by Isla Dewar
‘We unnerve him,’ said Julia.
‘I love the food over here,’ said Dolores. Then she thought about this. ‘Actually, the food’s pretty damn awful. But I just love the way it’s served.’
Izzy said, ‘Ah.’
She liked eating at factory canteens. There was camaraderie; she liked the women workers in their overalls, hair wrapped turban-style in scarves, who sang ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘My Old Man Said Follow the Van’ as they worked their twelve-hour shifts. The crockery was white and utilitarian. It clanked noisily. There was busy chat at every table and Workers’ Playtime – from a factory somewhere in Britain – blared over the tannoy system.
Dolores leaned towards her and asked, ‘What did you mean, ah?’
Izzy said she’d got the impression that Dolores thought everyone in this country was served by people in white gloves when they ate. And that they had breakfast in the breakfast room where breakfasty things were laid out on covered silver platters. ‘That just isn’t so.’
‘It isn’t?’ said Julia. She put her hand on her heart and pretended to be shocked. ‘I may need to lie down.’
Izzy grinned.
‘Izzy had an idyllic childhood,’ Julia said. ‘She was allowed to be a tomboy. Nobody insisted she act like a lady because she was going to be presented at court someday.’
Izzy shrugged. ‘I’d have hated that.’
‘It was a bit boring,’ said Julia. ‘Parties, dresses, looking for admirers. A bit of a cattle market, I’m afraid.’
Claire said she hadn’t been sent off to school because she was a girl and her father thought educating girls a waste of money. ‘I was taught upstairs in what had been the nursery by a governess. I don’t think I learned a thing. I passed my time waiting to be grown-up. I remember sitting on the stairs watching people arrive at my parents’ parties. All the women in long evening gowns. Oh, the jewellery. Everything sparkled. Everyone laughing and having such fun as they made their way to the ballroom.’
‘Ballroom?’ said Izzy. ‘Your house had a ballroom?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Claire. ‘And thirty-four bedrooms. I think someone like you would call my parents obscenely rich.’
No, Izzy thought, I wouldn’t. But my father might. Rich man, camel through the eye of a needle, gates of heaven and all that.
Returning to the subject of lunch – the only thing Izzy liked more than talking about food was eating it – Izzy said, ‘The thing I like about mess food is the custard. It makes me homesick.’
It was always satisfying to recall puddings from her childhood. True, the custard in the mess was nothing like the sweet and silky mix of egg yolks, milk and sugar her mother made. Mess custard was bright yellow, thick, industrial and tasted slightly metallic.
She had fond memories of mealtimes at the manse. Her mother produced three hot meals a day, and only now did Izzy wonder how she did it. She stared out at passing clouds, felt the thrum of the plane’s engines and drifted into memories.
Breakfast and lunch were always served in the kitchen. The family would gather at the long, sturdy pine table as Izzy’s mother, Joan – Joanie to Izzy’s dad – would put steaming dishes of soup, stew and vegetables in front of them. All this would, of course, be consumed with relish. But while they chewed and chatted, they would dream of pudding. There was always pudding, but it wouldn’t be discussed. That was the family tradition – pudding was a surprise.
Izzy remembered how her mother would slip a steamed sponge from the bowl in which it had been cooked. Everyone would hold their breath, watching as the wonder was revealed. There it would be, perfect and golden. Beaming, her mother would carry it to the table. She’d be bursting with pride, almost as if she’d given birth to it. Which, in a way, Izzy thought, she had. Portions would be dished out. Her father would clap his hands and demand, ‘Custard, woman.’
Joanie would fetch a large white jug, brimming with the pale-yellow sauce.
It was not unusual for her father to toss aside his spoon halfway through a meal and shout, ‘For heaven’s sake, we forgot to say thanks to God. We were all too greedy, too busy tucking in to say a few words of gratitude. Do the honours, Isabella.’ It was the only time Izzy ever got her full name.
‘Aw, Dad. Do I have to? You’re the minister. You do it.’
‘God hears enough from me everyday. He’d appreciate a few words from you.’
So Izzy would clasp her hands, close her eyes. ‘Thank you for all this. This cosy kitchen and for making my mum a good cook. And mostly, God, thank you for the custard.’
‘Excellent,’ her father would say. ‘You really got to the nub of the matter with the custard reference.’
The plane was now in circuit round the factory airfield. Claire was waiting for the green light to land.
Dolores said, ‘Got to go to the little girls’ room when we’re down.’
It always surprised Izzy to hear someone as strapping as Dolores refer to the lavatory so coyly. She thought someone so frankly outspoken, who said ‘goddam this’ and ‘goddam that’, was just over six feet tall and roared up to work every morning on a motorbike, would just say she was going for a pee.
Diane said, ‘You’re smiling a secret little smile, Izzy.’ She was knitting as she spoke, looking down at her needles and stopping only occasionally to peer over the top of her glasses at the pattern on her knee.
The smile was about remembering meals back home, Izzy said. ‘My mother made wonderful custard.’
‘Well, why would anyone want a ballroom when they could have that?’ said Diane.
Izzy said, ‘Indeed.’ And thought that she hadn’t ever wanted a ballroom, anyway; she wasn’t that interested in dancing.
Dolores complained that these goddam Sidcot suits were not designed with women in mind. ‘The contortions you have to go through in the bathroom.’
‘Just be glad you have somewhere private where you can do your contortions. When I started in this job, there was nowhere to pee. Not a single RAF base had a women’s lavatory,’ said Diane. ‘I well remember having to squat behind a hangar. Embarrassing and more than a bit chilly on your rear end.’
Julia said that was why she rarely drank anything while she was working, ‘Not even a cup of tea. I know it has to come out the other end.’
‘But there are lavatories now. We’re accepted. We won the battle,’ said Izzy.
‘We won the plumbing battle. The powers that be, the male powers that be, have decided that we are but human. We have digestive systems. We function. I don’t see that as any great triumph for women.’ Diane popped her ball of wool onto the ends of her knitting needles. The plane was bumping along the runway. ‘I reckon we’ll get another two runs in before dark.’
It was always a moment Izzy enjoyed. She and the other pilots would walk across the airfield, a huge place – miles of hangars and workshops, a large administrative building, a tower and crowds of engineers milling. Everyone would know who they were – the Spitfire Girls. Newspapers often wrote articles about them. Though there had never been any mention of Izzy. She had never been photographed or interviewed. Still, she felt proud. She was a member of an elite group.
Careful, she thought, careful. Don’t strut, don’t swagger. Pride comes before a fall. She remembered those Sunday sermons when her father would prophesy doom for the swollen-headed. If she gloated too much, she would surely take off without due care and careen into one of the giant silver barrage balloons floating high above the factory. She would be engulfed in a ball of flames, a suitable comeuppance for the overly self-important.
On their last trip of the day, they flew in single file, chasing one another. Julia always led. She made sure she was first in line to take-off. Izzy was always last. Except, of course, for Claire, who was flying the taxi Anson.
It was a converted bomber with the bomb bay fitted out with seats. It was used to ferry pilots, in the morning, to the planes that had to be moved, and then, at the end of the day, to pick them up and
take them back to Skimpton.
Claire loved the Anson. It was slow, steady and reliable – a carthorse of a plane. She was amused when flying over towns and villages to see people looking up. She imagined them thinking that there went a good old British bomber on a mission, when her cargo was actually a bunch of women, knitting, laughing, playing cards, singing, sometimes, or touching up their lipstick.
Julia scudded through clouds and the others followed. When she banked to the right, they banked to the right, when she banked left, so did they. And when she zoomed down to buzz a house with a red roof, they did the same. Whoosh, one, two, three, four. They all waggled back and forth as they went, a Spitfire wave. As Izzy swept by, she saw a woman dash out of the house and jump up and down on the lawn, waving wildly. People did that when they saw Spitfires.
The speed of it, the thrill of skimming through the air, playing follow the leader so high above the ground, in a plane that was light, responsive almost as if she only had to think about what she wanted it to do, and it would do it – it fitted her, this plane, so snug, it might have been bespoke – made Izzy smile. This smile came from deep inside, she hadn’t known it was coming. It was as if she’d lost control of her face. It was exhilarating.
If only being back on the ground was so joyful. But it never was. Her heart would be pumping, her cheeks pink with the thrill. She’d be smiling still, heady, and all the while her legs would have to cope with the ordinariness of walking.
Then, there were men here on the ground. In the air, she was on her own, kept busy with the business of flying and her thoughts when she had time to think them. She loved the isolation and the freedom. Mixing with people, especially male people, had always been a problem.
Izzy just didn’t understand men. They were bigger, louder and more competitive than she was. Their noise in the mess often drowned any conversation she was having. They took pride in downing a pint of beer in a oner. Why? What was the point of that? They told rowdy jokes that Izzy never got. Their laughter was raucous. They bewildered her.
It wasn’t that Izzy didn’t like men; it was just that some of them didn’t like women. When she thought about it, she realised that these men didn’t dislike all women, they just disliked the women who were doing men’s jobs. Still, they were the ones that bothered her.
They were never openly hostile. In fact, Izzy thought it would be easier to deal with if they were. She could be hostile back. Though how she could do that, she didn’t really know. Once or twice, one of these men had stepped in front of her in the queue to get a delivery chit signed. It hadn’t been a particularly aggres sive act – it was more as if she weren’t really there. But, she had done nothing about it. She’d shrunk back and let herself be bullied.
None of the other female pilots would let that happen to them. Dolores, for example, would tap the offender on the shoulder and say, ‘I was here first, fella.’
The four had landed, and were walking into the main building to get their chits signed. Julia led the way, toting her parachute and map bag. She waved hello, a small trilling of her fingers, at a group of pilots standing nearby. Then she went over to chat – shoot the breeze, as Dolores might say.
Izzy and Diane joined her, but mostly to listen rather than add to the gossip. Dolores hung back. She always did with men. She thought her height and her long nose made her a disappointment to them. ‘Hell,’ she said, ‘I know I’m no beauty. But when you guys over here heard some American girls were coming over, you all thought we’d be Hollywood dolls. Well, we’re not. I’m damned if I’m going to apologise for not looking like Betty Grable.’
There had been a time when almost all the male pilots disliked women being around. But now they’d got used to them. ‘Everyone’s too busy for all that bias,’ Diane said. ‘Soon as the war’s over, it’ll be back.’
Now Izzy surveyed the group for ‘The One’ – the one who didn’t like women. There was always one, often more. She could tell them by the way they stood – kind of rigid – and their hands would be in their pockets, helmet pushed back, jacket open. They would watch the conversation, tensed, waiting for a moment when they could say something disagreeing with whatever woman was talking. They’d be waiting their chance to scorn.
Julia was saying, ‘No, that was it for the day. No more trips. Don’t want to be up there when night descends. Not with the blackout down here. I like to see where I’m going.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said one of the pilots. ‘There’s light left. Time for one more trip.’
He was The One, Izzy thought. The man who hated women. He was tall, wiry and had a thick brownish-red moustache. He was smoking a pipe. He was Roger Wutherington, Diane would tell Izzy later. He’d fought in the First World War, and was approaching fifty. ‘God,’ she said, ‘some of these boys would fly when even a sparrow would take the bus.’
Right now, Diana picked up her parachute and slung it over her shoulder. She smiled and said that really they should all be going. She wanted to get her delivery chit signed, then she’d get aboard the taxi Anson and go home. Her knitting was sticking out of the top of the bag she was carrying.
The man who would fly when a sparrow would rather take the bus pointed at the needles. ‘Oh my Lord, knitting,’ he said.
Diane stopped. ‘Yes, knitting.’
‘Pilots don’t knit,’ said the man.
‘I do,’ said Diane. ‘I also arrange flowers and ride a motorbike from time to time. I bake sponges, I’ve given birth and I can change a tyre on my car. I also fly planes and knit. What do you do? Other than sneer, of course.’ She swept by and into the building, smiling, but only slightly. Mostly, she was irked.
Izzy thought, Golly, gosh that was wonderful. She had a new hero. She wished she could say something like that. But as she’d never given birth, couldn’t arrange flowers, bake a cake or knit, she couldn’t. Come to think of it, she realised, she didn’t even sneer all that well, either.
Chapter Five
How Many Fingers Do You Need, Anyway?
IT WAS NEVER silent in the hut, even in the depth of night. Logs in the stove shifted, crackled, hissed. And twenty women, each one huddled under their regulation army blankets, sighed, moaned, snored, farted – with the turnip-laden diet they ate, nobody could blame them for that – and, sometimes, screamed in their sleep. A few called on their mother.
Lying awake in the dark listening to her colleagues sleep, Elspeth really got to know them. It was true intimacy. By day they all worked in the forest, laughed, sang, complained and cursed together. Evenings, they would sit round the stove and tell stories about their families, boyfriends, they’d swap ambitions, crack jokes, banter, do one another’s hair, share what few goodies they had – sweets, biscuits, cake, lipstick. Elspeth might play her red button accordion. They were planning a concert, songs and dances.
They also bickered, bitched, argued and, sometimes, fought. Elspeth, who had never before seen women throwing themselves into battle, screaming, swearing, punching, slapping, scratching, would watch, shocked and secretly thrilled. The cry would go up, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ Girls would gather round the battlers yelling encouragement to their fancied winner.
Avril, the lead girl, in charge of keeping the others in order, getting the hut cleaned and stopping the girls sneaking out at night to visit the men’s hut, would try to prise the battlers apart. The fights never lasted as long as the heated post-brawl discussions about who started it, why and if it was justified. Still, the odd swift passionate scuffle provided an exciting break from routine.
Elspeth remarked to Lorna that the fights seemed to happen once a month.
‘Well, they would,’ Lorna said. ‘That’s when we all got the curse coming on. Everyone’s in a bad mood.’
‘We all have our periods at the same time?’ Elspeth asked. ‘How odd.’
‘It’s natural, the way of things. I dunno why.’ Lorna, wise in all sorts of ways, was used to communities of women. She’d been convent-educated, then worked
in a chocolate factory (‘You eat as much as you want for the first week, then you feel you’ll never want to eat chocolate again.’). She had the knack of making Elspeth feel simultaneously sophisticated and naive.
The room where they slept was no longer sparse. Beds were now covered in eiderdowns, quilts and thick spreads sent in parcels from home. The effect was startling to the eye, such a riot of colour. Many girls had a soft toy or doll that was pulled under the blankets and cuddled in the night. Pictures of Clark Gable, James Stewart and Frank Sinatra were stuck on the walls alongside photos of puppies and kittens.
Elspeth’s bed had a thick dark-blue velvet and silk covering – a present from Izzy. ‘This bedspread is so you, I had to buy it,’ she had written. Izzy had found it in a second-hand shop in Blackpool and paid five shillings for it. It was fraying at the edges, a little bit moth-eaten, but Elspeth loved it. Every time she looked at it she was reminded of distant happier times when she’d been a piano teacher living in a tiny cottage and, every Saturday, Izzy would bang the rusting dragonfly knocker on her front door, looking grumpy and dishevelled.
How Izzy had hated learning to play the piano. Thumping out unpractised scales, banging through tunes unrecognisable from missed notes, Izzy had been the worst pupil Elspeth ever taught.
The bedspread’s fading opulence also reminded Elspeth of her days living in Chelsea when she’d posed for Gregor Fox, the artist, who rented a studio in the house she was living in. If he could see her now, he wouldn’t believe his eyes. Sometimes, when she’d shared his bed, she’d worn a scarlet satin nightdress, and then again often she’d worn nothing at all. She wondered what he’d make of her curled in the foetal position wearing long johns, thick socks and, when the draught from the window above her bed got too much to bear, a green woolly hat with a red pom-pom atop. Glamour no longer matters, she thought.
Bed was Elspeth’s favourite place to be. It was the only place where she got some privacy. She pulled the covers over her head, huddled down and let her thoughts and memories roll before sleep took her.