As she rode the bus to work, Joan retraced in her mind the events of the previous afternoon, trying to think where she might have lost the purse. Could the man behind her in the bus queue have slipped his hand into her bag when she wasn’t looking? Could someone have taken it while the bag was by her feet in the hairdresser’s?
As soon as Joan walked onto the Hesser Floor, it was obvious that news of her catastrophe had spread fast. Girls shot her sympathetic looks and even people she barely knew seemed to be talking about her and pointing. They all lived for their bonuses, and her misfortune was quickly passing into legend, sending a chill down the spine of every sugar girl.
‘God, you look like you’ve been socked in the eye,’ remarked Doris helpfully, when she saw Joan’s face.
Joan turned to Kathy instead. ‘Don’t suppose my purse has turned up here, has it?’ she asked.
‘No, ’fraid not,’ said her friend. ‘Sorry.’
That coat’ll probably be gone by the time I get enough cash together again, thought Joan, turning miserably to her machine.
The day’s work seemed to drag more than ever, and at the end of her shift Joan was desperate to run straight home and spend the evening under her bedcovers. But as she was about to leave, she heard Doris say, ‘Now!’, and saw her give Kathy a little push.
‘Um, Joan,’ said Kathy, with a shy smile, ‘we’ve got something for you.’
Joan noticed that Rosie and a crowd of the other girls were also gathering round. What on earth were they up to?
From behind her back, Kathy produced a Tate & Lyle sugar bag, which was bulging with something that didn’t look like sugar. She presented it to Joan. ‘From all us girls,’ she said, ‘to make up for your purse getting nicked.’
Joan took the bag from her with both hands, realising as she did so that it was full of coins. Between them, her colleagues had managed to raise the entire sum of her lost bonus.
‘You lot are brilliant!’ said Joan, her puffy eyes crinkled with joy. ‘Bleedin’ brilliant!’
She raced off to catch the bus to Canning Town and arrived at Blooms out of breath and sweaty.
In the shop, she pulled out the sugar bag and poured all the coins onto the counter. The sales assistant, a middle-aged woman, looked at Joan with a twinkle in her eye. ‘You’ve been saving up to get married, haven’t you?’ she said with a nostalgic smile.
‘Nah, I’m here for me coat,’ Joan replied.
‘Oh, are you Joan?’ the woman said, disappointed. ‘Your mother’s been in for it already.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Joan, scarcely believing what she had heard.
‘Mrs Cook, she picked it up this morning.’
Joan was taken aback how quickly fortune had swung back in her favour. Not only did she now have her bonus back, but as a result of losing it she had got the coat for free!
She collected up the coins again and rushed back to Ideal Hairdressers. ‘Same as yesterday, please,’ she said, making herself comfortable in the seat.
‘Bloody Nora,’ said the hairdresser, looking at Joan’s crumpled hair, which only yesterday she had sculpted to perfection. ‘You must have had a heavy night.’
On Saturday evening, Joan slipped her new coat on and gave her mum an extra big kiss at the door. Mrs Cook beamed in delight. She loved nothing more than seeing her daughter going out looking the business.
After her friends’ kindness in helping raise the money, Joan had backed down and agreed to go to the Lotus Ballroom, and she, Doris, Kathy and Rosie travelled to Forest Gate together on the bus.
The Lotus was above a shop on the corner of Woodgrange Road, opposite the roller-skating rink that the girls often frequented, and was always packed out on a Saturday night. As they approached, Joan could see the club’s flashing light and felt a thrill of anticipation. She was wearing a skirt borrowed from her glamorous Auntie Iris, who had also plucked her eyebrows for her and lent her some killer red lipstick. She knew she was looking good, and she couldn’t wait to see what the night would bring.
Inside, the ballroom was dark, lit only by little twinkling lights around the walls. It looked magical, thought Joan. There were a few tables and chairs scattered here and there but most people were up dancing. As they walked in, the band was playing ‘Such a Night’ and the singer was doing his best impression of Johnnie Ray, pretending to be knocked off his feet as he sang.
Joan was itching to dance. She knew she was a fantastic jiver – whenever she was thrown around the room by a half-decent partner people invariably asked if she was a professional, and she wasn’t one to hide her light under a bushel. Before long she and her skinny friend Kathy were dancing their socks off with a couple of lads called Alan and Alfie, young soldiers on leave from their national service.
Alfie was tall, dark and a pretty good mover, but Alan had a baby face and blue eyes that Joan found irresistible. Every time she danced with Alfie her eyes were on Alan, but the walls of the room were lined with mirrors and she could see that whenever she danced with Alan, Alfie was watching her.
Evidently Kathy wasn’t having such a great time. ‘They both fancy you,’ she complained, ‘– as usual!’ She was used to her charismatic friend hogging the limelight.
‘Don’t be silly!’ lied Joan, who was breathless with the exhilaration of dancing non-stop for the last hour, and wasn’t ready to quit yet.
‘I want to go home,’ said Kathy. ‘Will you get the bus with me?’
Joan was normally the last to leave a party, but remembering Kathy shyly holding out the sugar bag full of money at the factory she relented, and the two of them said their goodbyes to Doris and Rosie.
The boys they had been dancing with weren’t so easily brushed off. ‘Wait! Where are you going?’ called Alfie, rushing after Joan, with Alan in hot pursuit.
‘We’re off!’ said Joan, with a flick of her Grace Kelly blonde hair.
‘Let me walk you home,’ said the two men in unison. They turned to look at each other in annoyance.
‘Suit yourself!’ said Joan, feigning indifference. ‘We’re only going to the bus stop.’ Secretly, she was delighted that Alan seemed as keen as Alfie. Kathy rolled her eyes.
Out on the street, the two men stumbled slightly and Joan realised for the first time that they were tipsy. It was a warm night, but she felt Alan’s arm slip round her shoulders. ‘Bit nippy tonight, ain’t it?’ he said, dimples forming on his baby face as he smiled.
But Alfie spotted his friend’s sly move, and evidently wasn’t impressed. ‘Oi,’ he said, ‘I’m walking Joan to the bus stop.’
‘Doesn’t look like it, mate!’ countered Alan, over his shoulder.
‘That’s not what we agreed!’ said Alfie, yanking him away from her.
Alan bristled with anger. To Joan and Kathy’s surprise the two began shoving each other as they continued to dispute their right to walk with her.
At first the girls giggled at the ridiculousness of the boys’ behaviour, but soon the shoves had turned into punches. Kathy clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh Joan, they’re going to do themselves damage!’ she said.
Joan was still laughing. She was rather enjoying being fought over by two handsome soldiers – she felt like a glamorous screen siren with the power to drive men crazy, and it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
As the taller of the two, Alfie had the advantage over his friend, and it soon became clear that he was winning the fight. Poor old Alan sloped moodily off and Alfie proudly offered Joan his arm.
She was sorry to see baby-faced Alan go, but the incident made Alfie come across as the bigger man, and now that she looked at him again he suddenly seemed more attractive.
Joan took his arm and they walked to the bus stop together, with Kathy trailing along behind them.
Before long, Joan and Alfie had become a firm couple. At the age of 16, possessing a handsome soldier two years older than herself felt even better to Joan than owning a whole wardrobe of green suede coats. She began to
live for the few weekends when Alfie could come back to London from Catterick, and she always splashed her week’s wages on new outfits to meet him in, just to see the awestruck look on his face.
On Fridays they both dressed up to the nines to kiss in the dark at the Imperial cinema in Canning Town, while on Saturdays they went out dancing. As they whirled around the floor together, Joan and Alfie drew admiring glances from the other couples and she felt giddy with elation.
On Mondays at work she provoked sighs and gasps from the other sugar girls with her tales of the romantic gestures Alfie had made over the weekend, and brought tears to their eyes describing the exquisite pain of saying goodbye to him at the station when he left.
To Joan’s frustration, her parents persisted in their frequent trips down to the wretched caravan in Burnham-on-Crouch, demanding that she accompany them when they went there. Spending the days drinking endless cups of tea with her mum and dad, watching the boats bobbing tediously along the river and suffering her 11-year-old brother’s aeroplane impressions, Joan felt almost crazy with frustration. She couldn’t wait for the next time Alfie was in London for the weekend, and thought about all the dances they could be going to instead.
Joan was an instant hit with Alfie’s parents, who had a butcher’s shop, as well as with his older brother and sister. Like most people, they warmed to her chatty, lively personality, and they also cottoned on to the fact that, with her nice clothes and caravan near the sea, their son’s new sweetheart was a cut above most factory girls. She was a good catch for a butcher’s boy, and they made enthusiastic efforts to make her feel part of the family. Joan enjoyed the sense of belonging, having grown up in a less than happy household with a father who never showed her any affection.
Alfie showered Joan with hugs and kisses, and it felt wonderful, but the two of them had gone no further than that – any attempt to snatch more than a few minutes in private together was generally thwarted by their families.
One weekend, Alfie was coming to the end of a spell of leave, after which he and Joan wouldn’t be able to see each other for a long time. Joan’s parents were heading off to the miserable caravan, but she was determined not to miss out on her last two days with Alfie, so she begged them to let her stay behind.
Mr and Mrs Cook eventually relented, and Joan merrily waved them off. Then she rushed back indoors to plan her outfit for the evening. With Alfie going away for a while, she wanted to look her best.
She tried on five different possible combinations of dresses, skirts, tops and shoes before finally deciding on a red dress with a white trim, and white peep-toe sandals. Then she applied black eyeliner with little flicks out at the sides, like her Aunt Iris had recently shown her, standing back to admire the effect in the mirror. She couldn’t wait for Alfie to see it.
When he knocked at the door, Joan jumped up from her dressing table and ran down the stairs as fast as her high heels would carry her. She threw the door open and Alfie whistled as soon as he saw her.
She beamed at his reaction. ‘Where we going, then, soldier?’ she asked.
‘How about we spend the evening here?’ he replied. ‘Seems a shame to waste the house when your parents are away.’
Joan had to admit he had a point, though she felt slightly disappointed at not being able to show off her red dress and white shoes on the town. ‘All right then,’ she agreed uncertainly.
It felt odd to be alone in the house with Alfie. Joan wasn’t sure what to do, so she made him a cup of tea.
He drank it, but seemed more quiet than usual, and kept looking at her strangely, with a kind of longing.
‘What you staring at me like that for?’ Joan said in the end, giving him a playful push. ‘You’re giving me the heebie jeebies!’
Alfie caught her arm before she had a chance to drop it, and pulled her in close for a kiss. It was deeper and more sensual than any of their previous embraces. Those had been snatched in the dark at the cinema, or on the doorstep at the end of the night before her father called her in – little more than pecks on the lips. This time, Alfie’s tongue pressed its way into her mouth. She felt a thrill shoot through her, and giggled nervously.
Then Joan felt his hand move up her side, over the red dress, coming to rest on her breast. Instinctively, she pushed it down to her waist.
‘Hey, there’s no one here but us,’ Alfie whispered. ‘We’re grown-ups, ain’t we?’
‘Course,’ Joan said, indignantly. The last thing she wanted was for Alfie to think she was just a little girl.
The hand started to move up her side again, testingly. ‘I’ll be back with the Army tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll miss you so much.’
His words made Joan’s heart ache. The prospect of being parted again was even worse than usual, knowing that they wouldn’t be seeing each other for so long.
‘Joanie,’ he persisted, not getting a response, ‘don’t you want to show me how much I mean to you before I go away?’
Joan’s mind raced. His desire for her made her feel beautiful and wanted. Yet despite her usual bravado and self-confidence, she only had the vaguest idea of what a man and a woman actually did when they ‘spent the night’ together.
But if she was going to find out, she reasoned, it was obviously going to be with Alfie – the only question was when. They weren’t engaged yet, but they were hardly a flash in the pan. She knew his family, and he knew hers. It wasn’t like he was about to disappear for ever.
She said nothing, and let the hand carry on sliding up the side of her dress.
Afterwards, Joan lay in Alfie’s arms, rather shocked at what had just taken place. It had been painful and abrupt, not at all what she had expected. If she’d known what it was going to be like beforehand, she thought, she certainly wouldn’t have rushed into it. Yet somehow the feeling of really being wanted had left her powerless to say no.
When Alfie left for Catterick, Joan felt a little surprised that life just carried on as before. There were her parents, arguing as usual. There were her friends, laughing and joking around at the factory. Wasn’t the world supposed to look different after such a momentous event?
The only real difference was that Alfie’s absence was no longer just the stuff of tear-jerking stories for the other sugar girls, but an uncomfortable fact that bothered her now more than ever. Their weeks apart seemed to drag on endlessly, and Joan’s evenings spent alone at home were intolerable. At one point, she even suggested to her parents that they go to the caravan just to get away from it all.
There, she and her mother were sitting around the fire one evening, while her father and brother played football. Both women were staring into the flames when Mrs Cook suddenly said, ‘Have you thrown anything away in there lately, Joan?’
‘No,’ Joan said, surprised. ‘Why?’
Mrs Cook didn’t reply, but when they returned home she marched her daughter straight to the doctor’s.
Dr Imber delivered his verdict in a low voice, as if he were confiding a secret. ‘Mrs Cook,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to say your daughter is in the family way.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Mrs Cook replied, perfectly polite as usual. She picked up her handbag and walked out of the room, Joan following behind her in a daze.
On the way home, Mrs Cook did not chastise her daughter, but she seemed more distant than usual, and it frightened Joan. All she could think about was that she needed to get hold of Alfie, fast. As soon as she could tell him what had happened, Joan was sure that everything would be all right. Alfie would propose to her and they could get married next time he was on leave, before she had even started to show. She imagined turning up to work with a ring on her finger – and the looks on the other sugar girls’ faces.
Joan ran into the corner shop at the end of Otley Road, where Mrs Jones had the only telephone in the street. She asked the operator to put her through to Catterick and demanded to speak to Alfie urgently.
‘You what?’ Alfie exclaimed, when she told him the news. He
sounded incredulous and angry at the same time. ‘How’s that possible? We only did it once, for God’s sake.’
‘I know,’ said Joan, her hopes suddenly beginning to waver, ‘but it’s true.’
‘Well, I don’t know what to say,’ Alfie replied.
This was not the answer she had been expecting. Where were the declarations of love? Where was the marriage proposal?
‘You won’t tell my parents, will you?’ he asked, nervously.
Joan felt anger rising in her own heart. This was her brave, handsome soldier – the man who had fought for her outside the Lotus – and he was too scared to face his own parents?
‘No,’ she replied, ‘I won’t tell them. That’s for you to do.’
‘Thanks, Joan,’ he said, weakly. ‘I’ve got to go now.’
‘When are you coming home?’ Joan asked. She could tell that he was slipping through her fingers, but she wanted to hear it from his own lips.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I probably won’t be home for a while.’
That evening Joan sat in the tin bath at home, the warm water enveloping her body. For the first time in her 16 years she wished she was no longer alive.
18
Ethel
Being in charge of a department full of teenagers, Ethel had learned to expect trouble, even if she tried not to look for it. Dealing with pranks was par for the course, whether it was girls setting off fire extinguishers or covering each other in sugar. But sometimes more serious cases of misbehaviour would occur, on which she had to take a harder line.
Although she disliked sacking anyone, and would try her best to avoid doing so, where dangerous behaviour was concerned Ethel had to operate a strict three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy. One day she was on her regular rounds when she heard an unusual noise coming from behind the door to an electrical relay room. The room was off limits to regular staff and labelled, in large red letters: ‘DANGER – NO ENTRY’.
Wartime for the Sugar Girls Page 21