by Annie Clarke
The girls shook their heads, their mouths hanging open. Finally, Fran said, ‘You’re wicked, and so is the co-op. Mere mortals don’t stand a chance.’
Sarah was walking backwards towards the door. ‘That’s more than enough to make anyone feel sorry for someone, but you know, I reckon it’s close to the truth for Sophia’s been looking right pale, and that were before Ralph … I do so wonder how the lad is. I really want to see him on Saturday.’
Mr Swinton was holding the door open, his green overalls not as pristine as Gaines’s, but pretty close. He was thinner than before, Beth thought. And older, his grey hair tinged yellow. But of course, why wouldn’t he be, he was around the chemicals too. ‘In you get, you lot,’ he said quietly. ‘Time’s a-wasting.’
‘You were all nearly late,’ Mr Gaines shouted from behind them, ‘chatting and laughing. That’s no way to win a war.’
Still holding the door, Mr Swinton called softly, ‘No shouting, if you please, Mr Gaines, this is a silent area and they were not late. I hope you put that in your little black book to report to Head Office, for Mr Bolton runs a good section and you have yet to visit the others, or so I hear. Any timetable for moving on to them?’
Mr Gaines swished back along the corridor and Mr Swinton looked after him, not at the girls as they passed by into the workshop.
‘Well,’ whispered Fran. ‘That were telling him.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Friday, 6 March
After the fore shift, Fran, Viola, Sarah and Beth congregated at Beth’s house, sitting around Audrey Smith’s kitchen table, the range clicking as the fire belted out the heat. It was four o’clock and they were waiting for the arrival of their mams, who were bringing back the leeches from a local woman, Mrs Merryweather. The girls wished it was a normal day and that the women were up at the Hall instead, but this afternoon it was Madge and Susie, from Allotment Terrace, who were helping not just Sophia, but Mrs Phillips’ niece, Joy, who had been taken on as nanny.
It had put them all in a worse mood, but they had to be careful what they said, for Viola wasn’t aware of their proposed plan for her to give up the Factory.
Beth hoped the girl wouldn’t last, because what had Mrs Phillips said? Oh, yes: ‘Maybe a miracle will happen and we can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’ And then there was Sandra. How on earth could that accident have happened?
As though reading her mind, Sarah said, ‘I wonder how Sandra is?’
‘I know,’ Fran said, leaning forward and tracing the pattern on the oilskin tablecloth. ‘I keep thinking of her. Her mam is at the hospital with her, but it was such a freak thing. How could a dropped lunch plate chuck up a splinter like that, right into her eye? Caught the table, they say, and bang, bit like shrapnel. By, I can hardly bear to think of the pain. And we four laughing away in the sewing room, fitting the paper pattern, never realising until she wasn’t at the workbench. Made me feel real bad, still does. She was making me laugh on the bus on the way in.’
Sarah was nodding. ‘Poor lass. Not working at the Factory long. But you know, her mam told the co-op before she shot off for the hospital that she were glad, for a bad eye’ll keep her out of the bliddy danger zone for a while. We’ll know more tomorrow when we go in to see Ralph, for we can nip into the women’s ward and visit her too.’ She put her hand over one eye, and tried to work out how much anyone could see.
‘Well, she might not lose her sight, remember,’ muttered Beth. ‘Maybe they can hoick the splinter out. If not, she’ll get comfort from Madge – look how she gets about, and she’d take the lass under her wing. At least Gaines canna have a go. That could have happened in her own home.’
The kettle had begun to boil, so Beth hurried over to the range and moved it to the simmer plate. The rattling of the lid ceased but she stayed watching it, all the time listening for footsteps in the yard. Nothing. She tidied the brass rail, folded the tea towels and looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece and her da’s clay pipe, her mam’s wedding photo, and her own. She reached up to touch the image of Bob, so smart in his bridegroom’s suit.
Yet again, she’d found no letter waiting when she’d rushed home today, but she’d be at the telephone box as usual this evening. And tomorrow she’d touch the posters as they headed for the detonator workshop, and again the next day, for luck, theirs and his, for if he was at sea, he must be safe. She thought again of Sandra. Poor wee lass, but she’d have some time off for it to heal, for she mustn’t get chemicals in it, or would she wear an eyepatch and come in? No, they hadn’t let Madge work there. Oh shut up, she told herself. The lass would be fine, surely.
She sat with a thump in her da’s armchair, running her hands over the threadbare arms, leaning back as once he had, watching Viola easing her poor hand, trying to find a way to rest it comfortably on the kitchen table. ‘Howay, Viola, come and sit in me da’s chair. I’ve got it warmed up for you.’
Viola shook her head. ‘I’m all right, Beth, really I am. I was just thinking of Sandra, of leeches, of poor Ralph.’ She dropped her hands to her lap.
No, you’re far from all right, bonny lass, thought Beth, knowing from Fran’s glance that she felt the same. ‘Has Sandra’s accident, and Ralph’s, brought back bad memories?’ she asked. ‘You know, with your hand?’
Viola looked surprised. ‘Oh no, not my hand. It’s these leeches, as well as poor Ralph and Sandra.’ She grimaced and fell silent.
Sarah rose and paced backwards and forwards, digging her hands in her cardigan pockets. ‘I canna quite like the thought of them leeches either latching on to me face and sucking out the blood. Bad enough on the moor when we went there to collect the moss with the mams – do you remember, Beth?’
Beth nodded for she certainly did, and how sometimes when they were up to their ankles in the peat bog the little buggers would latch on to any bare flesh, then have to be burned off with the end of a Woodbine.
It was Fran who said, ‘Stan were muttering that he and the lads would stand guard in your backyard, Beth, and dash in to burn ’em off when they’d sucked out the dead blood. And Sarah, it was your mam who said she’d clip his ear, for the leeches had to go back to Mrs Merryweather since she’ll need ’em again.’
Viola held up her hand. They heard the sneck on the back gate being lifted. In the silence that fell in the kitchen the clatter of footsteps drew closer. The back door opened, and the girls sprang to their feet. Beth stared at the jam jars the mams carried, which contained the long black leeches. ‘Thank heavens the lids are on,’ murmured Viola, sitting down again with a thump, then standing and slipping from the table towards the door. ‘You know, I reckon …’
Mrs Hall blocked Viola’s escape route. ‘I reckon, Viola, that you are going to sit down and be administered to, pet.’
Viola backed towards the chair and sat. ‘Whatever was I thinking?’ she muttered.
‘Indeed,’ Fran whispered.
Beth laughed, and Annie Hall turned to her. ‘Since you are already hogging an armchair, sit down, put your head back and do as you’re told, bonny lass.’ She nodded to Audrey Smith. ‘She’s your problem, Audrey, best get to work. There’s a wedding in four weeks or so. They’re performing at the Rising Sun in little more than a week, and tomorrow they’re on the rota for a visit to Ralph. Canna have them scaring the vicar at the wedding, the customers at the Rising Sun or the patients at the hospital, not to mention if Ralph came round and there they were, a crowd of pandas. He’d think he’d died and gone to Noah’s ark or something.’
Fran took it upon herself to crosstalk her mam. ‘I’d think more kindly of you all if you weren’t enjoying it, but you’re dribbling with the very thought of getting them …’
Her mam turned on her heel and followed Mrs Bedley and Mrs Smith into the scullery. The girls exchanged looks. Beth gripped the arms of her da’s chair and waited. It didn’t take long for her mam to emerge. Then it registered with Beth that her mam’s headscarf was still tied beneath her chin, and sh
e still wore her mac and boots. Boots in the kitchen? Was her mam as nervous as she was, then? She saw that her mam’s hands were freshly washed as she brandished some tweezers, and that the jam jar’s lid had been removed.
‘I’d like to register a complaint,’ Beth said.
‘Ignored,’ muttered her mam, concentrating on using the tweezers to lift a leech from the jar without hurting it. ‘Little beggars they are now, slim as you like. But not for long, soon plump up when they’re doing their job.’
Beth felt her innards contracting with horror. Her mam snapped, ‘Lie back, close your eyes, and think of England.’ When her mam used that tone, Beth knew obedience was the only course. She lay back but before she closed her eyes she looked at the other three, who sat frozen, watching her. The other two mams were about to approach when Madge came in from the yard wearing a silver eyepatch.
‘I’ve me own tweezers. And a pot of little fellows.’
‘You should be up at the Hall, helping Sophia,’ Fran shouted.
‘D’you think I’d miss this? I’ve left Susie and Mr Massingham helping that Joy, but if ever a name was misplaced that’s it. She has a mouth which turns down so far it touches her chin. Young Eva said if it were a bag, everything would fall out.’
Her mam loomed over Beth, smiling. ‘It won’t hurt, lass, and soon you’ll be back to being a bit yellow and just as beautiful as you were the day you married your Bob.’
As the tweezers approached, and her mother’s forehead crinkled in a frown of concentration, Beth shut her eyes.
‘Divint open your peepers, whatever you do,’ her mam murmured. ‘Or they’ll have a munch.’
‘Mam,’ wailed Beth. ‘Don’t say that.’
Beth felt the leech touch her skin, a cool length of something living that contracted, moved, clung. Then another, and another, and instead of trying to imagine what was happening, she thought of Bob, of the music they’d danced to at the wedding, of the bairns they would have. Would they be dark like him, or pale-skinned with auburn hair like her? Would they play with Fran and Davey’s bairns, and Sarah and Stan’s? Who would Viola marry? Norm? Or perhaps Sid? Would poor Ralph recover? Would Sandra be all right? When would the war end? Would Bob go back to the Minton pit? But she didn’t want to leave Massingham. Perhaps he’d join Auld Hilda? Perhaps, but first they all had to survive.
The next day, after the shift and once they’d bathed, Alfie met them at the top of Sarah’s back lane. The girls were nervous because they didn’t know how Ralph would look, or how Sandra was, and they wanted to turn around and go home. Alfie tossed his cigarette into the gutter as the four girls clambered into the car, but as he began to drive away, Stan, Sid and Norm came running out of the back lane, flagging him down.
‘Room for three little ones?’
Alfie opened his window. ‘Hooligans, the lot of you. Get in, one next to me, the girls on your laps in the back. Out you get, girls – let the louts in.’
After the kerfuffle they set off again, with Viola in the front, to preserve her hand, Fran on Norm’s lap, Beth on Sid’s, and Stan with his arms around Sarah.
‘Yer’ll pick us up, will yer, Alfie?’ yelled Stan. ‘If not, Ben and his new marrer William said they’d cycle the bikes to the station. It’ll take several trips for them, though, and they have homework … They said they’d phone the Hall to find out, unless you drop into 14 Leadenhall to let him know on your way back.’
Alfie looked at Stan in the mirror. ‘Course I’ll bring you back. I’m not having you lot cluttering up the roads, and besides, the boss’d have me guts for garters.’
‘Any news?’ asked Viola.
Alfie was serious now. ‘Nary a bit. I divint know he were capable of doing such a thing – heading straight into the bliddy tree instead of making it worse for you lasses. How did you like the leeches? Worked their magic, though. I reckon you won’t scare Thompkins’ horses now.’
Fran reached forward and snatched off his cap. ‘One more word about the worst experience of my life and this goes out of the window.’ She tossed the cap to Viola. ‘See he behaves.’
She sat back against Norm, who whispered, ‘Were it right bad?’
Fran shuddered. ‘Not so much the sucking, though it did sting, but it was seeing the little beggars turn into big beggars. Anyway, the bruise has almost gone, and it’s just a deeper yellow.’
They were in good time for the train, and as their tickets had already been arranged by the Massinghams all they had to do was collect them and wait on the platform. The lads huddled together over their Woodbines, while the girls shared the lippy that Sophia had given their mams to pass on.
It was then Fran asked the question of Beth: ‘Any letter?’
Beth shook her head. Viola slipped her good hand through Beth’s arm. ‘He must have been rushed on board?’
Beth just nodded. She had written each night to his lodgings, just in case the refit was still going on. If he had been sent to sea, the letters would be there for him on his return. If he hadn’t … Well, it might be that they were too busy. ‘Howay, wherever he is, he’ll be safe, for I touch the posters,’ she murmured.
Viola pulled a face. Beth laughed quietly. ‘We say to the pitmen “be safe” and have to believe it works – and it does, sometimes. So I touch me posters.’
The train took half an hour, then they caught a bus, reaching the Royal Victoria Infirmary in time for visiting hours. They stomped up the stairs in their boots, and along the gleaming corridors, heading for the ward where Stan and Davey had lain, which was now where Ralph ‘existed’. For that was the word they’d arrived at. Suddenly, Stan stopped, his hand up like a traffic policeman.
‘Stand by, enemy approaching.’
They all laughed, for it was Sister Newsome, her beautiful thin face alert with humour. She stopped in front of them. ‘Ah, your turn on the rota, eh? Only two at a time, the rules say, though I have left a probationer nurse in charge and she might not know them.’ She winked. They grinned, and she looked at Viola. ‘Hold up that hand.’
Viola did, for no one ever disobeyed Sister Newsome, not even her husband, Dr Wilson, they suspected.
Sister Newsome shook her head. ‘Aye, as I thought, and as the co-op told me on their visit to Ralph. So, we need to find you a different job, my girl. You need do nothing to facilitate that, for the co-op is on the prowl. However, until such time as they find something appropriate, you will take the utmost care. I do not want you returning to receive my tender care, for if you are readmitted I will make it my task to take over the women’s ward again just to punish you. Is that quite clear?’ She was talking to them all, and they nodded.
Sister Newsome stood to one side. ‘In you go, then. Talk quietly about normal life, though what the hell that is these days, who knows. Try nature, the evacuees. Touch him, gently. Sing to him, quietly. Not you, Stan, I beg you, for you have a voice like a foghorn.’
Sid and Norm sniggered, but stopped when Sister Newsome’s gaze swept over them. ‘Yours, my lads, are absolutely no better. I seem to remember you were here one Christmas with broken arms after a pit accident and quite upset Father Christmas on his rounds. Such rude words to a carol, indeed, and not even in tune. Carry on. Don’t forget Sandra is just along the other end of the corridor.’
She marched off, and now they laughed to one another, for Sister Newsome was the best of the best. She never, ever forgot a patient, and would go to the ends of the earth for each and every one.
They entered the ward through the double doors, leaving them swinging in their wake. Visiting hours had already begun and there was a low murmur in the ward. A young nurse sat at her table in the middle. She looked up as they all tiptoed to her, their boots making as little noise as possible. ‘Ah,’ she said, her dark hair tucked in a bun, with just a few strands escaping the starched white cap. Fran thought she looked about twelve. ‘Sister Newsome mentioned that four pandas would be visiting Ralph, and possibly some pitmen. But I see no pandas with my littl
e eyes?’
‘Indeed not, pet,’ murmured Sarah. ‘Our mams obtained leeches.’
The probationer nurse merely nodded. ‘Oh yes, Sister Newsome’s suggestion when they telephoned from Massingham Hall about the rota. Leeches work a treat. Ralph is in bed four. We tried moving him to a quieter room, but he became distressed. Sister Newsome was delighted, for it showed he was responding to something, but what? That is the mystery, and where is he in his mind? So, he is back in the ward. When his brain has rested, we hope for his full recovery.’
‘When, not if?’ Stan asked.
The nurse, whose badge proclaimed her to be Nurse Williams, nodded. ‘I like to say when, and deal with if only if I have to.’
‘Lord,’ Fran whispered as they walked away, ‘sitting at that table is another Sister Newsome in the making.’
‘I’ll be first in the lifeboat,’ murmured Sid.
They ranged themselves around the bed, and there Ralph was, washed free of blood and as white as the bandage around his head. He breathed lightly, quietly. Almost not at all. They took turns to sit and hold his hand, so warm, but of course, because he was alive, and anyway, the ward was too hot. Viola felt overwhelmed when it was her turn to reach out to hold his hand, for her heart had twisted at the sight of him. Why? She barely knew him. His hand was heavy, non-responsive, his palm slightly damp.
She talked of the Factory, for that was all they could call it, of the wedding dress that must be made, of the buds that would be breaking when he came home, and of the songs they would sing at Fran’s wedding tea.