Oxford Shadows

January, 1945: The children’s uncle visits them in Oxford

I saw Chris and Susie just the once while they were staying down there in Oxford, even though I was entitled to a monthly rail ticket.  Perhaps I should have made the effort to see them more often, but I thought the kids were really lucky, tucked up warm and well-fed in a comfortable billet while the rest of us were roughing it back in Peckham.

This was in early January of 1945 and as soon as I clapped eyes on him I could see Chris hoped I’d come all that way just so’s I could take him and Susie back to London with me.

‘No can do, Chris old chap,’ I told him.

'We want to go home,’ he whispered again. He had hold of my arm, and his grip was so hard it hurt.  I didn’t have much meat on my bones in those days.   ‘She doesn’t really want us here.’

He was referring to Miss Marlyn, of course.  But I’d just met her, and I couldn’t see what he was getting so worked up about.  Sure, she was taller than most of the women I knew, and had the easy authority of people of her class, men and women both, but she’d seemed pleasant enough. Chris and Susie probably thought she looked like a witch out of one of their story books, but she smiled at me in a friendly way. The kids are just homesick, I thought.  They don’t know when they’re well off.  There’s nothing more to it than that.