The Chalky Sea

by Clare Flynn

  Jim travelled back to Aldershot alone. He couldn’t face being with what he knew would be a blissful Ethel and Grass, and Joan had already left. He had gone along the corridor to use the bathroom and when he got back to the bedroom there was no sign of her. Rather than risk running into Ethel and Greg at breakfast he had left the hotel and gone to Maison Lyons at Marble Arch.

  As the train made its short journey back to the military town, he told himself he’d been played for a fool. Joan had probably planned the whole thing. When they first arrived in Aldershot they’d been told to beware of the loose morals of English women and the dangers of venereal disease. The regimental medical officer had suggested that some women viewed Canadian soldiers like cigarette cards and aimed to collect as many as possible. His stomach lurched and he began to sweat. What if she’d given him an infection? Was he another notch on her bedpost?

  He looked out of the steamed-up window as the train flew past rows of suburban houses. It was raining. Why had he thought it a good idea to come to this godforsaken country? He felt his face reddening and his skin prickled as the implications of what had happened dawned on him. He might as well have “sucker” tattooed across his forehead. All he wanted now was for the long-rumoured second front to open and give him a chance to fight the war. Now that the Yanks were in the frame, would Canada be even further down the pecking order?

  Lost Children

  Eastbourne

  Ever since the dancing lesson, Pauline had increased her efforts to persuade Gwen to accompany her on a night out to the Winter Garden.

  ‘You’re so good at it, Mrs C. The men would all be queuing up for a chance to swing you around.’

  ‘Thank you for the offer, but being swung round a room by strange men is not something I’d relish. Sorry.’ She smiled.

  Pauline shook her head, her expression wistful. She told Gwen about her friend, Sue, who had met and fallen in love with one of the many Canadian soldiers stationed in the town. Pauline was excited at news of Sue’s engagement.

  ‘You mean your friend is actually going to marry this chap?’ Gwen was incredulous. ‘Someone she met at a dance?’

  ‘’Why on earth not?’ Pauline was defiant. ‘Where did you meet Mr Collingwood then?’

  Gwen’s felt herself blushing. She pursed her lips. ‘At a party at the British Embassy in Berlin.’

  ‘Well what’s the difference? Did he ask you to dance?’

  Gwen smiled and conceded defeat. ‘Yes he did.’

  ‘Pots and kettles, Mrs C.’

  ‘Fair enough, Pauline, but does your friend realise that marrying a Canadian soldier will mean that once the war’s over she’ll have to go and live in Canada with him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind that. I’m sure Canada’s very nice.’

  ‘It’s a long way away. She’ll be giving up her friends and family – it takes a week to get there so it’s hardly like taking a train to London.’

  ‘Yes but if you love someone.’ Pauline looked wistful. ‘I’d have gone to Canada to be with my Brian. Yes I’d have missed my family but love’s more important.’

  Gwen arched her eyebrows and sighed.

  ’Not convinced, Mrs C?’

  ‘It’s just that your friend can’t really know this fellow. A few twirls around the Winter Garden is hardly the basis for a lifetime partnership.’

  ‘And a few swirls round the British Embassy is?’

  ‘That’s completely different. I had plenty of time to get to know my husband. And we’re both British.’

  ‘I don’t see any difference. Sue has seen her Stan every day since they met – and not just at the Winter Garden. They go to the flicks and for walks in Gildredge Park. She says he’s terribly romantic. Her mum and dad have invited him round for supper loads of times. He’s already part of the family.’

  ‘But there’s a war on. Everything is different in wartime. We’ll all feel different about everything when peace comes.’

  ‘If it comes. Isn’t that the point? We could all die tomorrow so we may as well make the most of life now.’ Pauline sat down in the chair opposite Gwen’s and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. ‘We need to grab what little happiness life sends our way.’

  Gwen stared at her. Pauline never ceased to surprise her. But her bubbling optimism was probably unwarranted. ‘All very well, Pauline, but war makes people behave differently. Your friend is probably beguiled by a daring young man in uniform. Does she even know what he does in civilian life? The peacetime reality may be much less glamorous.’

  Pauline shrugged. ‘Who cares?’

  Gwen suggested all manner of occupations Sue’s Stan could be engaged in, from factory worker to dustman, none of which involved the wearing of a smart uniform and a constant supply of government-issue cigarettes and chocolates.

  ‘I met Stan last week and a very nice chap he is too.’ Pauline jerked her chin forward. ‘I told Sue she could do a lot worse than hitch her wagon to his train. He’s not bad looking, he’s the best dancer she’s ever partnered, he’s kind and generous and he adores her. Maybe he’s a bit on the short side – but so’s Sue.’

  Gwen sniffed. ‘Let’s hope he’s as good a man as you paint him and doesn’t have a wife and children back home on the prairies.’

  ‘Do you always have to think the worst of people, Mrs C?’ Pauline shook her head and left the room.

  Gwen sat alone as the afternoon light faded. A weight of melancholy descended on her shoulders. It had been cruel to crush Pauline’s optimism about her friend’s future. Why had she done it? Why not play along with her? It would have been no skin off Gwen’s nose. Yet she had chosen to dampen the mood. Now Pauline had gone off and things would be tense between them. All for something that didn’t even matter to Gwen. Was it just a desire to be right? To know better? Or was she jealous of someone else’s happiness?

  Later that evening Pauline came to stand beside her on the upper terrace outside the drawing room.

  ‘Penny for them?’

  ‘I was…’

  ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. I always get annoyed when someone asks me what I’m thinking. My Brian did it all the time. But I’d give a boxful of bananas to have him here now asking me.’

  ‘Bananas?’ said Gwen. ‘I’ve forgotten what they look like, let alone how they taste.’ She paused. ‘Pauline, I’m sorry.’

  “What for?’

  ‘I was rude about your friend this morning. Cynical. I don’t what made me say what I said.’

  ‘Forget it. I already had.’

  Gwen smiled. ‘Thank you. That’s very gracious of you. Are the children asleep?’

  ‘Brenda is. She’ll go through till morning. Sally’s pretending. I told her I’d take her to the park tomorrow but only if she went straight off to sleep. Knowing her, she’ll be awake until I go to bed, talking to her toy rabbit. She’s a good girl but I’m afraid the bombing has terrified her. Can’t imagine how I’d have felt as a four-year-old if I was blasted out of my own home. And she misses her dad. And her grandpop.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It isn’t your fault. You’ve been our guardian angel.’

  They fell into a companionable silence for a few minutes, leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, looking out over the garden towards the sea as the light faded.

  Pauline lit a cigarette and inhaled slowly. ‘I lost a baby too, you know. My first. I didn’t think I’d ever get over it. It used to wriggle about and kick like a donkey but one morning it stopped moving and I knew something was wrong.’

  Gwen stood motionless, horrified that Pauline had guessed what had happened to her, but wanting to hear her story.

  ‘The worst part was having to go through labour knowing the baby was dead. Cried for weeks I did. It was a little boy. I wasn’t allowed to see him. I had to picture him in my imagination.’ Pauline drew deeply on her cigarette. ‘Brian was working in the aircraft factory then. He was a fitter. It hit him bad too, but at least he h
ad his job to help take his mind off it. My mum had just died and I’d never been so alone in all my life. There was my granny but she was beginning to go doolally. She didn’t understand why I kept bawling. She stroked my hand and I sat and stared at the wallpaper all day. Then I fell pregnant with our Sally. I was scared stiff the same thing was going to happen.’ She stared ahead at the horizon.

  Gwen didn’t know what to say. She was torn between anguish that someone had knowledge of her private pain and relief that at last there was someone who shared it.

  Pauline continued to avoid her eyes. ‘Me and my big mouth. You don’t have to talk about it. I wanted you to know that if you did, I’m someone who'll understand.’

  At last Gwen spoke, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I miscarried at ten weeks. My husband was away in Switzerland. I didn’t tell him. We’d been trying for a baby for so long and I’d never managed to conceive, then when at last I did, I was so excited.’ Gwen’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered. ‘I couldn’t wait to tell Roger: I wanted to tell him face-to-face, but he was gone for weeks. I miscarried two weeks before he returned and I couldn’t bear to talk to him about it. I kept putting it off. I didn’t want him to suffer what I had been suffering. So I decided it was better for him not to know. And then later, I tried to tell him, but I never managed to get it out, so I shut it away.’ She took a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and dried her eyes. ‘And please don’t tell me that he had a right to know. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that. I feel so sorry for you. Going through that all alone. You poor soul.’

  ‘That baby had been my only chance and I’d lost it. I don’t know why I believed that but I was right. I never conceived again. So I made up my mind to put on a brave face and jolly well get on with life.’ She took a deep breath, willing herself not to cry again.

  Pauline turned sideways, hip against the parapet and looked at Gwen. ‘You can’t bottle something like that up forever without something giving way. You do know that, don’t you?’

  Gwen turned to face her. ‘I haven’t thought about it in years. It was getting those nappies out that reminded me. And you bringing it up of course.’ Her voice turned cold and brisk. ‘Now I must get on. I have letters to write.’

  That night in bed, Gwen reflected on her conversation with Pauline. It was the most intimate she had ever had with anyone. There was something about Pauline that had encouraged her to open up. On the surface the woman was brash, brisk and no nonsense, but there was a sensitivity and warmth in her that Gwen couldn't help responding to. And Pauline’s love for her daughters was self-evident. Sally was a boisterous child but respectful and polite and had clearly been well brought up.

  She thought about what Pauline had said about not being able to bottle up pain and sorrow for ever. But that wasn't true. Her own mother had proved that. Mary Brook had not shown a trace of emotion after the loss of her son. Gwen hadn't seen her shed a single tear. Her mother had never spoken of Alfie again after that terrible day. She didn't forbid Gwen from mentioning him, but she didn’t have to – her own behaviour set the example. Gwen’s mother shrouded herself in a terrible silence that refused to acknowledge Alfie’s very existence, making it unthinkable for Gwen to do otherwise. It was as if her brother had never been born. Every photograph of him had been removed from the house, every childish drawing, his toys, his clothes, every trace of his all too short life. Gwen had been left utterly alone, a giant gash in her heart where her love for her brother had been. Not only had she lost her twin, her soulmate and best friend, but she had lost both her parents too. Her father had stayed on in India, sending Gwen and her mother back to England and Mary had retired into a world of religious devotion that left no room for her only remaining child. Gwen had grown up with the belief that emotions were a sign of weakness and love and affection only led to pain and loss.

  Roger was unaware that his wife had been a twin and lost her brother when they were twelve. So many times Gwen had come close to telling him, but she always held back in the end, fearful that she might place a jinx on Roger, that he too might one day abandon her as Alfie had done. She believed that she carried some kind of curse and didn’t want to unleash it upon her husband.

  No one told Gwen directly that she was to blame for Alfie dying. They didn’t have to. Wasn’t it she who had suggested tying a rope from an overhanging branch of the catalpa tree by the stream so they could swing across? If it was such a good idea why hadn’t she climbed up there herself and done it, instead of leaving it to Alfie? Why had she stood by and watched as he crawled along the branch on his stomach, the end of the rope tied to his belt, clinging to the thick branch like a caterpillar as he struggled to wrap the rope around it? Couldn’t she have tried to persuade him to come down as he stretched his arms around the girth of the branch, trying to pass the end of the rope from one hand to the other? Or climbed after him and anchored his legs as he struggled to reach? But no. She had called him a scaredy-cat when he suggested giving up; she had stood by and watched as he lost his balance, slid sideways around the fat branch and dropped like a stone into the stream below, the rope snaking after him.

  At first Gwen thought he was play-acting. She expected him to leap to his feet and make a scary noise at her. Until she saw that his head was resting on a rock and the stream around him was running red with his blood. Still she thought that any moment now he would stagger upright and she would help him make his way back to the bungalow where their ayah would dress his wounds. But Alfie made no sound and the stream flowed red, staining and scarring Gwen’s life for ever after.

  The Brawl

  Aldershot

  Greg burst into the mess room. Jim was playing a game of snooker with Mitch Johnson.

  ‘I’m getting married, guys! Bought the ring today and she said yes. Even her mother approves. Whaddaya say?’ He leaned across the table and tapped the black into the corner pocket with the flat of his palm.

  Jim and Mitch groaned in unison. Unperturbed, Greg pulled himself up onto the edge of the table, his long thin legs dangling over the edge, touching the floor. ‘You’ll be my best man, Jimbo, eh?’

  Jim nodded and stretched out a hand to shake his friend’s.

  ‘Come on, buddies, show a bit of enthusiasm. It’s not every day a man gets a girl to agree to getting hitched.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Grass,’ said Mitch. ‘It’s a darned good excuse for getting hammered tonight. And the drinks are on you.’

  ‘My pleasure, boys. It’s already arranged.’

  ‘When’s the wedding?’

  ‘Mrs Underwood wants us to wait till the war’s over and Ethel’s brother’s back from the navy.’ He gave a woeful smile. ‘But Ethel’s going to work on her. God knows how long it’s going to go on for.’

  Jim frowned. It felt foolhardy to marry in the middle of a war. ‘What if we get sent into action?’

  ‘Fat chance the way things are going,’ said Mitch. ‘We’re here so McKenzie King can save face. He doesn’t want bad news back home so we’re left to stew in this dump of a town.’

  ‘It may be a dump but it’s where I met my girl so it will always be special to me.’ Grass pulled a sentimental face, clasping his hands over his chest in a parody of a romantic hero.

  ‘Cut it out, you sentimental bastard, Grass. What we want to know is does she…’ and Mitch began to move his hips frantically.

  At that moment they realised Tip Howardson had entered the room and was leaning against the wall watching. Jim bent over the table, replaced the black ball and teed up his shot.

  ‘Don’t let me stop the conversation, lads,’ said the corporal. He turned to Greg. ‘I think what Johnson was trying to ask you, Hooper, is does your little tart go at it like the clappers, when you get her in the sack.’

  Jim abandoned the shot and leaned against the table, cue in hand, waiting for Greg’s response, aware that Howardson was trying to provoke a fight and ready to leap in to defend his frien
d. But Greg’s joy at his engagement made him immune to Howardson’s taunting.

  ‘Lay off, Corporal, give a man a break. I’ve just got engaged to be married. We’re having a bit of a party tonight in the main bar at The Stag if you’d care to join us?’

  ‘Not tonight you’re not. You’re on guard duty for the rest of the week.’

  ‘But it’s not my turn, Corporal.’ Greg got down from his perch on the edge of the table. ‘I’ve told everyone in the squad I’ll stand them a drink and my girl’s coming along to meet them. Her mother’s baked a cake and I’ve ordered sandwiches. It’s cost me a fortune.’

  ‘Unless you want to do next week too, you’ll shut your mouth and get on with it.’

  ‘I’ll do guard for Grass, Cororal,’ said Jim. ‘Let him have his celebrations. It’s all arranged. He can cover for me the week after.’

  ‘So you’re in charge of the rota now are you, Armstrong?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘No, Corporal.’

  ‘Well shut your mouth.’ He moved towards the door then turned back. ‘You’ll be missing the party too, Armstrong. The kit room is a bloody disgrace. You’re sorting it out tonight and I’ll be round to inspect.’

  When he was gone, Jim flung the cue on the table. Greg was slumped on the floor against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘What was that about?’ said Mitch. ‘I mean we all know he’s a miserable bastard, but that went too far.’

  ‘I’m sorry, pal,’ said Jim to Grass.

  ‘Why are you apologising? It’s not your fault.’

  ‘He’s got it in for me. That’s why he’s taking it out on Greg.’

  ‘What the hell for?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘I knew him back home. He was in class with my brother. I don’t know why he can’t stand me. I guess some people don’t a need a reason to hate someone.’