London Pride (63 page)

‘You should see what they eat,' Baby said. ‘I never seen so much food. They make smashing doughnuts. They're ever so expensive but it don't worry them. They earn so much you'd never believe it.'

‘How much?' Norman wanted to know. Now that he was eight he was very aware of money.

‘Ever such a lot,' Baby told him happily. ‘Three times as much as our fellers.'

‘Overpaid, oversexed and over here,' Peggy whispered to Joan, quoting the current jibe against all these wealthy invaders.

‘They don't bother to pay our troops good money,' Joan said sourly. ‘They're only cannon fodder, poor beggars.'

‘What's cannon fodder, Mum?' Norman asked.

‘Men like yer Dad,' Joan told him. ‘Proper soldiers. The ones that do the fighting and get killed and captured and put in prisoner a' war camps instead a' poncing about London all the time, showing off.'

‘Well that's nice!' Baby said, bristling. ‘What a thing to tell the kid. They're our allies. Don't you take no notice, Norm. Yanks are nice. Least they bring a bit a' colour to the old place.'

Peggy was looking at the Londoners going about their business stolidly and unobtrusively among the new arrivals and she couldn't help noticing that the Americans' smart uniforms and innocent baby faces were making their hosts look shabby and war-worn. She was so used to old clothes and skinny children and faces grey with fatigue that until that moment she'd hardly noticed them, but now she was aware that Londoners had been worn down and washed out by this war that they'd been fighting for so long on their own, and she felt a fierce passionate pride for their endurance and courage.

But Joan was frowning. ‘Time we was getting back,' Peggy said, to forestall a row. ‘What say we have faggots for supper?'

So domestic peace was restored. At least for the time being.

Baby's behaviour rankled Joan a great deal that summer. ‘She's so bloody bone idle,' she said to Peggy the next Sunday morning as they were preparing the vegetables for Sunday dinner. ‘Half past eleven and she's still abed, selfish little pig. She'll need to get up and lend a hand next week if you're off to Merston.'

‘Perhaps I'd better not go,' Peggy said, looking worried.

‘You go, mate,' her sister advised, tossing a peeled potato into the saucepan so violently that the water splashed all over the draining board. ‘You've earned a rest. I'll see to
her
.'

‘Oh dear,' Peggy said, but then they both laughed, because Baby was asking for it really.

And she was looking forward to her visit ever so much. Ten days in Vine Cottage again with Jim and Megan and Froggy. The two men had both got leave and they'd planned all sorts of outings.

Froggy had even wangled a car. Trust Froggy. He and Jim and a very rotund Megan were all sitting in it waiting for her when her train arrived at Chichester station.

‘Trip round the town,' Froggy said, as she climbed into what remained of the back seat. ‘Market Cross, cathedral, cinema, all round the city walls.'

‘Chauffeur-driven too,' Jim said, beaming at her.

They had tea at an old-fashioned tea house, which Peggy said she really needed, and they went to the pictures, which Megan said was jolly uncomfortable because she didn't fit into the seats, and after that they went to a pub, which was full of airmen and where they all sang ‘Roll out the Barrel' and ‘There'll always be an England' and several rather more scurrilous ditties, and at closing time they went rattling off through the black country lanes and arrived back at Vine Cottage, giggling and merry. It was like a holiday.

‘And so it should be,' Jim said. ‘We've earned it.'

The next day was sunny and peaceful and they spent it sitting in the garden. They had their dinner out there, and the two men did the washing up afterwards, and at tea-time Megan lowered herself to her knees in her vegetable patch and uprooted four handfuls of radishes for them to eat with brown bread and butter, no less.

‘We are spoilt,' Peggy said, smiling at her. It was lovely to see her so much easier in this marriage.

‘D'you like 'em?' Megan asked, pleased with her produce.

‘Smashing.'

‘She'll get indigestion sure as fate,' Froggy said. ‘Always does these days when she eats radishes.'

And sure enough just before Jim and Peggy went out for the evening, Megan began to make grimaces and complain about feeling uncomfortable.

‘I warned you,' Froggy said, pretending irritation and exuding concern. ‘Where's your Rennies?' And he shot off into the kitchen to see if he could find them.

‘It's giving me proper belly-ache,' Megan said. ‘I shall have to lie down if it gets any worse.'

‘Well lie down then,' Peggy said.

‘I don't like to,' Megan said, making another grimace.

‘Why not?'

‘Well, not with you two staying. You can't go lying down when you got company.'

‘We're not company, you soppy thing,' Peggy said, hugging her. ‘We're Jim and Peggy, remember? You lie down all you like. Anyway we're going out.'

She and Jim went back to the pub for another raucous evening, and this time they travelled by bicycle, with Peggy balanced on the crossbar.

When they came out into the street at closing-time it was pitch dark. So they pushed the bike and walked back side by side, and what with the darkness and frequent stops for kisses it took them a very long time to make their short journey.

‘Shush,' Peggy whispered when they reached the hedge. ‘Don't make a noise, I'll bet they're in bed.'

But when they reached the front door there was a strange bicycle propped against the wall. So it looked as though somebody else had come to visit them.

Froggy was sitting on the put-u-up smoking and looking very ill-at-ease, and there was no sign of the visitor or Megan. But before Peggy could open her mouth to ask what was happening, the answer mewed above their heads, in the small unmistakable cry of the new born. Froggy threw his cigarette onto the lino and ran.

‘Oh!' Peggy said with delight. ‘D'you think they'll let me see it?'

‘What now?' Jim said. ‘When it's just been born?'

‘Course. Why not? I'd love to see it. Wouldn't you?'

‘Not now,' he said, aghast at the idea. ‘Not now. Not when it's just… No I wouldn't.'

How funny men are about birth, Peggy thought. They face death all the time nowadays and yet here he is shying away from a new baby. And then it occurred to her that she hadn't seen a new-born baby since Norman was born, and she found her heart throbbing with excitement at the prospect.

But she had to wait for nearly an hour before the midwife left and Froggy came crashing into the room to tell her she could come up if she wanted to. He was pink-eyed with emotion and babbling incoherently. ‘A daughter,' he said as they climbed the stairs. ‘She's so little. A beautiful little … Oh a marvellous … A gorgeous wizard little …'

The baby lay in the crook of Megan's arm, swathed in a knitted shawl, damp and pink and peaceful and exactly like her mother, with the same dark curly hair, the same wide-spaced eyes, even the same shaped mouth. Only her funny snub nose was different. A most delectable baby and just the sight of her made Peggy warm with pleasure.

A new life, she thought, a new life after all the deaths and the terror of the raids and all those poor devils hauled out of the wreckage shocked and bleeding and helpless, a new perfect life. And she suddenly remembered the grass growing before their eyes in Greenwich park when the rain ended that long drought, oh such a long time ago, and how she and Jim had walked under the trees with the rain fresh on their faces marvelling at the wonder of it. New life reasserting itself just when they'd resigned themselves to parched earth for ever. And tears of pure joy sprang into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

‘I'm ever so sorry,' Megan said smiling at her in the most beautifully relaxed way. ‘I was going to give you such a nice holiday too. Bad timing.'

‘Oh no!' Peggy said swooping across the room to kiss her. ‘Perfect timing. I couldn't ask for anything better. What are you going to call her?'

‘Winifred,' Megan said kissing the baby's dark head. ‘After Froggy's mother and old Churchill you see. Winnie for short.'

‘Winnie,' Peggy approved. ‘She's a beauty, Megan.'

And Winnie for short opened her dark blue eyes and
looked at them for a long stunning second before she slept again, and at that they both wept and kissed one another and admired the baby over and over again and were rapturously happy. New life. Oh what could be better in the midst of war?

Peggy spent the next eight days looking after mother and child. Jim was persuaded upstairs to see the baby after the midwife's visit at the end of the second afternoon and he was plainly delighted with her, because he and Froggy spent a long time hitting one another on the back and pretending to box one another, until Megan protested that they were setting the poor little thing a very bad example, at which they settled down in the two basket chairs and embarked on a discussion of the sort of education system Great Britain should introduce after the war. Megan went to sleep in the middle of it, but Peggy listened to every word.

‘Every single child should have the chance of a full education,' Jim said earnestly. ‘A grammar school education. The best you can get. And at the state's expense, with grants for poor kids. Why should you be debarred from an education because your old man can't pay? That's barbarous. Your Winnie should go to a grammar school whether you're rich or poor.'

‘You ought to speak at our next current affairs meeting,' Froggy said. ‘You'd go down a treat.'

‘I might at that,' Jim said. ‘I been thinking about it.'

‘What is it?' Peggy asked.

‘A sort of debating society, I suppose you'd call it,' Jim told her. ‘Discussing the sort of society we want when the war's over. ABCA send us pamphlets about it and the officers set it up.'

‘Who's ABCA when they're at home?'

‘Army Bureau of Current Affairs,' Froggy explained. ‘Morale boosters.'

‘Then you should,' Peggy said. ‘You'd be just the one for it. When's the next meeting?'

Jim was yawning. ‘Tomorrow evening,' he said. ‘And, before you start, they've got a speaker.'

‘Are you going?' she asked.

‘No, we're on leave.'

‘I think you should,' she urged. ‘It sounds just the thing.'

‘Wouldn't you mind?'

‘No, course not. I'll stay with Megan and the baby. You go. You'd enjoy it.'

So after some deliberation the two men went to their meeting.

They returned in a state of high excitement, rushing up the stairs to the bedroom, throwing themselves into the chairs, their faces flushed, bright-eyed and glowing.

‘Guess what,' Froggy said, throwing his cap in the air. ‘Jim was the speaker.'

‘Gosh!' Megan said. ‘Why?'

‘The real speaker didn't turn up,' Jim said. ‘Ill or something. I sort of stepped into the breach.' He was still amazed at his daring, remembering the breath-stopping moment when he'd looked down at the ranks of faces turned toward him and realized that they were all waiting to hear what he was going to say. What
he
was going to say. Imagine it.

‘Gosh!' Megan said again. ‘How did it go?'

‘Rather well,' Jim admitted, looking massively proud of himself.

It had actually gone down much better than ‘rather well'. He hadn't had any really clear idea what he was going to say when he stood up and made his offer, but the topic was education, and the officer who introduced him had spoken in the drawling tones of the public school, and that provided just enough resentment to stiffen his resolve and show him where he ought to start.

‘I come from Paradise Row in Greenwich,' he said. ‘We got a big school just round the corner, where they teach you the three R's and send you out in the world to be factory hands and skivvies. Up on the heath there are public schools where the rich send their kids to learn Latin and matriculate and be sent to universities. And just up the road there's a grammar school called Roan's, where ordinary kids can go if they pass the scholarship and their old man's got enough money to afford the uniform. They take thirty boys from Greenwich every year. They used to tell us it was the thirty brainiest boys. But I can tell you
different. It ain't the thirty brainiest, it's the thirty brainiest who can afford it.'

They were looking at him eagerly, agreeing with him.

‘And another thing,' he said. ‘If they can take thirty brainy children, why not thirty-five, or forty, or sixty? Who decides which brainy children go to grammar school and which don't? Where do they draw the line? And if it comes to it, why should they draw a line at all? Nobody draws a line for the rich kids. They get the best of everything whether they're brainy or not. But for poor kids it's like the pigs going to market in the nursery rhyme. This clever kid gets an education, this clever kid gets none.'

He was warm with nerves and enthusiasm, and his heart was still beating like a drum, but his audience were with him. He could feel it. Their support rose towards him through the fug of cigarette smoke.

‘So what d'you think we ought to do about it?' one man asked.

‘I'll tell you,' he said. And did, outlining all the plans he read about in the
Picture Post
and adding a few of his own for good measure. ‘We need a new type of school,' he said, ‘a new kind of education system. That's what we need.'

‘He'll end up a politician,' Froggy said to Peggy, when they'd relived the entire meeting for her benefit. ‘You see if I'm not right. They were cheering him come the finish and stamping on the floor.'