GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (26 page)

‘What?' asked Lyn.

‘She gets on with apple pie, we get on with a roll in the hay!'

They both burst out laughing again.

After four months back in America, Ben still hadn't managed to find a job. The Army was paying him $20 a month as part of the ‘52/20 club', which helped servicemen for the first year of civilian life. He and Lyn used the money to go to the movies or eat in burger bars every now and then. But there were no regular dances like in the war.

‘Is this all there is?' complained Lyn one day. ‘We eat and we wash up and that's it?'

Her natural tendency was to relieve the tedium with humour, but whenever she joked around her lightheartedness was met with contempt from Mrs Patrino. ‘She gives me the look,' Lyn told Ben, rolling her eyes heavenwards in a parody of her mother-in-law.

When Mrs Patrino was out of the house one day, Lyn decided she would attempt to cook the dinner as a gesture of goodwill. She found a recipe book and followed it diligently, but the chicken was so rare it was virtually uncooked, and the family almost broke their teeth on her corn on the cob. Mrs Patrino's look of thunder made it clear she thought Lyn had spoiled the meal on purpose.

Lyn ended the day exhausted and in tears. Whatever she did, Ben's mother seemed to despise her, and he did nothing to intervene.

‘You have ostrich syndrome,' she told him. ‘You just stick your head in the sand!'

‘I don't like fighting,' he replied. Growing up, it had always been his role to play peacemaker between his parents and two brothers. But he could see how much the situation was upsetting his wife. He was reluctant to confront his mother directly, but he decided on a subtler way to show his support for Lyn.

On the second Sunday in May, Ben went to the local florist and bought Lyn the biggest bunch of flowers he could afford. When he returned, she was sitting out in the garden, smoking a cigarette and feeling glum. As she saw the flowers, her expression changed. ‘Ben!' she exclaimed. ‘They're beautiful.'

‘I wanted to show you how much I love you,' he told her.

Lyn took the flowers and breathed in their sweet scent. ‘I'd better put them in some water,' she said. He followed her into the kitchen, where Mrs Patrino was sitting at the table.

‘Look what Ben bought me!' Lyn said.

Mrs Patrino's face darkened. ‘You love this, don't you?'

‘Yes, I do,' said Lyn, confused. Mrs Patrino stormed out of the room.

It was only later that Lyn discovered the second Sunday in May was when Americans celebrated Mother's Day, and Ben hadn't given Mrs Patrino anything.

‘Why did you do it?' Lyn asked Ben. ‘It's like you were taunting her.'

‘I just wanted to make it clear you came first,' he said hopelessly.

Before long Ben was forced to express his feelings more directly. In her first weeks at the Patrinos', Lyn had taken out her frustrations in a letter to a friend back home. Exasperated with Mrs Patrino's endless cooking and cleaning, she had written a withering description of her slimy pasta and tomato and garlic sauce.

Lyn had never sent the letter and had forgotten all about it, but one day, to her horror, Mrs Patrino found it. ‘I've never hit a woman in my life, but I feel like slapping you!' she exploded.

‘Why do you have such a problem with me?' Lyn demanded.

‘I think you're a lousy wife!' Mrs Patrino cried. ‘My son should never have married you. He should have married a nice Italian girl!'

Lyn ran upstairs to the bedroom and began to sob. When Ben found her and heard what Mrs Patrino had said, he knew his days of appeasement were over. He went downstairs and confronted his mother. ‘Lyn's what I want,' she heard him tell her angrily. ‘She's the wife I've chosen.'

Despite her tears, Lyn felt victorious. At last Ben had shown he was on her side.

But Mrs Patrino wasn't willing to concede defeat just yet. Still confident in the hold she had over her son, she decided to put his loyalty to the test once and for all. A few days later she accosted Lyn and Ben in the kitchen. ‘It's her or me,' she told her son. ‘Make your choice.'

Lyn was stunned. She couldn't believe the woman was really asking him to choose between his mother and his wife.

Ben was calm, but firm. ‘We're leaving,' he said, taking Lyn's hand. They went to the bedroom, threw their clothes into a suitcase and walked out, avoiding his mother's furious glare. They might have no job and no home to go to, but it was better than staying under Mrs Patrino's roof a moment longer.

When Sylvia and Bob arrived back in Baltimore from their honeymoon, she found a pile of post already waiting for her. There were telegrams of congratulations from her mum and dad, from her Aunt Lillian and even from her granddad, who had never sent a telegram before in his life. Her friend Peggy from the Piccadilly Hotel had wired her best wishes too. Sylvia realised that, lonely as she had felt on her wedding day, there had been plenty of people back home thinking of her.

To her surprise, among the mail was an envelope with a California postmark that had been addressed to her in Woolwich but had been redirected. Inside was a letter from her first ever GI boyfriend, Andy, in which he asked her to marry him. Sylvia couldn't believe that yet another of the men she had briefly dated during the war had proposed, but, like the others, Andy was to be disappointed. Sylvia wrote back saying that she was flattered, but she was already married.

She could not have been happier with her new husband Bob. He was loving, romantic and considerate, always ready with a compliment or a witty remark. But as time went on, she found living under his parents' roof more and more of a strain. Baltimore in summer was unbearably hot and humid, and to make matters worse Mr O'Connor had some strange views on ventilation. He was so paranoid about burglary that all the windows downstairs were permanently nailed shut, and since the bedroom that Bob and Sylvia slept in was in the middle of the house, it had no windows, only a small access door onto the roof that Bob's father forbade them from opening. His solution to the unbearable humidity was to decree that all bedroom doors be left open throughout the night to allow a through-draught.

But for a newly married couple, this arrangement was far from convenient. Whenever Sylvia and Bob shut their door at night in order to have a bit of nooky, Mr O'Connor would run down the corridor, banging on the door and demanding that they open it again.

‘What does he think we're doing in here, playing tiddlywinks?' Sylvia whispered to Bob, as his father hammered on the door.

But Bob felt they had to do as his father wished, and reluctantly he opened the door and they went to sleep instead.

Living with the O'Connors, Sylvia soon discovered that the card game that had taken place during her wedding reception was a regular event. Every Saturday, the huge clan would assemble at one of their houses for an early dinner, before spending the rest of the evening playing poker.

Sylvia and Bob had been back in Baltimore less than a week when she witnessed her first card game. Almost all of Bob's mother's siblings took part. His Uncle Ira was there with his wife Marie, as were Uncle Curtis and his wife Catherine. Mrs O'Connor's third brother, Kenneth, arrived on his own – Bob explained that Uncle Kenneth's wife Katherine wasn't a big fan of poker. His Aunt Erma, meanwhile, had also taken a rain check. ‘She likes pinochle better,' Bob explained.

They weren't the only women in the family to give the game a miss. Although Catherine had accompanied Curtis to the dinner, Sylvia soon learned she had no intention of joining in. ‘I'll just sit upstairs and do some crocheting,' she said.

Sylvia followed the rest of the family down to the basement. It was the coolest part of the house and its dark environs lent the game a certain atmosphere.

Everyone took their seats around a large table. ‘Why don't you sit with me and watch to begin with?' Bob suggested, cracking open a beer. His mother brought Sylvia a glass of iced tea, before taking her seat at one end of the table.

‘We play dealer's choice,' Bob explained to Sylvia, ‘which means whoever deals sets the rules for the hand.'

His father was already shuffling a deck of cards. ‘All right, we'll start with five-card draw,' he said, tossing cards face down in the direction of the players as they each threw a nickel into the pot. They picked up their little piles, fanning them out and inspecting them carefully. Bob explained the basic possible hands to Sylvia, from a simple pair through to a royal flush.

One by one the players threw money into the centre of the table as play went round the group. Some of them swapped cards in their hand for more from the deck.

‘I fold,' announced Dorothy after a while, tossing her cards face up onto the table.

Soon she was followed by Kenneth, then Ira and Marie, leaving only Bob, his Uncle Curtis and his parents in the game.

Sylvia looked down at Bob's cards – two aces and three queens. ‘We call this a full house,' he whispered to her.

Sylvia nodded, doing her best not to smile. From what little of poker she had seen at the movies, she knew it was important not to give away the strength of your hand.

Play continued, and the pile of coins in the centre of the table continued to mount up. Sylvia watched the other players as they took their turns. Bob's father had a look of profound concentration on his face, as if he might be calculating odds in his head. His wife's steely expression never faltered – she rarely smiled in everyday life, and now Sylvia realised it meant she had the perfect poker face.

Bob's eyes were lit up. He seemed completely gripped by the game.

‘I'll raise you a dollar,' Mrs O'Connor said.

‘I fold,' Mr O'Connor replied resignedly.

‘Too high for me,' Curtis said, tossing down his cards.

‘You got me, Mom,' Bob replied, shaking his head.

Bob's mother leaned forward and scooped up the pile of winnings from the centre of the table. ‘Wait, don't we have to see what her cards are?' Sylvia asked Bob.

‘No, she bid high, and we weren't willing to match it,' he replied.

But curiosity got the better of Bob's sister Dorothy. She flipped Mrs O'Connor's cards up on the table, and a groan went round the group.

Sylvia stared at the cards. They were almost worthless – two threes, a seven, a ten and a jack.

‘I don't believe it,' Sylvia cried. ‘She took all that money, and with those cards she ought to have lost!'

Bob sighed. ‘That's Mom,' he replied. ‘She's a pretty good bluffer.'

After a few more hands it was clear that Mr and Mrs O'Connor were the strongest players, he thanks to his good memory and scrutiny of his opponents, and she thanks to her deadpan look. Bob won a few hands, and then lost a few, but his enthusiasm for the game never seemed to dampen.

Only Uncle Ira ever seemed to get really worked up. ‘What are you doing, you dummkopf?' he would chastise his wife Marie, while chewing on a cigar he kept permanently unlit in the corner of his mouth. Sylvia was privately rather pleased when Marie confounded his expectations by winning several hands.

‘Well, it's time for me to go,' Uncle Kenneth announced after about an hour. ‘Katherine will be waiting for me at home.'

Sylvia noticed that the other Catherine had come down from the living room and was hovering in the doorway too. ‘Yeah, me too,' Curtis said, catching her eye and obediently heading over to her.

But despite the loss of two players, the game continued apace. ‘Do you want to play?' Bob's father asked Sylvia after a while.

‘Oh, all right,' she replied. ‘I'll give it a go.'

The next poker variant was called five-card draw, jacks to open. ‘It's like before, but you need two jacks to open the pot,' Bob explained to her.

Sylvia nodded. It seemed pretty straightforward.

Bob dealt the cards, and she was first up. ‘I'm afraid I have to pass,' she said. Play moved round the table, and no one else was able to bid either.

‘That's strange,' Bob commented. ‘All right, we'll deal again.'

Everyone returned their cards to him and he dealt them new hands. Once again Sylvia told them she would have to pass.

‘Are you sure you can't open?' Bob asked her.

‘Yeah,' Sylvia replied ruefully, showing him her hand.

‘Sylvia, you've got two queens here!' Bob laughed.

‘I know,' she replied, confused. ‘But you told me I had to have two jacks.'

‘I meant two jacks or higher!' he said. The whole family guffawed with laughter.

‘She sat there all that time for nothing!' Bob's father said, clearly enjoying the joke.

After Bob had explained the rules again, they began the round for a third time, and this time Sylvia played along correctly. But as much as she tried to enjoy herself, she just couldn't. She didn't like the atmosphere of competitiveness the game created, and the edge of nastiness it brought out in some members of the family. No wonder the other wives had wanted to go home.