Women at War

by Jan Casey

  Of course, it hadn’t been the nurses’ job to find her a billet, but she’d been aware that when she regained her strength, she would have to vacate her bed and accept whatever accommodation was offered to her. Evacuation officers had come and gone from her bedside, sheets of paper and clipboards in their hands. One woman, who had looked harassed whenever she visited, would hold her pen so tight that her knuckles turned white. The skin on her hands was red and peeling with what Viola had thought must be eczema or dermatitis; Viola felt sorry for her, especially when she scratched with a vengeance and she’d hoped she wasn’t contributing to the raw inflammation.

  But that beleaguered woman came up trumps. ‘I think,’ she said. ‘I’ve found you a place in Ayrshire. How does that sound?’

  ‘Oh,’ Viola said, propping herself up on her pillows. ‘It sounds very good, Mrs Watkins. Where exactly is it?’

  Mrs Watkins produced a map and pointed out the location on the west coast of Scotland. ‘Sorn, to be precise,’ she said.

  Viola peered at the pinprick of a village.

  ‘There’s not much there,’ Mrs Watkins said, a hint of apology in her voice.

  Viola shook her head. ‘I don’t want much,’ she said. ‘The less the better.’

  ‘Well, let’s see. It’s very rural. Close to the river, about fifteen miles or so from the reasonably sized town of Ayr. There’s a castle, a pub, a general store and a motorcycle shop.’

  That made Viola laugh. Mrs Watkins looked up from her paperwork, scratched her left hand with her right and smiled. ‘Yes, incongruous, I know. But there in that tiny hamlet they do their bit by mending military motorbikes. Incredible, isn’t it?’

  Viola nodded.

  ‘You don’t have to decide just yet, my dear,’ Mrs Watkins said. ‘I can give you a couple of days to think about it.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Viola said. ‘I like the sound of it.’

  ‘Good,’ Mrs Watkins said. ‘I thought you might.’ She filled Viola in with the details. The billet was a croft on a farm owned by an older couple. It was available because the previous evacuees, a young woman and her baby, had decided to move back home to Glasgow. So, as an added perk, there was a cot, highchair, pram and various other pieces of baby furniture on the premises. Ready and waiting for her to use.

  Viola could not believe her luck. Her jaw unhinged. ‘It sounds… ideal,’ she said. ‘I’m so grateful. I can see us there already. Happy and—’

  Mrs Watkins stopped her. ‘Don’t forget, Miss Baxter. There is still a war on and deprivation in the rural areas is just as rife as in the cities. So please do not become too complacent. You must remain wary and alert to any dangers.’

  Chastised, Viola nodded. ‘Of course. I will. When do we leave?’

  Mrs Watkins capped her pen and told Viola not to rush things. ‘Now that you’ve accepted, there’s no need to worry. I’ll arrange everything this end, get in touch with Mr and Mrs Barfoot, organise your transport. You concentrate on getting well enough to travel.’

  *

  Viola sat up and checked her bag to make sure she had all her tickets and the address of where she was going. It would be a long journey and despite her determination to be independent, Viola felt anxious. Her only experiences of travelling alone were short hops – Cambridge to Cirencester, Cirencester to London. The last time she’d travelled any distance was when, as a schoolgirl, she’d visited Germany with six other girls from her class who showed promise in the language. Then, the ignorance of adolescence meant she hadn’t felt the least bit trepidatious. At that age, she hadn’t been able to give voice or thought or imagination to the possibilities of what could go amiss and if anything did go wrong, Fraulein Konig and Miss Prescott would make it right. That, Viola thought, is how little Freddie must come to think of me, as someone who can be depended upon without condition.

  The day was hot and humid, her ridiculous hat and jacket irritating and fusty. She didn’t want to insult anyone, so suffered the discomfort, but couldn’t wait to get on the train and take them off. A bit of a breeze blew the curtains back and forth and Viola turned her face to catch a swirl of fresh air. Why, she wondered, had it seemed inappropriate to allow girls and women to travel by themselves? Who deemed it necessary that they needed to be accompanied? What a load of old tosh, as Lillian would say. Surely it would be better for everyone if women were taught how to negotiate their way around those sorts of basic skills and how to take care of themselves. The saddest reflection to dwell on was that it had taken a war for that, amongst other restraining customs, to be somewhat eliminated.

  ‘Don’t worry, my Freddie,’ Viola whispered. ‘I will teach you not to be afraid of tackling anything on your own.’ But first, she thought, she must get used to facing everything in life without Fred, without Mum, without Lillian, George or her brothers. The enormity of what she was undertaking washed her in cold sweat. If she was daunted about making a train journey on her own, how would she face life hundreds of miles from home? She breathed with Freddie – in, hold it, out, hold it. She would pull it off, for Freddie, one step at a time. But how she wished Mum or Lillian were with her.

  Over and over again, Viola had to remind herself not to get too comfortable – they would soon be on their way. But repeatedly she could feel her eyes drooping; it had been a difficult night with Freddie awake and fussing for most of it. Then, a firm nudge on her shoulder. ‘Miss, your taxi is here.’

  All of a sudden there was no time to check her trappings again. She gathered the baby in her arms, said a quick goodbye to the nurses on duty, the porter grabbed her bags and together they went down the stairs and out of the door of the lying-in hospital, leaving behind the place she’d called home for the past two months. Her stomach lurched; it was happening too fast. ‘Euston,’ the porter said to the driver, bundling her bags in around her. ‘Quickly, if you can. She’s running late. Best of luck, Miss.’ He gave her a half-hearted salute.

  Part of her wanted to say, Wait; take me back; I’m not sure. She looked down at Freddie, wriggling herself awake and realised she hadn’t had one minute alone with her baby since she’d been born. Could she manage? She had made her decision, so she would have to. The taxi accelerated and Viola looked out of the rear window at the signage above the door of the building. The British Hospital for Mothers and Babies, it read carved in stone – then the inscription and the home disappeared. Viola turned forward and bit her lip until she tasted blood.

  As luck would have it the train was delayed, so Viola had plenty of time to find her compartment and seat. When she’d settled her things, she took the baby to the door and leaned out, ever hopeful that Mum, who knew all her travel arrangements, had come to see them off. But there was no sign of her. Lillian would have waved them goodbye, but she was busy at work. All around her people clung to each other as the platform clock ticked on regardless. Some couples kissed with passion and she looked away from the sight, knowing she would never be involved in anything like that again. Not even, she gulped down a lump in her throat, if Fred did return as she knew he wouldn’t want her now. She would be repugnant to him.

  The stationmaster blew a whistle, women were handed into the train, hankies were fished out of pockets for a final wave. The train pulled out of the station and Viola turned back to her carriage. What a failed experiment living in London had turned out to be. I hope, she thought, Scotland will be better. ‘It has to be, little one,’ she whispered to Freddie. ‘I’ve got you to think of now.’

  All the other women in the compartment smiled at her and the baby. There were two older women, one girl who looked in her early twenties, another woman of indeterminate age wearing a very smart suit and a woman of about forty who didn’t seem to be able to stop blinking. ‘How far are you travelling?’ one of the older women asked. Viola noticed a circle of spiky hair that stood out from a mole on her jawline. ‘Ayr,’ Viola said. ‘In Scotland.’

  ‘Oh,’ the woman said. ‘That’s a long journey on your own.’ The others eith
er gasped or nodded.

  ‘You must let me help you,’ she said. ‘Although I’m not going that far.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Viola said. ‘Does anyone object to me feeding my baby here? I have become rather adroit at obscuring the whole procedure under a large scarf.’

  None of the women demurred. Grateful she would not to have to hide herself away in the lavatory, Viola conversely felt aggrieved that the question needed to be asked at all. As if the most natural and necessary act in the world should be disguised and undertaken in a furtive manner. We are ridiculous people, she thought as she covered herself and positioned the baby to feed as if under cloak and dagger. Of course, she could understand that men and boys might be embarrassed or offended, but why this behaviour was de rigueur with other women was a mystery.

  Robert and David, averting their faces if put in a similar situation, passed through her mind. And that was another absurd state of affairs – Mum had written to say she had told the boys to send all their letters to Viola care of her and she would forward them on. Return letters from Viola to her brothers must take the same route. Viola had to agree, but she did ask Mum what the boys had been told to make them follow that chain without question. Apparently, Mum had told them Viola was being moved around the country with her secretive job. If it wasn’t heart-breakingly ludicrous it would be funny. She and Freddie were being dragged down into a covert vortex where they were to be hidden from view until such time as Viola could make Freddie legitimate, by getting married she supposed. But that would only serve to enlarge the already enormous web of lies when birthdates were calculated and fingers were pointed. Viola wondered where all these lies, like the war, would end. In upset and resentment, she felt sure.

  She had been so busy with Freddie and thoughts of her brothers, that other than a jolt forward, she hadn’t noticed they had started on the first leg of the journey. But now that she had, an icy cold terror gripped her. As much to comfort herself as the baby, she jiggled Freddie with a soothing rhythm. This, after all, was what she wanted and what she thought was for the best, but worry about whether or not she’d made the right decision made her feel weak and indecisive. Sidings slipped away beside her, the backs of terrace houses became a blur, bomb sites rushed past on the periphery of her vision, the rhythmic sound of metal on tracks filled her ears. She was letting London go, although in reality she’d had about as firm a hold there as she had in Cambridge or the Cotswolds. And where would she go if she lost heart at the next stop or in Glasgow or Ayr or when she’d been in Sorn for a week, a month, a year? There was nowhere except an unmarried mothers’ hostel where she would be bullied and nagged about putting up her baby for adoption and she could not bear to hear that.

  In one of her letters, Mum wrote that Dad thought she was running away from her responsibilities, but Viola told herself she was not turning her back on her duties but was forcing herself towards a place where she could be single-minded about living up to her obligations. For a split second she closed her eyes and thought, Oh I do so hope that’s the truth of the matter.

  Freddie fussed and Viola turned her so she could suckle on the other side. When she’d had her fill, Viola lifted her onto her shoulder and rubbed her back until the tiny mite released a huge bolt of wind. All the other women laughed. ‘What’s her name?’ the woman with restless eyelids asked.

  ‘Frederika,’ Viola said. ‘But I call her Freddie.’

  ‘Unusual name,’ commented the smartly dressed woman. ‘Especially for this time and…’

  Viola looked the woman in the eye, but couldn’t maintain the stand-off as Mum had done with Mrs Bishop. She reddened first and had to look away. Gathering a few things, she excused herself to find somewhere to change the baby and give them a chance to talk about her.

  When she returned to the carriage, the atmosphere was frostier and none of them shared any other information about themselves, reducing their communications to polite pleasantries. A sourness hung over the carriage for the remainder of the journey and, although passengers alighted and were replaced by others, the spoilt milk atmosphere remained.

  The plan was that Mr Barfoot would collect them from the station at Ayr. But when Viola stepped off the train into the cool, pure Scottish morning, there was no one on the platform who looked to be a likely candidate. The stationmaster said something to her but she had to ask him to repeat himself three times before she understood he was offering his help; it would take time for her to tune in to the broad accent. She told him they were evacuees and were waiting to be escorted to their billet in Sorn. All she could understand of his lengthy reply was something about slow roads due to tractors, puddles, cattle, sheep or fallen trees. At least she thought that was the gist of it. He picked up her things and led her to the ladies’ waiting room, saying it would be more comfortable for her there. She flopped down in a chair with relief, as if she hadn’t been sitting on and off for hours on end.

  Again, she had to be woken up; she blinked and tried to cover her embarrassment by checking on the baby. The stationmaster was introducing another man to her as Mr Barfoot. ‘So pleased to meet you.’ She held out her hand and when they shook, she moved the blanket from the baby’s face and said, ‘This is my baby, Freddie.’

  ‘Och,’ Mr Barfoot said in a deep voice, thick with the same rich dialect as the stationmaster’s. ‘Pleased to meet both of you. Your carriage awaits,’ he said, pointing towards the front of the station.

  She followed the men towards the exit. Mr Barfoot was younger than she’d expected from Mrs Watkins’ description of him and his wife as an older couple; he was forty at the most and dressed, rather uncomfortably, in a dark brown suit, grey tie, white shirt that had seen better days and tan brogues. She supposed there wasn’t much call for formal clothing on a farm. A grey, bashed-about trilby, which he’d taken off to greet her, was now back on his unruly hay-coloured hair. She had to stride to keep up with her two escorts, who were chatting like old friends. Well, walking fast was one way of keeping out the cold that cut through her despite it being August. It was a good few degrees colder here than in London; she shivered and drew her arms a bit tighter around the baby.

  Parked at an angle to the kerb was an old, mud-spattered vehicle that looked as if it had been cobbled together from bits of cars and lorries and tractors and motorbikes, with a couple of pushbike components hammered on in random places for good measure. The back seat was already occupied by three collies who pressed their interested noses to the windows, smearing them with glutinous streaks, so she was directed to sit in the front passenger seat. The two men swung her baggage into the trailer fastened to the rear of the car with a rope, Mr Barfoot fiddled with some levers, there was a bang as loud as an incendiary and they pulled away.

  The collies bickered, with wagging tails, to have sniff and snuffle rights to her neck. The persistent moist noses made her giggle, but she drew the line when they tried to extend their inspections to Freddie. Their smell and wet tongues brought back memories of Pitch, who Mum had written was getting old, deaf and arthritic; she had loved that dog so much, but now she doubted she would see him again – another fixture in her life that was disappearing as fast as the train that was now heading back to London.

  ‘Lassies.’ Mr Barfoot sounded firm without raising his voice. ‘Down.’ As one, the dogs circled three times, lay down and put their long noses on their front legs.

  Mr Barfoot smiled at her, taking his eyes off the road for far too long for her liking. ‘We were told the baby was a girl,’ he said. ‘But it’s a wee Freddie.’

  ‘Oh, Freddie’s a nickname,’ Viola said. ‘She is a girl. See?’ She caressed the pink blanket as if that would prove a point.

  ‘Just as well, as the last lassie we had with us also had a lassie, so some of the clothes and blankets she left behind are for girls.’ He said the last word as if it was two syllables: ge-rels, with a trill across the r. She wanted to ask him why he and his wife accepted evacuees, if all of them were mothers and infan
ts, how they were affected by the war so far away from London, if they had any children of their own, what they would expect from her. Instead she commented on the scenery and he pointed out sights such as the castle in the distance and the river.

  ‘Jeanie will tell you everything you need to know about living in the croft,’ he said.

  ‘So kind,’ she said. ‘Thank you both very much, Mr Barfoot.’

  ‘You can call us Finlay and Jeanie,’ he said as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I could possibly,’ she muttered, thinking of her parents and how they addressed people they’d known for years with their appropriate titles.

  ‘Well,’ he said with an ease she was unused to. ‘When you’re ready.’

  The landscape was pretty, but very different from London and the flat countryside around Cambridge. And not as ambrosial as the Cotswolds, which she always thought the quintessential perspective of Britain. But although officially Britain, she had to remind herself, this was a different country so what was considered beautiful or evocative or resonant in one place, might not be in another. She had a lot to learn, but wanted nothing more than to take a back seat and observe, keep herself to herself and get on with what she had to do in peace and quiet. More than that, she did not want to offend or do anything that would turn people against her and Freddie; she would rather remain an enigma than antagonise anyone.

  Mr Barfoot was talking and she realised she had to give him her full attention in order to decipher what he was saying. ‘Aye, winter comes early here.’ He took both hands off the steering wheel, scratched his nose with one and pointed to a scene in the distance with the other. ‘Those fields yon? Soon they’ll be covered in frost. Then snow.’