‘My friend Sarah Denning loves my fairy cakes. She says no one can make them as light as I do.’ Madge finished removing all the cakes from the tray, and arranged them in a neat pattern on a large plate. ‘Your Aunt Louie likes them too.’
Sunday was watching her mum carefully. ‘Well she’s not here to eat them, is she?’ she said caustically.
Madge hesitated a moment before answering. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.’
She sat down opposite Sunday, and rested her hands on the table. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, her eyes trying hard not to make contact with Sunday’s. ‘I think I should go and see Auntie. Ask her to come home.’
Sunday could say nothing. She was too shocked.
‘I can’t deny it,’ Madge continued. ‘I feel guilty about her. We’ve always been such good friends. It seems unkind to let this happen after all these years.’ She sighed and looked straight at Sunday. ‘How would you feel about that, Sunday?’ she asked.
Sunday was nonplussed. It was astonishing to see her mum actually owning up to her own guilt, especially after all the harsh things she had said about her sister. All she could say was, ‘It’s your decision, Mum. It’s up to you.’
‘It hasn’t been easy for me, you know,’ Madge said, as she unconsciously rearranged the cakes on the plate. ‘The trouble is that I don’t like getting old. It’s my stupid brain, you see – it gets so muddled at times.’ She gently ran two fingers across her forehead, as though trying to clear it. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’ she continued. ‘Someone with my faith, my devotion, and yet I can’t even face up to the passing of time. Even so, Louie shouldn’t have kept getting at me.’
Sunday was curious. ‘Why was she getting at you?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you know Auntie,’ said Madge. ‘She’s always been a bit of a gossip.’ She paused, looked down, then suddenly looked up again. ‘No. That’s not true. Auntie wanted me to tell you about – your parents.’
Sunday sat bolt upright.
‘Sunday, I know I haven’t been as honest with you about that as you want, but there were reasons. I’ve always intended to tell you everything, but not until you reached twenty-one. You’ve been through quite enough in this awful war. I didn’t want to distress you even more.’
Sunday suddenly found herself warming to her mum all over again. She was like she used to be, with a sweetness that would melt the heart out of even the biggest cynic. ‘I’m not a kid any more, Mum,’ she said as gently as her throat chords would allow. ‘No matter how painful, you must tell me everything I ought to know.’
Madge was deep in thought for a moment, then she got up from the table. ‘Come into the other room,’ she said.
Sunday followed her into the parlour, where the table had already been set for tea with three places. Madge immediately disappeared into her own bedroom for a moment, whilst Sunday waited for her to return, her heart thumping hard with the reality that her whole life was about to be explained. Feeling how flushed her face was, she sat down at the table in an attempt to keep calm.
It seemed an eternity before her mum returned, but when she did eventually reappear, she was carrying something in her hand. ‘This is your father,’ she said, giving Sunday a small photograph. ‘Your flesh-and-blood father. I wasn’t going to give it to you until you were twenty-one.’
Sunday looked intently at the small faded photo of a young man, probably in his early twenties. She looked hard for any sign of a resemblance between this man and herself, but the only clue was his short blond hair. ‘Who is he?’ she asked tremulously.
‘A man,’ said Madge, without emotion. ‘Just a man. Someone who passes in the night.’ And then she added, ‘Like so many.’
Sunday looked up from the photo. ‘Where did you get this?’ she asked intensely. ‘Did my mother give it to you?’
Madge shook her head, and sat down opposite her daughter. ‘Sunday, you’ll have to understand that there are some questions I just can’t answer. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know. All I can tell you is that when he knew you were on the way, he wanted no part of you. He disappeared a long time ago, Sunday. No one knows where.’
‘Not even my real mother?’
Madge took a deep breath before replying. ‘Not even your – real mother.’
Although Sunday couldn’t hear the sound, church bells in the distance were ringing out five o’clock.
Sunday realised how difficult this moment was for her mum, but now this long-overdue discussion had got this far, she wasn’t prepared to let it go. Leaning across the table to Madge, she gently took hold of her hand and asked tenderly, ‘What about her, Mum? Where does she come from? Where is she now?’
Madge slowly shook her head. What she was doing now was clearly causing her great anguish. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Sunday, you have to realise that all this has caught up with me quite suddenly. I’ll tell you all you want to know – yes, I promise I will tell you. But I know that when I do, I’ll have lost you – for ever.’
Sunday shook her head.
‘Oh, I know what you’re saying. But believe me, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself, you’ll no longer be my daughter, my little girl. You’ll be someone else’s.’
Sunday sighed, leaned back in her chair, head lowered.
‘Look at me, Sunday – please, dear.’
Sunday didn’t hear what her mum had said, but allowed Madge’s hand to raise her chin.
‘Sunday, there’s something I want you to know. Whatever you think of me, I can assure you that everything I’ve ever done has been for you – not for me or anyone else – but you. You’re the child I never had, the child our Lord never allowed me to have. When you came along, my life began. Oh, I know I’ve made mistakes, lots of them. I know I should have told you about who you were and where you came from. But believe me, Sunday, I did it to protect you, and for no other reason. But from now on, it’s going to be different, everything’s going to be different. Whatever the consequences, I’ll no longer hold anything back from you.’
They were suddenly interrupted by a ring on the front doorbell.
‘That’s Stan come for tea,’ said Madge. But before she could get up from the table, Sunday took hold of her arm.
‘When will you tell me, Mum?’ she asked, a look of pleading in her eyes. ‘I shan’t sleep until I know.’
Madge tried smiling back at her. ‘When we get back from the band concert,’ she said with assurance. ‘I promise you I won’t let you down. Not this time. Not ever. I love you, Sunday. Don’t ever forget that. Just trust me.’
A couple of hours later, Sunday met up with Pete Hawkins, and before they went on to the band concert, they stopped off for a drink at a pub. As much as she liked him, Sunday found it hard going with Pete, for their only means of communication was through sign language. That was fine for a time, but Pete was absolutely fluent with his knowledge of the alphabet and with phrasing, but Sunday had to concentrate all her powers when she was sign-talking back to him. Her greatest difficulty was the fact that Pete only used his hands to communicate, but despite her consistent sign-writing practice, reading lips was still the easiest option for her. However, at least the other customers in the pub were fascinated by the way the two young deaf people communicated, and whenever either Sunday or Pete turned in their direction, one of them always nodded with a smile.
‘Pete,’ Sunday said, after putting down her usual glass of shandy on the counter, and plucking up enough courage to sign-talk. ‘I’m really sorry about dragging you out like this. It was a crazy idea of mine to ask you to a band concert!’
Pete understood perfectly what Sunday had signalled, and his face broke into a broad grin. ‘I’m not coming to the concert to hear music,’ he said, his hands and fingers darting about in a rapid reply. ‘I just want the chance to sit next to you for an hour.’
Sunday laughed. ‘Better not tell my mum that,’ she signa
lled. ‘She takes her music very seriously.’
‘I take you seriously too,’ replied Pete, gazing straight into her eyes. ‘Will you come back with me tonight – please?’
Sunday suddenly felt herself tense. Even if she had wanted to go back home with Pete after the concert, there was no way she could do it. Not tonight. One way or another, this had been a truly traumatic day for her, and her entire body felt emotionally drained. Also, the sad fact of the matter was that she didn’t want to go back with Pete. Although she felt awful about it, she had no feeling for him, no real feeling, and it would be very unfair to lead him on any further. But this was not the time to tell him. ‘Not tonight, Pete,’ she said, trying hard not to appear as though she was rejecting him. ‘I’ve got some important things to talk over with Mum.’
When they left the pub, it was raining. Neither of them had an umbrella, so Pete pulled up his jacket collar and, hurrying along with his arm around Sunday’s waist, tried to use the jacket to cover her shoulders. The evenings were now not nearly so bright as they had been for the past few months, for it was now mid-August, and lighting-up time was only a couple of hours away, at around nine thirty. But as the two of them walked as fast as they could along the glistening, wet pavements of Holloway Road, there was a lovely freshness in the early-evening air.
With only two minutes to spare to the start of the band concert, Sunday and Pete decided to run the last few yards or so. To their surprise, a small crowd was gathered around in the rain outside the entrance doors of the Salvation Army Hall. Alarmed, Sunday rushed forward to see what was going on. Some of the crowd recognised her, and called to the others to make a path for her.
The corridor inside was also jammed with people, some of them in Salvation Army uniform and carrying their own personal copies of the Bible. By this time, Sunday was getting even more concerned, and, with Pete following on close behind, she finally succeeded in pushing her way through into the Hall itself. There she was met by Captain Sarah Denning, one of Madge’s closest Salvation Army friends. She was in tears.
‘What is it, Mrs Denning?’ asked Sunday anxiously. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Mum?’
The poor, distressed woman shook her head, took hold of Sunday by the arm, and gently led her towards the platform, where members of the band and other uniformed officers were huddled around in a group. The moment Colonel Faraday noticed Sunday, he stepped forward to help her up on to the platform. ‘My dear child,’ he said, looking white and shattered. ‘You’ve got to be very brave.’ He called to the others to stand back, then did so himself.
Lying stretched out on her back on the platform floor was Madge.
‘Mum!’
Sunday rushed forward, and knelt beside the motionless figure. The shock too much for her to take in, she immediately looked around for some kind of explanation from the sea of distressed faces around her. Then she looked back down at her mum again. The old lady, dressed in her much-cherished Salvation Army uniform, and who only a few hours before had looked so alive and well, had her head resting on someone’s folded-up uniform jacket. There was no movement at all. Sunday leaned forward to take a close look at her. ‘Mum?’ she asked in a puzzled, bewildered voice which echoed around the silent hall. But the old lady’s eyes were firmly closed, and she made no response at all.
‘Mum!’
But Sunday’s call of despair went unanswered.
At the age of seventy-four, Madge Collins was dead.
Chapter 26
Madge Collins’s sudden death was a devastating blow for Sunday. During her final few weeks, the old lady had been in such good health, recovering completely from the varicose vein operation, and looking fitter than she had done for many a year. Unfortunately, however, a post-mortem examination had revealed that, following the operation, a blood clot had been carried away in the circulation, and had become lodged in Madge’s brain. Most people in ‘the Buildings’ were shocked and saddened by their neighbour’s death, but said that at least she had died quickly and without pain. But for Sunday, the sudden loss of her mum was a disaster. The irony of losing the old lady just hours before she was due to tell Sunday everything about her natural mother had been a cruel act of fate. Sunday was convinced that now her mum had gone, she would never know the truth.
Madge’s funeral had been a grand event. The service of thanksgiving for her life was held in the Salvation Army Hall up at Highbury, which had been overflowing with the old lady’s friends from what she used to call ‘God’s Army’, and there were also many of her neighbours from ‘the Buildings’ there, including a tearful Doll Mooney and her husband Joe, and Jack Popwell with his lady-friend, Ivy Westcliff. But a lot of people agreed that the most poignant part of the day had been the slow procession of the cortège and mourners, moving along the busy Holloway Road, and preceded by Madge’s beloved Salvation Army Band playing a selection of her favourite rousing hymns, such as ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, and ‘Shall We All Gather By The River?’ The most noticeable absentee from the proceedings was, of course, Aunt Louie. But although she refused to attend the service at Highbury, she went to Highgate Cemetery to watch Madge’s interment, but only from a distance. Sunday knew her aunt was there, but decided not to upset her even more by approaching her. Luckily, the rain held off just long enough for the graveside ceremony to come to an end, but as the crowd of mourners quickly dispersed and filed their way out towards the cemetery gates, the heavens opened, and there was a heavy downpour.
This, however, did not deter Louie. Once she was quite sure that everyone had left, she slowly approached her sister’s graveside, where council diggers were about to fill in. Out of respect for the feelings of the last remaining mourner, they withdrew to the cover of a huge chestnut tree. For several minutes, Louie stood by the grave, rain pelting down on to her short cropped hair and black cotton dress. And as she stared down at the tiny oak coffin with its shining brass plate showing Madge’s name, date of birth and date of death, there was so much that she wanted to say to her sister, so many misunderstandings that she wanted to put right. But now it was too late, and all she could do was to make her last conciliatory offering, a small posy of violets, which fluttered down into the grave, and came to rest alongside Sunday’s solitary pink rose on top of Madge’s coffin.
Her mum gone, Sunday now had to decide what to do with her life. With the help of her neighbours, she was allowed to stay in the flat, but it was a completely new experience for her, and for the first week, it scared her. At night, as she lay in bed deep in thought, she imagined all sorts of things, either that her mum was moving around in the next-door bedroom, or that there were people on the landing outside, trying to get in. But as she gradually got used to living alone in her silent world, the more she came to understand what she had to do in order to survive.
Jack Popwell turned out to be an enormous help, for his advice about how to budget out her school wages to pay for such things as the rent, food, gas and electricity taught her a great deal about housekeeping. And from the moment Madge died, Doll Mooney was convinced that Sunday was going without her meals, so, despite the continued food shortages, she was constantly bringing her titbits, and making her apple pies and scrag-end stew with dumplings. In fact, nearly all Sunday’s neighbours showed how concerned they were, for when she was at home, there was hardly a moment when someone didn’t call on her, just to keep her company. However, as time went by, Sunday began to stand on her own two feet. In the past, being independent was something she had only dreamt about. Now it was a reality.
For the next couple of months, Sunday learnt to take care of herself. Every day from Monday to Friday she went to the Deaf and Dumb School, where she was becoming more and more involved in showing the kids how to express themselves through dance, and at the weekend she went through the frustrations of shopping, queuing for hours on end for everything from food to clothes. In fact, since the war had ended, endless queuing was beginning to get everyone down, and housewives were organising
themselves into protest groups. However, Sunday was also learning how to cook, and she was amazed how many recipes she could find using Spam!
The best news came at the beginning of September when Jinx wrote to say that she had given birth to a baby boy weighing six pounds four ounces. Naturally enough, she had named the new arrival Erin, adding that she had wanted his middle name to be Sunday. However, after desperate pleas from the rest of her family, she had decided that as Sunday was a girl’s name, perhaps David might be a more sensible choice. But she warned that as soon as young Erin Junior was strong enough to travel, she would be bringing him straight to London to meet his Auntie Sunday.
It was at this time that Sunday made up her mind that she just had to talk with her Aunt Louie. She hadn’t seen the old lady since that fleeting glimpse at her mum’s funeral, and there was something important that Sunday needed to say to her. Luckily, Louie had left a forwarding address, which was in Adelaide Road up at Swiss Cottage, and so one afternoon after she had left school for the day, she took a trolleybus to Camden Town, changed on to a petrol bus to Chalk Farm Underground Station, then walked a short distance up the hill towards Swiss Cottage along the main Adelaide Road.
When she found the terraced house she was looking for, Sunday was quite impressed. It was a four-storey Edwardian-style house, and although the brickwork still carried some wartime bomb-blast scars, to Sunday it seemed like quite a posh place to live in, for when she went up the steps to the street door, the smell of tobacco flowers in the small front garden was quite overpowering.
‘Goodness!’ gasped the rather petite elderly lady who opened the door. ‘You’re Sunday, aren’t you? I saw you when we came down to the VE Day party – at the flats where you live. Oh, do please come in.’
The Silent War Page 35