“Don’t be stupid.”
“You love Lev.”
She looked him in the eye. “I was a peasant girl twenty years old and new to the city. I liked Lev’s smart suits, his cigarettes and vodka, his openhandedness. He was charming and handsome and fun. But now I’m twenty-three and I have a child-and where is Lev?”
Grigori shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“But you’re here.” She stroked his cheek. He knew he should push her away, but he could not. “You pay the rent, and you bring food for my baby,” she said. “Don’t you think I see what a fool I was to love Lev instead of you? Don’t you realize I know better now? Can’t you understand that I’ve learned to love you?”
Grigori stared at her, unable to believe what he had heard.
Those blue eyes stared back at him candidly. “That’s right,” she said. “I love you.”
He groaned, closed his eyes, took her in his arms, and surrendered.
CHAPTER TWENTY – November to December 1916
Ethel Williams anxiously scanned the casualty list in the newspaper. There were several Williamses, but no Corporal William Williams of the Welsh Rifles. With a silent prayer of thanks she folded the paper, handed it to Bernie Leckwith, and put the kettle on for cocoa.
She could not be sure Billy was alive. He might have been killed in the last few days or hours. She was haunted by the memory of Telegram Day in Aberowen, and the women’s faces twisted with fear and grief, faces that would carry forever the cruel marks of the news heard that day. She was ashamed of herself for feeling glad Billy was not among the dead.
The telegrams had kept coming to Aberowen. The battle of the Somme did not end on that first day. Throughout July, August, September, and October the British army threw its young soldiers across no-man’s-land to be mown down by machine guns. Again and again the newspapers hailed a victory, but the telegrams told another story.
Bernie was in Ethel’s kitchen, as he was most evenings. Little Lloyd was fond of “Uncle” Bernie. Usually he sat on Bernie’s lap, and Bernie read aloud to him from the newspaper. The child had little idea what the words meant but he seemed to like it anyway. Tonight, however, Bernie was on edge, for some reason, and paid no attention to Lloyd.
Mildred from upstairs came in carrying a teapot. “Lend us a spoonful of tea, Eth,” she said.
“Help yourself, you know where it is. Do you want a cup of cocoa instead?”
“No, thanks, cocoa makes me fart. Hello, Bernie, how’s the revolution?”
Bernie looked up from the paper, smiling. He liked Mildred. Everyone did. “The revolution is slightly delayed,” he said.
Mildred put tea leaves into her pot. “Any word from Billy?”
“Not lately,” Ethel said. “You?”
“Not for a couple of weeks.”
Ethel picked up the post from the hall floor in the morning, so she knew that Mildred received frequent letters from Billy. Ethel presumed they were love letters: why else would a boy write to his sister’s lodger? Mildred apparently returned Billy’s feelings: she asked regularly for news of him, assuming a casual air that failed to mask her anxiety.
Ethel liked Mildred, but she wondered whether Billy at eighteen was ready to take on a twenty-three-year-old woman and two stepchildren. True, Billy had always been extraordinarily mature and responsible for his age. And he might be a few years older before the war ended. Anyway, all Ethel wanted was for him to come home alive. After that, nothing mattered much.
Ethel said: “His name’s not on the list of casualties in today’s paper, thank God.”
“I wonder when he’ll get leave.”
“He’s only been gone five months.”
Mildred put down the teapot. “Ethel, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“I’m thinking of going out on my own-as a seamstress, I mean.”
Ethel was surprised. Mildred was the supervisor now at Mannie Litov’s, so she was earning a better wage.
Mildred went on: “I’ve got a friend who can get me work trimming hats-putting on the veils, ribbons, feathers, and beads. It’s skilled work and it pays a lot better than sewing uniforms.”
“Sounds great.”
“Only thing is, I’d have to work at home, at least at first. Long-term, I’d like to employ other girls and get a small place.”
“You’re really looking ahead!”
“Got to, haven’t you? When the war’s over they won’t want no more uniforms.”
“True.”
“So you wouldn’t mind me using upstairs as my workshop, for a while?”
“Of course not. Good luck to you!”
“Thanks.” Impulsively she kissed Ethel’s cheek, then she picked up the teapot and went out.
Lloyd yawned and rubbed his eyes. Ethel lifted him up and put him to bed in the front room. She watched him fondly for a minute or two as he drifted into sleep. As always, his helplessness tugged at her heart. It will be a better world when you grow up, Lloyd, she promised silently. We’ll make sure of that.
When she returned to the kitchen, she tried to draw Bernie out of his mood. “There should be more books for children,” she said.
He nodded. “I’d like every library to have a little section of children’s books.” He spoke without looking up from the paper.
“Perhaps if you librarians do that it will encourage the publishers to bring out more.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
Ethel put more coal on the fire and poured cocoa for them both. It was unusual for Bernie to be withdrawn. Normally she enjoyed these cozy evenings. They were two outsiders, a Welsh girl and a Jew, not that there was any scarcity of Welsh people or Jews in London. Whatever the reason, in the two years she had been living in London he had become a close friend, along with Mildred and Maud.
She had an idea what was on his mind. Last night a bright young speaker from the Fabian Society had addressed the local Labour Party on the subject of “postwar socialism.” Ethel had argued with him and he had obviously been rather taken with her. After the meeting he had flirted with her, even though everyone knew he was married, and she had enjoyed the attention, not taking it at all seriously. But perhaps Bernie was jealous.
She decided to leave him to be quiet if that was what he wanted. She sat at the kitchen table and opened a large envelope full of letters written by men on the front line. Readers of The Soldier’s Wife sent their husbands’ letters to the paper, which paid a shilling for each one published. They gave a truer picture of life at the front than anything in the mainstream press. Most of The Soldier’s Wife was written by Maud, but the letters had been Ethel’s idea and she edited that page, which had become the paper’s most popular feature.
She had been offered a better-paid job, as a full-time organizer for the National Union of Garment Workers, but she had turned it down, wanting to stay with Maud and continue campaigning.
She read half a dozen letters, then sighed and looked at Bernie. “You would think people would turn against the war,” she said.
“But they haven’t,” he replied. “Look at the results of that election.”
Last month in Ayrshire there had been a by-election-a ballot in a single constituency, caused by the death of the sitting member of Parliament. The Conservative, Lieutenant-General Hunter-Weston, who had fought at the Somme, had been opposed by a Peace candidate, Reverend Chalmers. The army officer had won overwhelmingly, 7,149 votes to 1,300.
“It’s the newspapers,” Ethel said with frustration. “What can our little publication do to promote peace, against the propaganda put out by the bloody Northcliffe press?” Lord Northcliffe, a gung-ho militarist, owned The Times
