1945
I stood there in that freezing room, the eyes of the two unknown witnesses staring at my back, Travis at my side, my belly out in front of me, wishing the Registrar would just hurry it up a bit. He had this thin smile painted across his mouth, and there was something about him that I truly disliked. When I came to make the appointment, he told me that he’d done one other GI bride’s wedding. I didn’t tell him that he’d not have done one like this, though. After the divorce came through, I’d written to Travis in Italy and told him. He wrote back and told me that he’d got his commanding officer’s permission, as long as he didn’t try and take me back to America with him. They weren’t having any of that. Me, I wasn’t right over there. After I got his letter, I went to the Registrar and made an appointment. He told me that he’d done one other GI bride’s wedding.
1945
Nobody said anything, but when they lifted him clear of my body and began to towel him down, I knew what they were thinking. I stared at him. My beautiful son. The nurse placed him in my arms. He’s like coffee, isn’t he, love. I had no idea then that his father would never see him. Later, after I’d got the telegram, after the war was over, the lady with the blue coat came to visit. I could see her looking at me and thinking, poor disillusioned cow. You’ll be better off, love, with somebody else looking after him. Trust me. I know what I’m on about. I mean, how are you going to cope? You won’t know what to do now, will you. Let’s be sensible. You’re going to have to start a new life on your own. And so we were sensible, my son and I. My son who hadn’t asked me to turn him over to the lady with the blue coat and maroon scarf.
1945
The Red Cross man knocked once. Then again, impatiently. Hardly gave me time to set Greer right and get down the stairs. I opened the door and he handed me the telegram. I didn’t have a chance to say much of anything. He just smiled slightly and began to back away. I closed in the door. The telegram didn’t say much. I had to try to imagine it. To die at first light on the Italian coast. Fear. Mud. Shivering cold. Noise. Silence louder than any noise. Mortar fire. A bullet. A young man screaming in pain, shouting out for mercy to a God he no longer believed existed. His flesh ripped open by hot, flying metal. A man with blood flowing like red wine from his open veins. In a strange country. Among people he hardly knew. I remembered what my mother had said to me when I told her that I was getting married. At least you’re not getting wed to a soldier, she’d said. You should never do that, for you’ll just be left on your own. I closed the shop. I didn’t open up for three days. On the second day, two of them came to see me. They’d heard. They asked me if there was anything they could do. No, I said. Thank you, but no. After the telegram, I tried not to be angry. I knew everything was going on around me like normal. People were still having their usual at the pub. They were still going off to work the next morning. I was the only one who’d lost anything. They’d lost nothing. Just been inconvenienced a bit by this war. We hadn’t even been bombed in this bloody stupid village. I wanted to break something. I really wanted to smash something to bits. The following month it was all over. I put my hair up in a wrap and stepped out to join them. I held Greer and watched as they put on hats and sang. Then they danced the hokey-cokey. I’d done my bit. I’d supplied them with their food. Some went off to church. The bells were ringing again. I hoped that at least one of them might remember Sandra. Others lit a bonfire, and on to it went army forms and ration books; anything to do with the war. And there was a crude effigy of Hitler. That burned quickly. At nine p.m. the King made a speech in his usual stammer. I’d never had much time for these people, but it was moving. Some of them even spoke to me and smiled at Greer. Just before midnight, I took him inside, out of the evening chill. A week later she turned up. The lady with the blue coat. With her dog, Monty. And Len was back. He wanted his shop. I had no money. Nothing. Only Greer. She said, You’re going to have to start a new life on your own. And so we were sensible, my son and I. Into the care of the County Council as an orphan, love. It hadn’t really dawned on me, but it was true. His father would never see him. Never. I left the village, the shop, my ex-husband, and went to live back in the town. On my own. For weeks afterwards, I wandered around the park looking at women pushing their prams.
1963
I was in the kitchen, wringing out clothes in the sink. I happened to glance up. I saw him, standing at the front gate. I knew that it was him. I knew that one day he would come looking. That he would find me. I could hear myself breathing. But apart from this, I was calm. I surprised myself. He had a piece of paper in his hand that he kept glancing at. Then he’d look back up at the house, then back down at the paper. Then he pushed the paper into his pocket. Alan was at work, and the kids wouldn’t be back from school until four o’clock. The first thing that occurred to me was that he’d chosen his time well. That maybe he’d planned it all right down to the last detail. I looked at his hair. It was too short to be styled into that greasy Teddy Boy look. I hated that look. He unlatched the gate and began to walk up the path. I wasn’t going to be able to pretend that I wasn’t in. I waited until he’d knocked once. Then when he knocked a second time I went to the door and opened it. We stood and looked at each other, me drying my hands on a tea towel. My God, he was handsome. Come in. He seemed shy. Come in, come in. He stepped by me, dipping a shoulder as he did so in order that we didn’t have to touch. I closed in the door but for a moment I didn’t turn around. I was ashamed. I wasn’t ready. Standing there in a plain dress, with my lank hair, and my bare legs, and my slippers looking like the left-over scraps from somebody’s fluffy rug. Forty-five years old, and I knew I looked awful, but there wasn’t any time to fret over appearances. Not now. I took a deep breath and turned to face him. I almost said make yourself at home, but I didn’t. At least I avoided that. Sit down. Please, sit down.
I hear a drum beating on the far bank of the river. A breeze stirs and catches it. The resonant pounding is borne on the wind, carried high above the roof-tops, across the water, above the hinterland, high above the tree-tops, before its beat plunges down and into the interior. I wait. And then listen as the many-tongued chorus of the common memory begins again to swell, and insist that I acknowledge greetings from those who lever pints of ale in the pubs of London. Receive salutations from those who submit to (what the French call) neurotic inter-racial urges in the boulevards of Paris. (‘No first-class nation can afford to produce a race of mongrels.’) But my Joyce, and my other children, their voices hurt but determined, they will survive the hardships of the far bank. Only if they panic will they break their wrists and ankles against Captain Hamilton’s instruments. Put 2 in irons and delicately in the thumbscrews to encourage them to a full confession of those principally involved. In the evening put 5 more in neck-yokes