Avalanche of Daisies (57 page)

‘How long will that be before you know?' she asked.

‘Too long!' Sis told her.

And she was right. It seemed an age before the second count was completed. The two girls fidgeted, Sis coughed, Heather grumbled, Christine lost all the pins from her hair, Mr Craxton told stories of previous elections, which his wife corrected, Pauline prowled and bit her lips. But at last the two candidates were called over again and this time there was no discussion, just a few words and they were on their way to the platform, the Tory bland-faced with his wife in attendance, Sis, pale and coughing, signalling to Barbara that she should come and join her.

It felt exposed up there on the platform, with the Mayor fussing and the microphone waiting for the final speech. The hall was so crowded that Barbara couldn't see to the other side of it and the heat of such a great mass of people rose towards her as though she were breathing fire. She looked down at the rows of expectant faces, hundreds of them, pale as flowers, bobbing and turning. The tension was so extreme it was like waiting for thunder to break.

The Mayor waited for calm and took a long time to
get it. ‘The total number of votes cast in the Bellington South constituency is as follows …' It had been a very close vote indeed but the result, by a mere one hundred and thirteen votes, was, as he hereby declared, that ‘the said Mrs Cecily Elizabeth Tamworth has been duly elected to serve as Member of Parliament for the said constituency.'

The thunder broke in a cheer that made Barbara's ears ring. Joyce and Hazel were jumping up and down, Heather clapping, Mabel blowing kisses. It was an impossible, unbelievable victory. And Sis stepped forward, smoothing down her old cotton jacket, clearing her throat, ready to make her acceptance speech.

She began it stylishly, thanking the returning officer and his team, the people who'd worked for her and the people who'd shown their desire for a Labour government by voting for her, but then she paused, seemed to be catching her breath, coughed once, tried to continue and was caught up in such a paroxysm that she had to retire to the back of the stage, spluttering and choking, to be given a glass of water.

Her audience waited anxiously, murmuring and watching. ‘Bar!' she said, handkerchief to her mouth, struggling to speak. ‘You'll – 'ave – to do it – for me. I can't …'

Nor can I, Barbara thought, I hain't never spoke in public in my life. She felt such panic she wanted to run away. But she couldn't do that. Not now, with all this going on. The Mayor was nodding and saying it would be all right, and Sis's eyes were pleading, and the audience were shuffling their feet.

‘All right,' she said to Sis. ‘Thass all right. I'll do it for you.' And she walked up to the microphone. Her heart was beating so heavily it was like a lead weight in her chest and her throat was so taut she was afraid she would start coughing too. She put her hand on the microphone, as much to steady herself as to signal that she was about to speak, moistened her lips and began.

‘My aunt, Mrs Tamworth, has asked me to finish her speech for her,' she said, rather quaveringly. ‘She hain't been too well these last weeks. She's recoverin', as you see,' – Sis was waving and smiling – ‘but not quick enough for a long speech. What she want to say to you is this – or somethin' like this.' Then she paused because she wasn't sure what she ought to say next. Her mind was too full of memories, of Betty laughing in that sheepskin coat, of Norman striding through the North End in his blue gansey, of Steve saying goodbye to her on the platform at New Cross. So many memories and all to do with war. All to do with war. And then her thoughts came together and made sense to her and she knew what she had to say.

‘We come a long way in this war,' she began, aware of her own voice echoing back to her through the loudspeakers, but stronger now and more assured. ‘We learned a lot, how to cope with death and injury, how to look after one another, how to share. We put up with rations an' shortages, an' bombs an' buzzbombs an' rockets, an' we never give in. We dug our casualties out the rubble. We looked after our wounded. We buried our dead. We never give in.'

She knew that her audience was listening to her with such rapt attention that there wasn't a sound in the hall. Even the echo had changed. ‘Thass made us different people to the ones we were before,' she said. ‘Different people with different ideas. We don't want to go back to the old way, the way things were. We want our children to grow up in a fairer world, where people hain't afraid to be unemployed or take sick or grow old, where we all work together to protect one another. Thass what this election has been about. A fairer world. Thass what this new government you've just elected will start to create. My aunt would like to thank you for choosin' her to be a part of it.'

At which Sis waved again and their supporters cheered and waved back. And Barbara knew she'd
made her first political speech and that it had been a good one.

Oh, she thought, standing on the platform, looking down at all the happy faces below her, if only Steve could have been here. He'd have loved all this, seeing his aunt elected and the Labour Party winning. And she looked across the packed heads to the back of the room and suddenly there he was, tall and auburn haired, with his tunic unbuttoned and his cap on his shoulder, standing there, looking straight ahead of him as if he didn't see her. She was caught between shock and disbelief and overwhelming happiness. I'm seein' things, she thought. Thass all the excitement. My eyes are playing tricks on me.

And then he took a cigarette packet from his tunic pocket and lit up. And the movement of his hands was so familiar that she jumped from the platform, calling his name, ‘Steve! Steve!' and ran, plunging through the crowd, all memory and all instinct, with nothing in her mind but the need to reach him. Steve! My dear, dear, darling Steve! She was in his arms before he had time to look up, covering his face with kisses, her cheeks flushed and her green eyes bright as the sea in sunshine. Oh Steve!

The impact of her body was so powerful that it took away his power of speech. It was as if she'd knocked him over, as if he was falling through space, as if he were waking from a long, long sleep, stunned and unsteady. He put his arms round her, leaning back so that he could see her face. ‘Hello,' he said, huskily.

And at that she burst into tears. And he found his old easy tenderness again, and put his arms round her, and kissed her forehead, and smoothed her tousled hair and brushed away her tears – such hot, passionate tears – with trembling fingers.

‘I thought I'd never see you again,' she wept.

‘I know. I know.' How
could
he have waited so long? How could he have been so foolish?

The rest of the family were crowding in on them, reaching up to kiss him and pat him, questioning and clamouring. ‘Where've you sprung from?' ‘Were you here for the count?' ‘We're winning! We're gonna have a Labour government. Ain't it wonderful, our Steve?' And he stood with one arm round Barbara's waist and her head on his shoulder and agreed that yes, it was. But what was really wonderful was that he was home and loved and aware that there was good in the world after all. After being stuck in indecision for so long it felt like a miracle.

Presently he saw that his mother was in the crowd too, but standing apart from the others, her face wrinkled with anxiety. With Barbara still held closely to his side, he walked across to kiss her. But he didn't pick her up in his old loving way, as she was quick and pained to notice, and once the kiss was given he stood back and looked at her in a most disconcerting way.

She took refuge in scolding. ‘Why didn't you say you were coming?'

‘Snap decision,' he told her. ‘I didn't know myself till last night.' And he went on looking at her.

His scrutiny made her feel anxious. He looked so much older, so much the soldier, tough and shrewd with all that lovely boyish innocence of his quite gone. And his look was a question that had to be answered. ‘Did you get my letter?' she faltered.

Now I shall hear the truth of it, he thought. But did he want to hear the truth of it? ‘Which one?' he asked her, stern-faced. ‘I haven't had any letters from you or Dad since we crossed the Rhine. No. Tell a lie. One. You wrote me one.' And he made a joke of it to help her, because she was looking so distressed. ‘I was beginning to think you'd left the country. Which letter are you talking about?'

She was confused and more anxious than ever. If only she'd written to him and explained. Bob was right. She should have written. ‘The letter I wrote when … I
mean, my last letter … The one … No, I suppose not. I suppose some of your letters must've gone astray, what with one thing and another.'

‘You'd be surprised how well they got the mail through,' he told her. ‘They knew how important it was to us.' And he repeated his question. ‘Which letter are you talking about?'

She certainly couldn't answer such a direct challenge. Not here, in front of Barbara and all the others. ‘It doesn't matter,' she said, ducking her head and looking away from him. ‘It's not important. It was only a letter. I mean, there was nothing in it.'

He looked straight into her eyes, daring her. ‘Then it wasn't worth writing, was it?'

I've lost him, Heather thought. He's not my boy any more. He's a grown man and I've hurt him and now he's angry with me and I've only got myself to blame. ‘No. It wasn't,' she admitted and came as near to an apology as she could in such a public place. ‘Trouble is, you say silly things sometimes.'

‘And then regret them?' he asked, his voice insistent but more gentle.

The gentleness made her want to weep. ‘Yes,' she told him, miserably. ‘And then regret them.'

He smiled at her, but it was an odd, sad smile. Forgiveness? Understanding? She couldn't tell.

‘Then we don't need to worry about it, do we?' he said. He was aware that Barbara had grown tense during their exchange and he turned to look at
her
again, caught the query on her face and answered it with a kiss, full on the lips, public and committed. ‘I love you,' he said.

To be kissed in such a way in such a public place made her blush. Luckily Sis moved in to rescue her. She'd been talking to Mr Craxton and Pauline and had missed most of the conversation but she'd caught the gathering atmosphere and knew she had to deal with it.

‘I reckon this calls for a celebration,' she said,
beaming round at them all. ‘What say we go down to the Goat an' Compasses? They got a garden for the kids. Be nice out in the sun.'

General agreement, a rush of movement towards the door, Heather and Mabel leading the way, Sis turning to ask her nephew, ‘You coming?'

He stood where he was with his arm round his wife. ‘We'll follow you,' he called and added quietly to Barbara, ‘slowly.'

So they walked out of the hall together, their arms about each other, and strolled along the affluent, crowd-filled streets of Sis's new constituency, stopping to kiss whenever they felt like it, which was more and more frequently. And there, away from the eyes of their relations, alone in that euphoric crowd, it was as if they'd never been apart. They were older, wiser, sadder, but love was pulling them together with every step, binding them close, closer, breathlessly together. He looked down at her face, drinking in the sight of her, relearning her, aching with the old love for her.

‘Will I do?' she teased, smiling into his eyes.

‘Oh, I think so,' he teased back. And then grew serious. ‘You've changed though.'

‘Thass been a long time,' she said. ‘A lot's happened.'

‘That's what it is,' he agreed. ‘We've grown older. You have to grow up fast in a war. You don't have any option. Anyway, it suits you. You're very, very beautiful. And that was a terrific speech you made.'

‘You've changed too,' she said. Now that they were out in the sunlight she could see how much. There was no boyishness about him at all and the open innocence of his face was gone. Grown older, she thought, and wise in the ways of a very cruel world. His hair was cropped short, there were lines on his face that hadn't been there the last time she saw him and his eyes had a weariness about them that made her yearn with pity for what he must have seen and endured. ‘Was it very bad?'

He gave her an honest answer. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I'll tell you about it some time. But not now.' Now it was enough to be getting back to normal, holding her close, breathing in the familiar smell of her skin, recognising that flowered blouse and the green skirt she'd worn a lifetime ago, that day in the haystack, that week in the hopfields. ‘Oh my dear, darling girl! You do still love me?'

‘Oh, yes, yes, yes,' she said, kissing him with every word. ‘'Course I do. More than ever.'

The crowd parted to pass them and two schoolboys gave them a wolf whistle.

‘I suppose we ought to join the others,' he said.

So they walked on, talking of victory and victories. ‘Why didn't you get leave before?' she asked. ‘As soon as the war was over. You could've done, couldn't you?'

He gave her another honest answer. ‘I couldn't face it I suppose.'

They were so easy with one another now that she could ask, ‘Why not?'

‘All sorts of reasons,' he said. ‘I was afraid of disappointment, scared of the changes I'd find. I think I needed the army routine. I was trying to work things out.' He shrugged, growing impatient with his inability to tell her how it had been. ‘Oh I don't know. I don't understand it myself.'

He wasn't making much sense to her but she was full of tenderness towards him. Whatever it was that was troubling him it needed careful handling. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him again, holding his face between her hands. She knew instinctively that this had something to do with his mother, that it was the reason why he'd treated her so sternly back in the hall, but she knew she couldn't ask him about it yet.