"About as subtle as an earthquake, I know My mistakes were made for you"- My Mistakes Were Made For You, The Last Shadow Puppets
London, 1939
It was funny how in a moment your life could be changed forever. In the blink of an eye what you knew before would cease to exist completely and unexpected change would befall you- bereave you. And the worst was that once this change came, it was irrevocable. You could never return to what you knew before.
She would always remember the moment her life would be forever changed. Many autumns later when she was all rocking chair and wrinkly skin and weary eyes looking off into the horizon, she would reflect and reach the conclusion that perhaps her entire life had been devoted to that moment- that everything that came before in her life- the passing of her father, her mother's bitterness, her uncle's devotion- had only existed as preparation for that single moment. And with the passing of summers in her life, her mind would grow less and less sharp, but she would always remember that moment when her life changed.
It had been- to all intents and purposes- a conventional morning. She had been in the large drawing room of her uncle's manor, with her youngest brother perched on her lap and, surrounded by oak shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, she had read Bilbo Baggins's confrontation with Smaug to him. The radio was playing the newest jazz song from America, but the brassy melody played by the saxophone was so low that the whistling from the sparrow nest just outside the window overtoned it.
She was just about to turn the page after doing her best impression of Smaug's snarl of 'Burglar' and passing her fingers tenderly through the golden hair of her sibling when her uncle came into the room. It wasn't his entry that startled her- it was more the nature of it. She had always known her uncle as a stern and composed man who exuded authority and wisdom from his grey-haired and tall frame. However this morning, her uncle stormed into the drawing room and his eyes were flashing wild and there was none of that dignified composure that she had always known of him. He turned the radio louder and instead of the jaunty melody from the American Jazz song that had been playing previously, she suddenly heard their Prime Minister's grave voice: "... consequently this country is at war with Germany."
And then she could no longer hear the birds singing.
Historians have labelled the Second World War as a Total War and have in turn defined that label as 'a war which encompasses an entire nation'. The bespacled and balding men would clarify that the First as well as the Second World War made great demands on the country's economy and people, demanding the full use of the country's financial resources for the four to six years each of them laste, where even civilians fought in the war and had their lives transformed.
She would read those words years later with her wrinkly fingers passing over the black ink on white paper. She'd always loved words and reading and writing with her entire heart; her devotion to books and stories since an early age had been passed on to her from her late father and what had endeared her to her stoic uncle. But reading that simplification of that period of her life would seize her heart with causticness and she would snarl, flinging the book away from her with hatred and resentment filling her heart. And for the first time in 63 years she would realise the destructive power of simplification that words had.
Because no words would ever be able to justly explain how her life changed after Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war.
No amount of words would ever be able to accurately describe the worry she'd felt when she'd seen her uncle positively collapse into his chair with a vacant expression after the Prime Minister's announcement, words couldn't explain the fear she'd felt in her heart when she had to watch her oldest brother drive off, wind tousling his fair hair and him standing proudly in his green uniform.
Words couldn't describe the numbness that had gripped her when she held her weeping mother, the same woman who'd been indifferent to her since she had been five years old after her father's passing, who mourned the loss of her favourite child, having received a phone call that her son had fallen in battle.
Words couldn't describe the despair she'd felt when she ushered her youngest brother on the train, him only five years old, which would take him to the countryside and hopefully away from this damned war.
No words could ever replicate the tightening of her heart when he'd held onto her waist and softly muttered: "Promise me you'll come back for me" and she nodded her head.
And no words could describe the transformation she had undergone after that morning. Her mother and her aunt had always criticized her for having her head in the clouds and her nose in a book, which was a true waste of her beauty according to the older women.
There was no time for her books and her stories, for Peter Pan and Alice and The Mad Hatter, for fantastic tales of war and knights in Shining Armour, for stories of courtship and courtly, romantic love, for heroes and villains and fair maidens and ballads. There was no time for any of that during the War.
But one morning when she was in the bathroom and she looked into the looking glass- it was two weeks after her brother's burial- and realised that it wasn't only her childish fancies for stories that she had discarded during this time. Whereas before her brown eyes had always shined with the innocent and gay light of youth, they seemed harder now and much too old for her youthful, sixteen year old face. She was encompassed in the war- completely: not only her body as she trained and later worked as a nurse in the soldier hospital in West London, but also her soul.
No words would be able to describe how she had to grow up much too soon and much too abruptly at fifteen years old.
London, 1942
"Come, my dear, just one more spoon," she coaxed in her soft voice to the grey-haired man before her. He in turn, was shaking his head vehemently with a touch of childish petulance while tightening his lips. She sighed when he spat: "You already said that one spoon ago. Stop trying to make me eat." He was glowering at her and she, in defeat, lowered the spoon back to the still-full bowl of soup. Figuring she would only incense her uncle if she continued to insist and would not get him to eat anymore, she rose from her chair by his bedside and proceeded to make to leave.
She stopped with her hand on the handle of the door when she heard him demand: "And tell Julia to come up to see me. It's Wednesday and she will be sorely disappointed if we don't read on in 'Great Expectations'."
Julia swallowed heavily before giving a sharp nod of her head and pressing down the door handle, she left the room. A buxom and matronly woman was standing oustide the door with her kind, warm face tightened with worry. Julia gave her a small and sad smile before she whispered: "I managed to make him eat half a bowl. We will try for more later, Ms. Dixon." The woman in question gave her a slow and sad nod of her head before she took the bowl from her hands and they proceeded to go downstairs to the kitchen.
While Ms. Dixon proceeded to busy herself finishing the preparations for lunch, Julia reflected on her uncle's sickness. And despite being in the medical profession and having gathered much knowledge on it in the past three years she had worked beside physicians, she couldn't help but blame the war for her uncle's sickness of the mind. The man she remembered as so authorative and proper had been on a steady decline since that morning he'd collapsed on the chair. And now he was only a shadow of himself, childlike in his petulance and the innocent questions he'd ask Julia.
"Has my mother rosen," she asked after taking a sip of water. Julia knew the answer before she'd asked in truth and so it came to her as no surprise when the older woman nodded her head 'no'. A sigh was the only response that came from her and she rose, informing Ms. Dixon that she would be out, running some errands in town. As she fastened her overcoat and her hat, the woman eyed Julia worriedly and whispered: "Be careful, Ms. Julia."
The streets were deserted and the London that Julia grew up in was diametrically opposed to the vision of bereavement currently before her eyes. In her childhood memories, the streets were always frequented with vendors, elegant women, playing children, and suited men on their way to work. The air around her would be saturated with the sound of honking from cars, the unintelligible noise of various conversations around her and the smell of cooking food. You would walk on the pavement and be stopped periodically by vendors trying to lure you into their shops. And to her left and right, the streets were lined with cobblestone houses that all looked the same.
And now, there was an unnatural stillness around her.
She wasn't the only one to walk the streets, there were others but whereas before their steps had been languid as they enjoyed their outing, the passerbys now positively stormed past her in their hurry to get back home in safety. A few shops were open but the vendors no longer stood out in the street, gayfully calling out to random people but were inside. And a lot of the shops were barricaded and closed. And the air around her was still and frosty.
She was currently selecting some chamomile to cook her uncle tea later when the stillness of the air was broken by a loud and repetitive noise that echoed in the cobblestone street. The blossoms fell from her hand. Her spine straightened.
And she took off running.
She did not know where to go.
She had never been here when an alarm sounded and she didn't know where the closest bunker was. But she ran and the few people that were outside with her were running in the same direction as her. She didn't know if they knew where to go either. Or if they were just running like her- just for the sake of it. Just because they had learned that when the alarm sounded you start to run.
She tripped over an overturned stone on the floor and landed roughly on her knees. She gritted her teeth against the stinging originating from her knees and her mind screamed at her in tune with the repetitive wail of the alarm that she needed to continue running. She needed to get to safety.
Just as she was about to rise, she felt someone taking her arms and hauling her up. She looked up at the source of assistance and saw an older woman with startling green eyes and a wild, disheveled mane of hair pulling her up and towards the right-hand pavement. And in an accented voice the woman told her: "Come, lass. My shop is just here we can get to safety there." And Julia was so winded because of the fall and the unexpected help from this stranger that she offered little resistance to the woman's pulling and before she could gather another thought she was inside a small and stuffy shop whilst her helper was bolting the door shut.
She became aware that she was locked in an unknown shop with an unknown woman and she became very wary and proceeded to take a step back. The woman whirled around as soon as she was done with the door, her black hair wildly twirling around her, and gave Julia a gentle smile: "There. Now we just wait until they announce that it's safe to go back out again." The woman then proceeded to stalk past her and Julia blinked her eyes at the strangeness of the woman. Now that the woman was no longer at the door, Julia turned around and for the first time took in the rest of the shop.
Had she been three years younger and had the war never occured, she would be starry-eyed with wonder. And even despite everything that happened to her, Julia could not help but to feel a tendril of enchantment as she looked walked deeper into the shop and her eyes took in the dreamcatchers around her which hung from every inch of the ceiling. It was like she was in a sea of those delicate structures of feathers and thin yarn. She raised her hand, allowing the tips of her fingers to breathe past a particularly beautiful one made of ivory white yarn with a white feather. She took in the other items which were on display and though they were all different, one thing they had in common were that they were all exotic and peculiar and she'd only read about some in books and had never ever seen one in real life before. And her brown eyes took them in greedily. The shop was peculiar and strange just like its owner but it was equally as wonderful by being so.
Julia suddenly stopped and was standing before a large mirror which hung from the wooden wall. The glass was clear and she could see her full tiny figure clearly in it but it was the frame which drew her eyes. It was bronze and looked ancient and was carved with several figures. And it was almost too much input for her, so her eyes focused on the carvings at the top of the frame. And it showed three women, working with yarn. One was unrolling it, while the other sat at a spinning wheel, processing it. And the third was cutting the wire. And it reminded her of something. Some story that her uncle had told her.
Her mind was so preoccupied with trying to recall what the figures reminded her off that she didn't see the woman who had saved her approaching her from behind in the reflection. She only took note of the woman's arrival too late. Her spine straightened as she saw the woman's determined expression and just as she was about to whirl around, she felt someone pushing her. She lost balance and fell forward and she was bracing herself for the painful impact with the mirror's surface.
But it never came.
She kept falling and falling.
And just like her childhood heroine, Julia fell through the looking glass.
