The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  I think that was why I felt so angry afterwards – I was consumed with impotent fury. Mrs Jones had set out scones and potted meat sandwiches in the vicarage, and people crowded about me in the front parlour, saying the same useless things. ‘Such a dreadful waste . . . so young . . . but so brave . . . at least it was sudden . . . wouldn’t have known a thing . . . and killed in action, the way she’d have wanted to go . . .’

  ‘She wouldn’t have wanted any of this!’ I snapped at the unfortunate village woman who’d contributed that last remark. ‘Henry didn’t want to die! She wanted to live, she wanted to see the Nazis beaten!’

  Then I slammed down my teacup and stormed out. I couldn’t stand to be in the same building as any of those stupid people for another second. One of them had had the utter gall to tell me she understood how I felt – just because her uncle had died at Dunkirk! That wasn’t the same at all! It had nothing to do with my situation!

  Not one of them seemed to comprehend that I was now completely and utterly alone. My parents were dead. My brother was gone. And now my sister had been killed – murdered by Nazis – and I’d been abandoned. I stomped along the road, grinding my teeth and clenching and unclenching my fists. Daniel had driven Veronica back to the gatehouse in the car he’d borrowed, and Barnes had taken Aunt Charlotte, who’d fallen apart entirely during the final hymn, to lie down in Mrs Jones’s room. No one cared about me. Well . . . except for Carlos, who’d stopped begging people for sandwiches when he’d noticed me leaving, and had faithfully followed me outside. He moved so slowly these days, though, that when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw he’d only just reached the vicarage gate.

  So I sat down on the front step of the village shop to wait for him. The sign on the shop door said, ‘Closed for funearal’, possibly in some sort of tribute to Henry’s creative spelling. I was still shaking with anger, although I was already feeling pangs of guilt over my behaviour in the vicarage. It wasn’t their fault that this had happened.

  No, I blamed the Germans – all of them, every single one of them, but especially Hitler, for starting the war, and the Nazi general who’d ordered the attack on the south coast of England that day, and those Luftwaffe pilots who’d machine-gunned the harbour and dropped their bombs on the anchored ships. I blamed the Wrens commanding officer, too, for sending off Henry in the motor launch that morning, and the navy for not sending its own launch out to collect those maintenance men from the ship, and the RAF for not giving enough warning that bombers were approaching. I blamed the Colonel for writing Henry a reference, Aunt Charlotte for signing the permission papers, Henry herself for wanting to join the Wrens in the first place . . . but most of all, I blamed myself. The Colonel and Aunt Charlotte had only given in to Henry because I’d asked them to do so. I was responsible for Henry joining up – when I knew she was just a child, far too young to be away from home, let alone to do a difficult, dangerous job like that . . .

  At some stage, I became aware that Carlos was licking my face. I put my arms round his comforting woolly bulk and went on weeping, until finally a car pulled up beside me, and it was Lady Bosworth, and she drove us home.

  19th October, 1943

  THE LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE CONTINUE to arrive. Rupert’s was so touching – his recollections of Henry so fond and true – that I can hardly bear to mention it here, because it will only make me start crying again. The Basque refugees in Manchester sent a beautiful card, and Carmelita wrote from Mexico. Phoebe posted us a box of wildflowers from Somerset. Kick delivered a kind note from her mother, with a postscript scrawled by her little brother Teddy. I hadn’t even realised he’d known Henry, but apparently he’d met her in Kensington Gardens one day and been ‘mighty impressed’ with both her and Carlos. It isn’t just letters, either – everyone here is being so supportive. Julia, in particular, has helped in all sorts of little practical ways. I don’t know how we would have managed without her these last couple of weeks.

  Veronica and I have both gone back to work, of course, but I’ve been making so many mistakes that I wouldn’t be surprised if I received an official reprimand. The thing is, I can’t be bothered about it any more. What does it matter if I’m five minutes late to work? Why should I respectfully defer to Mr Bowker’s directives, when he’s so often wrong? Who cares if the updated potato fact sheet lists the wrong vitamins?

  Veronica has gone to the other extreme – rushing off to her office at seven each morning, eating her sandwich at her desk, and staying late into the evening. It isn’t just that she believes her work is important, although she does – it’s that she can’t bear to be idle for a single, waking moment, because she’s as wracked with guilt and grief as I am and would rather not contemplate any of it at all. Before this, there had been some talk of her taking up a three-month posting at the Embassy in Madrid. Now she says she couldn’t possibly leave me here in London by myself. But I could move in with Julia. Or I could resign from my pointless job and go back to Milford. Aunt Charlotte isn’t at all well – she came down with a bad cold after the funeral, and now it’s turned to bronchitis. It isn’t fair to expect Barnes to nurse Aunt Charlotte, in addition to looking after the house and taking over all Aunt Charlotte’s WVS jobs. I’m sure I could be of help there . . .

  Except I’m so weary that the mere thought of having to make a decision about this makes me want to take to my bed and not get up again for days.

  OH, I FORGOT to mention – Rebecca also sent a note, saying she’d pray for Henry’s soul and for us. Apparently she’s become even more wildly religious, and is a constant visitor to a nearby abbey, where the nuns all love her. (Of course, it’s the job of nuns to love disagreeable people; the more disagreeable the person, the holier the nuns probably feel.)

  Not a word from Rebecca’s son, though. Perhaps he hasn’t received Veronica’s letter. Or perhaps he just doesn’t give a damn.

  26th November, 1943

  I HANDED IN MY RESIGNATION letter to Miss Halliday the week before last, and I think she was almost as relieved as I was. Now she can replace me with someone genial and obliging. I dithered over the decision for a while, but the matter was settled for me when I heard that Lord Woolton was being transferred to another position. He’d been such an enthusiastic and capable Minister of Food, and he always made our jobs seem so important and useful. It was difficult for me to imagine working under the leadership of anybody else – so I’m not even going to attempt it.

  Lord Woolton’s now been appointed Minister of Reconstruction, which I suppose means the government thinks the war is almost over and they ought to be planning for what happens next. But as they have been wrong about so many other things, I am not making any effort to feel hopeful (and it would be an effort, believe me). I don’t even read the newspapers any more, because Veronica is the one who bought them and she’s in Spain now.

  Julia and the others have been making valiant attempts to raise my spirits, but I wish they’d stop it. It only makes me feel guilty when their efforts inevitably fail. Last week, Kick invited me to a party for her brother Joe, whose squadron has been posted to England to work alongside RAF Coastal Command. There are thousands of American servicemen in London now, and nearly all of them turned up at the party. It wasn’t at all enjoyable. Someone kept playing the piano far too loudly, and a drunken soldier accidentally set fire to Billy’s sister’s dress. Joe looked very smart in his uniform, but otherwise seemed much the same – I overheard some girl complaining he’d propositioned her in the taxi on the way there.

  I suppose I ought to make allowances for him, because he’s very brave to be doing such a dangerous job, but frankly, I am fed up with men right now. A girl can’t walk anywhere after dark in the West End without being accosted by some GI trying to be ‘friendly’. As if I can be purchased with a pair of nylon stockings and a bar of chocolate! And it isn’t just men I don’t know who are making me fume. Simon hasn’t bothered to write us one single word of condolence. And as for Mr Bowker . . . Well! I am s
till absolutely flabbergasted.

  Today was my last day at work, and I went in to his office to deliver my final set of corrected brochures and to say goodbye. I was mildly interested in how he’d react to my departure – after all, I’d been in his department four years, and I’d been a fairly diligent and efficient worker for all but the past few weeks.

  ‘So, I hear you’re leaving us, Miss FitzOsborne,’ he said, after I’d handed him all the paperwork and explained (in words of one syllable) what still needed to be done. ‘Moving to the country, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bowker,’ I said. As usual, he hadn’t asked me to sit down, so I was standing at attention on one side of his desk, and he was leaning back in his chair on the other side, gazing up my nostrils.

  ‘Leaving the Civil Service,’ he went on, shaking his head slowly. ‘I’m not sure I approve of that.’ Just as I was thinking he might actually be about to deliver a compliment, he added, ‘I mean, a lady of your age, getting on a bit – you need security, don’t you? The Civil Service provides that.’

  I gaped at him. A lady of my age! Getting on a bit! But he hadn’t finished.

  ‘And you’ll be called up now, won’t you? The services. Not very nice for ladies, being in the army.’

  ‘I won’t get called up,’ I snapped, ‘because I’m not a British citizen!’

  He blinked. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I’m Montmaravian!’

  He ignored this, the way he always ignored anything he didn’t immediately understand. ‘Of course,’ he said, leaning forward and raising his ginger eyebrows, ‘married ladies aren’t forced to join the services. And now that you’ve resigned from the Civil Service, you are permitted to marry.’ He shifted his gaze and peered over my shoulder at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. ‘Yes . . . marriage might be a very good idea for you.’

  A horrible notion began to form in my brain.

  ‘I myself,’ Mr Bowker continued relentlessly, ‘have been considering marriage. When a man reaches a certain point in his life – when he has a good position in the Civil Service and a house of his own – he begins to think about such things.’

  Then he gave a very artificial jolt.

  ‘Oh!’ he said, as though he’d just had a brilliant idea. ‘I wonder if . . . Well, perhaps you and I might . . . Knowing each other as we do . . . That is, it’s something to consider, isn’t it?’

  He shot me a look to gauge my reaction, then pressed on, seemingly heartened by the fact I hadn’t said anything. (I couldn’t speak. I simply couldn’t find the words.)

  ‘That is to say, having worked together all these years . . . it would make sense, I think you’d agree? And then you wouldn’t need to leave London. Very convenient for all concerned –’

  ‘Mr Bowker,’ I interrupted, ‘are you asking me to marry you?’

  ‘Oh, well . . . ’ He gave a little cough. ‘That is, perhaps in time, to come to a mutual arrangement, to consider an engagement . . .’

  8

  ‘Mr Bowker,’ I said, drawing myself up, ‘“I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”’

  Then I marched out of his office.

  Veronica is quite wrong when she claims there is no value in reading novels such as Pride and Prejudice. Of course there is. They provide one with the exact words one needs when one is speechless in the face of extreme provocation.

  Anyway, after collecting my things and saying goodbye to Anne, I stomped out of the building and up the road towards Oxford Street. It was hours before the end of the official working day, but I’d completed all my allotted tasks and besides, what was Miss Halliday going to do about it? Sack me? If she’d tried to object, I would simply have pointed out that it was unconscionable to expect any girl to remain in that office a minute longer, after her boss had behaved in such a disgusting manner. All those times he’d called me in to lecture me about apostrophes, and he’d secretly been looking at me and thinking . . . Ugh! It was humiliating to have been proposed to by such a man! It was absolutely mortifying to realise that he was the sort of man I attracted!

  I was so busy feeling insulted that I nearly ran into a woman holding a clipboard.

  ‘Excuse me!’ she shouted. ‘Sign the petition?’

  ‘Er . . . sorry,’ I said. ‘What?’

  ‘Petition to put Oswald Mosley back in prison!’

  ‘He’s been let out of prison?’ I said. ‘When?’

  She gave me a scornful look. ‘Don’t you read the papers? Let out last weekend, he was. He and his wife living in luxury in some great big house in the country now, while ordinary working men and women are slaving away in factories and sacrificing themselves in the services! Sign here.’

  I took the proffered pen.

  ‘There’s a protest march to Trafalgar Square being held on Sunday,’ the woman went on. ‘A Fascist like him, being let loose when we’re fighting a war! It’s a stab in the back for working people, isn’t it? It’s a slap in the face of freedom and democracy!’

  I bent to add my name to the long list – and then I paused. Was his release a blow against democracy? He’d never been charged with any crime. He’d never been convicted of treason. The British Union of Fascists had long been disbanded, and Mosley had lost whatever political influence he’d ever had, which hadn’t been much – after all, his own political party had never even come close to winning a seat in Parliament. Mosley would never be Hitler’s puppet Prime Minister now, with the threat of a Nazi invasion having vanished long ago. And I was certain the Colonel’s men would be keeping a very close eye on Mosley’s current activities to make sure he posed no future threat to national security.

  I handed back the pen. ‘No, I don’t think I will sign, thank you,’ I told the woman. ‘Mosley’s one of the most loathsome men I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet – but I don’t think a democracy ought to lock people up indefinitely without a trial. If we put people in prison simply because we don’t like their opinions, we might as well be living under the Nazis.’

  Then I walked away quickly, because she looked very cross. But I did feel that I’d been right. I think even Veronica would have agreed with me.

  13th December, 1943

  I’VE BEEN IN MILFORD A FORTNIGHT, but it feels as though it’s been a year. Everything is horrible here. It’s freezing, and it never stops raining. I spend half my day squelching through the mud to the henhouse, the stables, the village and the Home Farm, then the other half scrubbing floors and doing the laundry and cooking meals that nobody feels like eating. Aunt Charlotte has still not recovered from her bout of bronchitis, and alternates between irritable demands and long, pitiful silences. Barnes is a saint, but the only conversations I have with her are about household chores or WVS jobs. I do talk to Carlos, but I think he’s going a bit deaf. I miss Veronica. I miss Julia, and Kick, and Anne from work, and the ARP warden who lived down the road from us in Kensington, and that nice lady conductor on the 73 bus. I miss my talks with Rupert (it’s true he was hardly ever in London, but he’s even less likely to visit Milford). I am lonely and tired and miserable.

  This morning was the worst yet, because I had an awful row with Aunt Charlotte. She announced that she was arranging for a plaque to be put up in the church, as a memorial to Henry. That was distressing enough – the idea of someone as vibrant and alive as Henry being reduced to a few words inscribed on a cold, flat piece of brass – but then I saw what it was going to say. ‘Henrietta’ rather than ‘Henry’! Barnes stepped in and negotiated a compromise of ‘Henrietta (Henry) Charlotte FitzOsborne’, although not before quite a lot of tears and shouting, mostly on my part. But then Aunt Charlotte revealed that she was also commissioning a memorial for Toby!

  ‘How can you?’ I cried. ‘You wouldn’t even know what date to put on it! He’s not dead, you’ve got no proof of that!’

  Actually, I do secretly think he’s dead, but it would be a horrible b
etrayal of Henry’s beliefs ever to admit this out loud. So I yelled a bit more, then stormed out and went for a very long walk in the pouring rain, and now I have a sniffly nose and scratchy throat. I’m meant to be down at the church hall doing a stint of camouflage net weaving, but instead I am hiding out in the stables with my journal. I’ve told myself that all the dust and lint from the strips of fabric will only make my throat worse, but really it’s that I hate having anything to do with the war now, and besides, I still haven’t managed to get all that nasty brown dye off my hands from last night’s weaving session –

  Ow! Lightning the pony just hit me very hard on the top of my head with his chin because I’m sitting outside his stall and haven’t brought any carrots for him! Even the horses hate me!

  I don’t know why I bother continuing with this journal when there’s never anything nice to write.

  28th December, 1943

  WE PRETTY MUCH IGNORED CHRISTMAS, on account of our lack of seasonal cheer, and yesterday began like any other day for me. Up at half past six, let Carlos out, feed the hens and check for eggs (only two), bring in the milk canister left by Mr Wilkin on the doorstep, go out again to find Carlos and herd him back inside, make porridge. Check with Barnes about the division of the day’s chores over breakfast. Write out a shopping list for Aunt Charlotte, who was taking the pony and cart to the village. Wash some blouses and stockings, and drape over clothes horse in front of the sitting room fire. Tidy bedroom and attempt to plug the draughty gap in the window frame with bits of Henry’s modelling clay. Go back downstairs to retrieve damp clothes from sitting room floor, Carlos having knocked over the clothes horse while clambering down from his armchair. Do lots of boring ironing. Make half a dozen cheese, carrot and chutney sandwiches, and take them and a thermos of soup over to the stable girls at lunchtime. Get stuck there for an hour helping them muck out stalls. Return to gatehouse and do washing up. Bring in more firewood from woodshed, stack logs next to fire in sitting room, then go out to collect more kindling.