by Juno Dawson
‘Very well. Goodnight.’ She closes her door and I tiptoe downstairs in near darkness.
Instead of the kitchen, I head into the living room and to the sideboard from which Mum showed me the photo album. I slide it open and pull out three or four leather-bound volumes. The first is super eighties and has loads of pictures of Mum with me as a baby. Indulging myself, I look to see if there are any of Dad. Sure enough there are – copies of ones we have, but they always give me a feeling a bit like Christmas in my chest. Probably because most of the pictures are us standing in front of Christmas trees.
He was a very handsome man, my dad. I wish I remembered him better.
I put the first album back and work my way left down the shelf, assuming someone as organised as Margot would file them chronologically. I pull another and see this one has to be the sixties. Mum is a little girl and most of them, unsurprisingly, are of her playing on various beaches. The page the book falls open on has a note reading Julia in Monte Carlo, July ’66 in handwriting I now recognise as Margot’s.
Going back further, I find what I’m looking for. The wedding album. Everyone has a wedding album – well, all married people. Their wedding was on 11th July 1953, according to the front page. I leaf through the pictures. The wedding took place in a registry office in London, by the looks of things: a handsome building with imposing stone columns at the front.
Hand in hand, Margot and Grandad – as handsome as my old Ken doll – walk through swirling confetti, just like Mum and Dad did in the home movie. It looks like blossom. Both are laughing their heads off. It’s weird to see Margot looking happy. She’s wearing a smart, ankle-length white dress with capped sleeves and a belt at the waist. A cute little hat with a net veil is pinned into her hair. I’d totally wear that.
I do the sums. So they married in 1953, a whole twelve years after Margot arrived in Llanmarion. I suppose it could be the same Andrew, but then again, there are a lot of Andrews in the world. I think Grandad had freckles like the Andrew in the diary, but, again, so do lots of people.
I put the photo albums back in what I hope is the same order and slip upstairs, glass of water in hand in case old hawk-eyes is waiting for me on the landing.
I have a quite flick back through the diary, and so far she hasn’t specified a surname. I guess there’s only one way to find out. Who cares if I look like death in the morning?
Friday 14th February, 1941
Strange, isn’t it, how quickly the unusual can become familiar? My life before the farm feels like a hundred lifetimes ago. Oh, of course I write to Mummy and she duly replies, assuring me she’s well and safe and to pay no mind to the reports we hear of the bombardment. As ever, London keeps on.
I know I haven’t written for days. I’ve been much too busy. You see, I finally learned where it is Glynis sneaks off to every day. Last Wednesday I had just dropped Peter and Jane off at the schoolhouse when I saw Glynis and a few of the other townswomen entering the Red Lion public house.
Now, not for a second did I think Glynis was creeping away from the farm for an early-morning tipple. Why, by supper time she’d be quite incapacitated. That said, a group of women slipping into a pub at such an hour was enough to arouse my suspicions.
The Red Lion, like many of the buildings in Llanmarion, is a drunk-looking stone building, painted patchy white. More uniquely, the pub still has its original thatched roof, black Tudor beams and stable doors. No place for a lady.
I couldn’t think of any valid reason why I should have cause to knock on the door, but saw no harm in taking a peek through the window. Frustratingly, each of the windows had a wooden shutter over it, but I was able to prise one open an inch, enough to see Glynis and the other women disappearing through a door at the side of the bar, I assumed leading to a staircase, either upstairs or to the cellar.
‘Can I help you, miss?’ I whirled around to see a strikingly pretty woman. She had red lips and piled raven-black ringlets tumbling out underneath a teal-coloured hat with a peacock feather tucked into the brim.
‘Gosh, I’m sorry,’ I said. I decided that, in this case, honesty was the best policy. ‘My name is Margot Stanford. I’m staying with Glynis Williams. I saw her go in and just wondered what on earth she was doing in a public house at this hour.’
‘Ah,’ the woman smiled. ‘So you’re Marvellous Margot. I should have guessed! Glynis has told us all about you. Listen, and think about your answer carefully … Can you keep a secret?’
‘Yes,’ I said without hesitation. ‘I’m a sixteen-year-old girl. It’s what we’re best at.’
She laughed a husky laugh. ‘Then you’d better come inside. I’m Agatha Moss, by the way.’ I’ve learned by now the difference between a north and south Wales accent and hers was definitely northern.
With her own key, Agatha let us into the pub, which positively reeked of beer-soaked carpets and tobacco, and led me to the narrow door. She chivvied me up a flight of steep steps to a landing. ‘Take the first door on your right,’ Agatha told me.
I pushed it open and a group of women turned and stared in surprise.
‘Margot!’ Glynis exclaimed.
‘Look who I found spying at the window,’ said Agatha, taking off her trench coat and hanging it on a stand next to the door. The room, which must once have been living quarters, now appeared to be some sort of communications office. I’d never seen the like. Now, clearly I know nothing about telephone exchanges, but I was able to recognise radios and Bakelite telephones and other assorted machinery I could only guess at. Some of the operators already wore headsets with mouthpieces.
‘Margot, what are you doing here?’ Glynis continued. She didn’t seem cross as such, more surprised.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I saw you coming into the pub and was, well, curious.’
A woman I wasn’t familiar with chuckled. ‘Well, you know what curiosity did to the cat, like, don’t you?’
‘Hush, Phyllis,’ said Glynis. ‘She meant no harm.’
‘What is all this?’ I gestured at the equipment.
‘You realise we’ll have to get her to sign the Secrets Act now.’ Agatha poured herself a cup of tea from a refreshments table near the window. From the outside, to anyone looking in, this must look like a tea party and nothing more.
‘I trust her,’ said Glynis, ‘and she’s very bright. She’d be of more help here than she is on the farm, believe you me.’ I could have chosen to be offended at that, but she was probably right.
‘This is a listening post, isn’t it?’ I’d eavesdropped on enough of Daddy’s hushed conversations to know there were tactical outposts outside of London. What good was putting all your eggs in the basket most likely to be bombed? ‘Don’t worry, I shan’t tell anyone.’
‘No, you won’t!’ Agatha said. ‘To answer your question, yes, we’re an outpost. You see, Margot, it’s not improbable that if the Luftwaffe should take Ireland, the Jerries could very well invade by sea, and if they should, the Welsh coast is where they’d land. We have to be especially vigilant out here.’
‘Gosh, I had no idea.’
A couple of tired-looking women put their coats on and said farewell – the nightshift retiring for the day, I supposed. ‘Well, now you’re here, you can make yourself useful,’ Agatha finished.
‘I’d love to help!’ How exciting! Cracking codes and deciphering, well, ciphers.
‘Good. You can start by running out to fetch more milk for tea,’ Agatha said with a sly smile. I liked her already, she reminded me of Mother – how I imagine she was when she was younger.
‘Very well,’ I replied, sensing I was being tested.
It’s awfully exciting. I’ve been back every day since, helping out however I can, which is mostly making the tea, sweeping the floors and keeping the toilets spick and span. When I’m done with my chores, I’m allowed to assist Glynis. Granny taught me a little French on the Riviera and it’s coming in very handy now. Oh, it’s mostly a waiting game, listening out for
radio conversations in and out of France and Germany; picking up on cockpit transmissions and identifying repeated phrases. It’s all spaghetti, and the trick, I’m learning, is to find that needle in the haystack – picking out that tiny thread that’s worth something.
Glynis has started to teach me Morse code. It’s not as hard as I’d have imagined. Letters and numbers are made up of little tones, transmitted as ‘dots’ and ‘dashes’: a dash being three times the length of a dot. Each letter is divided by a silence the duration of a dot while words are separated by a silence equivalent to a dash. There’s a different combination for each letter or number. Glynis says I’m a natural and soon she’ll start teaching me the more complex and confidential codes.
I never thought when I was shipped out to Wales I’d end up as a codebreaker! A spy! It’s funny, isn’t it, where life takes you?
So that explains my lack of entries over the last week or so. Now let me tell you about tonight. Presently, it’s the stillest hours of the night and only me and the stars are up. Sleep isn’t anywhere in sight – my mind is much too busy, whirring like an engine.
Goodness! I’ll start at the beginning. Each year, Bess’s mother and some of the other local women organise a St Valentine’s dance at the church hall. It has, I’m told, become an important date in the village calendar.
Bess was unable to contain her excitement, insisting that I join her and Doreen at their home to do our hair and make-up. I wore the prettiest dress I’d brought – still a fairly sensible polka-dot affair – with my jade-green kitten heels from Paris. I admit, getting ready was fun; we curled our hair in rollers and Doreen even drew seams up the back of our legs with an eye pencil. I didn’t dare tell her I actually had some real stockings with seams back at the farm.
‘Oh, I’m so excited!’ Bess said. ‘I just know my card was from Reg.’ As is the custom, an anonymous heart-shaped card had been delivered to Bess’s door that morning. I got one from Mummy, which was decidedly less interesting.
‘Bess,’ I said solemnly, ‘you need to be very careful.’
‘Oh, I know, but I don’t care what people say.’
‘You should,’ Doreen muttered as she carefully applied lipstick.
‘What’s the worst people can do? Laugh at us? Spit at us as we walk down the street? Call me names? It all bounces off, like.’
I didn’t like to tell her that people could, and might, do much worse than that. ‘Reg is utterly charming,’ I told her, ‘but just be wary, Bess. Not everyone is as clever as we are.’
‘This war is going to change the world, Margot,’ wide-eyed Bess said with a mouthful of Kirby grips. She pinned a curl into a chignon. ‘It’s about the Allies standing up for what’s right. Isn’t that what the boys are fighting for? A world where people have the freedom to be whatever they want to be? To love whoever they want to love? To pray to whoever it is they believe in?’
Oh, poor, naive Bess. I’d heard, from the listening post and from Father, the most terrible rumours. Drifting across the Channel come dark tales of whole towns being flattened; of families fleeing their homes with nowhere to go; children without parents; Jews being rounded up and driven away on trucks like cattle. These are the things your nightmares would be scared of, and Glynis fears it’ll only get worse.
Of course, I’m bound from telling Bess any of these things. ‘Very well,’ I told her. ‘You have my full support, and should you marry, I shall be bridesmaid.’
‘Maid of honour!’ Bess smiled. Since his release, Bess and Reg had been stealing away into the woods for ‘hikes’, but so far Bess had told her mother she was helping me out on the farm. The villagers were still wary of Reg, however helpful and polite he was around town. It angers me, seeing him bow and scrape to people so clearly undeserving of his efforts.
Done up to the nines, we walked to the village hall and found it already thrumming when we arrived. The organisers had done a splendid job, stringing bunting and jam-jar lanterns from tree to tree. The hall itself, little more than a rickety wooden shed, is located between the church and graveyard. Still, with the band playing and a hum of chatter and laughter, it was positively enchanting.
‘Goodness, look!’ Doreen exclaimed as we tottered down the churchyard path, unsteady in our heels. ‘Soldiers!’ I suspect Doreen is wacky for khaki.
Sure enough, there was a huddle of men in uniform smoking outside the hall. ‘What on earth are they doing here?’ I asked.
‘They’re from the hospital,’ explained Bess. ‘Evening, Tommy!’
‘Good evening, Miss Bess,’ said a young man with his left arm in a sling. Bess told me they were invalids recuperating at the infirmary and those well enough had been brought to attend the dance.
Ivor, Glynis told me, would rather serve crumpets to Hitler than come to a dance, so while he stayed home with Peter and Jane, she was there helping out with the refreshments and had made a delicious fruit punch. I can’t say for sure, but my light-headedness suggested it contained something a little stronger than mere apples.
As is so often the way, everyone clung to the walls nursing drinks, leaving a vast chasm in the middle of the hall until a couple of brave souls started to dance. As soon as a couple of bawdy Essex evacuees started something resembling a Lindy Hop, Bess grabbed my hand and we joined them. Dancing is NOT my forte, but I was having too much fun to feel self-conscious. Soon girls filled the dance floor, and where there are girls, boys will surely follow.
Bess paired with Reg, and I don’t know where he had acquired such skill, but his dancing was phenomenal and Bess met his tempo admirably. Soon the rest of us cleared a space to let them showcase their jive. The room was divided. There were awed gasps and claps and cheers as they kicked and spun to the music; Reg even lifted Bess clean off her feet, swinging her left and right and over his head. But there were just as many disgusted tuts and sucked teeth. I distinctly heard a voice say, ‘How can she stand to hold his hand?’ I repaid the woman with a glare that could cut diamonds.
I danced and laughed until my make-up had run and my curls were falling loose. I can’t remember the last time I’d felt so free and feather-light. It’s so strange, but never once had I thought that being forced so far away from home would be, well, fun.
It was almost midnight when Glynis took me to one side. ‘I’m sorry to spoil your fun, Margot, but just keep an eye on your friend Doreen. She’s been drinking anything she can get her hands on, pet, and she doesn’t look too steady on her feet.’
I scanned the hall. ‘Where is she?’
‘I’m not sure, love. Perhaps try the lav.’
I nodded. ‘Of course.’ I felt guilty. I’d been having so much fun dancing and watching Bess and Reg, I’d barely paid Doreen any attention, not that I’m her warden. I weaved my way through the crowd to the toilets, which were just by the side of a little stage at the end of the hall. The door was locked so I gave it a tap. ‘Doreen? Is that you? It’s Margot.’
‘No, love! She’s not in here!’ came an embarrassed reply.
‘Sorry!’ I did another lap of the hall before leaving through the front doors. Once more there was a tight circle of soldiers smoking in the icy February night. ‘Oh, hello there,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose any of you gentlemen have seen Doreen from the hospital, have you?’
‘’Ey up, lads, we’ve got a posh one,’ a rugged Yorkshireman said with an affable grin.
One of his colleagues answered, ignoring him. The soldier stepped into the pool of light from the lamp and he was as handsome as any star of the silver screen. He had a square jaw and strong Roman nose; hair razor-short on the sides and slicked smartly back on top. ‘Afraid not, ma’am, but we sure will keep an eye out now.’ He had an accent – American or Canadian – as neat as a freshly trimmed lawn. His teeth were uniformly white and square and there was a most compelling dimple in his chin.
‘Thank you.’ I was unsure what else to say. I knew my mother, wherever she was, would frown upon my being with three gentlem
en without a chaperone. By way of a farewell, I half nodded, half curtsied, unable to break the American’s gaze.
Blushing, I expect, I set off towards the church, still wondering if Doreen had taken ill and come outside for air. It was possible she’d chipped off with a chap from the hospital … I can’t say I’d have been surprised; she strikes me as a bit of a share crop.
The night was bitterly cold and I didn’t savour being so close to the graveyard. A fog crept around the decaying headstones and mausoleums. I felt the same sensation I had done in the forest, the feeling of being watched, observed by the eyes of the night.
‘Doreen?’ I called, comforting myself more than expecting an answer. ‘Are you out here?’ I wrapped my arms around my body, cursing my foolishness at not fetching my coat.
‘Didn’t you see?’ A familiar, cocksure voice cut through the murk. It was Bryn Davies. ‘Doreen got so merry she had to go home with Myfanwy.’ Bess’s mum.
‘Where are you?’ I said, unnerved at the disembodied words.
‘I’m right over here, pet.’ I saw him sitting on a flat stone sarcophagus, smoking a cigar. He hopped off, lumbering towards me. He was drunk, I could tell.
‘Ah, I see. Well, I’m glad she got home all right.’ I started back towards the hall, but he caught my arm.
‘Wait. Where are you going? Stay and chat to me, like, while I finish this. Do you like a man who smokes cigars?’
‘Only marginally more than little boys who do so.’
He chuckled. ‘Here, have my coat, Margot.’
‘No, thank you.’ I shrugged it off as he tried to swing it over my shoulders. ‘Glynis knows I went to look for Doreen. I’d better get back inside before she sends a search party out for both of us.’ I walked away, but he grabbed my arm again, pulling me back more forcefully this time.
‘Bryn, let go of me.’
‘Hush now – they won’t miss you for a minute or two …’ Hands on my shoulders, he steered me up against the side of the church, pressing my back into a stone alcove, away from prying eyes. I looked around, but I couldn’t see anyone through the mist, and heard only the dim music coming from the hall.