Under the Apple Tree (50 page)

‘Thank you, madam.’ Polly withdrew. Evidently there

was going to be no driving for her to do that day, so she

began to collect tasks from the other women in the office

and then went to her desk.

Judy was planning to fetch Jean and bring her out to

Southsea that afternoon. Before beginning on any of her

tasks, Polly started to investigate the help that Jean could

ask for, and the possibilities of evacuation.

If she could go out to Ashwood, or Bridge End, where

there were already people they knew, Polly was sure she

would find kindness and warmth. Country people, in her

experience, were more likely to accept you for what you

were and not what they might think you ought to be. There,

with people like the Suttons, she would be able to grieve

properly for Terry and look forward to the birth of her baby

- the baby called Hope.

Crete had fallen and, as Dick had predicted, there was an

evacuation not very different from that of Dunkirk. Fighting

on the island had been bitter, but the German invaders had

been too powerful and the Royal Navy had been sent in to

bring out as many men as possible. This time, many of the

Allied soldiers who were killed or rescued were from New

Zealand and Australia. Once again, there were stories of

heroism and suffering and, once again, there was grieving

over men who had been lost.

‘I can’t bear to think about it,’ Cissie said. ‘Mothers in

Australia and New Zealand feeling just as bad as me and all

the rest of us who’ve lost their boys. Wives like you, Polly,

and girls like our Judy. Kiddies like Sylvie.’

‘Don’t,’ Polly begged. ‘It’s no good going on like that,

Cis. It just makes you feel worse. You’ve got to try and

think about other things.’

‘Other things?’ Cissie was pale and drawn. Her eyes were

dull and her hair lank and straggly, with signs of grey. ‘How can I think of other things? I’ve lost my boy. The boy I

carried for nine months inside me, and fed with my own

milk, and loved and looked after — he’s gone, Polly. I’m

never going to see him again. He’s never going to come

through that door again and say, “Hello, Mum,” and sit

down at that table and eat the food I’ve cooked for him. He’s

never going to ask to scrape out the bowl when I’ve made a

cake, or take the last roast potato, or bring in the coal or—’

‘Cissie! You’ve got to stop this or you’ll make yourself ill.’

Polly cut in across the rising voice and put her hands on her

sister’s shoulders. ‘Look, I know what you’re going through

- I’ve already lost my man, remember? And I’ve had to send

my little girl away to strangers, not knowing when I’ll be

able to have her with me again. I’m upset about Terry too we

all are. But we’ve got to carry on. Going over it all, over

and over again, won’t do any of us any good. It won’t bring

him back. What we’ve got to think about now is the living.

The rest of us here - the things we can do to help. And Jean

and her baby,’ she added in a low voice.

Cissie stared at her and then seemed to sag. She turned

away and sank into a chair.

‘I know, Poll. I know all that, but it just comes over me.

I’ve got to cry for him. I’ve got a right to cry for him - he

was my boy. I never expected him to die before me. I

thought he’d still be alive when I went myself. I thought

he’d always be here - a part of my life, a part of me. It’s not what you have children for,’ she said, looking up at her

sister. ‘Seeing them go off to war, knowing they’ve died,

hundreds of miles away, not even able to be with them at the

end. It’s not what you ever think of. Not when they never

meant it themselves. It’s different if they went into the

Forces beforehand, but when they’ve been conscripted…’

‘I know,’ Polly said. ‘I know you’ve got to grieve for him,

Cis. You always will — that’s never going to stop. It’s the

worst thing in the world, losing a child, but you can’t let it get on top of you.’

‘But I feel I want to. Just for a little while, Poll. I feel I

want to let go and let it all wash over me.’ Cissie put her

head into her hands and rocked to and fro. ‘I just want to

cry and cry and cry, and there doesn’t seem to be time. There’s always so much to do, so much to worry about, and I can’t even have time to grieve properly over my own boy.

It doesn’t seem fair.’

‘Well, I think we’ve got to stop thinking about what’s

fair,’ Polly said ruefully. ‘Nothing’s fair, these days. In fact, I wonder whether it ever was. There’s always been unfair

things happening, Cis.’

On the last day of May, there was another raid on

Portsmouth. Two houses in Tipnor were completely

destroyed and a number of others badly damaged. Once

again the fire engines were out and the bomb disposal squad called in, but the residents had reached safety in their shelters and nobody was hurt. Instead, the WVS found

themselves back at their old task of handing out food and

hot drinks to people who were homeless, giving them

clothes from the Lady Mayoress’s Clothing Store, and

searching for places for them to live.

The newspapers were full of the scandal of the Jewish

internees who had fled from Hitler’s regime and been taken

to Australia almost a year earlier. Polly read it and thought

of her words to Cissie, that nothing seemed to be fair. But it

doesn’t have to be this unfair, she thought angrily. People

don’t have to be this cruel to each other.

‘Those poor souls!’ she said indignantly. ‘Kept down

below decks like slaves in a slave ship, and when they got to

Australia all their luggage was taken away from them and

they were treated like criminals. And these are the people

we’re supposed to be fighting for! I don’t understand it, I

really don’t.’

‘What it boils down to,’ Dick said, ‘is that there’s good

and bad in most countries. And I don’t know what it is, but nobody seems to like refugees. It doesn’t matter how bad

they’ve been treated in their own countries, nor how much

we say they ought to be helped, nobody seems to want them.

It’s not even as if Australia was crowded with people, like

we are here - there’s space enough for all.’

‘I don’t think it was the Australians that did this, though.

It’s the British soldiers who were in charge of them who’ve

been court-martialled.’ Polly sighed and folded the newspaper.

‘I’ve had enough of reading this. It’s all misery,

wherever you look. Who wants to go to the pictures?’

The cinema was only partially an escape, though, for

between the two films — the ‘big’ picture that everyone went

to see and the ‘little’ picture that you saw whether you

wanted to or not - they sandwiched the Pathe Pictorial

News. This showed a resume of the week’s events with,

inevitably, most of it about the war. The news you had

heard on the wireless over the past few days came

dramatically to life as you watched shots of soldiers

marching in the desert, ships at sea and bomb damage.

Sometimes you saw the bombs actually falling and exploding,

and people clambering over the wreckage afterwards as

they searched for their family, friends and belongings. The

scenes were all too familiar to Portsmouth folk.

All the same, it was good to go and be entertained for a

few hours and the whole family went to see George Formby

when he came to the Odeon to put on a fund-raising show

for air-raid victims one afternoon. He sprang on to the stage

with his ukelele, singing his cheeky songs ‘When I’m

Cleaning Windows’ and ‘Sitting in the Maginot Line’, and

had them all laughing within seconds. They were still

laughing as they came out into the sunlight after the show

had ended, and returned home feeling better than they had

since before Terry’s death. Even Judy had enjoyed it.

Polly had received another letter from Joe Turner. He

was still working in the offices at Whitehall, although he was

vague about what he was actually doing. She thought of his rueful words - ‘polishing up the knocker on the big front

door’ — and wondered what a man with only one foot could

do, apart from such menial tasks. He had been down to

Devon again to see his boys and said they were well and

happy, spending all their spare time either helping around

the farm or out on the moors playing cowboys and Indians. They’ll forget they were ever Cockneys, he wrote wryly.

Polly thought about Joe as she went about her tasks. She

could hardly believe that another man could be important to

her after Johnny’s death, and she reminded herself that he

had offered her nothing but friendship - a shoulder to cry

on, a helping hand when she’d needed it. Yet how many

friends, especially ones so newly made, would have done all

that Joe Turner had done? He’d come all the way from

London to see her, and he’d been a real help in their time of

trouble, making cups of tea, doing the veg and going out to

fetch Judy home. And when he’d held out his arms to her

and hugged her against him, she’d felt a deep, warm

closeness between them that she hadn’t known since Johnny

had gone away. For a moment, it had been like coming

home.

But since then, he seemed to have cooled off. His letter

was no more than a letter that any casual friend or

acquaintance might have written - pleasant, friendly, chatty.

No more than that. No mention of another visit.

Perhaps seeing me at home made some sort of difference,

she thought. Perhaps I was different from what he’d

thought. Perhaps since he’s been down to Devon again and

seen that Mrs Ellacombe who’s looking after his boys, he’s

got more interested in her.

It didn’t matter. He was a man she’d met briefly a couple

of times, had a pleasant day with and who’d been helpful to

her family when they were in trouble. That was all there was

to it. Probably he wouldn’t bother to write again. She

decided to put him out of her mind.

Judy had had a letter too. Hers was from Ben, still at school in Winchester. He wrote of school activities lessons,

exams, sports — with impatience. Only a few more

weeks to go, he wrote, and I can leave for ever. He had already applied to join the RAF and expected to be called up almost

as soon as the school holidays began. Judy wondered what

the Hazelwoods would say about that. She was sure that Ben

hadn’t mentioned his plans to his parents.

It was strange, she thought, that a boy of eighteen could

go to fight in a war without asking his parents’ permission,

whereas he couldn’t get married, vote or even stay out late

without it until he was twenty-one.

Life was still a lonely, silent affair for Judy. She spent her

days working in the Clothing Store, keeping a check on

what garments they had. It was even more important now,

for on the first day of June, clothing rationing was

announced and people weren’t so ready to give away

unwanted items. Instead, they would have to take old winter

coats to bits to make new ones for children, cut down frocks

that had got too tight round the bodice to make skirts, and

unpick jumpers that had gone at the elbows to make

pullovers or gloves. There were complaints, of course — Ethel Glaister was especially bitter about the new rules against pleats and frills — but it was just one more thing to

put up with. In fact, Alice remarked, it probably didn’t hit

the people of April Grove as hard as the smarter ones who

lived in better streets and had bigger houses. They weren’t

used to make do and mend, while for April Grove folk it

had always been a way of life.

However, apart from the clothes rationing and a series of

raids, including one night when it was announced that there

had been more alarms than on any other since the beginning

of the war, June did bring a few items of good news. The

first was when the news ran round the Clothing Store that

the Lord Mayor had been knighted in the King’s Birthday

Honours list.

‘You mean he’ll be a Sir?’ Judy asked when this had been

explained to her by Laura, who was also working in the

store. ‘Instead of Lord Mayor?’

‘No, he’ll still be Lord Mayor, but he’ll be “Sir” as well.

And the Lady Mayoress will be “Lady”, even after she stops being Lady Mayoress. Isn’t it smashing!’ Laura finished

sorting a pile of children’s jumpers and set them aside. ‘It

just shows that the King thinks a lot of him. It’s for services to Civil Defence.’

‘I’ve never known a knight before.’ Judy’s ideas of

knights of the realm were mostly gained from a hotchpotch

of children’s stories, and legends from St George to King

Arthur. She tried to imagine the Lord Mayor in armour and

failed. ‘Will he have to wear special clothes and go to

Buckingham Palace and all that?’

‘Well, to be knighted, I suppose he will.’ Laura didn’t

know much about it herself. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be all that

different the rest of the time.’

The Evening News was full of the new appointment and

recounted messages of congratulation from all over England