by Annie Groves
Rosie’s face burned.
‘I bet you could get away with anything if you set your mind to it, Lance,’ Sylvia told him flirtatiously.
‘Pretty much,’ he agreed. ‘I can certainly see to it that a pretty girl like you gets a good time.’
Sylvia giggled and moved closer to him, ignoring Rosie’s hint that it was time for them to leave, but then to Rosie’s relief, she saw two of Sylvia’s sisters heading towards them.
‘Sylvia,’ she warned, nodding meaningfully in their direction.
Immediately Sylvia, who had just moved her chair closer to Lance’s, stood up, grabbing her coat and her handbag and holding them tightly in front of herself.
‘Oh Gawd, quick, Rosie. Come on, I need the cloakroom,’ she muttered, hurrying through the crowd, leaving Rosie to follow her.
‘There’s no point hiding from them in here,’ Rosie told her when she finally caught up with her.
‘It’s not me sisters,’ Sylvia wailed, putting down the bag she was clutching to her chest. ‘It’s this – look.’
Rosie stared at the now lopsided curve of Sylvia’s chest and started to giggle.
‘It’s all right for you,’ Sylvia groaned. ‘But I can’t go back in there now…’
‘Well, that’s what you get for flirting like you were doing,’ Rosie told her, trying to sound stern but failing miserably.
‘I could feel Lance trying to get his hand round me back,’ Sylvia admitted. ‘It’s just as well he couldn’t get any further. What would he have thought when he got hold of a handful of unfinished knitting and old socks?’
Rosie couldn’t help it. She started to splutter with laughter again and after a few seconds even Sylvia herself joined in.
‘Mind you, it’s p’raps just as well we’re leaving. I don’t want our Clara telling me dad on me.’ She pulled a small face, but Rosie could understand why Sylvia’s elder sisters might be concerned.
‘You are only sixteen,’ she reminded her.
‘I’m seventeen next month. Rosie, it’s only ten o’clock and we don’t normally leave the Grafton until at least eleven.’
‘Like I said I’ve got fire-watch practice in the morning, and besides…’ Rosie looked uncertainly at Sylvia, ‘I can tell that you like him, Sylvia, but that Lance…well, he’s a lot older than you and…I’ve heard that…’
‘I don’t care what you’ve heard about him, Rosie. I mek me own mind up about folk, and if you want the truth, I think you was a little bit put out because he fancied me more than he did you.’
Rosie couldn’t believe her ears. ‘I wasn’t put out at all,’ she denied emphatically.
‘Well, that’s not how it looked to me,’ Sylvia retorted huffily as they left the dance hall. ‘Anyway, you’re out of luck because Lance told me that he wanted to see me again.’
Outside they stood still to get their bearings whilst their eyes adjusted to the darkness of the blackout. It never got any easier.
‘If I were you I wouldn’t count on seeing him again,’ Rosie warned her firmly. ‘And I can’t see your dad being too pleased if he comes round to your house looking for you.’
Sylvia gave a small shudder, and then admitted reluctantly, ‘No, I don’t want me dad knowing about him. He’s allus yellin’ about what he’d do to us if any of us were to get ourselves in the family way unwed. Not that that’s goin’ to happen to me! Oooh, Rosie, just think what it would be like though, marrying a handsome chap like Lance who knows what’s what. And he’s not short of a bob or two either, from the way he was talking and the clothes he wears. He was telling me how he’d have had this posh new Morris car but for the war.’
Rosie shook her head. For all that she pretended to be so ‘grown up’, Sylvia could be so very naïve at times. ‘Talk’s cheap,’ she warned Sylvia firmly.
‘And what does that mean exactly when it’s at home?’ Sylvia challenged her angrily. ‘’Cos if you’re trying to say that Lance was lying—’
‘You’ve only just met Lance, Sylvia, and you and me are supposed to be friends. We were supposed to be out having fun tonight,’ Rosie reminded her.
‘Mebbe so, but a girl knows when she’s met the right one, and I reckon that me and Lance—’ Sylvia broke off and sighed. ‘I really do fancy him, Rosie. And I don’t have to worry about him going round to our house either, because I didn’t give him me address. But I did tell him where we work and that we go dancing at the Grafton every Saturday,’ she added smugly, linking her arm through Rosie’s as she cajoled her. ‘You want to loosen up a bit yourself, Rosie, and not be so starchy. Here, put your torch on, will you? The battery’s gone in mine.’
Rosie gave a small sigh as she switched on the small torch such as everyone carried round with them to use in the blackout. Her father had brought her it back from New York along with a good supply of batteries, and she didn’t really begrudge using it more than her friends used theirs because she knew how hard it was for them to get replacement batteries.
‘See you at work on Monday,’ Sylvia called after her when they parted to go to their respective bus stops.
Rosie waved her off. She couldn’t help enjoying Sylvia’s good-humoured company, despite the fact that sometimes her behaviour was not how Rosie would have acted herself. Rosie hoped that she wasn’t a spoilsport, the kind of girl who didn’t like a bit of fun, but Sylvia was very young and Rosie couldn’t help worrying about her and wanting to protect her. She and Bella had got on so well, and had understood one another so completely that there had been no need for things like this. It was true that at times Rosie had thought that Bella’s mother’s refusal to let her go dancing or have a bit of fun was mean, but she had still understood that Bella was expected to behave in a certain way because of her Italian upbringing. Sylvia was just the opposite from Bella, and being older than Sylvia, Rosie was more aware of just how easy it was for a girl to get the wrong kind of reputation. She liked Sylvia far too much to want to see something like that happen to her.
Rosie wasn’t surprised to find the house in darkness when she unlocked the door and walked into the kitchen. After all, she had known that her mother was going out and she was hardly likely to be back so early. She closed the door and turned on the light.
The kitchen was cold and damp, making her shiver. She was just reaching for the kettle, intending to fill it so that she could make herself a cup of cocoa, when she heard a noise coming from the front room. It gave her such a shock that she almost dropped the kettle.
‘Mum,’ she called out, nervously, ‘is that you?’ Putting down the kettle, she went into the hallway and tentatively opened the front room door. The only light in the room was the glow from the small electric fire, but it was enough for Rosie to see its two occupants – her mother, who was struggling to sit up on the sofa, and a man who was hurriedly pulling on his pants.
Rosie was so shocked that she could only stand in the doorway staring at them, unable to move. Her mother had jumped up off the sofa and was saying something to the man, whom Rosie didn’t recognise. A cold sweat of revulsion and angry disbelief engulfed her, followed by a sickness that gripped her stomach. Unable to say or do anything, she stumbled back into the kitchen, where she sank down onto one of the hard wooden chairs. Her whole body was overcome with shock, whilst her teeth chattered together and she shivered violently. She heard the front door open and then swiftly close, and then her mother came into the kitchen. Rosie stared numbly at her.
‘Why have you come back so early? You told me you were going to the Grafton, and you never get back from there until after eleven,’ Christine burst out angrily, as though she were the one at fault. ‘You’ve done it deliberately, haven’t you, so that you could catch me out? Someone’s told you, haven’t they? I bet it was that old gossip Mabel from number 78; she saw me with Dennis last week, and I could see then what she was thinking—’
‘No one told me anything,’ Rosie stopped her, unable to endure hearing any more. ‘How could you?’ she demande
d, white-faced. She could hardly bring herself to speak, she felt so outraged and in despair. ‘How could you do that, Mum? When Dad finds out—’
‘Well, he won’t find out, will he, unless you go running telling tales to him?’
Rosie looked at her. How could her mother do this to her gentle kind father? How could she betray him and their twenty years of marriage like this?
‘Rosie, promise me you won’t say anything about this to your dad.’ The anger had gone out of her mother’s voice now, to be replaced by anxiety and pleading. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen.’
‘Then why did you let it? Why, Mum, why? How could you do such a thing? Poor Dad…’
Christine’s face tightened. ‘Oh, that’s right, you go and take his side. I might have known you would.’ Her mother had started to cry now, her voice rising, as she protested accusingly, ‘It’s all right for you, Rosie. You’re young yet and you don’t know how cruel life can be, or what it’s like being tied to a man who—’
‘How can you say that?’ Rosie stopped her, shocked. ‘Dad loves you.’
‘No he doesn’t. That bloody sister of his means more to him than I do. If he really cared about me he’d be here with me instead of leaving me to cope with this bloody war on me own without a man to look after me. And I need that, Rosie. I need it badly.’
This was a side to her mother that Rosie hadn’t seen before and it shocked her.
‘How can you say that? Dad’s away in the merchant navy and at sea, working for us, for our country. I don’t understand.’
‘No you don’t understand. No one does. They never have and they never will.’ There was a wildness in her mother’s voice now that alarmed Rosie. ‘Dennis is good to me. He spoils me, and he looks after me; allus giving me stuff and paying me compliments, right from the first day I started at the factory. Came right up to me, he did, and said how pretty I was. I could see then of course that the other women – a load of old trouts they are an’ all – were jealous.’
‘The manager?’
‘Yes. Dennis is the manager of the factory, and a proper gentleman. He’s not like your dad. He told me straight out that his wife wasn’t treating him right.’
Rosie knew that her parents’ marriage wasn’t a happy one but she had never imagined that her mother would do anything like this. ‘He’s married as well!’ Rosie couldn’t conceal her revulsion. She was still too shocked to accept what she had witnessed. ‘You can’t do this, Mum. Promise me you’ll stop seeing him,’ she begged her. ‘You’ve got to. You must see that…what you’re doing is wrong, and…’
Her mother was crying now.
‘You’ve got to, Mum,’ Rosie insisted. ‘If you don’t, Dad is bound to find out and then what’s going to happen?’
‘All right, but don’t you go saying anything about Dennis and me to your dad. Not that he’d care, exceptin’ that bloody Maude would kick up a right fuss.’
Rosie couldn’t bear to say anything. She knew that she wouldn’t tell her father but she also knew that it wouldn’t be for her mother’s sake that she kept her silence.
TEN
‘Right, now what we’re going to do is mek a bit of a fire at the far end of this ’ere air-raid shelter, wot will fill it with smoke and then you girls are going to crawl through it to the other end with the stirrup pump, and put out the fire.’
Angela Flynn, who had been paired with Rosie for this exercise, pulled a face and looked disgruntled, whilst the good-looking young fireman who was standing listening whilst the group of girls were given their instructions caught Rosie’s eye and winked at her.
Rosie gave him a withering look and turned away. Men were all the same and all after the one thing. What she had witnessed last night had put her off all of them for good. First Sylvia making a fool of herself over Lance, and then her own mother. How could she have betrayed her father like that, and with a married man? Rosie felt sick all over again. She had hardly dared close her eyes last night when she had gone to bed for fear of the unwanted images that would form of her mother with her lover. Rosie knew that she would never ever forget what she had seen. She was still in shock from it.
Three other pairs of girls had to go into the smoke-filled shelter under the careful watch of the ARP warden and the firemen before it was Rosie and Angela’s turn.
As they waited, Angela grumbled, ‘I don’t see what putting out a fire in a blooming air-raid shelter has to do with being on fire-watch duty. Me da says that they shouldn’t be askin’ girls to go climbing about on roofs watching for fires anyway.’
The young fireman had made his way round the edge of the waiting group and was now standing next to them. Angela’s face brightened immediately.
‘So what’s your name then?’ she demanded. ‘I’m Angela, I live at number 28, and this here next to me is Rosie from round the back on Gerard Street.’
‘I’m Rob Whittaker. My family’s from the Wirral but I’ve been transferred here to Liverpool and I’m boarding down at number 35. Nice to meet you both. As for what’s happening here, it’s to show you how to deal with the fires that are caused by incendiary bombs,’ he explained patiently.
‘Bombs? You mean we’re going to be expected to mess around with bombs?’ Angela shrieked. ‘My dad will never agree to that.’
‘It isn’t the incendiaries themselves, it’s the damage the fires they cause can do if they aren’t put out straight away,’ Rob Whittaker continued calmly. ‘There’s no danger in putting out these fires if it’s done promptly and properly.’
‘Come on, Angela, it’s our turn next,’ Rosie commanded her partner, ignoring their new neighbour’s friendly overtures. She had grown up vaguely aware of the fact that some of their neighbours disapproved of her mother, but after what she had seen last night she felt acutely conscious of her own position. If Rob Whittaker thought she was the kind of girl who had no respect for herself then he could think again and find someone else to come over all smiles with. Out of the corner of her eye Rosie could see the way her cold response had made the smile fade from his eyes. She told herself she should be pleased and not feel guilty.
‘Right, you two next,’ the ARP warden was calling out.
‘What’s got into you?’ Angela demanded crossly. ‘Proper rude, you were.’
Had she been? Rosie looked back over her shoulder but Rob Whittaker had his back to her and was deep in conversation with someone else. As though he could feel her looking at him he turned round but there was no smile for her this time.
Mortified, Rosie looked away. Her throat felt raw from the combination of the cold October air and the smell of smoke hanging in a pall over the city from the bomb-damaged docks.
Hitler’s attacks on their city had been relentless. There had been twenty air raids in September and already in October they were into double figures. Night after night people’s sleep was disturbed by the warning sound of the air-raid siren, bringing those who had not made the decision to head for the shelters ‘just in case’ tumbling from their beds with fast-beating hearts. But despite all that, somehow they had all got used to living on the knife edge that had become their lives, Rosie recognised. To panic at the sound of the siren, or to act scared was seen as letting the side down, and everyone tried to bolster their own and other people’s courage by straightening their shoulders and announcing that Hitler could do his worst, but he wasn’t going to beat them.
At first it had been frightening to turn a corner and see a gaping hole in a street where only the previous day there had been buildings, or to look towards the docks and see the glow of flames from something burning, but with the papers full of reassurances that bomb damage to the city and loss of life was minimal, and the docks turning round more ships faster than ever and securing their precious cargoes safely, the people of Liverpool were holding their heads up high, fiercely determined not to let Hitler demoralise them.
The truth was that Rosie was far more worried about her mother’s affair than she was about Hitle
r’s bombs. It was occupying her thoughts virtually to the exclusion of everything else.
Perhaps she had been unfair to her mother but she was still finding it difficult to think straight. The image of her mother and her lover both struggling into their clothes in the dim light of the fire was one that she knew would be burned into her mind for ever. She didn’t want to keep on thinking about it but she couldn’t stop.
Her mother had still been in bed when Rosie had left this morning and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go in to her. Not that it would have made any difference. Christine would no doubt refuse to talk to her about it.
‘Off you go, and remember, keep low under the smoke, and when you get to the fire at the bottom of the shelter, use the stirrup pump to put it out.’
Rosie shuddered as she dropped down on all fours and started to crawl into the thick grey smoke. Even though she knew that they weren’t really in any danger, she still felt slightly sick and apprehensive as she followed the instructions. Angela had gone in first but suddenly she started to turn round.
‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ she told Rosie frantically. ‘I can’t breathe. I’ve got to get out.’
‘Angela, it’s all right,’ Rosie tried to calm her, but Angela was clutching at her throat and trying to stand up – the very thing they had been told not to do.
‘Get down,’ Rosie begged her, pulling on the straps of her dungarees, but to her shock Angela struck out at her, and then suddenly collapsed, pulling Rosie down with her. Rosie tried to save herself but it was too late. She felt something hit the side of her head, causing pain to explode inside it. She could hear the ARP warden calling their names, her head was throbbing and she badly wanted to be sick. Angela was breathing in a funny way and making a frightening noise, her eyes bulging.
‘What’s going on in there?’ the ARP warden yelled angrily.
Rosie shouted out, ‘Angela’s not well, Mr Walton. She’s breathing funny and she won’t move…’ The smoke had thickened and Rosie could only just about make out the hunched shape of Angela’s frighteningly inert body. She tried to drag the other girl towards the exit but she was too heavy for her, and Rosie’s chest felt so tight and sore from inhaling smoke that she could hardly breathe herself. And then suddenly she saw Rob Whittaker materialising in front of her out of the smoke, and reaching for her.