by Clare Harvey
Zelah nodded, biting her lip, hoping she could. She could try, at least. She had to try. ‘Right then. Ready?’ Zelah gestured towards the big house. Mary nodded. Zelah lifted the latch on the gate and they walked together up the path. As they approached, the front door opened.
A woman in a white apron and netted hair stood waiting in the entrance. ‘Miss Mary McLaughlin?’ she said, ushering them inside, where it was dark and the air smelled of floor polish and antiseptic. From upstairs there was the sound of a crying baby.
After the forms and the obligatory cup of tea, the woman in the apron said Mary could go on up, tutting over Mary’s lack of personal belongings (not even a nightdress and clean underwear, dear?) and rolling her eyes at Zelah, as Mary trudged up the wooden staircase to her room. Halfway up the stairs, Mary turned, hand on banister, and looked down at Zelah. ‘You will talk to Mr Handford so I can come back to work, won’t you, Miss Fitzlord?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Zelah said, a tightness in her chest at the thought of it. ‘I’ll talk to him as soon as I get back, Mary.’
He had his back to her. His white coat was like a blank sheet of paper. She noticed the way his dark hair was oiled down and how the coat pulled across his shoulder blades. He had more hair and was of broader build than his day-shift counterpart, Mr Simmons, who was bald and pudgy. He hadn’t heard her come in, engrossed as he was with rearranging a system of index cards that fitted in racks on the wall next to the output chart. He was shaking his head and plucking cards from their slots, swapping, and replacing them.
Zelah closed the door behind her and cleared her throat. He turned. From what everyone said, she’d expected him to look like a headmaster. Stern, they’d said. Stern and picky (those were the polite versions). It was a shock to see that he wasn’t old. There was hardly any grey in his thick hair, although a frown cut his wide forehead.
‘Good evening?’ He made it sound like a question.
‘Good evening, Mr Handford.’
He strode towards her, holding out a hand. His handshake was dry and firm. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’
‘Miss Fitzlord,’ she said. ‘You don’t know me, but—’
‘Wait, yes I do.’ He went back over to his card system and plucked one from the rack near the end. ‘Zelah Fitzlord, 25, from Plymouth,’ he read from the card. ‘You’ve been with us two years already – you must have arrived during the Blitz? I heard it was so bad down there that the authorities were handing out free train tickets just to get people out.’
‘Yes,’ Zelah said, remembering. ‘They did.’ She found herself pulled back again to that time:
It isn’t safe. She knows that, inching along the floor to the place against the far wall where the bed had been. She can make it out, far below, a smash-jumble of linen and splinters. Halfway across the floor, the lino swings down to reveal the hole, the heart blasted out of the house: ripped open and shredded. But here, right against the wall, there is still a blackout curtain hanging at the one remaining window. She yanks it down, pulling at the drawing pins that tack it in place. She wraps herself, shrouding in the coarse, dark cloth, not caring about the stray pins that scrape her flesh. She keeps on sitting, huddled into the corner, from where she can see right down to the Hoe, in the bright moonlight. So many buildings bombed – the sea view that she had always dreamed of. Eyelids gritted, mouth dry, shivering cold, splinter-sore knees, and waking dreams of a flaming vortex. Dawn turns it all rose quartz beyond the smoke, but the sounds are muffled, as if inside a jar. Seagulls fight over scraps of meat. Is it meat? She doesn’t want to think.
As the sun rises higher she sees a trail of people on what is left of the road, meagre belongings bundled in pillowcases and baskets, shoulders slumped, trudging, away towards the moors. Should she join them? She has to get out somehow. There is nothing left for her here.
‘. . . quite an expert by now, I’d imagine – it says here that you cover for staff sickness and you’re the welfare officer for the girls.’ She’d missed half of what he said, but he didn’t seem to have noticed. He slotted the card back in place and came back towards her. ‘What can I do for you, Miss Fitzlord?’
She found herself looking up into his eyes: hazel-grey under thick brows. Deep breath, Zelah. No need to be nervous. Try not to think about what people say about him; it’s just gossip, he’s probably perfectly reasonable. ‘It’s about the manning, Mr Handford. One of the recruits was due to start on the lathe tonight – she’s just finished her training – but I’ve had to send her away.’
‘Send her away? Why would you do that? Have you seen the production targets for this month, and we’re undermanned as it is.’ He took a pipe from his pocket and jammed it between his teeth, not bothering to fill it with tobacco or light it.
‘I’m sorry, I think you misunderstand. What I mean is, she had to be sent away.’ Did he want her to spell it out?
‘But why? We can’t just go excluding good workers for petty misdemeanours, whatever Matron says.’ Oh dear. He hadn’t understood at all. But how to tell him, without making him feel stupid, without embarrassing herself, too? ‘What did the girl do? Entertain a man in her room? Pilfer Spam from the canteen? Be late for a shift?’ Zelah opened her mouth to respond, but he wouldn’t let her, had taken his pipe out of his mouth and was jabbing the air as he continued. ‘Actually, I couldn’t be less interested in what the silly girl has or hasn’t done. I need her on that lathe and I need her on it tonight. Please see that it’s done, Miss Fitzlord.’
‘You don’t understand—’ Zelah began.
‘No, you don’t understand,’ he interrupted, now. ‘The quotas have been upped. There are new targets. You’ve heard what’s been going on in North Africa, I take it?’ Zelah flushed and nodded. No wonder the night-shift girls said those things about him. ‘We cannot afford to lose anyone right now. Is that clear, Miss Fitzlord?’ He put his pipe back in his mouth and clamped his jaws tight on the stem.
‘She’s having a baby,’ Zelah said, and watched his eyebrows shift up as she spoke. ‘That’s why we’ve had to send the new lathe operator away. She’s gone to a home for unmarried mothers.’ Here we go, Zelah thought. Here’s where the tirade comes about it being downright impossible to run a factory staffed by tarts and flibbertigibbets who would be better placed in the nursery or at the kitchen sink. Here’s where he goes red in the face and starts shouting and I’ll just have to keep quiet and take it. She waited.
‘I see,’ he said. He took the pipe from his mouth and shoved it in his pocket. Then he ran a hand slowly over his face, drawing thumb and forefinger along the line of his jaw and letting out an audible breath as he did so. ‘I see,’ he repeated and walked over to the rack of index cards. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Mary McLaughlin.’
His fingers brushed a row of cards until he located the right one. ‘Mary McLaughlin, 18, from County Antrim, joined last month.’ He shook his head. ‘What the heck were they thinking of, letting a girl come here in her condition?’
‘They didn’t know – she didn’t even know herself.’
‘Didn’t know, or didn’t want to know?’ he said, turning to look at Zelah. And he just looked sad, not judgemental at all. Not stern or picky or arrogant or patronising or any of the other things people said. His eyes – his eyes looked sad, and kind.
‘I only discovered by chance when I was measuring up the new recruits for their overalls. We managed to find her a decent place for her confinement. I took her there this afternoon.’
He frowned. ‘Isn’t it your day off, Miss Fitzlord?’
‘I thought it better to get her there as soon as we could, just in case. Anyway, time off is a bit of an overrated luxury these days.’ What made her say that? She would never have made that kind of flippant remark to Mr Simmons.
‘Indeed it is.’ He nodded and looked as if he were about to tear up Mary McLaughlin’s card.
‘No,’ Zelah said, putting out a hand to stop him. ‘She’s coming b
ack.’
‘Is she?’ he said.
Zelah could feel his forearm through the layers of cloth. She took her hand away. ‘What I mean is, she’s asked if she can come back.’
‘But we have no way of knowing how long she will be away, or if she’ll change her mind.’
‘She was very clear about wanting to return to work, Mr Handford.’
His eyes were scanning the rack and the chart. He rubbed at a temple with his finger. ‘No, I can’t risk it. It’s too imprecise. We could be talking about anything from a few weeks to several months. Telephone the home and let Miss McLaughlin know that she need not return. I’ll work something out in the meantime.’ He dropped Mary’s card in the waste-paper bin.
‘You can’t do that,’ Zelah said.
‘And your experience in ordnance factory management is what, Miss Fitzlord?’ Such sarcasm. No wonder everyone hated him.
‘It’s all she’s got,’ Zelah said, pushing past him and kneeling down next to the bin. She reached in to take out the neatly printed card with its colour-coded symbols. ‘They’re going to take away her baby, and now you want to take away her job. You’ll be leaving her with nothing. Without this place’ – she gestured in the air with the stupid card – ‘she’s got nothing.’ And even as she said it, she wondered if it was Mary McLaughlin or herself she was talking about.
There was a hand at her elbow, lifting her to her feet. That’s torn it, she thought, I’ve probably gone and got myself the sack, too. ‘That’s all well and good, Miss Fitzlord,’ he said, looking down at her. He was so close she could smell the soapy scent of his shaving foam and see a small crescent-shaped star on his left cheekbone. ‘But what do you propose I do? Who can I put on the lathe in the meantime?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Zelah said. ‘I’m lathe-trained. I’ll cover for her until she gets back.’
‘And who will look after the welfare issues with you on the tools?’ He still had his hand under her elbow, supporting her.
‘I can do both, fit the welfare work around the shifts.’
He let go of her arm, then, and took Mary’s card from her. ‘All right. You win. Miss McLaughlin can have her job back, if you keep it open for her.’
‘Thank you, Mr Handford.’ She could feel the spot under her arm where his hand had been. He placed Mary’s card in a file on his desk, and went over to the wall rack, moving Zelah’s card into the empty spot. ‘I’d better get going then,’ Zelah said.
‘Yes, you better had,’ Mr Handford replied. ‘I hear there’s an empty lathe in Bay Six.’ He looked directly at her. Was that the hint of a smile? She couldn’t be sure. ‘Good evening, Miss Fitzlord.’
‘Good evening, Mr Handford.’
Chapter 6
Violet
‘Cor, struth, it’s packed in there!’ The man next to her wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket.
‘Lemonade or tea, Mr Tonks?’ said Matron from behind the counter.
‘Nothing stronger?’
‘You’re not at the White Hart now, Mr Tonks,’ said Matron, pursing her lips and pouring a ladleful of cloudy liquid into a beaker.
The band music muffle-blared as the double doors swung open and shut. Mr Tonks downed the lemonade. ‘Not much lemon and very little aid,’ he said. It was meant to be a joke, so Vi smiled. Matron frowned at her. He was right, though. Citric acid and saccharine stirred up in a bucket was hardly lemonade. The lemons were a fantasy, as pretend as the air men they’d been promised for this dance.
People were bumbling in and out of the assembly hall. The music jam-banged as they came and went. Was this their idea of a good time, rattling about with a load of void coupons? She’d had more fun on a wet Sunday afternoon.
‘It’s a Paul Jones,’ Matron said, nodding in the direction of the doors. ‘You won’t want to miss that, dear.’
Violet said she had a bit of a headache actually, and made for the stairs before fat, old Mr Tonks could pull her off to the dance floor.
It was odd being upstairs with the rooms all empty. Everyone else was at the hostel hop – it was practically obligatory (our way of welcoming you new girls, Matron had said, with a tight smile). Her feet tapped along the lino. The corridor was an endless tunnel of beige – not actually endless, there was a fire escape at the far end. She’d written home already, enclosing a postal order with her first week’s wages (minus the twenty-two shillings for her bed and board at the hostel), telling them about her training, and the fact that she now had a room to herself on account of Mary having to go off to have a baby. She reminded them that most of the money had to go straight to Doctor Tennant, because there was still so much owing from Ma’s illness, and she told them all she loved them and sprinkled the paper with kisses. Vi sighed. Well, the food was good – at least she didn’t have to worry about the ration, at least she didn’t have to share her food, her bed, her clothes with half a dozen others.
‘Peace and bloody quiet,’ she said aloud, opening the door to room 179 and going over to the window. What would she be doing back home if she were still there? On her way to the evening shift in the pub probably, tripping along the broken pavement past the hot-vinegar rush of air at the chippy door, and past the dark, cold steps down to the shelter. She felt again the hollow squeeze inside, every time she thought of home. Silly girl. Silly woman – she was a ‘mobile woman’ now, wasn’t she? Stupid to be feeling homesick.
Outside the window she saw a bus on the distant road, then it dipped out of sight, where the road wound round to the main entrance. Could that be the coachload of airmen they’d been promised?
She checked her watch, wondering what would be happening at home now. She thought of them all, yelling and laughing and being shouted at by Ma. She thought of Baby Val, toddling about, saying ‘me help’ whenever anything was going on. She remembered the time Baby Val had tried to ‘help’ with the twins’ game of marbles, how Vi had found her choking on a marble, blue-faced, and had had to hold her upside down by her fat little ankles and shake her until the bloody thing fell out, plopping wetly onto the edge of the hearth rug. How she’d screamed at Bertie for leaving his marbles out, screamed at Baby Val for being silly enough to mistake a marble for a sweetie, screamed and yelled and slapped her plump legs, then burst into tears. Because for a moment, she thought she’d lost Baby Val, lost her like they’d lost Bea. Who was looking out for Baby Val now, she wondered, who’d get her morning bottle and check for scattered marbles? Oh, heck.
Vi turned away from the window. She couldn’t just mope around here worrying about things. In any case, what if that bus really had been full of airmen?
She looked in the little mirror above the sink and pushed her hair away from her eyes. She pinched her cheeks to redden them up a bit, bit her lips to do the same, and dabbed on a smear of Vaseline from the little tin in her pocket. Then she went out of her room and made her way back along the corridor towards the stairs.
He stood at the top of the steps. ‘You’re in the wrong place. The dance floor’s that way, pal,’ she said.
He turned and shrugged. ‘I don’t dance.’
‘Everyone dances. You mean you don’t want to dance? Come on, you’ll enjoy it once you’re there.’ She’d levelled with him, at the top of the stairs, opposite the big window. He shook his head, blond hair shiny-dark with Brylcreem. ‘Why did you come, if you don’t want to dance?’ she said.
‘Leave me alone.’
‘You can’t stay here – you’re not allowed upstairs. Anyway, why aren’t you with your pals?’
‘Why aren’t you?’
‘I had to go up to my room for something.’
‘Of course you did.’ He held out an open packet of Craven A. She said, ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ and took one. He clicked open his Zippo. She looked through the flame at his face: grey eyes, long nose. He looked very young. Once he’d lit his own cigarette he sat down on the top step. She felt awkward standing up beside him, so she sat down too. The metal stair riser bi
t into the top of her thigh.
‘You been to one of these before?’ she said. He shook his head. ‘Why d’you come tonight, then?’
‘We’re celebrating.’ He shifted as he spoke, and their knees touched. She pulled hers away.
‘Celebrating what?’
‘The end of the course.’
‘What course?’ Honestly, it was like pulling teeth; she didn’t know why she was bothering, when she could be down there on the dance floor with some of his pals.
‘Pilot training.’
‘A pilot!’ Well, that was a turn-up, at least. She took another drag and tapped ash out through the banisters.
‘So, how many sorties have you done?’
‘None, I told you, I’ve just finished training.’ He had an odd accent – she couldn’t place it. ‘We passed out today.’
‘You should be having fun, then.’
‘I am – you want to join me?’ He passed her his half-smoked cigarette and pulled a flask from his inside pocket, untwisted the little metal cap and took a swig. He screwed up his eyes. Vi could hear the double doors thudding downstairs, intermittent bursts of music and laughter.
He passed the silver flask over to her, swapping it for the remains of his cigarette. Their fingers touched. Vi put the flask to her lips. The metal rim was cool and hard as she took a gulp. It felt as if a fire were ripping down her throat and into her stomach.
‘Strong stuff,’ she said, managing not to choke.
‘Polish vodka,’ he said. ‘The best.’ Was that his accent? Polish?
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, watching as she wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
‘Violet Smith. Yours?’
‘Jacky Symanski.’
‘Symanski,’ she repeated the unfamiliar surname. ‘Where are you from?’ she said, handing the flask back and taking a drag on her fag. The smoke soothed the place where the alcohol had burned.
‘Birmingham,’ he said, taking another gulp.
‘No, I mean, really,’ she said.
‘I’m really from Birmingham. That’s where my family live.’