Nella Last's Peace

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Saturday, 27 October. I’ve only one dollie to finish now, and their name labels to tie on. They look such a happy bright lot of little rag people. I always have a queer feeling when I look at them, feeling in some way they have life in their strangely different expressions. Perhaps the different textures of the scraps I use are responsible, but all seem individual. Matron likes peasant girls with plaits and bonnets with turnbacks – she is of Dutch extraction – so I’ve managed to make her ten girls and three gollywogs … I’ll start on cot quilts and dressing gowns next week, though I’ve two cushion covers I’d like to make for the settee in the dining room. I’d planned to make them for Xmas and the new curtains too – such nice golden orange material I’d bought just before the war and never made when blackout curtains made out for so long, when faced with shabby darned ones.

  I thought I’d have all nice for Xmas when Cliff came, but if as he expects he will be in Palestine by then, I think I’ll make all gay for his leave – that is, if he comes. Surely he will come for a few days, dull as he finds home. I often wonder what queer kinks he has deep down, when he finds so much fault with all at home, with its size and set out, my decorations and ‘old-fashioned ways’. I look round and think it’s a very nice house really, and kept as well as anyone else’s. Sometimes I tell myself it’s a kind of twisted love of both home and me that makes him lash out. When he was younger he used to get cross at my weak streak and say I gave in too much for peace sake, but by Gad I’ve had to give in as much to him as anyone. I’ve known the impulse to strike him flat, to speak cuttingly and to the point, to strip him of some of his conceits and silly values – and that streak in me that made me always insist that home was a place where you came to recover from the knocks and pricks of life and not receive them laid a hand on my lips. Then again, I have a feeling hard to define that, in spite of all, I stand for some anchorage in Cliff’s life. If Cliff knew how clearly I saw things, his way of thinking and acting, the worthlessness of so many of his ‘friendships’, I feel something would go. It’s better I should let him think I’m sweet and dumb, seeing and understanding only what he thinks fit, knowing nothing but what he thinks fit to tell me. He forgets – or ignores – that talk and gossip filters through.

  Tuesday, 30 October. It was a fine morning and I decided to go shopping and get rid of my heavy headache in the fresh air, and I wanted to see if my dress had come into a shop where a consignment was expected. I got a really beautiful one, a real ‘dream dress’, and by Gad my diary and I will be the only ones to know what I paid – eight guineas. I told my husband it was over £5 and he nearly had a fit. I felt peeved when I thought how little I’d ever spent on clothes, always making them myself till I got my two last coats tailored. He never realises the days of cheap remnants have gone, and he is so unobservant he never sees changing prices and supplies. It’s a soft turquoise blue that blends perfectly with the russet of my coat. I thought at first it was too young but the shop girl said, ‘It’s exactly your dress in style and colours are never considered “young”.’ Silly old thing – I don’t remember feeling so excited over a dress since I was a girl. Cliff will understand. Maybe I’ll whisper my sin to him when he comes!

  Wednesday, 31 October. Hallowe’en. I wonder if anyone remembers the jolly parties and ‘duck apples’ of pre-war days. Somehow my mind went back – it might have been sixty and not six years. I had rather an amazing letter from Cliff saying he had proposed to a WAAF† officer he had mentioned, but did not know yet if she had accepted. When I had recovered from my surprise I felt such a wild hope that she would accept him. I felt it would be an answer to prayer, that I’d never ask for anything for myself as long as I lived if Cliff could find steady happiness with someone he loved.

  Poor little Mrs Cooper was in great distress. Neither of us put into words the fear we have about her husband. I fear it’s malignant. She seemed as if she didn’t want to be alone so I kept with her and when there was not actually anything to do alongside her. I intended talking cheerfully on any subject that came into my mind, and felt rewarded when I got her to laugh a little.

  Friday, 2 November. It was such a fair, sweet morning – hard to realise it was so near Xmas. I had a pile of best tablecloths and napkins, doilies, and overalls, and I decided I’d take advantage of the fine morning. I had such hindrance – phone calls and people paying bills who lingered to chat and I felt I didn’t get near done I’d planned. I had good soup to heat and enough meat roll, and I boiled potatoes and carrots and made a good steamed raisin pudding and a little marmalade jam. I felt tired and it was such a nice pleasure to be shut up in Canteen. A ring just before I went told me the result of the specially convened meeting last night. We cannot get a night porter – the one who applied last week only stayed one night – and it’s been decided to close the bedrooms this week, or until we get a porter. If the beds are not let I only give the Canteen till Xmas to stay open, for it’s an expensive place to run now we don’t have as many for meals and snacks. I’d a little shopping to do and Mrs Higham picked me up at the corner and we managed to get all done before going into Canteen. I was glad to see 6 lb of sausage I’d had promised and we had the breakfast bacon but no potatoes for chips, after me getting the fat.

  We felt vexed when we had to refuse nice lads a bed, but Mrs Goode, the bed-maker, was talking to us and she said it’s not only that we don’t pay well, but she says that since VE Day the Canadian behaviour worsened and since VJ Day it’s been growing worse. Quite decent fellows come in dead drunk and wet the beds through and are sick on the floor – often all over their bed – without the least trace of shame. In wartime there was nothing of that, but now it’s as if, she says, they don’t fear reporting or have any decency when they have drink. She says that two night porters left for that, saying there was more decency in a common doss house. It will be a pity if that element is the cause of the Canteen closing, for we get older and more stable men and fellows on leave or who cannot get train connections. We were very busy all afternoon, for with it being cold we made toast and put cheese or scrambled egg on top.

  We came home in the Highams’ car, and I had a cup of tea and did some mending as I sat by the fire. Margaret came in to show me the material she had bought with the coupons I let her have. She has got black for she says it’s such a good standby when she can use different accessories. She is going to make a long dress after all. She says they are coming back very quickly and she will have it long till after Xmas if not for after March. She looks very thin. She says she has no time for Barrow boys – ‘They are all dull after RAF and Americans.’ I held my tongue this time. I could have repeated remarks Cliff had passed about girls who liked Americans better than our own lads! I’m anxiously waiting now for letters from both Arthur and Cliff, to see if Arthur has been nominated for the exam for promotion, and to see if Cliff has been accepted by the WAAF girl! I felt dead tired tonight. I feel I’ve a cold hanging on me.

  Saturday, 3 November. My husband had an appointment for 1.30, so I decided to do my ironing while waiting for him. We went to Spark Bridge at three o’clock. It was a pearl-grey day, dull but luminous, with the hills fairly clear. A lot of leaves still cling to the trees … The still hazy air kept the wood smoke down, making all fragrant and homely, especially when the smell of baking bread came from cottage door. Aunt Sarah had been baking and her stock pot smelled very good. The cottage was warm all through; the canary’s chirp and the little cat’s purr seemed to add to the welcome we got. Nowadays it’s so difficult to take a little present of food. In my ‘lucky bag’ today was gingerbread, parkin,† cheese, a wee bit of potted meat and two tomatoes, a bit of dripping and some sweet apples, and there was Joe’s ounce of tobacco. We chatted about the different boys of the village, who had come on leave and who was married. Aunt Sarah takes a great interest in all around her even though she’s so deaf. We were home by 5.15 and I boiled eggs – fresh ones I’d got off Mrs Whittam yesterday.

  Sunday, 4 November. Last nigh
t I was kept awake by fireworks going off, as if those kiddies who had been lucky enough to get any had not the patience to wait till Monday. I had my usual rest and before I had my bath I slipped down in my dressing gown and popped a little dish I’d prepared last night in the oven. I put my soup on to heat on a low heat. I had sausage in a flat dish and stewed apples and made apple sauce and put it on the sausage and added a layer of mashed potatoes and it made a very tasty lunch. It was tinned soup – with not cooking my meat – but I added a little Bovril for flavour and extra goodness. We had a cup of tea and piece of cake for a sweet, and having washed up we were out by 1.45, for it was such a lovely day we planned to go to Ambleside, feeling there would not be many more fine days. The beech trees are still a golden glory and the sun turns the bracken-clad moss and hillsides to russet. As we passed under beech or oak trees their leaves fluttered down through the open top of the car, bringing in their scent, like withered apples. At Bowness they had little motor launches and sailing boats out, and even rowing boats for hire, and each big chara park had a good number in – and I counted them in one by the lake: twenty-seven. I’ve never known so long a season and the Lakes, and cafés and sweet and ice-cream shops were doing a good trade. It would be dark for the charas going home. It was dusk when we got in at five o’clock. There was bottled pears and unsweetened milk for cream, wholemeal bread and butter, parkin and plain cakes, and a leaping wood and coal fire. When I’d washed up I put a rather damp piece of oak log at the back of the fire and it lasted all right as we sat, and the wood smoke seemed to go through the whole house.

  My husband was writing for a while so I sat quiet and stitched busily at one of the little cot quilts and got one finished. It’s a really worthwhile little thing – both sides very good silk and neatly and strongly sewn on to a pad of cotton wool. It will do fine for the two tiny cots when they have poor babes of a few days old who need warmth of cotton wool. We listened to Lorna Doone and then the news. My husband has been very moody and quiet lately. I sat wrapped in my own thoughts and surmises – a montage of speculation about Cliff and if Arthur has got his nomination and if I’ll see them this Xmas skimmed through my mind. I’d like to see the girl Cliff speaks of. He has spoken so often of never marrying that I think she must be exceptional! I went into the garden just before I came to bed. The stars were bright as if it were going to be frosty. All round fireworks popped and in one garden they even had a bonfire. Children of today have little restraint. They want what they want right now without that careful preparation for a given festa. It’s part of the ‘take the cash and let the credit go’ of today which creeps in everywhere. ‘Fish is in Jones,’ you think rapidly. Will the sausage I had got keep till tomorrow? Better get fish while I’ve got a chance. You see cold cream in a shop, and although you have quite half a pot you buy another while it’s there.

  Unconsciously we are all changing in little ways. I thought tonight as I sat how hard I’d grown these last six years. No one would fret me into a nervous breakdown now. When my husband gets his moods, beyond seeing he has nothing to annoy him further, then a tasty meal, and warm fire waiting if it’s cold, I let him alone with an ‘Ah, the back of my hand to you’ feeling. No coaxing and worrying – and he doesn’t get the black moods he used to do. When he does, I don’t even notice them. Somehow I’ve learned – or gained – serenity. I’ve come at long last to that place where Gran walked, and know what she meant when she talked of ‘laying her burden down before God after she had done what she could to bear it’. Knowing too the Rhythm and Strength she spoke of – all there if we reach out. She had big worries and came through. My little worries fade before hers, but they are ever present. I feel too that now I don’t go out two days a week I don’t throw things off the same.

  Monday, 5 November. My husband is off on a black horse of a mood because Cliff has proposed to a girl who, by what I make out, has money of her own and a certain amount of position. He says, ‘Cliff wants nothing with a girl above him in position. She will look down on us.’ I said, ‘That won’t matter, as long as she doesn’t look down on Cliff.’ Then I had to listen to a lot of half-baked grumbling and nattering till I felt I could have screamed, ‘Ah, hold your tongue – do.’ I said, ‘If you begin to talk of what your parents said, by Gad I’ll tell you a few mine said. Any “inferiority” you speak of between us was in your mind. I’d no better education than you had. Any learning came from reading or listening to people talk and if it came to that my “fine lady” ways of which you complain has kept your house and home on little money, has put up with your moods, plus your family’s interference and intolerance, till I woke up to the fact I had no need to take notice of them. And mark you this – I’ve wakened to a full realisation of you too.’ I shook with rage. I felt one of my rare storms of temper surge over me. I bit my lip hard to stem the spate of words I longed to utter, and went and ran cold water over my hands and wrists till they ached and burned with pain from the chill.

  Saturday, 10 November. Lunch was quite tasty, but I am so tired of casseroles and stews. I long sometimes for a grilled steak or chop, a slice of prime roasted meat, rabbit or chicken pie. I feel tired of dodged-up† meals. I have to plan and scheme to get fresh flavours and always to make a tempting meal from scraps, seeing no prospects of anything different for a long time. Underneath my grouse, though, is a very thankful feeling that we have rations, when I look at the queues lined up for other short supplies.

  Saturday, 17 November. My mind went back to a year ago – although by the calendar it’s not till a year ago tomorrow – since I had the cable to say Cliff was dangerously wounded. Somehow I feel as if nothing will ever hurt me again, and that I could face anything that came. I plumbed the depths of my faith and endurance, taking each day as it came – and now he is off again.

  Sunday, 18 November. We went to Spark Bridge. It was such a lovely bright day, like we get at the end of December when we have ‘crossed the line’. Aunt Sarah was baking bread and they had chops done in the oven for a treat. The stock pot bubbled and, adding to the smell of baking bread and wood smoke, made a smell of home and comfort. They are as bright and cheerful as can be, happy in all their little blessings as if they had money and every of their hearts’ best wishes – maybe happier! It grew dark rapidly and we came home, giving a lift to a very odd couple. He was a very young RAF officer; she was a pretty, very silent girl of perhaps eighteen–nineteen. They were walking along with heavy suitcases and I know they had a very long way before they could catch a bus to take them to Ulverston station. They didn’t speak one word to each other, and he had a very pettish manner when he spoke of ‘hanging round Ulverston till the six o’clock train’. I suggested spending an hour in an ice-cream café over a cup of tea and said, ‘Perhaps they will have fires in the waiting room.’ He gave me a look as if I’d suggested he pass the time singing in the streets. A more haughty spoilt infant I’ve not seen for a while, in spite of his RAF uniform. I tried to talk pleasantly to the girl but she was either very shy or afraid of him.

  My husband said when they had got out, ‘Perhaps a honeymoon couple.’ I said, ‘I hope it’s only an unofficial one. That girl looked too nice to make a mistake and be punished all the rest of her life. She could live down a stolen weekend.’ I could often giggle wildly when I see the effect of a lawless remark of mine on my husband. Poor lamb. He is really unique. His mind clings to the catechism and prayer book in general. He thinks marriage means utter possession of body and soul, thoughts and interest, of a wife by a husband. That I should say such things of a lord of creation shocked him to his soul case.† He would get a bigger shock if he realised my whole impression of men in general sometimes!

  Wednesday, 21 November. I feel utterly bewildered by a letter from Cliff. He is not going to Palestine after all and it looks as if he will not sign for another twelve months, merely to stay in the Army, and not go off with this crowd he likes so much. I can tell he felt very unsettled, wishing his father’s business had been anyth
ing else, or had been something he could have organised. After Mrs Howson went, I felt I remembered so clearly the chaos and heartbreak after 1918 of the demobbed officers and the ways of the untrained who had had three or four of the most important years of their lives in the Army or Navy. We lived in a street running from the centre of the town. The Town Hall seemed a starting place, and our street got every canvasser and hawker. I’d had a major operation and was very slow to recover and was rarely out in the day. The anxious, desperate young faces at my door worried me to distraction, the newspaper canvassers especially as I saw their jaunty smartness rapidly go shabby, their shoes broken under the polish, their linen frayed. I used to change my paper and place orders for John Bull, etc., offer cups of hot tea I had just made, and which were never refused, nor soup on cold days. Tired faces, old-young, dispirited ones seemed to flicker before my mind’s eyes.

  I heard my husband say suddenly, ‘Whatever is to do, Dearie?’ and realised my face was wet with tears running down and dripping on my little cat’s black fur. I tried to tell him. I felt myself shake with deep sobs that choked me as I could only say, ‘It’s the waste of it all and the folly and the shame.’ I so rarely cry that when I do I make up for it. I thought of broken lives, and homes, of bright lives cut short, the courage and endeavour which had gone for war and kept back a lot of the meanness of human frailty like a dam. I felt I wept for the children who would never be born, and for some who had been, as the face of a child I saw in town rose before me, pallid and blind, who had been born to a really charming girl after her husband had been in the East for two years and who had ‘neglected an illness’, as his innocent mother put it.