As she walked up the garden path carrying a tray of sandwiches, Mary paused by the lilac tree. It had already clusters of deeply packed buds ready to burst open and release their heavenly fragrance. Bob had planted the tree when she had told him she was pregnant with Bobby.
‘It will grow with the baby.’ he had said.
Now the delicate sapling was a robust shrub, and Bobby was a sturdy boy about to start school in September. He had his father’s dark, curly hair and brown eyes and loved playing football in the street with the neighbouring children. Only the rich could afford cars then and petrol was rationed. They had planned to give Bobby a little sister or brother after the war, but it was not to be.
A row of oddly assorted tables and chairs spread along the middle of the street with tablecloths of red, white and blue. Bunting made from any scraps of materiel which people could find was strung between lampposts and telegraph poles. Children of various sizes in homemade paper hats were chattering excitedly as their mothers emerged from the houses with plates of sandwiches and cakes and jugs of lemonade. Mary placed her plate of jam sandwiches on the table and hands shot out to grab one. No fussy eaters amongst these war babies, and cakes were kept back until the sandwiches had all been eaten. Food was too precious to leave.
Mary had met Bob at the local Amateur Dramatics Society, where he was the pianist and she was in the chorus, never quite good enough for a main part but then she only had to learn the songs and was happy to merge into the background. They had put on productions of Ivor Novello’s Glamourous Night, and Careless Rapture as well as Gilbert and Sullivan. There had been no more performances since the outbreak of war, and the men and young people were in the services leaving the mothers, children and grandparents behind.
Ivor had written a new song, ‘We’ll gather Lilacs in the Spring again’ for a musical Perchance to Dream. Mary softly hummed it, wiping a tear from her eye. Bob would never see the lilac tree grow or his son grow into a man. He had never been abroad, but as soon as his feet touched the sand of Normandy, he was shot down. Mary’s emotions were a mixture of grief and relief that the war was over, as she spotted some khaki uniforms amongst the parents and was thankful that no other wife would share her loss. Bob was buried in a military cemetery, and as soon as she could save enough money Mary would take Bobby and make him proud of the father he would scarcely remember.
About the author
June Webber is a great grandmother living in Dorset. She is a member of a local creative writing group and Zoom writing and poetry groups. She has had poems published, and stories in CafeLit and The Best of CafeLit.
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