The Silent War (45 page)

Sunday laughed. ‘Better not tell my mum that,’ she signalled. ‘She takes her music very seriously.’

‘I take you seriously too,’ replied Pete, gazing straight
into
her eyes. ‘Will you come back with me tonight –
please
?’

Sunday suddenly felt herself tense. Even if she had wanted to go back home with Pete after the concert, there was no way she could do it. Not tonight. One way or another, this had been a truly traumatic day for her, and her entire body felt emotionally drained. Also, the sad fact of the matter was that she didn’t want to go back with Pete. Although she felt awful about it, she had no feeling for him, no
real
feeling, and it would be very unfair to lead him on any further. But this was not the time to tell him. ‘Not tonight, Pete,’ she said, trying hard not to appear as though she was rejecting him. ‘I’ve got some important things to talk over with Mum.’

When they left the pub, it was raining. Neither of them had an umbrella, so Pete pulled up his jacket collar and, hurrying along with his arm around Sunday’s waist, tried to use the jacket to cover her shoulders. The evenings were now not nearly so bright as they had been for the past few months, for it was now mid-August, and lighting-up time was only a couple of hours away, at around nine thirty. But as the two of them walked as fast as they could along the glistening, wet pavements of Holloway Road, there was a lovely freshness in the early-evening air.

With only two minutes to spare to the start of the band concert, Sunday and Pete decided to run the last few yards or so. To their surprise, a small crowd was gathered around in the rain outside the entrance doors of the Salvation Army Hall. Alarmed, Sunday rushed forward to see what was going on. Some of the crowd recognised her, and called to the others to make a path for her.

The corridor inside was also jammed with people, some of them in Salvation Army uniform and carrying their own personal copies of the Bible. By this time, Sunday was getting even more concerned, and, with Pete following on close behind, she finally succeeded
in
pushing her way through into the Hall itself. There she was met by Captain Sarah Denning, one of Madge’s closest Salvation Army friends. She was in tears.

‘What is it, Mrs Denning?’ asked Sunday anxiously. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Mum?’

The poor, distressed woman shook her head, took hold of Sunday by the arm, and gently led her towards the platform, where members of the band and other uniformed officers were huddled around in a group. The moment Colonel Faraday noticed Sunday, he stepped forward to help her up on to the platform. ‘My dear child,’ he said, looking white and shattered. ‘You’ve got to be very brave.’ He called to the others to stand back, then did so himself.

Lying stretched out on her back on the platform floor was Madge.

‘Mum!’

Sunday rushed forward, and knelt beside the motionless figure. The shock too much for her to take in, she immediately looked around for some kind of explanation from the sea of distressed faces around her. Then she looked back down at her mum again. The old lady, dressed in her much-cherished Salvation Army uniform, and who only a few hours before had looked so alive and well, had her head resting on someone’s folded-up uniform jacket. There was no movement at all. Sunday leaned forward to take a close look at her. ‘Mum?’ she asked in a puzzled, bewildered voice which echoed around the silent hall. But the old lady’s eyes were firmly closed, and she made no response at all.

‘Mum!’

But Sunday’s call of despair went unanswered.

At the age of seventy-four, Madge Collins was dead.

Madge Collins’s sudden death was a devastating blow for Sunday. During her final few weeks, the old lady had been in such good health, recovering completely from the varicose vein operation, and looking fitter than she had done for many a year. Unfortunately, however, a post-mortem examination had revealed that, following the operation, a blood clot had been carried away in the circulation, and had become lodged in Madge’s brain. Most people in ‘the Buildings’ were shocked and saddened by their neighbour’s death, but said that at least she had died quickly and without pain. But for Sunday, the sudden loss of her mum was a disaster. The irony of losing the old lady just hours before she was due to tell Sunday everything about her natural mother had been a cruel act of fate. Sunday was convinced that now her mum had gone, she would never know the truth.

Madge’s funeral had been a grand event. The service of thanksgiving for her life was held in the Salvation Army Hall up at Highbury, which had been overflowing with the old lady’s friends from what she used to call ‘God’s Army’, and there were also many of her neighbours from ‘the Buildings’ there, including a tearful Doll Mooney and her husband Joe, and Jack Popwell with his lady-friend, Ivy Westcliff. But a lot of people agreed that the most poignant part of the day had been the slow procession of the cortège and mourners, moving along the busy Holloway Road, and preceded by Madge’s beloved Salvation Army Band playing a selection of her favourite rousing hymns, such as ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’,
and
‘Shall We All Gather By The River?’ The most noticeable absentee from the proceedings was, of course, Aunt Louie. But although she refused to attend the service at Highbury, she went to Highgate Cemetery to watch Madge’s interment, but only from a distance. Sunday knew her aunt was there, but decided not to upset her even more by approaching her. Luckily, the rain held off just long enough for the graveside ceremony to come to an end, but as the crowd of mourners quickly dispersed and filed their way out towards the cemetery gates, the heavens opened, and there was a heavy downpour.

This, however, did not deter Louie. Once she was quite sure that everyone had left, she slowly approached her sister’s graveside, where council diggers were about to fill in. Out of respect for the feelings of the last remaining mourner, they withdrew to the cover of a huge chestnut tree. For several minutes, Louie stood by the grave, rain pelting down on to her short cropped hair and black cotton dress. And as she stared down at the tiny oak coffin with its shining brass plate showing Madge’s name, date of birth and date of death, there was so much that she wanted to say to her sister, so many misunderstandings that she wanted to put right. But now it was too late, and all she could do was to make her last conciliatory offering, a small posy of violets, which fluttered down into the grave, and came to rest alongside Sunday’s solitary pink rose on top of Madge’s coffin.

Her mum gone, Sunday now had to decide what to do with her life. With the help of her neighbours, she was allowed to stay in the flat, but it was a completely new experience for her, and for the first week, it scared her. At night, as she lay in bed deep in thought, she imagined all sorts of things, either that her mum was moving around in the next-door bedroom, or that there were people on the landing outside, trying to get in. But as she gradually got used to living alone in her silent world, the more she came to understand what she had to do in order to survive.

Jack Popwell turned out to be an enormous help, for his advice about how to budget out her school wages to pay for such things as the rent, food, gas and electricity taught her a great deal about housekeeping. And from the moment Madge died, Doll Mooney was convinced that Sunday was going without her meals, so, despite the continued food shortages, she was constantly bringing her titbits, and making her apple pies and scrag-end stew with dumplings. In fact, nearly all Sunday’s neighbours showed how concerned they were, for when she was at home, there was hardly a moment when someone didn’t call on her, just to keep her company. However, as time went by, Sunday began to stand on her own two feet. In the past, being independent was something she had only dreamt about. Now it was a reality.

For the next couple of months, Sunday learnt to take care of herself. Every day from Monday to Friday she went to the Deaf and Dumb School, where she was becoming more and more involved in showing the kids how to express themselves through dance, and at the weekend she went through the frustrations of shopping, queuing for hours on end for everything from food to clothes. In fact, since the war had ended, endless queuing was beginning to get everyone down, and housewives were organising themselves into protest groups. However, Sunday was also learning how to cook, and she was amazed how many recipes she could find using Spam!

The best news came at the beginning of September when Jinx wrote to say that she had given birth to a baby boy weighing six pounds four ounces. Naturally enough, she had named the new arrival Erin, adding that she had wanted his middle name to be Sunday. However, after desperate pleas from the rest of her family, she had decided that as Sunday was a girl’s name, perhaps David might be a more sensible choice. But she warned that as soon as young Erin Junior was strong enough to travel, she would
be
bringing him straight to London to meet his Auntie Sunday.

It was at this time that Sunday made up her mind that she just had to talk with her Aunt Louie. She hadn’t seen the old lady since that fleeting glimpse at her mum’s funeral, and there was something important that Sunday needed to say to her. Luckily, Louie had left a forwarding address, which was in Adelaide Road up at Swiss Cottage, and so one afternoon after she had left school for the day, she took a trolleybus to Camden Town, changed on to a petrol bus to Chalk Farm Underground Station, then walked a short distance up the hill towards Swiss Cottage along the main Adelaide Road.

When she found the terraced house she was looking for, Sunday was quite impressed. It was a four-storey Edwardian-style house, and although the brickwork still carried some wartime bomb-blast scars, to Sunday it seemed like quite a posh place to live in, for when she went up the steps to the street door, the smell of tobacco flowers in the small front garden was quite overpowering.

‘Goodness!’ gasped the rather petite elderly lady who opened the door. ‘You’re Sunday, aren’t you? I saw you when we came down to the VE Day party – at the flats where you live. Oh, do please come in.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Sunday, with a smile. She rather liked the woman, for she was quite dotty, and had lovely long curls which jumped about on her head as she closed the door behind them, and led the way into the front room overlooking the road.

‘You just sit down and make yourself comfortable,’ said the old lady, quite breathless with excitement. ‘I’ll go and call your aunt. We were just playing some gin rummy upstairs. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.’

Sunday wanted to tell her not to go to any trouble, but by the time she could even open her mouth, the old lady had scurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Whilst she sat there, Sunday couldn’t help noticing how
much
more interesting the room was than her own parlour back at ‘the Buildings’. There was so much bric-a-brac scattered around, two lovely big leather armchairs placed either side of the fireplace, and lots of books on shelves built into the alcoves. The huge aspidistra on a small polished table in front of the window brought a smile to her face, and she loved the draped floral-patterned curtains that were pulled back to reveal delicate lace ones beneath. There were several family portraits hanging on the walls, and there was hardly an inch of room on the mantelpiece, for it was crowded with framed photographs of various middle-aged ladies.

When the door opened again, Sunday was surprised to see how different her aunt was looking. She had lost a great deal of weight, which somehow made her face look gaunt and weary.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ asked Louie, remembering to keep her lips facing Sunday. ‘It’s quite a surprise.’

Sunday felt quite awkward. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Aunt Louie,’ she replied weakly.

To Sunday’s surprise, her aunt went straight to her, hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I don’t mind at all,’ she said, with even the suggestion of a smile on her face. ‘Come and sit down, Sunday. Tell me how you’ve been getting on.’

They both sat in armchairs facing each other.

‘It’s strange,’ said Sunday. ‘I never thought I could cope, living on my own.’

‘I must say, you look well on it.’

Sunday smiled. Then she looked aimlessly down at her lap for a moment, before looking up again. ‘Haven’t seen you since Mum’s funeral.’

Now it was Louie’s turn to look down. But she quickly recovered from her uneasiness, and looked up at Sunday again. ‘I didn’t want to be involved in all that Bible-punching,’ she said. ‘I wanted to say goodbye to Madge in my own way.’

‘I understand.’

Louie was grateful for Sunday’s response.

For a brief moment, they sat in silence.

Sunday was first to speak. ‘Auntie. I had a reason for coming to see you. I’ve wanted to do it ever since Mum died. But, I just had to get over it all first.’

The two of them moved automatically to the edge of their seats so that they could be facing each other much closer.

‘The day Mum died, she told me that she was going to come up to see you, to ask you to come back home.’

Louie froze and gripped the arms of her chair.

‘She said a lot of things,’ Sunday continued. ‘She said she felt guilty about the way she’d treated you, that you’d always been such good friends.’

Louie leaned back in her chair again. ‘We were as close as any sisters could be,’ she said with a sigh.

Sunday watched her aunt as she gazed aimlessly into the fireplace. ‘Anyway, I just wanted you to know. We had a long talk about it, only a few hours before – before it happened.’ She leaned forward and touched her aunt on the knee. ‘What I’m trying to say, Auntie, is, try and forgive Mum. She didn’t mean half the things she said.’

‘I’m the one who needs to be forgiven,’ replied Louie, her face looking much more taut than Sunday had remembered. ‘I was ungrateful. Your mum did a lot for me, and I was ungrateful. I was jealous because she had something that I wanted.’ Just occasionally she forgot to keep her lips turned towards Sunday, and every time she remembered this, she had to repeat herself. ‘Reg Collins didn’t want
me
. I tried to convince myself that he did – but he didn’t.’