War Widow

by June Francis

  Dinner for eighteen persons. The page showed a plan of how the table should be set and listed first course, second course, entrées … (What was an entrée?) Some of the dishes had French names. Fricandeau de Veau à la Jardinière – whatever that meant! Stephen might have known because he had been in France. Stephen … She shrugged. Ah, this sounded more like it! Fillets of Duck and Peas.

  ‘First catch your duck,’ she murmured to the cat, which mewed and rubbed its head against her ankle. ‘There’s always the park, I suppose.’ She read on. Third Course – Grouse removed by Cabinet Pudding. What was Cabinet Pudding? She looked it up under C. Cabinet or Chancellor’s Pudding. Ingredients: candied peel, currants, sultanas – obviously there had been no rationing in Mrs B’s day! She noticed that there was another Cabinet Pudding – or Boiled Bread and Butter Pudding, plain. She smiled, remembering how Aunt Beattie used to make ordinary bread and butter pudding. Still this was more like it! Although raisins were needed, this recipe was not beyond her means. Time – one hour – average cost ninepence. Sufficient for five or six persons. What was a Victorian ninepence worth today? It was beyond her working out. It needed three eggs – well, that was out, but there was dried egg. She would have a go because there was plenty of bread, and there would be enough for the children when they came home.

  Flora rubbed her nose. For firsts there was sardines on toast, and that would have to be it. Closing the book she jumped up and went to find a pudding bowl.

  Feeling a little lonely she put on the wireless, forcing herself to hum along. Acting impulsively again she covered the scratched table top with her best tablecloth. Going outside she cut several orange and yellow nasturtiums from the windowbox in the yard and placed them in an egg cup in the centre of the table. The pudding was on the boil and she was really hungry. Her only wish was that she could have had someone to share the meal with. A man. Tom. Her hand stopped halfway to the cutlery drawer. What was she thinking of? She knew that she could not have him. A tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Stupid woman! She sniffed away her tears and hurried over to the oven.

  Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the fire as the plate was placed on the table. Music fluted from the wireless and she was suddenly restless. She thought of Mike and how he had danced her up the road. He would have enjoyed the food and made her laugh. Stephen had danced with her too. It had been rather comforting in a way. They had known each other so long that she had not had to worry about his arm round her. Tom had never liked dancing, which was strange because it could be so sexy. She felt warm at the thought, and filled her mind with football, cricket – Tom had like them – films, the music hall, and painting. Maybe he was in heaven talking to da Vinci right now!

  The tears were tight in her throat as she spooned the nutmeg-scented golden pudding into a bowl and propped her library book against the blue sugar bag. Again she brushed a tear away, determined not to give in to self-pity, but she could not help thinking that if she had been in a film, a handsome stranger would have knocked on her door right now, and dined with her. Maybe he would not have revealed that he was really a prince in disguise, who was ready to take her away from the cinders and make her dreams come true, but he would have been her lover.

  Mike had been a good lover! Mike … oh lord, forgive her. She shook her head as if by doing so she could rid herself of all memory of that night, and told herself that real life didn’t have much room for romance and dreaming. Real life was a recipe not going quite right, not enough moisture because of the dried egg. Real life was loneliness and heartache. Flora reached for her cup of tea and wished the children home soon.

  Chapter Ten

  Flora was tired. The thought of Christmas coming made her groan because there was so much to do. There were threats of power cuts and so many shortages, worse than during the war, that she viewed the next few months with dismay.

  As was her custom on the Sunday before Christmas, she went to Anfield Cemetery to visit her mother’s grave and place a holly wreath there. She thought of Hilda and how much she had loved their mother. No word had come for Vivien or herself and that hurt for Viv’s sake. Where was Hilda? They were sisters and should have been friends.

  Brushing the dampness from her knees Flora got up and gazed in the direction of Stanley Park. How sinister the trees looked, so black and stark against the sky. She began the walk past white angels and black and white marble stones. In Memory Of. Words ran into one another, as did names and dates. Some had died so young – but the texts from the Bible seemed to indicate faith in the after-life.

  ‘“There’s a friend for little children above the bright blue sky!” Jesus, are you there?’ she called, sadness gripping her.

  ‘Floss!’

  Startled at the sound of the voice, she whirled to confront Stephen in a tweed overcoat a size too big for him. For several moments she just stared at him, considering that he looked much thinner and paler. To cover her surprise at his appearance she felt that she had to make a joke. ‘Here we are, here we are, here we are again! You seem to have a habit of creeping up on me, Steve. Your training, you once said. You weren’t planning on doing something nasty to me here among the gravestones, were you?’

  He smiled. ‘I’ve no intentions of doing you foully to death if that’s what you mean. Not you, Floss.’ His blue eyes rested on her rosy face. ‘How have you been?’

  She shrugged. ‘All right. No point in complaining. It’s a tough life for everybody at the moment.’ She deliberately did not mention his uncle. ‘And you?’

  ‘Flu! But I’m okay now.’ He turned up his coat collar against the chill. ‘I could hardly believe it when I caught sight of you back there.’

  ‘I was visiting Mam’s grave.’ Flora began to walk, hunching inside her mustard and brown coat. She glanced at him and thought that he should have stayed home. Her maternal feelings made her want to tuck him up snugly with a hot water bottle, and give him drinks of lemon and honey with Aspro. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked abruptly.

  He came to a halt and faced her. ‘Same as you. Mam used always to visit Dad’s grave around Christmas. I suddenly decided that traditions like that shouldn’t die. I was in Liverpool, so –’ He gave a twisted smile.

  The wind buffeted them and she put a hand on his arm and squeezed it gently. ‘You are nice sometimes, Steve. But you should have stayed at home instead of coming all this way in the cold.’

  ‘I have a car. I’ll run you home.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’ He smiled and Flora smiled back. For a second neither of them spoke. Then he cleared his throat.

  ‘Well? Do you want a lift or not, Floss? I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to feel the cold.’ He stressed each word heavily.

  ‘A car – that’s something new, isn’t it?’ Her voice was bright.

  ‘Yes,’ he said briefly, hurrying ahead of her, so that she had to almost run to keep up with him. They crossed the road and came to the black car outside the park. ‘It’s an Austin 10,’ he muttered, patting the front bumper. ‘You get inside while I crank her up.’ He reached for the handle.

  Flora had never been in a car before. The seat was leathery and cold to the touch, and she clutched it tightly when after several minutes the car jolted. It coughed and spluttered and then there was a pause in activity before the engine coughed again, and then suddenly roared into life. Stephen flung the handle on the floor, reached for the controls, and she shut her eyes.

  When she opened them again they were travelling quite smoothly past the other side of the park. Stephen smiled at her. ‘It’s fun, isn’t it? I was mad at Uncle Sam for buying me it, especially when he said that he thought it would be useful. for business. But I must admit if it wasn’t for petrol rationing, she’d prove her weight in gold.’

  ‘She?’ Flora relaxed and settled herself more comfortably.

  ‘The car. I call her Daisy.’ He began to sing snatches of a song about being crazy for the
love of Daisy.

  Flora was amused. ‘It’s a lovely present.’

  ‘Lovely.’ He frowned. ‘It’s secondhand and a good few years old – and I wish he hadn’t given me it. I love it! But, hell, Floss! It makes me beholden to him, and I don’t want to feel like that.’

  There was a short silence and her mind searched for something to fill it, but she knew that it was not up to her to say the words that needed saying. The moment passed, and then he spoke. ‘D’you remember when you were sixteen and the old King hadn’t officially opened the tunnel to the public – but for the price of sixpence we were allowed to walk through.’

  ‘The money went to charity.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘I would have panicked if it hadn’t been for you. Did you think me quite daft when I kept glancing up at the roof?’

  ‘No, I was thinking the same. What if it cracked and the Mersey poured in?’ A muscle tightened in his neck. ‘Tom and your Hilda thought we were both crazy.’

  ‘And your Jimmy. None of them ever seemed to be scared of anything.’ She glanced at him, and added quickly: ‘But they probably were. Everybody’s scared of something.’

  ‘I hate tight places and caves,’ muttered Stephen, his hands curling on the steering wheel. ‘And the thought of what happened to Mam and the girls still gives me nightmares. I see them choking in dust and bricks and I can never reach them.’

  ‘Don’t!’ She shuddered. ‘You shouldn’t think about it because it won’t do you any good. Let’s talk about something more cheerful.’

  He nodded. ‘Sorry, Floss. Do you remember that was the year King Kong was on at the pictures?’

  ‘It was the year Prince George opened the Walker Art Gallery. Our Hilda and Tom took me with –’ Her voice tailed off, remembering what her sister had said about Tom. She forced the thought aside. Would Stephen always be reminding her of the past?

  ‘Uncle Sam bought a Marconi radiogram that year and allowed me to listen to his records of Gilbert and Sullivan. Light opera was something we both enjoyed that our Jimmy didn’t.’

  Flora was silent a moment, then she said roughly, ‘He still needs you, Steve. Bill Turner’s back but he isn’t a patch on you, and he’s a troublemaker. The Old Man doesn’t know how to take him. You could handle him, though!’

  He let out a long breath. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it now, Floss,’ he said heavily. ‘I know the situation and I might come back if Uncle Sam was prepared to bend a little more. We’ll see.’ She nodded, and settled for just enjoying the ride.

  The car drew up outside her house. Stephen got out but left the engine running. ‘Are you getting out, Floss?’ He held the door open for her.

  She had almost nodded off and had to blink her eyes open wide to focus on his face. He looked tired and again she felt that spurt of maternalism. ‘You really should be in bed. You look awful.’

  ‘I feel awful.’ He took off his trilby and wiped a hand across his brow.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a cuppa?’

  ‘I’d better not. Uncle Sam will be expecting me.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled and held out her hand. ‘Thanks for the lift. Perhaps I’ll see you around.’

  He clasped her hand and squeezed it. ‘Maybe.’

  She stepped back, waving as he drove off.

  Flora did not see him again over the Christmas period and Molly told her that he would be returning to Wales in the New Year.

  The worst weather in a long time bit deep, causing Flora constant worry. The outside lavatory froze – icicles eighteen inches long hung from window sills and eaves. Power cuts affected them at work to such an extent that she had to help operate the foot treadles. The cold meant that the ink did not dry as quickly as it should and tempers got frayed.

  Because of the coal shortages George had to take time off school to queue for hours on end.

  ‘I hate going there,’ he told Kathleen Murphy when she was walking with him, pushing her mam’s pram with her coal as well as the baby.’

  ‘I hate her,’ said Kathleen, referring to the woman who owned the coal yard. ‘She’s like a fat spider the way she sits by them scales making sure nobody gets the teeniest ounce more than they should. A quarter of a hundred weight! How far will that go?’

  ‘Not far,’ muttered George, shifting the hessian sack on his back. ‘What I can’t stand about her is her having no teeth, and the way she sucks at that clay pipe. She’s not a spider – she’s a black toothless slug sucking the life out of the poor,’ he said with relish. ‘I’d like to put some coal beneath her and set her alight! Imagine being a cannonball and having her for dinner.’

  Kathleen giggled. ‘I think y’mean a cannibal.’

  ‘I know.’ He grinned.

  ‘Are you going to try and get some wood for your mam?’

  ‘Probably.’ George moved the sack to the other shoulder as they came to the bottom of their street. ‘But don’t go telling your mam – she just might tell mine, and she goes on enough about me missing school and sitting the eleven plus.’ He sighed and Kathleen gave him a sympathetic look. They parted amicably at the bottom of his step.

  The coal soon ran out and sometimes they could not get any more. George came in with wood, and Flora worried about him, guessing that he had been in bombed derelict houses.

  Once darkness fell it was miserable in the house. Every room except the kitchen was like an ice box, and their coats were heaped on to George’s and Flora’s beds. The girls slept with her and she would tell them stories till they forgot the cold and drifted into sleep.

  Flora herself slept fitfully and her dreams were a jumble of past events and fairy tales. She hated her dreams; hated the snow and the cold, even though the children made the most of it.

  The roads were slippery with the slides they made and the air resounded with their cries of delight and laughter when some of them fell and slid on their bottoms down the shiny passage of ice. They built snowmen and played snowballs until their hands lost all feeling and dusk shadowed the streets.

  George manufactured heat and light in the shape of winter warmers made from holed tin cans and lengths of wire. He filled them with paper and wood and then they were lit.

  Often Flora would come home to be met by the children running in the dark, twirling the lighted cans over their heads, and she wished that she could regain some of the magic of being young and carefree. Instead she had to cope with wet clothes, and George’s long face after the exam, and chilblains which itched unbearably so that she sought help from an old crone in the next street, who gave her a foul-looking brown ointment called Snowfire which she swore would help.

  Flora kept a check on her father when she could, and one Saturday afternoon trudged through the snow only to find him out. She was in no mood to be pleasant to anybody on the return journey.

  There was a car parked outside her house and as she approached Stephen got out and came slowly towards her. ‘Hello, Floss.’ He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. ‘Terrible weather we’re having.’

  She halted and looked at him. ‘Is that what made you come home? Worried about your uncle because of the weather?’ Her voice was hard.

  ‘In part.’ He frowned as his gaze passed swiftly over her face. ‘But I was also wondering how you were coping with everything.’

  ‘That’s nice of you,’ she said tartly, lifting the heavy shopping bag in both her arms and holding it against her chest. ‘I’ve coped fine, thanks! Did you expect me suddenly to fall to pieces because of the snow? I’ve got up every morning and gone out to do my job. I’ve stood in queues till my feet froze. I’ve washed but can’t get the clothes dry quick enough. I’ve somehow seen to the kids. I’ve got damn chilblains that drive me crazy.’ Her voice suddenly broke. ‘But, yes, I’ve coped.’ She would have brushed past him but he seized hold of her shoulder and put his arm round her.

  ‘Poor Floss.’ His voice was concerned.

  ‘Don’t be sorry for me,’ she said fiercely. ‘Don’t be nice to me
.’ She attempted to control her tears but could not, and tried to pull away but he forced her against him. Exhaustion flooded over her and she buried her face against his coat and sobbed her heart out.

  He patted her soothingly until at last Flora gained control of herself and lifted her head to look at him through wet eyelashes. ‘I’m sorry, Steve. I don’t generally make a fool of myself like that.’ She sniffed and rubbed at her face.

  ‘Poor ol’ girl. I suppose that things have been tough in work too?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone away. Nothing would have been so bad if you’d have been there.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it?’ The tip of his index finger wiped away a tear.

  She let her cheek rest against his hand. It was comforting having someone to lean on.

  ‘I’m thinking of coming back. What d’you think, Floss?’

  ‘About time too.’ A watery smile lifted her mouth. ‘I’d ask you in for a cup of tea, only the fire’s not lit. We save the little coal we’ve got till evening.’

  ‘Some other time.’ He slowly released her. ‘I’ll probably see you in work in the morning.’

  ‘Good.’ Her smile widened. ‘Your uncle’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Aye.’ He moved away. ‘Put your feet up for a while. It’ll do you good.’

  ‘I will.’ Flora stood in the snow, watching him get into the car and drive off. Then she went into the house.

  The thaw came, bringing with it the constant drip, drip of water. The children built dams with stones and broken bricks in the rushing water-filled gutters, floating sticks in the pools created. The air was warmer, and clothes could be washed and dried the easier.