The War Pianist by Mandy Robotham

Author:Mandy Robotham [Robotham, Mandy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-12-02T17:00:00+00:00

26

Choose Cheese for Christmas

Christmas Day 1940, London

Marnie

They sit – or sprawl, as is the routine on any normal Christmas Day – around the wireless while Susie’s children play at their feet with their scant array of new toys. King George, in his awkward, stilted tone, does his best to work through the monarch’s yuletide broadcast, talking of hardships and those away from home, the ‘battered’ towns and cities of Britain, and the mass evacuation of children, which elicits a groan from Susie.

‘… our feet are planted on the path of victory, and with the help of God we shall make our way to justice and to peace,’ the king signs off.

‘What else can he do?’ Susie murmurs, leaning her head on Arthur’s shoulder. ‘He’s got to say something positive.’

They’re all tired and a little fractious, having spent the night of Christmas Eve in respective shelters, fully expecting that Hitler would come calling just as Santa dodged bombs in the sky to visit excited children. London escaped a drubbing, with Manchester catching the worst of the Luftwaffe’s unseasonal packages, but there was little sleep all round. And unlike the year before, when food and presents were still plentiful, everything seems meagre, thinner somehow. With shop-bought toys largely made of paper, Susie had pulled out her mother’s old sewing machine and fashioned something vaguely resembling a cloth doll for Elsie and a soldier for Michael.

‘Their faces do look a bit scary,’ Susie laments, blowing out her cheeks in defeat as the children toss them aside for the paper offerings. ‘I only wish I had Uncle Gilbert’s skill – he always helped out in times like these.’ Realising too late the hurt she’s triggered, she rubs sympathetically at Marnie’s shoulder with one hand and offers a tissue with the other. ‘Heavens knows what I’ll do if they ration clothes eventually. We’ll all be walking around in rags of my own making.’

The prospect of Susie’s home-sewn debacle conjures a spate of giggles, helping to stave off more of Marnie’s tears and dwelling too much on her first Christmas without Grandad. Instead, she recalls his face at the table in previous years, always grateful for any well-cooked food, dishing out hand-stitched presents for everyone.

Late into the afternoon, Marnie palms at her rounded stomach; despite rationing and the absence of any kind of bird (too late in the butcher’s queue for even a small chicken), she and Susie had made the table appear full, using tips gleaned from all those hours on The Kitchen Front. Marnie recalled the ‘Choose cheese!’ refrain on the cinema reels, and so they’d carved a cauliflower cheese in lieu of roast and laughed a lot while doing it, with some decent stuffing made from the sausage meat Arthur had scavenged late in the day. Marnie had scoured the shops far and wide for the children’s oranges, though Michael had to make do with a grapefruit. It’s not perfect, but it’s enough. If nothing else, they’re together.

Having volunteered for the next day’s

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.