on. We turned our backs on the long slough of mud and misery that Lincolnshire had become for us and came to a new place of rest, standing on the up-platform of Oxford station, two scuffed leather suitcases in hand, and with a future as cloudy as March skies.
*
Then lengthening days and the change of season brought in stiff breezes and skies crinkly with driven cloud and a weak sunlight licking at the damp patches on the pavement. We wanted to take it as a promise of better days.
On a certain morning we found ourselves standing before a high iron gate. Once again I had a firm grip on my mother’s hand, edging around behind her skirts to place a barrier between me and whatever this fate might be. My bolder brother had put on the responsible front of seniority, though I could see he was frowning with hisunderlip nipped between his teeth. The gate before us was heavy and black, embellished with blobs of metal which, beneath the thick coats of paint, might represent fruit or bombs – pineapples or grenades. On each side an interminable wall strode out of sight, rising powerfully above the narrow pavement. We boys were in some kind of uniform, shorts and jackets in a serge cloth, long woollen socks, ties fumbled around our necks. The coarse material of the clothes made us itch. We were self-conscious, wondering what new trial or game all this stiffness and formality heralded.
Our mother tugged on a bell-pull and we heard a muffled clang within. A long pause and then the gate swung slowly inward. A lady in a coif and a black robe and a severe starched wimple stood before us. I could not bring myself to look into her face, which was withdrawn and shaded by the strange headgear. So I concentrated about the level of her waist where a large bunch of keys dangled from a thin leather belt. She reached forward to shake my mother’s hand, offering her own hand that was big and callused, with swollen knuckles. A boxer’s hand. She turned and with very few words led us into a dark panelled hall shot through with a single shaft of brightness from a statue of a gaudy lady in pink and blue plaster. It was a shock to me to see that this lady had her heart exposed in her breast with golden rays emanating from this terrible wound. Only a day or two later, with my ear twisted for my ignorance, did I learn that this sorry apparition was the Blessed Virgin, a lady in some way connected (though I had as yet no idea of the details) with God. Doubtful to begin with, I started to sink under the painful puzzle of it all. The human figures, like the statue, were remote from my experience, the meaning was beyond me. Low mumbles passed between my mother and the nun, who finally essayed a brief, taut smile.
Then we were turned over to those boxer’s hands.
*
In this time of war various arms of the government, seeking some safety outside London, had colonized many of the towns within easy reach of the capital. An administrative branch of the Foreign Office had come to rest in Oxford, and here my mother found a position as a temporary filing clerk. The job was not demanding. A few ladies, mostly young wives bound by national solidarity and a genteel education, distributed pieces of paper and made cups of tea. My mother had the qualifications, which hardly went beyond the ability to read and write, and earned approval as an officer’s wife (the Foreign Office was notoriously snobbish). The job suited her well enough – some chatter and giddiness among the solemn civil servants of the FO persuaded a young woman inexperienced in official ways that she was part of national destiny. Her tasks filled the tedious hours of her arrested life, gave her a little extra income, and distracted her from the sense of her own unhappiness. But to take up this position she had had to get her children off her hands, and that had meant placing them in a boarding school, preferably a Catholic one.
My mother was Catholic by instinct, tradition and upbringing, but she
*
Then lengthening days and the change of season brought in stiff breezes and skies crinkly with driven cloud and a weak sunlight licking at the damp patches on the pavement. We wanted to take it as a promise of better days.
On a certain morning we found ourselves standing before a high iron gate. Once again I had a firm grip on my mother’s hand, edging around behind her skirts to place a barrier between me and whatever this fate might be. My bolder brother had put on the responsible front of seniority, though I could see he was frowning with hisunderlip nipped between his teeth. The gate before us was heavy and black, embellished with blobs of metal which, beneath the thick coats of paint, might represent fruit or bombs – pineapples or grenades. On each side an interminable wall strode out of sight, rising powerfully above the narrow pavement. We boys were in some kind of uniform, shorts and jackets in a serge cloth, long woollen socks, ties fumbled around our necks. The coarse material of the clothes made us itch. We were self-conscious, wondering what new trial or game all this stiffness and formality heralded.
Our mother tugged on a bell-pull and we heard a muffled clang within. A long pause and then the gate swung slowly inward. A lady in a coif and a black robe and a severe starched wimple stood before us. I could not bring myself to look into her face, which was withdrawn and shaded by the strange headgear. So I concentrated about the level of her waist where a large bunch of keys dangled from a thin leather belt. She reached forward to shake my mother’s hand, offering her own hand that was big and callused, with swollen knuckles. A boxer’s hand. She turned and with very few words led us into a dark panelled hall shot through with a single shaft of brightness from a statue of a gaudy lady in pink and blue plaster. It was a shock to me to see that this lady had her heart exposed in her breast with golden rays emanating from this terrible wound. Only a day or two later, with my ear twisted for my ignorance, did I learn that this sorry apparition was the Blessed Virgin, a lady in some way connected (though I had as yet no idea of the details) with God. Doubtful to begin with, I started to sink under the painful puzzle of it all. The human figures, like the statue, were remote from my experience, the meaning was beyond me. Low mumbles passed between my mother and the nun, who finally essayed a brief, taut smile.
Then we were turned over to those boxer’s hands.
*
In this time of war various arms of the government, seeking some safety outside London, had colonized many of the towns within easy reach of the capital. An administrative branch of the Foreign Office had come to rest in Oxford, and here my mother found a position as a temporary filing clerk. The job was not demanding. A few ladies, mostly young wives bound by national solidarity and a genteel education, distributed pieces of paper and made cups of tea. My mother had the qualifications, which hardly went beyond the ability to read and write, and earned approval as an officer’s wife (the Foreign Office was notoriously snobbish). The job suited her well enough – some chatter and giddiness among the solemn civil servants of the FO persuaded a young woman inexperienced in official ways that she was part of national destiny. Her tasks filled the tedious hours of her arrested life, gave her a little extra income, and distracted her from the sense of her own unhappiness. But to take up this position she had had to get her children off her hands, and that had meant placing them in a boarding school, preferably a Catholic one.
My mother was Catholic by instinct, tradition and upbringing, but she
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