The Keeping of Secrets

by Alice Graysharp

  ‘Wayne Morris?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘Oh,’ interjected Gwen, ‘I know who he is too. I read about him in an old copy of Movie Mirror my American cousin Penny sent me. I passed it on to Pat. Hey, Pat, have you still got it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well,’ continued Gwen, ‘Wayne Morris is tall and blond and kind of cute. Movie Mirror said he’s up and coming and going to blow the whole Hollywood scene away.’ As she said this she flung her arm up in the air in a dramatic arc.

  ‘I’d rather have a tall, dark and handsome Tyrone Power,’ said Muriel.

  ‘Instead of which, all we’ll get stuck with at the dance is a whole load of pimply, gawky boys, not muscly, handsome men,’ laughed Nora.

  ‘Oh, they’re not so bad,’ Joyce volunteered. ‘I’ll bet the muscly, handsome men were pimply and gawky once. And Peregrine Brake is really rather awfully sweet and he says he’ll dance with me.’

  ‘How do you get to even talk to the boys at St Birstan’s?’ Nora asked her. ‘The whole school day seems especially designed to keep us separate as if St Martin’s was invisible. And you know we’ll get into trouble if we’re seen talking to them in the street.’

  ‘Oh, I met him in Woolworths one Saturday afternoon and we got chatting. So now we have secret signs so that if we see each other across the quadrangle, for example, he’ll signal, see you Saturday three o’clock in Woolworths and I’ll signal yes, and then we just happen to both be near the hardware section at the back at that time the following Saturday and no one would know it was a set up.’

  ‘Well, we know now,’ chortled Nora.

  ‘Oh, but you won’t tell anyone, will you?’ asked Joyce anxiously.

  The conversation moved on and away from my own romantic interlude. Well, it had hardly been that. James had been the model of decorum and, anyway, how could an afternoon stroll around the tourist spots of London in the company of a stranger, who at a rough estimate had to be at least ten years older than me, amount to a romantic interlude? He’s probably nearer my mother’s age than mine, I thought. Romantic? What a daft idea, I’m getting soppy in my ripe old age of sixteen. Bearing in mind I’ll probably never see him again.

  Gradually our circle split up, some going in search of wild strawberries and early blackberries, though mostly unsuccessfully, others removing shoes and socks and dipping hands and toes into the water to cool off, and some picking wild flowers to take back to their hostesses. I bagged up my presents and cards with the Box Brownie and returned the bag to my bicycle basket. We regrouped and played hide and seek amongst the tall reeds and the line of deciduous trees to the north of the lake, squealing as we were found, regressing to early childhood in our eagerness to shake off the oppression of war. Beyond these trees a swathe of ground the size of two or three football pitches had been levelled, the trees chopped down, the bushes cleared, surprising evidence of human activity in an otherwise unspoiled landscape. At one point I thought I heard lorries on a distant main road but they stopped some way to the north. We were in a magic kingdom, cocooned from the real world.

  We reconvened beside the lake to finish the rest of the drinks we had brought with us, cooling ourselves in the trees’ shade. I was thinking of gathering up the remains of the picnic when I heard distant aeroplanes buzzing closer. We looked around and up and three aeroplanes hoved into view from the east across the lake in a V formation, disgorging parachutists who first floated high like flying insects, growing larger and larger like birds of prey as they descended towards the bare ground beyond the trees bordering the lake to the north.

  ‘It’s an invasion!’ squeaked Joyce, scrambling up.

  ‘Nonsense, there are no church bells ringing,’ Nora tried to reassure us, but, ‘Only because we can’t hear them from here,’ said Gwen.

  ‘Run, girls,’ I cried, springing up from the picnic remains, grabbing my bicycle and running with it into the southern tall pine tree cover to retrace our route in. The other girls did likewise as the first of the parachutists dipped down beyond the northern tree fringe, others following, and suddenly Vera, who, like Lot’s wife, was looking back, emitted a loud shriek,

  ‘Soldiers!’

  And, as we all turned to look, it was as if the foliage on the north side of the lake had erupted and a wave of soldiers burst through the trees and the reeds and ran onto the western embankment, yelling and screaming and firing towards the parachutists’ landing area.

  ‘Leave the bikes, just run,’ I screeched, throwing mine to the ground and running as fast as I could. We sped on through the pine forest to the deciduous treeline ridge beyond, hastening back along the track, bracken and ferns swiping our legs as we stumbled ungainly, the commotion behind us growing a little distant. Suddenly, to our horror, a line of twig-behelmeted soldiers emerged from the foliage alongside the track ahead of us, weapons out and shouting, ‘Stop, don’t move, hands up, stand still!’

  Thank God they’re English. I thought, my heart thudding and my legs trembling as I skidded to a halt. No, not English. American accent. No, not American, no Americans over here. Maybe like James. Canadian?

  By now we were surrounded, and I realised Joyce was not the only one openly crying with fear.

  ‘We’re English,’ Nora yelled. ‘We’re on the same…’ She didn’t finish as one of them, a sergeant, stepped forward and thrust his hand over her mouth.

  ‘Quiet, all of you,’ he hissed. ‘Get down, over here.’ He indicated the line of shrubbery behind him and we were thrust through it and down a slight incline beyond. ‘Sit down and keep quiet now, don’t move.’ He turned back to the track.

  ‘I need the toilet,’ whimpered Joyce. ‘Me too,’ muttered several others of us, but there was nothing we could do but hold on and cower behind the screen of bushes while a long line of soldiers silently passed our hiding place, leaving two behind to guard us, or perhaps to prevent any further accidental military encounters.

  We heard spasmodic firing in the distance now, a lot of shouting and after perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes all seemed to go quiet. One of the soldiers on guard duty shifted uneasily and the other hissed at him, ‘Wait up.’

  ‘I can’t wait any longer,’ gasped Joyce and, scrambling in a crouched stance down the slight incline beyond us, disappeared behind a further clump of bushes beside a large oak. The soldiers shrugged at each other and waited and Joyce shortly emerged looking happier, her place being taken by others of us for whom the stress of the event was proving too much to bear.

  Not wishing to catch the soldiers’ eyes, who seemed amused by the turn of events, we gradually resumed our places and waited for events to unfold.

  We waited for what seemed a lifetime.

  Suddenly the soldiers stood to attention and a gruff voice called out, ‘You can come out, girls, and not with your hands up.’

  We scrambled out of our hiding place onto the track and met with an older, clearly higher ranking officer than the sergeant who had ‘captured’ us.

  ‘Ladies,’ he addressed us, his accent both clipped and melodious, like James’. ‘You will give your names and addresses to the sergeant here before you go. You will all be aware of the Official Secrets Act. Not one word of this afternoon’s exercise is to be spoken to anyone. Anyone. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ we chorused.

  ‘Not to your parents, not to your friends, not to your young men, and you are not even to discuss this event with each other. Ever. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ we parroted again.

  ‘Now go home and remember Esher Common is given over to the Canadian army for training exercises and is off limits to all of you in future.’

  The sergeant stepped forward, reaching into his pocket for notepad and pencil, as his superior officer turned to go.

  ‘Sir,’ I called to the officer, petrified, but feeling responsible for the girls’ frightening experience and for their belongings, as it was, after all, my birthday party and the jaunt to the lake had been my idea,
‘please may we retrieve our bicycles, otherwise we won’t have transport, and our parents will want to know what we did with them.’

  I saw the officer take in the unassailable logic of my request. He appeared to mentally count our number and turned to the sergeant. ‘Get nine of your men to find these girls’ bicycles and bring them here and two of your men can escort them off the common.’

  We left behind my mother’s tablecloth, the farmer’s wife’s curtains and the remains of the picnic for the ducks’ pleasure. I found with relief that my presents and camera bag had remained safely stowed in my bicycle basket and set off southwards to Sandy Lane. There our escort, with a mock salute, turned back while we sped on to Leatherhead.

  We stopped briefly outside the Evacuation Distribution Centre and I said, ‘Before you all go, I just want to say sorry, girls, I had no idea I was leading you into danger,’ but they all shushed me with,

  ‘But not your fault, Pat.’

  ‘My, what an adventure!’

  ‘Easy to say it’s an adventure when it’s all over.’

  ‘Shush, we mustn’t talk about it or they’ll shoot us!’

  ‘What about your curtains, Gwen?’

  Gwen shrugged. ‘They were old and patched and she said she didn’t want them. I’ll say I gave them to jumble.’

  ‘What I want to know is,’ this from Kitty, ‘why no signs? We saw no signs warning us off.’

  ‘Or sentries,’ said Vera.

  Muriel suggested, ‘There probably are signs on the main roads, on the Esher and Cobham roads, and we would have missed any sentries at the Sandy Lane track entrance when we cut down that driveway. We were just unlucky with the route we took.’

  ‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Nora. ‘Something to tell the grandchildren when we’re in our dotage.’

  And we laughed with nervous relief and peeled off in our different directions.

  6

  Midsummer

  Just before the end of the half-term week I had sneaked a letter to James into the B pigeonhole in the Beaver Club entrance hall. Not wishing to burden him with the trivia of exam preparation while he was setting off to engage in a life and death struggle, I recounted an amusing incident during a trip to the park at half term with Peggy, told him about a concert attended on the Thursday of that week with Becky and ended with my hopes that his duties would go well for him and that he would have plenty of opportunities to enjoy a good English cup of tea. And thus think of me, was the unspoken other half of that sentence.

  Let out of school the Friday following my birthday earlier than I intended admitting to my parents, I came home via central London. With my heart in my mouth I entered the front door to the Club. I checked the R pigeonhole and found a letter addressed to P. Roberts c/o the Beaver Club. I offered a whole sixpence to the doorman for his silence. Pressing it back into my hand with a shake of his head, a wink and a finger to his lips, he shooed me outside. Trembling, I thrust the letter into my pocket and, lugging my suitcase, raced back down Northumberland Avenue for the tram. My mother’s shift was due to end at four o’clock and so she would not be long behind me.

  I climbed onto the tram, paid my fare and took James’ letter out.

  Dear Pat, he wrote, Thank you for agreeing to be my pen pal and thank you for your letter and your news. I liked your story about your dog. I would like to go with you to a concert one day.

  I can’t believe I have been here a week already. I checked the date. Written just over a week earlier, it had probably been waiting for me the previous weekend when I was being chased over Esher Common by Canadian soldiers. I smiled wryly at the irony.

  I returned to his letter. I have been busy learning the British ropes, not so different from our own but your airplanes have their own idiosyncrasies (I thought he must be pretty well educated to spell that word correctly first off) and it’s important I get to grips with everything. I have flown a couple of sorties this week to get my hand in, nothing to write home about (so I am writing to you instead!). I was only in France briefly, and now back in England following the retreat to English shores. Next week I’ll be off to other aerodromes. I think you’ll understand why I can’t go into any more detail here.

  Thank you for showing me your beautiful capital city. I am sure there is plenty else I have yet to see and if you would be willing to show me around London some more when I get my next leave, your kindness towards this stranger from another land would be much appreciated. I will see what leave I can wangle. Possibly the weekend of 15th June. (That’s this weekend, I realised.) All leave is officially suspended while we wait to see what the Hun will get up to next. However, as I am only an honorary member of the RAF while awaiting our own squadron, my arrangements are a little more flexible. I will aim to be at the Beaver Club around two-thirty to three o’clock in the afternoon of 15th June. I can’t promise, of course, but if you happen to be there too perhaps we could have another chinwag over a cup of tea. Yes, I’ve been drinking plenty of those in the past week! If you can pass your reply letter to the doorkeeper (or do you call him the concierge? Doorman?) it can be sent on to me here.

  With all good wishes,

  James.

  I read the letter twice more on the journey and hid it in my pocket. I needed to work out how I might manage to see him the next day without my parents knowing.

  Before my father left for work I fished out a form to be completed asking about my sixth form choices. Definitely not A Good Thing.

  ‘Commercial subjects, most definitely,’ said my mother.

  ‘But Mummy,’ I protested, ‘I don’t want to become a secretary. You know I want to teach.’

  ‘Teaching’s all very well until you get married and then you’ll be out of a job,’ my mother replied tartly. ‘If you get called up at eighteen you can avoid doing anything dangerous by offering secretarial skills. Besides, secretaries can earn good money if they land in the right place and it’s respectable for a secretary to work after they’re married if they want to earn a little pin money.’

  ‘But you didn’t want anyone to know you were working when I was younger.’

  ‘Cleaning work’s not the same. Besides, I worked because I had to work. As a secretary you’ll meet all kinds of well-off men who can offer you a better future than your father and I can.’

  My father, buried behind the Friday evening paper in the corner armchair, shook the paper slightly and cleared his throat. The implication that his baker’s wage was not enough to keep the family without recourse to other income was clear. I felt a pang of sympathy for him. It’s not his fault, I thought, I’m the lucky generation that has the opportunity of a proper education. Both of my parents were intelligent, cultured people who just happened to be born into a stratum of society where education required money, and money was the one thing they had lacked. I had been so lucky to win a Junior County Scholarship and I knew that my parents went short of essentials, as well as luxuries, to provide for my uniform and school books and other expenses that went with being a high school girl. My contemporaries who had gone at eleven to the local central school had left school at fourteen and were now contributing much needed family income. This point did not elude my mother.

  ‘And another thing…’

  From my seat near the window I leaned back gently, and oh, so slowly, so that Mummy would not discern the movement, and caught my father’s here she goes again roll of the eyes. I suppressed a snort of laughter as my mother’s haranguing continued unabated.

  ‘…your father and I are sacrificing everything to keep you at school into the sixth form while half your class are leaving school this summer and getting a job and paying their way. Not that I am saying you should do that,’ she added, having noticed me open my mouth and take a deep breath as a prelude to speaking. ‘We’re prepared to see you through to eighteen when it will be high time you pulled your weight, and,’ she continued triumphantly, her logic unassailable, ‘with secretarial qualifications behind you, you’ll walk
straight into a good, steady job.’

  My father lowered his paper a fraction and, knowing that from where she was sitting facing me and away from him, my mother was unlikely to see him clearly, raised one eyebrow while frowning slightly, an expression I knew only too well from the many years he had ridden my mother’s carping, and which meant, Say no more now, we’ll speak later when the coast is clear.

  So I swallowed my retort and rose to clear away the tea cups.

  As I reached the little kitchenette area on the landing with the tea tray my mother, who just did not know when to stop, caught up with me.

  ‘I’m prepared to indulge your desire to learn German, as that might come in useful one day, though, as God knows, the reason why is the last thing anyone wants, but we have to be prepared for the worst. And I am willing to indulge your enthusiasm for art, although I can’t imagine anyone respectable actually earning a living from it, so you’ll have to do something practical with the rest of your time and get yourself a good foundation for earning a living when you’ve finished there.’

  By the end of her speech I was vigorously scouring the tea china in the tiny sink and dumping the pieces with a clatter on the wooden draining board, my anger having risen like an enveloping tide.

  ‘Be careful with those, that was my grandmother’s precious china,’ admonished my mother as she grabbed a tea towel and started drying the pieces up.

  ‘I will be doing something practical if I go into teaching,’ I growled. ‘I’m sure you were grateful for what you were taught at school.’

  ‘Your temper and snide comments will get you nowhere,’ my mother retorted. ‘I stand by what I say, and,’ she added in a raised voice as I finished my task and fled back into the living room, ‘don’t go back to school without getting Daddy to sign the form and giving it to me to check.’

  My father raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’ll walk a little of the way with you, Daddy,’ I said, as my father got up and started to gather himself ready for his journey to the bakery, signing the school form on his way from the room.