But only as the enormity of his bereavement set in and Teddy began to rely more heavily on the bottle, did Beata truly realize what she had let herself in for. Never having seen him totally inebriated before, she was to find him extremely nasty in his cups. His drunken insults ringing in her ears, many a night she was to go to bed cursing her decision to stay. Still, she reminded herself of her promise to Aunt Wyn and remained steadfast in her duty.
Whilst Beata managed to hang on to her compassion, others did not. Faced with his incoherent mumblings, the weekly get-togethers with Mr Love and his cohorts began to tail off, and by the end of the year the men of God had deserted this incorrigible old drunkard altogether, not even popping in to wish him the season’s greetings.
Apart from the cards from her sisters that arrived on Christmas morning, it was possibly the worst yuletide Beata had ever had – the worst dinner for sure, with only pork ribs and cabbage on the menu. What made her even more furious was that there was always enough money for alcohol. She had tried to outwit him when he gave her cash to buy whisky, spending it on food instead and pretending he had not given the order, but he had reacted in such a vile manner that it did not seem worth it to repeat the episode. It was uncharitable she knew, but in her hungry state she hoped that he would drink himself to death and let her be free.
It began to look as if Teddy shared her view as, over the coming year, he gave in completely to his alcoholism and took to his bed, Aunt Wyn’s position at his side replaced by bottles of liquor, whisky on one flank, rum on the other, his days spent taking alternate swigs from each. His only visitor these days was the doctor, and even he was swift to exit.
Beata tried to evade him too as best she could, escaping into the garden or to the shops, though it was impossible for her to stay out too long with her uncle requiring medication and constant jugs of water to flush out his system, and apart from this she knew he would not even bother to get up to go to the lavatory if she was not there to make him. Most galling of all, this sense of duty had compelled her to turn down an invitation to Mims’ spring wedding.
In his alcoholic trance, Uncle Teddy cared for none of this. Certainly he was too befuddled now to answer questions about the continuing build-up of military might in Europe. Rarely bothering to consult him on anything, except to persuade him in his more lucid moments to sign for his pension, Beata was to spend most of that summer worrying as Hitler continued his war of nerves, the threat of all-out conflict creeping ever nearer now that he had turned his attention to Poland. Upon the advice of their embassy, German residents began to leave Britain in droves. Small as she had been at the time, Beata retained the violent memory of Mr Kaiser’s shop being smashed up in Denaby, and wondered whether it would happen again in this small village.
Yet even now there were posters up in town telling her, ‘Don’t worry about Hitler, have your holiday’. Educated people, journalists and politicians, who were ignoring all the warnings, who thought the German problem could be solved by a blockade, who did not believe there would be a war, put their opinions into hard print. Beata wanted desperately to believe these rather than the ones which spoke of poison gas and chemical warfare, never more so than upon receiving the news that Mims was expecting her first baby, news that plunged her into a contest of emotions. Would the dear little thing start its life in a world savaged by war?
The weather did not help. Tonight was unusually sultry for September; even with the window open there was no relief. Lying here in bed, she felt like one of the men she had seen through the window of the barber’s shop, their heads swathed in hot towels, almost suffocating. She had had a devil of an evening with Teddy, constantly at his drunken beck and call, begging him to cease his obscenities and hoping no one would hear them, trying to prevent him falling out of bed. Exhausted by this and the heat, she was glad finally to be lying in her own, though could not yet settle, expecting him to yell out at any minute, desperate for sleep but at the same time dreading that the morning would bring another bundle of soiled sheets to wash.
* * *
It did. Dragging herself out of bed in response to her uncle’s childish cries, she winced as she put her leg to the floor, having no need to examine it for it was constantly swollen these days, then limped to Teddy’s room that reeked of liquor and urine. He was not quite so difficult on a morning, though there was still a substantial amount of alcohol in his bloodstream and he tottered as she helped him out of bed and into a chair, almost pulling her down with him.
At some time during the night the humidity had gone and in its place was a bright sunny day. That was just as well with these stinking sheets to be washed. Limping back and forth around the bed, stripping the wet linen down to the mackintosh, applying fresh layers and tucking it in, Beata moved to collect her uncle, putting her toes to his and levering him from the chair, finally to reinstate him under the blankets.
After opening the window to let in some fresh air she made to leave.
‘Me bottles,’ he reminded her.
Knowing there was little point asking if it would be wiser to wait until after he had eaten, without complaint she passed him the bottles of liquor and went on her way, putting the sheets to soak whilst she made breakfast for them both.
Afterwards, her uncle supplied with the Sunday papers, she lit the copper, set to laundering the sheets and finally hung them out, the only one to have washing on her line on the Sabbath.
Once this was out of the way there was the dinner to prepare. At least that was something to look forward to, Beata having managed to get a joint of mutton out of the old skinflint. By this time he had consumed the dregs of his whisky bottle left over from the previous night’s binge and was bawling for another, calling her all the names under the sun when she was tardy in supplying it. Only to prevent him disturbing the neighbours did she obey.
Whisking up the Yorkshire pudding mixture, she listened to the wireless as she toiled and sweated, the volume turned high so that both occupants could hear it. Simultaneous to the carriage clock in the living room chiming ten, the broadcaster said, ‘Listeners should stand by for an announcement of national importance.’ Attending with only one ear, the other pricked for signs of trouble from her uncle, Beata put the mixture aside, dashed a wisp of auburn hair from her brow and set to peeling the potatoes as music returned to the kitchen.
The next moment Teddy was yelling out to her in discomfort and she rushed to answer, fearing he would wet the bed again. Providing him with a different variety of bottle, she waited for him to fill it, then made him comfortable before limping back to the kitchen.
Some minutes later, the broadcaster again cut into the music, his voice so grave as to make her pay full attention now. ‘The Prime Minister will make an announcement of national importance at a quarter past eleven,’ but this was all he said, and once again the music resumed.
Irked by these interruptions every fifteen minutes and made more annoyed by the blast of heat as she opened the oven door to arrange the potatoes around the joint, Beata urged the faceless voice as it came again, ‘Oh, for God’s sake get on with it!’ And she slammed the door in frustration.
She began to feel quite nervous and, between preparing the rest of the vegetables and going to check on Uncle Teddy, who was as ever being overzealous with the aperitif, her eyes kept moving to the clock.
It was now ten past eleven. Everything prepared, Beata sat down with a glass of water to watch the hands move slower to zero. Someone was giving a talk on how to make the most of tinned foods. Normally she would have gained some use from the recipes given, but not today.
Then suddenly the Prime Minister was speaking. He sounded very old and sad, the enunciation slow and deliberate, its tone setting butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at ten Downing Street…’
‘Beata! Where’s dinner?’
‘It’s not ready yet, Uncle!’ Suddenly filled with dread, Beata rushed into the living room
and turned up the volume on the wireless set.
‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that—’
‘I want it now!’ bawled the drunken voice.
Beata clicked her tongue and leaned towards the speaker, trying to concentrate on the vital message.
‘—unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now—’
‘I’m dyyying!’
‘—that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’
Beata felt that her heart had been plunged into ice, felt again, as she had on the night she had sat on the stairs and overheard her father speak of the horrors suffered by his young soldiers. She thought of her brothers who might suffer the same, of Mims’ husband, soon to be a father. She longed to be with her sisters, not this nasty drunken old scrooge whose yelling threatened to lift the roof.
‘Now may God bless you all,’ came the sorrowful old voice.
‘Get in here, you slut! Ssslut, pig…’
‘May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution – and against them I am certain that right will prevail.’
* * *
Too small to know what was going on the first time, still Beata retained images from her childhood that mirrored what was happening now, the great movements of khaki, the tearful goodbyes, the excited, worried chatter, the fretful looks. Now in addition she was about to be party to the kind of bureaucracy her mother had had to face.
Prior to a national register being compiled, everyone was instructed to carry a luggage label with their name and address on it. Margaret arrived that morning with hers threaded through a buttonhole. ‘My husband’s always calling me an old bag,’ she joked to Beata. ‘I might as well fit the bill.’
There was also a gas mask dangling from her handlebars, millions of these having been distributed across the country. Producing her own, Beata put it on, saying in distorted tone, ‘Some people say it’s an improvement.’
They both laughed, but the sound had a nervous edge to it and afterwards came a moment of sobriety as they discussed the torpedoing of the British liner Athenia that had been bound for Canada.
Then it was back to the mundane as they went into the house to set about their work, keeping nerves at bay with conversation.
‘I hear we’re going to get ration books in the next few days.’ In the box room, Beata hauled a stepladder to the window.
‘They’re not messing about this time, are they?’ said Margaret, pulling up a chair and helping her to pin some black paper over the glass, Teddy being unwilling to fork out on curtaining for a room that wasn’t used. ‘In the last lot they didn’t ration until near the end.’
‘Maybe this one is near its end already.’ This optimistic opinion was as much to cheer Beata herself as Margaret. ‘Over before it’s begun.’
‘Or more likely it’s going to go on for a bloody long time,’ replied the other grimly, stepping down off the chair and dragging it back into place. ‘And they’re getting us in practice for pulling our belts in.’
‘I’m already expert at doing that, living with that old codger.’ Margaret gave a nod of empathy. ‘At least I get paid for putting up with him. Not for much longer, though. I don’t need the money now my other lass has started work.’
Beata felt like pleading for the cleaner not to leave her with him, but did not want her to feel beholden.
But the middle-aged woman seemed to sense this, saying kindly, ‘There’s no reason you have to stay here either, you know. He’s got relatives of his own in Southport that could do the job.’
Beata was aware of this, though she had never seen hide nor hair of them. ‘But I promised Aunt Wyn I’d do it.’
‘Well, I’ll stay a bit longer then,’ the frog-like face relented. ‘But just for you, love, and only for a couple of weeks. I’ve joined the WVS and I haven’t time to squander on the likes of that tight-fisted, ungrateful old bugger. If you ask me there’s others more deserving of your care. Let his own kin take the flak.’
* * *
Devouring every scrap of news from both radio and newspaper, Beata soon learned that Margaret had been right to be pessimistic, for, after only one week, the Government announced that it was preparing for a three-year war.
Trying to imagine herself cooped up here for so long, she was filled with horror and, desperate for someone more vital with whom to share her life, said to her uncle as she served him breakfast, before the liquor had a chance to take hold, ‘I’m told the village is expecting evacuees from Liverpool, Uncle, could we—’
‘Riffraff,’ growled Teddy over his boiled egg.
‘They’re children,’ corrected Beata, ‘some of them really tiny. They’ll be missing their mothers and I thought—’
‘They’re still scum. Full of fleas and scabies.’ Before she could prevent it, Teddy flipped his tray to the floor and delved under the blankets for a bottle.
Heart sinking, she stooped to replace the scattered items on the tray, abandoning all hope of fostering an evacuee. How would she cope when she had this overgrown child to deal with? What kind of a home would this be for a child anyway?
Her decision proved to be a blessing, for her uncle’s opinion, however prejudiced, was not far off the mark. With their wild, big-city ways the evacuees caused immediate chaos in the village, one of them even being knocked over by a car in the blackout when he sneaked out after dark.
Considering herself to have had a lucky escape, but still wanting to feel that she was doing something for the war effort, Beata joined in the great rush to produce more food, without telling her uncle, digging up his rosebeds and replacing them with seedling vegetables. It was very strenuous work but greatly satisfying as she stood back to admire her efforts.
‘Should you be doing that with your bad leg?’ Mr Ellis was out in his garden too, a gas mask container slung over his shoulder and a spade in his hand.
She smiled at him but did not dwell too long on his crossed eyes as they made her feel queasy. ‘If I don’t, nobody else will.’
The gnarled old man gave a nod of understanding and resumed his work. Taking seriously the information on what to do in an air raid given in the pamphlet that had come through his door, he had begun to excavate a trench lined with sandbags in his garden. ‘Well, after I’ve finished this I’ll come over and do one for you.’
Viewing his red face and loud breathing, she envisioned him having a heart attack and said hurriedly, ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble, Mr Ellis.’
His head bobbed up from the trench as he continued to shovel merrily. ‘No trouble, dear – expediency! I’m old enough to remember the Zep raids.’
Beata vaguely remembered them too, at least she remembered the night when Clem had come to sit on her bed and placate her with a white lie that it was only thunder. He had been so kind to her then. Feeling nostalgic, she wondered what he was doing now. At least his bad chest would spare him from having to go and fight like poor Joe.
She was wondering if the authorities would corner Duke when suddenly a distant air raid siren sounded. Even having been expecting this test, it still made her jump and the hairs stood up on the back of her neck as she looked automatically to the sky. ‘What are we supposed to do?’ she called to Mr Ellis. ‘Do I have to get Uncle Teddy out of bed?’
The cross-eyed old face reassured her, its owner clambering out of his trench. ‘No, it’s just to make sure everybody can hear them.’ As the siren was sounded three times, he came up to the fence and leaned on his shovel to explain to her what the different tones meant. First a steady note: ‘That’s the raiders past signal.’ Then an eerie warbling. ‘That’s the one you have to take notice of. If you hear that you run like billy-o.’
&
nbsp; ‘Where to?’
‘My shelter – or whatever one you happen to be close to at the time.’
She looked forlorn. ‘I’ll never be able to drag Uncle Teddy out of bed.’
Mr Ellis’s eyes consulted each other across his nose for a second, before he dealt wise advice. ‘Leave him where he is and save yourself.’
* * *
However, they were only to hear the air raid siren in practice, never for real and, after weeks of false alarms with nothing happening, the harum-scarum evacuees started to drift back to Liverpool, places that had been closed now re-opening. Along with the rest of her neighbours Beata settled back into her usual routine, albeit a tense one.
After the initial excitement an air of gloom gradually took hold, people beginning to grumble at all the restrictions with which they continued to be bombarded.
November was dreary enough without all this on top, opined Beata to herself, wistfully fingering a late rose that had escaped her dig for victory and bending to inhale its perfume. Overhead, a flock of seagulls was circling, their screams filling the air. It was such an incredibly lonely sound that she hurried to resume what she had come out here to do, which was to give the washing line a quick wipe with a cloth. It was permanently erected these days, there seemed no point in taking it down, Uncle Teddy’s bed-wetting having become a regular occurrence. Ironically, he was the only one who didn’t grumble, his drunken binges sparing him from knowing what was going on half the time, whilst a lot of other people were cracking up from the strain of wondering when the enemy might strike.
Margaret was one of those ready to blow, thought Beata acknowledging the cleaner’s arrival as she hung out the bedding. Her plump cheeks had become empty bags, her mouth permanently turned down, her bulging blue eyes awash with worry that her husband’s fishing boat was going to be sunk by a torpedo. But none of these feelings were voiced.
‘I see the old pisspot’s struck again.’ Margaret leaned her bicycle against the wall. ‘Oh, Beat, how can you stand it?’
A Different Kind of Love Page 72