and rucked by ridges and crevasses of ice. The pavements were even more perilous, no more than massifs of ugly, hard-packed snow, or, worse, toboggan runs ironed by the neighbourhood children who had nothing better to do than enjoy themselves because the schools were closed. Oh, God, Ursula thought, how mean-spirited I’ve become. The bloody war. The bloody peace.
By the time she had put her key in the lock of the street door she was exhausted. A shopping trip had never seemed such a challenge previously, even in the worst days of the Blitz. The skin on her face was whipped raw by the biting wind and her toes were numb with cold. The temperature hadn’t risen above zero for weeks, colder even than ’41. Ursula imagined at some future date trying to recall this glacial chill and knew she would never be able to conjure it up. It was so physical , you expected bones to shatter, skin to crackle. Yesterday she had seen two men trying to open a manhole in the road with what looked like a flamethrower. Perhaps there would be no future of thaw and warmth, perhaps this was the beginning of a new Ice Age. First fire and then ice.
It was as well, she thought, that the war had robbed her of any care for fashion. She was wearing, in order, from inner to outer – a short-sleeved vest, a long-sleeved vest, a long-sleeved pullover, a cardigan and stretched on top of it all her shabby old winter coat, bought new in Peter Robinson’s two years before the war. Not to mention, of course, the usual drab underwear, a thick tweed skirt, grey wool stockings, gloves and mittens, a scarf, a hat and her mother’s old fur-lined boots. Pity any man who was suddenly moved to ravish her. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing, eh?’ Enid Barker, one of the secretaries, said over the balm and succour of the tea-urn. Enid had auditioned for the part of plucky young London woman somewhere around 1940 and had been playing it with gusto ever since. Ursula chided herself for more unkind thoughts. Enid was a good sort. Terrifically skilled at typing tabulations, something Ursula had never quite got the hang of when she was at secretarial college. She had done a typing and shorthand course, years ago now – everything before the war seemed like ancient history (her own). She had been surprisingly adept. Mr Carver, the man who ran the secretarial college, had suggested that her shorthand was good enough for her to train as a court reporter at the Old Bailey. That would have been a quite different life, perhaps a better one. Of course, there was no way of knowing these things.
She trudged up the unlit stairs to her flat. She lived on her own now. Millie had married an American USAF officer and moved to New York State (‘Me – a war bride! Who’d a thunk it?’). A thin layer of soot and what seemed to be grease coated the walls of the stairway. It was an old building, in Soho of all places (‘needs must’ she heard her mother’s voice say). The woman who lived upstairs had a great many gentleman callers and Ursula had become accustomed to the creaking bedsprings and strange noises that came through the ceiling. She was pleasant though, always ready with a cheery greeting and never missed her turn at sweeping the stairs.
The building had been Dickensian in its dinginess to begin with and was now even more neglected and unloved. But then, the whole of London looked wretched. Grimy and grim. She remembered Miss Woolf saying that she didn’t think ‘poor old London’ would ever be clean again. (‘Everything is so awfully shabby .’) Perhaps she was right.
‘You wouldn’t think we had won the war,’ Jimmy said when he came to visit, spivvy in his American clothes, shiny and bright with promise. She readily forgave her little brother his New World élan, he had had a hard war. Hadn’t they all? ‘A long and hard war,’ Churchill had promised. How right he had been.
It was a temporary billet. She had the money for something better but the truth was she
By the time she had put her key in the lock of the street door she was exhausted. A shopping trip had never seemed such a challenge previously, even in the worst days of the Blitz. The skin on her face was whipped raw by the biting wind and her toes were numb with cold. The temperature hadn’t risen above zero for weeks, colder even than ’41. Ursula imagined at some future date trying to recall this glacial chill and knew she would never be able to conjure it up. It was so physical , you expected bones to shatter, skin to crackle. Yesterday she had seen two men trying to open a manhole in the road with what looked like a flamethrower. Perhaps there would be no future of thaw and warmth, perhaps this was the beginning of a new Ice Age. First fire and then ice.
It was as well, she thought, that the war had robbed her of any care for fashion. She was wearing, in order, from inner to outer – a short-sleeved vest, a long-sleeved vest, a long-sleeved pullover, a cardigan and stretched on top of it all her shabby old winter coat, bought new in Peter Robinson’s two years before the war. Not to mention, of course, the usual drab underwear, a thick tweed skirt, grey wool stockings, gloves and mittens, a scarf, a hat and her mother’s old fur-lined boots. Pity any man who was suddenly moved to ravish her. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing, eh?’ Enid Barker, one of the secretaries, said over the balm and succour of the tea-urn. Enid had auditioned for the part of plucky young London woman somewhere around 1940 and had been playing it with gusto ever since. Ursula chided herself for more unkind thoughts. Enid was a good sort. Terrifically skilled at typing tabulations, something Ursula had never quite got the hang of when she was at secretarial college. She had done a typing and shorthand course, years ago now – everything before the war seemed like ancient history (her own). She had been surprisingly adept. Mr Carver, the man who ran the secretarial college, had suggested that her shorthand was good enough for her to train as a court reporter at the Old Bailey. That would have been a quite different life, perhaps a better one. Of course, there was no way of knowing these things.
She trudged up the unlit stairs to her flat. She lived on her own now. Millie had married an American USAF officer and moved to New York State (‘Me – a war bride! Who’d a thunk it?’). A thin layer of soot and what seemed to be grease coated the walls of the stairway. It was an old building, in Soho of all places (‘needs must’ she heard her mother’s voice say). The woman who lived upstairs had a great many gentleman callers and Ursula had become accustomed to the creaking bedsprings and strange noises that came through the ceiling. She was pleasant though, always ready with a cheery greeting and never missed her turn at sweeping the stairs.
The building had been Dickensian in its dinginess to begin with and was now even more neglected and unloved. But then, the whole of London looked wretched. Grimy and grim. She remembered Miss Woolf saying that she didn’t think ‘poor old London’ would ever be clean again. (‘Everything is so awfully shabby .’) Perhaps she was right.
‘You wouldn’t think we had won the war,’ Jimmy said when he came to visit, spivvy in his American clothes, shiny and bright with promise. She readily forgave her little brother his New World élan, he had had a hard war. Hadn’t they all? ‘A long and hard war,’ Churchill had promised. How right he had been.
It was a temporary billet. She had the money for something better but the truth was she
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