Women on the Home Front

by Annie Groves

  Lily’s heart was thudding as the streets of Grimbleton came into view.

  What on earth was she going to do with two of them? What would the family say to two women with the same address? How did they explain away two little girls, not the size of tuppence halfpenny? What would the neighbours think, and Walt too?

  This would be the biggest bombshell to hit Division Street since the air raid in ’41. I’d like to give that brother of mine a piece of my mind. He’s gone too far this time, she thought.

  Then she remembered he was dead and these two didn’t know. None of them would ever see him again.

  The baby, Dina, was whimpering, tugging her back to reality. Freddie may have passed away but he’d sure as hell left quite a legacy behind.

  5

  The Day War Broke Out Again

  Susan peered at the back of the driver’s head, at the roll of brown hair anchored with pins and at the felt hat. What was she doing in this clanking van? Had they been kidnapped? Why was she crushed in the back with strangers and the smell of stale bottoms? This was not how England should be, surely?

  It should be a beautiful carriage and horses like the picture on the tin of chocolates that Stan brought as a gift to Auntie Betty, her guardian. There was a pretty house with a golden grass roof. Roses tumbling from the walls and a blue, blue sky. She had read many school books with castles and great stone palaces in them, wide parks with tall trees, but nothing like this.

  Outside it was all grey and sooty, no moonlight on this wet afternoon. Gaslamps flickered like troubled spirits. For all she was brought up as a Christian girl, she believed her grandmother when it came to honouring the nyats, those guardian spirits of house and home. She whispered, ‘Kador, kador,’ so as not to incite their anger. It was bad enough to be sharing this van with the imposter who claimed Mister Stan was the father of her child. The liar! He would not be so quick to take another woman after their tender embrace.

  After all the preparations to get to British soil, home of her late father, Ronnie Brown, the hoarding of rations and planning, the obtaining of permits and passports, nothing was as she had dreamed. It was true British soldiers liked Burmese girls but never got round to marrying them, but she thought Mister Stan was different.

  ‘If anything happens and you need my help, beautiful flower, just write to this address,’ he promised when his leave was cancelled quickly. She had carried his words close to her heart in her tunic pocket when other Tommies asked her for a date. Was it all the lies of a cheating man?

  She clutched ‘Precious Teddy’, the teddy Auntie Betty had given to Joy for comfort. It smelled of home, of spice and pickle, cigarettes and the ship. Something was wrong. But she had not walked hundreds of miles out of Burma, fleeing the Japanese through the jungle, to be stopped now.

  Burmese ladies might look like delicate orchids but their will was made of iron. Sometimes in her dreams, she was back in those hills on the trek north from Rangoon in the summer of 1942. Fear stalked them all the way. There was one valley where the sun hovered over the ridge of hills above them, and when it slid away the hills seemed to crouch down and whisper, ‘You’ll never get out of here alive.’ They called it the valley of death and many succumbed to dysentery and bite infections. They were town people, not used to rough terrain. She was younger and more nimble. She walked with the children, cajoling them to keep going, singing songs to cheer them. ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ was their favourite.

  One night they were attacked by bandits who torched their camps and stripped them of their bundles, cigarettes and rings, and separated the girls from the men. The women clung together, fearing the worst of fates. They would be sold into slavery but not before the men had sampled the goods, she was warned.

  How wonderful are the ways of God’s angels when rescue came that very night from a patrol of young Japanese warriors who saw the flames. They killed the bandits and gave the Burmese rice, sharing their rations.

  Su could never understand how the enemy could be kind one minute and vicious the next. An officer took her aside and asked if she was British.

  ‘No! No! Burmese,’ she protested. ‘I am ayah to these children,’ she lied. ‘I’m taking them to safety. War is not a place for children!’ He nodded and let her go.

  Under cover of darkness, they were allowed to slip away unharmed. How strange that it was the enemy who showed mercy.

  Wrapped only in her long skirt, she had trekked for hundreds of miles with rope tied around the soles of her sandals for shoes. She had lived while others died of sores, starvation and exhaustion. Their bodies were consumed by the creatures of the jungle. Of the hundreds who set off on that epic trek, only the young and the tough survived to reach the Assam border.

  Here there was respite, food and medicine, and she found kindness among the nurses. It was they who persuaded her to turn round and walk back to join the Women’s Auxiliary Service of Burma, helping the wounded men off ships and giving them char and wads, smiles and dances.

  Mister Stan was her reward for all her duty, waiting at the station to guide them, parading in the church, dancing and singing. He was a good man and Ana was a big liar!

  When they got to his house and they saw she was a real lady who could drink tea from a china cup with her little finger held just so, everything would be ‘tickety-boo’. She had brought real tea in her case, not the floor sweepings she had drunk so far. The truth would come out and the Greek girl would be sent packing. They would see she-Susan-was a true lady with proper manners.

  ‘Manners maketh the man’, she had been taught. She knew her Shakespeare. She held herself straight with neat ankles and slim waist. She wore an English dress with almond oil on her hair. Her skin was not dark like an Indian’s. She was true Anglo-Burmese, with skin the colour of warm ivory. When she walked down a street heads turned. Once they saw her they would know she was true fiancée of Mister Stan. The big liar would be found out!

  * * *

  Gertie glided to the kerbside without breaking wind and drawing attention to their arrival.

  Lily peered out into the gloom and took a deep breath. ‘This is it. Come inside, ladies,’ she smiled, trying to look in control.

  The two women didn’t budge, transfixed with terror, shaking their heads at her request. Their girls were fast asleep. There was no coaxing the two of them out of the back. If only there were interpreters, liaison officers, on hand to negotiate this tricky situation. They would know how to diffuse the time bomb waiting to go off.

  At least there was no reception party waiting on the doorstep. It was dark and the curtains were drawn. What if Mother had been standing stern-faced with a bolstered bosom and breath like dragon smoke belching into the night air, and Ivy hovering to inspect the ‘missionary’? To Lily’s relief, the coast was clear.

  ‘Come inside, it’s cold out here.’ She offered her hand but they shrunk back in unison. Admittedly, Waverley House was not looking its best in the dusk and mizzle, with its blackened brick fascia and windows bulging from the sides like frog’s eyes. The shadows on the pavement, lit by gaslamps, flickered like her failing courage. There was nothing to do but leave them in the van and run up the steps to open the vestibule door.

  The mosaic tiled floor smelled of Jeyes Fluid. Everything was spick and span. Polly had been busy, a fire blazing in the hearth and twinkling brass ornaments flashing. All was in readiness for the new arrival to inspect. Lily crept towards the parlour, hoping to find Esme alone. Better to isolate her, explain the little local difficulty before she jumped to the usual conclusion that it was all Lily’s fault.

  Ivy was standing in the bay window pointing to the van outside, all dolled up in her best skirt with box pleats and John West salmon twinset, her hair fixed in cardboard waves. You could be seasick on those crests. How did she have time to titivate her hair when it was as much as Lily could do to roll hers up like a hosepipe round her head?

  ‘At last! We nearly sent out a search party for you.’ Iv
y paused for breath. ‘Well, where is this mysterious ladyfriend then? I hope you drove her up Green Lane to show her the better end of the street. No one wants to see rows and rows of terraces and factory doors, and it’s a good job we had a cold meat platter waiting or tea would be ruined. I’ve had to feed Neville and now he’s all messed up.’

  Lily hovered by the door, clutching her driving gloves, flushed with anxiety.

  Levi was quick to seize the moment. ‘What’s up with you? You look as if you’ve lost a bob and found a tanner. She not turn up then? I thought so, and all that wasted petrol,’ he moaned, glancing up from his Evening News. ‘I knew you’d be hopeless…’

  There was no response to his jibe.

  ‘What is it? The cat got your tongue?’ snapped Esme. ‘I can see summat is up with you.’

  Hang on, why did they always expect her to pull the rabbit out of a hat, make a tanner do a bob, dance a fire dance? Good old Doormat Lil, the oily rag that did all the dirty work. Well, now they were going to get such a jumping jack up their backsides and no mistake!

  ‘There’s been an unexpected development.’ That got their attention. ‘It’s just…there’s two of them in the van so I thought I’d better come in and check with you first,’ she blurted out quickly, shuffling from one foot to the other like a child waiting to be told off for scuffing her best shoes playing football.

  Ivy was pushing her out of the way, making for the door. ‘Two of who? Don’t stand there like one of them girls in Lewis’s Arcade. Show me!’

  ‘Wait!’ Lily whispered. ‘There’s two ladies, two, er…Mrs Winstanleys, or so they say, and they won’t come in.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Lil. You dozy brush, you’ve brought the wrong lasses! No wonder they won’t come in. I’m going to see for myself,’ snapped Ivy, storming down the path.

  ‘They both had our address, Mother. What was I to do? The airport wanted shot of them once I told them about Freddie. I said we’d sort them out but then there’s the kiddies…We have to do right by them.’

  ‘Kiddies!’ Esme was on red alert now.

  Ivy shot back through the hall like a bullet out of a gun, speechless, her mouth opening and shutting like a goldfish gasping for air. ‘Levi! You’d better get out there. Call the police! There’s two foreigners with screaming kids in our van. We can’t have them in here. What will the neighbours think? And one of them’s…Chinese,’ she mouthed in a whisper. ‘I’m taking Neville upstairs. We don’t want any part of this. Wait till I get my hands on that brother of yours,’ she screamed, storming up the Axminster stairs two at a time.

  Esme, winded by the news, sat down in a heap. Ivy had no tea strainer between her brain and her mouth, Lily sighed. Freddie couldn’t help them now. She stood in the hall, not knowing which way to turn. ‘At least they do speak English of sorts, one better than the other,’ she offered. ‘Poor souls had no idea about each other. Both sat there waiting for the same soldier to pick them up. You could cut the ice in the back of the van. What was I to do? I couldn’t leave them, not with little kiddies in the middle of winter.’

  ‘Levi, come up here. We’re keeping out of this mess!’ shouted Ivy from the top of the landing.

  ‘You’d better calm your wife down.’ Esme took a deep breath and rose again, her chest heaving under the gold link chain she wore when expecting company. ‘I suppose I’ll have to deal with this mess myself.’

  ‘Perhaps I should get Walter over to help us,’ Lily offered, feeling in need of some support.

  ‘Whatever for? He’d be neither use nor ornament, Lil. Leave him be.’

  There was nothing to do but follow Mother down those steps, throwing prayers to the Almighty, hoping for once that she would find the right words to calm the frightened passengers and not have them running through the dark streets in fear of her fury, Lily thought. Better to push in front and get the first word in herself.

  ‘This is Freddie’s mother, Mrs Winstanley. She wants to speak to you,’ Lily mouthed as if to a child. ‘We have tea for you inside and milk for the little ones, yes?’

  The two girls looked at each other and then at the grey-haired matron who hovered over them, gold chains clanking above a smart grey two-piece jersey suit.

  At least her face softened at the sight of these waifs and strays taking the sting out of her bite momentarily.

  ‘Come in, ladies. We must talk to you and outside is not the place. There’s obviously been some terrible mistake.’ Esme pointed the way, looking up and down the street to see if there was an audience.

  Were the curtains twitching across at number nineteen? Doris Pickvance, the local ‘News of the World’ was going to get an eyeful if she spotted the little procession of refugees, babies and baggage squeezing out of the black van. It would be all down Division Street by chucking-out time at the Coach and Horses that the Winstanleys were opening a hostel for displaced persons.

  Slowly the girls edged themselves out of the back, crumpled and forlorn, unravelling their clinging toddlers. Lily picked up a fallen doll as they made their way up the steps.

  ‘Where is my Stan? Why is he not here to greet me? I wrote him many letters. What is wrong?’ Susan was clutching her struggling child, who was draped over her shoulder, her eyes on stalks as faces peered down the stairwell.

  ‘Come inside and sit down,’ said Esme in a soft voice, moved by the plight of these orphans of the night.

  They sat down shyly, not looking at each other.

  ‘Lil will get you a drink.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ replied the Burmese woman, sitting upright like a ramrod. ‘Please, where is Stan? I wrote and he said I should write to you. No one came to the ship to meet me.’

  ‘You are Miss Brown still, or did my son make you his bride before he left?’ Mother was looking down at her ringless finger. Lily didn’t know where to look so she bowed her head.

  ‘It was our wish to marry but the Army, it said there was no rush to “marry foreign”. I told them straight, no beating bushes, Mister Stan made promises and he gave me a gift.’ She unlaced her shoe and fiddled in the toe, bringing out a pair of solid gold earrings studded with bright rubies. ‘I kept them safe with our precious baby.’

  ‘That’s as may be, Miss Brown.’ Esme glanced briefly at the jewels, trying to look unimpressed by the size and depth of their colour. Then it was the other girl’s turn for a grilling.

  ‘We don’t even know your name…Miss…? We had no letter from my son to say you were coming.’ There was the sharp edge back again.

  The Greek girl shuffled in her bag for papers. ‘I am Anastasia Papadaki,’ she said. ‘Freddie gave this address to write him. It is lucky I arrive the same day as this woman.’ Her eyes were flashing like steel daggers at Susan.

  ‘Are you engaged to my son? Have you got a ring in your shoe?’

  Anastasia shook her head. ‘He was good soldier. I have terrible time but I help Tommy soldiers get out of Kriti island. We meet in Athens at the end of war. He bring me food. He give me your name to come to England. I come to find him and show him Konstandina. See…’ She whipped off the little pixie hood to reveal a head full of sandy-red curls. There was no mistaking those curls or the sea-blue eyes and long lashes. She was the image of Freddie.

  ‘How do I know you’re telling us the truth?’ said Esme, standing firm. ‘Neither of you has any proof.’ She was weighing them up while Lily passed round the silver tray of biscuits laid in a cartwheel of pink wafers and bourbon creams, the last of their rations for the month, hidden in an old tin from Ivy and Neville. Suddenly the toddler was alert, curious, stretching out fingers to snatch a treat, but Susan shook her bowed head.

  ‘Just look at that child, Mother. She’s the spit of Freddie,’ Lily hissed. ‘I think we should tell them the truth and get the others down.’ Lily drew in a deep breath and swallowed. ‘There is no easy way to say this—’ she ventured, looking at the two women.

  ‘No, this is my duty as head of this family. I’ll do it,�
� Esme interrupted. She drew herself up and turned to them both. ‘I’m afraid my son, Freddie’s, had an accident. He is…was in Palestine on duty. There was an explosion. I am so sorry but he did not survive. He will never be coming home now.’

  There was silence as the words sunk in.

  Anastasia crossed herself and Susan shook her head. ‘I saw the black scarf on your arm. I think something bad is going to happen. Black is for sorrow and sorrow is etched on Daw Winstanley’s face.’ The Burmese girl spoke softly, bowing her head.

  ‘What we do now?’ sobbed Anastasia.

  ‘Make a cup of sweet tea, Lil,’ ordered Esme.

  ‘Poor Mister Stan. Poor Susan Liat with no Stan to welcome me. No home, no village, no grass roof house and roses by the door, no sitting in the cool of the evening while Stan smokes his pipe. Do you know how many gold bracelets Auntie Betty sold to buy our ticket? The journey was so long and the war so terrible. I walked through the jungle from the Japanese. Many died. Mister Stan says he loves me and will send for me one day. What do we do now, Daw Winstanley? I am not going back.’

  Susan sat there weeping, and Joy touched her tears with her podgy fingers, unaware all their plans were in ruins.

  Then Levi slithered into the room like a snake coiling his way round the furniture, followed by Ivy with her pinched cheeks and puckered lips, smelling of setting lotion and pre-war perfume. They were curious enough now not to want to miss out on the story unfolding. Ivy sniffed a quick glance at the two women as if they were a bad smell.

  ‘Whatever they have to say, Mother, better be said in front of both of us,’ she snapped, pointing at them.

  Lily sometimes wondered about Levi and Ivy’s marriage and what private disappointments had so quickly soured the two of them.

  ‘We won’t speak ill of the dead. Freddie is not here to defend himself. It’s what we do with them now that’s my greatest concern,’ said Esme.

  ‘I am sorry to bring trouble to your door,’ Susan sniffed through her tears. ‘I was not brought up to be a nuisance. My father, Ronnie Brown, was a British soldier. He died of sickness and when my mother remarried I went to live with her sister, Auntie Betty. I know English ways. I went to a Christian school. I have my teaching certificate from Rangoon College in my trunk. I have sold everything I have to be with my intended. Now I don’t know what to do. Do not turn us from your door.’