War Crimes for the Home

by Liz Jensen

  He is a kind man but he is clever too. Watch out. But the kindness wins me over after Mrs O’Malley, and I say thanks, I’d love to, and we walk down Leavesden Avenue, and I pretend I’ve never seen his house before cos I’m not letting on I spied on him, and I say what a nice road, I have never been here before, and we go in.

  The Slut Fairy don’t look like the Slut Fairy no more, she’s regular-featured but nothing special, and the jealousy I had, it’s gone. It’s That Man Again’s playing on the wireless but she’s not laughing, she looks sad – and when she sees my big belly she makes a face and flashes Zedorro a look, then switches the wireless off.

  —Hello, Mrs Zedorro, I go. Then something comes over me and I shove the lilac at her and say —For you.

  —Oh they’re lovely, are you sure? she goes. —You can call me Grace.

  —Gloria Winstanley, I tell her.

  —Yes, she smiles, smelling the lilac, and I can see she can’t resist them neither. —I remember. You came to one of our shows.

  —You were very suggestible, says Zedorro.

  —I still am, I go.

  Not quite knowing what I mean by it.

  —People either are or they’re not, he goes. —Some of the people I work with, there’s no point even trying. Others, you have a result straightaway. This project I’m –

  —Bill, goes Grace, with a warning in her voice. —You’re not supposed to – (She looks at me.) —He’s not supposed to talk about his new work, she goes. —It’s top secret.

  —Say no more, I go, and we share a woman’s glance and then she gets up and says she’ll just nip out to the kitchen and pop these in a vase, and make a pot of tea.

  —Tell us more about your fiancé, says Zedorro who is called Bill, when we are gathered round the pot giving it time to brew before she pours. She’s put the vase of lilac on a wooden chest and they look so good I’m regretting being generous.

  —Ron’s in the air corps, I tell them. —He’s been on flying missions over Germany but I’ve heard nothing since before D-Day. I’m sick with worry, expecting news he’s been shot down, but nothing’s getting through. He might even be in America, for all I know, if he’s been injured. They send them back, you know.

  —It’s hard, isn’t it, says the Slut Fairy who is called Grace. —I know Bill’s dying to talk about what he’s been doing with his patients, but you can’t be too careful.

  —Patients? I go.

  Because there’s a convalescent home set up just outside Bath.

  —There I go, she says, slapping a hand over her mouth. —Careless talk! So when is your baby due?

  The siren went off then, so we had to raise our voices to talk over it, but Grace, she’d gone all pale.

  —I hate that noise, she goes. —That swoop, and then the howl. It turns my stomach.

  —It’s OK, dear, says Bill. —Don’t panic now. She worries. Her friend was killed.

  —I used to ignore them like everyone else, she says, but I can’t any more, even though there’s so few of them now. In fact the fewer there are, the worse it is.

  —If you can hear them landing, you’re safe, I say. —It’s when you can’t hear them that you cop it.

  —Let’s go to the shelter, says Grace. —Please?

  So seeing as I am their guest, and it seems rude not to, off we go outside to the public shelter in Harper Square and they take their two gas-masks with them and we file in, along with everyone else, some with thermoses and sandwiches, and plenty in curlers and house-coats. It stinks of old piss down there of course, and I always hated the places but there we are stuck together till the all-clear sounds, with our gas-masks, looking like a herd of bloody elephants.

  —My friend who was killed, goes Grace, wrinkling up her nose at the piss stink. (We’re huddled in the corner, the three of us, a little apart from the rest of them on benches, some of them eating or trying to kip down.) —She had her baby with her. The baby was killed too. We’d been to see Gunga Din at the Regent, and we heard the sirens, but didn’t think much of it. But afterwards, when we saw the ambulances were heading towards Meadow Road –

  —Shh, goes Bill. —No need to dwell.

  —I never used to be nervous, murmurs Grace. —I wasn’t the type.

  She has good bone structure, she does.

  —War changes everyone, says Bill.

  We have dropped our voices low, so the conversation’s just a murmur in the candles.

  —I’ve changed, I say, but I don’t know if it’s the war.

  —I’ve seen it bring out the best and the worst, says Bill. —My patients, they’ve seen things they can’t live with. Done things too sometimes. Sometimes they can’t even talk about it. But more often than not they can’t stop. It’s a nightmare world for them, they’re re-living it over and over again. There’s this one man, Navy captain, he had to finish off his own –

  —Bill! goes Grace sharply. —Careless talk.

  —I’m helping them, he says. —That’s all. It’s not a national secret.

  —You signed the Act, she hisses, looking anxious. —Now tell us about your sister, Grace says, to change the subject. And so I start off on Marje but soon enough I end up crying, don’t I, and telling them about my fight with the barrage balloon.

  —You come to us if you ever need any sort of help, goes Bill.

  —Why should I need help?

  —You never know, he says. —You’d be surprised how many people do. Anything you need, he says. —Don’t hesitate.

  —We could look after your baby for you, blurts Grace. —If you wanted.

  —Until you’re back on your feet again. Grace does some war work but she could help out, couldn’t you, darling?

  —Yes, says Grace, her eyes gleaming and those cheekbones jutting in the light. —Please, don’t hesitate. We mean it, Gloria. We’ll do whatever we can. We love babies, don’t we?

  And I could see that was true, and see from the sadness that they couldn’t have one of their own. We all must have slept for a while, because the next thing I knew the all-clear was sounding and everyone started packing up their stuff and trooping out into the morning air, and when the three of us said goodbye, I felt a weight had been lifted, because Zedorro and the Slut Fairy were OK, they were even probably people you could trust, if you were the trusting type. And how many of them are there around?

  LIKE WE ARE CHILDREN

  Christmas is coming so Conchita la Paz is putting up the decorations because she is a practising Catholic and Mrs Manyon says the baubles will cheer her up. She’s homesick for Abroad. There’s a plastic tree for later, we’ll all decorate it together like we are children, but children who are going to die. And Conchita’s hung stuff from the ceiling with Sellotape, and Mrs Manyon has bossed her, and her eyes have gone wet and she has gone to look for some scissors but she will go in the little room where they keep the bedpans and snivel instead.

  One of the angel fish has croaked, full of the gas of death, I found it floating. Doris has teamed up with the little Gadderton Lake girl, and they’re both staring at it. The kid’s still got that Lady Muck look. I want to fish it out but Ed says leave it be, Mrs Manyon’ll see to it, and Noreen who hardly ever speaks pipes up to agree, but I’ve got the lid off the tank and if I reach in with a knitting needle I can skewer it like a kebab.

  —What are you doing there, goes the Jill woman who is wearing a knitted jersey thing today that is posh colours, mauve and green, like a sea-anemone I once saw in an aquarium with Hank.

  —What’s it look like I’m doing? I rake around with the needle, size eight, skewer it and show her the dead body.

  Angel fish are flat as a pancake normally speaking but this one’s got a bulge.

  —Full of the gas of death, see?

  —It might be pregnant, she says.

  —Then I’ve put it out of its misery then, haven’t I.

  She looks at me like I’m the devil.

  Some tinsel comes unstuck from its Sellotape and drops t
o the floor, but she don’t go and pick it up. This tinsel, it’s green and silver. Tinsel gets thicker every year. The tinsel Hank and I used to have for our little tree, it was like straggly old wool, hardly any twinkle to it. This tinsel is quality, this tinsel –

  —There’s a specialist coming from London to see you, she says, voice all chilly again, she’s a right Lady Muck, she is. —He’s due on Thursday.

  —Specialist? What kind of specialist?

  —An expert on memory loss, she goes. —Hysterical amnesia, Alzheimer’s, that sort of thing.

  —My memory’s not lost, I go. —It hides sometimes, that’s all. It’s normal in the elderly.

  —Yes, isn’t that handy, she says, and looks at me all funny, which makes me glad she’s no relation of mine because I am beginning to think she is worse than the other one, in other words a right bloody stuck-up Lady Muck bitch. And sometimes, with that mouth of hers, she looks so much like Marje that I could slap her.

  —Tell us a joke then, I go.

  —You like jokes, do you, Gloria?

  —As it happens, I do. Got one then? Got one for me?

  Course she bloody hasn’t. Marje never could remember none either.

  Dear Little Sis,

  Sorry I haven’t written for such a long time but we have all been so busy! I haven’t had a day off in weeks. London is still such a mess – rubble everywhere and so many casualties. My friend Angela got caught by an incendiary and died four days ago from the burns. It was awful. I just want this war to end. And do you know what I want to do? I want to leave this country. Frankly I don’t care if I never see it again.

  Anyway, Gloria, I must rush now. I actually have some quite big news, but you know me – I want to tell you in person. It’s too important to say in a letter and it’s something we need to talk about, you and I. That’s all I’ll say for now.

  Your sister always,

  Marjorie.

  Big news? Well, that makes two of us. And mine’s the size of a whale.

  Hitler’s dead, shot himself in a bunker with Eva Braun. Wonder if they fucked first.

  War’s over soon then – but you wouldn’t know it at the factory which has opened up again cos they’ve fixed the pipes, and we’re back on ten-hour shifts working like billy-o, but Mr Simpson says I can do six what with my condition, if I’ll take a pay cut. Well, I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I, cos I’m so big now I can’t stand on my pins all day, so six it is.

  Not long now I s’pose before the order comes to stop making bombs and make something else such as prams, cos the war’ll be over.

  I’m in an orange turban this morning, doing six till twelve, and Maisie and I are just on to the second verse of ‘We’ll Meet Again’ when sure enough Mr Simpson sounds the bell and tells us we can all go home, Mr Churchill is expected to make an announcement shortly, and Maisie and I grin all over our faces, cos we know what this is going to be, don’t we, the rumours have been buzzing all week and now it’s going to happen.

  Back home I’m still all afidget with it, can’t keep still even though the baby’s weighing me down. I’m ready to pop but there’s still a month to go by my reckoning – the day it was conceived being the last time I saw Ron.

  So there I am in the kitchen fidgeting and fussing, while Mrs O’Malley combs her blasted rabbit, which I keep thinking about how to strangle. Would it be as easy as a chicken? You could make a good stew from a creature like that. Carrots and potatoes, you’d put in. Some chicken stock.

  —You won’t be needing him much longer, I told her.

  She snorts.

  —Sure I will, girl. You think the shortages are going to end with the war? You’re even dafter than I thought, child.

  —You’ll have to leave my house, I told her. —As soon as this war’s over, you’re out. Might mean tomorrow.

  —And what’ll you do for money, she goes. —Who’ll be paying you rent when I’m gone?

  —My sister’ll be coming back. And we’ll get a lodger for our mum and dad’s room. A single person, a single lodger. Just one room, we’ll give him.

  —Him?

  —Or her. Anyway that’ll be for Marje to deal with cos I’m off to Chicago.

  She carries on combing her rabbit, which must like the feeling because he just sits there, letting it happen.

  —We’ll see, she goes. —We’ll see what the situation is like when you have a babby on your hands. We’ll see about Chicago.

  And she smirks.

  —I’m going out, I say all of a sudden, cos I’ve had enough, and I can’t stand to sit there watching her wretched comb go up and down on the rabbit, and feel myself fidgeting, fidgeting, and itching to strangle the thing and get a good meal down me.

  —Good idea, she says. —Get yourself some fresh air. Read your letter from America.

  What?

  And slowly, she reaches in the pocket of her pinny. Pulls out an envelope. The evil fucking bog-trotting cow! Who does she think she is?

  —How long have you had that? I go, lunging forward to grab it.

  —Not so fast, she goes, pulling it away and holding it high so I can’t reach. —It arrived last week. Or was it the week before, now? Let me think, I can’t recall. Maybe last month? Put it in my pocket and forgot all about it!

  And she laughs like it’s funny to be that cruel.

  How dare she! How dare she sit on a letter of mine! A letter from Ron! I’m ready to burst with the rage, I am, but I don’t want no more fist-fighting, being so preggers, so I just snatch the letter out of her fat hand and rush out, stumbling off down the street. On and on I am stumbling, the letter clutched in my hand so I’m crumpling it, but I can see through the blur of my tears it’s Ron’s writing, and it’s posted from America, so he’s alive, he’s alive, and this is him saying, Come to Chicago, honey. Come and marry me, come to Chicago, and I’m laughing through my tears, laughing and laughing with the relief of it. I’m a swell kid, I am.

  Where am I? I look about and see that I’m in Percy Street, heading for Leavesden Avenue, to see Zedorro and the Slut Fairy, and I notice that there’s people hurrying all over the place, and there’s a man shouting something I can’t hear, and as I make my way towards Zedorro’s house, I’m feeling right odd, and I’m guessing it’s because Ron’s alive and I’ve got his letter to prove it, and the war’s ending, cos you can feel things like that through your skin. By the time I get to the door I’m shaking, and there’s this pain low down, a very bad backache that has struck.

  It’s Grace who opens the door. Her eyes widen a bit because of the state I’m in, the letter being waved in her face and the tears, but she don’t say a word, just leads me in the house and sits me on the sofa, and the wireless is on loud.

  —Mr Churchill’s going to come on, she says. —The war’s ending.

  She’s jittery, she’s got this huge smile, her eyes are shining, her hands are all afidget.

  —Ron’s written me a letter, look, I go.

  —Oh I’m pleased, she says. —I knew he would. And she puts her finger to her lips because she wants to hear Winnie’s announcement. Then I get a sharp pain.

  —I think it’s happening, I tell her. —Bloody hell, it’s not meant to! Not for another month!

  She looks up, puzzled, like she’s forgotten my condition.

  I cry out. There’s violence swarming through me, like the curse but a thousand times worse, like you’re going to split right open. That’s when I know it ain’t no false alarm, and my scream drowns out the wireless, and this frightened look whips across her face. Then there’s a little lull as the pain dies back, and I can breathe normal again and she can wipe my face with a hankie. But before I know it, along comes another one, the worst kind of pain I have ever felt, a huge wave of it, welling up and reaching such a pitch that I’m screaming again, screaming for it to stop.

  She leaps up, settles me back on the settee, does things with cushions and a glass of water.

  —Stay there, she says.
—I’m going for a doctor.

  She’s halfway out the door when some music comes on the radio, and it takes me a minute to realise it’s ‘God Save the King’. She stops.

  —It’s happening, she says, her face lighting up. —The war! They’re going to say it’s ending!

  So bloody what, I think, the end of the war ain’t nothing compared to the pain I’m in. Then I get another wash of it and I’m howling like a banshee, and yes, all of a sudden, the war news is just a bit of background bother to me, even when Winnie who admired my onions comes on, saying, German armed forces surrendered unconditionally on May 7th. Hostilities in Europe ended officially at midnight, May 8th, 1945. Yesterday morning at 2.41 a.m. at headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command . . . and she’s dancing around, excited about the war ending, annoyed about me spoiling it for her. She’s panicking too, you can tell. But I need her.

  —Help me, I go. —I am in bloody agony here, I am.

  —Look, I’m going for a doctor. Can I leave you here while I go for one? I’ll have to get to a telephone, or I’ll just go to the surgery and –

  —You’ll come back! Tell me you’re coming back!

  —Of course, she goes. —Don’t worry, Gloria. Hold tight there now, I’ll do what I can.

  —Bloody hell, just go, woman!

  And she’s off like greased lightning. I tear the letter open between the swoops of pain and try to read it but I can’t make sense of it. None of the words is in the right order or even saying the right things. It is all wrong, it don’t make no sense, it can’t even be from Ron, even though the writing’s his.

  Today, perhaps, we should think of ourselves, says Winnie. Tomorrow we shall pay a particular tribute to our Russian comrades, whose prowess in the field . . .

  It’s good news, isn’t it. It means I can go and join Ron in Chicago and be a GI Bride, and we can live happily ever after. I carry on screaming and howling with the pain of the baby, and the relief about Ron, and the fear about me, cos I’m thinking I will die.