Under a Wartime Sky

by Liz Trenow

  ‘We’ve some good friends who went on one of those tours,’ he said, and she began to relax. Perhaps he was just offering her the brochure by way of conversation. ‘They’ve recommended it to us. They found their son’s grave, you see. It was difficult, they said, but it gave them a great sense of solace.’

  ‘Are you considering it for yourselves?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ve thought about it, but . . .’ He inclined his head fractionally towards his wife, who was silently dabbing her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. ‘We wondered whether’ – he paused a moment – ‘whether you might go on our behalf?’

  They’ve gone barmy, Ruby thought to herself. Me, travel to the battlefields, by myself? Wander around the trenches looking for signs of him, along with a load of gawping tourists? It was not just crazy, it was slightly distasteful.

  Albert was still talking: ‘To pay our respects, as a family. As we don’t have a grave, you know.’

  Oh, she knew all right, only too well. Bertie’s body had never been found. That was one of the hardest things: not knowing how he died, not being able to imagine where he lay. She still had nightmares, fuelled by photographs in the Illustrated London News that she could only look at through half-closed eyes, about his body entangled with those of others, entombed and rotting in a muddy crater somewhere near Ypres. She turned back to the brochure, but the sentences swam in her vision. She loved Bertie, of course she did, and always would. But surely this was a step too far? How would she ever survive seeing, for herself, those places of horror?

  ‘My dear?’ Albert prompted. ‘Would you be willing?’

  ‘I really don’t think I . . .’ she began, and then ran out of words. Surely they could not be asking her to go, alone, to this terrible place?

  ‘You hear these reports, you know . . .’ Ivy whispered into the silence.

  It was a familiar refrain. For a few months after the armistice, with almost every visit to the Barton house, a newspaper cutting would be produced: photographs of men who had miraculously returned, skeletal but alive, having escaped from prisoner-of-war camps and walked hundreds of miles back from Germany, or who had hidden out in the woods of Flanders for months and even years, afraid to show themselves as deserters. She would be invited to speculate on what might have happened to Bertie – that he might have been taken prisoner, or just been injured and helped by a Belgian family who were keeping him safe – and on the possibility that he might just turn up one day.

  Even though she knew it was infinitesimally unlikely, after these conversations she sometimes dreamed of it: a man walking out of the smoke of battle towards her, his face blackened with dirt, his uniform torn and his cap missing. And then that face would break into his beloved smile and she would gasp, unbelieving, running towards him.

  She would wake, crying, watching the dawn rise through the curtains, hearing the birds tuning up for the morning chorus: a few tentative tweets at first, followed by a single territorial blackbird and then the rest, joining the full-throated refrain. The cruel world was still out there, she was still here, alone, and he was dead. The only way to survive was to harden her heart.

  As 1919 drew on, reports of miraculous returns became fewer and fewer until, almost to Ruby’s relief, they seemed to dry up entirely. At least now, she’d hoped, perhaps Ivy would begin to accept that he wasn’t coming home.

  But no. Bertie’s aunt Flo had been to a séance a few months ago and asked about him. The medium had spoken some platitudes – Ruby’s interpretation, not Flo’s – about how he would always be with them, and this had been understood – distorted, in Ruby’s view – as an indication that he was somehow still on this earth. He’d been injured, apparently, but was now recovering in hospital. Ruby didn’t believe a word of it. If he was in hospital, they’d have heard by now.

  ‘We thought perhaps you might be able to find him,’ Ivy now murmured, leaning forward and taking Ruby’s hand. ‘It would mean so much to me, my dearest. I don’t think I have the strength to go on living without knowing whether he is still alive, somewhere. Or at least to know where he rests.’

  It was a ridiculous idea and there was no way that Ruby was going to agree to go to Flanders on her own. She had to find some way of refusing, gently, so as not to cause them further distress. But for now, just to seem willing, she flicked through the brochure.

  ‘It’s on page fourteen, the itinerary we thought would be about right,’ Albert said, leaning over to help her turn the pages. ‘Not too expensive, but time to get a feel for the place, and visit the places you need to see.’

  ‘A Week at Ostend,’ she read. ‘With excursions to Ypres, and the Belgian Battlefields. Leaving London every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Fare provides for travel tickets (Third Class rail, Second Class steamer), seven days full board accommodation at a private Hotel, consisting of café complet, lunch, dinner and bed; electric trams to Zeebrugge and Nieuwpoort. All excursions accompanied by a competent Guide-Lecturer.’ A detailed daily itinerary followed. The price for ‘Second Class Travel and Second Class Hotel’ was thirteen guineas.

  ‘But that’s a fortune,’ she said. ‘And the extras . . .’ She did a quick sum in her head – it would add up to nearly three months’ wages.

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear, we’ve already agreed.’ Albert seemed to read her thoughts. ‘We shall pay for you, of course, and the pocket money besides.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly—’

  ‘I called round and spoke to your mother this morning,’ he went on. ‘It seemed only right to let her know that we were going to ask you and I wanted to reassure her on every detail.’

  For a moment, Ruby felt betrayed. Why hadn’t Mum mentioned it? Then she remembered that she’d come here straight from work and she had not been home since. ‘But I’ve never been abroad before, let alone on my own,’ she said. ‘I don’t speak French, or whatever it is they speak in Flanders.’

  Albert senior straightened his back in the chair, assuming his most assiduous expression. ‘We understand that it’s a brave thing we’re asking you to do for us, my dear,’ he said. ‘But you are a mature, responsible young woman and will be in excellent hands. Thomas Cook is a most respectable outfit; you will travel in a small group with a guide looking after you at all times.’

  She looked up from the brochure again, meeting his gaze, so earnest, almost desperate. Only then did she fully understand that he was deadly serious. She felt suddenly light-headed, hardly able to believe this was happening.

  ‘I’ve been in touch with them personally, to make sure,’ he went on. ‘I shall accompany you to London to ensure that you are met by their representative at Victoria station. You will have all meals provided and will be looked after in every way. My dearest,’ he said, leaning so close that she could smell his pipe-tobacco breath, ‘we would never have considered allowing you to go had it been otherwise. You are too precious to us.’

  ‘May I have a few days to think about it?’ she asked, forcing her lips into a smile. She would talk to her mother, get her on side, ask her to dissuade them from pursuing this crazy notion.

  ‘Of course, my dear.’ Albert rose from his chair to shake her hand. It was the closest to physical contact she’d had with him since that terrible day of the telegram, when he had actually put his arm around her.

  He turned to Ivy. ‘Shall we revive the pot, dearest?’

  After his wife had left the room he whispered, ‘I would go with you, Ruby, but you know she is too frail to be left alone for a whole week. And she is desperate for some kind of news, good or bad. Without that I truly believe that she will fade away.’

  ‘Perhaps I could stay with Ivy, and you could go instead?’ she said, more in hope than expectation.

  ‘Of course I’ve suggested that too, but she insists she cannot manage without me. I’m the only one who understands, apparently.’ He brushed a hand through his thinning hair, a gesture which, for the briefest of moments, betrayed his exasperation, his exhaustion, the heavy bu
rden he carried.

  Then he leaned forward, confidentially. ‘Besides, we thought that going for yourself might offer you some personal solace, my dear. Our friends insist that it is a highly reputable company and it would be perfectly safe for a young woman on her own. In fact, there were several single ladies on the tour with them. They will give us a personal introduction to the tour guide, a former army major and a most excellent man, they said.’

  This was emotional blackmail, Ruby knew, but she was powerless to resist. ‘You seem so strong, and this will mean such a lot to her,’ he went on. ‘You do understand, don’t you?’

  She didn’t feel strong. She could get by, day by day, doing the familiar things. But travelling alone to Belgium? Visiting the battlefields?

  His brown eyes reminded her so much of Bertie’s, gentle and pleading. She was never able to refuse that look when he was alive and it felt as though refusing his father’s request might be an insult to his memory, perhaps even a denial of his very existence. In their different ways his parents were pinning their hopes on her, and the last thing she wanted was to cause them even further suffering.

  ‘We will none of us recover, of course. But perhaps if you are able to bring back something . . .’ Albert shook his head, lost for words. ‘A memento of some kind, I don’t know what, but perhaps a postcard, a flower, anything – it might allow her heart to rest. We should be eternally grateful.’

  ‘When would this be?’ Ruby asked. ‘I’ve promised Mum we’ll have some days out in the summer. She wants to go to the seaside and Auntie May has offered to lend us her beach hut.’

  ‘It would be only a week, and I thought early July might be best, when the crossing will be calm. I’ll have a word with Mrs T.’

  She felt an urgency to speak up now, before she left, or it would be assumed that she had agreed. But just then Ivy returned from the kitchen with the pot of tea, poured her a new cup and handed it across the table with such an entreating smile that Ruby could not bring herself to say anything at all.

  That evening she talked to her mother. A few years after being so suddenly widowed, Mary had managed to create a new life for herself: taking in sewing to supplement Ruby’s modest income, joining the Women’s Institute and making wonderful cakes, digging over her husband’s vegetable patch and learning how to grow potatoes, beetroot, beans and salad vegetables to save on food bills.

  Over the months and years she had become Ruby’s closest confidante, her best friend, the one person, she felt, who could truly understand what she was going through: the daily pain of bereavement.

  ‘I don’t want to go, Mum,’ she said. ‘It feels a bit distasteful to me.’

  ‘They’re very set on it, you know.’ Mary handed her a mug of cocoa. ‘Mr B. called round this morning. I was in a hurry getting out for the bus, but he would have his say. Ivy’s convinced Bertie’s alive somewhere.’

  ‘It’s that wretched sister of hers, the one who went to the spiritualist.’ Ruby sighed, pushing aside the milk skin with the back of a teaspoon.

  ‘It’s your decision, love. I told him it was up to you.’

  ‘If I have to go, would you come with me?’

  ‘How could we ever afford that?’

  ‘We could ask him to pay for you, too.’

  ‘Shush, girl, I won’t have us being in their debt. And anyway, I can’t take more time off work if we’re going to take up Auntie May’s offer of the beach hut.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Mum. Of the mud, and those battlefields, and all. Of finding his grave, even.’

  Mary put down her mug and leaned over to stroke her arm. ‘You never know, it might help, my darling.’

  Ruby wasn’t convinced, although she was starting to accept that she had no option but to do her duty by Bertie’s parents. She would have to wrap that protective carapace of unfeeling tightly around herself, to harden her heart and concentrate on surviving.

  As the date approached she tried not to think too much about it, but found it impossible to dispel the nausea of fearful anticipation in her stomach.

  It was after the wedding that Ruby had taken the job as a sales assistant at Hopegoods. Albert had inherited the business from Ivy’s father and Bertie had worked there too, ‘learning the trade’. It was always assumed that he would take over when his father retired.

  ‘I can’t just stay at home kicking my heels, with you going off to France,’ she’d said to him one day. ‘You won’t mind, will you, if I get a job? I have to feel I’m doing something for the war effort.’

  He’d smiled at her then, the heart-melting smile that lit up his face and crinkled the corner of his eyes, and pulled her to him, kissing her on the forehead, which was where his lips naturally reached.

  ‘Dearest Rube, you must do what you wish. When I get home, and we start having little ones, then you can be a lady of leisure.’

  She applied to become a clippie on the buses in Ipswich, but the places were all taken. She was offered a job in the munitions factory but her mother vetoed it. ‘It’s so dangerous. And I couldn’t bear to lose you too, my darling. Why don’t you ask Mr Barton if he has any vacancies at the shop?’

  So for the past three years she’d been working in haberdashery under its redoubtable manager Ada Turner, a widow known to all as Mrs T., who was wedded to her job and appeared to have no outside interests. She never spoke about any family, where she lived or what she did on her days off, but she knew by heart the reference number for every one of the two hundred colours of threads, and the right yarn for each purpose: general stitching, heavy duty work, overlocking and serging, embroidery, quilting and patchworking, and the beautiful luminescent pure silk threads for very fine work.

  She could guide customers to the appropriate fabric for their garment, advise them what stiffener to use, or which was the correct zipper from the dozens that they stocked, and help them to choose from more than a hundred styles, varieties and sizes exactly the right type of button. They loved her. If she was away from the counter for any reason, customers would linger over the pattern books until she returned. When she arrived back and took over a transaction that Ruby had already started it made her feel very much like second best.

  At first Mrs T. and the other staff were wary and even mistrustful of Ruby, the boss’s daughter-in-law. But she’d kept her head down and worked diligently to gain their trust and respect. Initially she felt bamboozled by all the information she was expected to absorb but as her knowledge grew she discovered that she enjoyed the work and getting to know her ‘regulars’. The books of dress patterns were so enticing she couldn’t wait to start trying them out herself.

  She dusted off her mother’s old Singer and started with modest items at first, petticoats and aprons, but soon became more adventurous, making skirts and even, most recently, a jacket of green wool serge, nipped in at the waist with darts at back and front. It was the first time she’d worn anything other than black since those terrible days of 1916, but it was sombre enough, she thought.

  She was wearing it now, here on the deck of the ship, along with the black skirt she’d made to match, and a cloche hat, purchased at the shop with her staff discount. Over her arm was the summer raincoat that Alfred senior had pressed into her hands a few days before. ‘You might need this,’ he said. ‘It rains in Flanders.’

  It was, she could tell from the label, from a top-quality manufacturer, the very latest style in charcoal cotton twill, more luxurious and certainly more costly than she’d ever hoped to own. How proud Bertie would have been, she’d thought to herself, glancing at her reflection in the shop windows on her way home from work, enjoying the unaccustomed swish of the fabric around her calves.

  Paradoxically, it was moments like these, brief moments of unexpected happiness, that seemed to bring home her loss more profoundly, rocking her stability, threatening to crack the mask. What always followed, she discovered, was an even deeper sense of despair and hopelessness, when the ache of missing him twisted like a knife lodged
in her heart.

  It was more than two years since she’d last seen him and, although his dear face still smiled at her from the photograph by her bedside that she kissed every night, she was starting to lose the most important memories: the sweet-clean smell of his shaving soap, the deep timbre of his voice that seemed to vibrate through his chest, the bubbling joy of his laughter. It was as though her mind was protecting her by blurring her knowledge of him, making him somehow less real. It seared her with guilt that the man she had loved for most of her life was slowly fading from her memory; that she was alive, and he was not.

  But not as much as it did for betraying him while he was alive.

  Bertie’s father was as good as his word. On the appointed day he collected her by taxi, purchased rail tickets for both of them to Victoria station and bought her a cup of tea and a sandwich. During the journey he was more animated than she’d seen him for several years, pointing out landmarks as they passed, discussing his plans for the development of Hopegoods now that the shadow of war was lifted, and dispensing advice about how she should comport herself while on tour, in particular how she must be wary of approaches from strangers. He seemed to relish this interruption to the daily routine, away from the responsibilities of the shop and his tearful, fearful wife.

  At Victoria station he quickly spotted the Thomas Cook representative.

  ‘I’m Major Wilson. Call me John. Good to have you aboard,’ the man boomed, shaking her hand vigorously with a bone-crushing grip. Then, turning to Albert, ‘Don’t you worry, sir. I will take the greatest care of your daughter-in-law.’

  The major was a bluff middle-aged man with a kindly smile, not tall but with a bearing that left you in little doubt that he’d brook no impertinence. It transpired that he had spent twenty years in the army including several years in the trenches before being invalided out with a gammy leg.