by Shirley Mann
The next morning the results were announced and both Sally and Bobby had passed their Class II exams and even Sally was relieved. Amid the glasses of gin and tonic, the parties and her lengthening list of romantic conquests, Sally was surprised to discover how satisfying it was to do a real job and to do it well. However, she reasoned, the exam results did offer a very good reason to celebrate.
‘Bobby, if you’re a good girl, I’ll take you to London tonight and we can finally have some fun,’ she announced as they got back to the room they were sharing in their digs.
Bobby was planning an early night; she had been working really hard, spending her evenings in the library, swotting up on the new categories of planes and was exhausted, but Sally had other ideas.
‘Don’t argue,’ she said, putting her hand up to stop Bobby’s protests. ‘There’s a new revue at The Windmill and I’ve found two men who’ll take us.
Bobby looked at her aghast. ‘But the Windmill has nude dancers!’
‘So?’ Sally replied, taking off her bra to reach for a new silk one.
‘Well, when you put it like that,’ Bobby smiled shyly, trying not to stare at the naked body in front of her.
‘Anyway, the dancers don’t move, you know that. It’s all really tame, actually. I’ve heard there are going to be striptease joints opening up in London soon,’ Sally added knowingly.
Bobby thought for a moment. Society was changing too fast, she could hardly keep up with it. She suddenly giggled when she thought of how her father and Aunt Agnes were going to deal with this new, modern world.
Sally was using a shoelace to try to curl her hair into the fashionable roll, but suddenly turned round, ‘Tell me Bobby Hollis, have you ever even kissed a man?’
Bobby sat back and thought.
‘You haven’t, have you? You actually haven’t.’
‘I have!’ said Bobby indignantly. ‘I’ve been kissed by lots.’
‘Yes, but have you ever really kissed them back? Wanted them to devour you, possess you . . . love you?’ Sally asked, and for once Bobby was stumped. She had been out with men but their inept fumblings had left her cold.
‘Well . . .’
‘Oh hell, we do have a long way to go, my girl,’ Sally said. ‘OK, we’ve got ten minutes, they’ll be here soon. Get a move on.’
Bobby glanced at her dishevelled hair and jumped up in a panic.
‘Help, move over, I need to brush my hair.’
*
Ten minutes later, the girls raced down the drive to find a black car waiting for them. As they arrived at it, a pilot with freckles and curly brown hair wound down the front window.
‘Come on you gorgeous females, we’ll have to get a move on if we’re going to get there in time. They have shows all day, but we need to get there for the half past seven one.’
Sally strategically put herself in the back with Joe, a dark-haired pilot she had been chatting up earlier that day, so Bobby had no option but to get into the front, next to the curly-haired driver. He had a nice strong profile and unfairly long eyelashes for a man Bobby thought, Sally’s words ringing in her ears.
‘I’m Harry,’ he announced taking his right hand off the wheel to shake hands with her.
‘Bobby,’ she replied, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Um, are you going to The Windmill too?’
He turned towards her and seeing her hesitation, smiled. ‘Too right, wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he told her.
Bobby looked earnestly out of the window. She was horrified that she would be sitting next to a man looking at naked women and wished she had questioned Sally more closely before committing to this adventure.
Harry chatted easily all the way to London, not noticing that the young woman next to him was answering in monosyllables. They arrived at a crowded Piccadilly and the boys dropped the two girls off and went to go and park the car. Bobby looked up at the domed entrance and saw the words ‘Revudeville’ in large letters. She immediately read the word as ‘Rudeville’. She checked the name again, realised her mistake and felt her discomfort growing. Once she and Sally had handed their coats to the cloakroom attendant, Bobby let rip.
‘Sally, how could you? I can’t sit next to a man while there are naked women on the stage!’
Sally reared up in mock horror. ‘Oh Roberta Hollis, I didn’t realise you were such an innocent baby! Well, it’ll do you good to let your hair down a bit. This is 1943, not 1843,’ she went on, ‘and we’re not living in the Victorian era. You’d better get used to it. You can’t have it all your way. You’re a pilot in a man’s world, you can’t now pretend you don’t want to be a liberated woman.’ And she turned away to smile flirtatiously at Joe, who was waiting for them in the foyer.
Bobby fingered her lapel nervously as the little group made their way to the front of the stalls, just behind the orchestra.
‘I managed to get the best seats,’ Joe whispered to the little group. He touched his nose. ‘It all depends on who you know.’
‘And who do you know?’ Sally asked, placing her bag and gas mask under her seat.
‘Just look carefully at the little blonde on the front row,’ he replied with a satisfied smile.
Bobby had never felt out of her depth but at that moment she found herself checking the exits hoping there would be an air raid and she could escape. But she caught sight of the sign at the side of the stage, ‘We never closed’, the proud boast of the theatre that it had kept open throughout the Blitz and every air raid since.
I’m doomed, Bobby thought miserably, hunching her shoulders in case there was anyone in the theatre who might know her. It suddenly occurred to her that if she were to die here in these plush seats, everyone in Salthouse would know she had been at a racy performance of unclothed women with a man. She groaned.
‘Shh’, Sally said from beside her. ‘Just relax and enjoy it.’
Bobby missed the first part of the performance, spending the whole time examining her feet, but then a pianist came on and started to play some American tunes and she watched in surprise as her toe started to tap. She looked up and gasped.
The women were all over the stage behind the pianist with large strategically placed feather fans. They were standing like statues, a stance insisted upon by Lord Cromer. She looked critically at them, they were no more risqué than the Greek statues she had seen in books at school and she began to wonder if her own body would look as good in such a pose, and then she shifted in her seat.
‘Sorry,’ Harry whispered, ‘Did you say something?’
‘Er, no, no, I was just enjoying the music.’
He tucked her arm in his and patted it. ‘Good, I knew you’d enjoy it.’ And he sat back in his seat with a smile on his face.
After that, Bobby was surprised to find she enjoyed the show very much. There was dancing, singing and some wonderful acrobatics, all the time with the backcloth of the girls with the fans, which just became like part of the scenery.
After the show, the four of them retired to the Fitzroy Tavern just on the corner of Windmill Street. Its dark wood and etched glass windows provided a cosy meeting place for crowds of theatre-goers and it was obviously a place Sally had been before. Sally confidently led Bobby to a corner seat, while the boys got them each a port and lemon. Sally looked with satisfaction at Bobby’s enthralled face.
‘So, you enjoyed it, then, did you, Miss Prim?’
‘Yes, OK, Sal, I did enjoy it, just don’t ever tell my father I went there,’ Bobby said grinning.
Sally looked at her with approval. A girl whose own selfish gratification had always been her first concern, she was strangely enjoying helping Bobby discover the delights of society – and, if she had any say in it, the delights of men too.
Joe and Harry pushed their way through the throng towards the girls and Bobby realised how thirsty she was. She gulped at the drink Harry handed her.
‘Careful, it’ll be your turn to dance on the piano if you keep that up,’ Sally said, laughi
ng.
‘Oh help, no, that’s your party trick, not mine,’ said Bobby, putting her half-empty glass down quickly, feeling she was in a strange land where she did not know the rules.
There were some WAAF girls standing next to them, wearing flat shoes and blue uniforms. They looked with superiority at the two girls in the corner and then whispered amongst themselves.
‘They think you’re socialites,’ Harry whispered. ‘You know, not in uniform so must be too rich to do anything useful in the war.’
Sally looked over towards the little group and nudged Bobby. ‘So, it’s back to delivering Spitfires tomorrow,’ she said loudly. ‘I can’t believe the next course we do will be to fly Manchesters. I bet you boys don’t fly anything that big, do you?’
Harry and Joe played along and shook their heads in wonder. ‘I envy the ATA,’ Joe said helpfully. ‘You get to fly so many different planes and we normally stick to one. You girl pilots are amazing.’
Bobby and Sally watched with a certain smugness as the little group of girls looked first shamefacedly at their drinks and then with undisguised admiration at the two girls in the corner.
The four of them burst into giggles and Bobby looked up at Sally, who was enjoying every minute of their triumph. She had to admire her style and felt like a country hick next to this glamorous woman. Harry offered to buy Bobby another drink and she accepted eagerly, feeling it was perhaps time for her to join this modern world.
Chapter 8
One of the advantages of being in the ATA was a roster which allowed the pilots thirteen days on and two days off. It should have given Bobby the option of travelling home on a regular basis, but she knew she had been avoiding going back to Norfolk. Each time she was due to travel home, she found a new excuse to escape her home’s library-type atmosphere where everyone whispered and tiptoed around the obvious estrangement of the couple at the head of the household and somehow the weeks turned into months. One Friday night in November, 1943, she had finally given in to her aunt’s cajoling and had promised to go home but this time it was the weather that came to her rescue. Bobby arrived at Prestwick in Scotland just as the fog started to engulf the airfield and she grinned, hugging her parachute to herself, feeling her shoulders drop with relief. She could put off making a trip home for a little longer. After a fruitless attempt to find a bed in a WAAF hut, she faced either a rug on a wooden floor or she could venture out of the airfield and find a cheap hotel. Bobby decided to play hooky.
She headed for the hotel closest to the airfield, moving her heavy parachute onto her shoulder. It was a dingy, back street hostelry and she had to turn sideways to get herself and the parachute in through the narrow door. At the far end of a dark corridor was a wooden desk with a large red book open on it. The word ‘Reception’ was written on a piece of card propped up against an alabaster lamp with a tasselled green lampshade, but the lamp was not lit.
‘Hello,’ she called out into the gloom.
A banging noise came from behind the desk.
Bobby peered nervously towards the noise; perhaps this was not such a good idea.
The two-way door from the kitchen swung open and a man wearing a dirty apron and with a chef’s hat falling over one eye, came out.
He looked astonished to find an unaccompanied woman in his hallway. ‘Can I help you?’ he said suspiciously, turning on the lamp to examine her more closely.
‘Ahem, I’m in the Air Transport Auxiliary and I have just flown from the south coast. I need a meal and a bed for the night.’ Her voice started off confidently, but started to waver by the end of the sentence.
‘You on your own?’
‘Um, yes. We always travel on our own. We’re pilots.’
‘And I’m Winston Churchill,’ he snorted in reply.
She pointed to the golden wings on her tunic and stood up straight.
‘Do you have a room, my man, or not? I only came here because it’s the nearest hotel to the airfield. I need to get an aircraft back tomorrow morning.’
Bobby’s knees were beginning to wobble.
He wiped his hands on his stained white apron and moved across to the reception desk, turning the red book towards him and examining its columns.
‘Well, yes, I suppose I do have a room, but just be aware, young lady, we’ll have no shenanigans here. I don’t know exactly what you are, you look smart enough, but you never can tell.’
‘I can assure you I am perfectly respectable,’ Bobby said, bridling with indignation.
‘Hmm, well we’ll see about that, but tea’s at six, it’s vegetable pie tonight and breakfast is at seven. We serve porridge. You pay up front.’
By now, Bobby was thoroughly regretting her impulse.
The man showed Bobby to her room, which made her heart sink more than ever. It was a grim mixture of dark, flowery wallpaper and a deep red candlewick counterpane. There was one dim lamp that would be impossible to read by and the freezing cold bathroom was at the end of a long hallway with a daunting number of doors that could hide murderers and rapists behind them. She almost changed her mind and turned around to get the night train home but, glancing at her watch, realised with a frown that she had missed it.
The man left and, within a few minutes, a knock came at the door and a young girl stood there with a faded towel for the guest.
‘I’m sorry, miss, um sir, um, sorry, I’m not sure what to call you, you look so important,’ she said.
‘Bobby is fine,’ Bobby replied, taking the towel with a smile. She was about to close the door, when the girl stopped her.
‘Oh, I couldn’t call you that,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’m sorry, um . . . but are you really one of them women pilots?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Bobby replied, beginning to feel better.
‘Oh my,’ the girl said, her eyes opening wide. ‘My da had never heard of them, but I have, you fly planes and everything, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Bobby said, relaxing slightly.
‘Well, I never, wait until I tell the girls at the factory about this.’ The girl turned on her heels with a delighted grin and went off down the corridor.
Bobby slowly closed the door and admonished herself. She was so used to being ignored by her family, it had never occurred to her that she was a lone female and, as such, she was supposed to be chaperoned at all times, by a father, a brother or a husband. She was putting herself at risk by behaving as if she would be taken on an equal footing by other men or even, she realised, some women. Her independence had often got her into trouble, but her father’s insouciance had strangely led her to believe she could do anything, go anywhere and be anyone.
Bobby, with all the pragmatism that had shaped her life, settled down on her bed to have a nap. It had been a long day. However, her dozing was soon interrupted by chattering in the corridor.
She listened intently. They were talking about the airfield and it sounded as if they were service personnel.
‘Oh help,’ she thought, ‘how do I explain this to a gang of officers?’
Deciding that brazening it out was the best defence, Bobby brushed her hair and went downstairs for supper. She walked into a room with brown curtains where about six tables were all covered with slightly yellowing tablecloths and bore small vases of dried flowers. The chairs were covered in maroon velvet, but the seats were shiny from years of seated diners. The room smelt of vinegar and was empty apart from one table with three pilots chattering in the corner.
She groaned inwardly. I should have known better, she thought. It’s the nearest hotel to the airfield. How could I have been so stupid?
‘Evening,’ she said with her nose in the air, passing their table.
They looked up in surprise at this stunning, tall woman in uniform.
‘Bobby, Bobby Hollis!’ one of them exclaimed.
Bobby stopped abruptly and looked back, peering at the good-looking one with blond hair in the middle. He looked familiar.
‘Gus? Is it Gus Princ
e?’
‘Yes,’ he said, standing up. ‘What . . . on earth are you . . . er doing here?’ He was immediately struck by the same awkwardness he had been afflicted with as a blushing nine-year-old boy. At school, while all the other girls giggled and vied for Gus’s attention, auburn-haired Roberta Hollis had totally ignored him and to the young Gus, that was irresistible.
Bobby shrugged her shoulders and with the honesty that had impressed him as a young boy at primary school all those years ago said, ‘I’m playing truant.’
The three men burst out laughing.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?’ a tall Scot said, standing up as well.
The introductions were made and another chair was pulled up for her by the waiter who could not decide whether he was impressed by this woman or appalled that a girl should be walking alone into the dining room. He knew his mam would be horrified that women were taking on men’s jobs.
‘So, you’re in the ATA?’ Gus said, looking at the gold wings on her uniform.
‘Yes, I am,’ she replied, waiting for his reaction.
‘That’s just great, I always knew you would do something amazing.’
Basking in praise was a new experience for Bobby and she glowed, not realising the effect her golden red hair and green eyes were having on all three young men in front of her. She looked out of the corner of her eye at the boy she had known from school and appraised him from an adult perspective. Noticing the good-looking features that had so captivated Harriet, she was surprised to feel a slight frisson of interest.
Gus sat back, listening to his friends trying to impress the female pilot in front of them. He felt that old jealousy rising in him. She had been such an oddball at school, always sitting on her own munching an apple at lunchtime. He remembered with shame how he had darted around the playground, trying to casually send the football in her direction, to no avail. She had simply moved her feet without looking up from her book. Used to undisguised attention, it had driven the young boy wild and years later, sat in a dining room in Prestwick, he had a premonition that nothing had changed. Bobby’s tension eased as the men quizzed her about different aircraft, the effect of weather on the wings of the different Hawkers and how ATA pilots’ days were structured. Visibly impressed by her knowledge and the schedules she outlined, they looked with admiration at the girl in front of them. For the next two hours, the four chatted like equals, discussing aeronautics, weather and comparing notes about the uncomfortable conditions of their individual war existences.