by Jane Bailey
26
By the time war broke out I was nineteen and ready for a change. My dogged desire for stasis underwent a little tweak, and then another. At the pictures every week we saw girls being sung to, driven in open-topped cars, or pushed up against trees and kissed. They sipped wine, wore jewellery, screamed and cried, and slapped men’s faces. They were worldly, confident and romantic, and wonderful things happened to them. It all seemed to be part of that glorious, terrifying and breathtaking thing that looms when you are young: the future. And Mo and I couldn’t help but want a taste of it.
We both signed up for the WAAF, did our six weeks’ training, and were stationed at a nearby airbase. I was immediately homesick for Gracie, but the presence of Mo and the excitement of the noise of the planes, the young men in their bomber jackets, the unknown outcome of each day, acted like a magnet to draw me in. I told myself I could go at any time, go home to Gracie and resume work on the sewing machine, and that helped me to endure the freezing huts we had to live in like prisoners of war, and the food which was tasteless and always cold.
The hardest thing of all was the sleeping arrangements. Not only was there no warm mass to cup me in her lap, but there were two rows of iron-framed camp beds: cold, institutional, they made me want to run away on my first day.
But on Saturday nights we had ‘socials’, and these made it clear we weren’t imprisoned. For soon Mo and I and the rest of the girls could hardly move for flirtatious men. We sipped beer, sometimes, like the women in the movies (although not wine), we danced (although not in sequins), and we drove (only we were at the wheel, and they were trucks). It was a huge transformation from the country shop and girls of Woodside, and what we put up with in regulations and hardships was more than made up for in the long-awaited spreading of our wings.
In 1939 we were pretty much all home for Christmas. The usual Boxing Day hunt took place, and lots of us gathered outside the pub for the mummers’ play. Mr Mustoe played St George, and Mr Rollins played the dragon, like every year since I could remember. Robert had taken to playing a concertina which his father had forsaken a week after purchasing it, and even George (who was thirteen by now) had a small part. Along with several other villagers they were blackened up with boot polish and wore clothes covered in tiny tags of coloured cloth.
Mo and I had travelled down together, and were a little disappointed to see so many people in full uniform: only our hats, navy knickers and skirts had arrived and the skirts had had to be sent back because of poor stitching. When we got to the pub in Woodside we weren’t able to show off our new status in the world, because we were in mufti except for our hats.
Robert spotted us immediately. He came over and I knew he was going to kiss us both and leave a black smudge on our cheeks. ‘S’good luck!’ he said as he did just that, and he said as much every year. ‘You needn’t think I’m going to salute you, just ’cause you’re wearing them caps.’
I laughed, and Mo nudged me and nodded towards a posse of hunters. There, in full RAF officer uniform, was James Buckleigh; on his arm was a young woman with a fur collar. I felt a sharp heat in my face and glanced away, back at Robert, who had followed my eyes.
‘Bloody show-off. You wait till I join up after Christmas. You won’t see me parading around in my uniform on leave. ’S if he hasn’t got anything else to wear …’ He was talking loudly, and I felt uncomfortable. I knew you had to wear uniform on leave. I didn’t care who James Buckleigh was with, but I certainly didn’t want him to think he was the object of our conversation. ‘I’ll get you two soldiers a drink then, shall I?’ said Robert, and disappeared into the pub doorway. I was relieved he had gone, but it was too late. James had spotted us. He left his group and came over.
‘Joy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes … hello.’
He smiled. He wafted over me: woodsmoke and woollen serge and leather, and a hint of that smell from his enchanted room all those years ago. ‘Did you have a good Christmas?’
‘Yes … thank you.’ There was an awkward silence.
‘Not hunting yourself, then?’ I asked.
‘No. I don’t hunt.’
I couldn’t look him in the eye, but I was conscious he was looking at me.
‘And this must be …’ He was smiling at Mo, and she was smiling back.
‘Oh! Mo – this is my friend Mo,’ and then (because I was flustered and angry and showing off to Mo) I added, ‘another grubby little village girl.’
Mo’s face crumpled, and she turned such a frown on me I instantly wished the phrase unsaid. But just as I was wondering how to redress things and catching a glimpse of James Buckleigh’s disconcerted eyes, Robert came up with two steaming mugs of punch.
‘There you go – ooh! I see you’re being chatted up by the lord of the manor – or should I say, the “pretender”?’ He was loud, he was awful, he had been drinking since the pub opened.
James Buckleigh looked aghast. ‘What do you mean?’
Robert was a loose cannon. ‘You know what I mean.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I know there’s something dodgy about your parentage.’
I saw James Buckleigh’s cheeks harden as he clenched his jaw. He opened his nostrils like an animal smelling danger. His eyes narrowed, he turned his head very, very slowly, but just a fraction, to face Robert full on.
‘I ought to knock your block off, you bastard!’
‘Bastard, eh? I think we know who the bastard is around here, don’t we? What’s the matter? Ashamed of your real father, are you?’
I could feel Buckleigh’s anger come off him like a heat. He gave me a quick punishing glance and I shuddered. He spoke slowly.
‘I am very, very proud of my father.’
People from the hunting crowd looked over, and the young fur-collared woman came over and held on to his arm. ‘Come on, James, you don’t need to get involved with this lot.’
‘This lot?’ said Robert, heading for he didn’t know where. ‘I’ll ’ave you know I’ll be fighting for you, lady, after Christmas, I’ll be—’
‘Well, you’ll have to salute James, then. He’s an officer, you know. Or perhaps you hadn’t noticed.’ She brought with her a sickly cloud of sweet violet. ‘You’ll jolly well have to salute him then.’
As she steered Buckleigh away, he turned and said, through gritted teeth, ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ Then he caught my eye, and scowled. ‘And your face is grubby.’
I couldn’t breathe. It felt as though all the oxygen in all the world had been turned off. There was a rush in my head and my ears started to pound. All the noises started to swim together. Robert was very close saying something about fuckers with beery breath and I pushed him away. Mo was saying to me, ‘Well … you asked for that one!’ in a false cheery voice. Some music started up. I drank my hot drink hurriedly and scurried home.
It was quite some time later, when I undressed for bed, that I saw myself in the dressing-table mirror. Right along my left cheek was a dark black smudge of boot polish.
27
The following day I rose early and rinsed some clothes in the copper, for I was leaving in the afternoon on the four o’clock train. There was a ferocious wind which would dry them quickly, and if I boiled my rags there would be plenty of time to dry them over the range. All the colour seemed to have drained from Woodside and I felt numb. When I pegged things out I saw what a state the back garden had grown into, and promised Gracie I would sort it out before I went back.
‘Don’t waste time on that, sweetheart – I’d rather spend time with you.’
‘I’ll only be a moment!’
‘But it’s so precious this time.’
‘I’ll be five minutes.’
‘You’ll get filthy – spoil your nice shoes an’ all.’
I stuck on some old hobnail boots of her father’s and his old coat from under the stairs, and I clumped out the back to sort things out.
The sheep on the hillside were ragged and grey. Heads down against the
wind, round-bellied and slow-moving, they dreamed of being penned in for lambing in the months ahead.
I breathed smoke. My bare legs were bloodless with cold. The leaves we hadn’t raked up in the autumn had formed a brown mulch between the vegetable patches, and most of the cabbages had been eaten to shreds. I squelched along the rows, collecting dead vegetables and throwing them on the compost heap. Some had great gooey brown roots that slopped against my clothes and legs. The wind flattened my hair on to my face. I thought about the day before and replayed the scene outside the pub in as many different ways as I could. But even if Robert hadn’t kissed me, even if no rude words had been exchanged, even if I hadn’t been anywhere near the incident, even then, even then James Buckleigh would still have been with that fur woman. Not that I cared in the slightest, except that it completely denied the slim hope I had entertained that he might just be different from that whole blinkered, self-absorbed, self-perpetuating (I threw cabbages with each adjective, as if they were rolling heads) set of posh, selfish, patronizing … not that it was a hope even – he had claimed to be different. And if he hadn’t pretended to be different I would’ve gone to the party that time and I would’ve seen what they were all like and I would’ve forgotten him completely instead of having to remember being carried through the streets on a summer’s night with no words spoken and his wretched, wretched, wretched –
‘Joy! Joy! Someone to see you
Gracie’s face at the back door spelt alarm. I clumped inside, wiped my hobnails on the mat, and went into the parlour, my skirt full of root vegetables and a sulphurous-smelling cabbage and exposing my cold pink legs to the thighs, my hair over my eyes and sticking out like a ragdoll, my fingernails clotted with mud. I don’t know why I was surprised it was him: I was dressed for the part.
‘Hello,’ said James Buckleigh, with a slight smile. ‘I apologize for the intrusion…’ He held out his hand, and I let the vegetables down clumsily and held out a cold earthy hand. To his credit, he took it. ‘I’m so sorry, I … I wanted to see Robert, actually. I have to see him urgently. Only I didn’t know where he lived.’
‘Robert? He’s next door. I don’t know if he’ll want to see you, though.’
‘I know. That’s why I’ve brought Bee – Beatrice. She’s in the car. To show him I’m not on an aggressive mission. You see—’
Gracie, who had been biting her nails, suddenly piped up: ‘Oooh! You’re not leaving your young lady up in the car, are you? Bring her in for goodness’ sake – it’s freezing out there.’ And before either of us could say anything she was out of the front door cajoling the unwilling fur lady into our parlour.
‘Come and warm yourself by the fire,’ she was saying, and Beatrice took in our parlour with a strange look on her face.
‘Isn’t it … sweet!’ she exclaimed. Then she looked around like a child who has seen snow for the first time at the exact moment that a dog relieves himself on it. Her eyes lifted up to the bar above the range, and my five muslin rags hanging over it. Despite boiling they still had faint menstrual stains on them. Seeing her look of repugnance I hurled myself at them and pulled them down, wiping my grimy hands on them.
‘For gardening!’ I panted. ‘Thank heavens for my gardening rags!’ Although I was angry because I would have no time to wash and dry them again before I left, I was also strangely relieved because it seemed there could be no worse depths to my humiliation, and it must at last be over. Perhaps, like Mr Mustoe with the rabbit, she would now fetch a large stone and club me over the head with it. I was unsavable.
‘Would you like me to take you round to Robert?’ I asked.
‘I was hoping you might.’
I clumped past them both in my hobnails, pulled Granddad Burrows’ coat more tightly around me, and stepped out of our front door into the chill wind.
Mr Mustoe was squawking away at the battered old cello he’d procured for Christmas. George and Eileen, their youngest, were playing marbles in front of the fire. Mrs Mustoe and Tilly were in the back kitchen cooking, Mo was ironing her blouse for the journey, and Robert, hungover, was reading a Dandy. They barely looked up when I went in, except Robert who admired the boots. Then there was pandemonium as they spotted the visitors behind me. The girls rushed about trying to tidy things (a vain hope in the Mustoe house), the children gaped, Robert sprang to his feet and Mr Mustoe practically saluted, standing proudly next to his instrument.
‘I’m so sorry to intrude,’ said James Buckleigh again, ‘but I wanted to apologize for my behaviour yesterday—’
‘Oh, that’s no bother!’ blurted Robert, entirely forgetting he had started it.
‘—and I wondered if I might have a word with you – and perhaps Joy … in private, perhaps?’
Robert automatically led the way to the only other room in the house – the back kitchen – and he, James and I found ourselves alone and surrounded by steaming vegetables and an overpowering smell of onion and carbolic soap.
‘The thing is … what you said yesterday … doesn’t concern me in the slightest. It’s just that Celia … well, Celia would be devastated if she thought people were talking like that. I wouldn’t bother to mention it, it’s just that she’s not at all well at the moment, and this could just be the last straw.’
Robert nodded as if he were old mates with James Buckleigh, but I was shocked. ‘Celia? What’s wrong? I didn’t know.’
‘Well, it’s confidential. She’s … depressed. She’s being treated for it. I trust that stays between us?’
‘Of course.’ I looked at Robert.
‘Of course!’ he said.
I had barely seen Celia since that fateful date. I knew I had avoided her but I assumed she had been avoiding me too.
‘I wish I had time to visit her.’
‘Perhaps next time you’re home – she’d like that.’
And those few little words (‘she’d like that’) were a stay of execution. I could feel my cheeks boiling along with the carrots after the cold garden.
He looked at Robert. ‘And you won’t repeat what you said yesterday – to anyone?’
‘’Course not!’ Course not! I was drunk as a lord.’ He put his hand to his head. ‘I shan’t be doing that again in a hurry.’
‘Thank you.’
James held out his hand to Robert, and shook it earnestly. Then he turned to me and held out his hand. I put my palm to his and felt his skin against mine. I could hardly believe he’d seized me up in his arms once, and I felt that all my clothes had dropped away, one by one, and that his had too, and that we were both naked as the day we were born, standing there, skin to skin. Then Robert slapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me towards him.
‘We won’t breathe a word, will we, Joy? You can count on us!’
It was torture.
James simply nodded and made his way back to the parlour, leaving us standing there like a married couple. I wriggled free and followed him, intending to find out more about Celia, only to see that Beatrice had removed her gloves to warm her hands by the fire, and revealed in the process a ring as big as a threepenny bit. The Mustoe women were in thrall.
‘Oooh!’
‘Is it a diamond?’
‘Oooh! Look at that!’
‘Oooh!’
Beatrice tried to look imperious, but she couldn’t help lapping it up. ‘It’s a twenty-two carat diamond set with emeralds.’
‘When’s the wedding?’
‘July – with any luck the war will be over by then.’
‘Where will it be, then?’
‘In my local church – near Cirencester.’
‘What’s the dress like?’
‘Well, it’s all frightfully vague at the moment. But it’ll be white shot silk, with a princess waist and gathered seams and a ten-yard veil of silk chiffon.’
‘Oooh!’
‘Lovely!’
‘Oooh!’
Mrs Mustoe, Mo and Tilly didn’t even stop their fawning when they saw me.
Then something even more dreadful happened.
James suddenly put out his hand and grabbed me by the elbow, pulling me back quite roughly. Then he moved in towards the fire, placing himself between me and Beatrice. Everyone saw it, everyone was aghast, and within a split second everyone decided to pretend it hadn’t happened.
I was breathless with shock, and with the effort of trying not to show it. I could make no sense of it at all. It was as if he had tried to stop me getting close to Beatrice – as if I had been making my way towards her to punch her lights out. The enforced cheeriness of the others clawed at my heart. My pride, like the rabbit, was not worth saving. Beatrice turned her face to look at me and, at last, with a spectacular thlunk, the slab came down on my miserable skull.
28
After another period of training I became a Mechanized Transport Driver. The rest of my uniform turned up at last: a lovely barathea top – much smoother than the ATS one – with the albatross badge, grey-blue lisle stockings, pink suspenders (to go with the navy knickers), cotton bra, navy fabric shoulder bag and black shoes. Because I was in MT I also got a greatcoat, which was lucky, because that winter was freezing, and lots of the other trades didn’t get them. I learned to drive trucks and small lorries. I transported crews to and from airfields, I chauffeured officers, I serviced vehicles and mended faults. Sometimes I would catch myself in a dark window and see a very competent woman carrying a spanner, and I was surprised to find that I admired her. She seemed vital and assured, and I would think of her when I opened a car door for an officer, changed gears proficiently or leaned a casual elbow on a wound-down window.