Read Online The Photographer's Wife by Nick Alexander - Free Book Online

hoping to wake her from her trance.
    Minnie’s brow wrinkles further. “I don’t know what to do,” she says.
    “Come outside, Mum!”
    “But do I need to finish this jacket or not?” she asks, her voice other-worldly. “That’s what I can’t work out.”
    Barbara shakes her head. “No, Mum, you don’t. It’s over,” she says. “They won’t be needing uniforms anymore. It’s all finished.” Barbara gently prises her hand from the sewing machine. “Come outside,” she says again. “Everyone’s outside. Come see!”
     
    By the time they get outside, the street is full of people. Three men are dragging a battered upright piano through the front door of a house opposite and a fourth man is already playing a one-fingered version of “Take me back to dear old Blighty” as they do so.
    The couple Barbara saw dancing before are still at it, and two other couples, one mixed, one comprising two women, are now dancing with them as well.
    Barbara pulls her mother down the path and into the road, where a group of women from their building have congregated.
    “Oh, ain’t it marvelous!” Sylvie exclaims, hugging both Barbara and her mother simultaneously albeit awkwardly due to their differing heights.
    “It’s peculiar,” Minnie says quietly. “It’s... it’s hard to believe, really.”
    Barbara spots her sister in the distance talking to a young man in uniform.
    She releases her mother’s hand and runs over to her. “Glenda!” she shouts when she gets there. “The war’s over!”
    “I know!” Glenda says, grasping her hand. “Come on. We’re going to Trafalgar Square.”
    “Trafalgar Square? Why?”
    “Everyone’s going there,” Glenda tells her. “They say it’s going to be the biggest party ever.”
    “The biggest party ever,” the young man confirms, nodding seriously.
    Barbara turns back to look at their mother. “But what about Mum?” she says.
    “She’ll be fine,” Glenda says. “Nothing’s gonna happen to her now, is it? The war’s over!” And then Glenda takes the young man’s hand as well and they start to walk briskly away.
    As they head through the streets, the crowds become ever denser. This May evening, everyone has stepped outside; the whole of London has downed tools. Everywhere Barbara looks, people are laughing and singing, they’re dancing and waving flags.
    “Everyone’s so happy!” she says.
    “Of course they bloody are!” Glenda laughs.
    “Will Mum be OK?” Barbara asks.
    “Of course she bloody will!”
    “I’m worried about her.”
    “She’s with Sylvia and Mildred and all that lot, isn’t she?” Glenda says.
    But that isn’t what Barbara meant. She didn’t mean, will Mum be OK now. She meant, will Mum be OK in general.
    “Everything’s gonna be better now,” Glenda tells her. “You’ll see.”
    “Will it?” Barbara asks.
    “Yes. Dad’ll be home soon and there’ll be no more rationing.”
    “Yes, rationing will stop,” the young man says. “I’m looking forward to that!”
    “We’ll probably get our old house back too!” Glenda says, and Barbara begins, for the first time, to imagine what a future without war might look like. As she runs, she starts to throw an occasional skip into the mix.
    By the time they have made their way to Trafalgar square, the sun is setting behind the buildings, and the crowd is bigger than any Barbara has ever seen. If people weren’t so smiley, she’d feel a little scared.
    Helped by the man, Glenda climbs up on a pillar-box, then points to the east. “Over there,” she says, jumping down and taking Barbara by the hand again.
    When they get to the far side, the impromptu band of GIs and locals that Glenda spotted has started to play Harry James’ Two-O’Clock Jump, so, in an ever smaller space in the midst of the swelling throng, led first by her sister and then by an actual (and rather good looking) GI, Barbara jives for the first time in her life. The eighth of May is one date that