by Mary Nichols
‘I’m not coming to Cottlesham to stay in a pub, Louise. It would be different if you were married and had a home of your own. Can’t you find a nice young man to take you on?’
‘I’ve got a nice young man, Mum.’
‘I meant one that isn’t married to someone else.’
‘Yes, well, that can’t be helped. Let’s not quarrel over it.’
‘You know how I feel about it so I won’t say any more. Besides, what’s done is done and can’t be undone. Would you like a cup of coffee? It’s only Camp, I’m afraid.’
‘Camp is fine, Mum.’
Faith busied herself boiling the kettle and fetching out cups and saucers. ‘Would Angela like a glass of milk? I got an extra half pint from the milkman today. People round here are so helpful. They know how it is with your father and they often say how they admire me for looking after him so well. Mind you, the nurse is a great help.’
‘How is Father?’
‘Just the same, neither better nor worse.’ She put a small glass of milk and a cup of coffee on the kitchen table in front of where Louise was sitting with Angela on her lap. ‘He manages to make his wishes known, though. He points and grunts. Nurse Thomson seems to understand some of what he is trying to say.’
‘Did he know I was coming?’
‘I told him when I gave him his lunch. He had it early so I could have more time with you.’
‘I’d better go and see him after I’ve drunk this.’
‘Leave it until after you’ve had something to eat. I’ve got the remains of yesterday’s roast chicken and I can easily do some more vegetables.’
Louise was thankful to concede this and helped her mother to prepare the meal. By the time they had finished eating it, Angela had lost some of her shyness and slipped from the table to explore the flat. Louise, helping her mother wash up, did not at first miss her, but then a bellow from the bedroom sent her scurrying to find her.
The child was standing just inside the door looking at Henry who had picked up his stick and was waving it at her while he tried to speak. Louise grabbed Angela up. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘The man won’t hurt you.’ Then to the man in the bed, who appeared to be in a purple rage, ‘How are you, Father?’
His answer was unintelligible, but she could guess the gist of it. ‘I’m sorry you cannot even be civil to a small child who has done you no harm,’ she said. ‘We are leaving now. I won’t trouble you again.’ She turned to come face to face with her mother who was looking terrified. ‘Is he often like that?’
‘All the time.’
Louise carried Angela back to the kitchen followed by Faith. ‘You can’t go on like this, Mum. I had no idea. Look, won’t you think again about putting him in a nursing home? We’ll manage the cost somehow.’
‘No. It’s a cross I have to bear.’
‘That’s nonsense. What are you afraid of? He can’t hurt you now. He’s helpless.’
‘God isn’t. God sees all. He knows what’s in our hearts.’
‘Anyone would think your heart was black as sin.’
Faith promptly burst into tears. Louise shut the kitchen door and put Angela down so that she could go to her mother. ‘Don’t cry, Mum, please. It just goes to show you can’t cope any longer. You’re worn out. I’m going to talk to the nurse, see what she thinks.’
‘She thinks he’s a saint.’
‘Well, we know differently, don’t we? Sit down. I’ll make a cup of tea and we’ll talk about it sensibly.’ She picked up the kettle, filled it from the tap and put it on the gas stove.
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’m all right, really I am. It’s this dratted war, it’s been going on too long.’
‘You are changing the subject.’
‘No, I’m not. What will you do when it ends?’
‘I don’t know. It all depends. If Jan goes back to Poland …’
‘You aren’t planning to go with him, are you?’
‘No, Mum, I’m not. I suppose I’ll go on teaching. I’ll need to if I’m to keep myself and Angela.’ It was the first time she had said that aloud and it brought home to her just how difficult it was going to be.
‘Are you hoping he won’t go?’
‘Yes. I suppose, if I’m truthful, I’d say I want him to stay.’
‘Will you ask him to?’
‘No, Mum, I won’t ask him.’
‘Will you come back to Stag Lane School?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I really don’t know. Let’s wait and see shall we?’
Jan was still a little preoccupied when she met him later that day and she supposed the nearer they came to the end of the war, the more he thought of home. He had told her in one of his letters that the civilian population of Warsaw had all been evacuated and dispersed into camps, and then the Germans had systematically destroyed the city; there was nothing left but empty ruins. The Russians would walk into it almost without opposition. Determined not to let him dwell on it, she chatted about her Christmas and how Angela loved the doll he had sent her. ‘I don’t think she has replaced Cuddles in her affection, even though he is looking a little bedraggled.’ she told him. They had put Angela to bed and arranged for one of the hotel staff to listen for her while they went to have a meal in the dining room. There was cold turkey on the menu.
‘I’ll buy her a new one.’
‘I shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be her beloved Cuddles.’
‘Beloved Cuddles,’ he murmured. ‘Do you remember …’
‘Of course. How could I forget?’
‘I didn’t do you any favours, did I?’
‘Jan, what are you talking about?’
‘I mean having Angela. It can’t be easy for you, bringing her up and going to work.’
‘My love for her and for you makes it easy. I wouldn’t change either of you for the world.’
‘You love me?’
‘Oh, Jan, you know I do. I always will.’
‘Even if I behave like – what is the word in English? A cad, yes, even if I behave like a cad?’
‘But you don’t. Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘I cannot marry you.’
‘I know that. I knew it from the first; you never made a secret of it. Why all this sudden soul-searching, Jan?’
‘I am thinking of what will happen when the war ends.’
‘What will happen?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know.’
And for the second time that day, she said, ‘Then let’s wait and see, shall we?’
The Russians entered the snowbound ruins of Warsaw on the 17th January with little opposition. They overran the rest of Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria and crossed the frontier into Germany the same month. If there had ever been any idea on the part of the Allies to race for Berlin, they did not pursue it, although they crossed the Rhine and some Americans made contact with Russian forces on the Elbe towards the end of April.
The advance of the Allies also revealed the horrors of the concentration and extermination camps in Germany and Poland, which people in Britain would never have believed but for the newsreel pictures. Jan and Louise had gone to the cinema in Swaffham to see Laurence Olivier in Henry V, which had received mixed reviews from the critics but was hailed by the populace who enjoyed the colour, the pageantry and the patriotism which fitted in with their mood. But the news that followed it had the audience gasping and hurrying out of the cinema. ‘I can’t watch this,’ Louise said, letting her seat up with a clatter. ‘I’ll be sick.’
‘It is true, isn’t it?’ she queried when they were outside in the fresh air. ‘They couldn’t have made it up.’
‘It’s true,’ he said. The images of ragged, starving people and piles of naked corpses had sent his thoughts winging back to home and Rulka. Had she had to endure anything like that? Was she among those wretches? Had she been killed? It made him boil with frustrated rage. Here he was, well clothed
, well fed, happy with the job he was doing, while all the time others, including his wife if she were alive, had had to endure this horrendous suffering. ‘I just hope that those who allowed it to happen get their just desserts. I’d willingly tie the rope round their evil necks myself.’
‘I’m sorry, Jan,’ she said, laying a hand on his arm. ‘I can guess what you must be thinking, but please, don’t be bitter.’
He pulled himself together. ‘I wouldn’t have brought you if I’d known they were going to show it.’
‘But I think people ought to know, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said quietly.
Stalin’s troops took nine days to win the battle for Berlin, a city in ruins whose people were as tired of war as everyone else and whose Führer committed suicide rather than face retribution. Admiral Dönitz was named his successor and it was he who made the decision to surrender. The war in Europe was over. May 8th was Victory in Europe Day and a public holiday.
There were wild celebrations all over the free world, particularly in London. Crowds thronged into the Mall and congregated round Buckingham Palace where the King and Queen and the two princesses appeared on the balcony with Winston Churchill and everyone sang ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and ‘There’ll Always be an England’. Total strangers hugged and kissed each other and the pubs ran out of beer. When darkness fell London blazed with light. Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral and Big Ben were all floodlit. In towns and cities and small hamlets all over the British Isles, the people celebrated. Cottlesham was not to be outdone.
All day children and adults had been dragging wood and anything combustible onto the village green to make a huge bonfire. Some of them made an effigy of Hitler, draped in the blackout curtains from the Pheasant, and set it on top. The butcher donated a whole pig which had been roasting on a spit for hours. Bill Young provided a sackful of potatoes for cooking in the embers. Edith Wayne had discovered a box of bunting in the attic of the village hall and this had been supplemented with more made by the village ladies from odd scraps of colourful material, and strung between poles. The bunting was not the only thing to come from the village hall; the men hauled the piano onto Bill Young’s farm trailer and took it to the green. Stan brought a table and stacked it with beer and spirits. The WVS had a portable kitchen acquired at the beginning of the war in case they had to feed the homeless but which had never been put to use, except in training. It was fetched out and the ladies were soon boiling kettles, making tea and heating soup.
Louise and Angela, Jenny, Tommy and Beattie, joined the whole village to celebrate, but more than a few tears were shed for those, like Tony, Mr Carter, Honor Barker’s son, Daniel, and Mrs Johns’ WAAF daughter, Doreen, who would never come home. The war against Japan had yet to be won and many men from Norfolk were still in captivity in the Far East, Greta Sadler’s twin sons with them. More than a few had died out there on the other side of the world. Before the festivities began, the rector presided over a moment of quiet reflection, thankfulness and prayer.
But nothing could quell the need to rejoice. The bonfire was lit, the beer barrel tapped and Edith Wayne sat at the piano and played all the old favourites: ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, ‘When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World’, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me’, and ‘There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover’. They sang and danced and burnt their tongues on baked potatoes. A group of American airmen from the nearby base arrived in a jeep to join in the fun.
Louise smiled as Angela ran to her with an orange one of the Americans had given her. She didn’t quite know what to do with it. Louise squatted down and peeled it for her and broke it into quarters. ‘It’s for eating,’ she said, popping a piece into her own mouth. ‘It’s lovely and juicy.’
The child wandered off again eating the orange. The juice dribbled all down her clean frock.
Tomorrow would be time enough to think about the future, a future, so they had been told, where everyone had work, everyone had somewhere decent to live, where no one was poor or hungry, where the people would be looked after from the cradle to the grave, and all children would enjoy a good education, regardless of their parents’ ability to pay. It would be a very different and more prosperous world than the one they had left behind. At the time they believed it, because they wanted to believe it and only the most sobersides asked how it was all to be paid for. The country was almost bankrupt.
It was the middle of the school summer holiday when the Japanese surrendered, after the dropping of two atomic bombs which had devastated two of their cities, killing thousands. The celebrations for what was called VJ Day were more muted than those earlier in the year. Peace had not brought prosperity; rationing and shortages were as bad as ever. There was a new Labour government, headed by Clement Attlee, who had made all sorts of promises about public ownership, social reform and the rapid demobilisation of the forces, but that was all going to take time and in the meantime people were being urged to tighten their belts, as if they hadn’t been doing just that for the last six years.
One by one, the men came back from wherever they had been serving and tried settling back into civilian life. For some it was easy, for others, almost impossible. One of Greta Sadler’s sons returned from Japanese captivity towards the end of the year, but he didn’t know what had happened to his brother. Three months later she learnt that he, too, was on his way home. Both young men were painfully thin and their stomachs could not take the good food Greta dished up for them. Peace was going to take some adjustment on everyone’s part.
Nearly all the London children had left Cottlesham, although Tommy and Beattie remained. Agnes had not been to see them for a couple of months and Louise wondered why. It wasn’t that she wanted to see the children go, she had become very fond of them, but surely they should be back with their mother by now?
She learnt the reason for this when Agnes Carter arrived one evening towards the end of August, accompanied by an American sergeant, a bomber pilot in the United States Army Air Force, whose name was Russ Forrester. He was tall, dark and smart in his uniform and he smiled a lot, mostly at Agnes. She was looking exceptionally smart herself in a new fur coat and green felt hat with a matching feather. She wore sheer nylon stockings and high-heeled shoes and rather more make-up than when she had come visiting before. There were some people who were not looking drab.
‘Russ is my fiancé,’ she said as she introduced him to Louise, Jenny and Stan. ‘I’ve brought him to meet the children. We are going to take them away for a few days for a little holiday so they can get to know each other.’
‘We’ll take off tomorrow morning,’ Russ said. ‘And bring them back next Saturday, if that’s OK with you.’
‘Of course,’ Jenny said, giving Louise a meaningful look. ‘I am sure they will enjoy it.’
‘Where are they?’ Agnes asked.
‘They’ve gone to bed, but I doubt they’re asleep. They will have heard you arrive.’
‘Let’s go up to them,’ Agnes said, and led Russ from the room.
‘Well, that’s a turn up for the books,’ Jenny said when they were out of earshot. ‘What do you think the children will make of it?’
‘No idea, but they are used to Americans, aren’t they? There’s enough of them round here.’
‘Yes, but not ones who want to marry their mother.’
‘I suppose something like it had to happen,’ Louise said. ‘Agnes is only in her late thirties and she’s not a bad-looking woman, especially when she’s dressed to the nines. I wonder where she got that fur coat.’
‘I expect he bought it for her. You can get anything if you’ve the money to pay for it.’
They learned at breakfast next day that Agnes was planning a wedding later in the year and would take her children to make their home in America. ‘Russ has to have written permission from his commanding officer to marry,’ Agnes told them,
smiling at Russ who was devouring eggs and bacon, oblivious to the fact that it was a whole week’s ration for two people. ‘Until that’s signed we can’t arrange the wedding. I was wondering …’ She paused and turned to Jenny. ‘Do you think you can keep the children until then?’
‘Of course.’
Bill Young took Agnes, Russ and the children to the station in his taxi. Tommy was a little subdued. Louise realised he was torn between wanting his mother to himself and the excitement of going on holiday to a real hotel. Beattie was happy to go along with whatever was suggested, especially as the American had brought her a new doll, dressed far more grandly than she was, in lace and frills. Tommy had been given a baseball bat with the promise that Russ would teach him the game. Angela was left without her playmates but it meant she would have her mother to herself.
Their departure left Louise feeling flat. She was glad to see the end of the conflict, the end of death and destruction but she had no illusions about the difficulties they would be facing. So much was bound to change, though it was slower coming than some people liked. The troops would come home eventually, though there was a strict order in the way they would be demobbed; guns, aeroplanes and ships no longer needed to fight would be laid up. The Americans, like Russ, would go home. And that inevitably led to thoughts of Jan. Would he leave her? Would she be able to keep her job? Where would she live? The London children, who had not yet left, would go home and Jenny would almost certainly want her bedrooms back. She had been talking for some time of making the Pheasant into a proper country hotel. And what was she to do about her mother? All these questions had to be faced, but the overriding one was what Jan would do.
The euphoria of the celebrations for the end of the war had passed Jan by. London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen and Moscow might celebrate, with singing and dancing in floodlit streets, but in Warsaw, empty, defeated, ruined Warsaw, there was nothing but darkness and bitterness and rows and rows of wooden crosses.
Like his fellow Poles Jan felt out on a limb. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had met at the Tsar’s old palace in Yalta the previous February and decided the fate of Europe between them. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation under the British, American, French and Russians. Berlin was similarly split. And, as he had predicted, Stalin had got his way over the boundary with eastern Poland. The land he had annexed when he invaded in 1939 was now designated Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine, part of the Soviet Union. Poland had been compensated for the loss of nearly half its eastern territory with a chunk of Germany in the west, which meant whole populations were on the move westwards. The Polish administration in London was no longer recognised as the government of Poland and the Soviet puppet government had been formally accepted by the Western Allies as the interim government until elections could be held, which Stalin had promised would be ‘free and unfettered’ and held a month after the end of the war. Few of Jan’s comrades believed that.
