III 1943: The funeral
Daisy lived in the dark, though she could have argued that a blind person is never in the dark. But at her flat in Tufnell Park, all the windows were blacked out permanently.
Long before the German bombers had appeared in the skies of London, the population had been told to black out every window of every home at night. The first orders to that effect had been issued at the beginning of September 1939, even before the war was officially declared. Streetlights were switched off or dimmed, shops had to install two curtains at the door, one behind the other, to prevent light from escaping as customers arrived or departed. The blackout soon proved to be one of the most inconvenient measures at the outset of the war, disrupting everyday life for everybody before a single bomb had fallen. Another inconvenience was the requirement to carry a gas mask in a shoulder bag at all times. There was widespread grumbling, but no one dared to question the necessity of these measures.
For Daisy all this had made no difference, or very little. At the time she had just lived on quite happily in the permanent blackout that had been her world ever since she was born. Even when she forgot to take along her gas mask, which happened often, no policeman or air raid warden dared reproach a poor blind girl, and they left her alone. When those first orders were issued, she had been in love and living with her head in the clouds, lost in delightful thoughts. Of course she had still been at home in Barnsbury with her parents at the time, or at school, where the war affected her even less.
Sitting in her darkened living room on the second day after Ralph’s death, Daisy sipped her tea and thought back to the time when they had moved in together. Ralph had said, “I’ve dreamed of this all my life. A simple little flat in London, in an ordinary neighbourhood on the outskirts. To just share a modest home with my lovely wife, away from the social constraints of manor life… You have no idea how endlessly I fantasized about this.”
“And did you ever imagine that the girl you would marry would be blind?
“No, of course not. That came as an unexpected bonus…”
“A bonus, really?”
“Yes, and the bonus is, that you opened up a whole new world for me.”
“Well, isn’t that what a girl is always supposed to do for her lover?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid it rarely happens! Apart from doing just that in bed, obviously…”
Oh, how delightful it had been to move in together! They’d had no other honeymoon than to hole up in their poky little flat and make love as much as they wanted. They had done that with the intensity of despair, because after ten days Ralph had to go away to start his Cadet training.
But it was also very strange to be married, all of a sudden. A few weeks before their wedding, Daisy had confided to Ralph, “One moment you’re just a girl, you know: attending a boarding school, doing your A levels. Then you turn eighteen, and a few months later you’re supposed to be a married woman, setting up your own household.”
“I know,” Ralph had replied. “You’re much too young to be a bride, and I to be a bridegroom. The only reason I asked you to marry me, is that I want to be allowed to make love with you…”
“Well, and how do you think it feels to receive a proposal from a man who maybe has only a few months to live?”
“Then let’s make the best of the little time we have, as the convict said on his way to the gallows.”
At that time Ralph had just adored gallows humour. It was at the beginning of 1941, the Battle of Britain had come and gone, and had been on the front pages and on the wireless for months. Everyone was aware of the fact that RAF pilots did not live long. Even going through the pilot training programme was hazardous in the extreme. Then the Blitz had started, and everyone who stayed on in London felt likewise that life could be snuffed out at any moment without any forewarning. Furthermore, when Ralph had started flying his first bombing missions over enemy territory, the feeling of impermanence became even more acute.
“How can you stand it?” Daisy had wondered. “The idea that each mission could be the last!”
“Well, I’ve volunteered to do this and there is no turning back. And I’m really enjoying every minute of it, one minute at a time. It’s like a kind of pact with the Devil: you get to fly the biggest and most advanced aircraft of the age, and in exchange you have to put your own life on the other scale of the balance…”
While Daisy sat reminiscing, there was a knock at the front door of the flat and her mother came in. As always, she was extremely disturbed to find her daughter sitting there in the pitch darkness. “Oh Daisy! Must you really…”
“Mummy, how often do I have to tell you: I’m blind! It would be a complete waste of time for me to put up and take down those confounded blackout screens every day, so I just leave them up. You may take them down yourself, if that will make you feel better, or else just switch on the lights, please…”
“Darling, I’m so sorry. It just seems so unnatural, that’s all. It makes the place so gloomy, so unappealing. All your pretty things, everything so new…”
“My things don’t feel neglected at all because of the darkness. I touch them all the time and they feel fully appreciated.”
“Well, anyway, how are you doing, my poor sweet darling…”
And at these words Daisy’s mother burst out into violent sobs, and her daughter rushed forward to take her in her arms, hugged her and patted her. “There, there, Mummy… I’m all right, really.”
Then suddenly Daisy’s mother saw her daughter’s eyes. “Good grief!” she cried, “that looks awful, darling! Are you having one of those horrible inflammations? Is it because you had to cry? You know that you’re not supposed to cry… I mean… better not.”
“Well, sometimes one can’t help it, can one?”
“I find all of this so awful for you, I can hardly bear it, but you seem to stay so calm…”
“Well, it’s not as if it came as a complete surprise, you know. Being married to a bomber pilot right now, you really wait for that knock on the door at any moment. The only thing I would never have expected, though, is that Ralph could become a victim of murder…”
“Murder? Good Lord! My poor Daisy, your grief is leading you astray. It is out of the question, get such a notion out of your head at once!”
“Well, I just received confirmation that Ralph might have died of arsenic poisoning…”
“No, no, no! What rubbish, I don’t want to hear any more of that! By the way, have you had any news from the Prendergasts?”
“Yes, we talked on the phone this morning. They were just leaving for Essex to go and identify the body. And they are to hire a hearse to bring Ralph’s remains back to Bottomleigh, where the funeral will take place. I gave my blessing to all their plans. They will visit later this afternoon on their way back to West Sussex. Maybe we’ll go out for dinner together…”
“Well, you could all have dinner at our place, and in the meantime I think you should come home for a while and stay with Daddy and me, until the funeral at least…”
“Mummy, no! We’ve been through this before, you know very well that I don’t want to go home. Or rather: my home is right here. I want to stay where I lived with Ralph. At the moment that is more important to me than anything else.”
Right from the start, less than three years previously, the mother had wanted her daughter to go on living with her parents. Daisy was so young. And Ralph was away most of the time. So Mrs Hayes had thought, “Let them use the flat only when the boy comes home on leave; the rest of the time Daisy will only be alone at any rate.” But the young war bride had been adamant: she was going to have a new life of her own; her own home; and besides, she was to start her education to become a physical therapist. “That’s right, Mummy, a physical therapist… Of course you’ve never heard of it: it’s a very touchy-feely branch of modern medicine. You wouldn’t like it one bit. But it’s a women’s profession, and blind people are welcome…” She had looked forward very much to taking classes of a new kind, together with normal girls of her age.
Just as mother and daughter had reached that point of embarrassing silence when you don’t know what to say to each other, the front door opened slowly and an old lady stepped inside. It was Mrs Maurois, the friendly neighbour who lived in the flat across the first floor landing. “Sorry to disturb you, my dear. I heard the terrible news…”
“Mrs Em, do come in!”
With a guilty sense of relief, Daisy introduced the two elder ladies to one another. Then without further ado Mrs Maurois stepped forward, folded her young neighbour into her arms and gave her a very French, long, solid embrace. This was unprecedented, but not unwelcome under the circumstances.
“I’m so sorry about Ralph, I loved that boy so dearly!”
“He loved you too, Mrs Em. He liked you very much.”
“And how are you coping, my darling girl? If there is anything I can do for you, anything, just say the word…”
“Yes, I will, thank you Mrs Em.”
Now the old lady turned to Daisy’s mother, her arms wide open. “My dear Mrs Hayes, may I offer my sincere condolences?”
The other woman recoiled in horror. Did this strange creature with her foreign accent presume to touch her? She immediately bid her farewells to her daughter and beat a hasty retreat.
Daisy remained alone with her neighbour, they sat for a while on the living room sofa, holding hands and reminiscing about Ralph. Mrs Maurois also commiserated about Daisy’s eye infection; she knew what caused it but had never seen one before. At length, however, Mrs Maurois took her leave, not wanting to impose for too long on her young neighbour.
Beatrice was the next visitor to call on Daisy. The two old friends fell into one another’s arms and Beatrice started weeping profusely. Then, after a while, she held her blind friend at arm’s length and looked at her eyes. “Oh God, what is wrong with your eyes? Is that ointment or pus?”
“I don’t know… probably both.”
“Did you go to the doctor with that?”
“No, not yet, but I will…”
Then Daisy’s friend took her in her arms again and held her closely. “Oh darling, I’m so sorry…” Beatrice sobbed.
“Hush, I’ll be all right. I’ll go to the doctor, I promise…”
“No, but I also mean about Ralph… And you’re not even allowed to weep!”
“No, but I do weep inside, believe me…”
“And you think he’s been murdered?”
“Yes, it looks like it.”
“I can hardly believe any of this has actually happened. Ralph is gone!”
“You were in love with him too, once, weren’t you?”
“Oh yes, for a great deal longer than you, but only inasmuch as a full cousin is allowed to.”
“Oh, Bee, I’m so sorry!”
After a while, when they had both calmed down, Daisy said, “I always had a feeling that you loved me very much, but at the same time there was a bit of tension between us…”
“Well, yes. Do you remember the first time we met? I was moved to tears! I had never seen a blind girl before, and you seemed so brave. I just had to kiss you…”
“Oh, I’ll never forget that first spontaneous kiss. That made you my favourite out of hand.”
“Well, the very next morning I disregarded you altogether and went off with the others. I really thought Ralph would be coming with us, I was hoping to get closer to him now that he had broken up with Cookie. But it didn’t work out like that, of course. Then, when we came home at the end of the afternoon, I realised at once that Ralph had fallen in love with you, and I was terribly jealous.”
“Sorry for that. You were always the one who was disregarded by all, somehow… Anyway, the reason I called you is also that I need your help. I need a pair of eyes to assist me.”
Having said that, Daisy let go of Beatrice, went to the bedroom, and came back with Ralph’s little brown suitcase. The two young women settled on the sofa, with the suitcase in between them, and started to examine the contents. “Oh, what lovely pictures of you Ralph had! And one of you two together. And all of them without dark glasses…”
“Exactly. They were made by a professional photographer at a studio around the corner, right here in the neighbourhood… Now, what books did Ralph have with him at the base?”
“Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, Brave New World by same, and The Story of My Life by Helen Keller…”
“Ah, yes: Ralph’s favourite, that last one…”
“Then there is an Avro Lancaster Pilot’s Technical Handbook, and these two: Emil und die Detective, Erich Kästner, in German, and Emil and the Detectives, English translation by May Massee…”
“Yes, Ralph used the original texts of his favourite Kästner books to perfect his German, in case he should need to speak the language if he ever had to bail out over Germany…”
“Good grief, what grim prospects… Well, that’s the lot… I suppose he took different books away each time he had been home?”
“Yes, Ralph read a great deal, he found an airman’s life rather boring between missions… The funny thing is, he had just read out some favourite chapters from Crome Yellow to me not so long ago. He must have wanted to read it again as a reminder of us being together.”
“How much he must have loved being with you, darling!”
“Yes… I suppose he did. Now, there is this rough, thickish envelope that seems to contain important papers…”
“Let us see… Wait a minute… Ah yes, you’ve got that right, it’s a carbon copy of Ralph’s will… Drawn up by the family solicitor. You are to inherit all of Ralph’s properties…”
“Properties? I had no idea Ralph had properties…”
“Well, when he turned twenty-one, not so long ago, he probably came into some inheritances. From old men, vaguely related to the Prendergasts, who died without male heirs. The whole system being based on the idea that women don’t count. And then Ralph drew up this will to make sure that his assets, in case he died, wouldn’t automatically devolve to some other vague male cousin, but go to you instead… At any rate, the listed deeds should represent a tidy little income.”
“How clever you are, Bee. I had no idea of all this!”
“No, you wouldn’t. All this is typical of the world I come from. Be glad you don’t know about it… But what this really means, is that Ralph wanted to take good care of you, even after his death.”
“Oh yes, how much like him that is. I guess we shall hear more about this after the funeral… But now I would like you to take a look at what seems to be a pocket diary. Are there any appointments in there?”
“Well… yes. Tomorrow and on the same day next week it says EVAC DRILL. And last week and the weeks before… It seems to have been the only recurring appointment.”
“Evacuation drill, that’s right. Ralph insisted on those. The crew had these extra weekly drills, on top of the compulsory ones.”
“You mean like a fire drill?”
“Yes, but in this case they had to drill the evacuation of D for Daisy. You see, those seven men are very cramped inside their bomber, there are different escape hatches, and in an emergency they have to get out in a certain order. The skipper is always last to leave, of course. It may also happen that a hatch is jammed and that you need to follow another escape route.”
“Wait a minute. Did they actually jump with their parachutes every week?”
“No! No, the plane didn’t even leave its dispersal area, but the crew did have to wear their whole outfit, including chutes, and they jumped out onto the ground one after the other. They could do this in fifteen to twenty seconds, even blindfolded.”
“Gosh! So, a lot of work for something you’ll never need to do if all goes well.”
“Oh, but it did save their skins at least once. Their Lanc had been badly damaged by flak, so when they landed, she swerved wildly and keeled over in the middle of the runway, one wingtip ploughing into the grass next to the tarmac. Ralph shouted orders, and the crew rolled out of the hatches like monkeys in a circus act, as Ralph proudly put it to me later, and moments after they had left her, the next landing Lanc crashed on top of D for Daisy. That was the end of the first bomber of that name! But anyway. What else do we have?”
“At the end of last week there are some groceries listed. Wine, tea, cream crackers, digestives, relish…”
“Poor Ralph was often feeling peckish, because of the impossible working hours. And he needed a glass of red wine and a little snack just before bed…”
“Did he go out and buy these himself?”
“I don’t think so, no. He would hardly have needed a list. Probably the batman did the shopping, and the little list is more of a record to settle the accounts.”
“Here it mentions: full tank of petrol…”
“Same story. Ralph and a couple of other commissioned officers shared a car among themselves. They had to keep a record of who had bought petrol when. Especially with the rationing…”
“Now, going back even further, here is something interesting: William’s name and address, Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, and Cedric’s, some street name in Cairo, Egypt. And Ralph has added: ‘send thank-you note’. How extraordinary!”
“That’s strange, yes! Not so long ago, we discussed William and Cedric, and Ralph did report that those two were both doing very important, hush-hush work. But he didn’t mention that he knew where they were, even though he must have known at that moment that Cedric was actually in Cairo!”
“Well, you know how Ralph was: he would never rat on anyone. ‘I’m not at liberty to tell, Sir’. How many times did his father get to hear those words? So he told you the essentials of what he knew, but not the details he was not allowed to disclose…”
“Yes, of course… All right, what else do we have?”
“Essentially more of the same: drills, groceries, petrol. The appointments you would expect for staff meetings and briefings. If you want I can go through the whole diary and read it aloud, with the dates?”
“No, maybe some other time. Now I want you to take a look at the notebooks. Those must contain Ralph’s real diaries, in the sense of intimate records, yes?”
“That’s right. Pages and pages of handwritten musings, also dated, of course. It will take some time to read all this aloud…”
“That won’t be necessary. Ralph used to take the most recent notebook home with him and read his diary to me. The thing is, he hadn’t been home for quite some time, and I want to hear the last entries…”
Beatrice found the most recent entries in a notebook that was only partly filled. But to Daisy’s great disappointment, she’d already heard those from Ralph himself. “There’s nothing new there,” she concluded in a trembling voice. “Ralph stopped writing in his diary some time back, probably just after his last visit!”
Then she started sobbing without tears, dry hiccups of despair.
Beatrice cried, “Oh darling, I’m so sorry!”
Daisy had attended a number of funerals since the beginning of the war, starting with that of her dear old Aunt Agatha, an early victim of the Blitz in 1940. For her as a blind person, funerals were extremely uncomfortable and disorienting affairs. You had no idea what was going on, as the whole ceremony revolved around a coffin that everybody could see, but you could not touch. The assembled congregation kept so quiet, that you had no idea how many people were there. You only heard some vague coughing and shuffling of feet around you. Then, after the church service, you all went outside and convened around an open grave, which again you only knew to exist from hearsay. Paying the last respects seemed to involve a lot of restraint and a great deal of distance…
Recently, Daisy had listened with keen interest to a broadcast on the BBC about funerals in southern Europe. She loved this kind of reportage from far-flung places, especially if it included original sound recordings, as had been the case here. It had been clear from the outset that the Portuguese funeral, which had been recorded on a transcription disc by the radio reporter, was a very noisy affair. All the women in attendance wailed loudly and tearfully without pause, and the menfolk muttered continuously in manly tones. They said such things as “Why did you leave us? If only I could have gone in your place!” Even the coffin participated in the soundtrack, as the mourners flung themselves at it with abandon, embraced it in their arms and were torn away from it by others, producing a variety of thumping and scraping sounds… No, by comparison, an English funeral was a sedate affair, indeed.
Strangely enough, the village church of Bottomleigh, now so cold and filled with solemn restraint, was very familiar to Daisy, and associated in her mind with happy memories of that spring morning, only a few years back, when her father had led her to its altar. Ralph had taken her over from him and held her with both arms by his side. This was not what you were supposed to do as long as the vicar hadn’t given his say-so, but Ralph didn’t care: his bride-to-be was blind, so there. The same vicar who now droned on in a monotone, had then been lively and succinct to a fault. What a difference a few years can make!
Of course there were people present today who had not been there on that happy occasion. A few RAF luminaries, and Major Mannings, for instance. And then, at their marriage, a lot of people from the world Ralph came from, the Prendergast relations, the village, had not approved and many had stayed away: a war bride who was not true gentry, much too young, and blind besides! (“Damaged goods…”) But fortunately, Ralph’s parents had not wavered a single moment in their approval and support of the young couple. They had welcomed Daisy into the family with open arms, and that was the only thing that had mattered…
It had been strange to come back to Bottomleigh House without Ralph. Daisy was given her old room at the top of the first flight of stairs, and her parents the room next to hers. But even though the room was familiar enough, the situation was not. Ralph was dead. A big funeral had to be prepared. Daisy was consulted, diplo