The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  Patrick, over-proud and for want of any available words, took two Garibaldi biscuits. He heard Mabel’s ‘Tch’, and put one back. As he sensed some vast new shame he toyed with picking it up again. ‘What?’ he wanted to say. But didn’t. Instead he said magic words.

  ‘Oxford, like?’

  ‘Or Cambridge,’ said Gerald Smith M.A. Cantab.

  ‘Each college,’ he said, ‘has its own entrance examinations…’ and no doubt Enid would pass them. Gain her right to entrance. ‘This, I will opine, is a given. But,’ he said, ‘the question we must address is – how much might this cost and how is it to be afforded?’ Bringing both parents forward from ‘in’ their armchairs to ‘on’ them.

  And Enid, nearing sixteen, felt Doubt. Iron-cold and horrid.

  Her shining knight, Mr Smith, now produced a hand-written list of all the possible public sources of financial help. ‘These we must write to.’ A second list with two columns of figures. Of university fees, books, accommodation and living expenses. ‘Or food, Enid, as students call it…’ The first column was marked ‘Ox & Cam’, the second, ‘Redbrick’. Patrick looked at figures larger than any amount of money he had ever seen, and certainly held in his hands. Both columns with totals in three figures.

  ‘And is this what you went through yourself, Head-Master?’

  ‘Ah, no. My parents could afford to support me…’

  ‘We can’t.’

  Enid was impressed by how simply he responded. ‘I understand. Now.’ A third list. ‘We apply to the colleges of Enid’s choice – for scholarships. I am happy to write any number of references, but the fact is scholarships are rare, means-tested, and, much more likely to be awarded to boys than girls.’ He shrugged, sadly.

  ‘And, you must write to your Board of Education.’ He indicated the address and, opening his fountain pen, underlined it for them. ‘They do have grants available. But,’ he sat back in his winged leather chair, ‘but… they may very well buck at the fees for Oxford and Cambridge. And so, Enid, you must prepare yourself for that possible disappointment. And finally, to give ourselves the best chance of no disappointment, we must write to charitable organizations…’ a fourth list, ‘to any individuals who can, do, and have endowed either educational establishments and/or individual students like Enid. This list I suggest we both cover.’

  He spread his manicured hands, shared a warm smile and all things felt possible.

  Enid attained the exam results required for university entrance. She passed the entrance examinations for all three of her favoured Oxford colleges.

  The sun shone on Pendlebury.

  Mabel, baking bread, asked, ‘What is it you want to actually do, love?’

  ‘Read. They say you read for a subject, read for a degree – I want to read English. Drown in it!’

  ‘And then?’ Dad. From the front room. ‘Well, I’m only 16, dad. So. I don’t know.’

  ‘Needs considering.’

  ‘I know I don’t want to be a nurse.’

  Three letters in embossed envelopes, typed on vellum paper and personally signed by The Vice-President of each one of the three Oxford colleges, arrived with elegantly expressed regrets on their sadly being no scholarships available. And so, regrettably… Heartfelt best wishes for Enid’s future naturally and, in two cases, lists of possible benefactors who might be approached. And, should she find the necessary fiscal success, be assured a place would be found for her etc etc…

  Enid heard the flightless bird falling.

  ‘Costing us is this – stamps and ink and this posh paper… This begging.’

  ‘One pint a week, less, Pat.’

  ‘And the rest.’

  The annexe of Manchester town hall was high-ceilinged, tiled and echoing. Mabel’s first thought, ‘I wouldn’t like to heat this.’ After waiting on an upright green leather bench, they were ushered into a wood-panelled, seriously polished, office whose walls were covered in huge portrait photographs of men, each wearing a Neville Chamberlain collar and a serious regard. The family met the present incumbent, a man with a damp handshake. ‘Representing the Grants sub-committee of The Manchester and District Board of Education.’ He had an ordinary collar and a three-piece pin-stripe suit, with a gold watch and fob Patrick didn’t doubt cost more than anything he, Pat, had ever owned.

  The man sat, opened a box-file and took out some papers.

  Everyone else sat when he looked up at them.

  ‘The situation,’ he said, ‘is threefold. Has three inter-linking strands.’

  That desk’s worth more than our house.

  ‘We have no policy, nor precedent, nor will we make an exception in your case, um – Miss Makin...’ a quick look to check her name. ‘…to fund further education at either Oxford or Cambridge. No matter your Head Master’s florid recommendation.’

  ‘Secondly’, – Patrick thought, he thinks we’re thick. Well, we are, but Enid isn’t – ‘secondly we always bear in mind when allocating precious public funds to any and all of our female applicants, the very distinct possibility of wedlock and mother-hood.’ He spread his hands in a strangled what-can-one-say gesture. ‘And consequently, the probable waste of the time, money and the education.’ Enid blushed. Guilty for her gender.

  ‘However, and thirdly,’ he leaned back a little, and there was something oddly distasteful in his smile as he said, ‘in recognition of her obvious talent, this Board is willing to award Enid a grant for a Redbrick University entrance, to fund three years of study.’

  O, such smiles from her parents as the man took a breath. Before.

  ‘Provided – as is normal in these circumstances – Enid ‘pledges’ to teach, once qualified. For a minimum period of five years. Preferably within this education authority. And, further, without this promise she will agree to pay back this grant, which would then have to be seen as a loan, only.’

  He sat back to wait.

  Enid, for the first time she or her parents would recall, expressed anger.

  ‘That’s blackmail.’

  All eyes turned to her.

  Also for the first time, she felt an instant sweat freezing on her skin.

  ‘What this is – is public money, young lady. Tax payers’ money. And – you could learn some manners.’

  A full seconds’ silence of shock. Echoing.

  ‘Aye, tax payers’ money,’ Daddy cut through the quiet. ‘Not yours.’

  The new silence was icy.

  And the man in the far better suit broke the eye-contact, fearing he might be about to be struck, and, voice wavering, said the meeting was probably at an end and would they all please consider the detail in the sealed envelope he now offered to Patrick and which Mabel intercepted, and let him know their decision as soon as possible as other tax-payer’s children would most certainly be affected.

  Patrick stood, his chair scraping hard on the parquet, the other man flinched as Patrick stormed from his office, then returned instantly to stand glowering by the door and usher his women out. His finger gesturing speed. Now.

  It rained all the way home.

  Enid and Mabel looked at numbers. Figures. Sums.

  ‘We can, we can make these ends meet, love. Take in a lodger. There’s washing. Sewing. Always a way. We’re not the first, won’t be the last.’

  Patrick received a letter from the Miners Union promising his daughter £10 p.a. for three years.

  The Army regretted, but…

  He talked with a pal about doing a football pools collection round. Never mind he’d always said the pools were a tax on the poor, never mind the damp winter evenings of the football season, it would be cash in hand. Mabel would take the dinner-lady job.

  Another quiet meal, after the meeting with the man in that office and Enid said, ‘It would be best all round, if I went to – applied to – Manchester. No halls, no accommodation, no spending money. Just a 57 bus-ride?’

  There was quiet.

  Two meals later Patrick said, ‘I’ve not talked abo
ut the war – and I’m not starting now, but. When I went to the Army. That shock of not being at home, not being safe, having to do for yourself – that’s a part of this. This next bit of your life, love.’

  Quiet at the table. Enid could sense Mabel was proud of Pat and what he’d said, and why.

  And beyond their net curtains a cloud lifted. Two more days and Patrick added, ‘Breaks our hearts so it does – as we can’t send you to Oxford. Sorry, Enid.’

  The sun glinted off the plastic tablecloth.

  ‘And,’ Mabel leaned forward, ‘what have you thought about this teaching pledge thing, lovey?’

  ‘I’ve thought do I have a choice…’

  ‘Aye… Bastards. Sorry Mabel, Enid.’ Quiet.

  Nottingham was September sun-filled, youth filled, noisy, excited, energetic.

  A different Land of Hope…

  The Florence Boot halls and Enid’s room, her cell, were plain.

  And no-one of great pith and moment had slept or studied there.

  Enid unpacked, rebuked her snobbery and determined to read this local author, this D.H. Lawrence. Who was trumpeted a little by the college. And Byron.

  Her first night away from home, and she did think of the cliché ‘hearth and home’ as she ate her mother’s sandwiches, drank water and read all her introductory literature. There was a giggly racket coming from downstairs. There was a determination never to let her parents down coming from her room.

  Her first lecture, tomorrow at ten, her first morning proper, was on Mediaeval English.

  And she would have a seminar, later in the week. A seminar.

  No matter how enthusiastically she reasoned the experience later the lecture was dull. The tutor, a Mr Bateman M.A., had delivered it before; and Enid, watching his method as much as absorbing the content of his hour upon the stage, bore in mind three years from now she too was going to have to be a teacher, and resolved to do better than this. Yes, of course one might have to teach the same thing as each new academic year came around. But not like this. Like a soulless metronome. Enid quietly dreaded her seminar and got a first University surprise when Mr. Bateman not only mocked himself and his ‘dreary dearie’ content, but steered the conversation sharply away from Medievalism and towards what, if anything, ‘My dear young Miss Makin might have written?’ Because, each year, he published a modest volume of the best of his student’s verse… She left his room flustered, engaged, and not a little shocked. Flustered because at one moment he had rested a hand on the back of her chair and she had felt his man’s heat; engaged because he had talked passionately about writing, and shocked because here she was wondering if she might attempt something. A first week passed and Enid had survived, had asked a question or two, and was both thrilled and very grateful to be here. She wrote home to say just that.

  In the canteen, counting her coins carefully, she slowly found – let me not be too forward, she thought – companions.

  Janice and Judi from the North-East and Lyndy, her father a pig-farmer, from Stirling. And, to their collective delight, from an entirely different world, Belinda. Her father was ‘in television’ and over that tumbling first-term she it was who weaned the others off their stout or port-and-lemons and onto wine. Enid, who had no need of the weaning, enjoyed that learning curve. Some giggly evening with wine of two colours and gas-fire toasted muffins Enid unofficially promoted her companions to ‘friends’ and marvelled at how they were so fiery, so lustful, so sparkling. And at how they liked her.

  And, within that first term, Judi took a lover. And described him, and their behaviour, in some detail. Jaw-dropping. Then – My God – lovers. And Belinda too. An older, married man. Heavens. Education indeed. Janice lifted her nose a little at this ‘looseness’, whilst Lyndy sat on the fireside rug hugging her knees, eyes ‘on stalks’ said Judi, laughing; and Enid decided best not to mention she went to church every Sunday. Nor would she mention any of this in correspondence home. They might come down and take her back.

  They talked late, giggled long, shared and compared notes on The Venerable Bede, Chaucer and other men. On essays or their individual and collective assignments they argued long and louder as the wine ran and Enid considered herself within a realm of Delight. And to be growing. And learning. And at least as much from her contemporaries as from her tutors.

  One night a week they would go to a bar.

  Enid watched rituals being practiced she did not yet understand, nor could confidently interpret. A way of lounging with a drink, of looking over a glass, a way of knowing who was where in the bar without ever seeming to look around it. If she had had to name it she would have settled on ‘sophistication’.

  Alone in her room, reading D.H. Lawrence in linear sequence (the College Library Her Biggest Ever Sweet Shop) she wondered what she might do if a man found a taste for her. She rolled over, stared hard at the ceiling and knew she would most certainly squeal. In shock.

  Turning over onto her side, she could imagine someone completing a literary version of a her. A dormant rose springing to life… And yes, another fairy story, beneath not shimmering Oxfordian willow, but by the grey-brown Trent and in the chillier winds and fresher air of The East Midlands.

  Enid was not yet besieged by suitors.

  The student bus discount was a precious asset and the journey to Dovedale, the prettiest place Enid have ever smelt, passed through Lawrence’s village. Eastwood. No accident, surely. She deliberately finished ‘The White Peacock’ in Dovedale itself one cold Saturday and the College Library, that teeming waterfall of dreams, was certain to have ‘The Trespasser.’ She wasn’t entirely sure what she felt about David Herbert yet but decided there was no need to mention him till she was. If indeed she was to be. Who knew? But he was different. And, she had walked where he had walked. That was new. Each day seemed to contain an adventure. A voyage forward. One evening of pink wine and cigarette smoke, Lyndy played a record of Mahalia Jackson and Enid wished she had been born negro, poor, religious and with lungs like that. Her friends laughed at her excitement. She laughed at their laughter. Well, I am poor and religious. No wonder it rings.

  O youth.

  Meetings discussing politics, even Communism, smoky jazz clubs – all places where one could meet men and/or have fun. Enid had no aversion to fun but as regards men – her nerves seemed to communicate so quickly, so completely. How to break that?

  ‘Those that go searching for love only make manifest their lovelessness,

  and the loveless never find love.

  Only the loving find love

  and they never have to seek for it.’

  Lawrence, she had discovered, was a poet, too.

  And that verse begged questions unpleasant and difficult to face and harder yet to answer. It made Enid more self-conscious, a little more concerned than she wished to be; and it made her question too whether her friends were finding Love, or simply exploring sensation. Which D.H.L. certainly seemed to encourage. As a path. As a first path.

  She began to read, for the first time, newspapers. Periodicals.

  To be aware of, and to cautiously explore, a wider world. Aware too of sharply different uses and styles of language. Her truth was that stylistically, journalism didn’t engage her, not compared to non-fiction such as, ‘Five Guineas’ or ‘A Room of One’s Own’. A biscuit to a meal. But, sometimes, with the right cup of tea at the right moment a biscuit could be perfect, yes. One biscuit a day, then. Since they, containing sugar, were still rationed. So yes, some news. Her father wrote to tell her to register to vote. Churchill won the election, so she knew when she got home he, Father, would be pained, and livid.

  The term hurtled by, the prescribed melange of Chaucer, Caxton and Gawain and the Green Knight study set against her private reading of Byron and Lawrence; and her decision not to attempt verse for Mr Bateman, who loomed physically nearer each tutorial. Fulfilling Janice’s instant assessment, ‘He’s a grubbing old letch, him’. ‘Sons and Lovers’ contained passages of w
riting that left her breathless. Eager for lessons to finish so she could run back to her cell and continue to be shocked and thrilled enough to begin exploring masturbation. Their First winter break came and she trained home to tell. To Share. To celebrate.

  And shared and celebrated that evening at The Legion, where the symphony of the piano and voices raised in raucous song and her father’s rehabilitation became Everything she’d ever wanted.

  Father wore ‘the collar’ to midnight mass, and Enid, Lawrence-fuelled, hoped it produced some glorious sex for them.

  At a January Students Union meeting, called to discuss a motion condemning a continuing war in Korea and the U.S. explosion in the Marshall Islands of a hydrogen bomb, she saw him.

  Her hydrogen bomb. Bertrand.

  The meeting was dreary and Enid felt only guilt she was so ignorant of the issues, which the meeting did not help her grasp, concerning Korea. The bomb was simpler. Statistics about survivors in Japan suffering new horrors made it so. The motion would be passed, this righteous rubber-stamping was a waste of good ‘The Rainbow’ time.

  Then he stood.

  He urged them all to consider a bigger picture. Alongside soldiers from sixteen member-states there were United Nations troops, fighting in Korea. Fighting which had begun by being titled The United Nations Joint Command. As he spoke now that title had been changed to Unified Command. Led now, from front and rear by the US. General Macarthur commanded all the UN forces, President Truman his empoweree. So, this war between Capital and Communism was being waged. He set aside any opinion or preference, ‘That, mere politics, is not the point here’, he said, passion entering his voice as mutterings of disagreement rose in the room. ‘My point is the role of the United Nations.’ He paused for one second and did their eyes meet as he scanned his audience? ‘Until we dare, we the citizens of this tiny spinning rock, until we dare empower our idea, the United Nations…’ his voice rose and his French accent became more marked, ‘…to have control of all the world’s weaponry, to be the World’s policeman, we are doomed to have endless debates condemning endless wars and endless slaughter. The question here, mes amies, is – do we have that courage? The courage to deserve and empower a real United Nations? Humanity grew from necessary tribalism into what we now call Nationalism. I dare us to become truly United Nations.’ When he sat Enid’s applause was the clearest noise.