Christmas on the Home Front

Alice looked perplexed for a moment as if she’d forgotten how she had arrived. ‘Oh, it was raining.’

‘Was it?’ Joyce hadn’t seen any rain on the windows and there had been no sign of drizzle on Alice’s shoulders or hair. She contemplated picking up the menu again and shutting out her irritating guest.

‘Sorry if I annoyed you.’ Alice had obviously picked up on Joyce’s mood. ‘I’m always annoying people. I think I’ll say something funny and it normally backfires on me. Sorry!’

‘That’s alright. I suppose we all need a laugh, don’t we?’

‘Yes, we do!’ Alice grinned, lines appearing at the corners of her mouth. Their tea arrived and the waiter arranged the pots and cups and saucers for them. He nodded and glided off to another table. The chatter in the room provided a reassuring and convivial ambience, but it made Joyce acutely aware of her own lack of conversation.

‘So, what do you do, Alice?’ Joyce poured them both a cup of tea.

‘I work on a production line. Hence the gloves.’

She pulled one of her long black velvet gloves off to reveal a set of stubby fingers adorned with sticking plasters and small cuts. ‘I move around a lot, but at the moment I’m here in Birmingham. They move me where I’m needed. What about you, Joyce Fisher?’

Joyce did her best to hide her annoyance. She never liked it when people used full names when they didn’t have to. It reminded her of being back at school.

‘I work in a salon,’ Joyce lied. She wasn’t sure why she said it. Perhaps it was to make it sound grander than it was, when the reality was she did the hair of friends and neighbours in her mother’s front room. Perhaps she felt a little embarrassed that Alice was doing proper war work and she wasn’t.

‘You never do!’ Alice exclaimed.

Was she accusing her of lying or was she surprised?

‘Yes, I do.’ Joyce felt a little uncomfortable. Alice must have sensed that she had crossed the line again and endeavoured to put things right.

‘Oh sorry, I wasn’t saying you didn’t. I just – well, I’m in need of a hairdresser.’

Joyce glanced up at the woman’s hair and decided that what it needed was to be given a thorough wash. Black strands hung limply down from where they had escaped a carelessly affixed hairband.

‘Well, if I had my things I could help you, but they’re back in Coventry.’

‘Coventry?’ A frown crossed the woman’s face.

‘Yes, have you been?’

‘No. It’s just—’ Alice seemed distracted, troubled even. And then it seemed she didn’t want to talk at all. ‘Sorry, I should be getting back to work.’

‘Oh right, yes, of course.’

Alice stood up and downed the rest of the tea in her cup. She pulled her fur wrap close around her shoulders.

‘It was nice to meet you Joyce Fisher.’ Alice offered her gloved hand for a shake. Joyce obliged, rising slightly out of politeness.

‘And you, Alice Ashley,’ Joyce sat back down again and watched the thin woman snake her way around the tables towards the exit. What a curious woman.

It was only when Alice had gone that Joyce realised she hadn’t left any money for her tea. The cheek of the woman! Had it been intentional? Some older businessmen, with shirt buttons straining because of too many expensive dinners inside them, were making their way into the café. Joyce realised that the establishment was gearing up for the evening crowd. She’d better go to meet John and find out how the meeting had gone.

Joyce called the waiter over.

‘Can I pay please?’

The waiter nodded and totted up the total for two pots of tea and a slice of cake. Joyce pulled her handbag across onto her lap and opened it.

Her purse was missing.

Joyce felt her heart sink.

‘Penny for them?’

Joyce was aware of Connie waving a work-gloved hand in front of her face. They were huddled around another new fence post and Joyce had been working without engaging in what she was doing; her mind firmly back in 1940. She batted Connie’s hand away.

‘Oh, I was just thinking back.’

‘You don’t want to do any thinking.’ Connie looked horrified. ‘Henry says I should read more books to make me think more. But I can’t lose myself in a book like he can. I joked that we’d have to pulp all his books for the war effort.’

‘I was remembering when I last went to Birmingham.’

‘That’s alright then. That sort of thinking’s allowed.’

‘The next day I went back to Coventry and saw what had happened.’ Joyce looked lost in her memories.

Connie touched her friend’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. It can’t get any easier thinking about that, can it?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘We should raise a glass to your mum and your sister, eh? At Christmas lunch. The least we can do.’

‘That would be nice. Thank you.’ Joyce still couldn’t believe that her family had been wiped out in such a devastating way.

The women worked in silence for a bit. By lunchtime, half of the fence had been done and they trudged back to the farm for a sandwich and some hot soup.

The car hadn’t moved in years. Three of the tyres were missing and the fourth was flat; its rubber caressing the contours of the woodland track underneath. Bindweed grew around the chassis, poking through the radiator grill like insistent green fingers. And even though one of the back doors was missing and the seats were mouldy with fungus, the car had provided somewhere for Emory Mayer and Siegfried Weber to snatch a few hours of sleep in relative shelter. The woodland around them was similarly overgrown and Siegfried doubted that anyone came out here often. He’d still slept lightly, half-listening for any sounds; the call of foxes in the night startling him at several points. Emory had been on the back seat, covered with a filthy blanket that they’d found in the boot of the car. From the seats in the front, Siegfried couldn’t see if his captain had slept, but whether he had or not, Emory had stayed still for several hours. Similarly, Siegfried had tried to conserve his energy. His teeth had chattered throughout the night and he’d prayed for the sun to come up quickly.

Now it was seven in the morning and daylight was beginning to push back the winter darkness. Siegfried sat still in the driver’s seat of the car, his circulation coming back to his cold fingers. Idly, he wished that he could drive the vehicle all the way back to Germany. He thought of the work he’d done early in the war; the blissful safety of the dairy farm in his hometown of Coswig on the bank of the Elbe. All he had to worry about then were the sores on his hands from the milking equipment and the barking voice of the farmer who would talk about meeting quotas at any opportunity. Such easy times!

Siegfried imagined that the fields beyond the woods would suit dairy farming. The terrain didn’t look too different from Coswig and it was easy to imagine himself at home. Oh, how he wished he was at home.

Emory stirred in the back of the car, his mouth moving as if he was eating food. Siegfried glanced back as his captain’s bleary eyes focussed and a look of resigned disappointment spread on his face; as if he’d forgotten where he had gone to sleep the night before. He winced at the discomfort in his right arm as reality came rushing back.

‘Anything to report?’ His voice was croaky and dry.

‘I haven’t seen a soul,’ Siegfried shrugged. Now that he knew Emory wasn’t sleeping, Siegfried allowed himself to stretch in his seat to ease the soreness in his back. He took the canvas bag from the passenger seat and removed a small metal canister. Unscrewing the top, he offered it to his commander to take the first drink. Emory took it and glugged down a big swig of water. He handed it back and Siegfried did the same.

‘We need food,’ Emory stated. ‘And we need to find some clothes that don’t stand out like our uniforms.’

Siegfried nodded. They were wearing their standard issue Luftwaffe uniforms. It was one of the first priorities to ditch such uniforms if a flyer found himself behind enemy lines.

Soon the men had got out of the car and were stretching their legs in the frosty early morning sun. Competing birdsong from the trees filled their ears. Siegfried took a pocket compass from his bag and passed it to Emory.