Bluebirds

by Margaret Mayhew

  Winnie’s cheeks reddened. She looked down into her glass.

  ‘I bet he doesn’t. Does he pay you compliments?’

  ‘Yes, of course . . .’

  ‘What sort of ones then? What does he say to you?’

  She tried to think. What had Ken ever said? He’d once told her that she had pretty hair, she remembered that.

  ‘You can’t think of anything, Winnie.’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It’s private. None of your business.’

  ‘I bet he never tells you what a beautiful girl you are. Englishmen are no good at paying compliments. They don’t know how to treat a woman, like we do in Wales. Have you ever been to Wales?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should do. It’s a beautiful country. I come from Harlech – that’s in the North. It’s wild up there . . . mountains and valleys and castles. Have you heard of Harlech castle?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘That’s near where I live. Have you heard of Owen Glendower, then?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘He was one of our great Welsh heroes. He fought the English. You should come to Wales one day, Winnie. You’d have to learn to speak the language, though. Not everyone speaks English there, you know. My grandmother doesn’t speak a word of it. We all speak Welsh at home all the time, see.’

  ‘It sounds like a foreign country.’

  ‘It is. I told you – we’re not like the English. We come from a different race altogether. We feel things differently . . . deeper . . . more passionately . . . not like the English at all.’

  The airman sitting next to Winnie stood up and in a flash Taffy had taken his place on the bench. She wriggled away from him. He took a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and lit one; he held it in an odd way with his hand cupped round the end as though shielding it from the wind.

  ‘What did you want to go and get yourself engaged for, Winnie?’

  ‘I wanted to.’

  ‘Did you? Are you so sure? It was a daft thing to do. I bet you’d never been out of Suffolk before you came here, had you?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘I bet you’d never even left that village where you live. Been anywhere else.’

  ‘I’ve been to Ipswich.’

  He laughed. ‘Is that all? You’ve never really met anyone else but this Ken of yours, have you? How could you be so sure he was the right one for you when you hadn’t met any others?’

  She said indignantly: ‘You shouldn’t say things like that. It’s nothin’ to do with you.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, still smiling. ‘We won’t talk about it, then. What I want to know, though, is what made you go and join up if you were engaged? You’re all volunteers, aren’t you? You didn’t have to. Doesn’t your Ken care about you being away?’

  She hesitated. ‘He didn’t want me to go.’

  ‘But he didn’t stop you, did he? I would have done. I wouldn’t have let you out of my sight if you were my fiancée.’

  ‘Ken’s not like that. He – he’s very understandin’.’

  But she went red again as she said that, knowing that Ken had not understood at all. Taffy Jones, watching the blush spread across her cheeks thought, as he had thought since he had first seen her sitting in the Orderly Room, that she was the loveliest girl that he had ever seen, with her blue eyes and her brown, curly hair and her fresh purity. He drew hard on his cigarette.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what made you join up, Winnie?’

  ‘I don’t know, really. I just wanted to do somethin’ in the war . . .’

  ‘And get away from that village of yours?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? I’d’ve wanted to get away if I’d been you . . . see the world a bit . . . meet people . . . instead of being stuck in one place all my life.’

  Her blush deepened because she knew there was truth in what he said. She had wanted to get away from Elmbury and see other places before she and Ken settled down. She knew it was selfish of her, but she hadn’t wanted to be like some of them who’d never left the village in their whole lives – not even to go to Ipswich. To be like Betty Parsons who’d been in the same class as her at the school and had already been married two years and had two children. She’d stay there, most probably, until she was an old woman, never doing anything else but live in Elmbury and look after her children and after Charlie who got drunk every Saturday night. But it hadn’t only been for that. Most of all it had been the ’planes. They’d been her secret dream. Something she couldn’t tell Taffy who’d laugh like anything.

  ‘Didn’t you mind leaving Wales if you like it so much?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got used to being away. I was in the RAF before the war started. I’ve been in a few years already. The life suits me and I can do the sort of work I like.’

  ‘What work do you do, then?’

  ‘I’m a fitter.’

  It had never occurred to her to wonder what his trade was.

  ‘You mean you work on the aircraft? The Hurricanes?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Although Taffy did not realize it, he could not possibly have said anything that would recommend him more in her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘I like engines. I’m good with them, see, so it’s no penance.’ He had put his beer mug down on the floor between his feet and he spread out his hands, palms down, the cigarette parked upwards between two fingers. ‘I’ve got a sort of feel for it . . . it comes naturally.’

  How could she not have noticed his hands before? They were scarred and grazed and ingrained with oil stains, the nails black-rimmed – a mechanic’s hands. She should have guessed long ago what he did.

  Taffy sensed a change in her; instead of keeping her eyes down all the time she had lifted her head and was looking up – at him.

  ‘What is it? Have I said something funny?’

  ‘No. It’s just that . . . just that . . .’

  ‘Just that what? Come on, spit it out.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I really wanted to do when I joined up. That’s why I chose the WAAF, you see. I wanted to work as a a mechanic with the ’planes. Only, of course, they won’t let us . . . not yet, anyhow. I don’t know if they ever will.’

  He stared at her. ‘Now, there’s a novelty and no mistake. I’ve never heard of a woman who cared two pins about engines. Do you know anything about them?’

  ‘Not the ones in ’planes, but I can mend the tractor on our farm at home when it goes wrong.’

  ‘Has somebody taught you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I sort of know what to do . . . what the matter is. I work it out.’

  He nodded, understanding. ‘You either have a feel for it, or you don’t. It’s something you’re born with. I don’t see why a woman shouldn’t have it, just the same as a man, except that usually they don’t. I don’t see why they shouldn’t let you do some of the work – some of the lighter jobs that don’t need the strength. You’d be able to do some things easier than us, with your small hands – where it’s difficult to reach and fiddly. Mind you, I don’t know that some of the boys’d fancy the idea of having women round the machines. I don’t think they’d like it much. Now me, I wouldn’t mind a bit – and I think you’d do a good job.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I do,’ he said seriously. ‘If you can mend a tractor engine you could work on an aircraft one, if they trained you properly. Same principle. Internal combustion. You could learn easily enough if you’ve got a feel for it. As I said, some jobs need a man’s strength, but you could manage the rest all right.’ He looked at her with curiosity. He had known from the first that she was a girl in a million, but this was a surprise. ‘How did you get to be so keen on the idea of aircraft, anyhow? It’s a funny thing for a woman.’

  ‘I’ve seen them flyin’ over the farm . . . there’s an RAF sta
tion not far away.’

  ‘Have you ever seen one close up – on the ground?’

  ‘No. I’d like to, but they won’t let us near the hangars.’

  ‘Right then, I’ll take you. Now’s your chance.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No time better. There’ll be no-one around and we’ll be there and back before anyone knows it.’

  Speedy finally captured Felicity.

  ‘You’ve danced twice with Whitters,’ he told her reproachfully, ‘and with Dumbo and Moses and all sorts of other chaps. Just about everybody else on this station except me.’

  ‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I’ve been watching you. Rotter after rotter, and never a glance in my direction. You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.’

  ‘Gone? Gone where?’

  ‘Mustn’t say. But it seems the pen of my aunt may soon be in the garden.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know, la plume de ma tante, and all that . . . I’m not much good at the lingo.’

  Felicity stopped dead. ‘You’re being posted to France? Oh, no, Speedy . . .’

  He looked pleased. ‘I hoped you’d mind. Shall we carry on dancing? We’re causing a traffic jam. Actually, it’s only a rumour but we’re keeping fingers crossed it’s true. We’re all fed up with stooging around over here. Bit like those greyhounds straining at the leash, as the bod said in Henry V.’

  ‘I think they were in the slips, straining upon the start.’

  ‘Were they? Didn’t know they had dog racing in those days. Amazing! Speaking of dogs, I was going to ask if you’d look after old George for me, if I have to pop across the ditch.’

  ‘Oh, Speedy, I don’t see how I could . . .’

  ‘He’s no trouble. Fully house-trained and a model of good behaviour, unlike his master. He’d sit by your desk all day, quiet as a lamb.’

  ‘Couldn’t you send him home to your family?’

  ‘He’d be miserable. He’d miss all the fun. Besides, they already have a dog. An old and very bad-tempered spaniel. He and George wouldn’t get on at all. You will, won’t you?’

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘That’s settled then. Lucky George.’

  ‘Speedy, this is a waltz now.’

  ‘Is it? I thought something was wrong. One, two, three. One, two, three . . .’

  It was pitch dark inside the hangar. Winnie held onto Taffy’s hand and let herself be guided by him. Although she could see nothing, she could sense the vastness of the space around her, and she could smell the oil and grease . . . the smell of the machines that were close by, somewhere in the blackness.

  Taffy had stopped. He switched on his torch and the beam probed ahead, swinging from side to side until it settled on the nose of an aircraft. Three black propeller blades with yellow tips stood motionless behind a smoothly pointed cone.

  ‘Hurricane,’ Taffy whispered.

  The torch’s beam traced the fighter’s outline for her – back across the cowling to the cockpit and its perspex canopy, along each outspread wing in turn, lingering at the gunports, and then back up to the cockpit and aft, over the hump that was like a backbone, and, finally, down to the tail.

  ‘Little beauty, isn’t she?’

  He went closer and stood by the wing at its root, playing the light upwards. Winnie stepped cautiously after him. She could see inside the top of the empty cockpit where the pilot’s head would have been.

  ‘Go on, touch her if you want to,’ Taffy said. ‘You can’t do her any harm.’

  She put out her hand and the skin of the camouflaged fuselage felt smooth and tight and hard beneath her fingers.

  ‘Fabric, see,’ he told her. ‘Metal cowling but fabric fuselage, and fabric tail and wings.’ He traversed the beam forward to pick out three metal pipes near the nose. ‘Exhaust stubs. Same thing as the stack on your tractor. It’s not so very different, see. You’d soon get the hang of it. The engine’s under the cowling there, but I can’t show you that now – not this time, anyhow. It’s a Merlin, twelve cylinder, liquid-cooled.’

  The words sounded magical to Winnie. She stroked the Hurricane’s cold flank. It was still a mystery to her how something so big and heavy could soar up into the air and fly like a bird. What held it up and stopped it from falling like a stone? She wondered what it would be like to stand this close when the engine was started up – when it burst into life and those three black blades turned round and round so fast you couldn’t see them. Sometimes when they were testing the engines she could hear the roar from the Orderly Room. The blades had a kind of twist to them, she saw. That must have something to do with them catching hold of the air and the wings must act like a bird’s . . . like the rooks when they were wheeling round over the elm trees up at the ten acre field. But how did it all really work? She longed to be able to look at the engine and see if it was anything at all like the Fordson’s. A Merlin, Taffy had called it. Wasn’t that the name of a wizard in story books? Funny thing to call an engine.

  Her WAAF raincoat was poor protection against the bitter cold of the hangar and her teeth were chattering. Taffy put his arm round her.

  ‘You’re freezing, girl.’

  She pulled away from him at once.

  ‘Don’t be scared, Winnie. You’re jumpy as a rabbit.’

  But she was scared now – alone with him in this dark place.

  ‘Can we go back now?’

  ‘What’s all the rush? I’ll show you some of the others.’

  ‘No, I want to go back . . .’

  She tried to find her way back to the small door they had come in by and tripped over something in the dark. There was a loud clatter of metal on concrete.

  ‘Wait, girl, you’ll hurt yourself.’ The torch had tracked and found her. He gripped her elbow. ‘Don’t be daft, Winnie, there’s lots of sharp things around. Stay with me.’

  He guided her across the hangar, lighting their way. Once outside, she began to feel calmer, her panic ebbing, until, suddenly, there was the sound of heavy footsteps coming along the path towards them.

  ‘Quick! In here.’

  Taffy pulled her through a doorway and switched off the torch. They waited, unmoving, while the footsteps went past.

  ‘Snoops!’ Taffy whispered in her ear.

  Winnie’s heart thudded in her chest. If the service police found them out of bounds and together like this, they could get into terrible trouble . . . She began to shiver and shake. How could she have been so stupid?

  The footsteps died away and there was silence.

  ‘Better wait a mo,’ Taffy whispered. ‘Make sure they’ve really gone.’

  It was so dark she could see nothing. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Stores hut. Don’t worry, there’s no reason why they should look in here. It’d be safest to wait a bit, though. They might come back this way.’

  She trembled violently, and felt him touch her cheek.

  ‘Why, you’re like ice and shaking like you’ve got the ague. Have this.’ He took off his greatcoat and draped it round her shoulders. ‘I don’t feel the cold, see. I’m used to it – working outdoors so much.’

  He was standing very close to her. She could feel the warmth of his body and smell the cigarette smoke on his breath, and she was more afraid of him now than of the service policemen patrolling somewhere outside. He was whispering again in her ear.

  ‘Why don’t you like me, Winnie? I’m not such a bad fellow, you know, and you won’t even give me a chance.’

  She said nothing, rigid with fear . . . trapped.

  ‘You’re the little innocent, aren’t you? Like the driven snow. What does that precious Ken of yours do then? Hold your hand at the pictures and then give you a good-night peck on the cheek? I bet he never kisses you like this.’

  Her lips fell crushed by his and his tongue was forcing itself into her mouth . . . for a moment she was too shocked to move and then fear and disgust gave her the stren
gth to wrench free of him.

  ‘Winnie, wait . . .’

  But somehow she found the door and was out of the hut and running, sobbing, down the path – straight into the arms of one of the service policemen.

  Except for Pearl, none of the WAAFS had ever spent Christmas away from home before. Some of them were homesick all over again. Their mess hut now had a piano and they sang carols round it – Enid weeping her way through ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’. They had decorated the hut with paper chains and a Christmas tree with painted fir-cones, tinsel and some glittering glass baubles sent by Susan’s mother from Harrods. Gloria, to Susan’s annoyance, had also strewn cotton wool from sanitary towels along the branches to look like snow.

  ‘Must we have that, Gloria?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. Looks nice and nobody else’ll know it’s from fanny rags. Ever so useful they are. Just the job for cleanin’ shoes. You ought to try them for paddin’ so’s you wouldn’t look so flat on top.’

  Anne, overhearing this, smiled to herself. Gloria seldom missed the chance of a dig at Susan. She thought of the big Christmas tree that would be standing in the hall at home, decorated with all the old ornaments that were brought out of their box each year, and the big star fixed on the very top. The staircase bannisters would be garlanded with holly and a bunch of mistletoe would be hanging over the front door. Just for a moment she let herself picture it all and remember Christmases in the past when she and Kit had been home and they had all been together. And then, because it made her feel miserable, she shut it out of her mind. Closed the door on it firmly. There was no point in wallowing in it. Winnie was looking a bit down in the mouth, she noticed – standing staring out of the window. Perhaps she was thinking about her home in Suffolk. Or maybe she was still upset about that business at the Station Dance. There had been quite a row over her getting caught in a hut with some airman. Everyone had been a bit surprised because it was so unlike Winnie, and nobody thought it was really her fault. Anyway, the airman had taken all the blame, apparently. ASO Newman had come and given them a lecture about not encouraging the men on the station, looking pretty pink in the face herself. As Pearl had said, it was like shutting the stable door after the horses had bolted so far as some of the WAAFS were concerned. There was going to be a concert for the whole station in the evening, as well as a special turkey lunch. All in all, it might not be such a bad Christmas. It might even be quite good fun . . .