Magnolia Square (31 page)

‘Course they’re not goin’ away on a ’oneymoon,’ the landlady of The Swan said knowledgeably to a nosy enquirer at what was, for Magnolia Square, a
remarkably restrained wedding reception in the church hall. ‘They’re both in their seventies, for heaven’s sake! They got married for a bit o’ companionship, not for a bit
of ’ow’s your farver!’

‘I like this companionship lark, don’t you ’Arriet?’ Charlie asked with a cheeky chuckle as, much, much later on in the evening, they lay in each
other’s arms in the vast double bed that had once belonged to Harriet’s parents. ‘It don’t ’alf make the mattress springs creak though, don’t it?’

Harriet flushed rosily and then, as Charlie began to chortle and then to laugh so hard that the bed began to shake, she clung to him, laughing as she had never laughed before in her life.

Outside in the Square, a man walking his dog heard the unrestrained, bellying, full-throated gales of laughter and shook his head in bemusement. Whatever the joke that had occasioned it, it must
have been a good one. He whistled his dog to heel, wondering what it could have been.

Jack Robson lay on his back in his upper bunk. It was midday, and there was no-one else in the Nissen hut. He took a deep draw on his cigarette, propped it on an upturned
Marmite lid, and began to re-read Mavis’s letter.

. . .
it was a shame you couldn’t be home for the wedding. Your dad was a sight for sore eyes. He and Daniel had white carnations in their lapels and their hair (or what they have
left!), was so slicked with brilliantine they looked like a couple of old spivs! Harriet Godfrey looked the bee’s knees. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever seen her not
wearing tweeds and brogues. She wore a navy suit with white revers, navy court shoes and a hat that must have come from Harrods. Do you remember when she was you and Jerry’s headmistress at
Junior School and the two of you used to call her an old trout? Bet you never thought she’d one day marry your dad!

As for other news, Leon and Danny are now good mates. They take their kids swimming together on Sunday mornings and the two of them go to the Baths without the kids every Friday evening. I
have a sneaking suspicion that my pain-in-the-neck brother-in-law can’t swim and that Leon is teaching him. He and Carrie have moved into number 17, much to Mum’s relief. It means she
can now listen to the news without having to listen to Danny’s know-all comments on each and every news item. According to him, he could do a much better job of running the country than Mr
Attlee. He wasn’t amused when I asked him if it was only his job at the biscuit factory that was stopping him from giving the Prime Minister a hand!

Jack grinned. He and Danny had been mates since their schooldays, and he knew very well what a cocky, self-opinionated little bleeder he could be. He picked up his cigarette and inhaled deeply.
Working in a factory instead of strutting about with sergeant’s stripes decorating his arm must have been a pretty painful come-down for a bloke of Danny’s temperament. He rested his
cigarette back on the edge of the Marmite lid. What Danny needed was a job with a bit of action. And once he was back home in Magnolia Square he, Jack Robson, would be just the person to be able to
put such a job Danny’s way.

. . .
the other main bit of news is that number eight’s new tenant is beginning to settle in. She still looks decidedly odd, but thanks to me and Carrie and Kate, not as odd as when she
first moved in! She talks to herself in the loudest, gruffest voice you’ve ever heard when she’s out in the street, but no-one in the Square takes any notice any more, not even the
kids. Compared to Wilfred Sharkey, Anna is practikly normal! Poor Doris Sharkey is still hiding away at her sisters. Pru has moved in with the Emmersons (and is on public hand-holding terms with
Malc Lewis??!!), and Wilfred is now a semi-permanent fixture at Lewisham clock-tower preaching hell and damnation to anyone dozy enough to listen to him!

Jack’s grin deepened. A lot could be said about the residents of Magnolia Square, but no-one could ever accuse them of being dull or boring.

What else? Now that Gran’s tin helmet is obsolete she’s put it to use as a soup tureen. Nellie’s using hers as a rose bowl and Emily Helliwell has transformed hers into a
bird bath. Lord alone knows what Billy is going to do with all the junk he’s hoarded in our front garden. Wilfred Sharkey told me yesterday morning he thought the outside of my house was a
public health hassard and that I should be reported to the council. According to Pru it’s the only rashional comment he’s made since VJ Day. When he made it, he was on his way to his
pitch at the clock-tower wearing a placard that read HER HOUSE IS THE WAY TO HELL! PROVERBS CHAPTER 7 VERSE 8. As for Kate
. . .

Jack turned another vivid pink page of Mavis’s satisfyingly long and chatty letter.

. . .
she’s her usual wonderful self. Billy and Beryl call in at number four nearly every day after school for a piece of homemade gingerbread or shortcake or whatever else she’s
made for her kids teas. She’s taken Anna under her wing just as she once took Nellie under it (you might not remember, but there was a time when if she hadn’t bathed and bandaged
Nellie’s ulcerated leg for her every week, Nellie would have been bedridden). Her dad’s married his mousy, middle-aged lady-friend and has moved in with her. Joss Harvey’s
chauffeured Bentley cruises into the Square once a week and parks outside number two waiting for Matthew to climb into the back of it. How Kate feels about it I don’t know. Nor does anyone
else. Not even Carrie. I only wish I was the one enjoying such luxury! A ride in the back of a Bentley would go down very well, thank you very much!

And that’s about it, except to say that now I’m no longer in the ATS but on the buses life isn’t half the fun it used to be. I don’t miss poor buggers being killed and
maimed by bombs and V1s and V2s, but I’d got used to the danger of the war and the excitement and the sense of urgency and being part of it all. Being a clippie isn’t half as exciting,
though I expect it’s better than working for my dad down the market.

Ta-ra for now
,

PS.
Harold Miller’s on his way home at long last. Nellie got word yesterday.

PPS.
Ted’s on his way home too. Looks like you’re going to be the last of the Magnolia Square lot to be back in civvies. What’s keeping you? Are you scared
you’ll slip up and call your new stepmother by her old nickname?’

Jack’s grin deepened as he ground his cigarette stub out. Though he hoped to God he would never be so drunk as to call Harriet an old trout to her face, he knew it was the way he would
always privately think of her. He wondered what Jerry would have thought of their father’s second marriage. His grin faded. Jerry. How many years was it now since Jerry had been killed in
Spain? Eight? Nine? As clear as if it were yesterday, he remembered one of the last days they had ever spent together. It had been a glorious summer day, and every resident in Magnolia Square had
been up on the Heath celebrating St Mark’s annual church fête. There had been side-shows and stalls, a Bonny Baby Competition for the proud mums of the parish, a cricket match for the
men, donkey rides for the kids. Jerry had spent most of the day laughing and talking with Kate. And he, Jack, had first set eyes on Christina.

He reached under his pillow for his packet of Craven ‘A’. It had been love at first sight as far as he had been concerned. In all the years since, he had never felt for any other
woman what he had felt, and continued to feel, for Christina. He tapped a cigarette out of the packet. The question was, though, did she love him as fiercely and urgently as he loved her? He rolled
over slightly, fumbling in the pocket of the Army jacket hooked on to the corner of his bunk. The letter he withdrew consisted of only two, neatly penned sheets. He scanned the half-dozen
unsatisfactory paragraphs.

. . .
the wedding was lovely. Queenie wore a white satin bow around her neck and Daniel Collins took photographs . . . Carrie and Danny have moved in to number 17 and Carrie is expecting
another baby . . . The weather has been very mild for October, Albert says it means we will have a hard winter . . . I hope you are well and that you’ll be demobbed soon
. . .

There was nothing in it that could be described as intimate or personal. Nothing about what she was doing with her time when she wasn’t working. Nothing about how much she was missing him.
There wasn’t even any mention of whether she had moved into number twelve now that Charlie was living with Harriet. Nor was there any mention of Carl Voigt’s wedding. He lit his
cigarette, blowing a thin filter of smoke towards the Nissen hut’s ceiling, wondering if much could be read into that particular omission. Mavis had written that Carl Voigt was no longer
living in Magnolia Square, which meant that Christina was presumably no longer having her long, mysterious chats with him. He chewed the corner of his lip. What on earth had those chats been about?
No matter how much he pondered over them he couldn’t come up with any likely answers – apart from one. He sat up abruptly, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk. Christina and
Carl Voigt? Was it really a possibility? The man was old enough to be her father. And he was an Aryan German. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.

He gave his well-muscled shoulders an angry shrug and jumped to the floor. Whatever was wrong with his marriage, it couldn’t be sorted by lying on a bunk, brooding about it. In another
month or so he would be demobbed and home and
then
he would sort it. He would sort it if it was the last thing he ever did.

‘Two pahnds o’ carrots and an ’andful of greens,’ Christina’s customer said to her, holding her canvas shopping-bag open wide, ‘an’
throw in a couple of onions while you’re abaht it, there’s a dear.’

Christina, wearing cotton gloves so that her hands didn’t get as rough and red as Carrie’s, burrowed into the giant pile of carrots fronting Albert’s market stall. Her customer
sniffed. She preferred it when Carrie was serving. Carrie was always ready with a friendly word and a bit of banter. Christina, with her fancy name and dark, almost foreign looks, was polite
enough, but it was the kind of politeness assistants in posh stores doled out. And when people shopped down the market they didn’t want to be treated as if they were in Fortnum & Mason or
Harrods, they wanted a bit of heartwarming, friendly cheek.

Christina weighed the carrots, well aware of her deficiencies as a market-seller. She had no chat, no repartee, and she could no more shout her wares than fly to the moon. She tipped the carrots
into her customer’s bag and reached for a couple of onions. It was she who had suggested, when the Jenningses had first taken her into their home, that she should contribute to the
family’s finances by working on Albert’s fruit and vegetable stall. Albert had been delighted. It meant he could branch out and run two stalls instead of just one. The second stall, the
one Christina and Carrie alternated on, was at the opposite end of the High Street to his original stall near the clock-tower, neatly capturing the custom of shoppers coming into the market from
the Catford and Ladywell areas.

‘One and threepence, please,’ she said, packing the greens neatly in on top of the onions and carrots.

Her customer sniffed again, but not in dissatisfaction. Prices on a Jennings market stall were always fair. As Christina rummaged in the leather pouch at her waist for change of the florin she
was being proffered, she knew she only had herself to blame if she found her work uncongenial. Albert wouldn’t have minded in the slightest if, at any time over the last few years, she had
found herself a job elsewhere. For much of the war, when she and Carrie had been seconded to do war work at an ammunition factory in Woolwich, he had had to manage without her, and he would
certainly be able to manage without her again.

Perhaps she would give up working on the stall when Jack came home. Perhaps she would have other demands on her time by then. Perhaps she would be looking after her mother and grandmother.

‘Ta, dearie.’ Her customer slipped the sixpence and threepenny bit Christina had given her into a battered purse and, meeting with no response, sniffed again and took her leave.

Christina barely noticed. Apart from Charlie’s racing pigeons in their hut in the garden, number twelve was standing empty, waiting for her and Jack to move into it. It was a roomy, family
house. Roomy enough to accommodate not only any family she and Jack might have, but her mother and grandmother as well. She knitted her hands together tightly. If her mother and grandmother were
alive. If they could be found.

‘You don’t think you’re perhaps building your hopes up too high?’ Kate had asked her doubtfully the previous evening as they had sat in the kitchen at number four,
enjoying mugs of milky Ovaltine.

‘No,’ she had said shortly, closing herself off as she had closed herself off from everybody, apart from Carl. He alone understood how nothing else in her life mattered apart from
the search they had embarked on. He understood how impossible it was for her to even think of anything else. And the letters he had received from organizations such as the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the International Tracing Center, were proof that their search wasn’t without hope. People
were
being traced and found. Families
were
being reunited. The International Tracing Centre in New York had confirmed that they had both Bergers and Franks on their files, but there had been no
Jacoba Berger, no Eva Frank.