A Girl in Wartime

by Maggie Ford

  Albert had come home on leave in time to see her be married. He looked worn out, hollow-cheeked, dull-eyed. She who’d caught and sketched many such expressions knew now what he had been going through, and felt for him that he would have to return to the front line when his leave was up. She was already praying for his safety.

  George hadn’t come home. Maybe he thought it best not to try to wangle leave for his youngest sister’s wedding and risk spoiling her day knowing how he might be received by his father, whom he was well aware still held a grudge.

  Others missing from the wedding would be Elsie’s Harry and Lillian’s Jim, who were both in France. She was deeply concerned for them all, her sisters without their husbands, their boys growing up, their dads not seeing it. Elsie took it all in her stride, stoically, soldiering on as it were, but Lillian was forever lamenting her husband’s absence until Mum lost patience with her and told her to pull herself together: she was doing no one, much less herself and little James, any good.

  But it was lovely Albert being back, even though he and Edie were living at her parents’ home, married but with no place of their own. There was no chance with the war going on and he overseas. Connie smiled as she got into bed. Tomorrow she would be married and able to start a family too – as soon as possible.

  Mum crept in just after she’d laid down. ‘Make sure you get a good night’s sleep, love,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got to be nice and fresh for the morning.’ Bending, she kissed her on forehead. ‘Don’t let excitement keep you awake. I’ll be needin’ to wake you up early tomorrow mornin’.’

  Connie nodded, her mother dropping yet another a tender kiss on her forehead before creeping out of the room as if she was already asleep and fearing to wake her, turning at the door to whisper, ‘Night-night, love.’

  Mum had done a lovely spread for the wedding breakfast, as far as her and everyone else’s bits of ration and a few hoarded extras could contribute.

  Excitement thrilling deep in her stomach, Connie drifted off into sleep. It seemed like just seconds later that she was jerked awake to the shrill blowing of police whistles warning of yet another air raid. The police warning was hardly needed. Planes could already be heard piercing the hitherto quiet night air, their engines roaring above the East End.

  Connie shot upright in bed as the house suddenly shook as if hit by some giant fist, the crash of an explosion almost instantaneous. Leaping out of bed, she ran for the bedroom door, met her parents coming out of theirs, and ran with them downstairs.

  Ronnie and Dolly’s door was wide open as if flung by some invisible hand, and Connie saw Dolly clutching little Violet to her. Ronnie was sitting on the edge of their bed, desperately searching for his crutches. A strange smell was filling the house – a dusty, burning smell.

  Dad was now at the street door, still in his combinations. People were running by in all sorts of nightwear, the street full of cloying smoke. It was impossible to see more than two yards in any direction.

  ‘What ’appened?’ he was yelling. ‘Where did it come down?’

  Someone running by was shouting over his shoulder as he ran: ‘Over the road – ’ouse over the road bin ’it. Down the street a bit.’

  Mum was at the door, dragging Connie’s father’s outdoor coat from its peg to throw over his shoulders. ‘Best go and see whose ’ouse it is,’ she cried, but he was already off, pushing his arms into the sleeves of the coat as he went.

  Left standing there, fingers to her lips in horror, the rest of the family gathered behind her, Connie heard her mother whisper, ‘Oh Gawd, we know everyone in this street.’

  Dolly was on the front doorstep. ‘Our windowpanes is broken,’ she said. ‘Blackout curtains might be torn. Hope Ron ain’t put our gas lamp on.’

  A flicker of annoyance rippled through Connie. Ronnie may be an invalid but he wasn’t a fool. But her annoyance was only momentary; people were now running everywhere.

  ‘Someone ought to see what your father’s doing,’ her mother was saying, her voice shaking. ‘In case he’s in any danger.’

  Why she leapt to the call, Connie didn’t know, but grabbing her own winter coat from its hook, she found herself running down the street after her father. What she thought she could do she’d no idea but the struck tenement was only a few doors down the street to hers and already she had a sick feeling.

  The once nice house had been wrecked, its upper storey collapsed, rubble strewn from one side of the street to the other. The house opposite had lost all its windows. But already Connie felt a cold grip around her heart. It was Doris Copeland’s house, her friend she’d been to school with. They’d often go out of an evening, would spend evenings in her house or she in hers, still friends even after she’d met Stephen. Doris was herself going steady with a boy.

  Two people lay in the road and neighbours were covering them with coats. Other people stood around helplessly. Who were those covered by coats?

  ‘Mrs Copeland,’ she was told. ‘Didn’t stand a chance – and her poor daughter too.’ Connie felt a wave of faintness pass across her brain. ‘And ’er old man away fightin’ in France,’ the woman was going on. ‘What’s he goin’ to do when they give ’im the news? He ain’t got no one else, the poor bugger. That’s if he lives long enough out there. Poor things – it’s cruel!’

  Connie hardly heard her. She wanted to sink to the ground, give way to tears. Instead, she looked at the woman, seeing in those faded eyes the hollow look of despair for the bereaved man, and she knew that if she had been ordered to sketch them she would have cried out, ‘NO! No – no – no!’

  Turning away, she ran blindly back along the rubble-strewn street to collapse into her mother’s arms.

  ‘It’s Doris,’ she sobbed. ‘Her and her mum – dead! Oh, Mum … oh, Mum …’

  With no strength left in her she felt herself helped into the dust-laden back parlour, carefully assisted to sit in her father’s wooden armchair. In shock and grief she closed her eyes. Seconds later they shot open, behind the lids the despairing eyes of one so full of sorrow for her neighbour and the daughter that they seemed to pierce right through her eyelids to her brain.

  The rest of the night was ruined for sleep. Dawn had yet to come up upon her wedding day. There would be no wedding. How could there be? Cancelled, at the last moment. People would understand. One look at the bombed home across the road, people would understand.

  It wasn’t only their road that had suffered terrible damage; during the night they heard that factories and warehouses south of Commercial Road had also been hit. Now, still a long time to morning, Dad had gone to tell Albert what had happened, bringing him back to see whether he could help.

  ‘You’ll ’ave to go and give the news to her Stephen,’ Dad had said to him. ‘I can’t go. I’m wanted ’ere.’ Albert had nodded and Dad ploughed on, ‘Tell ’im she’s too deep in shock and grief over what’s ’appened to ’er best friend to have any wits about her, let alone go through wiv the wedding. He’ll ’ave to understand there just can’t possibly be a wedding ’ere, not now, not after all what’s ’appened.’

  Stephen was with them well before dawn and sat with Connie in her bedroom, the only private place in the house. Sitting on the edge of her bed, he cuddled her to him.

  ‘I do understand, darling,’ he said gently, she in tears. ‘After what you’ve been through, of course you can’t possibly face going through with it. I’ll sort everything out, don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ was all she could manage and she felt his arm about her tighten.

  ‘That state you’re in,’ he said, ‘I think you should come back with me. Leave the family to sort out things here. You need rest – time to recover.’

  He hadn’t mentioned her friend and she silently blessed him for his gentle understanding as she lay against him, crying quietly.

  ‘Meantime you should come back with me,’ he said again. ‘And as soon as it is light, I shall go and explain the situation to the churc
h. You mustn’t worry on that score, my love. What you need is rest and quiet, away from all this.’

  Soothed by his steady tone, she felt him gently kiss her, ease her down on her bed, and kiss her again. He asked her if she was all right, at which she nodded silently. She closed her eyes as he quietly left and heard him talking to her parents, the parlour door closing, muffling what they were saying.

  She lay for a moment, thinking of him. Seconds later Doris’s round face filled her vision; her brown eyes were staring at her, yet it wasn’t the Doris she knew – more a face, torn and bleeding and burnt, and tormented eyes that horrified her.

  Leaping up from the bed, she ran to the door and down the stairs to burst into Ronnie’s room. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his crutches by his side. He caught her as she flung herself against him. He held her tightly and she heard him saying to Dorothy, ‘It’s all right. She’ll … she’ll be okay.’

  As Dorothy left the room, she gave her a concerned look. The pair of them left alone, Ronnie said in a low, steady voice. ‘I’ve seen so much death.’ It was as if he was talking to himself. ‘You never get used to it, though you sort of form a wall around yourself and hold on to that wall like it’s a part of you. That’s how it’s been with me, but you mustn’t let it be. I’m beginning to learn that now. It’s tragic. And still fresh. But you’ve got to let go of the wall. Maybe not yet. But your poor friend’s death – you’ll always cherish her memory and of course you’ll mourn for ’er. Only natural. But you can’t let it rule you. That’s what I’ve bin doin’ but I know now you ’ave to let go or you’ll end up going potty, like me.’

  ‘You’re not potty,’ she murmured, surprised at the evenness of her voice when moments before it had been on the brink of hysteria.

  Ronnie shrugged. ‘It’s a terrible thing for you, I know. But you’ve got a good man in that Stephen and you can’t spoil that. You can’t let thoughts of youself spoil that. Life goes on, Sis.’ He gave a dry chuckle that sounded full of cynicism. ‘It does, you know. It has to, else you’ll go off your rocker and be no good to anyone. And you can’t do that to your Stephen. He’s a good bloke.’

  He gave her a little push with his shoulder. He was grinning – that old grin she remembered when he’d come back to say he’d joined up.

  ‘Now you go back upstairs, get yourself ready to go back ’ome with him, where you can both ’ave a quiet chat about when you both intend to get married. That’s the important thing. Go on now.’

  Feeling a sudden strength, she hugged her brother and took herself into the parlour, ignoring her family’s anxious faces. ‘I’m going back with Stephen to his flat,’ she said, surprised by the steadiness of her voice.

  ‘Connie—’ her mum began, but Connie interrupted her.

  ‘Sorry, Mum, I can’t stay here.’ She wanted to say not with what had happened over the road but instead said, ‘I need to be with him, the two of us on our own, away from here.’

  As her parents stood silent, Albert said quietly, ‘That’s the best thing, Sis.’

  It was still dark and cold when she left. Stephen carried a change of clothing for her in a small suitcase. It was awful thinking she’d have to pass that shattered house; she could see that those poor victims had been borne away by ambulance, but there were a few neighbours still standing in groups, talking and comforting each other.

  She dreaded the thought of passing the house but Stephen turned left instead. ‘We’ll go through the alley,’ he said quietly, and she blessed him for his forethought.

  That way was longer and few ever used this route, having to walk down two more roads to get to the high street. But not now, not in the early hours of the morning after her friend had died. She clung to Stephen’s arm, head bent against the cold breeze, huddled into her coat, collar up, scarf tied over her hat and under her chin, he firmly holding her up.

  In his cosy apartment she lay beside him in the safe peace of their bed as a watery dawn came up, the weather having begun a drizzle.

  She had him make love to her, which helped to take away the horror of those recent events, and what did it matter if this time in her need for him they’d overlooked the use of protection? But now, lying here beside him, fulfilled, his arm around her, it was all beginning to pile back on her, thoughts of poor Doris, the senseless loss hitting her again.

  ‘Stephen,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘Hmm?’ He was almost half-asleep.

  ‘I don’t want to go back home. I don’t want to live there any more.’

  He sat up slowly, looking down at her, his blue eyes querying. ‘You can’t just walk out, my darling. They’ll be worried sick. We’ll have breakfast, then I’ll take you home.’

  ‘No!’ She could hear the panic in her own voice. ‘If I go back, each time I pass that house where my friend … I don’t think I could face it.’

  ‘But you must tell them about your decision, darling,’ he said finally, very quietly. ‘You can’t just stay away and leave it at that. They’ll be worried for you.’

  ‘I can’t go back!’ she cried in desperation, sitting bolt upright. For a moment she stared at him then said in a small voice, ‘It’s the dreams I have. I’ve had them on and off ever since I came back from France. I see the eyes of those poor stricken men looking at me, their faces all torn and—’

  She stopped, unable to describe her devils – the only way she could think of them as being. Stephen was gazing at her, slow realisation spreading across his features.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought you were simply having bad dreams. I thought they were just a passing thing, and would go away in time.’

  ‘I used to have the dreams but when I close my eyes I see things like they’re printing themselves on my eyelids, looking at me, accusing me of prying into their private pain. I can’t go through all that again. I told Ronnie. He knew exactly what I was going through. We’d talk and it helped. And I think it helped him too. Some of those awful jerking movements of his seem to have stopped and he doesn’t stutter as much. I think we’ve helped each other, though I still get those faces, those eyes, looking at me accusingly whenever I close mine.’ She paused. ‘But if I have to go back home,’ she went on, ‘and be forced to pass my poor friend’s bombed house, knowing I’ll never see her again, it’ll all come back. I know it will. And I don’t think I could stand it.’

  He was silent for a moment or two, then said, ‘I’ll go and see your parents this morning. Explain about your dreams—’

  ‘No, Stephen, don’t!’ she interrupted in panic. ‘I don’t want them to know. Just say we intend to live together and will be making fresh arrangements for our wedding. Let them think what they like.’

  For a while longer he gazed at her, then smiled, very tenderly. ‘Very well, my sweet, so when would you like to marry me?’

  All her fears suddenly seemed to melt away. All she could say, very stupidly, was, ‘Whenever you like.’

  He conjured up a playful smile. ‘Well, Christmas, next month is too busy a time to think about weddings, and January’s a rotten month, so how about February? We’ll make it a quiet one, just family, no frills or fripperies.’

  She was in his arms, crying, ‘Oh, yes, yes! Oh darling, yes!’

  Living with him, her lover, appalled her parents but it wasn’t up to them.

  ‘Livin’ in sin, I ain’t ’aving them two anywhere near this ’ouse,’ her father had said. But Mum, so Connie discovered from Dolly when they met up for lunch, had apparently belted him with her tongue, saying who the hell did he think he bloody-well was, this war was changing everything and with these bloody air raids who could say if they might not all be dead tomorrow, so shut his ranting and see a bit of sense!

  But it was the first Christmas Connie had ever had away from home – she and Stephen spending it quietly together in his apartment. The arrangement was strange and unsettling for them all, but by January it had come to be accepted, especially when they told Mum there would
be a quiet wedding in February, with just the family invited – if they wanted to be there.

  ‘Of course we want to be there,’ Mum said, cuddling her to her bosom. ‘Whatever gave you the idea we wouldn’t be?’

  Ronnie was thrilled and congratulated her. She wrote to Albert. He replied saying ‘good for you’, and lamented the fact that he wouldn’t be given leave to be there to give her away if their father felt disinclined to. Ronnie had also offered but Dad had decided to call a truce and do the honours as any father should.

  Connie had written to George as soon as the new date of her wedding in February had been set and he’d replied, but to her alone, a short note saying that he wished her well on her day, that he was okay, up to his knees in mud, of course, when going out with a stretcher to pick up the wounded, but that was all.

  Reading it, knowing him at risk, Connie prayed for him with all her heart. Her eldest brother was a brave man, despite what they’d all said.

  Come February, and the wedding was quiet and sedate, just as Connie wanted. Her whole family – those who could make it – beamed with happiness as her father walked her down the aisle. She and Stephen went straight from the wedding to the house he’d had redecorated and furnished. Until then he hadn’t wanted her to see it before it was complete. ‘I want you to see it for the first time on the day I carry you across the threshold,’ he had said.

  ‘And another thing,’ he went on as they lay together, man and wife at last. ‘I have your Ronnie to thank for bringing you back to life, to me.’

  She knew what he meant, but insisted, ‘It was you too, my love.’

  She felt him shake his head. ‘He was the one who knew what you were going through. I didn’t. No one did. And in a strange way I think he cured himself as well to some extent without realising it.’

  It was true. They had helped each other more than any institution or doctor could have. He was getting around more on his crutches, even venturing outside the house with Dolly at his side, wheeling their daughter in her pram.

  ‘I feel I owe your brother something,’ Stephen went on. ‘And to that end I’ve spoken to a few contacts and found a small firm that has dedicated itself to employing men like him. He’ll earn a small wage and I’m also looking to find him and his little family a rented tenement not far from your parents so he can be independent.’