A Wartime Secret

by Annie Murray

  ‘Bet you can sing,’ he said. ‘Anyone can. My dad’s Welsh – they all sing down there.’ He stood tall and for a moment she thought he was about to burst into song, but he seemed to think better of it.

  She stayed later than she meant to. Johnny found a seat next to her later and they chatted on for ages – Johnny telling her about his mom and dad and his sister who was a nurse and his brother who was in the air force, and she told them about Joan and Norm and growing up without a mom and dad. He said he found that really sad and looked genuinely upset for her. And they fell into laughing, easy conversation. But somehow, in all of it, she didn’t tell him about Ted, and she guessed later that he never noticed the ring on her finger because if he had he would have said something. And so she always knew it was her fault, all of it. And because the next time she saw him, she had slid the ring off her finger and left it on the chest of drawers in her room. For safekeeping, she told herself.

  Some of the other girls peeled off and said they were going home before she did.

  ‘I must go,’ she kept saying. The pub crowd was thinning out. Grace had let herself slide into a hazy, dreamy state. She knew she was a bit tiddly, not so much from the watery beer as from this man’s eyes on her, the attention he was giving her and his obvious attraction to her.

  ‘I’m off now, Grace,’ Margaret said. ‘You coming?’

  ‘Yeah, in a minute.’ By this time, her eyes and Johnny’s seemed almost unable to fix on anything but each other. She just could not pull away.

  Margaret soon lost patience and went without her.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the bus stop,’ Johnny said, eventually.

  She was ashamed that he had to support her as they went out into New Street. She felt unsteady and as if she had entered another life altogether in the last hours. She had forgotten about the war, about work, about Ted. All she could think of was this man, of the desire coursing between the two of them which had heightened as the evening went by.

  There was a couple of inches of snow on the ground and its whiteness helped illuminate their way in the blacked-out street. It made the night feel magical. They walked a little way towards her bus, arm in arm. Then without speaking, as if it was the only natural thing to do, he led her into the deeper shadow of the tall buildings and took her in his arms. Their lips met, all cigarettes and beer and forceful hunger. Grace felt as if she had come alive again at last, as Johnny’s strong arms pulled her closer to him.

  Both of them were breathing heavily as they drew back from each other.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she whispered, dazed.

  ‘God, Grace.’ She could only see his face in shadowy outline. ‘You’re a cracker. I noticed you as soon as I came in tonight. When can I see you again?’

  That was the moment she could have said it. It’s been nice, but . . . Instead, she found herself taking in when his days off were, working out where they could meet and, for the remainder of the week until they did, longing for it with a powerful physical longing, even while she told herself that it was all right, they were friends. Just friends. She was a married woman. Nothing was going to happen.

  11

  Larry Biggins, Ted’s pal, arrived at the house on Sunday and started helping Ted fix the pigeon coop. Once they had both had a look at it, it was obvious that the thing was so rotten that they would almost have to start again, so there was much head-scratching and chat about where they were going to get anything from to put the thing together. Every sort of material was in short supply.

  Larry was a gangly bloke with watery blue eyes, prominent teeth and chaotic muddy-brown hair. He was married to a buxom redhead called Eileen, who, Ted and Grace always used to joke, looked as if she might flatten him. But they seemed a happy pair and Larry was an amiable soul.

  In a quiet moment in the kitchen, when Ted had gone out the back for something, Larry turned to Grace.

  ‘When ’e come round ours I nearly never let ’im in – daint know who ’e was.’ His distress showed in his eyes and he fidgeted his hand back and forth through his hair. ‘Terrible. Gave us a shock, that did.’

  ‘I know,’ Grace said. She couldn’t speak more because her aching throat seemed to have closed right up and tears filled her eyes.

  ‘Never thought I’d see ’im like this,’ Larry said. He looked distraught. ‘’E won’t say what they did to ’em, though. Those sodding Krauts.’

  She stood at the back door later, the midday sun on her face, voices and digging sounds drifting from the strips of garden stretching away on each side. At the bottom of their garden, Ted and Larry were trying to fix the coop. A length of string was the best they had for the moment. They were like two schoolboys trying to make a go-kart out of nothing and somehow that made her even sadder.

  For a moment, she laid a hand over her chest. Over these days since Ted had come home, her milk was gradually beginning to dwindle. She still fed Barbara every morning, but for the rest of the day she had had to be weaned. The grief of this mixed with all the other griefs, made her turn back into the house and sit at the table, letting her tears run out through her fingers. Their life before seemed dead and gone – as did the Ted she knew. And she was so changed herself: she with her terrible secret.

  Even as she cried for all that was lost to all of them, she could not stop thinking about Johnny, the father of her child. It felt like a lifeline to think of him – as if he might now be the one way she had out of all this.

  When it came down to it, she had not even seen Johnny many times. He worked shifts and lived over the other side of town, within reach of the main city fire station. It was winter, so it grew dark early and the weather was cold. When she thought back on it, they had only been together on fewer than a dozen occasions. And yet.

  After that first night, warmed inside by the thin alcohol, but even more by his kisses, she had almost floated home from the bus stop in Ladywood, feeling somehow that she was in another world from her normal life. Walking home, she could hear the rumble and thump of the night shift going on in factories around her, the occasional muffled shout. But the night was calm. It had stopped snowing and the usually dark and mucky streets were silvered by snow and moonlight.

  Nora was already in bed when she crept into the house. As Grace lay trying to sleep, the guilt rushed in on her.

  What the hell was I playing at? Voices nagged in her head. But still her mind could not stop replaying the evening, excited by it. She just couldn’t seem to think straight at all and decided it was the drink. It would all look different in the morning.

  Next day at work, she carried out the repetitive tasks as music blared out and the girls around her sang along to the wireless. It was all right when they were jigging about to the ‘Pistol Packin’ Mama’ but sooner or later it was ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’. The moment the emotional song began, she was thinking about all the familiar places she shared with Ted. But soon, even while she was thinking about the past, it was Johnny’s face, Johnny’s eyes, that kept stealing into her mind, fixed on her with that rapt attention and desire. Try as she might, she just could not stop thinking of him, and in her confusion and high emotion she burst into tears.

  ‘Hey – what’s up with you, Grace?’ Margaret called, from her neighbouring work station. Her voice was half teasing, half concerned. ‘I hope that fella you met last night ain’t playing with your heart?’

  This was far too near the truth. Grace wiped her eyes quickly.

  ‘No. I’m just missing Ted, that’s all. Going out last night brought it all back. I’d be best off not going.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk so silly,’ Margaret said. ‘You don’t have to live like a widow when you ain’t one. Life’s too short, kid.’

  Had it not been for Margaret, Grace knew she might have retreated and never gone anywhere where she might meet Johnny Duke ever again. But of course, she did go. Not once, but again and again. Without a ring on her finger. And soon, he was all she could think about.

  And now, once again
, he seemed to be filling her mind.

  Ted and Larry came in after a while, and though they had not been able to achieve anything much, she could see that trying to sort it out was good for Ted. His face was grey with exhaustion, but there was a lighter look to him and he managed to laugh and joke a bit with Larry.

  They took chairs out to the back of the house, where there was a little blue-bricked area by the privy. Grace made tea. She was grateful to Larry for nattering away, even if all he talked about was pigeons. To say Larry was obsessed would be a bit of an understatement. A monologue followed on the various types of bird.

  ‘What you wanna do is get some of them Rollers,’ he said, leaning forward on his skinny thighs, a cigarette burning between the finger and thumb of his right hand.

  ‘What are they, then?’ Grace was still interested at this point.

  ‘Oh!’ He sat up. ‘Beautiful, they are. And they was bred here, in Birmingham. Bloke called William Pensom. He was the greatest – a genius, ’e was. ’E were a bus driver – but ’e bred these birds that’d do backward rolls. They tumble – ’ his hands performed arcs in the sky – ‘like little acrobats. It’s a beautiful sight, that is. It does summat to yer.’

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ Grace said. And it did. Ted was sitting back, his painfully thin legs crossed one over the other, his clothes too big on him. But he was listening with interest.

  However, by the time Larry had gone on about all the other sorts of pigeon Ted might consider – racers, tumblers and tipplers and fantails, on it went – and whether he could ever even get the wood for a decent coop and be here long enough to do anything about it – Grace was beginning to suffer from pigeon indigestion.

  ‘How’s Eileen?’ she managed to get in at last, when Larry paused for breath.

  ‘Oh . . .’ He looked baffled for a second as if he had forgotten who Eileen was. ‘Oh,’ he grinned. ‘Yeah – she’s all right.’

  12

  ‘Just give me a few more days,’ Grace begged. She was sitting in Joan’s kitchen, Barbara in her lap. On the table were the family’s ration books and Joan’s worn cloth bags, ready to go to the shops. Davey was scooting back and forth along the lino with a tin train.

  Ted had been home a week and a half. Once again Grace was close to tears. She felt like a flaming tap these days, distressed and overwrought all the time.

  ‘Please, Joan. I know it’s a lot for you and Norm. But Ted’s so . . .’ She broke down then. ‘He’s so different. I’m at my wits’ end. I can’t get near him. He won’t talk to me, won’t go out. The slightest thing sets him off – makes him jump out of his skin. He just shouts . . .’ She tried to pull herself together and looked across into Joan’s worried and reproachful eyes.

  ‘The only thing keeping him going – and me, for that matter – is Larry and that rotten old pigeon coop. He managed to get some old packing boxes to start mending the thing. It looks a terrible mess but it’s keeping them both occupied.’

  She drifted off and looked down at Barbara. ‘You’re a little darlin’,’ she said, awash with tenderness. But the thought she kept to herself, looking at her daughter’s pale, plump cheeks and blonde hair, was, She looks more and more like her daddy . . . A blush, half shame, half longing, made its way from her neck to her face and all over, until she was sure it must be obvious to her sister. Luckily Joan, a pinner over her frock, was leaning down, ferreting through her cupboards, hoping, as they all did in the same way, that there might just be some extra thing to eat in there which they had forgotten – a tin, a handful of ancient raisins . . .

  ‘Norm’s not very happy about it all,’ she said, head half in the low cupboard. Which, Grace knew, meant that she wasn’t. Which Grace already knew. These days Joan was expressing disapproval in every line of her body.

  ‘I’ll do it. But just a few more days, that’s all. Please, sis.’

  As she said it, Davey banged his head on the table as he trotted past and started to howl. Joan tutted, standing upright again and lumbering over to Davey. How Joan managed to stay plump when there was so little to eat was a mystery to Grace, who was as thin as a rail. Though even Joan was not quite as big as she had once been.

  ‘What difference is a few days going to make, that’s what I want to know,’ she said over Davey’s yowls. She rubbed his head. ‘You’re all right, Davey – it were that table – just came up and hit you, daint it? Bad table!’ She pretended to smack it and Davey gave a watery smile. ‘Look, Grace – you got yourself into this mess. You’ve got to sort yourself out. You’ve got a husband and a child by another man . . .’

  ‘Well, you’re quick off the mark,’ Grace snapped, getting to her feet with Barbara cuddled in her arms. ‘Did you think I hadn’t noticed or summat?’

  Joan put her hands on her hips. ‘I’ll give you a few more days. But by God, Grace – you’d better tell him by then or I’ll be round with her to tell him myself.’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’ Grace was horrified. ‘Don’t you flaming dare!’

  ‘Only if that’s what it takes to make you see sense,’ Joan said. She looked as if she was about to say something else.

  Grace thought, if she says, I never thought you were that kind of woman again I swear I’ll lamp her one . . . There had been a lot of that when she first had to confide to Joan that she had a baby on the way. What sort of woman is that? she’d retorted, burning with shame, knowing everyone would think she was just that sort of woman.

  She handed Barbara over to Joan. Barbara gave a chirrup of laughter and Joan, in spite of herself, smiled down into her little niece’s face.

  ‘It’s a good job you’re such a cracker,’ she said fondly.

  Grace hurried to the shops for something – anything – to justify her morning trip out of the house. Her feelings were in turmoil, as ever. She thought of all the things she had not said to her sister: how the only time she and Ted could be close was when he wanted her in bed, in the dark, scarcely talking to her before or after. And how she wanted to love him with all her heart but he felt a million miles away. And how she couldn’t get out of her head the feel of . . . him . . . The memory of him, his eyes on hers, his lovemaking. Until she thought she would go mad.

  13

  She never meant to go with Johnny Duke, not like that. If anyone had warned her when she and Johnny first met that this was where it would lead, that she would be unfaithful to Ted, she would have been shocked to the core. She wasn’t that kind of woman – of course she wasn’t. It was all just a bit of fun and company.

  But never in her life before had she felt the way she did during those weeks in the spring of 1944. She and Johnny had been out for a drink here and there, snatched times in between work shifts, made harder by the blackout and Johnny working some distance away. It all made it easier to tell herself that this was nothing. He was just a man she had met, good for a chat in the pub now and then to lighten the boredom and dark days.

  Except that she just could not stop thinking about him. When they met, they laughed a lot together. Johnny would tell her his next day off and they would meet in town, in one pub or another. She would tell Nora she was off out, and Nora was busy with her boyfriend by then. But she didn’t mention it to Margaret and the others in the factory. And that, she thought now, was where it began – the way she learned to hide things and fib about it, even to herself. Especially to herself.

  She lived for the moment, never asking herself what she thought she was doing on these nights when she and Johnny lingered together in a town pub, talking about their lives and families, about where they came from. Except that Grace never mentioned that she was married to a man called Ted who she had now not set eyes on for more than four years.

  She felt as if she was in another life with Johnny, separate from her life with Ted. She was not really doing anything wrong.

  The snow melted and spring arrived. And during those still shadowy evenings, she chose not to ask herself what she was doing lingering late in some shop doorway in New
Street or in the shadow of the Cathedral, she and Johnny in each other’s arms. They were in a world of their own, kissing as if it was the most natural thing she had ever done.

  The first time it happened (that was how she remembered it to herself) was in April. They had gone back to Steven’s Bar. Among the crush in the bar were other lads from the fire station, regular firemen, along with a few AFS volunteers. None of Grace’s pals from work were there. They did not know she was there either.

  As it got to nine o’clock the others were drifting away. It was dark outside. Grace was leaning up against Johnny’s shoulder, desperately not wanting to leave.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ she said reluctantly.

  Johnny took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Don’t go yet, Grace.’

  Their eyes met and what she saw in his made her look away, blushing. He had such a frank face, his eyes intense with longing. She found him irresistible.

  ‘I don’t want to – but I mustn’t stop too late.’ She knew that by the time they had lingered a while outside, it would be much later.

  ‘All right, then.’ Johnny downed his last mouthful of ale, making a comical face. ‘Ugh.’

  ‘I don’t know why we do it to ourselves,’ she said. They both laughed.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll walk you home.’

  ‘Walk?’ she said, laughing. ‘What – to Ladywood? But then you’ll have to come all the way back.’

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘So? I can walk fast.’

  They walked along New Street in the chilly evening, Johnny’s arm about her shoulders, hers round his waist. They fitted together so well, were just the right build for each other. The air smelt smoky and damp. Grace was grateful for the white-painted edges of the pavements. Johnny had a tiny torch which he turned on now and then, throwing down a thin streak of light.

  ‘I still keep expecting to hear the air-raid warning go off any minute,’ she said. It still went off now and then these days, but rarely.