by Janet Tanner
Sir Richard banged his napkin down on the table so hard that all the crockery and glasses rattled.
‘Have they indeed? The American fleet! You realise what this means? The Yanks can’t sit on the sidelines any longer. They’ll be in the war now.’
Suddenly, they were all as wildly excited as Milly had been. If the Yanks were in the war, Britain was no longer alone. For the moment they spared no thought for the ships which had been destroyed and the men who must have been killed. The Yanks would be in and their help would shorten the war by years, perhaps make victory all the more certain.
‘That’s wonderful! Wonderful!’ Marcus exclaimed.
‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ Barbara added.
‘The Axis powers have made a bad mistake this time!’ Sir Richard pronounced.
Only Lady Erica remained as unmoved as ever.
‘Darlings, this is all very well, but don’t you think we should have our coffee before it gets cold?’ she cooed.
One Wednesday afternoon in late February Joan Tiley walked down the sloping road that led to Combers End and the cottage that should have been her home. She plodded along solidly, head down against the biting wind, but her legs, clad in her calf-length zip-up boots felt heavy as lead and the hand which held the knot of her headscarf inside the neck of her coat was trembling a little.
It was the first time that Joan had been to the cottage since Alec had jilted her. From the day he had marched into the recruiting office and signed on for the army the door had remained locked and the house untouched – a monument to the marriage that had not been. It was folly, Joan knew. She should have done something about it long ago. Alec had left it to her to sell the place, trusting her to give his share to his mother once she had deducted enough to compensate her father for the expense over the cancelled wedding. But she had not been able to bring herself to do it. She could not face going coldly through the rooms which had once been the cradle of all her dreams taking down the curtains she had sewed with such love and hope, packing away the bits and pieces she had installed to make the place homely, and she did not want to let her mother do it either, though she had offered. For one thing it seemed cowardly to delegate the task; for another Joan had clung to the superstitious hope that so long as they still had the cottage Alec might one day come home, marry her, and live with her there as they had planned. In spite of what he had done to her, in spite of the fact that almost two years had gone by, there was nothing she wanted more. And strangely enough with the passage of time it had begun to seem to her that it was nothing but the war that was keeping them apart. The cruel hard fact that Alec had jilted her first and joined the army afterwards had been blurred by her own wishful thinking and she had clung to the hope that when the war was over and Alec came home everything would be as it had once been – just so long as she kept the cottage.
But still she had kept away from the place without really knowing why. It was not a conscious decision, but something which had begun when she had been so heartbroken she had felt she never wanted to see it again and which had become habit. Sometimes her mother would raise the subject, telling her she must make up her mind one way or the other – it was stupid to just leave the place there getting damp and cold.
‘Much longer and it won’t be fit for anyone to live in!’ she would say. ‘Much longer and you won’t be able to give it away.’
‘I’d rather Alec saw to getting rid of it,’ Joan said stubbornly. ‘He paid for it mostly and I don’t feel it’s my place, whatever you say.’
‘You don’t owe that little bugger a thing,’ Arthur Tiley, her father said. ‘Not after what he did to you. And anyway he’s not here, is he? He’s off in India or somewhere. Meanwhile, as your mother says, that house is going to rack and ruin.’ He managed to make it sound as if Alec was on a holiday rather than fighting for his country.
‘The war won’t go on for ever, Dad,’ Joan argued. ‘He’ll be back.’
Arthur had snorted angrily but Joan remained firm. She could be as stubborn as a mule when she wanted to be. A few more months wouldn’t make any difference. The Yanks were in the war now – it couldn’t go on much longer.
But throughout December and the first weeks of the New Year the news from the Pacific grew worse and worse. With a sinking heart Joan followed what seemed to be the unstoppable advance of the Japanese. After the fall of Hong Kong they were swarming all over the islands and the Malay Peninsula. She lay awake at nights worrying about Alec for it was so long since they had heard from him and consoling herself that if anything had happened they would have been notified. But the news became blacker still and when Singapore followed the fate of Hong Kong in the middle of February. Joan was shocked into facing facts. Singapore was impregnable, they had said. Now she had fallen and those Allies who had not been killed in the fierce fighting were now prisoners and would be for the duration of the war. It would be a very long time before Alec came back – if he came back at all.
And so Joan came to the conclusion she had spent so long trying to avoid. She would have to do something about the house. And the first step was to go there and see what sort of shape it was in.
Wednesday afternoon was half-day closing in Hills-bridge and when she had drawn the blind down over the door of the newspaper shop where she worked, Joan put on her coat and zip-up boots and started out in the direction of Combers End. Though she had spent most of the morning nerving herself up, she still had to fight the almost irresistible urge to turn and go home to the bacon-and-potatoes that was the regular Wednesday fare before she and her mother went upstairs to ‘do the bedrooms’, sharing a mop and a dustpan and brush and calling cheerfully to one another as they worked.
As she approached the cottage Joan felt in her bag and found the key, but when she attempted to fit it into the lock her hand was shaking so much she had to make more than one attempt. Then she turned the handle of the door and pushed it open for the first time in almost two years.
The stale mustiness came out to meet her just as she had known it would and with it a cold that chilled her to the bone. Two winters had permeated the very stones of which the cottage was built. Joan shivered and closed the door behind her.
Apart from the mustiness and the cold there was an air of unreality about the kitchen – like the Marie Celeste it had been abandoned suddenly and the evidence of occupation remained – a mug, the dregs of tea long since turned to murk in the bottom, on the draining board, a newspaper on the table, Alec’s paintbrushes still in their jar on the window ledge. But there were the dead flies, too, scattered about the cobwebs festooning the corners and hanging in long unbroken streamers from the centre light.
Joan brushed through the cobwebs and went up the stairs, numb with the cold and the feeling of desolation. But when she entered the bedroom a lump began to choke in her throat as she remembered how she and Alec had made love here on this bed in the days when the future had seemed to stretch ahead like a rosy summer day. She stood for a moment biting her lip and looking around and the echoes of the past sounded ghostly murmurs in her ears – Alec’s voice as he humped the heavy old wardrobe into position – ‘Well, what do you think of that?’ and her own reply: ‘Looks quite good. Unless the light might be better on the mirror over there …’ Oh happy days, when the biggest problem in life had been the best position for a wardrobe! The lump grew, tears pricked Joan’s eyes and she sank down onto the bed, unaware of the damp cold of the blanket through her thick coat.
How long she sat there she did not know, weeping for the past and what might have been, and for Alec who might be a prisoner or who might be dead and past making plans with anyone ever again. Suddenly, through the thick walls she heard the sound of what she took at first to be someone crying. She sat listening, head bowed, hands pressed over her mouth. Things were no better next door then, no better than when Alec had taken pity on that … that woman. Then it occurred to her that what she had thought sounded like sobs was actually closer to laughter. The back door slam
med but the squealing continued and in spite of herself Joan got up and crossed to the window.
In the yard below were Bryda Deacon and a young soldier – one of those whose regiment was billeted in the Scouts’Hall, Joan guessed, and she was indeed squealing with laughter as he chased her. As Joan watched he caught her in the coalhouse doorway, grabbed and kissed her, pushing her back into the darkness. Joan stood riveted, hardly able to believe her eyes. Was this the poor downtrodden wife for love of whom Alec had jilted her and fought a man? Why; she was no more than a trollop, getting off with any man who came her way behind her husband’s back.
Angrily she moved away from the window. The spell had been broken, her nostalgia was all gone. Just as well to put the house on the market and everything in it. Even if Alec did come back, even if they did make things up – and the way she felt just now that seemed fairly unlikely – she couldn’t live here with him next door to that … that cheap little cow. She looked around, swept a few knick-knacks into the leather patchwork bag she had brought with her and clattered down the bare stairs. Let the rest of the stuff stay here. She didn’t want it. It could be sold with the house and good riddance.
As she went out slamming the door behind her she heard movement across the yard and saw Bryda and the soldier peeping curiously out of the coalhouse. She lifted her chin, turned abruptly with the intention of ignoring them. But as she passed the coalhouse Bryda giggled. The sound infuriated Joan and she swung round on her.
‘What do you think you’re laughing at?’
Bryda’s thin face sobered though she looked as if it would not take a great deal to make her laugh again.
‘Excuse me!’
‘Standing there sniggering!’ Joan exploded.
‘Hey, wait a bit!’ the soldier said. He had a ruddy round face and he was wearing the uniform of the Devons. ‘Lay off, missus. What’s she done to upset you?’
Joan was battling mad now. ‘You really want to know? My bloke is out in Singapore now because of her. She led him on, just like she’s doing with you, no doubt, made him feel sorry for her and came between us. He even came to blows with her husband over her. Have you met her husband yet? He’s a big man, bigger than you, I should think. So watch out. Just blooming well watch out!’
The soldier was staring in amazement but at least Bryda was no longer laughing.
‘You want to watch what you say!’ she flared at Joan. ‘Just because you can’t keep a man don’t go blaming me.’
‘You little cow!’ Joan flew at her, grabbing a handful of hair. Bryda retaliated, lashing out at Joan’s face with her fingernails.
‘Hey ladies, ladies!’ Careless of his own safety the soldier managed to get between them. ‘You’re worse than bloody Hitler!’
Joan took one last swing at Bryda with her shopping bag. As it connected she heard one of the ornaments inside smash but she did not care. It was worth it. She started down the lane, shouting over her shoulder. ‘That’s one man you won’t deceive, Bryda Deacon. At least that’s one that’s seen you in your true colours!’
She was still shaking as she walked back up Combers End, but now her mind was made up. She would have to sell the cottage now whether she liked it or not. She never wanted to see that Bryda Deacon again.
The next day she visited the estate agents where Eddie Roberts used to work and put the cottage on the market. They would be able to sell it easily, they reckoned, for the bombing had put the housing market in short supply. As for Bryda Deacon, Joan never gave her a second thought. Sometimes, in the months that followed, she saw her in the town with her little girl but never close enough to speak to and with some satisfaction Joan guessed that the soldier was unlikely to be paying her any more visits. It was a small enough triumph, and not really enough to make up for the misery and heartache Bryda had caused her but it was some consolation all the same. Enough to sustain her while she waited for news of Alec at any rate. Joan hid her heavy heart behind her inexpressive features and carried on with her life as before.
Throughout the spring months Barbara bloomed. Incipient motherhood suited her and for the first time since her marriage she was truly happy. And Marcus it seemed was a new man. From the moment he had accepted that the baby was his he began to revert to his old charming self. He was gentle with her; he was considerate. It was as if the achievement of fatherhood which most men take for granted had somehow miraculously restored all the confidence that had seeped away when he had lost his men.
One person had heard of Barbara’s pregnancy with mixed feelings, however. Margaret was genuinely delighted on Barbara’s behalf and congratulated her niece warmly, for there was not a jealous bone in her body. But the news had also touched the deep pool of sadness within her and reawakened her longing for a baby of her own.
For the most part she had put her grief at her miscarriage behind her; her days were busy and there was no time for brooding. But nevertheless, odd little things could touch it off and sometimes she would lie awake thinking that if things had not gone tragically wrong her baby would have been a toddler by now, into all kinds of mischief, and she wondered what he would have looked like and whether he would have taken after her or Harry. She wished, too, with all her heart, that she could conceive again. But it had not happened and sometimes she wondered if it ever would.
To some extent little Marie had filled the gap. In the two-and-a-half years they had been with her, Margaret had watched Marie grow from a skinny frightened urchin to quite a plump little girl who would sit on her knee to enjoy a bedtime story and could be as affectionate as a puppy dog. Elaine she had never been able to get close to and for all her efforts the girl still regarded her with suspicion and resentment, greedily accepting whatever benefits came her way yet remaining a stranger whom Margaret found it difficult to trust.
The suspicion she felt went against the grain for Margaret. She liked to believe that no child was really bad, only mischievous or misguided, and she made excuses for Elaine both to Harry and to herself – the girl had never been taught right from wrong; she was lonely and afraid in an alien world; and her hard-boiled calculation and moments of dishonesty were symptoms of her deep-seated insecurity. But as time passed she began to doubt her own conviction. Elaine didn’t seem cowed or frightened. There was never a chink to suggest anything soft and childlike beneath the surface. Margaret did not like the sly way she caught her looking at her sometimes; she did not like the ease with which lies rolled off Elaine’s tongue; and she did not like the children Elaine had chosen as her friends. There was a gang of them now, made up of the hardest roughest cases from Batch Row and a handful of other vackies. They stayed out long after dark in the evenings supposedly playing but Margaret suspected they were roaming the streets and getting up to mischief. The company the girls were keeping worried her. The Mercury often carried stories of vackies breaking into lock-up shops and even houses, causing wanton damage and generally making nuisances of themselves, and she felt that Elaine, though not necessarily an instigator in a gang situation, would certainly be easily led. But she could not prevent Elaine from going out to play nor choose her friends for her, and could only keep an eye on what was going on and remonstrate with the child if she became too disobedient.
Fortunately, Marie no longer followed her sister as blindly as she had done when they first came. Sometimes she would go out with Elaine and the others, but more often than not she would soon be back, popping her forlorn little face around the kitchen door and creeping inside as if she half-expected to be yelled at to ‘Get back out!’
‘Home already?’ Margaret would say and Marie would nod, sucking on her thumb and regarding Margaret with huge solemn eyes.
‘What are they up to, Elaine and the others?’ Margaret would ask, but she could never ascertain the reason why Marie had come home. Though she now followed Margaret with the same puppy-like devotion she had once shown towards her sister, she still maintained her sense of loyalty. Sister did not ‘split’on sister. Whatever it was th
at Elaine was up to, Marie had rio intention of telling.
During the spring of 1942 several more of the Hillsbridge evacuees went home. Since the previous summer there had been little aerial activity over London and parents who missed their children were only too ready to convince themselves that the worst danger had passed. Against the advice of the authorities they arrived to take them home. But Elaine and Marie were not amongst those claimed and though for herself Margaret was glad, she was also hurt and angry on behalf of the children that their mother took so little interest in them.
‘I think I’m going to write to her,’ she said to Harry one day. ‘It’s not right that she should abandon them like this. Surely she could at least come down and visit them once in a while.’
‘It seems to me she’s glad of the war as an excuse to be rid of them for a while,’ Harry said. ‘I doubt if anything you can say will make the slightest bit of difference.’
‘But I have to try,’ Margaret insisted. ‘You don’t give up on hopeless cases – why should I?’
Harry had not argued. He was too busy with council work and meetings he had to attend as prospective Labour candidate to be able to give much thought to his evacuees. His work, too, was all-consuming for in addition to the daily cases he had to fight for the union he was involved with pressure groups which were struggling for the early nationalisation of the coal industry.
That evening, when the girls were in bed, Margaret sat down and composed a letter to their mother, inviting her to stay and pointing out how much it would mean to the girls. Then, after a great deal of thought, she folded three one-pound notes into the envelope and wrote a postscript.
‘I hope you will not be offended if I offer to help with your train fare. Since the authorities pay me for having the girls to live with me, I feel in a sense that it belongs to them.’
It was not true, of course, that she was making anything out of them. On the contrary, she was so generous in buying their food, clothes and books that she was often out of pocket. But she felt that the three pounds would be well spent if it persuaded the girls’ mother to make the trip she might otherwise be unable to afford.
