It’s Christmas Day again. Christmas Day, 1940. And a very different sort of Christmas it is from the one when Mr Josser brought home the port wine and the cigars, and the box of crackers for Baby. A distinctly whittled‐down war‐time kind of Christmas, a sort of stepping stone between Christmas past and Christmas future. A Christmas with penny cards costing sixpence and little things for the stocking just exactly what you can’t get. And no mistletoe. Not that it is any use grumbling. There is a war on, and it’s the same with everything.
Mr Josser is spending the holiday quietly at Ditchfield with the family. Now that he’s back at Battlebury’s he likes a quiet spell sometimes. And it is certainly quiet at Ditchfield. Very quiet. That’s because the family has been reduced to three. Just Mr and Mrs Josser and Baby.
Doris is in the Forces by now – that’s one less. For no reason at all that Mrs Josser can understand – or ever will be able to – Doris has suddenly thrown up her job with the firm of solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn and joined the A.T.S. Has simply walked out on three pounds ten a week and a Remington Noiseless that the firm bought specially for her. But Mr Josser has guessed the reason straight away. It is because Bill had been posted out somewhere in the Middle East, and Doris can’t settle down to anything without him. Probably she feels better, he tells himself, with a lot of other girls of the same age and her own motorcycle to look after. Doris will be a dispatch rider as soon as she’s got her corporal’s stripe. And this is funny when you come to think about it. Because Bill’s a major already. Bill’s been doing rather well, in fact. And Doris is very proud of him.
But even with Doris in the A.T.S. that still doesn’t explain why Baby should have been left with the old people. Cynthia isn’t in the Forces, too, is she? Well, not exactly. Even though all that talk about getting a war‐job proved to be perfectly genuine. It was last November when it came to something. Cynthia is now the balcony usherette at the Rialto in Epping. And it’s given her new life, doing something. Her hair is longer than ever and more golden. She is walking out with a Canadian officer. And what with the long hours at the Rialto and trying to see something of the Canadian she is hardly ever at Ditchfield at all. At this moment she is dreamily holding hands in a café in Walthamstow. It isn’t much of a café but it is the best that they could find open on Christmas Day.
She hasn’t actually taken the man from Saskatoon back to Conservatory Cottage. Not yet. But that’s only because she wants Mrs Josser to get used to the idea gradually. She doesn’t want to do anything that might upset her feelings. But she does want to introduce Baby to her new daddy. Baby herself is indifferent. She is enjoying things well enough as they are.
And that completes the Ditchfield set.
Before we get on to the Dulcimer Street lot, come up to Central Station, Leeds, for a moment. It won’t take long. The London train is just due to leave. And the carriage is full already. The progress‐chaser of Drayton and Sons, Optical Manufacturers, has two days’ leave, and he’s going to spend it in London. Which is brave, considering the bombing.
Because there are no restaurant cars, he has a thermos with him. And some sandwiches. He also has a Daily Mirror and a Literary Digest. As well as his private papers – his really private ones – sewn up in a little roll inside the seam of his waistcoat. He is still a bit new to the game. And he feels slightly dizzy with excitement every time he remembers about them. Remembers about them, and remembers where he is to deliver them.
But there is no cause for excitement. No one suspects anything. The guard blows his whistle. The train draws out. And the man opposite falls asleep, his hat down over his nose. Dr Otto Hapfel relaxes and begins to eat the dried‐egg sandwiches that his landlady has made for him. He has a pleasant feeling of well‐being.
That’s because he’s being taken care of so nicely. He is not alone. The man opposite – the one with his hat down over his nose – is a policeman. And so is the man standing up in the corridor outside.
Altogether, it’s practically Dr Hapfel’s last ride.20
Now for Dulcimer Street. Back there, it’s sadly changed. A family called Rossiter is living in what used to be the Jossers’ rooms. And Mrs Vizzard isn’t any too sure of them. She has her doubts. Nothing that she can exactly put a name to. Just a vague uneasy feeling that somehow they’re not quite right. She suspects that Mr Rossiter drinks. And she doesn’t care very much for the couple above them who followed on the Boons. They’re both working, and Mrs Vizzard doesn’t approve of women who’re out all day.
But the saddest part of all is Connie’s room. It’s empty. And Duke is downstairs hanging up in the window with only a basement view, instead of the roof‐tops, to comfort him. He’s been there nearly a month now. Ever since the night when Connie didn’t come home. Not that anybody really worried very much at first. It was nothing new for Connie to be detained. Detained all night sometimes. And still fresh as a daisy next day. But this time it was the end all right. A river police‐boat found her. Right down by the Pool, too. Though how she got there only Connie knew. Drifted, probably, her clothes spread wide, all the way from Charing Cross or Westminster which was on her beat anyhow. But even then there was no saying how she had come to find herself on the wrong side of the Embankment. She was dead, quite dead, by the time the police‐boat got there. Wrapped half round a hawser, her old feet pointing out to sea. All the sheen and slime, the murk and magic of London’s river, was drifting past her, agitating the small body so that her legs were moving slightly and she seemed to be trying unsuccessfully to swim up stream, back to St Thomas’s and Lambeth and the parts she knew. The funny thing was that close beside her, practically in her arms, was a large Persian tabby, also drowned. It may simply have been coincidence, of course. But the river‐policeman was a kindly, rather sentimental sort of chap. It was his view that the little old lady had fallen in trying to rescue the cat. And he may have been right. Either that, or kitty had jumped in trying to rescue Connie. It might have been either way. You could never be really sure with Connie.
Mr Puddy finds that he still misses her. He hasn’t forgotten that surprise cup of mulligatawny that she once took up to him. And the memory leaves a sense of gap. It was partly because it was so quiet upstairs with no one in the room beside him that Mr Puddy accepted Mrs Vizzard’s offer to shift down to the back basement. Partly that. And partly because it was so much safer. Now, if the house above him catches fire, he can just walk straight out through the French windows into the garden.
Taken altogether it is, in consequence, a rather basementy sort of life that Mr Puddy is leading. Because his new job is that of Shelter Marshal. Every evening, whether the sirens have sounded or not, he has to go below ground. And stay there until the morning. There is no more nonsense about being expected to climb up on to the roof tops. Wet or fine, he’s on the Bakerloo platform at Trafalgar Square before the planes have even left Germany. And everything considered, he’s never been more comfortable. Or had so much to which he can look forward. The rescue of the fireman didn’t pass unnoticed and Mr Puddy is down for a George Medal. He’s got to call at the Palace in person to pick it up.
And what about Mr Squales who had the back basement before him? Poor Mr Squales. There’s real tragedy there. Something that Hitler and Mussolini will have to pay for. It had been touch and go in any case after Mr Barks’ letter had been snatched from him at the garden tea‐party. He’d even had his bag packed in readiness with everything he could lay hands on, waiting gloomily for his inevitable dismissal from Withydean. But after a while he was able to make his wife see reason. He even got her to agree to help him fight the case. And he was just on the point of persuading her that it would be better to avoid all that nasty publicity and settle out of court, when Italy declared war. That was the bitterest blow that could fall. Because it turned out that he hadn’t been romancing about his name after all. It really was Qualito. And he really was Italian. What was more, the Home Office really meant to intern him.21 When the police came for him, everything at Withydean was at its most delightful once more and they positively had to prise him out of his partner’s loving arms. It was a terrible and tragic scene, with Mr Squales not helping in the least and Mrs Squales fainting clean away.
So it’s turned out a very quiet Christmas for Mr Squales too. He is in the last hut but one, right at the far end of the camp. The Isle of Man climate doesn’t agree with him. Nor the food. Nor the sense of confinement. At the present moment he’s standing at the window, looking out past the guard at the endless landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Just now he tried to pass the time by playing Patience. But he gave it up when he found that he had dealt himself a whole row of Spades.
The other prisoner from Dulcimer Street has scarcely noticed that it’s Christmas Day at all. He’s still on uppers. And getting tired of them. There’s a new foreman‐inspector, too, who behaves as though he’d got to wear the shoes that Percy cuts out. Takes a pride in finding fault with them. He makes Percy sick. But Percy’s got the laugh on him all the same. The foreman‐inspector doesn’t know that when the spring on the rotary‐cutter went, Percy kept half of it. He’s got it in his mattress now. And a paper clip that he found. And a match that was given to him by someone who was just leaving. It’s worth something, that match. And so are the pieces of string and the paper‐clip. When you’re planning your escape anything may come in handy. And Percy’s escape is all he’s living for now.
It’s really rather sad about the escape. Because Mrs Boon is still sure that she is the only thing he’s living for. That’s why she writes him so many letters – more than the prison authorities will let him have. And she’s been saving up for the day when he’ll be coming out. She’s got fifty‐five pounds ten towards it already. And, though the doctor’s wife doesn’t know it, Mrs Boon is looking round for another job. Somewhere with more to do so that she can earn more and save faster. All the time she’s been in Chelmsford she hasn’t spent a penny on herself.
Nor has Mrs Vizzard. Not since Mr Squales’ departure. Not that she need be so careful. Because, with the new sub‐letting of No. 10, she’s living inside her income again. Twenty‐four shillings a week to the good, in fact. But money doesn’t mean as much to her as it once did. She is so wrapped up in her Spiritualism that she scarcely thinks about money nowadays. It’s been her one comfort, Spiritualism. And it has brought its own reward. She’s developing psychic gifts herself. Scarcely a day passes without a manifestation of some sort – a Voice, or an Impression or even Levitation. Only last Wednesday she had scarcely turned her back when a full milk‐jug was whisked off the dresser behind her where she had just placed it and transferred silently through the air to the draining‐board by the sink – where she would never have dreamt of putting a milk‐jug. Without a drop being spilt, too. And sometimes Mr Vizzard’s portrait smiles at her and the lips move. They seem to be saying something that a lip‐reader might have read as ‘Settle.’ Just that. Over and over again. She spends a lot of time looking at that portrait. And wondering.
That’s what she’s doing now. Simply staring at it, waiting for it to address her. The fact that it’s tea‐time, tea‐time on Christmas Day, has entirely escaped her. There isn’t even a kettle on. Then suddenly she rouses herself. Not because she mustn’t let the picture get a hold on her. But because of the black‐out. It’s the Rossiters that she doesn’t trust. They’re just the sort of people to leave a chink in the curtains. Particularly if it was Mr Rossiter who drew them. And she doesn’t want any more policemen knocking on the door of No. 10.
As there’s only one way to make really sure about the black‐out, she puts on her winter coat and goes outside to have a look. Right outside in the cold. Over on to the opposite pavement, in fact. And it’s just as well she does so. A six‐inch triangle of light is showing from the first floor. Her eyebrows contract in irritation. She’s going straight upstairs to say something to those new tenants of hers.
Before she goes in she glances down the length of the terrace. Except for a huddle of searchlights somewhere over Hammersmith way, no other lights are showing, and everything looks peaceful in the dusk. The war hasn’t so much as touched Dulcimer Street yet. Perhaps never will. But you can’t be sure. There’s such an expanse of it. It stretches, you’ll remember, in an unbroken row from Dove Street at one end to Swan Walk at the other.
And they are certainly fine houses.