The Photographer's Wife (7 page)

“You don’t have to go to
every
dance, do you?”

“My number could be up by tomorrow. Anyway, he promised me some nylons if I go.”

“Ooh, nylons!” Barbara says.

“I’ll sneak out once Mum conks out.”

“You’re so lucky, Glenda.”

“It’ll be your turn soon enough.”

1945 - Shoreditch, London

Barbara is walking home from school. Because everyone is abuzz with rumours that the war will end today, they have been sent home early. Though Barbara’s tummy feels light and fluttery, as if full of butterflies, beyond the fact that there will be no bombs and beyond the fact that a barely remembered man called ‘Dad’ should be coming home soon, she doesn’t really know what to expect. But the fact that they have been sent home early adds to the feeling that this is an exceptional day.

It’s exactly three pm when she walks around the corner into Willow Street and a cheer rises up from a house across the way, almost as if timed to greet her. To her left, a window is thrust open and a woman’s head and shoulders appear. “It’s over!” she shouts, grinning a little madly. “The war’s over!”

A man and a woman walking towards her freeze and turn to face the window. “What did you say?” the man asks, sounding perhaps incredulous, perhaps angry at the poor taste of this joke the woman is making.

“Really!” the woman shouts. “Winnie just said it on the wireless. It’s over!”

Barbara stops walking and the woman addresses her as well. “It’s all over, little one!” she tells her. “You can smile again! We can all smile again.”

And though Barbara isn’t quite sure why, smile is exactly what she does. She turns to face the couple again. They are staring into each other’s eyes.

“Oh Derek!” the woman says. “Can it be true?”

Another round of cheering erupts from another house and the man breaks into a grin. “It sounds like it might be,” he says.

The woman’s eyes are glistening as he slides one arm around her waist and they start, silently, in the middle of the road, to waltz.

“I have to tell my Mum!” Barbara says.

“Yes,” the woman at the window replies. “Go quickly! Tell your Mum!”

Barbara hikes her satchel over her shoulder and starts to run. As she progresses along Willow Street, people start to appear from doorways, all desperate to share this exceptional moment with others.

“It’s over,” she hears again and again as she passes by. “The war’s over!”

“We beat the bastards,” a man pushing a barrow says, then, spotting Barbara, he adds, “Pardon my French, love.”

“It’s OK!” Barbara laughs, running on.

The door to their building is open and everyone has congregated in the communal spaces. There are at least twenty people crammed onto the lower flight of stairs and the hubbub of excited conversation is deafening.

“Did you hear?” her friend Benjamin asks, when he sees her.

“Yes!” Barbara replies. “Yes, I heard.”

As she squeezes between a group of women, Mildred, who cooks for them all, grabs her arm and says, “The war’s ovah, darlin’. You should go get yer Mum.”

“Yes!” Barbara says. “Yes, I’m going!”

When she pushes their door open, she finds Minnie frozen at the sewing machine, seemingly suspended in time.

The radio is on and a news presenter is excitedly listing the successive surrenders of the Axis powers during the last twenty-four hours. Right now he’s talking about the Channel Islands. Barbara isn’t sure where they are but they sound terribly important.

Minnie has her left hand on the lapel of an unfinished, khaki jacket and her right hand on the handle of the sewing machine. She is staring, in apparent shock, at the radio. Tears are slithering down her cheeks.

Barbara has never seen Minnie cry before. “Mum!” she says. “It’s over. The war’s over. You need to come outside.”

Without moving the rest of her body, Minnie swivels her head to face her youngest. As she frowns at her daughter, the tears continue to fall, landing now on the sewing before her.

“Mum!” Barbara prompts, hoping to wake her from her trance.

Minnie’s brow wrinkles further. “I don’t know what to do,” she says.

“Come outside, Mum!”

“But do I need to finish this jacket or not?” she asks, her voice other-worldly. “That’s what I can’t work out.”

Barbara shakes her head. “No, Mum, you don’t. It’s over,” she says. “They won’t be needing uniforms anymore. It’s all finished.” Barbara gently prises her hand from the sewing machine. “Come outside,” she says again. “Everyone’s outside. Come see!”

By the time they get outside, the street is full of people. Three men are dragging a battered upright piano through the front door of a house opposite and a fourth man is already playing a one-fingered version of “Take me back to dear old Blighty” as they do so.

The couple Barbara saw dancing before are still at it, and two other couples, one mixed, one comprising two women, are now dancing with them as well.

Barbara pulls her mother down the path and into the road, where a group of women from their building have congregated.

“Oh, ain’t it marvelous!” Sylvie exclaims, hugging both Barbara and her mother simultaneously albeit awkwardly due to their differing heights.

“It’s peculiar,” Minnie says quietly. “It’s... it’s hard to believe, really.”

Barbara spots her sister in the distance talking to a young man in uniform.

She releases her mother’s hand and runs over to her. “Glenda!” she shouts when she gets there. “The war’s over!”

“I know!” Glenda says, grasping her hand. “Come on. We’re going to Trafalgar Square.”

“Trafalgar Square? Why?”

“Everyone’s going there,” Glenda tells her. “They say it’s going to be the biggest party ever.”

“The biggest party ever,” the young man confirms, nodding seriously.

Barbara turns back to look at their mother. “But what about Mum?” she says.

“She’ll be fine,” Glenda says. “Nothing’s gonna happen to her now, is it? The war’s over!” And then Glenda takes the young man’s hand as well and they start to walk briskly away.

As they head through the streets, the crowds become ever denser. This May evening, everyone has stepped outside; the whole of London has downed tools. Everywhere Barbara looks, people are laughing and singing, they’re dancing and waving flags.

“Everyone’s so happy!” she says.

“Of course they bloody are!” Glenda laughs.

“Will Mum be OK?” Barbara asks.

“Of course she bloody will!”

“I’m worried about her.”

“She’s with Sylvia and Mildred and all that lot, isn’t she?” Glenda says.

But that isn’t what Barbara meant. She didn’t mean, will Mum be OK
now.
She meant, will Mum be OK
in general.

“Everything’s gonna be better now,” Glenda tells her. “You’ll see.”

“Will it?” Barbara asks.

“Yes. Dad’ll be home soon and there’ll be no more rationing.”

“Yes, rationing will stop,” the young man says. “I’m looking forward to that!”

“We’ll probably get our old house back too!” Glenda says, and Barbara begins, for the first time, to imagine what a future without war might look like. As she runs, she starts to throw an occasional skip into the mix.

By the time they have made their way to Trafalgar square, the sun is setting behind the buildings, and the crowd is bigger than any Barbara has ever seen. If people weren’t so smiley, she’d feel a little scared.

Helped by the man, Glenda climbs up on a pillar-box, then points to the east. “Over there,” she says, jumping down and taking Barbara by the hand again.

When they get to the far side, the impromptu band of GIs and locals that Glenda spotted has started to play Harry James’
Two-O’Clock Jump,
so, in an ever smaller space in the midst of the swelling throng, led first by her sister and then by an actual (and rather good looking) GI, Barbara jives for the first time in her life. The eighth of May is one date that she’ll never forget.

***

It’s five pm and the heat of the day is starting to fade as Barbara reaches Willow Street.

She runs up the stairs, then pauses with her hand on the doorknob. She takes a deep breath and launches herself into the room, determined that today her mother’s sadness will not make
her
feel sad. Today is election day and everyone has been talking excitedly about how much things will change should Clement Atlee be elected to replace Churchill. And even Barbara can sense that something needs to change soon. People are worn out, hungry and poor, and many are getting angry. Revolution is in the air.

Though the fear of invasion and attack has lifted, their lives seem stuck since the war ended. They are still living in a single room and rationing has not come to an end as hoped. In fact, with the influx of returning evacuees, food, if anything, has become even more scarce. Minnie’s piecework has ended, so although Glenda has now found a job training in British Home Stores, they seem to be no less poor than before.

Finding the room unexpectedly empty, Barbara drops her bag and runs downstairs in the hope that someone in the kitchen will know where her mother is.

She finds Minnie alone in the kitchen. She’s in the process of spreading batter into a cake tin with slow, precise movements, crouching down so that her eyes are level with the tin.

Barbara raises her eyebrows in surprise. Her mother has not so much as boiled an egg since they had to leave their old house.

“Hi Mum. Is that a
cake
?”

Minnie looks up at her but remains level with the cake. “It will be. Hopefully.”

“Gosh. Is it somebody’s birthday?”

“No,” Minnie says. “Not that I know of.”

“Did you manage to find some eggs?”

“This is Elsie’s Tottenham Cake recipe. It doesn’t need eggs.”

Barbara nods and watches as her mother continues to smooth the surface of the batter with a spatula. “Does it need to be
very
smooth?” she asks.

Minnie nods. “It needs to be perfect,” she says quietly. She squints at the cake, turns it and smooths a little more. “This cake has to be absolutely perfect.”

“Can I lick the bowl out?” Barbara asks.

“I suppose so,” Minnie says, her eyes flicking briefly at the bowl and then back at the cake tin.

Barbara pulls the bowl towards her and then runs her finger around the inside. She lifts a blob of the sticky, sweet mixture to her lips. “Umm. Tastes lovely,” she says, then, “Everyone says Clement Atlee’s going to win the election.”

“Good,” Minnie says. “Things can’t get no worse than they are now.”

“Is that what the cake’s for? Is it for the election?”

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” Minnie says, mysteriously.

“Is it a surprise?”

“Looks that way,” Minnie says.

The cake, once iced, is the shiniest, pinkest, most beautifully smooth cake that Barbara has ever seen. She hadn’t known that her mother was such a good cook.

When Glenda gets home at six thirty, Barbara immediately informs her that their mother has baked a cake. But rather than serving up the cake as Barbara had hoped, Minnie crosses the room and lifts the tin to place it on top of the wardrobe. “If either of you touches that, you’ll get such a hiding, so help me you will...” she says. “That’s a special cake for a special event.”

It’s not until Minnie goes to the toilet that night, that Barbara is able to ask Glenda, with whom she still shares a bed, who she thinks the cake might be destined for.

“I think it’s for Dad,” Glenda whispers back. “I think he’s been demobbed. Mildred said there was a telegram came this morning or something.”

Barbara lies awake until the early hours with a strange mixture of excitement and fear elicited by the potential return of her father, but Seamus doesn’t return that night and he hasn’t returned when Barbara gets home the next day either.

Despite the much celebrated change of government, rationing continues and even worsens, the room on Willow Street remains home, Minnie still spends her days staring out of the window, and the tinned cake sits untouched on top of the wardrobe. Neither Barbara nor Glenda ever dare mention the cake, or their father for that matter, again.

2012 - Piccadilly, London.

“Jesus!” Sophie exclaims. They have just set foot in the first hall of the David Hockney exhibition and already Sophie is overwhelmed by the scale of the paintings.

“Not so small, huh?” Brett says.

“The exhibition
is
called A Bigger Picture,” Sophie says, “so I suppose we were forewarned.”

In front of them is a vast painting of an autumnal forest: fifteen metres by three of purple, orange and red trunks rising from a vibrant, almost fluorescent ferny undergrowth.

“You never saw any big Hockneys before?” Brett asks, glancing at the programme then back at the painting.

“Not for real,” Sophie says, leaning in to study the quality of the paint before retreating across the room until she can see the entire scene without turning her head. “I mean, we studied Hockney at college but this is just so... vast.”

“I saw his Grand Canyon stuff at the Smithsonian,” Brett says. “They were kinda Cinemascope too. I think there’s one here, somewhere.”

Sophie glances left and right and notices again the emptiness of the gallery. Being able to see an exhibition alone is really rather special and she feels a little bubble of warmth towards Brett for having smuggled her in with his journalist’s pass.

“So snap each of the biggies,” he says. “Maybe one with me standing in front for scale – yeah, I like that. And then we’ll see what we use at the end.”

Sophie nods and raises the Nikon to her eye, and for a few seconds she is lost in the technicalities of taking the photo. But when she lowers the camera and sees the autumnal scene again, unframed by the viewfinder, she senses an unusual feeling rising in her chest. Because she can’t immediately identify the source, she strokes the camera and thinks about it for a moment: yes, she’s actually welling up here and it’s a direct emotional response to the picture. “God that’s beautiful,” she croaks, shaking her head, and Brett, who has already moved on to the next picture, looks back at her and grins wryly.