War's Last Dance

by Julia Underwood

  The preparations for Bill’s return nearly wore them out. But the little rented house sparkled, the larder bulged with festive food and Isabel knew she looked as well turned out as she could in the circumstances. I don’t want him to think I’ve been letting myself go whilst he’s been away, she thought.

  All prepared; at last the day arrived. Isabel and Penny bathed and preened, readying themselves for the reunion. Anticipation and euphoria almost took their breath away. Penny was caught up in the whirlwind of her mother’s energy, her small frame so taut with excitement that she tended to burst into fits of giggles for no reason at all and dance around in circles with her waving arms outstretched like a frenzied bird.

  ‘You’re daft as a brush, you are,’ Isabel laughed.

  In a flurry they caught the sooty train to Victoria. They had a compartment to themselves, insulated from the world. Isabel chatted to Penny all the way, happier and more vital than she had been in ages. Her eyes sparkled and her fair, clear skin glowed under a thin layer of Coty powder.

  ‘You’re looking lovely, Bella,’ shouted Jim, the stationmaster, an old friend. ‘Going to meet the old man?’

  ‘Yes,’ Isabel called back. ‘He’s coming into Victoria.’

  The wooden doors of the train carriage banged closed behind them and they attempted to relax on the itchy seats. The compartment had a door at each end from which you could step directly onto the platform at your destination; no corridor ran from end to end of the carriage. Black and white photographs of English seaside resorts in earlier times decorated the walls of the compartment, between the seats and the luggage racks, whose twine mesh hung down resembling an abandoned collection of string bags. The ladies in the photos wore long dresses with bustles and large feathered hats. On the beaches stood wooden wheeled bathing machines to protect the modesty of the lady bathers.

  The feather on her own hat bobbed and waved as Isabel told Penny all about the times before the War. How she had met her father; their life together. Penny had heard it all before but never tired of listening to the stories.

  ‘London was such a thrilling place then, Penny, beautiful, before the bombs. Glamorous and gay. Nightclubs, restaurants, dancing. We’d go to the theatre and out to dinner with friends. The Trocadero, Quaglinos, Simpsons, even the Savoy sometimes if we were feeling flush. Daddy and I had some wonderful times.’

  Her face glowed with the memory of their unforeseen happiness. A bubble of elation built in her stomach, almost making her feel nauseated. She could hardly contain her excitement. Soon she would be reunited with Bill, after all this time. Everything would be all right again. The journey flew by and they soon reached Victoria station.

  The smoky terminus swarmed with humanity. Demobilisation from Europe began sluggishly in July and soldiers in the first groups were arriving home; those who had been in the forces for the longest; often those who volunteered in the early days of the War. Bill was not one of those being demobbed, however; he had to return to his new posting after this leave.

  How on earth are we going to find Bill in this crush? Isabel thought. Crowds of soldiers began to alight from trains, bent with tiredness and burdened with heavy kit like punch bags balanced on their shoulders as well as back-packs and other baggage. They all looked very similar in their uniforms, how could you pick out an individual in this crowd? The waiting families surged forward in a great wave. Many of them quickly found their loved ones and drew them into their embraces.

  Cries of joy, kisses and hugs; laughter and tears. Safe home from the War! Men, relief and joy written on their features, jumped onto the platforms and swarmed around the station, searching for familiar faces. When they found their families they swung the pretty ladies in their new clothes off their feet; clasped the children in their arms; greeted their siblings with embarrassed kisses. They kept coming in joyous waves. But Bill wasn’t amongst them.

  At one point Isabel saw a man in a Captain’s uniform that resembled him and she ran up. ‘Bill, Bill…’ she called, her hand outstretched to touch him, but when the man turned around it was a stranger, smiling apologetically. She dropped her arm and moved away, disappointment a deadening weight on her heart.

  They waited until the last wooden doors slammed, the heavy latches clicked into place and the trains began to shunt away. They were not the only disappointed ones, the ones who slowly and reluctantly turned to go home without their sweethearts and husbands, not quite believing that there was no-one there for them to greet.

  The journey home seemed longer and much, much slower. Isabel sat in a dejected huddle gazing blindly out of the sooty window. Penny found nothing to say but huddled up against her mother on the seat whose rough surface irritated her bare legs. Isabel stared out of the window, her face drawn. The ugly rear walls of the suburban houses, stained with railway soot, stared back. Occasionally there yawned a great gap where a bomb had demolished a few, the edges of torn wallpaper poignant against the shattered brick. Broken shards of abandoned furniture, banisters wrenched from their moorings, staircases hanging precariously in open space. Empty gaping fireplaces that would never see a comforting blaze again; the remnants of a human tragedy.

  Gazing at this scene, Isabel remembered how it had ended. The killing and terrifying bombing had continued almost to the end of the war. Towards the end ‘doodle-bugs’, as they called them, the dreaded V2 rockets, terrified them more than anything. They whizzed silently out of the skies until they emitted a high-pitched whistle before they hit their target. It all finished in March when a rocket hit a block of flats in the East End. About nine hours later another burst harmlessly in Kent. That was the end of them, to everyone’s extreme relief.

  For four more days Isabel and Penny dressed up and travelled to Victoria to meet the troop trains. Disappointment met them every time. No sign of Bill. No one could help them. They could get no news, no information. It was impossible to contact anyone still abroad. The co-ordinator always said the same thing after the futile scanning of his list.

  ‘Come again tomorrow, ducks. Maybe he’ll be with the next lot,’ he dismissed them gently.

  But amongst the thousands of men returning from the War, Bill never arrived. Isabel began to despair, frantically trying to think why this was happening. Oh, God, perhaps he’s not coming back after all. Perhaps he had to stay on in Italy. Maybe he wanted to. Perhaps he doesn’t want us anymore. Her worries became more and more irrational.

  He’s found another woman; those Italian women are so glamorous. But then why did he write to say he was coming home? Her thoughts went round and round in an agonising loop. She hardly slept and as a consequence she felt exhausted, her limbs weak and trembling, her eyes dry and prickling, with dark rings beneath them.

  The next day they decided not to go up to London.

  ‘I couldn’t bear that awful journey again; all that way for nothing. Come on, Pen, let’s treat ourselves. We’ll go to the pictures in Wembley and then have tea at Fullers.’

  They had grown weary of the futile pilgrimage into town; the sad trek home. Isabel knew Penny loved the cinema and especially relished the thought of the teashop’s iced coffee cake, which, if you were lucky with your slice, might have a walnut on top. That seemed a much more interesting proposition.

  ‘Oh yes, let’s, Mummy.’

  They left a key with their neighbour, ‘just in case,’ and set out.

  They saw “Lassie Come Home” at the Odeon. Tears streamed down their faces in the sad bits. Penny loved the dog and the poignancy of the story.

  ‘Couldn’t we have a dog Mummy, please?’ she wheedled.

  She was chattering, full of the film and coffee cake, when they arrived home. Isabel put her key in the front door, preparing a negative reply – a dog, oh horror!

  ‘Wasn’t it awful, Mummy, when they thought Lassie was lost?’

  Penny’s dark eyes popped wide open - for a man sat on the bottom step - a man with no shoes on and his shirt unbuttoned. She glared at him disapprovingly
from behind her mother’s skirt, shyness, disgust and burning curiosity battling within her. Penny had hardly ever seen a man up close before, except for Granddad, and he was old and sick, and Uncle George. This man wasn’t old and bent, but tall and strong, tanned and healthy. Penny shrank further behind Isabel’s skirt.

  Isabel flew forward, dropping Penny’s hand, her handbag and the Evening News bought at the station.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she shrieked. Her cheeks glowed and she felt as if her heart would explode. At last!

  ‘Darling,’ the man stood up grinning, stretching out his arms, wide and alive.

  ‘Bill, oh, Bill!’ she cried as they kissed and hugged and laughed. Isabel’s hat veered to a silly angle on her head, threatening to fall.

  'My God, you look beautiful,’ he breathed between embraces. ‘How I’ve longed for this moment.’

  Penny loitered, shocked and bemused on the doormat, overcome by embarrassment.

  Isabel released the man and turned towards her.

  ‘Penny - this is your Daddy.’ At last Isabel had remembered her. Still breathless from Bill’s welcome, she pulled Penny forward and crouched down to where Bill sat once more on the bottom step. She introduced her gently to the father she was really meeting for the first time. Penny couldn't be expected to remember him, as she had only been a baby when he had last seen her. He was as strange to her as a passer-by in the street. Penny approached him doubtfully, not sure how to react to this male phenomenon. She glanced over her shoulder at Isabel and registered the reassuring smile on her mother’s face as she pushed her forward.

  ‘Penny! What a big girl! Come here, darling.’

  He leaned forward and swept her up into his arms and kissed her, but his chin bristled and she didn’t like the way he smelled. She pushed him away without a word; dropped to the floor and rushed past him. Ran up to her room. Horrid man, she thought.

  Penny’s prime position in her mother’s time and affection was abruptly usurped. During the air raids she and Isabel slept in a nest of eiderdowns and pillows in the sturdy steel cage built under the oak dining table, the Morrison shelter, until eventually, bored with the discomfort of that, they recklessly snuggled together in the big bed upstairs. Now he slept in that bed - every night. Penny could hear them in there late, before she fell asleep. They talked a lot and often they giggled. She could hear the old bedsprings creaking. They seemed to be having fun. Penny felt left out and jealous.

  ‘When’s That Man going away, Mummy?’ she asked indignantly. A question greeted with much mirth by the grown-ups and repeated to anyone who would listen. Only Nanny, Isabel’s mother, understood.

  ‘She’s only four - of course the poor little blighter’s going to ‘ave her nose put out of joint. She’s always ‘ad your undivided attention. She don’t know the man,’ she said. Nanny had her reasons for sounding bitter; she didn’t much like her daughter’s choice of husband.

  ‘Thinks ‘e’s too good for us. No good’ll come of it, mark my words,’ she’d prophesied. ‘He won’t like that poxy little house after what he’s used too. Servants, too I wouldn’t wonder.’ She illustrated her disapproval with a dramatic sniff.

  Isabel admitted that sometimes Bill’s presence was irksome. It was lovely to have him back, of course, but she had got so used to being alone with Penny, their routines; doing just what she wanted. Bill’s presence frequently intruded and he seemed to have changed. He was no longer as relaxed and assured as before and unaccustomed to taking other people into consideration, especially when one of them was only four. Sometimes he spoke to them sharply, as if he were giving orders.

  As Doris said when Isabel complained to her about his encroaching presence, ‘Men do clutter up the place so.’

  Isabel often found it necessary to chide him.

  ‘For goodness sake sit down and relax, Bill. Your pacing is giving me the pip! You’ll wear a groove in the carpet – it’s thin enough as it is!’

  ‘Sorry, love – can’t help it. This place seems so small,’ He stretched his arms out, ‘I feel as if I want to push the walls out with my hands. It’s all that pacing in the Italian palazzos – interrogating prisoners of war.’

  In the last months of the war Bill’s duties took him to Milan to question prisoners about their part in the War before the fall of Mussolini. The work proved stressful as he constantly asked the same questions of hostile captives.

  ‘Were you a member of the Fascisti? Who were your officers? Where are your leaders now?’

  Searching out the worst Fascists proved a thankless and remorseless task. Every morsel of information was stored and utilised and, occasionally, led to the capture of a war criminal.

  It seemed a long time to Penny, but the reunion anticipated with such joy, ended quickly. After two weeks, Bill’s leave finished. His orders were to take up a new posting in Berlin, as a member of the Allied Control Commission set up to govern the defeated Germans. His job would again be to interview prisoners of war, and civilians, to try to root out those people who had been members of the Nazi party during the War as well as to help administer the resettlement of the displaced populations of Europe. An enormous amount of work waited. Huge migrations of people surged around Europe, from the East, to escape the Russians, and from the West, those people displaced by the War and Nazi occupation of so many countries; many of them released from slave labour camps in Germany and other occupied territories.

  During his leave Bill struggled to make friends with Penny but the child displayed a stubborn streak, she refused to accept ‘That Man’ into her life. She adamantly spurned his embraces and only took his gifts – delightful little trinkets and toys from Italy – with reluctance. But she stashed them away in her room in secret places and studied them covertly. Bill and Isabel took the little girl to the cinema and out for meals; they tried to make it fun.

  ‘I wish she liked me,’ he said to Isabel, ‘I need more time with her.’

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, she’s confused. Later, when we’re living together again she’ll have a chance to get to know you better.’

  Soon the leave ended and Bill dressed in his uniform again and waved farewell as they watched from the newly painted step. How smart he looks with his khaki tunic and those belts and buckles all gleaming and his cap under his arm, thought Isabel.

  Earlier Bill had taken Isabel into his arms. She tried hard not to cry, but the treacherous tears burned her eyelids; bereft at the thought of him going away again.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, we’ll be together again soon. They’ll be letting families come out. Soon, I promise. Please – don’t cry.’

  Kissing her tenderly he soothed her fears.

  She endured his leaving with a leaden heart. She stood on the step with Penny as he hopped into the taxi patiently ticking at the kerb. Isabel didn't think twice about the expense, even if it was taking him all the way up to town; it would cost a small fortune. She couldn’t imagine him using the train. Isabel shivered as they turned back into the house. How cold and empty it seemed.

  Chapter Three

  Hook of Holland, 1946

  ‘Mummy!’ Penny’s eyes rounded with fear as the weight of the crowd behind sluiced them through the narrow doors from the congested dockside. They were ejected into the station like pills from the neck of a bottle. The chill wind on the dockside was replaced by an airlessness unexpectedly sliced with icy draughts.

  ‘Hold on to my hand, Penny. You mustn’t get lost, darling.’

  Penny clung on harder with a hand already cramped from the effort of keeping firmly attached to her mother. Isabel’s other hand carried the heavy suitcase as well as their smaller luggage. Her pale face creased with anxiety as she searched hopelessly for a porter. The crowds milled about as if some giant hand were stirring them from above. Some looked aimless and lost, some purposeful and urgent. So many people; impossible to attract anyone’s attention. For a moment Isabel felt bewildered and abandoned.

  Despite her tiredness after the
gruelling voyage across the Channel from Harwich, five hours in an overcrowded boat, Isabel still displayed an insouciant air of elegance. She wore the stylish blue suit bought at Barkers for Bill's homecoming. The smart black hat topped her dark waves, the jaunty red ostrich feather trembling around the brim. The hat perched at an impossibly precarious angle over one finely arched brow. Penny loved that hat. Her constant stroking of the soft fronds had almost ruined the feather.

  The throng pushing and shoving from behind forced them to move forward. Isabel stumbled and her ankle pivoted unnaturally – the last thing she needed was a sprain.

  ‘Hold on a mo, can’t you? I’m trying to hold everything at once.’

  Adjusting her grip on the bags Isabel abandoned the search for a porter and staggered on. She felt the all too familiar beginnings of a headache tightening around her temples. They must find their train. Everything seemed so alien – nothing like a station at home, it sounded wrong, smelt wrong. Unfamiliar, foreign features surrounded them. Advertising hoardings promised goods that surely hadn’t been available since before the War. Newspaper and magazine vendors displayed strange, incomprehensible headlines. What a peculiar language Dutch was!

  Unexpectedly the apprehension she felt on disembarking the packed ship evaporated and Isabel realised that she was on her way to Bill at last. The journey was begun! No turning back now. She felt exhilarated with a surge of new energy. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and strode on. I can manage this on my own.

  Blackboards bore hastily scribbled notices that should have helped Isabel but the script was foreign and illegible. She stood bewildered in the huge, confusing station hall; turned this way and that looking for clues. Look on the bright side, she thought; at least neither of us was sick on the boat. It’s not going to be so bad after all. Just got to find the right train…

  Penny jumped at the penetrating shriek of a whistle; a train letting off steam.