Caryl Phillips - Crossing the River

I stood outside the church today and stared up at the trees. They’ve worn their leaves shabby. Hardly a breath of wind and they start falling. Ahead of us is winter. And it’s not exactly warm up here on this ledge. The wind gets a good go at us and gives us a pounding. Just thinking about it makes me shiver. I turned up my collar and got ready to carry on with my walk. And then I heard their voices starting up. I knew it was them for nobody else in this village sings that way. Like they mean it. I forgot all about the trees and winter. I found myself just staring at the church and listening to the sound of their voices and-their clapping hands. Across the road I saw old man Williams. He was out with his dog. He stood and listened as though, like me, he too hadn’t heard anything like this before. Just the two of us listening.

According to today’s copy of the Star , all over Britain standards of behaviour are breaking down. A young woman Air Raid Warden recently said that if gas spattered her clothes she’d have no hesitation in taking them off and walking starkers. According to this woman, every right-minded person in Britain should be ready to do the same. The Star thinks she’s barmy. But they don’t stop there. It is to be regretted, says the Star , that one of the more popular jokes on the factory floor is one which is made at the expense of our boys in the sky. What does an RAF man do when his parachute doesn’t open? He brings it back and gets a new one. The Star wonders if we’re not all the victims of German propaganda that’s designed to undermine our confidence. Apparently, some Star journalist was outraged because when he was in London he was charged 6d. for an apple and a guinea for a pound of grapes. The man who sold them to him then added salt to his wounds by asking him if he’d not heard that there was a war on. I’ve been getting some choice-comments, about tinned sardines and baked beans, for instance. We’ve had a directive to put up their points value because they’ve been proving too popular. It’s hardly my fault, is it? And as for the National loaf. Well, it’s definitely got a khaki tint to it, and it feels to me like paper that’s been repulped once too often. Full of straw-like bits. But if you don’t like it, nobody’s forcing you to eat it. I don’t know why they’re always complaining to me.

I got a letter from Len. I knew it was him before I opened it. Mean handwriting. And addressed to a Mrs Len somebody. My name isn’t bloody Len anybody. Happy 1943! it says at the top. And bits of it are censored. He says that when he comes out he wants us to move away. Further north. Anywhere. But he says that we have to get away from here and start afresh. I see. He claims that he can’t stand the shame and he doesn’t see why I should have to put up with it too. Well, I’m doing all right. They still talk about me when they think I’m not listening, but I’m doing all right. I don’t see why I should have to leave. He’ll have to go by himself, I reckon. He can’t expect me to follow him around like some silly puppy. No, if he wants to go, then he can go. Good luck to him, I say. I’ll have to write to him and tell him this, in a nice way, of course. No need for him to suffer any more than he has to. I’ve got nothing against Len personally. No reason to hurt him. He just needs to grow up a little bit. A lot. And he’d be better off growing up with somebody else. When I get a minute I’ll let him know this. Better he gets it straight. Nothing to be gained by kidding each other. Not now. The best years of our lives and all that. If he wants to sling his hook and go off somewhere, then good luck to him. Good luck to you, Len.

Two of them came into the shop this morning. One tall one. One not so tall one, but he wasn’t short either. Far from it. They were both quite stocky, and both of them were polite. After all this time, they still seem surprised at how cheap things are. One woman told me I ought to put up the prices for them. She said Len would have. I said I know. But look where Len is now. I didn’t tell her this last bit, though. They both took their caps off. And then they asked me to a dance they’re having on Saturday. Asked me politely. Well, I can’t dance, I told them. You’ll learn, said the tall one. He smiled. We’ve got our own band, ma’am, said the other one. You hear us play, you can’t help but dance. He laughed. So I laughed too. Then we were all laughing. A dance, I said. On Saturday, said the tall one.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and thought to myself, bloody hell. What have I done? I’ve come back to this village with Len, after marriage, after Wales, after being lost. And I’m married now. For nearly a month. A wife. In this bleak and silly little village that’s filled with its own self-importance. The only relief I have from this place is when I travel down to see my mother, whose sole occupation in life seems to be to make me feel guilty. A guilt I’m determined to resist. I stare at her as she lies in bed. She’s taken to her bed as a permanent place of refuge. I stare at her and listen as she talks incessantly about the phony war. You’ve been listening to the wireless, haven’t you, Mother. She ignores me and continues in her own vein. About how she’ll not be digging for victory and growing cabbage and onions. About how, although nothing has happened as yet, they’ll soon be coming home in boxes like in the last war. It’ll happen, she keeps saying. She pauses, then starts up again. She can’t be bothered with her gas mask, she says. All that spitting on the mica window to stop it from steaming up. And it smells, of rubber and disinfectant. I don’t tell her that most people have stopped carrying them around. That the novelty has worn off. If you’d have stayed down here you’d have been in Air Raid Precautions, I suppose. WVS, for you. Do you have it up by you? I shake my head. I expect that’s why you went, isn’t it. Nothing much to do up there except knit socks for the troops. I don’t rise to her. Whenever I do she just snaps and tells me not to use Latin in front of her. So I don’t bother. She goes on. But meanwhile, they make us live in the dark like bloody bats. It’s ridiculous. Anderson shelter? Two bits of bent steel stuck in the mud, not fit for a pig to wallow in. And nobody’ll be hanging out any washing on the Siegfried Line, you mark my words. She knows I’m not really listening to her but she doesn’t care. She just likes to have somebody to talk to. Somebody whom she feels it will be all right to bore. She feels she has a right to bore me. I’m her daughter. And then she falls asleep and I have to make my way up the hill on that long, slow bus journey back, to the village. It is pretty. I have to give it that. The view from the road, just outside the village, carries all the way across the moors. Well, you’d have to be blind or stupid not to notice that in its own way it’s grand. Nothing but green fields and small villages for miles. But then entering our village is like coming into a tunnel. You can’t see anything except small houses dotted on either side of the road. And then a big church. A small pub. A nob’s hall. Our shop. Some more houses. And so this is my home now. God help me. Maybe I was better off in the warehouse. If I’ve thought this once I’ve thought it a million times. But then again, I always say to myself, it’s probably just the war. Nothing can look good to anyone in the war. Let’s be honest. It’s not a great time for anybody. They say that eventually there’ll be serious shortages. We’ll see.