Elisabeth Jones - Gold Beach

I knelt facing the trunk. The padlock was on the floor along with the key. That was the best thing that could happen to me. I lifted the lid and holding my breath I looked inside. Sitting at the bottom of the trunk I only found three things: a pair of shiny black tap shoes, a perfectly folded blue dress with short sleeves and a pair of white socks. I sat back on my feet open-mouthed as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over me. I must have looked like a fool. When I could react, I closed my mouth and frowned. I was disappointed. Whose were those clothes? As far as I knew, my mother had never been a tap dancer. When I recalled all those years of trying to open that trunk I laughed. How could I have doubted my mother? So it was true what she had told me. Still with a smile on my lips I leaned on the bottom of the trunk to stand up when it unexpectedly gave way. I quickly lifted my hands thinking I had broken it, but soon I discovered that it was just a false bottom. I stooped again to remove the piece of wood with extreme care. I left it on the floor next to the dress and shoes and looked inside.

Everything was perfectly arranged. Numbered and put together in order she kept twelve black hardback notebooks like the one she used to write down her recipes. I found some photographs alongside, a handwritten note and five letters inside their respective envelopes all tied together with a pink ribbon. I picked up the note and read it thoroughly.

‘It is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustration, however frequent, are less dreadful than its extinction.’ —Samuel Johnson.

Love,

Daddy.

I put it back in its place and took the first photo to have a closer look. It showed two embracing couples at a park. Everyone was smiling except one of the women. Those people were complete strangers to me. I put it back in its place and took some photographs wrapped in a very worn out pink paper. The first one was of a young soldier who was smiling and sported two dimples identical to mine. On the back there was something written: ‘Dream of the first sunrise that we’ll see together without ever having to be apart again. Birmingham, May 21 st, 1944.’

The second photograph was a great discovery. That young lady sporting a dress identical to the one beside me was my mother. I had a look on the back and the following could be read: ‘The day this photograph talks to you, I will stop loving you. Birmingham, May 2 nd, 1944.’

How much my mother had changed in those fifteen years. There was no doubt that time had affected her countenance. I looked again at the photographs and the dates. What did all that mean? Who was that man? Her first boyfriend? If I was looking for answers in there, all I had got were more questions.

With the photograph still in my hand, I tried to remember how my parents got on, living together. Although I was only five years old when my father died, I still held memories of moments of our lives. I was happy, we were a happy family, or at least that was what I thought. Was the man in the photograph the reason why my mother asked for forgiveness when my father died? I refused to believe that she loved another man at that time. My father didn't deserve such a thing. I put it back in its place with anger and indignation. My misinterpretation of the facts made me hate my mother at that time. I slammed the trunk shut as if I wanted to break it. Betty gave a start but kept her mind on her task. I clenched my fists against my face because I didn't want to cry but my tears were already on their own path. I began to go downstairs to get far away from there but suddenly I stopped. Why would she keep her recipe books under lock and key? Wouldn't it be more logical to store them in the kitchen? Betty look at me in wonder but followed my steps compliantly. When she saw me opening the trunk again, she went back to her guard post. I stared at the notebooks with clenched teeth and seized by nerves and uncertainty. I didn't know which to pick up first, but since they were numbered I decided to start at the beginning. As I opened it, I found a date on the first page: March 5 th1944, followed by perfect handwriting. ‘Brenda has told me his name, it's Elwyn...’ There were no recipes in there. I turned some more pages. ‘He told me that he's setting off for the South tomorrow to join the army’... My heart raced out of control. What I had in my hands was my mother's diary.

I looked at the window, Betty still stayed alert in case she returned. I didn't even think again about poor Isobel. Before me there were twelve notebooks that I had to read to the end, but it was obvious that as soon as my mother came back I would close the trunk again. I set the book on the floor and began to walk around with my eyes closed trying to find a solution. I stopped by the padlock, I looked at it, saw the key and then I came up with the answer I was looking for. My bicycle lock. I galloped down the stairs followed by Betty as if it was a race. I ran to the porch, picked up the lock that was hanging from the wheel and went up the stairs again to my room. I started to open the drawer of my wardrobe trying to find the second key I had been given when I bought it. For the first time I cursed not having obeyed my mother when she told me to tidy my room every day. Where was the damned key? After pointlessly moving heaven and earth, I picked up the box where I kept my marbles and catapult and finally I found it. I sighed thankfully looking at the ceiling as if I wanted to thank heaven. When I bought the lock, I had put one of the keys on my key ring and thanks to my mother telling me to keep the copy, hadn't thrown it away. She said I might need it someday. How right she was. I ran again to the attic followed by my disorientated pet. I left my lock and key in the same position as my mother's and put hers in my pocket to hide away later. I looked through the window to check if she had returned. So far, everything was under control so without delay I plunged into my mother's secrets again. Betty went back to her post and I settled down on the floor to begin reading for the time Isobel's wounds would let me.

That diary was a sequence of notes headed with dates. My mother seemed to have written down the decisions she had taken or the moments that had meant something important in her life so she would never forget them.

Birmingham, May 21st 1944

Dear diary,

I've taken a decision. No one knows it, I haven't even told Brenda. I'm just telling you because I know you'll keep my secret. I'm spending the night with him. I've been thinking about it thoroughly but finally I've made up my mind. I'm meeting Elwyn this evening to say goodbye. Early tomorrow morning he's setting off for the South to join the army. What if the same thing happens to him that did to my father? What if he doesn't come back? If you could speak you would tell me that I'm only a sixteen-year-old child, but as Brenda's mother says: ‘In war time you grow up faster.’ I feel like a woman who is hopelessly in love who knows what she wants and what I want is to be with him. I haven't told him yet and I don't know where we'll be staying either but I'm not going back on this. The punishment that my aunt will dish out to me when she learns that I have spent the night out is the least of my concerns, I don't care because the worst thing that could happen to me is to never see him again.

Birmingham, May 22nd 1944

My dear diary,

I’ll never be able to forget as long as I live the night I shared with Elwyn yesterday. I'll just say that he is and always will be the love of my life. I wish this war would end soon and he would come back to me to never be apart again. When I finished work at the bakery, my aunt locked me up in my bedroom with no dinner. I don't want to write all the things she said to me here. I don't want to repeat them. Thank goodness Peter gave me two scones this morning. I'll eat them when I finish writing. The abuse she threw at me hasn't offended me because it’s not true. Today I realised my days in this house are numbered. I have to write down everything Peter told me. Now I can understand many things. I knew there was some explanation that would justify my aunt's behaviour. But nothing that happened is my fault. I can only count on Brenda and Peter until Elwyn returns.