Who is Anna? Is she Anna-May Gates, the war-time evacuee who encounters neglect and unwitting abuse on a Welsh farm? The reticent, dutiful daughter of her foster-mother, Crystal? Giles's shy child-bride? Conscientious mother and housewife? Or Daniel's undemanding but sophisticated mistress? It takes catastrophe for Anna to emerge as an individual, claiming her own identity. Nina Bawden, as ever both acute and generous, delves skilfully into character and offers the richly textured story of a woman's life and stratagems, and of the flawed, kindly people who surround her.
Release date:
November 3, 2011
Publisher:
Virago
Print pages:
216
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One autumn evening in 1940, when she was four years old, Annie-May Gates passed within a yard of her future husband, her future
mother-in-law, and neither of them noticed her.
Not that this was surprising. It was war-time, the lighting was minimal and the station was alive, like an ant heap. There
was just that feeling of endless, aimless scurrying and bustling; as if the ground itself were heaving in perpetual, pointless
motion. It was only when the tannoy music was interrupted for an incomprehensible announcement that the swirling and the eddying
stopped, that anxious, listening faces became briefly individual: a tired soldier with a pack, a young woman in a red coat,
leading a straggling crocodile of mothers and babies and unaccompanied children.
Giles and Crystal Golightly were standing on the platform when they filed past to wait for the train. The children carried
gas masks in cardboard containers, teddy bears, crumpled comics, bags of sticky sweets. Labels, pinned to their chests, announced
their identities and destinations. Giles, noticing the labels, but with his mind on his mother, felt, for a fleeting second,
that he was posting her like a parcel.
He said, ‘But of course it’s not absurd for you to leave London, dearest. What point would there be in your staying?’
His question was not even faintly ironic. There was no possible connection in Giles’s mind between his mother and the women
who manned the A.R.P. posts, drove ambulances while bombs were falling, worked in munitions. His father, Colonel Basil Golightly
(chronically unfaithful and always compensating for it) had conditioned him to think of her as someone to be cosseted and cherished like some delicate
and prized possession. The obvious course in time of war was to despatch her to safety like a piece of good porcelain or a
valuable painting.
She said, ‘All the same, I wouldn’t go if Daddy hadn’t insisted.’ She gave a deprecating but complacent smile. ‘He does worry
about me so.’
‘Well, of course. Stuck up there in Scotland!’ Giles, who was aware (as his mother was not) of his father’s sexual habits,
was struck suddenly by the thought that the Colonel’s concern might be exaggerated by some new occasion for guilt. Otherwise
he would surely have sent for her to come to him, rather than suggesting she went to her own mother, in the country? The colour
rose in his cheeks which embarrassed him; afraid she might notice and guess the reason, he stared past her at the waiting
children. They stood in a tired, meek line and one or two of the smaller ones were snivelling. He thought, poor kids – and then of his mother’s comfort. He said, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have a crowded journey,’ and looked at her anxiously.
She was a very pretty woman in a restrained and ladylike way. (‘Ladylike’ was not a word Giles would have spoken aloud but
it was a concept he would unconsciously employ when assessing a member of the opposite sex.) A smooth, oval face, wide, healthy,
grey eyes, a barely lipsticked mouth. She was thirty-six but looked barely older than Giles, just eighteen and fresh as a
lettuce in his stiff, new uniform. In fact (he was proud of this) people often took them for brother and sister. Even for
lovers – when they’d had tea at the railway hotel, the waiter had found them an especially quiet table for two, in a corner.
Remembering this, Giles blushed again.
Crystal said, ‘Oh, the poor children! I shan’t mind them.’ She glanced at them with vague pity and thought of Giles, ten years
younger, fair-haired and grey-flannelled, waving goodbye. She said, with sudden emotion, ‘If you were that age, darling, I wouldn’t send you away like that.’
He answered without thinking. ‘You did, to school.’
She looked at him, shocked, and he felt guilty at once, though he hadn’t meant to hurt her. But she was so sensitive, it was
difficult not to. He began to wish the train would come and then felt guilty about that, too. Heaven knew when he would see
her again!
He said, ‘I know that wasn’t quite the same thing!’ Of course there was all the difference in the world between a rich little
boy, off to his good school, and this sad, raggle-taggle lot. Had it felt different, though? The worst thing was leaving one’s mother, though naturally one couldn’t admit that. Apron strings were
a bad thing to be tied to – he could remember his father saying something of that sort and his childish bewilderment: he had
never seen his mother in an apron. He hadn’t cried, at least not in public as some of those quite big boys were doing (there
was one fat, unattractive child with jade green snot streaming unchecked from his nostrils), but recalling his own, hollow
sense of loss at much the same age brought a sympathetic tightness to his throat.
He said, ‘I expect they’ll be all right once they get where they’re going, railway platforms are always the worst part,’ and
felt better.
She put her gloved hand on his arm. ‘Darling, did you hate going away?’
Her eyes were moist, and for a moment he had an impulse to tell her (after all, he might never see her again!), but she said,
‘I can’t think you did, you always seemed happy, but it upset me quite dreadfully. I used to sit in your room and cry for
hours after you’d gone. It felt so empty.’
He said, ‘Poor sweet,’ and touched her cold cheek. She looked solemnly into his eyes for a second, then smiled and sighed.
‘I should have had ten children, Giles, then I wouldn’t have been such a silly.’
He said, ‘Listen a minute.’ The voice over the tannoy sounded as if the speaker had a gag in his mouth or was shouting through
fog. ‘Not ours, is it?’ Crystal said, but people had begun to run down the platform. A laden porter jostled them and Giles
put an arm round his mother. He said loudly, ‘Careful, now!’ The porter glanced at him and jerked his head. ‘You’ll have to
move along, the coaches this part’ll be reserved for the children.’
The train was shunting in backwards. The slowly moving connecting rods gleamed, then a sharp hiss of steam rose, hiding them.
The carriage windows were obscured. Some of the people who had run down the platform passed them again, hurrying back. ‘Which
way did he mean, to move along?’ Crystal said, but the porter had gone and there was no sign of another. Only anonymous strangers
with intent, worried faces, pushing past them. Giles kept his arm round her shoulders.
He said, ‘There’s no hurry, there’s plenty of time.’
He thought, Not long now, and felt an extraordinary sense of relief as if a heavy weight had been lifted from him. The day had been a bit of a strain,
perhaps; he could admit it now. Now it was over and he had nothing to do except catch his own train, join his unit tomorrow.
And he was looking forward to it, he didn’t know what was going to happen next but he was looking forward to it, whatever
it was. It was all, quite suddenly, so immensely exciting that he could hardly endure to stand still another minute. Everything
was exciting, the whole business of war and movement and not knowing exactly where you would be tomorrow. He felt so strong
and eager and energetic that he was quite sure other people must feel the same way. Even those kids, one or two of them, anyway,
must be finding this fun, a new and marvellous adventure …
The children were boarding the train. A young woman in a red coat, standing by the carriage door, was swinging the little
ones up. Giles caught her eye; although she looked tired, she grinned at him cheerfully. He took his mother’s case and swung it lightly as he led her down the platform.
The train was longer than he had realized and most of it seemed set aside for the children’s evacuation. The only unreserved
coaches were full already; the soldiers, sprawled across the seats, looked as if they had been settled in for hours. And even
the corridors were filling up: quite elderly women, he was shocked to see, were sitting uncomfortably on their suitcases.
He said, ‘Try the other end,’ but as he wheeled her round, they met other voyagers, surging back. He forced forward, against
the tide, peering in through the smudgy windows. Some of the reserved compartments seemed only three-quarters full; children
took up less space than adults. He found one with an empty window seat and put the suitcase down to open the door but a uniformed
man – a guard or a porter – slammed it almost on his fingers. ‘These coaches are reserved for special passes,’ he said, looking
angry, or perhaps only harassed. ‘Never mind, I can catch the next train,’ Crystal said.
Giles felt his heart sink. But he smiled down at her. She said, ‘Really, I can quite easily …’ but he had caught sight of
the young woman standing alone by an open door and watching him. He hurried Crystal towards her. He said, ‘D’you think you’d
have room for my mother?’
The girl nodded and moved aside. She was a year or so older than Giles, perhaps, but not much more. The way she smiled at
him acknowledged their joint youth so brightly and openly that it was almost a sexual invitation. Or so it seemed to Giles.
He caught his breath: that was another thing to look forward to!
Crystal was saying something. He didn’t know what; didn’t want to know. He whispered in her ear, ‘You’ll be all right here,
better than with the coarse soldiery,’ and helped her in. There was room for her case on the rack, a seat by the window. The girl got in behind them, waited in the corridor. A whistle blew.
Crystal kissed him on the mouth. She said, ‘My darling, take care!’ No time for more, luckily – he was very conscious of the
girl, standing there. Not that Crystal fussed over leavetakings (coming from an Army family she was used to them), but she
had been sad, shutting up the flat, and he had seen tears in her eyes in the taxi. He said, ‘You take care of yourself, that’s
more important,’ and stepped back, off the train, brushing past the girl as he did so. Their eyes met and hers were very lively
and friendly. He thought, I could have kissed her too! The train began to move and he ran beside it, watching the girl through the smeary glass and waving and smiling. Crystal,
standing by the open window, was astonished by the brilliance and gaiety of his smile.
And also a little hurt. He looked so happy and free and she felt so bereft, suddenly. It had been a dreadful day, leaving the flat and all her pretty things and now Giles was gone,
too. A tired depression came down on her spirits and the journey seemed unlikely to lift it. The carriage was dimly lit, only
one blue bulb in the centre, and the bigger children were making such a noise, shouting and giggling and roaring up and down
the corridor. Crystal felt her head begin to ache. The girl in the red coat smiled at her and said, ‘They’re excited, that’s
all, they’ll give over later.’ She was clearly too busy to quieten the noise; there were so many smaller children who were
crying or clamouring to go to the lavatory. Crystal wondered if she should offer to help but the girl seemed so competent
and she was also afraid of being rebuffed: children were always unpredictable and these were much wilder and rougher than
the ones she was used to, almost a different race, with their ill-fitting clothes (either too large or shrunken) and their
running noses and their raucous voices. The young teacher’s voice was ‘common’ too, but Crystal, whose ear was carefully tuned to differences of accent, placed her a social notch above
her charges. She seemed a ‘nice little person’, she would even be pretty if it wasn’t for that frizzy, permed hair, and she
was certainly kind: when she had settled most of the babies with comics or sweets or thumbs in their mouths, she sat opposite
Crystal with one particularly inconsolable little boy on her lap. He had been crying softly ever since the train began to
move; now, as the girl cuddled him and talked to him gently, only an occasional, helpless sob shook him. He looked about six
and was thin and wretchedly pale with huge, dark, luminous eyes that roamed desperately round the carriage. ‘What beautiful
eyes,’ Crystal could not help saying. The girl smiled, rather blankly, and the little boy began to wriggle on her lap. She
tried to hold him still, to soothe him, but he wailed, ‘I don’t want to be safe without Mummy,’ and began to cry again, and
kick. The girl stood up and carried him into the corridor. Crystal watched her, walking up and down and holding his head against
her shoulder.
She stared at her reflection in the glass window beside her until it began to mist and blur. The child’s sad little statement
had made her eyes burn. For a moment she could have wept for him; then his unhappiness became a kind of fiction, to turn to
her own use. She thought, I don’t want to be safe without Basil or Giles. It didn’t have quite the same pathetic ring but she felt, she was sure, the same desolation and loneliness. Growing older
didn’t make you less vulnerable; you could feel as miserable at thirty-six as you did at six or sixteen. And there was no
one to comfort her – even Giles, who was usually so sensitive, had not understood what a wrench it was to leave home …
When the girl came back, the little boy was asleep. She sat down, carefully turning his face from the light, and smiled at
Crystal. ‘They’re all dead tired, that’s half the trouble, we’ve been on the move since this morning. Most of the time just hanging about, that’s been the worst part. And most of them don’t understand what’s happening or why, and
the parents haven’t helped much. D’you know what this kid’s Mum said to him? When she put him on the bus this morning she
said she was coming on the train too and she’d meet him at the station.’
‘Maybe she couldn’t bear to tell him the truth,’ Crystal murmured, and the girl tossed her head. ‘Then she ought to be shot.
Oh, that’s silly, but it’s the sort of thing makes me so mad! Poor little rats, they’ve got enough to bear without being lied
to as well.’
Though she knew it to be ridiculous, Crystal felt a stab of jealousy. All that young, indignant sympathy – and none of it
for her! She said, ‘One mustn’t exaggerate. Children’s emotions are very ephemeral, it’s the mothers that feel it. My son
went to school when he was seven and I know how I felt! And of course for these children there’s a good side, too. I don’t
mean just escaping the bombing, but it’s a wonderful chance for them to get out of the city. Where do you come from?’
‘Stepney. Creechly Road Juniors and Mixed Infants,’ the girl said, rather shortly. She looked at Crystal with a sudden gleam
of battle. ‘A bit of a slum but they don’t know that, do they?’
Crystal thought the poor girl was probably tired. She said, gently, ‘Well, then. Fresh air, good food, woods and fields to
run round in …’
‘Cows and manure,’ the girl said. ‘I was evacuated last year, with my training college. I’d never been to the country, only
to the seaside, and I hated it.’ She stopped, frowning; her eyes darkened and she looked much younger, suddenly. ‘I think
I was scared, really. It was so hot and still to begin with and so dead dark at night, and everywhere so empty and waiting – as if something awful was coming.’
She was looking quite white, Crystal thought. She said, brightly, ‘I expect it was just that at that time no one knew what was going to happen. The phoney war feeling.’
The girl smiled uncertainly but her eyes remained shadowed and fearful.
‘What else could it be?’ Crystal said. ‘It’s bound to seem quiet, after town life, of course. But I had the happiest childhood in the country!’
Not that her homecoming, this dark night of war, was particularly cheerful. She had trouble getting a taxi at the station
and the driver was surly when he found he had to drive up an unmade road that the rain had turned into a swamp in places.
And when she arrived, there wasn’t much welcome, either. It was a year since she had visited her mother and the condition
of the cottage dismayed her. Dust everywhere, chairs hidden beneath piles of books; used cups and plates on the table, several
encrusted saucepans standing in the hearth. And her mother, wearing an old, moth-holed cardigan fastened across her flat chest
with a huge safety pin. As Crystal looked round the room, she began patting and pulling at her clothes. Crystal said, ‘Mother,
you’ve been ill! Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have come long before!’
‘Afraid of that,’ her mother said in a queer, mumbling voice; then flushed and added, more clearly, ‘I didn’t want to worry
you.’
‘Oh, how silly!’ Crystal said, speaking gently, though the old irritation had begun to rise up in her. All her childhood,
dirt and muddle; her mother deep in some book while the dinner burned on the stove! Turning up at school prize days, hatless
and vague-looking – Crystal had always felt so sorry for her father when she met them, arriving together. He was so well-dressed
himself, such a handsome man, who liked women to look pretty. She remembered the expression on his face, the first time he
had seen her in a grown-up ball gown. He was taking her to a charity dance for her sixteenth birthday treat; she came down in her new green dress and pirouetted round, watching him, and herself, in
the mirror. When she stopped, he came to stand behind her; their eyes met in the glass and he smiled, white teeth gleaming
under his black moustache. She took a white rose from a vase on the table and turned to him but he caught her hand and said,
‘I don’t need that, you’re the flower in my buttonhole.’
It took so little to make him happy. Wearing nice clothes and smiling at his jokes. Her mother made no effort to please him,
never had, as far back as Crystal could remember. She bought clothes only when her old ones wore out and never went to the
hairdresser. Even as a girl she had been much the same: old photographs showed the same faraway look, the same wild, spiky
hair. Why they had married seemed a mystery. For her money, someone had once said, in Crystal’s hearing, but Crystal always
ignored unpleasant gossip and so the mystery remained: her father, so gay and outgoing, her mother only caring for her books
and her music …
The piano was open but hopelessly out of tune. Crystal, who didn’t play but who had inherited her mother’s ear, winced as
she touched the keys.
‘I don’t bother now,’ her mother said. ‘It’s that wireless you gave me. There are so many good concerts. I’m not up to the
standard.’
Crystal was hurt. She had given her mother a new wireless on her thirtieth birthday. (She liked to celebrate her own anniversaries
by giving presents; besides, it reminded her mother, who forgot them.)
She said, ‘But dearest, that’s not the same thing! I know you play wonderfully well, but you never thought of yourself as
. . .
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