The Way Ahead

by Mary Jane Staples

  The war. Still going on. It was a wonder the family had survived. But they had, all except poor Emily, killed by a bomb almost four years ago. Boots had married Polly Simms later, and now they were the parents of twins, Gemma and James, lovely infants of two and a half years. Polly was still living in Dorset, and Boots had a new job somewhere or other, with orders that meant going overseas again. Chinese Lady thought it downright unresponsible of him to accept such orders, especially as he hadn’t long been back from Italy. During his leave, when he and Polly, with the twins, had spent time here at home, she had asked him what he thought he was up to at his age, going off to Italy as he had.

  ‘Ah,’ said Boots.

  ‘What d’you mean, ah? That’s not an answer.’

  ‘Well, the fact is, old lady,’ he said, ‘your question has foxed me.’

  ‘Now you know what I mean,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps I do,’ he said, ‘but I’m sound in wind and limb.’

  ‘Boots, it won’t be long before you’re fifty,’ she said, ‘and you still can’t see properly out of your left eye. It’s disgraceful if the Army sends you somewhere else, and they ought to be ashamed.’ Her querulousness hid her affection and concern for her eldest son, as distinguished in his looks as Edwin had always been. ‘After Dunkirk, I thought you were going to spend the rest of the war safe behind a desk.’

  ‘That was the idea,’ said Boots. ‘Unfortunately, old girl, the idea got torpedoed.’

  ‘It’ll upset Polly and the twins, Boots, if you do go overseas again.’

  Polly, in fact, had been a mixture of optimism and gloom.

  ‘Boots is a born survivor, Maisie. Any man who survived the hell of the trenches in the last war can survive this one. I’m relying on that. Or is that wishful thinking? God, I can’t lose him, Maisie, I need him for my old age.’

  ‘Now, Polly, you won’t lose him,’ said Chinese Lady. There was a surprising rapport between Boots’s cockney-born mother and her upper crust daughter-in-law. ‘Don’t say such a thing. Boots was never a careless man or a careless soldier. And besides, think of the twins.’

  ‘I know about children, Maisie, I know about them growing up and going their own way,’ said Polly. ‘I want to grow old gracefully, and I need Boots there for that, or I’d turn into a complaining and sour old biddy. I only hope he’ll land a job that’ll keep him stuck to a desk. Heaven help me, why am I talking like a wet blanket when you know and I know he’ll always duck at the right moment?’

  ‘Well, at least we’re doing a bit more winning than losing now, Polly.’

  That was true, as the wireless had been saying lately. Included among the happier items of news this morning was the announcement that the British Eighth Army, famed for its defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Corps in the Western Desert, was part of the Allied force advancing in Italy. Alongside the British was an American army, its boisterous GIs demonstrating to the Italian ladies of liberated towns and villages Uncle Sam’s way of celebrating glad days. In return, the flushed Italian ladies asked only for candy bars, cigarettes and fully-fashioned stockings. This, however, the wireless didn’t mention. The BBC was conservative to the point of discreet silence concerning happy-go-lucky American soldiers with a pronounced sex drive. If it had decided to be forthcoming, its roving reporters could have gathered a mine of information without going to Italy. They could have gathered it at home, from many girls and women of the United Kingdom, including housewives whose husbands had been away for years.

  Chinese Lady was not the sort of woman who would have thanked her wireless for broadcasting what she didn’t want to hear. It would have upset her and her kind if it issued details of unfaithfulness at home. The fact was, however, that the influx of red-blooded GIs into Britain had resulted in many women losing their heads and hearts, and a sad number of men with the 14th Army had received what had come to be known as ‘Dear John’ letters. These were letters from wives saying they were awfully sorry, but they would like a divorce so that they could marry their favourite GI. Or from sweethearts saying, ‘I hope you won’t mind too much, but I’m going to marry Elmer, an American soldier who lives near Hollywood, would you believe. He’s ever so sweet.’

  It was true, however, that certain rumours did float about to land in Chinese Lady’s ears. She chose to dismiss them. She liked an ordered world, in which the right and proper kind of behaviour prevailed, according to the Ten Commandments.

  She glanced at Edwin. He was sleeping now, not dozing. That pleased her. Sound sleep was what he needed.

  Boots wouldn’t like it that his stepfather was an exhausted man. Boots and Edwin were close friends, and always had been.

  Air raids on the United Kingdom were no longer a positive menace, and some younger members of the family had come home. Daniel, for instance, and Vi and Tommy’s daughter Alice. Alice, just nineteen, would be going to university in September unless she decided to volunteer for one of the Services. Vi and Tommy’s sons, David and Paul, were still in Devon, Paul at fourteen to finish his schooling there, and David, eighteen, working on a farm while waiting to join the RAF. Paul had given up dissecting dead rabbits in favour of a more socially acceptable occupation: that of having his first girlfriend. Jenny Lymes, the daughter of neighbours, was a live-wire madcap who, he advised his mum and dad, would go off bang one day. He felt, he said, that as she wasn’t a bad bit of Devon plum duff for a girl, he had to stay near enough to her to pick up the pieces and take them home to her mum and dad. Meanwhile, he’d be grateful to receive a two-bob postal order, as Jenny was getting a bit hard on his pocket lately.

  Lizzy, retailing this to Chinese Lady, but leaving out the plum duff bit, received the comment that while a girl shouldn’t be after what a boy had in his trousers, it was always right for a boy to treat a girl.

  Lizzy, coughing, said, ‘You mean what a boy has in his trousers’ pocket, Mum.’

  ‘What did I say, then?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Lizzy.

  Seventeen-year-old Daniel, Sammy and Susie’s eldest, was a lively one, like his dad. And like his Uncle Tommy, he was a natural mechanic and was working at the firm’s garments factory in Belsize Park as assistant on the maintenance of the sewing and cutting machines. The machines were overworked in fashioning Army and RAF uniforms day in, day out, and Tommy, factory manager, was often stretched to the limit to make sure breakdowns did not exceed the number of spare machines available. New machines were difficult to come by. Daniel was proving invaluable, the son of his dad in his energy and application. Good old Gertie Roper, charge-hand of the machinists and seamstresses, mothered him, and the younger girls teased him. So Tommy said. Chinese Lady, suspecting the machinists were a bit common because they were mainly from the East End, hoped the teasing wasn’t vulgar or downright suggestive. She told Sammy she also hoped it wasn’t catching, as she didn’t want Daniel, now growing into a nice young man, to turn common. Don’t worry, Ma, he’s fighting it, said Sammy. Don’t call me Ma, said Chinese Lady, if anything’s common, that is.

  She thought about Polly. With her twins, Polly was now on another visit to her parents in their grand house in Dulwich. Her father, General Sir Henry Simms, had been forced by ill-health to retire from active service and take a desk job. Polly and her children were making up for the frustrations he felt at losing his command. It was nice for him, thought Chinese Lady, to have his happy little grandchildren close at hand, especially as he doted on them. He was a natural gentleman, like Edwin, with an admiration for Boots, his son-in-law, for the part he had played in making Polly a mother when she was well over forty. Damned fine man, your eldest son, Mrs Adams, he’d said, and healthier than many men only half his age. Chinese Lady hadn’t wanted to talk intimately about Sir Henry’s admiration for Boots’s virility, so she said well, I must say he’s always had his good points, although he still says things I can’t make sense of sometimes. That changed the subject.

  As for dear Rosie, still living down in D
orset, she said in her letters or phone calls how much she was missing her husband Matthew. But her children, Giles and Emily, filled her time, and Tim’s wife Felicity, she said, was always an invaluable help and companion. Chinese Lady thought what a blessing that was, a blind companion actually being an invaluable help. Well, of course, Felicity was an Adams now, and any Adams seemed to take on something that Chinese Lady felt was to do with the sterling qualities of her long-dead first husband, Corporal Daniel Adams. But it didn’t seem right, so many of the family being away in places as good as foreign. Chinese Lady liked things to be more natural. More natural to her was having her children, grandchildren and, yes, great-grandchildren, within walking distance. There was always something right and proper about being able to put one’s hat and coat on, and slip out for a family visit down the road, up the road or somewhere else not far away. This war was as bad as it could be in interfering with family life. Even if the last battles were won, as Edwin was sure they would be, the country and its people would end up tired out from all they’d had to put up with and a bit bitter from the results of long separations.

  Someone tapped lightly on the bedroom door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Chinese Lady.

  The door opened and in came Phoebe, bringing her beguiling prettiness with her. She wore a blue dress common to the girl pupils of the local nursery school.

  ‘Grandma?’ She whispered the word. ‘Mummy told me and Paula about Grandpa when she fetched us from school. We’ve just come in. Is he all right?’

  Chinese Lady was touched. There she was, Phoebe, the little girl who, orphaned and sad, had been cared for by Sammy and Susie, and adopted by them two years ago to become Phoebe Adams, a child happy at last. She had not suffered a single accident in bed since the night Susie and Sammy told her they were her mum and dad.

  ‘He’s sleeping, pet,’ said Chinese Lady, and Phoebe ventured to the bedside to look down at the sleeping man.

  ‘I like Grandpa, don’t I?’ she whispered. ‘He’s nice. Grandma, I’m awful sorry he’s not very well. Still, he’ll be better soon. Mummy and Paula’s coming up in a minute to see him, and Auntie Lizzy too.’

  ‘Oh, your Aunt Lizzy’s arrived, has she?’ said Chinese Lady. She had phoned daughter Lizzy earlier.

  ‘Yes, she’s come to see Grandpa,’ said Phoebe, still whispering. ‘And Daddy, well, I fink he’s sure to come and see him when he gets home. Will Uncle Boots come and see him too?’

  Bless the child, thought Chinese Lady. She hadn’t seen a lot of Boots, but he’d quickly become a likeable uncle to her.

  ‘You remember your Uncle Boots, Phoebe?’

  ‘Yes, I liked him lots, didn’t I?’

  Boots, of course, had made a great fuss of her, and she had laughed and giggled her way into his affections.

  ‘He can’t come to see Grandpa just yet, Phoebe, he’s a soldier and he’s having to go overseas.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Phoebe. ‘Still, when he does come, Grandpa will be better.’

  ‘We hope so,’ said Chinese Lady, and Susie and Lizzy came in then, with nine-year-old Paula – Paula tiptoeing so as not to disturb Grandpa Finch.

  ‘Grandma, is Grandpa ill?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s tired,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘How is he, Mum?’ asked Susie.

  ‘Yes, how is he?’ asked Lizzy, very attached to her stepfather. Years and years ago, in her early teens, she’d thought she’d like him to take the place of her dead father.

  ‘He’s been a bit restless, but he’s sleeping nice and quiet now,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Mum, it can’t be serious, or the doctor would have had him taken to a hospital,’ said Susie. She owned an undiminished fairness and was slender compared to her sister-in-law Lizzy, who still retained a fulsome Edwardian figure. Happily so. Lizzy, in her forty-sixth year, believed women should be well-endowed. Her husband Ned concurred. Well, he’d been close to Lizzy’s generous endowment for years, and always found it very comforting.

  ‘He does look pale, Mum,’ she said, regarding the sleeping man with concern.

  ‘I hope he’ll be sitting up and looking fairly perky by the time Sammy gets home,’ said Susie with forced cheerfulness. She and Sammy now had their eldest son, Daniel, living here with them, much to the pleasure of Paula and Phoebe, who played rousing, racketing games with him. That pleased Chinese Lady. She liked the noisy sounds of family life.

  ‘Yes, Daddy won’t like seeing him not very well,’ said Paula.

  ‘Oh, he’ll be better soon,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Well, we all hope so, don’t we, lovey?’ said Lizzy, wishing she had small ones like Phoebe and Paula to mother. Little moments of that kind went out of a woman’s life when her children became adults. ‘We hope that very much.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Grandpa’s the bestest,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Darling, we’ll tell him that,’ said Susie. She loved her adopted daughter, and found her endearingly quaint sometimes.

  ‘Phoebe, you sure he’ll be better soon?’ said Paula.

  ‘Yes, I fink so,’ said Phoebe a little shyly.

  ‘It’s instinct, I expect,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s a nice sound instinct,’ said Chinese Lady, who believed, anyway, that the Lord bestowed exceptionally sound instincts on women, much more so than on men. Which was why women were more sensible than men. If the Government had taken notice of her own instincts, they’d have arranged to do something about Hitler long before he went to war.

  Humane though she was, Chinese Lady meant something nasty.

  Edwin Finch slept on, soundly. Perhaps his own instincts told him that the people around him loved him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Saturday morning

  MRS RACHEL GOODMAN PICKED up a letter from her mat on her way out of her Brixton house in company with her younger daughter, Leah. They both worked for Sammy Adams. Rachel read the letter on the bus taking them to his offices at Camberwell Green. It was from Leah’s Gentile boy-friend, Aircraftman Edward Somers, whose parents were old and close friends of Rachel herself. In the letter, Edward put down in clear terms his feelings for Leah and went on to say that when he was twenty-one he intended to ask her to marry him. By then, he hoped the war would be over, and that Leah would accept his proposal. If so, he also hoped that Mrs Goodman and Leah’s grandfather would give the marriage their approval. He was writing in advance, he said, in order to allow them plenty of time to think about this. You can be sure, he said, that your combined blessings would be very welcome. He finished by mentioning he had spoken to Leah about his intentions, and that she had been helpful and encouraging.

  Rachel sighed.

  Leah, glancing at her, murmured, ‘Mama?’

  Rachel came to and said, ‘It’s from Edward, but we can’t discuss it now. We’ll wait until this evening.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Leah, but experienced little quivers.

  Rachel, placing the letter back in its envelope, said, ‘Did you know Edward was going to write to me?’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘I see,’ said Rachel, and thought about the implications, the uniting of Jewish and Christian families. And of all of the latter, Leah was choosing the Somers family, a branch of the Adams’, of whom so many members had been Rachel’s warm and steadfast friends for many years. Her reservations about the marriage concerned the possibility that Leah would gradually absorb all the tenets of the Adams’ religion and finally adopt them herself. Rachel felt, however, that such reservations would probably not cause her to withhold her consent and approval. She was far too attached to Lizzy and Ned, and all the others, to feel any real dismay. But her father, while not strictly orthodox, was devoted to his faith and she knew he would prefer both his granddaughters to marry their own kind. He would almost certainly mention her late husband Benjamin, and suggest Benjamin would not have been happy.

  Later, Rachel spoke to Sammy in his office about Leah and Edward.
/>   ‘Eh?’ said Sammy.

  ‘Weren’t you listening?’ asked Rachel, currently eschewing her meat ration and all potatoes in favour of apples and salads. In her forty-second year, the fulsome nature of her figure was threatening to become expansive. I should want to look like a barrel wearing a hat, she asked herself, not likely.

  ‘Did you say my well-educated nephew Edward is going to ask Leah to marry him?’ enquired Sammy, still holding on to his blue-eyed electricity.

  ‘Yes, Sammy.’

  ‘Well, upon me soul, Rachel,’ said Sammy, ‘if that’s what his good education has done for him, I extend me congratulations to his educators.’

  ‘Sammy, be serious,’ said Rachel.

  ‘I am serious,’ said Sammy.

  ‘You’re in favour of having Jewish relatives?’ said Rachel.

  ‘I’m in favour of having your family as relatives,’ said Sammy. ‘In fact, I’d be tickled. If I’m not mistaken, Rachel me old friend, we’ve talked about Edward and Leah before, and I believe I told you, you can’t stop a clock from ticking unless you jump on it with both plates of meat. If Edward and Leah want to get married, let it happen.’

  ‘Will Lizzy and Ned think like that?’ asked Rachel.