Victory for the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  ‘So, Polly,’ Rosie asked. ‘Did I see a map sticking out of your bag earlier on?’

  The question was met with a bluster of ‘Tell us about it!’ from Dorothy and Angie.

  ‘Polly,’ Martha explained, ‘has got herself a map of the world.’

  ‘Yeh, so we’re all having to learn geography now,’ Angie huffed. ‘It’s bad enough Dor here trying to get me to speak proper and read books, and now Pol’s started with all this war talk and where all these countries are that we’ve never heard of before.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, Ange!’ Dor sounded indignant. ‘I’ve heard of most of them, but …’ she smiled over at Polly, who was rummaging around in her bag for the object under discussion, ‘… it is actually quite interesting seeing where some of the less well-known countries are.’

  ‘Here we are!’ Polly pulled the slightly crumpled atlas from her bag.

  ‘Yes, Polly here,’ Gloria informed Rosie, ‘has been educating us all since Arthur gave her this old map he had stashed away.’ Arthur Watts was Tommy’s grandfather. He had more or less brought up his grandson single-handedly after his daughter killed herself following the death of Tommy’s dad in the First War.

  ‘Like Angie here,’ Gloria said, ‘I was never really one for school or lessons, let alone geography, but Polly’s showed me where the Atlantic Ocean is and which countries it touches on, so I feel I’ve at least got some idea where my two boys are.’

  Gloria’s two sons, Bobby and Gordon, had joined the navy before war had been declared. She was used to them being away from home, but not to the fear of what might happen to them.

  ‘Yes, and on Saturday, when all the newspapers were on about the Philips—What do you call them again?’ Angie asked.

  ‘The Philippines,’ Polly corrected.

  ‘Yes, well, Pol here showed us exactly where they are. And did you know, miss,’ Angie informed, ‘it’s not really a place, just loads of little islands?’

  Rosie nodded. She had chatted to Peter about the Japanese attacking the Philippines when the news broke over the weekend.

  ‘Eee, ’n have you heard about Jack, miss?’ Angie asked.

  ‘Him being sent to Scotland?’ Rosie cast a sidelong glance at Gloria.

  ‘Yeh, just after you left on Wednesday,’ Angie continued, ‘we ended up being left on our tod when Gloria rushed off to say goodbye to Jack. The bosses said he had to pack his bags pronto and get himself up to Clydeside for some kind of emergency … Not that he’s gonna be gone for long, is he, Glor?’

  ‘Nah, he’ll be back soon,’ Gloria said, taking a sup of her half-pint of lemon and lime cordial.

  ‘And how’s Helen been while I’ve been away?’ Rosie was quick to change the subject, seeing the fleeting look of panic on Gloria’s face.

  ‘She’s been a nightmare,’ Polly said, stuffing her map back into her holdall.

  ‘What? With you lot?’ Rosie asked, surprised. Before she left, she had thought that Helen seemed to be mellowing a little. She certainly hadn’t been giving any of them a hard time. Quite the reverse. Rosie had thought, perhaps a little over-optimistically, that Helen might well be calling a truce with the women, having bravely saved Gloria from being beaten half to death by Vinnie after he’d found out the baby his wife had just had wasn’t his. Luckily, Helen had knocked him flying with the back of a shovel and saved the day.

  ‘Back to being a right old bossyboots,’ Martha chipped in.

  ‘And not just with us,’ Dorothy added. ‘I heard her giving one of the office workers a right old tongue-lashing the other day. Just because the poor girl had made a spelling mistake.’

  Angie laughed. ‘Good job I don’t work there – she’d be hoarse.’

  ‘I think you would have lamped her one if she’d gone at you like she did that Sylvia girl. You know, the one who’s just started?’ Dorothy looked at Rosie, who nodded.

  Surprised that Helen seemed to have reverted back to her old, less amicable self, Rosie was glad that Gloria had agreed to come back to hers after picking up her baby daughter, Hope.

  She might finally find out what was really going on.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Thanks, Beryl!’ Gloria shouted over her shoulder as she manoeuvred the pram onto Tatham Street.

  ‘Nee bother, hinny! Any time!’ Beryl shouted back. She had been helping to look after Hope for the day in place of Polly’s sister-in-law, Bel, as her three-year-old daughter Lucille had been stricken down with some kind of sickness bug that no one wanted to catch, least of all a five-month-old baby.

  ‘And lovely to see you too, Rosie!’ Beryl piped up. ‘Pop in any time – you don’t need an excuse!’

  ‘Thanks, Beryl! And say hi to the girls. Tell them I’m always on the lookout for more women welders if they don’t like it at the post office.’

  Beryl’s face went stony. ‘Over my dead body!’ she called back.

  Rosie laughed and waved at Beryl, who kept her face grim but gave Rosie a wink before shutting the front door. Whenever the two women saw each other, Rosie would teasingly try to recruit Beryl’s two daughters, Iris and Audrey, knowing full well that both Beryl and her lifelong friend Agnes were vehemently against anyone they cared for working at Thompson’s, including Agnes’s daughter, Polly. They knew only too well that shipyard work was dangerous at the best of times, never mind when the country was at war.

  ‘So, go on …’ Rosie said, getting out her little electric torch to help them see where they were going as the blackout regulations meant there wasn’t even a peek of light showing from any of the houses or pubs along the route back to her flat, ‘… what’s all this about Jack working on the Clyde?’

  Gloria stopped to let an old woman shuffle past them.

  ‘Oh, Rosie, I’m not half glad yer back,’ she said as they started walking again. Her words were uttered along with a weary sigh. ‘I’ve felt like I’ve been going to pop, I’ve had to keep everything so bottled up.’ As Gloria spoke she leant forward to check quickly on Hope and was relieved to see she was sleeping soundly, despite the uneven pavement.

  ‘Well,’ Rosie said, ‘time to uncork that bottle and let it all out.’

  Reaching the end of Tatham Street, they both stopped as a tram trundled past, before making their way across the Borough Road.

  ‘I’m just here on the right,’ Rosie said as they reached a detached Victorian house that had been converted into four flats. She flashed her torch down a little flight of stone steps.

  ‘I’ll take this end.’ Rosie grabbed the front of the pram and they both carefully manoeuvred the Silver Cross down the steps. Rosie opened the front door and they managed to get Hope and her grey and silver carriage into the flat without too much bother.

  As soon as they were in, Rosie shut the door and switched on the lights.

  ‘Oh,’ Gloria said, ‘this is lovely!’ She looked about the small but cosy basement flat.

  ‘And is that a bathroom I can see down the hallway?’

  Rosie nodded and smiled. ‘Luxury, eh?’ she said, before quickly nipping into the kitchen and putting the kettle on the hob.

  ‘So,’ Rosie came back and sat down on one of the dining chairs, ‘spill the beans. I’m all ears.’ She looked at her friend and saw a mixture of emotions. Relief at being able to talk, but also a deep sadness.

  ‘Well, you know Jack and I were going to come clean with Miriam about everything – and about Hope.’ Gloria cast another look over to the pram.

  ‘Mm,’ Rosie nodded.

  ‘Well, it didn’t quite go to plan,’ Gloria said. ‘Far from it, in fact.’

  ‘She didn’t already know about you two, did she?’ Rosie asked.

  By the look on Gloria’s face, Rosie could see that her guess had been spot on.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Gloria let out another sigh. ‘I should have guessed she would somehow find out. Although God knows how. Perhaps someone clocked us at St Peter’s.’ The little Anglo-Saxon church just up from the shipyard had been
Jack and Gloria’s secret meeting place, both before Jack had gone to America and after his return. Meeting him there had been Gloria’s way of helping him get his memory back after his ship was bombed and he’d nearly drowned. ‘Or maybe someone who knew Miriam saw Jack visiting me at the hospital that day.’ Gloria paused. ‘Or perhaps someone from Thompson’s came to see me and saw Jack.’

  Gloria was quiet for a moment.

  Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to her.

  Helen!

  Helen might well have gone to the hospital outside of visiting hours – just as Jack had done – and seen them together.

  ‘Oh, please let it not have been Helen!’ Gloria felt aghast at the thought. ‘She would be the last person on earth I’d want to have seen us. Anyone but Helen.’

  Rosie looked at her friend and saw her pain and her guilt. Helen adored her father and would be mortified when she found out about his infidelity. But Rosie also knew that Gloria’s guilt was exacerbated by the fact that it was Helen who had bravely stepped in and saved her from Vinnie’s fists. Helen had risked life and limb for a woman who would undoubtedly be seen as the cause of her parents’ break-up.

  ‘Anyway,’ Gloria slumped back into the sofa, ‘somehow Miriam found out about us. And she didn’t just know about Jack and me, but about Hope as well. But she didn’t act on it straight away. Rather than have the screaming heebie-jeebies like most people would have done if they’d found out their husband was having an affair, Miriam kept it all to herself, stewed on it, and worked out a way that would not only stop it becoming public knowledge, but which would also keep Jack and me apart.’

  Rosie’s frown furrowed into a question just as the kettle started to scream. ‘I don’t understand how she can stop it coming out … Two seconds – let me just get our tea.’ Rosie got up and quickly poured a pot of tea and brought it into the living room on a tray with cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits. ‘Go on, what happened?’

  Gloria leant forward to stir the pot. ‘Oh, Rosie, it was awful. About an hour or two after you’d got Peter’s telegram and left to catch your train, Billy – I think that’s his name?’

  ‘The plater’s foreman?’ Rosie said.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one … Well, anyway, he came over and said that one of the managers wanted to have a chat with me, but when I got to the admin office, I saw Harold standing by the main gates waving me over. He made some comment about us women welders being in demand and that there was a car waiting for me. He’d walked off before I had the chance to ask him why.’

  Rosie listened intently.

  ‘I didn’t know what to make of it all. And, idiot that I was, I just went over and got in the car. Of course, it didn’t take me long to work out where I was being taken.’

  ‘Roker!’ Rosie said.

  ‘Yes. When I arrived at the house, there she was, waiting for me at the doorway, drink in hand.’

  ‘Oh God. What a nightmare!’

  ‘Exactly,’ Gloria said, pouring out their two cups of tea and handing one to Rosie. ‘When I walked into the living room, Jack was there, standing by the window, looking white as a sheet.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Rosie said. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Jack was mortified Miriam had got me to the house, told her it was a conversation he should be having with her on his own. But Miriam wasn’t having any of it … I tried to apologise, said I was sorry – and I did mean it. You know me, Rosie. I’ve felt so terrible about it all, even if I do loathe the woman.’

  Rosie knew Gloria had every right to hate Miriam. The woman had just about ruined her life. She’d snatched Jack from under her nose when they were young, pretending she was pregnant in order to get Jack to marry her. If Rosie had been in Gloria’s shoes, she knew she wouldn’t have felt even a sliver of guilt or remorse. Miriam might look all sweetness and light, with her girlish figure, regal looks, and short, wavy blonde hair, but her heart was as black as coal, she was as ruthless as she was selfish, and when it came to getting what she wanted, God help anyone who stood in her way.

  ‘I didn’t know what else to say, to be honest,’ continued Gloria. ‘The plan had been for Jack to tell Miriam on his own. I thought she’d give me a piece of her mind and tell me I was out of a job. Ban us both from Thompson’s and probably just about every other shipyard or factory that her father had influence over.

  ‘I didn’t mention Hope because I didn’t know if she knew, but, of course, she did – made it clear she did.’ Gloria shivered as she recalled how Miriam had called her beautiful baby girl a ‘bastard’.

  ‘Oh, Rosie, it was just so awful, I wanted to run away. And all the time Miriam just stood there, cool as a cucumber, looking pristine and perfect, sipping her bloody gin and tonic. She said in that uppity way of hers that it didn’t take a genius to work out that Jack was going to leave her and set up home with me and Hope. I didn’t know what to say, but the weird thing is, I felt a little relieved that everything was finally out in the open.’

  Rosie nodded, knowing how much Gloria had hated being deceitful about her affair with Jack, how she had wanted so much to tell the truth.

  ‘Jack told her that he would pack his bags and leave immediately and that it went without saying that she could divorce him on grounds of adultery.’ Rosie nodded, thinking that this sounded like Jack. ‘But that’s where it all went hideously wrong.’ Gloria could feel her heart pounding as she relived that awful time just five days ago. ‘All of a sudden, all that nicey-niceness, butter-wouldn’t-melt act vanished and I swear to God she turned into the Wicked Witch of the West – her mouth was all screwed up and she practically spat as she told Jack and me that we were mad if we thought she’d just stand by and let us “skip off into the sunset”, pushing our “bastard child in a second-hand Silver Cross pram”.’

  ‘Oh!’ Rosie sat up straight, shocked. ‘That’s vile!’ They both automatically looked over to Hope. How anyone could be so vitriolic about such a beautiful and innocent baby was clearly beyond them both.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, she was “vile”. Absolutely vile. But then when Jack said that she didn’t really have any choice in the matter, she let out the most horrible, shrill laugh. I’ll never forget it. It sent a shiver down my back, it did. And that’s when she dropped the bombshell. Or should I say, bombshells.’

  Rosie looked at Gloria. She did not like the sound of this one little bit.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well …’ Gloria took a deep breath. ‘She started asking about Thompson’s and whether I liked working there … and about how close she’d heard I was to the rest of the women welders, and what a strange bunch of women they were. I was completely thrown. Then she started talking about Hannah and how she had struggled when she first started working at the yard, but had come on leaps and bounds since she’d been moved across to the drawing office.’

  Rosie sensed Hope was stirring and went to check on her. Realising she was starting to wake up, she gently took her out of the pram and started swaying her in her arms as she walked around the room.

  ‘I couldn’t understand why she was talking about Hannah, until she started saying how Hannah’s aunty Rina had got herself into money bothers. You know she works as a credit draper selling clothes and whatnots on tick, don’t you?’

  Rosie nodded.

  ‘Well, it would seem her customers haven’t been paying her what she’s owed. Sounds like she’s been fobbed off with every sob story going. It’s got so bad Hannah’s been trying to pick up every minute of overtime just to keep a roof over their heads. And she’s only on an apprentice wage, which is nothing.’

  Rosie let out air. ‘That’s why she was in at seven this morning. I thought it was unusual. I thought she looked a bit uncomfortable when I said Basil had better be paying her overtime. Honestly! Why hasn’t she said anything to us?’

  ‘I know,’ Gloria agreed, ‘and I think she’s been doing a lot more overtime than we realise.’

  ‘But what’s that go
t to do with Miriam?’ Rosie asked, confused.

  ‘Oh Rosie, that woman is pure evil, I swear it. God knows how Jack’s stayed married to her for all these years.’ Gloria shook her head. ‘Anyway, Miriam started going on about how awful it would be for Hannah if she were to lose her job, that her and her aunty would be out on the street or in the workhouse … That “the little Jewess” wouldn’t get work anywhere else, that refugees like Hannah were the last in line for any kind of work, and that she’d heard that Hannah and her aunty Rina were the kind of people who wouldn’t accept any kind of charity, even if it was forced on them.’

  ‘Which is true,’ Rosie said.

  ‘Oh, I could have slapped Miriam there and then. She put on this mock-sad look. I tell you the woman is definitely a slice short. I’ll never forget her words. “From a palace in Prague to the slums of Sunderland. That’s quite a fall for your little bird.”’ Gloria took a breath. ‘But Hannah was just the start … Next up was Martha.’

  Gloria shuffled uncomfortably on the sofa, sitting forward with her hands clasped.

  ‘She asked if we’d met Martha’s parents.’

  Rosie had to stop herself pacing around the room as Hope was starting to get restless in her arms. They’d all met Martha’s parents and it was pretty obvious that their only daughter was not their biological child.

  ‘Jack and I just stared at her as she picked up a newspaper from the sideboard. As soon as I saw it I could tell it was old because it was all yellow and crinkled. When I saw the photograph on the front page, though – and the headline – I felt sick. There was a black and white mugshot of a woman who looked the spitting image of Martha. If it hadn’t been such an old newspaper, I would have bet money it actually was Martha.’

  ‘Her real mother, then?’ Rosie asked.

  Gloria nodded. ‘But it was the headline, Rosie, that knocked me for six.’

  ‘What did it say?’