A Time to Love

by Beryl Kingston

They sold for ten guineas apiece. It was wealth unheard of. They all had brand new coats for the winter and David determined to exhibit a collection every year from then on.

  In the meantime, it was September and time for little Gracie to go to school. The child took it all in her sure-footed stride, but it worried her father so much that he arranged to be allowed to arrive late to work for the first week of term so that he could escort her safely to the gates. The memory of his own miserable first day was still too vivid and too painful.

  But Gracie liked school and came home after her first day full of enthusiasm. ‘Isn’t he a funny old Pa to worry so?’ she said to her mother.

  ‘It’s because ’e loves yer,’ Ellen said and they were both pleased with the answer. The seasons came and went, and one year followed another, and very little happened that was of any consequence. Ruby Miller married her affable Sid and gave up work to keep house for him in two rooms above a corner shop in Commercial Street, and a year later had a daughter of her own to pet. David sold more of his paintings and learned how to prune the roses, Gracie learned to read and write, and Ellen fed her family and learned to recognize the birds that sang in her garden and felt quite a countrywoman. And although they weren’t so happy as they’d hoped they would be, at least they’d achieved a balance. But sometimes, brooding quietly on his way home from the synagogue, David would yearn for honesty and remember the ease of their courtship when there was no need to dissemble. And Ellen, standing beside the sink up to her elbows in soapsuds, would remember how happy they’d been in the old days and how very much they’d loved each other when there were no bills or chores or anxieties to subdue their pleasure.

  And soon it was 1914, and Ruby had another baby, a boy called Tom who was the ‘spit an’ image’ of her Sid, and Jack Cheifitz was five years old and had to follow his sister to school. He didn’t think much of the idea. ‘Ain’t going!’ he said, his long face determined. ‘I’m stayin’ ’ome.’

  ‘You got to,’ Gracie told him with the splendid superiority of her seven and a half years. ‘If you stay ‘ome, the School Board man’ll come an’ get yer.’

  ‘Don’t care!’ he said with tearful bravado.

  She knew the answer to that too. ‘Don’t care was made ter care, Don’t care was ‘ung, Don’t care was put in a pot, An’ boiled till ’e was done.’

  ‘Leave yer brother be,’ Ellen said. ‘’E’s only little. Now dry yer eyes like a good boy an’ don’t make a fuss. Yer Pa’ll come with yer.’

  But this time Pa was too busy, because there was going to be a war and he’d gone down to a place called Chatham to draw a battleship.

  Chapter Thirty

  Bank Holiday Monday was always the best day of the year. The Cheifitz family planned for it and looked forward to it for months. It was a day set apart, a day for enjoyment, when work and worries and taboo subjects could be completely forgotten. And this year it was going to be the best Bank Holiday ever, everybody said so.

  They’d already had eight weeks of perfect weather, for the summer that year had begun in May and was one of the longest that any of them could remember. The sun shone day after day with such predictability that soon they were leaving chairs out in the garden overnight, and the kids were rarely in the house. Fruit and flowers all blossomed early. The rose bushes were heavy with scented blooms and the syringa flowered in such profusion that it dropped its yellow pollen as thick as snowflakes on anyone who brushed beneath it. The cherries in Mrs Brunewald’s garden ripened fat and early too and their little strawberry patch began to crop in June. It was a beneficent season and it did them all good.

  It also gave David an idea. It was so hot in London, he said, too hot for comfort, especially at night. What they all needed was to be beside cool water somewhere. ‘What say we spend this Bank Holiday at the seaside?’ he suggested. ‘That’ud be nice, nu?’

  Jack’s long face lit up at the very idea. ‘See the sea!’ he said rapturously. None of them had ever seen the sea, although they all knew what it looked like from the pictures in the papers.

  ‘I’ll buy you all buckets an’ spades,’ David promised. ‘Be some fun!’

  And it was. They chose Brighton because everybody said Brighton was one of the best places, and they set out early to make the most of the day. As Gracie said rapturously afterwards, it was a day and a half.

  By the time they emerged from under the high vaulting of the railway station, all three children were in a high state of excitement.

  ‘Quick, quick,’ Gracie urged. ‘Which way’s the sea?’

  The answer was obvious, for they walked out of the station into a road that was absolutely crowded with holidaymakers, all walking in the same direction and all very excited, waving Union Jacks and singing ‘Rule Britannia’ with raucous enthusiasm. It was a fine road, lined with rich-looking hotels and pubs hung with red, white and blue bunting. It led straight downhill towards a clock tower, and beyond that the glimpse of a green lake that must be the sea. There was a sharp sea breeze blowing and the air tasted of salt. ‘Come on!’ Jack said. ‘Slow-coaches!’ So off they went with the crowd, marching along together and singing at the tops of their voices.

  The whole town seemed to be on the move and quivering with excitement. In no time at all they were down on the sea front, where bunting flicked and swirled above both the piers, and the shop blinds cracked like whips. Ribbons tangled, petticoats frothed and straw bonnets were lifted into the air despite the stoutest hat pins, so that their owners were forced to shriek and giggle and had to be held steady by the eager arms of their excited escorts. The balloon sellers were having a hard time of it too, as their leaping wares bounced into the air, their strings tangled and knotted, emitting rubbery squeaks as they bobbed against each other. Above them the sky was busy with clouds, curved like rosy cauliflowers and sailing with the speed and recklessness of great clippers, while the greeny-blue sea galloped towards the shore with such eagerness that there was no time for the first wave to recede before the second engulfed it, hurling spun foam and a triangular wedge of sandy water straight up into the air.

  ‘Cor! What a place,’ Ellen said. ‘Jest look at all that sea!’ It was enormous, going on for ever and ever. You couldn’t see the other side.

  ‘There’s donkeys,’ Gracie noticed. ‘Can we ’ave a go on the donkeys, Ma?’

  So they had a go on the donkeys, and then they all went skipping on wooden planks laid out on the sand beneath a skipping rope so long that it had to be turned by two men. And after that they needed sustenance.

  There was an Italian ice-cream vendor down by the pier They remembered him because he’d draped his stall with two Union Jacks, and people were flocking to buy. ‘Rule-a Britannia, eh?’ he said as he handed over their nice fat cornets, and that gave Ellen and Gracie an attack of the giggles. They sat on the pebbles and ate their ice cream while the band on the pier played ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. And after that they took off their shoes and socks, David and the boys rolled their trousers up to the knee and Ellen and Gracie tucked their skirts into their knickers and they all went paddling in the nice cool water and got marvellously wet. Then they discovered they’d worked up an appetite for dinner, and they had fish and chips, sitting down, in a café, and Ellen said it was the sweetest fish she’d ever tasted in her life.

  As they walked back to the beach again, David noticed that the more sedate people sitting in their striped deck chairs all along the promenade were all busily reading newspapers. It seemed rather an odd way to be passing the time when they were down beside the sea with so many other things to do, but then he noticed the headlines on the newspaper placards, ‘War imminent’, ‘General mobilization’, ‘Ultimatum sent to Germany’, and he realized why the crowds had been singing patriotic songs.

  ‘D’you know what, Ellen,’ he said. ‘I do believe they’re going ter start this war after all.’ He’d been drawing soldiers and sailors and guns for months now, and in July the magazine had sent him to Spithead
to draw the Naval Review, which had been the biggest gathering of warships the world had ever seen, but he’d never thought they’d actually get around to declaring war.

  ‘Fancy,’ Ellen said, without much interest. ‘’Ere, what say we ’ave a ride on one a’ them ships?’

  So they went down to the beach beside the aquarium, where they found a splendid sea captain in a black glazed straw hat and a jersey that looked as if it had been knitted with tar. And when he shouted, ‘Any more for the Skylark?’ they trooped aboard. It was the biggest treat of the day. A boat trip! Just like real sailors!

  It was magical out on that sparkling sea as the Skylark hissed and creaked through the green water and the spray showered their faces and prickled down on their bare arms like rain. In the sharper breeze offshore, Ellen’s hairpins were soon blown out of her hair which fell about her face and streamed behind her in long tangled curls. She and David had taken their places on the long bench with their children sitting between them. Now, as he looked at her, tousled and rosy in the sunshine, her forehead wrinkled in the anxious expression she wore so often these days, he remembered the Lady of Shalott in her magical boat and thought how very much alike they were. Except that the painted Lady had been caught in perpetual youth and he and Ellen were visibly growing older. We’re twenty-eight, he thought, and he remembered how passionately he’d loved her ten years ago, and wished he could put the clock back and have just one of those rapturous days all over again. And the thought made him feel guilty.

  ‘I love you,’ he mouthed to her, vaguely trying to make amends.

  She smiled back at him, trailing her fingers in the water. ‘I don’t ‘alf feel sick,’ Jack said.

  ‘Don’t you go sickin’ up on me,’ Gracie said. ‘You do it in the water.’

  The sky was rose pink with sunset before they decided they really ought to go home. The walk back uphill to the station took a very long time, because Benny was tired and had to be carried, and Jack and Gracie had to stop every few hundred yards to ‘’ave a little rest’. So they missed the fast train and there wasn’t another for nearly half an hour.

  ‘Never mind,’ Ellen said. ‘The slow one’ll do. They’ll sleep on the way ‘ome any’ow.’

  But as it turned out none of them slept at all, because the journey home was exciting too.

  There were soldiers on the train.

  At first there were only two of them, their khaki caps protruding from the window in the next coach, but Jack saw them at the very first stop. And ten miles further on there were five, he counted them on his fingers, and at Three Bridges they were joined by three more, which Gracie said made eight They got off at Caterham, and the platform there was crowded with soldiers. ‘Hundreds and hundreds!’ Jack said with awestruck admiration, standing at the window to get a really good view.

  Scores, certainly, David thought, amused by his sons’s exaggeration, and a tough-looking bunch, regular Army without a doubt, their crushed caps worn at a jaunty angle, their faces lined and tanned, their moustaches trim, their eyes watchful. In their heavy khaki uniforms they looked bigger and more solid than the holidaymakers around them, a dark heroic note among all those striped blazers and flowered bonnets and white blouses. Good material for a sketch.

  ‘Grand lads!’ the man in the corner seat said proudly. ‘Off to show the ‘Un what’s what!’

  ‘Are they goin’ ter fight a war?’ Gracie asked, much impressed.

  ‘Off to France, they are, to fight fer King and Country,’ the man said, nodding with great satisfaction.

  And the woman beside him nodded too. ‘Makes yer glad to be alive,’ she said, ‘with fine lads like that showin’ the flag.’

  ‘I shall be a soldier when I grow up,’ Jack announced.

  ‘So shall I,’ Gracie said.

  ‘You can’t, n’yer!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘’Cos you’re a gel. I shall be a soldier an’ fight in the war.’

  ‘Not in this one you won’t,’ Ellen corrected, because Gracie was looking so downcast she had to find some way of putting him in his place.

  Now it was his turn to ask, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’ll all be over in six months,’ David told him. ‘Everybody says so.’

  ‘It’s been coming long enough, in all conscience,’ the man in the corner said. ‘It’s a real relief now it’s started.’

  ‘Have we declared war, then?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Be termorrer they reckon,’ the man said. ‘We sent an ultimatum.’

  Now that the adults had taken over the conversation and reduced it to boring nonsense, the children leaned out of the window to admire their new heroes who were still standing together on the darkening platform looking brave and handsome and dashing, just like all the soldiers they’d seen in their picture books. They watched as the men lit fresh cigarettes for one another, cupping their hands to protect the flame and nipping out their spent matches between finger and thumb, their movements practised, and guarded, and foreign. It was marvellously exciting.

  ‘I hope this war goes on an’ on an’ on,’ Jack said.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  By Christmas it looked as though Jack was going to get his wish, for the confident predictions of the politicians had been proved wrong. The war certainly wasn’t over, in fact it looked set to go on for quite a long time. Not that David and Ellen paid very much attention to it. They read the newspaper accounts of the battles, of course, and were duly horrified when the Germans overran plucky little Belgium and brought their big guns to within shelling distance of Paris, but it was all a long way away and nothing to do with them.

  Mama Cheifitz and Dumpling and Rivke, on the other hand, actually got some benefit from the outbreak of hostilities. Government orders for khaki uniforms were immediate and enormous, and although the material was heavy and hard to work, at least it gave them the chance to earn higher wages, and as the war continued the demand for it grew. Rivke tossed the greatcoats across her kitchen table like slaughtered oxen and stitched them dourly with the face of one to whom all work was a trial, but Dumpling said the new orders had come just in the nick of time. Her eyesight had deteriorated so rapidly over the last five years that fine work was really beyond her. Now she rejoiced, settling her spectacles on her little snub nose, ‘I see this vork good!’

  Gracie was impressed by the solid uniforms the three women were producing and spent most of her Sunday mornings with her grandmother, winding bobbins and threading needles, to the delight of her father and the puzzled acceptance of her mother.

  ‘You don’t ’ave ter go ter Brick Lane every Sunday,’ she said. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’ If the old lady was putting pressure on the kid then the sooner it was stopped, the better.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Gracie said openly. ‘I like it. I’m useful. ‘Sides, I like Mama Cheifitz.’

  Even though she’d often sensed the child’s affection for her grandmother in a vague instinctive sort of way, it was a surprise to hear it spoken. ‘Do you?’ she said. ‘Why?’

  Gracie thought about it, but only for a second. ‘’Cause she loves Pa,’ she said, ‘Ever so much. Like I do.’

  Serve me right fer asking, Ellen thought. I might a’ known that. But it hurt her that her mother-in-law had inspired affection when she’d been so unwelcoming. And she knew that jealousy was a mean emotion, too. Sometimes, she said to herself, you can carry this honesty business just a bit too far, and I don’t care what he says!

  Gracie grew more fond of Bubbe Cheifitz with every visit. It was peaceful sitting in Aunty Dumpling’s crowded room away from the clamour of her two brothers. Boys were all very well, but they didn’t know how to talk. And it was talk that fascinated Gracie. She would sit up at the table between her aunt and her grandmother and listen with both ears while they gossiped and told stories and remembered the past. She heard how clever her father had been, ‘even as a very liddle boy, don’t I tell you’, and how he’d bitten the teacher, ‘Oy, oy!’
and found himself a job in the Lane when he was only seven years old. And their tender pride was a source of great pleasure to her.

  ‘A ckawchem, your fader,’ Bubbe said one afternoon after a particularly affectionate story. ‘Like his fader before him, a chawchem.’

  ‘What’s a corkum?’ Gracie asked, looking up from the needle she was threading.

  ‘A good man, dolly,’ Bubbe explained. ‘The best. A man ter depend on, nu-nu.’

  ‘I shall be a corkum when I grow up,’ Gracie decided.

  The two women beamed their love at her for such an ambition. ‘A chawchem is a man, bubeleh,’ Bubbe explained, patting the girl’s hand lovingly. ‘Alvays a man. A good Jewish man.’

  ‘So what’s a good Jewish woman?’

  They didn’t know the answer to that. ‘A moder maybe,’ Bubbe suggested.

  ‘All right then,’ Gracie said. ‘I’ll be a good Jewish mother.’

  ‘Ai-yi!’ Dumpling wailed, throwing her apron over her head. ‘She vould! She vould!’

  ‘You ain’t Jewish, bubeleh,’ Bubbe said, but so gently and with such a tender expression on her face.

  ‘I’m half Jewish,’ Gracie said. ‘Pa’s Jewish ain’t ’e, an’ so are you, an’ so’s Aunty Dumpling.’ Howling agreement from under the apron. ‘All right then, I shall be Jewish an’ all.’ It seemed such an obvious thing to say, she was surprised when her grandmother burst into tears and took her into her arms, to kiss her over and over again.

  ‘Oy oy!’ Dumpling wept, wiping her eyes with the corner of that useful apron. ‘Vhat a girl! Oy oy oy! Great is our God and greatly to be praised for His loving kindness.’

  Just after Christmas, Ruby’s Sid joined the Army, and was soon drafted into the Army Service Corps and sent to France to look after the horses. His family missed him terribly, but they were all very proud of him. ‘All got ter do our bit, when all’s said an’ done,’ Ruby would say, gazing fondly at his photograph in the place of honour above the fireplace.