selection of dresses and blouses and skirts she had brought with her from Southampton.
Violet sighed. This is not how I was expecting it to be, she thought, this Winchester life.
Her move to Winchester last November had been sudden. After her father’s death Violet had limped along for a year and a half, living alone with her mother. It was expected of women like her – unwed and unlikely to – to look after their parents. She had done her best, she supposed. But Mrs Speedwell was impossible; she always had been, even before the loss of her eldest son George in the War. She was from an era when daughters were dutiful and deferential to their mothers, at least until they married and deferred to their husbands – not that Mrs Speedwell had ever deferred much to hers. When they were children, Violet and her brothers had avoided their mother’s attention, playing together as a tight gang run with casual authority by George. Violet was often scolded by Mrs Speedwell for not being feminine enough. “You’ll never get a husband with scraped knees and flyaway hair and being mad about books,” she declared. Little did she know that when the War came along, there would be worse things than books and scrapes to keep Violet from finding a husband.
As an adult Violet had been able to cope while her father was alive to lighten the atmosphere and absorb her mother’s excesses, raising his eyebrows behind her back and smiling at his daughter, making mild jokes when he could. Once he was gone, though, and Mrs Speedwell had no target for her scrutiny other than her daughter – her younger son Tom having married and escaped years before – Violet had to bear the full weight of her attention.
As they had sat by the fire one evening, Violet began to count her mother’s complaints. “The light’s too dim. The radio isn’t loud enough. Why are they laughing when it’s not funny? The salad cream at supper was off, I’m sure of it. Your hair looks dreadful – did you try to wave it yourself? Have you gained weight? I am not at all sure Tom and Evelyn should be sending Marjory to that school. What would Geoffrey think? Oh, not more rain! It’s bringing out the damp in the hall.”
Eight in a row, Violet thought. What depressed her even more than the complaints themselves was that she had counted them. She sighed.
“Sighing makes your face sag, Violet,” her mother chided. “It does you no favours.”
The next day at work she spied on the notice board a position for a typist in the regional Winchester office, which was doing well despite the depressed economy. Violet clutched her cup of tea and closed her eyes. Don’t sigh, she thought. When she opened them she went to see the manager.
Everything about the change was easier than she had expected, at least at first. The manager at Southern Counties Insurance agreed to the move, Tom was supportive (“About bloody time!”), and she found a room to let at Mrs Harvey’s without much fuss. At first her mother took Violet’s careful announcement that she was moving to Winchester with a surprising lack of reaction other than to say, “Canada is where you should be going. That is where the husbands are.” But on the rainy Saturday in November when Tom drove over with Evelyn and the children and began to load Violet’s few possessions into his Austin, Mrs Speedwell would not get up from her armchair in the sitting room. She sat with a cold, untouched cup of tea beside her and with trembling fingers smoothed the antimacassars covering the arms of the chair. She did not look at Violet as she came in to say goodbye. “When George was taken from us I never thought I would have to go through the ordeal of losing another child,” she announced to the room. Marjory and Edward were putting together a jigsaw in front of the coal fire; Violet’s solemn niece gazed up at her grandmother, her wide hazel eyes following Mrs Speedwell’s agitated hands as she continued to smooth and re-smooth the antimacassars.
“Mother, you’re not losing me. I’m moving twelve miles away!” Even as she said it, though, Violet knew that in a way her mother was right.
“And for the child to choose for me to lose her,” Mrs Speedwell continued as if Violet had not spoken and indeed was not even in the room. “Unforgivable. At least poor George had no choice; it was the War, he did it for his country. But this! Treacherous.”
“For God’s sake, Mum, Violet’s not died,” Tom interjected as he passed by with a box full of plates and cups and cutlery from the kitchen that Violet hoped her mother wouldn’t miss.
“Well, it’s on her hands. If I don’t wake up one morning and no one discovers me dead in my bed for days, she’ll be sorry then! Or maybe she won’t be. Maybe she’ll carry on as usual.”
“Mummy, is Granny going to die?” Edward asked, a puzzle piece suspended in the air in the clutch of his hand. He did not appear to be upset by the idea; merely curious.
“That’s enough of such talk,” Evelyn replied. A brisk brunette, she was used to Mrs Speedwell, and Violet admired how efficiently she had learned to shut down her mother-in-law. It was always easier when you weren’t related. She had sorted out Tom as well, after the War. Violet appreciated her sister-in-law but was a little too intimidated to be true friends with her. “Come, give your Auntie Violet a kiss goodbye. Then we’ll go down to the shops while Daddy drives her to Winchester.”
Marjory and Edward scrambled to their feet and gave Violet obedient pecks on the cheek that made her smile.
“Why can’t we come to Winchester?” Edward asked. “I want to ride in Daddy’s car.”
“We explained before, Eddie. Auntie Violet has her things to move, so there’s no space for us.”
Actually, Auntie Violet didn’t have so very much to move. She was surprised that her life fitted into so few suitcases and boxes. There was still space on the back seat for another passenger, and she rather wished Edward could come with them. He was a spirited little boy who would keep her cheerful with his non-sequiturs and shameless solipsism. If forced to focus on his world, she would not think of her own. But she knew she could not ask for him to come along and not Marjory or Evelyn, and so she said nothing as they began to pull on their shoes and coats for their expedition in the rain.
When it became clear that Mrs Speedwell was not going to see her off as she normally did, watching from the doorway until visitors were out of sight, Violet went over and kissed her on the forehead. “Goodbye, Mother,” she murmured. “I’ll see you next Sunday.”
Mrs Speedwell sniffed. “Don’t bother. I may be dead by then.”
One of Tom’s best qualities was that he knew when to keep quiet. On the way to Winchester he let Violet cry without comment. Cocooned by the steamed-up windows and the smell of hot oil and leather, she leaned back in the sprung seat and sobbed. Near Twyford, however, her sobs diminished, then stopped.
She had always loved riding in Tom’s handsome brown and black car, marvelling at how the space held her apart from the world and yet whisked her efficiently from place to place. “Perhaps I’ll get a car,” she declared, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief embroidered with violets – one of Evelyn’s practical Christmas presents to her. Even as she said it she knew she could afford no such luxury: she was going to be dreadfully poor, though as yet that felt like something of a game. “Will you teach me to drive?” she asked, lighting a cigarette and cracking open a window.
“That’s the spirit, old girl,” Tom replied, changing gears to climb a hill. His affable nature had helped Violet to cope with her mother over the years, as well as with the War and its effects. Tom had turned eighteen shortly after news of his brother’s death came through, and joined up without hesitation or fuss. He never talked about his experiences in France; like Violet’s loss of her fiancé, they took a back seat to their brother’s death. Violet knew she took Tom for granted, as older children
