Our Yanks

by Margaret Mayhew

  There was no counter, like in the candy store – just the wooden trays set out on two tables – the one under the window and another against a wall. And it was real warm, with a good smell of fresh baking. He stood by the door, waiting while the girl attended to a customer, and he watched as she put cakes into the woman’s shopping basket and the money into a tin in a drawer. She was quick as anything with the change, he noticed. He still couldn’t figure out the English money; all those halfpennies and pennies and shillings, never mind the sixpences and the threepenny bits and the farthings. She had quite a chat with the woman, smiling away at her, and he went on waiting patiently until they had finished talking. As the customer turned to leave he opened the door for her, making the bell jangle again on its leather strap, but she gave a loud sniff instead of thanks as she passed him on her way out. The girl smiled at him, though. She had some lipstick on – a soft pink colour – and she wore a blue and white spotted scarf tied in a bow at the top of her head with a lot of blond curls showing at the front.

  ‘Hi there,’ he said.

  ‘Hallo.’

  ‘That doorbell looks like a real old one.’

  ‘It’s a sheep’s bell,’ she told him. ‘It’s been there for years and years. Drives me mad.’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘Can I get you something?’

  He realized that he’d been standing there like a dope, just staring at her. ‘Some of those, I guess.’ He pointed.

  ‘The rock cakes? How many?’

  ‘Huh . . . maybe six. And a couple of those there, please.’

  ‘The raspberry buns?’

  He nodded. ‘They look real good. You make ’em here?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Everything’s baked in there.’ She nodded at a big black iron door set in the brick wall at the back of the store. ‘Dad does the bread, and Mrs Trimwell and me do the cakes. Do you have a bag, or anything? To put these in?’

  ‘Gee, I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find something for you.’ She vanished through a door and returned after a moment with a brown paper bag. ‘Mum hoards them. She’s got a drawerful.’ She put the cakes into the bag. ‘Anything else?’

  He wanted to delay things a little. ‘What are those over there?’

  ‘Cup cakes they’re called. They’re just plain sponge. We used to ice them but we can’t get the sugar now.’

  ‘I’ll take six of those, then.’

  She gave a giggle. ‘Goodness, you must be hungry. Don’t they feed you enough? I thought you Americans were supposed to have plenty – steaks and ice cream and things.’

  ‘Not often – we don’t.’ He could have told her some things about the garbage they served up in the Mess: about the stink of the powdered eggs, the greasy mutton, the sweaty Spam, the chip beef that looked like vomit, or worse, the chalky dried milk, the endless Brussels sprouts . . . but he didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to find out more about her, and to know her name.

  She put her head on one side again. ‘What do you think of it over here, then?’

  He’d been asked that question lots of times since they’d arrived in Liverpool and he was always very careful what he answered. They’d been warned about giving offence: provided with a booklet all about the British. They’d been told not to criticize or complain; not to brag or throw money around; to keep out of arguments; never to laugh at a British accent, and never ever to talk about coming over and winning the last war . . . or doing the same again this time. ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘Everything’s just great.’

  She mocked him with her blue eyes. ‘You’re having me on. Just being polite. It’s awful here – with the war on. You must hate it. It’s lovely in America, isn’t it?’

  ‘You been there?’

  She giggled again and he realized that she was younger than he’d thought at first; the lipstick and her hairstyle had had him fooled. Only seventeen or eighteen maybe. ‘Me? Go to America? What a joke! But I’ve seen it at the pictures.’

  ‘Pictures?’

  ‘On the films. At the cinema.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ He smiled. ‘It’s not all like that, see.’

  ‘Are you an officer?’ she asked, head on the other side now, looking him over.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m a sergeant.’

  ‘You look like an officer. You all do. It’s the nice uniform, I s’pose, and the shirt and tie. Our lot look quite different – the officers and the men. It’s a lovely uniform, yours. So smart. Not like ours. What d’you do up at the aerodrome?’

  ‘I’m ground crew,’ he told her. ‘An aircraft mechanic.’ He thought she looked a bit disappointed, maybe because he wasn’t a pilot?

  She put the cakes into the paper bag, twisted the top at each corner and handed it over to him. ‘That’ll be sevenpence, please.’ He pulled a bunch of change out of his pocket and sorted through it helplessly. ‘Heck . . . will this do?’

  ‘That’s much too much. That’s half a crown. Two shillings and sixpence, see.’

  ‘How about this?’

  ‘Still too much. That’s a florin.’

  That was a new one to him. ‘A florin?’

  ‘Two shillings. That’s twenty-four pence. Look, I’ll just take it, shall I? It’ll be quicker.’ He held out his hand and she stirred the coins round on his palm with one finger. Her hands were small and slender with nails the colour of seashells. ‘Here we are: a sixpence and one penny.’ She looked up at him, smiling. ‘It’s easy.’

  As he put the coins away in his pocket, a middle-aged guy wearing a white overall came in through the side door she’d used. ‘You can leave off now, Sally,’ he told the girl. ‘Your mother wants you. I’ll look after things here.’

  She shrugged. ‘All right, Dad.’ She smiled again at Chester over her shoulder as she went.

  ‘Anything else you want?’ The guy leaned both hands heavily on the counter, sleeves rolled up above muscled forearms and looking real unfriendly.

  ‘No, sir. Thank you.’ The sheep’s bell jangled as he opened the door to go. He’d got two messages loud and clear. Her dad didn’t like any Yank hanging round his daughter. And her name was Sally.

  ‘I don’t want you talking to those Americans, Sally.’

  ‘I can’t serve them if I don’t talk to them, can I, Dad? They spend good money. You ought to be glad.’

  She was a sight too pert for his liking, sometimes. ‘You know what I mean. Serving them’s one thing, chatting to them’s quite another. You were being much too friendly to that American. You don’t want to encourage them.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I was helping him with the money, that’s all. They can’t work it out. Theirs is different. They have dollars and cents. A hundred cents to a dollar; it’s much easier than our old shillings and pennies and things.’

  She’s been doing a lot of talking to them, he thought anxiously. Not just to that Yank today. She was putting on her coat now and tying her scarf round her head. ‘Where do you think you’re going, then?’

  ‘Round to Doris, like I always do on Fridays.’

  ‘I don’t want you going out alone after dark. It’s not safe. Not with those Americans about.’

  ‘Doris is three doors away, Dad. And I’m not staying in all evening just cos you don’t like the Yanks.’

  She was gone before he could think of anything else to say. He sat down slowly in his armchair.

  ‘You can’t stop her, Sam,’ Freda said, needles clicking placidly. ‘You can’t keep her prisoner. And you won’t keep the Americans away from her.’

  ‘I’ll have a bloody good try,’ he burst out, swearing in front of Freda for once. ‘Damned if I won’t.’

  She came to the end of a row and turned the knitting. ‘You go and put the kettle on, Sam, and make us a nice cup of tea.’

  Ed Mochetti took the bend under the railroad bridge fast. It was raining hard and the jeep skidded as he hit a mud slick but he corrected easily and roared on. The rain was pelting down on the canvas tilt and
gusting in through the jeep’s open sides and he had to keep working the windshield wipers with his left hand so he could see where he was going. In the back there were ten bags of laundry – his own and nine from other pilots: shirts, underclothes, socks, pyjamas . . . everything they’d collected up. He slowed his speed as he entered the village, overtaking a coal merchant’s horse and cart trundling along and stopping dead with a screech of brakes for an old woman who stepped straight out in front of him and tottered across the street. She was dressed in long black garments and took her time, shooting him a malevolent look. Probably put some goddam spell on him. He turned into what they called the high street. Number fourteen, the kid had said. Past the bakery. He saw the bakery with the sign over, S. BARNET, and looked for numbers outside the cottages down the street. There weren’t any – or none that he could see. An old guy was standing at his doorway under a porch, smoking his pipe. Ed shifted his chewing gum to one side and yelled out to him.

  ‘Say, number fourteen? Can you tell me which it is?’

  Either the guy was stone deaf or he was faking it because he went on smoking and taking no notice. Ed cut the engine and got out of the jeep and into the rain. ‘Excuse me, sir. I’m looking for number fourteen.’

  The old man peered up at him with rheumy eyes. ‘You a Yank?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Late again.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Late for the last one. Late for this one. Always late.’

  ‘You mean the war, sir?’

  ‘What else’d I be talking about? When’re you Yankee Doodles going to start doing some fighting, eh? That’s what I’d like to know. Sitting around, eating your heads off. Drinking all our drink. Bothering our women. When’re you going to start killing some Jerries?’

  ‘Soon as we get the chance. Give us time.’

  ‘Time? We’ve got no time. You lot yellow, or something? Our lads’ve been fighting and dying for four years. I fought in the Boer War myself and we wasn’t yellow.’

  ‘Would you just tell me which is number fourteen?’

  ‘No, I’m not telling you. You can find out for yourself.’

  Ed went back to the jeep, dripping wet and fuming. Crazy old fool. What did he want, for Christ’s sake? Blood and guts raining down from the skies? Sure, the Group hadn’t done any real combat missions yet but, hell, they had to get in some practice first. Two guys had already been killed in flying accidents and they wouldn’t be the last. If they wanted dead Americans, there was no shortage with the Eighth bomber squadrons. None at all. He flicked the ignition switch, toed the floor starter and drove on slowly, peering out of the side of the jeep along a row of thatched-roof cottages until he caught sight of a rusty one and four nailed up over a doorway – the figure four hanging upside down. When he knocked, the door was opened by a thin woman in a flowered overall, carrying a baby on her hip. He smiled at her politely.

  ‘Mrs Hazlet? Tom’s mother?’

  ‘What’s he done now?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Did he say anything about laundry to you? We’ve a whole lot needs doing and I wondered if maybe . . .’

  Her face cleared. ‘Oh, yes, sir. He did mention it. I’d be glad to do it for you. Please come inside.’

  He bent his head and stepped down from the street directly into the low-ceilinged cottage interior. The rainwater, he noticed, was running over the sill and into the room, forming a large puddle on the stone floor. It was dark inside, so dark that she’d lit the oil lamp above the table where she’d been sewing. Looking round, he felt as though he was in some kind of folk museum. There was no electricity at all, so far as he could see, and sure as hell no central heating. The old black cooking range in the open fireplace looked like something his Italian grandmother had always talked about. A kettle was simmering away on the top and there was a row of five flat irons, in diminishing sizes, standing upright at the back. A piece of cord strung above the range from one side to the other had washing pinned all along it. Clothes that looked kind of like rags.

  ‘Will you have a cup of tea, sir?’

  He shook his head quickly. ‘No, thanks.’ Tea, he knew, was rationed – not that he wanted any of it.

  ‘I’ll show you the washhouse, then, shall I?’

  Still carrying the child, she led him through another low doorway into a small back room with a sloping corrugated-iron roof. Away from the range, it was bone-chillingly cold and damp. He noticed a tin bath hanging up on a hook and a couple of old buckets. ‘We get the water from the standpipe, just down the street,’ she said, pointing to the buckets. ‘And I do the whites in there.’ She showed him a copper cauldron in the corner, set in a brick surround. ‘When the fire gets going underneath, it boils up and the clothes come nice and clean. I do the rest in the washtub. Then I rinse in the tub outside and put them through the mangle before I peg them out.’ She opened a back door so that he could see onto a concrete yard with a long clothes line. There was a muddy cabbage patch beyond and a henhouse with a few bedraggled chickens scratching about behind wire netting. He noticed a small hut standing at the end of a cinder pathway and figured it had to be an outside privy. She shut the door and led him back into the kitchen. ‘I iron them in here – on the table. I think you’ll find I do a good job, sir.’

  The baby had started whimpering and the woman shushed it and rocked it to and fro on her hip, watching him anxiously.

  ‘How much would you charge?’ he asked. Better straighten that out first.

  ‘Threepence a shirt,’ she told him. ‘They take a lot of time ironing to get them nice. Tuppence for a pair of socks. The same for underclothes.’

  ‘Pyjamas?’

  ‘Threepence – as there’s two parts. But if you think that’s too much . . .’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘That’s OK by us. I’ve got some laundry with me in the jeep. OK if I leave it with you now?’

  She smiled at him and he could see how glad she was. ‘That’ll be quite all right. I’ll start on it first thing tomorrow. It’ll be ready in three days. If you could collect it then.’

  He schlepped in the ten canvas bags over his shoulder and set them down in the washhouse. ‘I brought some wash-powder.’ He handed her the packet of Oxydol. ‘There’s plenty of it at the base.’ He wished he’d brought some chocolate to hand over as well.

  ‘Oh, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Ed’s the name.’ He stared uneasily at the huge pile of laundry. ‘Sure it’s not going to be too much for you?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ll be glad of the money. It’ll be such a help.’

  ‘OK, then.’ He chucked the baby under the chin and it chortled at him. ‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  ‘It’s Nell,’ the woman told him.

  ‘She’s cute.’

  She saw him to the door and he stepped over the puddle, ducking under the doorway as he went. ‘Say hallo to Tom for me.’

  ‘He’ll be ever so sorry he missed seeing you. I do hope he’s not a nuisance. He loves the aeroplanes, you see.’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah . . . me too.’ He drove back along the high street. The old guy was still standing under his porch, smoking his pipe, and he gave him the finger as he went by. Further along the street he passed the entrance to the rectory. He’d called in there a couple of times but there’d been nobody home. Once, he’d gone round to the schoolhouse and tried looking in through the windows. They were all too high-silled to see in except for the kindergarten round the back. He’d taken a peek in there and seen Agnes Dawe with a bunch of little kids sitting in front of her, drawing things in chalk on a blackboard. Looked like she was teaching them to count. One of the kids had spied him and started pointing, then they’d all turned round. Agnes hadn’t seemed too pleased, so he’d gone away. Now, on an impulse, he stopped the jeep, reversed back up and turned into the rectory driveway between the two stone gateposts. The gates themselves were missing, for some reason, but he could see the iron supports where they’d hung. He’d
admired the house last time; it was a fine old place, built of the same stone as the rest of them with a slate roof, tall chimneys and steps going up to a white front door. Like all the doors in the village it needed a repaint. Paint was hard to get, he guessed, like most everything else. Gas, booze, eggs, meat, coal, paper, sugar, you name it . . . these guys had been doing without for years and doing it with their ration books so it was jolly English fair play all round. He parked the jeep and his gum and and walked up the steps. When he tapped with the brass knocker the rector himself opened it. Ed smiled politely, as with Mrs Hazlet; he figured you couldn’t smile too much with the natives, unless they were like that old guy up the street. ‘Lieutenant Mochetti, sir. I wondered if your daughter was home?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Lieutenant.’ The guy pronounced it the English way, even though there was no such thing as an ‘f’ in the word. ‘She’s still at the school, teaching.’

  ‘Well, thanks all the same.’ He turned to go but the rector stopped him.

  ‘But she’ll be back soon for lunch. Come in and wait – if you’d like to.’

  Inside it was cold as an icebox – no central heating here either, or if there was it wasn’t on. There was electricity, though – real old-fashioned fittings – and a lot of dark, heavy furniture. Stuck in time, Ben would have said, but it all went with the place. He took off his cap and his leather A2 jacket – reluctantly – and followed the rector into a panelled room that was only slightly warmer than the hall. About three pieces of coal were smoking away in a small grate.

  ‘My study,’ the guy told him and removed a pile of books from one of the two leather chairs beside the fireplace, balancing them on top of another pile on the floor. ‘I’m afraid it’s always a bit untidy. Do sit down, Lieutenant. Would you care for a sherry? I think there’s a small amount left.’