The Grafton Girls

by Annie Groves

  ‘So we’ve seen the vicar, and I’ve shown you both round the church hall. I’m so sorry that Jess couldn’t join us, Walter,’ Ruthie, who was on the other side of Glen, apologised as the three of them left the church to walk back into the city. ‘It’s really kind of you to give up your free time to come to the church with us.’

  ‘That’s no problem, ma’am,’ Walter told her politely.

  ‘Don’t be modest, Walter,’ Ruthie teased him. ‘It was very generous of you, especially when you’d planned to go to London for the weekend.’

  ‘Your and Glen’s wedding is more important. And besides, I’ve got plenty of time to catch the train,’ Walter assured her. ‘It doesn’t leave until gone noon.’

  It had been Glen’s suggestion that they walk Walter back down to Lime Street to catch his train, and then that he should take Ruthie to Lyons’ for something to eat, and Ruthie had been more than happy to agree. It was a real treat for her to eat out, even during these times of rationing and restricted menus. It made her feel so grown up and grand to be able to walk into the city on Glen’s arm, her engagement ring giving that act respectability and acceptability. She had noticed the number of women who glanced at her left hand as they walked past them, just to check, as it were.

  Not, of course, that everyone approved of the Americans or the girls who ‘took up with them’; but Ruthie was too blissfully in love to let anything or anyone spoil her happiness.

  ‘How long do you think it will be before your commanding officer sends for me to interview me?’ she asked Glen as they all crossed the road together, easily dodging the lumbering trams.

  ‘I don’t know. I guess he thinks that making us wait will ensure that we’re serious about one another.’

  ‘But why should he think that we aren’t?’ Ruthie asked him anxiously.

  The two men exchanged looks.

  ‘What is it? Why are you looking like that?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s nothing, Ruthie, I promise. Only that we’ve heard that the army doesn’t want a lot of guys rushing off to get married and then regretting it. It won’t affect us.’

  Myra knew the minute she came out of the ladies’ and saw Nick’s face that something was wrong. He was on his own, the two spivs who had been waiting for him when they arrived obviously having left. He was pacing the worn carpet in front of the empty bar and she paused in mid-step. Something about his pent-up rage reminded her of her own father. He too had clenched his fists like that when he was annoyed. But when someone crossed her dad, it had usually been her mother who had been the one to suffer. Myra swallowed against the sour bile of the memories.

  Herself sitting alone in her narrow bed in the darkness, listening to her mother begging her father not to hurt her, followed by the sound of blows and then her mother’s low moans of pain – or, even worse, those times when there had been no sound at all after the slam of the front door closing behind her father as he stormed out. Then she would tiptoe to the top of the stairs in the darkness and wait there, holding her breath, just in case he came back…listening desperately, wanting to hear the sound that would tell her that her mother was still alive. Only when she was sure her father wouldn’t come back had she gone slowly downstairs, avoiding the stair that creaked, feeling her way in the darkness until she was standing outside the kitchen door. When she pushed it open she knew what she would find. It was always the same: her mother, still curled up in the ball she had rolled herself into to protect herself, the smell of blood and fear filling the kitchen. Once there had been the smell of something else, something sickening and shocking, and that time she remembered she had nearly slipped in the darkness on the blood that had flowed from her mother. Her mother had sent her round for their neighbour that time and then told her to go to her room, but even buried beneath the thin bedclothes, Myra had still heard her mother’s low moans of anguish as she gave birth to the dead child that would have been Myra’s brother.

  Angrily Myra pushed the memories away. Why was she thinking about that now? It had no place in her life, the life she was going to live with Nick, a life that meant fancy diamond rings and staying at the Savoy Hotel, and she was a fool for thinking that just for a moment there had been an expression in Nick’s eyes that made him look like her father. So he had a bit of a temper on him. So what? He had passion, and it was that passion that made him want her so much. And she needed him to want her, if she was to make her dreams come true. Nick was hers. She could control him; she had already proved that, she reassured herself. And after this weekend, after she had let him have a taste of what he wanted – and only a taste, mind – he would be even more mad for her than he was now.

  ‘Come on,’ Nick demanded, jerking his head towards the exit.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Myra asked. ‘Half an hour ago you were on top of the world.’

  Nick removed a pack of Camel cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up for himself without offering her one. Myra’s mouth thinned but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Half an hour ago I hadn’t been messed about by some wise guys who think they know how to play the game better than me. Well, if they think they’re going to double-cross me and get away with it, they’re gonna learn they’re making a big mistake. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  Throwing down the barely smoked cigarette, Nick ground it into the floor with his heel, an expression on his face that made Myra suspect he wished it was the face of whoever had double-crossed him.

  All she cared about, though, right now was them getting on that train. London! It wasn’t New York but it would be a darn sight more exciting and glamorous than Liverpool, surely. She felt on top of the world. Everything was going her way and working out just as she had planned. Nick was hers, and she had the ring to prove it. She looked down at it, happily oblivious to the fact that somewhere in the desert she had a husband who thought that the ring he had given her – a ring given in church and with solemn vows – meant that she was his. Nothing could go wrong now. Jim would come round and see things her way. She would get what she wanted from him; she always had. Nick’s bad mood was just a minor and brief inconvenience. By the time they reached Lime Street, he would have forgotten about whatever it was that had annoyed him. She certainly wasn’t going to let his bad mood spoil her happiness at the weekend and in the future. Everything she wanted was within her grasp now – all of it: America, New York, her longed-for glamorous life as the wife of an American. And not a poor American either, she acknowledged, taking another thrilled look at her ring. Let Diane try to tell her to watch out now, she thought triumphantly, too wrapped up in her own excitement to be aware of the bleakness of the empty bombed-out streets surrounding them as they made their way to Lime Street.

  ‘No, don’t let’s go that way,’ Ruthie objected, hanging back when Glen headed towards the shortcut to the station through an area of bombed-out streets.

  ‘Why not? It’s quicker,’ he pointed out.

  Reluctantly Ruthie gave in, unwilling to explain even to Glen how much she disliked walking down the now-empty streets with their solitary intact houses and the mass of rubble where other homes had once been. There was an air about the place that always upset her, and she couldn’t forget that people had died here, killed by the bombs that had ripped apart their homes.

  The street was empty, and their footsteps echoed on the pavement. As they reached the place where another street cut across their route, a young woman coming along it, who had turned as she rounded the corner, to say something to the GI who was with her, would have collided with Walter if he hadn’t put his hand out to stop her. The young woman looked up. Ruthie, recognising her as Diane’s co-billetee, was about to greet her when, to her shock, the GI with her suddenly took hold of Walter and pushed him back against the wall, growling, ‘Get your hands off my girl.’

  Shocked by the violence that had erupted out of nowhere, Ruthie looked at Myra, expecting to see the same horror mirrored in her eyes but instead Myra merely looked bored.
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  ‘Glen…’ she began, worriedly.

  But Glen was already moving closer to the other two men, attempting to get between them and Ruthie could hear him demanding tersely, ‘Let him go, Mancini.’

  ‘Let him go? Oh, I’ll let him go all right, but not until I’ve taught him a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry. No farm kid comes on to my dame.’ He swore at Walter, before thrusting his knee hard into his groin, causing Walter to grunt and double over with pain. As Walter did so, Nick smashed his fist into Walter’s stomach and then hit him again on the jaw.

  ‘Accuse me of running a fixed crap game, would you, farm kid? Well, here’s what you get for interfering in things that ain’t none of your business.’

  ‘Oh, make him stop. Please make him stop,’ Ruthie begged Myra frantically, tears pouring down her face as she turned towards Walter, who was now crouching down on the pavement, holding his stomach whilst Glen stood protectively in front of him, squaring up to Nick, his own fists raised.

  ‘Want some of what your friend got, do you?’ Nick threatened Glen.

  ‘Come on, Nick,’ Myra demanded, her earlier good mood vanishing. ‘We’ll miss the train,’ she warned him. She had no wish to have her trip to London brought to an end before it had started because Nick had got himself involved in a fight.

  Nick, though, was ignoring her. ‘Get out of my way,’ he told Glen savagely, swinging a hard punch at him.

  Glen staggered back, blood pouring from his nose and his lip cut. Ruthie gave a small cry of distress and left Walter to run to him.

  ‘Come on, Nick,’ Myra demanded impatiently.

  A group of boys had appeared at the top of the street, kicking a football, and one of them called out, ‘Hey look, a fight.’

  Frantically Ruthie tried to stem the blood pouring from Glen’s nose with her handkerchief. Walter was still crouching on the floor behind her, and at first when she heard the sickening crunch she didn’t realise what it was. It was only when Walter gave a thin scream that she turned round and saw to her horrified disbelief that the other GI was kicking him whilst he kneeled there on the ground, unable to defend himself. The GI aimed another kick at him, sending Walter sprawling, his head banging against the kerb as he fell, whilst the GI followed him, still trying to kick him.

  ‘For pity’s sake, make him stop it,’ she screamed frantically to Myra, as Glen pushed past her, throwing himself between the other man and Walter’s now inert body, and received a heavy kick in the groin himself for doing so.

  From further up the street Ruthie heard the sound of running feet and the sharp shrill noise of a whistle. White-faced, she saw with relief that several policemen were running towards them.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ a sergeant, Ruthie recognised, demanded as he reached them.

  ‘Oh, Officer, please…this man needs help,’ Ruthie wept, watching anxiously as two of the policemen hurried to Walter’s side.

  Glen was sitting on the pavement beside him, having just been sick. Worriedly, Ruthie went to his side, trying to offer him what comfort she could.

  The sergeant frowned and looked over to where Nick and Myra were standing together on the pavement.

  ‘Leave the cops to me,’ Nick mouthed warningly to Myra.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, sir,’ Nick announced respectfully. ‘I did try to stop them. But I guess when two guys are determined to have a fight over a woman, especially when one of them has been insulting the other’s girl—’

  ‘Sarge, I reckon we’re going to need an ambulance,’ one of the policemen interrupted. ‘One of these guys is in a pretty bad way.’

  ‘So you and this young lady aren’t with the others then?’ the sergeant asked Nick.

  ‘No, we were just walking down the street minding our own business and talking about our trip to London, weren’t we, hon?’ he asked Myra. He had tucked her arm through his own and now when he smiled at her he gave it a hard squeeze.

  ‘Oh, yes…’

  ‘So what happened exactly? Were they fighting when you saw them?’

  ‘Not fighting, but it looked like they were exchanging some pretty strong words. The younger guy had his hand on the other guy’s girl’s arm and, well, I guess that was what sparked him off. Of course I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t get them to listen. Seems to me there was some kind of vendetta going on between the two of them from the way the older guy was going at it.’

  He broke off to glance at his watch, then said to Myra, ‘Hey, honey, just look at the time. We’re gonna miss that train of ours if we don’t run. You know what, Sergeant? I reckon this is a job for the army’s MPs, if you don’t mind me saying so. They know how to deal with this kind of thing.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Now if you’ll both just give me your names and where you can be found, I can send you on your way.’

  Ruthie hadn’t even realised that Myra and her partner had gone until the sergeant crouched down beside her where she was worriedly dabbing at the blood still pouring from Glen’s nose. His eye was half closed and his split lip was swelling up, whilst poor Walter looked even worse.

  ‘Harry’s run down to the ARP post to tell them to send a runner for an ambulance,’ one of two policemen standing with them told the sergeant.

  ‘Well, you’d better go after him and tell them to alert the American MPs as well,’ the sergeant told him grimly before squatting down beside Glen and saying curtly, ‘Now I appreciate that this young lady is your girl, but that’s no reason to go half killing some lad.’

  Ruthie stared at him, her eyes rounding. ‘No, you’ve got it wrong,’ she protested. ‘It wasn’t my Glen who—’

  ‘Sarge,’ the policeman who was bending over Walter broke in urgently. ‘Come and take a look. I reckon this lad here’s condition is more serious than we thought.’

  PART THREE

  August 1942

  TWENTY-ONE

  Normally she looked forward to her day off, Diane admitted, especially on a sunny Saturday like this, but on this occasion she would have given anything to be at work with the busyness and the other girls’ conversation to act as a deterrent against her thoughts. Even having Myra around would have been preferable to being on her own right now.

  She hadn’t been able to sleep, lying awake instead, thinking about poor Eddie Baker Johnson and his family. Tell the truth, she admonished herself mentally, you weren’t just thinking about Eddie, were you? She looked down the row of vegetables she had offered to weed as a small repayment to Mrs Lawson’s widower neighbour for his kindness in keeping them supplied with freshly grown food, leaning on the hoe he had loaned her, her expression haunted by the events of the previous day.

  It was almost lunchtime and the sun was hot. She lifted her hand to brush a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and to her chagrin felt them fill abruptly with tears. Because a young man she had only met once had died? Because the major had kissed her? Or because she had kissed him back and that knowledge both angered and shamed her?

  So what if, for a few seconds, she had let her guard slip, she told herself crossly as she dug the hoe into the weeds, slicing off their heads with a sense of great satisfaction, as she contemplated destroying her memories of her own unacceptable behaviour with the same thoroughness. But while the hoe might cut the heads off the weeds, their roots were still intact, unseen beneath the surface, waiting to spring into fresh life. What was she trying to tell herself? That a kiss had roots? That just trying to cut off her memory of it wouldn’t stop her from…This was ridiculous. There were no ‘roots’ to what had happened. No history of past longing or future desire. No life outside that single event. It had been a simple error of judgement; a reflex reaction to the dreadful sadness of Eddie’s death. It wasn’t, after all, as though she had never witnessed similar behaviour in others. War did strange things to people. It brought them together in situations they would never have experienced or shared in peacetime; it created an immediacy and an intimacy that led to…to the major kissing her and her kissi
ng him back?

  Forget about it, she told herself angrily.

  If only it were that easy. Her inability to ‘forget about it’ was what had brought her out here so early in the morning, after a broken night’s sleep in the first place, desperate to force herself to do something, anything, that would banish yesterday from her mind for ever.

  It was gone eleven now and her muscles were beginning to ache. She had reached the end of the row, and Mrs Lawson had promised her the luxury of adding Myra’s allocation of hot water to her own, which meant that she could wash her hair and have a bath, and she was certainly ready for both, she thought, as she returned the hoe to the small wooden shed at the end of the allotment and started to make her way back to the house.

  Mrs Lawson was very proud of the fact that her house had its own bathroom; one of their landlady’s biggest fears was that the Germans would bomb Chestnut Close and destroy her precious bathroom.

  Mrs Lawson was just leaving when Diane walked up the front path, explaining that she was going to spend the rest of the day with a cousin.

  ‘Might as well enjoy the sunshine whilst we’ve got it,’ she told Diane, adding, ‘And our Sarah’s got some soft fruit she wants me to help her to pick for jam making.’

  With the house to herself, Diane stripped off her allotment-grubby working trousers and old blouse, putting them on one side to take downstairs to the back scullery where the washing was done either in the stone sink or the old-fashioned copper, if it needed a really hot wash or was too big for the sink.