* * *
With no money of her own, the afternoon in town could have been rather unproductive for Beata, though she was to be recompensed by her sister’s exceptionally good mood, not one sarcasm passing Maddie’s lips apart from that directed against the enemy when, observing from the top deck of their bus, she noted, ‘There’s not so many men hanging round street corners now, are there? At least we can thank Hitler for getting our unemployment down.’
‘Where are we getting off?’ asked Beata as their bus trundled through town.
‘Rougier Street. I want to go to Muriel Lyons and get a little frock for Jimmy.’
‘I could do with a little frock an’ all,’ teased Beata, hope in her eye.
‘Bugger off, yours’d cost more than two and eleven.’ As the bus travelled over Ouse Bridge, Maddie pointed to a group of firemen in practice, training their hoses across the river. ‘Eh, he can shoot his hose a long way, can’t he?’
Beata chuckled and observed, ‘Your joints can’t be too bad today.’
‘On the contrary,’ Maddie drew on her cigarette, ‘they’re bloody murder. But I’ve seen these magic bandages in a magazine so I’m keeping my hopes up.’
Keeping their hopes up was all they could do. For, on the day following a side-splitting night at the theatre, there came the dreadful news that Norway had surrendered, this, of course, setting them all worrying about Joe and bringing Maddie rushing back to the house.
Pipe in hand, Mick shook his head in condemnatory fashion. ‘Well, they’ve only themselves to blame for being too neutral, encouraging the Nazis to think they can get away with it.’
‘And now our lads are going to have to pay for helping get them out of a fix!’ Maddie was angry that her brother was expected to risk his life for foreigners.
Mick too was anxious for his own sons, who had just been included in the latest call-up. They had discussed joining up at the outset of war but, remembering his own assignment in hell, their father had forbidden it. Unable even now to get those terrible images out of his mind, he felt sick at the thought of what they might have to suffer.
Maddie still railed, her painful digits fumbling over the lighting of a cigarette. ‘It’s like the school bully, if you don’t stand up to him the first time, you’ve had it. And mentioning bullies, people are saying this’ll bring that posturing prima donna in, whatshisname, Semolina.’
‘Mussolini,’ Beata chuckled, and, despite her own deep worry, so did Mims.
Mick agreed with a sigh. ‘’Twon’t be long before the Italians come in, for sure.’
Though this was not to happen yet, the news bulletins continued to be grim, the Nazis making hourly progress in their blitzkrieg of Europe.
Having planned a Bank Holiday expedition with the children to Scarborough, Beata was dismayed to be informed just days prior to this by her sister: ‘Whit’s been cancelled, Beat.’
‘What do you mean?’ Just out of bed, she was still fuzzy-headed as she came to help prepare breakfast.
Handing her a cup of tea, Gussie looked grave and bit her lip before announcing, ‘I’ve just heard on the wireless … he’s invaded the Low Countries.’
There was no need to ask who he was. Aghast, Beata pondered on the seriousness of this for a moment, before asking her sister to turn the radio back on so that they might listen to the next news bulletin together.
Coming down just in time to hear the tail end of it, which echoed Gussie’s statement about the cancellation of Whitsuntide train services, Mick asked lethargically, ‘What’s up now?’
Handing him a cup of tea, Gussie told him gently, ‘Looks like our boys are going to be fighting on Belgian soil again.’
At first shocked, his grizzled head drooped over the table as the magnitude of the news sank in. The women watched and waited for him to raise his face again, which finally he did, his eyes projecting doom.
‘It’s the end,’ he said.
* * *
Under threat of the Nazi onslaught whose evil tide crept ever nearer, the atmosphere in the streets was palpable, volunteers rushing to the police station to enrol in the Local Defence Corps, whilst the police themselves swooped to detain aliens who were rounded up and packed off to camps.
Even Mims had ceased to joke now, desperately worried for her husband, who was heaven knew where, and for her baby son. Everyone went about their business like automatons.
Trying to maintain an air of normality in all this for the sake of the children, Beata soothed their disappointment over the trip to Scarborough by taking them for a picnic in the countryside. Though it was possible to be there in ten minutes, nevertheless after the walk her leg was like a balloon. And the war was still there when they got home.
Crowding round the radio at every news bulletin, they listened and waited as, with incredible speed, the Nazi tanks charged across the Low Countries, inflicting one blow after another. First the surrender of Holland, then, despite an epic struggle in which the patriots fought like lions, the fall of Belgium – and then all at once they were into France.
Digesting a tea of cold meat and salad, Beata and her family waited gravely to be told the worst this evening, but heard that, ‘The French continue to hold the Somme line…’ This familiar name prompted Gussie to think of her father and, after a moment’s reverie, said, ‘Do you remember, we used to call them the Hun, didn’t we?’ She took a sip of tea. ‘When we were young.’
When we were young. Beata studied her sister, who was only thirty-six. Everybody felt and looked so much older in these dark days.
‘Nazis or Hun, they’re all the bloody same,’ commented Mick, puffing reflectively on his pipe. ‘How that fool Chamberlain could be taken in I don’t know. Thank God for Mr Churchill.’
Mims came in then, having just tucked Jimmy into his cot. Weaving her way around the younger occupants who sat on the rug, some embroidering, another sketching, she said with little animation, ‘Oh, have I missed the news? Mind if I nab the press?’
Her elderly brother-in-law motioned for her to take it. ‘Nothing in it but atrocities anyway.’
‘That’s nothing new.’ Grim-faced, she settled herself down to read, crossing her legs and perusing the evening edition, avoiding the list of casualties. How much lower could the Nazis sink? They had only recently bombed a refugee ship.
But the section of print to which her eyes were drawn now caused her to break down and sob.
Startled, everyone stopped what they were doing. Her sisters projected concern. ‘Oh, whatever is it, love?’
Her whole body racked, tears streaming down her face, Mims could not speak, but handed Beata the newspaper and smote the offending section as if wishing she could erase it and bring them back to life.
Beata read it for herself, saying gravely for the others’ benefit, ‘The Gestapo have rounded up a lot of Polish boy scouts and machine-gunned them.’
After a period of heartrending sobs as she thought of her own baby son being so treated, Mims finally managed to denounce the perpetrators through her tears. ‘Little boys, Gus! Ten years old. The cruel, shitten butchers!’ And she covered her face with her handkerchief and wept again.
* * *
The misery increased. After the Belgian surrender the Allies continued to struggle on in Flanders but were pushed back so brutally that within days they found themselves fighting a desperate rearguard action on the French coast. Totally encircled, they were now to come under intense bombing and shelling, the enemy seemingly intent on obliteration.
A frantic call for volunteers went out, to the owners of any vessel, no matter how small, to put it at the disposal of those in peril. And a rescue mission was launched.
No one they knew was in France – Joe still in Norway, Jim somewhere in the North Sea, Brendan and his brothers not yet departed these shores – but it did not prevent Beata’s heart going out to those poor desperate souls trapped on the beach, and though she could not really know how it felt to come under fire she could well imagin
e their fear as they waited and wondered whether help was going to come in time, or if they were to face the ignominy of defeat, or worse.
For days the evacuation provoked a national feeling of anxiety, knowing that every available boat had gone to help, women stopping in the street to ask each other, had their son or husband or brother arrived in England yet?
Then, oh glorious news! Soldiers began to arrive in droves, hot and tired and smelly, a thousand horrors in their eyes, but alive, and a great wave of relief swept the country, grateful women recounting the magnificent endeavour that had brought their loved ones home.
This evening, reading the account of that valiant armada, myriad small pleasure boats, fishing cobles, yachts and trawlers, that had brought tens of thousands of troops home, Beata marvelled at the ingenuity and doggedness of the human spirit and for that moment felt part of something wonderful and historic as defeat was turned to victory and she silently blessed this nation of heroes, knowing they would fight to the last breath.
With this warm glow of patriotism still in her heart, she finished off the newspaper, then went to help Gussie get the bedtime cocoa, afterwards paying a last visit to the outside lavatory, making sure that no light was showing before slipping into the yard. But there, noting periodic flashes and rumbling in the sky, on her return she urged the others to, ‘Come and look at the candelabra.’
And they gathered in the yard to watch the distant firework display, the beam of searchlights, the glow from incendiary bombs and ack-ack guns lighting up the night sky, though, ‘It must be thirty miles away,’ breathed Mick.
‘I suppose we should be grateful we’ve had none dropped on us yet,’ sighed Gussie, her angelic eyes directed heavenwards. The sirens had delivered false alarms so often everyone had begun to ignore them and to sleep through it.
‘God help us if they do,’ scoffed Mick. ‘I doubt we’d be able to get into a shelter.’
‘Why?’
‘They’ve had to start locking them up at night ’cause some blighter’s forever vandalizing them or stealing the light bulbs.’
Hugging her bare arms, face tilted upwards, Mims uttered a sound of disgust. ‘I’ve never known a place like York for thieving. If it isn’t nailed down, they’ll pinch it.’
Remembering this phrase directed at Bert Spaven, Beata’s mind drifted to her old friends in service whom she had not seen for some time, wondered whether they were contributing towards the war effort, or were they, like her, just keeping things running at home. And in that thought, her former good mood regressed to one of deep inadequacy. Surely there must be something more she could do?
* * *
In the middle of June, due to their precarious position, the Allies were forced to evacuate Norway and the Kilmaster women were horrified to learn that one of the ships had been attacked with several casualties. Their first thoughts for Joe, when no telegram came, they began to relax somewhat for they would surely have been informed by now if he had been involved, Gussie being down as his next of kin. Besides, there were more than imaginary things to concern them, for at that same time Mussolini finally declared war on the Allies, and, four days later, the Germans entered Paris.
Their very real worries now were for those who had just gone over, amongst them Mick’s son Brendan, who could be imprisoned, or shot.
Still trying to find some more important way to involve herself other than on the home front, Beata went into town on another attempt to get into one of the forces, thinking that at such a critical time they might be willing to take anyone. Despite not a bomb being dropped on York, the war had suddenly become very real since Dunkirk. The surrounding countryside ideally flat for landing strips, squadrons of aeroplanes began to descend like moths on the Vale of York, their Canadian crews inundating the city in their search for billets. Surely someone must need her services.
But once again she was turned down. Going home, feeling despondent and preferring not to encounter any of the neighbours who might engage her in chat, she chose to take the rear entrance. The WVS appeal for old carpets, ropes, rags, rabbit skins, whisky bottles, brass, woollen waste, waste food for pigs, had received a superb response and the back lane looked like a rubbish dump as she turned into it. Spotting something untoward on top of one of the bins, she diverted to inspect it.
At this precise instant, Mims came trundling her pram along the same route, and, despite the feeling that she was going to crack up at any minute, grinned to herself at the sight of her sister grubbing about amongst the rubbish. ‘I know things are bad but do you have to go rummaging in other folk’s pig bins?’
Looking up, Beata chuckled. ‘I’m just getting rid of these rhubarb tops, they’ll be poisoning the poor bloody animals.’ After brief inspection of other neighbours’ receptacles, she transferred the leaves to a refuse bin, then opened the gate to the yard for Mims and the pram to pass through, waited whilst her sister unfastened Jimmy’s harness, then followed her indoors.
At the sight of the telegram in Gussie’s hand. Mims stopped dead.
Their elder sister was quick to say, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not Jim.’ But her eyes were still anguished as they turned to Beata. Too distressed, she let them read the telegram themselves.
Beata’s heart stopped. Joe was missing, presumed dead.
34
‘I’ve never really cared for June,’ said Maddie in hollow voice, seated amongst the rest of her sisters in Gussie’s living room, unable to believe that their brother would never be coming home. ‘I like May, when everything’s new and fresh, the leaves are just at that perfect stage, but June, well, everything seems a bit too … overblown somehow, like a blowsy woman, the grass is too long and going to seed.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ murmured Beata, staring into the distance. Shortly after that dreadful telegram, had come the news that the French were on the verge of surrender and their own boys would be fighting on alone. Assailed too by the Government warning that Hitler would attempt to invade this month, the four sisters were braced for a long war.
Sipping her tea, she glanced at Maddie whose magic bandages had not been the dazzling success their maker had boasted. Upon going round to tell her about Joe, Beata had found her like one giant blister. She had recovered somewhat since then, though her skin was still flaking off. Just one more lie from those who promised much but gave little. How could they believe anything they were told? Where now were the ones who said there would be no war?
‘I can’t believe we won’t see him again,’ said Maddie.
‘We will,’ murmured Gussie, secure in her faith. ‘He’s just gone on ahead.’
On the brink of screaming, Mims abandoned the little boy who played on the mat and hurried out to the back yard, lighting a cigarette.
Staring at her through the window, her sisters projected concern for her wellbeing, though under great strain themselves. ‘For once I thank God I’m not married,’ said Beata, reaching out to fondle her nephew’s little outstretched fingers.
‘She needs a diversion,’ agreed Maddie. ‘Let’s take her out for a ducky one evening.’
Beata nodded solemnly. ‘If you don’t mind looking after this little fella, Gus?’
Cradling a cup of tea, the eldest sister shook her head.
Remaining quiet, feeling left out of all this even though his own son could be dead for all he knew, Mick examined his empty tobacco pouch. With the younger members out at work and college, he contemplated asking one of the women to nip to the shop and buy him some more pipe fuel, but then thought better of it and went himself.
But he was to return quite swiftly with a queer look on his face. ‘The boy just delivered this.’ And he had in his hand a telegram.
Lips parted. The women turned to look at their sister in the yard.
‘It’s got your name on it,’ a serious Mick told his wife.
It must be confirmation about Joe, then. Gussie squashed her cheeks between her palms, the thought of him being dead too much to bear. ‘You read
it.’
Mick took a deep breath, his wife and sisters-in-law holding theirs as he opened the envelope.
Then he said immediately, ‘He’s safe.’
There was a unified gasp. Gussie crossed herself. ‘You’re sure?’
‘’Twas himself who’s sent it!’ Smiling now, he held out the telegram for his wife to read, pointing out the last two words: Love, Joe.
Sharing a massive surge of relief with the others, Beata went to call Mims in from the yard but her younger sister had heard their delighted voices and was already on her way in to discover what had caused this, seizing the telegram and poring over it with shining eyes, then joining in the celebration, everyone hugging each other and trying not to condemn those who had caused the painful mix-up, grateful only that their brother was alive, at least for now.
Afterwards, there was the instruction to ‘Get the kettle on!’ and not a few tears as the strain of the last week took its toll on them. There was also repetition of their plan to take Mims out for the evening, though now there was actually something to celebrate.
‘Eh dear, I’m exhausted,’ sighed Maddie, looking exactly that, though elated too. ‘I’ll have to go home and catch forty winks if I’m to last the night.’
Lifting Jimmy from her knee, Mims said she would have to go and find something to wear, whilst Beata and Gussie took the cups into the scullery.
‘Before ye go.’ Mick took hold of the one about to leave and said in confidential manner, ‘You’re a nurse—’
‘So they tell me.’
Using the edge of the table to steady himself, he kneeled before her. ‘Will ye just have a look down me throat and tell me if ye see a lump. I didn’t want to bother ye before.’
Maddie peered into his maw, but claimed she could see nothing. ‘Right at the back of me tongue – quite a few of them, there are.’
A Different Kind of Love Page 75