The War Before Mine Page 22

  Ever since arriving in Spain he’d known, though hadn’t admitted it, that his hour or two in the firing line didn’t constitute enough of a contribution. Why had people risked their lives to get him out if not to have him carry on fighting the Germans? And didn’t he want to do his bit to help the Spanish, or at least Juan’s lot, too?

  Alexandria. No Rosie, no England. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. ‘You’d better tell me to whom I must report.’

  After he’d given Philip the details, the major added, ‘I expect you’ll want to let your people know you’re alive. Just jot me down a few words and I’ll make sure it gets through.’

  Philip scribbled the address of the rectory. Then he stood up, saluted, and left, hurrying back the way he’d come, longing to get back to the daylight.

  Three months later, swatting flies away as he sat at a table in his tent, Philip read a letter from his mother and understood the shit of a major had not, in fact, passed on the good news. Only his own letter, dropping on to the coconut matting had communicated the fact of his continued existence in the world.

  ‘Bastard.’

  The soldier lying on one of the two camp beds stirred. ‘Which particular bastard you on about?’

  Philip explained.

  ‘Should have sirred him a bit more, shouldn’t you, sir?’

  ‘Just fuck off back to sleep, would you?’

  It was mid-afternoon, the hottest time of the day. Outside, the vehicles shimmered in the heat. Touching them now could take the skin off your hands. Sleep was definitely the most attractive option, but Philip turned back to his letter. His poor father was ill, apparently. He must write a reply this afternoon, before they went out on patrol. He set about it, the fountain pen slipping in his sweaty fingers, drops of perspiration falling from his forehead onto the pad. Beside it, in an envelope already addressed, lay another letter to Rosie in Falmouth. Why didn’t she reply? Where the hell was she?

  Memoirs of a Child Migrant, 2006

  When I asked Frankie about what happened on the train, he confirmed what Peggy had said and then fleshed it out a bit more. All the odd pictures I’d had in my head kind of coalesced.

  I’m splashing through puddles, following the legs of the bigger kids marching ahead, watching their socks speckle with muddy water. They pant with the effort of carrying their suitcases, but I trot along quite happily, because I’m reckoned too little an ankle biter to carry my own bag. We get under a bit of shelter at last and stop in a huddle. Above our heads the rain thrums down on to the station roof. There’s a smell of wet wool and adult sweat and the animally whiff of dirty children. There are loads of boys and girls I don’t know, several strange nuns and a big fiery-looking priest, but Frankie and Dan are there so I feel okay. Frankie looks down at me and winks.

  Then we’re on the move again, passing through a big metal gate. Sister Alphonso’s finger jabs down on to my head as she counts us through the ticket barrier. I feel dead excited because the hissing, smoking green train that stretches for miles down the platform is waiting to take me on a journey and I’ve never been on one before. Poor Frankie, who’s lugging my bag as well as his, groans as Sister Alphonso marches us past all the nice openings in the train’s side, but at last she stops and Dan grins and says, ‘In you go, Littlun,’ and I clamber up the step into the carriage.

  Then we’re all sitting on the slatted seats and looking out of the window at three nuns lined up ready to wave goodbye. Someone yells out, ‘We’re going to Australia!’ and everyone joins in. ‘’Stralia!’ Even Alphonso stops in the middle of telling somebody off, looks at the priest and smiles. ‘’Stralia! ’Stralia!’ I’m shouting.

  Frankie counts up on his fingers, ‘We’re going on a train, then a bus, then a whopping gigantic huge boat…’ and I look up and see her white face coming down the aisle towards me, turning to left and right, looking for me, and my first treacherous thought, as I hunch down on the hard seat, is She’s come to upset things. She’s come to stop me. And then I’m frightened by her strange expression, by the pain when she grips my hand and by her whispering that I have to come with her now, get off the train.

  ‘But I want to go to ’Stralia,’ I say, loudly, and wish someone would tell her to go away. Then I hear what I think I want to hear; Sister Alphonso swishing up the narrow channel.

  ‘What are you doing here, Mullen? Don’t you dare cause a fuss among all these happy children.’

  Yes, that’s right, I think, buzz off. But I don’t like the way Alphonso speaks to her. Then the shouting starts, all the bad words that are going to get Auntie Rose in big trouble with G O D. I just want to put my fingers in my ears and make it stop. ‘She signed the papers, Father,’ Alphonso says and a big black shape pushes my mother backwards, shouting for someone to help him hold this stupid woman and above all this a whistle blows.

  I’m shouting now, ‘I don’t want to go. I want Auntie Rose!’ and I can see her on the platform, fighting with the priest and then being held by a man in uniform. The train lurches, the priest comes down the aisle brushing his habit and I yell into the smeared glass, ‘Will you still be here when I come back, Auntie Rose?’ Her face, a hole in the middle where her mouth should be, slides away.

  25

  London, May 1945

  ‘It’s All Over’ Rosie read as she bent down to pick up the Daily Mail from the tiled floor just inside the front door. She took this surprising piece of news and the tiny glimmer of hope it brought back to the kitchen, where she folded the newspaper and tucked it under the silver-ringed napkin on Mother Ignatius’s breakfast tray. Everything looked in order. Grapefruit. Egg, sausage and three rashers under a little glass cloche to keep warm. Toast in a silver warmer, butter and marmalade.

  On the way to Mother’s room she again passed the front door. A thin girl now sat on a stool, buttoned into a belted grey raincoat, a shabby suitcase at her feet. Rosie stopped. ‘You’re off then, Eileen?’

  The girl gave a jerky nod. ‘Just waiting to be picked up.’ She seemed to be shivering, though it wasn’t cold.

  ‘The war’s over.’

  ‘Is it so?’ She stared at the tray.

  ‘Maybe things will get better…’ The girl nodded and smiled, showing broken teeth. ‘Best of luck, Eileen.’ Then she said it, quietly, almost into the girl’s ear, ‘I’m sure she’ll go to a lovely home.’

  Disgusted with herself, Rosie walked quickly up the dark stairs towards Mother’s room. Why had she joined in the ‘lovely home’ chorus when she believed babies were much better off with their mams, and probably poor Eileen thought that too? It wasn’t all over at all; the little wars went on. She knocked.

  ‘Enter.’

  Rosie closed the door quietly behind her. She put the tray down on a small polished table and went to the window to pull back the curtains. A bright May sun bounced off the slate roofs of south London, making her blink. It was always a surprise to see the world outside, and this morning even the orphanage’s gloomy garden, which the room overlooked, seemed filled with light.

  Mother sat on the bed fully dressed, a silent but inescapable presence in the room. Rosie knew she didn’t like to be spoken to before breakfast, but the combination of sunlight and significant news lured words out of her. ‘The war’s over, Mother. It says in the paper.’

  The nun’s stiff habit rustled irritably. ‘That will be all, Mullen, I say, that will be all.’

  By the time she was back in the kitchen, Rosie’s thoughts were occupied with Sister Fran’s floor-polishing experiment, about to begin in the long corridor, and her own need to hurry. Things must have come to something, she thought, when you start looking forward to polishing the floor.

  The hands on the kitchen clock pointed to eight forty-five. Sister Fran would be on the way down with the children. What else was left to do? Everyone fed; everything (except Mother’s tray, which would have to wait) washed up, dried up, put away. The shortbread. Yes. Cool enough now. Carefully, she lifted the pale golden fingers fr
om the wire rack and laid them neatly in a paper-lined tin. For a minute or two the sweet, buttery aroma overcame the institutional pong of boiled cabbage and disinfectant.

  Much nicer with butter. Rosie congratulated herself on the success of her ‘collecting’ mission the day before, when Camberwell’s Catholic shopkeepers, helpless before her sweet but determined ‘Would you have anything to spare for Mother Ignatius and the Little Sisters?’ had handed over their sugar and butter without a murmur. Must be in the blood, Rosie thought, picturing Aunt Betty.

  The tin full, she pressed down on the mottled figure of George V in coronation robes, stilled by the thought she hadn’t seen Betty, or anyone else in her family, for five years. There was one piece of shortbread over. She slipped it into her apron pocket, picked up a huge tin of polish and several folded rags, and hurried down to the long corridor.

  There they were, a confusion of children, some on the floor and some on their feet; a multicoloured jumble of old woollens; and Sister Fran, anxiously shushing, finger to her lips. She saw Rosie and her round ruddy face, like an apple wrapped in a handkerchief, beamed out a welcome. ‘Look who’s here,’ she said, glancing down to the small figure half buried in her long skirt. ‘It’s Auntie Rose.’

  Alex, by far the smallest child at two-and-a-half, detached himself from Sister Fran, took his thumb out of his mouth and reached towards Rosie, whimpering pitifully. She scooped him on to her hip and pushed the brown curls off his face. ‘Did he eat his breakfast?’

  ‘Most of it, poor little man. Now Rosie, you must help me here.’

  The two bigger boys, Frankie Evans and Daniel Mooney, had already tied jumpers to their feet and now tried a few experimental skids down the long corridor. The three girls kneeled on the floor, cutting the buttons from the cardigans and arranging them into little piles by colour, no doubt to be used in another of Sister Fran’s projects. Rosie set Alex on the ground and gave him the piece of shortbread. The sorrowful eyes of Joyce, May and Peggy followed it into his mouth. Rosie squatted down among them. ‘His teeth hurt,’ she explained. ‘Who’s going skating, then?’

  Even in its unpolished state, the floor was skiddy enough, once feet were well wrapped, to provide a bit of a slide. Sister Fran beckoned the children, excited by the success of her plan. ‘Didn’t I tell you it would be grand? Just hold on a little bit and it will be even better. Dan! Sensible now! Will we start by the door, Rosie? You will have to take it in turns. One put on the polish, the other make it shine.’

  Within a short time, Dan and Frankie were shooting the length of the corridor in silent ecstasy; the girls happily shining up neat patches of floor with less risky manoeuvres. Sister Fran watched, entranced at the success of her plan. The children were having fun, and more-or-less silent fun, with only the occasional explosion of giggles, and Reverend Mother would be delighted with the gleaming floor.

  The girls had tied striped jumpers to Alex’s little feet, but he sat on the floor further up the corridor, absorbed in watching a woodlouse. Frankie skated past. ‘Come on, Littlun. Get polishin’.’ Frankie was six. He bent down and slapped his bony knees in an encouraging way, urging Alex forward. ‘Come on.’ Alex pushed himself up with his hands, took one slithery step and sat down hard. He reflected in silence for a moment on the bump, remembered he also had a sore mouth, and sent up a thin wail. ‘Bring him down here, Frankie,’ said Rosie.

  She lifted him on to her lap. ‘What’s been happening to you then? You can watch me while I do the polish.’

  ‘Poliss.’ He poked a finger into the tin.

  ‘No. Don’t eat it. Yucky. Rub it on. Like this.’ Alex leant forward to smear the yellowy wax on the floor. ‘Now let Frankie shine it for us.’ Frankie took a run at it. Then back again. Alex gazed at the big boy in adoring fascination. ‘Do ’gain! Do ’gain!’

  They’d nearly finished the floor when a very tall nun appeared at the end of the corridor. Sister Frances shushed the children. The children stopped moving and waited. Rosie carried on applying the polish, thinking what a pity it was Sister Fran was such a terrible coward, and gave in so easily, because she was by far the nicest nun in the place.

  But Sister Alphonso hadn’t come to put an end to the children’s fun. ‘Mullen, you’re to go and see Reverend Mother in her office in ten minutes.’ The message delivered, she turned on her heel, and walked back, scrutinising the floor as she went. ‘Mooney!’ she clicked her fingers towards Dan. ‘Look there, Mooney. You’ve missed a bit.’

  Rosie was off her guard. She expected nothing more from Mother Ignatius than a reprimand for not having collected the breakfast tray. So unsuspecting was she that, urged on by the children, she even took off her shoes, tied an old cardigan to each foot and, clutching her shoes in her outstretched hands, had a wonderful slide up the corridor on the way.

  Mother Ignatius’s broad back blotted out most of the window’s light. ‘This has gone on far too long, Mullen. I say this has gone on far too long. Well? Speak girl!’

  ‘I’m not ready to sign yet, Mother,’

  ‘Not ready? As though you have any rights in the matter! And your child’s soul?’ The nun turned and took two heavy steps towards Rosie. ‘I say his soul, what of his soul?

  ‘Mother, please. He’s my son.’

  ‘Not at all. Not at all. You. You are just the stinking channel through which he entered this world. What have you got to say to that, hmm?

  ‘Hang your head, well may you hang your head, I say well may you. This pride of yours, this sinful pride, this refusal to see yourself as you are, I see it, don’t think I don’t see it. The child’s only hope of salvation is away from your contamination, I say contamination, and a home within a good Catholic family. Well? Is it not?’

  Mother Ignatius walked slowly around Rosie, exhaling in little grunts.

  ‘I ask you again, how can you stand in the way of that? You who have nothing, I say, nothing to offer? Well? Well?’

  She made them all cry, the rest of them. You just weathered it, tried not to hear the words.

  ‘You invented some father missing in action. The war is over and has he returned, well has he? You shake your head. And do you want to know why he has not returned? Look at me!’ The nun leaned in, spitting the words in Rosie’s face. ‘Why would he return to you? Why return to such a corrupted creature when there are thousands, I say, thousands upon thousands of pure uncorrupted girls to choose from in the world? Why return to you, I say you, soiled, disgusting daughter of an outcast race?’

  Mother Ignatius paused for breath. She turned away from Rosie and seemed to look out of the window. Other sounds occupied the space left: heavy breathing and quite close to the window, a bird, singing. Was it over?

  ‘I blame myself for allowing you to stay for so long. He will be a leftover,I say a leftover, that nobody wants, like Evans and Mooney and those stupid, stupid girls. What am I supposed to do with them? Hmm? Selfish girl that you are, I say, selfish as you are you don’t see my difficulties… What will I do with children whom I am not supposed to have in my care, I say what I am supposed to do?’ Mother Ignatius frowned at the floor.

  Rosie’s ears strained towards the bird’s whistling song, building in strength, triumphing over the grumble of traffic. It must be over.

  ‘I got two pounds of butter yesterday, Mother.’

  No response.

  ‘I’ve made some shortbread.’

  Mother Ignatius turned back to face Rosie, the sun glinting off her glasses, her protruding teeth. From under her habit, she slowly drew a little sheaf of papers. ‘Sign these now or you will leave this house tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You refuse? Then let me tell you, Mullen, whether or not, I say whether or not you sign the papers – do you hear me? – you will no longer be able to stay under this roof.’

  There was a pause. ‘Go!’ said Mother Ignatius. Rosie didn’t move. ‘Get out!’ Rosie stood.

  ‘You’re throwing me out?’

 
She thrust the papers at Rosie’s face, ‘Sign now.’

  ‘No.’

  Rosie walked to the door, turned the brass handle she’d polished the day before, and entered the darkness of the corridor.

  Alex’s laughter reached her before she turned the corner. There he was, seated on a jumper toboggan, letting Dan pull him along by the sleeves. Rosie knelt, holding out her arms and Dan shunted Alex forward so that he slid delightedly into her. She held her perfect boy tightly, breathing in his warm, biscuity smell. He struggled a little to free himself, tilted his head back to look into her face. She felt his hand in her apron pocket. ‘Want more,’ he said.

  Late in the evening Sister Fran crept down to Rosie’s room with the news that Reverend Mother had decided to allow Rosie two weeks to either sign or find somewhere to go.

  ‘You’re clever. You’ll think of something,’ Sister Frances said, taking the pins out of Rosie’s hair and spreading it about her shoulders. The light scratch of tortoiseshell against her scalp, the rhythmic swish of the comb, brought her a sad kind of release. ‘I’ll look after him for you. And you never know, perhaps your young man…’

  ‘He won’t.’ The small room filled with the sharp tang of their stale sweat. Physically and mentally exhausted, drained of resistance and of hope, Rosie allowed the tears to run down her cheeks. Even ‘outcast people’ like Da and Aunt Betty wouldn’t have anything to do with her so long as she had a bairn and no husband. Their solution would be to find a husband for her, quick sharp. Maybe one that would give Alex a name? She couldn’t bear the idea of that life. But she couldn’t go back. Not yet. She could think of nothing she could do, nowhere she could go.

  Later though, lying in bed, the ‘girls together’ smell still in her nostrils took her back to the ATS barracks after a hot afternoon’s square-bashing, and from there to the memory of the end of that happy period of her life, finally arriving at the words of the junior commander: ‘It may be, in future, after the birth, that the Army will be able to help you in some way.’