by Betty Burton
‘I love your new coat, Leonora,’ Nicholas said.
‘You don’t think it’s too bright with my red hair?’
‘Of course not, my darling, red hair looks best with red, especially with a black fur hat.’
Little-Lena ran the palms of her hands lightly down the bodice of her dress, lingering on the tips that felt like pocket buttons in the cold. Definitely. Hers were growing. The last time the school doctor had examined her, he had looked closely at her chest, screwing up his eyes and showing his long teeth. ‘Has she started yet?’
Mother had blushed and shook her head and whispered, ‘Good Lord no. She’s only ten!’
‘Well it won’t be long. You should prepare her for it.’ Little-Lena had not understood what she was to be prepared for, but from her mother’s embarrassment Little-Lena knew that it wasn’t something she could ask Mother about – like asking why Roy had those little soft egg things. Those were still a mystery, even though Myrna said they were for holding the wee till it could find somewhere to go. Which didn’t sound right, or why didn’t girls have them?
She thought that what she had to be prepared for was for her chest to blow up so that she would have to wear a brassière.
‘A Kestos, madam? Or a Maidenform?’
‘A large Maidenform with lace.’
‘What style would madam prefer?’
Once she was prepared, she wanted her chest to blow up as big as Mrs Kennedy’s, and she would wear a brassière made of lace like the woman who lived next door to Grandma Gertie and who used to come out with her top undone and lean over the balcony. A man had put a paper flower down her front and the other women had laughed. Men liked women’s chests.
Little-Lena had made up her mind ages ago that once she was prepared for It she was going to insist on being called by her proper name – Leonora.
Nicholas and Mrs Kennedy disappeared into the gloom. She didn’t really like him going out with Mrs Kennedy because she couldn’t see what was going on. But she supposed he had to go out with someone whilst he was waiting for Leonora. And she wanted Mrs Kennedy to be happy. She wondered whether it was allowed in England to share the same husband: they did in some places; Myra Turner had read her mum’s library book about Salt Lake City in America. Two husbands had shared Grandma Gertie, but that had been one at a time. There didn’t seem to be any reason why it shouldn’t be both together if Nicholas could afford it. She wondered why nobody had thought of doing it. It would be wonderful to be kissed goodnight by Nicholas and Mrs Kennedy.
Her hands were icy and her knees numb with cold. Now she would put on her new fluffy slippers and go back downstairs and sit in front of the fire and eat a slice of Christmas cake.
* * *
‘Doesn’t Markham look strange, Nick? Like some ghost-town in a cowboy picture.’
‘I love you, Georgia Honeycombe.’
Having made it clear that her invitation meant nothing except that they would both be alone on Christmas Day, Georgia had cooked a Christmas dinner and now they were walking it off. They had reached Greenaway’s when he suddenly drew her into the doorway of the shop and kissed her long and open-mouthed. ‘And you love me, Georgia Honeycombe. You haven’t ever stopped.’
For a moment, she allowed herself to be held close against his hard body, then she pulled away and resumed walking. ‘Don’t be silly, Nick, people will see us.’
‘Let them! Anyway, you said it’s a ghost-town.’ He put his arm about her waist, but she pushed it down.
‘Behave!’
‘Just admit that you love me, Georgia Honeycombe, and I’ll behave.’
As they passed the new air-raid warden and firemen’s depot, they heard what sounded like a rowdy party going on. Hoping to take some of the heat out of their conversation, Georgia said, ‘Let’s hope Hitler doesn’t choose tonight to bomb Markham.’
‘Just in case he does, you’d better tell me you love me.’
‘Oh Nick! I’m married. Hugh’s been sent to some secret place – who knows what danger he’s in.’
‘But it’s me who loves you, Georgia Honeycombe.’
It was dark now, and his voice seemed to echo along the deserted street. ‘Nick! Stop acting the fool.’
From nowhere, as it seemed, a man was walking his dog in the dark, shining a small circle of torchlight along the edge of the pavement. ‘Good evening. Happy Christmas.’
‘Oh… yes… Happy Christmas to you too… thanks,’ Georgia said. And the man disappeared into the darkness.
‘There you are, Nick, see! You never know who’s going to hear you these days, in the black-out.’
‘But you know that nobody’s going to see you.’ Again, he stopped in a shop doorway and he kissed her until she couldn’t help but respond.
‘Oh Georgia, make a clean break. Tell your old man you made a mistake. People make mistakes.’
‘I can’t. Not while he’s…’
‘What? In the trenches at Aldershot?’
‘Don’t mock him, Nick. We’re at war and Hugh’s in the Army. Anything might happen to him.’
They reached the abbey where a service was going on. And Georgia’s crumbling resolve was shored up by a choirboy singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. ‘Shall we go in for a minute and have a look?’
They sat together at the back, looking at the nostalgia-evoking scene. He took her hands and sat chafing them between his own. The interior of the great abbey was a black cavern showing rounded arches where windows let in the lesser blackness of the night. The long aisle was a corridor of dark leading to where a few rows of firefly torches glowed on hymn books. In the choirstalls, one or two candles made cherubim of the faces of schoolboys.
Having spent a decade of her school life, metaphorically and literally, in the very shadow of the abbey, its architecture was so familiar to her that, even in the icy blackness, Georgia could visualize the detail – the stone columns, vaulted roof, Norman arches and Saxon windows, and she smelt the centuries of dust and incense that impregnated its entire fabric.
That unique odour brought back an image of herself in a short white dress, white shoes, white socks, white prayer book, kneeling in obeisance beneath the heavy, warm hands of Bishop Winchester. It brought back too the image of herself at eighteen in trailing white, with wreath and veil. Of her father giving her away to Hugh.
She had felt very emotional standing there with her father. Aware of her significant surroundings, the rood-screen illustrating the agony of bleeding and tortured saints, the stone busts of rich Markhambrians, the sentimental representation of the child who had fallen from the abbey walls to its death, the leper’s window, the ancient font, tombs and plaques.
Hugh and all his friends had worn formal dress. There had been bells, organ and full choir. The Kennedys had not appeared much different from the Honeycombes except that they were more pushy and loud – though not as loud as the stags with whom Hugh had gone out the previous night.
Suddenly aware of her hand within Nick’s, she withdrew it.
The singing stopped and strange, familiar echoes, caused by the rustle and shuffle of the small congregation, started up and flittered like bats around the galleries until they were sucked up into the roof. Nick took her hand again.
There was a clatter in the porch and the clang of the iron ring handle of the door. Hobnails sounded off the stone columns like ricocheting bullets as the intruder tried to creep along the aisle. Larger, noisier bats flew. Whispers from the fireflies and clattering from the choirstalls, the cultured voice of the vicar followed by the broad Hampshire of the interloper. ‘I’m sorry, Vicar, but you’ll have to! You’m going to get us all blowed to Kingdom Come. Anyway the law’s the law!’
The sound of retreating hobnail bullets accompanied the vicar as he mounted the pulpit steps, holding a candle.
‘That was an air-raid warden. Our lights can be seen from the street. Until the cessation of hostilities, Evensong will have to be sung before black-out time.’
<
br /> They slipped quietly out, Nick holding her arm tucked in his. At the porch door, he halted and they stood together as newly-married couples had stood there down the ages. ‘I would give anything if I could put the clock back four years.’
‘I’m married to Hugh, and nothing’s going to change that.’
‘Would you live with me, and none of this church nonsense?’
By the time he had walked her home, her eyes had dried and she was outwardly in control of herself.
‘Nick, you seem to have no idea. I made Hugh a promise. Perhaps it was all right for you and Nancy, you never stood up in public and said you would stay together for always, but I did.’
He never liked her to mention Nancy.
‘He took unfair advantage of you, Georgia.’
* * *
In his darkened shop, Vern Greenaway pondered sadly upon what he had seen when idly looking out.
Young Crockford was a good chap and a Comrade who had come right out at that meeting and said he belonged to a union. Vern’s heart had warmed to him. As it had to the Kennedy girl who was making a damn good job of running the office at the Town Restaurant. Vern could never fancy her husband very much. A decent enough sportsman right enough, but he cracked his jaw and had a bit too much of the old school tie. Even so, the girl was married to him and young Crockford had already got a woman and a baby somewhere. Those two shouldn’t be kissing in doorways.
Vern lit a cigarette and exhaled vigorously.
Who am I to talk? He’d regretted it since, even though he couldn’t even remember the girl’s name now. His biggest mistake had been to get it off his chest. It was still there between himself and Nora. Least said, soonest mended. He should never have told Nora.
A pity you couldn’t protect the young against their own follies. He inhaled again, the glowing tip crackled and spat. They put some muck in fags these days.
He started to make his way back to join the warmth and laughter in the upstairs sitting-room. You couldn’t beat having your family round you.
But bugger all… our Davey and Freddy Hardy’s daughter!
1940
Again, the even-handed god saw to it that the bitterest winter in living memory was followed by a most beautiful spring.
Slowly, slowly, the war tightened its grip.
‘We shall have to keep The Party going between the two of us, Sam, the best we can.’
‘Keep the membership going anyway, Vern. We might have a social or two.’
‘That’s if there’s anywhere not commandeered by the army. But the Women’s Section could keep their afternoons going.’
‘Hh… fat chance of finding a woman home in the afternoons these days. Is there any of them left who isn’t off out doing something or other?’
‘The Party needs to keep a bit of cash coming in somehow. We’ll need it for the election, soon as This Lot’s over.’
‘Bit of good though, Vern. We got your seat on the Council guaranteed till the war’s over.’
‘Only trouble is, all the rest of them will keep theirs. I always hoped you’d get on one day, Sam. Never mind, drink up and put the books away, our day’s going to come.’
And so, in the Tap Room of the King William, the Markham Labour Party was wound up for the duration. This reluctant action on the part of the old guard was an admission that this war was going to be a long one.
The winter snows melted, and the grass seemed to grow extraordinarily green; along the hedgerows of Hampshire every tree and shrub that was capable of flowering did so exuberantly. On the Council Estate the many fruit trees blossomed white and pink. Lord Palmerston’s bronze eyes looked out from a funk-hole on his old estate, disdained horse-chestnut candles unfurling against clear blue skies, and glowered at early butterflies which had no business to be flittering about so early in the year.
Deanna from the Post Office disappeared and was soon forgotten.
Small, small changes. Tops of red pillar-boxes were painted green, stirrup-pumps and buckets of sand for putting out fire-bombs were allocated, a few more brick air-raid shelters appeared, fire-engines were painted grey and more and more and more ordinary workmen put on uniform for two shillings a day, from which pay those who were married must make an allowance to their families.
Gradually, gradually, the war gained momentum.
And the Prime Minister was losing the confidence of the people.
‘Hitler has missed the bus,’ he declared in a speech. But within days Germany invaded Norway and Denmark, and, within weeks, amidst muddle and chaos, the British forces were in retreat in France.
‘That bugger’s got to go, Sam.’
‘Nye Bevan’s the man.’
‘Aye Sam, Nye’d soon get things hotted up. Ever heard him speak?’
‘No, but he’s the man to turn this country about.’
‘But it’s Churchill we shall get – you mark my words.’
The Markham stalwarts brooded into their pints at the prospect.
‘Ah well, he can’t be worse than the bugger we got now.’
‘Don’t you ever forget Sidney Street, Vern. People got short memories.’
‘I haven’t. I haven’t forgotten that other old swine who used to stand in the Market Place – I haven’t forgotten him.’
‘Don’t do to say these days.’
‘True. Nora keeps telling me – you’ll a get yourself locked up, Vern Greenaway, talking like that against your own government. Drink up, Sam.’
‘My turn.’
The old Bolshies of Markham were not dead but, like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for the prince of peace to come and awaken them to the new world they were sure would come.
1989
With the creak of Hildegard’s shoes, her silent contest with the tiny sun-lizard over who would be the first to move was over: it scuttled from the terrace and disappeared.
‘Hildy, you are like an invading army.’
‘This letter came. See? It is the air tickets. I don’t know why I must come. I shall be sick, as always.’
‘Stuff and nonsense. You will love it. And you are never airsick.’
‘Shall we visit Melanie?’
‘Of course we shall visit Melanie.’
‘Then I shall come. Here, drink your tea.’
Two elderly women – one arthritic, one breathless – who shared equally the family of the arthritic one – children, grandchildren, and now the delightful great-grandchild. One wealthy, one penniless except for the salary paid by the wealthy one, they had scarcely been out of sight of one another for almost fifty years.
‘When we are in London, Hildy, remind me to bring back that little picture from my study.’
‘The dragonfly?’
‘“Demoiselle with Lilies and Irises”, yes. It will be lovely in this light.’
‘He was a very good man.’
‘Yes, wasn’t he?’
‘We shall take him flowers, Milady.’
‘We shall, Brünnhilde, if the gravestones haven’t been whisked off or used to make paths.’
‘Does Giacopazzi use him also for this story? Is he a good guy – he should be.’
‘So far as I have read, she has done very well by him. She has also done very well by me so far…I have been reading how I lost my virginity.’
‘Never! You will not allow her to put that in the book?’
‘Why not? It is charming, and she makes it much less mundane than I remember it. But it was in March, at the Savoy, and there were flowers and wine.’ The sun-lizard eased itself out of the crevice, and she smiled at it for having claimed its place again in the wonderful golden light.
‘But the family… Fergus, and Delia, how will they feel to see you written so in a Giacopazzi book?’
‘Young people today know about such things. They know that a mother’s maidenhead must have been lost. It will be good for them to know something of their ancestry. And why should they care about something that is a long-past history, and scarcely credible anyh
ow? I lost my virginity in 1940. Forty-nine years… so long ago.’
‘I should not care to let the world read of my maidenhood.’
‘Head. When you meet Georgia, you should tell her, and perhaps she will make it romantic and put it in a book.’
‘There is nothing romantic in rape by filthy Nazis.’
‘Oh Hildy. My dear, I had forgotten. I am sorry, sorry, sorry.’
‘Pfft. As you say, it was so long ago.’
‘Even so, it has done me good to read Georgia’s version of my seduction. I look forward to meeting her again after all these years.’
‘Meet Giacopazzi! Cheee!’
‘Meeting Georgia Kennedy. We were such good friends… only you have been a better one.’
1940
March
‘It was wonderful! You are wonderful, David. I love you so much.’
Leaning on one elbow, he studied her body, familiar in his imagination, caressed, glimpsed, but until now never seen by him. She wasn’t that much younger than himself, yet she seemed such a girl compared to his own conception of himself; her naïvety, innocence almost… yet she had been so uninhibited with him. But wasn’t that part of her innocence? Giving and getting full pleasure without self-consciousness, making her first love-making into a kind of precious deflowering.
‘You don’t need those things, David. I went to Harley Street and got myself fixed up.’
She was right: because of her sophisticated action, sex had been beautiful, a new experience for him. He had not been with very many girls, and none that had given any forethought about how to make it beautiful.
Looking down at her he thought, she is perfect. Not a blemish, not even a mole or freckle. He traced her body as though drawing her in outline.
‘Burne-Jones would have loved you. He would have draped you in embroidered fabric, put a lily in one hand, a dish of pomegranates beside you, and painted you with your mouth just open, as it is now.’
