Women on the Home Front (42 page)

‘You're right. I never look at such trashy papers,' said Olive with a deep breath. ‘And I certainly don't expect members of my family to be on the front page but you see, someone sent it to me.'

She pulled an empty envelope from her bag. Connie could see it was addressed to Ga and in the left-hand corner someone had printed in bold letters the words,
CONSTANCE AND EVA MAXWELL
.

That added insult to injury. Connie was furious but with one quick move, she snatched the cutting from her hand. It tore as she did so but she still had most of the picture. Screwing it into a tight ball, she swept angrily from the room.

Olive lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She couldn't sleep. She glanced at the clock beside her bed. One thirty. It wasn't her leg that kept her awake, it was Constance. How dare she cavort in that fountain with Cissy Maxwell's granddaughter? Everybody knew how she felt about that family. Constance should have known better.

Olive turned out the light and her mind drifted back some forty years ago, to a time when she herself was twenty, and the century was only five years old. Arthur was coming home. It had been a bleak time. The Boer War hadn't been as terrible as the Great War nor as bad as the one they'd just gone through, but war is war. The enemy may be different and the weapons more sophisticated, but being wounded far from home and facing the prospect of dying in a foreign field was just as terrible whatever the age. Damn these ambitious men and their thirst for power, she thought. Most people simply wanted to live their lives in peace and safety. Why couldn't they do the same?

She remembered how it was when the troops came back, all that marching in the streets, the parades, the flag waving and the cheers. She smiled when she thought of Arthur. Dear Arthur. How handsome he looked, so tall, so suave with his new moustache and smart uniform. It hadn't been easy for him. She could tell that the moment she'd looked into his eyes. There was a weariness there that belied his twenty and six years. He never talked about what he'd seen but Pa had read about the war and what was going on in the papers at the breakfast table. He must have had a terrible time.

Life for Olive and her family had gone on as usual while they were away. They had been well off. Pa's greenhouses were renowned for their beautiful grapes and cucumbers. There had been no need for her to work back then so she had grown up taking long walks on the downs where the musky scent of wild flowers, pink and blue and yellow mingled with the dainty call of skylarks and the curlew. She still recalled the spicy scent of honeysuckle and gorse and the more rancid odour of the sheep allowed to roam free. Back then, the silence of the countryside was only broken by the sound of bleating sheep or the occasional dog barking and on Sundays, the peal of church bells. How times had changed. When was the last time she had heard the sound of the coachman's horn as he entered the village bringing much needed goods from Worthing three times a week and in all weathers? Not since the 1930s. Now it was all army lorries thundering along the lanes and coupons and going without.

Arthur had been part of the final stages of the Boer War, a time of ignoble victory. Frustrated by the constant skirmishes and guerrilla tactics, the British had adopted a scorched earth policy, destroying farms, homesteads and poisoning wells to prevent the Boers re-mustering. Any women and children left behind on their farms by their menfolk were rounded up and put into camps and because the supplies were hard to come by, tens of thousands of them died of malnutrition and disease. Much to his disgust, Arthur and his unit were left to guard them. How he'd hated it. He had even written to say that he would have much preferred to fight the enemy rather than take it out on women and children. Peace came with the Treaty of Vereeniging. The irony was, just as he was about to embark for home, Arthur was terribly injured.

She'd carried on writing to him of course, but the thought of a man with half a leg missing turned her stomach. If she was his wife, she would be expected to look at it, or even worse, dress the wound. She had confided in Aggie and wept on her shoulder. Dear Aggie had been wise beyond her years and such a comfort. After a few months, Olive had put her mind to doing the best she possibly could. When Arthur came out of hospital, she would make herself love all that horror away. It was her duty. He would soon be better, strong again. She would do whatever he asked. This time she wouldn't hold back. She would give herself to him … even though the thought of that leg still made her shudder, she would nurse him back to health. But it wasn't to be and it was all that Maxwell woman's fault. It was humiliating enough having to stay an old maid all her life but having a grandniece jumping into fountains with the granddaughter of the woman who had caused her all that heartache was too much to bear. It wasn't right. A tear trickled down her cheek and she brushed it away angrily before she turned over to sleep.

Sleep didn't come easily for Connie either. She lay on her back, hot tears of anger, disappointment and frustration trickling down the sides of her face and into her ears. Anger because Ga made her so. There had always been a flashpoint between them and it didn't take much to make Connie flare. The woman was impossible. What did it matter if Connie had been in a fountain with Eva Maxwell? Ga treated the incident as if it were some sort of treason. The feud was between Ga and the Maxwells. Connie didn't fully understand what it was all about, so why should she be expected to carry it on? And why did Ga constantly make snide remarks about her morals?

The disappointment was because of Emmett. Life would have been so different if they had got married. It was a mystery to her why he hadn't contacted her again after the war. They had had some good times together and she'd done all the ‘right' things to make him like her. She'd flattered him, laughed at his awful jokes, worn pretty clothes so that he would admire her – all the things other girls did to trap their men but Emmett hadn't responded the way he was supposed to. Now all her ex-pals from the WAAFs were married but she was still on the shelf. It wasn't fair.

The frustration was worst of all. She had taken a long time to think about nursing and had been so excited to be accepted for training but now she was being asked to put it on hold. Of course, this time Ga was right. Her mother did look haggard and worn out and she was not yet fifty. Connie had seen the way it was but she had chosen to pretend it would be all right. Her mother was such a wonderful person. ‘I'm pleased you're going to make a career for yourself,' she had told her. ‘You'll make a good nurse.' How much must it have cost her to say that and yet Connie knew she'd meant every word. She had given her the freedom to make her own life but much as she wanted to go, Connie knew she couldn't walk out on her.

The door clicked open and she raised her head to see Pip come into the room. He came to her bedside and laid his muzzle on the sheet beside her. Funny how he always sensed when she was upset.

‘You'll get yourself into a heap of trouble if Ga finds you upstairs,' she whispered and she heard his tail thump against the chest of drawers as he licked her tears away.

The atmosphere between Connie and Ga remained frosty for a couple of days. They avoided talking to each other any more than they had to, although they made polite conversation whenever Gwen or Mandy were around. Left to her own thoughts, Connie went over and over what Ga had said until there came a moment when she told herself she had to stop. It was beginning to make her feel ill. If only she had a close friend she could confide in, but Rene Thompson was living in Scotland now and recently married. She would have her mind on other things, and besides, it was difficult to write everything down in a letter.

‘Clifford is coming home,' said Gwen as she sat at the breakfast table with a letter. Her voice was choked with emotion. ‘He's being demobbed at last.'

‘Oh Mum, I'm so pleased for you,' said Connie. Pip was standing next to her resting his head on her lap. Connie fondled his ear as her mind went into overdrive. If he got back before September she could still go to nursing school.

Gwen pulled a handkerchief from under her watch strap and dabbed her nose.

‘About time,' said Ga rather pointedly. ‘You and I can't keep the place going forever on our own. And get that dog away from the table, Constance. You know I can't stand it.'

Pip slunk into his basket but Connie ignored the jibe. Ga could be insufferable at times, making mountains out of molehills and keeping up her hostility for days.

‘It'll be good for Mandy to have her dad back,' said Gwen. ‘She's missed him dreadfully.'

Being an older man, Clifford wasn't called up until the final big push. His regiment ended up in Holland supporting the Canadian troops who had surrounded Amsterdam. After VE Day, he was sent to Germany itself.

‘Do we know when he's coming?' Connie tried to sound casual but her voice was a little tremulous with excitement.

Gwen shook her head. ‘“Soon”, that's all he says.'

Connie was aware of Ga's eyes boring into the side of her face. ‘I can pick Mandy up from school when he comes, Mum,' Connie said. ‘That way you can meet him at the station on your own.'

‘Thank you, darling. That would be nice.'

‘And what about the shop?' said Ga.

‘We'll manage,' said Connie throwing her a look and Ga jutted her chin defiantly.

‘Perhaps when he gets back, you and Clifford could have a little holiday, Mum. A bit of time to yourselves. I could look after Mandy for you.'

‘I don't know about that,' said her mother coyly.

‘Well, think about it,' said Connie. ‘Wait until you've talked to Clifford before you say no.'

Ga stood up with a harrumph. ‘People never bothered with holidays in my day,' she announced as she gathered her plate and cup and saucer and put them in the sink with a clatter. ‘They just got on with it.' She didn't see Connie and Gwen share a secret wink behind her back. ‘There's plenty to do today,' Ga said as she limped to the door. ‘Connie, you can plant the leeks and some winter cabbage in the plot by the fence and Gwen, we need to get the carrots up for winter storage.'

The back door slammed as she left the room. ‘No rest for the wicked,' Gwen sighed good-naturedly.

At the weekend, the pattern of life at home was slightly different. The shop closed at noon on Saturday and normally on Sunday the whole family went to church in the morning. They were Anglicans but preferred to go to the Free Church which, because the war had interrupted their building programme, met in the local school. The services were bright and cheerful and it had a large Sunday school.

‘After Sunday school,' Connie had told Mandy when she'd tucked her up the night before, ‘if you're good, I'll take you to see the gypsies.'

They ate their Sunday roast, and while Gwen sat with her knitting listening to the radio and Ga sat at her writing desk, Connie and Mandy and just about every other child in Worthing set off for Sunday school. In the main it was fun and the hour was precious to parents because it was the one time that they could have an hour to themselves with no interruptions. Pip went along with them but Connie made him wait outside. The class was held in a small room at the back of the church. The teacher, Miss Jackson, was a little older than Connie but they had both gone to the same school.

‘Connie!' Jane Jackson, an attractive brunette, was now a librarian. ‘How good to see you. Are you back for good?'

‘Looks like it,' Connie smiled.

‘We must get together sometime,' Jane smiled. ‘No, William, stop hitting Eddie with that hymn book. That's no way to behave in church.'

The children sat in a semi-circle on a large mat on the floor. There were about thirty of them in Jane's class, nearly all of them the children of church members although there were a few who had been sent along by their parents so that they could have a bit of peace and quiet and a little time to themselves. They began with a prayer and then some choruses. Jane and her fellow teachers were ably assisted by Michael Cunningham, the son of the church treasurer, a pimply faced youth who was waiting to go to university. Michael hammered out the tune on the school piano.

The choruses brought back memories of her own childhood. They were as timeless and as meaningless as they had ever been. ‘
Jesus wants me for a sunbeam
…' ‘
Bumble bee, bumble bee, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz
…' and ‘
I am H-A-P-P-Y …'
The Bible story was based around
the woman with the issue of blood
. Connie wondered if five- to seven-year-olds had any idea what ‘an issue of blood' meant, but she was surprised to see that the children listened enraptured. Apparently Jane was a gifted storyteller. One more chorus, this time one relating to the story itself, ‘
Oh touch the hem of His garment and thou too shalt be whole …'
and Sunday school was over. At the end of the session, as they said their goodbyes, Jane produced a box of sweets. Each ‘good' child, namely the ones who had sat still while they'd had the story, was allowed to take one. Connie permitted herself a wry smile. Clever old Jane. No wonder the children sat still and listened.

‘There's a dance at the Assembly Rooms on Saturday,' said Jane as they were leaving. ‘A few of us from the village are going. Sally Burndell comes. You know her, don't you?'

‘She works part time in our shop,' Connie nodded.

‘Do come to the dance,' said Jane. ‘They're great fun.'

A couple of days slipped by but at the earliest opportunity, Connie climbed upstairs to the attic with a torch. It was hot and musty but she'd only been there for about ten minutes before Gwen came to see what she was doing.

‘It's chock-a-block up here, Mum!' Connie gasped. ‘I had no idea we had all this junk.'