Daddy, What Did You Do in the Great War?

"There's nothing good that comes out of war. It's simply hell on earth, and people survive, and people don't."

Michael Cimino

During my last year at school, Daddy bought the house in Sussex and based himself more regularly in Britain. It was, he said, 'his turn to take me on' in the holidays.

Mother was not that far away, near Chichester, but she had no use for me at that time.

She was supposedly helping to care for Michael Wilding in his final months, projecting to the world her saintly side that she believed had been  unrecognised during the awards season, her performance in ‘Mary Magdalene’ having been painfully overlooked.

While she was there, Michael’s death was announced in the newspapers prematurely at least twice, if not three times, each time with a quote from Mother that she always claimed she’d never said.

Chris was finishing up his schooling in America, such as it was, but would be flown in for Christmas and sometimes Easter. He’d slouch around the house in smelly clothes, turn on the TV, raid the fridge and play horrible music on his Philips tape machine without asking if anyone minded. He was only 11, nearly 12. Every night after supper, he and Daddy would play Connect 4 while I did the washing up. They had Chris lined up for Winchester next. I would smirk to myself amongst the suds about how that would go. I gave him two terms at best. (And I was right).

As the only woman in the house, I was expected to clean up after the men all the time, and do most of the cooking. Daddy called it ‘earning my keep’ or sometimes referred to it as ‘developing my wife skills.’ He liked to joke that ‘A’ levels and Oxbridge exams were all very well, but they didn’t teach you very much about life.

“And what kind of life are you thinking of?” I shot back at him once. “Yours or mine?”

“Stand down, Isabella. No need to be like that.”

“No seriously, Daddy. Tell me what you’ve learned from the university of life. I’d love to know.”

“I know the value of shutting the hell up!”

And that was indeed true. If there was one thing my father was expert in, it was that – shutting up.

By the end of January 1979, it became just him and me. School was done. Oxford interviews done. Entrance achieved. Very little celebration – a glass of champagne with Daddy, an announcement in the newspaper organised by Mother. Eight months of nothing loomed. And silence reigned.

Snowstorms had hit the whole of the UK and it was decided Chris needed to be shipped out early in case Heathrow ground to a halt. A week later, the blizzards came back. The snow drifted up against the windows. The cars were buried, the driveway iced up. The power went off.

Daddy and I existed in a candlelight world, meeting on the stairs or in the kitchen. He’d mutter a greeting as he made a sandwich. I’d shake out some corn flakes. We’d both shiver in front of the living room fire, each with three jumpers on, cupping the tepid tea he’d managed to confect with hot water from an old camping kettle.

The scene seemed perfectly set for some kind of heart to heart. I waited for him to ask me something, anything, about how I was feeling, how I thought about going to Oxford, how it might be, what I was looking forward to, what I was scared of, what books were on my reading list, who my friends were, what plans I had for the summer…

Nothing. Just the slurp of the tea and long blank stares into the flames.

I tried another tack and started asking him about him. He shifted uncomfortably in his armchair.

“What the blazes would you want to know about that for?” His old wet red-veined eyes peered at me accusingly.

“You never tell us anything, Daddy. Not about your actual life.”

“Well, what is it you want to know?”

“Well, what about the war, Daddy? I did a whole project for my History ‘A’ level about the war last year and you never helped me with any of it. But you were there! You were in the war!”

“Not quite.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not quite in it, as you might mean. I was either up above it in a plane, or I was in a prison camp out of the way of it. Either way, I wasn’t ‘in’ it.”

“But you must have seen things, heard things.”

“Oh I saw things. Blast me, yes.”

Slurp. Stare. Silence.

The dirty drizzly English rain came to wash the snow away. He brushed the slush off the cars and scattered grit and sand on the driveway. Stomping into the kitchen in his wellies and duffle-coat – Paddington on deck, a walk-on part secured in ‘In Which We Serve’ it looked like – he announced we should ‘get out’.

“No good being cooped up here.”

“I don’t…”

“No ifs and buts, Izzy. We’ve been stuck here for too long. Let’s go into town. The cinema, maybe!”

Always the cinema. A safe place for sitting in the the dark in silence.

“Look in the newspaper. See what’s on.”

I paused sulkily. I had books to read. A duvet to hide under.

“You can choose.”

The options at the big cinema were ‘Superman’, ‘Jaws 2’  or ‘Halloween’.

“Halloween! Oh I’d quite like to see that. My friend Donald’s in it. Complete rip-off of some of Ponti’s Eye-Tie films I’ve heard but…”

Amazing how talkative he could be once it was a film he knew about, or he’d been in, or someone he knew had been in, or someone he loathed had produced it. Where had the gloomy quiet little mole in front of the fire gone?

“The Deer Hunter’s on at The Dome,” I said.

“Dear what?”

“The Deer Hunter. Michael Cimino. It’s meant to be good.”

“Cimino?!” Here it comes. Another story.

“Cimino?! He’s a blasted ad man, isn’t he? I did ads with him way back – United Airlines. Cigarettes. TV ads. Can’t be the same man surely.”

“It’s a Vietnam film, I think.”

“Not another one, dammit. Can’t we go and see something jolly.”

“Like Halloween?”

“Well, what about a comedy then? Isn’t that Neil Simon thing on anywhere?”

“You did say it was my choice.”

And to his credit, he kept his word. Off we zoomed in the MG, rain and cold air leaking through the soft-top roof onto my coat, the air heater blasting burning fumes into my face and onto my knees. No talking. Just Daddy leaning forward over the wheel, wiping the misted-up screen with his forearm, the engine screaming in a low gear, as if we were in an ambulance racing to the rescue of some decrepit Sussex pensioner with only minutes to live.

He bought popcorn before we went in.

“Want some?” he asked.

“I don’t think it’s that kind of movie, Daddy.”

“Nonsense. I known a lot of chaps who get squeamish about war movies. But it’s never bothered me.” And he scooped up a huge handful of fluffy yellow clusters and stuffed them in his mouth as if to make the point.

Munch munch munch.

The steelworks looms over the town. The local gang of steelworking pals josh each other on a muddy track going to and from work. They drink in the local bars. They shoot pool, sing and play-fight. They flirt with local women. They get into trouble with their moms.

Daddy carried on munching volubly and deliberately for the first half hour, and then turned to me, whispering too loudly: “Are you sure this is a war movie?”

Munch munch munch

One of the pals is getting married. A big wedding scene full of doomy symbolism and drunkeness. A stag-do up in the mountains  - hunting deer. Guns and death. Talk of being drafted. More trouble with girls…

He started to look repeatedly at his watch, meaningfully. Then he sighed.

Munch munch munch. 

An hour in - the screen explodes with fire. Within seconds, a group of villagers grenaded. A young woman and baby gunned down. A soldier immolated by a flame thrower. Pigs feast on his charred remains. Another bombardment. Sudden cut to riverside bamboo prison. The gruelling, relentless, torturing Russian roulette sequence commences.

No more munching. Silence.

Twenty minutes later, Daddy got up from his seat and walked out. He wasn't the first. Several women had already left, hand on mouth, swallowing their sobs. A couple of young men sloped off to the toilets to throw up. I sat in my seat and wonder what to do. Was he coming back? Was he OK? Was he just trying to ruin this for me?

I decided to stay. I couldn't say I was enjoying the film. My stomach tightened into a sickening knot. I was disgusted. Appalled at what these men were having to endure, to swallow, to keep inside themselves but keep on living. And then try to live normally. But what is normal when you’ve held a gun to your own head?

I sat there for what seemed like an age. Two hours. Three hours. Daddy never cam back. When the film finished I found him sitting in the lobby. He’d found a can of beer from somewhere and he was sipping it gingerly with his head down. He’d been crying.

“Are you ok?” I asked stupidly. He looked up.

“Good film, was it?” he said accusingly. “Good bloody film!?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I don’t know why.

“I thought he was an ad man, Cimino.” He wasn't really talking to me any more.

“Are you OK, Daddy?”

“You’re not meant to show it, you know. You can’t really show that. It’s not for other people to know. They shouldn’t have to. Why show that?”

“It’s just a film, Daddy.”

“Just a film?! What the blimmin hell would you know? You're just a girl. It’s bloody war, Isabella. It’s BLOODY WAR!”