Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  7 May

  The war is over. I wept. Grace, who has cried enough tears over the last few months to fill an ocean did not. She looked at me, as I stood transfixed in front of the wireless, tears streaming down my cheeks, and asked why I was crying. I felt so angry with her, and said sarcastically that I couldn’t think why but I wondered, I just wondered, if perhaps it might be because a war that had turned my life upside down and caused the death of a sister and two brothers, probably three, and the imprisonment of a lover, might possibly, just possibly be the reason for my distress, a natural reaction to news that was joyful but loaded with memories of deaths. She stared at me, astonished. My outburst over, I said we must start making plans. Plans? said Grace, alarmed. I repeated plans, very firmly. I said I would let the twins finish their last term with Miss Haddow and then, at the end of July, I would return to London with them and settle in before the school year began again. So, Grace, I said, you have a choice. You can come with us, or you can stay here, you can have this cottage, the rent isn’t much and you can afford it, I’m sure. There was silence, but then there often is when I suggest things that have never occurred to her. I don’t, of course, know anything about Grace’s financial situation but I do know what Mother left her and I don’t think she can have spent it all, and she inherited as many shares as the rest of us did. Then there is the flat she lived in, but whether she bought or rented it I can’t remember. Tilda would know. Oh, I miss Tilda so very much. It is when she won’t discuss practical issues that Grace exasperates me most. She will have to apply herself to these matters, I can’t make these decisions for her. I wonder if she even knows how much she has in the bank. I’ve never asked her for a penny and she’s never offered one, seeming to imagine food costs nothing and is hers by right. Not that I begrudge her it, I can afford it, but it is the assumption that I can and will that offends me. This war has made me a selfish person, counting the cost of everything all the time.

  8 May

  There was a party in the village today. I had no inclination to go, but the twins were desperate to join in the fun and so I went and really it was more enjoyable than I could have imagined. All very makeshift and humble, with tables the length of the street, all higgledy-piggledy, and flags strewn from house to house, and an impromptu band consisting of nothing more than an accordion, a drum and some cymbals but what a noise. Everyone contributed food for the children (and by the look of the icing on the buns and cakes a lot of sugar had been mysteriously hoarded) and there was lemonade and big urns of tea, and someone had donated Christmas crackers and hats. Only the weather let us down, a bit grey and drizzly, though it brightened up later. Grace and Claudia came too, which surprised me, and I hadn’t tried to push them. Claudia even ate a bun, attracted, no doubt, by the violent pink of its icing. Miss Haddow was there, and asked if I would be going back to London soon, and I said yes, in July. It is odd and a bit sad that with the exception of Miss Haddow there is no one in this village with whom I have made even a tentative friendship. I had more friends the short time I was in the WAAF. Well, what I mean is I chatted to more people and got to know them. I feel as if I’ve been living down a mine here.

  9 May

  Perhaps predictably I felt utterly depressed today. So much to see to and a lack of energy to act. I really need to go to London and look at my house before returning, but it can’t be managed. I can’t leave the twins or Grace, and taking them with me would be too exhausting and defeat the purpose. But it is not just feeling daunted by thoughts of the move, it’s more the realisation that the war in Europe may be over but the war in the Far East isn’t, and Robert is still there. No scrap of communication from him for so long now except for that official postcard with its hideous Imperial Japanese Army stamp. I’ve repressed all anxiety for ages because of struggling to keep my head over Grace: I knew I couldn’t afford to think about why I hadn’t heard from Robert. It needn’t be significant, this lack of any news. I know it was a miracle anything ever reached here from that camp, and things will be much worse now. But I am full of forebodings, which I try to tell myself are merely the result of weariness and the draining effect of having Grace and Claudia round my neck. It’s become so impossible to believe myself in love any more, never mind what I told Daphne, and yet I so desperately want to be. I strain and strain to remember how it was before the war. It is like looking at a photograph which is proof in a way of happiness having existed but it is flat and has no life and has to be taken on trust. Oh, that is badly put. I mean, I can’t project what I know to have existed in the past into the future. Not much better put, but nearer. All faith has gone. And I’ve changed, as he will have done, especially as he will have done.

  1 June

  How old and worn I look. Today was a beautiful sunny day and I felt more optimistic and cheerful than I have done recently, and thought I would get out of these dreary clothes I’ve been living in for months and make an effort. So I dug out what used to be my favourite blue dress, or rather Robert’s favourite, and I put it on, after I’d had a bath and washed my hair, and I looked awful. My neck has gone scrawny. There’s no denying it, the mirror tells all. My neck is scrawny and I won’t be able to wear a dress with a deep v-neckline like the blue one, and my complexion pasty and I’ve lost so much weight I look like a stick. My hair used to be my crowning glory indeed, but it has grown long and become dull and lost its spring and hangs lank and hideous and I want to shave it all off, which I would, but I’d look even worse bald. I got back into my old WAAF skirt and pulled on a jumper and decided not to look in any more mirrors.

  18 June

  Big surprise. Today, the subject not having been mentioned again, Grace informed me that she and Claudia would like to stay in this cottage. I could have cheered, but instead asked if she was sure, wouldn’t she be lonely, would she be able to manage, was she well enough, and so on. She said she felt safe here, and the village people were kind, and she liked Dr Grant, and most of all she didn’t want to uproot Claudia again, not so soon. She has money in the bank, I was right about that, she’s going to buy a sewing machine if she can find one and start sewing. This is all such good news, but I felt I had to conceal my relief that she would not be coming to London, or not yet. I am not sure how fit or strong she really is. She looks better, no longer cries, or at least doesn’t have crying fits, but she is still nowhere near being the Grace of before the war. I will have to get Dr Grant to promise to alert me if anything goes wrong after I’ve returned to London. I can’t think, though, that this village is the place for a fully recovered Grace any more than it is for me.

  15 July

  The twins’ last week at school. We’ve begun packing. It helps to have Grace and Claudia staying on because we can leave some things and collect them later. I’m leaving the car too. Well, it was Tilda’s and Charles’s car, and, once Grace learns how to drive, she can use it. We will go to London by train and I will buy a car, but not immediately. Better to wait for Robert and let him choose, and meanwhile I can drive his old thing if it is still there and working. So many things to check up on. I wonder about work, about whether I could go back to my old job part-time, but I’ll have to have the twins settled first. They are wildly excited, too excited, but then so am I. England will be full of people returning home and expecting so much, but at least I know what has happened to London, what it looks like, how hard it will be to adapt to all the devastation. Daphne is there already, she was in Piccadilly on VE night having a riotous time and now she’s almost sorry the war is over and her fun at an end. No two experiences could be more different than hers and mine.

  19 July

  Twins’ last day at school. Many tears saying goodbye to Miss Haddow. She had a present for them both, a book each, and she made them promise to write and said all the children they know will write back together. Claudia starts in the first standard in September which will keep the connection going. It was a surprise when Grace said she was going to be 5 in October. She doesn’t look 5, or
even 4. Thank God she’s begun talking at last, not much but enough to prove she isn’t a mute. Rather late in the day, Connie is becoming quite fond of her. She reads to her and Claudia listens very carefully and seems to enjoy the stories.

  20 July

  Last day in Blockley. Couldn’t sleep last night, not so much with thinking about going to London as because I was remembering coming here and going over the bleak years since, only just over two but they feel like a century, they feel as if they will dominate my whole life. What I most want is to forget them and yet nothing could be less likely. We had a picnic, went to where the children can splash about in the brook and spent most of the day there, Grace and I lolling on the grass watching them. It was idyllic, the sky blue, the sun hot, the breeze just faint enough to keep us cool in spite of it. Grace looked pretty for the first time since she came here, her hair catching the sun and bringing out all the gold in it. She had a dress on, a floral dress which she’d sewed by hand herself, made out of a length of curtain material she got at the jumble sale, and I saw she’d filled out a little, that her arms and legs are not so sticklike. But I also saw something else. The dress has cap sleeves and just under the cap bit on her left arm there are some scars, quite deep-looking ugly holes, like burns, but hollow, little pitted craters where the skin looks rough. I thought about asking what they were, it would have been natural to, but something held me back. She seemed so content, lying stretched out beside me, her arms behind her head, her eyes half closed, watching Claudia as she let the twins take her, each holding a hand, into the water where it is shallow. She kept giving little murmurs of contentment and pleasure, said what a perfect spot it was, and commenting on how peaceful and lovely everything seemed. It was true, the scene was delightful, the children playing, the river glittering, the scent from honeysuckle in the hedge behind us intoxicating, a few swifts swooping over our head, and yet I couldn’t enjoy it as much as Grace did, I couldn’t block out the wider world and what had gone on there, what is still going on. I feel everything is spoiled for ever, which is a very pessimistic outlook and I try to overcome it. Grace asked me if I ever thought of Mother, and I said of course I did, and of Father and Tilda and Alfred and Albert, and Michael. I just think of Mother, Grace said, and her voice was so choked I looked over at her and saw the tears and was afraid of them, but they were contained quickly, and she just said, I miss her but in a way I’m glad she died before the war, think of how she would have suffered. I took her hand and squeezed it. Grace is not even 30 yet, Mother’s baby. A curlew began crying, far away, so mournful, so beautiful, and then the children ran up the bank, laughing and shrieking and demanding food, and even Claudia joined in the merriment. For a moment, I wondered why I was leaving this and going to dirty, bomb-damaged, tired old London.

  21 July

  Mr Waring took us to the station. We made our farewells to Grace and Claudia at the cottage, both Grace and I thinking it would be too emotional having to wave goodbye at the station and the train might frighten Claudia. Of course we made much of this not being goodbye but merely au revoir – the twins like saying that – and made plans to meet in a few weeks’ time before the schools start. Then we were off, laden with cases, though I’d tried so hard to keep everything to a minimum but, with Mr Waring to help us onto the train at this end and Daphne promising to meet us at the other, we managed. The journey felt quite short, but that was because I was comparing it with wartime travelling. The twins loved it, especially Toby, sitting bolt upright and fascinated by everything they could see out of the windows, but as we approached London they began to look anxious. It was not that we passed any terrible sights, but that everything looked so grey and grim with those dreary rows of houses backing onto the railway line, and in the background vistas of roofs and chimneys and that numbing sense of anonymity. They are used to green fields and pretty individual cottages and space and knowing exactly where they are and where everything belongs. Paddington scared them. The excitement vanished and was replaced by apprehension, clearly visible in their little faces, and I had to keep reassuring them that soon we would be out of all this noise. Thank God Daphne was there, she’d kept her word, even though she is off to Paris with her GI tomorrow, and they brightened as they saw her running down the platform, arms wide open, ready for a big hug. The real test, though, was arriving home, my home so meaningful to me but not to them. They walked through the door very hesitantly, then peered into the rooms nervously, and seemed reluctant to go upstairs whereas I was rushing around thrilled to recognise my furniture and belongings. When they hadn’t come down after a good while, I went up to them and found them sitting hand-in-hand at the top of the stairs, pale-faced and on the edge of tears. We don’t know where to go, Connie said. I laughed and said they could each choose a room, there were three bedrooms and they’d know which one was mine because it had a bigger bed than the others. What I hadn’t taken into consideration was that because the cottage had been so small my house now seemed vast and they were intimidated by it and felt lost. I took them round the bedrooms and they asked to be together and we moved a bed into the back top room where they could see the garden and in the distance, over the rooftops, the trees of the park. It was for them, though, a disappointing arrival. They are asleep now, and tomorrow I can start winning them over, I hope.

  2 August

  So much to do, even if so much already done. At least keeping the twins busy has stopped them feeling displaced, or I think it has. They’ve picked up the charge London gives and responded to it and enjoy best being out and about, eager to see what they’ve never seen before. They love the buses, of course, especially riding on the top and, though frightened of the Underground at first, now it thrills them to be rushing under all the traffic. I reminded them that they were Londoners and had been in the Underground before. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to remind them of a previous life and so, I suppose, make them remember how it ended. Should I take them to see where they once lived? It is not as though Tilda and Charles and their sister and brother died there, and the house, from the outside anyway, will be exactly the same. It hasn’t even been sold yet, though it’s been on the market long enough. Suddenly it occurs to me that we could go and live there if I wanted to. I own the house, or rather I do until the twins are 21, I think. I must go and discuss this with the solicitor when I can find the time, but only to get things straight, not that I really want to live there. I much prefer my house. But it’s true that when Robert returns the Edis Street house would be better because it is a little bigger than mine. I give thanks daily that I have no money worries and that I have my own house.

  7 August

  A bomb has been dropped somewhere on Japan, an enormously powerful atomic bomb which has wiped out a city and its population. This is being justified on the grounds of forcing Japan to surrender. Well, I want them to surrender and the war to be over and Robert to come home, but I don’t want a city annihilated. I wonder how the city was chosen for this awful fate?

  9 August

  Another atomic bomb dropped on Japan today. Was there really no other way? I wish I had someone to discuss it with, I wish Daphne was back, but I haven’t talked to another adult since we left Blockley, not properly. Toby asked if the animals would have been killed too, even the puppies and kittens, and I said yes, I imagined so. He’d heard the wireless giving the details and was fascinated, wanting to know all kinds of things I couldn’t answer. Who can I ask? Maybe The Times will have the answers. I must buy The Times and read it carefully and equip myself to educate Toby and in the process educate myself.

  14 August

  Japan has surrendered. No victory parties here, none of the euphoria of VE Day. I feel strange, excited but slightly sick, with I don’t know what, some feeling of apprehension. I wonder how long it will take for the prisoners to be brought home. I know there are thousands of them, and most of them probably in a pitiful state physically. What will the authorities do, try to improve their condition first before th
e long voyage back or get them here as soon as possible? Will they be given the means to contact relatives immediately, to say they have survived? I could contact the Red Cross, or Robert’s regimental HQ, I suppose.

  *

  This is what Millicent does, and is informed that not all the camps have had their PoWs listed thoroughly and there is a great deal of confusion as yet. She is told to call back in three days, by which time the names of all survivors should be available. But Robert’s name is not on any list for Changi Prison. She is told not to give up hope, because he would probably have been moved between camps and, until all the camp lists are available, nothing was certain. It is also reassuring that his name is not on any list of the known dead either. So she waits, her days occupied with the twins, and still, after three more weeks, there is no news of Robert. By then, a complete list of survivors has been collated and hope is fading. His regiment is sympathetic and says that when the remnants of it have returned home, information will be sought and Robert’s fate discovered. One day, in the middle of the twins’ second week at their new school, when Millicent returns at 9.30 a.m. from taking them there, there is a man standing on her doorstep.

  10 September 1945

  HARD, AS IT always is when something dreadful has happened, to know where to start, or whether to start at all. What’s the point? This could be the last time I ever write my diary: it has gone on long enough cataloguing my very humdrum existence and is not the comfort it once was. But I have thought that before and held on for some odd reason and it has helped somehow, so for the time being I am turning to these pages, if just from force of habit.