by Mary Wesley
‘I bet he gets a passage before Thursday,’ she shouted out loud.
Several people said, ‘Shush,’ and the woman next to her said, ‘Shut up,’ but Juno felt a bit better and sufficiently relaxed to sleep through Laurel and Hardy when they came round again, and on through the News for the second time. She was still asleep when they played ‘God Save the King’ and the cinema emptied. An attendant woke her and she found herself back in the street.
She returned to the station where she ate a horrible but filling bun in the buffet and drank some wishy-washy tea, which was so hot it burned her mouth. Then, finding an empty seat at a table, she sat down to watch people come and go.
There seemed to be an awful lot of hanging about and humping of luggage. When a train came in, people rushed to get seats before those who were getting out had a chance to reach the platform. The windows of the buffet steamed up, but she rubbed a space free to look through. By this time the passengers were mostly soldiers, sailors and airmen carrying sausage-shaped kitbags so tightly packed they looked about to burst. Juno kept her small suitcase by her feet, even though she knew it would be more sensible to leave it in the left-luggage office.
The buffet was relatively warm. It reeked of humanity, buns and tobacco; from time to time she went out onto the platform to gulp fresh air and read the notices, which said, ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’, and, more humorously, ‘Be Like Dad, Keep Mum’. In the freezing air she congratulated herself on the acquisition of the coat, which was snug and intimate. It did not smell of Francis’s and Jonty’s mothers; if it had, she would have torn it off and cast it under the wheels of an oncoming train. Instead, as it warmed to her body, it let off comforting whiffs of lanolin and leather.
Back in the buffet she dozed fitfully through the night, waking once to find a group of soldiers sitting round her playing cards while they waited for their transport. Seeing her blink, one of them invited her to join in. She won three shillings, which they insisted she keep. She felt quite sad when they left to clamber onto their train, ‘Gotta get back to fucking camp, love, bye.’
Later their places were taken by blue-jackets, who were partially drunk and made remarks she did not understand or respond to, which irritated them so that they pressed her harder and took offence as she withdrew into the folds of her coat. One of them was raising his voice and had become quite threatening, when the buffet doors opened and a pair of military policemen looked in. Their eyes swivelled from right to left, then left to right. The sailors got up and went onto the platform, muttering, ‘Bloody Pongos.’ Juno was glad to see them board the next train and dozed off again from exhaustion.
When she woke next, there was a young woman sitting opposite her with a baby on her lap. With one hand she drank tea from a thick railway cup and with the other she both joggled the baby and pushed a bottle of feed into its mouth. Juno wished there was a third hand to wipe the baby’s nose, which exuded snot like a slug creeping down its lip to join the milk in the aperture which would some day become a human mouth. There was now added to the smell from the buffet of tobacco, buns and humanity, the taint of urine and milk. The baby’s mother smiled. ‘Woke up, didyer?’
Juno nodded and caught the baby’s eye; it was angry and anxious. Expecting it to belch, when it did she was pleased for she had got something right, expected the belch and it had come. She said, ‘Bang on cue!’
The child’s mother said, ‘What?’
Juno said, ‘He looks like you.’
‘No, she don’t, she looks like her dad. She’s a she, can’t you tell?’
Juno said, ‘Not really, sorry.’
The young woman said, ‘I sat on this when I came in, it’s yours, innit?’ She handed Juno a black woollen cap. ‘Been seeing your boyfriend off, ain’t you? Got a boyfriend in the Navy? He gave it you, I see, real act of love, that. My sister’s boyfriend’s a sailor, but he wouldn’t give her his cap, said it was special issue. She begged him, but no, he said no. Your bloke must be real fond. Look at it, new, brand new.’
Juno turned the woolly cap over in her hands; it was coarse, hard-wearing, still creased where it had come out of its pack. The woman said, ‘Put it on. Keep your ’ead warm, that, look nice with that funny coat.’
To please her, Juno put the cap on.
The woman said, ‘Lovely.’
Juno felt that to undeceive her would lack tact and later, when she caught sight of her reflection in the buffet door, decided to keep it, for the woman was right, the cap looked fine with the coat and was blessedly warm, but at the time she said, ‘Manna from heaven.’
The woman said, ‘Haven’t seen that one, there’s no time for the flicks when you ’ave a baby. Would you like to hold her while I get another cuppa? You want one?’
Hastily Juno said, ‘No, no thank you. I’ll get you one.’ Getting to her feet, she said, ‘Do you like milk and sugar?’
The woman, no fool, said, ‘You’re afraid she’d be sick on yer coat. I’ll get it meself, you toffee-nosed bitch,’ and walked off, carrying the baby, hardly heeding Juno’s cry of, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’ (which of course she had, for nothing ponged worse than sick, and she did not want the coat ruined). ‘I just don’t know anything about babies.’
The young woman shouted, ‘Then lucky you!’ and then, when she had got her tea, sat at another table with her back turned away, making Juno feel humble and remorseful and at the same time enraged.
At some time during the second day she was asked by a railway official whether she was all right, or was she in trouble? She had been hanging about the station for a long time. She told him she was all right and thanked him, said she was just waiting for a friend. She smiled at him before resuming her watch on the crowd of people, which swelled and shrank according to whether a train was expected.
Conscious of the official’s interest she pulled the cap low down her forehead to add dignity and age, telling herself that she must learn the confidence of the man who had taken her place in the queue at the travel office; she must try to look as though Francis and Jonty would spring from the next train, arriving on leave expecting to be met by herself in the guise of a girl approved by their mothers, sexy, suitable and rich. But none of the men in khaki and blue looked like Francis, with his thatch of fair hair and eyes so pale they looked like water; nor did they have Jonty’s gypsy eyes and springy dark hair. Only occasionally was there anyone as tall as either. When the railway official walked past her for the third time, she got up and left the station to wander about the town until the cinema opened and she could be lulled to sleep by Laurel and Hardy, forget she was hungry.
Being hungry led to thoughts of her father, whom she barely remembered and had not much liked, and the recollection that somebody, when she was small, most probably Aunt Violet, had remarked in her hearing, in derogatory and scoffing accents, something about ‘his ridiculous and show-off hunger strikes’. She had not known what hunger strikes meant but now, years later, she discovered untapped sympathy and admiration. She half wished that she too could be, as he had been, force-fed, but this now became confused with a gruesome description once given by Jonty of the force-feeding of geese to make pâté de foie gras.
Turned out of the cinema when it closed, she counted her money and found there was just enough for another bun and cup of tea. Back at the station, however, the buffet was shut and there was nowhere to sit but the ladies’ waiting-room, which was cold, stuffy, and smelled depressing, an atmosphere which, combined with her hunger, sapped what confidence she still had.
Sometime in the early hours the station official, who had been off duty but come on again, woke her. He was accompanied by a policewoman. She told them that what she was doing, since they asked, was waiting for the rebate on a passage to Canada and that, until she got it, she had no money but the man in the office had said, ‘Come back Thursday.’ When Thursday came she would get the money and be all right. Saying this, she pulled the wool cap straight on her head and wrapped the sheeps
kin coat closer round her knees, which did not prevent the policewoman asking to see her identity card.
Juno said, ‘Gosh, I didn’t know anyone really had to show them. I thought that was all for Nazi and Fascist countries,’ and fished the card from her bag. The policewoman looked at it, handed it back and, without sparing a smile, went off to harass a party of inebriated soldiers who were bothering some superior-looking Wrens.
The station official now remarked that he was the father of a young daughter, that it was Thursday and the travel office would be open presently, but meanwhile if Juno came to his office there was a fire in there and he would give her a cup of tea, please follow. Juno followed.
In the official’s office she sat on a hard chair by a coal fire, drank scalding tea and ate a spam sandwich so liberally spread with mustard it brought tears to her eyes, which, until she said ‘Mustard,’ the official affected not to notice. Then the official enquired where, when she got the rebate for the passage to Canada, Juno intended to travel.
She, to stop him prying, handed him the envelope given her by Evelyn Copplestone addressed to his father which reposed in her bag, and immediately the station official said he would work out a route for her. She would have to change trains twice to get on that branch line. It was eight-forty now, and the travel office would be open by the time she got there; when she got back he would have her ticket ready, put her on the nine-fifty going west. And what about another sandwich?
So she ate a second sandwich, which again made her spurt tears, and set off through the town to the travel agent. There it seemed quite natural for the surly man to smile as he handed her the rebate on her passage to Canada, and for the waiting to be over.
Back once more at the station, she paid for the ticket the railway official had obtained for her, and to please him—for what else could she have done?—got into the train he told her to and began a journey she had not planned to a destination she did not know.
NINE
‘HE’S IN LONDON, ME dear, but you’d better come in.’ The woman opened the door wider. ‘Come in,’ she said, ‘’tis cold. A letter, you said?’
‘Yes.’ Juno repeated what she had said on the doorstep, a simple variation of the sentences she had composed on the long journey. There had been three or more trains, two changes, two lengthy waits for connections, the unscheduled scramble along the track in open country, looping through soggy fields to regain the rail track beyond the place where a random bomb had scored a direct hit, so that she and the other passengers could climb into another train which had been shunted down the line to collect them from the opposite direction. Nobody had talked much. People had been patient, had not complained or displayed animosity; mostly they had minded wet feet from the tramp through the long grass beside the line. The bomb was a solo, explained an anonymous know-all.
‘Must have been chased by a night fighter on his way back to Germany from bombing Bristol, or maybe Liverpool, I’d say it was Bristol. He’d want to get away so he’d lighten his load. That’s what they do when they are being chased. It wouldn’t have been dropped to annoy. Heard of one which hit a cow, it’s open country so it don’t make sense.’
A voice sneered, ‘Sense!’ but otherwise the explanation was accepted without comment; they were all too busy, too intent on not losing their luggage, though some servicemen, already overloaded, were cheerfully helpful.
Juno’s destination was the eventual end of a branch line; terminus would be too grand a word. The station appeared to be in open country, though it was night by now, too dark to see much. The engine let off steam with a satisfied hiss; she got out and surrendered her ticket.
She would have to wait, the porter said, there was only one taxi and it had been taken by another party. It might come back or it might not, all depended on how it stood for petrol.
‘I met your son in London, Mr Copplestone—’ She repeated the mantra, standing in the dark with her case at her feet. She wondered what on earth she was doing here, why she had come. She could see her breath freezing as it left her lips. ‘I met your son Evelyn in London, Mr Copplestone. There was an air raid and he—’
The taxi was returning; it ground to a halt beside her. ‘Where’s it to?’ She told the driver the name which was written on the envelope. He said, ‘Ah,’ got out, swung her case into the back of the car, held the door open for her, shut it when she was in, then settled himself behind the wheel and started the engine.
They drove from the station in what seemed to be open country up a hill into a large village, blacked out. The houses loomed in darkened streets. Then they were in open country again, the road nipped in by high hedges.
‘I met your son, Mr—I met Evelyn—no—I met Evelyn Copplestone, your son. He said I—’ It was slipping from her. At one moment during the journey she had got it almost right, hit the right note, but hitting the right note had, only helped to tighten the bonds which knotted the grief, the anxiety and the anger lumped in her midriff and clogging her mind.
Now the taxi wound up a long hill, changing gear with a jerk to twist through another village, a wider street, no lights but dark squat houses, a glint here and there of shop windows and the shadow of a church tower. Then down a steep hill to swoop up again, climbing hard between steep banks or walls on either side with hedges atop to form a tunnel, up and down, but mostly up, the road climbing steeply.
‘I met Evelyn, I met your son, there was an air raid and he, and he said, and he—’
The taxi had stopped. There was a gate; the driver got out to open it but the wind was rising and fighting to slam the gate shut.
‘I can help.’ She jumped out of the car. ‘Let me hold it while you …’
The man drove through. The gate wrenched free and slammed shut. She got back in the car. The driver said, ‘Thanks, miss,’ and the car jerked forward and her case, which had posed upright, fell across her foot, bruising the instep.
Now they were driving across open moorland; she could see patches of snow against black heather and a half moon racing the clouds.
‘Oh, Mr Copplestone, I met your son in London and he—’
The driver changed gear. They were passing under trees which were being whipped into shape by the wind, then down a dip and the taxi stopped.
Juno got out and the driver put her case beside her and named his fare. She paid him, thanked him, said, ‘Shall you manage the gate?’
The man said, ‘Yes,’ he was not talkative, and drove off.
There was an archway into a courtyard lit by the fitful moon and, across the yard, a porch. She hesitated before fumbling for a bell.
Perhaps she should have asked the man to wait? Arriving like this was bad manners. She was tired and not thinking straight. Fool. When she had delivered the letter she would have to leave. She should have kept the taxi to take her away somewhere when she had handed in the letter. Where?
There was no bell, she could not find a bell. The sound of a horse whinnying across the yard startled her. It stamped its hoof and throttled breath through its nostrils. Her hand found a knocker; she knocked. Somewhere in the house a dog barked.
She had intended saying, ‘I met your son in London, Mr Copplestone, and he gave me this letter for you.’ Simplicity was best.
There were explanations, of course, some flowery additions. One for instance, ‘The letter was not stamped so I brought it by hand.’ Or, ‘He told me to deliver it by hand,’ which was a lie. Also she had hesitated long whether to opt for brevity or whether she should say, ‘I met your son in London and he very kindly sheltered me in his house during an air raid and gave me whisky’—perhaps it would be unwise to mention the whisky?—‘before giving me this letter to give to you by hand,’ but he had said nothing about delivery. He had died, hadn’t he?
Perhaps he had expected her to stamp the letter? People did, normal people; they stuck on stamps and posted them into pillar-boxes. But it had to be by hand or tear it up, throw it into the waste-paper basket, get no answer.
In the event she held the letter towards the woman who opened the door and said, ‘I brought this letter for Mr Copplestone.’
And the woman said, ‘He’s in London, me dear, but you’d better come in. Come in, ’tis cold. A letter, you said?’
Then when Juno was in and the door closed, she took the letter and looking at it said, ‘Mr Evelyn’s writing,’ and laid the letter on a salver which sat on an oak table.
Juno stood looking at the letter, noticing that the envelope was square, not oblong as were most envelopes, but square and pristine in spite of its long sojourn squashed beside her identity card, ration book and passport.
A dog had appeared, its nails clicking on stone flags. It came across to Juno and snuffled round her legs, sussing her out. Then it thrust an icy nose against her fingers, jerking her hand up for attention. She could feel its whiskers.
The woman, looking closely at Juno, said, ‘Soup.’
TEN
JUNO FOLLOWED THE WOMAN across the hall to a large kitchen and sat on a hard chair at a long deal table grooved by many scrubbings. The dog settled on its haunches beside her, leaned against her leg and rested its chin on her knee.
The woman glanced at the animal but made no comment. She was a short woman with thick grey hair pulled back into a bun. Her face was brown from sun and wind and traced with wrinkles. She had very bright, very small brown eyes and a large mouth pursed in an expression of permanent amusement. She wore dark-grey, ribbed, wool stockings and flat-heeled shoes. Her calves, shapely and muscular, emerged abruptly from a heather mixture tweed skirt which sagged round her bottom with the familiarity of long wear. Above the skirt she wore a pale grey cardigan over a dark grey jersey, and covering the lot a loose holland overall.
