Elsie Sees It Through

By Derek Ansell

London, 1943. The War in Europe is raging. After Elsie bumps into a young soldier, they are both attracted to each other and in time, become close friends.

Elsie lives with her widowed mother in a small North London house and has a close relationship with her long-time friend, Julia, who would like that relationship to become more personal and intimate. After the young soldier Brian proposes marriage to Elsie, she doesn't know who to choose.

Conflicted, Elsie doesn't know what she wants, or what she believes is her destiny. While sweeping changes take place across England and the rest of the world, Elsie must come to terms with her life and her future, and navigate a difficult, thorny path to happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Nov 21, 2022

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

LONDON, WEDNESDAY 28 - JULY 1943

A young woman is finishing work at noon. She stops typing her last document, puts it to one side and tidies her desk. Into the top drawer, she places her notebook and personal papers; her bits and bobs and a written reminder of something she must do on the next day. Then she rises from her desk and walks out to the ladies’ room, where she pats her long hair into position, pulls a face in the mirror and decides to add a little lipstick. She applies it, then puts her bottom lip over her top to smooth it and ensure that it is not too little and not too much. Then she reverses the lip movement. She has a round face, with slim, dark eyebrows but not, she decides, an unattractive look. Fairly ordinary, maybe, but her shoulder-length light-brown hair sets it off and her eyes, a greeny-grey colour, are quite striking. She has been told that frequently. Satisfied, she moves to go but thinks about how long she will be out in the street and decides to sit on the toilet. When she finishes, it takes only a minute to wash her hands, take a last look into the mirror and leave the room. Walking across the corridor slowly she notes the time on the big ticking clock on the wall and moves towards the room opposite her own. The prospect of an afternoon off is appealing and she has decided to spend it walking around town. Two things are nagging away at her ever-active mind, her mother’s health – always precarious – and something her friend Julia said last night. This, though, is not the time to be thinking about that. She enters the office.

I’m just off on my way now, Mr Simpson, she says.

Yes, all right, Elsie, he replies without looking up from his desk. See you in the morning.

She smiles. All at once, she takes in the room with the faded sunlight on the window sill which she can see clearly outside; the mixture of dust and recent tobacco smoke still lingering on the air and the heavily built form of Mr Simpson sprawling in his large chair, his look of concentration as he stares at his papers, his fancy waistcoat. All this she sees without consciously realising it and proceeds down the stairs to the reception area. Then she leaves the building.

At first, she had been surprised when Mr Simpson told her she could have the afternoon off. She told him she was quite happy to work on. Again, she smiles. If Simpson was giving her an afternoon off, it was because he wanted her in all day Saturday; she knows that. It has happened before. Today is Wednesday, tomorrow he will tell her it is for urgent war business, and she will have to come in. All day. The typing of important army contracts that must be watertight. And she will have to come in at least an hour earlier than usual. She knows the drill.

Elsie begins to walk along the Strand towards Trafalgar Square. It is a warm day, hot, muggy and dusty. The sky is a greyish white with patches of blue. Sunshine breaks through intermittently, at intervals. She is jostled suddenly by an airman who is engaged in animated conversation with another man in uniform and he barely notices her. She is suddenly amid a flurry of people, soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians, all in a rush. Time to grip her handbag tightly as you never know in these situations. Walking on, she passes the Tivoli cinema and notes that there are a good number of people on the move. More military personnel of all shades than civilians, although the latter stand out for their lack of colour in their drab suits or dresses, coats and shoes. There are, she notices and not for the first time, many foreign soldiers and sailors, their uniforms showing where they come from by the changes in style or design or the shoulder badges that say Canada or Australia or, sometimes, other locations such as Poland. A bus draws up noisily by her side at a request stop and two people alight. Elsie frowns as she glances across at the bus. She still can’t get used to seeing all the windows blocked up with harsh green netting, leaving only a small triangle of glass for passengers to look through. It is, her uncle has explained to her, a precaution against bombs and explosions sending shattered glass flying everywhere and causing yet more injury to pedestrians. Logical really, she says to herself, although she still cannot get used to it.

The thought of her mother’s declining health surfaces again, unbidden, into her thoughts. It was the reason she had to turn down the chance of sharing a spacious bedsit with Julia. She could never leave her mother on her own. Never ever. And what was Julia’s response? That she’d have to face up to it sooner or later? Face up to what? Leaving her mother or, more likely, moving in with Julia? Well, it is not going to happen, and Julia must think what she likes. It isn’t that her relationship with her mother is bad, it certainly is not. Both are strong characters with definite but often conflicting ideas about how a house should be run. Elsie well remembers being pushed and prodded into tidiness, as a young girl but it was a lesson well learned, even if her own ideas went further than her mother’s ever had. Well, if things need doing at home, she will see they are done. If only her mother would let her get on with it and not keep complaining and bitching constantly. She, Elsie, will have her way in the end, just see if she doesn’t.

At Trafalgar Square, the fountains are sending up white sprays of water, the pigeons are circling in the air ready to land and many are already on the paving stones. Suddenly there is a drone of aircraft from above, and Elsie looks up nervously, as she and everybody does these days. She sees two low-flying silver British fighter planes with the red, white, and blue markings of the RAF clearly visible. A sigh of relief at a time when the sound of aircraft inspires fear and loathing. Always. The little boys watching the pigeons and feeding them, even though the sign says this is forbidden, have looked up swiftly, noted the aircraft make and carried on with their pigeon-watching. Elsie stands, watching the people and birds all around her for a few minutes and then walks away and crosses the road. She wonders how she will fill the next few hours, because she has made no plans. She will not go home, though. There are better ways to spend an afternoon off than listening to the endless nagging, or complaining, or both, of her mother. She wonders, as she does frequently now, why she is still living at home at the age of 30. She smiles ironically as she recalls that it was originally because she did not want to leave her mother on her own after her father died. And when the war broke out, there was even more reason to stay, turning down the very first offer of a rather nice bed-sitting room found by her friend Julia, that they could share.

She misses her father she always has, ever since the day he died. Always will, she acknowledges. He it was that encouraged and nurtured her love of books and music. Elsie reflects that it was her father’s sudden and unexpected fatal heart attack that heralded the beginning of her mother’s gradual retreat from an active role in running the house. But, if she relinquished most of her active participation, she more than doubled her criticism, complaints and insistence that Elsie was incompetent.

A little circle of people, some in uniform, are waiting outside the National Gallery to enter for the lunchtime concert. Elsie has fond memories of lovely music there, watching Myra Hess, Benjamin Britten and others playing. Peter Pears and Kathleen Ferrier singing. The enclosed, crowded room, the sombre faces of the men and women in the audience and the rich, emotive music swelling up in the warm, charged atmosphere. A Mozart sonata rising to a brief crescendo and fading down again, gently. Not today, though; this is a day for walking and thinking. And reflection. Discovery perhaps? Elsie gazes speculatively ahead towards theatreland. Where to go next?

She walks on, up the Charing Cross Road and then cuts through to Leicester Square. More people are on the move now, some walking slowly, others seeming to be driven by an urgent desire to reach a destination. Elsie moves slowly round the square, turning left before reaching the Odeon cinema and walking up past the people in the centre and past the Leicester Square Theatre. In the distance, she hears an ambulance bell and wonders if a bomb has dropped suddenly, miles away. She does not recall hearing it, but the sounds of the city are all around, some near, some far and constantly supplying a symphony of noise. She stops walking, pauses. She proceeds into the square and sits on a seat looking out towards the Odeon. Time for reflection. Where is she going? Not just on this casual afternoon walk but for the rest of her life? She feels reasonably content, work is going well and she enjoys it. Life at home can be irritating at times with Mother the way she is but they get along somehow. Most of the time. Just the one, particularly close friend, Julia and they go back many years, to school days, indeed. Julia can be possessive, smothering almost sometimes. Julia can be a little embarrassing at times, too, but Elsie can handle her, no problem there. She smiles. After all, she is reliable, loyal, always there for when she needs a friend most.

No male friend on the horizon, though. She frowns. Perhaps in good time, who knows? She doesn’t, that’s for sure. Not that she has ever had or desired much communion with men or boys. A smile returns on her face. Well, no point looking into the future because you can’t see anything there. Looking ahead, across to the other side of the road, she sees the milk bar. Then the Empire cinema and the little Ritz theatre next door. She walks on and joins that pavement. It is crowded, perhaps the most packed of all the streets she has passed since leaving her office. Far more people, more beige and plain grey clothing and the usual assortment of army, navy, and air force personnel. The sudden rumble of a heavy truck passing, together with another aircraft passing overhead, intensifies the noise level and causes Elsie to blink and feel a momentary spasm of fear. It is all right, she convinces herself, just traffic and sundry noises but she is nervous when hearing loud sounds, as everybody is now. As everybody has been since being pounded by bombs falling, night after night after night. Houses destroyed. A gap in a large terrace of Georgian or Victorian houses with a huge pile of rubble where a house used to be. New houses crooked and wrecked like piles of twisted masonry and firewood.

Elsie shakes her head, and a little voice inside tells her to think about something else. She walks past the milk bar and the Empire and recalls that the hugely popular film, Gone With the Wind, has been showing there for more than two years. A glance to her left tells her that it is now showing at the little Ritz cinema, so it must have transferred there at some point. She hasn’t seen it as she objected to paying the much higher charges for seat prices for that film. She knows, too, that it runs for more than three hours and that is longer than she feels comfortable, in a cinema. She keeps on walking, past the Warner cinema farther down the road and back to the Charing Cross Road.

It isn’t just the sights and sounds of London’s West End that fascinate Elsie. It is the odours, many and various. The blast of perfumed, warm air that emanates from a side door of the Warner cinema as she passes by, looking along the alleyway at the side. The rush of neutral air that comes from the entrance to the Underground station as she walks past it. Then there are the fresh, temping food smells from the restaurants. The fresh coffee odours. So much to take in being in Central London, really. She passes the advertising hoardings and briefly notes the encouraging words and pictures that want her to buy Sharp’s Toffee and Peek Frean’s Crispbread. Or should she purchase some Vani-Tred shoes? They look much more comfortable on the hoarding pictures than the ones she is wearing now. Or a pair of Dolcis shoes? And the stockings and underwear from Morley look very luxurious and comfortable. Maybe she should settle for a bottle of Wincarnis Tonic Wine to take home for supper tonight? She smiles. A flippant thought, that.

Walking on, she passes the last of the hoardings which offers less frivolous and selfish advice. The long, ugly face of the Squander Bug, all fierce, sharp teeth and bulging, manic eyes and underneath the picture she is implored not to waste money on things she doesn’t really need but to buy war bonds and savings certificates to help the war effort. We must all, Elsie intones under her breath, help the war effort. She would like to make a bigger contribution, if only she could.

Ten minutes later, Elsie, rather tired and dusty, warm and with the realisation that her feet ache somewhat, is aware that she is very thirsty. Up ahead she notices a canteen.

CHAPTER TWO

BIRMINGHAM, WEDNESDAY 28 JULY 1943

The house is semi-detached with two bay windows, one up and one down. It is an almost-new house, built in 1939, just before the outbreak of war. In the upstairs front bedroom, the one with the upper bay window, a young man is putting on his army uniform. He is standing in the master bedroom of the house. It is the room that his parents planned to occupy when they bought the house early in 1940 and would have done if it had not been for the garden. The young man’s mother loves the garden. From the rear, slightly smaller bedroom, she has a good view of it. The garden is long and rather narrow and affords a view of allotments in the distance where the young man’s father now spends his rare leisure time. He is vigorously growing vegetables of all sorts in answer to government pleas to Dig for Victory.

The young man, not so young, really, as his father points out, has just celebrated his 32nd birthday. Yesterday. His leave is nearly over and he must return to his unit. Although not due back until midnight, he has decided to leave early and spend part of the day in London. As a man alone on leave from the army, he has found it difficult to occupy himself. His friends are all away and he has no girlfriend. His father and mother try to engage him in conversation frequently, but he finds that he has little to talk to them about. His relationship with his father is often difficult. His father is a strong, sinewy man who spends most of his life on the assembly line at the Austin Motor works at Longbridge, now making aero parts for the war effort. He works long hours and often volunteers for extra shifts and earns good money. Enough to buy this new house on mortgage and own his own small Austin Seven car. Brian, his son, thinks he has little in common with him and takes after his mother, an altogether quieter and gentler creature.

Brian puts on his army shirt, a coarse-grained garment and then puts on his battledress tunic. The tunic has one stripe on each sleeve, denoting his rank of lance corporal. He goes over to the mirror in his wardrobe and starts to comb his big shock of red hair that sticks up somewhat at the front. Normally it looks good but now, with the back and sides of his head cut noticeably short in army-regulation mode, it appears somewhat incongruous. He frowns and then pulls a face at the mirror. His face is soft, the eyes blue, his expression, when not frowning, is pleasant, not unlike his mother but masculine. He picks up his forage cap and walks out of the bedroom and goes downstairs to the kitchen.

I’ve made you a coffee, Brian, his mother says, smiling. Get it down you.

He nods, smiles, and thanks her as he sits down at the kitchen table. His father, looking grizzled and unshaven and still in just his vest and trousers, glowers at him. What time is your train? he asks.

Half ten, Brian answers briefly, not looking at his father.

Are you ready to go?

Well, you’re not, his mother says, addressing his father and, before he can reply, adds: Best get yourself tidy. Now.

His father grunts, clears his throat and pushes back his chair, noisily scraping the kitchen tiles. He goes out of the room, saying, I won’t take a minute, and his mother sits down at the kitchen table. She takes a sip of coffee from her half-finished mug. Brian asks what is wrong with his dad as he takes his first sip of hot coffee.

Oh, he’s just fretting at losing half a day’s pay, she replies. Take no notice. He spends most of his life at that plant.

I didn’t ask him to take me to the station, he says. I could easily get the bus.

Your dad can take you, she says firmly. Do him good to get away from that works.

She asks him if he has enjoyed his leave. He nods brightly but she shows concern that he hasn’t done much. He seems to have spent most of his time in his bedroom or down at the pub.

There’s not much to do, Mum, he tells her. All my mates are away in the army or RAF. We never seem to coincide when we’re on leave.

You should get yourself a girl, Brian, she murmurs wistfully. Bright lad like you.

You don’t just go and get a girl, he growls irritably, Like picking up a loaf at the bakers. And I’m no longer a lad.

No, you’re not, she agrees. Time marches on.

It does indeed and he finds his attention drawn to the big clock on the wall, ticking away the seconds steadily. It is not time to move just yet, so he takes out his packet of cigarettes and offers one to his mother, who shakes her head. He lights one himself and sends blue smoke curling towards the ceiling. When his father reappears, he has shaved and fitted himself into a tight dark-blue suit. Time to make a move, his father growls irritably.

Let him finish his cigarette, George, his mother says, for goodness’ sake.

When he walks out to the little Austin Seven parked at the kerbside, he turns and waves goodbye to his mother who is clearly fighting back the tears. His father is already in the car, starting the engine. When the car starts to move, he is silent at first, thinking that he won’t be sorry to get back to the barracks. He has been bored on leave with no mates around and only his parents for company. He suddenly becomes aware that his father is telling him, in a loud gruff voice, that he should have been getting out and about more on leave and not just been cooped up in his bedroom most of the time.

There wasn’t much I could do, he points out.

You could’ve come down my works club. We got cheap beer, darts, bar billiards and all sorts.

Not really, Dad, he says, smiling. Not my sort of thing at all.

His answer seems to irritate his father, almost to make him angry. You’re an ungrateful bugger, you, the older man says. No matter what anybody tries to do for you. And you’re incredibly lucky, do you realise that? I tried everything to get back into army uniform, but they wouldn’t take me.

You’re too old, Dad, Brian replies, smiling. But you did your bit in the first war.

Too right I bloody did. And I could show all those young raw recruits a thing or two today.

Brian shakes his head and lapses into silence. Sergeant Crawford is reliving his past glories in the Great War. And bitterly resents the fact that they won’t let him join in this one. He is forever talking about those days, glorifying them; reliving his great adventures as though it was all a marvellous time and not the great tragedy that it truly was.

At New Street Station, it is all hustle and bustle. People are crowding into the station entrance, mostly in uniform, some carrying kitbags, all seeming to be in a hurry. Some women are bidding tearful goodbyes to their men near the entrance, reluctant to go into the station for the final farewell. For some, it will be a last farewell. Their men returning to their units, to go to war. Some, at home, will die in air raids although the bombing has become less and less this year. Brian gets out of the car with his father, and they shake hands. He says goodbye and asks his father to take good care of his mother.

Never mind that you, cheeky bugger, his father growls. Get some service in and don’t come back next leave a lance-jack. Get some bloody stripes on your sleeve.

---

On the platform, Brian is trying to find a small space where he can feel free of bodies all around him. The platform is absolutely crammed with men and women, kitbags, and suitcases. Most are in uniform of one sort or another. Looking up and down the platform, Brian thinks it will be almost impossible to get a seat on the train to London. Too many people on the move, he thinks, forgetting for the moment that he is one of them. He decides he would like something sweet on the journey. He would love a Mars bar, one of his favourite confections, with its thick milk chocolate, caramel layer, and nougat filling. They are available only in the south of the country now, though, since the outbreak of war. Sharps the word for toffee, he recites under his breath as he advances, pushing towards the kiosk. There is a chocolate machine with Nestlé bars available, but he decides against and goes on and buys a bag of toffee.

His decision to walk up to the top of the platform pays off. As the big locomotive comes steaming in, black smoke billowing from the funnel and a grinding noise as the train shudders to a halt, he is lucky enough to reach the door before anybody less agile. He is in swiftly and, although the corridor is crammed with soldiers and airmen and a well-built woman in her fifties, he manages to squeeze into the middle of a seat with four other people already in position. Soon he is on his way with everybody around him looking hot and uncomfortable. As the train pulls out of New Street Station, he gazes out of the window at the hoardings advertising Bile Beans and Bovril. Some combination, that.

As the train gathers noisy, rattling momentum, he stares straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of passengers facing him, as far as possible and then looks upwards. He notes the evil eye of the Squander Bug in a panel advertisement just under the luggage rack and begins thinking about getting back to camp later that evening. He feels happy about it and, although he does not take naturally to the regimentation and strict discipline of service life, he is beginning to make and maintain new friendships at camp. He thinks back to his last conversation with his mother before leaving and acknowledges to himself that she is right. He should have a girlfriend, it is nearly four years since his last one ended it. But you don’t pick a girl out of thin air or bump into one in the street, do you? And there are only the dance halls now, which he does not like. Where else would you look?

There are only two women in the carriage, the stocky middle-aged and rather matronly figure he saw when entering the carriage, who now sits opposite him, and a small WAAF girl in the corner seat by the window who has had her face in a book since pulling out of New Street. Brian glances at her in her smart air-force-blue uniform but realises she is most likely not even aware of his existence. She has only looked up three times to the best of his belief since leaving the station and that to glance briefly out of the window and straight back to her book. A sailor and a civilian in a faded brown suit both light up cigarettes simultaneously and a cloud of blue smoke fills the carriage. The woman opposite coughs loudly and a man in the far corner seat rises silently, without a word to anybody, and pulls down the strap far enough to allow fresh air in from the window.

At Euston Station, the rush is on to get out of the carriages and get clear of the platform, out to the street or the Underground trains. Brian is in no great hurry; he has the rest of the afternoon to himself, he reflects as he takes his time to move out of the carriage and waits for the great surge of people to disperse. Smoke and steam from the engines hang in sulphurous patches in the air. Finally, he joins the stragglers at the end of the train and walks leisurely along and out of the station. He walks down toward the high, sooty black pillars of the great Doric arches that form the impressive entrance to Euston Station. He stops, takes out a cigarette and lights it then stands there looking out towards the road.

When he begins to walk along the Marylebone Road, he is aware that the day has become hot, dull, and dusty. A large lorry rumbles past followed by an army armoured vehicle, escorted by two military guards on motor cycles. The noise of traffic is deafening for a moment. There are not so many people about now as it is the lunch hour; a few soldiers and airmen, some civilians and one or two police officers. He is aware of the artefacts of war in London all around him. The sandbags outside buildings, the Emergency Water Supply signs and the Dig for Victory and Make Do and Mend posters. He is alone and lonely again but on balance, he feels, better off. He can walk around and explore London, seek diversion or entertainment, and avoid sitting with his mother as she asks questions he would prefer not to answer.

It is quiet outside Madam Tussauds as he walks past. At Baker Street, he toys with the idea of spending an hour in the Monseigneur News Theatre but decides that newsreels about battles raging alleviated with a couple of cartoons would not suit his present mood. He turns around and begins to walk, briskly, in the direction he has come from. At Great Portland Street, he turns right and begins to head off in the direction of theatreland but still aimlessly with no clear idea of where he is heading or what he plans to do. He walks past a canteen and has only gone a few short paces when it occurs to him that a cup of tea might be a good idea at this point. He turns around and walks back in the direction he has come from.

CHAPTER THREE

LONDON, WEDNESDAY 28 JULY 1943

It is all hustle and bustle in the canteen. Lights burn in the ceiling, but visibility is not good; cigarette smoke and steam hissing and floating upwards from the counter mingle in the tepid air. All the many tables are occupied, some with four or even five people huddled around. A colourful mix of uniforms is visible all round the big room; khaki, RAF, and navy blue. There are about 10 civilians in mainly drab clothing. Buckets filled with sand or water are placed on either side of the main door. As she enters and moves tentatively in the direction of the counter, carefully avoiding colliding with people standing talking or coming towards her, Elsie feels somewhat overdressed. She wears a smart pale-blue jacket and skirt and a cream-coloured blouse. The scarf at her neck is purple, arranged as a bow. Her flat shoes are black and very shiny. There is a little knot of people at the counter, a ragged sort of queue. A buxom woman in a grey coat with the words WVS embroidered on the breast pocket is serving from a large tea urn. As the soldier in front of her moves forward to add sugar to his tea, the woman faces Elsie with a half grin, half grimace and she says: Yes, my love?

Elsie asks for a cup of tea, pays for it and picks it up from the counter. She turns quite swiftly with her cup and saucer but fails to notice that the soldier in front of her has turned too and is walking forward. She can’t avoid colliding heavily with him knocking his tea out of his hand to crash noisily to the floor, smashing crockery and spilling the liquid out into a pool.

I’m terribly sorry, she says, wide eyed, staring at the soldier.

That’s all right, he tells her and smiles broadly. Accidents will happen.

As people back away from the mess, the buxom woman calls out to everybody to stand back; she will deal with it. Elsie blushes bright red. The woman soon appears with two large buckets, one for the broken crockery and the other with a big cloth. She gets down on her hands and knees and proceeds to clear up, tut-tutting as she works. Her grimace has now formed fully on her face and Elsie is embarrassed again. My apologies, she breathes, addressing the woman this time. So careless of me.

Don’t fret, the woman intones, and the grimace once again melts into a grin. Happens all the time here, lovey, and I can deal with it. It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going.

Elsie shifts her gaze to the soldier who has taken off