Ruby's War

by Johanna Winard

  Next, they played ‘I spy’, ate the cakes and drank the cordial. Then the girls played with Lou’s make-up, and Arthur tried to do jumps and cartwheels on the bed, but he wasn’t much good at it. When the girls spilt Lou’s face powder on the dressing table, Ruby made them stop, and Shirley, the eldest one, began to stamp her feet and threaten to cry. To avoid trouble with the adults, she let them have turns bouncing on the bed until they felt sick and wanted their mother. Arthur volunteered to take them downstairs, and Ruby hoped that now the youngsters were back with their parents she and Arthur could join the party.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked, when he came back. ‘It’s turnip wine.’

  ‘Why can’t we go back down now the kids have gone?’

  ‘It’s always the same,’ he said, settling himself on the floor by Lou’s bed. ‘We’ve lots of parties at our house, and I’m always sent upstairs.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a kid,’ Ruby said, smoothing down her dress. ‘I’m fifteen and I’m working.’

  Arthur pulled the cork out of the bottle and poured the pale yellow liquid into their cordial glasses.

  ‘Have you ever tasted wine?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a cigarette as well.’

  The wine smelt of rotting vegetables and tasted sour.

  ‘That’s quite good,’ he said, sucking in his fat cheeks. Then he lit the cigarette and handed it to Ruby. ‘You can have the first puff,’ he said.

  Ruby took the cigarette and lifted her chin as she’d seen Mrs Grey do. The burning sensation was a shock. When she’d watched Mrs Grey breathing in the smoke from her thin, black cigarette holder, she’d imagined that it would feel smooth and cool in her mouth. She fought the desire to cough and her eyes began to water. Arthur took the cigarette back and inhaled between sips of wine.

  ‘I don’t work. I’m at the grammar school,’ he said. ‘I’ve done war work, though. We did the names on the ration books. I could have done yours. We got the job because we can write neatly, you see.’

  ‘We filled sandbags,’ Ruby said, ‘where I lived before. We filled hundreds of them.’

  ‘When I leave school, I’m going in the Merchant Navy. I’m going to sail from Liverpool to Canada. It’s dangerous work. Air cover can only reach so far, and then you’re on your own. You always know if you’re in for it; if it’s a good swell and a clear night with a full moon, then Jerry can spot you. A Royal Navy escort,’ he said, placing a line of biscuits in a defensive formation on the lino, ‘is there to pick up men from sunken ships, but it’s still dangerous. Forty ships sunk every month in the Atlantic, they say.’

  ‘Is that what Frank does, on the merchant ships that go to Canada?’

  ‘Mmm, they carry wood and metal mostly.’

  ‘He must be brave. Poor Lou …’

  Ruby was watching the biscuits sailing bravely over the lino when Arthur suddenly bent forward and kissed her on the lips. She yelled and slapped his face, her hand jarring against the side of his head, and the sound echoed above the dance music. Arthur bent forward holding his cheek.

  ‘Bugger off,’ Ruby said, jumping to her feet and scattering the biscuits.

  ‘What’s the matter? You shared my cigarette,’ Arthur said, almost in tears.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Well, our lips have touched. My lips have been where yours have on the paper. So that’s like a kiss.’

  Ruby was about to lift her hand again, when Lou appeared at the bedroom door.

  ‘You two all right up here?’ she asked. ‘Come and help me get my case down will you, young Arthur? Mr Watts has arrived in the doctor’s car to take us to the station. Why don’t you both come down and see us off? We’ll be going in a minute.’

  When they went downstairs, Arthur’s mother and father were waiting.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ his mother said, dabbing a tear from her eye. ‘I hope you don’t mind us sending for our Arthur to come down, Ruby. I wanted him to be with us to wave his brother off. He said you wanted to stay up there and play, but I didn’t think you’d mind.’

  Doctor Grey’s car, trimmed with bandages tied into bows, and with ‘Just married’ written in pink letters on a card in the back window, was waiting by the front door.

  ‘Thanks for looking after Arthur, Ruby,’ Frank said, as they waved the couple off. ‘You’re such a good girl.’

  ‘If anyone wants to complain about the improper use of petrol,’ Dick Watts called through the open car window, ‘you can tell them, I happen to be on my way to the junction to collect vital medical supplies for the doctor.’

  As the car drove away, everyone in the street came out of their houses to cheer and wave. Once the car had gone, all the neighbours and their children joined the party. Sadie organised party games for everybody and Ruby, Arthur, Frank’s nieces and all the neighbours’ children were allowed to join in. After a few games of ‘pass the parcel’ and ‘musical chairs’, Ruby was bored and she went to sit at the piano with Johnny Fin.

  ‘Do you want to play for the next game?’ he asked. ‘I need to get another drink.’

  Ruby played for another couple of games of ‘musical chairs’ and then everyone had a break for more food and drinks.

  ‘I’ll take over, if you like,’ Johnny said, lining up bottles of stout on top of the piano. ‘Young Arthur looks a bit left out. Look, he’s sitting over there on his own. I’ll play a couple of tunes, and you can go and dance with him.’

  ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll play instead.’

  ‘Or we could both join the party. Look, young Con’s on his own. I’ve found an old bloke who knows all about that motorbike him and Michael are talking about repairing and I want to have a chat … arrange for them to meet. I can get Wes to play for a bit.’

  ‘No. I’d rather stay here. Where’s Granddad?’

  ‘He’s over there with Jenny.’

  Granddad was holding on to a chair with one hand and on to Jenny with the other; they reminded her of a picture of Jack Sprat and his wife in a nursery rhyme book.

  ‘Is he all right?’ she asked, shuffling through the music to find a different song to play.

  ‘Well, he’s had a few,’ Johnny said. ‘No doubt he’ll suffer for it in the morning. We all will.’

  ‘No. I mean is he ill?’

  ‘Well, the gas hurt his lungs, you know that. But Jenny sees to it that he eats well.’

  ‘The other night there were some frozen shirts on the line, and he turned white when he saw them. We were making them dance for a joke … He wouldn’t say what was the matter.’

  ‘I don’t know, love. We never talk about … Well, it doesn’t do … Don’t worry, pet. It’s nothing you did. Now, come on, what about you and me havin’ a dance? Let’s get young Wes over here to play for a while.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The rain tapped on the sides of the hut. The thirty or so men who had crowded inside perched on the beds, smoking and chatting amiably. It was so cold that Bo could see his own breath.

  ‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Mayfield might be joining us. I guess all you guys will have seen him by now.’

  The men around him shifted, and he noticed one or two of the younger ones looking nervously towards the door.

  ‘Any of you men got a problem with that?’ he asked.

  ‘Some of the guys think he might be listening for … well, for the captain,’ Wes said, searching the faces of the men around him for their agreement.

  ‘If he comes, what’s he going to report?’ Bo asked, as Holt began handing out copies of the Michigan Chronicle to the guys near the front of the group. ‘We’re only swapping newspapers and discussing things that concern us.’

  Around the crowded hut, there were murmurs of agreement. Bo hadn’t planned to organise meetings; they had begun as a way of passing around newspapers. Then he’d discovered that many of the men from the South found reading hard, so he began reading out articles. Gradually more of the men had taken to bringing thing
s they’d read; so now, as well as swapping papers, a lot of the guys stayed to smoke, to talk and to listen. Sometimes there was a discussion about what they’d read, and other times it was just one of the guys who’d heard something and wanted to tell the others about it. Over the weeks, Bo had watched the faces of the men as they listened and he began to learn how to draw out the points from their conversations, so that everybody got to have their say.

  ‘Then let’s say something does get back,’ Holt said. ‘What they gonna do? It’s not political.’

  ‘Could be,’ one of the southerners from the choir said. ‘Officers won’t be too happy if they hear about it.’

  Bo knew that the guy who’d spoken up struggled with reading and he didn’t want to knock his objection down. Now they’d got some confidence many of the southerners, who’d felt themselves at a disadvantage because of their poor education, would ask for points to be clarified and added their own experiences to the debate, knowing that he wouldn’t allow them to be made fools of.

  ‘Tell you what we do,’ he said. ‘We watch our mouths for the first few meetings and see if it gets back. Test him out. The guy’s a sergeant, and we don’t know his background. In the meantime, we’ll ask around, find out what we can about him.’

  When Sergeant Mayfield arrived he was true to his word, sitting with the rest of them and listening to the discussion about the lack of black officers. It wasn’t until Bo invited questions that he stood up to say his piece.

  ‘Some of you men may not know what we did in World War One. If you like,’ he said, catching Bo’s eye, ‘next time, I’ll tell you about some of the brave black men who fought in that conflict. The reason there’s no black officers now is that in 1940 they put out an army policy statement restricting them from regular army units. Black officers could only be assigned to National Guard units. It meant they only needed a few guys. It meant that, when the government did decide black men had to be employed on a proportional basis, but in segregated units, most black outfits went short and had to be staffed with white officers.’ Sergeant Mayfield’s neck muscles bulged, he bounced on his toes and looked around the men in the hut. ‘So what we need are the men with the right qualifications to apply to become officers. Then we can have our black lieutenants.’

  ‘How about it, Bo?’ one of the men shouted, and the hut erupted into cheers.

  When the men had begun shouting their approval, Wes saw Con head for the hut door. He was still sore that Sadie was going on a date with Bo. The other guys had tried to sympathise. He was just a kid, after all. But he’d despised their sympathy, and Bo’s attempt not to make too big a thing of it had just made it worse.

  ‘Don’t know why they just don’t make the guy captain. Guy like that don’t need no … He don’t need no officer training.’

  ‘She’s only said she’ll go to the pictures with him,’ Wes said.

  ‘So what? She’s just as stupid as the guys in there. You’re all taken in by good ole Bo. Even that sergeant.’

  ‘Take no notice. Come into town with the rest of us.’

  Con lit a cigarette, handed one to Wes and grinned.

  ‘You want to hear yourself sometimes. You sound like one of my mom’s magazines: “Dear Lonely Heart, The girl of your dreams has gone off with a knucklehead. Take no notice. Get yourself a new hairdo instead.” Come on, Auntie Wes, what should I do? Get my hair fixed? Have my nails done?’

  ‘We could take a look at one of the dances in town.’

  ‘Plenty more fish in the sea, is there, Auntie Wes?’

  ‘Okay, we could go with the rest of them to a movie.’

  ‘Yep, all of us with Bo and his new girl. Hope it’s not a sad film. I might just cry.’ Con sagged at the knees and dropped his head on his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘We’ll try one of the other picture houses,’ Wes said, disentangling himself from Con’s embrace. ‘We’re picking up a crowd of locals and taking them in on the truck. We don’t have to go to the same movie. There’s twenty different picture houses in town. I reckon we should try a dance; we could go to a dance in town, instead of the one in the village. There’s lots of girls in town.’

  ‘And why would you and Holt want to do that?’ Con asked, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Holt’s married, and you have a girl.’

  ‘So what? It doesn’t mean anything. We can still go and dance and have a good time. Come on, you’re in England. Who knows what will … There’s lots of pretty girls and … Well, the war. Who knows what’s goin’—’

  ‘We’re a truck company. What will happen is that I’ll be stuck driving trucks and never get to fight. The girls want to dance with heroes, not a truck driver.’

  Wes sighed and tried to keep his patience. ‘What’s wrong with driving a truck? The war will be over one day and you can go back and—’

  ‘I know, and be a truck driver or a mechanic.’

  ‘Things will be better for black people.’

  ‘Will they? They didn’t change after World War One and guys fought then. We’re not even going to get the chance to fight …’

  Wes stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Meeting’s breaking up. Come on,’ he said, ‘there’s a card game I’ve got to go to. At least it will take your mind off Bo.’

  Bo and Sadie didn’t go into town on the truck with the rest of them, because Bo wanted her all to himself. But his plans almost fell apart when she forgot her gas mask and they missed the early train. He didn’t mind the wait on the dark platform, or the two hours in the queue to get into the movie, as long as he had Sadie holding on to his arm. In fact, he was sorry when the queue eventually edged forward into the brightly lit foyer, and she didn’t need to snuggle so close up to him against the cold and damp. As the crowd was distilled from the blacked-out street into the foyer, Bo watched the people around him lift their faces, eager for the opulence of the highly polished marble pillars, gilded walls and glittering lights. At his side, Sadie adjusted her cute little hat in one of the gilt wall mirrors and he had to admit they made a handsome couple.

  ‘Wonder where the rest of them are going? Don’t seem to be here,’ Sadie said, as they settled into their seats at the front of the circle.

  Bo didn’t answer, but gave her the box of chocolates he’d brought for her and sat back blissfully, taking in the crimson and gold interior and listening to the chatter around him. When the organ played he joined in the singsong, following the bouncing ball on the screen, and when the lights finally dimmed and Sadie slipped her hand into his, there was no happier man in the whole US army.

  Con went into town on the truck with Wes and Holt. They’d stopped in the village to collect a group of local girls, including Lou and Ruby, four older couples on a night out and some local men on leave. The girls and the older folk had headed for the movies, but Con followed Wes and some of the other guys through the dark, crowded streets to the dance hall. The dimly lit entrance reminded Con of a church porch or a public library. A large woman with a painted face and thick glasses sat behind a small table just inside the door.

  When they tried to pay, she squinted up at them. ‘It’s okay, love,’ she said, nodding towards a set of double doors, ‘servicemen get in free.’

  On the other side of the doors, the air was sticky. At the far end of the room, above the grey haze of cigarette smoke and the shuffling crowd, Con could see the heads of the musicians. He followed Wes, squeezing between the rows of seats lining the wall and the closely packed couples on the dance floor. Around the bar, where orders and drinks were being passed good-naturedly from the front to the back of the crowd, the crush was even deeper. Con wished he hadn’t come. His uniform felt hot, and when the beer arrived, it was warm and unpleasantly sweet. Then the music stopped and the bandleader, a small, elderly man in a white jacket, walked to the front of the stage and waved his baton.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he called, ‘I would like you to welcome our American allies.’

  There was a trumpet blast, a spotlight fixed on Wes�
��s goofy-toothed grin and to the sound of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ the whole dance hall began to stamp and cheer.

  As the music faded, a plump dark-haired girl with the yellow-stained face of a munitions worker touched Con’s arm.

  ‘Hello, I’m Rita,’ she said, ‘and this is my friend Sylvia.’

  ‘Hello girls,’ Wes said. ‘My name is Wes and this is Con. Would you like to dance?’

  Sylvia, who had a thin face and long, uneven teeth, giggled and took Wes’s proffered arm. When Con felt Wes dig him in the ribs, he took hold of the plump girl by the elbow and steered her towards the dance floor. He had only ever danced once before, except with his mom’s sister at parties, but it didn’t matter because the floor was so crowded they barely moved.

  ‘Is she paying you?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ruby said. ‘I don’t think so. It’s for the school.’

  ‘And why should we help them? That stuck-up cow of a teacher didn’t help us.’

  ‘It’s for the little ones; the infants. We all have to do our bit.’

  Jenny put down the mixing spoon and glared. ‘Do your bit? You can do your bit here, washing her husband’s shirts. And if madam wants to do her bit, she can wash ’em her bloody self. And you,’ she said, taking up the spoon again and mixing vigorously, ‘can get a job in the factory.’

  Ruby gripped the handle of her basket. ‘I’ll have to go now, she’s expecting me. I have to meet her and Mrs Prendergast at the house at one. If I let her down, she might not give me any work over Christmas. I mean, she might not want me to help at the house. Alice already wants her niece to have the job there instead of me.’

  ‘Well next time, have the bloody sense to ask if you’re being paid. You’re wearing them good shoes as well. Take them off.’

  ‘I wanted to look nice.’

  ‘Nice? You’re being asked to skivvy for nothing. Why do you have to look nice? Go and put them old ones on.’

  Back in her room, Ruby pulled off the shoes Sadie had given her and hid them at the bottom of her basket. Then she waited by the window until she could see Granddad on his way down the garden from the pigeon cabin. Once he was in sight, she crept to the top of the stairs and listened for his arrival at the back door, hoping that the sight of his dirty clogs on the clean flag floor would distract Jenny’s attention long enough for her to slip out unnoticed.