by Tania Crosse
‘OK. Well, make it Auntie Eva if you like. But I was wondering if your mum’s any good at sewing? I’m making some bunting for when we have a street party, but sewing ain’t me strongest point, so I thought we could make it together. Only if you wanted to, mind.’
‘Sure, that’d be grand! Wouldn’t I be making some myself if we had any spare cash to buy the material? Is that everything in your basket? Zac, make room for it on the table while I see if Jane’s milk has cooled enough. I promised Eva she could feed her, Ron.’
‘Righty-ho. Well, here she is, Eva,’ Ron said as Eva put down the basket. ‘It’s good to see a friendly face. Thanks so much for coming round.’
Eva felt as pleased as Punch to take the baby, gazing down on the tiny, rosebud face. A few minutes later, Jane was guzzling noisily in her arms while Ron directed Zac in cutting out triangles of material, and Bridie expertly hemmed them round with small, neat stitches. Soon, all four adults were chatting away as if they’d known each other all their lives.
Eva was as happy as anything as she fed the baby. She felt in her bones that she and Bridie were going to be such close friends, just as she had been with poor Nell for all those years. Before things had become so dreadful with Harold. Eva had sat in this very room with Nell on so many occasions. The poor woman’s ghost still lingered in the walls. But now life had, at long last, come full circle, and Eva felt that peace was coming – in more ways than one.
*
‘Cissie, love, it’s far too soon.’ Deep lines of concern were etched on Bridie’s face as she shook her head at her daughter. ‘You’ve been practising all afternoon. Sure, it’ll do your insides no good, all that bending and twisting. You need more time to recover.’
Cissie stared at her mother as she used a towel to wipe the sheen of sweat from around the low neck of her leotard, and then twisted her head in a desperate circle, making Bridie’s heart tear in two.
‘You don’t understand, Mum,’ the girl moaned from between clenched teeth, her eyes closed tightly in a maelstrom of pain. ‘It’s only when I’m dancing that I feel free again. Clean. That I can escape for just a short while from what happened. Concentrating on the steps takes my mind off it all.’
Her voice was a thin, anguished wail as she opened her eyes again, a pleading grimace on her lovely face. The chasm of despair widened, and just as she felt herself about to tumble into its crippling depths, Bridie stepped forward, arms open to envelop her darling girl in all the love and sympathy and support a mother can. Cissie wept against her with brutal sobs as memories of that horrendous night ripped through her mind, and she wanted to scream as the horrible, empty terror screwed down inside her yet again.
At last, her tears began to weary and Bridie held her close, patting her back and all at a loss, since her own grief at not being able to comfort her child was unbearable.
‘All right, love,’ she consented, murmuring into Cissie’s shiny, dark hair that was sleeked back from her face into a bun at the nape of her neck. ‘But don’t overdo it. You’ve done enough for today. All the time Eva was here. I think we’ve sewn enough bunting for the whole of London, so we have.’
Cissie sniffed hard, drawing the back of her hand across her nose. ‘Is that what you were doing, making bunting?’
‘It was so. And, God willing, we’ll be making use of it very soon.’
‘But that won’t change what happened to me.’ Cissie’s torn emotions took flight once more. ‘It won’t take it away, will it?’
Her eyes were fierce and defiant, snapping with anger, and Bridie’s face folded with compassion. ‘No. But neither will it bring back all those fine young men who’ve lost their lives. Just like it won’t bring back your daddy’s arm and leg. You’ve got to find a way forward, love, just as he did. We had Zac and we had you. And maybe one day,’ Bridie dared to suggest, ‘you’ll take comfort from—’
‘No! Never!’ Cissie spat, her outcry spiked with bitterness. ‘She’ll always be half—’
‘But you agreed not to abandon her to an orphanage. Sure, even the Good Lord wouldn’t know what would’ve happened to her, then.’
‘I know what I agreed! But I’ll never, ever do anything but despise her. And I have found a way forward. My dancing. So please, Mum, leave me alone. I just want to do a bit more pointe work and then I’ll stop, I promise.’
She gave Bridie a peck on the cheek, and turned back to the gramophone. Bridie felt a heavy, sinking sigh in her chest as strains of Liszt’s ‘Liebestraum No. 3’ filled the front room again, and Cissie returned to the chairback she was using as a barre. Bridie closed the door quietly behind her, a great, grey cloud hanging over her. Sweet Mary, would her poor dear daughter ever find peace again? She would pray for her at Mass on Sunday, as she always did. But, to be honest, Bridie wondered how Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and even the Good Lord himself, had ever allowed such a dreadful thing to happen to her Cissie in the first place.
*
It was later that night, Tuesday the first of May, that Bridie tapped lightly on Cissie’s door.
‘You awake, love?’ she whispered, pushing open the door a crack.
‘Yes, Mum,’ came a small voice from the bed pushed up against the far wall. And as Bridie stepped across the bare boards, Cissie went on, ‘I’m really sorry for being so rude earlier.’
‘Sure, you’ve no need to apologise. But I thought you’d want to know this. It’s just been on the wireless, so it has. German Radio has apparently just announced that monster Hitler is dead.’
Cissie at once sat up in bed. ‘You sure, Mum?’
‘My ears didn’t deceive me, so. And they repeated it. That fellow with the strong, clear voice. Stuart Hibberd, I think.’
In the light that filtered through the open door from the hallway, Bridie saw her daughter’s eyes open wide. Could she detect a glimmer of hope there?
‘Does that mean… it’s all over?’
‘Not officially, love, I don’t think. But it can’t be long, can it?’
Though Cissie said nothing more, Bridie could sense her cautious relief. Feeling encouraged, she dared to perch on the bed next to her, leaning towards her with the infant in her arms. Baby Jane was awake but thankfully not crying, her bright eyes searching about her instead.
‘I was just about to feed her and put her down for the night. You wouldn’t like… to give her her bottle, would you?’
The hint of a smile lifted the corners of Cissie’s mouth. ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Mum,’ she said gently. ‘But no, I wouldn’t. But it is good news, isn’t it?’
‘It is so. Now goodnight, love. Sleep well and God bless.’
Bridie rose to her feet and, padding out into the hallway, used her free hand to shut the door softly behind her for the second time that day. But at least this time there was hope for everyone, and Bridie’s heart rejoiced for that.
*
The following evening, even more good news was reported. Berlin had finally fallen to the Russians, and the German Army there had surrendered at three o’clock in the afternoon that same day. It also emerged that Mussolini had been shot and killed a few days previously, on the twenty-eighth of April, and the next day, the twenty-ninth, the Italian Army and the German Army in Italy had also both surrendered.
The world was beginning to heal, so it was, Bridie thought, crossing herself each time an announcement came through. But would Cissie’s soul ever be mended again?
Ten
‘Here, Mum, d’you fancy a walk in the park when we’ve had this?’
It was the Monday a week later, and Mildred was sitting in the kitchen with her mother, sharing a frugal lunch of bread smeared with a little of the home-made piccalilli Eva had bought at a WVS fundraising event. With the change-over from late to early shifts, and having recently filled in for a colleague who was ill, Mildred had a few days off work. But none of her friends was free, and she was somewhat at a loose end.
Eva’s face fell. ‘Oh, sorry, love, didn’t I
say? I’ve been asked to go into the WVS Centre this afternoon. We’re sorting through a load of second-hand clothes we’ve collected for people what’s not got much ’cos of the war. ’Specially kiddies’ stuff, the way they grow so quick. And people what lost everything in the bombings. Thought I’d see if I can get some bits for Bridie, for the baby ’specially.’
‘Yeah, must be a struggle for them with only one measly income and so many mouths to feed. But didn’t Gert give you some baby things on Saturday?’
‘Certainly did.’ Eva smiled proudly at the generosity of her eldest daughter when she and Stan had taken the train out to Stoneleigh at the weekend. ‘Said she’s gonna make sure she don’t need them no more when Rob comes home from the war. She’s got the old playpen you lot had in the loft, and all. I’ll offer it to Bridie when Jane starts crawling. But Gert gave us so much other stuff, we couldn’t carry no more on the train. And the playpen’d probably be too heavy, anyway, so we’ll have to wait till Rob can get his car back on the road.’
‘It’ll be strange, won’t it, to see private motorcars all over the place again?’ Mildred mused. ‘We’re so used to just buses and trams and taxis, and the odd posh car what’s probably to do with something official.’
‘And I expect the horse and carts’ll start disappearing again, like they was before the war. Reckon we’ll still have the milkman and the coalman, not forgetting the rag-and-bone man, with their horses, mind. For a bit, anyway,’ Eva commented, cramming her last piece of bread into her mouth and washing it down with a gulp of weak, lukewarm tea. ‘But till we know for sure the war’s over, we shouldn’t be counting no chickens. Well, time I was getting me uniform on,’ she declared, getting up from the table. ‘So, what you gonna do this afternoon?’
‘Dunno, really,’ Mildred sighed. ‘All me friends are on shift, so I’ll be on me tod. Not that I mind that much. None of them are really close friends. Weather’s a bit better, so I might go and stretch me legs in the park.’
‘Why don’t you see if Cissie’d like to go with you?’ Eva suggested as she made for the door.
‘You’re determined her and me are gonna be friends, ain’t you, Mum?’ Mildred chuckled, shaking her head.
‘Well, she seems like a nice kid underneath. Just needs bringing out of her shell.’
‘Her shell? When she can get up on stage and dance in front of hundreds of strangers?’
‘Sometimes people what’s shy are hiding behind their talent,’ Eva declared wisely. ‘Anyway, you ain’t got nothing else to do this afternoon, have you?’ she decided for her daughter, bobbing her head up and down as she left the room.
No, she hadn’t, Mildred agreed under her breath as she cleared away the remnants of the meal – not that there was a crumb left, but the jar of piccalilli had to be stored away, and Mildred took the crockery out to wash in the scullery sink. As she did so, she heard her mum call out, ‘Bye, love. See you later!’ and after Eva closed the front door none too quietly, all suddenly seemed uncannily silent.
Mildred finished her task and then sat back down at the table, wondering quite what to do next. She did fancy going to the park, even if it wasn’t quite the same at the moment, with a lot of it dug up for vegetables, and other reminders of the war so apparent. The two hundred acres or so of Battersea Park had been the family refuge, almost like a second home, all of her life. She remembered fondly the countless afternoons spent running wild there as a small girl, Jake always kicking his football around, no matter what the season. They often went there with Hillie, now Kit’s wife, and her brother and sisters. If they were lucky, they were treated to an ice cream or a trip on the boating lake. But it was free to visit the aviaries or peer through the wire fence at the deer enclosure or listen to the concerts at the bandstand. The ones at Christmas, held by the Sally Army and just as dusk was falling, were magical.
Mildred had missed the park when she’d been evacuated to Gert’s. There was what was called a rec just round the corner, and a ten-minute walk took them to huge Nonsuch Park, over the other side of which was the grammar school Trudy was doing so well at. But it wasn’t the same. Mildred had been particularly miffed when in May 1941 she’d missed the United Services procession that had started in Battersea Park, headed by the bands of the Royal Marines, the Canadian Highlanders, Battersea Fire Brigade and Battersea Home Guard. Mildred liked a bit of rousing military music. Her mum had described it all to her at a later date, but it wasn’t the same as being there.
Oh, yes. Mildred loved the park, as did all her family. A restful haven from city life. She felt she was a Londoner through and through, but the parks, not just Battersea but Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, Green Park and the like, all of which she’d got to know when she’d returned to Banbury Street and started working on the buses, were part of that way of life. And she couldn’t imagine herself ever living anywhere else.
But perhaps it would be a trifle mean not to call on Cissie and ask if she wanted to go with her. The family had only been in the street a few weeks and appeared to keep themselves to themselves. So Cissie was probably feeling bereft of female company of her own age. And so, with a reluctant sigh, Mildred used the outside lav, retrieved from her room a scarf with which to twiddle her wayward hair into something resembling a victory roll and wriggled into her coat.
It was Cissie herself who opened the door to Number Twelve a few seconds later, although Mildred was relieved to see Bridie padding up the hallway behind her, dandling the baby on her hip. The Irishwoman was so much more open and friendly than her reserved daughter and gave Mildred a broad smile.
‘Won’t you be coming in?’ she invited her genially.
‘Well, actually,’ Mildred hesitated, questioning her decision to call, ‘I’m just going for a walk in the park and I wondered if you’d like to come with us, Cissie.’
‘Oh. Well, I—’
‘Course she would!’ Bridie declared. ‘Could do with a bit of fresh air, so she could. Tell you what. I’ve just fed the babby and was about to put her down in the pram, so you can take her with you. I’ll just tuck her up while you get your coat on, Cissie.’
While Bridie disappeared into the front room, Cissie raised her eyebrows at Mildred. ‘Sorry about Mum,’ she apologised in a low voice. ‘She can be a bit pushy.’
Mildred’s face spread into an amused smile. ‘Mine, too. She’s gone off to her WVS duties, but it was her idea I asked you. So we’ve got that in common.’
‘What, pushy mums that mean well?’
‘Yeah,’ Mildred couldn’t help but chuckle and felt that perhaps she’d found a kindred spirit in Cissie despite herself. ‘So we’d better not disappoint them, eh?’
A minute or two later, the pram had been manoeuvred over the threshold, the baby grizzling as she settled, and the two girls set off down the street. Mildred wondered quite how they’d get on, but to start with, they had to contend with crossing the wide, busy junction into Cambridge Road. Mildred watched Cissie frowning down into the pram, clearly willing her baby sister to drop off to sleep. But by the time they’d negotiated the other difficult junction across Albert Bridge Road and through the open, ornate iron gates of the Sun Gate entrance into the park, not a peep was coming from the pram and Jane’s eyes were firmly shut.
‘All quiet on the Western Front, then?’ Mildred whispered in a jocular tone, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
Relief was written all over Cissie’s face as she turned to Mildred with a half-smile. ‘Thank goodness, yes. I never realised what noisy things babies can be for something so small.’
‘Yeah, but it must be lovely to have a baby in the house. And she’s so cute. I vaguely remember me littlest sister, Primrose. She didn’t half have some lungs on her, too, mind.’ Mildred grimaced at the memory but felt herself relaxing. ‘Puts you off having kids, don’t it?’
‘I’m certainly never going to have any!’
The extreme vehemence in Cissie’s words took Mildred aback and she wasn’t quite sure what
to say to that. But it only took her a second to gather herself together. ‘Yeah, well, I suppose being a dancer, your career’d be over the minute you had kids. But, I dunno. Guess I’ll let the future take care of itself when Gary gets home. Assuming he does, of course.’
Cissie glanced at her sideways as they walked along the pavement that bordered the carriage drive in the park. ‘Must be hard for you when the war in Europe’s over. At least as far as we know.’
‘Yeah, it is. Hard, I mean,’ Mildred answered, brushing all thoughts of Gary aside. ‘But I’ll be as happy as everyone else when they tell us that we’ve definitely got peace in Europe.’
‘And it can’t be over soon enough for me, and then all the Yanks can go home.’
Cissie said it with such bitterness that Mildred’s lips pursed into a knot. All the Americans she’d ever met, mainly on the buses, had been polite and good-natured, even if some had been a little forward. So had Cissie had a bad experience with a Yank? Her face had certainly turned the colour of thunder. But Mildred didn’t want to pry, so she said jokingly, ‘Yeah. Overpaid, oversexed and over here, as they say. But we wouldn’t have won the war without them.’
She saw Cissie lift her shoulders in an acrimonious shrug and thought perhaps she ought to change the subject. Her eyes wandered over the flower beds beside them, where tulips and primroses nodded in front of shrubs in full spring bloom.
‘Have you been to the park before? Pretty, ain’t it? Especially this time of year. Before the war, they always used to spend a lot more time and money on it. Loads of colourful bedding plants me sister, Gert, told me they was called. She got all into gardening when she got married and got a place of her own with a big garden. Out in the Surrey suburbs. Before that, she didn’t know no more about plants than what I do.’
‘I don’t know much about them, either,’ Cissie admitted, ‘although I do like them. And perhaps they’ll go back to putting in more, what did you say? Bedding plants? When the war’s definitely over. It’s a bit like me being with CEMA. Did Jake tell you? It’s like ENSA, only for entertaining factory workers or civilians. But it’s not so well known. Keeping up morale at home, that sort of thing. And I reckon we’re going to need a lot of that, even when the war’s declared over. Things aren’t going to get back to normal just like that. And for some of us, it’ll never be the same again.’
