wet and drooping), for one must do one’s bit; and she had watched him from the front path – momentarily alarmed when he leant too far from the upstairs window – arms folded, unsmiling.
‘Go back to sleep,’ she said, as if he’d woken in needless agitation. But he wanted to lie and listen to the rain hissing and sluicing beyond the window.
Soon history would be honoured. With cheers, withhymns, with jubilation. Yet how still it seemed. As the day broke, the rain eased, sparrows started under the guttering …
He had got a special leave, on compassionate grounds. Her telegram had arrived at the camp: ‘Father very ill. Please come.’ And so he’d journeyed up to London, on the eve of victory.
‘There’s hope,’ said the sister with a practised smile, ‘he’s a strong man.’ But how weak he looked, lying in the ward (there were no more private beds) among flying-bomb victims in the last stages of recovery or decline – jaw dropped, lips blue, the expression, as at Jack’s memorial service, frozen, utterly taken aback. As if there were some trick; this couldn’t happen like this. Mrs Harrison sat on his left, Irene on his right. Other patients were listening to wirelesses and he wanted to know – it was the one thing for which he still seemed to rally – ‘Is there any news? Have we won?’ He might have been asking the result of a race. ‘No, not yet’ – it was Irene who spoke – ‘soon.’
White sheets, white rows of beds; the white apron of a nurse saying, ‘I think it better if you went now.’ May 8th, 1945. An orderly was mopping the floor. She walked down the corridor, leading her mother, her lips pressed tight.
There was a fancy-dress parade on the common, planned for after Churchill’s speech. Little children dressed in costumes made from cardboard and old blackout material would be exhibited as ‘Freedom’ and ‘Hope and Glory’. Then the parties would follow (already they were queueing in the High Street for food and beer): bonfires, dancing. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. They sat in the garden listening to the exultant wirelesses; the sun shone after the rain. But she looked up: ‘What about Father?’ ‘The hospital said there’s no change. And Aunt Madeleine’s with Mother.’ But he knew that her question was only a kind of excuse.
Sparks flew upwards into the blue evening sky. Along the house-fronts coloured lights were arranged in Vs, candles in jam-jars perched on front walls. They were spilling in and out of the Prince William, singing ‘Shine on, Victory Moon’. Pianos in the street; kisses for anyone in uniform; children banging dustbin lids; and out on the flattened ground of a bomb-site, tables set up, drinks, tinned meat sandwiches, a Victory Pudding (bread, milk and saccharine – the feast of victors) and the bonfire (‘bomb-fire’ the children insisted), sparks flying upwards, upwards. Speech! Speech! Someone wanted to make a speech. A stout patriarch whose sons even then, perhaps, were encamped beyond the Rhine, stood up, swayed, but only got as far as ‘Three cheers for Victory!’ Victory! Victory! echoed the cry. But no one used the other word that had hissed gently in the falling rain: Peace.
Figures danced, silhouetted by flame. Composing, recomposing, round and round the fire. Yes, better dance, better rejoice. The war is won: that is something to rejoice over. But he had a lame leg (No, no, not a wound, he explained) and that was his excuse, and hers, for not dancing.
More fuel for the fire: don’t let it die. More fuel to make the sparks leap and the dancers whirl. Bring anything. Those old duck-boards from the shelter, those old out of date coupons, those letters stamped with the military franking from Cairo and Rome. Burn it all. Burn away the memories of five years, the ‘sacrifice’ and ‘endeavour’, the headlines, the photographs, the odour of barrack huts, the names of foreign battlefields, the 39,000 helmets, the 81,000 packs. But
‘Go back to sleep,’ she said, as if he’d woken in needless agitation. But he wanted to lie and listen to the rain hissing and sluicing beyond the window.
Soon history would be honoured. With cheers, withhymns, with jubilation. Yet how still it seemed. As the day broke, the rain eased, sparrows started under the guttering …
He had got a special leave, on compassionate grounds. Her telegram had arrived at the camp: ‘Father very ill. Please come.’ And so he’d journeyed up to London, on the eve of victory.
‘There’s hope,’ said the sister with a practised smile, ‘he’s a strong man.’ But how weak he looked, lying in the ward (there were no more private beds) among flying-bomb victims in the last stages of recovery or decline – jaw dropped, lips blue, the expression, as at Jack’s memorial service, frozen, utterly taken aback. As if there were some trick; this couldn’t happen like this. Mrs Harrison sat on his left, Irene on his right. Other patients were listening to wirelesses and he wanted to know – it was the one thing for which he still seemed to rally – ‘Is there any news? Have we won?’ He might have been asking the result of a race. ‘No, not yet’ – it was Irene who spoke – ‘soon.’
White sheets, white rows of beds; the white apron of a nurse saying, ‘I think it better if you went now.’ May 8th, 1945. An orderly was mopping the floor. She walked down the corridor, leading her mother, her lips pressed tight.
There was a fancy-dress parade on the common, planned for after Churchill’s speech. Little children dressed in costumes made from cardboard and old blackout material would be exhibited as ‘Freedom’ and ‘Hope and Glory’. Then the parties would follow (already they were queueing in the High Street for food and beer): bonfires, dancing. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. They sat in the garden listening to the exultant wirelesses; the sun shone after the rain. But she looked up: ‘What about Father?’ ‘The hospital said there’s no change. And Aunt Madeleine’s with Mother.’ But he knew that her question was only a kind of excuse.
Sparks flew upwards into the blue evening sky. Along the house-fronts coloured lights were arranged in Vs, candles in jam-jars perched on front walls. They were spilling in and out of the Prince William, singing ‘Shine on, Victory Moon’. Pianos in the street; kisses for anyone in uniform; children banging dustbin lids; and out on the flattened ground of a bomb-site, tables set up, drinks, tinned meat sandwiches, a Victory Pudding (bread, milk and saccharine – the feast of victors) and the bonfire (‘bomb-fire’ the children insisted), sparks flying upwards, upwards. Speech! Speech! Someone wanted to make a speech. A stout patriarch whose sons even then, perhaps, were encamped beyond the Rhine, stood up, swayed, but only got as far as ‘Three cheers for Victory!’ Victory! Victory! echoed the cry. But no one used the other word that had hissed gently in the falling rain: Peace.
Figures danced, silhouetted by flame. Composing, recomposing, round and round the fire. Yes, better dance, better rejoice. The war is won: that is something to rejoice over. But he had a lame leg (No, no, not a wound, he explained) and that was his excuse, and hers, for not dancing.
More fuel for the fire: don’t let it die. More fuel to make the sparks leap and the dancers whirl. Bring anything. Those old duck-boards from the shelter, those old out of date coupons, those letters stamped with the military franking from Cairo and Rome. Burn it all. Burn away the memories of five years, the ‘sacrifice’ and ‘endeavour’, the headlines, the photographs, the odour of barrack huts, the names of foreign battlefields, the 39,000 helmets, the 81,000 packs. But
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