Women on the Home Front

by Annie Groves

  ‘Goodbye,’ Eva snapped, carefully avoiding Connie’s eye.

  Connie put her nose in the air. ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Queenie, shaking her head. ‘Here we are with the first day of peace and you two are at war. Whatever it is, can’t you bury the hatchet?’

  ‘After what her family did to mine? No, I can’t,’ said Eva. ‘Don’t keep Doug and the pig van waiting, Connie.’ And with that she swept out of the room.

  Furious, Connie followed Queenie through the kitchen and out of the back door. Her stomach was in knots. She had really liked Eva and she’d had more fun today than she’d had in a month of Sundays but Eva was a Maxwell. Her emphasis on the word pig hadn’t gone unnoticed either. For a time back there, she had seemed really nice. She could have fooled anyone with that dear friend act she’d put on. Ah well, at least Eva had shown her true colours before it was too late and besides, Connie knew only too well that if she stayed friends with a Maxwell, there would be hell to pay. Hadn’t she been brought up with her great aunt’s stories about the Maxwells? Cheats, liars and vagabonds, the lot of them, according to Ga.

  When Queenie hugged her before she climbed into the passenger side of the lorry, Connie hugged her back. It wasn’t Queenie’s fault and her full stomach reminded her that she had been more than generous. Doug turned and gave her a toothless smile as she sat down. He turned out to be a fifty-something in a greasy looking flat cap and leather jerkin.

  ‘Straight over to Hendon now, Doug,’ said Queenie, closing the passenger door. ‘The girl has to be back by ten.’

  ‘Right you are, missus,’ said Doug, starting the engine.

  As the lorry moved off, Connie caught a glimpse of Eva’s pale face at an upstairs window before she let the curtain drop. At the same moment, Connie screwed up the piece of paper with Eva’s name and address on it and deliberately dropped it out of the van. Queenie’s eyes met hers and Connie felt her cheeks flame. Thankfully, that second, Doug put his foot on the throttle and the van lurched forward.

  Doug wasn’t very talkative and Connie was too upset to make much conversation. What a perfectly rotten end to a lovely day. It had started out disappointingly because Emmett couldn’t be with her, but from the moment they had paddled in the fountain, she had had a wonderful time. When Eva had said her family came from Worthing, Connie had no idea of the bombshell that was to come. Her mind drifted back over the years. Now that she came to think about it, her great aunt had never been that specific about the rift between the two families. In fact, Connie hardly knew anything about the Maxwell family, but whenever Ga spoke of them, the contempt in which she held them was written all over her face. She never had a good word to say and when Ga voiced an opinion, no one dared argue. Connie had grown up believing that the Maxwells were dishonest, conniving, deceitful wretches who were to be avoided altogether. Eva was the first Maxwell Connie had ever spoken to and look how nasty she had been when she’d found out who Connie was. She’d certainly shown her true colours, hadn’t she? Ah well, good riddance to bad rubbish.

  The cab smelled musty and a bit like a compost heap on a sunny day. After a while it made her feel queasy so Connie was more than relieved to see the gates of her camp looming out of the darkness. She thanked Doug profusely and walked the few hundred yards to the sentry post. She fancied that the guard wrinkled his nose as she walked by and her only thought was to have a good strip-down wash or if she was lucky, a small bath before lights out.

  ‘Connie! There you are,’ Rene sounded really pleased to see her as she walked in their Nissen hut. ‘Where did you and Eva get to? We looked everywhere for you both but you’d completely disappeared. I’m so sorry. Did you have a terrible time? I mean, you don’t know London at all, do you? Oh, I feel perfectly dreadful about it. How on earth did you get home?’

  ‘If you’ll let me get a word in edgeways,’ Connie laughed as she threw her bag over her iron bedstead, ‘I’ll tell you.’

  As Rene sat on the bed beside her, Connie told her some of what had happened. Listening to her friend’s abject apologies, Connie felt a twinge of guilt. She’d been having such a good time, she hadn’t given Rene and Barbara a moment’s thought since they’d lost sight of each other on The Mall. ‘Please don’t worry,’ she smiled as Rene apologised yet again. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I had a great time anyway.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so,’ said Rene, pulling a face, ‘you don’t smell too good.’

  ‘Neither would you if you’d sat in that awful van,’ Connie laughed. ‘Let me go to the bathroom.’

  Sitting in the regulation five inches of water, Connie sponged away the smell of the pig food, but somehow she didn’t feel clean. She’d already gone over some of the things Eva had said to her, and now she was remembering the unkind things she had said in return. She shouldn’t have been so sharp with her. After all, Eva was a war widow and being with her mother-in-law again had obviously brought back some painful memories. Hadn’t she suffered enough?

  She climbed out of the bath and towelled herself dry. What could she do about it? The Dixons and the Maxwells had been at loggerheads for donkey’s years. She pulled the plug and watched the dirty water swirl around the plughole before disappearing. Wrapping herself in her dressing gown, Connie sighed. There were some stinks that needed a lot more than soap and water to wash them away. Ah well, it was done and dusted as far as she and Eva were concerned. She’d never see her again anyway.

  The dream came in the early hours. It was one of those strange moments when you are asleep and you know it’s only a dream and yet you are powerless to wake yourself up. She struggled to make sense of it but as the moving forms in front of her grew darker, the overwhelming fear reached panic proportions. The tap-tapping of the cigarette on that case grew louder. Wake up, Connie. Wake up. Oh God, he was coming for her. Her eyes locked onto his and she couldn’t get the door shut. The door … the door … Now he was inside the room … coming closer and closer. She could smell his breath, feel his hand pinning her shoulders down. Connie, wake up. She was screaming but no sound came from her lips. His rasping voice filled her ears. You’ll like it … He opened his mouth and beyond his yellow teeth she saw his fat, pulsating tongue. She felt that if he came any closer, he would devour her whole. The weight of his body suffocated her. She thrashed her arms to push him away and the rushing sound in her ears grew louder.

  ‘Connie, it’s all right. It’s just a dream.’ The moment Rene’s voice penetrated the terrifying sounds, they vanished as quickly as someone turning the radio off. Her eyes sprang open and she saw a torch on the pillow beside her. Rene was leaning over her, her hands as light as a feather on her shoulders but she had obviously been shaking her to wake her up. Connie sat up suddenly and blinking in the half light, saw a dozen anxious faces gathered around her bed. At the same time, she became aware that her nightdress was drenched in perspiration and her hair stuck to her forehead.

  ‘You had a bad dream,’ said Rene. ‘You were shouting out.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry I woke you all up.’

  The girls began to move away and get back into their own beds.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ said a disembodied voice in the darkness.

  Connie lay back on the pillow and shook her head. ‘No, thanks. It was only a dream.’

  Two

  As Connie staggered through the front gate of Belvedere Nurseries with her suitcase two months later, the dog opened one eye. He was lying across the path, snoozing in the early July sunshine. A mongrel, he had a black and white coat, a feathered tail and more than a touch of the sheepdog about him. When her father had bought him as a pup for her thirteenth birthday, they were told that he was a Border collie, cross retriever but his legs were too short and his mouth lopsided. Connie didn’t care what he looked like; she had loved Pip at first sight. ‘You always did go for the underdog,’ Ga had mumbled in disgust when they brought him home. As soon as the puppy was
placed on the mat, he peed a never-ending stream, never once taking his coal black eyes from the old lady’s face. Hiding her smile, Connie knew that like her, Pip had a rebellious streak and they became inseparable. Later on, it was Pip who helped her get over the loss of her father and her brother Kenneth going away like that. She took him for long walks and unloaded her brokenness onto him. When she sat on the grass to cry, he would lick her tears away and wag his tail in sympathy. Although she was careful to obey Ga and never mention ‘that business’, Pip seemed to understand exactly how she was feeling. Pip was her adored companion until she was nineteen years old and joined the WAAFs and he had never quite forgiven her for leaving home. As the gate clicked shut behind her, Connie called out, ‘Here, boy. Here, Pip.’

  He rose to his feet, yawned, stretched lazily and she noticed that he was getting quite a few grey hairs around his muzzle. He was nine years old, much more than that in doggie years. She watched him turn around and walk ahead of her to the front door where he waited. When she got to him, Connie reached down and patted his side before ringing the doorbell. ‘Silly old dog,’ she said softly.

  As the door opened and her mother stood on the step, Pip came to life, panting and jumping in the small porchway like a thing demented. ‘Connie!’ Gwen laughed as Pip’s joyful barks obviously delighted her. ‘What a wonderful homecoming Pip is giving you.’

  ‘Warm welcome my eye,’ Connie laughed. ‘He hasn’t even come to my call. He’s doing all that jumping about for your benefit.’

  Her mother smiled uncertainly. ‘Well, come on in, darling, let me look at you. I like your new hair.’

  ‘They’re called Victory curls,’ said Connie patting the back of her head. ‘I have to curl them up with Kirby grips every night and wear a scarf in bed but I think it looks quite nice.’

  ‘It certainly does,’ her mother enthused.

  Gwen Craig was small with high cheekbones and an oval face. Her hair was still dark but Connie could see a few grey hairs and she had tired eyes. It alarmed her to see that her mother had lost weight. Her clothes positively hung on her. Gwen had married Connie’s father Jim Dixon in 1919 when she was only eighteen and bore him two children, Kenneth, now twenty-three, and Connie aged twenty-one. 1936 was an eventful year. First she’d had Pip, then soon after their father had died after a long illness, and Kenneth had left home abruptly. Her father’s illness had sapped them of all their money and because they were living in a tithed cottage, Gwen and Connie would have been homeless if Ga hadn’t come to the rescue. In exchange for housework, Gwen and Connie moved in with her in her small cottage in the same village. A couple of years later, and much to Connie’s surprise, Gwen had married Clifford Craig, a man she had thought was only a nodding acquaintance. Their union had produced Mandy now aged six and the exact image of her mother. Gwen held out her arms and, dropping her case on the mat, Connie went to her.

  Behind her, a commanding voice boomed out of the sitting room. ‘Gwen? Is that Constance?’

  Connie grinned and ignoring her great aunt’s calls, she deliberately stayed in her mother’s warm embrace for several more minutes. ‘It’s sooo good to see you, Mum.’

  ‘And you too,’ said Gwen. ‘Where’s Emmett? I half expected him to be with you.’

  Connie shook her head. ‘I’m not with him anymore, Mum.’

  Her mother looked concerned.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Connie said quickly. ‘It wasn’t very serious and we lost touch soon after VE Day.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Gwen shaking her head sadly. ‘I thought he seemed like a good man.’

  Connie couldn’t argue with that. She had wanted Emmett to get in touch again but it never happened. She had eventually written to his last known address only to have her letter returned to her unopened. Someone had written in the top left-hand corner, ‘Unknown at this address’. Connie had been upset, of course, but what could she do? She had cried. She had gone over and over their last date in her mind, Saturday night at the pictures followed by a fish and chip supper on a park bench, but there was nothing to say why he hadn’t contacted her again. Maybe his mother had taken a turn for the worse, or, perish the thought, maybe she had died. Connie had no idea where she lived so there was little point in fretting about it. ‘Well, it’s all over now,’ she said again.

  ‘If that’s you, Constance,’ Ga called imperiously, ‘come in here where I can see you.’

  Gwen kissed her daughter and let her go, the two of them rolling their eyes in sympathetic unison.

  ‘Come on,’ her mother smiled, ‘or we’ll never hear the last of it.’

  Connie advanced but her mother caught her arm. ‘Shoes.’

  Connie bent to unlace her shoes. Pip watched her and Connie patted his side again.

  ‘You certainly fooled Mum,’ she whispered, ‘but you don’t fool me. We’ll go for a walk later, okay?’ Ignoring her, the dog yawned in a bored way and sauntered towards the kitchen where he flopped into his basket.

  ‘Hello Ga,’ Connie said cheerfully as she walked into the sitting room.

  ‘What took you so long?’ said Ga, feigning her disapproval. ‘And what were you whispering about out there?’

  ‘Mum was asking me about Emmett, that’s all,’ said Connie, ‘and I was explaining that it’s all off.’

  Connie kissed her proffered cheek. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry,’ she said into Connie’s neck. ‘I didn’t really take to him.’

  Olive Dixon was a formidable woman. She was solidly built with spade-like hands from working the small market garden, which brought in the lion’s share of the family income. Unlike most women of her age, her sunburnt face was relatively free of wrinkles and she wore her steel grey hair piled on the top of her head in a flat squashed bun.

  ‘What the devil have you done to your hair?’ she frowned.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ said Connie.

  ‘Indeed I do not,’ said Ga. ‘With all those silly curls you look like something out of a Greek tragedy.’

  Connie chose to ignore her. Usually when Olive said jump, everybody said, how high. Ever since Gwen and Connie had come to live with her after Jim Dixon died, she had quickly established herself as the undoubted head of the family. When Clifford and Gwen married in 1938, he had tried to exert his authority, but at a mere five feet, Olive towered over everybody by the sheer force of her personality. They had moved from Patching to Goring to make a completely new start but because Ga had bought the Belvedere Nurseries and the house they all lived in, Gwen and Clifford were expected to run everything, while she remained firmly in charge.

  ‘I’ll get the tea,’ said Gwen, leaving the room.

  Ga was sitting at her beloved writing bureau and Connie noticed for the first time that her right leg was raised up on a pouf. Her knee was very swollen.

  ‘Ouch, that looks painful,’ said Connie reaching out.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ Olive cried. ‘I’m waiting for Peninnah Cooper.’

  Connie took in her breath. ‘The gypsies are here?’

  ‘They turned up about a week ago,’ said Olive. ‘Reuben parked the caravan down by the lay-by near the field.’

  ‘And Kez?’

  Ga pursed her lips. ‘I never did understand why you wanted to hang around with that ignorant girl. Yes, she’s here too. She’s married now, with children.’

  Connie was thrilled. She couldn’t wait to see her old childhood friend. Kez a wife and mother … Imagine that …

  The gypsies had been a part of her life as far back as she could remember. When the family lived at Patching, they had turned up at different times of year to work in the fields.

  The Roma like Kez and Peninnah had no time for other travellers like the fairground showman, the circus performer or the Irish tinkers, because they felt they had given them a bad name. The Roma were in a class of their own. Normally they didn’t even mix socially with Gorgias, a name they gave all house dwellers, which is what made Kez and Connie’s friendship all the mor
e unusual. They had met as children during the short periods of time that Kez went to Connie’s school. Because Kezia’s parents always kept to the familiar patterns, Connie would wait in the lane in early May when the bluebells came out in profusion in the local woods. Kezia and her family would pick them by the basketful, tie them into bunches held together by the thick leaves and hawk them around Worthing. Connie was allowed to help with the picking and tying but her father drew the line at selling what God had given to the world for free. It was always a bad time when the season was over, but Kez would be back in the autumn to harvest in the local apple orchards.

  Everything changed in 1938. Kezia’s mother had died, old before her time. Then there was that business with Kenneth, after which Connie’s mother married Clifford and they had moved to Goring.

  ‘Why is Pen coming?’ Connie asked.

  ‘She’s bringing a couple of bees.’

  Connie raised an eyebrow. ‘A couple of bees?’

  ‘For my knee,’ said Olive impatiently. Ga feigned disapproval of the gypsies until it suited her to call upon them.

  Peninnah Cooper, Kez’s grandmother, was well known for her country cures and many people swore by them. They may have been part of a bygone era but funnily enough, Pen’s ‘cures’ often worked. All the same, Connie couldn’t imagine how bringing some bees could help Olive’s bad leg.

  She heard the sound of tinkling cups and her mother came in with the tea trolley. Connie took off her coat and sat down. Teatime in the Dixon household was always a cosy affair and today her mother had tried to make it a bit special. She had got out the willow pattern tea service and the silver spoons Ga had kept in the top drawer. Connie appreciated her mother’s effort. ‘Thanks Mum,’ she smiled.

  Whenever she was homesick, Connie used to picture this little ritual. Gwen put the tea strainer over the cup and poured the tea. When the first cup was full, Connie handed it to Ga.

  ‘So,’ said Olive, ‘now that you’re finally out of it, we’ll be glad of your help in the nursery.’