Izzy's War

by Isla Dewar

  How Betty had laughed when Izzy had asked for her wages at the end of the first week. ‘Wages! Money! You’re getting flying hours in your logbook, you’re getting fed, a bed at night and you want paid. Oh, my girl, if it wasn’t so funny, I’d cry.’

  ‘I’ve been a fool,’ Izzy said. Sweat streaming down her face, she hurtled through thick mist and teeming rain.

  Her father had told her she had a duty to stay home, get married and produce children. ‘You should be here with us, helping out in the village during these dark days.’

  Buzzing through the murk, Izzy thought he was right. Once, she’d been his little princess. He’d taught her to play cards, and always let her win.

  She’d let him down. She promised him now that if she got down alive, she’d quit this job. She’d never fly again. She’d go home, marry, give him grandchildren, learn to knit. She’d be his good girl again.

  Peering down, she saw two long rows of Nissan huts, running alongside them – glory be – a runway. She slid open the cockpit roof, felt the weather swirl round her and headed for the ground. She came wavering in, slid over muddied water, walls of wet cascaded up the sides of the plane, into the cockpit, over her.

  She stopped. She was soaked. Rain was dripping down her face, down the back of her neck. The dampness, she realised, was not just on the outside of her flying suit, but inside as well. It was sweat – thick, clammy fearful sweat. And, she was shaking. She stared ahead, panting, blowing out her cheeks. ‘Oh, God. Oh, God.’

  She really ought to go inside and introduce herself to the row of faces at the window, staring out in alarm at the plane. But she didn’t think her legs were quite up to it yet. So she sat, stared, breathed, waited for her heart to start beating normally.

  It was a moment or two before she walked weak-kneed across to the nearest of the huts, carrying her overnight bag and map bag, parachute lugged over her shoulder. She was smiling the smile of her life, the thing that happened when emotions took over and her face got out of control. It wasn’t so much that she was glad to see the small crowd that had gathered to watch her arrival, she was. But more, she was overjoyed to be alive. She was exhilarated. She’d been eight hundred feet up facing the elements and she’d won. She felt momentarily invincible.

  The thrill didn’t last long. Inside the building she was confronted by a group of nurses and a couple of doctors, all American. ‘Jeepers,’ someone said as she pulled off her helmet, ‘you’re a woman.’

  Izzy said, ‘Sorry.’ Apologising not for her sex, but for the puddle forming at her feet – rain dripping from her sodden clothes. Her mother would be appalled. ‘I had to get down out of this weather,’ Izzy explained.

  ‘You surely did.’ The man who answered was tall, hair cropped so his face looked bigger that it actually was. He had a long square jaw, dimpled in the centre and sparkling-clean rimless glasses. ‘Sorry we’re staring, we didn’t know women flew planes till right this moment.’ He offered his hand. ‘Jimmy, Captain James Newman.’

  ‘Izzy Macleod,’ Izzy took the proffered hand and shook it.

  The place smelled of antiseptic, well, all hospitals did. But this one didn’t have the dull undersmell of boiled cabbage like the cottage hospital back home where Izzy’s tonsils had been removed.

  On a wireless somewhere Bing Crosby was singing ‘Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams’. The walls were a mass of drawings of American life. Things Izzy was familiar with from trips to the cinema, New York taxis, drugstores, families sitting on a front porch, people in diners, a man wearing a hat sitting in a pick-up truck, elbow on the open window, baseball games. There were jukeboxes, pies cooling on window-sills, dogs, horses – too much for Izzy to take in.

  ‘You like the decor?’ the Captain asked.

  Izzy nodded. ‘Very much.’

  ‘American life,’ he said waving at arm at the drawings. ‘It goes on through the wards. A lot of the guys who come in here add something, it helps with the homesickness.’

  Izzy supposed it would.

  Then he shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat and guessed she’d like to phone in to her base, then get out of her wet things. ‘You’re gonna need a bed for the night. And I guess we’d better feed you.’ He’d learned that all the Brits who stopped by needed feeding. ‘You like pork chops?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Izzy.

  ‘Pork chops,’ her father used to say, rubbing his hands, ‘lovely grub.’ Four fat chops would be sizzling, spitting fat in the frying pan, the kitchen would be filled with their dark rich smell, the win dows steamed. Everything in the world would be bright and beautiful.

  ‘I surely do,’ she added.

  He pointed to the office. ‘Phone’s in there. Irene, here –’ pointing now to one of the nurses ‘– will show you the nurses’ dormitory. And I’ll see you at six for pork chops and ice cream.’ He gave her that look that Izzy knew well – surprise, curiosity. Izzy was too excited by the prospect of pork chops to care.

  She thought life wonderful. She’d faced the elements and beaten them. She’d made a pretty damn near perfect landing in foul wet weather – not an easy thing to do in a Spitfire – now, hopefully, a hot shower, then, pork chops and ice cream.

  She decided she wouldn’t take up knitting after all. She wouldn’t go home, get married and produce grandchildren. She’d stick with this job, it was too thrilling to quit. There was a small pang of remorse, she was breaking the promise she’d made to her father in those fearful, sweat-laden moments when she’d thought she might die. But then, he didn’t know, did he? Anyway, she was vindicated. She could fly. Who was he to decide what a woman could or couldn’t do. What the hell did he know? One day, she might do all the things he wanted her to do. Just not yet.

  Chapter Twelve

  Drowning the Whistle

  THE SNOW STARTED slowly – just a soft whisper of weather, drifting down. Elspeth hardly noticed the flakes landing on her. She was upset. She’d received a letter from Izzy. She’d written that she’d had a lovely time with her, but thought it might be three months before she got another long weekend. ‘Can’t tell you how busy we are.’ Damn, Elspeth thought, three months without a decent bath and a night in a soft bed. Damn, blast and bugger.

  Now this morning, Avril had been sent away. Elspeth didn’t know where she’d gone. Duncan Bowman had taken her to the village and returned alone a couple of hours ago.

  ‘Where’s Avril?’ Dorothy had asked.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Duncan said dropping the official lead-girl whistle into her hand. ‘Don’t go blowing that too much.’

  But Dorothy did. Couldn’t resist. Men got a sharp blast for whistling at women, women for chatting too much as they worked. Everyone got a double blast for lingering over their mugs of tea at break time. All this added to Elspeth’s upset. She worked, shoulders tensed, waiting for the next air-splitting screech. ‘Some people are not cut out to have whistles.’

  She was working with Tricia, the camp’s glamour girl. Her lips were painted scarlet, her hair kept, somehow, perfect, and she had the enviable knack of looking desirable in dungarees, big boots and a woolly jumper two sizes too big for her. Men fought over her. She claimed this annoyed her. Men were so childish. But the sway of her hips, the way she pushed her hair from her face and her slight pout made it plain to the rest of the girls that the brawling for her attention pleased her.

  ‘The trouble with you is, you don’t see men watching you,’ said Tricia. It was a knowing statement from a young woman who considered herself to be an expert on men.

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ said Elspeth.

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t,’ said Tricia. ‘Not with you being so old.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Never before had Elspeth been accused of being old. She considered herself to be sophisticated and mature. In her prime, in fact.

  ‘I mean,’ said Tricia, ‘that it’s not really right someone your age working up here. All the other girls are much younger t
han you. You should be married and settled with children.’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Tricia. ‘I wouldn’t want to be single when I get to be as old as you. All the good men will be snatched up. Poor you. Actually,’ Tricia went on, ‘it’s obvious to me that it’s been ages since you had a boyfriend.’

  This was true. It had been years since there had been a man in her life.

  For a few seconds she was back on the platform at King’s Cross, holding Michael Harding, her last love, whispering goodbye, promising to write, promising to return soon. She had been on her way to Scotland to care for her mother, who’d had a stroke. ‘A month,’ she’d said, ‘at most two, then I’ll be home.’

  He’d said he’d wait. ‘For ever, if I have to.’

  They’d kissed. All round them the clatter and bustle of the station, porters, steam in clouds from shuddering engines, whistles blowing, doors slamming, people shouting and they had only been aware of each other, and their sadness.

  Her bags were already on the luggage rack in her compartment, he had put them there. When the whistle blew, she’d climbed aboard, leaned out of the window for one last kiss, then held his hand as the train moved off, him walking along the platform, hanging on to her. But she’d had to let go, she’d waved as the train pulled out of the station. He’d waved back. That was the last time she’d ever seen him.

  He was a wonderful man. A lawyer, steady, reliable, nothing like the artists and musicians she’d known before she met him. They had beards, wore corduroy trousers and oversized jumpers. He wore a suit. And shaved.

  She’d met him at a dinner party thrown by one of her mother’s friends and they’d shared a taxi home. He had asked her out to dinner the following night. After that, they’d fallen into a routine of nights at the cinema and eating out together. They were courting. He was her young man. Elspeth had found it pleasant and undemanding after two torrid affairs. At last, she’d met someone she could introduce to her mother.

  Elspeth hadn’t returned to London after two months in Scotland. Her mother’s condition worsened. Elspeth had to feed, bathe and dress her. Evenings, she would write long letters to Michael. Mornings, she’d look out for the postman, hoping for a long letter from London. Time passed, the letters got shorter and came less often. Elspeth’s mother died. But Elspeth didn’t go back to London. She stayed on in her mother’s cottage and started teaching the piano, getting by on a meagre income. She befriended Izzy. She began to enjoy an independent life.

  When Michael’s letter arrived, telling her he’d met someone else, a woman he was going to marry in two weeks, Elspeth had sat quietly at her kitchen table reading it over and over. She had sighed. But she hadn’t been broken-hearted. In fact, she’d felt relieved. She was enjoying her life. Marriage did not appeal to her. She’d taken up flying, and, two weeks previously, on a trip to Edinburgh, she had fallen in love with a second-hand accordion in a shop window. On impulse, she’d bought it.

  Then she had to learn to play the thing. And what man would want his new wife to sit of an evening, squeezing and heaving at an accordion, making groaning wailing noises, when they should be snuggling on the sofa together listening to the wireless? No, it was for the best. An accordion was far more challenging than a man.

  Well, she thought now, that had seemed reasonable at the time. Though, living this sparse and very basic life, marriage, a comfortable home and a warm bed complete with husband seemed very appealing.

  Back then, she had come to enjoy living on her own. She could eat what she wanted, when she wanted. Could linger in the bath, listen to her choice of programmes on the wireless, play her own selection of music on her gramophone. She was answerable to nobody. In shops she overheard women fretting about what to buy for supper, complaining about the amount of washing and ironing they had to do. They had socks to darn, buttons to sew on, collars to starch. All that and they had to dust, polish, bake, make jams and jellies, knit and all sorts of other domestic chores she thought tiresome. Goodness, she thought, none of these women would have time to listen to Brahms or learn the accordion. Marriage, she’d decided, was not for her. Besides, she was beginning to be regarded, in the village as an eccentric spinster. Much to her surprise, she rather liked that.

  Tricia, hacking at the limbs of the tree she and Elspeth were working on, puffing with effort as she worked, expounded some more on her favourite subject. ‘You’ve lost the knack of men,’ she said. ‘You don’t know how to make them work. You see, you have to make men feel good. You have to encourage them, agree with them, look pretty for them. Make them feel they’re the boss. And all the time you are getting them to do what you want, buy you the things you want, take you out where you want to go. Only they think it’s them in charge.’

  Elspeth said, ‘That’s what you think?’

  ‘That’s what I know,’ said Tricia. ‘And it’s what you’ve forgotten, if you ever knew it in the first place. You don’t even notice men, except for the Italians here, and that’s only because they sing songs in Italian, which you find romantic.’

  Elspeth squirmed again. This was true. Time was, she and Izzy would have long dreamy conversations about the perfect man. Elspeth’s would be tall, interestingly handsome, quietly humorous, with perfect hands. ‘A man’s hands are so important.’

  Izzy hadn’t known about that. Back then, her perfect man would have been someone like her father. Elspeth sniffed, she’d always found Izzy’s father authoritarian, and his sermons terrifying. Though, she was shrewd enough to know that even eccentric spinsters had to show up in church every Sunday. She also knew to keep her opinion of the local minister to herself, till one or two people had touched on the matter. It seemed that some people in the village found Hamish overly opinionated. On the subject of the perfect man Elspeth had decided, ‘I don’t want marriage. I only want romance.’

  ‘And,’ said Tricia, stopping work to make her point by waving her axe at Elspeth, ‘you don’t notice men noticing you. I’ve noticed that. You haven’t seen that Duncan Bowman looking at you. I tell you, you have to watch him. He’s creepy. He wouldn’t send you roses or chocolates or ask you out on a date. He’d just jump out at you from behind a tree one dark night and try to have his way with you. You watch out for him.’

  Elspeth turned to watch out for Duncan Bowman. But he wasn’t looking at her, he was busy at one end of a cross-cut saw, one of the Newfies at the other. He was barely visible through the weather. The soft whisper of snow had turned into a deluge. It was a white-out.

  At three o’clock there were two short sharp blasts on the official whistle. Dorothy shouted that they were packing it in for the day. ‘Before the weather closes in.’

  ‘It’s bloody closed in already,’ said Elspeth. She pulled up the collar of her waterproof coat, collected her tin mug, hefted her axe over her shoulder and started the trudge back to camp.

  It snowed for the rest of the day. Elspeth found it mesmerising. She sat on her bed watching it fall. Endless, endless, she thought. The boards outside the hut were sodden, grey with slush. A row of drying socks hung above the stove.

  The floor at the door was dark with damp, small icy lumps of snow here and there where people had come in stamping their boots, blowing on their fingers, bringing with them a rush of frozen air. Girls gathered round the stove, palms outstretched to the warmth and shouted, ‘Shut the bleedin’ door!’

  Tricia stomped in, heaved off her boots and, eyes agleam with the joy of being the one to deliver shocking news, said, ‘The road’s blocked, the camp’s cut off.’

  Nobody was surprised by that, but, she had saved the worst till last. ‘And, the supply van couldn’t get through. We’re running out of food. Cook says we’re down to two sacks of potatoes and some turnips.’

  Gasps of horror – exactly the response any bringer of bad news wanted. Tricia looked triumphant. It was a good rumour.

  It was a time of rumours. Small snippets of gossip grew into scandalous tales as t
hey were passed from person to person. Elspeth always knew when a new rumour was on the go – the rumourmonger would lean into the rumour receiver, whispering, face aglow with the joy of being the bringer of shocking news.

  That night the girls went to bed early. It was the only way to keep warm. They lay in the dark, listening to the nightly scrapings and scratchings at the walls of their hut.

  ‘Rats,’ said someone.

  ‘They spread plague,’ said someone else.

  Voices in the dark.

  ‘Don’t be daft. It’s only mice.’

  A silence as they contemplated rats and mice. Then, ‘I wonder what’s happened to Avril.’

  ‘Maybe she’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘Who would kidnap Avril? She’s got a horsey face and a big nose. Nobody would pay the ransom.’

  There were giggles.

  ‘She’ll have run away,’ said a disembodied voice in the gloom. ‘She’ll be hunted by the police and brought back in chains.’

  Elspeth shouted, ‘Shut up. I’m trying to sleep!’

  For a few moments the room silenced. The heavy layer of snow shifted and creaked on the roof. Then, unable to bear the quiet, Tricia started singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’. One by one, others joined in.

  Next morning, it was still snowing. The road was even more blocked. The girls ate porridge made with water for breakfast and drank black tea. The mood was gloomy. It was Saturday, normally every one’s favourite day.

  On Saturday afternoons, most of the girls in the camp cycled to the village. They would arrive in time for the matinee at the cinema – Mrs Miniver was showing this week.

  After the cinema, they all headed for the fish and chip shop. In summer, they’d sit on the window-sill outside, newspaper-wrapped food hot in their hands. They’d blow on scorching vinegar-drenched chips to cool them before slipping them into their mouths. Winters, they’d squeeze into the wooden booths, and order mugs of tea and slices of bread and marg to soak up the salty greasy mix on their plates.