by Anne Doughty
‘Good for you, Johnny,’ Emily said reassuringly. ‘And we’re all going to enjoy this Christmas. Live every day as if it were your last, as they all say,’ she went on, ‘but just don’t go getting indigestion and spoiling it if you can avoid it.’
No one did get indigestion, she reflected, as she cleared the cooling racks from the kitchen table and sat down to write. The only opportunity for excess was the huge pile of roast potatoes from her own plot and the carefully stored carrots and sprouts. The goose would serve eight with care, but it had to last for a meal on Boxing Day as well.
It was fortunate that none of her children had ever liked plum pudding, for she herself had always found it much too heavy. In the past, at Christmas, she’d made trifle or fruit pudding or even golden syrup pudding by special request, though she hadn’t seen Golden Syrup in the shops for a long time now. This time there was only one possible pudding she could offer them.
‘Worth banging your head for, Johnny?’ Jane said.
‘Absolutely,’ he replied.
He picked up his spoon, gathered up a collection of the jewel like fragments of well-set red jelly and allowed them to fall, one by one, back down to the swirl of cream that sat atop the sherry trifle in the best sundae glasses.
‘I’ve waited a long time to do that,’ he said, lifting his spoon in salute to his mother.
‘A good thing is worth waiting for, so they say in these parts,’ said Alex, with a sideways look at both his son and daughter.
Her first letter that afternoon was to her ‘other Jane’, her new-found sister-in-law.
Tuesday 18th January,
1944
My dear Jane,
Christmas is now fast becoming a happy memory. We loved your card and had it in pride of place beside the clock where it marked your place given we couldn’t have you yourself with us.
You were very much in our thoughts. Every time I caught sight of Johnny laughing and teasing his sister, or talking ‘war talk’ with his father, I thought how nearly we might have lost him. And how much nearer you came to loosing your dear Lachlan. It is such a lovely Scots name you’ll have to forgive me if you find the beginning of Hank, scratched out, when I remember that this dear man has different names in different places.
I’m so grateful that he was flown back to America. I know the hospital is a long way away and visits must be tiring, but at least you feel you can get there if he needs you and I’m sure the telephone is a comfort. I’m very impressed with him having a telephone in his room. Here, I fear, telephones often don’t work even if you have one, or you get cut off in mid-sentence without even the warning of the pips. Do the doctors really feel that he would be better off with an amputation and an artificial limb? It is such a big decision.
And how are your other two sons? I have found out that the Ottawa Cameron Highlanders have an association with the Winnipeg Rifles and we have a battalion of them only a few miles away. The Canadian Air Force is based mostly in England, but there are certainly many Canadian troops here in Ulster apart from our friends at the Castlewellan Camp that I’ve told you about. My sister down in Fermanagh says every second person she hears in the street is Canadian or American.
Our friend, Chris Hicks, did manage a visit on Christmas Day. We knew he wanted to meet Jane and Johnny and it was a rare opportunity with their leave coinciding. He asked most kindly about Hank (Lachlan) and said how much he had valued him. He asks me to send you both his regards and to say to you: ‘That’s one fine young man, ma’am.’
Your dear brother Alex is hard at work, but somewhat less pressed than he was before Christmas. He’d had a bad time, which he didn’t tell me about, due to high levels of illness which lowered production. But he solved the problem by adopting the wise strategy of one of his senior spinners. She told him where he could find women to step into the breach now and also provide him with a part-time reserve for the coming year.
I confess I do worry about the long hours he works, but I also have the comfort of knowing he is well and eats properly. How many women have that comfort in these difficult times?
Now, I must see about an evening meal. The snow began a couple of hours ago and is beginning to be quite serious about laying a thick carpet over everything. Not like your snow in Canada which I know you measure in feet. Or even in Boston which I’m told is kindlier. But snow still makes life more difficult and for most people here it brings a sudden desperate longing for the spring.
Do you suffer from that longing as well? There seem to be so many things we share, weaknesses as well as strengths. It is a great joy.
I do hope your John is feeling better after his flu and that the news continues good from both Chester and Andrew. I shall be writing to Lachlan later this week, but will send it care of you as I forgot to ask you for the address of the hospital.
With love from us both to all of you,
Emily.
The snow continued intermittently through Wednesday and Thursday, but when Emily drew back the curtains on Friday morning she found a thin, mizzling rain already pitting the smooth contours that covered hedge and bush. She could hear the drip of water from overflowing gutters. Later, when she tramped through the slush to the bird table she found the air had lost its icy chill.
She could now breathe more freely in both senses of the word, for a winter picnic had been planned at the community hall in Seapatrick and at this rate by late morning the roads would all be clear. Even if the footpaths were wet and muddy, it would make life easier for everyone if they didn’t have to carry bags and boxes over slippery pavements.
The picnic itself went well, the practiced routine never failed to create a lively good feeling, but she felt tired afterwards as she packed up plates and dishes, loaded her shopping bag and basket and gave them to the pale young man who stood to attention when she spoke to him, but had been a great success all afternoon with his impersonations of Superman.
It was so good to be home with no more to do than put a match to the fire and listen for Alex before she lit the gas under their champ. It was Alex’s idea that they have a picnic themselves in the evening if she was busy with a picnic in the afternoon.
He was a little earlier than usual and in good spirits.
‘Here you are, read that,’ he said, taking an envelope from his pocket and dropping a large brown paper bag on the table.
Dear Mr Hamilton,
On behalf of all the women from Hazelbrae, and some others as well who have all signed below, we would like to thank you for making us so welcome at your mills. It was very good of you to insist that we bring our children and grandchildren to the Christmas party at Millbrook, even though we had only just joined your staff. And only temporary too.
Some of us would have been in difficulties at Christmas with bills we could not pay, but you have helped us out there.
We are most grateful to you and would like you to accept this small gift which comes from us all.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ she said warmly. ‘What did they give you?’
By way of answer, he pushed the brown paper bag across the table.
She opened the bag and looked inside.
‘Alex! Where did they get these?’
‘I thought I’d better not ask, but the whisper was they all had odd bits of shirt in their work boxes and it took them till now to get the pieces they needed. You said the shirt situation was getting serious. Those will help, won’t they?’
‘My goodness,’ she said happily. ‘Saville Row label and all. These will last for years! Oh love, what a lovely surprise.’
‘That and a bowl of champ and Sam’s turf on the fire …’
He broke off in the middle of taking off his dungarees as he heard the phone ring.
‘It’s all right, I’ll take it while you struggle,’ she said, laughing as she went out into the hall.
She switched on the light and seeing how dim it was bent down and picked up the torch that sat on the floor beside the phone table in case the p
ower should fail. The receiver was cold to the touch and there was a moment of complete silence as she put it to her ear.
‘Hallo, Hallo, is that you, Ma?’
‘Lizzie,’ she replied, surprised and pleased, ‘how lovely to hear you. Have you come over on leave?’
‘No, Ma, I’m in London, but I’m in someone else’s office and I may get cut off …
There was a loud noise in the background and a sudden crackle on the line. Emily knew she had missed some words, for Lizzie had gone on speaking unaware of the crackle on the line.
‘What did you say, Lizzie?’
‘I said I’m sorry it’s such bad news.’
‘What bad news?’
‘About Cathy and Brian …’
‘But what’s happened?’ she asked, anxiety stabbing her as she realised suddenly what the noise must have been.
‘It was a direct hit, Ma. There’s nothing left at all. They wouldn’t have known a thing,’ she said, her voice tight with anxiety. ‘I’m afraid I have to go. This line is priority. I’ll send you the notification, but I can’t do anything more. Sorry and all that,’ she added apologetically, as the line went dead.
Emily looked at the heavy black receiver as if there were more words in the earpiece could she only reach them. But she couldn’t. There weren’t any more words to be had. It had needed so few. And now a strange silence flowed all around her. Like the snow, it had come at last, the enormity of loss she had always feared.
She felt Alex’s hand on her arm as he took the receiver and put it down.
‘Who, Emily? Who is it this time?’ he asked, his face featureless in the dim light.
‘Cathy and Brian,’ she said, the words coming out without the slightest difficulty.
‘Dead?’
‘Yes. I think it was an air-raid. There was an explosion, so I couldn’t hear the first time,’ she went on, wanting to share with him the smallest detail.
‘Who rang?’
‘Lizzie.’
‘Lizzie,’ he repeated, with a great sigh. ‘I wonder how she came to be there.’
‘I think they still see each other occasionally, but I don’t ask. It’s between her and Lizzie.’
She stopped and thought again. She couldn’t say that any more.
‘I mean it was between her and Lizzie.’
In the dim light, she couldn’t see if Alex had tears in his eyes, but he looked pale and she felt herself shiver. The hall was stone cold. Once again there was no paraffin and the convector heater had cut out as the supply fell.
‘Alex, we mustn’t stand here. Let’s sit by the fire,’ she said, putting her arm round him and urging him towards the sitting-room door.
The fire had burnt up and the room was full of the faint aroma of turf. Its flickering flames reflected in the well-polished furniture and caught the gold and white blooms of the Christmas chrysanthemums lasting so well in the chilly room.
‘What are we going to do, Emily?’ he said bleakly as they stood warming themselves at the fire.
‘I think we have to give thanks for all they had,’ she said reaching for his hand, ‘Like Johnny said at Christmas to Jane, ‘we’ll have enjoyed so much.’ They did, Alex. They were happy. Happier in this last year than they’d ever been.’
‘And that’s been taken away,’ he said bitterly.
‘Yes, it has. But the loss is ours, not theirs. They had what they had and it was good. And they went together, Alex, as we would if we could choose. They were not parted.’
‘No, they were not parted. That’s some comfort. But not much. And it seems we’ve lost Lizzie as well. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of a kind word for us.’
‘No, there wasn’t,’ she agreed. ‘I think Lizzie’s given up kind words. But we haven’t. We’ll just have to be very kind to each other,’ she said, putting her arms round him and holding him close.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The hardest part on that Friday evening after the first overwhelming shock of Lizzie’s phone call was trying to decide what to do for everyone else. Jane and Johnny to begin with, then friends and family. They wondered if Lizzie had also been in touch with Brian Heald’s family, whom they’d never met. Emily wasn’t even sure she had an address for them as they’d had to move twice in the last year, having been bombed out earlier in Manchester.
They forced themselves to listen to the Nine O’clock News so that they would at least know what was going on in London. It was no comfort at all to hear that the attacking force of over five hundred assorted German planes had been manned by such inexperienced pilots that only a small number of bombs had fallen on the city itself and that few of them had dropped in the areas outlined by flares. No casualty figures were quoted, but forty enemy planes had been shot down.
The wireless was in the kitchen and when they switched off, Emily moved to the stove.
‘We must eat our supper, Alex,’ she said firmly, lighting the gas.
‘Like good children,’ he said, unexpectedly.
‘Like the way we did the night Ritchie died,’ she replied, glancing up, as she stirred the champ, the most good-natured of meals they had ever neglected.
‘Would you drink a hot whiskey?’ he asked, remembering the bottle of Jack Daniels Chris had brought them when Johnny went missing.
‘I’ll drink a hot whiskey with you, if you’ll eat your champ with me,’ she replied, as she lifted the empty kettle from the stove and gave it to him to fill at the sink.
‘I think we should do nothing tonight, Alex,’ she said, as they put the bowls back on the tray. ‘It will have to be one step at a time.’
‘Will it be any better tomorrow?’ he asked, his shoulders drooped, his head bent.
‘Yes, it will. We’ll have survived that much longer. We’ll have kept afloat like Johnny did. Something may come to help us, and if it doesn’t, then we’ll just go on helping each other.
Sunday 23 January, 1944
My dear Jane and Johnny,
This is a letter with bad news which will make you both very sad. Cathy and Brian were killed on Friday evening during the raid on London which you’ll have heard off by now. It was a direct hit on the house where they have the top flat.
It was Lizzie who rang us, but she had only a few minutes on the phone and even then there was an explosion in the background, so we were able to say very little to each other.
The only fact that is of any importance is that they are gone, together, as they would have wished. There is nothing whatever we can do to change that. We cannot even attend a service or send flowers. None of the customary rituals will be available, and they might not help us much anyway.
What might help us all is to remember what Johnny said to Jane before Christmas ‘When I’m gone, I’m gone but we’ll have enjoyed so much.’
You may wonder why your father and I did not contact you on Friday. We’re not quite sure either. I think we just feel that the steadier we all keep the better and we were both exhausted that evening even before the news came.
Fatigue is a bitter enemy that gangs up with all that is unhappy, so perhaps we were trying to avoid that, for ourselves and for you.
I don’t normally write joint letters as you know, but it seemed so appropriate this once. We hope to hear from you by letter or phone when you’ve had a chance to collect up some of those precious things you shared with Cathy and Brian to help you stitch up the sudden tear in the fabric of your lives that this bitter news will have brought.
With love from both of us to both of you,
In the week that followed, Emily and Alex had to allow the community in which Cathy had grown up to speak about their grief. People long forgotten contacted them. Sunday School teachers and Brown Owls. Primary Teachers and Girl Guide leaders. Librarians and shopkeepers. They all looked at the obituary in The Leader and thought ‘Ach, that’s wee Cathy Hamilton, the parents will be in a bad way.’
With the kindness that is one of the most admirable qualities of Uls
ter people and the vigorous directness that often leads to their worst excesses, they took up their pens, got out their bicycles, harnessed the pony and trap, or took the bus to the foot of Rathdrum Hill and made their way up to knock at the front door, in a constant stream that led Emily to wonder why a kitchen door could not serve at such a time.
The minister of Holy Trinity suggested a memorial service which Alex courteously declined, pointing out that so many had died from the local villages that he felt it was not appropriate. But he did provide the material requested for the parish magazine, who were fulsome in their praise of a girl who had worked hard, had many friends and had become a very good teacher.
He could not afford to take time off work with bad weather at sea and urgent new orders together creating delays and pressure on the mills, but Emily was grateful when she saw that his work was a comfort to him. She wasn’t entirely surprised, for she knew of old the solidarity men like Robert Anderson could offer without saying a word beyond the exchanges of everyday.
A week on from the evening of Lizzie’s phone call, the first Friday in months she had not been driven to a winter picnic, she peeled potatoes in the dim and chilly kitchen and listened for the car in the drive hoping that he was still as steady as he had been when he left that morning.
He was coping well as far as she could see and she had not done so badly herself. The stream of visitors had been exhausting, but their memories of Cathy and their warmth towards herself had brought real comfort. But that would stop. Suddenly, without any warning, somewhere in the next few days the stream of well wishers would melt away, she would be left alone with the silence, the silence that had flowed in all around her when first she’d heard the news.
February was bitterly cold. Although there was more sunshine than in January, the strong light only served to sharpen the images of frosted leaves and twigs and trees. The countryside was thinly skimmed with white but it was frost, not snow, and the cold bit deeper, the house never warm, Emily feeling a chill she’d never felt before.