by Sonia Tilson
Gillian gave up. There was no point in going on with her project now, since her mother seemed excited and perhaps feverish. She would try again when her mother was calmer. She gathered up the photographs and changed the subject. “Have you seen anything of the other women here, Mum?”
“There’s a woman in the next room.” Her mother lowered her voice. “She came in to see me last night.” She leaned forward. “I think she’s Jewish.”
“So?” Gillian turned her head sharply, chin up.
“Oh, not that I have anything against Jewish people! I had a good friend once who was Jewish. Gilda Rosenberg. She kept the dress shop down the hill from us. Lovely woman! You probably remember her.”
Gillian looked narrowly at her. “I remember Mrs. Rosenberg very well. She was indeed a lovely woman, and seemed very fond of you.” She turned away, disturbed, as always, by her mother’s hypocrisy and by her own memories of the end of the war.
W
When the victory in Europe was announced, nothing turned out the way Gillian and Tommy had hoped. Everyone who had a say in it, which, of course, did not include them, had agreed that even though there could be no more bombings, and it was indeed safe for them to come home, they should stay where they were because of Gillian’s approaching Eleven-plus examination. The consolation offered was that they could go home for weekends.
Gillian tried to explain to a sulking Tommy that she could not help what they thought, and that she was every bit as fed up about it as he was. They would just have to put up with it, she said, pointing out that it was already Wednesday. In two days’ time they would be home. He cheered up somewhat, but she still brooded. There were schools in Swansea, weren’t there?
They adjusted, as usual, and from then on, every Friday after school, their grandfather put them on the bus for Swansea and they rode into town, jittery with excitement at the prospect of being at home. It did not matter that their parents were often busy, their father with his practice, their mother with her social life, and that they were left to their own devices. They had plenty of those, whether in the house or rambling around the neighbourhood.
One Saturday, however, Gillian was taken shopping with her mother, who had collected enough coupons to get herself a new dress. They went straight down the road to Mrs. Rosenberg’s little dress shop, which had managed to stay in business all through the bombings.
Mrs. Rosenberg’s sad dark eyes lit up as Gillian and her mother came into the shop. After the warm greetings and chit-chat were over, she sat Gillian in a spindly, satin-covered chair by the window, leaving a silver dish of barley-sugar sweets on the tiny table beside her. She had something especially nice put aside, she said, for “dear Iris” to try on, and they bustled into the changing room where Gillian could hear them cooing over the dress.
When they came out, Mrs. Rosenberg wrapped up the new dress in a shocking extravagance of tissue paper and placed the package reverently in a shiny white cardboard box, using an outrageous amount of pale-blue ribbon to secure and adorn it. She stroked Gillian’s cheek as they left, pushing the remaining sweets into her hand.
Clipping along the pavement in her patent-leather high-heeled shoes, and holding the box flat to prevent wrinkles, Gillian’s mother observed that Gilda Rosenberg had a heart of gold, and had given one hundred pounds to Swansea’s newly set-up Home for Unmarried Mothers.
Gillian gasped at the huge amount. Remembering that this was her mother’s favourite charity, and that she sat on its board, whatever that meant, she peered up into her mother’s face to ask if Mrs. Rosenberg would be coming to the Victory cocktail party, the cause of much fuss and talk, which her parents would be giving the following Friday evening.
“No, of course not.” Her mother pursed her lips.
“But why not, Mummy? I thought you were friends.”
Her mother walked on faster. “We’re just … business friends, Gillian. We don’t socialize. It would be …” she searched for the word, “inappropriate.”
Gillian stopped. “Why? Why would it be inappropriate if you asked Mrs. Rosenberg?”
Her mother was walking so fast, Gillian could hardly catch up. “Well, she really doesn’t belong around here, you know,” her mother said over her shoulder. “And, of course, there’s the matter of religion to consider.”
Trotting along breathlessly, Gillian said to her mother’s rigid back, “But you and Daddy don’t go to church, and Mrs. Rosenberg has been here much longer than Mr. and Mrs. Ashford, and I know you’re asking them.”
Her mother stopped and swung around. “That’s enough, Gillian! You’re getting above yourself! Don’t talk about things you can’t understand.” She strode on without looking back as Gillian slipped away from her and down a narrow lane between the houses.
Weekends at home were usually like that, Gillian thought, as she half-heartedly explored the lane; hardly ever as happy as she had imagined they would be. Tommy would get into trouble for being loud and thoughtless; she would be criticized for being too quiet, or reading too much, or asking too many questions; one or the other, or both of her parents might be in a bad mood, or worse still, openly quarrelling with each other, which they seemed to do more and more often lately.
One particular day, however, a Saturday in April, started as a happy one with no bad feelings on anyone’s part. There was an egg each for breakfast, with the added luxury of both butter and Golden Shred marmalade for their toast. Over a cup of sweet, milky tea, Gillian watched her parents smile at each other, her mother getting up to pour her father a second cup, leaning over with her hand on his shoulder as he read out details of the victory from the morning paper. Gillian took a deep breath, the tight feeling she nearly always had in her chest relaxing. If only they could all stay like that forever! Perhaps they could. Maybe, when the war was really over, everything would be all right again, more or less.
After breakfast she and Tommy lay on their stomachs on the sunlit carpet, reading The Beano and The Dandy and giggling over the exploits of Pansy Potter, The Strong Man’s Daughter, and Freddy the Fearless Fly. When Tommy pushed his comic over, pointing to the cow’s tail hanging over the side of Desperate Dan’s enormous pie, instead of faintly smiling in her usual superior way, she laughed with him. She noticed that he was not making that funny clicking noise in his throat that annoyed everyone.
Their mother was wearing the new dress, fawn and slightly flared, with a pattern of black V’s which she said were called chevrons. Their father said it could be her Victory dress, since she did look rather winning in it. Savouring chevrons and rather winning, Gillian smiled to herself.
Later in the morning, their father got out the little Ford Prefect and drove the family to Cefn Bryn, the ridge of hill on the common land outside Swansea. They stood on the raised centre of the Gower Peninsula and looked over at the sea on one side, bright blue, with white horses racing in, and the Burry estuary on the other, with its great stretches of mud sands on which they thought they could make out the donkey carts of cockle-gatherers. The wind, smelling of rock pools and seaweed, rushed off the sea and over the common, blowing their mother’s long dark hair over her face.
The children raced each other down the path between the great stones placed there by Ancient Britons, thousands of years ago. On the way back they stopped to study the huge boulder that was Arthur’s Stone. Quartz sparkled like broken glass as they looked up at the dark slit from which they agreed he must have pulled Excalibur.As they ran back to rejoin their parents, a plover appeared on the path ahead of them, dragging her pretend-broken wing to entice them away from the nest which they knew must be on the ground nearby. Tommy wanted to look for it, but their father called out to leave the poor bird alone to look after her chicks in peace. Looking back, Gillian saw her settle, wonderfully camouflaged, into a dip in the ground, safe with her babies. When she looked again after turning her eyes away for a second, they had become invisible
.
The morning ended with a picnic, eaten in the car with all the doors open and the wind rushing through: fish paste sandwiches, Grandma’s Victory no-egg sponge cake, and tea from the thermos. This was followed by a top-speed, roller-coaster ride over the bumps and dips on the road home over the common.
The best thing of all, though, was yet to come. That afternoon, her parents were taking her to the cinema, to see The Bells of Saint Mary’s; just Gillian, since Tommy, at nine, was judged too young. Even then there was no quarrelling. The maid had been told to let Tommy have his new friend, Marcus, over to play and to give them sausage and mash for their tea.
The three of them set off for the cinema, Gillian between her parents, possibly ready to hold their hands, if they offered. They walked jauntily down the sunny side of the street, past the bombed houses, their gardens still full of rubble, and past the church where clear, diamond-shaped panes replaced the stained glass windows that had once shown Jesus performing miracles. When they came to Mrs. Rosenberg’s shop, they stopped briefly for her mother to admire a dress in the window. Not far from the dress shop stood the cinema, the grandly elegant Albert Hall, somehow spared by the bombs which, according to her father, had otherwise seemed to pick on Swansea’s finer buildings.
Once they had settled in the red plush seats, Gillian in the middle, her father produced with a flourish a box of six Black Magic chocolates and ceremoniously offered her the first choice. After some debate, she chose a hard, chewy caramel because it would last longer than any of the others.
The curtains opened at last on The Bells of Saint Mary’s. Like every other film she had seen up to that point, Gillian found it totally absorbing, despite being taken aback by the Roman Catholic setting, about which her grandmother certainly would have had something to say. She fell in love with Bing Crosby, and was awed by Ingrid Bergman. She sniffled alongside her mother through the sad part, and bravely accepted the ending. When the music swelled up at the finish, and the great curtains swished together, her mother gave a satisfied sigh, and her father said cheerily, “Load of old codswallop!” and passed the chocolates around again. Gillian looked up from choosing a strawberry cream to smile at both of them, and as the cock crowed, announcing the Pathé News, she snuggled back in her seat, happy that there was more to see.
At first the News just showed soldiers marching about as usual. All seemed to be going well with the end of the war, and Gillian tuned out from the subject as she usually did, until the scene changed, and she saw that what she was looking at was not usual at all. There was no marching or cheering, no patriotic fanfares, no excited male voice talking about victories. A hushed, solemn voice was speaking; something about a camp.
And then she saw them.
Holding her breath, she pressed back in her seat. How could this be? Could skeletons be alive? Could dead bodies walk? Were those men and women she was looking at, behind barbed wire, draped in rags, with only bones for arms and legs, black eyes staring blank as stones from their skulls? Behind the walking skeletons she saw a huge pile of bones. As she stared, she saw one long bone near the top of the pile move; and then another. She closed her eyes. Who were these people? Who had done this to them? Why? She focused fiercely again on the images, the commentary unheard. She had to get this right and remember everything, always. She did not understand any of it except that it was the truth; knowledge that sank into her heart like a stone. If this was possible, and God did not prevent it, anything could happen. Anything at all.
Coming out of the cinema, that place of darkness and moving shadows, was like emerging from a cave into what you could call the light. The sun was still shining on the wide street that led back to their home, but now everywhere she looked was desolation and ruin.
For once her parents did not ask what she thought of the show. They walked home together in their separate silences. Head low, elbows clutched, she closed inward around that stone in her heart. If anyone spoke she would shatter like glass.
W
Gillian turned away from her mother and went to the window. How could anyone who had seen that newsreel, or read those facts, ever be the same again? And yet the world had gone on in the same old way; war after war, genocide after genocide. She stared out over the vast, restless cruelty of the sea.
When she looked back, she saw Doctor Gabriel had come into the room. He nodded at her and smiled at her mother, putting his finger to his lips before bending over to listen to her chest. He straightened up, returning his stethoscope to its place around his neck, and looked at Gillian, shaking his head. He put his hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “No time to talk now, Mrs. Davies, but I’m going to put you on a stronger diuretic. There’s some fluid in your chest I want to get rid of.”
“Thank you for taking such good care of me, Doctor. I know we’re going to beat this.” She smiled up at him, and Gillian saw for a moment why people thought she was wonderful.
He smiled back. “But you must try to eat, Iris—you don’t mind if I call you Iris, do you?”
“Please do!” The old woman fluttered her almost non-existent eyelashes.
“Sunita tells me you’ve been sending plates back untouched. At least, drink your supplements. That’s doctor’s orders now, Iris. You must take care of yourself.” Wagging a finger at her, he turned briskly to leave, nearly colliding with Tom.
Carrying a dozen peach-coloured roses and a large plastic bag, and out of breath from hurrying up the stairs, Tom beamed at them all and rushed over to give his mother a kiss. “How are you, Mum? Are you feeling better?” He thrust the roses at her. “Look at these! Do you like them? I thought they’d remind you of Grandpa’s Peace rose. Remember? He was so proud of that!”
Their mother approached her nose to one of the blooms. “No, the Peace rose was much bigger and more beautiful, and it had a wonderful smell. These have no scent at all. But they’re nice. Thank you, Tom.”
Gillian winked at Tom, fetching a shrug and a rueful grin.
He tried again. “Look, I’ve brought you some magazines, Mum: The Tatler, The Lady, House and Garden, and,” he brought it out with a flourish, “Royalty! So you can keep up with the gossip.”
She leaned back on the pillows. “Oh, I’m past all that sort of thing.”
“I’ll have them if you don’t want them.” Gillian reached out for Royalty. “This looks like fun.”
Her mother smacked her hand down on the magazines. “I shall keep them, if you don’t mind, so that I can pass them around to the other ladies here.”
Gillian caught Tom’s eye, pressing her lips together to suppress a smile.
“It’s nice, though, that you’re bringing me presents.” Their mother picked up Royalty, and leafed through it, pausing to scrutinize a picture of the Queen Mother. “I used to love sending off parcels for you both when you were away at school.”
Gillian and Tom opened their eyes wide at each other just as Sunita came in with medication and eyedrops. While the nurse attended to their mother, Gillian watched Tom leaning forward as he sat, his hands loosely linked between his knees, drinking in the sight of the beautiful young woman. Straightening up Sunita gave him a smile of pure friendliness, and his broad, ruddy face went slack with yearning. Some things never change.
Their mother turned her head to ask after Tweetie-Pie and Sylvester.
“They’re fine,” Tom assured her. “We’re going back right after this to see to them.” It was he who had given her the cat and the canary, and, unaware that she had never watched the cartoons, had suggested those names.
“That’s nice. I love to see you two together. We were so rarely together, all of us, when you were growing up. It was a source of great sadness to me. Especially that you had to go away to school.” She sighed wheezily. “I was so lonely while you were away, both of you.”
Tom blinked and grunted. Gillian opened her mouth, but closed it on hearing her mother�
��s wheeze get louder, and seeing her sudden pallor. “You look tired, Mum.” She quickly tidied up the magazines and put the roses in water. “You need to rest. We’ll be off now.”
Sunita glided back in as Gillian settled her mother down.
“I need a drink!” Tom was breathing heavily as they went down the stairs. “Isn’t she the giddy limit? Let’s go to The Cross Keys. We can have lunch there while we’re at it.”
The pub was a minor miracle, famous for incorporating the remnants of a fourteenth century hospice. Despite being situated near the docks, it had remained standing, along with the ancient castle ruins, when everything else around had been flattened by bombs. Once inside, Gillian saw it now looked much like any other Tudor-style pub, apart from the stone window at the far end of the dining room.
Tom was still upset by their mother’s re-writing of their boarding-school years. “I hated it there!” He gulped down half his pint of Worthington E. “After living in Tregwyr with Grandma and Grandpa, to be thrust into that brutality! I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. That’s why I joined the army instead of finishing the sixth form.”
“But you liked the sports, didn’t you? I thought you were in all the teams and quite the star Rugby player.”
“I played games to escape. It was my only pleasure.”
“I can relate to that. It was the same for me, only with reading.”
He ordered another pint while they waited for their platters. “How many parcels did you receive, Gill? I don’t remember getting any!”
“Mum sent me knickers once because Matron said I needed new ones, but I can’t remember anything else. No parcels with condensed milk, or tangerines, or hand-knitted socks in them. Not like some girls.” She laughed. “Listen to us, Tom! We sound like sulky teenagers.”