by Maggie Ford
She caught her on Thursday evening in the church hall, sorting out old Brownie uniforms for storing away for the duration. Louise looked up at her approach and smiled, a smile closely resembling that of Mrs Ward. ‘Can I help you, Jenny?’ Not ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’
She smiled – there was no harm in Louise – and launched into her question. ‘I was wondering about Matthew. Is he thinking of joining up yet?’
Louise’s face went suddenly frosty. She seemed to age ten years, become Jenny’s senior. ‘Why don’t you ask him? It’s his business.’
That was all. Incapable of pursuing it, all she could do was say brightly, ‘I suppose so – see you then, Louise,’ and depart hurriedly, aware of Louise looking after her as she went.
Chapter 3
September twenty-ninth, Friday; Matthew’s twenty-first birthday was two days off. He was to have thrown a party on the Saturday in Dennis Cox’s home, his own mother declining to open hers to a troop of heavy-footed young people. But Dennis had joined up and so had most of Matthew’s friends. So Jenny saw herself as a poor substitute when she accepted his invitation to help him celebrate his majority with a meal at a tiny restaurant by the Salmon and Ball pub in the Bethnal Green Road.
‘Why me?’ she’d asked, aware that had Jean still been around or the Middleton girl, now engaged to a young soldier, and had not declined, she would not have been so honoured.
‘Why not?’ he’d countered with a flippancy that didn’t quite manage to hide a certain despondency in his voice.
He was missing everyone, that was certain, and again that insidious suspicion her mother had innocently planted plucked at her. Was he really scared behind that facade he’d put up? She kept telling herself that he must have some honourable reason for rejecting his mother’s intentions for him to get himself a commission, but the more she tried to convince herself, the harder it was to believe it. What young man would scorn the chance of an officer’s uniform? With his education he would certainly become an officer.
Sitting opposite him at a small table in the restaurant, gas masks in their square boxes hanging on the backs of their chairs, she forced herself to smile at him whenever his brown eyes met hers, knowing he was only using her as a bolster against his own loneliness.
It had been a wonderful meal, yet she had felt that every mouthful had to be forced down; Matthew too just picked at his food, although he had done a great job on the wine, even ordering a second bottle only to consume most of it himself.
Jenny fingered her liqueur glass of Tia Maria, gazing at the thick dark liquid in its narrow vessel. ‘You’re not enjoying this evening one scrap, are you?’ she finally burst out.
He glanced up from the brandy he had ordered. ‘Are you?’
‘I was asking you, Matthew.’
‘Me? I’m having a whale of a time.’
The remark, to her ear loaded with sarcasm, full of the implication that in normal circumstances she’d be his very last idea of a companion, struck at the very core of her being. She could find no reply to give him, and felt starkly aware how easily and suddenly adoration can be changed to vague hostility, no matter how temporary, for her heart told her that it could only be a short while before her secret feelings of love returned.
In silence she watched him lift the brandy glass, study the amber liquid, swirling it thickly around the bowl. Bringing it to his lips he threw back his head, draining it in one gulp and coughing a little against its fiery taste. He signalled to the wine waiter for another.
‘You’ll get yourself plastered,’ she warned, finding her voice again as the drink arrived moments later.
‘Wouldn’t be such a bad idea.’
‘It would be a silly idea. You’ll spoil your birthday.’
‘Some birthday,’ he muttered ruefully, taking a long swig.
Ignoring the connotation of her being poor company, Jenny opened her handbag and brought out a small oblong package wrapped in coloured paper. She laid it on the table in front of him.
‘It’s not much I’m afraid, but – happy birthday, Matthew.’
For a moment he stared at it, then his face lit up. ‘You didn’t have to do that, Jenny.’
He sounded suddenly like an excited schoolboy and she forgave him his shortened use of her name, her heart lifting as he began tearing off the wrapping with genuine pleasure as though this was the most important gift he had ever received. It was especially flattering as she knew of the presents he’d been given by his family. He had already shown her a monogrammed silver cigarette case from his sister. In fact Louise had asked Jenny’s advice on what to get him.
‘Matthew smokes,’ she had told Louise. ‘Why not get him a cigarette case? He hasn’t got one.’ So apparently that was what she had done.
He’d also mentioned getting a couple of hundred pounds in bonds from his grandparents, his father’s people who lived in Finchley in north London – there were apparently no grandparents on his mother’s side. Then there had been the main present, a Ford Eight from his parents, in which he had proudly driven her the half-mile or so to the Salmon and Ball.
‘Well, open it then,’ Jenny urged as he paused over the slim blue box she had given him, now stripped of its colourful wrapping. Carefully he lifted the lid to gaze down at the humble pen and pencil set.
‘Jenny … that’s really nice.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s just ordinary. I mean, it looks silver but it isn’t really. I expect you already have a set.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ He glanced up, giving her a long look. ‘Thanks Jenny – it’s the best present anyone could give me. I’ll probably need something like this when …’ Breaking off mid-sentence, leaving her to wonder what it was he had been about to say, he placed the box in his breast pocket with almost reverent care.
‘What about your other presents?’ she reminded him.
He gave a sardonic chuckle. ‘Beware Greeks bearing gifts.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean I feel I’ve been put under obligation by some people.’
‘What obligation?’
‘Oh …’ He heaved a sigh, playing absently with a box of matches put on the table for smokers’ convenience. ‘Doesn’t matter. Family business. But thanks, Jenny, for the gift.’ He reached for his glass. ‘Anyway, happy birthday, Matthew! May you have many more – God willing.’
Not waiting for her to lift her own slender glass, he drained his at a gulp, blinked, then grinned across at her. ‘I think I’ll have another.’
Jenny gnawed at her lip. ‘No, don’t, Matthew.’
‘It’s my birthday,’ he stated truculently, then grinned again. ‘Good old Libra, that’s me. Stuck in the balance. Death of summer, birth of darker days. God! I wish I’d been born in spring, years from now.’
He was talking nonsense. He’d definitely had enough. But apparently he wasn’t of the same opinion as her. ‘I’m going to have another.’
Frowning, he clicked a finger and thumb rudely at a passing waiter. ‘I want another brandy.’
‘Please, Matthew,’ Jenny hissed, embarrassed. ‘You mustn’t.’
His frown deepened. ‘Christ! Not you as well.’
‘Me?’
‘Telling me what to do. Making decisions for me. Jus’ like my mother. She does that, all the time. Louise and I, we jus’ laugh, but sometimes … Time I was allowed to make decisions for m’self. Where’s that waiter? Ah.’
The man stood beside him, polite yet superior, his elderly face lined and wise, his tone conveying the faintest hint of disapproval. ‘You ordered another brandy, sir.’
‘I did,’ snapped Matthew, but the wind had gone out of his sails. He sat slumped a little as the drink was placed before him. Listlessly he pulled out the new cigarette case, offered one to Jenny which she declined, took one himself, lit it from a gold lighter, a present from an uncle, and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.
She had never seen him like this. It was as though she was looking at
a totally different person to the buoyant carefree spirit of only a few weeks earlier. It made her heart ache.
‘It’s getting late,’ she urged, and when he shrugged, continuing to smoke, his brandy untouched, she added, ‘My mother doesn’t like me to be out too late. She gets lonely. She’ll be anxious.’
At last he spoke. ‘You too?’
‘What do you mean, me too?’
‘Parent trouble.’
‘No, not really. It’s just that now there’s a war on, she worries.’ But a glimmer of his problem had begun to show itself. She leaned towards him. ‘Matthew. What’s the matter?’
‘Who says anything’s the matter? I’m fine. Couldn’t be better. I’ve got my future nicely cut and dried, no worries, nothing. Life’s grand. Just sit back and let my dear mother do the worrying for me, the arranging, the thinking. Who cares?’
He cut off abruptly, stared down at his untouched drink as though unsure how it came to be there, then he grimaced and sucked in his breath, pushing the glass from him and stubbing out his cigarette.
‘Ye gods! Jenny – let’s get out of here.’
Gathering up her coat, her handbag, the unsightly square box on its cord, while he paid the bill, she hurried after him, thankful that he seemed to be walking from the restaurant more steadily than she had dared to hope. But once outside on the pavement the air hit him and he swayed.
She took his arm firmly. ‘You can’t drive back in this state.’
‘It’s only a mile.’
‘It’s so dark. You’ll have us hitting a lamppost. We could walk. I’ve got my torch. So long as we don’t collide with a wall of sandbags.’ She tried to make a joke of the sandbags surrounding the council offices. ‘You can get your car tomorrow. And you must clear your head before you get home.’
‘Must?’
She realised she had probably sounded slightly domineering. His earlier words spoken against his mother’s efforts to sort out his future ought to have warned her. She hurried to repair the damage, giving a light laugh.
‘Your mother will hit the roof if she sees you. You’ll never hear the last of it.’
‘You can say that again.’ He chuckled too, his tenseness easing a little as, falling silent, he leaned on her, letting her guide him. Neither spoke as they negotiated the quiet crossroads under the railway bridge.
It was darker than they had anticipated after the restaurant lights, dim as they had been. Not a chink of light shone anywhere. Jenny’s small torch, itself covered by black sticky paper with just two tiny holes cut in it, gave hardly a beam and they needed to walk slowly, cautiously, in case they bumped into something hard like a pillar box or a lamppost, none of them lit, all of them obsolete. The bowl of the sky these days was dead-black from horizon to horizon as no one in town had ever seen it; stars looked as large and bright as sequins and the Milky Way stood out like a solid path of frozen mist in the enveloping silence up there.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Jenny breathed, glancing upwards in wonder at it as they felt their way along. Time stretched out in silence between them; she judged that soon they would come upon that unevenly built wall of sandbags round the council chambers, so she moved even slower. Suddenly Matthew came to an abrupt halt, dragging on her arm.
‘What is it?’
She heard his sigh. ‘It’s … not been a very successful evening, has it?’
There was a slur to his words which she tried to ignore and she attempted to make yet another joke. ‘My fault, or yours?’
‘Mine.’
‘You’ve not been the jolliest of people tonight,’ she admitted candidly.
‘And of course, you know why.’ Again that sarcastic ring, but at whom she did not know.
‘I don’t think I do.’
‘Yes you do. It’s what’s been hanging over my head these last few weeks. I know my mother means well, but she rather jumped the gun telling people her son was going to be an officer. Let her down, didn’t I? And now everyone thinks I’m scared to join up, yellow, because I’ve not made any move to do anything. I can see it in their faces. I can see it in yours.’
‘Not mine, Matthew! I don’t think that.’ But she did think that, had battled with her conscience, tried to ignore the thoughts that assailed her. It had to show in her face, in her voice, no matter how she tried to disguise it, even from herself, as she told herself that Matthew was no coward.
She heard his explosive laugh. ‘There’s blind faith for you! Real true loyalty. No doubts at all.’
He shrugged away from her, supporting himself with one hand against a lamppost. ‘Don’t you have jus’ one small doubt, Jenny, in that great big heart of yours? Aren’t you just a little curious to know why I … why I didn’t volunteer, like Dennis and Freddy and half the country?’
His attitude confused her, put her at odds with herself. Her entire evening with him had been spent struggling with that malignant tumour of doubt, not knowing for a moment that he’d perceived the cracks in her armour. Now he was accusing her and she had no defence. She reached out and took his arm. ‘I don’t know why, Matthew. You’re making me feel very unhappy.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She wasn’t sure if the apology was genuine or spoken in anger. ‘Seems it’s the fashion t’be unhappy.’ His body seemed to sag a little against the lamppost.
‘All I know is I’ve got to tell someone.’ For a moment he fell silent while Jenny waited, then quietly, as though ashamed of himself, he said, ‘Someone I can trust. I trust you, Jenny. Above anyone else I know, I trust you. I wish … I jus’ wish … God, I feel a bit sick.’
She waited while he rested his head against the iron post. In the utter darkness, but for the pinprick of light from her torch, she could hardly see him. Standing there, she stared into the black night, the chill of autumn creeping about her shoulders all the more chill for there being no light anywhere. It felt as though they were the only two people in the whole world; East London was preparing for sleep, no buses, no vehicles of any kind drove past them, just a low hum of which she was only just aware could be heard, so low it was, of some distant flicker of life in this darkened city. Silence, the silence of a metropolis waiting for that something it knew would happen eventually.
She shivered, not from cold, but from foreboding, thankful for the presence of Matthew, even if a little the worse for wine and brandy. Yet if she hadn’t gone out with him this evening, she wouldn’t be here now to feel this fear of the dark, this ominous dark with its low distant rumbling like the warning of a storm yet to break but still unseen. And again she shivered.
Matthew’s voice made her jump, even though it was so low that had a breeze ruffled the still air, she would have missed his words.
‘All my life …’ He paused as though thinking it out, then began again. ‘All my life Louise and I have been nursed along, protected, pampered. Our parents have always been there to fight our fights, solve our problems, especially my mother. I know she always meant well so I let her get on with it. I even thought it funny. But I took it all for granted. My fault. But there comes a time … I’ve just begun to realise the harm it’s done. It’s like being smothered by a blanket, warm and safe, but – well, suffocating if it’s pulled too close. Throw it off and you realise just how fresh the air can be. D’you know what I’m trying to say, Jenny?’
He didn’t wait for her reply. ‘I’ve got to break away. Make my own life. But how the hell do you say to someone you love, someone who loves you: “Thanks for everything, but I’m off”? She does love me, but so, I don’t know, so selfishly, and she doesn’t even realise it.’
His words trailed off as he became lost in his thoughts while Jenny stood by not knowing what to say.
He began to talk again. ‘This war. It seemed my chance to get away without hurting her feelings. But she’s cheated me even out of that. And she can’t see it. Had it all worked out for me, trying to help, holding my hand yet again, making enquiries to get me into some officer cadet training unit or other.
I don’t know what she had in mind or thought she could do – I’ve not been listening that much. All I know is that this time I want to do things for myself. I’m twenty-one. I don’t want her to keep holding my hand.’
Jenny found her voice. ‘Can’t you explain to her how you feel?’
‘Explain!’ His voice was still slurred. ‘Don’t think she’d understand. Only hears what she wants to hear. Diff’rent for Louise. She’s a girl. She’s nat’rally happy to cling to her mother. But me. Got to let go. Let it go on too long. Should’ve volunteered for the Territorials last year, but she talked me out of it. Scared then at me going off and getting m’self killed. Everyone was panicking a bit at that time. But now she can see it’s inev … inevitable she’s doing her damnedest to see me in the best possible situation, going into an officer cadet training college, getting a safe job. But I don’t want a safe job. I’d have liked to become an officer, but I wanted to sort it out. I wanted to. She’s spoiled that for me. Now, Freddy’s got married and joined up. Dennis – that soft idiot – is having a go. Suddenly I’m still a boy in a world of men, and it’s shaken me. I decided I wouldn’t sign on under her rules – thinking she can sort it all out for me. I’m going to wait ’til I’m called up, take my chances.’
‘That could be rough on you,’ Jenny said. ‘You’d just be in the ranks.’
‘Exactly. I want to rough it, start from the first rung for a change, on my own. If I get a couple of stripes, it’ll be on my own merit. If I get as far as a commission, it’ll be my own doing. I probably will get a commission – my education – but it won’t be my mother getting me there. I want to do it all on my own, and if … if …’
