The Second-last Woman in England (21 page)

The Coronation. It was less than six months away. Was this the only way the rector could get his message through to his congregation, by comparing Christ’s birth to the Coronation, so that, in their closed and addled minds, they confused the crowning of a new queen with the birth of God’s only son?

‘Mummy, if we buy a television set we will be able to watch the Coronation!’ said Anne in a loud voice, and a number of people laughed.

Jean closed her eyes.

On that final Christmas in ’44, Dad had read from the New Testament—Matthew’s account of Christ’s birth, as he did each year—and they had sat silently around the table in the parlour, breathlessly it seemed now, listening in awe and wonder. Afterwards Dad had closed the Bible and laid it on the table and looked around at each of their silent faces, his own face shiny with the glory of God, and that glory was reflected in the face of each of them, even Bertie, who was only just five. Even he had sat still and quiet.

‘Well, now,’ Dad had said, ‘what a glorious day it was. And we thank the good Lord that we are all here together on this special day to celebrate the birth of His only son.’

‘Amen!’ said Mum, squeezing Dad’s hand.

‘Amen!’ replied Gladys and Nerys and Edward and little Bertie.

And in Jean’s memory, Nerys was wearing the buttercup-yellow ribbon in her hair and Edward his dark green cardigan that Mum had knitted the previous winter, two buttons already missing. Mum was wearing her best, sturdy navy-blue shoes and behind them on the mantelpiece was the little china horse Gladys had won at the fair two summers earlier.

‘The tin! The tin!’ cried Edward, and Bertie joined in, thumping the table excitedly.

And Dad reached behind him for the tobacco tin with the dented yellow lid that showed a sailor in a jersey and a peaked cap. He laid the tin carefully on the table with almost as much reverence as he had shown the Bible.

‘My turn! My turn!’ said Bertie, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

‘It was Bertie on Sunday,’ said Nerys primly, looking to Jean and Gladys for confirmation.

‘That’s ’cause it was his birthday,’ pointed out Edward, becoming all serious. Edward believed strongly in fairness and justice.

‘It must be Dad’s turn again!’ said Gladys, who was good at sums and had worked out that if Bertie had done it last, then Dad, as the eldest, was next in turn.

‘Oh, I don’t mind missing out,’ said Dad, with a smile. ‘What about it, girl?’ and he smiled at Jean.

Taking the tin Dad held out to her, she lifted the dented lid and closed her eyes—she always closed her eyes—and her fingers dipped into the tiny strips of paper nestled within. She didn’t fish about the way Gladys did, trying first one and then another, or dive in with her whole fist like Edward did. No, she allowed her fingers to hover for a moment then reached out, and the first piece of paper they touched, that was the one. She opened her eyes. Unfolding the tiny strip she read aloud:

‘You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day: Psalm 91, verse 5.’

She looked up and saw them all watching her. No one questioned what it meant. They had survived the Blitz when many thousands of others had perished. And now the Germans were sending flying rockets that came in the daytime and destroyed whole streets and whole families.

‘Well, by God’s grace, we ’ave made it safely to another Christmas, intact and in one piece,’ Mum declared, saying out loud what they were all thinking. ‘And now it is time to eat!’

The Bible and the tin had been put away and from the kitchen Mum had brought in the Christmas dinner. There had been a rabbit and five potatoes—one for each of the children—a sliced carrot, parsnips and a turnip, all from the vegetable patch in the back yard, and bread too, and Mum had made a custard from two month’s ration of dried egg and a jug of milk courtesy of Mrs McGuiness down the street who had a daughter who worked on the land. Gladys, Nerys and Jean had saved their sweet ration for a month and with their coupons they got two chocolate bars and some gobstoppers which they all ate noisily and happily that evening and for once no one had worried about how little there was in the pantry for tomorrow.

Dad had worked extra night shifts at the docks that Christmas to provide the rabbit on Christmas day. Other men turned to the black market to get hold of an egg, some bananas, a whole chicken sometimes. But not Dad. His conscience wouldn’t allow it—not when others were starving. He had saved his money and gone up west where there were shops that still had food. He hadn’t said how much he had paid and they had known better than to ask.

‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!’ said the rector triumphantly and the congregation rose to its feet, relieved and released, their duty done for another year.

‘Mrs Shehan-Knowles wore that same hat last Christmas,’ said Mrs Wallis.

‘Pops, I thought I’d stroll over to Alistair Kellett’s house this afternoon after lunch, just to wish them a merry Christmas,’ said Julius.

‘You most certainly will not, Julius,’ said Mr Wallis, turning to his son in some astonishment. ‘On Christmas
Day
?’

‘What better day to wish a chap Merry Christmas?’ Julius replied.

‘I’ve lost my glove!’ said Anne plaintively.

And so the service ended.

The walk back to Athelstan Gardens was made, for the most part, in silence. Anne walked with one hand stuffed into the pocket of her thick winter coat—despite an intensive search the missing glove had remained missing. Everyone had handkerchiefs tied over their faces against the pea-souper, hats pulled low. Ahead of them the houses halfway down the street vanished into a murky fog. Of those houses they could make out, each had a large holly wreath on its front door, glistening with shiny red berries and tied with a scarlet ribbon. A man had come around a week earlier, knocking on each door and selling wreaths from a large barrow, but as most of the residents had already ordered their wreaths from Harrods and Peter Jones and Barkers of Kensington and had them hand-delivered and attached to the front door by a boy, he failed to sell very many at all.

In Stepney a wreath meant someone had died. Jean had seen them—home-made from daisies, willowherb and roses—in the early part of the Blitz, laid on the remains of someone’s house or hanging from a makeshift cross someone had fashioned from two pieces of timber. By Christmas ’44 you didn’t see them so much—too many houses destroyed, too many families wiped out.

‘What do I do if Alistair comes here to wish me a Merry Christmas then, Pops?’ said Julius, opening the gate to the Wallises’ front steps.

Cecil frowned. ‘Then you would return the greeting and invite him in for a hot drink and a mince pie.’

‘Even though it’s Christmas?’

They all trooped up the front steps and waited while Cecil unlocked the front door. A smell of pine needles and roast turkey spilled out.

‘Exactly, Julius. We cannot hold ourselves responsible for the ill manners of others in coming to visit us. In that circumstance we show our own good manners by returning the season’s greetings and offering hospitality. By not alluding to another’s bad manners one shows oneself a true gentleman.’

‘I see.’ Julius nodded thoughtfully as he followed his father into the hallway. ‘And yet you pointed out my bad manners to me, Pops, didn’t you?’

‘Anne, please remove your shoes—you are shedding pine needles all over the floor,’ Cecil said, seeming not to hear Julius’s last remark.

There were indeed pine needles all over the floor, though they had been there for over a week, ever since Mr Addison, the man who did the garden, had arrived with the five-foot Christmas tree and had dragged it by its trunk the length of the hallway and up the stairs to the drawing room, installing it beside the baby grand. Mrs Thompson had stomped up the stairs after him with a dustpan and brush and a number of colourful phrases, and had succeeded only in embedding them more firmly into the carpet. It therefore seemed a little unfair to blame Anne for this. But Anne seemed unconcerned.

‘Presents! It’s time to open the presents!’ she announced, stripping off her shoes, coat, scarf, hat and remaining glove and diving up the stairs.

Jean stooped to retrieve the various articles.

‘Anne! We do not remove our shoes without first untying the laces,’ said Mrs Wallis crossly. ‘And pick these things up at once! You are not a savage. Please act in a civilised fashion.’

Pouting, Anne turned around and came back down the stairs, though by now Jean had collected most of the discarded clothing. She handed the items silently to the child, who glared at her as though it had been Jean who had shouted at her and ordered her back. And perhaps it ought to have been? Jean wondered. It was undoubtedly part of the nanny’s job to teach good manners, but she couldn’t very well shout at the child in front of her mother. And now Anne was angry and Mrs Wallis was looking at Jean silently, condemningly.

Or perhaps she was simply attempting to light her cigarette, you just couldn’t tell with Mrs Wallis.

Mrs Thompson emerged from the kitchen, red-faced and sweating, wiping her hands on her apron.

‘Oh! You’ve made it home, then!’ she announced, as though they had returned from some dangerous and lengthy overseas expedition rather than the Christmas Day service at church.

‘Yes, here we all are!’ replied Julius brightly, getting into the spirit of the day. ‘How’s things in the galley, Mrs T?’ he enquired. ‘Shipshape and Bristol fashion?’

‘Never you mind, Master Julius,’ said Mrs Thompson darkly and Anne smirked.

‘You are doing a sterling job, Mrs Thompson,’ said Cecil firmly, as though he were settling an argument.

‘Nanny, did you hear what happened last year—’ Anne began.

‘Anne, go and brush your hair,’ her father interrupted. ‘We shall open presents in ten minutes when everyone has tidied themselves up.’ And Cecil went upstairs to his study and closed the door.

But Anne was determined to relate her story. ‘Last year Mrs Thompson forgot to light the oven so the turkey wasn’t cooked until
Boxing
Day!’ she explained, her eyes bright with the memory of it all. ‘We had to have
lamb cutlets
for Christmas dinner!’

‘Utter rot,’ said Julius in his usual mild way as he brushed past her to go up the stairs. ‘We had Christmas dinner at teatime instead. So really we had two Christmas dinners that Christmas.’ He paused halfway up the stairs. ‘Which means technically we’ve had more Christmas dinners than we’ve had Christmases, so this year we should probably have Christmas with no Christmas dinner, then things would be in sync again.’

‘Fine. I’ll let Mrs T know not to serve you any then,’ remarked Mrs Wallis dryly as she passed him on the stairs. Anne laughed and skipped up the stairs after her mother.

Jean stood alone in the hallway, Anne’s scarf still in her hand.

Upstairs doors opened and slammed shut and feet ran excitedly across the landing.

‘Nanny, help me with my hair-band! I can’t get it right!’

‘I told you the tree was lop-sided, Pops. Look at it!’

‘Anne, we do not slam doors in this house. Nor do we shout.’

Where was the love, God’s love, on this holiest of holy days? There was only spite, bickering, a desire to outdo each other. They were spending the day together because they had to. And she was spending it with them.

‘Nanny! Help me!’

So she assisted Anne with her hair-band and she coordinated the reluctant retrieval of various items of footwear and clothing from the bedroom floor then she retired to her own room to tidy herself up. The ceremony of the present opening was set to occur in the drawing room and it was unclear to Jean whether she was expected to participate in these festivities or not. Probably it did not matter either way. In which case she might as well go down and join in.

She thought of the presents she had purchased yesterday in a panic-stricken last-minute rush. She had gone to Barkers, the department store, because that was where Mrs Wallis shopped and surely if she bought something from Barkers it would be suitable, classy. But what ought she to get? In the end she had made a furtive dash into Mrs Wallis’s bathroom and noted what soap she used (an expensive-looking one with a French name) and hurried off to Kensington High Street an hour before the shops closed. The rest of the family were getting sweets—a tasteful selection in a gold box for Mr Wallis, some peppermint crèmes for Julius and some garish liquorice allsorts for Anne. She had saved up her sweet ration, but even so the quantities were pathetically small. Mrs Wallis’s soap had proved elusive—and was probably too expensive anyway—so she had found a substitute in a similar wrapper and hoped Mrs Wallis wasn’t too fussy. Eightpence it had cost, twice what she’d usually pay for soap.