by Jane Bailey
(Not) In the mood
It is no fun to arrange meetings in this chilly, newly drab landscape; there is even a film of khaki moss on every tree trunk, as if the War Office has decided to put them in uniform. But I must see Tommy. I can’t bear to let him loose with his feelings after the humiliation in class, and yet I didn’t manage to catch up with him in the lane after school.
I’m told my dad’s home on leave and is going to pay a visit. That might cheer him up a bit. They can talk about war and stuff, and I know Dad will let Tommy come and live with us after the war. I know he will.
After school on Friday I belt off home and still Tommy’s managed to leave ahead of me. I run up the lane, panting through the stitch in my side.
“You coming up the farm, then, tomorrow?” I ask his back.
He turns slightly. “Might, then.”
“My dad’s coming! He’s on leave and he’s coming tomorrow!”
He slows down and watches me for a moment, as if hungry for some of my thrill, but then turns back and heads slowly down the lane towards the boys’ home, kicking a stone and muttering something about seeing me some other time.
“Tommy!” I look after him but just catch the last of his sullen profile as he turns his back on me. “Tom! Tommy!” His head is sunk so low in his shoulders that I reckon there are tears in his eyes. “You can meet him an’ all! I want him to meet you!”
If he hears at all, it makes no impression on the dejected figure walking away from me. I want to run after him, but Aunty Joyce is already at the door up the lane and calling me in.
I am up at sunrise, combing my hair, pacing the room, running to look out of the window every time there’s a noise. Downstairs Uncle Jack has polished my shoes. I am excused chores so that I can stay smart, and after breakfast Aunty Joyce gives me a newly ironed handkerchief with a rosebud on it.
At eleven o’clock he has not come. Dinner is delayed until one o’clock, but still he does not show up.
At teatime, I don’t feel like the Apple Surprise with ‘emergency cream’ that Aunty Joyce has made specially, because my throat is too stiff. Uncle Jack finishes it off for me.
At six o’clock Tabby Chudd sends a boy up from the post office to say that my father has telephoned. His leave has been cut short so he’s spending the day with my mum and the twins. He hopes to come and see me before he leaves tomorrow.
I don’t sleep, of course, but take the rosebud handkerchief to bed with me and try not to blow my nose in it all night. In the morning it doesn’t look so good.
After milking I sit down on a rusty old cart beside the barn and cry. Tommy finds me with my head in my arms.
“How’d it go, then?” His voice is unenthusiastic.
My shoulders are shaking but he doesn’t comfort me. I lift my head to see him shifting from foot to foot, looking coldly at the horizon, and I feel worse. “He didn’t come.”
The solace of my disappointment seems to soften him. He puts his arm around me and squeezes my bony limbs against his. Then I feel him tensing, and he catches his breath a little.
“It’s my fault,” he whispers. “I prayed for him not to come … and he hasn’t!”
I look up at his face and see that it’s blotchy. “Don’t be daft! God don’t answer prayers. I prayed for him to come. And he didn’t.”
We look at each other, confused by the Lord’s meanderings. “Why didn’t you want him to come?” I ask. His eyes are all pink. “And what are you crying for?”
He hangs his head very low, so low that it touches my forehead. Then, in a very shaky voice, he says, “I was afraid he’d take you away.’
“Take me away! Wish he could, but he’s got to go to the jungle!” I think he’ll be impressed by this, and intend to elaborate with tigers and malaria and man-eating snakes, but he won’t let go of his theme.
“But he’ll take you away one day. After the war, he’ll come and take you back ’ome.”
I lift my face and watch his lips say the words. And as I watch him he seems a bit like Popeye, breathing little wisps of heat, barely hinting at the vast pistons of fury that are smouldering inside and could explode at any moment. I feel a jab of indignation that he hasn’t revealed himself before, and a colossal sadness that I haven’t seen the depths of his pain.
I clasp his huge white knuckles between my hands and look at his face. He is a child, a small lost boy, hungry for a family, spoiling for love.
“You can come and live with us. I know you can!”
He gives a little scoffing sound. “No one would have me.”
“Why not?”
“No one would want me.”
“Why not?”
“Mr Fairly says so. He says lots of people want to adopt children but they never want Heaven House boys because we’re the bottom of the heap, and I’m the bottom of the bottom.”
I pull my head back to look at him, furious. “Well, who’s he when he’s at home, I should like to know!”
“He knows my mother and father left me there … They left me there because they didn’t want me. That’s what he says.” His voice has gone all high-pitched and breathy, and his eyes are flooding again.
“Well, that’s just crap – I’ve told you before. He would say that, wouldn’t he?”
“Well, why else would they leave me there? You’ve seen it. Would you leave a baby there?”
For the first time I think I imagine how he must feel: abandoned, unloved and cheated. I reach my head up to kiss him awkwardly on the side of his wet nose, and squeeze his knuckles tighter.
“Well, my Aunty Babs left a baby at the awfnidge. And d’you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because she wasn’t married. That’s why people leave their babies. And d’you know what?”
“What?”
“She never stopped crying about that baby, my mum says, and it’ll ruin her life if she tries to get it back, because no one’ll marry her, my grandad says, so she’ll just have to put up with it.”
He won’t be consoled so easily. “Well, even Miss Hubble is keeping her baby, and it’s black, and it’ll ruin her life for certain. The father was killed on Omaha beach. Fairly says no one’ll marry her now.” We are both quiet for a moment as we think about Miss Hubble. “You see, if you really love your baby, like Miss Hubble, you can’t give it away …”
“Yes, but she knows. Miss Hubble knows they never let you see your baby – not ever again. My Aunty Babs thinks hers’ll be going to a nice posh house where it’ll have servants and things and be much better brought up than what she could’ve done with no husband nor nothink.”
“But she’s wrong.”
“Yes. But who’s going to tell her?”
“Who even knows she’s wrong?”
“That’s the thing, see. Only people what’ve seen awfnidges know. And you can be sure your mum is thinking of you just like Aunty Babs and I bet she blubbers every time she sees a pram and has to go to the pictures a lot so’s she can cry in the dark and even her dishy boyfriend won’t suspect there’s anything wrong.”
Tommy is silent. He scratches the side of his head.
“And you can bet your bottom dollar none of you lot at Heaven House was left there by your mum and dad. My mum reckons they’re all Love Children at the awfnidge, that’s what she told my Aunty Babs. They’re called that because they’ve got only love to live on, and also because their mums love them so much they give them away so’s they can have a better life. That’s what you are, Tommy: you’re a Love Child. Means you’re loved more than anything.”
“A love child?” He looks wistfully at the distant brow of the hill, as if he is aching for my words to be true, for there to be the remotest possibility that he isn’t unlovable, and that somewhere out there, over the beechwood horizon, is a woman yearning to be his mother.
The sound of a motor makes us both look towards the road. We make our way down the lane to investigate and see a thin young man in khakis leaping down from a
truck.
“Daddy!”
He doesn’t look much like my dad, with his leathery tan and white crow’s feet, and he does things I have never seen him do before. For example, when I take him for a walk to show him about the place, he throws his arms up and gasps, “It’s so fuckin’ green!” and bursts into tears. I want to tell him it’s not at all green compared to the summer, but don’t see the use. There’s something disturbing about seeing your old dad crying. They’re supposed to swing you in somersaults, make their thumbs disappear, tweak your cheek and say, ‘Bloody Nora, you’ve grown, gel!’ But my dad looks away from me a lot, moved beyond words by gateposts and oak trees and Miss Lavish’s tricycle, and when he does look at me, it is an intense look, gobbling me up with his eyes and holding my head in his hands as if I were a miracle.
All this leaves me with the uncomfortable feeling again that things have changed and that, even when this war is over, things might never return to normal as I know it. It is almost a relief to have Tommy lurking around, and I introduce him as my best friend who is going to join the RAF.
They get on well, my dad and Tommy, until he goes and says, “Listen, son! When you’re old enough, you get yourself a job, mate. You don’t want to go fighting in no war, believe you me.You stay here in these lovely green hills and get yourself a family, son. And don’t you ever leave ’em. Not even for a war …” And then his eyes are all pink again, and Tommy doesn’t know what to say, and neither do I.
Aunty Joyce is all ruffled because he doesn’t stay long enough for a meal. He has to get to the station and hops on the truck after two cups of tea and the remains of the Apple Surprise.
Boogie-woogie bugle boy
It is December and the War Office has decided people need cheering up. There are parties everywhere, and it is generally felt that the war will come to an end at last.
The US signals base nearby throws a party for all the evacuees and Heaven House boys. We are each allocated a GI to take care of us all afternoon. Tommy is in seventh heaven because he was taken by jeep to the nearest airfield and got to sit in a Mustang: in the cockpit. I am given a ride on a motorbike and swung up on the shoulders of Ted Pearlman, a huge bear of a man from South Dakota, wherever that is. We eat cake and jam sandwiches, and at the end we are given an apple and sit watching a cine film on the History of the Modern Fighter Plane, followed by a Charlie Chaplin film, with the piano played by a giant GI.
I feel an excitement that is more than just party fever. I like being swung about by Ted Pearlman and I like the size of them all, their easy confidence and their smiles.The towns and villages are depleted of young men, yet here they all are, suddenly, in one big mass. Young men with as much energy each as the whole of Sheepcote can muster on a good day.
They drive us back to the village hall and when the grown-ups come to take us home, Ted Pearlman gives me chewing gum and chocolate and bends down to whisper in my ear.
“Hey, Chipmunk, is that babe with the blonde hair your Aunty Joyce?”
I nod, and he whisks me up in his arms, takes me to his truck where he rummages in a box, and gives me a slim packet of nylons. “You give these to your Aunty Joyce from a secret admirer. Don’t forget: a secret admirer.”
“A secret admirer!” I whisper. “Do I get any?”
“No, Chippers, you get the chocs.”
When I deliver the booty, Aunty Joyce beams uncharacteristically, and slips the nylons under some potatoes in her basket.
“You must never,” she admonishes with no conviction whatsoever, “take presents from a stranger.”
Just a few days later there is the Christmas party at the village hall. So many people want to come that it has to be changed to a new venue, and Lady Elmsleigh volunteers her large hall.
The Women’s Institute have spent all afternoon making it look festive. Paper chains which have been used at so many previous events that they are crumpled and faded have been strewn from wall to wall, along with wads of ivy, mistletoe and holly.
The hall quickly fills with the whole of Sheepcote, a crowd of RAF, GIs and several husbands and sons home on leave. The music is provided by Ronnie’s Razzlers (Ronald Tiffin is an ironmonger from Stroud who knows all the Glen Miller tunes) and the Sheepcote Sugar Quartet (a group of just three land girls singing in harmony).
At first people simply sway around, chatting and making sure they get their drink of cider or ginger beer. But as soon as the ash-baked potatoes and the upside-down pudding have been scoffed, the floor clears for the proper dancing.
The men change everything. There is real dancing – men with women – and the air is thick with sweat and musk. The daydream melodies develop a wolfishness I have never noticed when I hear them on the wireless, and people who usually sit quietly develop an unquenchable desire for movement. And it isn’t the cider that turns the women pink – for most of them avoid the cider, which is ‘like paint stripper’ according to Tommy – it is some mix of longing and the thrill of the rhythm, along with the barely concealed hunger of lusty young men who are far, far too close for comfort.
Lady Elmsleigh is there too, wearing a paper hat. When Ronnie’s Razzlers have a break from playing, she claps her hands and orders some chairs to be placed in the middle of the hall for musical chairs. A record player is wound up and there is a frenzied crush as children bump into each other and into chairs, but it all adds to the excitement as we hurl ourselves around the chairs in a great swarm, joined by every grown-up with a movable bone in their body. When the music starts we scream as we run, the butcher, the grocer, Face-like-a-spud and Baggie Aggie, Mrs Glass with the big fat arse and a GI, all of us squealing in delight to the drowned-out record player and the promise of a pile-up.
When it is established that the music has stopped, bodies are everywhere, pushing and nudging and sitting on top of each other, three to a seat. Because of the lack of chairs, each chair is allowed to hold two people, one on the lap of the other, and the pilots and GIs act swiftly to provide the laps, while the ladies fight feverishly to sit on them.
I find a place on Ted Pearlman, and Miss Lavish (hooting with laughter) is sitting next to me on a GI. The next time, I get to sit on the vicar, and Tommy (the person I was aiming for) is sitting on the lap of Aunty Joyce. I can smell her hot familiar body from underneath her short-sleeved sweater, and I want her to say something to him. I say, “Careful, Tommy, you’re crushing Aunty Joyce!” He looks round, but she shows him her profile and her perfect jawline.
The music starts and stops again, and when I’m out I stand on a table at the back swigging ginger beer and watching. There are only eight chairs left and seventeen people. Ted and Aunty Joyce are still in, and he is shadowing her, determined to nestle her behind on his manly thighs. ‘The Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ keeps going for a tantalizingly long time, but Ted keeps up his position, and when the music comes to an abrupt halt, ‘… won’t you choo-choo me –’ he plonks himself right down in front of her. She makes to go for the next lap, but Miss Didbury is being snuggled by a farm labourer, and on the other side Betty Chudd is nuzzling a rakish Wing Commander. People start shouting, “In front of you! In front of you!” But Aunty Joyce stays rooted to the spot like someone who has seen a ghost, and Mrs Glass scampers round the whole circuit of chairs to beat her to it.
No one can make it out. People are laughing, calling Joyce dozy, a daydreamer. I feel a sudden pang of protectiveness. Some people in front of me whisper that she’s lost it completely since her daughter died. Uncle Jack, standing by the door with the vicar, looks worried. But then I see it has nothing to do with what is going on: probably sorting out the numbers for the Sunday school party, and the vicar is nodding so vigorously that it is clear he couldn’t care less.
I see Aunty Joyce heading for the kitchen. I know what she’ll do there, and it’s strange: of all these people who have known Aunty Joyce for years – even her own husband – not one of them knows why she didn’t take the last place in musical chairs, but I know. I
know for certain when I see her coming back out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her skirt.
At first I think that she’s just afraid of falling in love with Ted, or afraid that he might fall in love with her, or afraid that Uncle Jack might get jealous. But now I see it clearly, although I still don’t understand quite how it works: Ted Pearlman is contaminated.
Gossip: The city charmer, the farmer, the man in the moon
It is the last knitting group before Christmas and Aunty Joyce cannot come. Instead I walk down to the village hall with Miss Lavish. I help her to carry the mince pies (except there is no mince so they are apple, and they’re cold so we’ll have to warm them on the stove at the back of the hall).
“Your Aunty Joyce all right, love?” asks Mrs Chudd.
“I think so,” I say. “Just a bit busy.”
“She looked a bit off colour at the party, that’s all. Didn’t seem quite herself.”
It’s aimed at me, but I say nothing.
“She a bit off colour round the house?”
“Not off colour – just odd,” says Baggie Aggie. “Queer behaviour if ever there was.”
“Did you see it an’ all? In that musical chairs? Crumbs, she was daft as a brush, she was.”
“She ’asn’t been the same since … you know what.”
There’s a murmur of agreement. I’m not sure if I’m completely invisible yet, so I keep my head down, and pretend to count my ribbing.
“Still, we’ve all ’ad our grief,” says Mrs Marsh with a twitch of her moustache, and she should know.
“And none so much as you, Dot. None so much as you.”
“’Strue,” agree the others.
Needles click quietly for a while.
“Still …” Mrs Chudd ventures, “Our Betty reckons she married the wrong man, and I must say I’m inclined to agree with her.” She purses her lips, awaiting the reaction to her mischief.