A Soldier's Girl

by Maggie Ford

  ‘Yer should go out more,’ Mum was saying. ‘Yer don’t want ter be stuck up in that flat working yer bottom off all the time. Everyone needs a bit of a break. If yer want ter go out any time, don’t ferget, I’m always ’ere ter look after Addie for yer. I’m surprised you ain’t asked me before.’

  ‘There’s really no one to go out with, Mum.’

  ‘Yer can always come out with me,’ Vera offered.

  ‘Or me, even,’ added Brian.

  It was wonderful. All these offers. She felt so cared for here in the bosom of her family, the house redolent with the aroma of Sunday roast, all warm and comforting, this year’s fierce winter weather left outside.

  ‘You’ve got yer boyfriend,’ she said to Vera who was now going steady with Ron Parrish. He was just twenty-two, she had celebrated her twenty-first birthday last October, so they were of an age and, it seemed, well away. But at her words she saw Vera’s face change. There was a chance that their relationship might end, this time through no fault of Vera’s. Her Ron had received his call-up papers, as from last month all nineteen to twenty-seven-year-olds were being summoned. Any mention to Vera of her having a boyfriend would provoke her displeasure. The war was beginning to hit all of them.

  Brenda turned quickly to her brother, chiding him affably. ‘And you got all them girls yer go out with – I’ve no intention of playing gooseberry, I can tell yer.’ She saw him look just a fraction relieved at her refusal of his offer.

  ‘Not fer much longer,’ he stated brightly. ‘At least not round ’ere.’

  Brian too, nineteen last October, came into the age group liable for call-up. In his case he couldn’t wait to go; it made him feel a man at last. Only Mum and Dad would feel it, Davy already having volunteered.

  ‘Whyn’t yer join that young wives’ club,’ her father muttered suddenly into his dinner plate. ‘The one what’s formed itself in that little tinpot hall in Malmesbury Road? I ’ear a lot of them’s got ’usbands in the forces. Yer might find someone ter go out wiv occasionally. Yer never know.’

  ‘I might do that,’ Brenda said.

  She felt relieved, despite hearing the hollow note in her father’s voice as he changed the subject back to her. Her secret was out in the open at last and she felt much better. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell them on Addie’s birthday last month, but Harry’s parents had been there and she had found no way to mention it without his mother overhearing. Ears like a bat, that woman had.

  Adele’s had been a nice little first birthday party, held in the flat with only the grandparents on both sides there. She’d done a nice tea with a little cake she had made herself. Sugar and butter had gone on ration by then – four ounces of butter and twelve ounces of sugar per week per person wasn’t much to allow for the luxury of a birthday cake, but she had managed. Everyone had said how good it was. But the whole thing was marred by Harry’s absence. His daughter’s first birthday party and he hadn’t been there.

  It was hard to be jolly, but she’d made the best of it. Adele in her second-hand high chair looked a bit bewildered as everyone tried to get her to blow out the single pink candle. Finally they blew it out for her. But she enjoyed her bit of cake, her face and dress got smothered in it. Brenda had saved Harry a slice, stored in greaseproof paper and then an empty Oxo tin with an airtight lid. When he did come home on leave she would present it to him. The gesture alone helped make him seem that much nearer.

  ‘But God knows when he’ll be ’ome again,’ she remarked to Joan Copeland later.

  So much was going on to lower people’s spirits. Everything seemed to have come upon them all of a sudden – German troops gaining ground on a hundred-and-twenty-mile front north of Paris, the liner the Union Castle sunk by a mine with a hundred and fifty-two passengers dead, the weather enough to depress anyone with snow drifts, high winds, freezing temperatures and coal in short supply. Even the Thames was frozen over for the first time in over fifty years; and at the end of January the worst storm of the century swept the country while everyone huddled indoors feeling everything was against them.

  Spring brought a bag of mixed feelings – irritation, encouragement, and for Brenda at least, brief elation. People felt irritation at meat going on ration, but encouragement in May with Churchill taking over as Prime Minister from a worn out and dispirited Chamberlain, warning that he had nothing to offer people but blood, toil, tears and sweat, at the same time declaring his determination to achieve ultimate victory.

  ‘We’re all right be’ind ’im,’ her father said, his voice ringing with that pride the whole nation had begun to feel. ‘We’ll show them bleedin’ Nazis!’

  As for Brenda her elation had come after a letter from Harry saying he was returning home on leave. But it was short-lived as, hugging him in an ecstasy of welcome, she saw the extra-large kitbag and the weighty pack he’d dropped on the kitchen floor to embrace and kiss her.

  She broke away. ‘Why’ve yer brought everything ’ome?’ But she knew even before his face clouded over.

  ‘Somefink I got ter tell yer, Bren,’ he began.

  She didn’t let him finish, her cry sounding to her like it belonged to someone else. ‘They’re sending you abroad? This is embarkation leave.’

  She saw him nod.

  ‘Where?’ cried the voice again. Her mind seemed to visualise an infinity of dread, horror, grief, bereavement. She fought to control it. She saw his wan smile.

  ‘Can’t tell yer, me love. Not allowed. “Careless talk costs lives!” ’ he quoted from the posters that had gone up all over the country. ‘None of us know, and they won’t say.’

  France! her mind shrieked. Or Belgium. The newspapers that had been full of Hitler invading Denmark and Norway now blazed a new name for English ears – Blitzkrieg – and told of Belgium and Holland invaded, of Belgian and Dutch troops being pushed back and back, of an unstoppable advance of the German war machine.

  ‘I’ll be orright,’ Harry said to her fear. ‘Yer know me, I know ’ow ter look after number one. Let’s make the best of the time we’ve got tergevver.’

  But it wasn’t a happy leave. Mostly they brooded silently when not trying to cheer each other up. They went to her parents and attempted to be lighthearted. They went to his, and Brenda had to watch his mother fawning over him, monopolising him, her eyes watery and sad. ‘I see little enough of him as it is. I won’t see nothink of ’im when he goes away. I’m just ’aving ter make the most of ’im while I can. What if anythink happens to yer? If only you ’adn’t joined that blessed Territorial Army, yer’d be like yer brother now. Yer wouldn’t of got called up, you with a wife and baby. An’ all because yer wanted somethink yer couldn’t ’ave. That’s what comes of yer both being too ambitious, Harry love. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.’

  ‘Ain’t gonna lose me,’ he said. But it was sickening to watch, even more having to listen to those thinly veiled insinuations that it was she who had driven him into the Territorials. How anyone could even think to display that sort of mawkish emotion when what he needed was for them all to be staunch so that he could hold firm? Even so it was a job to hold herself back from tears as she saw him off when the time came for him to say goodbye. He wouldn’t let her go to the station with him.

  ‘It’ll knock yer fer six,’ he said. ‘All them couples and families sayin’ goodbye to each other. All them tears. All them dads cuddling their kids. No, I’d sooner say goodbye in the privacy of me own ’ome. I’ll write ter yer as soon as I know where I am. And don’t worry, nuffink’s gonna ’appen ter me.’

  That last kiss, that, ‘Now you look after yerself, now,’ had torn the heart out of her, making it feel as if he was taking it away with him. She was sure he felt the same about his own heart. ‘I’ll be back before yer know it, yer’ll see.’

  Watching him clump down the iron stairs in his heavy boots, she noticed his greatcoat and his kitbag and pack impeding his progress. His forage cap looked too jaunty as he turned at t
he bottom to wave a final goodbye.

  Holding back tears, Brenda returned the wave and then he vanished from her sight through the yard gate leaving her to scurry back to the front window to catch a last glimpse of him from there. A few seconds before melting into the hordes of early-morning workers making their way towards Mile End Station, she saw him wave up at her.

  Pushing up the sash window, Brenda leaned far out in an attempt to keep him in sight a little longer but all she saw was a hand shoot up from the moving body of people. She knew it was his. Then that too disappeared. And he was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  There was no way to combat this anguish still tearing at her a whole week after Harry went back. Not a word so far and nowhere to get in touch, yet she must force herself to get on with her life as if everything was normal.

  ‘I’ve got to, for Addie’s sake, for Harry’s sake,’ she told her mother. ‘But I’m going to pieces here all on me own.’

  The reply she got was, ‘And ’ow would he feel,’im sent Gawd knows where, if he knew yer was allowing yerself ter go ter pieces?’

  ‘He won’t know if I don’t tell him.’

  ‘Yer written to ’im? Yer know where he is?’

  ‘How can I if I ain’t got an address ter write to yet?’

  Just as well he didn’t know, but it didn’t make her feel any less as if she was letting him down. ‘Do we all feel like this?’ she asked.

  There was only one answer, go and find out. Taking her dad’s earlier advice she went along on Thursday afternoon to the young wives’ club. At least it might take her mind off herself.

  Walking in through the unpainted door of the ramshackle little hall with Addie in her pram, she found the place not overfull but a-buzz nevertheless with lively chatter, the tinkle of spoons against teacups, while one or two tots hung around their mothers’ feet or stared out from their prams. It was obvious that not all these women had men in the forces.

  Someone came up to her, asked her name, bent and tickled Addie under her chin and, beckoning over a young woman, announced, ‘This is Doris Osborne. She’s new too – came first time last week. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted with each other, all right?’

  It felt strange getting to know someone from scratch and Brenda realised what a recluse she had become, stuck in her flat. She blamed it for lack of company apart from Joan Copeland, and sometimes Mr Stebbings who she might bump into from seeing her parents or Harry’s, or on going shopping. She did see the two or three people who came to have their hair done on the cheap, but that wasn’t the same. The last proper friends she’d had dated back to before she’d been married, girls from schools and then girls from work, but they’d all drifted off. It was nice to sit with Doris over a cup of tea chatting about husbands and family during the rest of the afternoon.

  Doris, a thin waif of a girl with extremely blonde hair, definitely not a bottle blonde with such a pale skin, said her husband, John, was in the Air Force stationed somewhere in North Essex. Dutifully she withheld the name – careless talk, as the posters pointed out. Brenda wasn’t that much interested anyway. But it was nice to find others all of the same ilk, alone, depressed, anxious, sometimes full of fear for those they loved and could not be with, but most managing to hide it under a cloak of bright and friendly chatter.

  The shabby little hall reflected their efforts. A trestle table covered by a white cloth had home-made cakes to buy and large enamel pots of tea. A smaller table held a doll to be raffled, someone having made all the clothes for it. The proceeds would go towards forces’ comfort. A group of women sat in a little circle in one corner busily knitting khaki wool into what appeared to be scarves, gloves and balaclavas, in a sort of help-our-boys-out-there pool.

  Apart from that little else seemed to go on except for standing around chattering. Even so, she came away promising to see Doris next Thursday, more heartened and determined to shoulder her lot and get on with things for Harry’s sake.

  His letter, arriving a week later and which she grabbed from the postman as if the man might take it away again if she didn’t, said he was OK, was just somewhere in Belgium. The envelope with the words ON ACTIVE SERVICE on it was marked with a large censored stamp, so he couldn’t say where. He hoped she was all OK too and had she tried to write?

  She read it with a touch of anger. How could she with no address to send it to? Now of course she would, care of the unit scribbled on top. But anger turned quickly to fear. Was he in the thick of fighting? After saying he was fine, he’d mentioned he was looking after himself. What did that mean? All she could do was cling to hope for his safety, as armour against the anxiety his letter had provoked. News was all of Dutch and Belgian armies being pushed back, of German troops reaching the Somme, of the Belgian army beginning to fall apart before a terrific enemy onslaught.

  She told Doris of her fear and anxiety for Harry. Doris nodded, adopted sympathetic expressions and said he would be all right, and that she must keep cheerful. But Doris’s husband was cosily stationed at an air base not too far away, still coming home quite regularly. She wasn’t going through what Brenda was going through, and her sympathy and encouragement were a bit hollow and gave little comfort.

  Only half listening to the light but monotonic voice of the news announcer over the wireless, Brenda went on doing the middle-aged woman’s hair. It was someone who had heard about how little she charged and was taking full advantage of it.

  Brenda supposed she should be happy to get clients, but she wasn’t very happy about this one. The tongs were raising a stink of grease. The woman had had a perm two weeks ago and fearing to lose the tight lines of waves she’d been so pleased with, hadn’t washed it since.

  ‘No, luv, I don’t want ter touch it yet,’ she said as Brenda suggested it be washed first. ‘It’ll last fer anuvver couple of weeks, then it can be done. I will come back ter you fer that.’

  ‘You’ll have to pay again just to have it washed,’ Brenda warned but the woman grinned, revealing two missing front teeth.

  ‘That’s orright, luv. I’d of saved up a couple more bob by then. Yus, call it false economy if yer like, but it’s the only way us sort can manage one week to anuvver.’

  She’d laid out enough on the perm, she told Brenda quite openly, and could only afford to have it livened up by a touch or two of the tongs – which she couldn’t do herself.

  ‘Me arms is a bit stiff, luv. Yer know, at my age, a bit of arthritis an’ all that. Just can’t get me arms up far enough. Better ’aving someone else do it while I got a bit ter spare in me purse, though me ole man don’t know or I bet ’e’d dock me ’ousekeepin’. He finks it comes by magic, this hairdo. Now I’ve ’ad it done, he don’t fink it’ll ever come out. Best keep ’im ignorant.’

  And of course she cost far less than a salon. ‘Just abart afforded it, I did. But now it’s bin permed I don’t want ter lose it too quick. Me ole man likes it. An’ yer ’as ter keep yer ole man ’appy, don’tcher? I’ll bring me own shampoo when I come next time, luv. Best not ter take chances wiv a perm wot corst me the earf. Took a lot of savin’ up for this.’

  Deftly, Brenda wielded the tongs, longing to have the job over and done with as the woman chatted on.

  ‘First one I’ve ever ’ad, yer know. ’Ated it. Scared the wits outta me, all them iron fings stuck on me ’ead, me strung up ter that machine fing. Never again. Only ’ad it done fer me daughter’s sake. She keepin’ on at me. But me old man can go fer a funny run once it goes straight again. Never no more, I say. It was fer me daughter’s weddin’, yer know. She got married to a sailor. Gorn away now, ’e ’as. On ’is ship. Ain’t heard from ’im since, she ain’t, poor luv. But she will, soon. I just ’ope he keeps safe – fer ’er sake.’

  Brenda’s mind turned instantly to Harry. She hadn’t heard from him either since that last letter, and that had really been hardly more than a note.

  Trying not to breathe in too much, she manfully applied the tongs. It was then she
became aware of what the newscaster was saying. Something about British forces being cut off with their backs to the sea as German troops took Boulogne.

  Brenda felt her heart become like a piece of concrete inside her ribcage and it was all she could do to hold herself together as Mrs Stokes, her client, made a face in the little oval hand mirror propped up on the kitchen table for her to see in.

  ‘Our poor boys, eh? Sons an’ ’usbands out there. It’s a shame.’

  Brenda wanted to burst out that her own poor husband was among them. But that would have had her breaking down and she had a duty not to upset the woman. Never bore your client with your own troubles: a lesson hammered into her by Mr Alfio Fichera. She was glad to see the back of Mrs Stokes so she could nurse her fears in private, giving her mind to Harry who had to be caught up in the bloody turmoil that must be going on over there.

  Lost in misery in the seclusion of her front room, a brief glance out of the window meant she glimpsed through reddened eyes Harry’s parents hurrying along the road. They usually came on Wednesdays, but this was Monday. It had to be today’s news bringing them here. Not having bought a morning paper she’d not known until it came over the wireless.

  Her tears got swept aside and she leapt up, rushing about the flat to hide away the evidence of her client’s visit. On this warm day the open kitchen door had allowed the stench of heated tongs on unwashed hair to waft out and by the time her in-laws reached the foot of the stairs it had mostly if not completely gone, helped on its way by the frantic flapping of a teacloth.

  Still sniffing the air, she waited, trying not to look out of breath as they came up the stairs. But they didn’t notice as, gaining the landing, her mother-in-law rushed at her with open arms and surprised her by clasping her in a powerful embrace of grief, her face flushed and twisted with anguish.

  ‘Oh, Brenda, our poor Harry!’ she burst out. ‘At the mercy of them Nazi brutes!’ For once she was too devastated to huff. ‘Honestly, coming up them stairs do get yer down!’ as she never normally failed to comment when visiting.