Another day passed. Our letter was in the post. I went and watched Uncle Jack at the bottom of the garden, beyond the outside privies. He was right at the bottom, out of sight of the houses, by the vegetables, with a cornfield beyond and the railway line rising out of its cutting and snaking towards Liskeard, Plymouth and London. I hadn’t made a sound. He was sitting on an old bench set there to rest on when gardening. He had his back to me, in his own world.
‘Can I come and sit with you, Uncle Jack?’
He patted the bench at once as though he had already heard me. ‘Yes, come by yere, boy.’ As I sat by him he ruffled what little there was of my hair. ‘Time you had a haircut, is it?’
‘ ’S not that long.’
He was in the quietest of voices. His voice with its sharp South Wales cutting edge and its rumbling undertones was at its most gentle. ‘Little blondie Anglo-Saxon. Gwyn was dark, like me: a Celt. “The soft underbelly of Europe.” The mud was soft in Flanders, too. Didn’t save anybody. Remember, boy: never, never, never, never, never, trust your leaders. Montgomery’s a hero. Churchill’s a hero. Gwyn is dead. And it’s not just this war or the last. It’s all history. “Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred.” Who sent ’em there, eh? Don’t ever trust ’em, not any of ’em.’
Jack came round the privet hedge by the privies. ‘Uncle Jack, Mr Buckroyd’s with Auntie Rose. He’d like to see you too.’
‘Oooh, no, not the bloody minister,’ sighed Uncle Jack. ‘They don’t just kill you, they send someone to tell your next of kin it’s all for the best.’
Mr Buckroyd came diffidently down the garden. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Phillips. Boys.’
Jack and I greeted him.
Mr Buckroyd went and stood by the fence, looking out. He continued, ‘I can’t tell you, Mr Phillips, how sorry I—’
He was gently cut short. ‘Then please don’t try.’
He thought for a moment. ‘I know that your wife is Church of England and that you are . . . neither, but I suggested to her a memorial service in the chapel because it is bigger there than the church, where you might have some more private gathering, and I think there would be many indeed in the village who would want to come.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She would like it.’
‘Yes, yes, she must have it.’ He gave the briefest of snorts, remembering his last performance in the chapel. It says much for Buckroyd that he was even here giving this invitation. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll behave myself.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Only nothing about souls in heaven. Eh? Or eternal life. Or any of that. A memorial service: let’s just remember him.’
‘I’ll vet everything myself.’ He stood uncertainly, not sure how to close this meeting which had gone so easily. ‘I’m sure he died a hero, Mr Phillips.’
The cliché brought an edge to Uncle Jack’s voice. ‘Are you, now? I seen a few o’ them die. Ashes to ashes and mud to mud.’ He paused and added, ‘About what you did over Terry and Elsie and all that. We’re very grateful. Thank you.’
‘I’m doing my best about Elsie’s future but it’s not always straightforward.’
‘Yes, yes. You’re a good man . . .’ Uncle Jack paused. He couldn’t resist it even in his agony. ‘. . . in spite of being a Christian.’
Buckroyd started to leave. He was stopped by Uncle Jack’s raised voice.
‘One other thing.’ For a moment we all wondered what it could be. ‘I’ll apologise to Miss Polmanor when I see her.’
Buckroyd turned, surprised. ‘What?’
‘For calling her names. Even though she asked for it. She’s just another casualty, you know. Like all of us. A million men didn’t come home from the first war.’ He paused. ‘My war. Huh. That left a million spare women. She was engaged, wasn’t she? To a corporal in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. Killed on the Somme.’
‘That’s right.’
‘A whole generation of leftover women. A lot of them got a bad attack of God. I suppose it’s better than emptiness. She didn’t want to be a dried-up old haybag. She just found out that, one day, that’s what she is.’
There was a silence after this unexpected statement. Uncle Jack’s arm was thrown round me. I thought, so that’s who that man was in the photo, the centrepiece of the little shrine on Miss Polmanor’s sideboard. Many things started to fall into place in my mind, a process that has taken years to complete, if it is complete. Mr Buckroyd was poised to go. ‘You’re a good man, Mr Phillips . . .’ He too paused. ‘. . . in spite of being an atheist.’ And he was gone.
There was silence for a while.
Uncle Jack spoke. ‘I like it yere, boys. Look at the wind on that barley field. And the valley. And the compost heap, there, to remind us what we’re coming to.’
I tried to think of anything I could. ‘And the railway. That’s good.’
Uncle Jack hugged me. ‘Yes. That’s good.’ He changed tack. ‘Let’s have a service here. For Gwyn. Us three, eh? An Anglo-Celtic service. You remember that song you learned last year: “Barbara Allen”?’
We did.
‘Sing it, both of you. Go straight to the third verse. That’s suitable.’
And we sang, in two parts, me treble and Jack alto, into the summer’s day, to the haunting tune of ‘Barbara Allen’, while Uncle Jack looked away from us into his own wounded life.
And death is printed on his face
And o’er his heart is stealing;
The pain of love he bravely bore,
So far beyond the healing.
He turned his face unto the wall,
And death was with him dealing . . .
Chapter Nineteen
Two days later we faced Auntie Rose in the living room. She looked drawn and stern. ‘I’ve got a letter yere from your mother.’
Jack spoke for us, ruefully. ‘So’ve we.’
‘You don’t want to go home, is it?’ she said.
I was shamefaced. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Whose idea was it for you to stay here, then?’ she pursued.
Jack was the braver of us. ‘We thought it together.’
I joined in, not wanting to be thought disloyal to Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack. ‘We were going to toss for it, but Jack said I’ve got to go back to Dartford Grammar School.’
‘Did he now?’ She looked at both of us with an expression I could not read. ‘Come here, both of you.’ She held us close. ‘You’re a pair, aren’t you? I thought so when I first set eyes on you.’ And she held us in a vice-like grip until I had to complain.
‘Ow, you’re hurting.’
She released us. ‘But, you see, boys, you can’t stay with us. As it is you both have to sleep down in the front hall there together till you go. Top ’n’ tail. We must have your room at once. Don’t look so pained. Guess who’s going up there?’
‘Soldiers?’ Jack tried.
‘Elsie,’ said Auntie Rose. And my world exploded. ‘We’re going to have Elsie and her little one.’
‘Elsie’s going to stay here?’ I said, unbelieving.
‘And she’d better move in quick or they’ll be shunting her off to that home, that workhouse place. That’s fit for nobody, certainly not Elsie and her baby, eh?’ Auntie Rose smiled at the effect she had had, her first smile for days.
‘Can I go and tell her?’
‘She knows, silly.’
‘Well, can I go and tell her I know, too?’ And I was off up the Court shouting, ‘Elsie, Elsie. You’re coming here, Elsie.’
A week later Jack and I lay in terror on our mattress on the hall floor listening while Elsie, up in our room with Auntie Rose and the district nurse, gave me another lesson on the facts of life. No excuse for me to disbelieve any longer what went where or to puzzle how a whole baby came out of there. We crept fearfully into the kitchen and there was Uncle Jack with a glass in his hand. ‘Hello, boy, too much of a racket to sleep, is it? She always was a noisy girl. Now’s her chance.�
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‘Is Elsie all right?’ I asked.
‘Right as rain. Here, have a sip of this. Drink to the baby’s health. Say “Good health and long life to you.” ’
Jack tried a sip and had to run outside to spit it out.
‘Don’t waste it,’ Uncle Jack called after him.
I was concerned. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘A boy. Black as pitch.’ Uncle Jack smiled but without his former twinkle. That, so much a part of him, was gone. It was like an amputation. He contemplated some inner thought, then came back to me. ‘Well, sort of greyish really, but same difference. Pretty little thing. I’ll have to learn some Negro spirituals to teach him for the Silver Voice competition, eh? They’re good singers, those darkies. That Paul Robeson, he made that film with us, didn’t he: Proud Valley. He sang with the South Wales miners in the Depression. Great bass voice.’ He laughed gently. ‘Difficult to think of that little scrap up there singing bass. Still.’
The whole thing was beyond me. ‘Is he black – I mean, grey – all over?’
‘Just about. He’ll do a lot for Rose, being yere.’ His good humour faded into bitterness. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away – as the bloody minister would say.’
A few days later on Doublebois station we boarded the Cornish Riviera for Paddington. I was ten and a half when my ‘other childhood’ ended, Jack was nearly fifteen. We had fewer people to see us off than poor Teddy Camberwell, but there were enough: Elsie with her baby and Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack.
Oh, Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack! Ten shillings a week per vackie was the official allowance, and in return they had given themselves without stint. Was there ever such a bargain? Yes, they were about to give Elsie the same, for nothing. They were without guile and without self-interest: ‘The salt of the earth’ is the saying. And if ever the earth needed salting Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack were there to do it.
Amid the huffing and puffing of the engine and the stationmaster we said our farewells.
‘Give my respects to your mam and dad. Write soon. Oh, we’ll miss you, boys,’ Auntie Rose repeated.
‘Bye, Terry. See you in London one day,’ said Elsie. She held up her baby’s tiny hand with its pink palm. ‘Say goodbye, Louis. Bye-bye. Say bye-bye.’
‘Bye, Elsie. Bye, Louis.’
Doors were slammed, flags waved, a whistle blew.
‘Goodbye, Auntie Rose, Uncle Jack,’ we shouted.
‘Goodbye, boys. Look after your – you be—’ He choked, stopped, tried to grin at us and failed miserably. Unheeded tears ran down his cheeks.
Auntie Rose cut in. ‘Oh, now don’t cry, Jack, for God’s sake. You’ll start me off.’ And she started to cry.
The train moved forward.
‘Remember what I said, boys,’ called Uncle Jack over the noise His voice sounded urgent; he seemed suddenly afraid that we wouldn’t have his distillation of what a hard life had taught him. ‘Two things: it’s not fair and don’t ever trust ’em. Your leaders. Never. You never know what they’ll do. And whatever it is, it won’t be for you.’
We hung out of the window, waving furiously, and the train went past Railway Cottages above us, where neighbours were waving at the wire fence. We began to round the curve in the line so that we could only just see the platform on which Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack were standing, still waving back: last sight of our own Rock of Ages and her bloody-minded bantam.
The train took us over the Lostwithiel road, past Dobwalls, over the Moorswater Viaduct. It stopped at Liskeard, Menheniot, St Germans, Saltash, rumbled over Brunel's great bridge – presumably moving it another foot one way or the other – and we were in Plymouth, England, and on our way back to our half-forgotten home.
Uncle Jack and Auntie Rose. Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack. Aunt and uncle. Not father and mother but not distant either, just in-between relatives. In fact, of course, they weren’t even that; they were our foster-mother and -father, not relatives at all. But even now, sixty-six years later, I still cannot say their names without a full heart and a lump of gratitude in my throat.
Acknowledgements
First, to my long-suffering, under-thanked, invaluable, wonderful secretary of nearly thirty years, Rae Amzallag.
To Jacky Fairclough and Mary Flanigan, granddaughters of Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack.
Wendy Barbery (née Tamblyn) of Treburgie Farm, Dobwalls.
Beth Plummer, widow of Ken, of Dobwalls.
John and Ann Roberts of Falmouth, Cornwall.
For reading early drafts: Barbara Kerr, Dominic Frisby, Eliot Watkins, Jennifer Thorne, John Hine, Sir Nigel Sweeney QC, Peter Smith LLB, Piers Croke.
Alexandra Pringle, Anna Simpson, Anya Rosenberg and all at Bloomsbury.
Lavinia Trevor and Nick Quinn, my literary agents.
My brother, Jack and his wife, Joan.
Kisses on a Postcard Page 17
