The Evacuee Christmas

Chapter Three

Three streets away Barbara’s elder sister Peggy was having an equally dispiriting evening. Her husband Bill, a bus driver, had received his call-up papers earlier in the week, and he had to leave first thing in the morning.

All Bill knew so far was that Susanne Pinkly’s brother Reece was going the same morning as he, and that after Bill and his fellow recruits gathered at the local church hall, all the conscripts would be taken to Victoria station and from there they would be allocated to various training camps in other parts of Britain, after which at some point he and the rest of them would leave Blighty for who knew where.

Bill was packed and ready to go, but he was worried about Peggy, who was four months pregnant and was having a pretty bad time of it, and so Bill wanted her to hotfoot it out of London as soon as she was able as part of the evacuation programme, as pregnant women as well as mothers with babies and/or toddlers were amongst the adults that the government advised to leave London.

‘It’s daft, you riskin’ it ’ere in the interestin’ condition you’re in,’ he told her.

‘Interesting condition’ was how they had taken to describing Peggy’s pregnancy as they thought it quaintly old-fashioned and therefore a phrase full of charm.

‘I want to go and fight for King and Country knowin’ my little lad or lassie is out of ’arm’s way, an’ ’ow can I do that if I know you’re still stuck ’ere in Bermondsey? Those docks will be a prime target for the Germans, you mark my words, Peg,’ Bill added.

Deep down Peggy knew there was sound sense to Bill’s argument. They had been childhood sweethearts and had married at twenty, and then had had to wait ten agonisingly long years before Barbara pointed out to her big sister that Peggy wasn’t getting plump as she had just been complaining about, and that the fact that her waistband on her favourite skirt – a slender twenty-four inches – would no longer do up as easily as it once had was very likely because Peggy had in fact fallen pregnant.

Peggy was dumbfounded, and then thrilled.

A fortnight later Bill actually passed out, bumping his head quite badly, when Peggy showed him a chitty from the doctor that confirmed what they had spent so many years longing for, and which they – or Peggy at least – had completely given up hope of ever happening.

Until the doctor had confirmed all was well to Peggy, she hadn’t dared say anything to Bill, knowing how many times he’d been cut to the quick when a missing or late period, or Peggy having a slight bulge in her normally flat tummy, hadn’t gone on to lead to a baby. Perhaps now they could get their marriage back to the happy place it had once been.

Understandably, their relationship had struggled as the childless years had mounted, and as everyone around them had seemed to be able to have a baby every year with depressing ease. Peggy had often had to bite back bitter tears in public when she’d heard a woman complaining about being pregnant again.

She would have given anything to be pregnant just once, while Bill had sought solace in the bookies or the pub, and occasionally over the last year or two, Barbara had begun to wonder if he hadn’t taken comfort in the arms of another, not that she ever dared raise the issue.

Being barren was bad enough, Peggy felt, but to be barren and alone, which could well be an inevitable consequence if Bill had found himself seeking a refuge from their worries elsewhere, was more than she felt she could cope with.

The doctor’s confirmation that, as he put it, ‘a happy event is in the pipeline’, had felt to Peggy very much like the strong glue the couple needed to stick things back together again between them, and Bill had seemed to agree, not that he had ever said as much.

But this sense of optimism hadn’t prevented Peggy’s pregnancy being full of problems and worries, as she had continued to menstruate as if she weren’t pregnant, she’d had terrible sickness from around virtually the very moment that Barbara had made the quip about the skirt waistband and more or less constantly since, until perhaps only a week or so previously.

This endless nausea had led to her losing a lot of weight, and so one day when Peggy was looking particularly blue, Barbara had echoed the doctor with, ‘That baby is going to take everything he or she needs from you – they are clever like that. And so although the very last thing you might feel like doing is eating or drinking, that is precisely what you must do, as you really do need to keep your strength up.’

Peggy was inclined to agree with her sister about the baby being quite selfish in getting what it needed. Right from the start her stomach had become very rounded – much more so, she was convinced, than other mothers-to-be she met who were roughly at the same stage as she – while her breasts were tender, with darkened and extended nipples that couldn’t bear being touched.

While the baby seemed quite happy tucked away inside Peggy, the rapid weight loss from his or her mother’s arms and legs and face had made her look very weary and drawn, while her extended belly and puffy ankles and fingers suggested that Peggy might be a lot less happy health-wise than her baby.

In fact, she had recently had to take off her wedding ring as her fingers had become too bloated for wearing it to be comfortable any longer. Now she wore the ring on a filigree gold chain around her neck that Bill had got from a jeweller’s in Aldgate, Peggy saying that this was an even more special way for her to wear the ring as it held the precious wedding ring as close to her heart as it could possibly be.

The posters going up around London suggested it was going to be downright dangerous to stay in the city. Peggy knew that Ted would be needed on the river and this meant that Barbara would stay by his side, no matter what.

‘Peggy, I can’t stay ’ere as I’ve got my papers,’ Bill said as he sat on the other side of the kitchen table to her, ‘an’ I think you know that’s true for you too, as it’s likely that round ’ere it’ll all be bombed to smithereens an’ back.’

Peggy’s breath juddered. Bill was right, but his blunt words rattled her, in part as she immediately thought of what Barbara and Ted might be going to have to face.

Bill’s words were simple, but these were such big things he was saying. Of course she knew that she had a treasured new life growing inside – made all the more precious by the long time that she and Bill had had to wait for such a wondrous thing to occur – and so when push came to shove she would do what was best for their much-longed-for baby. And now that Bill had voiced his concerns about how dangerous London was very likely to be, she didn’t want him to worry about her and the baby when he would have quite enough to fret about just looking out for himself while he was away fighting.

She would go, of course she would.

But she wasn’t happy about it. She had never spent time away from Bermondsey before; it was a modest area, but it was home.

In terms of what needed to be done in order for her to go, it wasn’t too bad. Peggy and Bill rented their house and it had been let to them along with the furniture they used. They didn’t have many possessions and very few clothes, and so Peggy knew that with Bill away she could easily make use of Barbara’s offer of storage space in the eaves of her and Ted’s roof, which was reached through a small trapdoor on their tiny landing, for Peggy to put their spare clothes and some of their wedding present crockery and so forth, if she did decide to be evacuated herself.

Peggy was sure that if she supervised the packing then Ted would actually do it for her, as she got so tired these days she couldn’t face the idea of putting things in tea crates (of which Ted could get a ready supply at the docks) herself, and then Ted would borrow a handcart to lug everything over to his so that it could be safely stowed away.

‘Go,’ Bill urged once more, cutting across her thoughts. ‘Go and stay somewhere that’s safer – you’ll be doing it for our baby, remember.’

Peggy understood what he was saying, but she could feel the ties of community entwined around her very tightly, and so she and Bill had to talk long into the night before she could find any sense of peace, and it was only after he had held her snugly for an hour once they had gone to bed that she was able properly to rest.

Chapter Four

The next morning at just gone seven Peggy kissed Bill long and hard in the privacy of their home, and then, after he’d swung his heavy canvas kitbag up and onto his shoulder, she walked at his side to the church hall, where there was already a heaving group of raw recruits and their loved ones saying goodbye as uniformed officers and civilian officials walked around and about with clipboards and organised those leaving into groups designated for particular buses to Victoria station.

During her pregnancy Peggy had discovered that tears were never far away, and this Friday morning was no exception. She also felt a bit dizzy after just a couple of minutes, standing on the edge of the melee alongside Bill, as there were so many people bustling this way and that that it made for the sort of constantly changing vista that led to travel sickness.

Bill smiled at her and said, ‘Peg, don’t wait around. You ’ead on to your Barbara’s for a cup of tea. There’s no point you stayin’ ’ere just to wear yerself out. We said our goodbyes earlier and now your work is to look after our babbie. I see Reece Pinkly over there and so I’ll ’ave someone to look after me, don’t you fear, my love.’

It was too much for Peggy, and she found herself violently sobbing on Bill’s shoulder.

Just for a moment, she wished she wasn’t an expectant mother. It felt too much responsibility, and in any case, just what sort of world was it going to be that in a very few months she would be bringing a poor defenceless baby into? How would she be able to manage? What if the future were very dark for them all? There was no guarantee that the Germans wouldn’t end the war victorious, and then where would they all be?

Bill held her close for a minute and then he took a step back and looked at her seriously. ‘Peggy, it’s time for you to go,’ he said softly but firmly, and he stepped forward to give her back a final rub. ‘I’d say I’ll write, but you know that’s not my strong point… Still, I’ll do my best, Peg.’

With great reluctance Peggy edged away from him, not daring to look back as she knew that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to let him leave.

Peggy made her way slowly out of the church hall and crossed the street to stand with some other wives as they gathered on the pavement outside the meeting point.

She was unable to say for certain if she had managed to grab a final glimpse of Bill as she craned her head this way and that to look through the open door to the church hall, trying to pick him out from the constantly moving mass of people. Unfortunately the men all looked similar in their dark wool suits and Homburg hats (most of them having dressed in their best clothes to go), while more and more wives and children were now cramming the pavements around her, squeezing close, and suddenly Peggy felt nauseous and unbearably oppressed.

She staggered slightly for the first few steps as she headed in the direction of her sister’s house but then she felt calmer and a little more certain of herself as she moved along the pavement.

There was a thrumming engine noise behind her, and a horn blasted out as a gaily painted charabanc that looked so hideously at odds with Peggy’s dark mood began to inch by.

With a whump of her heart, Peggy saw Bill standing up in front of his seat, with his face pressed sideways to the narrow sliding bit at the top of the window, and he was waving frantically at his wife. Peggy could see the shadow of Reece Pinkly alongside.

‘Peggy Delbert, I love you!’ was a shout Peggy thought she heard above the din as now some wives and kiddies were pushing past her to run right beside the moving vehicle, some even banging the charabanc’s sides as it edged its way through the grimy street.

She hoped she had caught Bill’s words – he clearly had been saying something to her – but she couldn’t prevent a slither of concern that perhaps some little mite would take a fall as he or she ran beside the bus, slipping to a heinous end under the rear wheels, and so she felt thoroughly discombobulated, quite done in with her undulating feelings. Bill’s declaration of what she hoped was love now felt tainted somehow by the worry of the children running beside the large vehicle.

‘Bill, I’ll look after our baby, I will, I will,’ she shouted back, her hands either side of her mouth in an attempt to make her voice as loud as possible. She hoped against hope that her husband could feel the strength and resolution in her cry, even though she knew he was already out of earshot.

She hoped also that he knew she was feeling the pain of his absence almost as sharply as if she had lost one of her own limbs. She had married him for better or for worse, and they had had the ‘for worse’ for too long – she was now determined on the ‘for better’.

Evacuation simply had to be for the better. Didn’t it?

Chapter Five

‘Yer better give Barbara ten minutes on ’er own with our Jessie and Connie,’ advised Ted, when he ran into Peggy as she was trudging towards her sister’s house just a couple of minutes later. ‘We’ve jus’ told ’em they’re to be evacuated on Monday mornin’ along with the rest of their school an’ it didn’t go down well.’

Peggy couldn’t fail but notice how deep were etched the lines on the face of her brother-in-law all of a sudden. He was only in his early thirties, but just at that moment, as he stood half in a weak shaft of early-morning sunlight and half in heavy shadow, she could see exactly how Ted would look at age sixty. Then she hoped that he would make it to such advancing years, and not be cut down in his prime as many people would inevitably be during the war.

‘How did they take it, the poor little mites?’ she asked, swallowing her sad feelings down and trying to concentrate instead on Connie and Jessie. ‘I really feel for them as they’ll hate being apart from you and Barbara. And I’ve promised my Bill that I’m going to go out of London too. I don’t really want to, but if I stay and something happens to the baby, then I’ll never forgive myself, and he won’t either.’

Ted nodded to show his approval of Peggy’s decision, and then he confessed that it had been very hard for him and Barbara to find the right words to break the news of the forthcoming evacuation to the children.

They had found it a difficult line to tread, he explained, as they wanted to make it sound as positive an experience as possible for Jessie and Connie, without there being any option for them not to go, but with it all being couched in a manner that wouldn’t make the children worry too much once they had gone to their billets about Ted and Barbara remaining in London to face whatever might be going to happen.

‘Connie seemed the most taken aback, which were a shock, but that could be because we’re more used to seeing Jessie lookin’ bothered an’ so we didn’t really notice it so much on ’im. Still, it were a few minutes I don’t care to repeat any time soon, and Barbara were lookin’ right tearful by the time I ’ad to go to work and so she’ll be glad to ’ave you there, I’m sure,’ Ted confided to his sister-in-law.