by Mary Nichols
All over Europe there were thousands of people in the wrong place, wandering about like lost souls with nowhere to go. Camps had been set up for them until they could be helped to go back to where they belonged, or to find new homes elsewhere. They were called displaced persons, which exactly described how Jan felt.
Chapter Eleven
January 1946
Agnes had decided to be married in Cottlesham. ‘I prefer the Reverend Capstick to your father’s replacement,’ she had told Louise on a previous visit. ‘Besides, people I used to call my friends frown on me for marrying a Yank.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. Perhaps they think I should wear black for the rest of my life. They don’t like to see me enjoying myself.’
‘Perhaps they’re just jealous.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, I’ve asked the rector if he’ll marry us and he said yes, so that’s what we’re going to do. Stan said he’d give me away. Will you be a maid of honour?’
‘I’d love to.’
‘Beattie will be a bridesmaid. Will you let Angela be another one?’
‘She’s very small, not yet four.’
‘I know, but she’s so pretty and I don’t want her to feel left out. And you’ll be there to look after her.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘This wedding is going to be different from my first. I was three months gone with Tommy and we had to get married. It was done in a registry office with only a couple of Dan’s friends for witnesses. My parents had washed their hands of me.’
Louise knew what that felt like. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Water under the bridge now. They both got killed in the Blitz. There’s only me and the kids left. This is like a first wedding for me, so I want it to be special.’
‘Then we’ll do our best to make it special, Agnes.’
‘You and Jenny are better friends to me than all my neighbours in Edgware. You understand, don’t you, about wanting to make a fresh start?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Louise said, wishing she could do the same.
Jan didn’t talk about it. It was almost as if he were afraid to bring the problem out into the open. The longer he was silent, the more she thought he was intent on going back to Poland. Would he stay if she asked it of him? Had she any right to do so? He was a Catholic and Catholics did not divorce. If he stayed she would still be an unmarried mother and would remain so until the end of her days. Unless his wife were dead. That was not beyond the bounds of possibility, but he would have to be sure.
In the meantime, she had to support Agnes and help to make sure the wedding went off without a hitch. Besides a crowd of Russ’s friends, Jan and half the village had been invited and Jenny had been kept busy organising the catering, not made any easier because everything was still rationed and, for the first time ever, bread was rationed. Queues and shortages were as bad as ever. They were lucky Russ was able to buy almost anything from the PX stores and he brought cheese, ham, tinned fruit, as well as dried fruit and icing sugar, so that Jenny was able to make a real wedding cake.
The wedding dress was made from parachute silk which Russ had also provided. Parachutes had to be flawless, he told them, and this one had been rejected. White, they decided, would not be appropriate, so Jenny dyed a swathe of it powder blue. Something borrowed would be a rather flamboyant hat with a wide brim and a big artificial rose on the front which had belonged to Jenny’s mother. ‘I don’t know why I kept it,’ she said. ‘Except that it seemed such a shame to throw it away. It was part of Mum’s outfit for my wedding.’
Beattie and Angela would be in pink dresses, also of dyed parachute silk, with tiny silk rosebuds in a coronet, made up by Louise, and they would carry more in little baskets. Being January, they might be cold in thin frocks so she and Jenny had knitted white ponchos for them. Louise went off to Norwich and spent a whole Saturday searching for something for herself and came back with a dove-grey silk dress and matching jacket that cost her five guineas as well as fifteen clothing coupons.
Everyone was up early on the day of the wedding, all getting in each other’s way. Beattie was sick with excitement and came down to breakfast looking like a ghost. ‘You can’t go to church looking like that,’ Agnes said. ‘Perhaps a little rouge …’
‘A spot of fresh air should do the trick,’ Jenny said. ‘Stan’s taking the pony and trap into Swaffham to pick up the flowers. She can go with him. It will keep her occupied until it’s time to get her dressed.’
And so Beattie went to Swaffham and Tommy, bored with it all, went for a walk. It was frosty, the cobwebs hanging from dead stalk to dead stalk glittered like jewels. So far there had only been a light dusting of snow, nothing like the first winter he was here when Stan had pulled them to school on a sledge. It seemed an age ago, a whole lifetime. Now everything was up in the air.
He had left his mum having her hair done and Miss fluttering round her and Aunt Jenny sorting out the food. Getting all worked up over it, they were. As for the navy pinstriped suit they had bought for him, he hated it. Why couldn’t he go to church in his school blazer and flannels? It wasn’t as if he had a major role to play. All he was required to do was show people to their seats.
He wasn’t at all sure about this wedding idea. The last time he had seen his father, he had said, ‘You’re the man of the house while I’m away, son, so you look after your mum and sister until I come back.’ How was he to know he would never come back or that they’d be evacuated? He had tried to look after Beattie, but he’d failed when it came to his mother. He thought she had gone off her head a bit. It was Russ this and Russ that, the whole time; she had no time for anyone else. So instead of going home to Edgware, they were going to be shipped off to America.
He wondered what that would be like. All he knew of America was what Russ had told him about his home in Illinois and the cowboys and Indians he saw at the pictures in Swaffham on a Saturday morning, both of which he was sensible enough to take with a pinch of salt. And what about school? He was due to take his school certificate in June and had been hoping for a scholarship so that he could go into the sixth form and then to college. Miss had been helping him to swot for it.
He would miss her when they left. She was all right, was Miss Fairhurst, and he liked Jan, though he couldn’t say his name properly let alone spell it. Would Miss marry him and go to Poland? Jan had showed him where it was on the map and told him a little about it. Warsaw seemed a bit like London, what with the bombing and all, but German troops had never come to London. Now they never would. The war was over.
It was difficult to remember what it was like before it began. They hadn’t been starving or dressed in rags, but he didn’t think they had had much in the way of possessions. Being in Cottlesham had shown him a different life and he liked it. Would he like America? Russ didn’t seem short of money and he always came loaded with presents and today he would marry his mum and he had been told he should call him ‘Dad’. He’d told them right out, he couldn’t do that, Russ wasn’t his dad. His dad was at the bottom of the Atlantic. Mum had been angry but he had stuck to his guns and, to give Russ his due, he had agreed that calling him ‘Uncle’ would do.
They were going on honeymoon after the wedding. Tommy wasn’t sure where but he and Beattie would stop with Aunt Jenny until they came back and arrangements were made to go to America. A lot of GIs had married over here and the American government was going to lay on special transport for all the brides and their children to go to America. They would be going on the Queen Mary. Dad had taken him on board one of his ships once, when he was little, but it had been on the quayside; he hadn’t actually been to sea. Half of him was looking forward to it, the other half was apprehensive about the future. Supposing it didn’t work out? Supposing he couldn’t go to college? He had set his heart on being an aeronautical engineer.
He looked up from kicking a stone to see Jan coming towards him. ‘There you are, old chap,’ he greeted him. ‘Your mother is worried about you. It’s time you got ready.’
‘I was just coming.’
They turned to walk side by side, off the common and along familiar lanes bordered by leafless hedges where here and there a few red berries hung for the birds, to the pub which had been his home for the last six years. He would miss it when they left, miss the people too.
‘Do you think it will be all right?’ Tommy asked Jan. ‘Going to America, I mean.’
‘Are you worried about it?’
‘How do I know Mum will be happy? It’s a long way to go if she doesn’t like it.’
‘I’m sure she has thought of all that and decided that’s what she wants. She seems very happy about it, so don’t spoil it by being gloomy, eh?’
‘OK. Are you going to marry Miss Fairhurst?’
‘That’s a very personal question, young man.’
Tommy sighed. ‘I just wondered. Will you go back to Poland?’
‘I don’t know. I might.’
‘You wouldn’t go and leave Miss and Angela behind, would you?’
‘She might not wish to come.’
‘Then you had better stay here, don’t you think?’
Jan did not answer that. The boy was old for his fifteen years. He had grown up in wartime and learnt to shoulder responsibility at an early age. Now he was worrying about the future, as they all were. And he had put his finger on the core of Jan’s unease. There were, according to estimates, some sixty thousand Poles in Britain and nearly twice that number in Allied camps overseas, many of whom, like him, had been fighting alongside Britain since 1940, and they were becoming an embarrassment to the British government. Most of them were reluctant to return to a Poland under Russian domination, certainly not before the ‘free and unfettered’ elections promised by Stalin had been held and there was a democratically elected government. It hadn’t happened yet and only the most naive believed that it ever would. But the pull of home was strong and some had decided to return.
Those left behind were being transferred from the Royal Air Force and the Polish armed forces into a Polish Resettlement Corps, whose aim was to help find employment for those who were staying. They would be on a two-year contract on full pay while they decided what they were going to do. After that the Corps would be disbanded. Jan could foresee trouble finding jobs. There was the language barrier for a start and the lack of qualifications except fighting, and already some Poles had been turned away on the grounds that jobs were for British men being demobbed. People’s memories were short and the old antagonism was beginning to surface again. He had seen a large poster fixed to the wire surrounding the holding camp where he was quartered which proclaimed: ‘England for the English’. If he decided to stay, what could he do? He knew nothing but how to fly. Many of his comrades were talking about going to the United States, Canada or South Africa, rather than return home. It was to South Africa Jozef was heading.
His brother had written to him from Italy where he had survived the slaughter of the Battle for Monte Cassino and was with the Polish 2nd Army stationed in Rimini, an army that was mostly made up of men who had been taken prisoner when the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939 and were only released when Hitler invaded Russia. ‘Having been on the receiving end of Soviet hospitality myself,’ he had written, ‘I could have told anyone who asked what would happen. Everywhere they go, they intend to be masters and Poland is no exception. It is naive of anyone to expect them to grant democratic freedom to Poland when they do not even allow it for their own people. I shall not return. Mother and Father are dead, there is no longer an estate for me to inherit and I might as well make a new life for myself. I fought alongside the South Africans here in Italy and many of them are my friends. I think South Africa will do me very well. What are you going to do? Any news of Rulka?’
It was easy for Jozef, Jan decided; he had no wife to worry about, nor a loving girlfriend and a precious little daughter. He had been avoiding discussing it with Louise, but before long it would have to be faced.
The Pheasant was in an uproar, but in the middle of it Agnes was serene. She appeared to have no doubts about what she was doing. ‘I’m going to have a wonderful life with Russ,’ she told Louise. ‘His family have a huge farm with thousands of cattle.’ She giggled suddenly. ‘I shall be a farmer’s wife.’
Louise laughed. ‘You’re terrified of cows. I remember when you first came here, you met a herd in the lane being driven home for milking and you ran for your life.’
‘I’ll just have to get used to them, shan’t I?’ She surveyed herself in the mirror of the dressing table. ‘Do I look all right?’
‘Lovely.’
‘You look smashing. What about Beattie and Angela?’
‘They are both ready. Beattie is fine now and reading Angela a story to keep her out of mischief.’ The sound of someone running upstairs came to them. Louise went to the door. ‘It’s Jan and Tommy.’
‘Tommy!’ shouted his mother. ‘Where have you been?’
The boy appeared in the doorway. ‘Out for a walk.’
‘Well, go and get changed. You should be on your way to the church by now. Mr Young will be here to take the bridesmaids any time now.’ Agnes was going to church in Stan’s pony and trap suitably decorated with garlands and ribbons.
Tommy disappeared and Louise noticed Jan behind him. ‘Will you make sure he gets to church on time?’
‘Yes, of course. You are looking exceptionally lovely, sweetheart.’
‘Well, it will be your turn next,’ Agnes called from behind Louise.
Neither commented. Jan dashed off to make sure Tommy looked his best and they both took up their usher’s duties, leaving Louise feeling a little down. She pulled herself together and accompanied Agnes down to the sitting room until it was time to leave for the church. Today was Agnes’s day and she would not spoil it by being sad.
The wedding was a triumph. The church was full and the villagers and Russ’s American colleagues mingled happily together. The bride was radiant, the bridegroom was looking pleased with himself, the bridesmaids and the best man remembered what they were supposed to do and the Reverend Capstick delivered a homily which was neither too short nor too long. Afterwards they all crammed into the Pheasant for the reception. Not until the newly-weds had left for their honeymoon and everyone else had gone home and the children were in bed, could Jan and Louise have any time to themselves. They went up to the room they shared.
Louise, worn out with the excitement of the day and her own brimming emotions, kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed with her hands idle in her lap. Jan went to the window and stood looking out on the garden, although there was nothing to see except a light on the corner of the building that illuminated the car park. The garden, bleak at that time of year, was in darkness. There was a constraint between them that had never been there before.
‘I’m whacked,’ Louise said, breaking a long silence. ‘But it was a good day, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ He turned towards her. ‘Tommy was a little apprehensive when I talked to him. He was unsure about America and whether his mother would be happy in a foreign country.’
‘I think if you love someone, then you adapt, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
He came and sat beside her and took her hand. ‘I love you, sweetheart. You are precious to me and so is Angela, more precious than you’ll ever know.’
‘I love you too, I always will. But I also understand about Rulka.’
‘I know you do and I love you all the more for it.’
‘It’s been a long time,’ she murmured. ‘Anything could have happened.’
‘I know. Nothing can ever be the same as it was before the war. Poland has been swallowed up by the Red menace. I don’t want to live in a place like that. On the other hand …’ He stopped, his anguish visible on his face. ‘I don’t know what to do, really I don’t. I’m being pulled apart.’
‘Can’t you find out what has happened to Rulka before you make the journey? After all, if she – forgive
me, Jan, for being blunt – if she is dead, it would change everything, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, but is she? When the Germans were in Poland, I couldn’t find out anything about her, and since the Russians took over it’s worse. There’s been a complete blackout on communication and no one can tell me anything. Supposing she is alive, supposing she is waiting for me to come back?’
If he was being pulled apart, then so was she, but it was up to her to be strong, for everyone’s sake. ‘In that case you must go to her.’
He looked surprised. ‘I didn’t expect you to say that. I thought you would beg me to stay.’
‘For what, Jan? You cannot marry me. Are we to live in sin while you mope about wondering if you have done the right thing? That is not a recipe for happiness.’
‘But I want to be with you.’
‘You are with me now.’ She paused. ‘Let’s not be miserable, let’s make the most of our time together. You never know what’s round the corner.’
Their lovemaking that night had an extra dimension. The emotion they both felt was heightened to such a pitch, they were carried away to somewhere not of this earth. It left them drained. They slept, tangled in each other’s arms.
