Breakfast with the Frasers
When the War was over, my father refused to take down our blackout curtains for ages. Most of the curtains were removed right away, with some women transforming the leftover materials into dresses and skirts as quickly as they could. They heard rumours that the men wanted to burn them in a bonfire, so it was better that they stashed them away safely. That day, everyone had tuned into the radio to listen to Churchill finally announce that the War was over. Among all the screaming and shouting and music on the streets, the first thing that all the mothers were doing was taking down their curtains, letting their homes fill up with light once more. But our own Winston at home refused.
“Paid good money for dem. Ain’t no way we’re bringin’ ’em down now.”
“Oh, come on, Winston! They’ve been up for years. Won’t it be nice to get our other ones up? Let some light in?”
“We’ve had ’em up der for years, a few more days ain’t gon’ make no difference,” He reasoned, his eyes glaring straight out of the window so he didn’t have to see my mother’s pouted lip. His shoulders were squared and his hands were placed firmly on his hips to signify that this was the last he’d hear about it.
Poor dad. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot. She asked again at least another four times.
“Win, Maggie across the street is starting to wonder why they’re still up, you know.”
“Well, you can tell ’er we keep ’em der so she ain’t peepin’ in no more. Nosey bugg-”
“I could turn ’em into a good pair of trousers for you. For work, Win. You need another pair-”
“Dat’ll need to wait. We’re keepin’ ’em up, Sarah.”
“It’s damn near unpatriotic, you know,” My mother muttered sourly, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared at the offending curtains in contempt. Dad just placed a comforting hand on her shoulder before returning to fluffing his tobacco for his pipe.
For the next few weeks, Mum tortured him. There were numerous phone calls, with Mum explaining that she simply couldn’t have her friends over for tea, because she ‘simply couldn’t* stand* them seeing them still up’.* *She turned Maggie away at the door two weeks in. Margaret, who’d seen Mum foraging through rubbish in an attempt to find the tea bag she had thrown out, forgetting that she had to reuse them, but was now too good to be allowed into the house when the black out curtains were still up.
She’d even taken to standing at the fence in the garden, a trowel in one hand and a fence post in another, loudly complaining to our neighbour Agatha about the curtains. “You know, Aggie, I just don’t get it,” She’d stage whisper on a Saturday morning, knowing that my dad would be out in the garden to check on the carrots they had started growing, “The day we put up those curtains, he told us it would all be for nought. Now that we can take them down again, he wants them kept up! I think he’s just trying to wind me up, you know.”
But Dad being Dad, would pay her no mind as they nattered and postulated. He wanted them up and they stayed up, so what was he going to complain about? In the 26 years they had been together, like any good soldier, he learnt when to pick his battles.
Me and Luis started placing bets on when he would finally cave to Mum. Luis thought it’d go on for a week. I thought he’d last two and a half weeks if Mum kept it up at this rate. The last time they fought like this was when Dad poured out the bacon fat to make himself a glass of water. Mum went on for two whole weeks about how flavourless the food was, how our potatoes could have done with just a smidgeon of the grease to get us through. It wasn’t over until Dad came back with a whole pound of bacon that he put in front of Mum, asking if he would now get early release from his prison sentence. So when the curtains stayed up for more than four weeks, we both agreed that the bet was off.
Of course, Luis and I didn’t dare to ask him why he still wanted them up. Louie would sit on my bed at night as we both tried to come up with some reason. How did Dad get that pound of bacon anyway? Did he steal it from some store or out of the hands of someone, and now he was trying to hide himself? That didn’t seem right. He never hid from anyone. Or was it the TV that he had recovered from the old Turners’ house after the bombings? Was he only now feeling ashamed to have pilfered it, even though he bragged about it to everyone he knew? He was so proud of that TV when he got it, getting Uncle Rich and Louie to help him carry the set back into the house. It was placed right in front of our sofa, sitting there stagnant because there was no TV to watch during the War. If we just bided our time, he promised, we’d soon be watching the FA Cup from the comfort of our own front room.
So, me and Louie kept quiet, only trying to make guesses with each other. If he heard it from either of us, we were sure to get an earful about being disrespectful. It didn’t stop Eliza from asking, though. It was quite a sight to see my 15 year old brother trying to convince a 10 year old to gather some intel. For only being 10, Liz did some shrewd negotiating, getting him all the way up from his measly offer of two jelly babies to five jelly babies and three pear drops.
It wasn’t a worthwhile trade. When Liz returned, her palm held out for her reward, she announced that they were up because Dad said so. It then fell to me as the eldest sibling to adjudicate the debate on whether Liz did enough to be allowed to get her payment. Reluctantly, Louie gave up four of his jelly babies.
It still bugged me that we never really got an answer. It wasn’t as though the curtains stayed closed day and night. In fact, Dad was often the first one to open them in the morning. Mum was right - throughout the whole 6 years he had hated them with a burning passion – so why was he desperate to keep them up? I think he wanted the curtains to stay up because he didn’t believe that it was over. Even though Churchill told us that it was an unchallenged, unequivocal surrender, Dad still didn’t believe it. I suppose he was right to have doubts. He had already fought in one war and now he was living in the rubbles of the second one.
We were lucky enough in our house. We never had to climb out from the communal shelters and find that our house was demolished. The worst that ever happened was that our back windows were ruined and we didn’t get a harvest of potatoes that year. A few people in our street lost everything – their homes, their pets – their lives. It didn’t happen often but when it did, it was a loss that reverberated throughout the whole street.
It took Dad four weeks before he let us take those curtains down. I think he let us take them down because he was fed up of us asking. I still don’t think he really believes that it’s finally all over.
As it drew closer and closer to the anniversary of V-Day, people started to buzz with anticipation. Last year’s impromptu celebrations were riotous – women scraped together as many ingredients that they could find to make cakes and pies and drinks that were rationed were all of a sudden being poured with reckless abandon. There were bonfires in the street and music played on radios and phonographs. Someone even carried out Eddie and his upright to get him to play something. Day spilled into night and some of the more sturdy partiers among us had to be collected by their families as the sun started to rise in the sky again.
Talks of parties and balls and parades were on everyone’s tongues. Was it going to be like last year? Some folk said that the City Council had granted permission for some street parties along certain roads. Others said that the damage partiers caused in London last year meant that the police were going to be extra vigilant – that they might even confiscate people’s alcohol. Some people were even worried that they might even start rationing drinks. Men promised to pick up arms again if the government was going to go that far. They could take our eggs, they can take our lads, but God forbid they ever touch our rum!
All those rumours were just that. As the days counted down, invitations starting winging their way around the city. We got ours two weeks before the party, in a wax sealed envelope addressed to Dad.
Of course, that meant Mum opened it and read it aloud to us all at breakfast on Saturday morning. She cleared her throat dramatically as she began, “Dear Private Fraser-”
Dad dropped his spoon into his porridge, his dark, bushy brows furrowing into his forehead, “Sarah, what you playin’ at-”
“*We would cordially like to invite you and your family to St. Paul’s Inaugural Victory Day Ball. * You hear that, Win? ‘Cordially’! We’ve been ‘cordially invited’!”
Eliza’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head with excitement, “A ‘ball’, Mum? Dad, are we going to a ball?!”
“Y’see what you started, Sarah? Liz, s’down ’n’ eat yer porridge.”
“It’s like in Cinderella, though, Dad! Can I get a new dress, Mum?”
“What? So you can get porridge down that one, too?” Luis grumbled, waving his spoon towards Liz’s navy blue dress that was now flecked with porridge, “Why d’ya still eat like a baby? Yer 10.”
“MUM!”
“Get your spoon out of that jam jar right now, Winston Luis Fraser. And leave your sister alone as well – do you have to torment her? You’re six years older than her!”
Louie scoffed, lifting his spoon out from the jam jar with a red mound to drop it into his porridge and mix it in vigorously before Mum could protest. He learnt from last time, when she just scooped it right back into the jar.
“C’mere,” I murmured, licking the pad of my thumb to swipe it down Liz’s dress, “You’ll be more careful with your new ball dress, won’t you?”
“I ain’t said we’re goin’ to no ball,” Dad’s deep voice cut through the cacophany at the table. All eyes turned towards him, “What they wantin’?”
Now it was Mum’s turn for her arched brows to crease up, “What d’ya mean?”
“I mean ‘how much money they wantin’ for’? Ain’t nothin’ in this world for free.”
“Unless it’s a TV.”
“Watch ya’ mouth, boy.”
From the shuffle in Mum’s chair, we could tell that we should be scared of the answer.
“Nothing.”
A collective sigh of relief was spread around the table.
“It says, ‘Proceeds from tickets will be donated towards the cost of rebuilding St. Paul’s-”
“That don’ sound free to me!”
“-but as a veteran, you and your family are invited as guests, free of charge.’”
A silence fell across the room for one moment as Dad tapped his nails on the tabletop in thought. And then the pleas started.
“Dad, we’ve got to go-” Louie started.
“They’ve sent an invitation right to you, Win-”
“It sounds pretty fun, actually,” I mused, taking the letter from Mum to read through it.
“Daddy, we *have *to go! Ella’s dad got his letter yesterday and they’re-”
“-if we didn’t go, I don’t *want *to imagine what people will say. It’d just be rude-”
“Oh – there’s a tombola! The prizes actually sound good...”
“-Uncle Rich said that they’re giving free drinks to the vets for an hour.”
“Please, Daddy. I get to dress up like a princess.”
I don’t know whether it Liz’s puppy-dog eyes or the promise of free alcohol, but Dad eventually sighed and nodded, “Ye better hope me uniform still fits.”
“Ha! Not a chance!” Louie scoffed, scooping out another tea spoon of jam straight into his mouth.
“Louie!”
“BOY!”