by Annie Murray
‘Oh, my,’ Gina said. The other girls gave each other looks of horror and sympathy.
‘It must have dropped in the garden – all the back of the house is gone,’ Kitty went on. ‘My father was in the bedroom at the back and . . .’ She shook her head, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘When they came, he was . . . He never stood a chance . . . I had to show them where to look. I couldn’t get out until the fire brigade came. I was just stuck. But the stairs didn’t collapse. Otherwise I would have . . .’
‘Oh, Kitty!’ Sylvia said. ‘How terrible.’ Overflowing with feeling for her friend, she looked round at the others. ‘Kitty doesn’t have anyone else, you see – only her father.’
‘They took him away,’ Kitty said, wiping her blotchy face. ‘I’ll have to go and see my aunt, his sister, who lives in Wylde Green, and tell her what’s happened so we can arrange the funeral. I wouldn’t even know where to start on my own.’
‘What about your things?’ Sylvia tried to adjust her mind. Have you got any clothes or anything? What about the house?’
‘It’s gone,’ Kitty said bleakly. For a moment she stared ahead of her, as if this truth was only now sinking in, then she looked round at Sylvia, her eyes filling again. ‘There’s only the front wall still standing – like a shell. I’ve got no home, nowhere to go. I managed to get a few things out: a little bundle. But . . .’ She put her hands over her face so wretchedly that Sylvia found she was crying as well. ‘I couldn’t think what to do, once they’d taken him. It was only a few hours ago. It feels as if it was days ago.’ She brought her hands down into her lap and said, ‘I couldn’t think what to do, except to come here. I might be able to stay with Auntie – but she’s quite frail and it’s so far out. I haven’t got anywhere else to go.’
Sylvia was wrung out with sorrow at the sight of her friend. It was bad enough having so little family, and now to lose even that seemed the most horrible thing possible. Once again, with a pang, she thought about her own father. Please let him be all right, she prayed.
‘Look, Kitty, you must come back with me. I know that’s what Mom would say. You can have Audrey’s bed for now. We’ve got plenty of room.’
‘Oh no, I . . .’
‘You must,’ Sylvia insisted. ‘I’d feel bad if you didn’t.’
Kitty looked round at her in wonder. ‘Oh, Sylvia – could I really? I’d only need to stop with you for a few days, just until . . .’ She stopped, as if suddenly faced by the bleak truth: until what? Her home was gone, and her father.
‘Never mind that for now. You just come home with me.’ Warmly she took Kitty’s hand.
‘Oh, Sylvia, that’s so kind,’ Kitty said, starting to cry all over again.
‘It’s the least we can do,’ Sylvia told her, squeezing her hand. ‘You can stay as long as you like.’
They travelled back to Kings Heath on the bus. It seemed to take an age. Some of the bus stops had had to be moved, as everyone tried, in all the wreckage and disruption, to keep the city moving and working.
As they got home Sylvia’s heart was beating nervously fast. ‘Mom?’ she called as they walked in.
‘I’m here, Sylvia.’ Pauline came out of the front room. The look of her steadied Sylvia. She seemed calm and reassuring.
‘Dad? Has he . . . ?’
‘He’s been home,’ her mother said, and Sylvia could see her relief after hours of worry. She nodded a hello to Kitty. ‘He had a dreadful night, but he’s all right. He had a bit of a nap and went back to the works, but he should be home later. And Ian called in; he was in a rush, but he said to say he’s all right.’
‘Oh thank heavens!’ Once again Sylvia was tearful. ‘Look, Mom, I’ve brought Kitty home.’
As she explained what had happened, she saw her mother take in Kitty’s filthy state, the little bundle of belongings in her arms that she had managed to salvage and her strained, tearful expression. Her face softened with compassion.
‘Oh, you poor child,’ she said. ‘What a terrible thing. Of course you must stay here – give her Audrey’s room, Sylv.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Whitehouse,’ Kitty cried. ‘I just didn’t know where I was going to go. I’m ever so grateful. You’re all so kind.’
‘Don’t you worry, bab,’ Pauline said. ‘You just come and make yourself at home. And in her comforting way, she took Kitty in her arms and embraced her as if she was one of her own.
Twenty-One
‘Are you walking out with that red-headed chappie again?’ Maggie asked Audrey, who was applying lipstick, peering into her tiny pocket mirror.
‘Ummgh,’ Audrey agreed, her mouth contorted.
‘Aha,’ Cora teased, and began singing the wedding march, ‘Da da di-da, da da di-dah . . .’
‘Oh, shut up,’ Audrey snapped, putting the lipstick away. ‘You lot are a right bunch of canting old biddies.’
‘A bunch of what?’ Maggie laughed. She loved to tease Audrey. ‘ ’Fraid I don’t speak Brummy, dear.’
Audrey looked at her two friends, Cora was sprawled on the bed, looking very voluptuous. Maggie, plump and mousy-haired with a fresh complexion, was sitting on the side of hers, munching an apple and working on a piece of embroidery.
‘Look, it’s not like that,’ she said. ‘He’s nice enough, but . . .’
‘Nice enough,’ Cora mimicked her. ‘You really are the last of the romantics, aren’t you?’
‘Anyway, he’ll be gone soon – goodness knows where. What’s the point in getting too involved?’
‘There is such a thing as a letter, you know,’ Maggie said, looking up. ‘You know, human communication.’
‘Are you going to the flicks?’ Cora asked. ‘We’re coming along later too – might see you there.’
‘Oh, marvellous,’ Audrey said sarcastically. ‘Just what I need: you two turning up.’ She picked up her cap and gave the badge a rub along her sleeve. ‘Right, I’m off. See yer later, old biddies.’
‘Have fun!’ Maggie said.
‘Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!’ Cora called after her.
‘I’m not likely to,’ Audrey muttered, closing the door of the hut behind her.
It was a warm evening full of spring promise. She had said to Hamish that she’d meet him by the tobacco kiosk on the corner of one of the roads through the base. They were planning to go for a walk and then to a picture that was showing later in the evening. Audrey ambled along past the huts, each of which had a small garden of spring flowers and a lawn round it. She greeted people she knew on the way. Her shoulders were stiff, as ever, from sitting over a typewriter, and she circled them and breathed in deeply. It was lovely not to be cold. The winter seemed to have gone on forever.
When she got to the kiosk Hamish was not there yet, so she stood with her eyes closed for a few moments, enjoying the rays of the setting sun on her face. A smile turned up her lips.
I love it here, she thought. The life suited her. She loved the cosy hut with its neatly stacked kit, the attractive-looking base, the friendships and interest of it all. It was exciting, fun, full of purpose. Even if the job was a bore, it was still something more than typing in those gloomy offices in Birmingham. She had nothing to complain about, not when you thought about all these poor boys who were heading for terrible danger and often death. Boys like Hamish.
‘Hello there – are you daydreaming?’
She opened her eyes, startled. Hamish’s freckled face was smiling at her and she was reassured by how pleased she was to see him.
‘I was just soaking in the sun,’ she said. ‘It feels as if it’s a long time since we’ve seen it.’
‘Shall we go for that walk?’ he said. ‘Make the most of it?’
When they were out of sight of the main buildings, Hamish took her arm. Things had moved on between them. Now, when they were together, they often kissed, and Hamish had told her he loved her. Audrey was thrown by this. Loved her? Did he really mean that? What was she supposed to feel? She liked Hamish. It would
be hard not to like him – he was a kind, pleasant boy who had been very well brought up. But love? Soon afterwards she decided: what did it matter? He would be gone soon, off into Fighter Command. Anything could happen in the next few months. Why not tell him she loved him, as she had never managed to say to Raymond. What would be the harm?
So the next time when he held her in his arms and looked at her in that sweet, earnest way of his and said, ‘You are so fine, Audrey. I love you. I’m bowled over by you’, she looked back and mentally crossed her fingers. ‘I love you too, Hamish,’ she said, trying to sound as you would if you really meant it.
Hamish gave a little cry of joy and pulled her close. ‘Oh my dear one!’ he said, which Audrey thought was quaint, as Hamish often was. ‘You make me so happy.’
They walked around the base arm-in-arm in the dusk, past the huge hangars and the shed where the balloons were fabricated. In the open area in front were two of the special trucks equipped with winches for the balloon cables.
‘You know,’ Hamish said. ‘If you get a storm, a lightning strike, you have to get those balloons down double-quick or they’ll explode – all that hydrogen in there.’
‘That’d be a sight,’ Audrey said.
They chatted easily and, in a quiet corner behind one of the sheds, Hamish took Audrey in his arms again and kissed her hungrily. Kissing Hamish was pleasant enough, Audrey thought. He was a nice lad, funny and kind. Why would she not love him? Perhaps this feeling of vague pleasure was as good as it ever got? But if so, what was all that fuss about in books she had read and in the pictures? Her moderate feelings didn’t seem to account for those passionately soaring violins and acres of love poetry. Was all that just a pretty lie?
Once again she felt guilty because she couldn’t feel more, while Hamish seemed to feel so much.
As he drew back for a moment to gaze fondly down into her eyes, she said, ‘Shouldn’t we be getting back now? The picture’ll be starting soon.’
Hamish looked faintly disappointed. ‘Oh, d’you really want to see that? It’s some Laurel and Hardy thing, I think.’
A Chump at Oxford was showing in the camp cinema that night. Audrey wasn’t desperate to see it, but she didn’t want to spend the whole evening with Hamish getting more and more amorous.
‘I’d quite like to see it,’ she said. ‘Come on – let’s. If we stay out here it’ll just get cold.’ She shivered. ‘It’s chilly enough now. We can always go and have a drink after, eh?’ She squeezed his hand. ‘How about that?’
Hamish looked appeased. ‘With you, my dear,’ he said, ‘anything.’
A few days later Audrey was at her desk in the office. Though trying to look busy, she was fretting about Hamish. He would be gone in a few days to his next training camp and she had to decide whether she would keep in touch with him. Wouldn’t it be false, leading him on?
She sighed and rested her head on her hand, looking out of the window. What the hell’s the matter with me? she wondered gloomily.
‘Are you with us?’ A voice said, so close to her ear that Audrey almost left the seat. The officer for whom she worked, an energetic WAAF called Betty Masters, was leaning over her. Betty was a plain woman with brown hair scraped back and a long, upturned nose. She was the sort of person, Audrey thought, who, had she not been dressed in WAAF officer blues, would definitely be wearing tweed. She was also a person of abundant energy and intelligence.
‘Did you hear what I said, Airwoman Whitehouse?’ she enquired with a glint in her eyes.
‘No, ma’am, I’m afraid not.’
‘Right,’ she said irritably. ‘Then I suppose I shall have to repeat it. Because of the shortage of balloon operators, the powers that be in the service have decided to open the trade to women. There’s going to be a lot of—’
‘Oh!’ Wide awake now, Audrey shot into a fully upright position. ‘Can I do that – please!’
Betty Masters laughed, startled. ‘What I was saying was: it’s going to involve a lot of paperwork – which is your job, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Yes, ma’am, of course,’ Audrey said, pulling herself together. But her heart was pounding with excitement. She had to persuade them to let her transfer, had to! ‘But could I apply, d’you think?’
‘You already have a skill,’ Betty Masters said. ‘Why on earth would you want to be out in all weathers, when you can work quite comfortably in here?’
‘But there are loads of women who can do what I do,’ Audrey argued, surprised by her own daring. She was so desperate to get out of that office and into something more active.
Betty Masters gazed, as if for inspiration, at the telephone. ‘You’re not irreplaceable, it’s true. It’s not up to me, though.’ She turned. ‘You’ll have to apply, and then it’s in the lap of the gods. But for now could we possibly embark on the paperwork – if it’s not too much trouble?’
Twenty-Two
‘Hey, guess what! Audrey rushed into the hut a fortnight later, bursting with excitement. To all the faces turned towards her she announced, ‘I’m changing trades. They’re letting me train as a balloon operator!’
Having made her announcement, she collapsed on the bed, sneezing. She had a heavy cold.
‘What’re you on about?’ Joey asked. ‘Women don’t work the balloons.’
‘They do now,’ Audrey said through her hanky.
‘You’re transferring – why on earth?’ Maggie asked as she lay draped across her bed. Maggie was also doing clerical work. ‘Give me a nice cosy office any day.’
Cora, who had been looking for something under her bed, popped up beside it on her knees. ‘By the looks of you,’ she remarked, ‘it’ll be the death of you.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Audrey said nasally. ‘It’s always nice to know you’ve got such good friends.’ She stood up to carry on telling them how pleased she was, and sat down again abruptly. ‘Come to think of it, I really don’t feel very well.’
Within hours Audrey’s temperature had shot up, and Maggie and Cora reported her and had her moved over to the sick bay.
‘Nice of you to get rid of me,’ Audrey grumbled as she was evicted from her bed in the hut. But she was not in any state to argue.
‘Whatever it is you’ve got, we don’t want it,’ Cora told her.
‘Heartless so-and-sos,’ Audrey muttered.
‘I’ll bring your things – and a nip of something if I can smuggle it in. You’re not just going to sleep that one off. It looks as if you’ve got the flu.’
As it turned out, she was not the only one. There were several WAAFs already laid up in the sick quarters and there had to be an area set aside for the women, in what had previously been an entirely male camp. Audrey was aware of others in the room, of people moving about and talking, but for a couple of days she lapsed into a feverish, almost unconscious state while the illness took over. She heard a female voice urging her to sip water, and felt its coolness sliding down her throat. Every so often she surfaced and was more aware of her surroundings: white walls, beds, light from a window. Most of the time, though, she was only half-conscious, with a hot, aching head, shivering body and very sore throat.
In her feverish state she had the most peculiar dreams, which involved Hamish, who kept asking her over and over again to marry him. Hamish had left the camp a few days earlier. In her confusion she was aware of both guilt and relief, though she had promised to write to him. Other dreams were about the balloon site. The barrage balloons reared towards her, bulky and suffocating, and she would surface, thinking she was screaming, but no sound came out of her mouth. Once she dreamed that Sylvia was sitting on her bed, holding Mr Piggles; but she then turned into Cora, who was urging Audrey to eat a poached egg, and when she woke and found there was no one there, she felt bereft and homesick, wanting her mother. Hot tears of longing ran down her cheeks.
Gradually the symptoms eased and on the fourth day she woke, knowing that the worst of it had left her. Opening her eyes,
she lay quietly, taking in both her own limp state and the surroundings. She could hear faint sounds from the base outside, but for the moment the room was quiet.
There were six beds in the room, but now they were all empty except for one opposite hers. Raising her head, she saw the shape of someone asleep under the bed-clothes and golden-brown, wavy hair on the pillow. She found herself wishing that Sylvia would pop up from under the bedclothes. Since her first few homesick days in the service, Audrey had not missed home with the ache she felt now. She imagined lying in bed, the sound of the wireless drifting up from downstairs, and she longed to see everyone again.
She must have drifted off to sleep again, because the next thing she was aware of was the arrival of a rattling trolley and a smell of toast.
‘Ah, you’re in the land of the living, are you?’ The face of a blonde WAAF nurse appeared at her side. ‘How about a spot of breakfast today? You haven’t eaten a thing, and I’m sure it’s time you did.’
Audrey nodded. ‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.
‘Let’s see if we can sit you up.’
The nurse was a tiny little thing, wiry and strong. She helped Audrey to lean against her pillows and brought her a boiled egg and some toast. Audrey felt the saliva rise in her mouth.
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling.
When she was left with her breakfast, she realized that she was being watched from the opposite bed by a young woman with a round, friendly-looking face, who seemed familiar. Many faces on the base were familiar by now. The young woman, who was sitting up in bed writing something, raised her arm in a wave.