and made up her mind to go round and see if she was all
right, settle her down for the night. Only she never got
there. Knocked down by a car, she was, two streets away.
Banged her head, never knew nothing about it - that was the
only comfort.’ He stared at their hands, still clasped
together on the table. ‘Never knew nothing about it.’
‘Oh Joe,’ Polly whispered. There was a long pause. Then
she said, ‘Where were you when it happened? Were you
away?’
He nodded. ‘In France. Couldn’t come back, neither, not
straight off. They got me back first chance they could, but it
was all over by then. Her sister had done everything, the
funeral and that, and the nippers were out in the country.’
‘Nippers? You mean you’ve got children, too?’
‘Two boys,’ he said. ‘That’s where I was going the day we
met on that train. They’re down in Devon, smashing place,
right on the edge of Dartmoor, think they’re on a flipping
holiday. Well, it hit ‘em hard, losing their ma like that, I
won’t say it didn’t, but you know what kids are, they get
over it better than we do. Nine and seven, they are,’ he said
with a touch of pride in his voice. ‘Billy and George. Couple
of scallywags, too.’
‘And what about your wife’s mother?’ Polly asked, trying
to take all this in. ‘What happened to her? Did she get
better?’
He shook his head. ‘Rosie was right. She was poorly.
She’d had a bit of a stroke a day or two before, only they
didn’t realise it, see, and she wouldn’t hear of getting the
doctor. But when she heard what had happened to Rosie,
she had another one and they had to take her into hospital.
She died a couple of days later. So that was two funerals
poor Annie had to sort out. She had ‘em both buried in the
same plot,’ he added. ‘It was all over by the time I come home.’
‘It must have been dreadful,’ Polly said, shaking her head.
‘Dreadful.’
‘Well, it wasn’t a bundle of laughs,’ he said. ‘But I had
the boys home for Christmas - that was when I got leave and
Annie and her hubby had us round there for the day,
and it wasn’t too bad. They didn’t really want to go back to
Devon after that - a lot of nippers didn’t go back, there was
nothing much happening over here then - but Annie
couldn’t have them and I wanted them out of the way if
London did get bombed. And I had to give up me quarters,
too. So they went back to Meavy, down in Devon, and I
went back to France, and the next time I come home to
Blighty it was on a stretcher with half me leg blown away.’
The Nippy appeared beside them again and looked down
at their pudding bowls. ‘Is there something the matter with
the plums?’
Polly jumped and looked guilty. ‘I’m sorry, I’d forgotten
all about them.’ She picked up her spoon, not feeling in the
least like eating but guiltily aware that good food mustn’t be
wasted. The Nippy looked anxious.
‘Only there’s a lot of people waiting for tables.’
‘We’ll be finished in a minute or two.’ They spooned
plums rapidly into their mouths, scarcely tasting their
sharpness, and it was not until they were out in the street
again that they resumed their conversation. By now, Polly
had regained some of her composure. She turned to her
companion and tucked her hand into his arm again.
‘It’s a terribly sad story, Joe. I’m really sorry. But I’m
glad you told me, all the same.’
‘I just wanted you to know.’ He looked down at her and
seemed about to add more, then changed his mind. ‘I’d like
us to be pals, Polly, and pals ought to know the big things
about each other.’
‘Yes.’ They walked in silence for a moment or two. They
were going down Whitehall now, past the great offices of the Government. Soon they would be back in Tothill Street; it
was nearly time for the meeting to end. They would have to
say goodbye.
‘I dunno about you,’ he said, ‘but I ain’t got so many pals
I can pass up the chance of another one. So what d’you say?
Keep in touch, shall we? Meet up now and then? Write to
each other?’ His fingers were big and warm about hers and
she found herself wondering again what it would be like to
be hugged by him. ‘Will you say yes to that, Poll?’
Poll. It was as if she had always known him, as if he had
always called her that. She nodded, smiling, and his face
broke into a big, crinkly grin, his eyes almost disappearing
amongst the wrinkles. He flung his arms around her and
hugged her tightly.
It was just as she had known it would be. Warm and
comforting. Strong. It was all that she had been missing,
ever since Johnny went away.
But he was not Johnny. He never would be. And she
would never be Rose.
Polly and Joe walked in silence for the rest of the way, past
Downing Street where Mr Churchill lived and worked, past
the Cenotaph with its list of men killed during the Great
War of 1914-1918, and back to Parliament Square where
the tower of Big Ben still rose proudly over the bombed
House of Commons. They were sobered by both the
devastation they could see on every side, and by the story
Joe had told, which seemed to bring that wider devastation
down to ordinary human terms - the anguish that had been
suffered by so many people since this war had begun. It
didn’t matter whether you were killed by a bomb or by
simply walking down the street in the blackout, Polly
thought, it was the war that had done it. And her heart went
out to the big man beside her, with his crinkly, humorous
face and his stoical acceptance of the tragedies he had suffered.
Yet she knew that however stalwart he seemed, deep
down he was lonely and bewildered. Her hand was still
tucked through his arm, as if he were the stronger, but she
could sense that deep need for comfort. I understand it
because I feel it too, she thought. We’re two lonely people
who have met and think we could be friends - and so we
could be. But neither of us is ready for any more than that.
Perhaps we never will be.
They came to the WVS Headquarters and rang the
doorbell. It was Edna Cousins herself who came to answer
it, and she stared at them in surprise, her eyebrows lifted.
‘Well, you don’t need to look so flummoxed, our Edna,’ her brother admonished her. The and Mrs Dunn are old acquaintances. Bumped into each other in the park, we did,
and been up to the Lyons’ Corner House for a bite of
dinner, and me being a gentleman I’ve walked her back
here.’
‘Where you were coming anyway,’ Mrs Cousins told him,
unimpressed by his claim. ‘Well, trust you to find yourself
some nice company. Don’t you take no notice of him, love,’
she said to Polly. ‘He’s full of blarney, that one. Our mum
had an uncle who came from Ireland, that’s where we
reckon he got it from.’
‘Don’t be daft, Uncle Pat wasn’t no relation to us, he was
only our uncle by marriage to Auntie Margie and she had no
more Irish blood in her than this door. Speaking of which,
are you going to let us in or ain’t you? This foot of mine’s
had enough, if you want to know the truth.’
‘Come on, then.’ They walked into the hallway and Polly
glanced about a little anxiously, afraid that she might have
kept the Mayoress waiting. But the door to the meeting
room was still closed and she could hear the murmur of
voices within. Joe disappeared into the cloakroom and she
followed Mrs Cousins through to the kitchen, where she
had evidently just finished washing up after the midday
meal. Polly felt a pang of guilt.
‘Look at that mountain of crocks! I ought to have stayed
and helped you.’
‘I told you, you’ve done your job and you’ve still got to
drive back to Portsmouth. Now, how d’you fancy a cup of
tea? I’ve got the kettle on for them in there and I dare say
you’re ready for one after your walk. Specially if you’ve had
to put up with him nattering on,’ she added, with a
humorous glance.
Polly hesitated, then said quietly, ‘He told me about his
wife. It must have been dreadful.’
‘He never did! Well!’ The cook sat down suddenly,
looking upset. ‘He don’t talk about it much,’ she said. ‘I
wish he would, sometimes, it’d do him good to let it out, but
he was always one for keeping cheerful — well, we were
brought up that way, all of us. I’m surprised he’d tell
someone he’s only just met.’ A small frown creased her
brow and she looked very like her brother. ‘But didn’t he
say you already knew each other?’
‘Well, not really. We met on a train a few months ago.’
Quickly, Polly recounted the story of their meeting. ‘I
wouldn’t say we knew each other.’
Edna Cousins’s eyes rested on her thoughtfully. ‘Well,
there must be something, to make him come out with it like
that.’ The kettle started to whistle and she got up and began
to make the tea. ‘You don’t want to take no notice of what I
says about him,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘That’s just the
way we go on. If you’ve got any brothers, you’ll know what I
mean.’
‘I haven’t,’ Polly said. ‘But I’ve got a sister, and she’s got
a son and daughter, so I know what you mean. And I know
how he feels too,’ she added in a rush. ‘I lost my hubby,
early in the war. It knocks you sideways, but you’ve got to
carry on. You’ve got to do your best for the war, for their
sake.’
‘That’s right,’ Edna said. ‘The hard thing for our Joe is that there don’t seem to be nothing he can do, not with his
foot. He says he’s no use to the Army any more. It’s daft - a
man who can walk the distance he’s walked today could do
any amount of jobs - but he’s a soldier, see; he wants to go
and fight - that’s what a soldier does, he says - and that’s
what they won’t let him do.’
‘But other jobs are as important,’ Polly said. ‘There must
be hundreds of things he can do.’
‘Try telling him that,’ the cook said, and began to pour
milk into a row of cups already set on a big tray.
They heard Joe’s footsteps coming along the hall then and
the conversation ceased. Polly took the tray into the meeting
room and found the Mayoress at the head of a long table
with a dozen other women around it. They thanked her for
the tea and the Mayoress told her that the meeting would be
over soon and she would be ready to go back to Portsmouth.
Polly went back to the kitchen, where she found Joe and his
sister drinking tea and talking about his boys in Devon.
‘Bit different to Blighty, where they are,’ he said. ‘Little
village, it is, proper picture postcard place — church, pub,
village green with a big old oak tree, and a lot of little
cottages all round. You go up the lane a bit and you’re out
on Dartmoor.’ He pulled a face. ‘Don’t fancy it meself, big
wide open spaces like that with hardly so much as a tree in
sight, and all them rocks, but the nippers think they’re in
paradise. Do what they like, see - roam about making dens
and playing cowboys and indians, and nobody to tell ‘em to
bu— shove off and play somewhere else. Don’t reckon as
they’ll ever want to come home, once it’s all over.’
‘Don’t be silly, Joe,’ Edna said. ‘You know they wanted to
stay with you after Christmas.’
‘Yeah, but they went back and had all that snow, didn’t
they, and since then there’s been all the lambs getting born,
and I don’t know what else, and I reckon they’ve got their
feet well under the table with that woman what’s looking
after them. She’s a widow,’ he explained to Polly. ‘Never had no nippers, so she treats ‘em like they’re her own.
Stands to reason they’d rather stop with someone like that
than come back to their dad with his foot blowed off and no
proper job to do, nor even a decent home for them.’
Polly looked at him in dismay. It was the nearest he had
come to appearing sorry for himself. Before she could speak,
however, his sister said sharply, ‘Now you know it’s no use
talking like that, Joe. It doesn’t matter how good Mrs
Ellacombe is, she isn’t their mum, nor ever will be. Blood’s
thicker than water and they’ll want to come back to their
dad once it’s safe. It’s like you always say — this evacuation’s like holiday for them, and nobody wants to be on holiday for
ever.’
There was a small silence. Polly glanced at Joe and
wondered if the widow Ellacombe had ideas of becoming the
boys’ stepmother. No doubt she knew of the tragedy of their
mother’s death, and if she found Joe a congenial companion
when he went to visit them she might well have allowed the
thought to cross her mind.
The kitchen door opened and the Mayoress appeared.
She smiled round at the little gathering and said to Polly,
‘We’ve finished the meeting and I’ll be ready to leave in
about ten minutes. I just want a word in the office first.’ She disappeared and they heard her go into the room where all
the typewriters were still clattering away. Polly got up and pushed her chair under the table.