Candles in the Storm

by Rita Bradshaw

  Daisy sat on for some time in the quiet kitchen when Tommy had gone to bed. There was talk of conscription for married men now, where was it all going to end? Two of the three old couples she had visited that evening had lost sons and grandsons in this war; as one of the old gentlemen had said, ‘It’s not just them as die out there that stop livin’, lass. Me wife used to be a big girl, but since we lost our two lads she’s nowt but skin an’ bone. Don’t want to go on, see?’

  She had seen, and her heart had bled for the old woman who had looked at her with vacant lost eyes.

  After a while she cleaned the girdle and put the kitchen to rights, preparing Tommy’s bait-can for morning before she went quietly upstairs. She paused at his open bedroom door, looking across at the boy who was fast asleep under his eiderdown, one arm flung out across his pillow as always. The temperature could be minus ten and thick ice coating the inside of the window, but still that arm would be out.

  She walked across, as she did most nights in the winter, to tuck it under the covers again, but this time she stared down at the sleeping form. His hands had been so plump and dimpled as a baby, so soft and small, but now it was a man’s hand she was looking at. She reached out and took his fingers in hers, looking down at the rough oil-stained skin that spoke of his work in the machine shop. She stroked the callused flesh gently. Pray God this war would be finished before he was eighteen and called up. Pray God . . .

  When Daisy got home from work the next evening she knew immediately something was wrong. Tommy was always back before her, usually with one or all of his pals in tow, and invariably the house was filled with chatter and activity. Tonight it was cold and empty.

  She called his name as she walked through to the kitchen, and then she saw it. A note propped against a vase of flowers. And the breakfast things had all been cleared away, the crockery washed and the table scrubbed. Something was terribly wrong.

  She picked up the note and sat down hard on a kitchen chair, her heart pounding in her throat as she slit the envelope open. She read the single sheet of paper it contained right through to the end, but in fact she had known the minute she’d seen it what he had done. Oh, Tommy. Tommy. She screamed his name in her head.

  A frantic knocking at the front door brought her to her feet, and when Phil’s mother all but fell into her arms on the doorstep Daisy had to help her through to the living room.

  They had lied to the recruiting sergeant, all four of them, and even now were on their way to France. They had all been well over the minimum height of five foot three inches admittedly, but the sergeant must have known they were still just bairns, Phil’s mother moaned. But the army didn’t care whether they were old enough or not, that was the thing. By, if she could get her hands on that man for just one minute . . .

  Daisy listened to the woman going on and on, feeling frozen with fear. Tommy hadn’t gone to work that morning. He had joined up the day before and now he was gone, they all were. And not one of them a day over fifteen.

  She had gone into the kitchen to make them both a cup of tea at some point, and there she had read his letter through again.

  Don’t be mad, Mam, but I have to go. I’ve wanted to for months and months and I can’t wait any more. I’ll be all right, I promise, but you never know when it’s going to end and I don’t want to miss it.

  He didn’t want to miss it. Oh, God, God, help her.

  I’ll write as soon as I can and please don’t worry. I’m doing what I want to do. I’ll see you again soon. Love, Tommy

  Daisy spooned tea into the pot, adding the hot water and then placing the kettle back on the hob. She put the teapot, along with the milk and sugar and two teacups, on to a tray, and then she saw the bait-can on the side of the cupboard. It was standing all alone, the top half open and hanging forlornly to one side . . .

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  It was May, and a brilliantly sunny Sunday the day before had marked the start of a new scheme to put the clocks throughout Britain forward an hour at two o’clock to launch ‘daylight saving time’ as it was officially known.

  This scheme would produce hundreds of thousands of tons of extra coal for the war effort by lengthening working hours, and, apart from vehement objections by farmers, the prospect of lighter evenings had been welcomed generally. Daisy had left for work that morning knowing that in spite of the late meeting which took place every Monday, she would be returning home in daylight.

  In the three months since Tommy had been gone, she had often thought she would have gone mad with worry but for the exacting nature of her job. Tommy’s letters home said little to worry her, but she would have expected that. However, she knew full well the true character of the war. The newspapers had long since finished their first love affair with it and were now full of reports of men being slaughtered in fruitless offensives. Women were receiving letters from loved ones who spoke of being driven out of their wits by living with the unrelenting bombardment and daily likelihood of a violent death.

  All over the country people lived in dread of receiving a black-edged telegram, and it had shocked everyone in the north east when just three days ago Ann Gilmore from Blackburn had committed suicide by cutting her throat. She had had four sons at the front, the newspapers had reported, and when her fifth and only remaining boy had been called up, the poor woman’s mind had snapped.

  There were few mothers who would have been unable to identify with Mrs Gilmore’s desperation, and when Daisy had read the item she had again thanked God, as she had done so many times over the last weeks, that the hours she spent at work were so full and hectic they left her little time for brooding and worrying. Her job carried a great deal of responsibility which could be daunting at times, but now was just what she needed.

  Daisy was one of the thousands of women who had just entered government service for the first time. The traditional male clerk with his quill pen and copperplate handwriting was now holding a gun in his hands, and the female shorthand-typist had taken his place.

  In the first year of the war it had become clear that the hand-to-mouth growth of welfare associations in the country had resulted in chaos in local authorities up and down the land. Daisy’s last job before her present one had been as private secretary to the manager of a bank, and when she had started work for the local government board three months into the war, she had needed all the efficiency and diplomacy she had acquired. But she had soon settled in and found she loved the work.

  Once in the pleasant office she shared with her boss, Mr Newton, chief coordinator between Sunderland’s branch of local government and the military as well as the local community, Daisy set about the pile of correspondence she knew would be waiting for her.

  Mr Newton was an unmarried man of fifty years of age to whom work was an obsession. But for the fact that first thing every Monday morning he met the mayor he would already have been at his desk when Daisy arrived, and would work long after she left, even though she often stayed late now Tommy was gone. But he was a nice man, his sense of humour reminding her of Mr Shelton’s, and the two of them got on very well. He had been wonderfully understanding when Tommy had up and enlisted and thrown her all at sea.

  Mr Newton arrived at the office mid-morning and as usual dictated steadily until just before lunchtime, Daisy’s pencil flying over the pages of her notebook. At twelve she left the office in the town hall and walked along to Binns the cake shop and restaurant which was situated next to Binns the store, with two of the other girls. Since Tommy had been away she had taken to eating her main meal of the day at lunchtime in the restaurant, rather than cook for herself at night.

  She listened to the two other girls who were considerably younger than herself discussing their respective sweethearts and what they had got up to at the weekend, but did not join in the conversation. Not that they expected her to. When she had first worked for Mr Newton one of the girls had said to her, ‘We’ve all been trying to work out why you aren’t married or courting, looking
like you do and with a head on your shoulders an’ all. You could have anyone you liked.’

  She had smiled and replied she was happy as she was, thank you very much, and it hadn’t been too far from the truth then with Tommy still at home.

  Now, as she continued to sit there, she wondered - as she had done more than once in the last weeks - what she would do with herself in the future. When Tommy came home - and she always thought when, never if - she would be lucky if he lived with her for more than a few years before he found himself a wife and got his own place. And that was good and natural and as it should be.

  But she was only thirty-one years old. Daisy shifted restlessly in her seat, moving a piece of potato round and round on her plate. She wanted to meet someone one day, get married, have a family with her husband. She wanted - oh, she didn’t know what she wanted. The moon she supposed. But the last weeks had shown her that the house was just a building without Tommy and the others to turn it into a home, and she didn’t want to live in a building for ever. Neither did she want to turn into a grumpy old woman, or the sort of mother-in-law who had no life of her own and was always calling in on their children whether they were welcome or not. She could work her way up even higher within local government, of course, now jobs were opening up for women who were dedicated and determined in a way which wouldn’t have been dreamt of before the war. But would that be enough? She thought of the cold, empty house she went home to every night, and shivered.

  Once back in the office Daisy worked quietly and competently. It was just before ten to six when she finished the last letter, placing the thick pile of correspondence in front of Mr Newton as she said, ‘I’ll set the chairs out, shall I? They’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Aye.’ He nodded without looking up. ‘Didn’t realise that was the time. Thanks, lass.’

  Within five minutes several of the leading lights of the town had filed into the room. The original intention of the Monday meeting had been to iron out problems due to the war which might be occurring in the factories and shipyards day by day, to ‘keep on top of the damn’ nit pickers’ as Mr Newton himself put it.

  Daisy had just seated herself at her desk, notebook at the ready to take the minutes once the meeting began, when she heard Lionel Bainsby, an advocate of industrial welfare who frequently irritated Mr Newton, say, ‘I’ve brought a friend along who’s home on leave, Edwin. All right if he sits in a corner?’

  Daisy lifted her head, and there, standing in front of her, was the moon.

  ‘Hallo, Daisy.’

  Hallo, Daisy. A stillness took possession of her body, a stillness which mercifully enabled her to swallow and say quite normally, ‘Hallo.’ One word, and not as she had imagined it sounding when she had pictured this meeting in her mind over and over and over again. It was flatly said. Not cool and collected. Just flat.

  She stared at William and he stared back. He was more handsome than ever but different, very different. He had been little more than a youth when she had seen him last, but the person in front of her, looking at her with eyes that were still as beautiful as ever but now with a crystal hardness, was a full-grown man. He looked bigger, broader and taller, with a mature air that spoke of a wealth of experience. There wasn’t an inch of spare flesh on him and she noticed, with a curious little jerk in her heart, that the fair hair was liberally sprinkled with grey. His face had taken on some lines, a couple of crevices radiating from his mouth as deep as sabre cuts. He must be, what, approaching forty? And still more attractive than any man had the right to be.

  Daisy knew she ought to say something more and was aware of Lionel Bainsby staring at them with interest, but she couldn’t speak. It was William who broke the silence and still he did not smile when he said, ‘You have not changed at all.’

  ‘Thank you but you flatter me. It has been thirteen years.’

  ‘Not quite. Not until December.’

  Her eyes widened ever so slightly and she prayed the pounding of her heart was not apparent as it began to drum against her breastbone. William was in uniform. Why that suddenly registered she didn’t know, but it enabled her to say more formally than she had thought herself capable of, ‘You are in the army?’

  He nodded. ‘For the last twelve years. I am home briefly to see my father. He is not well.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And your . . . husband? Is he in the forces?’

  ‘My . . .’ It was a full ten seconds before she could say, ‘I am not married.’

  ‘Not married?’ His brow wrinkled but then Lionel Bainsby took his arm, drawing him across the room as he said, ‘Edwin, meet Captain Fraser, Captain William Fraser. William, Edwin Newton.’

  When William walked back a moment or two later and quietly took a seat by the door, Daisy felt the colour sweeping over her face. He was now on the perimeter of her vision and by moving very slightly she managed to cut him out completely. Nevertheless, every nerve in her body was vitally aware of the big figure across the room and her hands were trembling so much she could barely hold her pencil, let alone transport the squiggles and dots in her head on to the lined pages of her notebook.

  An hour later she had pages full of double Dutch she had no hope of translating and tension had produced an ache in her neck which was radiating pain in all directions. Mr Newton wound the meeting up, and at this informal stage of the proceedings Daisy normally put her notebook away in her desk and made her goodbyes, the men invariably leaving as a group and spending an hour or two in a public house before they went their separate ways.

  She tidied her desk quickly, put the cover on her typewriter and walked across to the coatstand in a corner of the room for her coat and hat. As she did so she was aware of William speaking softly to Lionel Bainsby, and of the other man - his voice louder - replying, ‘Of course not, old man. Quite understand. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

  Her head was buzzing, and as she was about to slip into her coat she felt it being taken out of her hands.

  ‘May I?’ William’s voice was still soft and low.

  It was either let him help her on with the coat or cause a scene. ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was clipped, and Daisy did not look at him as she began to do up the buttons, neither did she glance at him when he said, ‘Might I be permitted to escort you home?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Please, Daisy.’

  And he needn’t talk like that, in such a soft, smoky tone, either. What did he expect her to do, for goodness’ sake? Smile and thank him for deigning to remember her after all these years? Fall at his feet in humble adoration? She knew she was being irrational but she had never wanted to hit someone so much in all her life. He had broken her heart, didn’t he realise that? And just to assume he could walk her home as though they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a while. It was . . . it was a typically Fraser action. Arrogant and high-handed.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have things to do.’ She raised her eyes at this point, steeling herself to meet the piercing blue.

  ‘Tomorrow then?’

  ‘I have things to do tomorrow too.’ She bent forward and picked up her handbag, turning away, but then he brought her round to face him with a restraining hand on her arm and again they were staring at each other. ‘Daisy . . .’ He hesitated. ‘What’s wrong? Can’t we talk?’

  What was wrong? She was burning with anger and hurt and a hundred and one feelings she could never have put into words, but she managed to keep her voice cool and clipped as she said, ‘No, William, we cannot talk.’

  ‘Well, at least that’s an improvement on Mr William,’ he said, unforgivably.

  He was mocking her? How dare he! How dare he treat this as though it was a game, something amusing.

  Over the last years Daisy had learnt a lot about freezing out annoying and persistent callers who were pestering her boss; now she brought all that experience to the fore. Her voice icy, she said, ‘I mustn’t keep you from your friend any longer. Goodnight.’

>   This time he did not stop her, and she managed to call out a fairly normal ‘Goodnight’ to the rest of the company as she left. She was aware that Mr Newton was staring at her, and that although the other men were being more tactful they must all be wondering what the little tête-à-tête between Newton’s secretary and Lionel Bainsby’s military friend was all about, but she didn’t hurry as she walked across the room and out of the door. She was not going to scurry away from his presence like a confused little mouse, she told herself grimly, aware her cheeks were hot and her hands were shaking now she was outside the room. She was a grown woman of thirty-one, not a young lass bedazzled by the lord of the manor.

  All the way out of the building she kept her back straight and her chin high, but once outside in the busy street where she soon blended into the anonymous crowd, reaction set in. She wanted to cry and that horrified her. She couldn’t do that, not in the street, she told herself. It was just the shock of it all that had upset her, that was all.