Wednesday
Home
My Darling,
I’m in a humble counting-my-blessings sort of mood tonight. Mrs Perry always has that effect on me and she’s just been pouring out her troubles for a solid hour and telling me how, every time she speaks to you, she could cry with envy because “anyone can see you think the world of me!” That woman’s just at the end of her tether. Dave has succeeded in convincing her that she’s utterly brainless, downright common, the worst possible mother, housekeeper, wife etc. She’s also convinced that Dave will walk out on them one of these days for he’s apparently always threatening it. Have you ever seen Dave in his ‘home’ mood? I saw it for a couple of minutes tonight when he spoke to Betty and there was hatred in that kid’s face. Peter is just cowed but Betty has developed into solid hatred of him. What I can’t understand is how they ever came to marry. They loathe each other. I never really believed it was as bad as that till tonight.
Well, I suppose it is no business of ours, but it does make me realise, very very deeply, how lucky I am and how lucky our kids are. Thanks, precious, for everything you have been and are, and will be, to me. Oh, love, there’s such a lot of things inside me tonight that just can’t be put into words. But I do love you terribly.
The reason why I was at Perry’s tonight is that Mrs Perry offered to come with me to fix up with Nurse Halsey. Dave ran us down there. She’s a very nice woman and I’m sure you’d like her – a rare mixture of efficiency and ‘human-ness’ – none of that awful nurse-starchiness. She seems to have had some experience with Rees and told me about a compliment he once paid her. I’m glad of that for if the doctor and nurse are at loggerheads it can’t be too pleasant for the patient. I didn’t go into a lot of details this evening for Dave was waiting with the car, but one good point is that the ‘county’ include a useful parcel these days, containing all those little items (sanitary towels etc) that run up the bills. Next time I see her I’ll get a proper list of this stuff and see what remains for me to get. Mrs Perry says a dozen baby napkins are included. As these are about 1/3 each I hope she’s right. The all-over charge is, I think, £2-2. One could finish there for there’s no actual need of a doctor with one of these state midwives and Mrs Perry thinks I’m very odd insisting on a doctor as well. I don’t know how you feel about it but I think you’ll agree with me that no child of ours is coming into the world without Rees to yank it out. My confused memories of two confinements have one clear point in them – the moment when Rees walked in. From then onwards I ceased to be bewildered and scared stiff. I do hope he gets better soon. According to your mother today he’s still ill and Nowak still doesn’t know what’s the matter with him. I have no desire whatsoever to have a pregnancy conducted by Nowak – the baby would be cross-eyed and bandy!
Before I leave this subject I got my green ration book today and immediately commandeered an extra pint of milk. I told Mrs Allen at the dairy that she’d put the hoodoo on me and she’s tickled to death. It’s highly blush-making this business of going round to tell the tradespeople one is “expecting a little stranger”. I’ll have to arrange to be served by Hilda this week but there’s no alternative at the butcher’s! In case you don’t know the details, I’m now entitled to: a pint of milk at twopence plus the normal adult allowance, an extra half-ration of meat, oranges when available, orange juice, cod-liver oil tablets, and one extra egg (it used to be two!) Personally I think an extra butter ration wouldn’t come amiss.
The damsons arrived today so I went to your mother’s this afternoon to collect my share.
There’s some involved scheme afoot concerning some man in Wrexham whom your mother has never seen. It seems Geo has undertaken to arrange a meeting and your mother is going there this weekend. I can’t make head nor tail of it. She tried to foist her girl lodger here for the weekend but I contrived to avoid it. I don’t see why I should go changing sheets etc for someone I’ve never seen.
I nearly forgot to tell you how much I enjoyed ‘This Happy Breed’ – a really human picture, splendidly produced. It starts 1918 and finishes 1939 so all the milestones in it were things I could remember – the strike, the King’s death, the abdication, Munich. I’d like to see Coward’s portrayal of this war. It intrigues me how he can be so blasé and sophisticated and yet so expert at these little human touches such as the buttering of the cat’s paws after a removal. Michael seemed to follow it quite intelligently and it led to long explanations of the strike and the abdication, while Munich was pin-pointed by the all-important fact that Michael was born then! Do you remember going for the gas masks the day after I came home? I felt terribly guilty at bringing a baby home to such a world, especially when he used to go stiff and blue whenever the siren practised. I was thinking of this as we came out and then, like a symbol of hope, Michael said, “Oh aren’t they lovely!” and we stepped out into the lighted dark and my Munich baby saw the streetlights for the first time. I’m not ashamed to admit that a large lump came into my throat at that moment.
Thursday.
No letter again this morning. I’ve only had one – the one written on the NAAFI form – all this week. So I’m feeling rather unsettled about you and wouldn’t be a bit surprised to know you were back in England. In fact I’ve got to the stage where I sit up and listen every time there are footsteps in the road at night!
It’s my eating out day and I’ve just arrived home from the B.R. where I filled up the bottomless pit with steak pudding and apple pie. The meals have improved a lot since they started putting on a shilling dinner. I hope the story that they’re all being closed down isn’t true for I’ll need the B.R. this winter. A make-do dinner is no good to me now and if we all feed out just once a week it’s a big help with the rations. I never remember being so fiendishly engrossed with food. I just live from meal to meal and if I read about a nice substantial meal in a book I just writhe in agony!
Bye now, sweetheart. I do hope there’s a letter, or letters, tomorrow.
All my love, darling,
Stella
Normandy
Dearest,
Hope you and the children will like these. Let me know when they arrive and in what condition.
Love, Arthur X