Dolly's War (13 page)

I knew Amy would not speak to me for a long time, if ever, and I did not intend to make the first move, but I was not courageous enough to face her head-on again until I knew how she felt. If I saw her at the shops I would dash down a side turning. I would call on Agnes for family news, praying Amy would not appear. The trouble with our family has always been that sides are taken with the ‘member' present at the time. Agnes was always sympathetic to my side of the affair, but I knew she would be just as sympathetic when Amy was there with her. She hated any bad feeling and was worried we would both meet at her house before our tempers were cooled.

Finally I called on Agnes one day just as Amy was leaving. ‘Hallo,' I said, just as though we'd only left each other moments before. Amy was pleased I had spoken, but I knew she was still unforgiving. She looked at Susan in her pram and said to me, ‘She looks very pale, isn't she well?' which was true retribution for she knew how I worried abnormally over my baby.

But James had the last word and at last made Amy laugh. One day after visiting me when Marjorie was there, and having a happy time, she arrived home after James. He knew she had been visiting us and he said, ‘And what member of your family have you upset today?'

I often wished I hadn't made that remark and listened to Mother when she said, ‘Dolly, a still tongue makes a wise head,' but I suppose it was forced from me in a mixture of shame for my untidy kitchen, and a protective feeling for my Chas, as I resented the suggestion he was not important enough for me to make an effort with his food. Or was I jealous of two ladies, more elegant than I could ever hope to be?

*

After a quiet spell, warfare in the air began to hot up and one day I was in the dining-room when the fireplace began to shake and make a roaring sound. In the council-houses the fires had an oven above them and the door of this oven, which opened downward, began to rattle frighteningly. At that moment the Barking guns began to boom. I had a bomb down my chimney! I threw myself on top of Susan who was crawling on the floor and waited for the explosion and I waited and waited and still the oven shook, and still we were safe, yet I daren't stand up, all the instructions said, ‘Lie down.' Then there was a furious banging on the front door. I grabbed Susan and ran. There was my sallow-faced neighbour. ‘It's a funny thing to set your chimney on fire when there is a raid on,' she said suspiciously. I suppose now (because I was piano-less) she thought I must be a spy. I really don't know how the chimney caught fire for my fire was only a normal one, but I was in my neighbour's bad books again, and this gave her great pleasure.

As Chas was waiting to be called to the forces, and eventually hand over his job with the Prudential to me, he was made a ‘supernumerary' and took on the job of training the new lady agent as each man was called up. I was his first pupil and possibly the least conscientious of any. Marjorie, my youngest sister, was expecting her first baby, and would take care of Susan in the country, Marjorie's husband, Alfred, was already in the forces and Chas had obtained for Marjorie through the auspices of his relatives in Suffolk, a cottage, one of a pair, in a quiet country lane (which seemed to lead nowhere) at Somerton, near the pretty village of Hartest. The cottage was next to a lovely grey church which looked ghost-like as though it had no human worshippers. The cottage garden, looking out on to lush meadows, was lovely. Water had to be fetched from a pump some way distant from the cottage, quite a difficult task for Marjorie, large with child, and with Susan barely able to walk. The girl next door was friendly but out at work all day so that Marjorie had no one to speak to for weeks on end and at night time when Susan was in bed Marjorie must have felt very frightened alone in the lamp-light. The lane was overhung with trees, beautiful but darkly sad, a lonely sanctuary for them both.

Chas was determined, if it was humanly possible, to make me an efficient agent. I liked the people and was so pleased when the children ran to greet me like an old friend. But I was terrified of the dogs and when Chas gave me a ‘trial run' he was horrified at my reason for so many ‘non-payments'. ‘Oh, the dog in that house looked so fierce.' He had to go round again ‘to keep me straight'. He tried to instruct me in the art of chatting up people. ‘Take the money first, then chat afterwards,' he would say, but of course I got terribly delayed, for the woman of the house and I would start talking as soon as the door was opened.

And I missed my baby so much I felt like half a person. I couldn't keep my mind on anything else really, although I tried. One day after Chas and I had had a fierce argument in a Dagenham road I tore off to the station and went down to Somerton to Marjorie for a few days. It was sheer heaven. We were all delirious at our reunion. I didn't worry about Chas's food because by that time we had two evacuees billeted on us by the authorities, a widow and her daughter, and I knew that Chas would be ensured of ‘home comforts'. The widow, Mrs Beadle, was like something out of Charles Dickens. She'd had a hard life and was always referring to the ‘late Mr Beadle'. He was ‘very respectable' as indeed she was. Her daughter was a girl of about eighteen, tall, slim, very pale, with dark brown eyes and masses and masses of black ringlets. She worked in the City somewhere and spent her evenings off getting ready for our evening dive down into the Anderson shelter in the garden. She would do her hair up in ‘crackers', pieces of rag wound round and round each ringlet. These she would dampen with spit, while she was reading a paper magazine. She seemed quite contented with her lot. Mrs Beadle, I think, worked as a charwoman somewhere and would arrive home at lunchtime when she would prepare her daughter's evening meal and put it on a saucepan to keep warm for hours until her daughter, June's, return in the evening.

They were no bother at all and Chas felt so sorry for them having to live in someone else's home that the curtailing of our love life seemed the least of our worries. Finally I became a fully fledged agent for Chas was called up for his army medical. He arrived back in a triumphant state. Baring his chest he announced, ‘I've received my first medal.' On his chest over his heart was a blue circle. The doctor had discovered that Chas had an abnormal heart-beat and after eliciting from Chas the information that, no, he'd never felt faint, no, he'd not had rheumatic fever, he ordered him to chase, stripped, round the examination room at full gallop several times, after which he tested Chas's heart each time and looked dubious about accepting him at all. Eventually a delighted Chas ‘received the King's shilling' and the medical grading of B1. I was furious, because if he had not been accepted I could have been in the country with Susan. He thought me most unpatriotic and asked if I wanted him to be different from other men and shirk his duty. ‘Yes,' I snapped, and we went sadly to bed, knowing that ‘I would not love thee half as much' did really apply to him. Once a boy scout always a boy scout I felt. I was really being incredibly selfish but I hated the thought of trudging the roads of Dagenham and coming home to an empty house, for God knew how long. Now, too, I knew about Chas's peculiar heart I would be more worried by the hard times I knew our men would have.

On the day of his departure we crawled out of the shelter, aching from our makeshift bed and the damp atmosphere. It was still dark but Chas was so anxious not to be late ‘on parade'. An air raid was in progress but neither of us seemed unduly perturbed about this. He said good-bye to the Beadles who broke down and cried and Chas cleared his throat noisily. As we went out into the cold and dismal road the guns seemed suddenly ear-splitting and I suggested we go back into the shelter and wait for the all-clear. ‘You go, dear,' said Chas, ‘but I have a train to catch,' and in a state of nightmarish numbness I took his arm. How could I be less brave (or stupid I felt) than this obstinate man with his innate sense of duty? It seemed, when we reached the main line station, that I was the only cowardly one, for the platform was teeming with men accompanied by sad wives and mothers. Some were crying and I felt guilty that I couldn't squeeze even one tear. I just wanted the train to come in and go out with all speed possible. I was so cold I felt as though I was frozen to the ground, like a statue that has lost its plinth.

Chas hardly kissed me good-bye as though he was eager to be gone and I smiled brightly as I waved him good-bye. I almost said, ‘Have a good time,' as though he was going on holiday. I wondered if he felt me callous, a happy-looking wife amongst so many weeping women, but he wrote me that he would always remember my lovely smiling face as the train left the station. He said if I had broken down he would have wept in sympathy. He added, ‘You are my brave soldier girl,' which undeserved compliment made me feel extremely guilty.

‘Don't worry, gel,' said my father. ‘He'll have a fine time in the army, and what's more, it'll make a man of him.' I thought this a two-edged remark but I believed my father implicitly and I looked forward to my darling returning, not the pale-faced worried young man I had waved off, but a giant, tanned, smiling and muscular.

Having made himself useful to the Sergeant (by typing for him in his spare time) Chas arrived home after his training period before the other recruits. Excitedly I met him at the station, and what a sorry sight met my eyes. Where was the new manly Chas my father had insisted I would meet? His eye was black and his face bruised, and he seemed more bent than the weight of his pack was responsible for. It transpired that they were drilling one day in a rather confined space. He was in the row behind an abnormally short recruit. As the order came to slope arms, up came this midget's gun (and he was a very strong dwarf) right into Chas's eye knocking him unconscious. He sprained his back too. ‘Lucky for you it wasn't fixed bayonets,' I said – a remark I thought he took in the wrong spirit. In addition to these troubles he had an enormous carbuncle at the base of his spine because he was allergic to one of the inoculations. This had been lanced, and eager to get home, he had assured the M.O. his wife would be happy and competent to dress this.

Chas had had no experience of my bravery under fire, or my cowardice at the sight of blood. My mother, who was visiting, could have told him but she just gave us both a strange look and went off to the shops. After a quick cup of tea I scrubbed up, Chas dropped his trousers and I gazed in horror at the wound on his spine. I had assured myself I would be a gentle and efficient nurse, making up to him for all my shortcomings. I loved him dearly and had always understood that love conquers all, but suddenly I had a far away feeling and an unspoken fear that love, in my case, was not strong enough to dress this carbuncled gash. At an earlier scene of cowardice the doctor had said, ‘Put your head between your legs,' and I turned round from my husband, and back to back we bowed in homage to the floor, me praying for courage, he wondering, ‘What kept you?' He hadn't taken his trousers off for he had faith in my speedy ministrations and it crossed my mind to wonder why men look all right in shorts but so absurd with their trousers round their ankles. ‘Ready,' I said brightly, just like my ‘rub it well in' Matron, but as I caught sight of his septic spine for the second time, again I felt as though I would pass out. Chas, fed up with bending like a praying mantis, straightened up, and when he saw my face, which must have been green he said, ‘Oh, my poor love, why didn't you tell me you were ill? Here, let me help you to the sofa.' We hobbled, at least he hobbled, I was dragged to the sofa and he then hobbled off to the kitchen for some water. I was so ashamed of myself I was determined to succour this brave and uncomplaining man, so we tried again. After my third fainting-fit he would allow no more Florence Nightingale attempts, he said he would manage himself, but my mother who had returned and was hovering in the hall outside, having given Dolly enough time to ‘do her duty', decided it was time to enter the ‘surgery', came to the rescue and dressed the wound. I knew my mother was ashamed of me, indeed I was ashamed of myself. Chas was full of apologies to me which made me feel more abject. He was brave, the Scannells and the Chegwiddens were all brave, so what was it about broken flesh which made me the one coward amongst them? I prayed emergencies would avoid me for the rest of my life.

Chas was posted to a searchlight site in Devon and I became an efficient insurance agent, according to the Superintendent, obtaining phenomenal new business.

Very warm, very easy to get on with were my Dagenham clients. Always a cheery word, and a joke, even after a terrible night in the air-raid shelters. There is, of course, an exception everywhere, and I had one strange family on my round. Although still friendly, still offering me that cheering cup of tea, I was unable to accept, and not only because it was rationed, though that was a good excuse. When approaching this house I had to take a long deep breath, for when their door opened a foul stream of air assailed my nostrils. I could only liken it to swampy jungle ozone. And the dirt, well, it was impossible to describe. I can only say it was so dirty that it never appeared dirtier each week I called. It was so dirty that no extra dirt would have made any difference. The ‘lady' of the house was tall and thin with a cloud of fair hair surrounding her face, her children too, were pale and thin. I had to go into the house once because of a claim. It was the worst experience of my life and I think really, I could have faced it, but for the dreadful stench of sheer putridity. A child was eating dry cornflakes off a filthy table, the mother was holding a frying-pan in her hand, the only piece of equipment visible in that kitchen, I think it was used for all culinary purposes. It was filled with dry black substance up to the rim of the pan. Yet had they been clean and well fed they would all have been raving beauties, they all possessed masses of cloudy fair hair, high cheek-bones, and naturally, being half-starved, enormous soulful-looking eyes. I never saw the husband but I believe he was at work and I wondered why they were as they were. The woman was ‘nicely spoken', they were not illiterate. What had brought them to this degradation?