Ruby's War

by Johanna Winard

  ‘How did you stand it?’ Ruby asked. ‘The noise and—’

  ‘I would go back tomorrow, if they’d let me. I was one of their best weavers. Had more frames than anyone else,’ Maud said, her face brightening. ‘Never had any fault in the cloth I wove. I’ve heard there’s all sorts coming out of there now as wouldn’t have been passed when I was there.’

  To avoid Mrs Rostron’s questions, Ruby began having her dinner with Maud and Joe. She was afraid to take too many vegetables and only dared steal the odd egg, but she tried to help in other ways: each evening when she made her baggin’ she’d slip in a little extra and invited Auntie Maud and Joe to help themselves, which they sometimes did, and she always took a twist of tea with her or some sugar. Some days she would play snap with Joe, or she would take an old newspaper, because one of his favourite things was drawing glasses and moustaches on the photographs. Other times Joe would be lying very still, hardly breathing at all. Maud would put a cold tea cloth on his head, and she would rub his hands and tell her ‘Joe wasn’t himself’.

  One day when Joe looked quite poorly, Ruby called in again after work to see if he was better and found him sitting up happily playing dominoes with Johnny Fin.

  ‘Maud said you might call,’ he said, pulling up a chair for her near the board. ‘Joe’s started looking forward to you coming.’

  When it was Joe’s turn, Johnny called out for him what tiles he needed to put down. The games were quite slow, because Joe took a while to decide which dominoes to play. Ruby soon realised that Johnny could see Joe’s tiles and often changed the order in which he put his own tiles down so that Joe would win. Each time he won, Uncle Joe got really excited and everyone had to clap and cheer for him.

  ‘Is Jenny still mad?’ Johnny asked, as they were turning over the tiles at the end of a game.

  When he mentioned Jenny’s name, Maud, who had been reading the newspaper through her magnifying glass, made a disapproving noise and went into the scullery.

  ‘There’s no love lost there,’ Johnny said, nodding in the direction of the scullery door. ‘She thinks Henry is a fool for taking up with Jenny and that it’ll end up with trouble. Maud thinks he’d be better off without her, and there’s no point arguing.’

  ‘Granddad’s much better. He’s hoping to be back at work by the end of the month. Should be getting milder by then, and the money from the sugar has come in handy.’

  ‘Aye, well, once he’s on the mend and back at work, perhaps it will all be forgotten.’

  They played dominoes until the factory hooter made her jump and she noticed that the blackout curtains had been drawn.

  ‘I’ll be off,’ she said. ‘I’ll try and catch a couple of the women. They live further down the road than our cottage.’

  ‘No, stay,’ Johnny said. ‘Let’s finish this game, and then I’ll be going your way. I’ve got a bit of business with John Bardley.’

  Outside coal smoke hung damply over the narrow streets. Ruby shivered and put her arm through Johnny’s.

  ‘How are you, Ruby, love?’

  ‘I just … Well, I don’t like to go out. I think he might …’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you’ll see him again.’

  ‘Why …? You mustn’t …’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, my pet. Though it’s what I’d like to do. N-n-no. Th-that sister of his has told … Well, it’s come from Dick, really. They couldn’t make out what had happened. I know they … Well, his sister, Mrs Grey, told them that he went out in the garden and heard somebody, and when he went to tackle them … for t-trespassing … they knocked him down and stole his wallet. I don’t know if that’s what he told her, or if she’s made it up. Then Alice and Dick were foxed, you see. They thought it was funny that you fell and hurt yourself, and then the same night he gets attacked.’

  ‘Alice said something like that to Mrs Rostron. I work with her. She said she couldn’t see why I didn’t go back in, if I’d fallen in the garden. I forgot the basket, you see. I lied. I said I fell in the garden and lost my torch, and then on the road a lorry came close to me and—’

  ‘Never you mind. There’ll be some other poor bugger to gossip about soon enough, and Alice has got her own family in at the house now, so she’s suited. He’s gone back to London where they came from. That’s what Alice says. Got some job in supplies or something. Doctor’s wife, she’s put it about that he was ill, but that he’s gone because he couldn’t stand not doing his bit. Alice says Mrs Grey’s really down now he’s gone. So we’ll not see him again. I hope I’ll see you at Maud’s. I’ll not be seeing much of you at your grandpa’s until Jenny’s calmed down. She’s all right, is Maud. Had a hard life, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve got used to her now,’ Ruby said, opening the cottage gate. ‘I like her and Joe and Mrs Bland. Johnny, do you think Con will come back as well, once Jenny’s calmed down?’

  ‘Con? I suppose he might. Though he’s a young chap and he’ll have plenty of other things to keep him occupied. It was us that got him to help, you know. It wasn’t anything to do with him, not really.’

  At first, when he’d found out from Bo that he should stay away from the cottage, Con had been angry with Henry for getting him into trouble with the old lady, but later he’d decided it was probably for the best; Sadie was a flirt and he was anxious not to upset Bo. Then a couple of days after he’d been given Jenny’s message, the promised new lieutenant arrived at the camp. He was very keen on baseball and he quickly found a site. The plan was to begin preparing the pitch as soon as the weather improved. The rest of the time, when he wasn’t working, Con spent in the workshops learning all he could about the trucks, and when he did manage to get a pass, he went into town with the guys, dancing and drinking or to a movie. He tried to stay away from the battles with the white GIs, but it wasn’t always easy.

  Now it was spring, the damp huts were beginning to dry out and he’d grown accustomed to his new routine at the camp. He still went to the meetings, and Sergeant Mayfield was still trying to educate them. The talk that night was about General Andrew Jackson calling for black Louisiana volunteers to defend New Orleans. Con could see why he wanted them to understand their own history, but what was really worrying most of the guys were the rumours about what was happening back home and what the black papers were saying. These new concerns meant that a lot of the guys came as much to swap newspapers as to listen to Sarge Mayfield, who was in full flow.

  ‘Jackson praised them for their courage, giving special mention to one of their commanders, Joseph Savory. There were two all-black battalions, three hundred in each, commanded by a black officer named Francis E. Dumas, who was a slave owner himself. But they weren’t allowed to stay in the army, nor was there any public acclaim for their service …’

  Con gazed out at the trees coming into bud. He reckoned Sergeant Mayfield was right about one thing: a lot of the trouble was because the army didn’t like the idea of black GIs going back home and wanting to change things, once they’d seen how folk were treated outside their own country. He watched one of the guys from the South reading the newspaper, his lips moving slowly. He felt bad now to think that, when he’d been with southern guys in training and when they’d first come to the camp, he’d despised them for their lack of education; when he got home, he’d be a lot different.

  The next day he went into the town with Holt. The sun was shining and the place was busy. As they wandered around the stalls on the flagged square in the centre of town, he was reminded of his mother and her fundraising for his father’s church. The trees along the sidewalk were in blossom and the sun felt warm. The street climbed slightly uphill, and as Con gazed down, he saw Jenny puffing towards him. He didn’t recognise the young woman with her at first, because the sun was in his eyes. Ruby grinned at him shyly. She was wearing a smart blue coat and had her hair curled differently. She looked real cute.

  ‘It’s a warm day,’ Jenny said, dabbing her face. ‘I’m that dry.’

  ‘Can
I get you a cup of tea? There’s a stall over there and some benches and tables.’

  ‘Well, that’d be very nice of you, lad,’ she said, heading over to the wooden benches and tables set out under the trees.

  Con bought tea for them and an extra one for Holt. ‘I’m waiting for Michael, he’s around here somewhere,’ he said, waving his hand in the direction of the stalls and he smiled across at Ruby. ‘I hardly recognised you,’ he said. ‘You look awful grown-up.’

  ‘I’m working at the mill now,’ Ruby said, her cheeks turning pink.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘No, not really,’ she said laughing, ‘but the money’s good. The work’s boring, and I do get tired. I went round to Mrs Bland’s to help her with her books last night and fell asleep in the chair. It was almost ten when she woke me up.’

  ‘That’s a good cup of tea and it’s very welcome, I can tell you,’ Jenny said, sipping the drink and patting her neck with her handkerchief. ‘Ruby, love, I need to rest my legs. Will you nip and get my pills? I’ll hang on here for Michael, and then I might feel more like a walk round the stalls. Try the chemist at the top by the library. Why don’t you have a walk up with her, Con, and have a look round the stalls on your way back? There’s all sorts by the look of it, and it’s all for a good cause. I think there’s games as well as things to buy.’

  ‘Is it okay if I walk up with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course it is,’ Jenny said. ‘Isn’t it, Ruby?’

  As he strolled along with Ruby, chatting about her granddad and life at the camp, Con watched the way the spring sunlight lit up her hair, and he couldn’t help noticing the way the slim coat fitted her neat figure and the admiring looks she was getting from other guys who walked by them on the street.

  ‘It’s ages since you were at the cottage,’ she said. ‘I tried to explain to Jenny that it wasn’t your fault, but she wouldn’t listen, and if she knew the truth about the sugar, well both her and Granddad would fall out with Johnny. I knew he must be wrong when he said the sugar belonged to Mr Prendergast. I knew it couldn’t be him. He’s such an important man. I asked my Auntie Maud and she said that he hasn’t owned that farm for a good few years. She’s heard that the man who owned the sugar was from Liverpool. She said Granddad and Johnny should have known they didn’t live there now. She said it was just typical of them to get such a daft idea.’

  On another day, if someone else had told him, Con would have been real sore at the old guys for what they’d put him through, but today, with Ruby at his side, he just laughed.

  ‘Well, I guess everybody got some cheap sugar and the guy lost out.’

  ‘Look, this is the place,’ she said, as they reached a small chemist shop next to a pub. ‘You can wait out here if you want.’

  ‘No, that’s okay. I’ll come inside with you.’

  Con opened the door for her and stood aside as a large lady in a brown tweed suit bustled out calling good day to the assistant. Inside the little shop it was dark; every wall had a row of glass-fronted cupboards with large pear-shaped bottles filled with coloured liquid on top of them. The rich varnish on the cherrywood cases shone. The brass-handled doors sparkled and the powders, mixtures and pomades filled the air with a pleasant confusion of smells. A tall, stooped man with a rosy face and a pencil tied to the buttonhole of his white overall came out from the back of the shop, blinking at them and smiling. Ruby asked if they had Doctor Cassell’s tablets for blackout nerves, and he pushed one of his large pink ears forward and asked her to repeat what she’d said. When she asked for the pills again, the man nodded as if he’d understood, but then asked if they were for her dog or her cat. Con felt a chuckle begin to build in his chest and tried not to look at Ruby, who was explaining that she didn’t have a pet, but a grandmother. The man mumbled something to himself and disappeared. Then he came back with a lady in a glowing white overall who asked Ruby what she wanted, and as Ruby explained, he pushed his large pink ear forward, nodding and smiling again, before asking the assistant what Ruby had said. The lady rolled a newspaper up into a cone and, putting the narrow end up to the man’s ear, began shouting down it that Ruby wanted pills for her grandmother’s nerves. Once he’d understood, he patted the assistant’s hand and with an angelic smile handed Ruby a tiny box of pills.

  They giggled almost all the way back to the little square, and Con realised that he felt happier than he had for weeks.

  ‘Do you think she’ll let me come and see you all sometime?’ he asked.

  ‘She might,’ Ruby laughed, ‘once she’s had some of her nerve pills. She’s still really mad at you and Johnny. Though, both me and Granddad said it wasn’t your idea. I was a bit worried she might tell you off when we saw you, but her feet were that sore, she’d other things to think about.’

  Con didn’t want to go back. As they walked around the little stalls, he pretended more interest than he really felt in all the fundraising that was going on. He got Ruby to explain to him how he should pin the tail on the donkey, dawdled over the second-hand books on the Aid for Russia stall and insisted on watching the parade of children, dressed as characters from history, collecting money for the Build a Spitfire Fund. He put coins in all their tins and chatted to the children about their costumes. When the band struck up in the centre of the square and couples got up to dance, Con took Ruby’s elbow.

  Ruby blushed, but didn’t refuse, and he was steering her towards the band when a white GI stood in their way.

  ‘Not so fast, buddy,’ he said. ‘Where you goin’ with this young lady?’

  Ruby’s blush turned to a deep red and she looked down at her hands. Con could feel his heart pounding. He looked over in the direction of the little stalls, glad that the crowd were around him. The GI had the same accent and the same brown eyes as the son of the Italian shoemaker from back home.

  ‘Answer me, boy. What you doin’ with this lady, here?’ the guy drawled.

  Around them, people were beginning to stare. ‘Look,’ Con said, ‘I don’t want any—’

  ‘Say, honey,’ the soldier said, pushing Con out of his way. ‘You wanna dance?’

  Ruby shook her head, but he grabbed her arm. Con could smell liquor on his breath, and when he pushed him away, the GI lost his footing and the Pin the Tail on the Donkey stall crashed to the floor. The drunken GI lay among the wreckage. On the other side of the stalls, another white GI and a dark-haired woman were watching them.

  ‘You okay, Ruby?’ Con asked, as the woman and the GI came around the stalls towards them.

  ‘Come on, guy,’ the white GI said, trying to get the drunken soldier to his feet.

  ‘The MPs are coming,’ the dark-haired woman said. ‘Come on, love. We don’t want trouble. Leave it to them.’

  ‘Aw, let me handle this,’ the GI replied and walked towards the MPs. ‘It’s okay, you guys,’ he called. ‘It was an accident. The guy just slipped,’ he said, pointing to the drunken soldier who was getting up from the floor.

  ‘Papers,’ one of the MPs said, putting his hand out towards Con. ‘You do this damage, boy?’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Where’s your papers?’

  ‘It was an accident,’ the white GI said. ‘I told you, the guy just slipped.’

  ‘The black guy pushed me,’ the drunken GI complained.

  ‘You fell over, buddy. I was over there at the bookstall. I saw you.’

  ‘I’ve asked to see this boy’s papers. Now unless you want some trouble, you an’ this lady had best just move along.’

  Con unbuttoned his tunic pocket and handed over his pass.

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ the GI protested again, as his girlfriend hurried him away.

  ‘What you doin’ here with this lady, boy?’ the MP asked, throwing the pass on the floor.

  The crowd around them began to mutter, and the white GI who had caused the trouble dusted himself off and staggered up to the main road. Con wasn’t sure what to do, but he determined that wha
tever happened, he wasn’t going to bend down in front of the two MPs and pick up the pass.

  ‘It’s okay, folks,’ the MP said to the people watching, ‘there’s nothin’ to see. We’ll deal with this.’

  ‘Pick up your pass, boy,’ his buddy said.

  ‘I’m not. I—’

  ‘You what? You cheeking me?’

  ‘Leave the lad alone,’ someone in the crowd shouted.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ the first MP said, pushing his face into Con’s. ‘You’ve upset these nice people. Now I’m goin’ to have to arrest you.’

  ‘No. Please,’ Ruby said. ‘It wasn’t—’

  The MP turned and smiled, as though he hadn’t noticed her before. ‘Tell me, honey,’ he said. ‘What’s a nice girl like you doin’ with a black guy? Where I come from, nice girls don’t associate with no blacks.’

  ‘He’s … our friend,’ Ruby said, close to tears. ‘He’s—’

  ‘Leave them alone,’ one of the women from the Pin the Tail on the Donkey stall called. ‘It wasn’t him. It was that drunken lout you let wander off. Go and sort him out, if you want to arrest somebody.’

  ‘Go on, clear off, you’re frightening the kiddies,’ the man in charge of the Spitfire Fund shouted, as one of the little girls Con had given a penny to began to cry.

  ‘We’re just doin’ our job, sir,’ the first MP said, switching on his smile.

  ‘Aye, well you’ve done it, and now you’re upsetting folk.’

  When the MPs turned to go, Con was shaking, but this time it wasn’t fear that was making him tremble, but anger.