Far From Home

by Anne Bennett

  ‘In a way,’ Kate said with a laugh as she retraced her steps to the kitchen. ‘Happy Christmas, by the way. Have you had a good day so far?’

  Gillian made a face. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I’m hoping the fun starts now.’

  ‘Ah, well, this will most definitely help,’ Kate said, pouring Gillian a glass of dark orange-coloured liquid from the glass bowl on the table. ‘No one knows what goes into this. It’s always made by Susie’s father and it’s very drinkable.’

  Gillian took the glass from Kate and said, ‘I think I am going to enjoy this for all my parents would be shocked to the core.’

  ‘Don’t they approve?’

  Gillian shook her head. ‘I was brought up hearing all about the evils of drink. But I like a drink and they hate that, and I certainly couldn’t imbibe at home. I wanted to be here earlier. If not for dinner, then at least tea, but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. They reminded me that this was my last Christmas as a single girl, not that I would ever be a married woman at all if they had had their way.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Kate asked in surprise.

  ‘Oh, they would criticize Prince Charming if he took too much notice of me,’ Gillian said. ‘I am an only one, see.’

  ‘They must love you very much.’

  ‘Yeah, too much,’ Gillian said. ‘It’s more like smothering than mothering.’

  ‘My parents wouldn’t have approved of David either because he is the wrong religion,’ Kate said, leading the way to the sitting room at the back where the younger ones had congregated. ‘Though, actually, he’s not religious at all.’

  ‘Best way, if you ask me,’ Gillian said. ‘My Dad says there are more wars started by religion than anything else.’

  Derek, coming towards them, heard Gillian’s words and said, ‘All talk of war, any war, is banned today. Come on, Susie’s waiting, and determined to have us all play charades.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gillian cried. ‘I haven’t played that in ages.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Kate to Derek. ‘I’d never even heard of it till I met you all.’

  ‘So, are you up for it or not?’

  ‘You bet I am,’ Kate said, catching hold of David’s hand. ‘If people can’t be silly on Christmas Day, there’s no hope for any of us.’

  David had to report back to base on Wednesday, 27 December, and Kate was pleased that because Christmas Eve had been on a Sunday, she had a couple of days off in lieu and hadn’t got to go back to work until the following day, so would be able to see him off at the station. David hadn’t wanted her to do that, because the cold was extreme and a thick frost had formed over the couple of inches of snow that had fallen and it was very hazardous underfoot, but she insisted. ‘I had to come,’ she said as they went into New Street Station. ‘Because when you go, this time it’s for real.’

  ‘Poor darling,’ David said, and put a comforting arm around Kate’s shoulder. ‘I do know how you feel and I will miss you like crazy, but in a way I am luckier than most because I won’t be stationed far away. And I’ll stay at Castle Bromwich unless the whole squadron is moved elsewhere. As I told you last night, ideally I will have three weeks of duty and another three on standby and then some free time. Sometimes we might be given leave to come home for a day or two. But that can’t be guaranteed, and more especially in wartime.’

  Kate didn’t say anything, for there was nothing to say, but she wished that she could wrap her love around David like a protective shield, but all she could do was pray for him and she intended to do that often.

  The air smelt of damp soot and it was chilly enough for wispy puff-balls to escape from a person’s mouth when they spoke. Despite her thick coat, Kate trembled, though she wasn’t sure if that was just due to the cold. There were a fair few young men on the platform, almost all in uniforms, returning to their various bases after their Christmas leave, Kate assumed, and their chatter, shouts and laughter rose over the general clamour of the station. The train was waiting with its doors open, dripping water sizzling around the wheels and the engine billowing smoke like some crazed beast that couldn’t wait to be off.

  David suddenly spotted Nick and waved. He came to meet them, dragging Susie behind him, and Kate was so glad to see her friend. ‘I thought it might be more packed than this,’ Nick said. ‘Thought we’d never find each other.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s not too bad,’ David said. ‘Still, we’d best get aboard soon if we want to nab a seat.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick said. ‘Though it’s not that far to Castle Bromwich Station if we have to squat on our kit bags.’

  ‘Suppose not,’ David said. ‘Still, there’s no sense in prolonging things.’ And at this he opened his arms and on that public platform Kate kissed David more intensely than she had ever done. The porters were urging those wishing to take the train to get on it, and David turned away from her with difficulty and followed Nick on to the train. Susie reached out and held Kate’s hand, the train doors slammed and the guard blew his whistle.

  Some women saying goodbye to their men folk ran along by the side of the train as it began to chug out of the station, but Kate and Susie just watched until the train disappeared into the tunnel. Kate felt the tears she hadn’t let fall in front of David trickle down her cheeks. She brushed them away impatiently, for crying never did anyone any good, and she gave Susie a watery smile.

  Neither wanted to return home straight away, though, and so they made their way to a National Milk Bar and in a few minutes were drinking tea out of thick earthenware cups and regarding the tired-looking scones on their plates with slight disgust. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to ruin scones,’ Susie said in a whisper.

  ‘I think it’s the flour,’ Kate said quietly. ‘David was saying our wheat isn’t strong enough or something. We have to import from Canada.’

  ‘And the Canadian wheat might be lying on some sea bed as we speak.’

  Kate nodded. ‘That’s about the strength of it, so it’s a case of making do with our substandard stuff.’

  ‘That’s probably right about our wheat because Mom was only saying the other day that in the last war bread flour was mixed with potatoes,’ Susie said. ‘She told me it tasted foul, but if it was that or nothing, then you ate it.’

  ‘We’d better follow her example then,’ Kate said, splitting her scone in half and beginning to spread it with the greasy lump in the dish that called itself butter. ‘Come on,’ she urged. ‘It won’t kill us and it’s criminal to waste food. And I’ll tell you what,’ she added, ‘it was more than David got in his parents’ house.’

  ‘He did see them over Christmas then?’ Susie said. ‘In our house on Christmas Day he said he wasn’t sure he would go near them at all.’

  Kate nodded. ‘I know what he said, but I convinced him,’ she said. ‘You know, Christmas means families and all that, and the fact that he was on leave prior to him taking up active service, I thought they might want to see him, wish him luck or something.’

  ‘And I presume they didn’t?’

  ‘No, and I don’t know why I bothered. I decided not to go with him because I thought it might be easier, and he went up on Boxing Day. He said afterwards he didn’t think it would have made any difference if I had been there, because as it was they barely gave him the time of day, weren’t interested in anything he was doing and didn’t offer him as much as a cup of tea, never mind a sandwich or a mince pie.’

  ‘God!’ Susie breathed. ‘Some people! I mean, offering a cup of tea is just basic hospitality, never mind giving one to your own son when you don’t know when you’ll him see again.’

  ‘You know,’ Kate said, ‘I don’t think that would bother them, as long as they still had Lawrence.’

  ‘Yes, their lily-livered golden boy.’

  ‘I don’t know how he lives with himself, a big fit man like that, prepared to sit on his backside and let others fight for him, and gloating about it to David.’

  ‘Proper gets your goat, doesn’t it?’

/>   ‘It doesn’t half,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway, David didn’t stay long. He said if he had lingered any longer he might have been forced to send Lawrence’s teeth down his throat.’

  Susie laughed. ‘Isn’t that the way he normally feels when he spends any time at all with his brother?’

  ‘Yeah, more or less.’

  ‘No change there then,’ Susie said, and Kate laughed too. ‘No, they just hate the sight of one another.’

  ‘Good gracious, is that the time?’ Susie said, catching sight of the clock on the wall. ‘I’d best get off. Mom will wonder where I am.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate said, getting to her feet. ‘I’d better make sure that I have everything ready for work tomorrow. I’ll be glad to go back, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Susie said fervently. ‘Now that Nick’s leave is over, work is a godsend.’

  FOURTEEN

  New Year’s Eve 1939, the first New Year of the war, was a fairly muted affair, held at the Masons’ because they had the biggest house. Kate tried to lift her mood as she watched Frank filling up the glasses as it grew near the witching hour, though it was hard to find anything to look forward to and a lot more to be apprehensive or downright fearful about. She was glad when the chimes of Big Ben rang out over the wireless and they could all chink glasses and pretend that things would be somehow magically improved in 1940.

  In fact, the only thing that she could get even marginally excited about was the marriage of Derek Mason and Gillian White, held on Saturday, 20 January. Kate sat in the unfamiliar church and watched Gillian walk down the aisle on the arm of her father, his disapproval of the whole affair clear in his eyes and the lines pulling his face into a frown. Gillian, on the other hand, was radiant. She was wearing a long-sleeved pale pink dress in shimmering silk with a matching fur-trimmed jacket. It set off her dark hair beautifully and her sparkling happy eyes and her lovely smile dimpling her cheeks gladdened many a heart, despite those still sniffing into handkerchiefs.

  She relinquished her father’s arm and stepped forward eagerly to stand by Derek, who was waiting for her with his best man, his brother, Martin, by his other side. Beside her she heard Susie give a deep, heartfelt sigh.

  ‘I am so envious,’ she said later as they stood outside the church, shivering as they waited for the bride and groom to emerge. ‘I mean, if my parents had seen reason, I could have married Nick before he went back. As you said, it’s the marriage bit that’s important, not the party. I mean a sort of more Spartan wedding worked for you, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, it did, ‘Kate said. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am we went ahead with it, and I was pleased with the little do we had afterwards. It does no good to expect a feast laid out as it might have been in pre-war days.’

  When she reached the Masons’ house just a short time later, though, she was amazed at Mary’s skill in producing the food she had laid out on the table. Pride of place was of course the wedding cake, resplendent in the centre with the figures of the bride and groom on the top. Susie caught up with her there and, seeing her interest in the cake, said, ‘Those figures are from the cake my parents had when they were married.’

  ‘They are lovely, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Susie said. ‘Mom thought so too, and that’s why she insisted on having them from her cake. None of us had any idea that she’d kept something like this from her own wedding years ago, until she produced them last night. Anyway, enough of that, I have just introduced myself to Gillian’s parents, and what miseries they are. It’s a wonder Gillian has turned out so normal with parents like those.’

  ‘I guessed they would be difficult,’ Kate said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Oh, from little snippets picked up from your brother, and Gillian herself said quite a few things that pointed that way.’

  ‘Difficult,’ Susie said. ‘Actually, I could think of another name for people like that. I don’t know who they think they are, but they are definitely looking down their noses at us lot.’

  Kate glanced across the room to the disgruntled couple. ‘They certainly don’t look very happy,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go and introduce myself and maybe try to jolly them up a bit. After all, it is their daughter’s big day. You’d think they could make a bit of an effort,’ and Kate went striding across to Gillian’s parents.

  They looked remarkably alike, and sat with pained expressions on their grey, pinched faces, their mouths like thin red slits that turned down gloomily. Her heart sank, as she doubted that she could make any impression on a couple so determined to be miserable. This was compounded when they ignored her outstretched hand. She sighed inwardly and introduced herself and said how she was connected to the family. She waited a moment but there was no reaction to that and so she said, ‘You don’t seem to have a drink. Can I fetch you one?’

  The man looked Kate up and down and, judging by the look on his face and the lift of his chin, wasn’t that impressed by her. In a thin, slightly nasal voice, he said, ‘I have explained already that we don’t indulge in alcohol.’

  ‘Well, I’m not asking you to,’ Kate pointed out. ‘I asked if you wanted a drink – it doesn’t have to be alcoholic.’

  The woman gave a very expressive sniff and said in a voice very similar to her husband’s but slightly higher and with more of a sneer, ‘It isn’t just the drink. It’s also the place.’

  ‘Place?’ Kate repeated. ‘What’s wrong with the place? It’s just the back room of a pub.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘What’s that mean? Exactly?’

  ‘Just that we do not frequent places like this,’ the man said.

  ‘No,’ the woman put in. ‘We’ve never been in a public house – dens of iniquity they are – and our Gillian was brought up the same way. Until she met that Derek Mason, she was a good and dutiful daughter.’

  ‘Now look here a minute,’ Kate said, her dander well and truly up. ‘Gillian can’t always do things your way and it would be odd if she did. She has to make her own decisions about things and live a life of her own.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks,’ the man said. ‘It is a daughter’s duty to obey her parents.’

  ‘Gillian had no need for a man in her life,’ the woman said, and her glittering eyes raked over Kate. ‘She has a good job. She had ambition once; now all she can think about is him. You know nothing about our Gillian.’

  ‘I don’t know her that well,’ Kate conceded. ‘But I know she loves Derek Mason because it is as clear as a bell.’

  ‘She has no need for him or anyone else,’ Gillian’s father cried, his voice rising in agitation. ‘We have done everything for that girl. She has wanted for nothing.’

  ‘Yes,’ put in his wife. ‘She owes us some loyalty.’

  ‘No,’ Kate said firmly. ‘You can’t extract payment now for the way you have brought her up. I would say most parents do their best for their children, and Gillian can respect you for that, love you as her parents, but she must follow her own heart and live her own life. Can’t you even see her point of view?’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ the woman yelled, so that people turned to look at the disturbance. Across the room, Gillian had just become aware of her parents having some sort of altercation with Kate, and she started towards them, but Derek caught her by the arm. He gave a jerk of his head to his father who was in charge of the gramophone and stack of records, and as the strains of ‘Moonlight Serenade’ filled the room, Derek took Gillian in his arms. Others followed his lead and Kate, with a smile playing around her mouth, watched the dancers surround the couple, so cutting off Gillian’s view of her malcontent parents. Mary Mason, sensing trouble, approached them just in time to hear Gillian’s mother burst out, ‘And to make matters worse, to shame us properly, she chose to get friendly with a Roman. She knows what we think of Catholics: hypocrites and idolaters the lot of them. Do what they like and tell the priest and then it’s all right again, and that Derek Mason is just like that, as bad as they come.’

/>   Mary Mason did not shout or even raise her voice, but her eyes flashed fire and her voice was as cold as steel as she said, ‘You are talking about my son, and I am afraid that I cannot allow you to abuse him in such a way, or destroy the young couple’s happiness, particularly on this, their special day. For all told they will have very little time together.’

  The woman ignored Mary’s reference to Derek and instead said, ‘Well, it’s madness marrying in wartime.’

  ‘The young people wanted to be together.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ the woman cried, while the man said, ‘We forbade Gillian to think of marriage of any sort till after the war. She defied us.’

  ‘And that was your son’s doing,’ the woman said, a look of repugnance on her face as she faced Mary.

  ‘How on earth do you work that one out?’

  ‘She never would have gone against us on her own,’ the woman said. ‘Never, if it hadn’t been for your son persuading and inveigling her.’ And she pointed an accusing finger at Mary as she shrieked out, ‘If you’d looked after your son properly and kept on eye on what he was about and put a stop to it, this might never have happened.’

  The music had drawn to a close and so everyone heard Gillian’s mother’s last outburst. Gillian’s face flamed in embarrassment and she put her hands over her face, and Derek took her in his arms as she began to weep. A hush had settled over the whole wedding party and Derek looked from his shocked guests to his distraught wife and felt anger course all through him. He suddenly pushed Gillian towards his father. All eyes were on him as he strode across the room until he stood in front of Gillian’s mother and glared at her as he ground out, ‘All right, you loathsome viper, you have spread poison over my wedding day long enough. I would like you to leave immediately and take your abusive, bad-tempered husband with you.’