To The Grave (3 page)

When Mena returned to her bed, she found that she was incapable of sleep.  She tried a book from the pile of classics on the floor beside her, but neither Dumas nor Stevenson could hold her attention.  Instead, she wrapped herself in her bedcovers and sat in her favourite chair by the window where she watched the sunrise.  It was a perfect morning: no snow, but the frost was thick enough to give the illusion and if it wasn’t going to snow then a clear and crisp sunny day was just what she liked.  The mist had all but gone now and the world outside her window was no longer silver but orange like her gift, which was back in her hands, slowly turning in her lap.

She was deep in thought, her gaze fixed on the horizon while she wondered how her brothers were today.  She said good morning to each of their remembered faces, which she did every morning, silently praying for their safe return.  She knew that their Christmas fare would be better than hers again this year.  They would have real roast turkey and roast potatoes, with cranberry sauce and pickles, peas and corn, spread with real butter, too, no doubt.  At least, she liked to think they would.  She thought about the ‘mock turkey’ she’d helped her mother prepare: sausage-meat with chopped apple and onion and two parsnips for the legs.  It tasted nothing like turkey, but as with so many things now, it was all about appearance.

Appearance.  Mena hadn’t given much thought to what she would wear today, but with the arrival of her orange, she knew that she had to come up with something special.  She felt it her duty to look her best - all part of the war effort and doing one’s bit, which brought her to the makeup issue.  That was another matter altogether and one on which her mother avidly disapproved.  But it was Christmas Day and she was every bit sixteen and a half years old.  The only thing that concerned her was how to improvise with what remained of the few items she’d managed to scrounge off Mary on her last visit a few months ago - she didn’t want to arrive at breakfast looking like a rag doll.

There was a
Boots
in Leicester and she was dying to try their
No.7
range.  She hadn’t been there in a while, but the last time she looked they had foundation cream and complexion milk, which cost three shillings each, rouge cream and nine different shades of face powder.  The lipstick came in so many colours, it was like being in a sweet shop, but Pop wouldn’t waste the money even if her mother had approved.  ‘We’ve no knowing how long this war will last,’ he’d say, and that would be the end of it.  She hoped Mary would come up trumps with a few leftover essentials for her Christmas present this year, so she could make a better job of things for the evening.

Mena unwrapped herself from the bedspread and sat at her dressing table.  She set the orange down in the sunlight from the window and frowned at herself.  Her hair was too straight for what she had in mind.  She wanted long golden waves for the daytime, straight at the sides to frame her face before gently curling onto her shoulders like that Hollywood actress she’d seen in a movie last summer: Veronica Lake.  For the evening it had to be an up-do.  Nothing looked classier.

She opened a drawer and found her makeup kit - such as it was.  The only item of real makeup she had was a stub of lipstick that she had to get at with a cotton bud because what little remained was recessed far into the tube.  She had rouge for her cheeks but that wasn’t really makeup.  She’d crushed a square of watercolour paint into as fine a powder as she could manage using the mortar and pestle from the kitchen once when her mother was out, and she had to use it sparingly on moist cheeks so as not to overdo it or out came the rag doll.  She had nothing at all for her eyes, but then her father had always told her how pretty they were - much like her grandmother’s, only paler, more slate-blue, so she considered herself lucky there.

Some of her friends were washing their legs with black tea or smearing gravy browning on them because no one was manufacturing silk stockings any more; they needed the silk and the production looms to make parachutes.  She’d tried gravy browning once, but Xavier - or Manfred, she couldn’t remember which of the Great Danes it was - had spoilt the already poor effect by licking her legs under the table.  And besides, she had no eyeliner pencil to draw the seams with anyway.  Ankle socks would have to do.

Chapter Three

B
y the time Mena was ready to make her appearance to the rest of the household, she could already hear the hubbub of what promised to be a very special Christmas morning.  For at least half an hour she’d been listening to the clatter of pans and the tramping of ten-year-old feet as the twins from London chased one another about the place; their incessant energy bolstered by the occasion and their own expectations of what new things Christmas would bring.  She could hear her mother shouting at them to settle down or there would be no presents this year.  Then it would go quiet for no more than two minutes before the pandemonium started up again.  Occasionally, beneath all this, she heard Pop’s voice.  She could only hear the soothing tone of it - words without distinction - but longer periods of calm always followed and it was during one such calm period that she heard another voice, conjoined with the hum of her father’s.  It was another man - a much younger man.

Mena smiled at the Hollywood star in the mirror and thought that the woman who winked back at her would do very well.

“Philomena!”

Her mother’s voice was shrill.  It rose to such a high pitch that Mena jolted as if being startled from a daydream, knowing that that was the sound of her mother’s final call.  She slipped her socked feet into a pair of white-and-black saddle shoes and hurriedly tied the laces.  Then she ran to the door and only paused to straighten her dress when she reached the bottom of the stairs.  She took a moment to compose herself in the hall mirror and thought the coat-stand to the right of the front door looked a little heavier than usual and those were definitely not her father’s boots beneath the parlour palm at the base of the jardinière.  Pop’s voice drew her across the parquet floor to the sitting room door where she waited and listened.  She could make out his words perfectly now.

“Oh, I’m kept busy,” Pop said in response to a question Mena had been too late to hear.  “I make most of my house calls in the villages now.  There was a nasty bout of flu doing the rounds not so long ago, but the extra petrol coupons keep the old Morris running so I get about well enough.  Now what about you?  1st Airborne treating you well, are they?”

“As well as any man might expect under the circumstances,” the other man said.

“Yes, well perhaps it will all be over by next Christmas, eh?  Did you hear Churchill’s announcement on the wireless last night?”

“No, sir.  I’m sorry to say I missed it.  We arrived quite late.”

“Of course.  Still, it’s not like we weren’t expecting it, there’s been enough speculation these past months.  I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you to hear that Eisenhower’s been appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.”

“I’d sooner see one of our boys in the role.”

“Quite,” Pop said.  “But I believe the decision was largely based on the nationality of the country with the highest commitment of troops.”

“And the usual politics, no doubt.”

“Oh, no doubt at all.  Although politically the decision carries with it certain guarantees.  If the coming operations in the ETO are to be led by the Yanks, then any failure will ultimately be seen by the world as their failure.  From a political standpoint their full support and their unwavering attention are secured now for the duration.”

Mena was distracted by the arrival of the twins.  First one then the other came sliding past her like a déja-vu episode in grey socks and identical yellow candlewick dressing gowns.  They slid all the way to the foot of the stairs without registering she was there and they raced up them like stampeding elephants, slowly followed by Xavier and Manfred who both nuzzled her hand as they nonchalantly passed.

Another clatter of pans from the kitchen forced Mena to call out, “I’ll just be a minute, Mother.”  Then she tapped on the door, turned the doorknob and stepped through into the sitting room, which was bright with dusty sunlight and suddenly full of smiles.

Both men were standing beside a fire that by now was spitting vigorously at the brass fireguard.  A pair of knitted Christmas-stockings hung from a blackened beam and towards the window to her right, over an arrangement of floral-print furniture, a small Christmas tree looked proud despite the lack of any new ornament again this year.  The twins had been kept busy one afternoon on the lead-up to Christmas, making animals from Pop’s pipe-cleaners, but they ended up looking more like hairy caterpillars to everyone except the twins.

  Mena’s smile met Pop’s first.  He was wearing a jacket and tie: the same old comfortable tweed jacket with the sagging pockets that he wore when he made his rounds.  His smile was pinched at one corner to keep his pipe from falling out and he had a hand in one of his jacket pockets as usual, which was why they had sagged over the years.  Mena’s attention was quickly drawn to the man beside him who was beaming back at her.

“Eddie!” she said.  She saluted him.  “Or should I call you Captain Buckley now?  Pop told us all about it.”

Edward Buckley pulled a straight face.  He saluted back and stamped his heel.  He laughed.  “Merry Christmas, Mena.  And Eddie will do just fine as always.”

She threw herself at him.  “I knew it was you,” she said, hugging him so tightly she thought she would crease his uniform.

“What?  Even with the tash?”

“It’s barely there,” Mena said.  “But very becoming an officer.”  She studied his face like he was on inspection: the tidy brown hair, which she thought a little too shiny, and the hazel eyes that co-ordinated well with the drab colour of his uniform.  “Thanks for the orange,” she added as she withdrew.

“You’re welcome, I’m sure,” Edward said.  “Now let me get a good look at you.”  A moment later he added, “Wow!  Don’t you look pretty in that dress?  Blue always was my favourite colour and those polka dots set it off a treat.  Are they yellow or cream?”

Mena frowned.  “They used to be white.”

“Well, whatever colour they are, they’re my favourite, too.”

She slapped his arm and laughed.  “You’re just saying that.”

“I never say anything I don’t mean,” Edward said.  “I told your father I’d make it here in time for Christmas and here I am.”

Pop leant in towards the fireplace and blew his pipe-smoke at the flue.  “And we’re glad to have you.  I only wish you could stay longer.”

“When must you go?” Mena asked, alarmed by the suggestion that their fruit-bearing guest had to leave again so soon.

“I might just fit in a little tea before I head back, but only if it’s early.  A car should be here for me around six.”

“We’ll make sure of it,” Pop said.

There was a tap at the door and Mena turned towards it as it opened, expecting to see her mother.  It was Mary; another smile to replace the one she had suddenly lost.  She looked amazing, Mena thought.  She was out of uniform, in heels, which helped, and real stockings too, she supposed.  She wore a light-grey jacket, belted at the waist and a matching skirt that was fitted all the way to her knees so that she waddled like a duck when she came into the room.  At least that’s how Mena saw things, but the smile on Edward’s face as he rushed to meet her suggested to Mena that he liked the effect.  What really set the look off was the fact that she was already wearing her strawberry-blonde hair in the same kind of up-do Mena had planned for herself that evening.  Mary must have known that Eddie would be gone again by then.

There followed a kiss that lasted all of five seconds but which felt to Mena more like five minutes.  Her father looked away into the fireplace and continued to puff on his pipe as Mena watched her sister’s ankle slide the length of her slender calf and back again.  She wished her calves were that slender.  She thought how unfair it was that she should still carry the softness of her childhood just as she was beginning to feel like a woman, but she figured the Land Army would soon sort that out.  It would be a ‘healthy, happy job’ according to the poster she had in her room and there was certainly nothing soft about the pitchfork-wielding girl in the green pullover and khaki corduroy breeches depicted in the advertisement.  Mena saw Edward whisper into Mary’s ear and Mary whispered something back.  She couldn’t hear what it was, but it set the young lovers giggling.  A year ago, perhaps two, Mena would have charged in and insisted they tell her what they were giggling about, but she was all grown-up now and knew better.

When at last Mary and Edward managed to peel themselves apart they came hand in hand to the fireplace, smiling broadly and already glowing long before they reached it.  Mary seemed to see Mena then for the first time.

“Is that our Mena?” she said.  “No, it can’t be.”

Mena knew her sister was teasing, but it was the first time she’d made herself up at home and she was enjoying the compliments.  She couldn’t suppress her smile, however hard she tried to.  She gave a little curtsey and lowered her head to hide her blush.

“You look beautiful,” Mary said.  She leant in and they touched cheeks.  “Merry Christmas, sis,” she added.  Then she kissed her father and said, “You too, Pop.  Merry Christmas.”

There was no preceding knock at the sitting-room door the next time it opened and the sight of her mother standing in the glow of the frame reminded Mena that she had been by the fire too long.  Margaret Lasseter looked flushed as she continued to wipe her hands on the stained apron that covered her cornflower-blue day-dress.  She was a slim woman, almost as tall as Pop, with short mousy hair, sharp-set features and eyes that missed nothing.  There was the hint of a smile there somewhere, probably for the benefit of their guest, but Mena knew she was in trouble.

“Sorry, Mother, I was just coming.”

“Well hurry along, girl!” Margaret said.  She smiled more fully, yet unconvincingly, at Edward.  “Edward’s brought Christmas with him this year,” she added.  “Enough to last the week, I should think.  Real turkey, too, and there’s bacon for breakfast and a dozen real eggs.”  She was talking to the room now.  Then directly to Mena, she added, “It all has to be prepared, you know.  Quickly girl.  Unless you want us all eating dinner at tea-time.”