by Ruby Jackson
‘C’mon, Mum,’ Phil decided to wade in on his little sister’s side. ‘Seems to me our poor Rose ha’n’t seen much of the lad herself. He weren’t over here on holiday. The Yanks practised all their manoeuvres constantly. That’s why the invasion worked and I’m just glad Mr GI’s still alive to marry my beautiful sister. His family in favour, Rose?’
Rose nodded. ‘I’ve met his dad; in fact, I drove him,’ she added, ‘but without knowing who he was, Mum, and he didn’t know me either.’
Flora walked over to the sofa where Phil and Rose were sitting and hugged her daughter. ‘I’m sorry, Rose love. ’Course we want to hear all about the lad…and his dad. He in the army too?’
Rose looked around the spotlessly clean ‘front room’ where, since she was old enough to notice, everything important or special had been discussed and dissected. She realised that never in her wildest imaginings could she have envisaged saying the words that she was about to utter. ‘No, Mum, he’s a politician.’
Silence, broken eventually by George. ‘Like on the council?’
‘Like in Parliament, George.’
‘Well I never,’ put in Fred, ‘and you’ve met him?’
‘Without knowing who he was, but he telephones me, and when he comes back we’re going to have lunch together.’
For a moment everyone, even the quiet Grace, was talking, but no one mentioned a ring. Rose, who had been willing to show it off, decided that dropping a United States senator into the room was enough for one evening. ‘Could I hear about Daisy, Grace and Phil now?’
‘Nothing much to say; we still plan to marry when the war is over, Rose,’ said Sam. ‘But when we do marry, Eva here is going to sing at the service, if she’s not too busy singing in posh opera houses.’
‘I will never be too busy to sing for Grace, who has done much kindness for me, and also for Daisy when end hostel…what is word?’
‘Hostilities,’ said Phil.
Eva turned to Grace and Sam. ‘You will tell Miss Rose.’
‘Tell me what, Grace?’
‘Nothing much. You know your parents helped me find out about my family. There’s no one left, I’m afraid, but we did find out about my mother and her parents. Long and short, there was over five hundred pounds accumulating in a bank account for me, and you remember the beautiful watch?’
Rose nodded.
‘Well, I plan to keep the watch as it’s an actual connection with my mother and my grandmother. I’m sure they wore it, but Sam and I want Eva to have the money for her studies – Sam says he’s able to take care of his wife and I wanted to help someone, just like the Petries have always helped me.’
‘They are too much kind,’ said Eva, who was almost in tears, ‘but I will repay, I hope, a little with music.’
‘Lots of family weddings when the war’s over,’ said young George. ‘Daisy and Tomas, Sam and Grace, Rose and her Yank. I’ll be your manager, Eva, and take the bookings. Rose has an Italian friend getting married and you sing Italian things, and what about Sally? She’s bound to get married soon. In love with a sailor, Eva, and I bet you know songs about the sea, or maybe he’s an actor. Anyway, she’s going to be in pictures, she’ll meet all sorts – and we’ll get you jobs, just see if we don’t.’
‘I’m sure Eva is delighted with your offer, George, but right now the rest of the family is hoping to hear her sing – if you’re not too tired, Eva pet,’ said Fred.
Eva sang in English; as her pure voice rang through the flat, Rose wondered that her sung English was so much more correct than her spoken English.
‘Her singing teacher corrects her pronunciation,’ Grace explained, ‘but no one, except Lady Alice, corrects her spoken English, but honestly she is so much better than when we first met.’
‘She’s like a bird trilling away in the summer,’ said George, showing an unsuspected romanticism.
Rose too was moved. ‘I’ve only heard a sound like that at the pictures: just beautiful. You must be very proud.’
‘I’m proud of Sam,’ said Grace, ‘and now we’d best get off to bed.’
Two days later, Rose was back at her London base. In her luggage was a carton of her mother’s ‘best tea’ and a dozen scones. By eleven thirty on the third day, it was almost possible to wonder if she had ever been away. Had nothing changed, or was the atmosphere in London a little lighter than it had been a few short months ago?
I think I’m feeling what I want to feel.
The war was, most definitely, not over. The dignitaries she drove were the ones she had been driving for months. One day she was surprised and delighted to find Dr Fischer in the back seat of the new Wolseley. If only she had met him before her short visit home. For once, he was alone.
‘Miss Daisy is married, yes, Miss Rose?’
Rose kept her eyes on the road. ‘Not yet, Dr Fischer. They will wait until the war is over.’
He sighed. ‘Sometimes it is better to seize happiness when it is within our grasp.’ His voice changed. ‘And you, Corporal Petrie, you have found a nice young man?’
Rose wondered if he could possibly know. In her mirror she could see a tiny smile move his lips and his eyes…yes, his eyes were tender. ‘I have, Dr Fischer, an American soldier.’
‘A new country, a new life. I too may go – for a while.’
Rose drew up outside the nondescript office building.
‘Perhaps we will meet in Washington. My very good wishes to your family.’
No time to ask when he might be leaving, if indeed he would go. Rose thought of her twin sister, Daisy: little Daisy who flew Spitfires and other planes. Daisy loved the old German; there was no other word for her feelings, and Rose knew that Dr Fischer loved Daisy too, like the daughter he had never had. Or had there been a little German Daisy?
Would she ever know? Secrecy was now such a part of everyone that no one chatted naturally these days. She thought of the hours she and her sister and their friends had chattered about film stars and dances and clothes. Now, impossible to think about anything other than Brad, Tomas, Daisy, Sam, Grace, Sally, and all the others, still doing their bit in their selected fields.
‘Don’t be gloomy, Rose,’ she talked to herself as she drove to her next parcel pick-up. ‘When you get back to base, write and tell Daisy all about Dr Fischer.’
She was on the point of finishing the letter that evening when the door flew open and a voice yelled, ‘Petrie, phone call, and God, do you owe me; it’s like Siberia out here.’
Brad, it had to be Brad.
Rose grabbed a coat from a peg, threw it over her head and ran out into the rain, unaware of who had called to her but throwing out a ‘thank you’ to be picked up by the wind and blown away.
Fit enough not to be breathless when she reached the empty telephone box, Rose pushed her mane of wind-blown hair into some semblance of order and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello, Rose Petrie here.’
Her stomach dived downwards as a pleasant American voice said, ‘Rose, honey, it’s me, Anderson, Brad’s dad.’
She had known that the call could not possibly be from Brad. How often had she told herself calmly that it would be months before Brad returned? ‘Mr Hastings…I mean Senator.’
‘Anderson’s fine, honey. I just got back and wanted to call you right away. Have you heard from Brad?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Anderson, even Andy. He’s written and his mom managed to get a call through to his base. Almost two whole minutes, but better than nothing. He’s well, but won’t be back in Merrie Olde England for a while…’ There was silence on the line for a heartbeat or two and then he spoke again. ‘Maybe not till next year, honey; transportation’s needed for more important things than R ’n’ R.’
‘R ’n’ R?’
‘Don’t you use that terminology? Rest and recreation. The Government won’t send fit men home on leave while ships are needed to transfer the wounded or to transport units or heavy equipment to other theatres.’
&n
bsp; ‘I understand.’ What other theatres?, Rose wondered, but she would think of that later.
‘I guess you’re still delivering packages, Rose.’
‘Yes sir.’ She forgot to try to say Andy.
‘But maybe some evening you would have dinner with me?’
‘Yes, I’d love to.’
‘I’m at the Dorchester, very new for London, but the restaurant isn’t on Brad’s list of “Don’t dare, Dad”.’
They laughed together and, after assuring him that she would be happy to meet him on the Wednesday of the following week, Rose said good night. She returned to her Nissen hut, her whole body alive with joy.
‘Sorry,’ she said as she hung up the very wet and much-too-small coat she had borrowed.
‘No problem, Rose, yours covered me right down to my toes.’ One of the other girls pointed to a wall peg, where Rose’s coat hung dripping onto a day-old newspaper.
‘Nice call?’
‘Yes, a friend’s father,’ said Rose, trying to save her letter to Daisy from getting wet as she hauled off her damp clothes.
But at last the lights were out and conversation ceased and there was no sound but the sagging of bed springs and the occasional rattle as a burning log moved in the great stove.
He was well. He had written to her. She did not wonder where the senator would take her. He was Brad’s father and she would enjoy getting to know him.
‘Had we met here a few months ago, General Eisenhower might have been at the next table. He lived here, did a heap of planning. Place was crawling with Government officials and Service chiefs; it’s a little calmer tonight.’
‘It’s quite lovely,’ Rose said as the wine waiter poured white wine.
‘Chef does wonders with rationing – but we don’t want to talk about war; we want to talk about Brad.’
Rose smiled and he took that as agreement and over the very good meal he showed Rose pictures of Brad at all stages of his development. ‘Mom and I thought you might like to have a couple – of his graduation, perhaps: doesn’t he look real solemn?’
Very late that night, although she was well aware of the time of her first delivery next day, Rose sat pasting the black-and-white photographs into a notebook. Only a small candle gave her any light. Unfair, she had decided, to disturb the sleep of her colleagues by turning on a light.
The photographs certainly helped her remain positive over the next few months, but so too did the two long letters and three postcards that arrived a week after her dinner with Brad’s father. Someone had kindly clipped them together, and so she read from the top, aware that they might not bring her up to date.
My darling Rose,
I wish I had learned how to train a homing pigeon. We have them here, you know, and those little birds are amazing. They fly through everything to deliver their mail and then fly right back to do it again. I guess you know I’m feeling sorry for myself, not getting answers from you, but I do get mail, honey, and every one of the letters you’ve sent me is right here inside my shirt. Paper’s no substitute for my beautiful English Rose, but you’re with me always, in these pages and in my heart. I never knew that being miles away from the person you love most in the whole world hurt physically, but boy, it sure does. There’s an ache inside that just stays there, stuck, like when you’re a kid and you eat something way too quickly because you’re greedy and want some more – part of it sticks and just won’t go down.
But honest, you don’t have to worry about my table manners.
This has all got to end soon, darling Rose; it must and then we can plan our wedding and our life; not our lives but our life. Mr and Mrs, the Bradleys from Dartford, Kent, England, and Cos Cob, Connecticut, United States of America. Do you picture us, Rose, with three little girls who look just like you – I guess I’ll spoil them – and one or two little boys; maybe they’ll be cute little blonds too? My mom will tell everyone at the club that she’s died and gone to heaven, so happy will she be. I’ll give you all five names in my next letter – you can choose names too and we’ll discuss like a real partnership should.
I’m holding this paper against my heart. How I wish I was holding you.
All my love,
Brad.
The cards said, ‘Love you’, ‘Still love you’, and ‘Hey, maybe our girls will be triplets’, which made her both laugh and weep, and the second letter spoke about a baseball game his platoon had taken part in and she shuddered, wondering if he was really talking about a battle.
She had no idea where he was and so, now completely and painfully aware of how her mother had suffered when all three of her sons had been out of touch, she wrote, firstly to her own mother and then to Brad’s mother, introducing herself and sharing the little he had said – about baseball games.
Rose did not go home for Christmas. Like many others, she was on duty. The war had not ended with that brave push into Europe; if anything it had escalated, especially in the once-mysterious East. Wireless broadcasts and newspapers told of unbelievable horrors in the Philippines, in Burma, India and, slightly closer to home, East European counties like Poland. Rose thought of Grace’s friend, Eva, and wondered too if Tomas, her twin sister’s fiancé, had ever discovered the fate of his family in Czechoslovakia. The war would end but the suffering would go on.
An enormous, beautifully wrapped parcel arrived from New York, a gift from Brad’s parents. With the wireless pouring out Christmas music and a special tribute to the missing American band leader, Glen Miller, and her colleagues looking on, Rose opened it and found tinned foodstuffs and, joy of joy, perfumed soap and shampoo. There was also a very elegant but very warm dressing gown, six pairs of nylon stockings and a lovely pair of fur-lined driving gloves.
‘Wow, lucky you, how the other half lives,’ wisecracked a fairly new recruit to this close ATS group.
‘I take it you disapprove and won’t want to share,’ said Rose, as she arranged the tins on her bed. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea what some of these are,’ she said as she picked up a tin, ‘but we can have fun finding out.’
‘Send it home, Rose.’ The orders came from all corners of the room.
‘No, girls. I’m sharing the stockings with my family, and maybe that tin of ham, but we’ll have a party to welcome the New Year, the end-of-the-war year.’
There were cheers at that, and Rose looked at her gifts and saw that there was enough soap for everyone. ‘Perfumed soap for the first bath of the New Year. Wonderful.’
Later she wrote to Brad’s mother and thanked her, not just for the gifts but for the lovely welcoming letter that had accompanied them. She finished by saying how much she looked forward to meeting them.
But reports of torpedoed refugee ships, the emerging reality of the existence of concentration camps, food riots, as in some areas neither the vanquished nor the vanquishers could find enough food, and ongoing fighting filled the newspapers, day after day, week after week, month after month.
Among the occasional letters a card arrived from Brad saying, ‘Guess where I am? Perfect place for a honeymoon?’ Since there was a picture of the Moulin Rouge on the front, she assumed that somehow he and his platoon were in Paris.
The sixth year of the war came in with cold weather and optimism. Letters from family and friends seemed to echo the growing awareness that not even bad times last forever. Wedding fever gripped the Petries and their friends. Brad’s parents announced their imminent arrival. Did that mean they knew something that Rose did not? Brad’s letters were more frequent, as if whatever homing pigeon or mail service he was using was as excited and ready for the future as the brave young people whose letters they carried.
Dr Fischer never appeared, although she looked for him. Sometimes she found herself thinking of him and their conversation the last time they had met. Was he correct? Was it better to grab happiness when it was within one’s reach instead of waiting until everything was absolutely perfect? Better to face facts.
‘Grab it, Rose.’ T
he voice was so clear she could swear he was in the room. Stan. But Stan, her oldest friend, was dead. She looked around; she was quite alone.
‘Didn’t I tell you the real man for you was out there?’ The voice was quiet but clear. ‘Be happy, Rose.’
There was silence. Rose was slightly shaken but, being practical, decided that she, Rose, had conjured up her old friend. She was tired; she was hallucinating.
‘Petrie, get your own damned phone.’ This voice was very real and belonged to her sergeant.
‘Yes, Sarge, thank you,’ she answered automatically as she grabbed her coat and ran to the telephone box.
‘This is Rose.’
‘And this is Brad. Darling, they’re giving me a furlough – five days at the beginning of April. Will you marry me then? Somehow I’ll get to Dartford, and you know my mom will swim the Atlantic if that’s the only way she can get across. I know it’s not—’
‘I will.’
‘…exactly what…Rose, did I hear you? Did you say…?’
‘Yes, Captain Bradley Hastings, I will.’
She heard him yell, ‘Yippee,’ and was sure half the camp heard it. She picked up the receiver again but he was gone.
No matter. Sometimes there really is no need for words.
Acknowledgements
Lizzie Surguy of the Goring Hotel was massively helpful as I tried to paint an accurate picture of this beautiful hotel during WWII. Thank you, Lizzy. The website for the Ritz Hotel was very informative.
My personal knowledge of motorcycles was gained during one summer of hanging on to a delightful American marine as we roared around Virginia. WWII websites, as always, filled in the many blanks.
Many thanks are owed to my old friend Tom Wilson from California who constantly found me “impossible” to find articles and news footage of US activities in WWII, thus making it possible for me to actually see the men and machines about which I was writing. One or two of the Americans in this book owe a great deal to the many American military families for whom I babysat in my college years. Their generosity is the stuff of legend. After graduation, I spent three months touring the US on Greyhound buses and visiting families I had met while in college. Only when I started writing this book did I realise how much I had learned from those terrific people. You know who you are.
