Under the Apple Tree (8 page)

‘Well, fancy the Lady Mayoress herself asking for you,

our Judy,’ Alice said at last. ‘They must think a lot of you.’

Judy shrugged, feeling pleased all the same. ‘I don’t know

about that. I reckon I just came in the door at the right

moment.’

Polly’s face was bright with excitement. ‘So you’re going

to help with the WVS. Well, what a coincidence. Because I

am, too!’

‘You are?’ Judy turned to her. ‘How d’you mean, Polly?

Are you volunteering?’

‘I already have. Put my name down at the Centre this

morning.’ Polly beamed at her niece. ‘I’ve got to come out

to Southsea tomorrow to sign on. I’ll come with you on the

bus, first thing.’

A huge smile broke out over Judy’s face. ‘That’s

smashing! We need lots and lots of volunteers, and it’s going

to be really interesting work, Poll - you’ve no idea all the jobs they do. It’s not just serving out tea and sorting old

clothes. Though those things do have to be done as well, of

course,’ she added fairly.

‘Well, I don’t care what I do so long as it’s helping the

war effort,’ Polly declared. ‘I’ve been thinking ever since I

let Sylvie go out to the country that I ought to be doing

something, but what with having a job and not being able to

go in the Services, I didn’t really know what to do. But this

will suit me - I can put in all the hours I want to and still do a bit of hairdressing as well. I went round to Mrs Mason’s

this morning to make sure it was all right with her if I just

did part-time. We decided afternoons would be best; seems

to me it’s mornings that volunteers’ll be needed most, when

there’s been a raid overnight.’

‘They’ll be needed morning, noon and night,’ Judy said.

‘But whenever you work, you’ll be welcome, Polly. You’re

just the sort they need. I’m really pleased.’

‘And I’ll still be giving a hand where I can,’ Alice chimed

in. ‘I’m going to go round the Centre regular. Annie

Chapman works there - you know, Jess Budd’s sister from

over the end of March Street, it was her Olive that was with

Kathy Simmons — and she says I’ll be welcome any time.

There’s always something to do there. And Peggy Shaw,

from down the street, she works in the First-Aid Post and

her Gladys drives an ambulance, so we’ll all be doing our bit

round this way. Well, most of us,’ she added as an

afterthought. ‘I don’t suppose that Ethel Glaister will lift a

finger to help - wouldn’t want to chip her nail varnish - and

Nancy Baxter has her own ways of helping, as we all know.’

‘Mum!’ Cissie protested, amidst laughter from the others.

She got up from her chair and bent to lift the lid from the

saucepan simmering on the fire. ‘I reckon this stew’s just

about ready now. There’s only enough meat in it to cover a

half-starved mouse, but plenty of veg, so let’s get round the

table and tuck in.’ She brought the pan to the table and

began to spoon stew into the bowls. ‘And just in case you think I’m not pulling my weight, I’m going to be doing

needlework for the Marine barracks, helping make uniforms,

and Dick’s going to be making rag rugs for people

who are being rehoused and got no furniture.’

‘That’s right,’ Dick said, drawing up a chair. ‘It’ll be a

hive of industry round here. She’ll have me knitting next.’

‘Well, that wouldn’t be anything to be ashamed of,’ his

mother-in-law told him. ‘Plenty of sailors used to do

knitting when they were at sea. I don’t know where they’d

have got new socks from otherwise, when they were away

for years at a time.’

They sat round the table, eating their meal. As Cissie had

said, there wasn’t much meat in it but what there was had

given it some flavour, and the vegetables were good.

Afterwards they had boiled rice with golden syrup, and

while they were eating that Cissie put the kettle on the fire

for another cup of tea.

‘Wonderful how you can manage when you’ve got to,’ she

remarked. ‘But I’ll be thankful when we’ve got the gas and

power back on. Have you heard anything about that, Judy?’

‘I know they’re hoping to get the Dockyard generators

linked into the city electricity supply,’ Judy said, gathering

up the dishes. ‘If they can do that, everyone will have some

power in the next day or two. I don’t know about the gas,

though.’ She hesitated. ‘There’s going to be a big funeral on

Friday — some of the people that were killed. They say there were over a hundred and fifty. They’re going to be buried all together at Kingston Cemetery, and the Mayor and all

the Corporation are going. I don’t know how many of their

robes they’ll be able to wear; a lot of them were burned in

the Guildhall.’

There was a moment of sadness, then Polly said, ‘Talking

of uniforms, I’ll be getting the WVS one. It’s quite nice green with a sort of grey thread running through it. We’ve

got to pay for them ourselves, though.’

‘I’m having one too,’ Judy told her. ‘I don’t mind paying

for it - I’d have to get some more clothes for work anyway.

Did you manage to get much at the Centre, Mum?’

They went on talking as they cleared the table, made tea

and put the kettle on the fire yet again for washing up, and

then settled down with their knitting. All the women were

making something. Judy and Polly had started balaclavas for

the Navy, Cissie was unravelling one of Dick’s old cardigans

to make gloves, and Alice was making squares from scraps of

leftover wool, to be sewn together to make blankets. Polly lit

an extra candle, to give them more light.

‘I’m getting a bit worried about this coal supply,’ Cissie

said, rolling wool into a ball. ‘With all this cooking, and

needing water for washing and scrubbing the floors, you’ve

got to keep the fire going but what we’ve got in the shed’s

going down really quick, even with those few loads we

managed to bring here from home.’

‘Well, once the gas is back on we can sit in our coats

during the day and just keep the fire for evenings,’ Dick

said. ‘One thing about making rag rugs, they do keep your

knees warm while you’re working on them!’ He glanced at

the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Let’s put the wireless on - it’s nearly time for the nine o’clock news.’

‘Good thing I had the accumulator charged last week,’

Alice remarked, doing as he asked. ‘At least we can still find

out what’s going on.’

The news, read by Alvar Liddell, was as gloomy and

frightening as usual. There had been more Luftwaffe attacks

on British warships in the Mediterranean; a destroyer had

been damaged, the aircraft-carrier Illustrious crippled and

another ship, unnamed so far, sunk. In the Netherlands, all

Jews had been ordered to register with the authorities. Mr

Churchill had insisted to Parliament that assistance to

Greece must be given top priority.

‘The trouble is, everywhere needs to be top priority,’

Dick said, switching it off again. ‘We can’t be in all those

places at once. It’s like a disease, breaking out everywhere,

and as fast as you try to stop the bleeding in one place it

starts somewhere else.’

Cissie shuddered. ‘That’s horrible, Dick.’

‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘war is horrible.’ He looked down

at the fire and then pulled his cardigan close around his thin

chest. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m for bed. I dunno,

ever since Friday night I seem to feel so tired I can hardly

keep my eyes open. I reckon I’ll be a bit warmer there, too.

Did you put the bottle in, Cis?’

His wife nodded. ‘Half an hour ago. You go up, Dick,

and get comfortable. I won’t be long.’ She waited as he went

outside to pay a last visit to the lavatory and then had a

quick wash at the scullery sink before climbing slowly

upstairs. ‘It’s the shock,’ she said to the others. ‘It’s knocked him sideways, and I’m not surprised. It’s not right, men like

him having to go through this all over again.’

‘What happened to him in the Great War, Mum?’ Judy

asked. ‘I know he was gassed, but there was more to it than

that, wasn’t there?’

Cissie looked at her and sighed. ‘Well, I suppose it’s only

right you should know. Not that I know all the ins and outs

of it myself, mind - a lot of it, I just had to pick up from

what Dick said and what other people have told me. And

Dick’s never told me the full story, never will. I don’t think

he can bear to remember it.’

‘Bad as it was, I don’t think the gas was the worst of it,’

Alice said. ‘I think it was what else happened to him that

upsets him most.’

There was a brief silence, then Cissie said, ‘I reckon you

might be right, Mum.’ She turned back to Judy. ‘See - your

dad and me were childhood sweethearts - always knew each

other, and we always knew we’d get married one day. But

there didn’t seem to be no hurry till the war broke out, and

then when he joined up we thought it’d all be over by

Christmas, so we decided to get married then, when he came

back. And so we did, only it wasn’t all over, and he’d had a

taste of the trenches by then and he didn’t want to go back.’

‘Didn’t have no choice, though, did he,’ Alice said. ‘You

either got shot as a deserter or went back and probably got

shot by the Germans.’

‘That’s right. He had an awful time — I only know about

it from the nightmares he used to have. Still has, sometimes,

specially since this lot started … He didn’t come home

again till the next Christmas - our Terry was three months

old then. I tell you, when he walked through that door over

there, I didn’t even recognise him. He looked like a ghost.

No - more like a skeleton, he was so thin and drawn. And

he couldn’t even talk for three days - just sat and cried in

the chair. Wanted me with him all the time, couldn’t bear to

let the baby out of his sight … It was pitiful. Pitiful.’

Judy stared at her, shocked. ‘But what was the matter

with him?’

‘What do you think? He’d had just about all he could

take. A lot of them had. They’d been living like rats in

holes, being shot at day and night - it wasn’t human, what

they had to go through. Why, we couldn’t even bang a door

shut without him jumping out of his skin. Shell-shock, they

called it,’ Cissie said bitterly. ‘Gave him a few weeks’ leave

to get over it and then dragged him back. He wasn’t over it,

not by a long way. He isn’t over it now - he never will be.

It’s why he flares up sometimes, all over nothing. Something

happens that touches him on the raw and he loses his

temper. He never used to be like that. It’s all through what

happened in the war.’

‘And was it after that when he was gassed?’ Judy asked

quietly.

‘That’s right. Saved his life, that did.’

‘Saved his life? But it’s left him more or less crippled!’

‘And if it hadn’t, he’d be dead,’ Cissie said bluntly. Judy,

accustomed to gentleness from her mother, caught her

breath at the harshness of her voice. ‘They called it shell

shock when he was home and they wanted him back again,

but out there they had a different name for it. Cowardice.

And you know what they did to cowards, don’t you?’ She

gave Judy a bitter look. ‘They shot them.’

Judy caught her breath. ‘You mean they were going to

shoot Dad?’

‘I’m not saying they were going to, but I think that’s what

he expected. And then they got this gas attack. He only got a

whiff, mind - he said there were boys that got a full whack,

and they died screaming. It turns your lungs to a sort of

mush … But your father wasn’t too close. It was enough to

make him poorly for a bit, mind, and leave his lungs

damaged for life, but it got him invalided home and there

was no more talk about cowardice. He was all right to work

too, for a few years, till it started to get worse, but at least he’s still alive. I thank God on my knees every day that he’s

still alive.’

Judy was silent. She had always known that her father’s

illness stemmed from the Great War, but had never heard

the details before. She glanced at her Aunt Polly.

‘I suppose you didn’t realise - you were only little then.’

‘Nine, when he first came home,’ Polly said. ‘I was a

bridesmaid at the wedding. I was only twelve when the war

ended, and Dick went back to his job in the Dockyard - and

then our dad died and I don’t think I really noticed much.

Cis didn’t tell me till I was a lot older, when Dick started to get worse.’

‘Poor Dad,’ Judy said softly. ‘Poor, poor Dad.’

‘Well, he’s got plenty to be thankful for, all the same,’

Alice said briskly. ‘He’s not had such a bad life. The gas

didn’t kill him, he’s got a good wife and two children to be

proud of, and there’s plenty of others went through the

same as he did, and worse. I’m not playing it down, mind,

just saying it could have been worse.’

‘You’re right, Mum,’ Cissie said. ‘It could have been a lot

worse. That’s what I thank God for.’ She rolled up another

ball of crinkly, unravelled wool and got up. ‘Well, I’m going up now, too. Don’t you be too long, Judy, you look tired. So