Paint on the Smiles

by Grace Thompson

  ‘Determination to let them know that being a girl doesn’t exclude me from having a brain!’ She slumped back in her chair in which she had sat upright and authoritative when Tomos was faced with his crime. ‘I’ll be short handed now, Mam. Will you come to help me? All the staff are being taken away and it takes so long to train someone new. This food rationing is added work too, having to total up the fiddling counterfoils and fill in dozens of forms.’

  ‘You don’t mean every day, do you?’

  ‘Please, Mam.’

  ‘I’ll talk it over with Ada and Phil tonight, and see if Peter can think of a better solution.’

  Phil had improved since the loss of his workshop. It was as if it had released him from the guilt of his failure to restart his printing business. Seeing the mangled remains made it clear to everyone that he could no longer contemplate working there. He had begun to take an interest in the shop and had even borrowed a horse and cart to buy what fruit and vegetables he could find, out of town, for the sisters to sell.

  Supplies of fruit were dwindling owing to the shortage of pickers and the problems of transport. None came from abroad as shipping was needed for men and the means to make weapons. The items Phil bought from small growers and farmers were a boon to the local people and an additional profit for Owen’s shop. Rabbits were a good off-ration meat source and Phil sometimes returned with half a cart load, which he gutted and displayed hanging in rows above the shop windows and were quickly sold.

  ‘Could you two manage without me for two or three days a week?’ Cecily asked as they sat down to eat. She was hesitant to commit to going to Watkins’ full time. It was too much to expect Ada to manage the business completely. She had told them, with some pride, about how her daughter had sacked her manager. ‘Owen is worse than useless, he’s a liability! Bertie helps when he can and Melanie calls every week, but Van needs someone there all the time, really.’

  ‘Go full time then, if that’s what you want to do,’ Ada said cheerfully. ‘I’ve been in the shop as long as you. I can manage. Phil will be here some of the time. Pity about Willie having to go but we’ll manage, won’t we, Phil, love?’

  ‘It’s definite then? Willie has to go?’ Cecily sighed deeply. ‘I was hoping he’d manage at least a deferment.’

  ‘He’s going, but Annette says she’ll come when she can.’

  ‘Annette won’t be able to do much – she has baby Claire and Victor to deal with, bless them all, and she’ll be without Willie too, remember.’

  ‘We’ve discussed it and Gladys Davies will look after Claire until she starts nursery school.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ Cecily hid the irritation she felt at everything being arranged before they had discussed it fully. Wasn’t that what Ada always accused her of doing?

  So Cecily’s routine altered again and disrupted her peace of mind more than other changes had done. She couldn’t accept leaving the shop every morning in the hands of Ada and Phil, afraid it wouldn’t be run the way she had always insisted. She still wanted to have the reins in her hands, feel the pulse of it throbbing through her veins as she had ever since their father had died in 1930.

  But once in the large store and ensconced in the office overlooking the shop floor, she found so much to do, experiencing a similar challenge in the vastly different trade, her dismay was quickly put aside. It was only in the evenings, when Ada and Phil discussed the happenings of their day, when they told her things they had done that she would have handled so differently, that she felt cut off and no longer a part of her home.

  ‘Dig for victory’ was a growing cry during the first years of the war. Besides the allotments, which flourished under the care of older men, boys and a great number of women, plots could be seen in unlikely places. Women were planting potatoes in the gardens of bombed-out houses. Along the banks of streams and road verges, the soil was turned and planted when it became obvious that ships were no longer getting through regularly and the need for home-grown food was increasing.

  ‘Every time a ship is filled with food, it means fewer guns and less support for your boys’ the newspapers warned. But apart from growing thyme and parsley in tubs in the yard, there was little Cecily could do to help that particular call.

  At the end of 1941, food was rationed further by the introduction of a points system. Each ration book included a page of small tokens which had to be exchanged as well as money for various tinned and dried foodstuff. This added to the burden of the shops and they had to be counted and used when they gave their orders to the wholesalers. It was a boring task which Cecily found waiting for her both at Watkins’ store and at home.

  There was so much to do that at times she felt she was riding a merry-go-round that was out of control. Working all day with Van, rushing home to prepare a meal before dashing out to attend lectures on putting out incendiary bombs, starting savings groups, or helping Dorothy organize a flag day in aid of comforts for the troops. There was the fire-watching rota, meaning loss of sleep, and it seemed sometimes that she dragged herself from one place to the next in a semi-doze.

  Peter came regularly and helped in many ways, delivering orders and collecting goods from the wholesalers, which had changed its address after being hit by an incendiary bomb. He was there when Danny came to say goodbye.

  ‘I’m joining the navy, me having a bit of experience, like,’ he said excitedly. ‘Damn me, it’s bound to end soon now, with Willie sorting out the army and me soon in charge of the navy. We’ll be back victorious before you’ve had time to miss us.’

  Cecily sat close to Peter and listened to the three men discussing the latest news of the war, and arguing about the rights and wrongs of it all. She was feeling older than her years. This war was robbing her of her youth. She showed no more emotion than the rest when Danny shook their hands and kissed her and Ada with the same amount of affection before departing for the station. She stood in the shop porch, the door closed tightly behind her to stop any light showing, and there wasn’t a waver in her voice as she called her final goodbyes. Only Peter guessed how she was feeling.

  ‘Come on, Cecily, my dear, I feel like going to the pictures. Margaret Lockwood’s on in The Stars Look Down.’

  So they queued in the dark street and went in to the picture house to be transported away from the present and into another world where their problems and fears were far away. Cecily was glad of Peter’s utterly reliable friendship and of the hand which held hers with such understanding.

  On the home front, 1942 was a year of scrap collecting. There were arrangements for gathering waste paper and to aid this valuable recycling, children were admitted to the pictures free if they brought two pounds of paper. In that way, three tons were collected. Bones were valuable too to make glue, foodstuff for animals and fat for lubricating heavy guns – the rumblings of which filled the air night after night as raids continued.

  The salvage drive also included rags and tin and iron and other metals. Saucepans and frying pans were shown on posters flying through the air in an effort to persuade people to part with any surplus utensils. Railings disappeared from gardens, all taken to build planes, the householders were told. Rubber was another need and heels from shoes and boots and hot water bottles were all gathered in.

  At Christmas time, people were asked to save string and wrapping paper from their parcels. Ada began a string collection in the shop adding every piece that was brought in until she had three balls, one measuring more than three feet in diameter and which would hardly go through the door when the collectors came. There were appeals for books and nearly 40,000 were pulped as well as a thousand being added to depleting libraries and 13,000 sent to the forces. Again picture houses helped, allowing children in free when they carried four books.

  There was an unusual appeal, this time asking householders to invite members of the forces into their homes and allow them a few hours of luxury away from camp. This the sisters felt unable to support – their lives were far too full –
yet they hoped that somewhere, someone would be kind enough to give some comfort to Gareth and Willie and Johnny Fowler and Danny.

  Cecily fell into bed exhausted most evenings, having begun her work at six and worked on her many activities until late in the evening. She took no part in running the shop and was too weary to do more than ask a few questions about its progress.

  One morning, as she stood waiting for the rain to ease before running up the hill to start her day with Van, she became aware of how empty the shelves were. Rationing had cut down dramatically on the foodstuff but there were other lines available. Tinned food no longer filled the shelves behind the grocery counter; the vinegar barrel was missing from its stand. There was no chicken meal or dog biscuits. Small shelves Willie had made to hold the spices their cosmopolitan customers demanded were no longer there, only marks on the paint showing there they had once stood. The top shelves where soap, scouring powder, mop heads and brushes were normally displayed were empty, or filled with old cards advertising things they no longer stocked.

  ‘Ada, love, why are the shelves so empty?’ she asked, looking round for some sign of rearrangement.

  ‘We don’t see the point of ordering stuff we rarely sell,’ Ada said. ‘When Phil and I do the ordering, we check to see how long since we last ordered the item and if it’s slow we don’t re-order once it’s gone.’

  ‘But Ada, that’s the way to let a business die! It’s because we stock so many items that people come to us. We save them walking up to the main road. Remember how we painstakingly built up the stock after Dadda died? How happy we were to do it our way? If once a customer comes and can’t find what he wants we’ve lost them to the shop where they do find it. Don’t you see? Ours is a handy shop, selling everything.’

  Ada’s face showed incipient anger. ‘It’s my responsibility now, mine and Phil’s. Van agrees with us and she knows about business. She advised us to avoid overstocking on things that sell only occasionally. We know what we’re doing, holding only fast-selling items and forgetting the rubbishy stuff that’s only money lying idle.’

  Cecily was horrified, finding it difficult to believe that Van would give such illogical advice, but she backed away from the confrontation which, from the look in Ada’s eyes, was highly likely if she continued.

  ‘Go on, you, up to make a fortune for Van,’ Ada said after a moment, to allow the anger to subside. ‘Phil and I will see to everything here.’

  That night, when Ada and Phil were in bed, Cecily went down to the shop and examined the books. It was a disaster. The points system had discouraged people from buying from Owen’s shop. With so little choice they had taken their points and their ration books elsewhere. Not even to Watkins’ she noticed. They’d be too embarrassed, her being there to note their disloyalty. No, it was probably Lipton’s or the Home and Colonial who had their business now. ‘Oh, Ada, what have you done?’ she said aloud.

  She couldn’t sleep so she settled down to write some letters. Since they had been called up, she wrote a weekly letter to Gareth and her cousin Johnny Fowler; him with the disobedient hair, who at thirty-two, still seemed too young to be amid the horrors of war. Willie also received a regular letter since he had reluctantly left them to serve in the army, a short time before Danny.

  Willie didn’t receive the letter she wrote that night to dull her mind from the realization that Ada had lost the business they had so painstakingly built. He was injured only hours after she wrote it, and although it followed him to various hospitals, he was home before it caught up with him.

  Annette didn’t know how badly Willie had been injured. In his letter telling her he would be coming home while a wound healed, he didn’t explain the nature of the problem.

  ‘With you expecting again, he wouldn’t want to frighten you, leave you imagining something worse than it is,’ Cecily said after reading the letter.

  ‘But his writing, Auntie Cecily. All skewiff it is. It isn’t his eyes, is it?’

  ‘Try not to let your imagination run away with you, love. He doesn’t say he’s being invalided out, does he? Just home for a wound to heal. That doesn’t sound too bad, having him home for a while, does it?’

  Later that evening, Cecily had a phone call. It was from Willie, asking her to be with Annette when he came home. He refused to explain his injury and, guessing it troubled him to talk about it, she didn’t press for details, just promised to be there.

  ‘I’m coming down tomorrow afternoon,’ she told Annette. ‘I feel like mitching I do. I haven’t had an afternoon to myself for ages. All right if I come for a cup of tea, love? And see you and the children?’

  She sat in the neat living room, where Annette knitted a tiny woollen vest for the baby expected in time for Christmas, and they talked about everything except Willie.

  He walked through the door without either of them seeing him come down the green lane and across the road. Annette gave a cry and ran to him. Then she pulled back, staring at him, searching for a sign of discomfort, and asked anxiously, ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ She looked him up and down, then she saw that the lower part of his sleeve looked odd. Willie, her capable, clever, talented Willie, had lost a hand. She pressed a hand to her mouth and her agonized eyes stared at Cecily.

  Cecily picked up the three-year-old Claire and said firmly, ‘Well, you won’t want us around for a while.’ She kissed Willie, adding, ‘Willie, I’m so glad to see you safe home with us. Whatever’s happened, you’re home where you belong. And that’s the very best news for us all. Now, Claire and I will go to the park for an hour, right? Then we’ll meet Victor from school. We’ll all have tea when we get back.’ She forced gaiety into her voice as she dressed Claire and went through the door and up the green lane, then, to Claire’s amazement, she sobbed uncontrollably for almost ten minutes, grieving for Willie and for all the others whose lives had been irrevocably changed.

  When she calmed down, she pushed Claire on the swings, rode with her on the roundabout and helped her up the long slide which should have gone for scrap but which some kind person had seen fit to overlook. Then she bought a shilling bar of chocolate with the sweet coupons she had intended to save for Christmas. After an hour she met Victor and they walked back down the green lane to share the treat after tea.

  Willie didn’t mention his lost hand. Cecily stayed to have tea with them and heard more news to upset her. Willie told them that Jack Simmons was dead, the bright, quick-tempered boy who had lost his job at Watkins’ after fighting with Willie so many years ago. Cecily wondered how his family would manage and wished she knew them well enough to call. She didn’t even know where they lived.

  All the way back to the shop she cried. She was so tired and depressed and told herself that was why it was impossible to hold back the tears. But what chance was there of having a break? Perhaps a few hours over at the beach sometime would help. It was the end of summer and, despite the war, a busy time. When she and Ada had run the shop it had been their busiest time too but now the beach trade which she had enjoyed so much was, like so much of their business, in other hands.

  Injured soldiers appeared on the street in growing numbers, bandages, plaster and crutches giving endless variety to the signs of battles against Hitler’s armies. On the streets children played amid the ruins of houses, playing at war, thinking it an exciting game. One day on the way to visit a customer with a complaint, Cecily was horrified to see a small pair of boots sticking out of a pile of rubble. A child had obviously been caught in a fall of loose and dangerous walls. She went in and began scratching away at stones and bricks to find a cheeky dirty face grinning up at her. ‘Ever be ’ad, missus?’ he called as he ran off. She chased after him and slapped his dirt-stained legs and he yelled with all his might.

  ‘I’ll tell our dad about you,’ he wailed, running into a nearby house, to return a moment later with a large, unkempt man who began complaining about her treatment of his son.

  But although at least a foot taller and fi
ve stone heavier, it was he who backed away from Cecily’s anger. She asked several people where she could find Jack Simmons’ family and no one knew. That made her angry too.

  Chapter Seven

  AMID ALL THE tragedies, arrangements were made to encourage people to stay at home instead of travelling further afield for their holidays. People needed to have fun and each town was determined to provide plenty. Dances and fun days, children’s choirs and the town’s silver band gave concerts and entertained locals and tourists alike. The Pleasure Beach, with its beautiful golden sand, remained open and free from the dangers of mines and barbed wire, and the shops and stalls flourished.

  There were Punch and Judy shows, swing boats and roundabouts on the sand, free entertainment from small groups of actors and clowns. Fancy dress competitions were always popular and talent shows brought out the most enthusiastic singers that ever faced an audience, plus a few brave comedians.

  Although most of the regular summer staff had moved on to war work, the tea rooms continued to open for business with older women and young girls taking their place. The town was a haven amid the tragedies and deprivations of war.

  It was a forced defiant gaiety during those wartime summers and Cecily worked with Dorothy and dozens of others, when her full schedule allowed, to help make them a success. Schools stayed closed for two more weeks, and the children were bronzed and healthy despite restrictions on food.

  Danny came home on leave but didn’t call to see Cecily. She learned from Willie that he spent his precious time with either Jessie or Danielle, who was now eight, or with Willie and Annette, where they discussed plans to take on a trainee when the conflict finally ended.

  The war effort continued to keep Cecily and hundreds of others busy for hours of each day. There was a special Wings For Victory savings scheme to raise £250,000 to build four Lancaster bombers and ten Hurricanes. The following year a penny a week collection saved to send parcels to a growing number of prisoners of war. Every moment of every day was filled and there were still requests for more help as new schemes began.