The Silent War (25 page)

‘Merry Christmas, my dearest Sunday,’ said Madge, whose expression revealed elation and sadness.

‘Merry Christmas, Mum,’ replied Sunday, hugging her back.

Madge sat down in her favourite armchair by the fireplace. ‘Sit with me for a moment, dear,’ she said. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’

Sunday knelt down on the rug in front of her.

‘I want to tell you about Mr Billings,’ she said, exaggerating her lip movements. ‘You remember Mr Billings, don’t you?’

Sunday nodded. She had a hunch she knew what was coming.

‘He’s asked me to marry him.’

Sunday’s hunch was right, and she sank back on to her heels.

‘I told him I couldn’t,’ Madge continued.

Sunday looked surprised.

‘Not because I don’t want to, but because I think it wouldn’t be right for either of us.’ She turned to stare into the glow of the gas fire, and the blue flame was reflected in her eyes. ‘You see, I want us to be friends, just like we’ve been all the time. If we got married, it would be different. We’d have – obligations to each other, vows. I don’t want to go through that at my time of life.’

Sunday found it hard going trying to read her mum’s lips, for the old lady had got out of practice, and just occasionally turned away from her.

‘But we both want to go on being friends. And if anything should happen to me, he’s promised to keep an eye on you.’

Sunday was taken aback. ‘What d’you mean – if anything should happen to you?’

‘Nothing, dear,’ Madge replied quickly. ‘But nobody lives for ever, do they? After all, I’m not as young as I used to be.’ She looked down at Sunday, smiled and stroked her hair affectionately. ‘You know, I’ve always regretted that you were too young to get to know your dad before he died. You’d have got on so well together. He could have helped you so much. Especially now. Children need a dad as well as a mum. When you have problems, being part of a family always helps.’

Sunday lowered her eyes.

Madge put her hand under Sunday’s chin, gently raised it, and looked directly at her. ‘This boy you told me about
last
night,’ she said suddenly. ‘He sounded quite special to you?’

Madge’s unexpected question caught Sunday off guard. So she lowered her eyes, and hesitated before answering. ‘Yes,’ she said, raising her eyes again. ‘Very special.’

‘Then you mustn’t let him down,’ said Madge. ‘If somebody has meant that much to you, then you must never forget to ask yourself why. In my case, it’s always been our Lord God. I know you think I’m a silly old fool, just tramping around the streets in my Salvation Army uniform, trying to bring His word to all those drunks in the pub on Saturday nights. But I could never have done it unless I was sure it was the right thing to do. I could never have done it without asking myself questions, lots of questions. I used to ask myself why I loved your dad so much. It was because he respected me for what I am. It was because he never tried to hold me back from doing all the things I knew I had to do.’ She leaned forward, and cupped Sunday’s cheeks between her hands. ‘What you’ve had to go through hasn’t been fair, Sunday. But to be given the chance to love someone, even for five minutes, is a great gift. Love is strength. Will you try to remember that?’

Sunday nodded.

A little later, Sunday, her mum, and Aunt Louie all sat down to breakfast together. There was Madge’s customary pre-meal prayers, of course, which always irritated Aunt Louie. But soon after breakfast was finished, Jack Popwell arrived with his traditional bottle of sherry, which was the only thing that ever brought a smile to Aunt Louie’s face. However, the latest gossip Jack brought with him was hardly welcome news for a Christmas morning.

‘Joe Mooney’s ’avin’ a ding-dong wiv some bus-conductress from Stepney,’ he announced, as though he had scored a coup. ‘Wait till Doll catches up with him. She’ll do ’er nut!’

‘You mean, she knows about it?’ asked Louie imperiously.

‘Well, she don’t know fer definite,’ replied Jack. ‘But from what
I
’eard, she’s got a good idea.’

‘But didn’t you say, Mum,’ asked Sunday, ‘Doll’s expecting another baby?’

Madge didn’t answer. There were some things she just didn’t want to know about, and this was one of them.

‘They’re supposed ter be good Catholics,’ Jack continued, milking the drama for all it was worth. ‘Wot is it this time? Baby number five? Or is it six?’

‘Disgusting!’ snorted Aunt Louie.

‘Wait till the Pope ’ears about this one!’ quipped Jack, roaring with laughter at his own joke.

‘Oh Jack,’ was Madge’s only comment. ‘I wish you hadn’t brought such sad news on Christmas morning.’ With that, she collected the three breakfast plates, and disappeared into the kitchen.

As she watched her go, Sunday noticed for the first time that her mum was limping badly. It worried her, for although Madge had suffered from phlebitis for some years, it had never affected her movements as much as this.

‘It’s what I’ve always said,’ said Louie cryptically. ‘Never trust a man. He’ll stab you in the back as good as look at you.’

Jack looked quite put out. ‘Come off it, Miss Clipstone,’ he sniffed. ‘We ain’t all the same, yer know. Anyway, it’s probably just a flash in the pan. Doll and Joe ain’t stupid. It’ll all come out in the wash.’

Louie lit one of her rolled cigarettes, sending a cloud of bitter-smelling smoke across the breakfast table. ‘If I had a husband who went sleeping around with whores, he’d be out of my front door quicker than he came in.’

Jack came back at her in a flash. ‘Yeah, well there ain’t much chance of that, is there, Miss Clipstone?’ he snorted indignantly. ‘I mean yer don’t ’ave no ’usband.’ Then added pointedly, ‘Nor ever likely to.’

Before she went off to her Christmas morning service, Madge handed out a few presents from around the Christmas tree. Jack was delighted to be given a shaving brush from Madge and a safety razor from Louie. Sunday bought her mum a new pair of carpet-slippers, which she had managed to buy without coupons from a shoe shop back in Halstead, and for her Aunt Louie, an ounce of her favourite tobacco for rolled cigarettes. To her surprise, Aunt Louie gave her a pair of warm gloves, which she had actually bought with her own ration book in Woolworth’s. Madge had bought two presents for Sunday. One was a beautiful leather purse from Jones Brothers’ Department Store just across the road. But the second present was more unusual, for it was a photograph of Sunday’s adopted father, mounted in an ornate brass frame which Madge had bought for a shilling at the Salvation Army Christmas Jumble Sale. Sunday spent several moments looking at the snapshot portrait of the man who had died so many years before. It was a strangely youthful-looking face, and after what her mum had told her about him, he was clearly a good and decent man. And yet, there was something that worried her about the photo.

It made her want to ask questions about her real father.

Holloway Road on a Christmas morning was pretty much like it was on most other days. Not so many people around perhaps, but, despite the endless bomb-blasts during the 1940 Blitz, and now the V-1 and V-2 campaigns, everything looked exactly the same as always. As she made her way to the Salvation Army Hall up at Highbury, there was a moment when Sunday couldn’t help wondering what this great inner London road to the north looked like during the days when Queen Elizabeth I stayed in the Nag’s Head Inn and hunted deer in The Hollow Way. Sunday tried to picture what must have once been green fields bordered by dense woods, and the Virgin Queen galloping on horseback through this
rural
idyll on the outskirts of her capital city. For a brief moment, a smile came to Sunday’s face as she pondered on what the old Queen would have thought of ‘The Hollow Way’ Road of today, with its myriad shops, tall terraced houses, council estates, cinemas, pubs, and a railway bridge that spanned one of the busiest parts of the road outside the Tube Station. And as she strolled along the ice-cold pavements, acutely aware of the seductive smells of Christmas dinners roasting in ovens, her mind contrasted the colourful well-trodden streets of her own part of London with the wide, open spaces of agricultural Essex, and the people who toiled on the land there. And then she thought of Jinx and Erin, and the girls with whom she was sharing a new and different life. But most of all she thought about Gary, and what he had meant to her, and why fate had continued to treat her so unfairly.

When she reached the Regent Cinema, it saddened her to see how squalid the outside of the place had become. She remembered the times when she was taken to the Saturday morning kids’ film shows there, the serial Westerns and thrilling adventure epics. And in her mind’s eye she could still see the narrow auditorium, and the steep rake of the rows of seats that swept down towards the stage, so that anyone sitting anywhere near the front had to crane their necks to look up at the screen. Sunday still cherished memories of those wonderful, glorious times at this now painfully neglected old picture house, and the days when she could hear as well as see.

Next door to the cinema, she stopped briefly to look at a poster outside the Northern Polytechnic, which announced an impending production by the Amateur Operatic Group of
The Mikado
. But just as she was about to move on, she found herself facing an all-too-familiar figure.

‘Merry Chris’mas, Sun!’

It was a shock for her to see Ernie Mancroft again.

‘It’s good ter see yer again, Sun,’ he said. As usual,
he
was without a topcoat, though, despite his strong physique, he had to blow into his cupped hands to warm them up. ‘Yer aunt told me yer was comin’ ’ome for the ’olidays. She said yer was bound to go up to the ’All for yer mum’s Chris’mas service.’ For a moment, he just carried on looking at her, hoping for a reply. ‘Come on, Sun. This is Chris’mas. Ain’t yer got nuffin’ ter say ter me?’

Sunday shook her head. ‘Ernie, we’ve got nothing to say to each other,’ she replied. Subconsciously, her gloved hands were moving about wildly in a simple attempt to illustrate what she was saying. ‘I’m grateful for what you did, but that’s all in the past now. You’ve got your life to live, and I’ve got mine.’ Sunday hated having to talk this way, especially on Christmas Day, but if she was going to prevent Ernie pestering her for the rest of her life, she just had to say it.

Ernie smiled. ‘I’ve bin called up,’ he said, adjusting the white scarf around his neck. ‘Goin’ off first fing in the New Year.’

‘Good luck to you, Ernie.’ Sunday made a move to walk on.

‘I wanna see yer again, Sun,’ he said, blocking her path.

‘I don’t want to see
you
, Ernie,’ Sunday replied firmly. ‘Why can’t you understand that? Why can’t you understand that you and me have nothing in common – absolutely nothing?’

Ernie’s smile disappeared. He looked crushed. ‘I’ve never loved anyone before, Sun,’ he said, with almost a look of pleading in his eyes. ‘Everyone deserves ter be loved, one way or anuvver.’

As they stood there, a cheerful family of two adults and three children hurried by, all clutching wrapped-up presents, and all clearly on their way to a relation for Christmas dinner. ‘Merry Christmas!’ yelled the smallest of the children, a greeting that was immediately taken up by the rest of the family.

Sunday smiled weakly, but as she hadn’t heard them, she didn’t answer.

‘Look, Sun,’ Ernie continued, ignoring the family as they made their way past them. ‘This war’s cut up a lot er good people – ’specially you, I know that. But we all ’ave ter ’ave somefin’ ter cling on to. Know wot I mean?’

Sunday tried to move on again, but this time Ernie gently held her back by taking hold of her arm.

‘D’yer remember that first time, Sun?’ said Ernie, talking directly at her, determined to make sure she was taking in what he had to say. ‘That first time we met – down the Bagwash? Yer give me the eye – remember?’

Sunday stared in disbelief at him. ‘Ernie, what are you talking about?’

‘You an’ Pearl was out the backyard tergevver, ’avin a good ole chinwag about Muvver Briggs. I came fru wiv a big bundle of washin’, an’ as I passed, I give you the eye, an’ you turned ’round an’ smiled at me.’ He was staring hard into her eyes, desperate for some kind of recognition. ‘Yer do remember – don’t yer?’

Sunday’s body tensed. Suddenly it all came back to her. Yes, of course she remembered. But she had dismissed it from her mind long ago. Inside, she was tearing herself apart for being so stupid. Why, why, why had she been so stupid? Why had she let herself lead Ernie on like that?

‘Ernie, please listen to me,’ she said. ‘I was wrong to do that. I was wrong to let you think that – whatever you thought I meant. You’ve got to understand something,’ she continued, not realising that as she spoke her voice was raised again. ‘You talk about what the war’s done to people. Well, you’re right. It
has
cut them up. But in my case, it’s also taught me a lesson. It’s taught me to grow up. If I looked at you in the way you say, then I was being dishonest. The person who did that to you, Ernie, doesn’t exist any more. Please understand that, Ernie. Please try to forgive me.’

Once again, she tried to move away. But this time,
Ernie
dug his fingers into her arm, and held it in a steel-like grip.

‘Just who d’yer fink you are anyway?’ he growled, reverting to the type of mood Sunday was more accustomed to. ‘Miss High-and-Bleedin’-Mighty, Miss Cut-Above-Everybody-Else-in-the-’Ole-Wide-World! Not good enuff fer the likes of you – is that it?’

‘No, Ernie!’ protested Sunday, trying to pull away. ‘That’s not what I’m saying . . .!’

‘Lemme tell yer somefin’, Miss Sunday bloody Collins. I got me pride – see! I got the right ter be loved just the same as anyone else. Now yer may not fink yer love me, but I know different. I need yer, Sun,’ he said, pulling her close and exchanging a pulverising contact with her eyes. ‘An’
you
need
me
.’ He released his grip on her and stood back. ‘Don’t ever ferget that, Sun. ’Cos wherever yer are, I’ll find yer. Whatever yer do, I’ll be there.’ He made a move to go, but suddenly stopped and turned back briefly to look at her. ‘Yer shouldn’t muck around with people’s feelin’s, Sun. It’s dangerous.’