by Lizzie Page
‘Oh, Olive…’ I continued. I could hold myself together no more. I finally cracked into great terrible sobs. Our darling cousin. ‘He’s dead.’
* * *
Olive told me, ‘Wait, wait here.’ She ran up the stairs two at a time and disappeared into one of the rooms off the hall. I was distressed at how long she took, even though it could only have been three minutes at most. I tried to collect myself but part of me felt like simply bashing my head against the wall. Oh, Richard, Richard, please don’t let him have suffered. I couldn’t bear to think of him frightened. I couldn’t bear to think of him in pain or yearning for us. Let it have been instant death, unawares into oblivion.
‘What is going on?’ I asked when she returned. My voice was stern, but I couldn’t care less. I just wanted to get out of there and over to Aunt and Uncle. The excursion to Goldsmiths – the reclining man on the couch who I could not get out of my head – had been a waste of valuable time.
‘Nothing,’ she insisted. ‘Sometimes I come here for a nap, that’s all. If I’m not feeling well.’
‘Aren’t you well? What is it?’
Olive said, ‘I’m fine now.’ She worked her fingers into her coat. She tweaked her stockings. ‘The nap helped.’
‘Mrs Ford doesn’t mind?’
Olive snapped, ‘Why would she? Oh, poor Richard, I just can’t believe it.’
Poor, poor Richard. It was inconceivable that our sweet cousin was no more.
Olive slipped on her shoes but left her time-consuming laces undone. Then, with a shout, ‘I’m off!’ we left the house and I determined to leave my confused feelings there also. There was no time for strangeness, we had to concentrate on Richard, Aunt Cecily and Uncle Toby now.
* * *
As we travelled, Olive fired questions at me. Was I sure? How did I know? And how did they know? And how could anyone be certain?
The tram was busy and I kept my voice low so that people wouldn’t hear. There were men in uniform, old women with shopping bags, a young woman shushing a baby. I was still shivering and Olive told me to stop as though I were doing it voluntarily. I looked into her eyes, just to check what was there, and they were filled with tears. ‘Oh, Vi, I can’t believe it.’
And it felt suddenly like we were different from everyone else around us. Removed. Apart. We knew death and they didn’t. We had a higher consciousness somehow, we knew something they didn’t know. I looked at all the people and thought, You don’t know what we are carrying inside us. This is how it feels. This is what it is. I felt as though the stuffing had been knocked out of us.
And as we raced towards Cottesmore Gardens, I saw the posters again, pasted on the walls: Kitchener’s finger, his stern expression; and I had to look away, so painful did their exhortations seem to me at that very moment.
My uncle and aunt had proudly put up a round red disc at their window that read NOT at home. A man from the house is now serving in His Majesty’s forces. They were delighted with their disc and had said that several neighbours had called to ask where they might get one too. As we stood waiting for the door to open, I tried not to look at it. Not any more, he isn’t.
Even the maid was loudly sniffing. ‘Oh, it’s the Mudie-Cooke girls!’ she muttered, more to herself. ‘What a morning, what a day… The poor boy, what a terrible shame.’
Everyone loved Richard. My father used to say he could charm the birds out the trees. Father would have done anything to recruit him to work for his company but everyone knew Richard was destined for greater things than carpets.
I was worried Father would be annoyed that I had come instead of holding the fort at the office, but instead he looked relieved. He did not rise to an emergency but tried to sink into invisibility. He greeted us both gratefully: ‘Terrible news, girls, can’t believe it.’
A few other people were in the living room, milling around, talking quietly. I saw Edmund’s mother and I waved ‘hello’, regretting it instantly. This was not a day for waving. She was serene in a long black dress that seemed to have been designed with a stylish grief occasion in mind. My uncle was sat in his usual leather armchair, but he seemed to have shrunk to half his usual size. Normally an imposing figure, he had become little more than his own shadow. A man was talking earnestly to him and Uncle was nodding but you could see his eyes glazing over. He wasn’t listening to a word.
As I approached, I saw the person he was talking to was wearing the white collar of a vicar, and I heard his words of consolation: ‘For his country. The greatest sacrifice.’
Kneeling at Uncle’s feet, I said, ‘I’m so sorry, Uncle, we all loved Richard so very much.’
Uncle Toby cleared his throat. ‘He was a good boy, wasn’t he?’ I knew he was asking this for the audience, for all the well-wishers who didn’t know Richard as well as we did.
‘The very best.’
Was it because we had forgotten him in our prayers that night at dinner?
The vicar nodded at me approvingly. ‘He is with God now.’
And I thought of my godless, adorable cousin and wanted to ask the vicar if that would be all right, would there be a place for him in heaven? But I couldn’t, not today, not in front of my uncle. What if the answer was no?
The staff were in one room, weeping. A couple of men – Richard’s school friends, I think – were in another, talking about joining up. One of them kept punching his palm.
‘I’m not going to let them kill our finest,’ he said, thumping harder each time. ‘The Hun is not going to get away with this.’
Edmund’s mother gripped my arm and we agreed how very awful it was. I was determined to make a good impression on her, so she might tell Edmund what a helpful person I had been on this, the bleakest of days. She asked for a sherry and I raced to get her one. After that I didn’t know what to say. She suggested I look for my aunt. She said, ‘Poor Cecily, she doesn’t have the comfort of a daughter,’ and I realised I hadn’t seen my aunt since I arrived.
* * *
I went upstairs. Olive stayed in the drawing room with Father, Uncle and his friends. The doorbell kept ringing; more people were coming in and shaking my poor uncle’s hand. Terrible business. Shocking. ‘Richard was unlucky,’ they decided.
I had never been in my aunt’s bedroom before. I peeped in, and realised she wasn’t there. The window was wide open, and the curtains fluttered insouciantly. For one foolish moment, I had a ridiculous idea that Richard was going to fly in. Like Peter Pan maybe. Like the Lost Boys.
I called out softly for her. There was no reply. Then I heard a moaning from the lavatory next door. I edged across the room, pushed tentatively at the half-open door. She was lying on her side on the black-and-white checked floor.
‘I can’t stop,’ she said. She was weeping. I had never seen her so undignified. She pulled herself up and retched, then retched again and again. Ineffectually, I patted her broad back and held the stray hairs away from her face as she vomited. Occasionally she pulled her face away from the basin and wept, whispering, ‘Whatever am I going to do without him?’
When finally she had stopped, I guided her to her bed and drew back the covers. She leaned heavily on me, I could smell a sweet, acrid smell. I rang down for a pan. I tucked her in like she was a small child. She used to come and do that for us in the early days after Mother died. I loved my Aunt Cecily very dearly and I regretted that I had perhaps neglected her recently, what with Father’s work, spending time with the bohemians at Warrington Crescent and thinking up new ways to make Edmund propose to me. She apologised over and over, and eventually she fell asleep. I didn’t know whether to perch on the side of the bed or go downstairs. But then my aunt smiled in her sleep, where Richard wasn’t dead, and I thought it best to leave her to it.
9
1939 – Now
The holidays are over. Pearl goes off for her first day at our small village school just beyond the church. Usually, I clean the house on a Monday afternoon, but Mrs Burton has invited me for tea after lunch. In
her kitchen, Mrs Burton bakes biscuits, puts them in a tin and rattles them at me to help myself. She is a proper baker, not like me – I bake only out of a sense of duty. Mrs Burton feels strongly about rising yeast and room temperatures.
Mrs Burton’s oldest daughter Ethel is not the easiest of children and Mrs Burton tells me she is fed up with it. Ethel has got so much attitude – and now she wants to go out and stay out until goodness knows when.
‘And Sally?’ I ask about the timid younger sister who walks around with her nose in a book.
‘Sally could do with going out a bit more.’ Mrs Burton sighs. ‘What can you do?’
We bite and crunch and I stroke the dogs, who I have become increasingly fond of. Mrs Burton says she’s heard the Prime Minister is poorly. ‘Where will that leave us?’ I ask.
‘Doubt it’d make much difference,’ she says, then laughs shyly. We try to avoid getting too political – we both know how those old tribal loyalties can come between friends – but it’s clear she doesn’t respect our Neville Chamberlain.
* * *
I meet Pearl at school at the end of her first day. Partly to get away from Mrs Burton because, much as I enjoy her company, it’s slightly overwhelming – I’m not used to such attention – and partly because I can’t wait to see Pearl again. Also partly because Mrs Burton told me that everyone thinks the Germans might be parachuting in any day now and I’ll be damned if Pearl has to fight them off all by herself.
Only one other host mother is at the gate, and she is there for her younger two children anyway.
‘Yours won’t walk by herself?’
‘She’s only little,’ I say. Why shouldn’t I meet her?
The woman says her children are behaving better with the evacuees in the house. She says she’s heard of others where it’s the other way round. Kids have started spitting, swearing – oh yes, the London children know all the words – or throwing things. But not hers. Charlie and Kate are good kids. I feel sorry for Pearl that she is not with this woman, in her capable hands. She is all knowledge and efficiency.
The relief on Pearl’s face when she sees me makes the wait worthwhile. I take her bag and coat. None of the real parents do. I am faux-pas-ing all over the place. She can’t remember if she’s had a good day or not. I don’t push the question, I know not to do that at least.
The teacher introduces herself as Mrs Bankhead and, in the next breath, says she has been teaching at Hinckley Primary for twenty-three years.
‘Nothing fazes me,’ she adds, as though I am about to attempt to faze her. ‘Not even the arrival of twenty-two London children. At short notice. Some of whom can hardly write.’
I ask how Pearl did.
‘Pearl Posner can be a silly sausage but she isn’t one of the worst at reading or ’rithmetic.’
‘Well done, Pearl! You’re going to do really well here,’ I say proudly.
Mrs Bankhead narrows her eyes. ‘We don’t know how long they’re staying yet,’ she reminds me.
* * *
Pearl fills up the house: her coat on the banister – It goes on the hook there, oh never mind –her shabby little shoes, her swollen school bag. Her. I peel off the skin of her apple snack, making it coil like a snake, and she squeals at my magic.
Mrs Burton told me about Vera Lynn’s ‘Goodnight Children, Everywhere’ message on the wireless. It’s for the evacuees to listen to and feel comforted while we wait for Hitler to bomb the cities. So, a few evenings later, Pearl and I snuggle up on the armchair to give it a go. I’ve got one ear on the wireless and one ear out for Edmund coming home, asking where his tweed jacket is or wanting his trousers ironed.
Vera’s calming voice washes over us:
Sleepy little eyes in a sleepy little head
Sleepy time is drawing near
In a little while, you’ll be tucked up in your bed
Here’s a song for baby, dear
Pearl feels my hair. It is not a gentle head massage though, it is more a search, a dig, an excavation. I take a sharp intake of breath and pull at her wrist, suddenly annoyed.
‘That hurts, Pearl! What on earth are you doing?’
‘I’m looking for horns.’
I grab her hands, pull her round to make her look me in the eye.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Looking for horns?’ she repeats.
A chill runs through me.
‘Horns?’
‘They did it to me at playtime,’ she says brightly. ‘They say Jews have them – like devils? I don’t think I have them though, do I? I just wanted to see if you’ve got any.’
* * *
I won’t charge up to Mrs Bankhead at the school to complain, not yet. Not yet. Mrs Bankhead has twenty-three years of experience; no doubt she’s got this under control. The world is at war, everything is topsy-turvy and we are all being blown about like autumn leaves, we are all changing colours; we have to sit, watch, and reconfigure. Don’t rush. Don’t panic. You don’t make an omelette by not cracking eggs. I know all the phrases.
I tell Pearl that the people who talk such rubbish are idiots or nasty or both. They don’t understand people who are different. Maybe they’ve never met different people before. I spell it out: You are Jewish but you don’t have horns.
‘No one has horns.’
‘Not even a bull?’
‘Maybe bulls. But not humans. Not Jews. Not Christians. Not anyone. Do you understand? If they say it again, you tell me, and I’ll… I’ll sort it out.’
God knows how.
She gives me a look. Pearl has an array of expressions that I am just beginning to decipher: the puzzled, the disbelieving and the dopey. This one is clear: she wants me to shut up.
10
1915 – Then
People were getting engaged left, right and centre but not Edmund and me. Our relationship hadn’t been formalised – yet, in early 1915, I was more positive than ever that we were edging towards a conclusion of some kind.
The first time I saw Edmund after Richard had died, he clutched me tight, and I felt his warm breath in my hair. We had never been so close. He muttered, ‘I’m so sorry,’ over and over again, as I stroked his shoulders dizzily. ‘I know.’
I remembered that one of the last things Richard had ever said to me was that Edmund loved me, so I waited, and I girded myself to wait for as long as it took.
Richard’s death had left us all feeling wounded. We didn’t trust as easily or laugh so freely. Dreams were just that: dreams; all our plans seemed unlikely now. They certainly didn’t bring us as much joy as they used to. Everything was grey and unremarkable. Many a time, I’d arrive at the office to find my father staring out of the window, and if I said anything, his jaw would slacken and he’d mumble, ‘I miss that boy so much.’
‘I know, Father, but we have to get on. It’s what Richard would want.’
Not only was Edmund devastated by the loss of Richard, but he felt it highlighted his cowardice – his words, not mine – in not joining up straight away. He kissed my hand and nuzzled my wrist, then said, ‘I’ve never lost anyone before. It’s such a horrible thing.’
‘You mustn’t let it make you afraid to love again,’ I said softly. ‘Richard wouldn’t want that.’
I had suddenly become an expert on Richard’s wants.
For once, Edmund met my eye. ‘I know you’re talking sense, Vivienne, but it’s very hard.’
It seemed to me the marriage question was every bit as complicated as the Balkan one. Another awkward thing was how close Olive was growing to the Fords – and, perhaps, Walter Ford in particular – and, it had to be remembered, I was the older sister. It stood to reason I would marry first. Everyone knew this. And even though I knew conventions were breaking down all around us at quite a pace, I didn’t want this particular convention to break down. Olive should not get engaged until I had. Clearly, I should go first.
‘You could have anyone, Vivi,’ Olive often said with a sigh, but it wasn�
�t true. Most men skirted around me. They chatted to Olive and although they may have looked at me from across the room at Mrs Ford’s, they rarely made an approach. And anyway, even if they had, Edmund and his family were the ones I had set my heart upon. I don’t think anyone realised quite how single-minded I could be. Part of that single-mindedness meant that I definitely did not want to ask Edmund about being sighted at the Windmill. People behave strangely in strange times; I was sure that was what it was.
* * *
It wasn’t just us, by the spring of 1915, everything was changing. Even Mrs Ford had stopped holding her bohemian parties, and instead opened her house to sick and injured soldiers. Number 63 Warrington Crescent was now listed as a convalescent home by the Home Office. Admittedly, that didn’t stop Olive going there for her naps, but the Sunday frivolities were over.
Johnny had gone to Malta. David and his wife were in America and David had changed his name to Ivor – Ivor Novello – which apparently would make him stand out from the crowd. Harry was touring with his band. The singers were touring in Spain or Portugal. Even Walter, party-loving Walter, had joined up and was training in Cheshire.
‘How do you feel about Walter being away?’ I asked.
‘I feel fine about it.’ Olive shrugged.
Another thing Olive felt fine about, more than fine about, was Mrs Ford and David’s – that is, Ivor’s – song. It was just about everywhere and with the title ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. That in itself made me smile. Uilleam and I had won in the end!
You couldn’t walk by a public house or a music hall without hearing the chorus being belted out. Every time I heard it – whether it was a group of schoolgirls trying to raise money for the war effort, or a carousing drunk man on a park bench – I would tell Olive to pass it on to Mrs Ford. It had certainly caught the zeitgeist.
