The War Comes to Witham Street

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THE DOWLANDS

Monday 28 August 1944The Dowlands lived just around the corner of Witham Street in Lakeview Road in one of the bay window, detached houses, which brayed its good taste to passers by. It had a front garden, which circled the house so you could get from front to back without a break. Plate size yellow roses sprawled across the front wall, hiding the cropped railing stumps. There was even a stone paddling pool covered by a grill where yellow kingcups sprouted from the edges of the water, just like they did at the Ornamental Pond on the Common. From a rockery above it, snow-on-the-mountain spilled over in wild delight.

Word had it that they had made their money in glass. George had been lucky in having a father who had passed on the firm to him to manage. They were a couple courting envy, for, as their neighbours noted, theirs was a success that had been handed to them on a plate.

Robert, the Dowlands’ son, stood out from most of the other children in the area in the same way as the white ball on a snooker table. He did not wear a jersey knitted in chameleon stripes made from leftover balls of wool and pulled-down jerseys like all the rest of the children, woollens presented as trendy pattern designs but really dowdy hand-me-downs - some were an embarrassment, as one could trace three generations of wearers through them. There were even homespun, irregular strands threaded through that told a tale of a great-grandma treadling the step of her spinning wheel, as she span wool sheared from Lincolnshire Longwool sheep. The Dowlands didn’t feel any compulsion to wear those knitted symbols of defiance in the face of war and times of need. Robert’s mother had never spent five minutes unravelling old jerseys. And he had never had the ‘Hold your arms straight and wide apart’ orders given to all assistant wool winders who grasped some old spoiled garment firmly at the rib while vicious hands dragged and jerked at the thread as they coiled it into a ball. Robert’s pullover was of soft lambswool and had Fair Isle patterns running across it in regular stripes. He wore a white shirt under it too. On Sundays Valerie dressed him in a tam-o’-shanter knitted in the same Fair Isle pattern as his pullover. At church, one woman had told him that it was a sissy outfit. And unpatriotic. She said that if she had had a son she would have fitted him out with a sailor’s uniform for best; she would never have dressed him as a pansy. Valerie told Robert that the woman was jealous. It was the lot of those better off to be victims of jealousy.

Robert had to face the further embarrassment of his father having been exonerated from military service because of the state of his health. Mrs Brown of Witham Street had said within earshot, “That says it all. Not ruined by the mines though. Oh, no. Never been on the factory floor either. A shirker if you ask me.”

Amy Knight had asked “Why is he poorly? And why don’t they keep him in bed then?”

“Consumption. TB. Caught from too much bathing at Boultham no doubt. Like all service dodgers he’s got a comfy chair under his fat backside, he has. But he’s set squarely for the future. Now that his own father’s retired he’s running the firm his way and making a packet.”

The Dowlands, like other people with an above average income, seemed to be in a world of their own. At call-up time, when Robert was four, George Dowland had received his papers, only to be promptly exempted due to his past record of health problems. Since then, except for the food rationing, the war had done little to change the routine. And after five years, their lives still jogged into step like a synchronised tap-dance duo of Nicholas Brothers perfection.

On the morning a few days after the presentation of the yank, Valerie was preparing a kipper for her husband, along with her own porridge for breakfast. She served them in the dining-room which was graced by floral tributes to their well-being: a cloth with flowers embroidered in satin stitch, whose design was modelled on the tea roses painted in miniature on the Worcester porcelain tea service. As he drew up his chair, George would look at his watch, smile, toss her a compliment from his stock pack of five, and then prop his Daily Express up against the chrome toaster. Valerie said, as she had every morning for years, that using the toaster’s swing-down sides was becoming a tussle. He nodded, apparently unaware that Valerie’s statement was a subtle request for change. Occasionally, at the end of an article, he cast an eye in her direction, nodded his approval of the flawless gait of their lives, of the sheer harmonic blending, of the pleasant chug holding the family in its train of fulfilled domesticity.

“Things all right at the office?” Valerie said, beginning to clear away the crockery.

“Of course. Why shouldn’t they be?”

Even at his office the impact of the war was marginal. Only the nature of the products George made at the glass factory changed. The war meant fewer luxury items, like vases, soap-dishes and inkwells, goods with which the firm had made its name decades before when opaline had suddenly been top fashion. War meant more windowpanes, torches, lamps, windscreens, and hospital equipment.

“The Yank enjoyed the party, did he? Sorry I couldn’t make it. You know how it is. Some chap came to check on our production. Business will never pick up while these Nazi fiends are around. Did you hear the planes going over last night? Hope they were on target over there and gave the bastards hell. How long will this war go on? It’s already been five years. Who wants to buy crystal with a war on?”

“But I thought you were producing glass for vehicles, and goggles, and submarine parts, and...”

George interrupted. “I am. But they aren’t bringing in much of a profit. Crystal bowls and vases are by now only a sideline.”

“I would have thought ...” Valerie began, but George was pushing his chair aside, tossing his napkin on the cloth, turning to go.

“I may be back late,” he called as he looked round for his briefcase. “By the way, I was thinking about Robert’s sore throat. Don’t take him to the surgery any more. There’s an excellent child specialist up near Yardley Crescent. Past his prime really. Doddery in fact. Still, I hear he’s a wizard in his field. You could give him a try.”

“It’s only a bit of inflammation. I’ll get some Friar’s Balsam. That usually works.”

“Valerie. I said go to the specialist. You never know.” George handed her a slip of paper with the name of the doctor.

“All right dear.” Valerie moved to clear away, pushing his carver chair under the table.

“When’s the Yank due?” George stopped in his tracks in the doorway on his way out.

“I don’t know. He seemed to enjoy the high tea at the scout hut and meeting all the neighbours, but he didn’t say anything about when he would be back. I expect he’ll be on duty all day today: he still has to be at the base. He’ll turn up sometime. Anyway, he has his own key, doesn’t he? Don’t worry George, we are not responsible for him or anything. He’s just here to enjoy the company, take an occasional meal and use the back room when he doesn’t fancy the barracks, that’s all. It was some kind of project. Involve the locals in the war effort. I feel that we had done so little in the past five years. This is a way of helping those who have not been as fortunate as we have. They wanted a nice, stable, happy family to help him through a hard time. That was us, wasn’t it?”

“You should not have volunteered without asking me. I would probably have said ‘Yes,’ but it should have been me who had the final word. I would have liked to have been consulted as head of the household,” George said as he turned to the door. “And believe it or not I am contributing in my way, even at work.” The door slammed shut and was followed by the harsh crack of the latch of the outside gate.

“Come on, Robert. We must go to the doctor’s. Otherwise Daddy’ll be angry tonight as well. I wonder if he sits today. We’ll have to go to the surgery and look up his hours. Feeling poorly, poppet?”

“I’m better. I don’t want the doctor’s. Look.” Robert stuck out his tongue to show a pale pink glow.

“Well, my wee lamb, you have made a miraculous recovery. No doctor then. I knew you wouldn’t need him. Just Daddy making a fuss. I know. We’ll go round to your Grandma’s. She’ll be pleased to see us. And today is Whitton’s Park day and I bet Grandad’ll have a lot of ideas for fun there. Perhaps he can teach you how to play football — he keeps promising he will.”

Valerie left Robert at the home of her in-laws, bought a few groceries in the town and caught the bus home laden with a shopping basket of groceries. Swivelling her body to push the door open with her arm, she twirled round, spilling the goods into the kitchen while trying to dump as much as she could on the kitchen table. She reached for the wireless, twisting the knob and turning up the volume as she waited for the crackling to stop. It was a programme for servicemen and women away from home, all of them hoping to get in touch with what they termed their ‘loved ones’. It struck Valerie that such a high percentage of ecstatic loved ones ran against nature. War tightened up affections for sure. But when they were back together again? Could there be that many ecstatic people around. ‘Forces’ Favourites’, a wallow into the sadness of partings, of loneliness, of aspirations, of the joy of a simple word, bleeped its message to her. A band struck up with ‘You’ll Never Know’. How lucky she had been, she told herself: no problems to face on her own, no partings, no breaks in the routine, and no heartache. That was the secret of contentment: nothing to disturb the routine.

A voice, of suave gentility, announced that a certain Mrs Edna Clara Wallace was pining for her husband of six months. She had only spent one of those months with him. She wanted to assure him of her undying love. She would be waiting for him, for however long it took. She had chosen a song they had danced to before he left for an unknown destination. It was ‘Thank You so Much for that Lovely Weekend’. The husky loudspeaker breathed the voice into the room, strains of the melody seeping into the warmth of the surroundings and splicing its harmony in the cosy hearth.

Valerie sat with her teacup of Co-op tea, staring at her hands and envying just a little the intensity of the sentiment. The announcer then told her that so many requests had been received for the next number — an Al Bowlly song — that he was going to play his own favourite amongst Al’s successes: ‘Love is the Sweetest Thing’. He dedicated it to a girl in ATS uniform who was looking forward to getting to know some bloke she had never met, but who had been writing to her for three years and was at this moment on a troop ship. She had fallen in love with his letters. The announcer hoped the simplicity of the message of the song and Bowlly’s voice would bring home to this mysterious, steadfast friend, whom the ATS girl named as Syd, the affection that she was feeling for him. Valerie wondered how long anyone would stay on a troop ship, if troop ships had wirelesses, and how many Syds were out there listening to the wireless at this moment.

Valerie hummed the words of the song to herself, afraid that she might be overheard. ‘No bird upon the wing can in our hearts more greatly sing, than love’s own story ...’ It was pure slush. Probably written in half an hour for a dance band — and by someone who wanted quick cash for a drink. But still tears welled behind her eyes.

Upstairs, still picking up bits of the melody here and there, she sat squarely before the dressing table, a sturdy design of hefty oak carved with a frieze of Tudor roses. Facing her were sectional mirrors with rounded corners that one could swing back and forth. George had had them purposely cut at the factory for the cabinetmaker. The face staring back at her was split into sunray segments; a wedge of cubism shot by a prismatic rainbow projected itself on the far wall as the mirrors caught the rays of the sun stretching across the room. Valerie concentrated on the wide central looking-glass, scrutinising her reflection, tucking her hair round an elastic to roll it, plucking her eyebrows so that they formed an arch of surprise, and screwing her lips up into a pucker. She left them pale, saving the lipstick on the dresser for best. Better not be reduced to cochineal tint for lips and cheeks; cochineal was made of crushed beetles. She rubbed her face to give it a rosy glow. That gesture reminded her of when she used to get ready to see George. But that was now more than ten years ago.