Octavia's War

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘There you are,’ Emmeline said, listening to it. ‘Now we shall be all right. They’ve come to look after us.’

  The all clear sounded at a little after three o’clock.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Emmeline said. ‘Now you can get back to bed and have a bit more sleep.’

  ‘What about you?’ Edith said. ‘I hope you’re going back to bed, too.’

  ‘No, not just yet,’ Emmeline said. ‘I’m just going to pop down the road and see if I can lend them a hand.’ And when Edith looked astonished, ‘It’s all right. I shall wrap up warm.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ Edith asked.

  ‘Probably not,’ her mother admitted, ‘but it’s necessary. This is a wicked war and we’ve all got to help one another.’

  She didn’t get back until four hours later and then she came shivering into the kitchen with her boots covered in mud and brick dust and a tin hat on her head

  ‘It’s snowing quite hard,’ she said. ‘Terrible to be bombed in the snow. Makes it all so much worse. Poor things. I’ve been helping them out of the wreckage and finding their things for them.’

  Her granddaughters were impressed. ‘You mean actually pulling people out?’ Barbara asked. ‘We saw them doing that last time, didn’t we, Mum. When we came out the underground.’

  ‘Me and the rescue teams and the nuns from St Teresa’s,’ Emmeline told her. ‘You never saw such comedy turns as those nuns. They were all wearing tin hats and rubber boots and they’d tucked their habits right down into the boots. Splendid women. They gave me this.’ And she took off her hat and put it on the kitchen table. ‘The old people’s homes were hit,’ she explained to Edith. ‘You know, the Catholic ones on The Downs. Nothing left of one of them. They’re still lifting off the rubble. It’s going to take hours, so Mr Cadwallader was telling me. I shall go back again when I’ve had some breakfast. Is there any tea?’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ve ever been so surprised,’ Edith said to Octavia when she rang that evening to find out how they were. ‘When the sirens went I thought we’d have screaming and crying and I don’t know what all, but no, off she went as cool as a cucumber. Can you credit it?’

  ‘What’s she doing now?’ Octavia asked.

  ‘In bed asleep,’ Edith told her. ‘I’m the only one awake.’

  ‘Well, look after yourself,’ Octavia said. ‘It’s worrying to think of you being in the middle of an air-raid.’

  ‘We’ll be fine, Aunt,’ Edith said. ’We’ve got Queen Boadicea to look after us.’

  Queen Boadicea took them down to the cellar the following night when the sirens went again. This time she made a pot of tea and brought that down with her too. ‘Cup that cheers,’ she said, pouring it out for them. ‘Drink it up while it’s hot.’ She did the same thing two nights later when they had their third raid and by the following night it had become part of their routine. And then, as abruptly as they’d begun, the raids stopped.

  ‘Well, thank God for that,’ the royal lady said when a week had gone by and nothing had happened. ‘Now perhaps we can get down to cleaning the house and then we’ll have a special tea to celebrate because you’ve been such good children. I must see if I can make a fruit cake. How would that be?’

  They told her it would be smashing and Joan wanted to know if Aunty Dora and David were coming.

  ‘We’ll all be coming,’ Edith said. ‘Now eat up your breakfast, like good girls, or you’ll be late for school and we don’t want that.’

  ‘There’s the post,’ Barbara said. ‘I’ll get it.’

  It was a most exciting post and kept them all happily occupied for the next ten bubbling minutes. Margaret had passed her scholarship and was hugged and patted and praised until she was breathless. And then just as the girls were finally putting on their coats and getting ready to leave the house, the phone rang and it was Dora with the news that David had passed too.

  ‘Well, aren’t you all the clever ones,’ Emmeline said. ‘Now we have got something to celebrate. I’ve got to make a fruit cake now, haven’t I? It only needs your Aunt Tavy to come home and everything will be right back to normal. Won’t she be pleased when she hears!’

  In fact, their Aunt Tavy was lonely, and hearing their good news made the loneliness worse. Of course, she told herself it was silly to be feeling like that when she was in a house full of friends and colleagues and pupils but it was true no matter how sternly she took herself to task about it. During the day it wasn’t so bad because she was too fully occupied with the needs and emotions of her pupils to pay attention to what she was feeling herself but at night, when she’d retreated into her small cramped room and lay in her unfamiliar bed looking round at the boxes full of books and papers that she hadn’t had time to unpack, loneliness washed her to weeping. It felt unnatural to be staying in the school building at the end of the day and not going home to Em and her ‘nice cup of tea’ and she missed the chatter and closeness of her family, especially now when they had something to celebrate. And then of course there was Tommy, who’d been quite cross when she’d rung to tell him what she’d done and had seen at once that it would make difficulties.

  ‘I mean, it’s not exactly convenient, is it,’ he’d said. ‘I can hardly come down and stay with you in a school house.’

  She supposed not. ‘But I can come back to Wimbledon now and then.’

  ‘Now and then?’ he’d said crossly. ‘We need more than now and then.’

  ‘I’m sorry about it, Tommy,’ she’d said, ‘but I had to do it. I couldn’t let Em go on the way she was.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think much of it,’ he said.

  He’d changed his tone by the time he rang again. ‘Don’t even think of coming up to Wimbledon,’ he warned. ‘The Blitz has started up again.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Edith told me.’

  ‘We caught a packet round here,’ he said. ‘Are they all right?’

  She told him how well Emmeline was coping.

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ he said. ‘I told you she was tough. But you stay where you are. You mustn’t come up. Not under any circumstances. I don’t want you getting bombed.’

  ‘I shan’t get bombed,’ she said.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he said sternly, ‘because you’ll stay in Woking. You will won’t you, Tavy?’

  He’s remembering poor Elizabeth, she thought, and promised to stay where she was, ‘for the time being anyway.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Now, I’ve got a bit of news for you. I’m going to be a grandfather. Joan and Mark are expecting.’

  That made her smile, as much with relief at his change of tone as amusement at his change of status. ‘I can’t imagine you as a grandfather.’

  He laughed. ‘Nor can I but that’s what I’m going to be.’

  ‘When’s it due?’

  ‘Beginning of March, so he says. He reckons it’ll just about be born before the Second Front begins and they send him off to France.’

  ‘Is it so close?’

  ‘Yes, it is, according to the most reliable estimates. They’re bringing the Desert Rats home to spearhead the attack.’

  Octavia thought of Ben and Lizzie. ‘All of them?’ she asked.

  ‘Quite a contingent, I believe. Crack troops, you see. Experienced.’

  I wonder if Lizzie knows, Octavia thought.

  Lizzie had known even before the news filtered through to the Foreign Office.

  It’s still only a rumour, Ben had written, and we’ve had these sorts of rumours before but this time I really think we’re being sent home. Fingers crossed.

  She’d lived in a state of exquisite tension ever since, watching for the post and quite unable to concentrate, waking early every morning to sit by her window and look out over the dark trees and the dew-grey lawns and think and hope. Let it be true, she prayed. Please God let it be true. Let me hear today.

  She heard a fortnight later. He was coming home and, even better, he was bein
g posted to Abingdon, a few short miles away.

  I’ ll see you at the station as soon as I can get a pass, he wrote. And then I shall put in for some leave. God knows I’ve earned it. Love you, love you, love you.

  She was waiting at the station for half an hour before his train came in. She’d cut a lecture and excused herself from a tutorial and washed her hair and put on her lipstick and when his train finally chuffed in, she was hopping from foot to foot with impatience. And then suddenly, there he was, jumping out of the train, still in uniform and looking darker and older, holding out his arms to her.

  ‘Oh Ben!’ she cried as she ran. ‘Darling, darling Ben. I thought I’d never see you again.’

  He kissed her fiercely and hungrily. ‘Nor did I,’ he said. ‘Do you have a room somewhere?’

  The question put her into a panic. We can’t go there, she thought. It’s not possible. Men aren’t allowed. It was one of the strictest rules. But he was looking at her with such urgency and she loved him so much and she hadn’t seen him for such a long time. And anyway rules were made to be broken, weren’t they? It would be running a terrible risk but what was that compared to the risks he’d been running all this time? ‘You’ll have to say you’re my cousin or something,’ she warned. ‘And we’ll have to be really quiet.’

  ‘I don’t care what I have to say as long as I’m with you,’ he said and kissed her again. ‘Come on.’

  She knew it was a bad idea when they reached the lodge and she had to tell her first lie to the porter and felt absolutely dreadful about it. And when they were in Hall and passing her friends and acquaintances in the corridors and on the stairs and she was telling the same lie over and over again, it got worse. This wasn’t the sort of place to bring your lover. It wasn’t the sort of place to have a lover. Once they were inside her room she put the chair against the door so that they’d have a bit of warning if anyone tried to walk in, but by then her anxiety had reached trembling point. He didn’t seem to notice the state she was in and started to unbutton her blouse as soon as she’d shut the door, kissing her neck and fondling her breasts. But it wasn’t any good. She was far too worried to respond to him and although she kissed him back and put her arms round his neck the way she’d always done, she didn’t feel a thing. It was miserably disappointing. She lay on her back on her uncomfortable bed and wanted to cry.

  When he’d got his breath back, he propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her, his face questioning. ‘Are you all right?’ he said.

  It was too much. ‘No,’ she said, turning her own face away from him. And burst into tears. ‘We’re not supposed to do this,’ she wept. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you here. If they find out I shall get sent down. It’s one of the cardinal rules. No men.’

  He got up, buttoned his trousers, took command. ‘We’ll go out,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll say I’ve come to take you out to tea. They can’t not allow that. Make yourself respectable. Wash your face or something.’ He was straightening the bed as he spoke, tucking in the corners and plumping up the pillows. ‘Wear a thick coat,’ he instructed as he moved the chair and opened the door. ‘That other one’s too thin. All set?’

  Once they were in a tea shop and sipping a cup of very hot tea she felt a lot better. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Crying and everything.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said cheerfully. ‘No bones broken.’

  ‘Do you always take command like that?’

  ‘I’m a corporal,’ he said. ‘These scones aren’t half bad.’

  ‘What made them send you to Abingdon?’ she asked, when she’d eaten a scone. ‘I’m not complaining. I think it’s wonderful. But why Abingdon?’

  ‘They’re sending us all over the place,’ he said, biting into his second scone. ‘We’ve got to knock the new recruits into shape so’s they know what to do when the time comes. Show ’em the ropes.’

  ‘But you’re home,’ she said, much cheered by the tea. ‘You’re out of it now.’

  ‘Out of it?’ he said bitterly. ‘That’s a joke.’

  ‘You won’t have to go back to Italy? Not now, surely.’

  ‘Not Italy no,’ he said. ‘We’re being fattened up for France. We’re here to spearhead the invasion.’

  She could feel her heart shrinking and falling. ‘They can’t do that to you,’ she said.

  ‘’Fraid they can,’ he said. ‘They don’t ask our permission. Anyway, don’t let’s talk about it. I’ve got ten days leave coming. What say we go to Weston-super-Mare? I’ll write to Mrs Collingwood and fix it up.’

  ‘I shall have to think of a good excuse to get time off,’ she said.

  ‘Lie through your teeth,’ he advised. ‘There’s a war on.’

  It was bitingly cold beside the sea. Neither of them had realised how bleak and empty their seaside town would be in winter. The pier was closed, the kiosks along the front were shut and shuttered, the sea grey and forbidding, the beaches deserted except for the occasional sea-scuffed mongrel. A walk on the prom left them shivering and pink-nosed and, when they emerged from the pictures on their first evening, there was such a fierce wind blowing that they ran all the way back to their lodgings. But what did it matter? They were together, they had sufficient to eat, a double bed to love in and there was no one to disturb them. What more could they want?

  It wasn’t until their last morning together that the outside world impinged on their consciousness in any way at all, and then it was because Lizzie was curled up on the bed, twisting her wedding ring round and round on her finger. Ben was shaving and he stopped in mid-scrape to watch her and admire her.

  ‘Is your Pa still opposed?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Lizzie said. ‘I haven’t seen him to ask him. Not since Mark’s wedding when he was so… Well, I told you didn’t I? Anyway, not since then. And that was months ago. Mark and Joan have got a baby on the way now.’

  He put down his razor and came to sit beside her. ‘I’d marry you tomorrow if I could,’ he told her. ‘You know that, don’t you. Maybe being a grandfather’ll mellow him. What d’you think?’

  ‘Highly unlikely,’ Lizzie said and joked, ‘he’s not the mellowing sort.’

  ‘I’m serious, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘I’d like us to get married before the Second Front.’

  She shivered. ‘Don’t let’s talk about the Second Front,’ she begged. ‘It’s too horrible. I know it’s coming but I don’t want to think about it until I have to. Wait till after my finals and I’ll ask him then. He should be in a better mood by that time. He’ll have a graduate daughter.’

  ‘When are they?’

  ‘May,’ she said. ‘Ages yet.’

  ‘May’s too late,’ he said, catching her hand and kissing her fingers. ‘I shall be in France by then.’

  Her face was full of disbelief and shock. ‘You won’t.’

  ‘That’s what they say. Ask him now, Lizzie, and we’ll marry at Easter.’

  ‘He’ll say no,’ she said miserably. ‘You know what he’s like.’

  ‘You could be wrong.’

  ‘He’ll say no,’ she repeated.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘Write to Smithie and see what she says.’

  ‘Smithie’s good,’ she told him, ‘but even she couldn’t persuade him to do something if he didn’t want to. I’ll write to her, just to satisfy you, but don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘Give us a kiss,’ he said, pulling her towards him, ‘you lovely girl.’

  ‘I can’t kiss you,’ she protested. ‘You’re all over soap.’

  ‘It’ll be a new experience,’ he told her, happily.

  * * *

  Tommy Meriton was in Parkside Avenue that Saturday having dinner with Emmeline, Edith and Octavia in their newly cleaned dining room, admiring the newly washed curtains, the newly polished furniture and the sparkling glass and telling Emmeline she was ‘a giddy marvel’. The ‘Little Blitz’ was now obviously over and Octavia had driven home the previous eve
ning, bringing some of her precious books with her. She’d spent the afternoon dusting them and restoring them to their places in the book cabinets, while Em and Edith cooked the meal and fed the girls and took them off to bed. Now they were all sitting round the table and Tommy was opening the bottle of claret he’d brought with him to complement the beef.

  ‘There’s a second bottle on the sideboard,’ he said, ‘so drink up.’

  ‘Where did you get it from?’ Emmeline said. ‘I thought you couldn’t get wine for love nor money.’

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Black market,’ he told her.

  ‘You’re a wicked man,’ she laughed. ‘You’ll have us all drunk.’

  ‘And quite right too, after all the work you’ve done,’ he said, beaming at her. ‘Besides I’ve got something to celebrate.’ He paused and smiled at them all before he made his announcement. ‘I am now a grandfather. I can’t say I’ve ordered my pipe and slippers yet, but that’s what I am. Little girl, born yesterday, seven and a half pounds and they’re going to call her Heather Elizabeth.’

  There was a chorus of congratulation.

  ‘Mother and baby doing well?’ Octavia asked.

  ‘Naturally. And now you must look out your prettiest hat ready for the christening.’

  Octavia laughed. ‘Is it planned already?’

  ‘Got to be,’ Tommy said. ‘It’s a tight schedule. Bombing campaign’s already under way.’

  ‘So how long will it be before the invasion?’ Emmeline asked. ‘If you’re allowed to tell us.’

  ‘Well it’s very hush-hush,’ he said, ‘but as it’s you Em, and I know you won’t gossip, we’re looking at the end of May.’

  ‘Three months,’ Emmeline said.

  ‘If everything goes according to plan.’

  There was certainly a lot of activity that spring. American troops arrived by the ship load and were soon building new camps and airfields, ready for their bombers to follow them. There were rows of field guns bristling in the fields like some huge alien crop, the roads were clogged with convoys and in country lanes army lorries and troop carriers were parked nose to tail, their roofs and bonnets marked with the familiar five-pointed white star. According to rumour a fleet of minesweepers had gathered in the Channel to clear away the German mines and the skies were loud with bombers on their way to attack marshalling yards and airfields and sometimes, to Edith’s approval, to bomb Berlin. ‘Serve ’em right,’ she said. Give ’em a taste of their own medicine. See how they like it.’ There was no doubt that the invasion was coming and that it was going to be massive. And in the middle of it all, Octavia received her expected invitation to the christening of Heather Elizabeth and a long letter from Lizzie telling her that Ben was home and that they were both very happy but that she had a problem and she would appreciate some advice.