In the early evening they rode the tram into the centre of town and went to the harbour. Sylvia was less than impressed – it looked shabby and unkempt, and there were a few high-rise buildings to be seen around it. Baltimore was nothing like she had imagined.
The government buildings around the post office, where Bob and his dad worked, were more appealing. There was a grand city hall with a dome in the centre and a marble exterior, even if it was rather run down.
The next day, Bob and his father had to get up at 4 a.m. for their postal rounds, but his sister Dorothy, who lived nearby, came round with her three-year-old son. She had a pretty smile and the dark hair and eyes from Mrs O’Connor’s side of the family. ‘I’ve come to take you shopping!’ she told Sylvia. Bob had left a pile of dollars to fund the trip. ‘What have you got for your wedding night?’
Sylvia showed her the nightie she had made herself, and Dorothy shook her head. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to buy you something else.’
Dorothy left her little boy with her mother and she and Sylvia took the tram into the city, getting off near the downtown shopping area, the other side of Charles Street from the government district. Sylvia was very impressed with the window displays, showing mannequins dressed in the latest fashions, and in all the shops she was overwhelmed by the range of styles and colours on offer. Everything seemed to be made with so much more material, with pleats and folds and layering that would have been hard to come by in post-war Britain.
Dorothy took her to a shoe shop, since she hadn’t come with any white shoes for the wedding. Sylvia picked out a pair of white suede heels, with a flower pattern punched into the material at the front. They were exquisitely made.
‘Why don’t we buy another pair while we’re here?’ Dorothy asked. ‘You can’t just have one pair of shoes!’
Sylvia felt giddy buying so many things at once, but encouraged by Bob’s sister she asked the salesman if she could look at a pair she’d seen in the window. ‘They’re the nigger-brown sandals,’ she said.
The man stared at her in disbelief.
‘Sylvia, we don’t use that word over here,’ Dorothy whispered.
‘Oh,’ Sylvia said, confused. Back home in England, ‘nigger’ was just a shade of brown.
They bought the shoes as quickly as possible and hurried out of the shop.
Next, Dorothy took her into a department store and they headed for the lingerie department, where they bought a beautiful pink lacy nightie for Sylvia’s wedding night, along with some satin slips, camiknickers and a dressing gown. Sylvia felt like she’d died and gone to heaven when she held the luxurious items in her hands.
When they took them to the cash desk, the woman overheard Sylvia talking and noticed her accent. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked.
‘England,’ Sylvia replied.
‘That’s so interesting,’ the woman said. ‘What language do you speak over there?’
This time it was Sylvia’s turn to be flabbergasted.
When they got home, Bob and his father had just got up from their daily nap, and Sylvia excitedly showed them and his mother her purchases. Among them was a new powder compact that Dorothy had encouraged her to get, but as she took it out of the cardboard box it had come in, she was disappointed to see that the catch was broken.
‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Sylvia. ‘I’ve been diddled!’
For the second time that day, her comment was met with shocked looks.
‘You can’t use that word over here, honey,’ Bob whispered.
‘Why not?’ Sylvia asked.
Bob leaned over and whispered in her ear, and her face turned almost as red as it had been on her arrival.
The wedding was planned for the following Saturday, and the rest of that week was a whirlwind of visits from family members and friends who all wanted to meet Sylvia and discuss the wedding with Bob’s mother. Everything, it seemed, had already been planned, from the bridesmaids to the flowers. All Sylvia was required to do was show up. As she sat there hearing the details being discussed, she couldn’t help feeling she was going to someone else’s wedding. Half the time Sylvia found it difficult to concentrate on what they were saying, since she was still struggling with the heat and humidity.
The morning of the wedding it was hotter than ever. Sylvia felt a rush of excitement remembering it was her big day, followed by a wave of nervousness. Bob’s mother was busy downstairs preparing the food for the reception, but Dorothy came round to help her get ready. She knocked on the door and came in with a little bag. ‘I brought you a razor,’ she told her.
‘What for?’ Sylvia asked.
‘To shave your legs of course!’
‘Does everyone do that over here?’
‘Oh yes.’
Sylvia took a bath and did as she was told, trying her best to avoid cutting herself. Afterwards she wafted about in her new dressing gown, feeling quite the movie star, while Dorothy helped fix her hair. But as the day got hotter and the hour of the wedding got closer, Sylvia’s excitement began to be overtaken by her nerves and she felt suffocated. The thought of getting married in front of hordes of strangers terrified her. The person she really wanted right now was her mother, but she was thousands of miles away.
‘Sylvia, are you okay?’ Dorothy asked, seeing her sway slightly.
‘I think I’m going to faint,’ Sylvia replied.
‘Lie down on the bed,’ Dorothy told her. She went and got Sylvia an iced tea, which revived her a little.
Sylvia began dressing in the gown her mother had made – the only thing in the wedding that was her own. It was a beautiful long-sleeved dress made of heavy slipper satin, the bodice embroidered with imitation pearls and silver bugle beads, with a three-foot train. Sylvia was wearing two petticoats underneath the skirt to help bulk it out, and her mother had made a headpiece out of wax and artificial pearls.
When she had it all on, Sylvia felt hotter than ever, and she was gasping for breath. ‘I feel faint again!’ she told Dorothy, who rushed downstairs for more iced tea. Mrs O’Connor decided they couldn’t risk an unconscious bride, and dispatched a cousin to the corner drug store to purchase some spirits of ammonia, a few drops of which were added to Sylvia’s drink. As Dorothy helped her with her make-up, and the bridesmaids arrived to get changed, Sylvia was in a complete fog, and only managed to keep from fainting in their midst by taking regular sips of the liquid.
Bob, meanwhile, was getting ready at his best man Donald’s house, but had been told of Sylvia’s fainting fits and phoned to see if she was all right. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked her.
‘Nervous!’ she told him. ‘How about you?’
‘Yeah, me too. Donald had to give me a couple of drinks to straighten me out!’
Mrs O’Connor’s youngest brother, Gordon, was to walk Sylvia down the aisle, and since he had a car and the O’Connors did not, he came to pick them up. Outside it was pushing ninety degrees, and Sylvia was so uncomfortably hot as they drove to the Faith Presbyterian Church she thought she would melt inside her heavy dress and two petticoats.
When they arrived, Gordon noticed Sylvia was wobbling as she walked up to the church door. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked her.
‘I feel a bit funny,’ Sylvia replied.
Gordon had been forewarned by his sister, and quickly drew out a little bottle from his pocket. ‘Here, drink this,’ he said. It was more iced tea and spirits of ammonia, and Sylvia gratefully drank a large gulp before she took his arm and they went in.
Thankfully the church was a large, old stone building and it was cooler inside. But when Sylvia saw the sea of unfamiliar faces she felt even more wobbly. All the neighbours had turned up and had kindly filled the bride’s side of the church, since Sylvia had nobody there. She clung to Gordon’s arm as tightly as she could, scared of looking to the right or left for fear of losing her balance, and somehow made it to the altar without passing out. There was Bob, looking extremely handsome in a rented black tuxedo and shi
ny shoes. As soon as he saw her, his own nerves were amplified and his leg started shaking uncontrollably.
The Reverend Jackson only added further difficulty by mentioning more than once how sad the bride’s family must be not to be part of her special day, and each time he did so Sylvia struggled desperately not to burst into tears. By the end of the service, with Sylvia’s faintness and Bob’s trembling leg, it was a miracle that neither of them had fallen over.
Around fifty people squeezed into the O’Connors’ for the reception. Bob’s mother had made an enormous bowl of punch and everyone took a glass and toasted the bride and groom, before helping themselves to food from the buffet in the kitchen. When it was time for the cake to be cut, Bob and Sylvia held the knife together and Sylvia pushed as hard as she could, anticipating hard fruitcake and royal icing. But she hadn’t realised that in America, wedding cakes were sponge, with soft icing, and to her horror the knife went through all three tiers at once, wrecking her mother-in-law’s creation. Sylvia had hoped to send home a slice to her mother, but looking at the squashy mess she realised she wouldn’t be able to.
‘Oops!’ Sylvia said, and Bob chuckled.
As they ate their cake, all the women inundated Sylvia with questions about England, asking her to repeat everything just so they could hear her ‘cute’ accent. She did her best to be friendly, even though what she really wanted was to be alone with Bob.
But where was Bob? As she scanned the room, she realised all the men at the party had vanished.
‘Where did the blokes go?’ she asked Bob’s Aunt Catherine, who gestured towards the basement.
‘What are they doing down there?’ Sylvia asked, confused.
‘Oh, they’ve got one of their card games going,’ she replied.
Sylvia had no choice but to deal with the hordes of well-wishers on her own.
She was relieved when, finally, Bob emerged from the basement and his best man Donald said it was time for them to be going. He was to drive the newlyweds to a little bungalow his family owned in the countryside just outside Baltimore.
Sylvia changed into her going-away outfit and they waved goodbye. Somehow, she had survived her American wedding.
It was dark by the time they arrived at the little bungalow, but the moon was out and Sylvia could see a beautiful garden with a wishing well. Once they were finally alone, they breathed a huge sigh of relief. ‘At last!’ said Bob, kissing her.
They sat out for a while on a bench by the wishing well, looking up at the stars. Opposite them was a field, and Sylvia could see little lights flashing on and off in the distance. ‘What’s wrong with those lights over there?’ she asked her husband.
‘Those aren’t lights, babycakes,’ he said, laughing. ‘They’re lightning bugs!’
‘Lightning bugs?’ Sylvia repeated.
‘Yeah, don’t you have them in England?’
‘No,’ Sylvia said. ‘They’re beautiful!’
Bob smiled as an idea came to him. ‘Wait here,’ he said.
He went into the little bungalow and returned with an empty jam jar, then ran off into the field opposite with it. Sylvia giggled. ‘What are you doing?’ she called.
‘You’ll see,’ Bob shouted back.
When he returned, Sylvia saw that he had filled the jar with lightning bugs. In the bedroom he put it on top of the chest of drawers, where it glowed all night long.
19
Margaret
With two small children to care for now, life was more constrained than ever for Margaret. Despite Lawrence’s promise to find them a proper home, they were still living in the summer house in the middle of nowhere outside Akron, Ohio.
Lawrence was still coming home late, having gone out drinking after work. He collapsed exhausted into bed each night, but slept badly, tossing and turning with nightmares, and in the morning had no appetite for breakfast.
‘I promised I wouldn’t drink around you and the baby, and I haven’t,’ he insisted, when she tried to talk to him about it.
‘No, you promised you wouldn’t drink at all!’ she responded, but he didn’t seem to listen.
One day, however, she was cleaning the kitchen when she discovered an empty whisky bottle in the bin. Now he couldn’t deny any longer that he was breaking his promise.
When he came through the door that evening, she showed him the bottle. ‘You have been drinking at home,’ she told him. ‘Lawrence, this has got to stop.’
But he was drunker than she had seen him since they arrived in Ohio, and at this criticism his face contorted into an ugly scowl and his dark eyes flashed with anger. Her heart sank when she saw that he had brought several bottles of Scotch with him. Clearly he no longer thought there was any point in hiding what he was doing, and he was going to keep drinking right in front of her. Margaret was furious.
‘I don’t want you doing that in the house, with the children here,’ she told him.
‘You don’t like it – don’t stick around!’ he told her, pouring himself a glassful and knocking it back.
‘You know perfectly well I haven’t anywhere else to go,’ she said, tears pricking her eyes. ‘Lawrence, you promised me!’
‘I don’t owe you anything!’ he said, slamming his fist down on the coffee table in front of him. ‘I’ve been working hard all day to feed those babies of yours! A man deserves a bit of relaxation in the evening.’
‘I’ve been with those babies on my own all day!’ she retorted. ‘When do I ever get to relax? I’m stuck here, hour after hour, with no one to speak to, and when my husband does get home, he’s drunk!’
‘I told you, if you don’t like it, don’t stick around, Goddammit!’ he shouted. He hurled the glass across the room and it smashed against the wall.
Margaret fled to the bedroom, shaking with fear and anger.
In the early morning, she tiptoed into the kitchen to make some coffee. There, she found her husband passed out on his back in a pool of vomit, an empty bottle of Scotch still clutched in his hand.
‘Lawrence!’ she cried, rolling him over. She was horrified to think he could have choked to death on his own vomit, just feet away from where she was sleeping.
He winced as if her voice was painful to him. ‘Quiet,’ he murmured.
She got a wet cloth and cleaned his mouth, then helped him sit up. ‘Oh, what have you done to yourself?’ Margaret said, unable to stop the tears running down her face. The angry Lawrence was gone and in his place was a man who was as helpless as a baby.
Lawrence slept off the hangover until noon and then headed into the office, telling Margaret he’d smooth things over with his boss. She knew he had the skills to charm his way out of anything, but she couldn’t help worrying that even he would get into trouble soon if he made a habit of going into work late and hung over.
The next night was no different, however, nor the night after that – except that Lawrence’s tolerance to alcohol seemed to be getting higher and higher, and he was drinking more and more. Margaret was unable to go to sleep herself before he passed out, too scared that he might end up choking on his vomit in the night, so she waited until he fell silent and then snuck in and put a pillow under his head. She would then be up half the night with the newborn, and by morning she was utterly exhausted.
She had other worries too. As his drinking got worse, the housekeeping money Lawrence gave her was dwindling. There was not enough to get a check-up for her or baby Maeve, nor for clothes for the two children. The only time she could speak to him about it was in the morning, before he headed out for work. Often he would promise to bring her back some cash when he returned home, but by then he was usually too drunk to remember. Soon she was finding it hard even to buy enough food from the little farm shop to feed them all, and she had to eke out what she had each day.
She didn’t know if Lawrence himself was eating at all, since he now seemed to exist solely on alcohol. He had taken to having a drink first thing in the morning, which he said was necessary to ‘cal
m his nerves’, and his hands shook until he had gulped down a glass of Scotch. His face was puffy and he was constantly sweating, and he complained of stomach cramps. He often went into work late, and some days didn’t make it in at all.
‘If you carry on like this you’re going to kill yourself!’ Margaret told him, horrified to see him in such a state. But he just didn’t seem to care. Even when he wasn’t drunk, the old Lawrence had disappeared completely, and an irritable, irrational person had taken his place.
He was coming back later and later, and after a while there were some nights that he didn’t return at all. Margaret sat up waiting for him, hour after hour, terrified that he was lying in a gutter somewhere or had crashed his car.
One morning, after he had failed to show up all night, she heard him fumbling with his keys at the door. When she went to open it for him she saw a police car drive off down the dirt path. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked Lawrence anxiously.
‘My friends offered to put me up for the night,’ he said wryly. Lawrence had been picked up drunk and disorderly and spent the night in a police cell.
Margaret was too ashamed to tell anyone what her life had become, and in her letters to her father she never mentioned her troubles, nor how desperate for money she was. She had even begun to resort to stealing herself – picking her husband’s pockets as he lay unconscious – since it was the only way she could get money to feed her children. Still, there hadn’t been enough to pay the landlord when he’d turned up at the door, wanting to know why they were behind with the rent. He had arrived clearly angry, but at the sight of the thin, exhausted-looking young English woman with two hungry, crying children, he felt so sorry for them he had gone away again.
Inevitably, Lawrence was sacked from his job at Goodyear. Margaret felt desperate – how would they carry on now, without even the little he had been bringing home?
GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love Page 17