knowing he would not be there, yet wanting him to be, she had gone into the old shed, just as a postscript to the note that had held the thirty pounds, ‘keys in shed’, brief as the rest of it, had directed.

  Finding them, she’d held them in both hands against her breast and there all alone in the shed had bent her head and wept over them as though they represented part of him.

  It had been strange and painful venturing into the shop by the back kitchen door. The kitchen was left exactly as she remembered, all for her she imagined, even to the kettle, teapot and crockery, conjuring up those times when he would reach out and touch her hair, her face, would lean forward to lay his lips on hers, his hand stealing between her blouse buttons to touch her, she responding until their love became satisfied. It seemed so long ago and so unreal. Stealing on into the empty shop, she’d been surprised by its smallness. With the books and bookshelves there it had always appeared to be far more spacious. What had greeted her had been a few bits of paper and the lingering, ever-intriguing musty taint of old books. Venturing downstairs, she saw that the old narrow bed and square of carpet were still there, and the little table still with its lamp, reawakening her memory of the Blitz and lovemaking. She even thought she could detect that special essence of him, but it had only been imagination. She’d come away, locking the door carefully behind her.

  She hadn’t been down there since. With no one downstairs now and her parents gone back to their patched-up home, there descended on her a vaguely unnerving awareness of being totally alone in a vacant building. The small sounds that had once filtered up from the shop beneath her, of customers entering and leaving, the comforting knowledge of someone there, all were gone. Even when she’d been on her own before Mum and Dad came, when John locked up for the night and went home, she had not felt quite so unnerved. Now it was eerie and she was glad not to be there over the Christmas.

  ‘How yer coping, with yer parents gone back ’ome? That shop downstairs empty too – it must feel a bit strange.’

  ‘It does a bit,’ Brenda ventured.

  ‘Anyway, yer was at yer mum’s yesterday, and now yer ’ere with us fer Boxing Day, that must take it off a bit.’

  ‘Yes, I s’pose it does.’

  Sitting at her in-laws’ dining table with Daphne and Harry’s brother Bob, on Christmas leave, Brenda felt the weight of her own husband’s absence all the more. Everyone else appeared to be on leave this festive season, though she knew that wasn’t true, but being here did help compensate for the loneliness she’d been feeling.

  Also present were Harry’s grandmother and his mother’s widowed sister Carrie. His sisters and other relatives were spending Boxing Day with their own families. Brenda wished they were here – it would have taken some of the limelight off her.

  ‘I wonder what sort of people will take it over,’ Mrs Hutton sa
id as she got up to collect the used dinner plates, Daphne leaping up to help her while Brenda did her best to dissuade her almost three-year-old daughter from trying to leave the table with afters still to be dished up. ‘I ’ope they won’t be too noisy. You said that Mr Stebbings bloke was a very quiet man. But I s’pose book shops are, aren’t they?’

  Brenda nodded, holding a protesting Addie on to her chair.

  ‘Did he say cheerio to yer before ’e left?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Yer’ll miss ’im. He did a lot in your flat for yer, didn’t he?’

  Again Brenda nodded, her heart beginning to thump at what sounded like a broad allusion to something slightly suspect. If her mother-in-law did but know.

  ‘Joined up, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wasn’t prepared to enlarge on it.

  ‘Not before time. I s’pose in the end he thought he ought ter. We’ll use that tinned fruit yer brought me, Brenda, fer afters, with custard. I couldn’t do Christmas pud this year. Blessed rationing! Thanks for bringing the tin of fruit though. It was a godsend, dear, and the couple of eggs.’

  ‘They was from me dad’s chickens,’ Brenda said, relieved to have the subject of the downstairs shop put aside. Harry’s mother had no idea as yet that it was in fact hers. She’d already spent quite a few sleepless nights in a dilemma as to how to break the news, which she’d have to sooner or later.

  ‘We thought of keeping chickens, didn’t we, Sid,’ Mrs Hutton called over her shoulder as she went out of the room with the dirty plates, Daphne following close behind.

  ‘You ought to, Dad,’ Bob put in, leaning back to light a cigarette.

  His father nodded slowly, thinking for a while. ‘It’s getting the blessed thing built. I ain’t much of a builder. Never was.’

  ‘It’s only a matter of sticking up four walls and a roof, with a couple of planks for ’em ter roost on at night. Yer’ll have a few free dinners off yer cocks, and a nice lot of eggs off yer ’ens.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that.’ Brenda began to explain that egg rations got cancelled, replaced by chicken feed, but his mother, returning with the tinned fruit in a glass dish and a jug of custard, followed by Daphne with the glass dessert dishes, interrupted her.

  ‘’Eard from Harry lately, Brenda? It’s been ages since we ’ad a letter. The silence worries me out of me mind, ’im out there fightin’.’

  ‘It can’t be easy writing, being in the thick of it,’ Brenda said as the dessert was ladled out. Addie had gone quiet, anticipating lovely custard.

  ‘Not too much for me,’ Carrie was saying, waving a thin hand in the air. ‘Too much pineapple gives me indigestion.’

  ‘What about you, Mum?’

  Mrs Hutton leaned attentively over her mother who gave a little giggle and said, ‘Only custard fer me, luv. The old teeth just won’t get round that fibrey stuff, an’ pineapples is a bit too sour fer me.’

  ‘Right you are, Mum. So when did yer last get a letter from Harry?’

  ‘A good three weeks ago,’ Brenda obliged as Mrs Hutton returned her attention to her.

  Her parents had only just left to go back in their own home when his letter had come. It was very short, saying little apart from hoping she and Addie were in good health, that her parents being with her wasn’t too much for her, that she was continuing to talk about him to Addie so that she’d remember him when he eventually came home, that he was always thinking of them and loved her and wished he could be home with her and once they were together again he’d make up for all this lost time; to write back as soon as she could because he looked for her letters constantly in these days with mail coming so erratically and sometimes not at all.

  Since then, with not even a letter at Christmas, she too had begun to worry for his well-being, having constantly to remind herself that no news had to be good news. If anything had happened she’d have been informed immediately. Bad news always travelled fast, the authorities made sure of that. She’d spoken to Vera about it yesterday after Christmas dinner while Dad was digesting his large meal with a well-earned nap, Mum snoozing in the other room she and Dad now used as a bedroom. Davy had gone off out to look up an old mate, and Brian to see if a girl he’d once gone around with was still in the area.

  Vera had been concerned for her but had soon gone on to talk of her exciting life in the ATS. ‘They’ve got a lot of American boys stationed near us and when we can get into town we go fer them straight away. They’ve come over ’ere with pots of money and they don’t half know how ter spend it. So far I’ve had chocolates off ration and a pair of lovely sheer stockings. They call ’em nylons. Trouble is you have to learn to keep ’em at arm’s length ’cos if you give ’em an inch they’ll take a yard! But they’re great boys.’

  ‘It makes yer worried, don’t it, not hearing nothing?’ Daphne said as she and Brenda sat together by the fire. But Daphne had her husband here today. What worries did she have? ‘Me an’ Bob’ll pop over and see you before he goes back,’ she continued. ‘He’s got a whole week.’

  ‘That’s nice, though I’ll probably be busy,’ Brenda said, without thinking until her mother-in-law chimed in.

  ‘Oh, yes, yer ’airdressin’ business. ’Ow d’yer manage with Addie now yer mother’s not there to give eye while yer occupied with people’s ’air?’

  Brenda clenched her teeth but smiled, so bent on proving that she wasn’t neglecting Addie the least bit that before she knew what she was about, she had retorted, ‘She’s older now and not so much trouble. And when I move downstairs, she’ll have plenty to keep her—’

  Too late she pulled herself up, seeing her mother-in-law staring at her while the others, taking their cue from her, stared in their turn.

  ‘Downstairs?’ echoed Mrs Hutton. ‘What d’yer mean, downstairs?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ There was no brazening it out. She would have to tell her. Brenda took a deep fortifying breath. ‘I’m going ter take over the downstairs shop. It’s not too big and the rent’s not too bad.’

  ‘Taking over the shop? You?’

  She made it sound as if such a thing had to be the most ridiculous idea she’d ever heard and Brenda’s back went up.

  ‘The shop’s to let,’ she blurted indignantly, ‘and I’ve saved enough up and I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a proper place to do hairdressing.’

  ‘Harry ain’t goin’ ter be pleased about that, you going off and getting a thing like that without even consulting ’im.’

  ‘And how’m I going to consult ’im,’ Brenda demanded hotly, ‘with ’im all them miles away?’

  ‘By writing and telling ’im what yer up to. Keeping ’im in the dark like that!’ Anger was beginning to darken Mrs Hutton’s face.

  But Brenda was also angry. ‘By the time he got me letter, the shop would of gone, and I won’t get another snip like that so easy. We ain’t ’ad no letters from ’im fer three weeks and he says ours ain’t getting through all that quick. So how am I goin’ ter let ’im know?’

  Mrs Hutton’s lips had become a thin line. She and Brenda glared at each other while Harry’s father sat forward ready to intervene. Bob, though, had sat back, having finished his dessert, and was now lighting a cigarette.

  ‘If you ask me, Mum,’ he said slowly, puffing a cloud of white smoke across the table like a sort of smokescreen, ‘I think she’s doing a grand job. I think our ’Arry ought ter be damned proud of ’er when he does come ’ome and sees what she’s done. Not many wives’d do what she’s doin’. And if he don’t appreciate ’er, then I think he’s a bloody fool!’

  ‘I think we’ve more to worry about,’ Brenda added, encouraged by her brother-in-law’s support, ‘than what he thinks, with us not even ’aving a letter from him at Christmas.’

  At the significance of the statement a silence descended, through which Mrs Hutton’s mother could be heard slurping her custard without a care in the world.

  No more was said about the shop though Brenda could
tell her mother-in-law was aching for another go at her by the several small hints she dropped during the remainder of the day when she spoke to her at all. Most of the time she managed to distance herself from Brenda by indulging in close conversations with her sister Carrie, leaving Brenda mostly with Daphne, while Bob and his dad chatted together like two old long-lost friends.

  It was New Year when she finally had a letter from Harry, a Christmas postcard with it, a strange foreign-looking card with angels in what looked like caftans and circlets around a sort of headshawl as well as the accepted shining halo while a camel train passed in the background, all in lurid reds, greens and golds.

  ‘All I could find at our depot in Benghazi, time I got back there,’ he wrote, though what he meant wasn’t enlarged on as he continued, ‘Got your letters at last, and the Christmas card, and the photo of you and Addie . . .’ She’d had that done several weeks ago for him for Christmas, not knowing what else to send him. ‘And Addie’s drawing. It made my eyes water. She’s growing up so fast. Almost three! Anyway, thanks, love, everythink was all lovely, a real breath of home. Got a card from Mum and Dad as well, and from my sisters. All a bit too late for Xmas, but that’s the bloody army for you.’

  Devouring every word, she went on to read that his battalion was being taken out of battle, and her relief at reading it was beyond all measure. Her need to have Harry’s arms about her was so strong she could almost feel them, and she went to bed that second day of 1942 to weep away her longing.

  Strange, it occurred to her, just before her eyes closed, how she had got over John Stebbings so soon after his departure. She almost felt guilty now at taking advantage of his generosity in paying the six months’ rent for the shop in her name. He had truly been in love with her, but had she ever really been in love with him, or had she merely needed to fill a deep loneliness? She should never have let it go that far. It was a shabby way to have treated a man, wasn’t it?

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It took a while to get back into a routine with Mum no longer living at the flat giving eye to Addie. But Addie was no trouble these days. She would play to her heart’s content in the shop while Brenda set about using her treasured thirty pounds turning it into the suitable place she wanted. She started by distempering the walls a pretty pink and the ceiling a paler pink by adding white.