Octavia's War (36 page)

Tommy was beaming but practical. ‘What sort of date did you have in mind?' he said to Ben.

Ben and Lizzie answered in unison. ‘Easter Saturday.'

Tommy grimaced. ‘Bit short notice, isn't it?'

‘That's the war for you,' Ben said, daring a joke.

‘And what's Miss Mann going to say?' Tommy said, looking at Lizzie. ‘I'll bet you haven't thought about that.'

‘I have actually,' Lizzie said coolly, stepping away from him and going back to Ben. ‘She's not going to say anything because I shan't tell her.'

‘You mean you're going to get married and go back to college as if nothing's happened? Good God, girl, I've never heard the like.'

‘Well, good for you,' James said to his niece. ‘Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you, eh.' And he laughed at his brother. ‘You've bred a revolutionary, Tom. I never thought you had it in you.'

‘Easter Saturday it is then,' Tommy said. ‘You're not to cut finals mind Lizzie. And I shall expect a brilliant result.'

‘Of course,' Lizzie said. ‘You shall have one.'

He smiled at that. Then he looked at Octavia. ‘I shall expect a bit of reciprocation too.'

‘You shall have it,' Octavia promised. ‘Just as soon as I'm back in London.'

Lizzie was looking over her shoulder into the crowd. ‘Must tell Mark,' she said. ‘Be back in a tick.' And she ran off to find her brothers, pulling Ben with her.

‘What it is to be young!' James said and he moved into the crowd too.

Tommy and Octavia were left on their own together, hidden in the blur and buzz of the party.

‘That felt like an Octavian put-up job to me,' he said.

She wasn't sure whether he was praising her or blaming her but she admitted her involvement. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘I suppose it was in a way. I thought you might need a bit of persuasion.'

‘A more accurate word would be coercion.'

Yes. It did feel like blame. She would have to stand up to him. ‘They're young, Tommy,' she said, ‘and they're in love and they don't know how long they'll have together or whether he'll come through or be injured or killed or what will happen to them. I think they deserve their wedding and as much happiness as we can give them and if I have to use a bit of coercion to get it for them then so be it.'

He held out his hands, in the old familiar gesture, as if he were fending her off. ‘All right. All right,' he said. ‘You've got what you wanted. You don't have to bite my head off. But I shall hold you to your promise, mind.'

‘I know,' Octavia said, smiling at him because she had been a bit fierce. ‘But let's get this wedding organised first, shall we?'

He took out his cigarette case, offered it to her and lit up for both of them. ‘And what's all this about you coming back to London?' he said.

‘We can move as soon as the Second Front begins,' she said. ‘That's official.'

Lizzie got married in her mother's classical wedding dress, skilfully cut down to size and tailored to fit, with Mary and Poppy as her bridesmaids in dresses made of parachute silk and run up by Mary's mother. It was the first time Lizzie had ever worn a full length gown and she looked vulnerable in it, very slender, very young and surprisingly shy, her long hair shining underneath her veil. As she walked up the aisle on her father's arm she was so nervous she tripped and would have fallen had it not been for his steadying hand, and she made her responses in such a soft voice that the congregation had to strain their ears to hear her. When she and Ben stepped out of the church as man and wife and ducked under the guard of honour his uniformed mates had provided, and their friends and family showered them with confetti and the clouds showered them with soft April rain, she was giggling with relief.

‘Married!' she said to Ben.

‘Married,' he agreed and kissed her.

‘Hold it just like that,' the photographer called. ‘That's perfect.'

The reception was in Tommy's fine house, food and wine provided courtesy of the black market. Ben's aunt and uncle were very impressed by it, and Jimmy, who'd acted as best
man and had been almost as nervous as the bride, was totally subdued. ‘You never said you were rich,' he said to Lizzie, when the meal was over.

‘I am
now
,' she said, hanging on to Ben's arm.

Rich and stupid with happiness but with that horrible scrabbling anxiety lurking in her belly. Oh Ben, my darling, darling Ben, she thought, why do we have to have a war? Why can't we just go away and live happily ever after, the way people did before all this horrible mess began?

‘A lovely wedding,' James said, wandering over to join his brother with his wife trailing behind him. ‘Hello, Octavia. You've done them proud, Tom.'

‘We did our best,' Tommy agreed, ‘didn't we, Tavy?'

‘Wherever did she get that dress?' Laura said, preparing to criticise.

‘From Chanel,' Tommy told her. ‘I wanted her to have something special.'

The name made her catch her breath. ‘How did you manage that?' she said, much put out. ‘I mean she's French. She's in Paris. You're not going to tell me you went there.'

‘Wheels within wheels,' Tommy said. ‘It cost a small fortune.'

‘That's the trouble with you, Tom,' she complained. ‘I never know when you're serious.' And she drifted away from them.

‘That was naughty,' Octavia said, as James grimaced and walked after her.

‘Couldn't resist it, old thing,' Tommy said. ‘She asks for it sometimes. Anyway it put a spoke in her wheels. I can't have her being acid at my Lizzie's wedding.'

There was a stir on the far side of the room. Lizzie had changed out of her finery and she and Ben were ready to leave. She was still carrying her posy and stopped at the door to
toss it to her guests. ‘Catch!' she called. And as the flowers fluttered through the air, losing some of their petals as they fell, she was gone.

‘I do so hope they'll be all right,' Octavia said

‘They'll be fine,' Tommy told her. ‘Come and have some more champagne.'

‘But how long have they got?' Octavia said. ‘That's the question.'

Lizzie was asking exactly the same question, sitting beside her new husband as they were driven to the station.

‘How long have we got, Ben?'

He put his arm round her and answered her seriously. ‘Don't let's waste time thinking about it,' he said. ‘We've got now.'

But however hard they tried not to think about it, their parting was scheduled and there was nothing they could do to delay it. Preparations for the invasion were visibly speeding up. On the day Lizzie went back to Oxford to sit her finals it was announced that all coastal areas had been banned to visitors. There were constant army convoys on the roads and constant air reconnaissance over France, railway timetables were reorganised to accommodate troop movements, bombers flew by day and night until the sound of their engines was so familiar that people barely noticed them. It was as if the entire country was fidgety with impatience. And four weeks after their wedding, when Lizzie's finals were over and she was looking forward to the moment when they could be together again, Ben was recalled to base and all camps were sealed.

I can't tell you anything except that I love you,
he wrote to her.
There are guards on the gates so as no one can go in or out
 
and they've sealed up the phones and they're censoring every letter. It's all bull and pep-talks. Another one tonight. Aren't we the lucky ones?

Love you, love you, love you,

Ben

The pep-talk that night was a message from General Montgomery, Commander in Chief 21
^st
Army, which was read to them by their Brigadier, and despite his cynicism Ben was moved by it.

‘The time has come,' Monty had written, ‘to deal the enemy a terrific blow in Western Europe. The blow will be struck by the combined sea, land and air forces of the Allies – together constituting one great Allied team, under the supreme command of General Eisenhower.

On the eve of this great adventure I send my best wishes to every soldier in the Allied team. To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history; and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. We have a great and a righteous cause. Let us pray that ‘The Lord Mighty in Battles' will go forth with our armies, and that His special providence will aid us in the struggle.

I want every soldier to know that I have every confidence in the successful outcome of the operations that we are about to begin. With stout hearts and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. Good luck to each one of you. And good hunting on the mainland of Europe.'

Four days later they were crossing the Channel, struggling against a strong north-easterly wind, a sharp rain, fear and seasickness. The Second Front had begun.

The BBC gave the news in its usual well controlled way but the newspapers threw it at their readers in headlines six inches high: ‘Second Front – Allies invade Normandy' and the next day they had the pictures to prove it.

‘Poor devils,' Emmeline said, studying the taut, grimed faces and the heavily laden packs of the young men struggling onto the beaches. ‘God help them. Thousands of them it says.'

Edith changed the subject. She had no intention of letting her mother sink back into hysteria, not when she was doing so well, and those pictures were just the thing to set her off.

‘I'm going down the shops,' she said, ‘to get some more soap. Do we need any soda? I mean if we're going to start on Aunt's room. What d'you think?'

‘We can't wash the curtains,' Emmeline told her. ‘Not in this weather. They'd never dry.'

‘But we can start on the picture rails and the skirting boards and give the carpet a good hoover and clean out the wardrobes,' Edith urged. ‘I mean, she'll be coming home now, won't she. You know what she said. And once she makes her mind up, she's so quick. It wouldn't surprise me if she didn't come walking through that door tomorrow. Let's strike while the iron's hot, eh.'

Emmeline put the paper aside. Edith was right. They ought to get on. ‘Wait a tick,' she said, ‘and I'll get my hat and come with you.'

As Edith had predicted, Octavia drove back to Roehampton Secondary School on Saturday morning bringing Morag Gordon with her. The invasion was four days old by then and all the reports were saying that the Allied armies had established a bridgehead and that everything was going according to plan so it was time to start organising their return. It wouldn't be
nearly as difficult as it had been when they were preparing for the evacuation all those years ago, because nearly half their pupils were already back in London. She'd already worked out which rooms should be cleaned first, ordered a van to transport their class libraries and ensured that the fifth- and sixth-formers could take their state examinations in the comfort of their own gym. Next term's syllabuses were written and printed. The LCC had been informed of their intentions. Now she was going to meet the school keeper and inspect the building and set the whole thing in motion.

It gave her the most peculiar sensation to be walking into the school hall. It was so quiet that their footsteps echoed – so quiet and so large and so empty. She climbed up onto the platform, trailed her hand along the table, where the dust was so thick she could have written her name in it, looked out at the school clock and noticed that it had stopped at 3.46, and memories of that last day tugged at her mind. All those girls sitting on the floor with their luggage and their gas masks and their sandwiches, hot and sticky in their winter uniforms, waiting and being so good and sensible and patient.

‘The wireless is still here,' Morag Gordon said, stooping over it.

‘Does it work?' Octavia asked.

It pleased them both to find that it did although it took a little while to get it tuned properly and, while Morag was turning the knobs, listening intently, the school keeper arrived in his shirt sleeves, apologising for being late.

‘Not to worry,' Octavia told him. ‘You're here now. I've got a list for you.' And she took it out of her file, shaking the ghosts away. The return had begun and they were all going to get on with it.

They came home two weeks later, on a pleasant summer day, when the Americans had just captured Cherbourg, the British were encircling Caen and General de Gaulle was walking along the streets of a newly liberated Bayeux. Now, Octavia thought, watching as her pupils tumbled out of their train into the waiting arms of their mothers and aunts, we can get back to normal. There isn't going to be any more bombing, the Allies are beating the Germans and driving them back, it's all over bar the shouting.

‘What will you do now?' Mary O'Connor asked, looking at Lizzie and Poppy.

The three girls were sitting in a tea shop in Oxford enjoying what would probably be their last meeting in the city. They too had finished their exams and now they had to decide what they were going to do next. Mary, as a newly qualified SRN, had been offered a job in King's College Hospital and was due to start work in two weeks but Poppy and Lizzie had to wait till August for their results.

‘We could go back to the farm, I suppose,' Poppy said. ‘There's always work for us there.'

‘But after that?' Mary said. ‘When you get your results.'

‘I expect I shall get a job somewhere, teaching,' Poppy told her.

‘What about you Lizzie?' Mary asked. ‘I mean will you go to work or will you just be a housewife?'

‘I haven't got a house,' Lizzie said, ‘so I can hardly be a housewife.'

‘I thought you and Ben had a flat,' Mary said.

‘That was just for a few weeks,' Lizzie told her. ‘We let it go when he was sent to camp. There didn't seem to be any point in it.'

‘Is he all right?' Poppy asked.

‘He was the last time he wrote.'

‘It must be awful, not knowing,' Poppy said.

‘It is. Don't let's talk about it.'

It was peaceful in the tea shop and virtually empty. The elderly waitress smoothed her white apron, adjusted her white cap and sat down on a chair, there being nobody in the shop to tell her she shouldn't. Now that all the servicemen were gone and the students were going, it was so quiet she hardly had anything to do. Nice-looking girl, the one with the wedding ring, she thought. Not a student of course, being married. I wonder where her husband is.

The nice-looking girl was wondering that herself, and aching with the pain of not knowing. The terrible thing about being left behind was that there was nothing to keep your mind off what was happening. Since the end of finals she'd been drifting and worrying, listening to the news bulletins and trying to work out where his brigade would be and whether he was in a battle or, worse, whether he was hurt. Mary was right. What she needed was a job of work.

‘I shall go to the farm,' she decided, ‘and keep myself occupied.'

In Parkside Avenue, Edith and Emmeline were washing the bedroom curtains. They'd had the copper on the go since early morning and the green walls of the scullery were running with water. But the first two sets had been put through the mangle and were hanging on the line and a third set was washing and they were feeling very pleased with themselves. The roar of a distant explosion made them both jump.

‘What on earth was that?' Emmeline said.

‘It sounded like a bomb,' Edith said. ‘Can't be though or they'd have sounded the sirens.'

‘It was a jolly big one, whatever it was,' Emmeline said and went out in the garden to have a look.

There was a column of black smoke rising into the blue sky somewhere to the east. ‘There you are,' Emmeline said. ‘That's a bomb if ever I saw one.'

‘Hit and run, I'll bet,' Edith said, remembering what her sister had told them. ‘Do you think we should go down the cellar?'

‘No point if it's a hit and run,' Emmeline said. ‘They'll be gone long since.'

But the next morning, their neighbour told them he'd heard it was a gas main exploding. ‘It was in the
Evening Standard,
' he said.

It was in the
Evening Standard
again the next day, when there was another even louder explosion and the same thick pall of smoke.

‘Two gas mains in two days,' Emmeline said when she and Edith and Octavia were eating their dinner that evening. ‘What's up with them? Are they all developing faults?'

‘It's not very likely,' Octavia said, helping herself to another spoonful of mashed potato. ‘Not one after another like this. If it weren't for the fact that the sirens didn't sound, I'd have said they were raids but it seems odd for a plane to come all this way and only drop one bomb. You'd have thought it would have been a stick at the very least.'