Farewell To The East End

came up to her and said kindly, ‘Are you all right, mother?’ Quick as a flash she replied, ‘All right? ’course I’m bleedin’ all right! Vat bugger Hitler, ’e’s bombed me ’ouse, ’ard luck, ’e’s killed me ol’ man, good riddance, ’e’s got me boys – vey’re all fightin’ in ve war – ’e’s got me girls, vey’re somewhere, dunno where. But ’e aint got me. An’ I got sixpence ’ere in me pocket, an’ ve Master’s Arms is open.’ She grabbed his arm and grinned a toothless grin. ‘So let’s go in, mate, an’ ’ave a drink an’ a sing-song.’
    That old woman banished Julia’s indecision. She would not abandon her people. She would stick it out. If they wanted a drink and a sing-song, they should have it. She would not close the pub. Most of her staff were being called up into the services – all the young men went, including Terry – but she managed to keep going on a skeleton staff. Then a draft came from the Ministry requiring her services as an experienced telegraphist. She had to obey, so she worked all day in the telegraph office and all evening in the pub. Her office work was squeezed in after the pub closed. With a routine working day of about eighteen hours, she was always tired. But she survived, and the Master’s Arms stayed open all through the war.

    Julia had always been a remote, self-contained person, and the war years intensified this side of her personality. Life was hard, she could see the evidence all around her, and she could see little to smile about. She had loved her mother, whom she continued to meet occasionally, and her brothers and sisters, now dead; she had even grown to love her father at the very end of his life, when it was too late. But apart from that, love had not touched her and local people always said, ‘She’s a typical old maid.’
    But one should never judge from appearances. Still waters run deep, and in wartime love affairs are intense, complicated, sometimes fleeting, but passionate.
    Like a thunderbolt of God’s grace, a man from RAF Intelligence Service walked into the telegraph exchange. He was twenty-five years older than she was, and married, but they loved with passionate intensity. They met seldom, and she never knew where he was stationed, because it was top security, but it made no difference. Their moments together were ecstatic and life-renewing. They gave themselves to each other, body and soul, because they both knew that they might never meet again. Death, if it came, would be swift and violent; it could come at any time, and neither would know the fate of the other.
    It was 1945. Everyone knew that the war was coming to an end, and there was a lightness of heart in the air. In the Master’s Arms each evening drinking and singing continued, and Julia watched her customers with quiet satisfaction. Against all odds the pub had never closed, and by a miracle it stood undamaged, alone amid streets of rubble.
    And another miracle was about to happen; Julia realised that she was pregnant. At first she was fearful, but when she felt the quickening of new life within her, a thrill of unspeakable joy flooded her whole body. She was going to have his baby. Her love affair, lasting three years, had always been fraught with as much sorrow as joy; the stolen hours were always too brief, and the partings always agony. They both knew that, even if they survived the war, they would lose each other in the end, because he was a married man. The heartbreak was overpowering when the final parting came. But now his child was growing within her, and she could never be wholly separated from him. She thrilled with happiness. The child would always be with her, the consummation of her first and only love.
    A baby girl was born and filled Julia’s life with a happiness she had never dared hope for. All her maternal instincts of love and protection were focused on the baby and her life was emotionally complete. She continued to run the pub with her usual efficiency, and she engaged a nanny each evening when she needed to be downstairs in the bar. Terry had returned from war service and resumed his job, as manager, so she had more time to spend with her baby. People talked, of course, – people always do – and a baby born out of wedlock was a juicy subject for gossip. Some said, ‘She’s a dark ’orse,’ while others said, ‘She’s no better ’an she should be,’ but Julia was not perturbed. People had always talked about her,