by Annie Clarke
As she watched Fran understood the loneliness of those sent away from home to do something they would ordinarily never have thought of doing. Like Amelia, like Stan once, and now like Davey, her darling Davey, amongst the graduates. But he was a smart alec too, so he was in the right place. But he wouldn’t sound like a smarty-pants, would he? She shared her thoughts with the others as the canteen started to fill up, and Mrs Oborne nodded.
‘Aye, lass, we live and die here, don’t we, Beth? Your da and my other brother Perce, here, amongst their own, and there’s a fair bit to be said for that.’
They stood quietly at first, then ferreted out chairs and set them up against the wall, staking their claim by sitting there, firm and immovable until Miss Ellington panted up, a bag hung over her shoulder. ‘Follow me. I’m not having you up at the front with your turbans, no indeed I’m not.’
They followed like ducklings, but instead of quacking they were quaking in her wake, because the moment was getting nearer. Once in the rehearsal room, Miss Ellington dragged out several hairbrushes. ‘Right, off with those and get brushing. I got these off numerous women, so ignore the hairs in them, we haven’t time for niceties.’
She then dragged out lipsticks she’d taken from the contraband locker. ‘No idea whose these are, so go lightly, if you please, then I’ll put ’em back with no one any the wiser. Quick as a wink, come along. Everyone fluff your neighbour’s hair. You’re my girls, and you’ll go out there in your overalls, without stockings or high heels, just your own court shoes, which Mrs Raydon has brought in.’ She pointed to the pile of shoes. ‘Find your own, and today, my lovelies, you will look like the princesses you are, is that clear? Once you’ve got them on, report to the producer.’
They did, and were sent to their chairs to wait until they saw him beckon to them. Outside the snow was still falling. As they stared out through the canteen window, Beth said, ‘I’m singing for me da.’
Sarah smiled, and Fran knew she would be singing for Stan, whilst for her it was Davey.
The hall had filled up with people from all over the site, most of them women. Some even stood at the sides. The audience smiled at their bouncing hair and lipstick, several waved, the producer beckoned. Fran led the way along the front of the hall, below the stage, to the producer. As she drew near, she heard Amelia saying, ‘Oh no, I’m certainly not really one of these girls. I’ve been transferred from the South, and am definitely not a factory worker, dear me, no. I am administration, as I said, and my education opens me to all sorts of opportunities. I mean, look at their short hair, their voices – just like a badge, isn’t it? Makes visible the stark difference between us.’
He handed her a card. ‘Take this. Call me if you decide to pursue singing. We’ll be needing entertainers for the troops, and why not you? What about The Factory Girls’ lead singers while we’re at it?’
Fran waited and heard the answer. ‘No no, they wouldn’t leave here. Once a factory girl always a factory girl, clinging to their mothers’ apron strings.’
Fran coughed. Amelia turned. Fran said, ‘The Factory Girls are ready, Mr Producer.’ Her voice was like ice. Later, when Stan 2 was whispering their timings, he said to the four of them, ‘There’ll be troops to entertain. Take my card.’ Fran beat Amelia to it, pocketing it in her overalls and saying to Beth and Sarah, ‘One day, eh?’
As they moved into position, she felt that one day she’d forgive Amelia, who was a girl far from home, but she’d always distrust her.
Davey sat in the canteen, having arranged with the catering manager to turn the wireless to the Home Service, which had been done, so he was listening as Fran’s choir was introduced. It was on good and loud, so he could hear it over the clatter of people eating an early lunch all around him, and was thrilled to hear the name, The Factory Girls. It was like magic, and he could see the three of them, and Mrs Oborne getting ready to wave her pencil about. Fran had said they’d be singing ‘All or Nothing at All’, and that she’d be thinking of him the whole time.
Daisy from the huts came and sat down next to him just as they began to sing. ‘And how’s our lad from the deep and dark North, Davey? Dreaming of your pit?’
He shouted, his hand raised, ‘Howay, not now. I need to listen – it’s me girl singing.’
At that, the whole table fell quiet and listened too, and Davey’s throat was so full with pride and longing that he lowered his head and looked at the table. When the choir had finished, Daisy Leonard, said, ‘Ah, I see why you were so rude. The Factory Girls, eh? Your girl’s one of them?’
Davey turned to look at her, studying her ginger hair, her freckles, her green eyes and thin lips. He said, ‘Are yer saying I’m rude because me girl’s a factory girl and I know no better? Or because I’m just rude? Well, pet, that weren’t me being rude. That’s me not wanting to miss a second. Worry not, you’ll know right well when I’m rude, Miss Daisy Leonard.’
There was a silence, and Daniel poked him, but Davey hadn’t come all this way to be put down by someone with a plum in her mouth when Fran was having her moment.
‘Hard to tell what you’re saying anyway, with that accent, and they’ll be the same,’ said Daisy.
Davey shrugged, eating his meal, wondering where the brown sauce was. It’d been promised, but apparently, the cook said, no one else asked for it so it wasn’t a priority. Perhaps they couldn’t find any off ration. As he ate, he longed for the sulphur in the air, the clump of pitmen’s boots, his marrers and Fran. Most of all he longed for her, and now, sneaking a look round the table, he saw again how out of place he was when he was anywhere but the pit. Down here, people couldn’t understand him; not his speech or his ways. He was different also because he had no degree, and there surely wouldn’t be time to get one at war’s end. He had to get tough enough again to go back down the pit to make money for him and Fran, to try and build up his own magazine. How else would he keep his head up, and expect her to stay with him for ever?
The bell went and they rose. Daniel walked beside him. ‘Your Fran must be a grand girl.’
‘Aye, she’s the best, and the air I breathe.’
Daisy walked ahead, kicking at the gravel, and snapped at Daniel when he called, ‘Walk with us.’
‘I’ve better things to do.’
Daniel whispered, ‘Oooh, someone didn’t like your contretemps. She’s obviously taken a shine to you.’
Davey heard, but took no notice, because his mind was so full of Fran and the letter he’d write that evening.
Chapter Twenty-Three
On Monday of the next week Fran and Beth got on the bus at midday for the aft-shift, leaving Sarah on the pavement with Stan. Mrs Oborne and Maisie clambered on, with Maisie calling back, ‘Put Stan down and let him get to work.’
‘Aye,’ Stan called, ‘can’t wait to get below, out of this cold, but she won’t let me go.’
The women laughed as Bert, who was doing the morning and afternoon shifts while Cecil got over his pneumonia, hooted the horn. Fran’s mam in her ARP uniform crossed over the road. ‘Are you hooting to attract the Luftwaffe, our Bert? If so, stop. And you, our Stan, Sid and Norm are waiting.’
Bert leaned out of the window. ‘That ARP hat makes yer bossy, our Annie.’
‘Aye, maybe, and it’s a grand feeling.’
Fran looked out of the window and waved. Her mam waved back, then they all heard her say to Bert, ‘Keep your eyes open, and you too, our Stan. Everyone’s in a bit of a do about sabotage. They’re suspicious of a fall in a pit t’other side of the valley, and summat about a railway line not far from here, so we’re all to keep alert. Though I doubt they’ll have a sign round their necks saying “Spy” or “Saboteur”. But mind what I say, Bert, and our Stan, and you and Norm too, our Sid. Eyes open, gobs shut.’
Sid and Norm were yelling from the bus shelter, ‘Except for you, Mrs H.’
She laughed. ‘No details, were there, daft lads.’
Sid laughed. ‘You tell our Stan, M
rs H, to get a move on an’ all. This wind’s fair biting, so it is, and he’ll see the lass when the bus comes in later.’
Bert called to Sarah, ‘Going, ready or not.’ Annie Hall stepped back onto the pavement, and Sarah leapt aboard. ‘About bliddy time,’ Bert said, as Mrs Oborne started to sing and the others joined in: ‘Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather …’
Fran and Beth looked at one another, smiling. Stan 2, the band leader, had left them a long note about how it was important to keep the troops’ morale up, and that they should extend their repertoire as the band would be touring with something called ENSA and could do with a three-girl group if they ever got sick of factory work, or even if just one of them did.
Sarah came along the aisle and slumped in the seat next to Maisie, across from Beth and Fran. She was humming along as she still couldn’t remember all the words, but then few could, yet.
‘Still think it’s grand he said a three-girl group,’ Beth said, breaking off for a sip of water from her bottle.
Fran shrugged. ‘Well, he knew Amelia was an extra, and we were the three old ’uns.’
Mrs Oborne turned round. ‘Aye, more likely because she were often slipping off the beat, even though I were fixing my beady eye on her and stabbing at her with me pen.’
Beth and Sarah laughed. Beth tutted. ‘Whose pen? And I hope you gave it back.’
‘Couldn’t do owt else, he were after me like a policeman.’
They were laughing as Sarah leaned across the aisle. ‘I reckon it was because she’d cosied up to Mr Pot Belly, who were rude to Stan Two every time he spoke. Not rude rude, but as though Stan Two were summat less than him.’
Fran frowned. ‘Well, Pot Belly spoke to every one of us like that, and where’d he get all that food to build up that great pudding of a belly is what I want to know?’
‘Probably ate his underlings,’ Maisie grumped. The laughter grew louder. The women took turns guessing what else he might be eating, or who, and they were soon licking their lips at the thought of pork belly, or roast lamb and spuds roasted in dripping.
They were still at it as snow began to fall again, just as it had much of the night, growing heavier with each turn of the bus’s wheels. Mrs Oborne groaned. ‘We’ll be late and have our pay docked and me old mam needs the doc for her chest.’
One of the new girls, Beryl, who was sitting next to her, said, ‘No, if it’s weather, they’re taking a better line on it. They want us there with all limbs working, instead of skidding off the road and ending up squashed as jam.’
Maisie groaned. ‘Steady, Beryl. Don’t want that picture to stick in our minds when we’re fiddling with—Well, the you-know-whats.’
The bus passengers broke off from listing food and shouted, ‘Aye, the thingummybobs.’ Raucous laughter rolled around the bus as it gradually slowed to a crawl, then the women grew quiet, staring out of the windows, hearing the laboured swish of the wipers in the hush. Mrs Oborne called, ‘You go steady an’ all, Bert. Last thing we wants is to end up on t’verge and have to get out and shove the damn great thing back on the bliddy road.’
Beth began to laugh. ‘Well, if we end up pushing it out of a slip t’other side of Sledgeford, I reckon Amelia’s high heels’ll take a bashing.’
Though the others laughed, Fran said nothing, for no one else had heard what Amelia had said about factory girls and she was still furious, though she had no intention of repeating it. Why upset them? She slumped back in the seat, fed up because they were back in stemming again, and what really gripped her knickers was that Swinton had smiled when he told them yesterday, adding, ‘What would I do without my “filling in the gaps” team?’
Mrs Oborne had muttered that she knew what she’d fill him in with, in a dark alley.
Fran sat back in her seat, sipping water like a woman possessed, wanting a reservoir inside her so she could nip to the loo and flush herself through after an hour or two. ‘Once this war is over,’ she said, ‘I am never ever going to mess about with powder again – unless it’s face powder.’
Sylv called across the aisle, ‘Aye, I’ll second that. Wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t itch all the time.’
Maisie turned to face Fran. ‘You and everyone else on this bus, not to mention washing the sheets with it all soaked into them.’
Madge had tried boiling them up twice, each time in soda, she’d told Fran when Fran had taken another load to her and collected the clean ones. ‘But it’s still there. Try and use the same ones for the yellow, lass, then at least you’ve some white for afters. Once the war is over, it’ll fade from the cotton, I dare say.’
She’d pocketed Fran’s money as Fran had asked, ‘Are you sure it’s not too much for you, Madge?’
Madge had said, shaking her head, ‘I only get a few hours at Mrs Adams’ corner shop, and this helps feed the bairn. Me mam comes and sits with the little soul while I do my ARP shift, and there’s the rugs, of course. What I’d do without the co-op, I don’t know. A laugh and some dibs when we sell ’em – what could be better?’
Mrs Oborne had been there and asked, ‘Still not heard from your Rob, then? Weren’t he supposed to send you something for the lad, Madge?’
Madge had smiled. ‘Nay, and hope we never will. He’s long gone now and we’re the better for it. He’ll be selling something off the back of a lorry, or worse, and I don’t want a bar of it. Mr Massingham’s said the house is ours for as long as we need it. He’s good with – well, you know. Just as well he didn’t know the beggar poached pheasant from his land while he were here, or we’d have been out like a dose of salts.’
Bert was calling, ‘Okey-doke, lasses, that long uphill corner into Sledgeford is coming up, so lift yourselves and whack your arses down on the seat when I tell yer, to get a bit of traction. Need to get up it in one. If we stop, we’re done for, and I’ve still got that ruddy bald tyre an’ all.’
He jammed the gear into second, for first would cause a skid; the engine growled and the bus slid. The women each gripped the back of the seat in front and stood, then whacked down again, and again. Mrs Oborne panted, ‘It’s lucky for you lot I’m a big-boned lass, I’ll tell yer that for nothing, our Bert, for I’ve some padding to absorb the shock.’
They were driving alongside Massingham’s grazing land, steadily climbing. They couldn’t see the fields or the drystone wall through the snow, but on the bend there was the blare of a horn and the slit beam of car lights approaching on the wrong side of the road. The lights danced off the falling snow and tree branches in the afternoon gloom.
Bert swung the steering wheel. ‘You bliddy bugger,’ he yelled. The back of the bus swung round, the car blasted past, keeping its course, but the bus didn’t. It slewed round, then back, and then tipped as the front caught the verge. The women screamed and fell against one another. Sarah slid from her seat, across the aisle and onto Fran, and then knocked into Beth. The bus teetered, and Fran whacked against the seat, falling into the aisle, with Beth now on top of her. The bus tipped once more, then settled back on all four wheels. Sarah fell on them both, knocking the air from all their lungs. There was silence and into it came the sound of groans and shouts.
‘Get off me.’
‘Help.’
‘We’ll lose our pay.’
‘Better’n our lives. Anyone hurt?’ It was Mrs Oborne. The slit beams of the bus still cut through the falling snow as the women struggled to their feet. Fran shoved Sarah off, while Beth pulled herself up and onto her seat so that Fran could do the same. Fran tasted blood; it was running into her mouth. She snatched out her handkerchief and held it tight to her nose.
Beth was wincing. ‘Bliddy hell,’ she whispered. ‘You stood on me hand, you great daft thing. Look at it.’
Fran did, but her head was throbbing where Beth had kicked her. She took the handkerchief away, but blood still pumped. Beth gripped Fran’s hand and pressed it against her nose again. ‘Stop fannying about. Keep your hanky there till
it clots, while I pinch the bridge of your nose.’
Fran yelled, ‘No, don’t do that, it bliddy hurts.’
‘Then press the hanky against the nostrils.’
Mrs Oborne was hauling her way to the front of the bus. ‘Are you hurt, or just making a bliddy fuss, Bert?’
Bert groaned and pushed himself off the steering wheel, growling. ‘Go and sit your great arse down, you auld bisom, and get whacking up and down, for the love of God.’
Fran started to laugh, Beth too, and soon the whole of the bus was. There were bruises, cuts and bangs everywhere, but nothing bad. And still the snow fell, and seemed to dance.
Bert started the engine again, calling, ‘All set for another go?’
Fran, her nose still pumping, asked, ‘Did the car stop?’
‘Did it hell,’ said Bert. ‘Now shut up and get whacking, while I drive off slow and see what happens.’
What happened was that the wheels spun and the bus skidded. There were a few screams, and Mrs Oborne snapped, ‘That’s enough of that. Where’s your gumption?’
Once the bus came to rest, Bert kept it idling and turned around to say, ‘I have a load of sacks under me seat, but I need a few to go and ram ’em up against the front of all the wheels. I need half of you in here, whacking up and down, and the rest out there to give it a bloody good shove up the arse.’
‘You’re obsessed with that word, Bert,’ called Mrs Oborne.
The women sniggered as they tied on their headscarves and made sure their mufflers were tight. They were not surprised at any of this because they were used to snow; it came every year for heaven’s sake, but it didn’t make it any less of a nuisance. Fran tested her nose bleed and it was only dribbling as she followed along after Mrs Oborne, Beryl, Sylv, Sarah and Beth, who was explaining to Fran that her nose had stopped because of Miss Smith’s very wonderful, healing hands.