17. THE 3rd SEPTEMBER 1939A Chapter by Peter RogersonThe second world war has been declared...The words rang through Ursula’s mind. She’d had the big radio on in the shop turned on, quietly like Old Aunty Emmett used to have it, but despite its low volume she quite clearly heard the Prime Minister’s voice as she weighed and parcelled up blocks of butter in between customers. "This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us… I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany…” In a way she’d been expecting it. There had been preparations for another conflict in the news and despite the Prime Minister’s attempt at negotiating with the German Chancellor, and suing him for a long peace, war was being declared. The German Chancellor had a moustache and she’d never trusted men with moustaches even though a father had one. She was nineteen and had been born only months after the Great War, the raging horror that would one day be referred to as the First World War, but there were enough apocryphal tales around of family friends and even blood relatives who had gravestones set in serried ranks in Flanders where they had fallen. There was, indeed, a lengthy period when the presence of available young men fell far short of the needs of available young women. Her own father, Bert Spandex, had returned in one piece, but he still suffered from nightmares forged from the horrors of the Somme. So she heard the Prime Minister’s announcement with a feeling of dread. It washed away a great deal of the euphoria that followed in her heart from the night at the theatre in Brumpton and even the rather nervously delicate kiss that had followed it as Greendale had dropped her off afterwards. They had sat in his car, had talked, discussed the play, hedged the conversation about themselves, kissed tremulously, and then parted. That had been in a time of peace and now, a day later, it was a time of war. She switched the radio off and couldn’t help wiping a tear from her eyes as her imagination roamed over that strange land called possibilities, because, suddenly, all the possibilities were bad. The morning passed with a few customers popping in, but in every case instead of silly and witty exchanges their conversations were subdued. It wasn’t only Ursula who was scared of the backwaters and darkest lanes in the land of possibilities. She closed the shop for lunch, half an hour when she could put her feet up in her private quarters upstairs, and munch through a sandwich washed down with a cup of tea. But it wasn’t an easy half hour. Afternoons always started quietly and this one was no exception. Mrs Smith the Younger was first in, and she was far from being quiet. “I’m so ashamed,” she said without any preamble at all, “I dared say you’ve heard, young Miss Spandex.” “The war?” she asked, wondering what there was about a war against Germany that Mrs Smith the Younger could be ashamed of. “War? What war? No, it’s our Jane,” she said. “You must have heard.” Ursula remembered that the revolting Charles Snootnose had mentioned doing etchings of the girl, had even shown her one that was nothing but disgusting, but she wasn’t the sort to gossip and had almost forgotten the incident. So she shook her head. “What’s wrong with the girl?” she asked, a bit cheekily because Jane was barely a year younger than she was. “She’s disgraced herself with the Squire’s youngest,” almost sobbed the older woman. “He’s only gone and made a picture of her in the altogether! I ask you, what’s a man like him doing getting lasses to undress before his very eyes… Mr Smith has never expected me to undress before his eyes and I never have, and we’ve been wed this past twenty-one years!” “I think it’s disgraceful,” sympathised Ursula. “And the picture he’s done is lewd! I’ve seen it, and it shows everything, and more!” wept Mrs Smith the younger. “Her father’s going to take the birch to her! He’s going to tan her backside until she can’t sit down for a month of Sundays and then he’s going after that young son of the Squire, and, posh or not posh, gentleman or not a gentleman, he’s going to thrash him too!” “Oh dear,” muttered Ursula, and what else could she say? “A pound of butter, if you please,” continued Mrs Smith the Younger. “I tell you this, if I catch sight of the young hooligan I’ll give him a piece of my mind, and I’m not afraid of being straight with the toffs! They might own the land and half of our lives, but they’re not above getting a good tongue lashing! And make it half a pound of your best cheese.” Ursula didn’t feel like explaining that she only stocked cheese, not best cheese or worst cheese or any other quality of cheese, just the cheese the salesman brought when he came on Mondays. So she cut a slab off the block and wrapped it. “My very best cheese,” she said quietly. “Tates! I want some tates! Make it five pounds and no stones and no mud,” ordered Mrs Smith the Younger. “I’ve seen some pictures in my time, you know, gals with not much on, but what the Squire’s reprobate of a son did of our Jane’s in a different gang altogether! I’m not telling you how he got her to sit with her legs apart, showing everything...” “The constable should be told,” said Ursula, “we can’t have posh gentlemen going around taking advantage of decent gals like your Jane.” “Then it’ll all bounce back on Jane, and they’ll have her up before the beak for stripping off and letting him do it, and we all know, don’t we, that when that kind of thing happens it’s always the gal’s fault. And it’s always the gal who gets to be in the family way when things go wrong, not the bloke who’s only doing what comes natural, they say, sowing his wild oats...” “Jane isn’t…?” prompted Ursula. “That she’s not!” shouted Mrs Smith the Younger, “I might have thought better of you, Miss Spandex, for making that suggestion.” I suppose she might be, though, if what young Snootnose bragged about how he rewarded her afterwards was anything like the truth, thought Ursula. She might have said something conciliatory, something to deflate the older woman’s anger, but Charles Snootnose himself pushed his way into the shop, arrogance personified. “You … you … you b*****d!” Mrs Smith the Younger spat at him when she saw who it was, and she ran from the shop in a froth of righteous anger. “What’s got into her?” asked Charles. “She’s the mother of the girl you etched,” sighed Ursula, “and she’s seen it. I think she might go to see Constable Plodnose...” “Daft b***h!” grinned Snootnose, “but if she does and if the old fool tries to find me then they’ll have a long way to look! I’m off to the wilds of Yorkshire to stay with relatives because there’s bound to be a call-up for the war and I don’t see any point in being gun fodder, not a man in my position with a future in the arts. There are big open spaces in Yorkshire, wild moors and stuff like that, and a chap could easily disappear up there.” “So you’re a coward too, are you?” asked Ursula. He grinned back at her. “Call me what you like, shop-girl, I like life and I intend to hang onto it until I’m old and grey and rich as Croesus!” And without buying anything, he arrogantly sauntered out of the shop. © Peter Rogerson 26.07.18
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Added on July 26, 2018 Last Updated on July 26, 2018 Tags: radio, announcement, declaration, nude etching, anger, cowardice AuthorPeter RogersonMansfield, Nottinghamshire, United KingdomAboutI am 80 years old, but as a single dad with four children that I had sole responsibility for I found myself driving insanity away by writing. At first it was short stories (all lost now, unfortunately.. more..Writing
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