by Lizzie Page
Aunt Cecily eventually asked for a tour of the garden with Edmund and said I must come too. When we had reached the back fence, she suddenly announced she would go back for her scarf.
‘We’ll wait,’ said Edmund.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said, tearing off towards the house. I tried to make my face say I knew nothing of this trap – which I hadn’t – but I knew I was as pink as anything in the flower beds.
Edmund and his brother Christopher had kept a tortoise since they were small and I saw it rooting in the garden now. I couldn’t say I liked it much. They used to claim it was related to Darwin’s pets, and I never could tell if it was a joke or not. Naturally, it was known as Charles.
‘Look at old Charles,’ said Edmund, his voice muffled. ‘Oblivious as ever. He’ll outlast me and everyone here, I expect.’
I knew that tortoises lived a long time, but this seemed morbid.
Edmund and I walked a little, and then we came to the bench and I sat, averting my eyes from Charles. If he did outlive us, then it wasn’t his fault, of course, but what a shame. Of all the things to be outlived by in the world, it had to be an ugly creature whose main interest in life was cabbage.
Edmund hovered for a while, then perched next to me.
He took my hand and, as his smooth palm pressed against mine, I couldn’t help but think, Is he really going to go in the trenches with these soft hands?
He said, ‘We used to hold hands while you played piano, do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember!’ My voice sounded high and squeaky. ‘It was… fun.’
‘It was,’ he said nostalgically.
We didn’t say anything for a while, and then desperately, I blurted, ‘I’m not sure your mother likes me, Edmund.’
He made a puzzled face. ‘I’ve never heard her say a thing against you.’
The way he said you seemed to suggest that she had said things against someone, and I guessed that was Olive.
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, good.’ More daringly, I added, ‘I’m very fond of your whole family, Edmund. They are all such wonderful people.’
Too much? I wondered. But Edmund didn’t seem to be listening anyway.
‘I don’t know about anything now,’ he said throatily. I looked at him, alarmed at his despair. ‘On one hand, I feel ashamed I didn’t join up immediately, but on the other’ – he continued but his voice now was so low, I could hardly hear – ‘I still wish I hadn’t gone and done it. Oh, Vivienne. I wish… I wish things were different.’
He told me he had had a long discussion with his vicar. He had never told me about his church visits before and I was thrilled to be privy to such information. ‘He said I should do my duty.’ Edmund choked. ‘In every way.’
Caught up in the excitement, we kissed, very gently, very slowly, on the lips. I wasn’t sure whether to close my eyes or not. I kept them open and noticed Edmund had a rash around his collar.
Then he withdrew. He said, ‘I’m sorry, Vivi, everything is so up in the air right now. I can’t…’ He paused.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Charles the tortoise munching some vegetable or other. It seemed to me that he was gloating.
‘I know it is,’ I reassured him. I was good at that. And I loved it when Edmund called me Vivi. I was usually a Vivienne to him. ‘I know and I don’t demand anything of you, Edmund.’
I could hear the snip, snip, snip of hedges being pruned in the neighbour’s garden. Perhaps one day they might accidentally snip poor old Charles, and he would buck his destiny.
Edmund looked helpless. He nodded. ‘If only I could be more certain about…
everything.’
And it seemed to me he was saying, about you.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. And it was. It was going to happen one day, I knew it. It didn’t have to happen now. I could still feel his kiss on my lips and it felt like we had made a leap forward.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ He grinned nervously at me. ‘You’re a special person.’
Back inside, Edmund’s mother looked closely at us both. She said we had stayed out so long, weren’t we afraid of catching a chill? Greatly encouraged by what had just happened, I burst out that it was a simply wonderful day. The marriage question was not so much a question any more but a statement of fact.
I wasn’t sure, but I think Aunt Cecily gave me a cheeky wink.
* * *
Olive and I were just about to tell Father our news, when, I don’t know exactly how, the conversation turned to Russia and then moved on to the Jews there and how very awful they were. On and on Edmund’s mother went. Her latest revulsion was the curly sidelocks that she had seen one man wearing while walking down the street. To be out in public… like that. So brazen! Didn’t this tell you how much they hated the British way of life? They will not mix.
‘You can see what’s going to happen in Russia,’ said Edmund’s father, and although I couldn’t – my psychic abilities did not extend to political questions – I agreed heartily.
‘They’ve got no loyalty to anyone!’ I was in high spirits and this was something I’d heard Edmund’s mother say countless times before.
Olive was annoyed. ‘Who should the Jews be loyal to?’ She was addressing me, even though Edmund’s mother was the worst offender. ‘The Tsar, who sends his Cossacks to rape and pillage?’
‘Well, I don’t know an awful lot about—’ I started to admit.
‘So why did you have to say anything at all?’ Olive snapped. ‘If you have no real knowledge, why are you so insistent on giving your insubstantial opinion?’
I flushed. To be humiliated like this, in front of our family, especially when I was feeling so positive about Edmund, really wasn’t on.
‘Everyone says so, Olive,’ I carried on. ‘The Jews are only interested in money. They’re a self-serving bunch.’
Olive threw down her knife and fork. You’d think I’d insulted her.
My father used to say Olive was always the champion of the underdog. When she was little, she would bring him crabs she had ‘rescued’ from the seaside, expecting them to live long, happy lives in our garden. She was not practical, she was not a realist.
Father told her so then and Olive got up and left the room. Moments later, I heard the front door slam.
Edmund’s mother laughed as if to say, point proven. Aunt Cecily and Uncle Toby both raised their eyebrows. Olive had a reputation for volatility – and seemed to enjoy living up to it.
‘She spends too much time with the Fords,’ Father muttered.
‘They’re not Jews, are they?’ asked Edmund’s mother with a look of horror on her face. Everyone turned to me anxiously.
‘No,’ I said, feeling important. Mrs Ford and her mother attended church – I wasn’t sure who was the keener but I knew they went regularly. As for Walter, I was certain he worshipped only his own reflection.
Father chewed an after-dinner mint. ‘Perhaps it would do Olive good to spend some time away from them anyway.’
I took this as my cue to tell him about the FANYs; with Olive gone it was clear that this was up to me now. ‘Interesting that you should say that, Father… I have some news.’
On the surface, Father seemed to deal with it well. He said he had suspected some secret shenanigans between us, and he said it was right, it was proper, that we did our bit – if that’s what we wanted. Once he had given us, or rather me, his blessing, Uncle Toby came over and kissed me and Edmund’s parents looked at each other with, I hoped, approval.
‘For God, for King and Country!’ I announced, then more quietly, ‘And for our dear Richard.’
Aunt Cecily tearfully squeezed my shoulder. ‘That’s the spirit, girl.’ Then Edmund came over and whispered, ‘But why didn’t you tell me you were leaving when we were in the garden?’ and I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just said, ‘I was going to, but Charles put me off,’ and Edmund gave me a peculiar look. He could be very dour sometimes. And t
hen I fretted that I had lost my chance. If I had told him, maybe he would have proposed to me. But deep down, I didn’t think he would have.
As we walked home, my father grew anxious, which was exactly what we hadn’t wanted to happen, so I said, ‘I’ll look after Olive, Father, of course.’
‘I know you will, Vivi,’ he said. ‘You’ve always been a good girl.’
* * *
Three days later there were two suitcases, two handbags, two hats, two pairs of boots: twin everything except for one pair of binoculars (Olive had recently expressed an interest in birdwatching), all lined up in the hall. It was an impressive selection of luggage. But just as we were about to take the carriage, Father lost his stiff upper lip – he lost all his stiffness – and he broke down. ‘I can’t lose you, girls, not after your mother. If anything happens to you, I will kill myself.’
He clutched us towards him, snorting back tears.
It was pitiful. It made me waver but Olive, champion of the underdog, was not champion of this underdog. She impassively patted him on the shoulder.
‘Father, we love our country, we want to serve.’
Father tried to collect himself as Olive and I gazed at him apprehensively. He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly. Please don’t collapse, I was thinking, please, please.
‘God bless you,’ he said, wiping his teary eyes. ‘So proud of you both.’
We carried our suitcases outside. Olive was beaming.
‘I can’t wait to get drawing,’ she whispered, as though that’s what we were setting off to do.
13
1940 – Now
‘I’m thinking of doing some things for the war effort.’
Mrs Burton has done so much more than just think about it. She has been attending meetings, she has been getting directions and in the living room, she has gathered ten neighbours and friends. ‘The WVS,’ she tells me, so delighted that you can see her dimples. ‘The Women’s Voluntary Service. Are you in, Mrs Lowe?’
I pause. As ever my first thought is What will Edmund say?
‘There will be cake…’
I burst out laughing. ‘How can I turn that down?’
* * *
Mrs Shaw is here because she is trying to take her mind off her Simon, who is somewhere on the continent – they won’t tell you where they are exactly – and Mrs Dean is worrying about her two lads, who are twins, born only twenty minutes apart and now in the Navy on some whacking great warship.
In the kitchen, making tea, Mrs Burton says quietly to me, ‘Sally and Ethel may be rascals, but I can’t help feeling glad I didn’t have sons.’ I smile and don’t make a sound, I just quietly pat Hardy’s long fur, and Mrs Burton looks up like she suddenly understands. ‘Sorry, Mrs Lowe, that was insensitive of me.’
‘Not at all,’ I say heartily. ‘It just didn’t happen for me. I was sad for a time, but not any more.’
‘Good.’
* * *
The plan is we will turn clothes into other clothes. ‘That’s this week’s task, anyway,’ explains Mrs Burton, brightly. ‘Next week, it might be something else… we’ll do whatever is needed.’
The vicar is going to pick everything up and arrange distribution. They have sent us knee-high socks (I am reminded of Richard’s appeals for them) and we must turn them into polo-necked jumpers for shivering sailors.
‘Who here is good at sewing?’ asks Mrs Burton. Laughing, we all agree we are just about good enough.
‘We will work our socks off,’ says Mrs Shaw and we laugh again and tell her that’s a joke worthy of her husband.
* * *
Soon we are meeting most days and Mrs Burton’s living room has been taken over by socks, rolls of material and sewing machines. We’re low on wool now – low on wool already; there’s none in the shops – so we spend a lot of time unpicking old clothes and re-forming them.
Apparently not only does Mr Burton not mind – although he did holler once when he sat on a knitting needle – but he wholeheartedly supports it. Mr Burton isn’t home very often and, silly me, I had thought he was like Edmund – another mysterious, prowling cat – but no, he works assembly lines during the day, car production, which has now been turned to military production – and since the war broke out, he’s also doing air raid precaution, patrolling the streets of Coventry.
‘He is frustrated – he’s too old to enlist,’ explains Mrs Burton quietly.
Last time round he fought in Salonika. He and Mrs Burton met when he was home on leave and she was working in a munitions factory.
‘All this busy, busy, busy takes me back,’ says Mrs Dean. ‘Oh, I had all the boyfriends,’ she reminisces. ‘That’s what the war was, a great big game of matchmaking.’
I flush.
‘Not for everyone, of course.’ She pats me tenderly on the arm. ‘You and Edmund were childhood sweethearts, weren’t you?’
I don’t say anything. Sometimes, I feel like I have done everything wrong. The mistakes I have made seem to line up to give me a good kicking.
‘Good times,’ Mrs Dean continues, still nostalgic. She looks around guiltily. ‘I mean, terrible times, but some positives came out of it.’
* * *
Five more women from the streets behind ours join our WVS group, including the doctor’s receptionist, Mrs Carmichael.
When I first see her, I retreat into the kitchen. I don’t want to be in the same room as her. But Mrs Burton isn’t having any of that, of course, and soon I have to go back and sit opposite Mrs Carmichael with her deliberately enigmatic facial expression.
Everyone is chat-chatting and Mrs Dean, in a conspiratorial tone (she is a gossip), asks Mrs Carmichael if she knows everyone in the village’s medical history.
Mrs Carmichael says quickly, ‘Not at all, please don’t.’ Then she adds, ‘Even if I did, I’ve got a memory like a sieve.’
She doesn’t look at me when she speaks.
A few days later, her shifts at the surgery change and she can only do one hour a week with us.
Mrs Fraser from the clothes shop also joins us once but decides that ‘it isn’t a good fit’ for her. She’ll go with the other women volunteer group the other side of town. ‘They’re a bit more’ – she pauses – ‘respectable.’
* * *
Mrs Burton already knows all the other evacuees’ stories – how, I don’t know.
Farmer Jones is walking on air with his Nathan. Solid, strong, works like an ox and then some. The Caseys have got themselves a bed-wetter but she has wonderful table manners so it’s swings and roundabouts. Mrs Gibbon is not displeased with hers. The girl can sew. And Mrs Wiley is not complaining either, although the child – a prolific letter-writer – costs a fortune in stamps.
But Mrs Morley says her boy moans about the food. Can you imagine? To Mrs Morley, who prides herself on her kitchen and her fried liver! And Mrs Clements, who’s not long recovered from ‘ladies’ problems’, is regretting the twin girls already. Is she strong enough to manage, that’s always the worry, isn’t it?
‘How is your little Pearl getting along?’ Mrs Burton asks.
How are we getting along?
My washing load has doubled. I now spend the early hours of the morning scrubbing tights and jumpers, hanging out, folding, putting away. Our food bill has certainly gone up. Not that Pearl eats much more than a sparrow, but I still have to offer her a full plate of something nourishing (and somehow, she manages to get most of her dinner down her front!). Although I go to the post office and get my regular reimbursement and joke from Mr Shaw, the money the government gives isn’t going to cover the half of it.
It’s not just the extra cooking, the extra washing, the extra drying and the extra ironing though. Or the ration system and the queuing. Or the fact that everything has to get done before the blackout darkness. There’s homework too. And the worry about the homework. Who knew I was so poor at arithmetic? While her comprehension is good, Pearl’s spelling is
abominable and if I hear the history-class ditty ‘Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived’ one more time, I will… well, I don’t know what I will do. Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep everything smooth in the house with Edmund. I’m pretending nothing has changed. The war hasn’t changed his workload at all.
Yesterday, Pearl stuffed something down the toilet she shouldn’t have. She has smashed a vase with Mrs Burton’s damned skipping rope. She has a store of mouldy apple cores under her bed.
The poor mite is sickly, she gets headaches; she is not what I imagined.
‘You had to get the runt of the litter,’ Edmund told me.
She doesn’t sleep well, and these days she doesn’t even call out or whisper for me. She just slips into my room and into my bed, flannel in hand. It happens so often, I eventually say, ‘Do you want to start out the night in here?’ (please don’t let her mother hate me) and she nods delightedly, yes, she does. And of course, Edmund has no idea.
I am already dreading the thought of her leaving.
* * *
By the end of October, Mr Hitler still hasn’t launched an attack; there have been no bombs, so some of the children are going back to London. What starts as a trickle – the twins, the boy who didn’t like liver, the bed-wetter – soon becomes a stream of returnees.
The government doesn’t want the children to return to the cities. Posters go up to keep them in the countryside. Keep them out of harm’s way. The children can’t help but feel divided. But for some, the separation from their families has proved too hard and they can’t wait to get on the train back home.
There is no word yet from Pearl’s mother, so I presume Pearl is staying. She writes to her mother twice a week, chewing on her pencil, and I always leave the room because otherwise, I would be so tempted to pry: What are you saying? Do you want to go back to Stepney?
