by Janet Tanner
At last, the waiting for the election results was almost over. The ballot boxes were collected, stacked and ready for the count just as if the election had taken place only yesterday instead of three weeks ago. Harry and Margaret went to the Victoria Hall where Harry’s count was taking place, Harry now so tense with anxiety he could only pace and perspire in the oppressively hot room, Margaret still as serene as she had been all through the campaign.
‘Stop worrying, Harry!’ she said as the piles of his votes grew, dwarfing those of the Conservative candidate. ‘You see – I told you. You’re home and dry.’
But Harry was still afraid to be too optimistic.
‘There are still a lot of boxes to be opened. Things could change yet.’
She shook her head. ‘They won’t. You’ll be the next MP for this constituency, you’ll see.’
Then it was completed. There was plainly no need for a recount – the thing Harry had most feared – but he had to be fetched from the Committee Room, the small kitchen behind the stage where he had retired exhausted to drink a half pint of beer, for the announcement of the result. As he took his place on stage with Margaret at his side she squeezed his hand and they exchanged smiles. The hall had an atmosphere of excited triumph, for here in the heartland of Labour supporters there were more than enough people delighted by the way things had gone to outweigh the long faces of the Conservatives.
As the result was announced a cheer went up to raise the roof – ‘I should think they heard it over in South Compton!’ Margaret said later – and when Harry stepped forward to make his victory speech he had to wait a full minute before there was the slightest chance of being able to make himself heard.
Afterwards, he did his round of the hall shaking hands with all the party helpers, with an excited Marie, a huge red bow in her hair, hanging onto the tail of his jacket. The congratulations were endless, everyone wanted to slap Harry on the back and claim their part in making him their MP. Only Ted Phillips, the ‘Union Man’from Midlington Pit, introduced a note of sadness.
‘We shall miss you, Harry, darned if we shan’t. You’ve done a good job for the lads. Still, I suppose our loss is Westminster’s gain and if you can make our voice heard there it will have been worthwhile.’
Harry grasped the man’s arm, all wiry muscle. ‘I shall do my best, Ted, you may be sure of that,’ he promised. ‘This is what I’ve been working towards all my life. I don’t intend to let the opportunity slip away now.’
Harry found Margaret in a corner of the hall talking to her mother. She looked tired now, whereas his own exhaustion had turned to adrenalin-releasing elation.
‘I think it’s time Margaret went home,’ Gussie greeted him.
He looked at Margaret, surprised. ‘What’s the matter, love?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ But she did indeed seem to be wilting.
‘I’m sorry. I never thought. You seemed to be enjoying yourself.’
‘I’m fine,’ Margaret repeated. ‘But I think I will go home all the same. I expect someone will take me if you’re not ready to come yet. It’s time Marie was in bed too,’ she added.
‘I’ll have a word with Reg Morris. He’s got his car,’ Harry said. ‘I think I ought to stay on a bit longer.’ He turned to Gussie. ‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Mum?’
She smiled, her sweet face an older version of Margaret’s, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
‘Of course I am, Harry. I can hardly believe it – my son-in-law an MP! I just wish George was here to see it. He’d be so proud.’
‘I know he would. And it’s mainly due to him, you know. I’d never have had the courage to get started on this road if it hadn’t been for George.’
‘He was a great man,’ Gussie said fondly. ‘But I believe you’d have done it anyway, Harry. You always had the will. And now you’ve got a foot in the door you’ll speak up for all the things you believe in. You’ll do us proud at Westminster.’
‘I’ll certainly do my best,’ Harry vowed. ‘Now, if you really want to go, Margaret, I’ll find Reg Morris and ask him to take you.’
‘Thanks, love,’ Margaret said.
She was in bed when he got home two hours later but not asleep.
‘I’m so pleased for you!’ she whispered as he climbed in beside her, too tired to have done anything but throw his clothes down in a heap in a corner of the bedroom, yet still strangely vibrant with excitement. ‘I knew you could do it. Didn’t I tell you so?’
‘Yes you did. You had more faith than I did.’ He suddenly remembered how tired she had looked when he had packed her into Reg Morris’s car outside the Victoria Hall. ‘Are you all right now?’
‘Fine.’
‘You suddenly went so quiet. It was all the excitement that did it, I suppose.’
She curled around him. ‘Not just the excitement.’
He put an arm around her, pulling her head against his shoulder. Her body felt good, warm from the bed and soft. He thought he would like to make love to her.
‘Why not just the excitement?’ he asked lazily, trailing his hand across her shoulder to her breast.
For a moment she did not answer. Then she whispered: ‘Are you sure you haven’t had enough momentous news for one night?’
Something in her tone arrested his attention. His hand stopped moving on her breast. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve got a piece of momentous news of my own. You’ve been so preoccupied with the campaign I’ve been saving it up. But I don’t think I can keep it to myself any longer. I’m pregnant, Harry.’
He thought the beer he had been drinking on an empty stomach must have gone to his head; or that he was asleep already and dreaming.
‘What?’
‘I’m going to have a baby. After all this time.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘At first, I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to disappoint you. And then – well, as I said, you had other things on your mind. I thought I’d wait until I could claim your full attention.’
‘Oh Margaret! That’s wonderful! But will you be able to cope now I’m an Honourable Member? I’m going to be away a lot, bound to be. Are you …?’
‘Harry!’ She was laughing now, a soft laugh, tired but happy. ‘Of course I can cope!’ She curled closer, moving his hand to cover her breast once more. ‘And wasn’t there something you had in mind just now – something to celebrate your becoming an MP – and a prospective father?’
He lay very still. ‘But if you’re pregnant we shouldn’t take any chances, should we?’
‘We won’t be taking any chances,’ she whispered. ‘And I want to celebrate if you don’t. Please make love to me, Harry.’
And tired as he was, overcome by heady joy, he acceded to her request.
On 6th August the US Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and its reverberations echoed around the world.
‘That’s it – teach the buggers a lesson!’ Ewart Brixey commented enthusiastically to the assembled regulars in the Miners Arms, but others, including Margaret and Harry, were shocked by the wanton destruction of life.
‘Oh God, what is the world coming to?’ Margaret asked, and Harry echoed her sentiments.
‘Let’s hope this is the end of it, and that this war really will be “a war to end wars”, not like last time.’
But Harry couldn’t see it. Sick and tired of fighting the people might be; but their leaders had tasted absolute power and he couldn’t see them giving it up easily.
Two days later a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, and although less devastating than the one that had destroyed sixty percent of Hiroshima, about forty thousand Japanese were killed. President Truman was in the ascendancy now, broadcasting threats to continue the destruction of Japan by atomic bombs unless she surrendered and the Soviet forces, too, were launching a powerful offensive. On 14th August Emperor Hirohito recorded a broadcast to the Japanese people; the following day it was p
layed over the air to a disbelieving population, but it was another two long weeks before the official surrender was signed aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. And at long last the task began of freeing the Allied prisoners still held in Japanese hands.
Alec Hall was amongst the first to be freed. As the liberating troops marched through the Malay Peninsula finding camps that were tucked away in the jungle and prisoners who had rotted there since the surrender, shock waves echoed round the world. But Alec knew nothing of this. He was too sick to feel anything but mild relief when a convoy of trucks arrived to carry him and the others out of the camp. The previous evening they had taken a walk into the nearby village for the first time since they had been incarcerated but as they passed the weeping guards, the pits which had been dug ready for men to be machine-gunned into, and the makeshift Union Jack which the prisoners had sewn from scraps of red white and blue material and hoisted over the camp, Alec merely wondered where the hell he was going – and why. Like a caged bird suddenly afraid of freedom he wanted nothing but to go back inside the camp and stay there, unwilling to venture out again until the trucks came for him.
It was mid-September when he arrived back in Hillsbridge, bemused by all the changes that had taken place in his absence, unable to eat anything but the simplest food, and suffering from recurrent nightmares that he was about to be shot and his body tipped into the pit that he had seen dug outside the prison camp.
The family had arranged a party to welcome him home but when Sarah saw the state of him she cancelled it. ‘I think all he wants is to be quiet,’ she explained. So his visitors came instead in twos and threes – May and the children, Charlotte with Dolly, because they were afraid Charlotte would be too upset to see him alone, Amy and Ralph with a shocked Maureen.
‘I’ve never seen anybody so thin!’ she told Barbara afterwards. ‘He’s just like Farmer Miles’s scarecrow, but burnt black by the sun. A sort of foreign scarecrow, if you know what I mean!’
When Alec had been home a week Alec had another visitor – Joan Tiley.
The last years of the war had been eventful for her. Her parents had moved to a small isolated cottage on the outskirts of Hillsbridge which gave Joan a long walk to the newsagent’s shop where she worked and when the call had gone out for nurses Joan had answered it, choosing to work in Bristol rather than Bath. Her new life had widened her horizons and she had made many new friends including some men, but for her there would never be anyone but Alec. In spite of everything she loved him still and compared with him the others were but pale shadows.
After the family had heard that Alec had been taken prisoner she had written to him several times but had never received any reply and had no way of knowing whether her letters had reached him. When she learned that he was home it was almost a week before she could summon up the courage to go and see him. Whilst she had known he was a prisoner of war it had been possible to cling to her dream that when he returned everything would be as it had been in the past, long before Bryda Deacon had spoiled everything. Bryda had left Hillsbridge now, run off with a Polish airman, and Joan had felt that when Alec learned the news any feelings he might still have harboured for her would melt like snow in the Sahara. Surely he would not allow a moment’s madness for a woman like that to spoil two lives? But now that Alec was back in Hillsbridge all Joan’s doubts and fears returned and as she walked up the path to his mother’s front door she was consumed with nervousness. Supposing Alec should treat her like a stranger? Worse, suppose he did not want to see her at all?
Sarah answered the door. She looked surprised to see Joan but not displeased. She had always liked the girl and had been thoroughly upset when Alec had jilted her.
‘Joan! How nice to see you!’ she greeted her.
Joan hesitated. ‘I heard Alec was home. I wondered if he’d feel like a visitor.’
It was Sarah’s turn to hesitate. This, perhaps, was exactly what Alec needed. But one could never be sure. He was so different now to the son who had gone to war, withdrawn, snappish if things did not please him, jumpy as a kitten.
‘I don’t know, dear. I’ll see. Come inside and wait while I ask him.’
She disappeared into the living-room and was back after a moment.
‘Come in, Joan. But I’m warning you, you may have a shock,’ she added quietly.
Joan followed her into the living-room. Alec was sitting hunched in a chair by the fire wearing a woollen dressing gown over his clothes although it was a warm September day. His faced was pinched and blotchy, his eyes sunken and his hair was now thin over his sunburned scalp. A lump rose in Joan’s throat. She did not know what to say.
From the depths of the chair Alec tried to move and Joan found her voice.
‘Hello, Alec. Don’t bother to get up. Stay where you are.’
‘Hello, Joan.’
‘Well, you’re a fine one I must say,’ she began. Then suddenly the words dried up, her inhibitions fell away and she ran across the room to where he was sitting. ‘Oh Alec, thank God you’re all right.’
‘I’m not all right,’ he said tetchily. ‘I’m a bloody mess. And I’ve only got one leg.’
‘But you’re home.’ She sank down onto her knees on the floor beside him. ‘You don’t know how I’ve prayed for this!’
He looked at her, mildly surprised. ‘You have?’
‘Well, of course I have! Oh Alec …’
He moved irritably. ‘Huh! So now I know who to thank for all those bloody months when I wished I was dead and out of it.’
Her head jerked up, her eyes full of horror.
It was a terrible thing to have said and he knew it. He’d been saying a lot of terrible things since he’d come home, almost as if he wanted to shock the family and friends who had lived here in comparative peace while he had been suffering untold torments at the hands of the Japs. They said they understood – but how could they? They talked blithely of their own sufferings and deprivations and it all sounded so petty that he could not resist jabbing at them time and again. Over the past week it had almost become a habit.
Now he looked at Joan, knew he had hurt her, and was sorry. She had come out of the goodness of her heart, because she cared for him in spite of what he had done to her, and he had taken the ground from under her feet.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Don’t take any notice of me. This is what it damn well does to you, four years in a bloody Jap prison camp.’
She swallowed, trying to regain her composure.
‘It’s all right. I understand.’
‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘But don’t let it worry you.’
‘Alec …’ Sarah was hovering anxiously, treading a fine line between upsetting her son and allowing him to upset Joan.
Joan looked up at her. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Hall,’ was all she said, but her eyes spoke volumes.
‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ Sarah said. Why was it that always at moments of crisis one turned to making a pot of tea?
‘Well, Joan,’ Alec said when she had gone. ‘How’s the world been treating you then?’
‘Oh, all right. I’ve been nursing.’
‘Not married then?’
She couldn’t look at him. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘What sort of a question is that?’
‘Quite a sensible one I should think. Most girls your age are married.’
‘I was going to be married once, Alec, or have you forgotten?’ Joan asked quietly. ‘Perhaps that was enough for me.’
He nodded. His reactions were strange – slow and detached.
‘What happened to the house?’
‘We sold it. Your mother and father had your share to keep for you. Didn’t they write to you about it?’
‘Oh yes, I think they did.’ It seemed so long ago now. ‘Does Bryda still live down there?’
He saw the pain in her eyes again. She knew; oh yes, she knew.
‘No, she’s gone. Left her husband a
nd ran off with a Pole.’ She said it nonchalantly but it jolted him to the quick. Bryda had refused him because she had said she had to stay with her husband and then she had run off with a foreigner! Well, of all the …! But it no longer mattered. Nothing much mattered any more.
‘What are you going to do now you’re home?’ Joan asked.
He shrugged. ‘What can I do? I’m a bloody crock. Now this show is over and all the men are coming home there won’t be enough jobs to go round for those that are fit. I won’t stand a chance.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s true. Who’d want me?’
She knelt up, taking his hands in hers. In spite of the warm room and the thick clothing he was wearing they felt like ice.
‘I want you, Alec.’ She was trembling. Dear God, she was laying it on the line, asking to be rejected for a second time.
‘You can’t.’
‘But I do. I’ve always wanted you, only I was afraid to say so. I still do.’
‘But I’m a crock!’
‘Not to me. Let me help you, Alec. I can help you, I know it. I’ve been a nurse – well, not exactly, but I’ve got to know how to do all the messy jobs anyway, so looking after you would be dead easy and …’
‘Thanks very much! I’m a messy job am I?’
‘No! You know what I mean. Oh Alec …’ She was scared suddenly, overcome by embarrassment at her own boldness. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say any of this. I just came to see you. Perhaps I’d better go …’ She went to get up. He reached out and took her hand, half expecting her to recoil from the almost claw-like yellowed fingers. She did not.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he said. ‘Will you come again?’
Her eyes went moist. She bent down and touched the yellowed fingers with her lips.
‘Oh Alec, of course I will – if you want me to.’
