Authors: Sylvia Atkinson
“Yes, like being where you’re supposed to be.”
“James, a lady likes to keep a man waiting, even at my time of life.”
“You’re incorrigible! Lizzie will sort you out.”
“Well she’s not managed yet.” They grinned conspiratorially. Lizzie was always organising something or someone. Margaret said it went with being a head teacher.
* * * * *
“I thought you’d never get here…” Elizabeth complained. It looked as if her mother hadn’t combed her hair and the ancient lilac cardigan she wore in the house was incorrectly buttoned. James explained that her mother had been unwell.
“Has she been to the doctors?”
“I am here, Elizabeth,” Margaret said crossly, “I’ve told James and I don’t want to talk about it now.”
Elizabeth made no more reference to her mother’s bizarre appearance and served dinner.
Afterwards while Margaret rested, husband and wife shared their worries in the kitchen.
“God James, mum looks awful. She’s lost a lot of weight.”
“Lizzie, I don’t think we appreciate what a toll this has taken…”
“I wonder if I should ring and have a word with the doctor.”
“Without telling her? She’d be livid.”
“Maybe she’s just exhausted? Look, we’ll talk about it when she’s gone. Go in the lounge and see if she’s asleep.”
James touched Margaret’s shoulder, “We can’t have you wilting away on us.”
“I’ve no intentions of doing that. I was merely resting my eyes. Elizabeth, pass me my bag, not my handbag, the big one by the door.”
“My God, mother, what have you got in this? It weighs a ton.”
“That’s James’ whiskey.” Margaret pulled out the bottle.
“A full bottle… Scottie you’re a miracle worker!”
“It’s not from my Lourdes trip. It was on offer at the Co-op, their brand. I hope it’s all right.”
“Just say the magic word, ‘whiskey’, mum, and he’s happy.”
“Don’t be horrid Elizabeth. There’s Black Magic chocolates for you.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“My clear out.”
Margaret produced a pile of photographs. Ordinarily these would have been skimmed through politely but the past was increasingly more relevant to Elizabeth’s present. “Look James, there’s one of me balancing on my dad’s bike.”
“Don’t remind me,” said her mother. “My heart was in my mouth every time your father got on that wretched thing.”
“Dad taught me to ride a bike. He put wooden blocks on the pedals so my feet could reach them. Then he ran alongside of me holding the seat. I was fine until I realised he’d let go. I crashed into the kerb.”
“You wouldn’t believe it, James. Elizabeth was always a mass of bruises.”
“Roller skating down the hill was my best trick, slamming into the gas lamp to stop.”
“You looked like a prize fighter with an enormous bump on your head and purple bruised eyes. I gave your dad a hard time when that happened. He was supposed to be looking after you! Not long after they changed the lamp for an electric one.”
“I’d learned to stop by then. Mum you’re not ill or anything?”
“Don’t be silly Elizabeth. The news from India has made me think a great deal and I want to set my life in order.” Margaret explained the things she’d found for the Indian children. Elizabeth agreed that the ring, sari pin and letter opener were rightfully theirs.
“This belongs to you.” Margaret said, fishing in her bag and drawing out a slim cardboard box, the size of a paperback book, on which she’d written
To
Elizabeth
with
love
from
mum,
your
father
pinned
this
on
your
chest
before
he
pinned
it
on
his
own.
He
wanted
you
to
have
it
and
so
do
I.
Elizabeth opened the box. There was a medal, and a letter. The medal had numbers inscribed round the rim and on the back the words,
For
Bravery
in
the
Field
.
Margaret said the number was Tommy’s army number
and the letter was from the King. Elizabeth read the letter.
I
greatly
regret
that
I
am
unable
to
give
you
personally
the
award
which
you
have
so
well
earned.
I
now
send
it
to
you
with
my
congratulations
and
my
best
wishes
for
your
future
happiness.
James studied it but couldn’t find the date. “I think the King must have been ill when this was written. He’d been ill for some time with tuberculosis and lung cancer. He died before your father did.”
“Elizabeth, your father named you after his daughter, our present Queen.”
“So we both lost our fathers and they both had T.B. I didn’t realise the king had the same disease. In fact there’s a lot I don’t know, especially about my father.”
“You only need to know how much he loved you. Nothing else matters.” Margaret said, giving Elizabeth a copy of the citation that accompanied Tommy’s military medal.
This
medal
was
awarded
to
Thomas
Waters
for
conspicuous
gallantry,
coolness
under
enemy
fire
and
devotion
to
duty
during
airborne
operations
in
the
Ranville
area
on
6/7
June
1944.
On
the
6th
of
June
Cpl
Waters
volunteered
to
bring
in
a
wounded
comrade
from
an
exposed
position:
in
the
face
of
accurate
enemy
sniping
which
had
already
caused
casualties
he
coolly
went
forward
and
brought
in
the
wounded
man.
He
then
continued
his
duty
of
laying
a
single
line
along
an
exposed
route
under
constant
enemy
sniping
and
small
arms
fire.
When
this
line
was
cut
by
enemy
fire
Corporal
Waters
again
went
out
voluntarily
and
repaired
communications
in
full
view
of
the
enemy.
By
his
gallantry
and
complete
disregard
of
personal
dangers
Cpl
Waters
maintained
communications
between
Brigade
H.
Q.
and
a
Battalion
holding
a
vital
position.
James said thoughtfully, “I don’t think I’m a coward but I’ve no idea what I’d do if I had to go to war.”
Margaret said that no one could possibly know how they’d behave. There were brave deeds that went unrecognised. She thought Tommy was braver after the war, dealing with his injuries.
Elizabeth remembered him cleaning his medals and marching in the Armistice Parade. Gradually, while they talked, more memories returned. Her father’s artificial eye was kept on cotton wool, in a red Captain Web match box. Granddad would send her running with it, across the field at the bottom of the garden, to head her father off on the road. He’d stop. Take out the eye. Pop it into its empty socket. Hop on his post bike and ride on. How she wished it could make him see. She began to feel sad, in the way she sometimes had as a child. “I’m sure he’d have got on with you, James.”
James winked at her mother, “He could have helped me keep you two in line.”
“Oh I don’t know about keeping us in line. Tommy and you would have been as bad as one another…”
“We couldn’t have that, mum! James is bad enough on his own!”
“Maybe so Lizzie, but I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet him.”
“My dad was quite a character. Once, when we came back from Scotland, mum got a taxi from the station to Conisbrough. We passed dad sitting outside the pub with his leg in plaster. He made the mistake of waving his pint in salute. Mum wouldn’t let the taxi driver stop to pick him up!”
“No wonder!” Margaret said, eager to put the record straight, “Instead of coming to Scotland with us he’d stayed behind to go to the Parachute Regiment reunion dinner. Granddad sent a telegram saying there’d been an accident, worrying me to death. When I saw your father large as life I was so cross. He said it was my fault for moving the bedroom furniture before going away. The bed was in a different position. He’d woken up to go to the toilet. Half asleep and with plenty of beer inside him, he must have been dreaming he was in the aeroplane over France. He climbed on the bedroom window ledge, opened the window and jumped out. He caught his foot in a hole that granddad had dug in the rose bed below. Peggy McCabe found him.”
“Wasn’t his father there?”
Margaret laughed, “He slept through it.”
“Slept through it!”
“Oh James, dad was always doing something.”
It was true. One thing after another, but somehow Margaret got through it. “We were so poor Elizabeth, I wonder if you missed out.”
“Missed out!” Elizabeth said. “I had wonderful holidays with the aunts in Scotland, beach picnics, camping and making concerts with my cousins in the cellars of Aunt Mary’s house in Edinburgh. Bike rides and blackberrying with dad at home, singsongs round the piano with Aunt Florrie’s lot. I loved every minute of it but the scholarship to Notre Dame changed my life.”
Margaret recollected the day the teacher called to inform her that Elizabeth had passed the Eleven Plus. It was a courtesy call. The primary school had assumed Margaret couldn’t afford the school uniform and bus fares to either Mexborough Grammar school, or to Notre Dame. Why had they bothered to take her daughter to Sheffield for the convent school entrance test and interview? They hadn’t said anything when Elizabeth passed it. “If I’d had to take in
washing
you’d have gone to Notre Dame!”
Elizabeth hadn’t seen her mother look so angry. James thought Margaret was going to cry.
Elizabeth’s childhood memories contained no hint of the poverty her mother fought to compensate, or the times when a feather falling from the pillow was too much for her father. After his death there were days when her mother’s purse had held only the bus fare to work. They’d made do with second hand clothes and, from autumn to spring, went to bed early to conserve coal and electricity. Yet they were happy. Material things weren’t important and there were people worse off. Not having a father was different, that hurt. She squeezed her mother’s hand. “Mum, you mustn’t think for a minute that I’ve missed out on anything.”
A lump rose in Margaret’s throat, “If you don’t mind, James, I’d like to go home.”
The bright red of Margaret’s winter coat clashed with their sombre mood. Elizabeth tried to persuade her to stay but she said she was happier in her own bed.
Margaret travelled in the back of the car. James tried to make conversation. She didn’t reply. He used to think she couldn’t hear him because of the sound of the engine. He now believed her deafness was selective but today she would have too much to think about to talk.