by Maggie Ford
‘You go on and enjoy Christmas Day at your parents’,’ she said when Eveline told her she was naturally invited. ‘I’d sooner stay here at home.’
To brood, Eveline thought, but said, ‘For Rebecca’s sake. She’ll have other children to play with and she’s almost like Helena’s sister. She’ll miss her, being here on her own.’
But Connie remained stubborn, and the last thing Eveline wanted was to speak her mind and say she was wallowing too much in her grief, because that’s what it seemed like to her.
She went off to her mum’s, but without Connie it was a miserable day for her. She was glad to pop in on Boxing Day and, although no laughter abounded there, it made her feel better.
Thick fog hung over the low ground, everything silent as the grave. Albert stood at his post, surreptitiously smoking a cigarette, its glowing tip screened with one hand though, in this fog, who would see it?
Four thirty in the morning, March 1918. He felt he’d been here for all his life. Life! He swore silently. George would never again know life beyond this miserable one – to him this ugly world no longer mattered. After six months he still pined for him. But the war had gone on without him, a job had to be done and there was no time for pining. It was so quiet. Wrapped in fog, it felt as if he too was in a world other than this one – was that what it could be like to be dead?
‘What time is it, sir?’ he whispered to Captain Thoroughgood. The man looked at his watch.
‘Four thirty-five … No, four thirty-nine. Be getting light in an hour.’
‘Not in this fog,’ Albert whispered.
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the air split apart. He didn’t know it but some six thousand German guns had crashed out together and for five solid hours the bombardment stunned every man along the whole depth of the British defence line. None of the now-decimated troops noticed the sun rising at six o’clock, the fog still as thick as ever. It held another vapour, invisibly mixing with it. It was in Albert’s trench before he realised. Still fumbling for his gas mask, he fell to the ground, choking, blindly trying to drag it from its container, already unable to coordinate his movements. Other men found themselves in the same straits while some, having had the presence of mind to get into theirs, were trying to help the less responsive.
Overwhelmed by the great German push, the Allies could only retreat, the next several days seeing every road packed with units and transport in retreat, followed across the old battlefields of the Somme by an unremitting onslaught of shell bursts, machine gun and rifle fire and the flames of burning buildings.
‘’Ow yer making out, mate?’ Albert heard the words but couldn’t reply. His throat burned, his chest burned, his eyes burned. He hung between two comrades he couldn’t see for the rag binding his eyes, his legs automatically walking, his weight taken off them. He knew he was dying. All he wanted was to be put down by the roadside and left to it. But somehow, after what seemed like days of this Great Retreat, he ended up in a clean hospital bed, nurses bending over him, soothing mixtures being administered. But still his chest burned and he could hardly breathe.
It would soon be Helena’s birthday. Eveline was preparing to give her the best little party possible within the confines of grave food shortages that were beginning to bite. Hardly any flour stocks could be had, meat was rationed to twenty ounces a week per person, now butter and margarine were rationed too and few goodies were available. But she meant to do it, somehow. Since being told of her husband’s injuries, she’d resolutely saved up her rations so as to give their daughter something to remember her eighth birthday by.
Albert was in a hospital in France and she’d felt almost grateful that he was no longer fighting, but she was worried. They’d said he was ill though not how ill, only that he’d eventually be sent home for good.
At least he’d be out of the war. He’d dictated a letter to a nurse to post on to her, saying not to worry, that he hoped to be able to see again in time and, though his lungs had been affected, he hoped they’d soon heal. But she couldn’t help reading between the lines. She only prayed she was reading things wrongly, and told herself that the thing to remember was that he’d be coming home, which had to be encouraging.
One thing, the depressing and devastating news of Allied retreat before massed German forces transferred to the Western Front since the Russian peace treaty had Germany claiming a victory, was over. British forces had consolidated, stopping the enemy in its tracks, ground lost was being regained, but Albert was safe, badly gassed, but safe. She knew what was in store for her in caring for him, but he’d be with her. Poor Connie hadn’t had that luck. Come to think of it, Connie’s fate had been awful for years, losing her brothers, her father, then her husband. In a way it had made her much stronger, but strangely withdrawn.
She’d grown distant with Eveline since her husband’s death, yet Eveline felt she’d done nothing to warrant it. They were drifting apart and it upset her. Nothing she said or did seemed to make any difference. She had made efforts to cling to her but it was Connie who was doing the drifting and who could often be quite sharp with her; Eveline had no way of combating it.
There were times when she’d get to the school gates with Helena to find Connie had already gone on to work, where once she had always waited so they could go together. Sometimes she wanted to cry at what seemed to be happening between them. After all these years so close to each other, it was like being pushed away by a sister.
‘I’m going to give Helena a nice party for her birthday,’ she said at the end of April. ‘You will help me with it, won’t you?’
‘I wonder you can find food enough for a party,’ came the terse reply.
‘I’ve been saving up,’ Eveline said.
‘That’s nice for you,’ Connie said and went on feeding the shell cases into the machine that packed them with high explosive.
Eveline too went on with her work. She needed to have it out with her but now wasn’t the time. This work was so dangerous that one had to keep one’s mind on it. She waited until they had their lunchtime sandwiches, sitting at their benches to eat, too wet and miserable to go outside, the smell of factory oil and grease and metal tainting their food and, with little fresh air to dispel it, making her feel sick.
‘What’s wrong?’ she began, this strange hostility of Connie’s finally beginning to wear her down.
‘What should be wrong?’ Connie countered airily, turning away to unscrew her vacuum flask of tea.
‘I don’t know. I thought you might know.’
‘I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.’
Connie’s refined accents were still with her despite all these years in the East End, but she could make them sound quite scathing when she wanted. And that’s how they sounded now as if all this was Eveline’s fault.
‘Why are you being so horrible to me?’ she burst out before she could stop herself. It was the worst thing she could have done.
‘Horrible!’ Connie turned on her, making her start back mentally to see the hostility in her eyes. ‘Well, I’m sorry if that is what you think. You haven’t lost a husband …’
‘Connie – thousands of women have lost husbands, and brothers and sons and fiancés. I know what you’re going through.’
‘You don’t. How can you?’
‘Is this what it’s about, Connie? You losing your husband when I’ve not? Well, I’ll tell you this. My Albert’s desperately ill. He’ll be coming home to go straight into hospital and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m in an awful state over it, and not once have you asked me how I feel.’
‘At least you have him.’
Before Eveline could reply, she leaped up and hurried off to the loo. Eveline wanted to follow her, but she had already been before having her sandwiches, and she could hardly take up this argument with other girls in there listening to it all. Connie didn’t appear again until the hooter sounded the end of the lunchtime, and then she merely got on with her work without
saying another word, her eyes stolidly on what she was doing.
Their shift ending, she made for the cloakroom for her hat and coat and handbag before Eveline could take off her coverall, and was away.
Eveline managed to catch the same bus, but had to stand, since the vehicle was crowded with workers. Because she was one of the first to get off at her stop she waited for Connie but in the mass of people alighting saw her walk right by. She let her go, following at a distance, her heart heavy with misery, still going over what Connie had said, still unable to make any sense of this attitude of hers.
Then as she walked, the truth of what she had said at lunchtime, spoken in anger and not fully comprehended until now, dawned on her. She knew what was wrong with Connie. Jealousy. She felt jealous that Albert was alive and George was dead – hard to believe. How could a friend of so many years begrudge her Albert’s life? How could she be so mean? Anger added its own weight to her heart. If that was how she felt then their friendship was over.
In a welter of misery she ignored her as they collected their children, then waited until Connie had walked off with her little one. The girl looked back, bewildered not to be walking home with her best friend in all the world; then, taking Helena’s hand, Eveline moved off in the other direction.
‘I want to get something from the shops first,’ she told her confused daughter.
‘But you and Auntie Connie always go shopping together.’
‘Well, we aren’t today,’ Eveline returned, roughly tugging the child along, keeping her eyes averted, eyes that were filling with tears, blurring her world: a world which from now on would be without Connie.
It was hard to understand. At school she and Rebecca were always together in the playground, yet going home they were now being separated. Rebecca was her friend. She loved Rebecca. They were seldom apart.
When Granny Adams came to collect her, and Great-Gran Ansell came to collect Rebecca, or when their mums collected them after what they called their early shift, it was nice walking home together and to play awhile whenever Auntie Connie had a cup of tea with Mummy. Now that was all changed. Perhaps she’d been naughty and wasn’t being allowed to be with her friend. She couldn’t remember being naughty.
‘Why can’t I be with Becky when we go ’ome?’ she asked as again she and Mummy went off to the shops alone.
‘Because things have changed. And the word is home, not ’ome. Say it love, home.’
‘Home,’ Helena repeated sullenly. Perhaps this was where she was being naughty, not speaking properly.
Becky, as she was known at school, spoke really nice, but most of the children in school didn’t and sometimes they teased the both of them. Becky took it all in her stride, but for her it was hard, especially as Nanny Adams didn’t talk posh. It was easier being like her other school chums and at the same time being popular because, knowing how to talk properly when she wanted, she’d take off the way the teachers spoke.
‘Do Mrs Butterfield for us,’ they’d beg. ‘Do Mrs Jarvis, do our pastor, go on, do ’im.’ And she would, mimicking their nice accents and their inflections of voice, making everyone laugh. Trouble was that she forgot to speak nicely in front of Mummy until prompted.
‘I want you to grow up speaking as good as Rebecca,’ she had often said, but lately there was a sort of edge to it. ‘You’re going to grow up every bit as good as Rebecca, if I have anything to say about it.’
She didn’t know why her mother sounded so cross when she said it these days.
Three weeks and Albert was still in France, still in hospital, still to be sent home. She’d written to him twice a week since he’d been hospitalised but his replies had always come via some nurse or other. Of course they would be; he probably still had bandages over his damaged eyes. The trouble was that it made them sound so distant, and to know that someone else was seeing them before she did was not the same.
Yesterday she’d had a most odd letter from Albert: ‘I’m a lot better, dear, but I don’t think they’re sending me home. It’s not a Blighty one. I’m as disappointed as you, reading this, but they get the last say I suppose. It’ll still take time for my eyes to get properly better. They say a few more weeks and I should be OK. I was lucky. I’m going to badger them to see if I can get them to send me home for a spot of leave before they send me back.’
Send him back! Eveline hardly read his concluding hopes that she and Helena were well. All she could see now were the words ‘send me back’. She didn’t understand – he’d been wounded. They didn’t send men back to fight, did they? If that was what he meant.
She wanted so much to ask what Connie thought he meant, but that was no longer possible. Connie, still in grief, had drawn into herself, had stopped going to the local suffragette branch meetings – such as they were. So little went on there these days that they were more like a women’s social club than the vibrant, purposeful gatherings they had once been. A mere shadow of their former glory remained and she too hadn’t attended these last two weeks.
She wouldn’t admit even to herself how dreadfully she missed Connie, especially today with this letter. She showed it to Mum but got no real comfort from it. ‘He knows ’ow ter get round the authorities. He’ll be ’ome, don’t you worry.’
Gran had been a bit more sympathetic, but again, her heartfelt words, ‘I’m sure he’ll be all right, love,’ weren’t as comforting as she intended.
Showing the letter to Albert’s mother had the woman dissolving into tears. She’d had a letter from him too, containing much the same wording. ‘Oh, I hope they don’t send ’im back to the front. This blessed war – they don’t care. Men’s lives don’t mean nothing to them.’
After several letters saying he was getting better by the day came one postmarked from a place she’d never heard of. ‘Me and a lot of others ended up on a ship taking arms to Beirut to give eye to the stuff.’ His letters now coming from there filled Eveline with relief that it hadn’t been the Western Front where men were still being slaughtered by the hour. October saw him still stationed in the Middle East in charge of supplies, safe and well. Eagerly she waited for each letter, full of interest. Then suddenly they stopped coming.
Three weeks later she was tearing open a telegram and reading the callously brief words MISSING IN ACTION BELIEVED KILLED.
How could it be? He’d been so safe. As she shook her head at the telegram boy when he asked if there was any reply, the light of her world went out, the flesh on her face growing cold, feeling like corrugated parchment. Her heart too felt that it had died inside her, leaving her flesh to chill.
‘I’m ready for school, Mummy. I’ve washed, I’ve done a wee, and I’ve finished my bread and jam,’ came her daughter’s voice from a distance and she tore her stricken gaze from the message to look down at the child. She was so pretty – she would grow up to be a beauty, a beauty Albert would never see. Her heart seemed to be crying but tears refused to reach her eyes.
‘There won’t be no school today, darling,’ she said, hearing her voice sound small and shaky. ‘Go and play in your bedroom.’
‘But Mummy …’ Seeing her mother’s expression, her protest fell away and she went quietly into her bedroom as she’d been asked, closing the door softly behind her, not really knowing why she was being banished.
Everything felt unreal. Why couldn’t she cry? The tears she had so often shed, usually at night at the mere thought of him being killed, when she would have to go on without him, deserted her now it had happened. She just felt numb, empty, unfocused. At the same time she found herself praying desperately that there could be a mistake. Mistakes had happened before, in the heat of battle especially. Not dead, just missing – that meant hope of some sort. A thought kept coming to her: his mother must have had a telegram too. She would be alone with her own desperate hope. She should go there to her.
In this torpid state, as though moving in a dream, she called Helena from her bedroom, helped her into her coat although at eight years o
ld she was quite capable of doing it herself, and put on her own hat and coat. She looked into her handbag to make sure she had her door key, and let herself and her daughter out of her flat, holding Helena’s hand going down the stone stairs, then turning towards her mother-in-law’s flat.
She could see Wilmott Street School. A small spark of life came back into her. Perhaps it would be better if Helena was there rather than with her. If she did burst into tears, the child would become confused and frightened.
Eveline blinked. How could she be having these ordinary, everyday thoughts after being told of Albert’s death, as if nothing had happened, even to the extent of being aware that it was an overcast morning and that she should have had an umbrella because it could rain?
‘Would you rather go to school?’ she asked.
Helena pursed her lips. ‘I’ll be in trouble for being late.’
‘I’ll come with you and explain to your teacher.’
Explain what? That she’d just heard her husband was missing, could be dead?
She didn’t think she could face the look on the woman’s face. She’d just tell her that Helena hadn’t felt well but was better now.
‘I’ll see Becky if I go into school,’ Helena said, brightening.
‘Yes,’ she answered absently and, crossing the street, made towards the school.
Children were singing their morning hymn in the main hall set below street level behind the railings as she went through the gate and into the glowering, three-storey building, still gripping Helena’s hand.
‘Mummy, you’re squeezing my hand too tight.’
She loosened her hold. The singing had finished. There came the low mumble of the Lord’s Prayer, then the door below her opened to emit a long, double file of children trooping up the wide, stone stairs like little soldiers, passing her to obediently file off to their respective classrooms.
There was Helena’s teacher, Miss Fisher, a spinster in her mid-forties. Eveline approached her. ‘Helena was feeling a bit sick this morning,’ she said, her voice flat and expressionless. ‘But she’s feeling better now.’