We Passengers

Chapter 12

My Grandmother used to say that the key to a peaceful marriage is to get on with the mother in law - she always used to say, ‘don't make him choose, because it probably wont be you,’ and I tried, I really did. From the first time I went to tea at Trevor's house, I tried; complimenting her on her home and on her awful rock cakes but there was just something about her that didn't stick. I knew right from the start that our families were different, what with his Mum and Dad owning a shop and a smart little semi-detached and me with a Mum working in a factory and no Dad at all to speak of but, still I hoped that it wouldn't matter. It did. From the turned up nose at my dress that'd been mended a couple of times to Mum's job, it seemed that she was constantly judging me - and finding me wanting. With her outfits from Selfridges and perm that looked like it had been cemented on, Sylvia Jones was a downright snob, even though Mum said that before she married Trevor's Dad, she lived on the Horwood Estate with her parents and three brothers. His Dad, Bert, was a different story; a tall skinny man who liked his port and his pipe, Bert always had a kind word and, when his wife wasn't listening, a racy joke. Bert had inherited the shop from his Dad and it was one of those that sold a bit of everything and not a lot of anything but it always did well. For the most part, Bert ran the shop by himself but Sylvia would man the fort when he had to do the banking and such like and then Trevor before he got shipped out. Thankfully, because of the shop, I didn't see too much of them - usually one painful Sunday lunch a month with polite conversation and soggy vegetables - and we managed to rub along well enough during those occasions. Because Trevor was the only one, they doted on him and I suppose that was the one thing that we had in common; a case of two enemies united for a common goal. There was only the one Christmas - Mum had invited the Jones's round for lunch even though I knew there was barely enough to go round - and her lips had gone all white when I told her that they had declined. As it turned out, me and Trevor ended up having two lunches; one with Mum and Nancy and then another at his Mum and Dad's, the first with mismatched crockery and laughter and the second with expensive crystal and frosty smiles. 

Of course I know it's wrong to speak ill of the dead but I'm just trying to explain how things were between my family and Trevor's and why it was that, when I first got the news, I felt very little other than the dread of having to break the news to my husband without even being able to comfort him. It was a bomb of course; a night raid that reduced half of the Jones's street to rubble along with eleven people. When they first married, Sylvia and Bert lived in the flat above the shop but when Trevor came along, Sylvia decided there wasn't room for a child so they bought the house on Pickering Street near the school. I often think about the fact that, if they'd stayed in the flat, they'd probably still be here now - the shop and, in fact, the whole street, is still standing although, with Trevor being away, the shop's been run by Arnold, one of Sylvia's brothers. We heard the boom from streets away that night and I just knew it had been a bad one even though I didn't, of course, know at that time which street it was only that it was bad and that, in all likelihood, people had died. At the bus stop the next morning, a nurse coming off the night shift told me that it was Pickering Street and then somehow I just knew although it took a fair bit of asking around before I got confirmation that Sylvia and Bert had perished. After work that day, I went to the post office to find out how to send a telegram to Trevor to break the horrible news to him. You don't get room to write much on a telegram and I faffed around so much changing the wording that Agnes behind the counter started to get annoyed and suggested that I go away and think about it.

‘No,’ I told her, ‘My husband's Mum and Dad have just been killed, I'll not wait another minute, thank you very much,’ then she reached out and patted my hand,

‘Sorry Ginny,’ she said with a smile, ‘it's just that this is the fourth one of these I've had today.’ She sighed and shifted her considerable bulk around in her seat, ‘I remember when people would come in here to send telegrams about new babies and weddings and now,’ she shrugged helplessly, ‘now it's all just bad news; sons dying, fathers dying….’ I nodded sympathetically; she didn't have to tell me - it used to be that I'd earwig on my passengers talking about new courtships and new dresses and now it was all just who got bombed and who wouldn't be coming back from the war.

‘I understand,’ I told her and I really did - after all, even I wasn't that upset about Bert and Sylvia so why should she be? Of course it took forever for the telegram to reach Trevor, by which time his parents had already been buried in the cemetery in Abney Park; Mum and I attended along with half of Bethnal Green it seemed and I made notes about the service and congregation so that I could at least tell Trevor about it when he came home.

I shouldn't be thinking about these things now, after all, it does no good does it? The dead are still dead and the ones left behind just have to get on with it. I try to think of some of the clever things that Mr Churchill has said since the war began but it's like my head is full of clouds and his words elude me. The rain's given up now and I'm glad; I only wish it had taken my gloomy mood with it. I reach into my bag for the other jam sandwich and that's when Abigail’s mother begins to wail.