GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love

by Barrett, Duncan; Calvi, Nuala

  But one day, when she was round at her next-door neighbour Mary’s house, Rae let slip how frustrated she was about her husband’s repeated trips out of state.

  ‘Did you say he goes to Steubenville?’ Mary asked quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ Rae replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Mary. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘What’s so special about Steubenville?’ Rae asked her.

  ‘Well . . .’ Mary hesitated. ‘It’s got a bit of a reputation.’

  ‘A reputation?’

  ‘For disorderly houses,’ Mary admitted awkwardly. She looked embarrassed, and rushed off to the kitchen to make coffee.

  As Rae sat alone in Mary’s living room, she felt a feeling of dread creep through her. It had taken such strength of will to overcome her hurt at Raymond’s past infidelities. Was it possible he had gone back to cheating on her again – and worse, with prostitutes?

  Rae drank her coffee in near silence, before heading back to the Wessel house. Alone in the bedroom, she struggled to decide on the best course of action. Part of her wanted to confront Raymond, but she knew if her suspicions were incorrect it would only push them further apart. There was no actual evidence that Raymond had done anything wrong – just because there were brothels in Steubenville, it didn’t mean that was why he was going there. Perhaps she had grown mistrustful after all the problems they had encountered in the past, and her free time was leading to too much thinking and paranoid notions. It was better, she decided, to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his weekends away were as innocent as he claimed.

  Despite Rae’s best efforts, however, the distance between her and Raymond continued to grow.

  One day, Rae was walking to Finleyville when she passed a group of local boys larking about in the street. She had seen the kids before, usually playing Cowboys and Indians, oblivious to any adults who were present. This time, though, as soon as she approached, the boys ducked down behind a wall, and once she had passed she heard a peal of laughter go round the group.

  Rae turned to see what the fuss was about. ‘It was right here,’ she heard one boy tell the others. ‘He was so tall, and she was so short, he was almost on his knees!’

  They all sniggered.

  Rae walked up to them. ‘Who are you kids talking about?’

  The boy who had spoken looked down at the floor. One of his friends took a step forward and spoke to Rae. ‘Your husband,’ he told her, smirking.

  Rae felt her blood chill. ‘Was my husband here with a woman?’ she asked the second boy, in as calm and measured a voice as she could muster.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied boldly. ‘He was having her right up against this wall.’

  The other boys burst out laughing again.

  Rae had heard enough. She turned and marched away as fast as she could. She could still hear their voices behind her, but the noise barely registered. She was already so overwhelmed with humiliation that no amount of jeering could make her feel worse.

  Rae cursed herself for ever having fallen for Raymond. Why hadn’t she held her ground as he had chipped away at her resistance, asking her out again and again? Why hadn’t she listened to her sister Mary when she had said she didn’t like him, and to her brothers, who had warned her not to date Yanks?

  Now that she had discovered Raymond’s true colours, Rae realised that she had been made a fool of from the moment she had arrived in Hackett. The happy-go-lucky, easy-going man she had married, the brave soldier whose safety she had worried about so much when he was off in France, had been nothing more than an illusion. Everyone else in the town had seen her husband for what he really was – even the local kids knew him better than she did.

  She couldn’t bear to go back to the Wessels’ house after what she had heard, but who could she turn to? As she came into Finleyville, she spotted a local policeman riding on his horse. In desperation, she ran up to him. ‘Can you help me?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘I need to get away from my husband. He’s a womaniser and I can’t live with him any more.’ Rae could hardly believe the words were coming out of her mouth.

  The policeman laughed. He probably knew exactly who her husband was, Rae realised.

  ‘You’ll need to see the squire,’ he told her. ‘Follow me.’

  Rae walked alongside the policeman and his horse until they arrived at the address of the Justice of the Peace in Finleyville. ‘Go talk to him,’ the man told her. ‘I’ll be outside.’

  Rae explained her situation to the JP, and he took a careful note of all the details. It was an uncomfortable interview for her, but after a year of putting up with her husband’s outrageous behaviour she was determined to see it through.

  When he had gathered all he needed, the JP scribbled something on a piece of paper and summoned the policeman inside. ‘Go and pick up Mr Wessel,’ he told him, handing over the paper. ‘This is a warrant for his arrest.’

  Rae couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had just got her own husband arrested! She waited nervously for Raymond’s arrival.

  An hour later, the policeman came back with Raymond in tow. As he was brought into the room, he avoided Rae’s gaze.

  ‘I’m ordering you to pay your wife $46.50 every two weeks,’ the JP told him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Raymond said. Despite the circumstances, he almost seemed his usual laid-back self, as if what was happening didn’t bother him at all. He left without giving Rae a second glance.

  The JP turned to her. ‘Do you have an attorney?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You can pick up the cheques from Louis Oppenheim. He’s a lawyer with an office in Monongahela. I’ll write down the address. Now, do you have anywhere to stay tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She knew her friend Mary next door wouldn’t turn her away, although it was hardly ideal being so close to Raymond.

  Rae went back to Hackett and knocked on Mary’s door. She explained the sorry situation, and was immediately welcomed inside.

  The following morning, Rae needed her clothes, so she steeled herself and went to the Wessel house. The door was open and she walked in, finding Raymond and his mother in the kitchen. He had come back from a night shift at the mine, and she was scrubbing the coal off his back, just as Rae herself had done a hundred times.

  Mrs Wessel turned as Rae came in, a pained look on her face, but her son stood stock still, staring out of the window as if no one was there.

  Rae looked into her mother-in-law’s eyes, remembering how kindly she had welcomed her to Hackett a year before. In the time that Rae had spent in the Wessel household, she had come to feel like a member of the family. Yet all along they must have known what their son was up to, just like everyone else.

  ‘You knew what was going on,’ she said to Mrs Wessel. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘He’s my son,’ Mrs Wessel replied simply.

  But for Rae that wasn’t good enough. ‘I’m my mother’s daughter,’ she told her, ‘and I came here all by myself.’

  Mrs Wessel returned to washing her son’s back, and Rae left them to it.

  Since her mother-in-law had thrown out the duffel bag she had arrived with, she was forced to stuff her clothes into a couple of laundry bags, but right now she really didn’t care. She just wanted to be out of the house as quickly as possible.

  Living next door to her estranged husband was an uncomfortable experience for Rae. Often she would see Raymond sitting out on the porch, but he always acted as if she was a perfect stranger. Hanging her washing out in the back yard, she would catch sight of Mrs Wessel doing the same, and remember with sadness how well they had got on. As the trains trundled past at the bottom of the garden, Rae thought back to her own arrival in Hackett a year before, and realised how little she had known of what she was coming to. She longed to shout for one of the trains to stop so she could hop onboard and go back to New York.

  In the rare interactions they had with each other, Raymond treated Rae with cold
hostility. One day she lost her purse at a restaurant in Finleyville. There wasn’t much money in it, but it contained some irreplaceable photos from England. When she made inquiries, she was told it had been returned to the Wessel residence, but when she asked Raymond, he claimed he didn’t have it. ‘Come on, Ray, I know you do,’ she protested, but he just flashed her his laid-back grin and turned away.

  Every two weeks, Rae travelled by tram to Monongahela, a small town about seven miles away, where her lawyer, Mr Oppenheim, had his office above a furniture store he also owned. A Jewish man in his early forties, his legs had been crippled by childhood polio and he walked with two sticks, but he struck Rae as an unusually upbeat man.

  To begin with, Raymond kept up his maintenance payments to Rae, but one day, when she went to collect her money, there was only $29 waiting for her. The next time, there was nothing. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get the money off him,’ Mr Oppenheim told her.

  But Rae didn’t like the idea of hassling Raymond for the money. She had heard of other women who took such payouts from their estranged husbands, and how the men thought they were paying for conjugal rights. ‘I’ll just have to find myself a job,’ she told him.

  ‘I might be able to help you with that,’ he replied. ‘Our housekeeper quit just last week, and my wife needs some help with the kids.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Rae replied. Working as a nanny was not a role she had ever seen herself in – and her previous experience as a welder hardly qualified her for it.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘we have a summer house at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland, and we’re driving down there tonight for the weekend. Why don’t you come along and see how you like the job?’

  The offer was hard to refuse. A weekend by a lake, far away from the stares and whispers of folk in Hackett – and best of all, far from Raymond. ‘All right then,’ Rae replied, smiling. Mr Oppenheim told her to pack a bag and meet him outside the office later.

  That evening, Rae returned just as a large red station wagon was pulling up. In the driving seat was an elegant blonde woman, and on the seat next to her was a carrycot with a baby in it, while two little boys squabbled in the back seat. Rae looked at them all nervously.

  The woman got out and offered Rae her hand. ‘Hello, I’m Minna,’ she said warmly. ‘I understand you’re going to work for us.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t really say that,’ Rae replied awkwardly. ‘I don’t know very much about housekeeping.’

  Their attention was diverted by Mr Oppenheim coming out of the furniture store, walking along slowly with the help of his sticks. ‘You know how to set a table, don’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Rae replied.

  He smiled. ‘Well, that’s the kind of thing we need.’

  Rae stashed her bag in the boot of the car and got into the back seat with the boys.

  ‘This is Jay – he’s twelve,’ Minna told her, gesturing to the older boy, who had jet-black hair like his father’s. ‘And this is Donny, who’s ten.’ She gestured to the other child, whose hair was as blond as her own.

  ‘Hi,’ the two boys replied in unison.

  Mr Oppenheim got in the driver’s seat and reached forward for a lever that operated the accelerator on the car. It was an hour and a half’s drive to Deep Creek Lake, but they stopped along the way for ice cream. It was then that Rae got a look at the baby, who had been asleep in his carrycot. ‘This is Billy,’ Minna said. ‘He’s five months old.’ The most beautiful big brown eyes Rae had ever seen blinked up at her, and she fell instantly in love.

  It was late by the time they arrived at the summer house, and Rae was relieved to be shown to a pleasant little room where she was to sleep.

  The next morning she was able to have a proper look around. The building was a spacious converted farm house, set a little way up from the shimmering waters of the lake, surrounded by forest. Down below, Rae could see a number of boats moored, and holidaymakers splashing about in the water. The sky was a brilliant blue, not the smoggy grey she had grown used to around Pittsburgh.

  Rae spent most of the weekend playing with the two older boys, but the highlight of the trip for her was helping Minna look after baby Billy. He was so adorable and good natured that it hardly felt like work at all.

  The Oppenheims didn’t treat her like the hired help, but as one of the family. She was told to call Mr Oppenheim ‘Pap’, like the rest of them, and they ate all their meals together.

  By the time the weekend was over, Rae was in no doubt about her decision. ‘I’d like to take the job,’ she told Pap and Minna, who were thrilled.

  On Monday morning they drove back early to Monongahela, and Pap got out at his office. Then Minna drove Rae back to Hackett, where she collected her things from Mary’s house. When they went outside to load her bags into the station wagon, Raymond had come out of the Wessel house and was sitting on the porch. As she got into the car, he watched her go and didn’t say a word.

  Life with the Oppenheims was better than Rae had ever imagined. Because they didn’t put on any airs, she hadn’t realised quite how wealthy they were – until she saw the size of their townhouse in Monongahela. It was a huge mansion set a few streets back from the town’s main road, with an enormous living room, dining room, library and kitchen. Rae had a whole suite of rooms to herself on the third floor – a bedroom, sitting room and bathroom.

  Monongahela itself was a small but charming little town on the bank of a river, and felt worlds away from Hackett and Finleyville. There were shops, bars and restaurants, and even a little green with a bandstand. Rae soon found herself making new friends there, among them two young women called Rose and Myrtle who she often went out dancing with on Saturday nights.

  Rae’s work routine suited her well. Every day, Minna would walk down to the furniture store after lunch, leaving Rae to look after little Billy. She loved having the baby to herself for a few hours to feed, wash and cuddle. It was almost like having a child of her own.

  Rae and Minna divided up the household chores between them. Minna would cook the meals, while Rae would set the table and wash the dishes. Minna would wash the clothes and Rae would iron them. Sharing the work made her feel more like a sister than a servant, and the Oppenheims were generous with her time off as well, allowing her to spend her evenings and weekends as she liked.

  But Rae’s life wasn’t all plain sailing. Once her ex-husband had worked out where she was staying, he began phoning the Oppenheims’ house with increasing regularity. Rae would always hang up as soon as she realised who it was, but the nuisance calls kept coming.

  Then one night, when Pap and Minna were out for the evening and the kids had all been put to bed, Rae heard a knock at the front door. She opened it to find Raymond standing on the doorstep with tears streaming down his face. ‘Please, Rae,’ he wept, ‘you’ve got to take me back.’

  Rae didn’t know what to do. She had never wanted to see Raymond again, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to slam the door on a man who was crying. ‘Come inside and we’ll talk,’ she told him instead.

  Raymond followed her into the Oppenheims’ spacious living room, and they sat opposite each other on a pair of plush armchairs. He was in such a state of abject misery that he seemed not to notice the opulent surroundings.

  ‘Please, Rae,’ he begged in between sobs. ‘Don’t give up on me.’

  Rae heard a noise on the stairs and saw Donny poking his head between the banisters to see what was going on. ‘Are you all right, Rae?’ he asked her anxiously.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘You go back to sleep.’ The boy disappeared back to his room.

  Rae turned to look at her husband again, bawling his eyes out like a child and talking about how remorseful he was. If it had been anyone else in the world, Rae would have felt sorry for them, but right now she felt absolutely nothing. Her anger for Raymond had gone, but so had her pity. The realisation felt like a weight off her shoulders.

  ‘I’m not taking you ba
ck, Raymond,’ she said calmly. ‘I think you ought to go now.’

  Reluctantly, Raymond allowed himself to be led to the front door, and he walked out into the street without turning back. Rae closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

  When Pap and Minna got home, Rae told them what had happened. ‘You should have called me,’ Pap said. ‘I would have come straight home and dealt with him.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Rae replied. ‘I felt safe here.’

  Rae slept soundly that night, convinced that she had seen the last of her cheating husband. But early the next morning the phone rang. ‘Rae, it’s me,’ Raymond told her. ‘I’m giving you one last chance. I’m at the Greyhound station in Pittsburgh, and if you don’t take me back, I’ll be on the first bus to California.’

  ‘You go right ahead,’ Rae replied. ‘Be my guest.’

  Raymond’s voice turned cold. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘but I want you to know something. If we’re not together, you’ve got no right to stay in America. I’m going to have you deported.’

  He hung up.

  Rae was incensed. After everything she had put up with from Raymond, now he was trying to throw her out of the country. As she put down the phone, she realised her hands were trembling with rage.

  27

  Margaret

  Margaret kissed Rosamund, Maeve and little Veronica goodbye and walked away from the Orchard Nursery. Sunday afternoon was always the hardest part of the week, leaving them in Canterbury and going back to London alone. But she had no choice – she had to work to support them, and at least they were around the corner from their great-grandmother, who visited them every day.

  During the week, she travelled from her small rented room in North London to the office where she worked on Oxford Street, not far from where she had once been a secretary at the ETOUSA headquarters. Seeing her go past in her smart skirt suit, no one would imagine that the pretty young woman had already lived a whole other life in another country.

  Margaret had a job as a copywriter at Lintas, the advertising arm of Unilever. She had got the position thanks to the man she was currently dating, Clifford Twelftree. He worked at the Australian High Commission, and was a kind, older man with glasses, who was separated from his wife back home.