The Hills and the Valley

by Janet Tanner

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely! It’s over – it’s over!’

  ‘I’ve still got the Jubilee bunting in the cupboard under the stairs. We ought to put it out.’

  ‘They’re selling bunting down at the Co-op too – they took it off the rations as long as it’s red, white and blue!’

  ‘Well, whatever colours would we want, I’d like to know!’

  ‘We must have a bit of a “do”. I’ve got a tin of salmon and some evaporated milk.’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of bottles of fruit.’

  ‘And a blancmange.’

  ‘Oh, thank the Lord it’s over! I can’t believe it, really I can’t!’

  Warmed by the sherry they caught one another’s waists and began to dance so that the Yelling cat, Fluffy, whose tail was inadvertently trodden on, ran yowling out of the house and still they laughed, too delighted to care about anything but that at last, at last, there would be no more air raids or clothing coupons, no more blackout, no more goodbyes to loved ones off to fight a war from which they might never return.

  ‘Oh, give me land, lots of land, and a starry sky above. Don’t fence me in!’ Peggy sang loudly and tunelessly, and the others joined in.

  After six long years it was freedom, wonderful freedom. For the moment all cares were forgotten and it seemed that nothing else mattered.

  Barbara listened to the broadcast alone on the small modern wireless set in her room with Hope crawling around her feet playing with a wooden duck-on-wheels. She immediately went in search of her mother-in-law, but Lady Spindler as always refused to be excited by the news.

  ‘We’ve known it was coming. Didn’t they celebrate it in London last night?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s still wonderful news that it’s official.’

  ‘Yes, dear, it is,’ Lady Erica said and her emotionless calm made Barbara ache for the spontaneity of her own family.

  A few minutes later her unspoken wish was realised when Maureen, unable to restrain her excitement, telephoned.

  ‘Isn’t it great? Isn’t it super-whizz-cracko?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is! Oh Maureen, I’m so glad you rang! My mother-in-law is taking it so calmly I could hit her!’

  ‘Oh Babs, I wish you were here! I do miss you. And you know what it means, don’t you? Huw will be able to come home if he wants to!’

  ‘Oh yes!’

  Huw. Her heart leaped at the thought. It seemed so long since she had seen him now. Shortly after their last parting he had been transferred to the north of Scotland, flying Beaufighters over the North Sea and the Norwegian coastal areas. They had corresponded regularly, long loving letters, but the arrival of each letter, longed for though it was, only increased her restlessness and the deeply felt yearning. But though Maureen’s words started that leap of joy, she knew that the end of the war would make no difference at least to their separation. Huw would not be among those to come home. He had always intended to make the RAF his career. And besides, with things as they were …

  Much as she longed to see him, desperately as she ached for his touch, she knew it was better that he did not come home. If he were here she could not bear to go on living this lie with Marcus. And, for the moment, she was still determined this was what she had to do.

  Later, perhaps, when Hope was older or when Marcus stabilised a little, but not now, not yet.

  At least Marcus was leaving her alone now. Since that terrible night when Huw had gone and she had moved into Hope’s nursery, he had made no attempt to touch her and for that at least she was grateful. If he had tried she thought she would have killed him. Relations were strained between them, naturally, but it was a long while since they had been otherwise and Barbara lavished all her love and pent-up affection on Hope, who was growing into a lovely child, a little spoiled, perhaps, but a bundle of fun and laughter for all that. Barbara had begun to teach her her letters and bright as she was Hope was already learning to recognise them. Barbara was proud of her, proud of her bright gold hair and pert pretty little face, proud of her small sturdy body and lively intelligent mind.

  ‘You’re not a bit like your Daddy. You’re mine, all mine!’ Barbara would whisper to her as she hung over the cot when the child was sleeping.

  Sometimes she regretted the fact that Hope was an only child. She would have liked her to have companionship, a little brother or sister to play with, fight with, and love. But she did not want it so much as to submit to Marcus’s so-called lovemaking and besides, she did not want Marcus’s baby. She wanted Huw’s.

  There had been a time, soon after he had left, when she had wondered if she might be pregnant. The thought had half thrilled, half frightened her. And with it had been the dread that if she were pregnant she would not know for certain who was the father – or not for nine months anyway. Then she would have known, she felt sure, for Huw’s child would certainly have something of him about it. He would be dark, for one thing – for dark hair always takes precedence over fair, or so she had been told. There would be some signs of Huw’s strong features. And it would be a boy. Huw’s son: The thought made her go weak inside as she allowed herself the luxury of imagining the joy of it – bearing Huw’s son.

  But she was not pregnant and after the initial disappointment she realised it was probably the best thing. One day, God willing, she would be able to be the mother of his children. But not yet. Not yet.

  And so life had gone on … Day after day, night after night, doing what she had to do, caring for Hope, humouring Marcus, making conversation with her parents-in-law, visiting her mother, working occasionally for some war charity, and always keeping the dream alive in her heart.

  She and Huw, one day, one day when it was all over …

  It had seemed to her that the end of the war would somehow signify the moment for change, that when the world returned to normal her life too would move into a different plane. She had not stopped to wonder why she felt this but it had comforted her all the same.

  Well, now the war was over. And suddenly it came to Barbara that unless she did something about it, it would make no difference to her life. None at all. The joy died in her.

  ‘Babs – are you still there, Babs?’ Maureen asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced down at Hope. The child had tired of playing quietly with the duck on wheels and was now banging it noisily against the leg of one of the nursery chairs. ‘Tell Mrs Milsom to set an extra place for dinner. I don’t care what anyone says – tonight I’m coming home!’

  For the POWs in the east, VE day went by unheralded and unsung. For though Germany had been vanquished, the Japanese were still deeply embroiled in their own war, battling and counter battling with the Allied forces in every part of the Pacific.

  Alec Hall spent VE day just as he had spent every day for the last three years, under armed guard in his prison camp in the Malay peninsula. Once there had been a time when the Jap guns had been needed to keep the raggle of prisoners under control. No more. The steamy tropical climate, flies, disease and starvation had proved better policemen than the guards ever could. The men had been marched from place to place until they dropped and then marched again, to work day after endless day on the building of the Burma railroad. When they faltered they were urged on by rifle butts, when they fell they were trampled and left to die. Disease had taken its toll. Malaria, dysentry and beriberi were rampant and wounds which festered in the mosquito-ridden heat killed many more.

  Alec had suffered a tropical ulcer and he had seen half his leg rot away before an Australian medical officer, himself trembling with fever, had amputated it. For weeks Alec had lain close to death, then somehow, miraculously, his body had reasserted itself and he had recovered. He had thought it was the end for him – as he could no longer march with the others he thought the Japs would finish him off, but luck sent a new Commander to his camp, a man with more humanity than Alec had come across in his dealings with the sour little yello
w men, and he was found jobs to do around the camp.

  Whilst others died like flies, Alec somehow survived. Perhaps it was his wiry build which saved him, for always it seemed it was the biggest and strongest of the men who succumbed to the terrible conditions. Weak, thin as a skeleton, eyes sunken in their sockets, skin yellowed and covered with sores, armpits chafed by the makeshift crutches Alec had fashioned for himself, yet somehow alive, Alec waited for the end of the war which he knew, with typical Hall optimism, must one day come. And when he saw mate after mate buried in shallow graves marked only by a simple wooden cross, he held fast to his belief that he at least was not going to die in a foreign land.

  England seemed like paradise in his tortured dreams, Bryda and Joan were like people he had known in another life. Time had ceased to exist beyond the cut he made daily in the wall of his hut to mark its passage; and even counting these he was unsure how many weeks, months or years had passed, for he had lost count during the time when he was feverish after the amputation of his leg and again during a bout of malaria.

  To him, VE day was just another mark on the wall with nothing to make it different from all the other days. But as always when the heat began to make the steam rise in suffocating clouds from the jungle vegetation, when his wounds ached and his body felt too weak from exhaustion and starvation to carry on, he stopped to thank God that he, unlike so many of the others who had been taken prisoner with him, was alive.

  That in itself was a victory.

  For Harry VE Day held an extra edge of excitement.

  ‘You know what it means, don’t you?’ he said to Margaret as they were getting ready for bed.

  ‘Hmm?’ Margaret enquired idly without turning round. She was standing at the window, luxuriating in the fact that there was no need now for blackout and watching the fireworks that were streaking bright paths of sparking light into the sky from the direction of the football field.

  ‘The end of the war – you know what it will mean,’ Harry said patiently.

  ‘Yes. It will mean no more carrot cake and tins of Spam. We’ll be able to get bananas again. I am looking forward to bananas! I’ve almost forgotten what they taste like, but I know I love them. Oh Harry – look at that rocket! What a beauty!’

  ‘Never mind the rocket and the bananas. I’m talking about important things.’

  ‘So am I. Bananas are very important. I could eat one right now …’

  Harry buttoned his pyjama jacket.

  ‘It’s useless trying to talk to you in this mood.’

  She turned away from the window, all contrite.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I’m just excited because it’s all over. What do you want to talk to me about?’ ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’

  She went across and put her arms around him, smiling up at him.

  ‘Yes, it does. It mattered just now. So go on and tell me and don’t sulk.’

  ‘I was only going to say there could be a big change in our lives soon.’

  ‘I know. No more Spam and plenty of bananas.’ She giggled, then straightened her face. ‘Sorry. I’m just finding it very difficult to be serious.’

  ‘I know you are. But serious is just what you might have to be. The war is over, Margaret. The coalition government will come to an end. There’ll be a General Election.’

  ‘Oh!’ Suddenly she was as sober as he was. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘I mean that I shall be in the thick of things. I might even be elected. You could be an MP’s wife before long.’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ She dropped her arms as the full implications of it came to her, remembering that day when he had come home to discuss with her whether he should let his name go forward. It had seemed unreal then, just a very distant possibility. In the intervening years she had come to accept it as something which might one day happen without giving it much thought. Now, suddenly confronted by the imminent transformation of vague imaginings to reality, she felt swamped by the enormity of the way in which their lives could be changed forever.

  ‘Oh Harry!’ she said.

  ‘I know. It’s a bit staggering, isn’t it?’

  ‘You can say that again!’ She looked up at him, anxious suddenly. ‘You’re not going to change your mind and back out, are you?’

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. He, too, was thinking back in time, remembering a young man who had decided his mission in life was to improve the lot of working men like his father. He remembered the burning desire to see fair play for the men who gave their health and sometimes their lives to make the coal owners wealthy, the determination to fight, fight and fight again for those who were in no position to fight for themselves. He remembered the anger and impotence he had experienced watching fellow strikers make a fool out of poor old Nosey Parker when he had been forced to strike break in order to feed his family and the way his own resolve to change things had come with a far-sighted ness which had been far beyond his tender years. And he remembered too the personalities who had influenced him – plucky, gritty little Mr Cook, General Secretary of the Federation, Owen Wynn-Jones with his rolling oration, even Margaret’s own father, George Young, who had worked all his life with quiet passion and self-effacing dedication for the party he believed in.

  Now, as he stood facing the very real possibility of his election to Parliament, it seemed to him to be a culmination of everything he had worked for. Every small effort came together to help make the whole – the nights when he and Margaret had sorted piles of used clothing donated to aid the families of impoverished miners during the General Strike of 1926, the political meetings, the circulars he had addressed, the errands he had run. All the studying that had gone into getting his Manager’s ticket had played its part, too, just as he had known it would. Useless to be enthusiastic without having the necessary knowledge, qualifications and sheer weight to back it up. All his life, it seemed, he had been working towards this moment; now, daunting as it was, he felt the excitement bubbling in him like freshly poured champagne.

  He looked at Margaret, at her eager face smiling up at him. She had been with him all the way. He could never have come this far without her.

  He caught her hand, pulling her down so that she was kneeling between his knees. His chin rested against her hair, his eyes, staring across the top of her head into a future as uncharted as a stormy sea and as great a challenge.

  ‘Oh no, I’m not going to change my mind now,’ he said. ‘Maybe I won’t be elected, but if I am I promise you this. I shall go to Westminster prepared to work until I drop for the causes we both believe in. And I’ll make damned sure that they sit up, all of them, and take notice of the ordinary working man.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Just as Harry had predicted VE Day was closely followed by developments on the political front. In spite of Churchill’s’efforts to persuade the other parties that the coalition should continue until the end of the Japanese war, he finally decided that a General Election should be held in early July.

  ‘Atlee will only guarantee the coalition until October,’ Harry explained to Margaret. ‘And Churchill won’t go on that long with a General Election hanging over him.’

  ‘I should think not!’ Margaret retorted hotly. ‘It’s about time ordinary men and women had their say again – and I’m pretty sure what they will say too!’

  Harry wished he had Margaret’s faith; in spite of all his convictions he lacked her straightforward trust in the good sense of the British people. Churchill was riding high after leading them to victory. But Margaret remained convinced that this time, fielding more candidates than ever before, the Labour party would triumph.

  ‘We’ve all had enough of this war,’ she said simply. ‘And besides, people won’t have forgotten what happened after 1919. They were promised the earth then, too – and look what happened. The depression. Thousands of men with no work. Ordinary folk paying for a great act of folly. Oh no, they’ll make sure that socialism gets a chance this time, I’m convinced of
it. We’ve won the war, now we have to give everyone a chance to benefit from victory, not just those with power and money.’

  Harry smiled. ‘You put a good case. You should be on the platform, not me.’

  Margaret smiled back. ‘I believe in the cause and I believe in you. That’s all.’ She did not add that there was a further reason for her optimistic mood. This was not the time, in her opinion, to complicate the issue by introducing personal matters.

  In the run-up to the Election she worked tirelessly, making certain she was at Harry’s side whenever possible. She wanted the world to know he had her complete support and besides, there were plenty of people who remembered her as George Young’s daughter. If the memory of her father could swing a few extra votes Harry’s way then Margaret was not above exploiting it.

  Even Marie was pressed into action. Caught up in the wave of enthusiasm she soon learned to fold election addresses and stick down envelopes with the help of a pad of damp foam – though she had to be talked out of licking them, for unlike the other party helpers she actually liked the taste of the gum.

  Voting day was 5th July and by the time the polls closed everyone in the Hall household was exhausted. There followed an unbearable wait for the results – three weeks until the votes of the widely scattered servicemen and women could be gathered together for counting. Those three weeks were the longest of Harry’s life. Realising that his fate was already sealed in the ballot boxes, yet not knowing what it was, made for a tension which kept him on a knife edge of uncertainty. Margaret tried to persuade him to take a holiday without success. He had too much to do for that, he said, for work had taken second place to electioneering over the past weeks and no one could be appointed to take his place until the election results were known and it was certain that the union would be looking for a new agent.

  The days dragged by and people followed the news of the war in the East while awaiting the results. The Japs were on the run now, the only question being how much longer they could hold out. The Philippines had been liberated, Japan itself had been attacked by air and sea, and the Allied troops were making advances in Borneo, but fierce fighting continued in New Guinea and Malaya. Still, surely it was only a matter of time …?