The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. Jennifer Ryan
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for the new baby to be a boy, as is Daddy. He thinks girls are pointless, Venetia slightly less so because of her yellow hair. I am so utterly pointless I think he’s forgotten I exist, except perhaps when he needs someone to blame. Sometimes I go to Mama to see if she can stop him from being so horrid, but she can’t do anything. She only tells me to make sure I choose a decent, kind sort of man to marry. I wonder if she’s terribly unhappy.
Every evening, Mama has the maid set Edmund’s place for dinner, as if he’s about to come in any minute, sitting and stretching his legs in his usual arrogant manner, making some cruel joke at someone else’s expense, usually Venetia’s or mine. Then he’d let out a few breaths of laughter, smoothing back his hair, as if it were simply super to be him. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s just gone. It was his funeral last week, without a body to bury. It seems so strange. Where did he go?
Death is at the forefront of my mind again this week, as David Tilling is leaving for France and he may never come back, especially since he’s so hopeless at getting anything done. I heard Mrs B say yesterday that he was the type that a bullet would find faster than the rest, and I worry that she might be right.
I can’t believe the group of children we grew up with here in Chilbury are all suddenly scattering – Edmund killed, David on his way to war, Henry flying Spitfires over Germany, Victor Lovell on a ship somewhere, Angela Quail in London, and only Hattie and vile Venetia left. I’ll miss David especially. He was always the one waiting for me to catch up with the rest, a bit like a brother, only nicer. In a few weeks’ time he’ll be home after training, and everyone’s invited to the Tillings’ for a surprise leaving party before he heads off to the front. I know we’re supposed to be cheerful these days, even if we know someone might die, but it’s hard to forget that this could be the last time I see him.
List of things to make note of before someone leaves for war
The shape of their body – the blank cutout that will be left when they’re gone
The way they move, the gait of their walk, the speed at which they turn to look
The crush of smells and scents that linger only so long
Their colour, the radiance that veils everything they do, including their death
People’s colours
I like to see people as colours, a kind of aura or halo surrounding them, shading their outsides with the various flavours of their insides.
Me – purple, as brilliant and dark as the sky on a thundery night
Mama – a very pale pink, like a baby mouse
Daddy – soot black (Edmund was also black, but black like a starless sky)
Mrs Tilling – light green, like a shoot trying to come up through the snow
Mrs B – navy blue (correct and traditional)
Henry is a deep azure blue, to match his eyes. I’m always reminded of the flawless July day during our school holidays when he spoke of marriage, a year ago now. The sky was an endless blue, the stream beside our picnic spot trickling with late-afternoon laziness. Henry had joined Edmund, Venetia, and me, and we were tearing all over the countryside, Mama never having a clue where any of us had got to. Of course, because it was all out of the blue, Henry didn’t have a ring, and we’ve never made it official. But he remembers, deep down in his heart.
I know he remembers.
My beastly sister, Venetia
In complete contrast to the rest of us, Venetia is clearly enjoying this war immensely, and not only because no one’s around to keep an eye on her. It’s shuffled everything around, made everyone more adoring, and Edmund’s death has promoted her to top spot in the family. Venetia’s colour is a vile greenish yellow, like the sea on a tempestuous day, sucking the living daylights out of anything good around her, dragging down young men into her murky depths, spewing them out unconscious on distant shores.
I find it tremendously funny that she’s having trouble engaging the attention of the handsome newcomer, Mr Alastair Slater. He’s an artist escaping potential bombs in London, like all the writers and artists desperate to save themselves. Daddy says they’re running away, avoiding their duty. Mr Slater looks like Cary Grant – all groomed and sophisticated, unlike the boys around here. His colour is a dark grey to match his debonair suits and formal standoffishness. He seems completely uninterested in Venetia, even though she’s parading herself around him day and night. I overheard her telling Hattie that she’s made a bet with her friend Angela Quail that she’ll have him eating out of her hand before midsummer, but the way things are looking, she’ll have to work a little harder.
Angela Quail is the most flirtatious and despicable girl I know – it’s impossible to believe she’s the daughter of the Vicar. Her colour is tart red, all lips and slinky dresses and no morals whatsoever. She used to work with Venetia at the new War Command Centre in Litchfield Park, which is a gorgeous old manor house on the outskirts of Litchfield, complete with Georgian pillars and rolling gardens. It was requisitioned by the Government for the war a few months ago, and Lady Worthing is having to stay with her sister in Cheswick Castle, poor her. It’s now a terrifically important place, and since it’s only five miles from Chilbury, we’re on special alert in case the Nazis try to bomb it. Venetia has a clerical job there and thinks she plays a vital role when all she does is type notes and relay telephone messages to London.
Last month Angela was moved from there to the real War Office in London, where she is almost certainly toying with every man available. Angela is without doubt the most accomplished flirt this side of the English Channel. Venetia’s distraught that Angela’s gone to London as she’s her best friend, and who else can she share her conquests with? I was hoping that Venetia might become a bit nicer without Angela’s evil presence, but she seems worse than ever.
Our Czech evacuee, Silvie
Now I must tell you about Silvie, our ten-year-old Jewish evacuee. The Nazis have invaded her home in Czechoslovakia, but her parents managed to get her here before war broke out. Her family is supposed to follow her, when they can get away. Uncle Nicky, Mama’s youngest brother and my very favourite member of our family, was organising the children’s evacuation and got us to take Silvie last summer before the war started.
‘We had to stop the evacuation because the borders closed, which is terribly sad for the children left behind,’ he told us. ‘The Nazis run half of Eastern Europe now. It’s desperate over there. They’re thugs and arrest people if they don’t obey the rules. They can do what they want. Everyone’s petrified.’
Daddy wasn’t happy about having Silvie at all. But then a few months later war was declared and hundreds of grotty London evacuees turned up wanting homes. Suddenly he was overjoyed we had lovely, clean, quiet Silvie and no space for anyone else. The Vicar and Mrs Quail took in a dreadful woman with four squalling children who had lice and fleas and no table manners at all. The woman was forever arguing with Mrs Quail, and then upped and left back to London because the war didn’t seem to be happening. She didn’t even say thank you.
I’ve yet to decide what Silvie’s colour is. She doesn’t say much, or smile much either. We’ve been trying to make life a little jollier for her and helping her practise her English. And she told me she has a secret that she can’t tell a soul.
‘I am completely trustworthy,’ I reassured her. But she refused to budge, her little lips tightly shut to warn me away.
She arrived without even a suitcase, which had been lost on the way. There had been a difficult border crossing into Holland, and they had to hurry everyone through. It was a group of about a hundred, some of them as young as five or six – she said they cried for their mothers all the way, for three whole days. The loss of the cases was especially traumatic as they had their favourite toys, photographs from home, everything that was familiar. We gave Silvie a doll when she arrived, but she put it on a chair at the side of the room, her face to the