The War Widows

Not that he practised what he preached, for standing next to him at a match was a revelation. He would yell and rant and cuss and swear. ‘Get them off, the pair of sissies! Hang up yer boots, lad, yer shot was a twopenny bus ride from the goal!’

If only the Zion minister could have heard his trusty steward letting rip at the goalie, Lily smiled.

Theirs was a special bond built on his delight in having a girl in the house. ‘This one’s the sharpest blade in the knife box.’ He would point to her with pride. ‘Not the fanciest to look at but she does it right first time, my Lily of Laguna. If you want owt doing, she’s your gal!’

He would be proud that, like the famous Windmill Theatre Revues, they never closed for the entire duration of the war. Together with Esme, Lily had kept the stall going against the odds when all the rules and restrictions came into force. Many herbal stores were forced to close but they decided to open half the stall as a temperance bar, serving juices, hot cordials and a good line of medicinal sweets and herbal homemade cough candy, dispensing what little stock they could.

It was a tough time, fire-watching in the evening, keeping the Brownie pack alive with badge work and salvage drives, but nothing to what her brothers had to go through in Burma and on the Continent.

She was looking at her wristwatch, surprised that it was mid-morning already, when a welcome figure tapped her shoulder.

‘Time for our cuppa?’ Walter towered over her in his brown dust coat, pointing to the café opposite. She could sit down and keep her eye on the stall at the same time.

‘You bet,’ she smiled, pecking him on the cheek. ‘Where were you yesterday at the Armistice parade? I missed you at the cenotaph.’

‘I was there with Mam but you know it gets her all upset. We went home early.’ You couldn’t fault a man who was kind to his mother, but Lily had been hoping to invite him back for tea.

‘Hey, you missed a cracking match on Saturday, two nil to the Grasshoppers. They’re on a roll this season.’

‘Yes, I’ve been hearing reports all morning,’ she sighed. ‘I had to stand in for Levi again.’

‘I saw him in the directors’ box with all the toffs, lucky beggar.’

‘I just wish he’d give me a Saturday off, once in a blue moon. When did you and I last get to watch a match together?’

‘It was the best game this season.’

‘So everyone keeps saying, so shut up,’ she snapped.

‘The lads were on form, Wagstaff dribbling the ball down the outside right, passing to Walshie and he spins it straight in the net, brilliant!’

‘Walter Platt, don’t torment me.’ She tugged his sleeve but he was oblivious.

‘The second goal came just before half-time. I reckoned we finished them off there and then.’

She missed the crowds gathering, the noise and cheering, a chance to let off steam. Redvers had taken them all as a treat and left them at home as a punishment. There were chips in newspaper on the way home, which no one was to tell Esme about, for it was too common for a Winstanley to eat in the street.

‘When we’re married we’ll bring all our kiddies to see the game,’ Lily sighed, imagining a five-a-side of gleaming faces.

‘Oh, no, love, it’s not a place to bring youngsters with all that swearing and rough talk, and there’s germs to think about.’

‘It never did us any harm,’ she replied, surprised by his attitude.

‘Mother says it’s all that standing as did my back in. I grew too tall for my bones.’

‘I thought the doctor said you had a bit of a curved spine…’

‘It’s the same thing,’ he replied.

‘No, it’s not. It means you’re born with a bend in your back,’ she continued.

‘Oh, you do like to go into things, Lil. All I know is, it never bothered me until I was out of short trousers, when my legs just sprouted like rhubarb. I bent over one day and couldn’t get up. Never bin right since. You’ve no idea what it’s like to live with backache.’

‘I’m sorry, it must be a pain,’ she said, seeing the grimace on his face.

‘So you should be. You’re going to have to nurse it when we’re wed, with one of your liniment oils.’

‘Shall I give you a rub down later?’ she winked.

‘Lily Winstanley, none of that sauce from a respectable woman! Mother can see to it, thank you very much. By the way, could she have a few more liver pills? Her stomach’s playing up again.’

‘Has she thought of trying a lighter diet? She does like her pastry and her chips,’ Lily offered, knowing that Elsie Platt was a little beer barrel on legs.

‘A widow’s got to have a little comfort in life. We’ve no money spare for fancy diets,’ he said, staring across at her stall. ‘It’s all right for your family.’

Money was always a sensitive topic between them. His wage was small but steady, and her family had two wages and a war pension and shares from Esme’s connection with Crompton’s Biscuits. Better not to go down that route again.

‘It must be hard,’ was all she could say. ‘Did you go and see that house for rent in Forsyth Lane, the old cottage by itself? It’ll need doing up. But it’s worth a second glimpse, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, no, love, Mam says they’re built over wells, and damp, and it’s a bus ride away from Bowker’s Row. It’s much too far for her to travel.’

‘You didn’t even look, then?’ Lily felt the flush in her cheeks. When would he do anything off his own bat? ‘That’s a pity because I thought it was ideal for us, half in the country but on a bus route. It was you who wanted to have fresh air and a nice view.’

‘Perhaps we should try for something bigger and bring her with us? She gets mithered when I’m not there.’

And I shall go mad if Elsie Platt is on the other side of the wall listening to our sweet talking, Lily thought, but swallowed her words back just in time. ‘It says in my Woman’s Own that a young married couple should be alone for a while to set up their home.’

‘What about your Levi and his wife? They live with you.’

‘That’s different…’

‘No it’s not.’

‘It’s just that Waverley House has five bedrooms. They have their privacy and a baby.’

‘So, we’ll be having babies and Mother can look after them for us so you can do all your gallivanting.’

‘I’m not gallivanting, just serving my community. I’d hardly call choir practice and Brownies gadding about!’

‘There you go on your high horse over nothing. It was just a suggestion,’ he barked.

‘I’d like us to start off together on our own,’ she repeated, sipping her Bovril and noticing his shirt collar was frayed at the edge and needed turning round.

‘Then we’ll have to keep on looking until we find something that suits us both.’ His voice was hard and his lips were pursed up just like Elsie’s whenever they arrived back late.

Lily looked at her watch. There was still no sign of Levi. ‘I’d better get back. Are you coming for your tea tonight? We can look in the Gazette to see if there’re any more flats to rent, then borrow the van and go and view them together.’

‘If you can give us a lift back home first and get my mam’s washing. Now you’ve got that new-fangled machine, she was wondering if you’d lend us a hand and throw a few things in for us.’

Anything to oblige, Lily mused. Word travelled fast and Elsie was not one to miss a trick. Would she expect the washing to come back ironed as well?

Oh, don’t be mean, she sighed. Walt’s mother was widowed young in the Great War, her son is the sun, moon and stars to her. The thought of him leaving her clutches is painful and threatening. Be grateful you can help them out.

They were just about to part company when Sam Parker from the upstairs office suddenly appeared round the corner, waving to Lily. ‘There you are…I’ve just had a phone call from Levi. Can you shut the stall and come home?’

A flush of panic rushed through Lily’s body. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I don’t know, he didn’t say, but he said you were to get back to Waverley at once.’

Her mind was racing with possibilities. Had Mother been taken ill? Had the washing machine blown up and left them homeless, or was it a pleasant surprise? Was it the one surprise they were all waiting for? Freddie was back at last! That was it. He had docked and turned up without telling them, sprung a big surprise on everybody. That was just like her young brother, giving them no time to make preparations. They ought to have bunting fluttering over the street, and flags flying and lots of balloons if there were any in the shops.

‘Freddie’s come home. Oh, Walt! He’s sprung one on us, the devil. Mother’ll be beside herself. What wonderful news! I’ll call out Santini’s for a taxi.’

‘That’s a bit extravagant,’ he said. ‘Fred won’t be going anywhere fast.’

‘I haven’t got the van and I haven’t seen my brother for six years. I’m not missing a precious second of him.’

Ten minutes later she was riding through the town with a grin from ear to ear. Just wait until she saw that cheeky monkey. She’d be giving him an ear-bashing.

Suddenly the whole town looked brighter. They rose up the cobbled street to the top end where the Winstanley residence stood foursquare on its own.

It was at the point where the grime turned to greenery, the country met the town and houses were spreading out with gardens backing on to fields. Waverley House had four bay windows edged with cream bricks, a smart tiled porch and steps leading to a small path with gaps where the wrought-iron railings had stood before they went for salvage.

She paid the driver and turned to face her home. Only then did she notice that all the curtains were drawn tight.

2 The Telegram

Esme Winstanley watched the colour drain out of her daughter’s face when she saw the telegram in her lap.

‘No! No! Not our Freddie…The war’s over. I don’t believe it. They’ve made a mistake.’ Lily collapsed in a heap, sobbing, and Neville stared up at her, not old enough to understand that their world had just fallen apart.

‘I thought he’d come home to surprise us…I was so sure…I never thought it was bad news. The war’s over…’ she repeated.

‘Not in Palestine, it’s not. That’s why he was sent over there to quell the terrorists. You know what happened when they blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Things have got worse since then,’ said Levi, not looking at her.

‘Have they got the right name? It could be all a mistake. They get things wrong, don’t they, Levi? Look how they thought Arthur Mangall was dead and he turned up as right as ninepence.’ Lily turned to her brother for comfort but he just stood there stunned, silent, shuffling while Ivy fussed over them, trying to be the ministering angel, putting a cup of tea in Lily’s hand.

‘I’ve put you some extra sugar in it,’ she smiled.

‘I hate sugar,’ Lily brushed it aside. ‘He never said it was dangerous, or am I the last to find out?’

‘You don’t tell your nearest and dearest you’re living on a minefield that could blow up any minute. I’m sure there’s a number to ring for more news and there might be something on the six o’clock Home Service.’ Levi turned to his mother for support but she could only shake her head. The news had not yet sunk in.

‘They don’t tell you anything on the news. We found that out in the war,’ Lil snapped. Her face was ashen. ‘It’s not fair.’

Whoever said life was fair? thought Esme, but she bit her tongue. The girl was not up to listening to home truths and she hadn’t the energy to move from the chair and reach over to her. It was as if someone had kicked all the stuffing out of her.

‘Another cup of tea, Mother?’ whispered Ivy, hovering like a wasp about to strike.

Esme shook her head, wiping her glasses on her apron, trying to suck the last ounce of information from the telegram itself.

A patrol of 3 vehicles moving west along the Tel Aviv-Wilhelma was mined going over a small wadi. The charges were detonated to catch the rear vehicle of the convoy that caught fire. There were 3 stretcher cases, one of which was Sergeant Winstanley who sustained serious injuries. He died of his wounds in the 12th British General Hospital.

Not much to go on but enough to flood her imagination with dreadful pictures. She peered around the sitting room for comfort, but all the familiar objects were drained of colour: the patterned Axminster carpet square faded by the sunlight in patches, the holes burned by Redvers and his cronies smoking cigarettes; the grease stain that 1001 wouldn’t shift; the one when Freddie sneaked engine parts in to repair and didn’t put down newspaper.

How she’d shrieked at him! ‘Take that dirty thing out of my best room!’ He was always getting into mischief. But never to see her handsome son again…Now she could look Polly Isherwood in the face, a mother who had lost both her sons on the Atlantic convoys. There were no words for what she must have gone through.

Never to hear him shouting through the door, ‘What’s for tea? I’m starving!’ Not to see his size elevens dirtying her sofa covers as he lounged over the armrests, listening to the wind-up gramophone, driving them mad with his jazz records. Never to ruffle her hand through his curls and clip his ear in jest. He knew just how to wind her up into an elastic ball.

She turned her face to the fireside but it was only lunchtime and no fire was lit. Rations were strict and they needed to save supplies for the winter. She glanced at the ghosts smiling from the row of silver frames lining the top of the pianoforte: baby Travis, her firstborn in his broderie anglaise christening gown, who never made it to his first birthday; Levi and Lily sitting on the piano stool in sailor collars, trying not to wriggle and squirm.

Lily had a face on her like a wet weekend and Redvers said that portrait had gone all through the war in his breast pocket waiting to scare off any Hun who dared get too close. She was always the serious one of the three, too tall and lanky for a girl, with her donkey-brown hair, straight as a die which was a dickens to tie in rags to make ringlets. It was the boys who got the looks in their family.

She stared at Freddie’s picture in a tortoiseshell frame. Her son would smile forever, as young as the day they waved him off from the station; their precious Victory child born after the Great War, now sacrificed in biblical lands.

You shouldn’t have favourites, she scolded herself, but he had stolen her heart the moment he’d snuggled into her breast.

None of this, Constance Esme. Bestir yourself! There’s a lot to do. They must think about a burial service, speak to the minister, inform the newspaper of their sad loss. Happen it was better to be busy after a loss. Less time to think.

Curtains closed on to the street meant only one thing, and soon the neighbours would come knocking. She must make sure they got her name right for the obituary notice. She hated her first name and had dumped it as soon as she left school in favour of Esme. Constance had always felt like a tight corset, while Esme was a softer free-flowing garment like the white gown she wore on the Votes for Women marches, before marriage and the Great War put paid to all that gadding about. A lifetime ago.

She stared at her wedding portrait. She was so pinched and laced up tight there was a look of agony and apprehension on her face. She needn’t have bothered, for Redvers Winstanley had been a thoughtful husband and a good lover.

Freddie had had those same blue eyes and thick lashes, wasted on a lad, but Lily had got her own pale face and brows, and identical scowl when under threat.

There in her son was Redvers’ cheeky grin, which had wooed her across a football pitch. There’d been such an uproar about her wearing a short divided skirt in public but Richard Crompton’s daughter was not one to be put off in those days by a bit of derring-do. Pity Lily, with her long legs, hadn’t got her own get-up-and-go…

Both her lads had that mop of curls. A wide grin and curls were a fatal combination with the ladies, she reckoned. Even little Neville was going to sprout a fine crop of dark curls.

It was a pity poor Lil’s fiancé, with his jug ears, had nothing to recommend him but height. They were both stay-at-home birds, not fly-by-nights. Perhaps they were well suited; neither would set the world on fire. He would run her ragged with that mother of his, and she would be like a lost sock in the Acme, going round and round after them. From where Esme was sitting he looked a lazy lummock, but she could be wrong.

Redvers took life at thirty miles an hour round the bend, lived fast and died early. His loss was such a blow and left a gap no other man would fill in her life, but to lose a child went against nature; to lose two was more than she could bear.

She could see Lil and Levi were too stunned to take it all in. Ivy would do her best for her husband. That one knew where her bread was buttered. Sometimes Esme caught her eyeing up her china cabinet as if she was making an inventory of all her best pieces.

Ivy was a jumped-up factory girl who was put in Crompton’s office to help out and began to call herself a secretary. She had collared Levi almost off the troopship home. Now she did nothing but moan and groan how hard it was to rear a baby on starvation rations. The doctor said her insides were all mangled up and she must have no more babies. Neville was to be an only child.

What a sissy they made out of him, in his silk romper suits and smocked blouses! His hair was still in ringlets and needed a good cut, and Levi never put his foot down enough. It would all end in tears.

I don’t know what’s happened to this new world, Esme sighed. In her day the Almighty just dished out kids and that was that. He then took a fair few of them back again one way or another. She would have words with Him about that. With family planning they could pick and choose the size of their families but the country was crying out for more babies now. Everything was topsy-turvy.

Lily was right. It wasn’t fair to go through all that bombing and shortages, worry and uncertainty, sacrifice and service. What a relief it had been when it was all over-and now this…

Crompton’s Biscuits had turned production into special orders. She had helped in their nursery and on the market stall, joined the WVS and Welfare Clinic. ‘Family First’ was the Winstanley motto.

The town had pulled together like a family: rich and poor, old and young, in one valiant effort against the enemy. Now the threat was over it was as if everyone was scuttling back into their burrows. Neighbours were becoming strangers again, scurrying away behind their net curtains, and the pews of Zion Chapel were emptying fast now the threat was over.

You shouldn’t deal with the Almighty like that, picking and choosing your moment when to worship or mow the lawn. It was a matter of trust. She didn’t understand what He was playing at, robbing her of half her family, ripping her heart with such pain, but He must have a grand plan, like those Turkish carpets the Reverend was on about last week.

Every carpet had a deliberate flaw in the pattern somewhere to prove that men were mortal and no match for Allah. Well, now it seemed as if the Almighty would have to explain Himself in due course. She wanted to shout in His face, ‘What do you think you’re playing at, taking my children? Have we been that wicked that we need bringing down a peg or two?’

No, she prayed. Forgive me. You gave us Your only son to show us the way…Help me bear this pain.

Solace would not be coming from the usual treats: a glass of Wincarnis Tonic Wine, the latest Mazo de la Roche novel by her bedside, afternoon tea with the old Suffrage Society members in the Kardomah Coffee House. This was a time when a family closed in on itself and drew strength from memories of happier times. She wanted her children wrapped tightly around her for company. Family First…

In the days that followed there was a constant stream of visitors to their door and it was Lily’s job to sit them down and give them tea, explain that they knew little more than what had appeared in the local paper. Freddie was buried in some far-off military cemetery with full honours. There were letters from his commanding officers and the padre, from his friends in the Military Police, cards of sympathy from neighbours and school friends.

Even the Grasshoppers sent a deputation to ask about the funeral: Barry Wagstaff and Pete Walsh stepped into the parlour, caps in hand, and sat while Lily rehashed the same story over and over again, trying not to cry.

‘If there’s anything we can do, Lily, you’ve only to ask. Freddie was always one of our gang,’ smiled Barry.

‘Just get promotion in the league, that would make him proud.’ It seemed a silly thing to say but she wasn’t thinking straight or sleeping. Dr Unsworth, their local doctor, brought Esme a sleeping draught, which made her groggy, but Lily had refused pills. Someone had to keep alert when there were so many details to arrange. Levi had drowned his sorrows once too often and now had a bad cold, so Ivy was fussing over him.

Walter kept Lily company when he could but all their plans to talk weddings seemed out of order now. It was ‘Family First’ time.

‘The Winstanleys’ve always been good to the club. We’d like to send a wreath from the lads,’ offered Peter Walsh, the star centre forward and on stand-by for the England Reserves.

It was strange to see the boys with scabby knees, who had kicked balls between pullovers in the playground, now smartly dressed in navy blazers and grey flannels, full-time professionals earning five pounds a week.

Lily always had a soft spot for Barry when they were kids. He had once rescued her from a fierce dog on the walk home from school. He had lost his right back friend, Stewart Higgins, on D-Day The team was still struggling to get back some form and grow some good players from the youth sides.

Pete was a surprise find amongst the boys, who had come into form just at the right time. He looked very dashing, not a bit like the skinny mallinky long legs who used to tear round on his go-cart with Freddie hanging on for dear life.

Suddenly the days were racing on from that terrible Monday morning. Enid Greenalgh, ever the faithful friend to the family, stepped in to open the stall while Lily saw to the answering of letters and trying to coax Esme to eat.

There was still a pile of unopened mail on the mahogany hallstand waiting for attention, but Lily had neither the time nor the energy to see to everything.

Reverend Atkinson suggested a memorial service. ‘It will give you all a chance to say goodbye,’ he advised. ‘Freddie should be honoured in his own town and his friends given a chance to attend.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Lily replied, only half listening. She was too angry to pray. Then practicalities began to distract her flittering brain. How would they provide tea for hordes of guests? Where would they get the extra rations? Who should do the readings? What hymns would be suitable for a fallen soldier? Would Mother hold up under the strain? Would Levi stay sober enough to be of use?

Ivy produced a list of guests to invite, people Lily had never heard of from the Green Lane end of the street, the posher part of their district. Ivy took the hump when it was ignored in favour of chapel friends and Freddie’s pals.

Then Lily found herself awash with tears, fingering the letters he’d sent, full of jokes and rudeness.

What’s fresh in the street, Sis? How’s the Acid Drop [his pet name for Ivy, whom he had never met but summed up accurately]? When are you and Walt going to name the day? If there’s not a date on the calendar when I get back, I’ll be buying you two a ladder and bus tickets to Gretna Green. How’s the old canvas on two tent poles? Have you straightened out that bad back of his yet? In Burma there were lovely ladies to do that sort of thing most effectively. Believe me, once he’s had a massage he’ll be able to go five rounds with Joe Louis.