by Clare Harvey
He walked over to the parapet and leant his hands on the rough-cool concrete, looking out over the rooftops to where the Trent curved like a silver necklace. The factory building was higher than the surrounding terraced houses, but still not high enough for a chap to do away with himself, if he were so inclined. It had crossed his mind once, George remembered, just after he’d started at the factory, with everything that happened back in ’22. But he’d been too much of a coward to follow through. Later, he’d read that death was only a certainty if one jumped from higher than one hundred and fifty feet, and the factory roof was only around half of that. If he’d jumped, he would have only half-killed himself. He’d felt just half-dead since what happened then, in any case, so it really made no difference, he thought, leaning out a little, letting the blue-black chasm shimmy below him. Here he was, still at the factory, living half a life, more than twenty years later.
The sirens stopped and the sound of the planes was louder, a dull, distant drone. He straightened up. They were definitely heading west, as if the fat-faced moon were a plughole, sucking them in. He could just make out his watch in the moonlight: five past twelve – halfway through the night shift. Halfway through his life. He took his hands off the parapet and rubbed them together. It was still cold at night, even though spring was on its way.
He breathed in the chill air, and reached into his pocket for his pipe, as the flares began to fall over Derby, lighting the way for the incoming bombers. ‘Poor blighters,’ he repeated, thinking of all the individual instances of tragedy and chance that were about to happen: loves lost and lives ruined. What was the point of loving someone, of living with them, if it could all be destroyed in a moment, like that? He exhaled and shook his head. It was better – safer – to exist alone.
Chapter 3
Violet
‘Marry me,’ he said, hoiking up her skirt.
‘Oh, give over,’ she replied, shoving the cloth back down over her thighs. But his lips were at her throat and his breath was warm and wet. The rooftops of the houses on either side almost touched above their heads – if she looked up she could see a sliver of star-specked sky between the two lines of guttering.
‘Frank Timpson, what are you like?’ She pulled up his head and placed her lips on his, pressing into the soft beer-smoke-sweet taste of him. She let herself sink into the kiss. Mrs Frank Timpson – could she do it? She stroked the back of his neck, where the hairline bristled into the skin of his neck. She felt his hands snake down, unbuttoning her blouse. There was no one about. Nobody used this alley any more, not since the street at the far end had been blitzed out; it was a rubble-strewn dead-end further in.
‘I can’t do this, Frank,’ she said, pulling her mouth from his.
‘I mean it, Vi. Let me, and I’ll marry you. I’ll marry you tomorrow if you want. Just say yes.’ His breath hot against her skin, his fingers kneading and stroking. And then he slid down, the brush of cloth against cloth as he went all the way down onto one knee. His head was right by her groin, his hands pushing up her skirt, his fingers against her thighs. She let her legs relax, begin to part, as his thumbs looped under her knicker elastic and tugged them down. He pulled away from her and began to unbutton his fly.
The edge of the drainpipe bit into her back below the straps of her brassiere, and her hair snagged on the brickwork, as Frank’s body nudged and butted. Vi thought, this is it, I’m a woman now, and it hurt a bit, but it wasn’t as bad as they said. And it was all right, because she and Frank had been secretly meeting like this for months now, and he’d asked her to marry him, hadn’t he?
And in any case, everyone knew you couldn’t fall pregnant if it was your first time and you did it standing up.
I’ve lost my cherry! I’ve done it with Frank Timpson and he wants to marry me. It was a delicious secret. She thought they’d somehow be able to tell, but when she slipped into bed with Rita and May, they just complained about her cold feet, as per usual; nobody seemed to notice that she was different at all. Baby Val woke with a yowl at six in the morning, and Vi fell out of bed and down the stairs to warm her a bottle, even though she hadn’t gone to bed until past midnight and everyone kept telling her that Baby Val was too old to have a bottle in the mornings these days. Vi felt sorry for the motherless mite, sent back here when her dad got rheumatic fever last month.
Nothing had changed except her. Everything was just the same: national loaf and marge for breakfast, and weak tea with the thrice-used leaves (at least the little ones went to school with something hot inside, which was more than some others got). Ma was wheezing worse than usual, and had to be helped to the privy. One of the boys barrelled into Baby Val’s full potty before Vi had a chance to empty it, so there was that to clear up, and all. Vi wondered when the right time would be to tell them. Should she wait until it was official, she’d got a ring and that?
Ma was on her way back from the lav when the postman came; she pulled the brown envelope that poked through the slot like a paper tongue. She ripped it open and peered down at the typed sheet. ‘Thought this would come any day,’ she said, holding the paper out to Vi. ‘It’s been two weeks since your birthday already – they’ll be wanting you for war work, girl.’ She started coughing then, and Vi took the letter from her and helped her back into bed.
Vi felt the sheet of paper crackle in her pocket. The clock tower chimed the half-hour. The sun was cloud-stabbing, not quite breaking through, turning the morning street yellow-grey and bruised-looking. A poster on the bus stop opposite told her to join the ATS. Not bleeding likely, she thought, with a sudden twinge of grief, remembering her big sister, Bea.
It was a pain that the Labour Exchange was right over the other side of town, but she needed to get this out of the way as soon as. She was going to go right in there and tell them that she was engaged to be married. They couldn’t send her away for war work then, could they?
A window cleaner was soaping up the windows of the Labour Exchange, his arm sudding and wiping with the practised rhythm of a machine. Vi wondered why he hadn’t been conscripted – flat feet, bad teeth, infected lungs? He looked healthy enough to her, rubbing away at the glass like that. She began to walk along the pavement and he broke off his tune to give a lack-lustre wolf-whistle as she passed by. As she turned to give him a piece of her mind she could have sworn she saw Frank, coming down the street opposite. She could tell from his messy blond hair – he never wore a hat – and the slouchy way he walked with his hands in his pockets.
She paused with her hand on the Labour Exchange door. It was him, walking down the street opposite. Vi thought it was a happy coincidence. Frank could come into the Labour Exchange with her, and confirm their engagement, because there wasn’t even a ring yet, was there, and they might not believe her.
She was about to call out to him when she saw him stop at the doorway next to the bus stop and take a key out of his pocket. She hadn’t known he lived all the way over this side of town. He’d never said – she’d never asked, she realised – they always had other things to occupy themselves with, in the alley, after hours, when he walked her home from work.
As he got his key out, the door opened and a huge pram bumped down the front step, pushed by a dumpy woman in a floral turban and navy-blue coat. Vi hesitated: it could be his sister? That was when the bus drew up at the stop, obscuring her view.
Vi went inside the Labour Exchange and shut the door, but stopped just inside to look out of the window at the far end – the cleaner hadn’t reached that one, yet. She looked outside. Frank had disappeared, the bus was pulling away, and the woman with the pram was crossing the road towards her. Just then there was the clatter of a bucket on the pavement outside and a disembodied arm began to wipe sudsy water over the windowpane. She heard voices from outside, muffled by the glass.
‘Morning, Missus T!’
‘Morning, Jack.’
‘How’s Frank Junior doing today?’
‘I think his fever is getting worse, Ja
ck. I’ve been up with him all night. Frank says if he won’t settle in his pram then I’m to take him to the doctor.’
‘Well, I hope he feels better soon.’
‘Lord, so do I! Good morning, Jack.’
‘Morning, Missus Timpson.’
Something gave inside Vi, then. Like an old piece of knicker elastic pulled tight until it snaps, then hanging useless-loose. She put a hand out onto the dusty windowsill, feeling it smooth and hard beneath her fingertips. Up and down the wet cloth wiped, in front of her eyes (up and down like a barmaid’s knickers, that was how the saying went, wasn’t it?).
She drew breath and tilted up her chin, watching the water run in foamy rivulets down the glass. The cheating spiv. Marry me, he’d said. And he was already married, with a sick baby, too. He must only have said it – she knew why he’d said it. She turned away from the window. There was an empty chair behind a file-covered desk. Posters for the Land Army, WAAF, ATS, and the Wrens papered the shiny cream walls. The window cleaner’s shammy squeaked against the glass behind her. There was another poster above the desk: an orange one with a painting of a blonde woman with her arms flung high into the air, making a ‘V’ shape. Come into the factories, it said.
Vi walked over to the desk and banged the silver bell that lay next to the blotter. When nobody appeared she banged it again. ‘All right, I’m coming!’ A mousey-looking woman with buck teeth appeared from a side door.
‘What pays best?’ Vi said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ the woman said, sitting down, chair scraping the lino.
‘Forces, land or industry, what pays best?’ Vi said.
The woman pulled her chin into her neck and tapped her fingertips together. ‘I think the factory girls are getting a shilling an hour, these days,’ she said.
‘Good,’ Vi nodded, pulling her registration letter from her pocket and slamming it down on the desk. ‘How soon can I start?’
‘Are you quite sure, dear?’ the woman said, looking up. ‘Because once you’ve made your decision, you don’t get a second bite of the cherry.’
‘Don’t you?’ Vi said. ‘Says who? Churchill? Who says you can’t change your mind about something, if it turns out all wrong?’
The woman sucked at her overbite and began to fill in a form. ‘Industry it is,’ she said. ‘Probably the best place for a girl like you.’
Chapter 4
Zelah
The train was late. Zelah sat down on the hard wooden bench and looked out of the waiting-room window, watching the grey jostle of figures and the swirls of smoke and hearing the muffled chug of engines, rattle of luggage trolley, occasional shout. The dehumanising mix of people and machine reminded her of starting at the gun factory. She could see past the platform to where the ironwork on the station footbridge made criss-cross patterns, like someone ticking off the days on a calendar, and remembered how it felt, that first day in Nottingham, almost two years ago already:
The sound is like a muted air raid, but contained and syncopated, a rhythmic thud-roar, just at the level where the vibrations fill her body and push out thought. How can something be so vast and be so cluttered at the same time, she thinks, looking round at the huge space, filled with gantries, cranes, pistons, and blocks of moving metal, all slick-grey and solid.
There is a metallic taste on her tongue, the air peppery-hot in her nostrils, as a man gestures to her, and leads her to an incomprehensible piece of machinery. To her it looks like a sewing machine, but much, much larger: silver-black and dangerous-looking. She puts out her right index finger and touches it: warm and smooth.
Nobody talks – voices would be shouted down by the man-made thunder of the factory floor. And it is bright-dark: long electric strips illuminate the equipment, but there is no daylight, not a single window anywhere.
Once she starts here she’ll become part of the machinery itself, Zelah thinks, a fleshy cog in the factory, not a real person at all.
It is perfect.
Now Zelah gripped the edges of the plywood sign she held in her lap. ROF hostel, it said in large, black printed lettering. As soon as the London train came in, she’d go out onto the platform and hold it high up, so the newest batch of industrial recruits could see it. Many of them would never have been away from home before. For some it might even be their first time on a train. It was important for the welfare supervisor to guide them to their new home. It was one of the reasons Zelah had been offered the role, because she’d been through it herself, and management thought she’d have an understanding of the women’s concerns. That was what Mr Simmons had said, anyway.
The lady next to her shuffled in her seat and sneezed, saying ‘I do beg my pardon’, dabbing at her nose with a monogrammed handkerchief before turning her attention back to a feature in her magazine about creative uses of dried egg. And Zelah wished she’d brought something to distract herself with: knitting or crochet or something to read – not just because of the wait, but because of the feeling she got every time she had to do a station pick-up and bring the new girls back to the ordnance factory hostel.
The waiting-room door banged open, bringing with it the smoky dampness of the platform, and a young couple, holding hands and laughing as they barged inside. They sat down opposite Zelah, chattering loudly about what a good spread there’d been at the wedding breakfast and how Aunty Enid should never have been allowed near the sherry bottle. The young man was in army uniform, and the woman in a grey coat with huge shoulder pads, and a red hat perched on top of her golden curls. She laughed at something he said, opening her red lips wide, showing off a mouthful of perfect teeth, and resting a red-nailed hand on the thigh of his khaki trousers. The gold band on her ring finger gleamed in the waiting-room lights.
The couple turned and gazed at each other. Zelah thought they were about to kiss, but the woman glanced over at Zelah, muttered ‘Not here, darling’ to the man, and pulled her hand from his knee. Zelah flushed and looked down at the sign in her lap. She shouldn’t have stared, but it was hard not to. She thought about the young couple’s wedding: the church, the flowers, the happy grief of the bride’s mother, prayer books, lace, and tiny white-edged cubes of fruit cake. She’d like to have had a wedding like that, Zelah thought, running her fingers over the roughly painted sign. But it wouldn’t happen, would it? Twenty-five wasn’t old, not really, but she’d almost given up hope of having a second chance, now.
The woman next to her sneezed again, and the pages of her magazine fluttered. Zelah checked her watch. Would the train come in time for them to make it back to the hostel for tea? Matron would be unhappy if she had to miss out her introductory chat to the girls. Matron was unhappy about a lot of things, Zelah thought, suppressing a sigh.
From out on the platform came a muted roar: the London train arriving. Zelah was at the door with her sign before any of the other passengers had even gathered up their things. Carriage doors swung open and people stepped out onto the damp platform before the train had even come to a halt. Zelah stood underneath the moon-faced clock, holding her sign up high, and putting on a smile, watching the passengers tumble-jumble towards her. She was expecting ten, this time. There had been twenty come down on the Manchester train earlier. This would bring the hostel to capacity.
There was a knot of three, who’d found and introduced themselves to each other on the train. That was good, Zelah thought, they’d settle easily if they already had friends. She asked them to wait for a moment for the others, and held her sign higher, lifted her smile wider, looking hopefully at the bobbing heads of the alighting throng. One-by-one, six other girls joined the group, some smiling nervously, others silent and wide-eyed.
Zelah put her sign down, pulled her list from her pocket and double checked. Had she counted correctly? She asked their names and ticked them off. The crowds were thinning out, and the passengers for Grantham had all got on. The guard was walking along the train, helping stragglers with luggage, slamming doors shut. What if a girl had fallen asleep on t
he train? She checked her list. Who was missing?
The guard was just about to slam the final door when a young woman stepped off, ignoring his frown. Zelah saw the red flag wave, heard the shriek of the guard’s whistle, watched the brunette in the beige coat saunter towards them through the steam.
‘Excuse me, are you Violet Smith?’ Zelah had to shout to be heard above the sound of the train pulling out.
The girl smiled, and her left cheek dimpled. ‘Depends who’s asking,’ she said.
Violet
‘In here. The bell will go for blackout, and breakfast is at six in the canteen downstairs.’ The door to room 179 was flung open, and Vi stepped inside. She heard Matron clattering off down the corridor with the remainder of the intake. She put down her case and closed the door behind her. It was posh – like she imagined a hotel would be.
There was an electric light with a flowered shade and a switch hanging down on a little gold chain, and beyond that a window that looked out onto flat fields, brown-green and endless, stretching away towards the pale grey skies. To the left of the window was a white basin with two taps – hot and cold running water, in her own bedroom! There was a glass tumbler with a toothbrush in it and a grey flannel draped over the edge – the factory even provided wash kit? Nobody had mentioned that at the Labour Exchange. Vi blinked and let her eyes take in the rest of the room: a utility wardrobe on the other side of the window, opposite the sink, and a chest of drawers to her left, with a hairbrush on top (was that part of it too? She half-expected to open the drawers and find them stocked with brand-new cami-knickers and silk stockings). It wasn’t half bad for twenty-two shillings a week, she thought.