Girls on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  Fran smiled at the memory. Did Stan think of their kitchen while he scratched his head over his books amongst the dreaming spires of Oxford, as the vicar had begun calling them?

  ‘Given to fancies, the new young vicar be,’ her mam had said as they’d left the Reverend Walters looking at himself in the haberdasher’s window, or was it young Molly Higgins he was pursuing?

  Fran started laughing at the thought, but as she did so, Bert dodged a rabbit that tore out of the hedge at the same time as an owl burst from the tree and swooped over the bus. Sarah and Fran ducked, as did Maisie and Sylv behind them, then they all burst out laughing, though it was strained. An owl could be a harbinger of bad news.

  ‘I’m crossing my fingers,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Don’t be daft, pet. It’s a load of rubbish and I for one’d like to see a million of ’em rather than them bombers that’s just hit Newcastle, the buggers,’ Maisie said, coughing and then drawing on her Woodbine again. ‘Can’t be doing with superstitious nonsense when bombs is the real-life buggers.’

  Fran thought of that evening and Mam and Stan talking about grappling with life. It made her sit up straight. What was it Davey had said? ‘Don’t be too …’?

  Just as she started to ask Sarah again, Sylv muttered, ‘’Ope me uncle Sidney’s not one of them that’s copped it. Mam’s setting off to check tomorrow, cos the phone lines’re down. Fifty dead, thousands injured … Well, maybe hundreds, but that’s bad enough. Don’t know what me bairn’d think? Right fond of his great-uncle he is.’

  Sarah looked at Fran and whispered, ‘Aye, it could be us one day an’ all, if someone does something bliddy silly in our sector, or the bombers find us.’

  Fran shook her head, half singing, ‘Don’t be daft, we’re invincible, we’re the Factory girls.’

  Bert called out as he changed down through the gears and splashed across the ford, ‘We’ll be pulling up at the Sledgeford Club any minute for the next load, so anyone who forgot to “go”, you’d best get to the netty in the club yard and be sharp about it, for I’m not stopping until Minton.’

  Several rose, leaving the cushions they had brought with them to make the seats more bearable. Once they’d squeezed their way down the aisle, others came on, with Fran and Sarah’s friend Beth third in the line. Fran waved, then pointed to the seat across the aisle.

  ‘She’s got her face on her, so she’s in a bad mood, again. But it must be awful to not know if someone’s all right,’ Sarah whispered.

  Fran smiled as Beth sank onto the seat next to Mary and in front of Edith Wilson who lived near the corner shop in Massingham. Beth just snapped, ‘Must be nice to be a pair, just as it were at school – you two leaving me on the outside.’

  Fran ignored Sarah’s nudge and tried to make her smile gentle. ‘So, still no word from Bob?’

  Beth pressed her lips together and stared ahead, then shook her head. ‘Bliddy seats get no better, nothing does.’

  Sarah leaned past Fran. ‘I just know he’s all right, Beth. His letters have got caught up or his minesweeper’s busy, or whatever they’ve put him in now. If it were worse, you’d feel it in your gut, or have been told.’

  Although one of them said the same thing almost every day, Beth looked at her, relief lighting up her face as she grabbed at Sarah’s words. ‘Maybe you’re right. I haven’t seen an owl fly over the house, so that’s something.’

  Maisie was clambering back on the bus, shrieking as she missed the top step and fell forward.

  ‘Tek more water with it, our Maisie,’ Mrs Oborne called from the front seat.

  ‘Come on, come on, if you’re five minutes late they’ll dock you fifteen minutes and so far we’re just that – five minutes late,’ Bert yelled, starting up the bus again.

  As the women hurried, Mrs Oborne called, ‘Less of the bossing and more getting your foot down, Bert Evans.’

  But Bert, not wanting his pay docked either, was already storming along, swerving round panicked cock pheasants, or if not, clipping them. They were considered fair game, so someone could fetch them home for tea without expecting the Massingham gamekeeper’s knock on the door.

  As they rushed along the lanes, they seemed to be driving through a forest of slag heaps that glinted like ashes in a grate, brightening as the wind swirled and seeming to fade when it died. In the light from the moon Fran checked her watch. Dawn wouldn’t truly come until after they’d started their shift at six, by which time Da and Davey would have reached the pit, waited for the cage to take them down the pit, and then traipsed along the seam, all half mile or more of it, bending and crawling, to the coalface where work would begin. ‘Be safe,’ she urged again, not realising she’d spoken aloud until Beth said, ‘I’m a cow. I forget that we’ve all men we want to keep safe. Right sorry, both of you.’

  Fran felt the pressure of Sarah’s arm and said, ‘We don’t need to say sorry to one another, and anyway, it’s not as though we girls are sitting about all day sunning ourselves in the lap of luxury and drinking cocktails. Who the hell knows what accident is going to come and bite us on the bum, or snatch off a hand like Miss Ellington, and if we think about it more’n we do, we’ll like as not end up in the nuthouse, along with the whole of this bus.’

  Sylv tapped her on the shoulder. ‘You speak for yersel’, lass, though when I think of it, it might be a nice rest in one of them padded cells.’

  They all grinned as Fran reached for Beth’s outstretched hand and squeezed it. ‘You’re worried about your man, and there’s Sarah a poor old spinster, with not a lad in view to mither about.’ She ignored Sarah’s pretend punches, and all three collapsed into laughter.

  ‘Aye …’ Sarah said, trying to speak and breaking down again, until finally she spluttered, ‘They keep running off soon as I show interest, canny blighters.’

  All three of them were laughing again, and everything was all right, for now. Beth let go of Fran’s hand and took her knitting from her bag to continue with the sweater she was making her Bob for when he finally came home. As Fran’s mam said, you did what made things better, and there was sense in that and it was no one’s business. But Fran and Sarah still wondered if Bob would appreciate bright yellow.

  Maisie leaned through the gap between the seats, trying to whisper over the roaring of the engine. ‘Her Bob’ll look like a ruddy canary, but I daresay he’ll treasure it so much he’ll keep it locked away safely in a drawer for evermore – what do you say, hinnies?’ She winked at the two girls, leaned back and lit another Woodbine.

  Fran supposed a husband would do exactly that, possibly out of love for his wife, but more likely because he didn’t care to be the butt of tweet-tweet whistles wherever he went. It was then that she saw the envelope Sarah had dragged from her mac pocket and was holding out to her.

  ‘This is what our Davey were talking about, bonny lass.’ She only called Fran bonny lass when there was something wrong.

  Fran looked from her friend to the letter, her mouth dry. Was Davey chucking her? But he’d sit her down and tell her if that were it, surely? Besides, he’d said he’d see her later. Her heart was beating so hard she could hardly breathe. Or had he signed up? But he couldn’t; he and Stan had been hurt in the same fall and with their wonky legs had both been turned down.

  ‘Why’s Davey writing to me? I don’t want it, Sarah, and besides, the sun’s not up yet, it’s still too gloomy.’

  ‘You have to have it. It’s from your Stan, you daft thing, not our Davey.’ Sarah was whispering because she didn’t want Beth to hear any mention of Stan’s name. It would be embarrassing for them all, yet again.

  Fran said, in a whisper that matched Sarah’s, ‘What on earth? He can’t have signed up? And why write to me? He should tell Da and Mam.’

  Sarah put the letter in Fran’s lap. ‘The lad sent it to Davey because he didn’t want your da peering over your shoulder while you read it and having a right palaver. Or that’s what Stan put in the note that came with it. Stan wants you
to break whatever it is to your folks, to sort of soften the blow.’

  Bert had drawn to a halt at a T-junction. He turned left, heading east where the sky was lightening. Sarah picked up the letter and flapped it in front of Fran’s face. ‘Read the damned thing and then we’ll know what you have to soften. You know what, I’m right fed up with these lads.’

  Fran continued to stare at the letter, but Sarah just carried on flapping it. Fran ignored her, turned away and looked down the aisle, muttering, ‘He’s just a bliddy snot, and I won’t do his dirty work for him, whatever it is.’

  Beth looked across at them. ‘Why are you fanning her? Come over all hot and bothered, has she?’

  ‘Got a letter from her Stanhope,’ Maisie called over, ‘and doesn’t want to open it.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Maisie, have another ciggy and mind your own bliddy business,’ Fran snapped.

  ‘Then open the damned thing, and put us all out of our misery. It’s cool enough without yon lass fanning us all.’ Maisie lit another Woodbine.

  Fran snatched up the letter and drew it out of the envelope, conscious of Beth staring. What on earth have you done, our Stan? she thought. Failed your exams? But it’s the vacation and you’d have heard before this. Or lost your holiday job with your professor? But no to both – you’re Mr Massingham’s scholarship boy, so you couldn’t, not with your brainy bonce. Debts? Well, pay them off yourself. I’m not forking out, nor is Da, and I won’t soften the news if it’s that. But no, Stan wouldn’t; he was a good boy, always had been. She unfolded the letter and Sarah clicked on her small torch, holding it over the writing, and Fran read as the bus jerked and swung.

  Dearest bonny lass

  I know you’ve had your troubles with our da over the work you’re doing now and I’ve tried to write a letter to him and Mam about a decision I have made, but I just can’t get going, so I’ll tell them more about it when I come up, but I’m as yellow as that jumper you say Beth is knitting. (Yellow? So perhaps it were better she broke me heart when she did and chose Bob Jones, eh, otherwise I’d be tucked up by mistake in me da and Tom’s cages along with their canaries.) Anyways, I want you to tell Mam and Da gently. Will you do that for me?

  Sarah was reading it with her, and now they looked at one another. ‘Tell them what, for pity’s sake?’ Fran snapped. ‘He always was a one for mithering until he got things sorted in his head, but he should have done that before he wrote the thing.’

  Sarah focused the torch again, muttering, ‘He really seems over her, d’you think?’

  Fran felt too angry to even care whether he was over Beth or not, for he wanted something from her that was going to upset her parents, just when … She read on:

  I’m coming home, lass. I start in the pit on Monday.

  Fran dropped the letter onto her lap. Coming home to the pit? He was mad. Their da … her mam … All their striving to pay for extra lessons. First it had been her, and now he was throwing it up too?

  Sarah had dropped the torch onto her own lap, its slit beam playing on the back of the seat in front. ‘He can’t?’ she whispered. ‘Oh, he can’t. What a kettle of fish, what a … What about Beth? Will he mither over her all over again? Will she now Bob’s away? Or … howay, he’s not coming back because Bob’s out in the war and he sees his chance again? No, that can’t be right. He wouldn’t be such a cheat, and oh – imagine – we’d all have to lie to Bob’s family and everyone. It’d be dreadful, so dreadful …’ Sarah’s voice began to shake before she fell silent for a moment. Then she whispered, ‘Not Stan. He couldn’t do that, could he?’

  Fran only half listened, dreading the scene her da would make when she told him Stan was returning. How was she to break it? How could the lad do this? How damn well could he? Finally, as she folded the letter, and leaned back in her seat, Sarah’s words penetrated and Fran closed her eyes. First he was coming home, which was almost the worst news her parents could hear, but if it was because of Beth … No, that would break her da even further, not to mention her mam. She snatched a look at Beth, and away again. No, Beth was a married woman. No, it mustn’t happen, and that was that.

  Sarah lifted the envelope lying on Franny’s lap and slipped it into her pocket, still shocked and confused, picturing the handwriting on the envelope sitting on the mantelpiece, which was where her mam usually propped Stan’s letters to Davey. As always, she’d gazed at that royal blue scrawl and for a moment it was as though he hadn’t really gone. As though their gang hadn’t broken up.

  She looked out of the window as they whipped past the fields. But the gang had broken up, and that was the sadness. Mark you, Stan and Davey were still as close as thieves, and Fran and she were too. When they were bairns, though, they’d been a gang as tight as a fist, but they had opened up to let Beth in when she had arrived in the village, because … Well, why had they? Ah yes, she and Fran, both seven years old, had taken Beth under their wings when she’d arrived in their class after her da changed pits from Darlington to Massingham. Stan had protected Beth too, as he had all of them, because he was the leader. But he had become more than a leader to Beth as they grew older, for he had loved the ground she walked on, until Bob came back to Massingham in his uniform, all signed up and different, and what happened, happened.

  Would Stan reach out to them all again, if he came home? All, which would include Beth? Would Stan resist – would Beth? Sarah felt sick, but it was because Bert was taking them over an old bridge now, swooping over it, leaving their stomachs in the air. Yes, that was it, that’s what it was.

  She stared over the parapet beneath which ran Cold Beck, where bairns from Minton must have swum and played, and probably still did. They’d be bound to catch minnows in jam jars on strings, and race sticks beneath the bridge, and maybe watch a kingfisher as it darted from its perch in a willow. It’s what all gangs did, and always had done, just as they had at Massingham Beck, just outside the village. She could taste the jam sandwiches they ate on the bank, hear the laughter as they swam, dived and raced across the deep water by the bridge. When she thought of it, the sun always played on the ripples, and the fire they built dried them.

  Bert was driving beneath overhanging oak trees, their leaves still clinging, the green of them turning. Sarah again felt the breeze as Stan tied a rope to the old horse chestnut tree on the bank when she, Fran and Beth were ten, taking his time to pick the best and strongest branch for them all to swing on. In her memory Stan always seemed to be joshing them, picking them up when they fell or taking the blame if they were caught scrumping Farmer Brown’s apples.

  She still heard Stan’s news when a letter from Oxford arrived for Davey, which was often. Her brother would tell her, though he wouldn’t read the letter aloud, which was what she actually longed for him to do. She wanted to hear it in Stan’s words – all about the town and the river, and the punts, which had taken time to become used to. Who had he taken punting? she wondered, but never asked. Somehow she didn’t want to know too much.

  He’d looked after them even after Beth had chosen Bob Jones instead of him and left the gang. Yes, he’d still looked after them, but it wasn’t the same because Stan wasn’t the same. His pain was the gang’s pain. They’d wanted to help him, but how could they? Stan was the leader, and it had made her feel off-kilter not having that one person who stood so strong, and who somehow made her days softer, and safe.

  Sarah leaned back, like Fran, and shut her eyes. Stan had soon left, Bob had gone to war, and Beth had bumped into them at the Labour Exchange and decided to join the Factory. It was almost the same, the three of them together again, but not quite. Beth had hurt their Stan, and she was prickly about being an outsider. Was that really because she had arrived at the school later, or because she felt embarrassed about cheating on Stan? Suddenly, savagely, Sarah wished Mr Smith had never left his Darlington pit. Shocked at herself, she opened her eyes and stared around her.

  ‘Hey, Sarah Bedley, what’s going on in that head of yours? Yo
u look as though you’re about to bash someone.’ It was Fran raising her eyebrows at her.

  Sarah nodded. ‘Course not. It’s these seats, they’re too hard. I were just thinking back to how it was when we had the gang, and life was so – oh, I don’t know. Normal, I suppose.’

  Fran squeezed her hand, ‘I know what you mean.’ Sarah gripped the envelope in her pocket as Fran picked up the letter from her lap, then peered at the bottom corner. ‘Hang on, it says PTO.’ She read on, in a low murmur.

  Elliott the manager is making me stop on the surface at the sorting screens for a bit before I get back to hewing at the coalface. He says it’s only right to think on me as a new pitman. And Franny, don’t let Da go mithering on about the Massingham scholarship. I wrote to Mr Massingham, and he says I can take it up again when the war is finished because he’ll hold it over. He said it was good to be wanting to help the war effort. So, be sure to tell our da that too, and Mam, and that I’ll be back Saturday evening, if the trains behave and the bombers stay off the line. Do this for your big brother, and I’ll buy you a bag of chips. I’ll bunk in with Ben in the attic room.

  Bonny lass, don’t show Da this letter. Just say I think if I can’t go to the war, I’ll bloody well hew for it. Just tell him that, bonny lass.

  Stan.

  Fran whispered, ‘Turn off the torch, Sarah.’ They both sat back in the lightening gloom, neither saying anything.

  Maisie tapped Fran’s shoulder. ‘Your lad all right, is he?’

  ‘Oh yes, Maisie. He’s all right, except that he’s a bugger.’

  Maisie and Sylv cackled. ‘Well, he’s a man, isn’t he?’ Sylv said.

  Beth was looking at the two of them. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Fran and Sarah said together.

  ‘Be like that then,’ Beth sniffed.

  ‘So, that’s why the owl flew over the bus,’ Maisie whispered, leaning forward and ramming her head between theirs.