Izzy's War

by Isla Dewar

  After that, it was on the village hall for the weekly dance. It started at seven and ended sometime close to midnight. It cost ninepence to get in, but that included tea and cakes. Everyone from the surrounding area went. They sweated, lurched, stamped and clapped to the gusty tunes of Frank MacMurtry’s Highland Band. The girls thundered round the floor doing reels, strathspeys, jigs and the occasional waltz. It didn’t do to sit anything out. No need to – there were over six men to every woman – they were all in demand. Elated, exhausted and flat broke till next pay day, they’d cycle back to camp, shrieking and giggling in the black dark, the way ahead lit thinly by their bike lights, hooded so no light was visible from above. They weaved about the road, squealing in mock fear at the barks of vixens and the hoots of owls in the forest.

  ‘No fun for us, then,’ said Tricia. ‘Stuck here ’cos the road’s blocked. Nothing to do and it’s Saturday night.’

  Elspeth said that people should always know how to make their own fun.

  ‘So they should,’ agreed Tricia.

  They were sitting in the dining hut, sipping tea, looking out at the snow. It was still falling, streaming past the window.

  ‘We should have a party,’ said Elspeth. ‘Everyone likes a party.’

  ‘It’s a bit spur of the moment,’ said Tricia.

  ‘Best kind,’ Elspeth enthused. ‘We just let it happen.’

  It was, everyone agreed, just what they needed. There was no chance of anyone providing cakes, but there was tea. And there was booze. They were sure there was booze.

  Out in the forest there were bottles and bottles of it – buried under damp leaves and bracken, tucked into hollows of trees. Most of the Newfies had a little alcoholic something or other hidden away, handy to swig in moments of homesickness and despair.

  Only Dorothy, the new lead girl, thought the party a bad idea. ‘Alcohol is forbidden. If we get found out, we’ll get sent home.’

  The girls silently considered this. Getting sent home for misconduct hadn’t occurred to them. They looked at one another with gladdening hearts. They clapped their hands, jumped for joy and squealed with glee, ‘Excellent. Let’s do it.’

  Dorothy dug into her pockets, searching for her whistle. She reckoned a swift blast would restore order. But after rummaging through her dungarees, she couldn’t find it and decided she must have left it in her locker. She went to fetch it; a lead girl should never be without her whistle.

  Tricia waited till she was gone. Grinning, she held up the whistle. ‘One Acme Thunderer. Found it lying on the floor by Dorothy’s bed.’

  Elspeth said that it deserved a respectful end, something that would forever dull its awful blare. She led the way to the water butt outside the ablutions hut. They gathered round as Tricia held the whistle above the icy water. In the pouring snow, they saluted, sang, ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’, and watched the Acme Thunderer slip beneath the surface and sink, a shiny silvery thing, to the bottom of the barrel. Then singing ‘Goodbye Whistle We Must Leave You’, they marched in perfect line back to the dining hut. They were jubilant, united in mischief. ‘Splendid ceremony,’ said Elspeth. They all agreed.

  In the afternoon, while the rest of the girls prepared the dining hut, shoving back the tables and hanging decorations, Elspeth walked down the track to invite the Newfies to the party. It was still snowing – a fresh layer covered the tangled tracks of all the comings and goings of the morning. If she looked up, all she could see were fat flakes streaming towards her.

  She stepped into the forest and stood still, holding her breath. There was an exquisite silence. Here, standing on a damp carpet of brown needles, it smelled of cold, damp snow and pine. Hardly a flake slipped through the thick branches overhead. It was the first time in months that she’d been truly alone. She wandered deeper into the trees, something she and all the girls had been warned not to do. ‘You can get lost in the forest,’ Duncan had said. ‘Trees, trees and more bloody trees is all you’ll see and you won’t know which way is back. You can walk round and round for days and nobody’ll find you.’ But the silence was alluring, not a rustle or scurry of an animal foraging for food, not a bird singing, Elspeth was tempted to walk and walk. It would be wonderful to live alone again. To be away from the babble of voices, the constant closeness of other people eating, washing, complaining, sighing, working, just getting by and the night monologues of sleeping homesick girls.

  She wondered if the roads weren’t blocked, and she set off on foot for home, how long it would take her, and if they would send somebody to bring her back. She fantasised a moment about life on the road, walking – the wind in her face, each stride taking her closer to her cottage, a soft bed, a fireside. It would be worth it, she thought.

  A scraping noise drew her from her daydream. She walked back through the trees and saw Dorothy moving slowly along the track, eyes on the ground, shoving snow aside with her foot. Elspeth guessed she was looking for her lead girl’s whistle and felt a pang of guilt. She shrugged, thought, Oh well, she can get another whistle, then carried on towards the Newfies hut.

  There were several hundred of them working in different parts of the forest, but here there were eighty. Elspeth thought that if every one of them brought a bottle that would make an awful lot of drink.

  Standing at the entrance of the hut, she spread her arms. ‘The girls are having a party. Everyone’s welcome, and anything you can contribute to the festivities would be appreciated.’ Wolf whistles, stamping of feet, clapping of hands, winks and cheers – they all knew what she meant. Tyler Bute said he’d bring his gramophone and records. He had six, he said, so they wouldn’t be playing the same tune over and over.

  The party started at seven o’clock. Everyone had been told to bring their tin mugs, as there were no glasses. The contributions to the festivities were hidden outside the back door in case Duncan Bowman showed up.

  Elspeth played her accordion as everyone arrived. The Newfies were all freshly shaved, with their hair slicked, smelling of Brylcreem, shoulders covered in a light powdering of snow. It was still tumbling down outside. All the girls were scarlet-lipped and scented.

  Mary Noakes demonstrated the art of pouring sixty whiskies in forty seconds. She lined up all the tin mugs in a tight row, then ran along beside the table, a whisky bottle in each hand, pouring an exact measure into each one. Not a drop was spilled. She got a round of applause and a small fanfare on the accordion for her efforts. ‘A trick I learned working in my father’s pub. When the mills came out on payday, we’d have the drink lined up on the bar waiting for the workers as they came in.’ She took a bow.

  Elspeth played a waltz, one or two people took to the floor, others milled about chatting. But, by nine o’clock they were jumping and jiving to ‘Little Brown Jug’. Every so often the throng of dancers would part and let one couple show off their moves; girls were tossed over men’s shoulders, twirled, slung between legs and came up, flushed, smiling and still dancing. The air was thick with smoke, heavy with vapours of booze, alive with the chatter and shout of flirting talk. Whisky flowed. Nobody was sober.

  There was sweat, there was heat. Tyler yelled it was time for some good old Newfie music. He put on his only record from home, the Kitty Vitty Minstrels, to wild cheers and stamping of feet. An accordion, a fiddle and a mandolin stomped out a jig. Tyler grabbed Elspeth and swung her round and round.

  The room was stifling and someone opened the door. Outside the night shone. It had, at last, stopped snowing. A fat moon floated above the trees. The temperature was below freezing. Everything, white and still, glistened. Tyler tightened his grip on Elspeth’s waist and danced her out of the hall and across the snowy ground. She was breathless and laughing. Why, he was an astonishing dancer. Much better than me, she thought. Round and round they went.

  Others followed, dancing. On the gramophone, the Kitty Vitty Minstrels shifted into a reel. The crowd swirled, then started linking arms and whirling one another, moving on to whirl the
next person, round and round. Everybody was dancing with everybody. The record had come to an end, but nobody noticed. On they danced, skipping and whirling, singing, whooping and wildly drunk.

  Later, Elspeth was to say that of course such alcohol-fuelled mayhem was bound to end in tears. But, oh, wasn’t it fun while it lasted?

  At the height of the frenzy, two men collided. One, angered, pushed the other. The second man, furious at the uncalled-for shove, punched the first. The second punched back. Others joined in. In seconds, the dance became a brawl. Everyone was shoving and punching, rolling and wrestling in the snow. Some girls joined in, slapping and kicking. Others stood on the duckboards outside the hut, screaming for everyone to calm down.

  Elspeth remembered her accordion. If the fight moved inside, it could get beaten up. It was too old to suffer any brutal treatment. She went inside to fetch it. While she was there, it crossed her mind that if she put the record back on, the fighting might stop and the dancing resume. But this only made the brawl more intense. The noise of shouting, scrapping, swearing and the wild thrum of music became a cacophony. ‘Oh dear, a mistake,’ she said.

  Skirting the mob, she took her accordion to her dormitory hut. Whilst she was sliding it to safety under her bed, she heard several short angry blasts of a whistle. Looking out of the window, she saw Duncan Bowman standing at the edge of the brawl, cheeks tight with air, face red, furiously blowing his whistle. ‘Ye bunch of bloody hooligans!’ he shouted.

  Everything stopped. The whole rabble turned to look at him. He was surrounded by panting, drunken, fired-up men, and took a few steps backwards. ‘Ye’ll clean this place up, all of you.’ He stood looking at the faces around him, searching for someone.

  Elspeth sidled from her hut. She should be seen. After all, this party had been her idea. She deserved her share of the blame. She stood, hands in pockets, leaning against the wall. She thought she was declaring herself – she had been part of the fracas. The whole place was silent, save for the steady dripping of water melting from the huge icicles that had formed on the eaves of the hut.

  Duncan turned, saw her, said, ‘Ah, there you are.’ Then he smiled.

  It was a fleeting thing, this smile. It seemed to take his facial muscles by surprise; it wasn’t something they were used to doing. His eyes remained cool. Here was a man who saw everything objectively – huge trees, landscapes and working men. He had long left tenderness behind. His smile looked more like a facial quirk, and it chilled Elspeth to the bone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Guilt and Kisses

  IT STRUCK CLAIRE that Izzy could have done with going to a proper finishing school. Eating two helpings of pork chops followed by two helpings of ice cream wasn’t ladylike. ‘A bit greedy, don’t you think?’

  ‘Couldn’t resist,’ said Izzy. ‘When did I last have pork chops? Can’t remember. And when am I ever going to have them again?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Claire. ‘Do you think about anything other than food?’

  Izzy said she did. ‘But I like eating.’

  Claire said she’d noticed.

  Izzy asked what Claire thought about.

  ‘All sorts of things, my children, Richard – I worry about him in that prisoner of war camp. And other things.’

  ‘What other things?’ asked Izzy. She imagined Claire having profound philosophical thoughts, too deep to impart.

  ‘Just things,’ said Claire. Mostly, these days, she thought about sex. She missed it. She missed having someone in bed, breathing next to her. She wanted to feel skin on her skin, lips on her lips. The softness of kisses. She wanted to get lost in pleasure. She longed for these moments when she clung to someone – and in her dreams it wasn’t Richard, but some faceless man who adored her – sighing and moving, intent on rapture.

  This was why she had slept with Julia’s boyfriend, Charles, last night. And that was why Mrs Brent, having discovered only one bed had been used, when two people – one male, one female – had been in the cottage overnight, and, showing her disapproval, had left only two sad, lonely dried-up rissoles each for supper.

  ‘There’s been hanky-panky going on in that cottage, and it’s not right. Oh, I know there’s not a lot to eat these days. And it’s dark because of Germans flying about looking for somewhere to bomb. So it’s no wonder people are going at it like rabbits. What else is there to do? But one of them at the cottage had a bit of you-know-what with another one’s boyfriend. And that’s plain wrong. So, it was rissoles for them,’ Mrs Brent had told Mr Brent as they ate a hefty plate of sausages and mash.

  So, Claire and Izzy were eating out in the fish and chip shop tonight.

  It was Claire’s first time there. She was impressed by Izzy’s reception. People working behind the counter called her name and waved when she arrived. Izzy was a star in the fish and chip shop. She walked past the long queue and into the tiny smoky café, saying they were going through to the back. This was a small area packed with long wooden tables and benches not unlike the pews in Izzy’s father’s church. It was where the elite of the fish-and-chip eaters went.

  A woman behind the counter, furiously shaking a wire basket of chips shouted, ‘The usual?’

  Izzy raised two fingers, jerked her thumb at Claire behind her and said, ‘Twice.’

  Claire had never been greeted like this at any restaurant. The most she ever got was if a headwaiter graced her with a watery smile and said it was nice to see her again.

  Through the back, the air was thick with chatter and the hot smells of food frying. It was noisily friendly and, right now, Claire preferred that to the genteel tinkle of her usual dining haunts. Here, people ate with vigour, elbows going as they shifted hearty forkfuls of food from plate to mouth. They smoked, gossiped and swigged tea. Of course, people did all these things at the Savoy, just not simultaneously.

  ‘You’re known here,’ said Claire.

  ‘I sometimes come after supper.’

  ‘You eat supper and fish and chips?’

  Izzy said she got hungry. ‘Food is a comfort.’

  ‘There are other ways of finding comfort besides food,’ Claire said.

  Izzy said she knew that. Inside her head, she listed comforting things – her dressing gown, as long as she didn’t look at herself while wearing it, lying in bed listening to rain falling outside, sitting watching the fire in the evening, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.

  Two plates were put in front of them, fish in thick crispy batter atop a layer of golden gleaming chips. Izzy reached for the vinegar and showered her food, then added a liberal sprinkling of salt from a battered aluminium shaker. She sipped tea from the heavy china cup, contemplating some serious eating. ‘Food is best, though.’

  Claire picked up a chip, put it in her mouth and shook her head. ‘No, sex is best.’

  Izzy wasn’t going to comment on that. Her sex life so far had been miserable. She and Allan had been beginners and hadn’t had time to polish their skills. Of course, there hadn’t really been anywhere they could do that. Izzy had lived at home and rarely had the manse to herself. Allan had had a room in Perth, where his landlady kept an eye on him and did not allow lady friends to visit. So, they had camped. They had cycled out of the village on laden bikes, found a quiet spot by a river fifteen miles away and pitched their tent. In the morning, Izzy had woken to find a heavy warm weight pressing against her back. For a while, thinking it was Allan, enjoying the extra heat, she’d snoozed. But when she finally heaved herself from her sleeping bag, she’d discovered it was a sheep on the other side of the canvas. It had been pressed against her, and was also enjoying the heat. The weekend hadn’t been a huge success. The fire had been smoky, the sheep intrusive and curious and there had been a lot of flies swarming round them.

  For their second, and last, weekend together, they’d booked a room in a small hotel not far from Edinburgh’s West End. They’d booked in as Mr and Mrs Moon, giving Elspeth’s address. That had been better. Izzy had felt loved, wanted
and, for the first time in her life, grown-up. They’d clung to one another. Almost as if they both knew that Allan, who was leaving in a couple of days, would not come back.

  Still, after mixing with Julia and Claire, Izzy now knew her sex life had been unadventurous.

  Recently, however, her eating life had been rather good. Last night’s double helping of pork chops had been a highlight.

  Yesterday, she had been taken through the wards – wolf whistles, whoops of approval and loud invitations from patients to join them in bed – to the nurses’ quarters where she would spend the night. Nurse Irene had shown her to a vacant bed at the end of the dormitory and told her to meet the Captain in the officers’ quarters at six o’clock. Meantime, she might like to have a nap. Izzy had thought this a good idea. Napping was, after flying and eating, her favourite thing to do.

  ‘There you are,’ Captain Jim had said when she entered the room. He’d stretched out his arm, welcoming her, waving her to a seat opposite his at the table. Their food would be along in a minute. ‘Pork chops, but tinned, of course.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Izzy. She thought tinned food exotic. So much more interesting and tasty than real food.

  He’d watched with amused interest as she ate, and, when she’d cleared her plate, asked if she wanted some more.

  ‘Oh, please,’ Izzy had answered, then, feeling a little ashamed of her eagerness, ‘well, pork chops. There aren’t a lot of pork chops around these days.’

  They’d spoken of their plans for when the war ended. He was going back to Montana to work in the local general hospital and breed horses. ‘Appaloosas.’ Izzy hadn’t a clue what she was going to do.

  From somewhere in the hospital came a loud surge of laughter. A wave of mirth. ‘The Marx Brothers,’ he said. ‘We show movies for the patients twice a week. It’s A Night at the Opera tonight.’