Christmas with the Queen

Chapter 10 Olive

Chapter 10

Olive

London, 8 May 1945

N obody could quite believe it when the news came down the wires that the war in Europe was over. We’d hoped for the moment for so long that, when it came, the reality seemed too impossible to fully trust.

Within minutes, the traffic outside the office windows came to a standstill. Drivers tooted their horns and ran into the street, abandoning their vehicles and throwing their hats into the air. Passersby stopped to ask what had happened and hugged each other as they were told the news. The joy was infectious. Even our miserable supervisor said we could finish for the day to celebrate. We didn’t need asking twice. Typewriters were covered, handbags gathered, hats and coats pulled from the stand as we ran, laughing and nattering, heels click-clacking down the three flights of stairs at Whitehall Place.

Outside, I’d never seen such an outpouring of joy, never felt such immense relief or such a sense of hope and optimism.

“It’s over, Rosie! It’s finally bloody over!”

Rosie, my dearest friend, linked her arm through mine and planted a crimson kiss on my cheek. “Victory, at last! I need a drink! Come on.”

The cautious grim stoicism of the last six years seemed to wash away in an instant. We laughed as men in military uniform and others in business suits grabbed our hands and twirled us around in an impromptu dance in the street. We had no plan, no curfew, nowhere to go and nothing to do but celebrate. Nothing was off limits. Everything was possible again.

A group of four Navy men insisted we accompany them to a jazz club where they bought us gin and tonics like they were going out of fashion. The music soared and the crowd swayed in a magnetic pulse. The gin went to my head as my feet led me to the dance floor.

We danced with anyone and everyone—jitterbugs and jives, fast and free. This was no time for a slow waltz. A tanned fair-haired American caught my eye across the bar. I smiled and twirled in my yellow dress. It was a tatty old thing, patched up and repaired more times than I could remember, but the color had always made me smile.

“He keeps looking at you!” Rosie said as we made our way back from the ladies’.

“He does, doesn’t he!”

I was in a carefree, flirtatious mood. When the American eventually invited me to dance with him, I laughed and pulled him onto the dance floor and draped my hands loosely around his neck. I liked the way he smiled, the way he looked at me with his green eyes, the way we moved together, the way he spoke.

His name was Jack Devereux and he was from New Orleans. Head spinning, heart full, I wanted him to kiss me, but he seemed shy and a little formal as he told me about his role as a Seabee volunteer in the US Navy. I was about to tell him to shut up and kiss me, for God’s sake, when Rosie grabbed my arm.

“We’re all going to Trafalgar Square to dance in the fountain!” She looked at me, and then at Jack. “Hello! I’m Rosie. And she’s coming with me.”

He laughed. “Hello, back!”

“Bring him along, Liv,” Rosie said as we left the dance floor. “Everyone’s going.”

“Who’s everyone?” Jack asked as I pulled him along with me.

“ Everyone! ” I laughed. “Come with us!”

In a few moments, half the club seemed to have been scooped up by someone or other, like links in a chain that moved as one.

Outside the heavy press of the club, London was intoxicating. The air crackled with exuberant singing, impulsive cheers and laughter. Thousands of people were gathered in Trafalgar Square. We kicked off our shoes and rolled down our stockings and ran through the crowds into the fountain. An attractive woman of around my age laughed as she slipped and grabbed my hand to steady herself.

“Whoops! Sorry! Nearly took us both for a swim there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Don’t worry about anything, anymore.”

We both laughed.

“I’m Andrea,” she said, shouting above the noise. “I’ve lost my friends.”

“Olive,” I replied. “Stick with us. We’re your friends now.”

Eventually, a policeman ushered us out of the fountain. We put our shoes back on, stuffed our rolled-up stockings into our coat pockets, and set off in a conga line. Rosie’s hands held my waist. In front, I held onto Jack Devereux. In front of him was the new girl, Andrea, and then others we’d collected along the way. At one point, the line fell apart. We all linked up again, grabbing the closest person to us—and when I turned to the person behind me, I gasped.

It was, unmistakably, Princess Elizabeth and her sister, Princess Margaret, behind her. As a mad royalist, I’d know their faces anywhere.

“Is it really you?” I asked.

The young woman smiled, and then she was gone, swept up in the crowd as if she were any normal young woman, not the heir to the throne.

“Rosie! Did you see?”

“See what?”

“Princess Elizabeth! She was right here!”

Rosie laughed. “Don’t be daft. You’ve had too much gin! Come on. We’re going dancing again. Someone knows a place out Camden way.”

We danced all night, moving among each other like moths fluttering between electric lights, drawn to the flicker and hum of everyone else. Somehow, six of us had ended up sticking together—Rosie and me, Andrea from the fountain, and Jack from the jazz club, along with two of his Navy friends. In the early hours, someone suggested we climb Primrose Hill to watch the sunrise. We made a rag-tag group by then—makeup smudged, hair asunder, ties undone, shirtsleeves rolled up.

At the top of the hill, we spread coats and jackets out like blankets and lay down to watch the sky. Someone had champagne. Someone else had cigarettes. We all had the infectious enthusiasm of youth and beauty, our optimism as wide and endless as the just-lightening sky above.

As dawn bloomed and the first amber rays of sun spread their fingers wide across Regent’s Park and the city beyond, Rosie pulled a Kodak camera from her handbag.

“Come on,” she said. “A photograph to capture a new dawn. The first day of the rest of our lives!”

Rosie took a few snaps, and then Andrea insisted she take a photograph of us all. We wrapped arms around each other’s shoulders as we bunched up so that everyone could fit. It was such a beautiful moment, a snapshot of perfect happiness captured in the golden rays of a glorious sunrise.

“Everybody smile!” Andrea said.

As the camera shutter clicked, I glanced over at Jack, but his eyes were fixed firmly on the camera, or perhaps on the woman behind the camera, I wasn’t sure.

“One more for luck!” Andrea called.

I held my shoulders back and put on my brightest smile. The war was finally over, and the rest of my life beckoned on the horizon.