by Lizzie Page
‘Johnny!’ we both called out. How delightful it was to see a face from the old days. Could it only have been five years ago? Five years of tumultuous change.
‘I haven’t seen anyone for years. How the devil is everyone? Walter, Uilleam, David – or should I say, “the world-famous Ivor Novello”?’
Olive paled. I probably did too. He didn’t know what had happened.
‘What? – Who?’
Olive shook her head slowly. ‘Walter was killed.’
‘Oh no.’ He paused. We all stared at the floor. ‘Where?’
Olive hesitated. ‘In London. It was a bomb.’
He rubbed his head in shock. ‘Here in London? Well, I never… his poor mother must be devastated. I never knew a woman more beautiful than Mrs Ford, inside and out. I will go and see her as soon as—’
I interjected. Olive was shaking her head but seemed unable to say anything else.
‘I’m sorry, Johnny, she was lost too.’
He shook our hands once more and went off, considerably less sprightly than when he had arrived.
39
1942 – Now
In Mrs Burton’s living room, life goes on. We WAVs knit and make and do the accounts for the tea van. We talk about how the butchers are so low on quality meat now, and about the best things you can make with turnips and parsnips and the blackberry bushes near Farmer Jones’s, perfect for a crumble. Replacing things is our skill; working out the things we can do without. The things you get used to. We wonder if the Russians will halt the Germans – surely the Russians will halt the Germans! The fighting at Stalingrad is brutal, we hear. Horrendous.
Mrs Shaw is quieter than she used to be. We make sure she knows she is always welcome. She can talk about her Simon, who is missing after his ship was sunk in the Mediterranean, whenever she feels up to it.
Ethel Burton has just turned eighteen and is raring to do her bit. She has joined the Land Army and is delighted to be stationed in Norfolk. She thinks anything is better than working in munitions.
I go over on her last morning at home. Mrs Burton is still upstairs, packing for her. (Mrs Burton doesn’t know how Ethel will manage living on her own.)
Ethel shows me her pretty engagement ring. They’re saving everything they can for the dress. And they’ve come good on their promise: Pearl will be their bridesmaid. ‘This time next year.’
All being well.
‘You must miss Cyril,’ I say.
She nods vigorously. She’s a glamorous young woman and I wonder how she’ll manage on an isolated farm. ‘I hate that he’s away, I get so lonely.’ She smiles shyly at me. ‘But it’s a bit like that song you all used to sing in the old days, “Keep the Home Fires Burning”.’
‘Mm,’ I say. I feel suddenly tearful at this optimistic young girl starting out on adult life.
‘That’s what I’m going to do for Cyril.’
40
1920 – Then
The day before my wedding, Olive was jittery. She had the same vacant expression she sometimes had when she was immersed in a picture. She was wearing her painting clothes all the time now too. I didn’t like seeing her so dishevelled. It was awkward.
She said, ‘I’ve got something I simply must tell you, Vivi. It’s exceedingly important.’ And I led her upstairs to my room, because important things didn’t belong downstairs where people could hear. I wasn’t too worried though – Olive and I had always had different ideas of what ‘important’ meant. Important to Olive was ‘there’s an exhibition at the Royal Academy and I will die if I can’t go.’
‘I don’t think you should marry Edmund.’
‘What? Olive! Why do you have to do this?’
‘He’s no good for you.’
I had to tell myself to breathe, I had been holding my breath for so long. Out and in. That’s how you do it. She was gazing at me. No one gazed like Olive.
My dressing table consisted of three white drawers and three mirrors arranged in a kind of horseshoe shape. I stared into the mirrors. My face was reflected back hundreds of times and in each image, I looked disappointed and aloof. I didn’t feel disappointed or aloof, but I did feel anxious. Olive was so unpredictable these days that she had that effect on me. I thought, she’s not going to mention his visits to the Windmill, is she? Please don’t, Olive.
‘Do you remember that time that plane went down in the field?’
I nodded. I knew she sometimes thought I was slow and simple, but did she seriously think I would forget Sam just like that? She must have known how I had felt about him.
‘And then you became friends with the pilot… and I painted you.’
I frowned. I didn’t know why she was saying this unless she was intending to be cruel.
‘That’s the man you should marry.’
Oh God.
‘Olive, is this really the exceedingly important thing you had to tell me?’
‘Yes,’ she said defiantly.
My mistake was to try to reason with her. ‘O, I haven’t seen him for… so many years.’
Three years and four months.
‘So?’
‘So, if he wanted me, he’d come.’
Don’t write. Don’t call. Don’t speak to me.
Olive was shaking her head vigorously. She hated to be wrong. ‘I bet he thinks you don’t want him, Vivi. Go and see him, go and find him today before it’s too late.’
‘The wedding is tomorrow, Olive. Be serious. You want me to call it off, just because—’ my voice cracked – ‘you imagine I’ll get on better with someone else.’
‘It’s not just someone else though, is it? You loved him. You don’t love Edmund.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
I must stop thinking about the way he kissed me. Olive doesn’t know anything about that.
I clipped on my earrings. A present from Aunt Cecily, they had been Mother’s originally. I hadn’t told Olive where they were from and I was scared she would ask. That afternoon we would have tea with Edmund’s parents. All of us. The families together. Olive had better come along. Her hatred of convention never ceased to amaze me. She would destroy us all if she carried on like this.
The earrings were too tight, and my lobes began to turn a distressing shade of lobster. I didn’t know whether to change the subject or persevere.
‘You don’t love Edmund Lowe. We both know that.’
‘Even if I did want to be with Sam, which I don’t, it’s too late now,’ I told her. ‘He’s probably dead.’
‘I would have heard if he was dead!’ she exclaimed.
‘What? That’s ridiculous. And anyway, I wouldn’t know where—’
‘I’ll be able to find him!’ she shouted excitedly. ‘I bet I could. I know what synagogue he belongs to, it wouldn’t be—’
‘No!’ I said. The word synagogue sent ugly shivers down my spine. ‘No, I’m marrying Edmund. I can hardly let him down now, can I?’
It wasn’t just Edmund I was marrying either. This was what Olive didn’t understand. It was all of us marrying all of them. We would become one big family. I thought of the cake that Aunt Cecily was slaving over. When she’d told me she was baking three tiers, I had inexplicably thought she meant tears. I thought of the bunting being sewn by Edmund’s aunt. I thought of the guest list: Lady this, that and the other. Lord and Lady Mosley. The gentry were coming. Even Father had been rendered speechless at some of the names. ‘That’s my girl,’ he’d said finally, tears in his eyes. ‘We are going up in the world.’
Even Pigeon was coming. Edmund’s mother said that that girl was desperate to get her claws into someone and a wedding was as good an occasion as any, even if it was your dead fiancé’s brother’s wedding.
Edmund’s mother had bought my dress. ‘Because of how you were with Christopher,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget that.’ And we would marry in the church where Christopher was buried and the vicar was the one who had buried him.
Christopher was never
far from our thoughts.
Edmund’s mother had wanted to buy Olive a silk dress too. ‘We can’t have her turning up in one of those smocks. Really, Vivienne, you know I think some of them are starting to smell.’
Now, Olive stared at me venomously.
‘You can’t love Edmund, Vivi, you just can’t. He’s so…’ She paused, I wondered what sneer she would find to say about him. She twisted my lipstick round so it rose majestically out of its container. ‘Unlovable.’
‘He’s fine, O.’
‘Fine? Could you sound any more tepid?’
‘He’s a good man and he’s been through a lot.’
‘Everyone has.’
‘No, Edmund has more than most people. Not only did he fight bravely in the war’ – I said this although I had no idea how brave he had been, or if he’d been brave at all – ‘he’s also been very sick. You don’t think I can just drop him now, after all that?’ I hissed. ‘How would that look?’
She gazed at me, shook her head, then stomped out of my room.
‘Sam,’ I breathed. I let my hands go to my earrings and I took them off. My ears felt gloriously free again. I had to say it out loud: ‘Sam.’
* * *
I had wanted to marry in June; I had fancies of being a June bride, but it was one of those compromises you make. Lord and Lady Mosley were going to Australia in June, so if we wanted them there… Besides, what was the use in waiting? Edmund and I had known each other for over twelve years; we had been engaged for three, reunited for one. No one could say we were hasty. We weren’t like all those ‘intense’ and foolish war couples. No one could say I didn’t know what I was getting into. So, on 24 May 1920, I took a deep breath and hoped for the best. And didn’t Edmund look handsome in his uniform, with that impressive row of medals? Everyone agreed. Later, I heard people say, ‘He almost outdid the bride.’
* * *
Throughout the ceremony, I couldn’t help thinking, What would Sam say if he could see this? I hated Olive for putting him back squarely into my head when I had worked so very hard at getting him out.
No, it wasn’t her fault.
I wanted to know how she was so confident that she’d know if Sam were dead, but I didn’t dare ask.
Edmund’s father gave a long speech about how Christopher should have been there, and talked about Edmund’s war service too. He breezed over his illness. He said, ‘We nearly lost this boy too. Thank goodness we didn’t.’
Edmund’s father didn’t mention my war service at all. My years in France with the FANYs seemed to have been erased from history.
Then my father stood up. This was unexpected because he was a man who hated formality and speeches, and he knew he was a fish out of water here; but he too wanted to reference Edmund’s ‘commendable’ war service. He mentioned our dear cousin Richard and I saw Aunt Cecily cover her face with her handkerchief. And how, at the beginning at the war, there were two brothers and their best friend: Christopher, Edmund and Richard, and now only one of them stood before us, and how proud and grateful he was to be his father-in-law. He wasn’t just saving the country but building the future, the right kind of future.
Then my father made a joke about rolling out the red carpets – he’d do it himself – and everyone laughed, even Edmund’s parents, although I guessed they were thinking ‘nouveau riche’. Or perhaps not ‘nouveau riche’, because it was French – perhaps only ‘newly rich’ would do. I wished my father would sit down. Everyone was hungry and we had lords and ladies there, although, surprise, surprise, not all of them had turned up.
And of course, as is tradition, the bride didn’t say anything. Only, it didn’t feel like tradition somehow; I felt like a gag had been placed over my mouth. I tiptoed that day even though there were no tulips, only white carnations.
Pigeon came over, and then she and Edmund were giggling about something.
‘What is it?’
‘Private joke,’ she said, but I guessed from their expressions it was about Edmund’s
déclassé in-laws.
Then there was the dancing. Olive was soon flying about the room, looking hot and bothered, but not letting that stop her. Pretty and pale, she was in a dark navy dress. She did get attention, but she didn’t keep attention, for she never responded and men swiftly transferred it to girls who looked like they might be less challenging.
We had an extraordinary band. One of them was a blind man playing on the trumpet. I asked them to play ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, and when they did, O rushed over to me and hugged me and we danced together, my wonderful, terrible sister and I.
‘I love you, Vivi. You’re the best.’
‘I love you, O. Don’t ever doubt it.’
* * *
I had wondered and I had worried about my wedding night. I suppose the fact that I thought it was my wedding night, not ours, says something. Obviously, I didn’t have a mother I could ask questions of, although I don’t know what questions I would have asked even if I had the chance. I thought Olive might know some of the details, but I think she would have assumed I already knew everything and I was embarrassed to admit the extent of my ignorance. I was the big sister, she should be the one asking me. And anyway, it wasn’t the details I lacked. An encyclopaedia we had when I was a child had informed me of those. It was the emotional side of the thing I couldn’t comprehend.
If I had only thought to write to Daisy or Enid in advance… Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to me soon enough. When I had tentatively broached the subject with Aunt Cecily, she had replied, ‘Edmund believes in the teachings of the Church. I don’t think you’ve got a lot to worry about, Vivienne.’
I tried not to remember Sam. It was important not to remember Sam’s eyes and especially his soft lips, and how I felt that time when he kissed me goodbye with such tenderness and longing that I had forgotten where I was.
I thought Edmund might want to undress me, but he could be so fastidious sometimes. It was so easy to get it wrong with him and I was afraid of making an error, but for once he too looked nervous and uncertain. He switched on the plump table lamp with its stained shade and then switched off the overhead light. The lampshade had little tassels and for some stupid reason, my mind went straight to the Windmill, where they said women danced with tassels on their breasts for money. Edmund undressed himself down to his long johns and vest and almost leapt into bed. I suppose it was fear that set me to thinking, Hop, little rabbit, hop, hop, hop!
I chided myself. This was not the moment for silliness.
I wished I could speak to Olive. There were times I needed her. She’d know what to do.
So, I did the same as Edmund, slowly stowing away my wedding dress in the wardrobe. I was careful, so it wouldn’t crease. I was going to pass this on to our children. Children: that was what I had to focus on.
Then I lay there, still as a breakfast bowl on a newly ironed tablecloth, and he said, ‘Goodnight then.’ And the sense of wrongness that has been a recurrent hum of my life, like the rumblings of the Underground trains on the city streets, suddenly became a searing pain and I almost wanted to cry out with it. But I didn’t. I gathered myself, and told myself, We both want children. That will unite us and keep us together. The daughter who will wear your wedding dress, the son who will have connections and a good job in a bank or maybe even in the Indian Civil Service, you never know – the babies I will push in a navy perambulator with big metal wheels through the park. Those dreams were about to come true, I just had to hold my nose and get on with it.
I said lightly. ‘Shouldn’t we… do something, Edmund?’
He said he didn’t mind.
‘Have you… been with a woman before?’
Edmund went a dark shade of crimson. ‘I don’t want to say.’
I thought of the card I had found deep in the pocket of his grey overcoat. The woman showing off her triangle of hair.
It sounded like he had. I didn’t know if I was relieved or not. A little rel
ieved maybe. He readjusted his pyjamas.
‘Does that mean yes?’ I persisted.
My eyes were level with his throat. I could see the awkwardness of his swallow, the journey of his Adam’s apple. ‘It means, not with anyone important.’
I lifted up his hand and placed it on my hip where the hem of my nightie lay.
‘Then we will learn together, Mr Lowe.’
I expected him to say something about my now being Mrs Lowe but he didn’t. Maybe it was best he didn’t. Maybe this wasn’t the time to think about Mrs Lowe.
41
1942 – Now
Mrs Burton asks me to babysit. Not the girls; they’re ‘old enough and ugly enough’ (they are not at all ugly!) to look after themselves. No, she wants me to look after the dogs, Laurel and Hardy.
She and Mr Burton are going off for a celebratory night away. It’s their anniversary. She’s a September bride. Twenty-five bloody years.
How lovely.
‘I thought he was a gonner in Coventry,’ she says often, and I always add, ‘We all did.’
I agree to go over with Pearl. Pearl can cat-nap on the sofa. We will listen to the wireless and read.
Ethel is away, coping very well with the farm work. She is hardier than anyone expected.
Younger daughter, Sally, the bookish one, is all dressed up. Hair rolled, pretty cardigan, twirly skirt that has a life of its own. I’ve never seen her look so lovely – she’s going to a Lindy Hop.
Mrs Burton can’t leave the house without having baked a cake, so Pearl and I share a sliver of a slice. The clock ticks slowly. I remember the first time I sat in this kitchen with my slippers on. How awkward I had been. Now, it’s like a second home – a favourite home, really.
Tongue out, Pearl practises her spellings. I think the words are too difficult for a child her age.