by Clare Harvey
The gin had cost her all her bonuses, and been a bugger to get hold of. She’d been in the bath almost an hour already, constantly refilling the hot tap, but still no reassuring swirl of red had appeared between her submerged legs.
The banging at the door came again. More muffled shouts.
‘All right,’ Vi called out. ‘Keep your hair on.’
She lay back in the boiling water. Should she have shoved something up there to dislodge it? Was that how it worked? A crochet hook or a knitting needle. But that was how girls ended up with ‘appendicitis complications’, wasn’t it? Oh heck. She lifted the bottle to her lips again.
The gin was acid-sweet in her mouth, her throat almost closing up as she forced herself to swallow it down, drink it all up. What else could she do? She was hardly likely to hang about for the next eight months just to end up with a bastard. No. No. No.
‘For Gawd’s sake, you taking swimming lessons in there?’ the voice squawked from the other side of the locked door. Vi waved the bottle in front of her face. Not much more to go now, a couple more swallows and she’d be good. Bang-bang-bang at the door again.
She remembered how the bunk beds had banged, when they did it, bang-bang against the thin walls, just like the stud press on a sheet of mild steel. And she’d thought, good job everyone else is at the hop and can’t hear us, as she threw her neck back and twined her legs round his back and let him carry on while the bang-banging got faster and she remembered telling him, she’d tried to tell him, she’d said, ‘Don’t let the kettle boil.’ And he’d smothered her words with a hard kiss, pulling her arched back up from the mattress, pushing himself even deeper inside her, and collapsing forward – too late. Now she was late, too (and it couldn’t have been because of Frank, in the alley, before she left, because everyone knew you couldn’t fall pregnant if it was your first time, and you did it standing up).
‘If you don’t come out, I’m calling Matron!’
‘Call her, for all I care,’ Vi said, turning the hot tap on again with her toes. She drained the bottle and let it fall with a splash into the churning water.
George
He checked his watch. He could hear the faint strains of the organ from upstairs. The woman in the ticket kiosk had begun to read her magazine. On the cover a girl in a turban with factory machinery in the background was applying powder. ‘The Canadians are coming’, shrieked the headline. The organ music stopped. The main programme was about to start.
Miss Fitzlord might have missed her bus, he thought. She might be running up from Market Square and along Angel Row. He imagined her, dark curls flying off her forehead as she sped up past the library, lips parted, face spangled with raindrops. She could be here any moment now.
The Ritz doors slammed open and he turned with a start, but it was only a couple of screeching girls with canary-coloured hair, shaking umbrellas and leaving damp splatters on the red plush carpet.
He recalled the spilled drink at the hostel hop, how her red dress had blotted the moisture, a claret-coloured corsage against the swell of her breast. He’d hoped she’d wear that dress tonight. He’d hoped she’d be here when they’d agreed, so that there would be time to get a drink before the film. He fingered the tickets in his pockets – he’d arrived early to get them, to avoid being stuck in a queue. If it went well then perhaps he might ask her out to dinner? It would be the first time he’d taken a woman out in over twenty years – but she wasn’t to know that, was she? She wouldn’t have known the plummeting terror of asking her to the cinema, and the slap of panic when she actually agreed.
He checked his watch again. No, she obviously wasn’t coming. He let out a breath. It was a relief, actually.
The blonde girls were making their way towards the ticket kiosk, nudging and giggling over some shared joke. ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ he said. They looked up, still smirking. ‘Could you use these?’
‘How much d’you want for ’em, duck?’ the girl on the left said.
‘Nothing, I – I find I have no use for them.’ Their smiling faces had slipped into pity. Sympathy – God, not that – he’d had a bellyful of cloying concern in ’22. ‘Take them, please. My friend has been unavoidably delayed and I would rather not see them go to waste.’
‘If you’re sure?’
He nodded.
‘Then I don’t mind if I do.’ The tickets were taken. ‘Thank you, you’re a gent.’
They scurried up the stairs. The grey-haired woman in the kiosk had lowered her magazine. She caught his eye and he saw her draw breath as if about to speak, but evidently thought better of it and lifted the magazine again, blanking him out. He headed for the door.
Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the puddled gutters meant he was sluiced every time a bus passed. He headed up Derby Road until he got to the tunnel. Word was that rich Victorians had blasted through the rock so that their carriages had clear passage between their mansions and the theatre. There were no carriages of nouveau riche industrialists these days though, he thought, ducking out of the drizzle and into the dry. Nothing but pigeons and the smell of stale urine in the clammy darkness.
He was about a quarter of the way through when he heard the noise, thought he saw a shadow shift in the gloom. He hadn’t noticed until he was almost upon them: the couple in a clinging embrace – the man’s khaki uniform and the woman’s black dress camouflaged them against the limestone wall. The man grunted, shunting upwards. The pale curve of a bare leg held high, a slice of exposed throat, the twin white swivel of eyes as he hurried past. ‘What the hell are you looking at?’ The woman’s voice was throaty-loud in the enclosed space as the man continued his noisy jerking. George hurried on, eyes downcast.
He stopped to catch his breath at the tunnel exit, looking out to where the Park Estate flung across the valley, like welcoming arms. The houses were all blacked out, but there was the sudden sense of space – paler grey slabs in the darkness where the tennis courts and croquet lawns were. The clouds had begun to pull apart overhead, revealing a sprinkle of stars. It was quieter here, away from the city centre traffic, and the air tasted cleaner. George inhaled, taking his pipe and tobacco tin from his pocket.
He should never have invited Miss Fitzlord out in the first place, should he? Silly notion. What had he been thinking of? It wasn’t safe to risk all that again. He’d had his chance – he was too old now. He would pause here a while longer before heading home, relish the solitude, forget all about being stood up by Zelah Fitzlord.
Chapter 9
Laura
Why did he have to make it so difficult for her? Behind his spectacles, Harold’s eyes had looked old and sad when he implored her to stay. But Laura could find no sympathy, this time. They had said an awkward farewell in the tea room, earlier, in part because the doctor had advised against him going out in the cold air just yet, but also because Laura was still too angry with him to endure the kind of tender, emotional parting that any kind of privacy would demand.
Someone had to earn a living, pay the bills. She’d refused fifty guineas to paint the blitzed-out Londoners in the Tube stations at the start of the war, but she couldn’t keep on refusing, could she? Where was the money to come from? Someone had to keep going, keep on going. Why could Harold never understand?
She stamped her feet against the cold. The sky was clear and the shrouded moon had begun to rise. There would be frost later, and maybe another night raid over the Midlands. Not Nottingham, though. Nottingham was safe. There had been no raids there in nearly two years now. ‘You’ll be safe as houses, Laura,’ K had said on the telephone, and Laura had reminded him archly that houses weren’t safe at all these days.
Mr Peterson had phoned for her taxi some time ago. It should have arrived by now. How she hated just waiting in the car park like this. She looked round, eyes taking in the final straggling string of conscripts in training, threading along the ridge line, and the planes that spliced the empty sky. The war was all around them, locking them in
, even up here in the middle of the Malvern Hills.
A thrush perched on a tree close to the hotel tea room was sharply outlined against the fading light. Laura thought then about the birds on the runway at RAF Mildenhall, when she’d been painting the Stirling crews last year. How infinitely lovely was the upright spread of light fainting into the dusk above. From a distance it seemed as if the air were filled with sparks, but it was birds caught in the stationary beam – when one came closer you could see its wings beating frantically in the brilliance.
A bird can scupper a plane just as surely as a German gun, they told her. Sometimes the most beautiful things are the most deadly, Laura thought.
She heard the cab, then, drawling round the corner on the long hill up from Malvern. She turned back to give Harold a final goodbye wave – why leave on a sour note, after all? – but the girl was closing the blackouts and he was lost from view.
Laura picked up her bag as the car drew close and took in a deep breath. Keep going, Laura. Keep on going.
Zelah
Zelah jumped at the touch – she hadn’t heard anyone approach; it was so loud up this end, with the grinder and the lathes. ‘I’m sorry.’ A voice in her ear, a white coat stark against the muddle of machinery. ‘Can I have a word?’
It was him. She’d been up to his office at dinner break to try to find him, discreetly, explain about what had happened. But his office had been empty, so she thought she’d try again at the end of her shift. It seemed he’d beaten her to it.
Zelah moved away from the lathe, wiping oily hands on her overalls. Mr Handford indicated with his head to the doorway at the far end and disappeared off, a ghost in the machine. Girls on equipment lowered their heads as he passed, making sure they looked as if they were concentrating on the task in hand, but they looked up as soon as he’d gone, and stared at her. Zelah could imagine the gossip in the canteen: Why did he drag her away from her station? What’s going on? If the production targets are down because of her, we’re all in the muck . . . ‘War effort’s caught it in the neck!’ shouted one, and Zelah heard cackles over the sound of the equipment. She remembered to sidestep over the gas tube by the cylinders: dark in that corner, easy to trip if you weren’t careful. She passed a shower of sparks with a face silhouetted in front, like a cameo brooch, and crossed the end of the swarf-strewn factory floor, the taste of metal and dirty oil hot on her tongue.
Outside in the corridor the sound was muted a little. ‘Miss Fitzlord . . .’ He started speaking before the door had even banged shut, before she had a chance to open her mouth. Behind him was one of the posters: a dartboard painted in black and red – ‘Help your shop hit the bull’, it said, urging them all to work harder, faster, longer, to help win the war.
‘About the other night—’ She just wanted to apologise, to explain.
He made a chopping gesture with one hand, cutting her off. ‘Dame Laura Knight is on her way and I need some help with hosting her visit. She’s going to paint the night shift. She’ll be here a few weeks. Can you find her a room in the girls’ hostel?’
Zelah shook her head. ‘The last batch of recruits filled us up completely,’ she said. Mr Handford frowned and took his pipe from his pocket. ‘Apparently, she wants to be “in with the workers” to get a feel for the camaraderie or something.’ He put the pipe in his mouth and chewed on the stem, the muscles in his jaw working like a pump. ‘Frankly, I could do without this. But what the War Box wants, the War Box gets.’
‘She’ll have to get outside digs,’ Zelah said. ‘I’m sorry not to be able to help you out. But about the other night, I feel I owe you—’
‘Damned nuisance.’
‘I’m sorry, but the bathroom was flooded and Matron was frantic—’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The other night.’
He took the pipe out of his mouth and made that chopping gesture again. ‘I’m talking about Dame Laura’s visit, Miss Fitzlord. I urgently need to find somewhere for her to stay. Is there absolutely nowhere in the hostel?’
Zelah shook her head. ‘No. Nowhere. Unless—’
‘Unless?’
‘She could have my room, if that would help?’
‘But where would you go?’
‘Me?’ Zelah bit the inside of her lip. ‘I suppose I could always take Miss McLaughlin’s place.’
Mr Handford stared at her, not making the link. She noticed the frown that creased his brow. ‘The girl I told you about – the one whose shift I’m covering. Her bed is empty for the next few weeks.’ How could he have forgotten so quickly?
‘But don’t you mind?’
It would mean moving in with Violet Smith. It was one thing having to work with her – but another thing to be sharing a room with the same girl who’d ruined her date with Mr Handford by getting drunk and flooding the bathroom. Zelah sighed. ‘No – in any case, there’s nowhere else to put her.’
‘Are you quite sure, Miss Fitzlord? It does seem an imposition.’
‘It’s fine,’ Zelah said.
‘Good, that’s settled, then. She’s arriving tomorrow.’ He turned to go. He had begun to walk away, already out of reach.
‘I owe you an apology,’ she called out to his departing back. He paused, but didn’t turn.
‘No, I think it is I who owe you an apology, Miss Fitzlord. It was foolish of me to suggest . . . let’s just say it never happened.’ His voice was low, just audible above the factory noise. She couldn’t see his face, just the way his broad shoulders seemed to have stooped slightly, as he answered.
And then he walked away, swallowed up by the yellow-beige corridor, and she was left with an inexplicable mixture of sadness and anger. You’re being silly, she berated herself. Why should it matter that the date hadn’t happened, in any case? She’d only agreed to it in the first place because – well, why had she agreed to it? She wondered for a moment if she should go after him, try to explain about the overflowing bath, Violet Smith drunk as a lord, and Matron having kittens about it all, and how by the time she’d finally made it into town the main picture had already begun and the woman in the ticket office told her that the man in the trilby was long gone. Shouldn’t she tell him that, at least?
But just as she began to follow him along the corridor, the bell went for the end of the shift, and it was too late.
Perhaps she should just forget about it, like he said.
Violet
‘Is that it?’ She looked at the small pile of coins in her hand. She tried shaking the envelope upside down, but all that fell out was her wage slip. The pay clerk tutted as Vi scrabbled to pick it up. Other workers were nudging forwards and the clerk continued to dole out the brown envelopes, as if she begrudged every penny.
Vi squinted down at the slip of paper. It looked yellowish in the harsh lights of the pay office. The words and figures seemed to jiggle about in the too-bright light. Twenty-two shillings for bed and board, and then there was the health insurance payment (compulsory these days, ever since a woman called Mabel Jones had got herself half-scalped when her hair got caught up in a reamer the other week – word was that there was to be a whip-round because the hospital bills were crippling her family). But that still didn’t explain why all she had to show for a week’s worth of night shifts was a pile of coppers. Her eyes scanned the sheet. What was that? Damages. Emergency plumber call-out, locksmith, painter and decorator. The bathroom: thirty shillings damages payment – what the heck?
All at once the air felt hot and fuzzy – it was like when she’d had that vodka, a sick-spinning feeling, everything blurring at the edges. She gulped and put out a hand to steady herself, but there was nothing there. ‘Move along.’ The narky voice of the pay clerk. ‘You’re causing a bottle neck!’ And Vi tried to say, all right, give over, I’m on my way, sweetheart, but all that came out was a strange choking sound and she couldn’t see properly because everything was shifting sideways.
‘I’ve got you.’ A hand under her el
bow, then, steering her out with staggering steps. ‘Sit down, head between your knees. That’s it. Deep breaths.’ The corridor floor hard and slippery under her buttocks. The hand, on her shoulder now, and the voice again. ‘Stay like that, don’t you dare move. I’m going to get you a glass of water.’
She heard footsteps pattering away, swallowed down the sick feeling and opened her eyes. The first thing that came into focus was the God-awful clogs: coupon-free? Fashion-free, more like. What had just happened there? Odd, she’d never been one to have funny turns like that. Could it be – Jesus, she didn’t even want to think of it – could it be because of the baby? Wasn’t that what happened, in the early days, when you were up the duff? Fainting and morning sickness and all. And who’d helped her? She hadn’t even seen who her Good Samaritan was.
The footsteps returned and she looked up. It was Miss Fitzlord, the welfare supervisor – the same woman who’d met her from the station the day she arrived, who’d taken Mary McLaughlin off to the sluts’ home, and who’d broken the lock on the bathroom door and held her hair off her face as she vomited down the lavvy the other night. Dear God, what a mucking muddle. She carried a tin mug of water.
‘Here, drink it down. Small sips, mind, or it might set you off.’ Vi took it from her and did as she was told. The water was tepid and tasted metallic. But then, everything seemed to taste metallic these days. Was that another sign of being in the family way?
‘I’m sorry,’ Vi said between sips, wishing she weren’t having to apologise, yet again, to Miss Fitzlord.
‘It’s not your fault. It’s always rather oppressive in there, isn’t it? How are you feeling, now?’
‘Better,’ Violet lied. The only thing that would make her feel better would be getting rid of this baby and getting on with her life. But to do that she’d need cash. And how could she possibly even think about doing that without two pennies to rub together?