‘They’re taking Jack and me away,’ I blurted accusingly.
‘Who are? Your parents?’
‘No. You. The Holy Ones. And you’re sending Elsie away.’
‘What the devil are you talking about?’
‘See? You swear too.’
The Reverend Buckroyd took a swift hand in our affairs. A phone call from him to Welling police station sent a constable to call on Mum and Dad – frightening the life out of them into the bargain. A return phone call from Dad soon settled where we should stay. But Buckroyd couldn’t wave his wand over Elsie. Miss Polmanor would not tolerate a newborn illegitimate baby in her house and that was that. Elsie’s father had become a prisoner of the Japanese; her mother was nowhere to be found – whether through enemy action or Allied attraction, I don’t know. Elsie was bound for a home. Homes for unmarried pregnant girls appeared all over the country during the war. Somehow or another they seemed to be compulsory. Incarceration of the mother was followed by adoption of the child.
And alongside the trivia of our lives great events were taking place in the world. After the entry of the Americans in the war and our victory at El Alamein the tide had turned. North Africa was taken from Rommel; the Russians were turning defeat into triumph. British forces under the command of General Montgomery – the former Desert Rats – together with the Americans, landed on the island of Sicily. The invasion, of what Churchill mistakenly called ‘the soft underbelly of Europe’, had begun.
Chapter Eighteen
Our three-year ‘other childhood’ came to a swift climax. With air raids more or less over, Jack was to return home to go to Woolwich Polytechnic and I was awaiting the results of the entrance exam to see if I would go to Dartford Grammar School. I heard of no plans made for me if I failed; I don’t think anyone thought that would happen. The postman saw me in the Court one morning; our summer holidays had started. He handed me two envelopes and rode quickly off on his bike. The top one said ‘Kent Education Committee’ on it. I didn’t even look at the one underneath but turned and ran indoors shouting, ‘Auntie Rose, Auntie Rose, the letter’s come. Look. It’s come.’
She was as excited as I was. ‘Well, open it, boy. Let’s see.’
As I separated the two letters to open the top one I saw that the one underneath was a telegram. I stopped dead, my voice changed. ‘It’s a telegram.’
Her voice, indeed every angle of her body, became tense. ‘Telegram? What’s it say on it?’
I faltered. ‘It just says “Telegram. War Office”.’ Any telegram was a rare enough event to send out warning signals in those days. Even I, at ten, knew the dread import of one from such a sender. The postman had shirked his duty in handing it to me. I looked at her. ‘Shall I open it?’
She looked shattered, her head moving about as she looked vaguely for something. ‘Where are my glasses?’ There was no answer. She knocked something over. ‘Oh
Duw
. Yes, open it – no – you can’t – yes, open it. Read it. I can’t—’ She sank into a chair.
I opened it and started banally from the top. ‘The War Office, Whitehall, London SW1. 8.30 a.m., 14 July 1943. We regret to inform you that your son Gwyn has been—’ The word glared up at me from the telegram tape stuck onto the yellow paper. The world was reduced to that one word filling my vision. All I could manage was, ‘Oh, oh.’
Auntie Rose didn’t look at me. She said, almost inaudibly, ‘Does it say it, boy? Does it say it? Say it doesn’t.’
I just stood there staring at the word. I daren’t look up at her.
She held an arm out. ‘Come yere, boy. Put your arms round me. Hold me for a minute.’ There was no sign of weeping. I did as she asked though she scarcely seemed to notice that I was there. ‘Oh Gwyn, Gwyn, my little – I was always afraid for you. Oh Gwyn, Gwyn, Gwyn.’ She started to rock back and forth still saying his name every few rocks.
After a while I said, ‘Shall I go down the line and find Uncle Jack?’
‘No. He’ll be up from work later. Time enough for his world to end then.’
Jack and I watched Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack for two days. They didn’t cling to each other or sob but their palpable misery was a bond between them that excluded us. He touched her more often than usual as they moved about the room and once she laid her head against his bald one in a weary, hopeless way that seemed to fill the room with a sigh. When Auntie Rose and I were alone for some moments I took her hand, too awkward and the wrong height to embrace her properly. She put her arms round me and buried my head fiercely in her bosom. We stood there motionless while I tried not to suffocate, the only time I ever remember her needs taking precedence over mine. Jack and I crept about not knowing what to do till we went outside, over the road to the Park, and climbed up into the big beech tree to discuss it. We wrote to our parents with the result of our deliberations.
Dear Mum and Dad,
Just a line to let you know that Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack’s son Gwyn has been killed in Sicily. They are very unhappy. Auntie Rose keeps crying and Uncle Jack keeps going to the bottom of the garden and just sitting there instead of going to work. We thought it would be a good idea if only one of us came home and one of us stayed here with them and became their son. Then you’ve both got one each. That’s fair. We were going to toss for it but Jack said I’ve got to go back to Dartford Grammar School, Jack doesn’t mind not going to the Poly and he can stay here and work on the track with Uncle Jack. He says he would like that. He could come and visit with a privilege ticket.
Love, Jack and Terry xxx
PS. I passed my entrance exam.
Another day passed. Our letter was in the post. I went and watched Uncle Jack at the bottom of the garden, beyond the outside privies. He was right at the bottom, out of sight of the houses, by the vegetables, with a cornfield beyond and the railway line rising out of its cutting and snaking towards Liskeard, Plymouth and London. I hadn’t made a sound. He was sitting on an old bench set there to rest on when gardening. He had his back to me, in his own world.
‘Can I come and sit with you, Uncle Jack?’
He patted the bench at once as though he had already heard me. ‘Yes, come by yere, boy.’ As I sat by him he ruffled what little there was of my hair. ‘Time you had a haircut, is it?’
‘ ’S not that long.’
He was in the quietest of voices. His voice with its sharp South Wales cutting edge and its rumbling undertones was at its most gentle. ‘Little blondie Anglo-Saxon. Gwyn was dark, like me: a Celt. “The soft underbelly of Europe.” The mud was soft in Flanders, too. Didn’t save anybody. Remember, boy: never, never, never, never,
never
, trust your leaders. Montgomery’s a hero. Churchill’s a hero. Gwyn is dead. And it’s not just this war or the last. It’s all history. “Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred.” Who sent ’em there, eh? Don’t
ever
trust ’em, not any of ’em.’
Jack came round the privet hedge by the privies. ‘Uncle Jack, Mr Buckroyd’s with Auntie Rose. He’d like to see you too.’
‘Oooh, no, not the bloody minister,’ sighed Uncle Jack. ‘They don’t just kill you, they send someone to tell your next of kin it’s all for the best.’
Mr Buckroyd came diffidently down the garden. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Phillips. Boys.’
Jack and I greeted him.
Mr Buckroyd went and stood by the fence, looking out. He continued, ‘I can’t tell you, Mr Phillips, how sorry I—’
He was gently cut short. ‘Then please don’t try.’
He thought for a moment. ‘I know that your wife is Church of England and that you are . . . neither, but I suggested to her a memorial service in the chapel because it is bigger there than the church, where you might have some more private gathering, and I think there would be many indeed in the village who would want to come.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She would like it.’
‘Yes, yes, she must have it.’ He gave the briefest of snorts, remembering his last performance in the chapel. It says much for Buckroyd that he was even here giving this invitation. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll behave myself.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Only nothing about souls in heaven. Eh? Or eternal life. Or any of that. A memorial service: let’s just remember him.’
‘I’ll vet everything myself.’ He stood uncertainly, not sure how to close this meeting which had gone so easily. ‘I’m sure he died a hero, Mr Phillips.’
The cliché brought an edge to Uncle Jack’s voice. ‘Are you, now? I seen a few o’ them die. Ashes to ashes and mud to mud.’ He paused and added, ‘About what you did over Terry and Elsie and all that. We’re very grateful. Thank you.’
‘I’m doing my best about Elsie’s future but it’s not always straightforward.’
‘Yes, yes. You’re a good man . . .’ Uncle Jack paused. He couldn’t resist it even in his agony. ‘. . . in spite of being a Christian.’
Buckroyd started to leave. He was stopped by Uncle Jack’s raised voice.
‘One other thing.’ For a moment we all wondered what it could be. ‘I’ll apologise to Miss Polmanor when I see her.’
Buckroyd turned, surprised. ‘What?’
‘For calling her names. Even though she asked for it. She’s just another casualty, you know. Like all of us. A million men didn’t come home from the first war.’ He paused. ‘
My
war. Huh. That left a million spare women. She was engaged, wasn’t she? To a corporal in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. Killed on the Somme.’
‘That’s right.’
‘A whole generation of leftover women. A lot of them got a bad attack of God. I suppose it’s better than emptiness. She didn’t want to be a dried-up old haybag. She just found out that, one day, that’s what she is.’
There was a silence after this unexpected statement. Uncle Jack’s arm was thrown round me. I thought, so that’s who that man was in the photo, the centrepiece of the little shrine on Miss Polmanor’s sideboard. Many things started to fall into place in my mind, a process that has taken years to complete, if it is complete. Mr Buckroyd was poised to go. ‘You’re a good man, Mr Phillips . . .’ He too paused. ‘. . . in spite of being an atheist.’ And he was gone.
There was silence for a while.
Uncle Jack spoke. ‘I like it yere, boys. Look at the wind on that barley field. And the valley. And the compost heap, there, to remind us what we’re coming to.’
I tried to think of anything I could. ‘And the railway. That’s good.’
Uncle Jack hugged me. ‘Yes. That’s good.’ He changed tack. ‘Let’s have a service here. For Gwyn. Us three, eh? An Anglo-Celtic service. You remember that song you learned last year: “Barbara Allen”?’
We did.
‘Sing it, both of you. Go straight to the third verse. That’s suitable.’
And we sang, in two parts, me treble and Jack alto, into the summer’s day, to the haunting tune of ‘Barbara Allen’, while Uncle Jack looked away from us into his own wounded life.
And death is printed on his face
And o’er his heart is stealing;
The pain of love he bravely bore,
So far beyond the healing.
He turned his face unto the wall,
And death was with him dealing . . .
C
hapter
N
ineteen
Two days later we faced Auntie Rose in the living room. She looked drawn and stern. ‘I’ve got a letter yere from your mother.’
Jack spoke for us, ruefully. ‘So’ve we.’
‘You don’t want to go home, is it?’ she said.
I was shamefaced. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Whose idea was it for you to stay here, then?’ she pursued.
Jack was the braver of us. ‘We thought it together.’
I joined in, not wanting to be thought disloyal to Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack. ‘We were going to toss for it, but Jack said I’ve got to go back to Dartford Grammar School.’
‘Did he now?’ She looked at both of us with an expression I could not read. ‘Come here, both of you.’ She held us close. ‘You’re a pair, aren’t you? I thought so when I first set eyes on you.’ And she held us in a vice-like grip until I had to complain.
‘Ow, you’re hurting.’
She released us. ‘But, you see, boys, you can’t stay with us. As it is you both have to sleep down in the front hall there together till you go. Top ’n’ tail. We must have your room at once. Don’t look so pained. Guess who’s going up there?’
‘Soldiers?’ Jack tried.
‘Elsie,’ said Auntie Rose. And my world exploded. ‘We’re going to have Elsie and her little one.’
‘Elsie’s going to stay here?’ I said, unbelieving.
‘And she’d better move in quick or they’ll be shunting her off to that home, that workhouse place. That’s fit for nobody, certainly not Elsie and her baby, eh?’ Auntie Rose smiled at the effect she had had, her first smile for days.
‘Can I go and tell her?’
‘She knows, silly.’
‘Well, can I go and tell her I know, too?’ And I was off up the Court shouting, ‘Elsie, Elsie. You’re coming here, Elsie.’