by Annie Groves
‘I’ve been asked out dancing by some of the girls I’m working with,’ Ruthie told her quickly, not wanting her to feel sorry for her.
‘Well, I’m right pleased about that.’
‘I won’t be able to go, though,’ Ruthie felt bound to point out. ‘Mum wouldn’t understand and she’d fret.’
‘Well, I can go and sit in with her for you, don’t you worry about that. It will give us both a bit of company, what with my Joe going off and doing his ARP stuff.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that, Mrs Brown,’ Ruthie protested.
‘Who said you was? It’s me as is doing the offering, not you doing the asking. And don’t you go telling me that you don’t want to go. Of course you do – any young girl would. And if yer mam was in her right senses she’d be wanting you to go as well. There’s a war on, Ruthie, and you young ones have to have your fun whilst you can, that’s what I say. It’s different for us; we’ve had our lives, but you…’
Ruthie shivered as she heard the sadness in their neighbour’s voice. It was true that she longed to go out and have fun as she saw other girls doing but she felt that it was her duty to take care of her mother now that her father was dead.
As though she had guessed her thoughts, Mrs Brown said gently, ‘It would break your dad’s heart if he could see you and your mam now, Ruthie. Thought the world of you, he did, and the last thing he would want is for you to be tied to your mam like she was the little ’un.’
‘Mum doesn’t understand…about the war,’ Ruthie defended her mother quickly. ‘She thinks if I’m not there that I might not come back like…like Dad.’
‘I know, lass. I’ve heard her crying and calling out when she’s having one of her turns. It’s just as well sometimes that we don’t know what life holds for us. And that’s all the more reason why you should do as I’m telling you. The more you mollycoddle your mam, the worse she’s going to be when you aren’t there. Settles down quite happily wi’ me once I’ve given her a cup of tea wi’ drop of Elsie Fowler’s special home-made elderberry cordial in it. Calms her down no end.’
Ruthie managed to give their neighbour a brief smile, but the last thing she felt like doing was smiling. Was it her imagination or was her mother getting worse? Was she becoming more and more like a small frightened child who could not understand the workings of the adult world? Some days she could be so much like her old self – the self she had been before Ruthie’s father’s death, that Ruthie couldn’t help but feel her hopes lifting that her mother was returning to full normality, but then something would happen, like Ruthie having to do her bit for the war effort, and her mother’s reaction would force her to recognise that her hopes had been in vain.
It was her screaming, sobbing fits of despair that were, for Ruthie, the worst times, when her mother called out again and again for the husband she had lost, like a small child crying for a parent. Ruthie felt so afraid herself sometimes, not just because of the war, but also for the future, after the war. What would become of her mother and herself in that future?
Sometimes Ruthie felt as though that fear was all she was ever going to know of life.
After saying goodbye to Mrs Brown, Ruthie hurried up the front path and unlocked the door. She found her mother sitting in the back parlour, listening to the wireless. The moment she saw her, her mother’s face lit up.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she said.
Immediately Ruthie went over to her and hugged her lovingly. ‘Just let me get my coat off and then I’ll put the kettle on, and then we can settle down and listen to the wireless together,’ she told her.
‘I didn’t know where you’d gone.’
Ruthie’s hands trembled slightly as she filled the kettle when she heard the almost childlike confusion in her mother’s voice.
‘I’ve missed you too, but I had to go to work to help with the war effort,’ she told her gently.
‘Yes,’ her mother agreed. ‘Mary Brown told me. She said I should be proud of you, and I am, Ruthie. I’m very proud of you and I know that your dad would have been as well.’
Only now, hearing her mother refer to her father in the past tense, could Ruthie allow herself to relax a little bit.
‘Mary Brown said that she knew that I’d be pleased that you’d be working with girls of your own age, with there not being many of them living here on the Close. And I am pleased, Ruthie. Pleased and proud.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ Ruthie responded, her voice muffled as she left the kettle to go over to her mother and give her another gentle hug.
SIX
‘Shift’s over, girls, thank goodness. My Bill’s back -walked in this morning just as I was walking out.’ Susan stifled a yawn. ‘Said they’d been waiting out over the other side of Liverpool bar for the pilot boats to bring the convoy in for unloading for nearly five hours, on account of them not letting them into the docks until the early hours just in case the ruddy Luftwaffe takes it in their heads to come over and bomb them.’
‘Has he got a decent leave this time, Susan?’ Jean asked.
‘No such luck. Forty-eight hours, that’s all. He should have had more but he’s got “new orders”.’ She paused significantly. All the girls knew better than to ask what those orders might be. All round Derby House notices were pinned up, as they were everywhere throughout the whole country, warning people ‘Walls Have Ears’ and the like. It was strictly forbidden for there to be talk about troop movements, even between close friends and family. ‘But at least he’s home and we can have some time together. Have you got any plans for the rest of the weekend, Diane?’
Diane was grateful to Susan for going out of her way to be friendly towards her, and encouraging the others girls to do the same.
‘Not really,’ she answered her. ‘I’ve promised to go dancing at the Grafton tonight with my fellow billetee.’
‘Who’s that then?’ Jean asked.
‘Myra Stone, one of the teleprinters. You may not know her.’
‘Everyone knows Myra,’ Jean told her drily. ‘She’s got a bit of a reputation for having a sharp tongue and an even sharper eye for the chaps. You want to be careful about how friendly you get with her, Diane. I don’t want to be a gossip but she isn’t very well thought of around here. Has she told you that she’s married?’
Diane took this as a warning and suppressed a small sigh. She really wished that she hadn’t agreed to go out with Myra. She could only spell bad news.
Thank heavens the summer nights, with their extra daylight-saving hours of light, meant that she could walk to and from work every day without having to worry about the blackout, Diane reflected, as she stepped out of the shadow of Derby House and into the warmth of the early evening sunshine. The natural light and fresh air felt wonderful after being underground for so long. Sometimes some of the girls scared one another by coming up with ghoulish stories of what it would be like if the citadel, as it was sometimes nicknamed, was ever bombed and they were trapped inside. Diane didn’t join in these conversations. She had her own nighttime horrors to haunt her.
She looked up at the clear sky, remembering how, in the late summer of 1940, the September skies over the south of England had been speckled with squadrons of RAF fighters, the sound of racing engines all too quickly interspersed with the stomach-churning rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire as the RAF pilots engaged in fierce battles with the Luftwaffe. It was then, shortly after she had first met Kit, that she had started to have terrible nightmares of a blue sky raining blood and destroyed aircraft. She had witnessed at firsthand the devastation caused by the fierce battle fought overhead in the British skies. Twenty-nine British planes had been lost – a terrible toll of young lives, but nowhere near so terrible as the sixty-one planes lost by the Germans. Diane had seen things then she never wanted to see again: the shattered bodies and white lifeless faces of the young men who only hours before she had seen alive and well, familiar to her and yet horribly unfamiliar in their death. When she had confided her bad d
reams to a friend, her friend had told her that nearly every woman who worked at the airfield in a supporting role had her own version of the same kind of nightmare.
In the end the RAF had won the battle for England’s skies. Diane knew that the reason that Susan’s young brother had been made up to flight lieutenant was probably because of the number of men that had been lost. Kit had been made up to squadron leader in the space of a few short months that summer. She had been so proud of him, but he had told her bitterly that his promotion had come at the cost of the lives of his friends and comrades.
‘Diane, do you mind if I have a word with you?’
Diane swung round at the sound of Susan’s voice, glad to be brought out of her sombre reverie.
‘Of course not.’
‘I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but if I were you I really wouldn’t get too involved with Myra Stone. It’s bad enough that she behaves as though she isn’t married, but there was a bit of an incident a while back; a silly young newly married chap who fell for her hook, line and sinker. She’d encouraged him, of course, but his poor little wife was heartbroken. The chap was transferred, and Myra got a ticking-off, but these things leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and as a result the other girls have tended to give her a bit of a cold shoulder. I appreciate you’re in a bit of a difficult position with the two of you sharing a billet, but I thought I ought to let you know the way things are. For your own sake you might want to consider not getting too pally with her.’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ Diane hesitated. ‘I appreciate you telling me. The problem is that I’ve already agreed to go dancing with her tonight, but if she were to suggest it again…’
‘There’s nothing you can do about tonight now, I agree, but it’s something to bear in mind next time. We’re a close-knit bunch in the Dungeon, working as closely as we do, and I don’t want members of my team being at odds with one another. You see the thing is, that silly young fool I was telling you about, well, he was Jean’s cousin and his wife was her best friend. Jean asked Myra to back off, but she just laughed at her. Anyway, I’d better get on. Bill will be wondering where I am.’
She could now understand why Myra wasn’t popular with the other girls, Diane acknowledged as she walked up Edge Hill Road. After tonight she would have to put as much distance between them as she could, otherwise the other girls were going to think she and Myra were two of a kind.
Mrs Lawson was just coming out of the front door as Diane walked up the front path.
‘I’m off to my WVS meeting so I’ve left you a bit of summat keeping warm on top of the oven. Oh, a couple of letters came for you. I’ve left them on the hall stand.’
‘Did Myra mention to you that we’re going out tonight?’ Diane asked after she had thanked her.
‘Yes.’ Mrs Lawson’s mouth pursed disapprovingly. ‘Going dancing, she said you was. It don’t seem right to me, not with her married, but she said as how she felt she ought on account of you asking her and you being on your own.’
The sly cat! Diane reflected grimly as she stepped into the hall, picking up her letters from the oak hall stand as she did so. One was from her parents. She recognised her mother’s handwriting immediately. The other was from Beryl, a girl who had been one of her closest friends at her previous posting. She had written her name on the back of her envelope.
Pushing wide the kitchen door, Diane started to open her mother’s letter, wrinkling her nose at the smell of boiled cabbage emanating from the stove.
‘There you are. We’ve got to be ready to go out at seven, you know, otherwise we won’t get a table. I reckon you won’t get much of a hot bath. Mrs L must have turned off the geyser, mean old bat.’
Diane didn’t bother looking up from her letter. If she did have to have a cold bath it would probably be because Myra had used all the hot water, she suspected. Her mother’s letter was cheery and loving, wanting to know how she was settling in and when she thought she would have enough leave to come home for a visit. The notepaper was scented with her mother’s favourite rosewater scent, and Diane felt a wave of nostalgia sweep over her. How much simpler and safer her life had seemed when she had been a young girl still living at home.
‘Gawd, I’m not staying down here. What’s that stink?’ Myra complained.
‘My tea, I expect,’ Diane answered, refolding her mother’s letter and putting it in her bag before she opened her friend’s.
‘Can’t you leave that until tomorrow?’ Myra said irritably. ‘You’re going to have to rush as it is, unless you’re planning on going out in uniform.’
‘No…I’m not…I’m on my way,’ Diane assured her.
Beryl had written that she was missing her, but that she understood why she had felt she had to go.
‘To be honest, I think you’ve done the right thing. I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but you might as well know the truth.’ Diane gripped the letter tightly. Her stomach had started to churn in anticipation of a blow to come.
Kit isn’t the man I thought he was, Di, dropping you to go chasing after one girl after another, and getting them and himself talked about by keeping them out late, driving them all over the countryside. You’re better off without him and that’s a fact. I’ve heard that he never dates the same girl twice and it’s been all over the camp that, last weekend, he was found rip-roaring drunk in a country pub with a girl he’d picked up from somewhere. The landlord threw them out and threatened to call the police, and it was only because of his pals that Kit managed to get back to camp safely. Seems that someone asked him about you and where you were and he said he neither knew nor cared, and that he wanted to have some fun with the kind of girls who knew what fun was. He’s getting himself a reputation for being a real party man, if you know what I mean. You were right to give yourself a fresh start.
Diane closed her fist over the letter, crumpling it up, willing herself not to give way to her emotions in front of Myra. So Kit didn’t care about her, did he? Well, she already knew that and she certainly didn’t care about him. And when it came to having fun, they would see which of them could do the most of that, she decided fiercely, as she headed for the stairs.
SEVEN
‘Do you think I’ll be all right going dancing like this, Mrs Brown, only I haven’t got anything else?’ Ruthie asked uncertainly as she stood in the kitchen waiting for her next-door neighbour’s verdict. Her mother was in the parlour listening to the wireless, lost in the world to which she had retreated. Ruthie did not know which she dreaded the most: her mother’s blank silences when she hardly seemed to know her, or her tearful clinging pleas not to leave her.
‘I don’t look right, do I?’ she guessed as she saw the uncertainty in the older woman’s face as she studied her heavy shoes and ankle socks teamed with the only pretty dress she had, a school-girlish pink gingham cotton with white collar and cuffs.
‘Well, you look very nice, love, but p’raps more like you was going to Sunday school than a dance. But there,’ she continued hastily when she saw Ruthie’s face fall, ‘I’m sure it doesn’t matter what you wear. They go in all sorts these days, so I’ve heard – uniforms an’ all. You just go and enjoy yourself.’
Ruthie was the last to reach the Grafton, anxiously hurrying down the queue waiting for the doors to open, when a hand suddenly came out and grabbed hold of her.
‘Oh!’ she exhaled in relief when she realised it belonged to Jess.
‘Where’ve you bin?’ Jess scolded her good-naturedly. ‘We was just beginning to think you wasn’t coming.’
‘Well, whatever she was doing, it wasn’t worrying about what to wear,’ one of the other girls quipped quietly, causing a ripple of laughter to run through those near enough in the queue to hear her. ‘Did you tell her it was fancy dress or summat, Jess?’
‘Don’t take any notice of them,’ Jess comforted Ruthie. ‘They don’t mean any harm. You’re frock’s a pretty colour. Suits you, it does.’
‘I didn’t know wha
t to wear. I haven’t got…’ Tears filled Ruthie’s eyes.
‘There now, don’t go getting yourself all upset. Your frock isn’t that bad, and if you had a different pair of shoes and took off them ankle socks and put a bit of rouge and lipstick on…’
‘And took them slides out of her hair and undid that plait and tried to look like she were eighteen and not fourteen. They’ll never let her in looking like that, Jess,’ Mel warned sharply.
‘Of course they will. If she’s old enough to be working on munitions then I’m bloody sure she’s old enough to go dancing,’ Jess defended Ruthie stoutly, adding, ‘Here, Polly, you always bring a spare pair of shoes wi’ you. Hand ’em over here, and let’s see if they fit Ruthie.’
‘I’m not giving her me best heels,’ a pretty blonde girl with large blue eyes protested sulkily.
‘Well, give me them you’re wearing now and you put the heels on,’ was Jess’s response, and somehow or other, Ruthie found herself persuaded out of her lace-ups and ankle socks and into a pair of scuffed white sandals.
‘Now for your hair. Lucy, you’re a dab hand with a comb. Come and see what you can do,’ Jess commanded.
There was no use her objecting, Ruthie could see that; a crowd of young women had gathered round her giggling as they enthusiastically offered their advice.
‘Anyone got any scissors?’ Lucy called out. ‘Only if I’m to do a decent job, I’m going to have to cut her hair.’
‘I’ve got a pair,’ someone called up. ‘Allus tek ’em wi’ me when I go out just in case some chap tries to get too fresh.’
‘Go on with yer,’ another girl laughed. ‘What yer going to do wi’ ’em – cut it off?’
Ruthie could feel her face getting redder and redder from a combination of trepidation and embarrassment.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jess assured her, giving her hand a small squeeze. ‘My, but I bet you never thought this’d be happening to you when you decided to go working on munitions,’ she laughed. ‘You’d have run a mile if you had, wouldn’t you? How come you’re still going out dressed like a Sunday school kid, anyway, Ruthie?’