The War Widows. Leah Fleming
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says it’s the talk of the Coach and Horses about the foreign girls who turned up at your place. Why am I the last to know anything?’ Walter sniffed, standing over her while she plugged the iron into the lampshade.
‘What’s wrong with the shirt he’s wearing, Lil? It was clean on yesterday,’ Elsie snapped.
It was hard to explain that a clean shirt and cuffs were important when the whole family was on show. Sometimes after a day on the stall and a night in Yates Wine Lodge, Walt was not as Lifebuoy fresh as he ought to be, poor lamb. She blamed Elsie, whose idea of housework was just to keep the smells down in the two up, two down terraced house. That inbred Lancashire pride in being spick and span with bright white nets, donkey-stoned steps and starched washing had somehow passed her by.
The Platts’ weekly wash was a steeping of smalls in the sink and hung out overnight, where it gathered sooty smuts, unless Lily took them back home herself. It wasn’t as if Walt’s mother had anyone else to look after, but it took all sorts, Lily supposed.
The Winstanleys would only pick holes in Walt’s appearance if he turned up shabby. They all needed to put on a united front on this sad occasion. She wanted no more sly digs about his appearance.
‘What’s all this about your Freddie? What’s the sly beggar been up to? I hear there’s nappies on your washing line?’ Elsie sniggered.
‘You’d think folk had nothing better to do than to count washing. It’s a long story and we’ve not time to be gossiping when there’s a service to be going to. I’ve brought the van to give you both a lift.’
‘His back won’t stand it in the rear of that, dear. You’d better take me and return for him later,’ said Elsie, rising to don her outdoor finery. ‘Will there be a collection? It’ll have to be a widow’s mite from me. You know how we are placed.’
‘I expect so, but don’t worry about it. You’ll have to make do as best you can with one trip, though. It’s not far and I’m running out of time.’
Did they think she was a taxi service and a laundry maid? There were a hundred jobs on her list and no time to get dressed properly. They were lucky that guilt at neglecting Walt had made her come early to sort them out. He was hopeless without her chivvying him up. That was one of the things she loved about him. He needed her.
When they arrived at Waverley House there was another fuss going on.
‘They’re not going dressed like that?’ Ivy stared at these new upstarts. She was bedecked in a dark suit with a fox fur draped over her shoulders. ‘Here, I found some mittens for them to cover their fingers. It’s chilly outside. I hope there’s a good turnout. We don’t want these two showing us up, do we?’
This was not a fashion parade or a celebration, thought Lily with only five minutes to tear off her old clothes and put on her winter best frock and tired coat. There was no time even to powder her nose. Usually Ivy would have nothing to do with Ana and Susan, sniffing down her nose every time they came in a room, and the offer of a pair of knitted gloves each was only so they could hide their ringless fingers from view.
The family assembled outside the house for the short walk to Zion Chapel, ambling slowly, flanking the two strangers on all sides to keep them out of view. There was a goodly crowd gathered by the church steps, waiting for the family to process in.
It was left to Lily to kit out Ana and Susan for church with warm coats and hats, stockings and suitable underwear for the chilly climate. They had no coupons for anything new.
Susan was so tiny she fitted into Lily’s old school gaberdine mac with a lined hood. Ana was wrapped in Grandma Crompton’s old fur coat, which hardly fitted across her swollen bust. But winter was coming early this year. They would not look out of place all muffled up.
Lily held little Joy’s hand as she struggled on the slippery pavement in her pixie hood and warm gaiters. Word was out about the strangers at Waverley House pushing a pram. It did cross her mind that half the crowd might be gathered today just to ogle. Esme covered her black hat with net veiling to hide her grief and her confusion. She was very quiet, too quiet, and Lily wondered how they would get through the service without someone breaking down. There was nothing to do but brazen it out.
‘You’ve heard about our big surprise then?’ Lily smiled up at neighbours, trying to look casual, hoping they wouldn’t notice how her voice was quaking.
‘It’s all round the Coach and Horses that young Freddie left his mark in Burma,’ whispered Doris Pickvance.
‘Then they were wrong as usual!’ Lily whispered back.
Bar-stool gossip could be so crude. Lily’s heart began to thud. What if everyone thought Su was Freddie’s wife? How could they pass Anastasia off as his bride instead? Perhaps they should change them round again. All this lying was hard work, so many pitfalls and tracks to cover over. Perhaps it was better to tell the plain truth.
All eyes were on the two strangers as they were led down a side aisle into a series of boxed cupboard pews. The mourners were put at the front in full view, waiting in silence until Reverend Atkinson, wearing his black gown, stood before the assembled family to welcome them and began the special service with the hymn ‘I vow to thee my country’.
Lily felt herself choking up. The tune brought back memories of schooldays. Why did she suddenly think of Pamela Pickvance and the ice slide?
It wasn’t that Pam was always horrid to her, it was just that she couldn’t rely on her as a friend. One minute she was all over her like a rash and then she ran off and ganged up with girls in the playground, pulling faces and calling her names.
Pam across the road was in the top class and ‘bonny’, which was a polite way of saying ‘fat’, round as a barrel with a nip on her like pincers. Her brother was even bigger and when the two of them stopped her on the way home to snatch her bus money, it made for a long walk on a wet night.
Funny how she would hand it over without a fight until Freddie started in the infants’ and she had to drag him along into the infants’ playground. Pam and Alf would wait until she had shoved him in the yard, then pounce. If she’d spent her pennies, they pulled off her ribbons and that meant bother at home. Mother thought she was careless and made her pay for some more. There was no point in telling tales when they lived across the road. She just put up with it hoping their bullying would go away.
Then came the bad snow and a chance to make an ice slide on the pavement, sliding down until it shone like glass. Pam and Alf started shoving her off, making her legs go sideways out onto the road. That was scary and she cried in front of them.
Freddie was watching, open-mouthed, seeing his sister sobbing, and suddenly he rushed at Pam and knocked her over. He pulled her by her pigtails until she screamed and when her big brother came to the rescue, he kicked him in the shins.
The scrap that followed was like Goliath beating the hell out of David until he had a busted lip and a bloody nose and his new winter coat was torn.
‘You lay off my sister or I’ll shove you down!’ Freddie snorted.
‘You and whose army?’ sneered Alf Pickvance.
‘I’ll get my big brother on you and he’s got boxing gloves and we’ll come and get you.’
‘Oh, yes,’ snivelled Pam, a hole in her lisle stockings. ‘I’m telling on you!’
Doris was round next morning complaining that her darling Pam had been set upon by Winstanley ruffians, and what was Esme going to do about it?
Esme rose to her full height with an icy smile. ‘What happens in the street between children is not our affair. My children don’t fight unless provoked…Thank you and good day!’ She slammed the door in Doris’s face and turned her fury on her own.
Lily was sent to her room. Freddie got his bottom paddled, but neither broke their vow of silence, their omertà: All for one and one for all.
Funny