by Annie Murray
‘Sit down – if you want,’ Violet said, rather clumsily.
Roy settled himself at the table. He seemed shy.
‘You’ll think I’m a bit funny coming asking you this, but – do you like poetry, either of you?’
‘I’m not much one for it myself,’ Muriel admitted, tipping the tea grouts out. ‘Cannae make head nor tail of it to tell you the truth.’
‘Not even Robbie Burns?’
‘Who?’ Muriel said.
Violet, taken aback as much by the oddness of coming to ask such a question as the question itself, tried to think back to any poetry she had ever known. Bits at school of course, ‘The Lady of Shalott’ . . . ‘And through the field the road runs by To many-tower’d Camelot’ – that was all she could remember. And something else about the boy on the burning deck.
‘I know it’s peculiar coming like this. It’s just – there are things in here . . .’ He held out the book. ‘Just marvellous things. And if you don’t read them at school, or afterwards . . . I mean, no one talks about them – normally like, you know. I thought you might like to hear some of it?’
‘All right then,’ Muriel said politely. ‘You carry on while I brew up.’
Violet, unsure what else to do, took a seat at the table. Roy opened the book and thumbed through.
‘This is by William Wordsworth,’ he said solemnly.
He began reading what turned out to be a long, long poem. Muriel filled the pot and brought cups over and dribbled milk into them and eventually, with a droll expression, she poured the tea. Glancing up at her, Violet saw the suppressed laughter in her eyes. Normally Violet would have laughed with her, but this time she found herself feeling annoyed. She liked the way Roy Keillor was reading to them, and she wanted to understand, but she had been lost almost from the beginning. It all seemed to be about meadows and birds and lambs, some of it very beautiful, she could tell, and he read it in a soft, slow rhythm. Sometimes she caught a bit of the sense of it, but then it kept slipping away from her. She listened to his gentle voice, affected by the fact that it evidently meant so much to him, but she just didn’t know what he was on about.
And then in the middle of it, a few lines seemed to link up straightforwardly so that she could hear them, and she rolled along with them:
‘Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.’
She felt her skin prickle, as if all her hairs were standing on end, and the feeling that she had had sometimes as a child of being immense and spread out, and, as on that night looking out over the rooftops, that there was something in her that could fly and extend itself wide over the land. She felt as if in her soul she was a huge bird, or had been in another life, and rds reminded her of all that had once been and might be again that was bigger and grander than ever this life she was living now. She sat very still, feeling expanded inside herself by rds, and found that her eyes were full of tears as if for something momentous that she had lost.
A few verses later he finished reading and she had not heard much more of the poem. Just for once, she longed for Muriel not to be there. She looked up at Roy Keillor as he closed the book.
‘S’pose I got a bit carried away,’ he said. ‘But can you see why I wanted to read it to you?’
Muriel was struggling to look polite, if not exactly impressed.
‘I’ve never heard it before,’ Violet said. ‘I mean I couldn’t follow it all, but . . .’
‘It is long,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s worth it.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
His eyes were searching her face. Violet met his gaze, and knew that no one had ever looked at her like that before and she had never looked back like that.
‘Your tea’s getting cold,’ Muriel pointed out with just about concealed irritation.
‘Oh yes.’ He smiled and closed the book.
And they talked about other things.
Chapter Thirty
‘Have these two weans ever seen the sea?’ Muriel asked the next day as they hurried through the early morning routine.
‘The sea?’ Joyce piped up. ‘Can we see it? I’ve never seen it.’
‘Where is it?’ Linda was four now. Violet was startled often by the life and intelligence shining out of her brown eyes, as if there was a powerful engine purring away inside her. Everything she did, even fastening her shoes, was done with intense concentration. Joyce was more vague and scatty.
‘Here – eat up now.’ Muriel placed a bowl of porridge on the table in front of each of them. The day didn’t begin right for Muriel without porridge and she insisted on making it even though it meant getting up early to allow it time to cook. The girls were learning to like it – even salty, the way she made it – as they would have walked across hot coals for Muriel.
‘The sea is round the edge of the country and we’re right on the middle,’ she told them. ‘Where I come from in Scotland, we’re only a stone’s throw from the sea.’
Linda frowned. ‘D’you throw stones in the sea?’
Muriel laughed, her jolly red lips parting. ‘Aye, sometimes we do. One day, when the war’s over, you’ll have tae come up to Scotland and pay me a wee visit, won’t you? Anyways – my auntie Jean married an Englishman and she lives down in Brighton. What d’you think, Vi? We could make a trip?’
‘I s’pose so,’ Violet said. The thought had never occurred to her. She thought of the poem, the children playing along the shore, and wondered if despite all Muriel’s mocking of Roy and his poems, that was what had set her off on thoughts of the sea.
‘We cannae go on to the beaches now, so they say – but at least we could see the sea,’ Muriel was saying, having to explain to the children that the beaches were mined and fenced off in case the Germans tried to get in.
‘Are they trying to get in?’ Joyce said, alarmed.
‘Well, we hope not – they’re not taking any chances. Vi – if we went one time when we have an early shift before a day off I’m sure Auntie Jean would put us up. You’d like her – she’s my mum’s sister. She and Uncle Mort have a wee bakery.’
The chance came within a couple of weeks. Auntie Jean had written back to say she’d be over the moon to see them, and if they sent a telegram to say when they were coming they’d come and meet them.
‘I’ll send Mort,’ she wrote. ‘He likes a little walk.’
It was the first time Violet had ever been out of Birmingham.
The girls were so excited they were hard to settle down in the carriage, wanting to jump about and kneel up on the seats, and Violet felt almost as frisky herself. She craned her head round as the train pulled out of her city, seeing its sooty factories and warehouses recede, its workaday yards and smoking chimneys, the barrage balloons still hanging over it like bloated guardian angels.
They all squeezed in close to the window, seeing the green expanses of spring fields and the farms and sheep and cows. Muriel kept pointing out things to them as they chugged along. The girls’ excitement over the sight of a donkey or a farm dog was a cause of amusement to the middle-aged couple sharing their compartment. Violet was astonished by the orchards they saw full of pink blossom and the sheer prettiness of the countryside. She watched Linda, and at some moments, when she had seen something new, saw her face transformed in a moment of wonder, a glow which brought a lump to her throat.
At last they climbed down wearily in Brighton. It was only about nine o’clock but to Violet it felt like the middle of the night. She took the girls’ hands as they walked nervously along the platform.
‘Toot toot,’ Joyce said, as the train let off a great sigh of steam.
Muriel carried the holdall into which they had squeezed all their clothes.
‘Uncle
Mort!’ She raised her spare arm suddenly to wave. ‘There he is!’
A short, plump man came towards them, smiling broadly.
‘Well, hello there!’
As soon as she saw Uncle Mort, Violet’s nerves started to subside. She could see she was going to like him. He was almost bald except for a ring of mousy hair and everything about him was plump and round: his body, cheeks, chin. He had an old raincoat round him with the buttons done up wrong.
‘Well – young Muriel!’ He kissed her cheek, squeezing her hand. And this is your friend?’
‘Friend – and landlady!’ Muriel said.
‘Very nice to see you, very nice.’ He shook her hand, speaking in a deep, burring voice. ‘Come on now – let’s get home. Jean’s on pins waiting for you.’
He led them through the dark streets, a little torch lighting their path. Soon they were in a row of terraced houses and Uncle Mort took them into one. He kept the torch on as they went indoors.
‘Just follow me – up here.’
Violet knew that the couple lived over a bakery. There was a low counter on their left in the small room, and a strong, yeasty smell. They could see a light on upstairs.
‘Is that you, Mort?’
The voice sounded so like Muriel’s that for a moment Violet thought it was she who had spoken.
‘We’re all here – home and dry.’
‘Bring them all up – quick!’
Violet and the girls were the last up oden stairs and she could hear the exclamations of ‘Look at you!’ at the top as Muriel was greeted by her aunt. Auntie Jean was in her fifties, and as round and comforting a person as her husband, with pink cheeks and her hair, still deep brown, tied back in a bun. She greeted Violet with a broad smile, then bent to speak to the children.
‘I expect you little girls would like a wee piece of cake?’
Joyce and Linda nodded, wide-eyed.
Looking round fondly at Muriel, Violet was touched to see that she was struggling not to cry. Auntie Jean resembled her mother very much in looks and Violet knew that for all her cheerful antics, she missed her mother and home terribly.
‘I’ve got the kettle on – come on, sit down out here.’ There was a kitchen built on to the house above the storeroom at the back. ‘We have nae much room here but you’re welcome to what there is!’
‘We brought all our bacon rations,’ Muriel said, wiping her eyes.
‘Oh, you should nae have done that! Well – bacon butties in the morning for you! Here, you little ones – I hope you like a nice scone. I put a few raisins in . . .’
She offered Violet a scone, saying, ‘You never said your landlady was so bonny! I was imagining some middle-aged matron!’
Violet laughed, shyly.
‘Och – and you had it terrible with the bombing up there, didn’t you? I should think your nerves were in shreds after that. I don’t know how you all stood it.’
Jean and Mort tutted and shook their heads sympathetically.
‘And you’ve a husband away in the forces, have ye, Violet?’ Auntie Jean said.
‘Yes – army. I don’t know where, for certain.’
‘Well, that’ll be a worry too.’ There was a silence. Everything looked so grim out East. It was hard not to feel pessimistic. ‘Still – ’ She smiled. ‘We’re so glad for you to come down here, both of yous, and take your minds off it all for a little while.’
They sat drinking tea with the comfortable couple. Auntie Jean asked after Muriel’s father, from whom she hardly ever heard, then went on to bemoan the fact that the piers and beach were all off limits.
‘These poor weans – I hope they haven’t come thinking they can play on the sand?’
‘They’ve never seen the sea before,’ Muriel said.
‘Have you not?’ Jean looked at them in amazement.
‘Well – you can see it,’ Uncle Mort said, holding up his teacup. ‘But you won’t be able to get in it – not the way things are at present. You’ll have to come back.’
‘That’s what I told them.’ Muriel smiled at the girl.
‘Come back when there’s beach and ice creams!’ Auntie Jean said.
‘Mom! Mom!’
Violet managed to open her eyes with great difficulty. A crack of dim light was visible at the edge of the blackout curtains. She tried to think where she was. There was a strange, delicious smell.
‘Mom – I want to go and see the sea!’
‘Oh, Linda – what time is it? I’m sure you should be asleep.’
She realized then that nderful smell was of baking bread, and where she was, and that they only had one day here. Linda was right – they needed to get going!
Auntie Jean was already downstairs, in a big white apron, looking as if she had never been to bed. A row of newly baked loaves lay on the counter in the tiny shop.
‘You go and have a look at the waves – it is nae far,’ she said. ‘And I’ll have that bacon frying for when you get back.’
They walked down to the seafront in the misty morning. It felt very early. The breeze blew brisk and salty, bringing roses to their cheeks and ahead of them, grey waves heaved and shifted, breaking in a roll of frothy white.
‘Is that the sea?’ Linda’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
‘Aye – that’s it. And that’s the beach.’ Muriel took them as close as it was possible to get. There were rolls of barbed wire stretching all along its margin. ‘See – all the pebbles?’
They stared and stared. The sea sucked loudly through the stones.
‘See those?’ Muriel pointed at the two piers, extending out into the breakers, ghostly in the fog. ‘That one’s the Palace Pier – and that’s the West Pier. There’s lots of fun to be had on those – or there would be if it was nae for the war.’
‘The war spoils everything,’ Joyce grumbled.
‘Aye – but we’re having some fun together, aren’t we?’
‘We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the war,’ Violet said.
And she realized, guiltily, that she was glad.
The shop had a green and gold sign over the door saying ‘Hall’s Bakery’. They walked back into delicious smells, and Auntie Jean fed them on crusty white bread and the rashers of bacon. Violet knew it was one of the nicest things she’d ever tasted, and said so.
‘That’ll be the sea air,’ Auntie Jean said, pouring dark tea from her big brown teapot. ‘They say it makes everything taste better.’
Violet could already feel that the day was going to pass in a flash, and they had to be back on a late afternoon train to be at work the next morning.
They spent the hours they had walking round the town and seeing some of the grand buildings and looking in the shops, and the children played in the park and they had a dinner of fish and chips. As the day went by the mist burned off and though the breeze was cool, it was lovely and sunny. They enjoyed the town thoroughly, but all the time they kept being drawn back to the sea, sapphire blue now the sun was out, all of them fascinated by its immensity, its endless movement.
Joyce and Linda had a little bag of sweets each and they strolled along the front. There was only one sour moment, when they passed two rather smartly dressed women who spoke in loud voices, not caring who heard.
‘Oh – ’ one of them said, eyeing Violet and Muriel and the children. ‘Must be some more of those dreadful evacuees. I rather thought we’d seen the last of them.’
‘Well, we live in hope!’ the other said. She turned for a moment, looking them up and down and said, ‘Ghastly!’ Then the two of them went off, laughing behind their hands.
Violet saw Linda staring after them. She saw herself and her children through her eyes: down at heel, poor, not respectable.
‘Oh, ignore the snooty bitches,’ Muriel said, catching sight of her face. ‘I’d love to see them in a welding mask!’
As the last minutes of the time they had left in Brighton went by terribly quickly, they stood looking out at the sea, the sky
patched with puffy clouds. Violet found herself drifting off almost into a trance, lulled by the waves’ rhythm, her thoughts stilled. How could you take in, on a day like this, all the fighting going on in rld? She was filled suddenly with a deep sense of longing. She leaned on the railing, watching the waves break and break and all she could think of was the poem that Roy Keillor had read, and over the water, like a spirit presence, she seemed to see his face.
Chapter Thirty-One
Spring was turning into summer, and often when Violet passed the Keillors’ house the two little boys were playing out at the front. One was, as Roy had said, dark and delicate-featured like him, the other was round-faced and fair. At times she saw the little girl as well. Occasionally she passed him in the street, once when his wife was beside him, and they all greeted each other with a polite nod.
At this time she was trying to ignore the effect that any meeting with him had on her, the way it seemed to mean far more than it should, the excitement she felt at any chance of seeing him.
It was some time before they spoke again. She was on her way back from Bessie’s. It was still light and she saw him coming along the street, an old trilby shadowing his face. As they drew closer he looked up, and she saw his expression change. He smiled and lifted his hat. Violet felt a wave of something pass through her, the way she imagined a bomb blast might feel, only on the inside.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello.’ She could feel Joyce and Linda watching them.
Then neither of them knew what to say.
‘We haven’t seen you,’ she blurted at last, realizing at once that it was an odd thing to say and blushing.
Roy seemed embarrassed. ‘After I’d been round I . . . Well, you must’ve both thought it funny of me – coming along like that, with the poetry book . . . I don’t know why I did it.’
‘I liked it. It was . . . I’ve never heard anything like it before. Only . . .’ Everything she said seemed to be coming out wrong. ‘I mean, I couldn’t catch it all.’
