Avalanche of Daisies

by Beryl Kingston

  So he and his new daughter-in-law walked off together under the same umbrella. It was raining steadily and the terraces were monochrome in the fading light, grey roofs, grey walls, grey rain.

  ‘She’s in a bit of a state,’ he apologised. ‘With Steve goin’ off an’ everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ Barbara said shortly. ‘I know. I miss him too.’

  He was beginning to recognise that her bold expression was a cover for distress but, having been answered so sharply he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so they walked on in silence. Outside Mabel’s house, as they waited for someone to answer the door, he passed the umbrella to her and on impulse, bent beneath it to kiss her cheek. ‘Don’t be late back,’ he warned. ‘She means what she says. We do turn in at ten.’

  He’s trying to help me, Barbara thought, warming to him. But she barely had time to smile at him before a shadow darkened the stained glass, the door was flung open and Joyce was standing before them, yelling back into the house. ‘Mum. It’s Uncle Bob!’

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said. ‘You’ll be all right with Mabel.’ And was gone before she could draw breath.

  ‘I brought the hat back,’ she explained, holding it in front of her.

  ‘Oh!’ Joyce said shortly, giving her a most unwelcoming stare. ‘You’d better come in then.’

  The kitchen was full of people but, to Barbara’s great disappointment, Betty wasn’t one of them. Aunt Mabel was sitting at her sewing machine with both feet on the treadle busily turning a pair of worn sheets side to middle, Hazel was doing a jigsaw with the pieces all over the chenille tablecloth and Joyce had been darning a lisle stocking, which she’d left on the sideboard with its needle stuck in the toe, and which she took up again as soon as she got back in the room. And sitting at the table, drinking a cup of tea, was the fat aunt from the wedding – Aunt Sis, wasn’t it? – round face, shrewd eyes, snub nose, dark spiky hair, surrounded by a strong smell of sulphur and cigars, and looking fatter than ever in some sort of railway uniform.

  ‘Hello Barbara!’ she said. ‘I thought Bob was with you.’

  ‘He walked me round,’ Barbara explained. ‘Thass all. I brought Betty’s hat back.’

  ‘She’s out dancing,’ Aunt Mabel said, biting off the thread. ‘I’ll tell her. Everything go off all right?’

  ‘You’re back early, ain’tcher?’ Sis said and nodded at the chair beside her. ‘We wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow.’

  Barbara sat down, feeling very out of place. ‘He had a letter,’ she explained. ‘This morning. He’s had to go back. He’s been recalled a day early.’

  ‘That’s the army for you,’ Sis said, making a grimace. ‘How was the bungalow?’

  Barbara’s feelings were on the boil again, bubbling and confusing. So much had happened since she woke that morning that it was hard to realise that the day had begun in the bungalow. But she made a great effort and managed to tell Sis it was ‘lovely’ and to thank her for the things she’d sent in the trunk. ‘I’ll wash the sheets an’ towels as soon as the trunk comes,’ she promised. ‘We ate all the food.’

  ‘That’s what it was for,’ Aunt Sis said, and she took a cigar from her jacket pocket, lit it with a great deal of smoke and enjoyment and puffed on it as she went on. ‘So I gather he’s gone already, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So whatcher gonna do with yourself while you’re waiting?’

  ‘That’ll only be for a day or two,’ Barbara hoped.

  ‘Tell yer what,’ Sis said. ‘If you’re still here next Saturday morning, Joyce and Hazel could show you round the shops. It’s pretty lively round here of a Saturday. Our Betty works in Woolworths. Did you know that? You could all pop in after, an’ see her an’ have a cup a’ tea. They got a caff there. You’d like that.’

  Joyce and Hazel didn’t look at all pleased by the suggestion, so Barbara hastened to assure them that she wouldn’t need their services.

  ‘That all depend on what he says in his letter,’ she said. ‘I mean, I might not be here by Saturday.’

  ‘Be something to look forward to if you are though,’ Sis said, ‘wouldn’t it?’

  That had to be admitted, despite Hazel’s frown. This aunt was plainly the sort of person who was used to getting her own way.

  ‘Well that’s fixed then,’ Sis said and turned her attention to other matters. ‘Mrs Cronin’s boy got his call-up papers yesterday. Did I tell you, Mabel?’

  ‘I know,’ Aunt Mabel said. ‘I met her in Davey Greig’s this morning. Reckon he’s going in the RAF.’

  Barbara sat in her chair by the fire and felt more and more out of place as the gossip went on. She didn’t know any of the people they were talking about, Joyce and Hazel kept giving her funny looks, and Betty wouldn’t be back for hours. But she could hardly stand up and walk out, not when they were all busy talking, and not when she’d only just arrived. She was relieved when Sis stubbed out her cigar, made a useless attempt to brush the ash from her uniform and announced that she’d better be off.

  ‘I ought to go too,’ Barbara said, glancing at the clock to support her departure. ‘I’m s’posed to be in by ten.’

  ‘I’ll walk along with you,’ Sis offered. ‘It’ll be pitch black out.’

  So they left together and the entire family came out into the half-lit hall to see them off.

  ‘Don’t forget Saturday,’ Sis said to the two girls, as they kissed goodbye.

  And Barbara asked her new aunt Mabel to give her love to Betty. ‘Tell her thanks for the hat.’

  ‘I will,’ Mabel assured her, brushing her cheek with an awkward kiss. ‘Mind how you go.’

  It was a sensible warning for, once outside the house, it was extremely dark.

  ‘Grab an arm,’ Sis instructed, offering her elbow as they walked down the path. ‘Got a torch, ’ave yer?’

  The rain had stopped so they carried their umbrellas hooked over their free arms so that they could hold their torches one on each side of them like headlights. The air smelt of dust and soot and the blackout was total. At first Barbara could just about make out the gleam of white paint that marked the edge of the curb but as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she began to glimpse the outline of roofs against moonlit cloud and to sense garden walls and privet hedges even if she couldn’t see them.

  ‘I wonder what our Steve’s doing now,’ Sis said suddenly.

  Hearing his name made Barbara ache to be with him again. ‘That won’t take him long to get us a flat, will it?’ she hoped.

  But Sis didn’t say no, the way she expected. Instead she plodded on as though she was deep in thought.

  ‘I do miss him,’ Barbara confessed.

  ‘’Course you do, duck,’ Sis said comfortably. ‘That’s natural.’

  In the darkness it was possible for Barbara to say things she wouldn’t have dared in the light. ‘I wish he weren’t in the army. I know he had no choice but I wish he weren’t.’

  ‘I felt the same way about my Percy,’ Sis told her. ‘Re’glar army he was. He never had much of a choice neither, poor bugger. He was out a’ work fer two an’ a half years. Signed on in ’32. Seven years in the colours, five in the reserve. An’ then this lot come along an’ buggered everything up an’ they packed him off to France an’ that was that. Thirty-seven he was. He’d’ve been forty-one last week.’

  ‘I know what happened to him,’ Barbara said, tingling with sympathy and foreboding. Wasn’t that just what she was afraid of? ‘Steve told me. I’m ever so sorry.’

  ‘War, you see,’ Sis said. ‘Don’t give none of us a chance. We just have to put up with it. I’ll tell you what though, gel, once we’ve won, we’ll make damn sure it don’t happen again.’

  ‘That’s what Steve said,’ Barbara remembered.

  ‘He would,’ Sis nodded. ‘He’s a good lad.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She sounded so bleak that Sis felt compelled to cheer her up and she did it in the best way she knew.
‘It’ll all be different after the war,’ she said. ‘We’ll have full employment for a start. That’s the answer. A proper job a’ work for everyone. No more hangin’ about street corners with nothin’ to do. No more idleness. Mr Beveridge hit the nail right on the head about that. He said it destroys wealth and corrupts men. One a’ the five giants, he called it.’

  Barbara didn’t know what she was talking about and she was missing Steve so much she couldn’t listen with any attention. The words flowed over her, ‘Five giants. Giant Idleness. Giant Want. Giant Disease. Giant Squalor. Giant Ignorance … if we want a better world when we’ve put a stop to Herr Bloody Hitler, we’re gonna have to fight the lot of ’em … You read it, have yer?’

  The question was so direct it had to be answered. ‘What?’

  ‘The Beveridge Plan.’

  ‘No,’ Barbara admitted. ‘I haven’t. Should I have?’

  ‘It’s Steve’s Bible. There’s a copy on his bookshelf.’

  They’d reached the corner of Childeric Road and paused to smile at one another in the torchlight. ‘Well look after yourself, kid,’ Sis said.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Sis said after a pause for thought, ‘I could get you a job an’ all, if you like.’

  There was just enough light for Barbara to see the gleam of her brown eyes. ‘Thass ever so kind,’ she said, ‘but I shan’t be here long enough.’

  ‘No,’ Sis agreed, but her voice sounded vague. ‘Well bear it in mind. Just in case it don’t work out the way you’ve planned. Let me know when you get your letter. I’m easy to find. I’m in the booking office most days, New Cross Gate. An’ if I’m not there, I live over Green’s the newsagent’s. Just up the top a’ the road. You can’t miss it.’

  Barbara wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to kiss her goodbye or not, but decided to risk it. And was quite pleased to be kissed in return.

  Sis shone her torch onto the face of her watch. ‘It’s three minutes to ten,’ she said and grinned. ‘You’d better look sharp or she’ll lock you out. Hope you get your letter all right.’

  It arrived, as promised, first thing on Monday morning, just as Bob was leaving for work. And it crushed them all.

  This won’t be much of a letter because I can’t tell you where I am or what I’m doing. The camp is sealed which means that all mail is being censored and that there will be no further leave so there is no point in looking for a flat. This is just to let you know I’ve arrived and to send you all my love. Stay where you are. Mum and Dad will look after you. I will write to them tomorrow but warn them not to expect any news. We are very busy here, waterproofing our vehicles. A damn sight too busy. Still at least it keeps us occupied. Write soon. I miss you more than I can tell you.

  All my love.

  ‘The invasion’s coming, ain’t it?’ Barbara said. There was such a pain in her chest she could hardly breathe. ‘No further leave … waterproofing our vehicles.’ It could be any time. Oh dear God, any time. But not yet. Please not yet. Let me see him once more before he goes.

  For a second, watching her daughter-in-law’s smitten face, Heather felt sorry for her, but then that chin went up and she put on that awful bold expression and her compassion melted away. ‘Yes,’ she said, distress making her brusque. ‘It is.’

  ‘Write an’ tell him not to worry,’ Bob suggested, offering what comfort he could. ‘Tell him you’ll be all right with us.’

  Barbara was still looking at the letter. And she was remembering what Sis had said to her. ‘Just in case it don’t work out the way you’ve planned.’ She knew this was going to happen, she thought. She was warning me, offering me something to do if I had to stay here. Thass why she told the girls to take me round the shops. And fixed for us to have tea with Betty afterwards. She knew.

  ‘What’ll you do now?’ Heather asked. With a bit of luck she might go back to King’s Lynn.

  There was no doubt about the answer to that. ‘I shall get a job. I can’t sit around all day doing nothing. I’d be better occupied.’

  They were both surprised but Bob approved at once. ‘That’s the ticket,’ he smiled. ‘Don’t you think so, Heather?’

  ‘Very sensible,’ Heather said, but she was thinking, if she gets a job here we’re stuck with her, and that didn’t please her at all. ‘Ah well,’ she said. ‘I suppose we’d better get that boiler lit. We got the washing to do, an’ I’m back at work tomorrow.’

  Chapter Nine

  That afternoon, when the washing was on the line, the flat was dank with steam and the bathroom walls were still dripping water, Barbara put on her cardigan and walked out into the summer sunshine and down to New Cross station with Steve’s letter in her pocket.

  Aunt Sis was in the booking office, where she’d said she would be, busy at the window with her rack of tickets behind her. She read the letter between serving passengers and gave it back with a rueful expression on her round face.

  ‘You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?’ Barbara said.

  Sis nodded. ‘I had a rough idea, duck. Yes, sir? Single to Crystal Palace.’

  She was so calm about it that Barbara found it was possible to ask her the awful question, the one that had been filling her mind ever since the letter arrived. ‘How long will it be before they …?’

  The answer was honest. ‘Not long, I shouldn’t think. It’ll depend on the tides. Day or two. Week at the most. What will you do? Stay here or go back to Lynn?’

  They had to wait until another passenger had bought his ticket before Barbara could answer. ‘Stay here. You said you could get me a job.’

  The understanding between them was quick and easy. ‘That’s right,’ Sis agreed. ‘What sort a’ job d’you want?’

  Barbara had considered that on the way to the station. ‘Demandin’,’ she said.

  ‘How about being a clippie?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tram conductor. It’s the sort a’ thing I do, only you’ll be on the move. Yes, madam? Return and two halves to London Bridge.’

  Barbara stood aside to allow the woman to buy her tickets and watched as her two boys kicked one another while her back was turned. ‘Yes,’ she said when they’d taken their quarrel down to the platform, ‘sounds just the thing.’

  ‘I’ll call for you after work,’ Sis said, ‘an’ we’ll go an’ see old Charlie Threlfall. He’s the feller. Good union man our Charlie. Seven sharp.’

  Old Charlie Threlfall worked in the New Cross Road tram depot, which was a large square vaulted building hidden behind the shops on the south side of the High Street. Trams buzzed busily in and out through an unobtrusive entrance but inside they stood in line on rows of parallel rails, patient and empty like liners in dry dock. Barbara liked the place on sight. It was important and dependable and very busy. There were drivers and clippies everywhere she looked, all in navy-blue uniforms, the drivers wearing enormous leather gloves, the clippies with wooden ticket racks full of coloured tickets slung across their chests like a row of campaign medals. If I can work here, she thought, I shall be kept too busy to sit around an’ mope.

  Mr Threlfall was short and stout and walked with an odd bouncing gait like an Indiarubber ball. He was checking in the latest arrivals, carrying a clipboard in his left hand and a pencil in his right, but he waved when he saw Sis and called out that he’d be with her in a minute.

  ‘Brought you a new clippie,’ Sis called, when he came bouncing across the yard to them. ‘If you still need one.’

  He tucked his pencil between his cap and his ear. ‘Still need two, as a matter a’ fact,’ he said, and then turned at once to his new applicant. ‘Done much a’ this sort a’ work have you?’

  ‘No,’ Barbara had to admit. ‘Afraid I haven’t.’

  ‘She’s from Norfolk,’ Sis said. ‘Married our Steve.’

  Now he’ll notice my accent and think I’m a country bumpkin, Barbara thought, and she wished her new aunt didn’t have to be quite so outspo
ken.

  Mr Threlfall smoothed his greying moustache thoughtfully, right side, left side. ‘Need a bit a’ training then,’ he said. And before she could open her mouth to point out that she was quite prepared for it, he asked, ‘When could you start?’

  It was all so quick. ‘Tomorrow,’ she told him, covering her surprise by boldness.

  The boldness pleased him. ‘Capital,’ he said. ‘You can follow Mrs Phipps around for a day or two. See how you get on. She’ll show you the ropes. There’s nothin’ to it really, once you get to know the fare stages. You’ll soon get the ’ang of it.’

  They’re all so quick and confident here, Barbara thought, watching as two trams buzzed out into the evening sun, one after the other. And she made up her mind that that was how she would be too.

  But the next day, when she reported for duty, she felt very far from confident although she put on a brave face. It seemed to her, as she stood beside the office waiting to be given her orders, that she was the only person in that vast place who didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing, and her ignorance made her feel insignificant and small, as though she’d shrunk to half her size. But she’d made her decision and she’d manage, somehow or other. No matter what she might be feeling, there was no doubt about that.

  Mrs Phipps turned out to be a small, skinny woman in her forties who brisked out of the office and told her that she’d soon pick things up, which was reassuring, and to come this way, which was aboard the third tram along. But it was a bewildering ride, for she assumed that Barbara knew the fare stages because she lived in the area, and she did everything so quickly it was hard to keep up with her. I’ll need a map, Barbara thought, as she followed her mentor about. But she could hardly keep looking at a map when she was supposed to be punching tickets. And as the journey continued, she was alarmed by how many passengers asked for directions and wanted to be told when they’d reached their stop. Mrs Phipps knew every stop and every street and could give directions and sell tickets at the same time. But how would she manage to do it?

  That night she wrote a long letter to Steve. A long careful letter, for she’d decided not to let him know how nervous she’d been. That would only worry him and she’d soon get over it. So she told him that she’d started the job and learnt how to clip the tickets and that she was feeling quite at home on her great rocking vehicle. ‘That’s like a ship at sea,’ she wrote, ‘the way that moves. Good job I come of a family of fishermen and I don’t get sea-sick!’