Bluebirds

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘First I’ve heard you mention it,’ Virgil said. ‘That mean you’ll be goin’ away?’

  She nodded. ‘They’re sendin’ me to RAF Halton.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘In Buckinghamshire. Sort of west of London.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘Eight weeks, I think.’

  ‘Gee . . . I’m real glad for you, Winnie. It’s great you’re doin’ that. But I’m sure goin’ to miss you.’ He shook his head and looked depressed.

  She never knew how much of what he said was just sweet-talk. She’d heard so many tales about the way the Yanks fooled the English girls. How they showed photos they said were of their sisters, when they were really of their sweethearts or wives back home. How they promised marriage when they were married already, and how they talked about taking girls back to America after the war, but never meant a word of it. One of the WAAFS in her hut at Flaxton had had to leave because she was having a baby. The father was one of the Yanks at Virgil’s base, but he’d been posted away suddenly and she’d never heard from him again. Girls were taken in all the time and made fools of – or so it seemed to her. It was easy for the Americans when they knew they’d be leaving, sooner or later, and they must laugh like anything among themselves. When Virgil had started to kiss her that time out in the yard, in the dark, she’d wriggled free of him and run indoors. She didn’t want him thinking that she was easy like the other girls, or that he could lead her up the garden path like them.

  ‘You’ll be goin’ home soon, anyway, won’t you?’ she said. ‘Soon as you’ve finished your tour?’

  ‘Well, see, I figured I’d volunteer for another one,’ he said slowly. ‘Reckon I’d like to stick around a bit longer. I’m a good gunner an’ I guess they’d be glad to have me, seein’ the way they keep losin’ ’em.’

  She looked at him, dismayed. ‘But that’d be twenty-five more ops.’

  ‘Thirty – that’s what the guys do now. But that’s OK by me. Funny, when I first got over here, couldn’t wait to get back stateside. Now, I ain’t in so much of a hurry. An’ I guess it wouldn’t be straight off. I’d get some leave. Look around some.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t volunteer, Virgil,’ she said earnestly. ‘I hope they don’t let you do it.’

  He smiled. ‘Well now, Winnie, I’m sure glad to hear you say that. Didn’t figure you’d care much, one way or the other.’

  Susie had cleared out the trough and was grunting at them, hoping for more. Virgil picked up the long stick and scratched her back. Winnie leaned on the sty wall and pointed.

  ‘There’s a spot just there where she loves it.’

  He grinned. ‘I know all about things like that.’

  Winnie went red and straightened up. ‘I ought to go and help Mum.’

  Her mother had put on the best tablecloth and fetched out the barley wine. ‘Seein’ as it’s this American thing, whatever it’s called,’ she told Winnie. ‘I thought maybe we ought to make it a bit special an’ make Virgil feel at home.’

  Dad was already making himself feel well at home with the Johnnie Walker and Winnie could tell by the colour of his face and the level in the bottle that he’d been doing it for some time. Gran was smoking like a chimney and chewing gum too. Ruth and Laura were sticky with sweets. She helped to set the table. The turkey smelled wonderful. They were going to have the tinned cranberries with it like Virgil said they did in America and instead of pumpkin pie her mother had put the other tinned fruit together in a bowl.

  When they sat down round the table it felt like Christmas. Ruth and Laura wore ribbons in their hair and Gran had a clean lace bib on her dress, though it didn’t stay that way for long once she’d started eating. Virgil tasted the barley wine and choked a bit. He wiped his mouth.

  ‘Gee . . . that’s kinda strong stuff.’

  ‘I made it myself,’ her mother told him proudly, pouring him some more.

  ‘Great brew, ma’am.’

  Gran drank hers out of a beaker and she was on her third one. Dad always had a tankard and Winnie had lost count of his, on top of all the whisky. She watched him anxiously. When he got going there was no stopping him. She’d often come across him lying in the corner of the barn on a Sunday morning when he was sleeping off a Saturday evening at the Pig and Whistle and sounding like he was driving twenty pigs to market.

  Towards the end of the meal, to her embarrassment, he struggled to his feet and stood clutching the edge of the table with one hand while his other raised his tankard.

  ‘Thish bein’ a speshul occasion,’ he began. ‘An’ there bein’ one of our gallant allies in our midsht . . .’

  Gallant allies! Winnie thought. I’ve heard him call them something quite different. Unlike a lot of men, drink could make Dad quite friendly and very sentimental. She glanced across at Virgil who was, apparently, all ears.

  ‘. . . calls for a toasht,’ Dad was saying, and moving to and fro like a sapling in the wind.

  Gran stirred irritably. ‘Get on wi’ it, Josh. Say yar piece an’ sit down.’

  ‘I’m comin’ to it.’ The tankard wavered and some of the brown-gold barley wine splashed over onto the best tablecloth. Dad steadied himself. ‘Ladies an’ shentlemen, I give you a toasht. God blesh . . . God blesh . . . wass its name?’

  ‘America, sir?’ Virgil suggested helpfully.

  Dad nodded. ‘Thass it. God blesh America . . . an’ all who sail in her.’

  His hand slipped off the table as he drank. He grabbed at the edge, missed it and toppled forward, landing face down in the remains of his fruit salad.

  Gran had drained her beaker. ‘Amen,’ she said, and gave a loud belch.

  PART 4

  RECKONING

  Twenty-Five

  KIT WAS SITTING on the nursery window seat, reading a book – just as he’d been doing the last time they had both been home on leave together. When Anne had opened the door he had lifted his head and smiled at her, and then as she came into the room he stood up. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

  In the old days it would have been a casual wave or a ‘wotcha’, or some such greeting. Now, she thought, and with regret, they had moved on to another stage in their lives – one where there were now social niceties to be observed between them. He had only arrived home a few hours before her and was still wearing his uniform. There were three captain’s pips now on his uniform and he looked older, heavier and rather distinguished. The boy he had been seemed to have vanished completely to be replaced by the man he had become. She felt immensely proud of him, and yet rather sad.

  She looked round the old nursery. It still bore the scars of the evacuees, but everything was in its place, just as she always pictured it in her mind – the rocking horse, her dolls’ house, the books on the shelves, the tall brass-rimmed guard in front of the gas fire . . . We don’t belong here any more, though, she thought. It’s stayed the same but we’ve gone on to become something that doesn’t fit here any longer. We’re only visitors now. The door has shut behind us and we can never go back.

  She glanced at the book that Kit had left open on the window-seat: The Just So Stories.

  ‘I was reminding myself how the rhinoceros got its skin,’ he said.

  In the past, the story had always made her feel itchy all over. She picked up the book and looked at the familiar illustration of the smooth-skinned rhinoceros gazing greedily at the Parsee and his cake on the shores of the Red Sea. He’d stolen the cake and eaten it all up and when he’d unbuttoned his skin and taken it off in a heatwave the Parsee had punished him by filling it with dry, stale, tickly cake-crumbs. And when he’d put it on again the rhinoceros had scratched and rubbed and rolled until it had gone into great folds . . . Just looking at the picture made her feel itchy again, in exactly the same way. The shut door opened a crack, like magic, but only for a moment before it slammed shut again. She put the book down and smiled at Kit.

  ‘You’re looking well. How was No
rth Africa?’

  ‘Hot. Sandy. Rather dirty.’

  ‘We sound as though we’re talking about a holiday resort. It must have been pretty good hell out there.’

  ‘I’ve known worse.’ He held out his open cigarette case. ‘At least we achieved the object in the end – this time.’

  She took a cigarette and bent her head to his lighter. She supposed he was referring to Dunkirk and heard the edge in his voice. Surely he had come to terms with what had happened there by now? It was all so long ago. Just one horror in an endless succession of horrors in this interminable war.

  She said brightly: ‘Anyway, jolly well done, all of you. You gave us a much-needed boost to morale.’

  ‘The RAF haven’t been doing so badly over here, from all accounts.’

  ‘Hideous losses in Bomber Command.’

  He nodded. ‘So I gather. You must hate that.’

  She sat down slowly on the window seat. ‘I do. So many of them have died, Kit. So many. And you can’t pretend it’s not happening when you’re doing my job. You see them go and not come back. There’s no fooling yourself, or getting away from it. Lately, I’ve begun to feel I can’t stand it any longer, which is pretty feeble, I suppose. It’s just so sad and depressing . . .’ She drew on the cigarette. ‘Anyway, I’m putting in to re-muster to Admin. Apparently they’re short of officers so there’s a good chance I might be able to. It’ll mean another training course with a lot of prissy types, but at least I won’t have anything to do with actual ops any more.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You in Admin, Anne? Inspections, charges, jankers . . . not really your style, I’d have thought.’

  She grinned. ‘I know. In Ops. Int. we always look down on the admins. They aren’t even allowed in the room. They get frightfully miffed and jealous.’

  ‘You won’t like being one of them.’

  ‘There’s method in my madness, though. I’ve been thinking, you see . . . when we invade Europe they’re going to need admins along with them at some stage and I’m volunteering to go the minute that happens. The bombers’ll be stuck over here, still bombing.’

  ‘Travel broadens the mind?’

  ‘Absolutely. When do you think it’s going to happen, Kit? And where?’

  ‘This summer. Has to be. And somewhere between the Pas de Calais and Brest – it’s anybody’s guess. Personally, I’m putting my chips down on Normandy, but that’s just a hunch.’

  ‘Will you be going?’

  ‘I bloody well hope so.’

  She knew better now than to say anything, for what was there to say? I wish you didn’t have to, Kit. I couldn’t bear it if you were killed too, as well as all the others. You’ve survived France and you survived North Africa, by a miracle, can’t you just stay somewhere nice and safe for the rest of the war? He had no choice in the matter, and neither had she. She turned aside to flick her cigarette ash out of the nursery window and stared at the sunlit garden. The lawn had the lush new green of spring and the herbaceous border was coming to life. Nineteen forty-four was already three months old and this year she would be twenty-three. It was hard to remember what it had been like when there had been no war on, and hard to imagine how it would be when peace came again. She’d leave the WAAF, of course. There’d be no point in staying in. And then what? A boring secretarial course? Some kind of job in London? The War Office, perhaps? Or the Foreign Office? No, not the Foreign Office. That was where Johnnie had been going. If she wasn’t careful she’d find herself taking letters from him, and that wouldn’t do at all.

  She turned back from the window. ‘I met someone you knew at Eton called Alastair Crawford last November. We were both on a train going to Gloucestershire. He’d just come back from North Africa and said he’d run into you in a bar in Alex.’

  ‘Crawford?’ Kit perched on the edge of the fender, legs stuck out in front of him. ‘Yes, I remember us coming across each other. How did he know you were you?’

  ‘Recognized me from that photo you used to have in your room, and from us looking alike. He was on his way home on leave.’

  ‘And where were you on your way to?’

  ‘To stay with the Somervilles, actually.’

  ‘Johnnie Somerville? I thought you couldn’t stand him.’

  ‘I was on a mission of mercy. He was burned crash-landing his Spitfire last year and spent ages in hospital. Got pretty fed up and for some reason his mother thought I might be able to cheer him up. I can’t think why she picked on me.’

  Kit smiled at the floor. ‘Oh, I can. Did Ma know? She’d have been in seventh heaven, planning your wedding.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t tell her. And she’d have been horribly disappointed. I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Pity. I rather liked him. But it’s your affair, twin.’ Kit reached out with one foot and prodded Poppy. The rocking horse creaked gently to and fro. ‘Is it because of Michal? Haven’t you got over him yet?’

  ‘Everyone always makes it sound like an illness. Something that will go away so you’ll feel better. I don’t want Michal to go away. I want to remember him.’

  ‘Fine. But don’t let the past spoil the future for you.’

  ‘Nor you.’ She held his gaze steadily. ‘You won’t either, will you, Kit?’

  ‘I don’t think about the future.’

  ‘The war won’t last for ever. What will you do when it’s all over? Go up to Oxford, like you would have done?’

  He stubbed out his cigarette in the Present from Swanage mug. ‘I told you, I don’t think about it.’

  She watched him uneasily, knowing him so well. ‘You’re still blaming yourself over what happened to Villiers and the others, aren’t you?’

  ‘Guilt’s not an illness either, Anne. It won’t simply go away, as you so rightly pointed out. There’s no real cure for it. I’ve learned to live with it, though, in a manner of speaking, but not enough to care a row of beans about what happens to me, now or in the future. I really don’t mind whether I live or die. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I rather hope I die. I’m too much of a coward to do the deed myself so perhaps some kind Jerry will oblige. It would be no more than justice done, in my view.’

  He seemed quite calm. Deadly serious.

  ‘You can’t really mean that, Kit?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And I’m only telling you so that if it does happen, you’ll be glad for me, not sorry.’

  ‘Kit . . .’ Tears were trickling down her cheeks. ‘Don’t say things like that.’

  He stood up and passed her his handkerchief. ‘Forget I did. I’m sorry. Let’s go down and see what Ma has in store for us.’

  She wiped her eyes and sniffed. ‘Some ghastly people are coming for drinks. There’ll be at least two very suitable and deadly boring men for me and probably somebody’s drippy daughter for you.’

  ‘Well, we won’t tell her she’s wasting her time.’ He put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Come on, old bean. Let’s go and face the music and smile.’

  ‘Shall I do the blackout now, Mother?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Virginia rose and went over to the sitting-room windows and began pulling down the blinds. The reply had been cold and indifferent. It was the tone Mother had been using throughout her leave – her way of showing her hurt at the whole year that Virginia had stayed away. Stiff and stilted letters had passed between them, like between strangers, and when Virginia had at last come home it had been made very clear that her outburst had not been either forgotten or forgiven. Her punishment was the cold speech, the long silences, the tight lips, the turned shoulder. She had found to her surprise that she no longer cared very much. The long absence had made her see Mother as someone to be pitied for her narrow, lonely life and her silly snobbery.

  Virginia began to draw the curtains over the blinds. Mother, of course, had completely ignored her promotion. Corporal would not be worth comment; no
thing less than an officer would do. Well, she might soon be made sergeant and then, after that, there was a good chance of becoming an officer. Mother would never believe the progress that she had made, how sure of herself she felt, how much she had changed. One day it would be Assistant Section Officer Stratton. Then Section Officer. Then Flight Officer, then Squadron Officer . . .

  ‘Don’t tug at the curtains like that, Virginia. It’s quite unnecessary. You’ll damage them.’

  Once she would have said she was sorry; now she said nothing. She finished the job and then switched on the lamps and then she sat down and picked up her knitting. There was silence in the sitting-room, except for the clicking of the needles.

  Winnie enjoyed every moment of the Fitters’ Course at RAF Halton and even the journey there went without a hitch. She found her way on the Underground in London, and took the train out to Wendover, passing through the gentle countryside of Buckinghamshire. The camp had been built in peacetime, like Colston, and the quarters were of solid redbrick with highly-polished wood floors. There was much more spit-and-polish than there had been at Flaxton or at Kirkton, and the WAAF officers were real sticklers. She had to polish her buttons and shoes until they shone like glass, and the smallest fault was picked on. At church parade the officer walked all round her, inspecting her minutely, and reported her for not having one stocking seam quite straight and for leaving the little button on the slit in her greatcoat unfastened. But she didn’t mind because everything else was worth it.

  Every morning they marched to a pipe-band down to the lecture rooms and workshops and so the day began on a bright note. The course was far more thorough and detailed than the flight mechanics’ one had been. She learned about metals and metallurgy, about how to crack-test and shock-load test, and how to do precision checks and pressure tests. She was taught how to replace a fuel pump, dismantle a crankcase, check a cylinder block for leaks, test a suspect thermostat, remove and fit a propeller . . . Her gen book filled steadily with her notes as the days passed. In the workshops everything was stripped down to the last nut and bolt and checked in every possible way for wear and tear and damage.