The Consequences of War

by Betty Burton

  ‘We could have a charabanc outing like they do at the brewery. Oh I wish I could show you whales. Everyone should see at least one school of whales in their lifetime. They’re not fish you know. They’re warm-blooded. Some experts say that the whole family stands guard when a female gives birth and that they look after one another’s young.’

  ‘Well fancy that.’

  ‘And they mourn a death. Couples make love face to face like we do, and mothers breast-feed their young.’

  Before she came to work with Ursula Farr, Dolly would have been covered in confusion at such open talk. She used to think that she would never get used to some of the things Mrs Farr came out with. Yet she looked so prim and ladylike. And she was really. Nothing coarse about Mrs Farr, never said anything blue, just the opposite really, she talked about all that kind of thing just the same as if it was ordinary. Which it was really. It was only that, if you had never been used to talking about the personal side of your life…

  After a year in her company, Dolly was beginning to learn to be unembarrassed – but only with Mrs Farr. Ursula. Her friend. And, Dolly being the sort to keep herself to herself, the only real friend she could say she’d ever had.

  Keeping her head bent over the onions, Dolly inched a little nearer to friendship by making her one and only revelation of that nature. ‘But we don’t you see – Sam can’t… not proper… not since his legs.’ Briskly, she took the dish from Mrs Farr and hurried on. ‘Look, let me cut that up and run it through the mincer a couple of times. That’s a start at least. I know – burgers! Like you see in America, at the pictures. We’ll make them so full of herbs and spices and onion, coat them in spicy breadcrumbs and fry them in beef dripping, that they’ll never know what sort of meat it is.’

  Mrs Farr was not blind to the importance, to Dorothy, of such revelations as she had just made. Sometimes, Ursula Farr wondered whether Niall was right about pushing Dorothy.

  ‘You could open up the most godawful can of worms, Ursula.’

  ‘If I can open up her mind, I’ll take a chance with the worms.’

  ‘You’re not the only one involved.’

  ‘Dorothy Partridge is a level-headed, intelligent woman who has been put down all her life. It’s all right for people like ourselves, we have chosen to be what we are.’

  ‘And what are we? An old hack photographic journalist still dragging himself round the world when he should be dandling grandchildren; and a society dame who went political and kicked over the traces to join the workers.’

  ‘As I said – we have chosen to be what we are.’

  Dorothy did have potential. It was truly criminal not to give whatever help one could.

  Niall had asked, ‘And what are you going to make her into?’

  ‘I shall not make her into anything. I simply give her as much responsibility as she wants and can cope with. Honestly Niall, she’s extraordinarily inventive with the meanest ingredients. It comes of years of stretching hap’orth to look like penn’orth and knowing the value of good vegetables and cheap pulses. It’s obvious that the entire family has been brought up practically vegetarian from necessity – yet I doubt if she’s ever heard of Vegetarianism. Once she’s learned how to handle staff, she could easily take over from me. We should all be better for somebody like Dorothy Partridge running the Ministry of Food.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Ursula, but you don’t need to give me another lecture on feminism – I did help Ellen Wilkinson win her seat.’

  ‘Then you should make one of your propaganda films about women like Dorothy.’

  ‘Information films.’

  ‘As you like.’

  Now, the two older women worked as usual in companionable silence, broken occasionally by a comment, or by one of the young women – the ‘Girls’ – wanting instructions. Eventually Ursula Farr said, ‘I’m sorry, Dorothy – what you said about you and Sam – all your years together spoilt like that.’

  Dolly nodded. ‘Thanks. It’s a relief to have told someone. It has tended to make him a bit more aggravated than he might have been… to me and Harry especially. To compensate like… to prove to the world he’s still a man. Trouble is, I never had nobody to ask about it before.’ She washed basins vigorously, determined to say what had been in her head since she came to know Ursula so well.

  Mrs Farr looked at the other woman quizzically.

  ‘I just wondered if I was normal… you know… still wanting to… you know… with a man. I’m over fifty, you know, and a grandmother. I mean…’ It appeared that she would not make it to the end of her sentence… well, do you?’ The gushing water splashed into the basin and soaked her but she seemed oblivious to it. ‘It’s awful me asking like this, but… is that side of things still the same for you and your man?’ She allowed her hands to float calmly in the full basin.

  Ursula Farr paused to think before answering. ‘Not the same… rather better I think. More quality than quantity, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I thought it might be. Women in my sort of class don’t talk open about that – we can’t really, we don’t know the right words.’

  Ten o’clock struck. Breakfasts over and the tables cleared and ready for re-opening, the time when all the girls and women had their mid-morning break. Eve Hardy came into the preparation room with her trays and tins. ‘Sorry, Mrs Farr, yesterday’s fish pie wasn’t too popular with the Mixed Infants – they like fish-patties. Mmm, I say, what smells so good?’

  Dolly thought how really lovely the girl was getting these days, but what a messed-up life they was having in that family if the gossip was true.

  Mrs Farr said, ‘I’m thinking of calling them “Dollyburgers” in honour of their inventor.’

  Dolly busied herself getting the mid-morning break ready. Georgia came in, and the girls from the restaurant, then Connie Hardy who, Dolly noticed, looked thinner than ever, and two WVS women – young housewives – joined them. Mrs Farr handed out slices of bread and jellied meat dripping, one of the wonderful perks for the Town Restaurant workers in these days of shortages and rationing. As usual they said, ‘I really shouldn’t, Dolly,’ then biting into the savoury slices, closed their eyes and said, ‘Mmm, beef. Wizard!’

  They usually divided into women’s and girls’ groups, but this morning Eve went to stand with her mother, looking concerned and speaking in a low voice. Dolly noticed the mother pat the daughter’s arm and smile reassuringly.

  They’re right, it looks like there’s trouble in that quarter, thought Dolly, as she poured drinking chocolate from the enamel jug. Although they were always very nice to her and brought her into the conversation, except for Mrs Farr they were all either much younger or, like Mrs Hardy, of the class of woman that she would never have come into contact with in the normal course of events. Consequently, she either stood and listened to their smart, easy talk, or busied herself in a job like biscuit-making.

  ‘How is your other son these days, Mrs Partridge? Have you heard from him?’ Georgia Kennedy asked.

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘The one in the Paras. I saw you seeing him off.’

  ‘That’s Harry. I haven’t heard for a fortnight. I think he was going to a training camp somewhere.’

  ‘I used to see him at the Council offices,’ said Georgia, ‘but I never knew he was your son. Oh, is he a looker!’

  ‘Oh, tell more, tell more,’ said one of the girls, putting them all in a giggling mood.

  ‘You know him, Trix,’ said one of the kitchen girls. ‘Harry Partridge – we used to go to the junior school together. You remember him, don’t you, Cynth?’

  ‘That Harry.’

  ‘Yes, the one we used to call “Blondie”. Pammy used to go out with him once, didn’t you, Pammy?’

  ‘When I was young,’ said Pammy. ‘All the girls was after Blondie Partridge.’

  ‘Is he really your son, Dolly?’

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Pammy. ‘He’s Marie’s brother-in-law.’

&nbs
p; Cynth said, ‘I had a real pash on Harry Partridge at one time. He had all that thick blond hair… used to wear it long on top and it used to flop down over one eye.’

  ‘And lovely dark blue eyes… and a dimple in his chin – not one of those horrible deep ones, but one that just came when he smiled. I haven’t seen him for ages. Is he still just as good-looking?’

  Dolly’s eyes sparkled at these pretty girls putting her beautiful Harry at the centre of the conversation. ‘Well, I’m prejudiced I suppose, but I can’t think offhand of a young man in Markham who could beat him if there was a competition for it.’

  ‘Is he married yet?’ Cynth asked.

  ‘Our Harry get married? Somebody’ll have to catch him first.’

  ‘Oo, what a terrible waste. I’ll bet he looks smashing in his uniform.’

  Mrs Farr and Connie Hardy found themselves in close proximity whilst the young element was getting itself het up over yet another handsome and eligible bachelor. The women smiled at one another, perhaps with regret in the acknowledgement that they would never again be in a group so alight at a name and a male image. Remembering fleetingly how, long ago, somebody had dropped Niall’s name… ‘You must know him, he’s the journalist Niall O’Neill’, or jokingly, ‘Fancy you not knowing Freddy Hardy, Con. Oh, he’s definitely your type. Not only good-looking, he’s loaded and he’s really got It.’

  Connie said quietly, ‘Even Evie’s secret romance is forgotten for the minute.’

  Mrs Farr, who had noticed that Eve, like the rest of the young element, leaned slightly and eagerly towards whoever was talking at the moment, alive in the atmosphere of sex, gave Connie a questioning and interested look. ‘Secret romance? Eve?’

  Connie shrugged. ‘It’s not much good asking me. She has a man somewhere, but behaves as though it is the direst secret. I thought perhaps you might know something.’

  Mrs Farr shook her head.

  As the girls went back to the kitchens, Marie came in with her till-roll and breakfast takings.

  ‘We were talking about your brother-in-law, Marie,’ said Georgia. ‘The girls vote him the handsomest man in Markham.’

  Marie flicked a look at Dorothy – they never said anything about the family without first checking with one another. ‘Harry,’ Dorothy said, with a soft look in her eye. Marie knew that Harry was the favourite. It could be hurtful when it was Charlie who was the responsible one, who went with Sam to the Limb Centre and dug the garden over so his father could plant it, when Harry was just as capable. Everybody had always treated Harry as special. Looks isn’t everything.

  ‘Harry? I can’t really think of him as a man. He is, of course – it’s just with Charlie being older, more responsible.’

  Georgia sensed Marie’s slight pique, so poured her a mug of cocoa.

  Marie always felt slightly ill at ease with the posher element. Not that Mrs Kennedy was on the same level as the Hardys. When she was Georgia Honeycombe she had gone to the same Church school as Marie, but afterwards she had been sent to Secretarial College, and then married a manager who was captain of Markham Town cricket team.

  Those sort of things separated people. Like Charlie working for the Post Office and Harry working in the Council Offices had put them apart from boys they had gone to school with who had only got labouring jobs.

  Because of cashing-up, Marie always came in later for her morning break, so that she was usually left with the WVS and Mrs Hardy and Mrs Kennedy. She would have felt easier if Trix and Pammy and the others were there. Not that anybody treated her any different from themselves, and Marie often wanted to kick herself afterwards for being so tongue-tied. I never used to be like that when I worked in the hairdressers; I could talk to anybody when we were alone in the cubicle.

  Once, when she had mentioned it, Sam had said, ‘You’re worth ten of any of them. That sort is all froth. Not one of them knows how to make a decent meal, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘We’re not talking about decent meals, you daft thing,’ Dolly had said. ‘I know what Marie’s talking about. Manners and that kind of thing – saying the right thing and not saying the wrong one.’

  ‘I know their sort. Have you ever really listened to what they say?’

  ‘Yes, Dad, I have,’ Marie had said. ‘And I know what you’re going to say – that they don’t ever actually say anything.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Yes, but what I mean is that me and Mum would feel a lot more at ease if I could just answer in the same way. I’m not looking for any great discussion with them – just to know how to be as silly as they are sometimes – so that you fit in.’

  Sam had raised his eyes disgustedly. ‘I don’t want you two coming home here talking like some Ladies’ Circle. Soon as it gets like that you can pack it up.’

  ‘Take no notice, Marie. He’d like us to spend our days up to our elbows in soda-water.’

  This morning, though, a letter from Charlie saying how much he missed her had made Marie feel very good about Charlie.

  ‘What’s he like then, your Charlie?’ Georgia asked.

  Marie showed a photo of Charlie with his three new stripes.

  ‘I know him,’ Georgia said.

  ‘I should think you do,’ said Marie. ‘He delivered your mail for enough years.’

  ‘Our postman’s a real sweetie, isn’t he, Ma?’ Eve said.

  Connie nodded, and went on with the quiet conversation she was having with Mrs Farr.

  ‘Monty Iremonger?’ Marie said.

  ‘I know the one you mean,’ Georgia said. ‘Always looks a glum-faced old devil.’

  ‘He’s not like that at all,’ Eve protested in her precise crystalline accents. ‘Really. It’s just his expression. He’s really a nice old grandpa sort of man.’ To tell them of the picture he had painted for her which she had found so moving would have been, somehow, to betray him. She had not told them at home where it had come from, not that anyone except Nanny Bryce would be likely to ask – they lived very separate lives in that house.

  Marie said, ‘If it hadn’t been for the war, Monty would have been retired.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Eve with absolute sincerity, ‘that would be awful. I should really miss Mr Iremonger. When I was little, I used to be afraid of Santa Claus, then I began to pretend that, instead of it being that great man in black boots who was going to come into the nursery in the middle of the night, that it would be Mr Iremonger.’ She laughed. ‘Well, actually, I used to make up a story that he would marry Nanny Bryce and come to live in the nursery too.’

  Marie again felt alienated – envious, almost, of girls whose childhood revolved around nurseries, and of girls like Georgia Kennedy who could join in so easily that you would think she had a nanny. Marie Partridge would never achieve that kind of sophistication in a thousand years. How had Georgia Kennedy done it?

  Georgia flipped the trigger of her novel case, up popped cigarettes, which she offered to Eve and the WVS women. ‘Go on, I’ve got a box of fifty.’ Eve took one automatically and tapped the end to firm the tobacco.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Marie at the offer.

  ‘Haven’t you ever?’ one of the WVS women asked.

  ‘Charlie never liked girls who smoked.’

  ‘Doesn’t Charlie smoke either?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘Oh yes. He’s been smoking since he was fourteen, so he says.’

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with you having a gasper then?’

  ‘Well, you know…’ Well? What is wrong with me having one?

  ‘Go on,’ insisted Georgia. ‘A fag will do you the world of good.’

  And Marie saw that it would.

  Saw their nonchalantly hanging wrists, as they dangled the cigarette, flicking and tapping it from time to time; saw their red pouting mouth as they touched the cork tips to their lips, the mysterious wreath of smoke curling and making them half-close their eyes from time to time, and the hand held at the height of the cheek as they exhaled.

  And she saw somethi
ng else. It didn’t matter what half-baked thing you came out with if you were tapping ash from your cigarette, it was the cigarette that counted, not what you said. And their manicured and varnished fingernails. And the way they always perched and twisted their legs, showing off their knees, or leaned on things with their backs arched and their bums stuck out.

  ‘OK. I’ll try one, if you don’t mind.’

  She lit one and inhaled gently.

  ‘You do smoke – I’ll bet you’ve been having gaspers for years when Charlie wasn’t looking,’ Georgia said.

  ‘No, honestly.’ Marie suddenly felt enormously pleased with herself. The smoke twirled through her buzzing head like a glass of sherry.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Eve,’ Georgia Kennedy said in her easy manner as she flipped her lighter to her own cigarette, ‘if I was to have a postman coming into my bedroom, then I’d have Marie’s Charlie – he’s got such super hair.’

  ‘Has he really?’ Eve asked politely.

  Marie nodded. ‘It’s very thick and curly.’

  ‘All over everywhere?’ one of the WVS women asked, giggling-

  The rest of the young and classy laughed lightly.

  Then Marie realized the double meaning. She couldn’t look in Dolly’s direction, but saw from the edge of her vision that Dolly was disappearing into the kitchen. She felt gauche. Froth, as Sam said. But Marie wanted to be frothy, frivolous. She wanted to have the same air of hardness and… knowingness that their class of woman had – and it came. ‘Ah ah, now that would be telling,’ said Marie, tapping her forefinger on the cigarette.

  The other four shrilled at nothing in the constrained way of many respectable housewives of the Home Counties during the Forties War.

  Women on long leashes coming out of their little homes, out of their respectable shells, women talking in groups with other women, drawing one another out, spasms of shared titillation about their own men or many men, moments of madness, opening up as they had never done since marriage had domesticated them.

  Learning to talk with other women. Rolling up one another’s hair, helping one another to brush on bleach. Grooming, comforting, envying, commiserating. Reclaiming a few of the small freedoms that their greatgrandmothers used to have working with other women in the milking parlours, the threshing sheds and gleaning fields. Small freedoms which had been lost to townswomen in the south of England where there were no cotton mills or stocking factories or bath-houses or public laundries and where it was not done for married women to go out to work. Out of the home on a long leash.