The Consequences of War

by Betty Burton

  That year, after five years combating the dreary and austere with ingenuity and nous; the fear and anxiety with wit and sympathy, there gradually came about a change in the atmosphere in the back rooms and kitchens of the Town Restaurant.

  Dolly had put her finger on it. ‘One thing after the other, it’s like we’re being punished for five years of being happy together.’

  The ‘one thing after another’ was Paula telling her mother about being pregnant, and then Georgia coming over to tell them that Connie Hardy had suffered damage to her pelvis and back.

  ‘Look at it like this, Dorothy, Paula’s predicament might appear to be trouble just now, but there’ll come a time when it will be water under the bridge.’

  ‘I never thought I’d be the one to say it, but it’s never been the same since Mrs Hardy and Eve went away, and I keep thinking about what happened up there at The Cedars. I know that’s nothing to do with Paula and Robbo, but we used to be such a happy group.’

  Ursula looked hard at her good friend. ‘Dorothy, this isn’t like you.’

  ‘And I think our Harry’s carrying on with Georgia, but she’s never said anything and I can’t ask a thing like that.’

  ‘And what about Harry?’

  ‘I couldn’t never ask him about his women friends. But it’s hurtful, you’d think they’d say.’

  ‘There’s probably nothing in it, I don’t think Georgia’s particularly interested in men at all at present. What we all need is another day out, Dorothy, a day at the sea. You will get it more in perspective. Water under the bridge, dear, you see if I’m not right about that.’

  But Ursula was not right, except where Paula’s trouble was concerned. Harry’s death never did flow away, but stayed dammed up in Dolly to flood and threaten to drown her for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  The beginning of the end seemed to have started with Paula. Throughout the years when Robbo was in Africa she had never missed a week without writing to him, but as the months and months passed she found less and less to say to him. Her job was mundane and unchanging, and she could scarcely say very much to him about her voluntary work in canteens or her popularity at camp dances – he was a docker, with a man’s-eye view of a wife’s place in the home, and Paula knew that mention of anything that might spark off jealousy must be censored from her letters.

  But then Paula fell in love.

  When she began to be morning sick, only Marie knew of it and only Marie too knew who it was that Paula had been going out with so often, and so who was likely to be the father. Nothing would have dragged that out of her, or that he was part of Operation Overlord and was unlikely to return to this country, but would go back to America from where he came.

  ‘What are you going to do, Paula?’

  ‘Do? What do you think I’m going to do – I’m going to have the baby I’ve wanted for years.’

  ‘But Paula, it will be…’

  ‘Don’t say it, Marie! It will be my baby, the one everybody thought I couldn’t have because there was something wrong with me.’

  ‘What about Robbo?’

  ‘Look, Marie, because I thought I couldn’t get pregnant I went all the way with Louis…’

  ‘Louis! I thought it must be. Paula! How could you? With Louis… I know he’s nice and good looking and has plenty of money but…’

  ‘Don’t, Marie. Don’t say something you’ll regret when my baby is your niece or nephew. I love Louis and want his baby more than anything.’

  ‘I don’t know what your Dad’s going to say. He thinks you’re Greer Garson and Phyllis Calvert rolled into one.’

  ‘It will give him a chance to put his philosophies into practice.’

  Marie didn’t even like to think about Robbo.

  Born on Christmas Day 1944, Paula Carter named her daughter Louisa, after her father. For a few days, the only way of detecting that she was of mixed race was in her faintly purple nails and the black cap of black crimpy hair.

  ‘Oh, Paula,’ Dolly said. ‘She makes me want to cry because she is so beautiful.’

  And so little Louisa was. Lusty, healthy and beautiful in that way of children who inherit only the choicest of genes of the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro races.

  Robbo took the news badly – worse than anybody had imagined. He was not so much disturbed that Paula was pregnant by another man, but that her pregnancy was an advertisement of his own inadequacy.

  A great, strong stevedore whose wife couldn’t get pregnant until she got there with some Yank who was swanning around England whilst decent Englishmen were fighting in some hole full of foreigners and flies.

  It was as well that he did not get to know that Louis was a Negro or that he was a popular jazz musician, or that he and Paula had fallen in love. It was bad enough as it was, for Robbo had gone berserk in camp, driving wildly off in a stolen vehicle which he had crashed and wrecked. He had written Paula a vile and threatening letter that could only have passed a censor who thought that women like this one deserved it.

  As soon as he could do so, Robbo went to his commanding officer for advice on divorce and made plans to emigrate to the Rhodesian copper-belt where strong men were needed and pay was fantastic. His Chaplain had talked to him about the woman taken in adultery and advised Robbo to think charitably. ‘Such mistakes happen in time of war.’

  ‘Not to me they don’t.’

  * * *

  Sam Partridge, like everyone else except Marie, had never for a moment dreamed that Louisa would be anything but fair-haired and white-skinned, but Paula placed the perfect baby in Sam’s arms and he was won over before he knew that she would grow coffee-skinned. Paula never told him that Louis was an officer until she heard that he was safe and wanted her to go to France and live with him there.

  In any case, the shadow of Harry hung so darkly over the family that the colour of Louisa’s skin was entirely irrelevant.

  * * *

  The news of the failure of the airborne landing at Arnhem had filtered through almost at once, at first in rumours. Sam Partridge heard of it from an airman in the King William whilst he was having a quiet sit in the Four Ale Bar mulling over what to do about Paula who was getting so big that she could no longer disguise it. Markham did talk so.

  ‘It was on the news. Airborne landing.’ Sam’s attention was caught. ‘Some place called Nijmegen… a lot of dead. And for nothing as far as you could read between the lines.’ The airman could not possibly have known that the old man who limped and stumbled from the bar was not swaying because he was the worse for ale, but that he had a Paratrooper son – one who had risen to sergeant and who was his secret pride and wonder. Sam and Harry had been getting on a bit better lately, especially since Harry had said he would soon be going on an officer training course. Sam visualized the peaked cap, the polished shoes and the Sam Browne belt when Armistice Day parade came, but it didn’t do to let kids know you were proud of them in case they started to get above themselves, and Harry was bad enough already.

  When Dolly went dark-eyed and gaunt into work the following day, all the women knew why. ‘I couldn’t bear to be at home. I don’t know what I should have done if I didn’t have this place to come to. As soon as I heard, I thought, I wish it was tomorrow so that I could be with the girls. I can’t bear the waiting. I’d rather be at work. Sam’s different, he’s sitting at home. Won’t say a word hardly. I said to him, You know Harry, always lands on his feet, he’s probably safe and sound. You sitting here waiting for a telegram is like tempting fate; but he said, if the worst has happened then I want to know straightaway, I don’t want no telegram boy going all over the place looking for me. Neighbours knowing before I do.’

  Sam had sat at home for days tempting fate, but no telegram or news of his safety came. Then, because of an administrative blunder, they received first a letter through the regular post.

  Dear Mr and Mrs Partridge,

  Your son, Harry, was known to me more as a friend than my NCO. I cannot
tell you how grieved I am for your loss and for his loss to the regiment. He was an exceptional soldier and an exceptional friend.

  Sadly I have many letters of condolence to write, but this to you I have written first – I suppose because of those who died in the terrible battle in which we have been engaged, Harry Partridge is most directly in my thoughts. His loss is personal, we have been close friends ever since we started out together in ’39. He, like myself, was a motor bike enthusiast, and we spent many days together tootling around the countryside. It was on these jaunts that he told me of the Partridge family. He loved, and was enormously proud of you, his mother and father who against the odds have brought up children of whom any parent would be rightly proud. You will, of course, know these things, but I am sure that you will like to know how much he loved and admired you, Mrs Partridge, and what understanding and compassion he felt for his father. I believe it was from you, Mr Partridge, that he gained his great sense of justice.

  The loss of a son – and for me of a personal friend – is one of the terrible consequences of going to war, but when one of the consequences is the waste of such soldiers as Harry – men of intelligence, ideals, and depth of vision of the future – one wonders whether without them there will be a future for England worthy of their death. I know that Harry’s great ambition was to become a Member of Parliament – his death is England’s loss too.

  I have officially recommended that Harry receive the highest military award for bravery.

  Sincerely

  John Clark (Capt.)

  The telegram arrived days later.

  Charlie was still posted overseas. He was hit very hard when he was notified of Harry’s death. In his letters home he scarcely mentioned it. ‘Our Charlie’s grieving inward. I know him,’ Dolly said.

  Marie, who knew him equally, agreed. ‘I only hope he don’t do something silly.’

  But he did.

  * * *

  Charlie Partridge, when refused compassionate leave, went absent without leave and on the run. As he went AWOL when the wing he was attached to was preparing for an attack upon the enemy, he had committed the offence for which a good many serving men had faced the firing squad.

  It was 1945, and within sight of peace by the time the Military Police caught up with Charlie. The long months in the glasshouse finished him: when he returned to Markham he was rigid-faced and moved jerkily. There were nights when Marie could hardly bear it when she was awakened by him sobbing silently in his sleep.

  Perhaps it was fortunate that Sam Partridge never did hear about Charlie, although many said the outcome would have been the same.

  As Sam had always said, Markham people would talk.

  Suicide over his son in the Paras, they said.

  That he was found floating in the park river he had been clearing of water-weed, and that the inquest found that he had drowned by Misadventure, meant nothing to the Markham gossips. They declared their own verdict: Suicide whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed, they said. This death-watch beetle talk that could eat into the structure of any family was partly scotched by Vern Greenaway, who wrote an obituary for the Markham Clarion, praising Sam, the well-known Markhambrian, old soldier and long-term fighter for justice and a fair society. Suicide, they said. And who can be surprised?

  Later, there appeared another column reporting the posthumous presentation to Sam and Dorothy Partridge of their son Sergeant Henry Partridge’s award for bravery.

  A pity he committed suicide before he collected the medal, they said.

  * * *

  Only days after hearing of Harry’s death, Georgia answered a request by her solicitor to visit his offices. Dark, aching days.

  ‘Not the news you would have wished, Mrs Kennedy, but your husband wants to sell the house. Very generous terms – he offers you half, which should be quite enough for you to buy a little cottage somewhere in the town.’

  So what! Harry was dead and Hugh offered her the proceeds of half a house. Not much of a deal.

  ‘All I want, Mr Fox, is a decree nisi. It is my husband’s house, but I would be pleased to have the car and some of the furniture if that can be arranged.’

  ‘Mrs Kennedy, in your own interests…’

  ‘No, Mr Fox, he had two years of my time without pay for which I was well-fed and clothed and had free accommodation. Please get it settled as soon as possible.’

  After five years in her job, with few goods in the shops, travel either limited or forbidden, and only The Picture House open for entertainment, Georgia estimated that she had accumulated enough money, from savings out of her salary and the legacy from her parents, to keep her going until 1947.

  Because of the stressful atmosphere that seemed to pervade both her office and the kitchens these days, it was not the best of times to make positive plans. But plan she must for a future in which she would not be pleasantly and conveniently employed by the Government. A future in which she avowed that she would be Georgia – be herself.

  At work, the pleasant cocoa and tea breaks were no longer the intimate and happy affairs of the previous four years. New women had come in, replacing Connie and Eve and Pammy and Trix; the Red Cross and WVS women seemed to change weekly and keep themselves aloof from the kitchen workers.

  Only Ursula seemed to be unscathed. In fact Ursula – the radical suffragist, the revolutionary, the one-time scourge of Parliamentarians – plumped out a little and throve on marriage with Niall O’Neill.

  The warmth of the sorority that had first tasted its freedom in the kitchens of the Town Restaurant escaped through holes blown out by the hurt that had been done to several of their number. There was no topic that was not a minefield. They went for their breaks and often only talked work or smoked hungrily, silently and fiercely, drawing smoke low into their lungs and returning it like flame-throwers. Ursula, ashamed of her ineffectualness and inability to help ‘her’ girls, no longer seemed even to notice cigarette smoke in previous forbidden areas.

  Georgia missed the atmosphere badly. She desperately needed their support, but most of them were all far, far worse off than she was. Eve had not been to the house or called in at the office for months now. When Georgia wondered if Eve was avoiding her, she told herself that she was being paranoic about people avoiding her. First Dolly, now Eve.

  Eve had phoned once or twice, sounding bright… ‘Terribly sorry not to have seen you, Georgia. This place is a mad-house. God, that’s the sort of thing we have to watch in here… but you know what I mean. Anyway, darling, we absolutely must get together soon.’ But something always turned up to prevent Eve from coming. Georgia understood: Connie was now out of hospital, but the V2 had left her with irreparable hips and so ended the career which had filled her life.

  Marie was worried sick over Charlie, grieving over Harry and helping Paula with the baby.

  Dolly became thin. Georgia was convinced that Dolly was avoiding her. The returns and lists which Dolly used to bring into the office after work, and which they both used as an excuse to talk for five minutes about what the latest film was like, or exchange a magazine, or to laugh at the latest half-baked directive from the Ministry of Food, were left on her desk when she was out.

  If it was grief, then Georgia understood, but she would have liked her to have talked about Harry, to have talked about him herself, told Dolly what a gift of a man he was. Perhaps then Georgia might have been able to tell her about that last weekend in Brighton, when instead of visiting his mother and father he had spent his last two-day pass to make love with Georgia in a classy hotel in Brighton. But perhaps Dolly knew. Perhaps she could not bring herself to talk to the woman he had preferred to his mother to spend his last free hours with.

  * * *

  Georgia knew that it was time that she made the decision about what she must do. The house would be sold and she must decide where she would live. If she was to break with Markham, then it must be now. A clean break. A new start.

  Ever since her mother’s and
father’s funeral, she had kept in touch with her aunts and uncles. She wrote to them often, and occasionally visited on a snatched weekend or even a week’s holiday – once a few days at Christmas, sleeping soundly under the uneven roof, awakening to the sound of clucking and lowing, and the smell of woodsmoke and two centuries of stored apples and hams.

  In this place, she soon saw how much of a joke it was that the Honeycombes had said that she was a real country girl. Until she came to pay visits to the small farm in this neglected corner of Hampshire, she realized that she had scarcely known the meaning of the word.

  What went on at Croud Cantle Farm was magic to Georgia. Magic from the pouring of rennet into the zinc basins filled with milk, the separation and eventual pressing into cheese moulds, to the smoking and charming of the bees housed in old-fashioned skeps against a sunny wall, and the taking of their honey.

  Whilst she was there, she felt alive.

  She walked the Downs. Her favourite place was at the top of Tradden Raike which rose from behind the farmhouse, from where she could look down upon the quiet valley whilst, behind her, ancient, restless beeches moved constantly in the up-current from the valley. Sometimes she rode John Honeycombe’s horse, going cross-country through the village along the old bridle-path beside the river, or out over the wider metalled road towards Old Winchester Hill.

  When looking down upon the farmhouse from the Downs, she scarcely dared allow herself to believe that the place did actually belong to her. Not morally, for Hyacinth and Uncle John had farmed the place both before and after Georgia’s father had brushed from his heels the dust of his home village.

  Uncle John was as quiet a man as Hyacinth was extrovert. What came into her head, she usually said aloud. ‘Now you’re shut of that man you was married to, I reckon ’tis time you thought serious about what you’re going to do.’