Home Front Girls

by Rosie Goodwin

  ‘Daddy didn’t have any choice. In fact, you may as well know, your father is joining up. It’s barely worth keeping the garage open the way things are at present, and he wants to feel he’s doing his bit towards the war.’

  Annabelle spun round on her heel and stared at her mother incredulously. ‘Daddy’s what? Joining up, did you say? But he can’t! Who will look after us?’

  ‘As most other women are having to do, we shall have to look after ourselves,’ her mother replied. She was obviously upset about the development but trying to put a brave face on. Deep inside, Miranda was terrified at the thought of her husband going to war. What if he was injured, or worse still – what if he never came back? But she didn’t say this to Annabelle, of course, and she admired him for his decision. And so if he was prepared to be brave she had decided that she would be too, and for the first time in her entire life Annabelle would have to accept that things were going to be different from now on. She was a little shocked that Annabelle’s first concern had been for herself when told of her father’s decision, rather than concern for his safety, but then Miranda knew she had only herself to blame for that. Annabelle had been allowed to become utterly selfish, and having to work for a living was not going to be easy for her.

  As she lifted the shirt she had been ironing to place it on a hanger, Miranda stifled the sob that rose in her throat. Soon there would be only her own and Annabelle’s ironing to do and it was hard to contemplate.

  Now Annabelle looked in danger of throwing one of her famous fully-fledged tantrums as she filled the kettle and slammed it on the gas-ring to boil.

  ‘I can’t believe that Daddy is just going to go away and abandon us,’ she wailed as if her father was going on holiday. ‘Isn’t he too old to join the war?’

  Miranda shook her head wearily. ‘Not at all. Admittedly they called up all the younger men first, but as long as he passes his medical there is no reason why your father shouldn’t join.’

  ‘And when he is going to have that?’ Annabelle snapped.

  ‘Next Monday, after he’s had time to put all his affairs at the garage in order. It will remain shut then until after the war. As your father rightly pointed out, there isn’t much call for prestigious cars when petrol will soon be rationed.’

  ‘So that means I shall have to carry on working then?’

  ‘I’m rather afraid it does. And furthermore, I intend to do something to make myself feel useful as well.’

  ‘Such as what?’ Annabelle was getting crosser by the minute. She couldn’t take much more of this.

  ‘Well, I haven’t really had much time to think about it, but drivers are in very short supply at the moment what with all the men being away. I could perhaps drive an ambulance or something.’

  ‘I can’t see Grandma and Grandpa being very pleased with that idea,’ Annabelle said churlishly.

  ‘Actually I’ve already told them what I intend to do and they think it’s a wonderful idea – and they’re also very proud of your father,’ Miranda answered as she swiped the iron over one of Annabelle’s silk petticoats. ‘And don’t start getting the notion that you can go running to them for handouts either, because even they are going to have to tighten their belts for the foreseeable future.’

  Annabelle put the sugar bowl on the table so angrily that some fell on the lino and she had to bend down and sweep it up, which did not improve her temper.

  Lucy hurried towards Mrs P’s house, eager to see how the first day of her caring for Mary had gone. A lot rested on it because she had no intention of farming Mary off on just anybody. Joel and Mary were all she had left in the world now – well, almost – and there was nothing she wouldn’t have done for them. She tapped at the door tentatively and when it was opened by Mrs P herself seconds later with a broad smile on her face, she sighed with relief.

  The woman placed a finger on her lips, ‘Shush, pet, the little ’un is fast asleep, bless her heart. She went out like a light not ten minutes since, so you’ve got time fer a nice hot cuppa while yer tell me all about how your first day’s gone.’

  Lucy gratefully flopped into a chair while Mrs P hurried away to return seconds later with two mugs.

  ‘I guessed you’d be back about now so I just made a brew,’ she said cheerfully as she tugged down the brightly coloured knitted tea cosy on the heavy brown teapot. She then lifted the strainer and carefully poured out the tea before pushing the pressed glass milk jug and sugar bowl across the table to Lucy.

  ‘Help yourself,’ she told her, and as Lucy spooned sugar into her tea she thumbed towards Mary and went on, ‘That one has been as good as gold. Hardly known I’ve had her, I ain’t.’

  Lucy glanced towards the child who was curled up fast asleep on the sofa with her finger jammed in her mouth. When she was asleep she looked no different to any other child her age, and Lucy’s heart ached afresh for her. She had already been told that Mary would never be able to lead a normal life and would always need someone to care for her, which placed a huge burden on her own young shoulders. Not that she minded. She would have walked through fire for the little girl if need be, but it seemed unfair that Mary would have to miss out on so much.

  ‘Take that tea an’ go an’ sit over by the fire, yer look frozen through,’ Mrs P told her now. ‘You’ve no need to rush away. Mary’s had her meal an’ I’ve got you a plate o’ stew an’ dumplin’s ready. I didn’t think you’d be in the mood to stand cookin’ when you’ve been on yer feet all day.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs P, whatever would I do without you?’ Lucy said almost tearfully. She was pleased not to have to rush off. The house felt so empty now with Joel gone.

  It was some time later when she was finishing her meal at the table that the door opened, letting in a blast of icy air, and Mr Price walked in. Like his wife, the man had a heart of pure gold and he beamed at Lucy.

  ‘Hello, luv, come an’ have a brew,’ his wife welcomed him as she helped him off with his coat. Fred was the love of her life and she had insisted on naming their oldest son after him, so now the two men were referred to as Big Fred and Little Freddy.

  Mr Price worked at the Dunlop, a large factory in Holbrook Lane, and he sighed with pleasure as he kicked his heavy boots off and massaged his aching feet.

  ‘Had a good day, have yer?’ Mrs P asked as she scuttled over to the oven to fetch his dinner, which she had kept warm.

  ‘Same as always. We’ve been workin’ on parts fer tanks today.’

  Mrs P shook her head sadly. Almost all of the large factories were making either aeroplane or tank parts now, which only made them all think of how things had changed since the outbreak of war. It seemed that there was no getting away from it.

  Lucy rose and carried her plate to the sink, but when she started to wash it Mrs P shooed her away. ‘Leave it in soak,’ she told her. ‘You’ve done enough fer one day.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Lucy began to put her coat back on. ‘I’ll get madam there round home now then and get her ready for bed.’

  Mrs P chuckled. ‘That’s if you can wake her up. Here, let me help yer get her coat on. Better still, rather than disturb her we’ll just wrap it around her, eh? You’ve only got to go a few steps an’ she looks so peaceful it’s a shame to disturb her.’

  With Mary clutched to her chest, Lucy stood aside while Mrs P opened the back door for her, then after planting a quick kiss on the woman’s cheek she stepped out into the cold yard they both shared and rushed across to her own back door.

  As she entered the tiny scullery she shuddered, but after quickly going into the back room which served as a kitchencum-living room, she smiled when she saw that Mrs P had been round and lit the fire for her. The woman was a real angel.

  After laying Mary, who didn’t stir, onto the small settee, she then hurried across to make sure that the curtains were firmly drawn before dashing upstairs to fetch Mary’s pyjamas and warm them on the fireguard. Eventually the little girl was tucked up nice and cosy in Lucy’s
bed, a habit she had adopted since her big brother had been gone. Lucy didn’t mind in the least, in fact she liked having Mary’s little body to cuddle up to on a cold night. Now she looked around her modest living room and felt contented. It was only an ordinary terraced house, but she and Joel had worked tirelessly on it to turn it into a home since they had moved in. Joel had scoured the second-hand shops to find the three-piece suite, which had come up a treat with a good scrub, and Lucy had then brightened it up with cushions. She had bought the curtains for a snip from a rummage sale along with the hearthrug, and all in all the room was now very comfortable. But it just didn’t feel the same without her brother.

  The nights were the worst, when Mary was in bed. That was when the loneliness would close in on her and why she had not been averse to getting a job. She and Joel had always kept themselves very much to themselves, but at least now she would have someone to chat to apart from Mary and Mrs P. She wondered what Joel would be doing now and hoped that he was all right, then she set to tidying the room and getting Mary’s clothes ready for the morning.

  Dotty was hurrying through the deserted streets with her coat collar turned up against the cold. She hated going out after dark, particularly since the blackout had been in force. Even the streetlamps were turned off and the odd people that were out and about loomed up out of the darkness like spectres.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t snow soon, she thought to herself. It certainly felt cold enough. The pavements were white over with frost and they glistened eerily in the gloom. At last the house came into view and she fumbled in her bag for her key. Once inside, as always the smell of stale cabbage met her. She was sure that cabbage was the staple diet of Mrs Cousins and her children, but at least they would have something different this evening. She had called in to the corner shop on the way home and picked up some milk, bread and a tin of corned beef along with a few apples for the woman.

  ‘Why, hello, luvvie,’ Mrs Cousins greeted her when Dotty tapped on her door. ‘What can I be doing for yer?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Dotty responded with a shy smile. ‘But I just realised if I don’t get rid of these few bits they’ll go off before I can eat them. I thought you might be able to make use of them. You’d be doing me a favour and if you can’t I shall have to throw them away.’

  ‘Then in that case I’d be glad to take ’em off yer hands.’ The woman flushed. She guessed that Dotty had bought them especially for her and thought what a lovely young lass she was. It was a shame that she didn’t seem to have any friends though. She had never once seen anyone visit her since the day she had moved in, apart from a woman who Dotty had told her used to look after her in the orphanage, and she tended to keep herself very much to herself. But then she was a quiet sort of girl and happen she wasn’t one for gallivanting about like most girls her age did.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she said as she took the brown paper bag from Dotty’s gloved hand. ‘Would yer like to come in fer a warm an’ a cuppa?’

  ‘I won’t, if you don’t mind. I’m just longing to put my feet up, but thanks for asking,’ Dotty replied as she headed for the last set of stairs.

  Once in the privacy of her own little flat she hurried to light the gas-fire and put the kettle on to boil. She had quite enjoyed the day and having someone to talk to for a change during the breaks and the lunch-hour. She grinned as she thought of Annabelle and Lucy. They were as different as chalk from cheese but she liked them both, especially Lucy, with whom she somehow felt an affinity. Admittedly, Lucy had a family, or at least a brother and sister, but there was something sad about her eyes that made Dotty feel that Lucy was no stranger to heartache. She could remember as a child how she would try to imagine what her own family was like, and her young imagination had run riot. Perhaps she was the daughter of a princess who had been stolen away by a jealous godmother? And maybe one day, her mother and the prince, her father, would come and find her. Soon after that she had started to write, and invariably her stories were of abandoned children who eventually made good. Sometimes the stories had been so touching and heartfelt that they had moved Miss Timms to tears when Dotty showed them to her, and from then on the kindly woman had encouraged her to write at every opportunity.

  Dotty had never given up hope that one day her natural mother would come back to claim her and she would be whisked away to a life of happiness, but as the years had passed and Dotty saw other children at the orphanage being chosen for adoption by loving families, her dreams had dimmed to a dull flicker of hope. She could well understand why the other children had been chosen over her. Most of them were pretty and cute, something that Dotty could never claim to have been. Once Miss Timms had found her crying about it and she had wrapped her in her arms and assured her that it was always the ugly ducklings that turned into swans and that Dotty was beautiful inside. But that had been a poor consolation. One day in her early teens, Dotty had spent her meagre savings on face cream, powder and rouge and plastered it on in front of the little mirror in her dormitory, but all it had done was make her resemble a clown, so after that she gave up and accepted herself for what she was. Her thoughts moved on to Annabelle, who was everything that Dotty longed to be – pretty and confident. A little full of herself admittedly, and undeniably spoiled – but then who could blame anyone for spoiling Annabelle?

  Sighing, she lifted her writing pad and soon all the sad thoughts disappeared as she became lost in the story she was writing.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Good morning,’ Dotty said the next morning as she made a beeline for Lucy who was hanging her coat up in the staff cloakroom. ‘Is Annabelle not here yet?’

  ‘Well, if she is I haven’t seen her.’ Lucy glanced around before grinning. ‘And between you and me I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t come back. I don’t think she much enjoyed her first day.’

  But the words had barely left her mouth when the door opened and Annabelle strolled in, looking none too pleased with herself or the world. Her hair didn’t look quite so immaculate today and both girls noticed that she was wearing only the minimum amount of make-up, unlike the day before. She made her way over to them and started to take her coat off.

  ‘I can’t believe that we have to be here a whole hour before the shop opens,’ she said, grumbling as usual. ‘I had a job to get up this morning at such an ungodly time.’

  ‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ Dotty told her encouragingly. ‘I wonder what departments we’ll be working in today?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t much care,’ Annabelle replied. ‘Just so long as they don’t stick me in the hardware department.’ She couldn’t think of anything worse than having to spend her day amongst buckets and bowls.

  The room was buzzing with laughter and noise as the staff chatted to each other about what they had done the night before and tidied themselves in readiness to go to their departments. Before the doors were opened, the head of each floor would inspect them all to make sure that they were respectable and then that the department was neat as a new pin before the customers were let in.

  Annabelle thought it was a ridiculous waste of time. After all, it was hardly as if the customers were going to appear in droves at that time of the morning, especially when it was so bitterly cold outside.

  ‘Did you notice what they’re doing outside now?’ she asked in disgust as she took a lipstick from her bag and expertly applied it. ‘Stacking sandbags against all the shop-fronts! They look appalling and I really don’t know why they’re bothering. What with them and all the shelters, the whole place is beginning to look a total mess – and what about those awful barrage balloons they’ve got floating above the city! Why, they remind me of great grey elephants flying. And all for what, I ask you? We haven’t had a sign of a single bomb yet.’

  ‘And let’s hope we don’t,’ Lucy said quietly. Without another word she turned and left to go to her department, thinking what a self-centred young woman Annabelle was.

  At morning bre
ak-time they all sat together again in the canteen and Dotty treated herself to a slice of toast with a thin layer of margarine spread on it to go with her cup of tea. She was actually finding the canteen quite handy. At lunchtime you could get a warming bowl of soup for a penny and it certainly beat trying to cook herself anything when she got home, dead on her feet. They had all been surprisingly busy as people were trying to get their Christmas shopping done early before the rationing came strictly into force.

  ‘Where are you today?’ Annabelle asked Lucy as she joined her and Dotty at the table. Thankfully, she herself had been in the lingerie department again.

  ‘I’ve been in childrenswear,’ Lucy beamed. She had loved working in there and only wished that she could afford to buy some of the lovely garments they stocked for Mary. Most of their clothes came from jumble sales, not that Lucy was complaining. There were some rare bargains to be had if you were prepared to look carefully enough, and she was proud of the fact that she had always managed to keep her little sister well turned out.

  ‘Oh you poor thing, how ghastly.’ Annabelle looked horrified but Lucy shook her head.

  ‘Actually I love working in there. I’ve asked Mrs Broadstairs if I could stay there permanently if it’s possible.’

  Annabelle stared at her as if she had lost her marbles. She had never had a lot to do with children, having no brothers or sisters, and nor did she wish to.

  ‘But how could you possibly enjoy serving brats?’ She shuddered dramatically. ‘All those runny noses and tantrums.’

  Lucy chuckled. ‘There is a little more to children than that,’ she assured her. ‘My Mary is a little sweetheart and as good as gold.’

  Annabelle frowned as she took a packet of Players and a box of Swan Vesta matches from her bag. ‘Don’t you feel resentful of the fact that you have to care for her? After all, at your age you should be out dancing, going to the cinema and enjoying yourself.’