by Annie Groves
‘I’m just on my way back from the allotments,’ Ruthie told her. ‘Mr Talbot from number eight looks after Dad’s allotment now and he always makes sure that me and mum get plenty of fresh veg, so I’ve just been down to thank him.’
‘You and Jess and the others work on munitions, Jess was saying,’ Diane prompted as they fell into step.
‘Yes. We all have to do our bit for the war effort, don’t we?’
‘You didn’t fancy joining up and wearing a uniform, then? Not that it’s any of my business, of course.’
‘I did think of it,’ Ruthie admitted wistfully, ‘but I didn’t feel I could leave Mum. I’m all she’s got now…’ The happiness had disappeared from her face, leaving her looking uncomfortable and tense.
Remembering what Mrs Lawson had said about Ruthie’s mother’s mental condition, Diane didn’t pursue the matter, saying lightly instead, ‘Well, I think it takes a very brave person to work in munitions.’
‘I was really frightened at first,’ Ruthie admitted. ‘But Jess says that you just have to make sure that you do things properly.’ She gave a small soft sigh. ‘I didn’t want last night to end. I didn’t even want to dance at first. I was afraid that I’d fall over my own feet, but Glen just made it all seem so easy, even jitterbugging.’
Poor little Ruthie, Diane reflected wryly, she had got it bad and was totally infatuated with her GI already, by the sound of it. Her heart was bound to be broken, just like hers had been. That was what war was all about for their sex, wasn’t it? Love and death. Both of them equally painful. She certainly never wanted to love again, but nor, Diane realised, did she want to be another Myra, and filled with bitterness. What was there, though, for woman like her, who had loved and lost and who carried their own wounds of war deep inside themselves?
‘I’d better go in, I don’t like to leave Mother for too long.’
Diane had been so deeply involved with her own bleak thoughts that she hadn’t realised they had reached Ruthie’s house. They said goodbye, and Diane made her way slowly back to her billet, vowing to stop thinking about her broken heart. At least working helped to keep her most private thoughts and emotions at bay.
Myra had dressed as carefully for her afternoon out as though she had actually been meeting Nick rather than having no one’s company other than her own. Her white silk dress, with its scattering of rich scarlet poppies, might have been bought second-hand, but it still clung seductively to her curves, whilst her hat, with its matching trim, was tilted at exactly the right angle to draw attention to her mouth, painted with her precious red lipstick. She was perfectly well aware of the looks she was attracting as she walked towards Lyons’ Corner House, even if she was behaving as though she wasn’t. The café was very busy, filled with men in uniform and the women they were escorting. Half a dozen or so people were standing outside the door. They could have been queuing but Myra decided to take the view that they were simply thinking about whether or not to do so, dodging past them and going inside. A couple of nippies were busy resetting recently vacated tables. One of them, set up for four people, was in full view of the door, and Myra headed for it.
‘’Ere, you can’t sit there,’ the indignant nippy told Myra. ‘This here is a table for four.’
‘I’m going to be joined by some friends,’ Myra told her determinedly, sitting down. If Nick should decide to come in on the off chance that he might find her here – and she was saying ‘if, mind, and not that he would – then it made sense for her to be seated somewhere where he could see her.
‘I’ll have a pot of tea, please, and look sharp about it,’ she told the nippy.
The girl glowered at her, obviously not believing her claim to be waiting for friends, but unable to challenge her over it. The two couples who she had walked past were also now inside the café and looking crossly at her, but Myra didn’t care. She opened her handbag and removed the copy of Picture Post she had brought with her. Then she carefully crossed her legs and posed herself so that she was on view to anyone coming in through the door, before pretending to be engrossed in reading it.
‘I thought you said you was meeting friends, only we’ve got people waiting for these tables.’
Myra lifted her gaze from her Picture Post and blew out a cloud of smoke, narrowing her eyes as she looked at the nippy.
‘My, you’re sharp, aren’t you?’ she told her. ‘You’d better be careful you don’t cut yourself. My friends have obviously been delayed. You’d better bring me another pot of tea.’
From behind her magazine, Myra watched as the girl made her way determinedly towards a supervisor, saying something to her that made her look over in Myra’s direction. She didn’t care what they said, she wasn’t going to move.
‘Waiting for anyone special?’
Myra nearly dropped her cigarette.
Nick. How had he managed to creep up on her without her seeing him?
‘Not really,’ she managed to answer. ‘I just came in for a cup of tea. What about you? What brings you here?’ she asked, striving to appear only casually interested.
‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ he told her softly, pulling out one of the chairs and dropping into it, leaning towards her, his long legs stretched out in front of him. ‘I’ve been thinking about you. You have a hell of a way of keeping a guy from his sleep at night, making him think thoughts he shouldn’t be having, do you know that?’
The nippy was returning with her tea. It gave Myra a great deal of satisfaction to see the look on her face when she saw Nick.
‘Bring another cup, will you?’ Myra directed her coolly.
‘I thought you said you was expecting three friends,’ the nippy returned sharply.
‘Hey, you should have said that you were expecting friends to join you.’ Nick made to stand up.
‘No. I mean…I was, but they must have changed their minds.’ Myra told him. Damn the wretched waitress and her big mouth.
‘It’s a bit of luck me running into you like this,’ Nick said when he had sat back into his chair. ‘A few of the guys have been thinking of driving over to Blackpool next Saturday. They say the Tower Ballroom there is a good place for dancing. How about coming along with us?’
‘Well, they do say that there’s safety in numbers,’ Myra acknowledged. ‘Will these other guys be inviting girls to go along as well?’ Officially she wasn’t off duty on Saturday night but she would wangle the evening off by persuading one of the other girls to change duties with her. The chance to spend an evening at the Tower Ballroom alone was worth parting with a couple of pairs of the nylons she had had from Al, never mind going there with Nick. Not that she had any intention of letting Nick himself see how much his invitation had thrilled her.
‘Sure they will,’ he said easily. ‘We’ll make up a party, guys and their girls. We’ll organise the transport – pick you up outside Lime Street Station. What do you say?’
‘I suppose it will be a change from the Grafton,’ Myra answered with a small careless shrug.
The overofficious nippy was still hovering, and the look she gave Myra as she stood up to leave was only just short of open contempt.
‘Pity it’s not dark yet,’ Nick murmured to Myra as they left, ‘otherwise I’d offer to walk you home.’
‘Who says I’d let you?’ Myra countered. Pure excitement was running hotly through her veins, so hotly that she felt also dizzy.
‘Oh, I’d find a way of making sure that you let me, sweet stuff,’ Nick promised.
‘Hey, Mancini, get a move on.’
‘Sorry, sugar, but I’ve got to go.’ Nick held up his arm in acknowledgement of the shouted command from the sergeant standing beside the waiting Jeep. ‘Otherwise Sergeant Polanski is gonna shoot me out of tonight’s crap game.’ Before Myra could stop him, he leaned down and kissed her hard and purposefully full on the mouth. Myra could hear the roar of approval from his waiting comrades.
‘Outside the station, say five o’clock next Saturday afterno
on,’ Nick told her as he stepped back and then strolled arrogantly towards the Jeep.
At last she had found a man who was a real man, Myra acknowledged; an American man; a man who could give her the kind of life she wanted.
The city centre was busy with people coming and going, and groups of men in American uniform passing the time whilst they waited for their transport back to their base at Burtonwood, watching the girls who walked past them. The Americans, with their immaculate uniforms and their pockets full of money, had brought a buzz of energy and excitement to the grim bleakness of the war-ravaged city. It was no wonder that women were drawn to them, Myra decided, eyeing the dull uniforms and war-weary pallor of a small group of British Army men with disdain. They looked shabbier and smaller than the Americans, bitterness in the looks they were directing towards the smartly dressed GIs, who were laughing and joking as they flirted with the girls whilst the British were ignored. Too bad, Myra decided unsympathetically, turning her own back on the men as she crossed the street, her mind full of plans to ensure that she would be able to get the coming Saturday evening off.
‘Well, if it isn’t the street’s prettiest girl. Now there’s a welcome sight for a poor weary soldier to feast his eyes on.’
‘That’s enough of your nonsense, Billy Spencer,’ Jess half scolded the tall, dark-haired man who had caught up with her as she walked home.
Billy was five years her senior and Jess had known him all her life. His family had lived in the street as long as her own. Now she eyed him critically, firmly refusing to be impressed by the breadth of his shoulders or the handsome face beneath the thick shiny hair that any girl would have killed for. It was no good her rebellious heart complaining because she wasn’t going to allow it to moon over Billy. He had more than enough girls soft on him without her joining the queue. The truth was that Billy was a heartbreaker, and that teasing smile of his, like those twinkling blue eyes, had coaxed many a girl into giving him her heart – and more than her heart, if the gossip Jess had heard was anything to go by.
The very fact that he continued to flirt with her even though he knew she was aware of the tricks he got up to only went to prove just what a fool she would be even to think about letting down her guard around him.
‘Fancy taking pity on a poor soldier who’s only got twenty-four hours’ leave before he has to go back and risk getting himself killed for his country?’ he asked her.
Jess gave him a derisive look. ‘Risk getting yourself killed? That’s a good one. Your regiment’s on home duties,’ Jess reminded him.
‘It’s very dangerous, keeping an eye on them barrage balloons,’ he told her, straight-faced. ‘Anything could happen, what with you girls being that desperate to get your hands on a bit of silk to make yourselves a few pairs of new drawers.’
‘Oh, trust you to come up with something smutty like that, Billy Spencer,’ Jess replied scornfully.
‘Come on, you know you like me really,’ he coaxed her, giving her a broad wink. ‘I bet you go to bed every night hoping that I’m going to ask you out.’
‘What? I’ll have you know I do no such thing. I’d have to be out of me wits to go fancying someone like you,’ she told him wrathfully. But she was all too uncomfortably aware of the way her heart was beating far too fast and of the betraying colour that was slowly seeping up under her skin, despite her attempts to control it. Determined not to let him get the better of her, she fanned herself vigorously with her hand and complained, ‘It’s too hot to stand out here listening to you talk a load of rubbish.’
‘Rubbish?’ He gave her a mock injured look. ‘I’ll have you know them was me best girl-catching lines.’
‘Don’t give me that. I’ve heard about how you’ve bin boasting you had a different girl for every day of the week.’
‘Ah, but that’s only because you won’t be my girl, Carrot Top.’
Jess flashed him an indignant look.
‘Say the word and I’ll pack them all in and be true to you and no one else. I can see us now. Number eighty-one’s empty, right next to your Auntie Jane. We could be married and moved in there in next to no time. Allus on at me to settle down, my mam is. Mind you, I don’t know as she’ll be too keen on gingernut grandkids.’
‘Me and you married?’ Jess had to steel herself against the shaky feeling in her stomach. ‘As if!’
‘Why not?’
Suddenly he wasn’t smiling any more and there was a look in his eyes as he stepped closer to her that made Jess feel far too vulnerable.
‘Because…’ feverishly she hunted round for something to say that would bring this dangerous conversation to an end, and quickly, ‘…because I’m already seeing someone else, that’s why not,’ she told him triumphantly.
‘Someone else? You mean you’re walking out wi’ someone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
Who? Jess thought frantically. She’d got herself in a fine mess now, and it was all Billy’s fault, tormenting her like he had, but she wasn’t going to back down now and let him win.
‘You don’t know him,’ she told him airily. ‘He’s an American.’
‘A GI? You’re going out with a GI?’ Billy looked very different without a smile on his face. ‘I thought better of you than that.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Work it out for yourself, Jess. An ordinary decent British soldier isn’t good enough for you. You’d rather have a GI, who throws his money around and boasts about how he can have his pick of the girls just by offering them a few pairs of stockings. Well, good luck to him. Personally, I’d rather have a girl who thinks a bit more of herself than to give her favours away so cheaply.’
He was turning away before Jess could retaliate, leaving her to shout down the street after him, ‘Well, Walter isn’t like that. He’s a gentleman…and…he’d never say anything to a girl about her drawers.
‘Oh, blast you, Billy Spencer,’ she muttered angrily under her breath as he continued to walk away from her without turning round.
NINE
‘Group Captain wants to see you. She said you were to report to her the moment you came on duty.’
Diane tried not to look as worried as she felt as Susan delivered the message in a clipped and very cool voice. Even so, she couldn’t help asking anxiously, ‘Did she say what it was about?’
‘No, but I doubt there’s many people working in the Dungeon who haven’t heard about Saturday night.’
Diane could feel her face burning.
‘I must say that you fooled me. I didn’t have you down as that type at all.’
‘I’m not,’ Diane protested. ‘Someone must have put something in my drink.’
Susan’s eyebrows rose.
‘It’s the truth,’ Diane persisted.
‘Well, you’d better hope that Group Captain Barker believes you, and if I were you I wouldn’t keep her waiting.’
‘No. I’d better cut along now,’ Diane agreed.
Her heart was thumping as she walked down the corridor that led to the Group Captain’s office. Thank heavens she had taken the time to polish her shoes last night and iron her tie. She knocked briefly on the door and then smoothed her hands nervously over her skirt as she waited for permission to enter.
‘Ah, Wilson.’ Group Captain Barker’s voice was as cool as Susan’s had been. She didn’t invite Diane to sit down, or even to stand at ease, and Diane was acutely aware of the warrant officer standing beside the captain.
‘Stand up straight when the captain speaks to you,’ the warrant officer bawled out, ‘and straighten that tie.’
‘You will be aware, I am sure, of the reason you are here,’ Group Captain Barker began coldly.
Willing her voice not to betray her, Diane said quietly, ‘If it’s about what happened at the Grafton on Saturday night, ma’am…’
Group Captain Barker reached for her glasses and put them on before looking down at her desk.
‘On S
aturday night you visited a dance hall where you were seen in the company of several American soldiers. Certain insulting remarks were made about our own servicemen, and you, it seems, were so drunk that you were unable to stand up properly. Furthermore, you accosted an RAF officer whilst he was dancing with his wife, and…’
Listening to the allegations read out by Group Captain Barker, Diane bit down so hard on her bottom lip that she could taste blood. She was desperate to put her side of the story and defend herself but at the same time she was very aware of Warrant Officer Whiteley’s coldly disapproving presence and her own training, so instead of rushing impetuously in she managed to request formally, ‘Permission to speak, please, Ma’am.’
‘And your behaviour was such as to bring discredit not just on yourself but on the uniform you wear,’ the captain continued, ignoring her request.
Diane was nearly in tears. Nothing, not even losing Kit, had reduced her to such shamed misery.
‘So,’ Group Captain Barker demanded, ‘what have you to say for yourself?’
Diane took a deep breath and prayed that she would remain calm enough to tell her side of things properly.
‘I was drinking shandy, that’s all. I believe that something stronger must have been added to my drink without my knowledge. I know that doesn’t excuse my behaviour. I should have been on my guard and realised—’
‘Indeed you should. If spirits of some sort had been added to your drink surely you should have noticed this?’
Under normal circumstances Diane knew that she was right, but Myra had practically forced her to empty her glass at speed so that she hadn’t had a chance to taste it properly.
However, an unwritten code she refused to break made it impossible for her to involve Myra in the trouble she was now in.
‘I was hot…I assumed it was shandy in the glass and I drank it so quickly that by the time I realised it was too late…’
‘You do realise how serious an issue this is, don’t you?’ the lieutenant demanded harshly. ‘We are very proud of the good name the WAAF has here. Things may have been different at your previous posting.’