Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy
Outside the station some rebuilding had begun, but the street was still full of debris. Heaps of rubble on both sides of the road told Elizabeth more about the blitz than a hundred letters or a hundred newsreels had done. These had been houses and offices. Now they were bits of buildings. Odd, awkward-looking bits jutted up, doorways remained standing in isolation.
Yet Mother walked past it all on the way to the bus stop, unperturbed, giving the little laugh she used to give when she was impatient.
As they scrambled on the bus, Elizabeth staring to see a woman conductor, Mother said, ‘Your father’s very excited about your homecoming – he’s bought gulls’ eggs. They were one and three each. We’re going to have them tonight as a celebration. And a nice friend of mine, a Mr Elton, has got us some real cake. You know, with sugar and butter in it.’
Elizabeth looked at Mother with affection. She seemed so like a girl, more like Maureen and her friends than Aunt Eileen. And she did look lovely. Her belted, dark green jacket had big, military shoulders – she had such a tiny waist. Elizabeth touched her hair. It had been cut a week ago in Kilgarret by Maisie O’Reilly who ran the La Bella hair salon. Only very smart people went there, but Aunt Eileen had said that she must have a nice style and set before they sent her back to England. It had cost quite a lot but Aunt Eileen had said not to think about that; they couldn’t send her back looking like a tinker. Aisling had tossed her own mop of red curls around in the salon and discussed long and loud what fashionable people would do if they had been unlucky enough to have been born with this dreadful colour of hair. It had been another funny-sad day with the end of her stay in sight. Aisling had said twice that maybe Elizabeth should make her home in Ireland and abandon the idea of going back to London. Aunt Eileen had been very short-tempered and said this was a selfish and infantile suggestion and she didn’t want to hear it again.
Elizabeth looked out of the window; everywhere there seemed to be queues, and there were lots of people in uniform. It was all very crowded. She thought of Kilgarret. Aunt Eileen might at this very moment be writing a letter to her. She said she would write every week for a while, that Aisling would promise to write but would never put pen to paper. Aunt Eileen wouldn’t promise that she’d come over to London, but said she’d think about it.
‘Child, when you get back there you might be of a different mind,’ she had said. ‘I don’t mean that you wouldn’t want me, or any of us, but we’re part of a separate life. Remember that you weren’t at all displeased when your own mother didn’t come over here. People have to have compartments in their lives.’
Mother was smiling at her. ‘I can’t tell you how good it is to have you home,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘It was a good long war. It’s hard to have lost all those years of you growing up. But you’ve grown up very nicely. I hope I did the right thing. … I’ve always hoped that.’
‘I liked it there, very much. It was different, but they were all very kind, all of them. …’
‘I know, you always said that in your letters. That’s another thing. You were a good letter-writer. Your father and I were delighted.’
‘How is Father?’ asked Elizabeth with her hands clenched tight until the knuckles stood out.
‘He’s very well, of course he is. I told you he got us some gulls’ eggs, didn’t I? He’s been looking forward to your coming back for ages.’
Violet laughed again, and Elizabeth felt a flood of relief. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, she wasn’t thinking of Father as someone who was going to make her impatient and purse her lips. She squeezed her mother’s arm happily.
‘It’s great to be back,’ she said.
George had been looking at fifteen-year-old girls for three months. He wondered if Elizabeth would look like young Miss Ellison might have looked two years ago. Miss Ellison who came into the bank with her father was seventeen. He wondered whether she might look like the little princesses. He hoped that she would not have picked up too many Irish ways. The Irish were very unreliable, and from their irresponsible attitude towards the war which Mr Churchill had severely trounced them about, to their smuggling and black market tricks they were very devious and knavish. He had wished that Elizabeth had never been sent there.
Admittedly she had written regularly and these friends of Violet’s had been very kind to her. They had been remarkably generous, too, for people with no great income and a large family. It had all gone on far too long and he felt cheated of his child’s youth. She would now be a grown-up girl, silly and female and wanting to talk about film stars and make-up. He would never be able to talk with her and show her things and explain how things worked. She would never come to him for advice or believe that he knew everything which is what daughters always did to their fathers.
This war had robbed everyone of what was their right. It had robbed him of his wife, too. Violet hardly knew whether he breathed or not. She was perfectly agreeable most of the time, but she seemed to live on a different planet. It was as if she didn’t even notice him. That’s what the war had done to people like Violet, taken away their normal family feeling, taken away a sense of home. Violet didn’t even cook or take a pride in what she could get from the shops like other women did. Everyone at the bank talked about the rationing, the shortages, and joked that if you stopped to talk to a friend in the street people would think it was a queue and would line up behind you.
But Violet barely cared, she read novels and she saw friends from the munitions factory from time to time. She was getting thinner too, all skin and bone, he thought.
‘Mrs Simpson always said that you can never be too thin or too rich,’ Violet would laugh if he said anything about it.
She hadn’t even planned a special meal for Elizabeth’s return. If he hadn’t been able to get out yesterday and queue for gulls’ eggs there would have been the usual powdered egg omelette or a tin of corned beef.
He hoped that Elizabeth would not have become very distant and giggly. He hoped she would be glad to see him and want to talk to him and ask him his views about things. He wanted to tell her about the war – properly, not the way the Irish would see it. He wanted to show her his maps of the world, and the charts he had made, with all the armies in different colours. She would question him about tactics and strategy, and he would look thoughtful and give her his considered opinion.
The gate clicked and they were there. Violet carrying one suitcase, the tall girl with the shining fair hair clasping the other. He cleared his throat as he opened the hall door. She was going to be a tall blonde stranger.
Aunt Eileen had said that she would probably find Clarence Gardens had got smaller when she got back; it was something that happened to everyone; they thought the places they knew when they were young were huge. Elizabeth had laughed at this, she remembered Clarence Gardens very well, she said, the blue and beige carpet, the hall stand, the front room where they only sat on occasions. This was the room which had the little corner cabinets with ornaments and where Mother used to sit and write her letters or read in the afternoons.
But how odd, the house itself hadn’t got smaller, just the stairs, and the distance from the hall door to the stairs. She had thought it was quite a big hall, but in fact it was only a small passage. She hung up her brown coat, draping it over a peg, and moved quickly to take stock of her surroundings. Father went into the kitchen ahead of her. …
He was fussing now, touching things, patting them, like an old woman, not like Father. He seemed flustered as if she was a visitor. Which of course she was in a way.
‘Well well,’ he said rubbing his hands, ‘Well well well.’
‘It’s amazing to be back again Father,’ she said.
‘Heavens,’ he said, smiling at her happily.
‘Did you miss me a lot, it must have been a bit empty … I mean lonely or quiet. Quiet without me,’ she said. She stumbled over the words, knowing that ‘empty’ was wrong, but not being sure why.
‘Oh I missed you, all the time, a child grow
‘Yes.’ She wished Father had said something more extravagant. ‘Of course I wrote a lot,’ she said.
‘Yes yes, but it’s not the same.’
He was trying to be polite to her, trying to tell her how much he missed her, yet it sounded as if he was complaining.
‘Well, I didn’t start the war,’ she said, laughing.
‘No, no, and you were so good, no complaints from you all that time … such cheery letters,’ he said hastily.
‘You never wrote Father, I wish you had.’
‘I can’t write letters, your mother is the letter-writer in this house.’
Elizabeth wondered why he couldn’t write letters, he must have been taught to write them like everyone else. She said nothing.
‘It’s been so strange,’ Father said, struggling. ‘So strange, and now having you back, that’s strange too.’
He echoed Elizabeth’s own thoughts … but she wished he could have found a nicer word than strange. …
‘Yes, you’ll have to start getting used to me again,’ she said, hoping that it might make him smile to hear her talking in that grown-up voice. But he must have missed the jokey note in her tone.
He seemed more anxious than ever to please her … he waved towards the oven … a big expansive wave taking in the whole kitchen. …
‘We have a special supper tonight … great treat in your honour. …’ he said. In the little hall, Mother was carefully rehanging her coat, fishing out the little loop at the top which Elizabeth had hardly ever done since she had got the coat. The O’Connors were not great for hanging clothes on hangers or using the little loop.
‘It’s all just the same,’ Elizabeth marvelled. She did wonder whether they had not a new and smaller range, but no, it seemed exactly the same as the one that had been there. She saw the garden changed through the windows, the remains of the Anderson shelter … she remembered Mother had written about that. … She walked into the front room, it smelt cold and musty. Mother’s little desk was still there, but there were a lot of boxes on top of it with a permanent look. The room felt damp and Elizabeth gave a little shiver. The antimacassars, the linen backs on the dark red sofa and chairs, seemed crumpled and the room looked as if it hadn’t been used for a long time.
Father was behind her.
‘Perhaps we should have a cup of tea in here in your honour?’ he said, eager to please and hoping that she wasn’t disappointed for some reason.
Elizabeth shivered slightly again. ‘Heavens no, Father, let’s go back to the kitchen, it’s just grand in there.’
‘It’s not really grand. …’ began Father.
‘In Ireland they say “grand” when they mean good,’ she said, linking him into the kitchen.
‘What do they say when they mean grand?’ Violet asked, bringing up the rear.
‘I think they still say “grand”,’ said Elizabeth, and they all laughed and it felt like being at home.
There was so much that was new, so much to absorb and remember. Of course, Violet had written about the points system and rationing and the endless queues; but the reality was so mean and shabby, it was all so dispiriting. Sixteen points for this, two for that – and even when you had sorted out points and coupons, and queued for ages, there were still shortages. ‘Waiting for further orders,’ Elizabeth would be told, and then, from force of habit, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’
‘Do you remember Monica Hart?’ Violet wanted to know. ‘She was at school with you. …’
‘I remember,’ laughed Elizabeth. ‘Aisling and I called our cat after her. It’s still there you know, a huge black cat called Monica. Niamh sort of thinks she owns it now, but it was Aisling’s and mine for a long time. …’
Violet noted the dreamy note that came into Elizabeth’s voice when she spoke all the strange Irish names of Eileen’s family. She had never said she had missed them nor hinted that she was lonely. But Violet realised that it must be a huge shock, coming back to a house that was silent all day from one where there was constant companionship and apparently half the town passing through on some errand or other.
‘They live just down the road now, the Harts,’ she went on. ‘I see Monica sometimes on her bicycle. Perhaps you could be friends. It would be nice for you to have a friend.’
‘Yes.’ Elizabeth was unenthusiastic.
‘Before you go to school. Monica is at the grammar school, she can tell you what it’s like and give you hints. …’
‘Whatever you like,’ said Elizabeth. She didn’t like the thought of meeting Monica again, bossy Monica who used to pinch her during Miss James’s class. Miss James was in hospital she had heard, she suffered from war nerves. Mother had met someone who had gone to visit her and Miss James was smoking a cigarette and making a basket and didn’t want to talk.
‘Good.’ Violet was brisk. Elizabeth had been home for five days. She was very content to sit around, reading and writing an interminable letter to Ireland. She would stand placidly in queues, and once she had understood coupons and points had been very helpful with the shopping. But Violet wanted her to live a more normal life and not behave like a visitor in her own home.
Monica had become much less bossy, though, or at any rate she showed no desire to pinch Elizabeth any more. She was polite and rather silent when she came to tea. Elizabeth had to do most of the questioning. Violet seemed to think it was all going quite successfully.
‘I’ll leave you two to talk over old times,’ she said, putting on her hat. ‘I have to meet people from the munitions factory. We’re going for a little drive.’
‘Do the factory ladies have a car?’ asked Monica with interest.
‘Oh Monica, you’d be surprised what we factory ladies have these days,’ said Violet with a tinkle and she was gone.
‘Your mother’s like a film star,’ said Monica.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ shrugged Elizabeth. Suddenly she remembered saying to Aisling, ‘You’ve got the loveliest mother in the world, she’s so strong,’ and Aisling had shrugged too. Perhaps people don’t ever appreciate their own mothers properly, she decided.
‘What’s your mother like?’ she asked Monica.
‘She’s all right,’ said Monica unhelpfully.
Elizabeth sighed. It was uphill work. Aunt Eileen would have known how to get the conversation going, and Aisling wouldn’t have cared, she would have just chattered on happily about whatever interested her, and it would be up to Monica to join in or not as she wished. …
But Elizabeth wasn’t able to do either of these things.
‘Do you collect stamps?’ she asked Monica desperately.
‘No,’ said Monica.
‘Neither do I,’ said Elizabeth, and for some reason that seemed funny to both of them, and they laughed until they had pains in their sides.
Monica was an avid film-goer. She knew all the details of the film stars’ lives and was anxious to fill Elizabeth in on all she had been missing.
‘Of course, you were away for all of this,’ she would say forgivingly, as if Elizabeth had actually lost out on being part of the Hollywood scene because of her five years in Ireland. Monica had no time for Shirley Temple who had just had her first screen kiss with much publicity … Shirley Temple was strictly for adults to go ooh and aah over. No, Monica liked Deanna Durbin, and Hedy Lamar and Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, and she admired Judy Garland and Bette Davis though she didn’t actually want to imitate them. She knew all about their marriages, their romances and which child was by which marriage to whom.
Monica suggested that Elizabeth wear her hair like Veronica Lake hiding her face, but it didn’t work. The shock of blonde, almost white, hair looked odd and untidy when Elizabeth tried it. Elizabeth wondered what it would be like to kiss Clark Gable as she studied his photograph. Would his moustache tickle her nose and make her sneeze?
‘I expect it would be just like kissing anyone with a mo
‘I expect it would,’ Elizabeth agreed emptily. She felt so ignorant about the world of films; now she was going to be a non-starter in the world of kissing too. The only field where she had any superiority was having come from a land of plenty. From a place where there was as much to eat as you could ever want, and where nobody stood in queues for anything.
‘What used they to eat on Sundays, tell me again,’ Monica would beg.
Elizabeth described the Sunday lunch; soup and homemade soda bread. Then a boiled chicken with white sauce and boiled bacon, and potatoes in their jackets, and cabbage cooked in the same water as the bacon so it tastes all flavoury. And apple tart and the top of the milk. And sometimes they had red lemonade and sometimes they had glasses of milk. Monica listened in a dream of gluttony, her mouth watering at the thought of it.
‘And teas, tell me about their teas.’
Sometimes Elizabeth wished she wouldn’t go on so about food because it made them all feel deprived. She told of the apple cake which Peggy made, and how it was like bread but there were bits of apple and sugar baked in it, or when they had black pudding spread on bread.
Monica said enviously, ‘They must have had very good connections.’
‘No, they didn’t have any connections … you see there wasn’t a war there.’
‘Of course there was a war there, there was a war everywhere, and what about the Enniskillens and all those, they’re Irish aren’t they?’
‘Yes, but it’s a different part of Ireland. There was a war up in the North but not… not where I was. That’s why I was there.’
Monica dismissed it.
‘You missed lots of fun not being here, I tell you. You could see all kinds of famous people … they were all round the place keeping up people’s spirits. I even spoke to Sarah Churchill once. You must know Sarah Churchill, she’s famous. She has gorgeous red hair.’