Paint on the Smiles

by Grace Thompson

  Peter was her life. Her strength and happiness were tied up in him. She couldn’t imagine a world without him and prayed silently for his health to return. She needed him and his love and his unfailing support. He had fitted into her life so perfectly and completely that ‘being made for each other’ no longer sounded like a romantic fantasy.

  Days and nights passed in a blur of anxiety. Cecily and Ada visited their husbands every hour that it was allowed, and between times, Ada opened the almost empty shop and Cecily went up the hill to Waldo’s.

  Peter developed pneumonia and seemed likely to be in hospital for a while. For Ada, there was little hope of Phil ever returning home.

  As Peter gradually regained strength, sympathy grew in Cecily for both Ada and the confused and unhappy man who was her brother-in-law. She occasionally found time to go with Ada to the hospital where Phil, looking smaller and older, seemed likely to remain.

  The sisters heard the news of the Allied victories from customers and friends, but their reaction to them was less enthusiastic than it would have been weeks before. They smiled when it was announced on 23 April that Berlin was surrounded. They cheered with the rest when told that Mussolini and his mistress had been shot, but they rarely read a newspaper or listened to the wireless. All their thoughts were close at home on Peter and Phil and on worries for the future if one or the other didn’t come home again. But they did actually hear the announcement: ‘This is London calling. German radio has announced that Hitler is dead. I repeat, German radio has announced that Hitler is dead.’

  ‘At last,’ Cecily sobbed. ‘Now it must end soon.’

  When Peter came out of hospital, a field marshall was in a tent a long way off, signing a document of surrender with a two-penny pen. Montgomery made an error and had to cross out 5 May and alter it to 4 May. But this did not affect the validity of the surrender. War in Europe was ended.

  It seemed to Cecily that the town was celebrating Peter’s recovery with her. Bells rang from churches, boats and ships of all sizes sounded hooters and sirens. The streetlights allowed since the previous November after years of darkness seemed brighter than normal. Many cars that travelled along the streets sounded V for victory on their horns.

  People filed out of their houses and walked the streets in pairs or in long lines, or singly, just wanting to be out there, a part of the nationwide celebration. Bonfires were planned and hurriedly built – blackout material among the first items to be donated. Children made ‘guys’ to be placed on bonfires, all effigies not of Guy Fawkes but of the little man with the little moustache, who’d caused such havoc in the world.

  In the area around Owen’s shop, women quickly organized street parties, and bunting grew like exotic climbers from some distant forest, up and over walls and across the road from one bedroom window to another opposite and repeated every few yards so the places were transformed from the drabness of wartime to a colourful, magical place that had children walking around staring in disbelief and wonder, eyes huge in the thin faces.

  From church halls, mothers and grandmothers dragged trestle tables to make a line of even greater splendour down the centre of each road, where they were covered with white cloths and red, white and blue decorations. Cecily and Ada and many other shopkeepers and householders raided their depleted stores and managed to find jars of meat paste, tins of luncheon meat, pots of jam, stored for this wonderful time. These were gratefully taken to swell the feast.

  Cecily revelled in every aspect of the celebration. It was going to be all right. Peter was recovering, Johnny Fowler and Edwin were safe. And with Gareth, Danny and unknown others on their way home from prison camps from where already hundreds had been released, there was nothing but good times ahead.

  ‘Best of all, Peter, love,’ she said, tucking an unnecessary blanket around his knees as he sat by the fire, ‘the very best of all, you are here to share it with me.’ She put her head close to his and said, almost shyly, ‘I’ve been so glad to have you here with me during these awful years.’

  ‘And I couldn’t have been more content, darling Cecily.’ He kissed her affectionately. ‘I love you, very, very much.’

  ‘Just think,’ she said happily, ‘the Pleasure Beach will be filled with families again. Not just women and children pretending to enjoy themselves, but families: dads, brothers, uncles, and no more partings. No more fear. No more bombs.’

  But her biggest bombshell arrived the following morning.

  Chapter Thirteen

  LEAVING ADA PREPARED to serve any customer who might bother to try them for the few items they still stocked, and having settled Peter near the fire with a copy of Rebecca to keep him entertained until she came home, Cecily set off cheerfully to her daily work at Waldo’s store with Van. The shop was busy in contrast to the one she had just left and she waved to the staff as she walked through the chattering customers, to the stairs leading to Van’s office.

  She heard voices raised as she climbed the stairs, her daughter’s low and firm, the more petulant, whining voice of Owen-Owen in counterpoint. Owen constantly received the worst of Van’s temper.

  She opened the door and went in. Van was standing behind her desk and Owen was standing near the window, his face ashen, his eyes staring in disbelief at the papers Van had thrust into his hands.

  ‘How many times do you want me to say it, Owen? You’re sacked. And you can be thankful I haven’t done it before. Soft I’ve been for not getting rid of you sooner. But now I have full authority, it’s one of the pleasures, long delayed, that I can relish.’

  ‘Van?’ Cecily asked. Her daughter ignored her.

  ‘Well?’ Van said to the shaken young man. ‘What are you waiting for? More home truths? I’d have thought you’d heard enough!’

  Owen seemed not to have noticed Cecily as he stumbled from the office.

  ‘Van, lovey? What’s this all about?’ Cecily reached for a chair and gently pushed her daughter into it. ‘Sit and calm yourself. You mustn’t get into a state like this.’

  Van’s voice was calm and she smiled as she said, ‘In a state? I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for years. Now, we come to you!’

  ‘Me?’ Cecily laughed. ‘Is it my turn to be told off by the boss? Come on, then, tell me, what have I done wrong?’

  ‘You are sacked, Mam. Sacked!’

  Cecily’s laughter broke out again but it suddenly painfully died when she saw the expression on Van’s face.

  ‘All right, lovey, you’ve had your little joke. Now let’s get on, shall we? I have to go at twelve to see to Peter’s lunch, Auntie Ada’s visiting Uncle Phil today and there’s a lot to do here this morning.’

  ‘There is precisely nothing for you to do here.’ Van reached into a drawer and handed her an envelope similar to the one carried by Owen. ‘Here are your wages up to the end of the month.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This store is mine now and I want you out of it.’

  ‘But, Van—’

  ‘Mam. I’m twenty-one and from now on I’ll live my life not as the bastard daughter of a rundown shopkeeper but as the proprietor of Waldo Watkins’ store.’ She walked out, leaving Cecily holding the envelope in a shaking hand.

  ‘But I’ve lost everything. I’ve given it up to help you!’ she shouted after her daughter’s retreating figure. ‘And what about my contracts? I want them back immediately!’

  ‘Your contracts, Mam? They all belong here. You handed them over without any coercion on my part.’

  They all tried in turn to persuade Van to change her mind and return the contracts to Owen’s but she was adamant. The contracts, she insisted, were better served by the large Watkins’ store, as agreed by Cecily and Ada a long time ago. She laughed as she looked around the almost empty shelves of the once-successful shop.

  ‘How could you hope to service them?’ she said in her cold, calm voice. ‘With such strict restrictions how could you possibly get the stock to satisfy the local people, let alone the shipping or
ders and the cafes and tea rooms over at the Pleasure Beach? There’s really no point discussing this, is there?’

  Cecily cried a lot and was comforted by Peter.

  ‘She’s been trying to punish you for what she sees as your guilt for years,’ he said. ‘Let her have her day. The less you show her how hurt you are, the quicker she’ll come back to being the sensible young woman she really is, underneath this built-up hatred.’

  ‘Hatred?’ Cecily was shocked by the terrible word.

  ‘Not hatred of you, but of the person she thinks she is, a dark secret no one was allowed to speak of. She’ll realize one day how wrong she is to think of herself that way, and that no forgiveness is needed for the way you coped with her birth.’

  ‘But hatred?’

  ‘Don’t let the word frighten you, my dear. It’s only very rarely that hatred is a true intent to harm. Look at Phil. He hates you but wouldn’t harm you. In some strange way he almost loves you.’

  ‘I find the thought of being loved by Phil more frightening than being hated!’

  ‘Phil has never actually harmed you, only those around you.’ He didn’t know that the card game on the terrible night of his imprisonment had been to decide which of the two of them to push down the cellar steps.

  ‘It’s all too complicated for me.’

  There were a great many phone calls from a very angry Bertie and Beryl wanting to help but not knowing how. A very distressed Melanie called, insisting this was not what Waldo would have wanted and she was furiously angry, imagining his dismay and disappointment at the behaviour of a daughter he had denied but whom he had loved. She tried to bring peace between mother and daughter and persuade Van to start arrangements to return some of the business to Owen’s.

  Cecily told her not to distress herself by trying. ‘Peter’s right,’ she explained. ‘Van has been planning this for years, the ruination of the shop, after encouraging me to put so much of our business in her hands, humiliating me by sacking me at the same time as Owen. I’ll just have to wait for her to work it out of her system.’ If she ever does, she thought with dread.

  Van’s baby was christened in June but Cecily and Ada were not told by Van. It was Beryl who telephoned them with the date, time and venue.

  ‘She told me not to tell you,’ Beryl said angrily. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She isn’t the little girl we thought we knew. Bertie and I won’t go, knowing you and Ada aren’t invited, so you are invited, by me! I know how difficult it is for you, but please come, all of you, for the sake of appearances if nothing else.’

  Cecily, Peter and Ada ordered a taxi and went to sit at the back of the church. The sun streamed past the thick wooden door and shone on the dusty footprints on the ancient tiled floor.

  The church wasn’t full. Annette and Willie were there with their four children. Bertie and Beryl were godparents, as was Melanie. Van stood at the front of the pews beside the font, holding her baby. But apart from a few local people standing outside to see them arrive and depart, it was going to be a quiet affair.

  Cecily turned to see who was the first to arrive. It was Edwin and he walked in alone. That his appearance was a shock to Van was apparent. Cecily saw her turn and ask a question of Beryl, who shook her head, which appeared to Cecily to be stating that no, she hadn’t invited or expected her son to be there.

  Edwin walked through the church and went to stand beside Van. He looked down at the baby she was holding, then took the child into his arms and nodded at the vicar for him to commence the service. He hadn’t looked at Van, yet seemed to belong there, his tightly clenched jaw the only sign of unease.

  Cecily held Peter’s hand tightly, watching the tableau, hardly able to draw breath. Then she realized that Peter was unwell. His breathing became laboured quite suddenly and as soon as the service ended, Bertie came and helped Cecily get him outside and into the car. Half an hour later, a doctor told them it was pneumonia again.

  Ada had, on Cecily’s insistence, stayed with the others and reported to her sister later on what had happened.

  ‘Van insisted on not naming Edwin as the baby’s father, or giving him the surname Richards. She seems hell-bent on her own destruction. Beryl and Bertie have been wonderful to her yet she denies them the grandchild they want so much to love and enjoy. Having the little boy named Richard Owen instead of Richard Richards is so cruel. Does she want her son to go through all the things she was supposed to have suffered because of your lack of a husband? Van is cruel, Cecily, there’s no other word for it. But why is she like this? What have we done between us to make her like this?’

  Cecily explained to Peter all that had happened. He was in hospital and making slow progress.

  ‘Where will she live? She can’t stay with Beryl and Bertie after this,’ Peter said. ‘Specially with Edwin coming home soon.’

  ‘She isn’t,’ Ada told them. ‘She’s bought a house up near the park and she’ll live there with Jennifer to take care of the baby while she works.’

  It was difficult to respond to the questions and good wishes of people and have to pretend that she knew, and understood, Van’s intentions, but Cecily found that concentrating on caring for Peter helped. He recovered more quickly from the pneumonia than before but still looked unwell when the doctor allowed him to return home. He went back to work at the garage, mainly overseeing the work done by others. He also spent some time trying to persuade other stall holders to return their regular orders to Cecily and Ada, without saying too much about the deceit of Van in taking them. His days were short, on Cecily’s insistence, and as the shop was still abysmally quiet she often closed when he came home at 4.30.

  Apart from what Peter achieved, they didn’t do much to recoup their lost customers at the beach. For one thing it was impossible for Cecily to go to them and admit that her daughter had stolen their business. Pride, she decided, was costly. The other reason was Peter’s health. Although he didn’t have another reoccurrence of the pneumonia, he remained a constant worry.

  With little to do in the shop, Ada and Cecily spent a couple of days sorting through accumulated rubbish in the shop next door. Unused, it had become a dumping ground for boxes, discarded stock and newspapers once needed for recycling. They discussed possibilities for its use, businesses they might start, coming up with several suggestions but none of the ideas came to fruition.

  Cecily continued to write to Gareth and Johnny, who had not yet come home. They were still far away in the theatre of war not ended, the Far East. She listened to the news more avidly than ever, wanting the last of her close friends to be returned safely to the town.

  When the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima on 6 August and was followed by the Nagasaki bomb on 9 August, people cried openly for the thousands of innocent people destroyed in those cities. Even when the Japanese prisoners were released and men little more than walking skeletons began to appear, the compassion for the ordinary Japanese people only lessened slightly, knowing it was the few and not the majority who were the evil ones.

  The war finally ended in September but Gareth and Johnny still didn’t come home. Cecily learned that many of the men serving in the Far East were held back and rested in hospitals before they could travel. As October came, she feared for them.

  ‘At least Gareth will have a business to come back to,’ Peter consoled her, ‘and so will Johnny. I gave him a promise that I intend to keep.’

  ‘Poor Gareth has to face the loss of Rhonwen. From his letters it’s easy to see how he dreads coming back to the shop, with evenings spent with his mother. Thank goodness there’s Marged to cheer him up.’ She smiled at Peter, affection clear in her eyes. ‘I’m so lucky to have you.’

  ‘Gareth is young, there’s time for him to start again.’

  ‘He’s forty, like me!’

  ‘That’s young.’ He laughed. ‘When you’re my age, that’s young!’

  Prisoners were slowly released and the town was filled with wounded or pale, thin men, includ
ing many who seemed bemused by their sudden freedom. Some went back to jobs waiting for them, women dismissed to allow for their promised return. Others were escorted around the town on the arm of a wife or mother, too weak and ill. Even those who were strong seemed unable to suddenly slot themselves back into lives they had been forced to abandon. In new and often ill-fitting suits, they walked the roads in groups, or sat outside their front doors wondering how to recapture the pre-war existence they barely remembered, and watched their children – some as young as four, whom they had never seen before – who stared at them like the strangers they were.

  Johnny was one of the lucky ones. He went straight to the disordered but welcoming house he could now call home. He brought Sharon and the three girls down to see the sisters and Peter as soon as he had found himself some decent civilian clothes.

  ‘I’ve learned a lot working on army vehicles, adding to my knowledge in a way that was better than any mechanic’s course I’ve done. I was trusted to make sure the lorries and trucks, and even tanks for a time, were in good order. Did you mean it, about giving me a job in the garage, Peter?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. I’ve been waiting for you. I could do with some reliable help, so when would you like to start?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘It’s only now you’re home! Don’t you want a holiday first?’

  ‘Working and not having to follow shouted orders, that’s a holiday!’ Grinning, he asked, ‘You won’t shout orders at me, will you?’

  ‘I’ll ask you very nicely,’ Peter promised.

  ‘Thank goodness you’ll be able to take things easy now,’ Cecily remarked, but Peter smiled and said, ‘Not yet. We must give the lad a chance.’