Her Father's Daughter

by Beezy Marsh

  It didn’t matter that she was worn out from running around after the three children, Annie wanted to make Elsie feel the best she could for her special night, even if she’d be burning the midnight oil to do so.

  Elsie’s eyes sparkled. ‘Would you do that for me? Annie, you are the best sister in the whole wide world!’

  Annie’s stomach was rumbling as she caught a whiff of the rabbit stew that was on the menu tonight down at the British Restaurant.

  It was lovely not having to cook and her sister Ivy had agreed to mind the little ones so she could go out with Harry. Ivy tended to stay in, even though Charlie was away with the army. There was nothing anyone could do to persuade her otherwise. Annie got the feeling that his mother ruled the roost in his absence with her ‘Charlie wouldn’t like its’ and Ivy didn’t want any trouble indoors, so she stayed put. Harry had promised to join them as soon as he clocked off from work and Annie was looking forward to having a dance with him, just like they used to before the war broke out.

  ‘Ooh, it’s dead man’s leg,’ Elsie joked when she saw that jam roly-poly was for pudding. She was in such good spirits and Annie put it down, in part, to the fact that she looked so pretty. Annie had taken her sister’s old gingham summer dress and added new buttons down the front and some lace around the collar. Annie had found some red ribbon and Elsie had tied that around her waist, as a little belt. A lick of lipstick and the excitement of introducing Josh to Mum and Dad seemed to do the rest.

  Even Bill had cheered up, but that could have just been at the prospect of sneaking off for a pint later when Annie and the others went dancing at the town hall.

  They waited patiently in the queue for their food, handing over their money to one of the WRVS ladies, before sitting down at one of the tables. There were other families there too, although some of them were certainly less fortunate than Annie’s because they looked dishevelled. The restaurant was used by the poor souls who’d been bombed out and were staying over at the rest centres at Acton Congregational Church Centre. Her friend Esther and the other women from the WRVS who served up the meals always made sure that the needy got the biggest helpings, which was only fair.

  They were just tucking in when the double doors to the dining room swung open and a tall, blonde young man in a sand-coloured uniform stood there. He was so striking, with his chiselled jaw and commanding air, that the whole room fell silent. He caught sight of Elsie, who gave a little squeal of delight as she waved, and he strode over, reaching out to shake Bill by the hand.

  ‘Charming fella,’ said Bill, who was as bowled over as everyone else and put down his knife and fork to gaze at the young GI, who had ambled over to the servery.

  It was a stark contrast to his grumblings in the scullery about the Yanks being ‘overpaid, oversexed and over here’. Mum beamed at Josh as he returned and leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek. ‘Elsie’s told me so much about you all.’

  Bill was just asking Josh about the farm back in Ohio when the dining room doors opened again and Joan sashayed in, wearing a dress that shimmered as she moved.

  ‘That’s silk!’ gasped Elsie as her friend drew up a chair and gave Josh a shy little smile. ‘Where on earth did you get that?’

  ‘Ask no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,’ said Joan with a giggle.

  ‘Looks rather flashy for a dance at the town hall,’ said Mum curtly, just loud enough for Annie to hear.

  If Joan heard the comment, she didn’t let on, because she was too busy drowning in Josh’s baby blue eyes, which were fixed on her. ‘My mum cut up her wedding dress to make it for me, if you must know,’ she said, giving Elsie a little poke in the ribs. Elsie forced a faint smile. ‘She said there’s no time like the present, what with the war on. Ain’t that right, Josh?’

  ‘Well, you certainly look like you’re ready to make the most of the evening, Joan,’ he murmured, blushing a bit. He turned swiftly to Elsie and added hurriedly, ‘But you look stunning in your dress too. I think you must be the prettiest girl in London tonight, Elsie.’

  He had done his best to be convincing but everyone knew that Joan was the belle of the ball.

  The band struck up a tune and the dance floor filled with people, as Annie glanced around to see if Harry was here yet. Elsie twirled in Josh’s arms as couples formed up behind them, to go forward and back across the dance floor in time to the music. People started singing along: ‘Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me, till I come marching home!’

  The steps all looked a bit complicated to Annie, who didn’t mind a nice foxtrot but wasn’t sure she could cope with all the moves that Elsie was gliding through with such ease. Her sister had warned her that the Americans had a completely different way of dancing; it was much livelier than anything she was used to. As the band struck up an even jauntier tempo, Joan leaned over to Annie and explained, ‘It’s the jitterbug. We do it all the time up in the West End!’

  Joan sat on the sidelines, tapping her feet and refusing all the smart young GIs who asked her to partner them, until Elsie was tired enough to sit out. Then she sprang forward and was away onto the dance floor in Josh’s arms.

  Josh gazed down at her as they moved in time to the music. As Joan’s honey-blonde tresses cascaded down her back and her lithe body moved like water in her silk gown, they seemed to be the most perfect couple from a Hollywood film. He was Fred Astaire to her Ginger Rogers.

  Elsie sat glumly on the sidelines, her hands in her lap, looking for all the world as if the Germans had just won the war. She only perked up when she caught sight of Harry ambling in to join them, fresh from his work shift.

  ‘Cheer up, Elsie, it might never happen!’ he quipped.

  ‘Oh, it already has,’ she said, nodding in the direction of Joan and Josh as they glided around the dance floor.

  ‘Might I have the pleasure of this dance then?’ he said, giving a little bow, as Annie looked on, suppressing a fit of the giggles.

  Elsie shook her head. ‘Thanks all the same, but I’ll sit this one out. I’ve got a lovely friend here who you might like.’ She gave Annie a nudge in the ribs and she burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Harry, pulling Annie to her feet and stealing a kiss. ‘Do you come here often? I’m sure we must have met . . .’

  In a split second they were swaying to the music. As he smiled down at her, she knew that she was where she belonged, in his arms.

  Only a few days after the dance, all the US servicemen disappeared from Acton overnight and the town was buzzing with expectation that something big was going to happen. Annie tuned in to the BBC news on the wireless at lunchtime down at Grove Road only to hear a special broadcast.

  ‘D Day has come. Early this morning, the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler’s European fortress,’ the announcer said in a sombre tone. The children played at their game of hide-and-seek under the kitchen table, oblivious to the news unfolding around them or the battles being waged for their future.

  Annie shushed them for a moment, hanging on to every word as Mum swivelled round, looking at the wireless in disbelief.

  ‘Under the command of General Eisenhower, supported by strong air forces, Allied Armies began landing on the northern coast of France.

  ‘It was announced a little later that General Montgomery is in charge of the army group carrying out the assault. This army group includes British, Canadian and United States Forces.’

  Mum dropped her tea towel in shock. ‘That means George is there! What if it’s Dunkirk all over again?’

  Annie ran to her mother and hugged her tightly. ‘It won’t be. We have to believe that our boys can do it.’ After so long, they had the Germans on the run now, didn’t they? The tide had turned in their favour, that’s what everyone was saying these days.

  But by the time Harry came back to Grove Road clutching a copy of the Evening Standard, Mum was a nervous wreck and Annie had been forced to open the last bottle of sherry stashed
under the stairs to calm her.

  Harry almost had to fan Mum with the front page to get her to listen to him. ‘Look! It says here that Churchill says it’s all going to plan. The landings are a success. We have broken through Hitler’s defences. This is it!’ He pulled Annie into an embrace. ‘I think we are going to win, Annie, I can feel it. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.’

  He poured them all a little glass of sherry.

  Moments later, Elsie came home from work, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. She ran upstairs without so much as a cup of tea.

  ‘She’s probably worried sick about Josh,’ said Annie. ‘I’ll take her up a cuppa.’

  But when Annie gently opened the bedroom door, Elsie was lying face down sobbing on her bedspread, refusing to budge.

  ‘Be brave, Else, he’s going to make it home,’ said Annie, kneeling at her side. ‘Things are going to go our way from now on. You’ll meet again, just like the song says.’

  ‘But I won’t,’ said Elsie, crying into her pillow. ‘I won’t. He’s gone and slipped a ring on Joan’s finger. No matter what happens in this war, nothing will ever be the same for me again, because Joan’s won his heart!’

  26

  Annie

  Acton, May 1945

  The whole town was festooned in a sea of red, white and blue.

  Every sewing box had been raided to find ribbons for the children’s hair and even the dogs sported patriotic rosettes on their collars. Bunting, which had last seen action during King George’s coronation in 1937, was pressed into service and strung across the street from lamp post to lamp post.

  The air almost crackled with expectation of the big announcement, due later that day, from Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had guided the nation through its darkest hour. Ever since Hitler took the coward’s way out a week ago in his Berlin bunker by shooting himself, the writing had been on the wall for the Nazis.

  Some people had taken that as their cue to start celebrating a few days early. Annie had heard about a raucous victory party down in Shepherd’s Bush, but the air-raid wardens had put paid to that with stern warnings. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ was still the constant rebuke.

  Yesterday, the woman from opposite and all the neighbours who didn’t have a wireless set had crowded into the little scullery at Grove Road to hear the momentous news from the BBC: Germany had finally signed an unconditional surrender and the war really was coming to an end. Churchill himself was to make a speech about it, drawing the whole thing to a triumphant close.

  They listened, mouths agape, before Bill broke the silence.

  ‘About bleeding time too! They were never going to beat us!’ he said, raising a mug of chicory coffee in a toast to the radiogram. ‘Now, I’d better start getting those bunk beds out of the Anderson. No time like the present, is there?’

  Mum rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, I swear he’ll miss that shelter.’ And everyone collapsed in fits of laughter. It was true, the Anderson seemed to have developed more leaks than the Titanic given the amount of time Bill spent out there. If George got his way and used it as a hen house, what on earth would Bill find to do?

  The housewives put their heads together to make Victory in Europe Day an occasion to remember. Even though sugar and eggs and just about everything else needed to make a cake were on the ration, ovens were soon heated as hot as furnaces and sweet treats were baked as if by magic. Kids had grown up with carrots being grated into cakes to sweeten them and apple pies were always a treat, especially with a bit of evaporated milk poured over instead of cream.

  Annie peered out of the net curtains to spot a boy on a bicycle riding up and down the street whistling to himself. It seemed incredible to think that just a day ago, they were living in fear but now, everything was going to change for the better, after nearly six long years of struggle. One by one, people came out of their houses, bringing tables, chairs, china and anything they could muster to give to the little ones as a treat for the party until the whole street was transformed. Neighbours who only days ago had been worn down by years of struggle started smiling and laughing together and it was like the sun coming out in their street.

  Bottles of beer and sherry were pulled from under floorboards and dusted off from the backs of cupboards and poured into teacups while the kiddies had their fun, dressed as pirates, nurses and anything else that their mums could find around the house to make a costume with. John was determined to be a cowboy, so Annie had made him a pair of chaps from an old towel and she’d altered an old black felt hat by attaching some string under the chin. He roamed the street with two sticks for guns, terrorizing anyone who crossed his path, to whoops of delight from the other little boys. Anita wanted to be a princess, like the girls in her favourite book of fairy tales, so when Mum’s back was turned she took down one of the net curtains in the front room and tied it around her daughter’s waist with a bit of spare ribbon.

  Mum burst out laughing when she saw what Annie was up to and hastily took the other one down so that Anita could wear that as a headdress.

  As Mum fixed it in place with a spare yard of lace from her sewing box, she cooed, ‘Don’t you look lovely! Now, run along and play with the other children.’

  As Anita skipped off, Mum smiled in a way that Annie hadn’t seen since before the war. One little mite came dressed in a pillowslip with a ribbon tied around her middle and no one minded. There were bobbing apples and games of hopscotch and running races and the street was alive with the shouts of excited children as Harry helped judge the winners.

  At three o’clock precisely a hush fell over the proceedings as the wireless set took pride of place at the head of a long row of tables and the unmistakable voice of Winston Churchill resonated over the airwaves, bringing the news that they had all been longing to hear.

  ‘My dear friends,’ he began. ‘This is your hour. This is not a victory of a party, or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. We were the first in this ancient island to draw the sword against tyranny.

  ‘After a while we were left all alone against the most tremendous military power that has been seen. We were all alone for a whole year.’

  Annie thought of all the terrifying nights spent during the air raids and silently thanked God that they had been spared.

  ‘There we stood alone,’ said Churchill. ‘Did anyone want to give in?’

  The whole street erupted with shouts of ‘No!’

  Churchill continued: ‘Were we downhearted?’

  Again, the cry went up and fists punched the air: ‘No!’

  ‘Every man, woman and child in the country had no thought of quitting the struggle,’ he said. ‘London can take it!’

  Within moments of the speech ending, church bells all over the borough started peeling and aeroplanes zoomed overhead, flying into the city of London in celebration. Buses and cars honked their horns in a jubilant cacophony down on the High Street. Neighbours hugged each other and children danced. Only one person stood on the sidelines, smiling but not really joining in. It was Elsie. She’d lost so much weight due to her heartbreak over Josh that Annie had been forced to put darts in all her waistbands; she was almost as skinny as Ivy. The end of the war would mean the one thing she was dreading – Josh and Joan would be getting married.

  ‘Come on!’ said Annie, running to her sister and pulling her over to where the children were playing ring-a-roses and a bottle of sherry was doing the rounds. ‘Come and join in the fun! We’ve got to celebrate.’

  Elsie shrugged. ‘I feel a bit tired, Annie. Maybe I could look after the kids so that you and Harry can go down the pub with the others? You deserve some time together.’

  Annie couldn’t accept that her little sister’s dancing days were over. ‘Tonight of all nights it will be a huge party and there are plenty more fish in the sea. You owe it to yourself to get out there and have some fun.’

  But Elsie wouldn’t be persuaded. She just shook her head, helping M
um to clear some of the plates and teacups. It was as if she’d lost the magical thing, the sheen which made fellas look twice. The Blitz hadn’t broken her but that damn GI had stolen her spark.

  The next day was declared a public holiday, so the bloke Annie watched being pushed home in a wheelbarrow because he was three sheets to the wind wouldn’t mind too much about the hangover he’d have in the morning.

  By early evening, the people of Acton had drunk the pubs dry, but no one was downhearted; they had the spirit of victory to sustain them.

  As night drew in, bonfires were lit for the first time in six years and word spread around the pub about a huge one down on the green at South Acton. Annie and Harry joined the good-natured gaggle of folk heading over there, linking arms, singing at the top of their voices.

  Kids had made an effigy of Hitler, stuffing an old boiler suit with straw and using a sack for a head, inking on his unmistakable moustache for good measure. They chucked it on the top and whooped with glee as the fire was lit. Hitler crackled and popped as a rowdy conga line snaked its way down the road towards the gathering in a jumble of arms and legs.

  Someone darted out of the pub with a chair and chucked it on the bonfire, sparking other people to follow suit. They pulled chairs from their own homes, just to make the flames leap higher. Who cared if they’d have to sit on the floor in the scullery tomorrow? They’d just won the blinking war!

  Annie caught sight of Bessie standing there, staring into the flames, and went to join her.

  ‘Vera would have loved this, wouldn’t she?’ said Bessie, wiping a tear from her eye as the conga line skipped and kicked its way past to hoots of laughter.

  ‘Yes,’ said Annie, knowing that nothing she could say would ease Bessie’s torment over their lost friend. ‘She would.’

  As the night wore on, fireworks exploded, lighting up the sky, and it seemed as if the town would celebrate forever. It made such a difference from the tracer fire and the resounding ack-ack of the anti-aircraft guns.