The Girl on the Beach

by Mary Nichols

  Harry doted on him. He watched Julie breastfeed him with a grin on his face and his eyes shining. He even learnt to change the baby’s nappy and would sing him to sleep if he was at home at his bedtime. Their lives revolved around George and neither wanted to think of anything else, certainly not the clouds gathering on the horizon as 1938 became 1939.

  The trouble was that they could not avoid it because the subject was on everyone’s lips. There were those who, like Julie, believed war had been averted, and those who were convinced it had only been postponed.

  ‘It will come, you see,’ Mrs Golding said. She and her husband were their next-door neighbours and had come to England from Austria ten years before and considered themselves English. Even so, they were hugely unpopular in the neighbourhood because of their origins and the fact that they were Jewish. Julie, who knew what it was like to be an outcast, felt sorry for them and always spoke to Mrs Golding when they were both in their back gardens hanging out washing, or met in the queue at the grocer’s.

  ‘The bombers will come,’ Mrs Golding said, as they both took advantage of a good blow to hang out sheets. ‘They’re building shelters in the Old Kent Road. I saw piles of bricks and men mixing cement and they told me that was what they were doing. And the council is offering everyone a shelter for their garden.’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about garden shelters.’

  She asked Harry about them when he arrived home. ‘Mrs Golding says the council are issuing everyone who wants one with an air-raid shelter,’ she said, dishing up his evening meal. He was very late home and she had been keeping it hot over a pan of boiling water. ‘Is that true?’ ‘Anderson shelters – yes, I believe so.’

  ‘Why? The prime minister said there would be no war.’

  ‘He’s playing for time.’

  ‘Oh, no, Harry, surely not? Hitler got his way over Sudetenland, what more does he want?’ Like many another she had never heard of Sudetenland until it filled the front pages of the newspapers.

  ‘The whole world,’ he said, attacking his food while she sat at the table opposite him watching him eat. She loved cooking for him and he always appreciated her efforts, but it was a pity she never knew what time he was coming home so that she did not have to keep it hot, letting it spoil. He never complained. Nor did he complain when the week’s housekeeping money ran out before the end of the week. ‘I’m not used to managing money,’ she said when she had to ask for more. ‘When you give it to me I think it will last easily and then it seems to disappear all of a sudden. I don’t know why.’

  ‘You must learn to budget, sweetheart. We mustn’t get into debt.’

  So he sat down and went over what she spent the money on and it was usually something frivolous for George, like a new toy because she saw it in the shop window and thought he would like it, or a treat for Harry’s tea, so that when it came to buying the basics, she found herself short. ‘Let’s get some jars and put some in each for the essentials, like rent and groceries and insurance, and when they are all paid for, you can spend the rest on whatever you like. But don’t dig into the jars unless it’s a real emergency.’

  ‘I’m stupid, aren’t I?’

  ‘No, of course you’re not stupid,’ he said, giving her a hug. ‘It’s just that you never had to handle money in the orphanage, did you? And when you were in service your board and lodging was found and your wages were your own to spend as you liked. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you will soon learn.’

  ‘You are so patient with me.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I love you.’

  ‘And I love you, more than I can possibly explain. You and George are my whole world. I don’t want it ever to change.’

  ‘Unfortunately, my darling, times are changing. We can’t avoid that.’

  ‘War, you mean.’

  ‘Yes, war.’

  ‘Oh, Harry, what have we done to deserve it?’

  ‘We won the last war, that’s what, and we made the Germans pay heavily for it and they won’t forgive us. Hitler is stirring them up to hatred and blaming us and the Jews for all his country’s ills.’ He pushed his empty plate away from him. She took it to the kitchen and brought back a bowl of rice pudding, sweet and creamy and topped with ground nutmeg. ‘Julie, I really think you should think of moving to the country,’ he went on, digging his spoon into the pudding.

  ‘And leave you here? No, Harry, I will not. We stick together, come what may.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘The same for George. Besides, where would I go? I know no one in the country and I should be lonely and miserable. At least here, I’ve got neighbours I know. Don’t ask me again, please.’

  ‘But you don’t know what it will be like.’

  ‘I don’t want to know. Suffice unto the day is the evil thereof.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘We’ll take it as it comes, Harry. Do you want to get rid of me?’ This last was said tearfully and he jumped up to put his arms round her.

  ‘Darling, how could you even think that? You are the whole world to me. I just want you safe.’

  ‘I am safe with you to look after me.’

  Her faith in him worried him. He could never live up to it, but for the sake of harmony he dropped the subject. He did not even renew his plea when council workmen delivered fourteen sheets of corrugated iron, six girders, some nuts and bolts and a spanner, together with instructions for constructing the shelter and a bill for six pounds fourteen shillings, which they could pay by instalments if they chose. He simply set about digging a hole in the back lawn, five feet by seven and four feet deep. It took the whole of one Saturday afternoon, and the following day he assembled the shelter in the hole and covered it with all the earth he had excavated and topped it with the turf he had removed. He cut three steps down to it and then called to Julie. ‘Come and try it out.’

  She went reluctantly and ventured down the steps. It was pitch dark because she was standing in the doorway blocking out the only source of light. It smelt dank and the earth beneath her feet was oozy mud. She screamed and scrambled out again. ‘I’m not going in there again. It’s just like the cupboard at the Coram, only worse. At least that was dry.’

  ‘I’ll put some duckboards in and some seats and a lantern. It won’t be so bad.’

  ‘It’s dreadful.’

  ‘It’s that or go to the country,’ he told her. ‘I want you and our son safe.’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t suppose it will ever be needed,’ she said.

  Harry came home from work one Saturday lunchtime to find her standing over George’s cot in tears. Lying beside him was a strange contraption made of rubber, canvas and Perspex. ‘I can’t put him in that,’ she wept. ‘It will frighten him. Why can’t he have a little gas mask like the ones we’ve got?’ They had gone to the council offices some time before to pick up their gas masks and had practised putting them on and sitting in them for several minutes to get used to them. Julie hated being enclosed like that and ripped hers off the minute Harry indicated they had practised long enough. Never had she imagined her baby would have his whole body enclosed in one and she would have to pump air into it for him to breathe.

  ‘He might pull an ordinary mask off,’ he said. ‘And perhaps they can’t make them small enough.’

  She flung herself into his arms. ‘Harry, I’m frightened. What’s going to happen to us?’

  ‘I don’t know, I really don’t. Pray God we never have to use them.’ He dried her tears with his handkerchief. ‘Come on, cheer up. We’re not dead yet. Let’s have our dinner and go for a walk.’

  Her laugh was a mite watery. ‘Harry, it’s raining cats and dogs.’

  ‘So it is. Then we’ll do that jigsaw puzzle Miss Paterson gave you for Christmas.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Miss Paterson since she came to visit when Harry was born. I should think she’s worried too.’

  ‘We all are, sweetheart. Tomorrow, if it’s fine, we’ll take
the bus and see how she is.’

  The winter was wet and miserable and did not help to lighten anyone’s mood, and in March German troops invaded Czechoslovakia, breaking Hitler’s agreement to stick to Sudetenland. The following month men aged twenty were called up for military training; aircraft production was stepped up and Chalfont’s Engineering were making radios twenty-four hours a day. On 21st August Hitler announced he had made a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the strangest bedfellows you could imagine. When, on 1st September, he invaded Poland, not even the most diehard ostrich could ignore the fact that Britain had pledged to come to Poland’s aid and the time for keeping that promise had come. Burying one’s head in the sand was no longer an option.

  That same day, the Territorial Army was mobilised and the evacuation of Britain’s schoolchildren began. Julie, pushing George in his second-hand cream and navy-blue pram, watched them lining up outside the school to be taken to Waterloo Station in charabancs, each carrying a small attaché case and a gas mask in a cardboard box, with a luggage label attached somewhere on their clothing, as if they themselves were pieces of luggage. Some looked bewildered, some excited by the prospect of adventure, some terrified to be leaving their mothers. And the mothers stood by in tears as their children were taken away to heaven knew where. Julie had been told she and George could be included and had received written instructions about what to take and where to meet, and Harry had renewed his pleas for her to go, but she was adamant. In his distress he shouted at her and she shouted back until George began to cry and they stopped to soothe him.

  ‘Harry, we mustn’t quarrel about it,’ she said, rocking the baby in her arms. ‘It upsets George.’

  He smiled and kissed her. In one way he was glad she was so obdurate. Being parted from her and the baby would be terrible and there would be time enough to do something about it when the bombers actually came over.

  Sunday, 3rd September was a lovely day of almost unbroken sunshine, unusually warm for the time of the year, and many people were in church, or working in their gardens, or taking a walk along the Embankment. Hearing there was to be an announcement they hurried home to switch on the wireless. At eleven o’clock Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcast to the nation. The country was at war with Germany. Almost immediately the air-raid warning sounded, a terrible wail that froze Julie’s bones, so that she couldn’t move, couldn’t think clearly. Being Sunday Harry was at home and ushered her and George down into the dreaded Anderson shelter. He had been as good as his word and installed a wooden floor and put two deckchairs in it, together with a couple of orange boxes standing on end and a storm lantern. He had made a rockery round the door and stood the happy gnome at the entrance. It was slightly better than her first view of it, but only slightly. Harry’s presence soothed her, but she wondered if she would have the courage to go down there if the siren went when he was not at home.

  After a few minutes the all-clear went and they emerged into the bright sunshine to the realisation that it was a false alarm. Nothing had happened.

  It was all happening elsewhere. A British Expeditionary Force was sent to France; the RAF dropped leaflets, not bombs, on Germany; a U-boat torpedoed the aircraft carrier Courageous, and another managed to breech the defences in Scapa Flow and sink the Royal Oak; and in November Russia attacked Finland. At home Winston Churchill was back in the Cabinet and being characteristically pugnacious.

  Everyone had to black out their windows when darkness fell so that not a chink of light escaped to guide the bombers to their targets, as if the broad ribbon of the Thames were not guide enough, and vehicle lights were covered leaving only a small slit for the drivers to see where they were going. There were no street lights. Everyone was supposed to carry their gas masks and identity cards everywhere they went. It all seemed a waste of time and trouble. No bombers came and many of the evacuees drifted back. Julie relaxed and began to make plans for George’s first birthday.

  It was time he came out of gowns and into proper boy’s clothing and she searched the shops for little shorts with button-on braces and little shirts to tuck into them. She bought his first soft leather shoes to replace bootees. He was no longer a baby but a little boy, sitting up and giggling when she played with him, reaching out for anything he could put in his mouth to test out his new teeth.

  ‘Mum wants us to take him over there for a birthday tea on Sunday,’ Harry told Julie. ‘Millie’s bringing Dorothy.’ Dorothy was eight months older than George. ‘She’s baking a special cake. I’ve said we’ll go. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Julie’s relationship with her mother-in-law was one of guarded neutrality. They were polite to each other, though not exactly warm. They both doted on George, which made a big difference.

  Julie wouldn’t travel by Underground when she was alone, it always brought back memories of being shut in the dark even though it was well lit, but with Harry beside her carrying George in his new warm wool coat and a knitted pixie hat, she endured it. She had spent more on the clothes than she should have done, but as far as she was concerned nothing was too good for her son. And Hilda Walker echoed that. The cake which stood in the centre of the tea table was a work of art: a sponge filled with jam and cream and thickly iced. It had ‘Happy Birthday, George’ inscribed in yellow icing on its surface alongside a yellow sugar rose. There were also sandwiches filled with all sorts of good things, a whipped cream trifle covered in hundreds and thousands, and chocolate iced buns.

  Hilda took George from Harry as soon as they arrived and hugged him. ‘My, you are growing into a big boy. We shall soon have you running around and getting into mischief.’

  ‘He can already pull himself onto his feet and shuffle round the furniture,’ Julie said. ‘Harry is going to make a gate for the stairs.’

  Dorothy did not like this attention given to her cousin and began grabbing at her grandmother’s skirt demanding her share. Harry picked her up and made a fuss of her and they all sat down to enjoy their tea: Donald and Hilda, Millie and Ian, Harry and Julie and the two children.

  ‘Looking at this you would never believe there was a war on,’ Julie said, surveying the table. ‘However did you manage it?’

  ‘You can always get things if you know where to go,’ Hilda said. ‘And we must make the most of it before everything is rationed.’

  Everyone had been issued with ration books when they collected their identity cards the previous September, but so far they had not been used. They had been told they would have to register at a grocer’s for all their rationed goods and Julie had dutifully registered with a small shop in the Old Kent Road, where she did most of her food shopping.

  They were halfway through tea when they heard someone come in the back door. Before Hilda could go and investigate, the dining room door opened and Roland put his head round it. ‘Is this a party and can anyone join in?’

  ‘Roly!’ Hilda flew across the room to hug him and drag him into the room. ‘You’re just in time for tea. Are you on leave?’

  ‘Forty-eight hours. Hallo, everyone.’ He kissed his sister and Julie and stood looking at his nephew and niece. ‘My, they’ve grown.’ He delved in his kitbag and produced a little aeroplane carved in wood, which he presented to George. ‘There, little fellow, happy birthday.’ Then he went to his kitbag again. ‘Can’t leave the other little monster out, even if it’s not her birthday.’ This time he produced a rag doll for Dorothy.

  ‘Sit down and have some tea,’ Hilda said. ‘Tell us what you’ve been doing.’

  He pulled up another chair while his mother fetched out more crockery and cutlery. ‘Flying about the countryside, patrolling the Channel looking for enemy shipping, whizzing over to France – nothing very exciting.’

  ‘That won’t last,’ his father said.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it will, but all this waiting about is making everyone jittery.’

  ‘We’re not hanging about,’ Harry said. ‘The factory is wor
king round the clock.’

  ‘Yes, well, there’s some catching up to do.’ He paused. ‘What are your plans? Going to stay at home and wait to be called or are you going to enlist?’

  ‘He’s in a reserved occupation,’ Julie put in. ‘Radios are needed urgently.’

  ‘So they are, but I reckon women can make them as easily as men. That right, Pa?’

  ‘Yes,’ his father agreed. ‘Chalfont’s has already taken on a lot of women as the men leave for the forces. Harry knows that.’

  ‘Well, one of you in uniform is more than enough,’ Hilda said. ‘So let’s drop the subject.’

  They dutifully obeyed but the conversation left Harry musing. Was it cowardly of him to want to stay at home and look after his wife and child? After all, he was doing a useful job, and how did he know he would be able to do any good in the forces? He’d probably get called up anyway and then he wouldn’t have a choice. Wait or go? He looked at his wife, laughing and wiping chocolate icing from George’s face, and his heart almost burst with pride and joy, mixed with a feeling of helplessness that he did not know how to keep them safe.

  It was after tea was over and he and Roly wandered out into the garden that the subject was brought up again. ‘Do you think I should enlist?’ he asked his brother, as he flicked the wheel of his lighter and held it out for Roly to light his cigarette and then lit his own.

  ‘It’s up to you, old man, but if you wait until you’re conscripted you probably won’t get your choice of service.’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters. Just think about it. The poor bloody infantry get the worst of it and if it’s anything like the last lot it will be hell. As for the navy, they are at the mercy of the U-boats. Being blown up at sea, perhaps floating about on a bit of wreckage for days and dying of exposure, is not a nice way to go.’

  ‘How cheerful you are! You can get blown up in an aeroplane.’