War Baby

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘That don’t mean it ain’t bad,’ remarked her father. ‘And that’s a straight road into the city centre. It might be dangerous.’

  Mary was undaunted. ‘I’ll skip the main road and skirt around the edge.’

  ‘You’ll have to be careful. You don’t have to go.’

  What he meant was that he didn’t want her to go.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Dad.’

  ‘Your brother thought he’d be fine too.’

  She’d looked at him tellingly, her hands slowing in the process of straightening her hat, her best one in a shade of blue that matched her eyes.

  ‘It’s my duty, Dad,’ she said softly. ‘I have to do my duty. I owe it to Charlie.’

  At mention of his son, missing presumed dead, he’d turned away, heading in the direction of the bread oven and the freshly baked loaves he’d left there turning golden brown.

  So much for getting up early; now here she was on her way home again. She caught herself in a yawn, her eyes flickering half shut. It was on blinking herself fully awake that she saw the WVS van, a monstrous affair with a drop side that opened up to serve as a counter. She guessed it had been there all night, a marshalling point for the emergency teams helping to put out fires, organise rescue centres and dig for the poor souls buried under tons of rubble. She prayed that casualties were light.

  The women running the tea wagon were stalwart souls sporting stiffly curled iron-grey hair that peeked out under humble headscarves that had been tied into turbans. Each had a no-nonsense attitude, even though they must have been up all night. At present it seemed they were all enjoying a cuppa themselves, the lines beneath their eyes evidence of how long they’d been on their feet.

  Mary pulled the car over, stopped the engine and got out.

  ‘Any chance of a cuppa?’ she asked as cheerfully as she could. Her stomach rumbled. ‘Wouldn’t mind a currant bun too or a tea cake if you happen to have one going.’

  ‘You’re welcome, love. We’ve no butter, mind you. The air-raid warden had the last of that.’

  ‘I can manage without.’

  The woman in charge wore a felt hat sporting the WVS badge. She peered at her with narrowed eyes that made Mary think she might be a bit short-sighted.

  ‘You been there, love?’ She nodded in the direction of the city centre some four or five miles away. Her accent betrayed her humble origins, certainly not like the upper-crust Women’s Voluntary Service type Mary had come across before.

  ‘I got turned back. I was trying to get to Whiteladies Road.’

  She didn’t want to mention the BBC studios; it might sound too superior and she badly needed that cup of tea.

  ‘What you doin’ going there?’ asked another of the women.

  ‘I work for the Ministry of Food. I was ordered to go there. You know how it is, ours is not to reason why …’

  She left the rest of the words from the poem hanging in the air … Ours is but to do or die.

  She gulped the hot tea and quickly ate the currant bun they’d found for her. It was a little dry, especially without butter, but she was hungry and very grateful. Eating and drinking helped her blank out the unsaid words. Charlie, her brother, was dead at twenty-two. How many more, she wondered?

  The women asked her about her work and Mary told them about her and her sister’s job: showing women how to use their rations to make economical – and delicious – food.

  The woman with the tightest iron-grey curls Mary had ever seen placed her cup into its saucer and sighed. ‘It’s pastry and cakes that’s the problem. There are never enough eggs and never enough fat.’

  ‘I can give you an eggless recipe,’ Mary said to her. She went on to tell her to use self-raising flour and baking powder. ‘It makes a good sponge recipe without eggs. You’re using more raising ingredient instead. Add margarine, milk, golden syrup and sugar – if you have enough. Sift the flour and baking powder. Mix the other ingredients together. Plus whatever jam you have for the filling.’

  In turn they bombarded her with their own labour-saving cooking tips and favourite recipes.

  Mary took out her notebook and wrote down everything studiously. Some recipes she would use and some were already familiar. However, it didn’t do to upset people’s feelings. This would have been the whole point of her wireless broadcast today: to have her listeners feel they were contributing in whatever small way they could, including sending in their recipes and home front tips.

  ‘So how come you got involved with all this then? You don’t look old enough.’ The woman in charge was straightforward and to the point, which was probably why she’d got the job in the first place.

  Mary smiled politely, though it still grated when her youth was pointed out. The same point had been made so many times.

  ‘My family run a bakery. I’ve been baking and cooking all my life. I’ve had to, really. My mother died when I was very young. The work’s divided between me and my twin sister. We won a baking competition and the Ministry offered us a job. I did have a brother serving on a merchant ship, bringing in food supplies, but …’ She took a quick sip of tea to quell the short sob that threatened to escape. ‘His ship was torpedoed.’

  There was much mutual nodding of heads. They understood and sympathised.

  ‘We all got men away fighting. Even the old blokes ’ereabouts aren’t out of danger what with all this bombing. Even an ARP warden can get killed.’

  Somebody else asked if she had a sweetheart.

  Mary found herself blushing over the rim of her teacup. ‘Yes. We’re getting married next month.’

  The women erupted with cries of congratulations.

  ‘Bin courtin’ long?’

  She shook her head. It was the one question she hated facing. ‘No. Not very long at all, but …’ She shrugged suggestively.

  ‘Grab the chance, dear. A fighting man I take it?’

  ‘Royal Air Force. He’s Canadian. Even though we haven’t known each other long, he kept asking.’

  Suddenly out it all came. They were complete strangers, yet in their company, a cup of hot tea in one hand and a bun in the other, opening up to them seemed the natural thing to do.

  ‘My sister is making me a wedding dress and a bridesmaid’s dress for my cousin Frances. It could also lift my father’s spirits; he’s been so down since my brother was lost at sea.’

  ‘Never you mind, dear. It’ll all turn out right in the end. You wait and see. When you seeing him again?’

  Mary shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. He’s a bomber pilot. They’re pretty busy at present.’ She didn’t add that sometimes she couldn’t help having second thoughts about their imminent wedding. It had all happened so quickly but she couldn’t back out now. Everything was arranged around the leave he’d managed to get.

  ‘Good for him,’ exclaimed one of the women. ‘Give them as much as they’re giving us.’

  ‘There’s no sense in waiting. Who knows what tomorrow may bring,’ said the woman in charge. She introduced herself as Doris. The two women with her were named Ivy and Edith.

  ‘Grab a bit of happiness while you can, love, that’s what I say,’ declared Edith, a woman with a triple chin, the lowest of which totally obliterated her neckline.

  ‘Have you heard whether there has been much damage in the city?’ asked Mary, keen to change the subject.

  There followed a jerking of heads and the expelling of sad sighs. ‘Enough. After the docks again, as if there weren’t enough damage back in November when they destroyed all around Castle Street and Wine Street. It was sad to see the Old Dutch House go and St Peter’s Hospice and the church. We’ve known them all our lives.’

  ‘Gone for ever,’ said Ivy mournfully then sighed. ‘That’s where I met my ole man, Harold, up Castle Street.’

  Edith pursed her lips after leaving a lipstick imprint on the side of her cup. ‘We all met our sweethearts around Castle Street, well, either there or up Park Street. No money for doing much else. You just paraded u
p and down and when you saw somebody you fancied, that was how you met your intended.’

  There rose another collective sigh before Doris suggested they all had another cuppa.

  ‘I have to go,’ Mary said, declining a second cup. ‘I’ve got other things scheduled. Must keep going, mustn’t we.’

  She hadn’t wanted to say that everyone at home in the village had seen the sky on fire. She hadn’t wanted them to feel perhaps that she was better off than them living outside the areas that had been bombed. Everyone had it bad, each in their own way.

  Fingers firmly gripping the steering wheel, she headed away from the city and back to Oldland Common. Ahead of her she saw a row of tramcars, all at a standstill, people pouring out of them looking pretty disgruntled.

  Why had the trams stopped?

  She opened the window a little, just enough for some air to come in and disperse the condensation on the windscreen. Through the small gap she heard troubled voices calling Adolf Hitler and his bombers all manner of names.

  ‘Fancy blowing up the tramlines! How we gonna get to work?’

  Mary settled back behind the wheel. Suddenly she felt very tired. How many more privations would people have to endure? She was lucky to have use of the car. Even at this time of day there were not many on the roads as few could afford cars or get hold of petrol. She was lucky in being in receipt of a generous petrol allowance, plus that allocated to the bakery business. The old bakery van was used only sparingly; adding what was left over from that with that for the car, there was some left over for private use.

  Travelling, whether on trains, buses or trams, was disrupted each time there was a raid. London was fast becoming isolated, or at least the journey to the capital was being lengthened thanks to the more frequent raids. People were being urged not to travel unless necessary. Movement of armed personnel was first priority.

  Her thoughts naturally turned to Michael Dangerfield, her fiancé. He would be travelling from Scampton in Lincolnshire for their wedding at St Anne’s Church. She ought to be worried about him getting to the church on time, but oddly enough she didn’t feel like that at all. In fact she was half hoping he couldn’t get there, that he would call it off.

  Her sister Ruby sometimes accused her of thinking too deeply. That’s what she was doing now, trying to recall every detail of Mike’s face and failing. Why was that? Was it perhaps that he didn’t mean as much to her as he should?

  She sucked in her bottom lip, tasting the sweet slickness of her bright red lipstick. She’d also dabbed a little on her cheeks, just enough to give her some colour.

  She leaned forward so she could see better through the misted-up windscreen. Concentrating on the road helped put her misgivings from her mind. She found herself wishing the shops were lit up like they used to be, that there were no white lines along the edge of the pavement, that so many people didn’t have to walk or cycle to work thanks to the destruction of the tramlines.

  A crowd suddenly gathered in the middle of the road, all looking upwards and pointing. For one brief moment she thought it was another air raid, but then saw they were all laughing. Adults and children alike were skipping and jumping up and down with joy.

  The tail of a barrage balloon, a big fat balloon designed to keep dive bombers at bay, slid over the side of a house, its fat bulk seemingly trapped on the roof.

  She stopped and watched as people in navy-blue uniforms and tin hats sporting the letters ARP ran up and down the road in front of the shops, shouting and trying to reach for the damaged ropes that should have been tethered to the ground.

  ‘Michael!’

  Michael?

  Steel curlers poked out from beneath a woollen turban and a cigarette hung from the lips of the woman shouting for her boy.

  Michael! He was nothing like her Michael of course; just a tousle-haired lad with a dirty face and hair that looked as though it had never been introduced to a comb or a hairbrush.

  Mike, her Mike, was a dream. She’d seen the way other girls looked at him. But it was she who was going to marry him. Everything was arranged. Rations had been scrupulously saved. The cake was made, the lack of traditional dried fruit more than made up for with fruits they’d dried themselves, plus over-generous amounts of brandy donated by Mike’s aunt Bettina Hicks from her late husband’s collection.

  The wedding dress had been more of a problem, fabric being in such short supply. Mrs Hicks had found two yards of lace. ‘You could trim up something a little plain. I’m sure it would work. And perhaps just a little teaser of a hat with a small veil at the front … what do you think? Oh, and I do have some lovely blue material that might do for the bridesmaids’ dresses. I presume you’ll be wearing your mother’s dress?’

  Mary had assured her that the lace was beautiful and of course it would change something quite plain into something quite wonderful. As regards her mother’s wedding dress …

  She bit her lip anew as she recalled her father’s response when she’d asked to wear her mother’s wedding dress, though it would have to be altered of course.

  ‘He said he didn’t think it would be appropriate,’ she had told Mrs Hicks.

  Actually his response had been quite sharp. ‘It’s Sarah’s dress!’

  Mary had bitten back the obvious response that her mother was dead and had no need of it. That if she’d still been alive she would have wanted her daughter to wear it. Stan Sweet had changed since they’d lost Charlie. It was hard accepting that he wouldn’t be coming back.

  ‘The softness has gone from him,’ Bettina Hicks had confided.

  ‘Will it come back?’ Mary had asked.

  Bettina had shaken her head sorrowfully. ‘Who can say? I do hope this wedding brings him out of himself. We can but hope.’

  Mary hoped she was right.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROW AFTER ROW of golden-crusted bread occupied the bakery shelves and the air was warmed by its yeasty presence.

  Ruby Sweet breathed in the delicious aroma.

  ‘There’s nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread,’ she said out loud, her hands on her slim hips. She liked bread and, though you wouldn’t know it from her slender frame, ate a lot of it.

  She turned as her father came from out back and through the shop. Having finished baking for the day, he was wearing his outdoor coat and his hat.

  ‘No sign of Mary?’

  ‘No.’ Ruby shook her head, eyeing him from behind a curtain of dark gold hair.

  He sighed. ‘She shouldn’t have gone. I hear the tramlines got blown up. Anything could have happened.’

  ‘We would know if it had. Dad, there’s something I want to—’

  ‘I told her not to go. We all saw the sky last night.’

  ‘Dad, about the wedding—’

  ‘What about it?’

  Ruby thought he should show more enthusiasm, but that was the way he was at present. Still in mourning. God knows when he’d finally snap out of it.

  ‘Mary would love to wear white.’

  ‘So?’

  Ruby took a deep breath and jumped in with what she had to say. ‘Mum’s dress wouldn’t need that much alteration …’

  ‘No! It’s Sarah’s dress. Nobody else’s. Not yours. Not Mary’s!’

  ‘Dad, Mum’s been gone for over twenty years, and I think she would have—’

  ‘You don’t know.’ He waved his finger in front of her face. ‘That’s just it. You do not know! Now let that be an end to it.’

  There was so much more she wanted to say, but it was useless arguing with him when he was in this kind of mood.

  Clamping her lips tightly together, she went to the wooden drawer that served as a cash register and bent her head over the order book. Thanks to her ‘peek-a-boo’ hairstyle, adopted to hide the mole on her face, a lock of hair fell forward, preventing him from seeing her expression: anger mixed with concern.

  She was angry that he was so intractable when it came to Mary wearing their mother’s dress;
she was concerned because her father had changed since he’d lost his only son. ‘Going for a walk?’ she asked in an absent-minded fashion. Inside she continued to bristle.

  He pulled the brim of his hat down over his face. ‘Won’t be long,’ he said gruffly.

  A draught of chill air came in as he dragged the door open. The drop in temperature persisted even after the door had closed behind him.

  While supposedly counting the loose change in the till, Ruby contemplated where her father might be going. Before Charlie’s death it would have been one of two places: either Stratham House to visit Bettina Hicks, who was also aunt to Michael, Mary’s fiancé, or to his wife’s grave.

  Sarah Sweet had died in the flu epidemic immediately following the end of the Great War. Her passing had left their father with a small boy and twin baby girls to raise on his own. He’d done handsomely, and rose to the occasion again when his brother died and his sister-in-law shot off, leaving him to bring up Frances, their daughter, his niece.

  Since Charlie’s death, his last resting place known only unto God, Stan Sweet had stopped visiting Bettina Hicks for a cup of tea or a tot of something stronger. Bettina’s view, which she had confided to Mary, was that he felt guilty at still being alive and his only son dead. ‘As though having happy moments were a sin,’ she’d said, a look of profound sadness in her eyes.

  Slamming the cash drawer shut, Ruby came out from behind the counter. She watched as her father made his way towards West Street, the top of his hat bobbing along before he disappeared around the corner. Her guess was that he was heading for St Anne’s churchyard and her mother’s grave.

  ‘She can’t be that good company,’ Ruby muttered to herself.

  Before she could get too melancholy, she marched through the door behind the counter and brought through the other items they had for sale that day: cheese straws, rock cakes and scones. She’d used the last of the dried fruit they’d preserved last year to make the scones and rock cakes. The cheese for the straws had been grated from the end rind of a piece of Cheddar cheese given them by one of the local farmers’ wives.