‘I’m getting better. I never thought I’d be a housewife.’
‘So, what did you think you’d be doing?’
‘I don’t know. The same as before. Getting by.’
‘And now you’re stuck here in England without me, and I’m off to fight the Hun. It wasn’t in the plan.’ He put down his fork, but his eyes refused to meet hers. ‘I didn’t think for a minute that I would have to be a soldier.’
Afterwards, they sat looking at the fire, her legs draped over his knees, Jonathan tracing his finger over her face and squeezing her warm hand.
‘I will be back, you know,’ he said. ‘I won’t leave you here forever.’
‘Of course you’ll be back.’
‘And I want you to know, I didn’t go to America looking for a wife. You aren’t my souvenir. I fell in love,’ he said. ‘Real love, and I mean it.’
They went to bed early, their heads swimming, as Jonathan carefully hung up his uniform, smoothing out the collar, and he looked more naked than naked, if that were really possible, as he stood at the foot of the bed, pushing his hand through his hair.
They made love, but it didn’t feel right. It was too significant, their heads full of other things, the danger, the loneliness, the early-morning train.
He looked closely into her face, remembering the first time he’d seen her, in that warm pale sunshine. A man was playing the violin. A sad song. He’d seen her hair first, and then she’d turned to him and smiled, the postcards fanned like tickets in her hands.
If it hadn’t been for the rain, it would have felt like a holiday. The women looked for shelter, with a good view of the train. The children waved their handkerchiefs, still smelling of tobacco from their father’s pockets, thrilled when the khaki men waved back, though most of them were busy with last kisses, or relighting cigarettes. Somewhere along the platform, a woman had lost her earring, and a man with arms like a prizefighter wiped a lick of soot from his mother’s ashen face. A chestnut seller appeared, sparks flying from his brazier. Pennies were found. Hands quickly warmed. And then, suddenly, there was the cheering, as the train belched, with its windows pushed down, and card games already in full swing were interrupted by this first big goodbye, followed by laughter, slapped thighs and the relief. Did you see that woman in the dress that showed everything? Off at long last. No more nagging from the missus. None of the other either, though my mate Sid tells me there are plenty of women over there up for it, French, but never mind, I wouldn’t mind trying out a foreigner.
The crowds were left with a gap where the train had been. Some waved at nothing. Beatrice rubbed her wet sleeves, her arms aching and her teeth chattering, wondering if he’d even seen her at the end, through the crowds, and the rain. His head was just an outline through the steamy carriage window.
‘They seemed happy enough,’ said Madge. ‘Like they were going on a trip out to the races.’
‘Some trip,’ said Ada.
‘They’ll be all right, won’t they?’ said Madge, still looking at the track.
‘They’ve had training,’ said Ada. ‘They’re not completely green.’
They walked in silence to the bus that had been laid on for the villagers, a gesture of goodwill from the motor company. The driver looked old and arthritic, chewing on a short clay pipe, his overcoat steaming.
‘Chin up, ladies,’ he said. ‘Best thing a man could ever do is fight for his country.’
Beatrice closed her eyes. The bus smelled of wet dog and stale cigarettes. She had a headache. She’d had a letter that morning, from Jeffrey.
Dear Mrs Crane,
Forgive me. I am a changed man, and the army suits me after all. Unlike the others I was sent to Aldershot, and by the time this letter reaches you, I’ll be somewhere in the thick of it. I’m with a good bunch of lads. The CO, a man called Cragg from Preston, knew my father, and it’s helped.
Please forget that night and all that I said. I don’t know what I was thinking. Do write to me every now and then if you can manage it. Let me know how you are. They say all this will be over soon enough. The morale here is high, and we are ready for it. Give my very best to Jonathan when you are next in touch.
Regards and all that,
Jeffrey Woodhouse
She thought about him. She couldn’t really imagine him carrying his heavy pack, or charging with a bayonet as if he really meant it. But there were other roles in a war, and Jeffrey was an artist. Perhaps by now he was sitting in an office somewhere, behind a desk, designing propaganda leaflets in the warmth?
She took off her rain-sodden clothes. Her goodbye dress was a wet lump on the floor. The dye had stained her camisole, and her shoulders were smudged with small indigo bruises. At the foot of the bed her trunk was empty and full of stale air. It had been bought especially for the trip to England, and her new initials had been burned into the leather.
‘B.C.,’ they’d said at the store. ‘Your trunk will look ancient.’
She opened it up; it was deep, like a miniature cardboard room, and she quickly, instinctively, stepped inside, pulling the lid over her head, like the girl called Eva had done twice nightly (three times on weekends) outside the Dragon’s Gorge, and her lover, Solomon Finkle, dressed in a starry purple cape, would lock her inside and throw away the key, showing the crowd that there were no holes whatsoever, no escape routes, not even a pinhole for breathing. And then he’d dance and play the clarinet, while the crowd stared hard at the very small trunk, until suddenly, after what seemed like forever, the lid would fly open, and lo and behold, there she was, smiling and pretty, and not out of breath, the red feather in her hair all springy and perfect, and the crowds would clap and clap and clap, they were so relieved to see her.
Beatrice felt safe inside the trunk. The dark was thick, like a blanket, and she liked the smell of leather, mothballs and the fading scented soap flakes, but her legs were longer than Eva’s, and so, with her teeth chattering, she pushed her way out, groping for a towel.
‘I hope you don’t mind me calling on you like this,’ said Lionel. ‘I wanted to pay my respects. Have you heard from Jonathan?’
‘Not yet.’
‘It’s a sad time for the village; for the country as a whole.’
‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘the children will miss their fathers, wives will miss their husbands, and the mills will have no one to work the machinery. The world’s a dark and different place. The blacksmith’s gone from the farm. He’s gone to shoe horses in France. It looks to me like the women will have to take over.’
‘You know how to shoe a horse, Mrs Crane?’
‘I could learn.’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, there won’t be any horses. The army are taking them away.’
‘All of them?’ she said.
‘Every last one.’
She looked towards the window. The clock chimed two. Suddenly, she wondered where Jonathan might be.
‘He’ll be back before you know it.’
She gave a small smile. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I have to think about the others. Those who have children, they must be suffering the most.’
‘Now that’s something to look forward to,’ he smiled, lifting his cup from its saucer. ‘Having children of your own. A family.’
He’d left soon after, looking strangely uncomfortable, suddenly remembering something else he had to do. She thought about Madge and Lizzie, and their children. And then Ada. Lizzie had told Beatrice about Ada’s four babies who were lying in the churchyard.
‘Tiny things they were,’ said Lizzie. ‘All girls, and all not much bigger than your hand.’
The rain was hypnotic. It hadn’t stopped for days. Wrapped in one of Jonathan’s weekend jackets, she sat at the window with her nose in the collar wondering how she’d keep going in this place of soil and water. The reservoir was like an icy sheet of metal. In the summer (and it seemed so long ago), there’d been rowing boats, and all-day picnics. If you chose the right s
pot, underneath the hanging trees, it was almost like being at the seaside, and so private that she and Jonathan had stopped just short of making love on a scratchy tartan blanket.
America, she supposed, was where she’d left it, that jagged grey curve on the horizon, though she’d no real proof, and the postman usually disappointed her, with his lack of real letters. She hadn’t heard from Nancy again, and the few letters he did bring were usually bills, or reminders, or statements from the bank account.
‘One letter. Just one real letter,’ she would mumble, pacing up and down. ‘Half a letter. Three words on a postcard. Shucks. What am I saying? Any word.’
‘Have you seen how the labels have changed?’ said Ada. ‘Same food inside of course, or so they’re telling us, but instead of the usual, we now have Jack Tar salmon, Patriotic pear halves in syrup, and Victory jellied pork tongue.’
‘Who are they trying to fool?’ said Madge.
‘I like the new tins,’ said Lizzie. ‘I feel like I’m doing my bit.’
‘What? Buying pork tongue with a soldier on the label?’
‘Talking of doing your bit,’ said Beatrice, ‘I was wondering if any of you had thought about taking some employment. For the war effort,’ she added.
They looked at her. ‘I’ve got a job,’ said Ada.
Lizzie chewed her lip. ‘What do you mean? What kind of employment?’
‘I don’t know. A nurse? Or there might be things that need doing on the farm,’ said Beatrice. ‘The cows must need milking.’
‘They’ve only three cows left, and Ginny does all that,’ said Ada. ‘She’s been milking cows for years.’
‘I have the little ones to think about,’ said Madge. ‘And my mother. They rely on me.’
‘Well, sure they do,’ said Beatrice. ‘I should have thought about that. So, it’s just me then. You think I should do something?’
‘Oh, yes, you should,’ said Lizzie smiling. ‘You’d look lovely in a uniform.’
She stopped the two o’clock bus and went into town. Women in dull-coloured clothes stared at their murky reflections, or glared at the pale-faced man at the back, clutching at a library book, looking at his knees.
‘Asthmatic,’ he said to no one in particular, when the bus stopped. ‘I’m exempt.’
Beatrice walked behind girls wheeling ash carts. They were whistling. Others shouldered creamy joints of beef, their new-found tender muscles pushing hard through their sleeves.
At the market the fish were sparse, lying between cans of sardines and lobster packed in Newfoundland. They looked nothing like the fish that had sat in chipped ice behind the counter at Franny’s.
‘Brought in this morning at Fleetwood,’ said the man with a wink. ‘Fresh as a daisy. Honest. How about a nice piece of cod for your supper? Your husband over there? The fish will cheer you up. You have to keep yourself going, or he’ll have nothing to come home to.’
Across the road, the pharmacy sat glittering between V. Edgar Jones Tobacconist and an empty-looking bakery. She stood at the window, with its mirrors and jars. A sign said, Buy British Goods. There was an advertisement for indigestion pills, and she wondered if Jeffrey might have painted the kind-looking nurse, holding out a perfect pink hand containing a box of the pills, To Keep You All In Comfort.
The air was sharp, the sky a wash of blue, and soldiers on leave stood in clumps, cheeks pink, their uniforms slowing girls down like soft khaki magnets. Prickling with cold, she bought Cinema Chat from the news-stand, and then, feeling somewhat frivolous, she bought a couple of gramophone records and a tin of new needles. The girl behind the counter looked at her as if she was wasting her money.
‘This is an old one,’ she said. ‘“Everybody’s Doing It”? Well, they’re not any more,’ she sniggered.
A cold wind howled that night, banging at the windows where the curtains moved with the draught, nudging at the ornaments. Beatrice was dancing. She was drinking last year’s elderberry wine and dancing around the furniture, her eyes flashing, her hair floating loose, flying up from her head, like cotton.
When the record had finished, she slumped into a chair, looking at the ripples in her wine glass. She wrote letters in her head. Are you in France yet? Or Belgium? Did they send you off to Belgium after all? Have you heard them talking in French? And Nancy, where are you? Did the man who tapped nails into his hands come back to the boardwalk, or did they hide him in a booth, away from all the ladies and the children? He was a strange one all right. Is Ray’s lemonade still sour? Did they shoot any elephants? What’s the weather like? And what about Franny? Is she still sweet on Mickey Toomer? Did he buy her that fine silk dress that she’d been swooning over? Are the mussels still cheap? Is France how you thought it would be? Were the guidebooks right? Do they eat frogs’ legs? Are you scared?
She fell asleep in the chair, with the glass in her hand. She woke just after two, shivering; the fire was out and the room was so dark that she thought for a moment she was somewhere underground.
Wrapped in a blanket, Beatrice watched the postman moving slowly up the lane. He kept scratching the side of his face. When he reached her door, she could hear him clearing his throat, and the letters sliding onto the tiles with an icy rush of air.
She had to look at them in order. That was her rule. She had to open them in turn without cheating. The first was a bill from the coalman; his smudged black fingerprints were all over the tatty-looking invoice. There was an advertisement for a second-hand furniture sale. A bookseller was getting rid of stock. And then there it was. The familiar slanted handwriting. Her cheeks flushed. It was almost like she could hear him.
30 March 1915
Dearest Beatrice,
Just a few lines to let you know that I am still very much alive and in the pink. The weather has been cruel to us; we’ve had snow, sleet and frost. When the snow falls, it falls thick and fast. Of course it does make things difficult at times, but it’ll soon be the spring and I knew that it wouldn’t be easy.
Well, Bea, you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve been promoted. They were right. It didn’t take long. I don’t know what the lads think. Best not to boast about it. I was supposed to go back to Sandhurst for training, but they needed me here, and so I’ve had to learn the hard way, on the job.
How are you keeping? Fine and well, I hope. I got your parcel. Everything in one piece, and we all enjoyed the toffee. The little things make a big difference over here.
I have to end this now.
My love to you.
Keep well, keep going.
From Jonathan xxx
She wiped her hand across the page. It was strange to think that he’d touched this paper, and that her parcel had reached him, all that way; it had found him, over the Channel, in a hidden part of France. Her husband was fine, and alive, and he was talking to her. Throwing down the blanket, she pulled on her coat and her grey wool gloves. She was smiling.
The farmer was sitting on the doorstep, blowing into his tea.
‘There won’t be any money,’ he said. ‘Though we can feed you. We need help all right. Jack’s in France. Paul and the rest are God knows where, being trained for God knows what. There’s just me and Ginny, and Jed. My wife isn’t well. She’d help me out if she could.’
‘OK, so what would you like me to do?’
‘Are you strong?’
‘Strong enough.’
‘You’ll have to see to the pigs, and those pigs can be brutes. We’ve no horses left, but they let us keep some of the cows and the pigs and the handful of chickens. And then there’s all the carrots. They’ll want washing and sorting and bagging. The hotels are still fussy. And the hospital. They like their carrots clean because it saves them time and money.’
‘I can do that.’
‘Come back on Monday. Ginny will find you some overalls. You’re not one of those women averse to wearing trousers?’
‘I’ll wear anything,’ said Beatrice, ‘if it’s right for the job.’
&nb
sp; On Sunday Beatrice sat in her usual pew, watching the women as they arrived, their best shoes tapping, their hands fluttering over their musty prayer books. Soldiers in uniform sat at the back, their smiles fixed, their eyes like a flat stretch of water, while their women held tightly onto their sleeves.
‘Beatrice?’
‘Ada?’
‘Have you heard from Jonathan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jim says he’s been promoted. What is he now, a sergeant?’
‘Beats me, he didn’t say.’
‘Why didn’t he say?’
‘He didn’t have the time.’
‘He has stripes?’
‘Maybe.’
‘A medal?’
‘There was no mention of a medal.’
‘So what did he do for his stripes?’
‘Ada, I’m sorry, I really don’t know.’
‘It’s probably the way he talks,’ said Ada, moving away. ‘That’s what it’ll be. He’ll have done nothing more than talk nice. Those bigwigs in the army must think he’s one of them.’
The Reverend Peter McNally looked his sombre, war-weary self. He’d been praying extra hard, visiting war widows at all hours of the day and night, and dreaming about Iris, who never went to church and was a sinner. He looked at the congregation with heavy bloodshot eyes. The whisky was medicinal – Dr Burke had told him there was nothing better for insomnia – and so he’d hidden a peppermint inside his cheek as he talked about peace and bravery, and John the Baptist walking through the wilderness. He read a few psalms. Someone yawned. Heads turned. Then the choir stood up, the boy on the end pulling at his surplice, his stomach rumbling for the mutton stew his mother had waiting on the stove, as the reverend read out the names of the valiant missing, presumed dead, while the choir sang ‘Abide With Me’, and all the handkerchiefs came out.
Outside, the soldiers were shown off, and then quickly pulled away. Beatrice shook the reverend’s limp hand, saying nothing. Lizzie was smiling because Tom had written.
‘And he drew a funny little picture for Martha. It’s her birthday tomorrow. We’re having a tea party, nothing fancy of course, we couldn’t be doing that, not now, but you will come, won’t you?’
Angel of Brooklyn Page 8