The War Comes to Witham Street

2-3

The day after he departed, Valerie used to spend the whole afternoon staring at her reflection in the mirror, trying to work out just what someone in her position should feel. Then, it came to her. She ought to miss him when he was not there. She ought to miss him desperately. And be distraught. And be ready to make sacrifices, and to die if he should ever leave her. She ought to sit for hours scribbling his name on her blotter at the office, and then more hours writing her own Christian name coupled with his surname to see what her married signature might look like. She tried it. But the words ‘Valerie Dowland’ gave her no more excitement than the name ‘Woolworth’ or ‘David Grieg’ on a shop-front.

“I should gaze at the name and find a kind of magic there,” she told the reflection. “And I should not agree with my mother when she notices that George is a little impatient at times, but fight to prove he has no flaws and no faults. I should be blind to all except the man, a godly being, a Zeus, someone who could make even the saints in heaven envious.”

When she finally succumbed to her fate it was neither to George with the beguiling manner, nor to George The Successful Businessman, nor even to George The Dependable Future, but to her parents’ smiling approval. She heard them hand out compliments about George with the freedom they showed when tossing dry crusts for the birds: perfect manners, the corsages for her dress, the late dinners in posh places where salmon was served for starters, the frequent telephone calls to her father’s office to pass messages. How impressed they were when he took her out and showed extreme concern for getting her home two minutes precisely before curfew. They knew how terribly bright she had been in finding someone so dependable, as dependability was such a rare quality in those of George’s generation. Men were normally so selfish, so engrossed in their own feelings. But George was someone she would be able to rely on in the future. George was someone who would take the burden of responsibility off their shoulders. George would be there for her, and her family, as long as he lived.

She had been awarded some important prize, one for finding the right man at the right time, for having a pale complexion, smooth enough to captivate him, for having landed a prize perch without even casting a line. George was a passive trophy, one she would have to accept instead of the one she craved, the one that would have been fodder for her brain, the one for being in the top few in her school, for Higher School Certificate, or for the only woman in a science unit at Edinburgh University. She would, after all, have been one of only two girls out of her class to be accepted that year — perhaps the only one to get a State Scholarship. Even a prize for the best shorthand taker in the evening school she had been forced to attend would have done.

The mirror looked back at her and underlined the hunch of common sense. How could she refuse such a man? Of those thousands of women out there, all looking for a model of masculinity, the majority failed in their quest. She was lucky. And sooner or later she was bound to marry, as almost all those not set on the road to university did. The alternative was spinsterhood, the ‘old maid’ tag. She would have to live on the margins of a society that based a woman’s success on the status of her husband. Hers would be that horror of conditions where one ceased shaving ones legs, wore flat, bunion-deformed shoes, let one’s bosom drop to four inches below the armpit line and had only one choice for a companion, a fellow sufferer. She would be left waiting for a future that never came, a future of one long drawn out lull. With George she would be saved from that dreaded malady, one that her mother declared to be the supreme affliction of the indecisive.

Valerie watched from the window for the approaching train. She was certain now. It would be goodbye to those three years of office boredom, three years of clock-watching, of sneaking books under her desk to read in slack moments. George would mean a new career: no more obligations of paper sorting; no more stamp-sticking, letter folding, typing on an old Remington with several keys that stuck, no more tea-making and the constant sweaty stench of a dank cubby-hole with a Calor gas ring. George offered a haven, unlocking the escape hatch from the pettiness of the other clerks, the wall staring, the no-prospects future. And she would once more be Daddy’s girl. No more rebel talk of wasting years at University. She could agree with him that careers were for men and men only. Men had to support families. That is why they got larger salaries than women did. Men were breadwinners. Men must be helped and nourished by their wives who, content with their lot, smile with pride at their husband’s achievements. Better still, they smile in the background, dressed in a little white apron, a pudding basin and whisk poised at the ready, just like in the adverts of Ideal Home.

She visualised George in the train, smiling to himself in the dank carriage. Did he know that courting was the stuff that schemes were made of? She only knew courting from films, with phrases of ritual dealt out like playing cards: ‘I feel so happy when I’m with you’, ‘I love you and I know you love me even if you are not sure of your own feelings yet’, the ‘You’ll be the perfect wife’, and ‘We must get married as we’re made for each other.’

Valerie rubbed her cheeks to a red glow just before she met him. Then, when he patted his pocket, which concealed a platinum ring set with a diamond, she told herself, with good grace and even a little enthusiasm, that fate had taken a hand.

George had put a photo of their engagement party on his office shelf. It showed Valerie holding her ring finger towards the camera and casting her eyes towards her feet. It stood alongside his diploma from the local business-training scheme and a trophy he had won at school for chess. The wedding was held in Lincoln, at Eastgate Church, and in all the photos there was a glimpse of the Cathedral towers in the background. Another session of photos of the wedding group was arranged for later in the day at Harrison’s studios in the High Street. Valerie replied to her new husband’s question of ‘Happy?’ with ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Indeed, that was the truth. There was no reason why Valerie should not be happy.

Robert’s arrival little over a year later was a joy. Valerie dressed him in Vyella romper suits embroidered across the yoke with frolicking lambs. She brushed his fair hair up into a quiff with a soft baby-blue hairbrush and rubbed Curlitop into it every evening. As he grew and with the fashions adapted to the coming war, she refused the utility suits on offer at the Co-op. They may have been perfect for dragging on to a child in ten seconds flat, but they made Robert, with his chubby cheeks, look like a swaddled piglet. She obtained a cut of pale blue woollen material, through some rep friend of George’s, to make him a jacket and short trousers instead. She took him to Harrison’s once every six months, and the array of photos, all of identical Little Boy Blue coyness, with the date written in one corner, had been placed on the top of the grand piano in the living-room, alongside a swathe of printed invitations to balls and parties.

“Yes,” said Valerie to herself in the mirror, “it is a well-ordered, pleasant life. And George is a man to be respected. For that, I suppose, I have been lucky.”

Back in the kitchen, two slices of the cold joint from the larder were placed alongside tomatoes and a minute wedge of Cheddar. She smeared two slices of bread as thinly as possible with margarine and turned the wireless up so as to hear the news clearly. Then, she heaved on a pair of wellington boots, tucking the legs of her slacks into the tops ready for an afternoon was dedicated to the garden. Seeds were sprinkled in all the odd, fallow corners. Then there was tying kidney beans, now yellowing and stringy, to stakes and collecting crab apples for jam making. She went into the shed storeroom to find empty Kilner jars, counting all those that were now full standing in rows on a shelf, admiring the mishmash of hues from the beans, plums, beetroot, apple puree, and cherries. As she emerged from the shed balancing several empty jars in her arms, she noticed a lone figure near the gate. Edging to the privet hedge she peered through.

The man smiled faintly on seeing her, showing fine even teeth.

“Hi. I’m Marty. Remember me? You took me to the getting-to-know-you party? Hope I’m not intruding. I finished early at the base. Thought I’d drop round and give a hand.”

She moved forward to let him in, noticing now that, without his uniform, he seemed younger and infinitely more vulnerable. And where yesterday’s eyes had sparkled and danced, today’s were deep-water wells that concealed unknown treachery.

“Why should you intrude? This is to be your home, remember? Come in and make yourself comfortable. Better still, I’m going to ask you to give a helping hand. Anybody who so much as hints at a willingness to roll their sleeves up is never refused. Times like these don’t allow for ceremony. Here, hold this bucket so we can throw in the crab apples, will you?”

Marty followed her round the lawn, collecting the fallen, scabby fruit, tearing off the curled leaves that clung stubbornly, refusing to accept their autumn fate.

“Oh, lovely. Done already,” said Valerie, admiring the overflowing bucket. “Just need a wash and they’ll be ready. I can make plenty of jam with them. I wonder if they bottle? I say, if you like you could strip the peas, too, and I’ll shell them. There you are, give me an inch and I take a yard.” She sat at the wooden table and placed two beige pottery bowls on a tray in front of her, and splitting the pods, running her finger down the insides, sliding out the bright, soft peas.

“I make stock with the pods. Nothing here is thrown away. Well, only a few grubs. I looked up the nutritional value of pea pods. I got a leaflet at the clinic with Robert’s free orange juice and cod liver oil. You know, pea pods are definitely worth cooking. A bit stringy, but full of goodness.” She walked into the kitchen and filled a large saucepan with water, throwing the washed pods into it. Then she fitted a pudding basin with potatoes in the bottom between them. On top she placed a steamer with the fresh peas.

“You don’t have to give a hand, you know. Really. You are our guest. You can say ‘No’ if you like.”

“Fine. I’ll remember that. You know, somewhere way back we had Shakers in the family. Great-great-aunts and uncles, I guess. Ma told me that their idea of praying to the Lord was just to work hard. Said that working was as holy as prayer. It must have brushed off on me. I sort of feel guilty when I’m idle. Even now I don’t seem to be able to sit and do nothing. In my spare time I’m always doing something. I read, write poems, tinker with machines, even cook.”