Trick or Treat by Lesley Glaister

attracted to the destruction and yet it never touched her, not close enough to hurt, close enough only to thrill. She liked the to-do. She liked to make do. She was ingenious, Jim always said afterwards, while food was still rationed. She made meals that would have been a feast in the best of circumstances; she cut down Jim’s old shirts and her own frocks and coats and made little clothes for Rodney that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Buckingham Palace. She was a brave woman, a smart woman, and she never let Hitler interfere with her routine. Never a day without lipstick, not like some who let themselves look like frights as if war was some sort of excuse for sloppiness. She was excused war work because of baby Rodney but still she was an example of what made Britain great, doing her bit to keep it all going, civilian life, in her own small way. That was what Jim said and he knew what was what, being a fighting man himself. She misses the war. She misses the sense of purpose.
    She opens her eyes and looks at Jim. ‘You’re right,’ she says and smiles at him fondly. ‘I’ll have our Rodney back home where he belongs. He is our son when all’s said and done. He can have his old room back with all his old things.’
    Jim smiles at her, pleased, and when he smiles like that it is almost as if sunshine spills out of his frame and into the room. ‘That’s my Nell,’ he says. ‘And why not get that hat back to Olive? You’ll feel the better for it.’
    Nell sits up and puts her feet on the floor. She pauses while her body adjusts to the vertical position. She picks up the hat and then drops it. ‘It’s got some of her disgusting hair stuck to it. Caught in the straw. Wretched filthy thing. Wants burning. What would I want with it anyway?’
    â€˜That’s my lass,’ says Jim.
    Arthur peers out of the window. ‘Rain’s stopped,’ he remarks. ‘I’ll get off out and look for hat.’
    â€˜You’ll find it, won’t you Artie?’ Olive says.
    â€˜If it’s there, Ollie, I’ll find it.’
    â€˜And then everything will be all right again.’
    â€˜Mmm.’ Olive looks sharply at Arthur. He sounds doubtful. He stoops a little, standing there by the window. He never used to stoop. He used to stand straight, look at the world straight, defiant even. Now, what with his stoop, he looks apologetic.
    â€˜Of course it’ll be there,’ Olive says. ‘And what will I do?’ ‘There’s television. There’s books. You used to love to read, Ollie. I haven’t seen you read for donkey’s years.’
    â€˜We used to read, didn’t we, Artie? The books we read! When we went away, remember Artie? It never mattered where we were you used to say, we might have been on the moon for all the notice we took. Always with our noses stuck in our books!’
    â€˜I’ll fetch you down some books, Ollie, to look at while you wait.’
    â€˜We used to think and talk. We’d read anything. We knew such words! Now when I read, Artie, nothing follows. The whatsits, the joining bits have gone so that nothing follows.’
    Arthur smiles at her. ‘Wait on,’ he says. She listens to him going upstairs, his footsteps jerky and quick. He will go in the back bedroom, a room she hasn’t been in for years. No cause to. The floor of that room is all books and boxes, and the boxes themselves mostly full of books. Two complete sets of Dickens; Tolstoy; Shakespeare; Morris; Tennyson; Wordsworth; Yeats – so many millions of printed words all piled there. They liked it like that. It had been very unlike Artie, but she had persuaded him, and he had come round. If the books had been on shelves, as Arthur had wished, they would hardly have looked at them. You get used to books on a shelf, like wallpaper. Piled on the floor there was movement. They’d sit in there and lean upon