As though some god played an even-handed game with the weather in Britain, the winter of 1939/40 was as long and bitter cold as the previous summer had been long and hot. Well before 24 December dawned, the myth that it would all be over by Christmas was exploded; though it must be said that, except for a silent Abbey bell-tower, a visitor to Markham might believe at first glance that It had never started and that nothing had changed in a hundred years.
But Georgia Kennedy, hurrying to open up her little office, noticed the changes. For a start, somebody had organized the evacuation of the statue of Lord Palmerston. On the wall of the bank there were large yellow letters, SWS, and an arrow indicating a water supply, and on the front of the Town Hall a finger-pointing notice – Breakfasts and Dinners, 8 A.M. – 3 P.M. – indicating Mrs Farr’s domain and Georgia’s own office. The Town Hall itself had a number of its windows blacked out and boarded up, and its entrance was flanked by piles of sand-bags, protecting the public toilets which doubled as emergency air-raid shelters.
But the rest remained unchanged and familiar in Markham Square that Christmas Eve. Three cakeshops, each with its speciality – yeast bakery, pâtisserie and iced fancies, Pinnock the glovemaker, W.H. Smith’s, two chemists – Boots and a proper chemists, a greengrocer-cum-fishmonger, the Coach House, Post Office, three banks, Co-op, Woolworth’s, Conservative Club and a shoeshop. A variety of architectural periods squashed together giving a charming, uneven roof-line and interesting façade. On Thursdays the Square still filled with the smells of passing cattle, sheep and farmers and, almost every other weekday, with the aromas from Freddy Hardy’s factory bakehouse.
Georgia did not notice the town. It was still hardly daylight. She had Hugh’s letter on her mind.
The office was cold and there was frost on the windows, so she kept on her coat, ankle-boots and fur Cossack hat until she got the little open fire going. Had it not been for its reprieve by the Emergency Committee, as Georgia’s office, the condemned Georgian cottage would have fallen or been pulled down. Now, a few ‘S’ irons on wall-cracks, interior timber shoring and a bit of whitewash were beginning to bring the place back from decay, but there were still no utilities except gas, and the stairs and upper room were still unsafe.
Although she had been allocated only an ‘issue’ desk, two ‘issue’ chairs, two wooden stationery trays and a filing cabinet, Georgia was trained by her mother in the art of making things look nice. Short curtains with black-out lining, and a couple of matching cushions, two flowery pictures from the walls of her spare bedroom and, upon her desk, a variegated aspidistra in a pretty jardinière.
Leaving the place to warm up, she took her forms and clipboard and went to see Mrs Farr and her cook’s helps.
At 7.30, most of the preparations for serving breakfasts were completed, and they were already well on with the midday meal. As she crossed the yard between her office and the kitchens, she heard the women’s voices raised above the clatter of iron pans, kettles, shovelled coal and the odd line or two of a song, and she smelt frying bacon and roasting chicken. Whatever her spirits when she came to work, they were always boosted by the sounds that emanated from the kitchens when she went to consult with Mrs Farr first thing. She was, as usual, greeted by the Helps.
‘Hello, Mrs Kennedy.’
‘Morning, Miz Kennedy.’
‘Hello, Miz Kennedy – you’m bright and early.’
‘Likes your hat, must be nice and warm.’
‘Too warm.’ She took it off and several women had a try-on of it. The great coal-burning stove of an eight-plate hob and four ovens stood centrally in the room which was wonderfully hot and steamy after the cold morning air. Kept at simmering heat all night for the cooking of steak and kidney, or chuck or marrow-bone and lentil soup, the stove had been opened up by Mrs Farr at 6.30, and was now getting up a glow for bread and pastry-baking.
On racks above the stove there were trays of crisped-up streaky bacon, some of browned rissoles, others of thick slices of fried bread. The tea-urn steamed and lard sizzled bluely, waiting for the exact moment for eggs to be slipped in just before opening-up time. In the restaurant itself, crockery and cutlery were ready, milk was in cups, piles of bread cut, plates warmed and the serving containers heated. Except for the wafting smells, no one could have imagined from its unlit exterior what industry and life was contained inside the gloomy old Chapel Hall.
Nor could they have known the bits of joy that bounded in the hearts of the women who worked there. From seven o’clock till four, they scarcely stopped – skinning, peeling, washing, stirring, fetching and carrying and lugging and sweating. As they worked only six and a half hours, the jobs were considered to be part-time yet, to the women, these were jobs, proper jobs, in every sense – because they signed on and off in a Time Book, they had stamp cards, and at the end of every week they received a pay-packet.
Georgia hung her street-clothes in the lobby with the assortment of macs, woollies, scarves and knitted hats already hanging there. Mrs Farr was, as usual, in the cool pastry-lobby, mixing, kneading and rolling; working alongside Dolly Partridge who was cutting and filling. ‘Hello, Mrs Farr, hello, Dorothy.’
Mrs Farr and Dolly greeted Georgia without spoiling the rhythm they had worked up.
In the two months since the Dinner Kitchens had been going, the women, under Mrs Farr, had established a working relationship and routine that was already as smooth and efficient as in any long-established business. It worked as well as it did because the women were determined that it should. They were aware that, although they were employees of the Ministry, the critical eyes of the Council and the Emergency Committee were upon them. Don’t give them a chance to say, What can you expect from a woman, was the motto. Especially for Georgia who, as well as being only a woman, also had the fault of being a young and pretty one, and so by definition frivolous. She intended to be forgiven nothing because she was a redhead with a figure like Lana Turner.
Trixie, who had left Hardy’s to come and work here, brought Georgia the mug of tea and bacon sandwich which she usually devoured whilst checking the stores. This morning being Christmas Eve, there was no urgent vegetable order to be made up, so Georgia perched on a stool and waited for Mrs Farr to tell her what supplies she would need after the holiday.
‘Your man got his Christmas leave all right, Mrs Kennedy?’ Dolly Partridge asked.
‘Well, no, apparently they don’t get any Christmas leave. But it looks as though he might get a day or two over New Year.’
Dolly Partridge saw the flush that coloured the young woman’s cheeks, so turned her attention at once to crimping the edges of the great slab-trays of mince-pie. Somebody had said that she was knocking about with some chap, but Dolly couldn’t abide gossip of that sort.
It was people’s own affair, though it was a shame if a nice girl like Mrs Kennedy got herself in that kind of a mix-up… but there, when you’re young and your man’s gone away… Dolly knew what that felt like, and had more than once wondered what she herself might have done if the chance had presented itself. It never did to judge other people.
I just hope that Marie won’t get herself into that kind of a mix-up… all Hell would let loose. But then, Marie never seemed to be all that interested – except in Charlie. But Charlie was in the Air Force now, and was on about being sent to Canada for training. Canada! The other side of the world. A postman talking about flying off to Canada as though it was only Andover or somewhere. There was some blimmin funny things going on.
Somebody said, ‘I thought they all got Christmas leave. Makes you wonder what they can find soldiers to do at Christmas with nothing going on. You’d never think there was a war.’
‘Our Charlie’s coming home,’ Dolly said.
‘His first leave, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Take him all today to get home. Kettering… or Catterick… one of those places – I always get them mixed up.’
‘Just so long as he gets home. I expect Marie’s excited, I must go through and see her before I go back to the office.’
Mrs Farr, deftly kneading and transforming rough crumbs of paste to smooth, pale yellow pastry, said, ‘I told Marie that it would probably be all right with you if she went off straight after she shuts the till.’ She glanced at Georgia for her approval. Marie, who worked the cash-till, did less hours than the other women and so was able to pick up Bonnie from school.
‘It’s all right with me. What about her little girl, Dorothy? The school closes at lunch-time.’
‘Our Paula’s going to fetch her.’
‘I’ll take over the cash-till and she can go straight after the dinner-time rush,’ Georgia said.
Mrs Farr and Dolly glanced at one another without giving away their earlier speculation that Georgia might do that. Mrs Farr said, ‘That’s really nice of you, Georgia.’
‘I’ve got no reason to rush off. Anyway, I’ve brought in a couple of bottles of sherry; I thought the Ladies would like to have a drink…’
‘Why, that’s lovely. I was just about to ask you what you thought – I made us a cake and Dorothy’s done a lovely trifle.’
The three women, white-haired, pepper-and-salt, redhead, looked pleased with one another.
‘Oh lovely!’ said Georgia. ‘The first Annual Christmas Party of the Dinner Kitchen Ladies.’
‘Annual?’ said Mrs Farr.
‘Well, we could make it annual, whatever happens,’ said Georgia, inwardly flushed with family feelings for this new and unexpectedly nice group she had become part of and who, if it had not been for the war, she would only have passed by in the street.
‘Good Lord!’ said Dolly gleefully. ‘Fancy having parties at work.’
On Badger Island, Captain Hugh Kennedy was on duty. Wren Officer the Hon. Angela St John was on duty. They were on duty together. The fact that they were on duty and beautifully turned out in no way affected a bit of kissing and fondling – for they were on duty together and entirely isolated from the base camp. Each had been detailed by their separate divisions of XJ-R6 to survey a long hut recently erected by sappers, which would eventually become a hospital unit.
Although there was as yet no heating except the sun, it was quite warm there, the walls being extremely well-insulated and the windows sealed. Hugh, standing behind Angela as he unbuttoned her jacket, looked out across the brackish grassland and shingle to where the sea broke gently. Winter sun glistened on the wet shingle; competing bands of Black-headed and Great Black-backed gulls swept and glided gracefully; the dried remains of horned poppies and marsh grasses bent before the freezing wind.
‘We could spend Christmas out here, Anny, and we could hunt for shark’s teeth on Christmas afternoon.’
‘Not the entire Christmas, my darling – one must have a few parties. But I absolutely should love to have a shark’s tooth. What’s Christmas without a party or two and getting nicely squiffy? You know I like parties and squiff.’
Hugh did know that, having often seen her capacity for alcoholic drinks – Gin and It before, Chablis with, and brandy after dinner. Equally intriguing to him was her capacity for enjoyment of sex, and quite Continental stuff. She was lovely, yet she could be both coarse and mysterious at the same time. It was like having Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich combined – except that film-stars were never seen with the slightest hint of body hair – nice women copied Hollywood stars. Anny wasn’t nice in that way, she was wonderful.
Georgia had always had nicely clean-shaven armpits. And that was how he liked Georgia to be.
But not Anny. Not the long-legged ice queen whose loins were always afire: she was as blatant as an orchid with her urgent signals. Not bra-less, careless Anny who had, for some unaccountable reason, chosen him for a lover. He was absolutely besotted with her.
Several times recently, since the subject of Christmas leave became of interest to most of the Badger Island personnel, he had had to push Markham, Station Avenue and Georgia to the back of his mind. He did not want to leave, did not want to go home. He wanted somebody, somewhere in Whitehall, to decide that XJ-R6 was such a secret operation that he would not be allowed off Badger for the duration of the war. He wanted to be ordered to remain on duty – for ever if they liked, so long as exotic Anny playing wicked remained with him.
His caresses soon led to the release of the pins from her long black hair, and to the unfastening of her Naval buttons and his Army buckles. She retained her non-issue suspender belt, black issue stockings and flat-heeled WRNS shoes. She had a long, lean back which curved as elegantly as her throat. Her hips were narrow and her breasts were small and immature, apparently girlish and safe compared to Georgia’s challenging roundness. She was complex and thrilling in her contrasts.
Hugh never ceased to marvel at how fragile she looked without the dark serge, the white poplin and the masculine tie. And he had never got over finding himself making love to a girl with an accent like hers. She had been presented at Court, went in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot and scoffed at both events – ‘But darling, they are all grasshopping twerps. Really. And most of them such absolute shits when you get to know them. You are worth ten of them, my darling boy. You are all womanlover. Oh how I should love to do things in your cricket togs, all white and woolly.’
In the weeks that they had spent together, with few distractions either from duties or other desirable partners, she had taught him the art of holding back and the pleasure of fulfilling a woman. They had become finely tuned to one another. Hugh no longer gave the solo performance that left Georgia frustrated and both of them humiliated but, as he did now in the quarantine hut, clashed great climactic cymbals to Angela’s vibrating, deep chords.
No wonder he was enchanted.
He had found a woman who was bold enough to challenge the old man in the dog-collar who had, late in life, somehow begotten a son and then attempted to castrate him with guilt. The don’t touch, don’t look, don’t feel taboos of his youth were negated by Anny… Like this, Hughie? Now here and here… again… more. And he did not care where and how at only twenty-two she had learned so much about loving and being loved.
At last, in a great sigh of satisfaction he had said aloud what he had been saying to himself for weeks. ‘God, Anny, how can I ever go back again?’ They lay on the hard-wearing carpeting covered by his greatcoat.
‘Pass the gaspers, Hughie darling.’
‘You don’t seem to realize… Georgia and I…’
‘I know Hughie, you said. You can’t come off with her and you can with me. It happens to vast armies of married people. It’s called marrying the wrong man – or woman as the case may be. You will probably have to dump her, or both of you will have to come to some kind of sensible arrangement.’
‘Anny! It’s a small town, with ordinary people. We’re not like the set you mix with. Nobody ever dumped anybody in Markham. Georgia’s young.’
‘Come off it, Hughie, she’s my age, and she’s not made of icing sugar.’
‘She comes from a very proper family – so do I for that matter. We are what our parents and our schools made us. Georgia is quite a conventional person – she would never go about like this.’ He kissed her armpit.
‘Bullshit, darling, there’s no such creature. When you get your leave, take her out to the woodshed or whatever you might have over there and try out some of your more imaginative Badger techniques… or take her out into sheep-country and try it on the Downs.’
But Hugh could not bear to think of Georgia doing the things Angela did, crying aloud as Angela did, telling him what to do next and what she was going to do, and afterwards watching him with smoke curling up past her face, arousing him before he was ready again and yet not being able to stop her, nor wanting to. To think of Georgia behaving like a whore was as painful to him as when, as a youth, he had come to terms with the fact of his own conception.
‘You might find it quite a bit of sport, Hughie sweet. A spot of leave will do us both the world of good. A change of scene, change of bed, change of lover. And remove that expression – if you go all frightfully sullen, I shall pick up my knickers and be off. You know that I cannot bear a man who wants to possess me body and soul. I belong to me and I shall give whatever bits and pieces of me to whomsoever I fancy or need. ’
Although she was very young, she knew how to quell him as well as to arouse him. It had been the core curriculum of her finishing school. Arouse and quell. At hunt balls, Henley, Cowes, Ascot and Commem balls. The art of upper-class seduction was not intended to bewitch an ex-Assistant Manager catapulted into a secret and glamorous military operation, but to throw a net over a prospective husband of the right sort, frequently a prospective husband who would prefer not to have to couple with a woman.
Anny St John knew that he loved her accent when it was perfect almost to the point of parody and that, whilst he wanted her exclusively, he could be aroused and excited at the idea of her having other lovers, so long as he was her chosen man of the moment. Again, on that Christmas Eve, she was doing both: keeping him on the knife-edge with promised satisfaction on one side and threat of deprivation on the other.
What Hugh did not know was what she had confided to a roomful of her Cheyne Walk girlfriends on a recent twenty-four-hour pass. ‘I had no idea a man could be so phenomenally attractive. He’s quite a bit older, oh, in sight of forty I should think, yet he’s so unspoiled.’
‘Not now you’ve got him, Anny.’
‘I’ve not spoiled him, not one whit… quite the reverse, I have taken his raw clay and moulded it to my liking… well, of course, and to his also. I have only to…’ She made a moue, raised her eyebrows and left it at that.
‘Mean, Anny, mean. Tell.’
‘What, and have Fiona tattle to her bandage winders? But, it is like having the most virile virgin every time – God, the bloody man is exciting – don’t ask me why, he simply is.’
Her friends, of course, wanted to view this lover Anny had found for herself, this pistol of a Junior Army officer from some rural place in the Home Counties.
‘You should join the Navy and find your own, my darlings – I know that there are plenty more clean-cut types, but I’m not letting you within a mile of my lovely unbuggered grammar-school Hughie.’
‘They don’t, you know… grammar-school types.’
‘Right… mixed sex education.’
‘How come your mixed-sex grammar-school Hughie is so virginal with all those girls available?’
‘Oh, by not knowing what it was for, and putting everything into his village cricket team.’
‘Everything? Anny!’
‘Hospital wards are making you coarse, Fiona.’
Re-buttoned, re-buckled, hair combed and re-coiled, Hugh and Angela became uniformed colleagues again for the purpose of making written reports on the obvious – that this was a wooden hut with sealed windows and insulated walls within so many yards of the tide-line.
‘Shall we come down here tomorrow, Anny?’
‘Do you think I could find a shark’s tooth?’
‘A fossil one – of course, there are thousands.’
‘All right, and we could have a swim – oh yes! A freezing swim before our Christmas Lunch… wonderful!’
‘I haven’t got my bathing trunks on camp, Anny,’ Hugh said in all seriousness.
She scoffed at him by doing her trick of tipping her hat over one eye and looking him up and down clowning suggestiveness. ‘Bathing drawers. Oh Hughie darling, I could eat you. You are so absolutely sweet.’
The Partridge sisters-in-law, Paula and Marie, greeted one another with the friendly reserve expected. ‘Oh Paula, you shouldn’t have.’
‘Get on with you, Marie, if Robbo and me are going to be here for Christmas, it’s only fair for me to help out with the baking.’
Marie acknowledged this, and would have felt put out if Paula and Robbo hadn’t expected to muck in, in the same way as when they went round to Sam and Dolly’s on Christmas and Boxing Day and Marie’s parents on New Year.
‘I pulled the damper out an hour ago, so the water’s nice and hot. You go and have a bath.’
‘And Daddy’s coming home tonight, isn’t he?’ Bonnie said.
‘And we’re going to make some mince pies, aren’t we, Bonnie?’
Marie was about to say that Mrs Farr had given everybody a batch to bring home, when she realized that to stop the pie-making ritual of Christmas Eve afternoon would be to deprive Bonnie of one of the stepping-stones that must be trodden to get them through the Partridge family’s traditions.
The bathroom was chilly and the water was boiling, so Marie lay and soaked in a roomful of white mist, drifting ahead through the next few days. As it was every year, all the Christmas baking had to be done this evening ready to take to Dolly’s tomorrow. Paula had made a start. It wouldn’t take long between the two of them.
I wonder what time Charlie will get home? The train that gets in about seven, I reckon. She hadn’t thought that she would miss him so much – and in that way too, much more than she ever expected. Thank the Lord she had her little job. The girls were a load of laughs, the time went before you knew it. She was almost ashamed of some of the dreams she had been having lately. But you couldn’t help what you dreamed: even so… she wouldn’t have liked anybody to know. Worst part was, not recognizing the faces in the dreams. It would start off being Charlie and then kept changing to different men, and she didn’t recognize any of them. Perhaps it would be even worse though if you did recognize them. Lord! Suppose it was somebody you met every day… out shopping… that would be awful!
And, as they always did every year, this evening, Charlie and Robbo would meet Sam and Harry and they would go down to the King William and carry home the crate of beer and the bottles of fancy drinks for the women.
If she had missed him in that way, what about Charlie? They say men need that kind of thing more than women do, but I don’t know… At least Charlie wouldn’t go with another woman. Never. Her Curse was due, it was a pity things couldn’t have been organized a bit better… but you couldn’t do anything about it. Just as long as I’m not early and we can have a couple of days. She never was, as a rule, but they said excitement could make you early – or late. It often happened to brides, so they said. The water was cooling but there was no room for any more hot, so she sank herself down to cover her shoulders.
As they always did, early tomorrow morning, Charlie would go up the allotment and pick the Brussels and get the parsnips and carrots and potatoes out of the clamp and take them down to Dolly’s. Sam would prepare them whilst Charlie came home to change. Dolly did the cooking for dinner, Paula and Marie acted as her kitchen maids and made the trifle for tea; then they laid out plates of tinned-salmon, ham and tongue, celery and watercress. Since she had married into the family, Marie had always made the cake.
Before she became a Partridge, Marie had no rituals or traditions, and now she was as steeped in them as the rest. She liked them: it Was, like Sam always said, building up something that would last. He said, ‘My old Dad could look back down seventy years and see every Christmas Day he ever lived through.’ Marie liked that. There was something safe in having traditions in a family. It was why she had let Bonnie help with the pastry on Christmas Eve before she hung up her stocking. Bonnie’s children would do the same thing.
I hope he thinks I’ve been doing right with his old allotment since he went away… at least there had been some good frosts for the Brussel sprouts.
Then she wondered whether she had done right in buying the camiknickers. She had done it in a mood of loneliness and missing him and wanting to please him. Charlie could be funny about things like that sometimes, quite old-fashioned… could be quite funny about what was proper for a married woman. She tried to remember what he looked like in his Air Force blue. She heard the front door go and voices from the living-room. That must be Robbo; I shall have to get a move on. The water was now too cold to stay there any longer.
With a towel wrapped round her, Marie made up her face carefully, rolled her fair hair under and tied it back in a velvet bow.
Marie Partridge, anybody’d think you was going to a social instead of making sausage rolls. She smiled at her reflection as she blotted the bright-red bow of her mouth. Anybody’d think you wanted to get some man going.
She hooked her bra and tightened the shoulder-straps so that her breasts rose to Hollywood heights. This time of the month, she always filled her bra out. She could almost feel Charlie’s eyes on her and felt shy to meet her own in reflection as she stepped into the powder-blue cami. It was almost like it used to be on weekends when they were first married, before Bonnie.
There’s no getting away from what Mrs Partridge was up to: she had never worn art silk and lace in winter in her life, and she never had French legs like these, even on her honeymoon.
They reckon sailors’ wives go funny when their men been at sea for months.
She stuck out her hip and half-closed her eyes at her reflection, but knew that she could never bring herself to do that to Charlie in real life. Thought about it though. She only hoped that Charlie had remembered to go to the barber’s, it would just spoil the whole Christmas if he hadn’t. You couldn’t borrow them, could you?
She smiled at the thought. ‘Sorry to bother you, Mrs Miles, but we ran short of packets and the barber’s is closed. Do you think you could lend us a few till after the holidays?’
‘Of course, Mrs Partridge, don’t know if they’m Charlie’s size.’
She made her eyes crinkle with smiling and smudged her mascara.
I’ll tell you one thing, Charlie Partridge, I’m not having any more babies. No. We’ve got Bonnie, and she’s enough.
She clipped on her ear-rings.
And I want to keep my little job at the Dinner Kitchens. I couldn’t bear it going back to being at home all day. I’m saving money. When Bonnie’s older I shall get a proper job back in the salon. Then, one day, I shall get a salon of my own – The Salon Marie.
It would be all right, Charlie wouldn’t forget to buy them.
Even as she said it, as she bent down to roll on her stockings, she realized that the story about anxious brides was true. Her Curse had come early.
Oh damn, damn, damn.
Tears gathered and she bit them back because Paula and Robbo would wonder what was the matter.
The blue camiknickers which were like something from a Hollywood film got thrust to the back of her underwear drawer.
I might as well have saved my money!
That first Christmas of the war was a strange one in Markham, spent in a blacked-out limbo, holding breath. Old men expecting a replay of trenches and ill-designed leviathans and mustard gas; old women not bearing to think about all the new widows and spinsters that there were waiting; young men wondering when the air would be filled with planes; mothers wondering why it was that they could make great ships like the Queen’s, yet couldn’t make a baby’s gas-mask that would fit on a pram, and what did you do if you had twins or a toddler who wouldn’t wear a gas-mask?
Markham children could not see that anything was much different from last year.
Evacuees could see that everything was different.
On the Council Estate, many people had their yearly taste of chicken. Many didn’t, for there was still a lot of poverty. The Partridges did. For two days, the eight of them gathered in the living-room of 23 Jubilee Lane and, in the traditional style and order peculiar to their family alone, enjoyed, as usual, presents and food and drink all paid for from their thrift in Sam’s Diddle’m Club. Except for Charlie having exchanged one uniform for another, and Harry in khaki, and the stiff tarred paper jammed into window-frames at black-out time, this Christmas would be little different from last.
Sam noticed that there was tension between Marie and Charlie and remembered how it often was when he had got home leave in the ’14–’18 war. You got out of the swing of home life when you were in camp, and the women got uppity and used to doing things their way and didn’t like to be told. Dolly had never stood up to him before he went in the army. Charlie was probably having the same sort of trouble. Well he’d have to put up with Marie being uppity and out of the home for the duration.
Dolly noticed that Robbo was quiet, and Paula was so cheerful that it made you wonder what was up between them. She wondered whether Robbo had decided to join up or Paula had missed a period – not things you could ask about. Just sit and watch and wait to be told.
Of course, as people always said, Christmas was the children’s time. Bonnie, as usual, was spoilt by them all, but repaid it by enjoying every minute from the time she awoke in her Grandma’s house, to the time she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Bonnie noticed that Uncle Harry drank rum which he always said he couldn’t abear.
Charlie thought that Harry was knocking it back a bit. But then who wouldn’t, training in the Paras? The very thought of jumping into space and not knowing whether the parachute would open made Charlie go cold.
Harry had only a forty-eight-hour pass. It was enough. Longer and Deanna might try to see him. He thought she had got the message that she had picked the wrong one if she thought she’d try pinning it on him. ‘I don’t take chances like that. If you’re pregnant, it’s not mine.’ He hadn’t heard from her since, so he guessed that he was in the clear, but he wanted to get back to camp away from it.
All down Longmile Hill, blacked out by heavy velour drapes, ten-foot-high Christmas trees filled the inner-halls and glittered with lights.
Connie and Fred Hardy had open house on Boxing Day for Army officers who had been billeted in a large, empty house two miles away. Connie saw that her daughter was not happy. But Connie, being Connie, could not find the right words to say anything to Eve. And Eve, being Eve, smiled at the officers and responded to her father’s arranged good cheer.
Freddy Hardy used his Yuletide sociability like the entrepreneur he was, and got himself in very nicely with a high-ranking victualling officer.
There was no chink of light to be seen escaping from Mont Iremonger’s house in Portsmouth Road: he had gone to Barton Stacey to spend a couple of days with his sister.
On Boxing Day, behind shutters that had been made to keep weather out rather than light within, in the comfortable sitting-room in Abbey Water, Ursula Farr sat reading a new Margery Allingham crime novel. An open fire burned on the low hearth. A white-maned, outdoors-looking man with sixty years’ wear on his sunburned skin carried in a tray of coffee. Ursula looked up and they smiled affectionately at one another. Showing him the face of the book, she said, ‘You should try writing a mystery, Niall. Make yourself a small fortune.’
‘What would I do with a small fortune? What do I need? And there is nothing outside this room that I wish for.’
Ursula put down the book. ‘Must you go back tomorrow?’
He nodded. ‘The war hasn’t stopped.’
‘A thousand photographs and miles of film will still be made without you.’
‘Ah, but most of them will miss the best bits.’
True, she thought. Whilst other photographers of his genius were accepting commissions to photograph winning racehorses, athletes and rural landscapes, Niall O’Neill had been in Spain, documenting in painful detail the massacre and distress.
‘You’ll never change, Niall… thank God. I only wish that you were here more often.’
Here and there in Station Avenue, small chinks of light shone out from front rooms that were only used on high-days and holidays and so were poorly blacked out. A dim light showed through from the back of Greenaway’s shop where Vern was having a quiet five minutes on his own. Mulling over what Aunt Eadie had said. ‘I suppose Freddy Hardy will be putting you up for the Freemasons then, our Vern, now our Davcy’s spooning with the Alderman’s daughter.’
Vern had told her not to be so daft – they’ve never so much as been in one another’s company.
‘Oh? Well, you know best, our Vern.’
And now Vern, having a quiet smoke and five minutes on his own behind the shop, guessed that he did not know best. No smoke without fire. Subjects of gossip were always the last to hear.
From her bedroom window, Little-Lena watched the light fade. It was bitterly cold up there, but she didn’t mind putting up with things sometimes, so that she could enjoy it more when things got better again. She didn’t like having school spoiled by evacuees: they had scabies and nits and in her classroom girls had to sit three to a desk, the evacuated teachers were fierce and sarcastic – but things would go back to being nice as soon as the war was over.
She saw Mrs Kennedy’s friend putting his bike behind her hedge.
‘Hello, Nicholas,’ Leonora whispered.
‘Hello, Leonora, my darling,’ Nicholas answered, kissing her on the mouth. ‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘I saw you from the window of my room, you were picking holly.’
‘Ah Leonora, would that it had been mistletoe and you just happened to…’
Mrs Kennedy came out wearing her fur hat and ankle boots and a new red coat. Little-Lena rubbed a hole in the steamed-up window so that she could watch them going out together.
‘I love your new coat, Leonora,’ Nicholas said.
‘You don’t think it’s too bright with my red hair?’
‘Of course not, my darling, red hair looks best with red, especially with a black fur hat.’
Little-Lena ran the palms of her hands lightly down the bodice of her dress, lingering on the tips that felt like pocket buttons in the cold. Definitely. Hers were growing. The last time the school doctor had examined her, he had looked closely at her chest, screwing up his eyes and showing his long teeth. ‘Has she started yet?’
Mother had blushed and shook her head and whispered, ‘Good Lord no. She’s only ten!’
‘Well it won’t be long. You should prepare her for it.’ Little-Lena had not understood what she was to be prepared for, but from her mother’s embarrassment Little-Lena knew that it wasn’t something she could ask Mother about – like asking why Roy had those little soft egg things. Those were still a mystery, even though Myrna said they were for holding the wee till it could find somewhere to go. Which didn’t sound right, or why didn’t girls have them?
She thought that what she had to be prepared for was for her chest to blow up so that she would have to wear a brassière.
‘A Kestos, madam? Or a Maidenform?’
‘A large Maidenform with lace.’
‘What style would madam prefer?’
Once she was prepared, she wanted her chest to blow up as big as Mrs Kennedy’s, and she would wear a brassière made of lace like the woman who lived next door to Grandma Gertie and who used to come out with her top undone and lean over the balcony. A man had put a paper flower down her front and the other women had laughed. Men liked women’s chests.
Little-Lena had made up her mind ages ago that once she was prepared for It she was going to insist on being called by her proper name – Leonora.
Nicholas and Mrs Kennedy disappeared into the gloom. She didn’t really like him going out with Mrs Kennedy because she couldn’t see what was going on. But she supposed he had to go out with someone whilst he was waiting for Leonora. And she wanted Mrs Kennedy to be happy. She wondered whether it was allowed in England to share the same husband: they did in some places; Myra Turner had read her mum’s library book about Salt Lake City in America. Two husbands had shared Grandma Gertie, but that had been one at a time. There didn’t seem to be any reason why it shouldn’t be both together if Nicholas could afford it. She wondered why nobody had thought of doing it. It would be wonderful to be kissed goodnight by Nicholas and Mrs Kennedy.
Her hands were icy and her knees numb with cold. Now she would put on her new fluffy slippers and go back downstairs and sit in front of the fire and eat a slice of Christmas cake.
‘Doesn’t Markham look strange, Nick? Like some ghost-town in a cowboy picture.’
‘I love you, Georgia Honeycombe.’
Having made it clear that her invitation meant nothing except that they would both be alone on Christmas Day, Georgia had cooked a Christmas dinner and now they were walking it off. They had reached Greenaway’s when he suddenly drew her into the doorway of the shop and kissed her long and open-mouthed. ‘And you love me, Georgia Honeycombe. You haven’t ever stopped.’
For a moment, she allowed herself to be held close against his hard body, then she pulled away and resumed walking. ‘Don’t be silly, Nick, people will see us.’
‘Let them! Anyway, you said it’s a ghost-town.’ He put his arm about her waist, but she pushed it down.
‘Behave!’
‘Just admit that you love me, Georgia Honeycombe, and I’ll behave.’
As they passed the new air-raid warden and firemen’s depot, they heard what sounded like a rowdy party going on. Hoping to take some of the heat out of their conversation, Georgia said, ‘Let’s hope Hitler doesn’t choose tonight to bomb Markham.’
‘Just in case he does, you’d better tell me you love me.’
‘Oh Nick! I’m married. Hugh’s been sent to some secret place – who knows what danger he’s in.’
‘But it’s me who loves you, Georgia Honeycombe.’
It was dark now, and his voice seemed to echo along the deserted street. ‘Nick! Stop acting the fool.’
From nowhere, as it seemed, a man was walking his dog in the dark, shining a small circle of torchlight along the edge of the pavement. ‘Good evening. Happy Christmas.’
‘Oh… yes… Happy Christmas to you too… thanks,’ Georgia said. And the man disappeared into the darkness.
‘There you are, Nick, see! You never know who’s going to hear you these days, in the black-out.’
‘But you know that nobody’s going to see you.’ Again, he stopped in a shop doorway and he kissed her until she couldn’t help but respond.
‘Oh Georgia, make a clean break. Tell your old man you made a mistake. People make mistakes.’
‘I can’t. Not while he’s…’
‘What? In the trenches at Aldershot?’
‘Don’t mock him, Nick. We’re at war and Hugh’s in the Army. Anything might happen to him.’
They reached the abbey where a service was going on. And Georgia’s crumbling resolve was shored up by a choirboy singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. ‘Shall we go in for a minute and have a look?’
They sat together at the back, looking at the nostalgia-evoking scene. He took her hands and sat chafing them between his own. The interior of the great abbey was a black cavern showing rounded arches where windows let in the lesser blackness of the night. The long aisle was a corridor of dark leading to where a few rows of firefly torches glowed on hymn books. In the choirstalls, one or two candles made cherubim of the faces of schoolboys.
Having spent a decade of her school life, metaphorically and literally, in the very shadow of the abbey, its architecture was so familiar to her that, even in the icy blackness, Georgia could visualize the detail – the stone columns, vaulted roof, Norman arches and Saxon windows, and she smelt the centuries of dust and incense that impregnated its entire fabric.
That unique odour brought back an image of herself in a short white dress, white shoes, white socks, white prayer book, kneeling in obeisance beneath the heavy, warm hands of Bishop Winchester. It brought back too the image of herself at eighteen in trailing white, with wreath and veil. Of her father giving her away to Hugh.
She had felt very emotional standing there with her father. Aware of her significant surroundings, the rood-screen illustrating the agony of bleeding and tortured saints, the stone busts of rich Markhambrians, the sentimental representation of the child who had fallen from the abbey walls to its death, the leper’s window, the ancient font, tombs and plaques.
Hugh and all his friends had worn formal dress. There had been bells, organ and full choir. The Kennedys had not appeared much different from the Honeycombes except that they were more pushy and loud – though not as loud as the stags with whom Hugh had gone out the previous night.
Suddenly aware of her hand within Nick’s, she withdrew it.
The singing stopped and strange, familiar echoes, caused by the rustle and shuffle of the small congregation, started up and flittered like bats around the galleries until they were sucked up into the roof. Nick took her hand again.
There was a clatter in the porch and the clang of the iron ring handle of the door. Hobnails sounded off the stone columns like ricocheting bullets as the intruder tried to creep along the aisle. Larger, noisier bats flew. Whispers from the fireflies and clattering from the choirstalls, the cultured voice of the vicar followed by the broad Hampshire of the interloper. ‘I’m sorry, Vicar, but you’ll have to! You’m going to get us all blowed to Kingdom Come. Anyway the law’s the law!’
The sound of retreating hobnail bullets accompanied the vicar as he mounted the pulpit steps, holding a candle.
‘That was an air-raid warden. Our lights can be seen from the street. Until the cessation of hostilities, Evensong will have to be sung before black-out time.’
They slipped quietly out, Nick holding her arm tucked in his. At the porch door, he halted and they stood together as newly-married couples had stood there down the ages. ‘I would give anything if I could put the clock back four years.’
‘I’m married to Hugh, and nothing’s going to change that.’
‘Would you live with me, and none of this church nonsense?’
By the time he had walked her home, her eyes had dried and she was outwardly in control of herself.
‘Nick, you seem to have no idea. I made Hugh a promise. Perhaps it was all right for you and Nancy, you never stood up in public and said you would stay together for always, but I did.’
He never liked her to mention Nancy.
‘He took unfair advantage of you, Georgia.’
In his darkened shop, Vern Greenaway pondered sadly upon what he had seen when idly looking out.
Young Crockford was a good chap and a Comrade who had come right out at that meeting and said he belonged to a union. Vern’s heart had warmed to him. As it had to the Kennedy girl who was making a damn good job of running the office at the Town Restaurant. Vern could never fancy her husband very much. A decent enough sportsman right enough, but he cracked his jaw and had a bit too much of the old school tie. Even so, the girl was married to him and young Crockford had already got a woman and a baby somewhere. Those two shouldn’t be kissing in doorways.
Vern lit a cigarette and exhaled vigorously.
Who am I to talk? He’d regretted it since, even though he couldn’t even remember the girl’s name now. His biggest mistake had been to get it off his chest. It was still there between himself and Nora. Least said, soonest mended. He should never have told Nora.
A pity you couldn’t protect the young against their own follies. He inhaled again, the glowing tip crackled and spat. They put some muck in fags these days.
He started to make his way back to join the warmth and laughter in the upstairs sitting-room. You couldn’t beat having your family round you.
But bugger all… our Davey and Freddy Hardy’s daughter!