by Annie Groves
‘…And I told him straight that there was no way I were putting up with being treated like some cheap tart -’ one of them broke off from saying as Myra walked in. ‘Here on yer own, are yer, duck?’ she asked Myra in a decidedly unfriendly voice.
‘No. I’m here with my date,’ Myra answered her deliberately, letting her know what her own status was.
‘GI, is he?’ the other girl asked, drawing deeply on her cigarette.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you mek sure he treats you right,’ she warned Myra, suddenly becoming almost motherly. ‘They’ve got the money to give a girl a good time, and it does none of us any favours if you don’t mek sure they learn how to spend it. Too many girls are going out with GIs and letting them treat them cheap, if you ask me.’
‘How come he’s brought you down here, though? This ain’t an American bar,’ the gum-chewing one asked.
‘He was meeting a friend.’ Myra kept her answer deliberately vague.
‘Business friend, is he?’
‘Another American,’ Myra answered. She glanced discreetly at her watch. Fifteen minutes, Nick had said, and so far she had been here for just over five.
‘So how long ’ave you been datin’ this GI of yours, then?’ the gum chewer asked, whilst the smoker blew out a cloud of smoke.
‘Not long.’
‘Well, let me warn you that there’s them wot will have it in for you for walking out with him. Found that out yet, ’ave yer? Stuck-up bitches,’ she continued without waiting for Myra to reply. ‘Give me a GI over one of our own lads any day of the week. Mind you, you’ve got ter watch out for some of them. I heard of a girl last week wot got herself knocked up by one of them. Swore blind to her that he was going to marry her and tek her home with him, but then when she tells him she’s having his kid he didn’t want to know. Daft bugger,’ she said scornfully. ‘All she knew about him was that his name was Joe.’
Fourteen minutes…Myra started to head for the door.
She exhaled in relief as she looked across the bar and saw that Nick was on his own.
‘Want another drink?’ he asked her.
She shook her head. ‘Is Tony from the Bronx, like you?’ she asked him curiously. Immediately she knew that she had said the wrong thing.
Nick stiffened and put down his drink. ‘What do you want to know that for?’ he demanded sharply.
‘No reason. I just noticed that he speaks like you do,’ Myra told him truthfully.
‘Tony doesn’t like people asking questions about him, and if I was you I’d forget about ever seeing him.’ Nick looked at his watch, and Myra reflected again that it looked expensive. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back to the base.’
‘But you said you would take me out for dinner,’ she protested.
‘Aw, come on, babe. You don’t want me to get into trouble for getting back late, do you? Look, I’ll make it up to you. How would you like a trip to London?’
‘London?’ Myra stared at him. ‘I’d love it,’ she said truthfully, ‘but we won’t be able to get train tickets.’
‘Sure we will. Leave it all up to me.’ He put his arm around her and squeezed her. ‘We could take in a few sights, have some fun together, and now that you’re my girl…’ He paused meaningfully.
Myra looked at him, weighing up her alternatives. She couldn’t keep him dangling for much longer, without risking losing him and she didn’t want to do that. And, after all, he had publicly acknowledged her as his girl to a fellow American. But even so…
‘Saying I’m your girl’s one thing,’ she told him firmly. ‘Proving it’s another.’
‘Meaning what?’ Nick challenged her, his good humour fading.
‘The best way to show that you’re serious about a girl is to give her a ring,’ Myra informed him, adding pointedly, ‘especially if you’re thinking of taking her away to a hotel.’ She wasn’t going to let herself think about that other ring she ought to be wearing and she certainly wasn’t going to think about the man who had given it to her. She and Jim should never have got married, and Myra, with the mental facility for letting herself see and know only what she wanted to see and know, had convinced herself that they were as good as divorced already. Jim, who had gone back to North Africa now, would come round to her way of thinking. After all, he always had done in the past, hadn’t he?
Ruthie’s back was aching, from bending over her bench filling shells with liquid TNT, which had to be carried from the large mixer that contained the hot TNT, back to the bench in a container shaped something like a watering can. But the pain in her back wasn’t anything like so bad as the pain in her heart.
It was Wednesday now, four whole days since Glen had walked away from her, leaving her standing in the middle of the Close. Not that she could blame him for what he had done. Seeing her mother like that must have shocked him. Ruthie could feel her eyes filming with tears but she dared not lift her hand to her face to wipe them away because of the risk of getting the TNT in them. Normally she quite enjoyed her work, despite the danger and the dreadful smell of the TNT, which filled the air and clung to everyone’s skin and clothes, but today the time just seemed to drag.
Maureen who had borrowed her locker key again and had promised to return it had forgotten it, and as a consequence of that Ruthie had had to leave her going-home clothes tied up in a cloth bag hanging from a coat peg in the cloakroom. With theft rife in the factory, she was already worrying about whether or not her things would be there at the end of her shift. Only yesterday one of the other women had complained that she had had to walk home barefoot twice in one week on account of having had her shoes stolen.
Some of the women had even been talking about setting up their own vigilante group to track down the thieves.
‘That’s daft talk, that is,’ Jess had pronounced earlier during their dinner break. ‘They’ll never find them.’
‘That friend of yours wants to be careful what she says about it being daft to look for them wot’s bin thieving,’ Maureen warned as she returned to the bench with a freshly filled can of TNT. ‘Otherwise folk might start thinking that she’s one of them.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ruthie protested.
‘That’s typical of you – allus sticking up for them new friends you’ve made. Wot’s up wi’ that Jess anyway? Got a face as long as a fiddle today, she has.’
‘I don’t know,’ Ruthie admitted, looking over to where Jess was working, her head bent as she filled the shell in front of her and then deftly inserted the tube that would contain the detonator, before shaking the shell to make sure the TNT was at the correct level, then going on to the next shell. Her movements were so practised and quick and Ruthie acknowledged to herself how much slower she was in comparison. She wondered what it was that was causing Jess to be so quiet and unlike her normally fun-loving self.
As she turned back to her work, out of the corner of her eye, Ruthie noticed one of the women further up the line stick her foot out into the aisle right in the path of another woman, who was returning to her own bench with a freshly filled can of TNT. Ruthie started to call out a warning but it was too late. The woman carrying the TNT tripped and was starting to fall.
The one who had caused her fall called out sharply, ‘’Ere, watch where you’re going, will yer?’ But there was no time for Ruthie to worry about what she had seen. Instead, along with all the other women working nearby, she rushed over to the woman who had fallen.
‘Get out the way,’ the foreman was yelling as he came rushing over, cursing and shouting instructions to the two men following him, whilst Ruthie stared in shocked horror at the woman who had slipped. Her face was covered in the TNT, turning it into a horrific mask, the strong metallic smell of the spilled liquid so strong that it was making them all cough and gag.
‘Get her on that trolley,’ the foreman was instructing the other men, ‘and look sharp about it. Shift out of the way, you lot,’ he told the other girls, as the two with the trolley took the wo
man down to the medical centre.
‘What will happen to her?’ Ruthie asked worriedly.
‘She’ll have to wait for the TNT to set and then they’ll take it off for her,’ Mel, who had left her own work and was peering over Ruthie’s shoulder, answered.
‘She’ll be dreadfully burned,’ Ruthie whispered, still in shock and unable to blot out her mental image of the woman sticking out her foot and deliberately trying to trip her up.
‘It won’t be too bad. She’ll have a red face for a few days, that’s all. And happen it will teach her not to go nicking other folks’ stuff in future,’ Mel added matter-of-factly.
‘There you are, Ruthie. That’s what happens to folk who go stealing,’ Maureen told her when they were both back at their benches, ‘and if you was to ask me then I’d say it serves her right,’ she added. ‘Life’s hard enough without having them as you’re working with nicking yer stuff.’
Ruthie couldn’t bring herself to say anything. No matter what the woman might have done, surely it wasn’t right that she should have been treated so cruelly?
‘Get on with yer,’ Maureen mocked her. ‘Just look at yer, wi’ yer hands all trembling and yer face whiter than that ruddy milk they mek us drink. Anyone’d think you were stealing yerself.’
‘Of course I’m not,’ Ruthie protested.
‘Then don’t go acting so guilty, otherwise folk’ll think that you’re ter blame next time summat goes missing,’ Maureen advised her sharply.
‘But how did they know it was her?’ Ruthie asked.
‘Found some stolen stuff in her locker was what I’d heard,’ Maureen replied with a small shrug.
‘Then surely they should have reported her and not—’
‘Lor’, but you’re a softy at times. What’s the point of doing that? This way she’s bin taught a lesson she won’t forget in a long time, an’ she’ll have to explain to folk how she come by that red face she’s going to have. Now give over trembling like that, will yer, otherwise you’ll be having hot TNT all over yer hands.’
Jess observed the incident of the woman being punished for her crime of stealing without any real interest. Her thoughts were fully occupied with a different kind of crime. The crime against common sense and self-protection committed by Billy.
How could he have done such a daft thing as volunteer for the bomb disposal lot – and he had volunteered, she had now found out, despite him making out to her that he had been forced into it. Everyone knew that the life expectancy of anyone stupid enough to join was measured in days rather than years.
Billy’s reckless lack of regard for his own safety was still filling her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else when she got home.
‘What’s up wi’ you?’ her uncle asked her good-naturedly. ‘You’ve bin in ten minutes and hardly said a word. Not that I’m complaining, like,’ he teased.
‘It’s that Billy Spencer,’ Jess told him angrily. ‘Going and joining up for the bomb disposal lot. He must be off his head. Just because he wants to play the hero for some girl. Well, he’ll be a dead hero, and what use will he be to her then?’ Jess’s voice had risen sharply, and now she put down her knife and fork, her appetite for her tea swamped by her emotions. ‘What does he know about bombs?’ she asked.
‘Well, he was allus tinkering with stuff and taking it to bits when he was a kiddie,’ her mother offered. ‘Happen he’ll be better at it than you think.’
‘He’ll kill himself,’ Jess pronounced starkly, oblivious to the looks her mother and uncle were exchanging as her mouth started to tremble betrayingly.
‘If you feel that strongly about it, lass, happen you’d better go and have a word with him,’ her uncle suggested gently.
‘What for? He won’t listen to me, not when he’s got some girl mooning around after him, telling him what a hero he is. Well, I hope she likes her heroes dead because that’s what she’s going to get if he goes ahead with this.’
‘It may not be as bad as you think, Jess,’ her mother tried to comfort her.
‘How can you say that? The only reason they’re recruiting men is because they’ve lost that many. Liverpool is chock-full of Hitler’s bombs that haven’t exploded. Every time you open the paper there’s talk of someone finding another one. There was those kiddies wot found one down by the railway sidings last week, and the week before that…’ Jess couldn’t go on.
‘Seeing that chap of yours tonight, are you?’ her uncle asked her, trying to lighten the mood.
Irritably Jess shook her head. ‘He’s a soldier, come to fight a war. He’s not been sent here to take me out.’
‘All right, keep your hair on, girl. I was only asking.’
Again her mother and uncle exchanged looks, this time more anxious ones. It was so unlike Jess to be so irritable.
‘Well, if you aren’t seeing him, and seeing as how you’re worrying about young Billy, why don’t you slip down the street and have a word wi’ him?’ her uncle suggested.
‘I’m not worrying about Billy Spencer – why should I be? He means nowt to me.’ Jess stood up, pushing back her chair, her face hot with temper and misery. ‘I’m going upstairs,’ she told them. ‘One of the girls fell and slipped this afternoon, and dropped TNT all over the place. Stank to high heaven, it did, and it’s given me a rotten headache.’
‘All right, love, you go up and I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea later,’ her mother offered her comfortingly.
Did they really think that Billy would listen to her? Angrily Jess climbed the stairs. Of course he wouldn’t. No! He’d rather kill himself trying to show off to some girl he wanted to impress. And to think that there were folk living in Liverpool who said that the GIs were show-offs.
SIXTEEN
Tiredly Ruthie turned into Chestnut Close. After her shift had finished she had gone up to Wavertree to collect their meat rations – not that there had been much left at the butcher’s when she had finally got there. Only a bit of neck end of lamb and some heart. She had been hoping she might be able to get a bit of chicken to tempt her mother’s meagre appetite. She had heard the girls at work talking about the things they had got on the black market, and even though a part of her had been shocked by this, another part of her had envied them, especially when she had heard one of them talking about the meat her brother had got from a friend of a friend who worked down on the docks.
‘Come from one of them American ships, it did. I’ve heard as how the men up at Burtonwood leave enough food on their plates to feed a whole family for a week.’
Ruthie knew that that must be an exaggeration, but she had heard and understood the resentment in the other woman’s voice. Sometimes, like now when she was tired and feeling low, it felt like she had been hungry for ever. And it was no good trying to kid herself that a thin stew made up out of a bit of stringy meat and some vegetables was just as good to eat as a proper roast because it wasn’t. Her father had always enjoyed his Sunday roast. She could see him now, beaming with pride as he sat in his chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up as he prepared to carve the joint. There were delicate slices for her and her mother, and thicker ones for himself, over which he would pour the thick gravy her mother had made to go with the roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Ruthie could feel her mouth starting to water. But it was no good longing for what she knew they couldn’t have. Every extra scrap of food she could get had to go to her mother, who was so frail and in need of nourishment. She herself could always get a meal at the factory, she reminded herself.
One of the girls there had commented only that morning that it made no difference the government bringing in sweet rationing since there were no sweets to be had the length or breadth of the country.
‘Not unless you’re walking out with a Yank,’ another woman had pointed out curtly. ‘They’ve bin handing out chocolate along with nylons and the like to them as doesn’t mind betraying our own brave lads and going out with them.’
‘Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?’ a
nother woman had spoken up angrily. ‘Some of us have no choice who we go out with, because the Yanks are here and our lads aren’t.’
‘All the more reason not to have anything to do wi’ ’em, if you ask me. Come over here, they ’ave, bragging and showing off – aye, and earning five times wot our boys are getting for digging up a few fields to make runways for their ruddy planes whilst our boys are getting killed in ruddy Africa.’
‘Well, it stands to reason that they’re gonna need runways, otherwise how are they going to fight? I’ve heard they’re doing that much work up at Burtonwood you’d think the whole of the ruddy American Air Force was going to be there.’
‘I expect it is,’ another girl had joined in. ‘Leastways from what I’ve heard. Seems like they’re going to be bringing in their men and equipment through Liverpool and that they’ll be based at Burtonwood first off before they get sent to their proper bases.’
‘I’ve heard that they’ve already got some of them big bombers of theirs there,’ someone else had chipped in. ‘Huge ruddy great things, they are, about ten times the size of our Lancasters.’
Glen had told Ruthie all about the huge American bombers they had been preparing the new runways for. She shivered now, thinking about them, admitting how relieved she was that Glen would not be flying in them but would instead be based at Burtonwood as a member of one of the support teams. Not that she should be thinking about Glen. Not now. Her steps slowed as she drew closer to home…
Her mother was over her funny spell now, but there would be others – Ruthie knew that, and she also knew that her mum was having them more frequently. The doctor had told her to try not to worry because there was nothing he could do, but how could she not worry? She loved her mother, of course, but sometime she felt so afraid; so worried about what was happening. And so very, very alone now that she had lost Glen. She may not have known him for very long, but her love for him was as strong as though she had known him all her life. She would never love anyone else. She knew that. And even though he had hurt her so badly she would not have wanted to change things so that she would never have known him. There was such a bitter sweetness in her memories of what they had shared. She would cherish those memories in her heart for ever.