Daisy's Wars (45 page)

On the outside she seemed to be coping well. Everyone said she was looking better now that the first anniversary of Peter’s death had passed, but inside her the turmoil Peter had saved her
from was raging again. She had always thought of herself as a strong woman – not as strong as others thought her, but strong enough – but she no longer felt like that and wasn’t
sure what to do about anything.

David came home that April, providing a welcome diversion and bringing with him a wife, a beautiful blonde Danish girl called Mette whom he’d met on his travels. Daisy wondered what Peter
would have made of it, his easy-going, laidback, good-chap son arriving home already married, so when she paid her usual visit to his grave she told him, imagining his reaction.

When she came back, David was waiting for her.

‘Why do you do that?’ he asked.

‘What?’ she asked, perplexed.

‘Go down to that cemetery.’

‘Because your father’s buried there!’ she replied.

‘Yes, that’s the point, Mum, he’s buried there because he’s dead. You’re a young woman, why are you trying yourself to a piece of ground instead of
living?’

Daisy didn’t have an answer apart from the one she had already given.

‘You must be about the same age as Pop was when he married you,’ David said gently. ‘He had lost his wife, but he didn’t sit around talking to a headstone. He went out
there and got himself a new woman and another family.’

‘Well, that’s the potted version,’ Daisy said defensively. ‘And it’s only been just over a year, David.’

‘That’s long enough,’ he said firmly. ‘Or were you thinking of going on like this for five years? Ten? The rest of your life?’

Daisy couldn’t believe her own son was rounding on her when she hadn’t done anything wrong, as she told Eileen later on the phone. She was even more stunned when Eileen agreed with
him.

‘Ask yourself, what would Peter say if he knew you were trotting up and down to his grave with bits of family news? And be honest, Daisy!’

‘He’d be annoyed, I suppose.’

‘You suppose?’

‘Well, yes, all right, he would be annoyed,’ she admitted. ‘What am I supposed to do? Register with a marriage bureau?’

There was a long silence.

‘Eileen?’

‘I’m here.’

Another silence. ‘Well what are you waiting for?’

‘For the penny to drop, Daisy, you clot!’

‘What penny?’

‘What,’ Eileen asked in an innocent voice, ‘ever happened to Mr Right, the Spit guy?’

‘Oh, him! He asked me not to write to him any more,’ Daisy shrugged.

‘I can hear you shrugging. The same shrug as when you made me post his letters back to him marked “Gone Away”.’

‘Dear God, Eileen Reilly, are
you
by any chance running a marriage bureau these days?’

‘Go away and think, woman, and don’t disturb me unless you have something to tell me. I’m packing. Annie, Gavin and I are going to see Calli’s family in Canada,’
Eileen laughed.

‘What? Tell me more!’

‘His brother turned up, saw Annie and Gavin and thought he was seeing his mother and Calli. I was going to explain anyway, but I didn’t need to, he worked it out as soon as he set
eyes on them. We’re going to Nova Scotia to give his mother what he calls “A couple of surprises” .’

‘Oh, Eileen, that’s just so wonderful!’ Daisy said, then cried down the phone as Eileen cried back to her. ‘I’m a sucker for a happy ending these days!’

‘Would you listen to yourself? And not a hint of irony, either! Now go and think, Daisy. Don’t mess up again. We’re not getting any younger, you know!’

Daisy couldn’t do it, though. She didn’t even know what it was she was supposed to do. It wasn’t a fear of leaving the house. The house would always be there
and David and Mette would be staying for a while at least, while they both did post-graduate degrees. The musical charity she had set up in honour of her, sister was running itself without her, so
it wasn’t that she was desperately needed. The problem was how to go about something that was possibly a figment of her – and other people’s – imagination. The whole thing
was silly. She was being pushed into something she didn’t want to do at a time when she was still vulnerable after Peter.

Seeking support, she called Pearl, who proceeded to tear her off a strip for being timid and lacking backbone.

‘When I think of how you bullied us, Daisy Sheridan, and now you’re behaving like some shy virgin, it just makes my blood boil!’

‘I didn’t bully you!’ Daisy protested.

‘Yes you did!’ Pearl almost shouted. ‘I was so scared of you I didn’t tell you I’d made a date with one of the Lanc’s new gunners.’

‘I was protecting you, trying to save you from being hurt!’

‘Well I’m returning the compliment, Daisy,’ Pearl said sternly. ‘Have some bloody guts, woman, take a chance. What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘He can tell me to get lost,’ Daisy said quietly.

‘So? You’re lost already, you silly woman! Spend a little of the large amount of cash that you’ve got, and buy a plane ticket.
Now
!’

Attacked from all sides Daisy began to feel that the rest of the world had it in for her. It seemed that she’d gone from a happy, sedate family life to complete turmoil, and everyone was
telling her off and informing her that she was wasting her life. And furthermore, they were doing so in very angry tones she didn’t think she deserved.

Then she woke up one morning and everything seemed clear for the first time in years. She’d often dreamed of being on a road with many turnings, and the more she looked, the less sure she
felt about which one to take. That night she’d had it again, and the road she took led to a hot place, where Isaac, Frank’s shopkeeper cousin, was waiting to hand her two ice-cold
bottles of juice. He was smiling and pointing further down the road, so she took the juice, thanked him and walked down the road she obviously knew she had to take, and furthermore she was
happy.

There was one thing left to do before she could go, though: she had to talk to Peter.

She had made many visits to his grave. At one time she had thought talking to him, bringing him up to date with family news, would make her feel better, a device to get her over the raw time
after his death, but it hadn’t worked like that and each time she got up to go she felt more bereft, more alone. This time, she knew, would be different, this time she really would be leaving
without him. It was early May, the time of his precious snowdrops was over and there were daffodils everywhere. At this time of year he would have been looking out for Professor Quibbe’s
entries in the next local flower show, she thought with a smile, not a plant in the area would have been safe, and she wondered what he would have done with the red roses she had brought to lay on
his grave.

Looking at the headstone she cringed, as she always did, at the words. ‘Peter, beloved husband of Daisy.’ Words had to be used, she mused, but they were always the same, always so
formal and they never said anything meaningful. She had often looked around this tiny place and read almost identical inscriptions with nothing but the names and dates changed, wondering if there
wasn’t a way of saying something true about the people lying below. But what words were there to describe Peter? A man who, at a party long ago, had dragged her about the floor forcing her to
dance with him, who good-naturedly refused to be refused, she thought with a smile, who presented her with the engagement ring she still wore and, by way of a romantic proposal, asked her please to
confirm that she wasn’t a man. She twisted the ring on her finger, remembering how she had closed the box with the ring still inside and pushed it back at him. And when she had given into
Mar’s bullying and phoned him to surrender, instead of taking the call he had instantly jumped into that ridiculous two-seater sports car and driven to her side. And just how could any words
on his headstone describe the nonsense of Professor Quibbe or the business of the cold accordion player who ended up with an expensive cashmere coat? He had been quite the silliest man she had ever
met, and that was saying something, during the war she had met a few. There was more to Peter than that, though, much more. She cleared a space beside the stone and sat down.

‘Peter,’ she said quietly, ‘I have something I have to tell you, well, things, actually, and I have to tell you now because I’m going away and I don’t know when
I’ll be back, or even if, which is funny really, I fully expected one day to be lying right here beside you.’ She stopped, listening to the breeze rustling through the new foliage on
the trees. He had once said to her, ‘Ever wondered why the trees in graveyards are so magnificent? It’s all that natural nourishment,’ and he had chuckled wickedly.
‘Peter!’ she had chided. ‘Do you have to be so graphic?’ ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ he had replied cheerfully. ‘I’ll be more than happy if my
old bones can help a tree to bloom, won’t you? A nice, sweeping willow for me, I think.’ What had she said? Ah, yes. ‘In your case it would have to be a monkey puzzle
tree!’

‘Peter,’ Daisy said, ‘you saved my life. I think you know that, but I want you to know that I know it, too. When you took me on I was a mass of fear, shoulder chips and
confusion, I think you were the only one who could see that.’ She looked across the immaculate grass to where Mar and Par lay. ‘Though dear old Mar suspected something,’ she said
with a smile. ‘You let me be myself, Peter, you gave me safety and freed me, I know that, and I never did say how grateful I am for that. I would have been a very different person if you
hadn’t come along – with a push from Mar, of course. I always tried to be my own person, but I couldn’t have done it without you. No one had ever loved me unconditionally, I
always had to earn it in some way, provide a service of some kind, be what they wanted me to be. It took me a while to understand that you just loved me. You gave me happiness and peace, as well as
a great deal of laughter and exasperation, it must be said, and my life is empty without all of that, all of you, I suppose. I loved you, too, I hope I said that often enough. I still do,
you’ll never leave me, but I think I have to go now, to move on with my life. I’ve met someone, well, re-met someone, the pilot I thought had been killed during the war. Remember? He
didn’t die after all. I found him by chance and I’ve decided to take that chance, if he wants me, that is. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t be the kind of woman who
could try, and I suppose I’m asking for your blessing.’

Around her the wind whispered again in the trees and she laughed. ‘I don’t know if that came from a willow or a monkey puzzle, but it’ll do,’ she said. ‘Thank you,
Peter, my love,’ and placing a kiss on the headstone she got up and left, and this time she felt calm and optimistic.

When she got back to the house, she called Edith and asked her to meet her at the airport, and two days later, like the friend she was, Edith was waiting for her.

‘Same place?’ she asked.

Daisy nodded. ‘Same place.’

When Edith dropped her off outside the farmhouse, Daisy told her not to wait. As the car moved away, she stood outside the house and gathered her confidence. ‘What’s the worst he can
do, Daisy?’ she repeated to herself. ‘Tell you to get lost? Go on, take a chance, have some bloody guts, woman.’

Then the door opened, and as he came down the path he was holding his open arms out to her.

Acknowledgements

As usual there are many people to thank, especially Pip Brimson who, as Pip Beck, was a serving WAAF with Bomber Command during WW2. Her story of those years was invaluable
able and I thank her for the generosity and patience she showed in dealing with the endless questions I fired at her. Daisy isn’t Pip, but Pip gave me a valuable framework for Daisy’s
working life and an understanding of that time. If we don’t give enough honour to the men of WW2, and we don’t, we certainly give considerably less to the women who served with them
and, being women, they rarely draw attention to themselves or what they did during those years. They gave up their teens and early twenties and, having mastered every trade from Intelligence
Officer through Lorry Driver and Mechanic to Pigeon Handler, they were demobbed at the end of the war and effectively sent back in to Civvy Street to become housewives and mothers. They were the
women who gave birth to the Women’s Lib generation and, though there’s still a long way to go, I don’t believe women today would be where they are without that wartime
generation’s efforts and influence. Thanks also to Frances Mahonney of the WAAF Association for supplying back editions of the WAAF News, a goldmine for anyone interested in learning more
about that time from the women themselves.

I also have to thank my son, Euan, once again, for his military knowledge, his endless supply of books and videos and his advice on which ones to read and watch! And Marion McMeekin and John
Sheen for their knowledge of Newcastle life and history, and the staff of Newcastle Central Library’s Local History Unit, who provided many of their own publications and were always happy to
help, no matter how obscure the information requested. Others I’ll never be able to repay for their patience include Peter and Janine Watters of Dalby in the Darling Downs in Queensland,
Australia, James W. Irvine of Lerwick in Shetland and everyone else who found themselves being bombarded with questions they couldn’t understand why they were being asked. Oh, and Raymond
Murphy, who sat beside me at primary school, purloining erasers, rulers and pencils, on a daily basis and who still thinks he should be paid for being sent off to
properly research
the
snippets of information he passes on to me at various stages. Also, my friend Kath Hickey in Australia. And lastly, a lady who doesn’t even know she provided the ending for the book. Rene
Callaghan of Ardross in Australia told an anecdote in the WAAF Association News of May 1997 that I had to have for Daisy. I haven’t been able to trace her, but Rene, wherever you are, I thank
you for your wonderful story.

Sources