Читать книгу The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 10

Her presence on the streets of Liverpool was certainly being treated with a good deal more respect this morning than it had been last night, Diane admitted, as she walked briskly past the town hall, heading for Derby House. No doubt the fact that she was wearing her uniform had something to do with that. It was a sunny morning but cool enough for her not to feel uncomfortable in her tailored skirt and jacket. Her hair was rolled into a neat French pleat and, unlike some of the girls she knew, she was wearing her cap at the correct angle and not some jaunty and flirtatious version designed to attract male attention.

As she reached the building, the night shift was just coming out, their faces stiff and pallid from the long hours of concentration.

‘Keen, aren’t you? The next shift doesn’t start for another half-hour yet.’

Diane stopped in mid-step when she realised that the question had come from Myra, who was leaning back against the wall of the building, lighting up a cigarette.

‘Yes. I thought I’d get here a bit earlier, just to be on the safe side. I’ve got to report to a Group Captain Barker.’

‘Nanny Barker. She’s OK but a bit of a fusspot. You’ll have to watch out for her sidekick, though, Warrant Officer Whiteley – hates good-looking girls, she does.’ Myra pulled a face. ‘She’s got a real down on me.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘I’m for my bed. I’ve got a hot date with a GI this afternoon. He’s taking me to a matinée. He should be good for a box of nylons if I play my cards right.’

Diane smiled noncommittally.

‘I could fix us up with a double date for later in the week, if you fancy it?’

‘No, thanks.’ Diane refused, adding when she saw Myra’s expression begin to darken, ‘I’m up for going dancing and having a bit of fun, but I don’t plan to date.’

‘Well, it’s your loss,’ Myra shrugged. ‘And it means more men for me!’

‘Glad to have you on board, Wilson. Know much about our ops here, do you?’

‘Nanny Barker’ had turned out to be a sturdy-looking woman in her early forties, with a hearty no-nonsense manner. Without waiting for Diane to reply she continued, ‘According to your previous CO, you’re a quick learner, so I’m going to put you on one of the new teams we’ve set up. I’ll show you round first and explain to you what we’re doing.

‘In January of this year Captain Gilbert Roberts established the Western Approaches Tactical Unit here. It’s based officially on the top floor of the Exchange Building, which is close to here. Captain Roberts and his team study U-boat tactics and then develop effective countermeasures. The unit runs six-day training courses for Allied naval officers to help them improve the tactics they use in their escort groups.

‘Over here in Derby House the Senior Service and the RAF work together on joint Atlantic ops along with some of our American allies to protect the convoys crossing the Atlantic. Senior Service has overall control, but we have an important part to play. It’s our RAF reconnaissance planes that provide vital forward information – as a Waaf you’ll be involved in working on that info. Follow me,’ Group Captain Barker instructed Diane, leading the way to a flight of stairs.

‘Down here is the nerve centre of the ops. It’s bomband gas-proof,’ she told Diane with evident pride as she led her down to what Diane guessed must be a large basement area. ‘We’ve got all the regulation emergency areas, just in case – dorms, ablutions, the Commander-in-Chief’s private quarters, in addition to the telecommunications room, and a couple of off-duty areas.’ She paused to return the salute of a pair of naval ratings on guard duty in front of a large door.

‘You won’t be permitted to come down here without your pass, so don’t forget to carry it with you whenever you are on duty,’ she warned Diane as the guards opened the doors for them.

Diane had, of course, seen operations rooms before and was familiar with their set-up, but the sheer size of this one took her aback. A huge map of the North Atlantic dominated one wall, whilst filling the centre of the room was a massive table holding an enormous situation map. Around it Wrens were busily moving models of the various convoys to show their deployment. There must have been nearly fifty Wrens working in the room, as well as a good-size bunch of Waafs, Diane calculated as she watched them for a few seconds before switching her attention to the wall bearing a map of the waters around Britain. More Wrens were perched on ladders, updating the maps and the reports chalked on large blackboards.

‘Over there is the Aircraft State Board,’ the Group Captain told Diane, nodding to the rear of the room, where a board showed the readiness of all the RAF stations displayed, as well as up-to-the-minute information about on-going air operations, brought in from the teleprinter rooms close at hand. There was also a weather board, and the noise from the different orders being called out was so deafening that at first it made Diane wince. It would take some concentration to learn to listen only to her own instructions and blot out the rest, she acknowledged, as she watched the control room’s busyness.

‘We’ve just lost a couple of our ops room operatives, so you’ll be working down here to start with, instead of going into the teleprinter communications room, which is where we usually put the new girls to start off with. Normally we don’t put girls down here until we’ve had time to assess them, but since the powers that be have seen fit to poach some of our best girls we don’t have much option. I’m prepared to take a chance on you.’

Diane tried to look suitably gratified, but the truth was that she was feeling slightly intimidated by the activity of the ops room and would have welcomed a more gradual introduction to it.

‘One of your duties will be to show our training groups how the system works. We’re getting a lot of American service personnel coming along to see how we do things here at the moment. Any questions?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Good-oh. I’ll hand you over to Corporal Bennett, then. She’s in charge of the team you’re going to be on.’

To Diane’s relief the young woman the captain introduced her to looked a sensible sort, around her own age, Diane guessed, although the light in ‘the Dungeon’ – as Myra had informed her the ops room was nicknamed – didn’t do her pale skin any favours. She was also, Diane saw with a sharp pang, wearing a gleaming wedding ring. Lucky her. Her chap hadn’t changed his mind, then.

‘Good to have you with us, Wilson,’ the other young woman welcomed her after the Group Captain had introduced them. ‘Done much of this sort of thing before, have you?’

‘No, I’m afraid not, Corporal Bennett,’ Diane admitted. ‘I was working as a teleprinter before I came here.’

Out of the corner of her eye Diane caught the resigned looks exchanged by the other four girls making up the team of which she was now to be part. Instantly she pulled herself up to her full height and said firmly, ‘I’m willing to learn, though.’

‘You’re going to need a keen eye and be quick off the mark. Men’s lives will depend on you. We can’t afford any mistakes, not with so much at stake,’ Corporal Bennett warned her. ‘You’d better partner me so that I can show you what we do and keep an eye on you. I’m Susan, by the way.’

‘Diane.’

Diane carefully memorised the names of the other girls on the team as they were introduced to her. Liz, Jean, Pauline and another Susan, this one to be addressed as Sue, she reminded herself as she mentally catalogued them all. Liz was the one with the serious, almost mournful expression and the short dark straight hair. Jean was tall and thin, and rather earnest-looking, with prominent blue eyes, and she was wearing an engagement ring. Pauline was small with brown curls. Sue was also engaged. Diane promised herself that she would remember them all. She sensed that these young women took their work very seriously and that they would be quick to consider her less than able if she couldn’t manage to do something as simple as remember their names.

Three hours later, despite her initial reservations, when Susan gave an approving nod of her head and told her crisply, ‘You’ll do,’ Diane felt a real glow of pride. Kit would laugh when she told him…Just in time she caught herself up, the small thrill of her success obliterated. Just for a few minutes she had been so engrossed in what she was doing she had forgotten that her engagement was over, her heart was broken. She instinctively reached for the place on her left hand where she had worn Kit’s ring.

‘Ooh, look who’s just walked in,’ she heard Pauline announcing happily in a soft whisper, ‘and he’s coming over here.’

‘Stow it, Pauline,’ Susan advised firmly. ‘We all know you think a certain American major is the best thing since Clark Gable, but there’s a war on, remember.’

‘No, I don’t. Major Saunders is ten times better-looking than Clark Gable,’ Pauline replied, unabashed. The others laughed. Diane joined in, willing to be a part of the little group, and then turned her head to get a better look at the subject of the conversation. A tall, dark-haired man in the distinctive uniform of the United States Army was striding determinedly towards them, accompanied by a rather youthful-looking RAF flight lieutenant. An unpleasantly familiar tall, dark-haired man, Diane acknowledged, her heart sinking as she recognised that the major was the man she had crossed verbal swords with the previous evening. Instinctively she shrank back into the shadows, trying to conceal herself behind the other girls. It was unlikely, surely, that the major would recognise her. She had the advantage over him of having seen him last night in uniform whereas he had only seen her in mufti. However, although she tried to make herself as unnoticeable as possible, Diane could feel the major’s sharp-eyed gaze falling and resting on her. Her face started to burn.

It was the flight lieutenant who broke the tension, saying cheerily, ‘Thought I’d bring the major across so he can take a look at how we keep tabs on things. Major, you’ll—’ He broke off as he saw Diane and exclaimed admiringly, ‘You’ve got a new recruit to your team, I see, Susan. Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

The major had recognised her, Diane realised, as she was subjected to a second and very chilling visual assessment, which, unlike that of the young flight lieutenant, did not contain any scrap of male approval.

‘I’m sorry, Flight Lieutenant,’ Susan began formally, but to Diane’s astonishment the young officer burst out laughing and then said cheerfully, ‘Oh, I say, sis, give a chap a chance, won’t you, and introduce me to this lovely girl?’

‘Wilson, I apologise for my brother,’ Susan told Diane ruefully. ‘Teddy, I am sure that Diane does not want to have some barely-out-of-short-pants and still-wet-behind-the-ears, just-made-up flight lieutenant pestering her.’

‘Oh, I say, that’s not fair, is it, Diane? I’m sure you’re just the kind of girl who is kind enough to take pity of a poor young officer.’

Blond-haired, with laughing blue eyes and an engaging smile, he was very amusing, Diane acknowledged, and a type she knew very well from Cambridgeshire. Helplessly young and brave, hopelessly full of high spirits and idealism, he couldn’t be a day over twenty-one, Diane guessed. She had seen so many of them, and seen them too after the reality of war had driven the youth from their eyes and replaced it with desperate bleakness. Her own Kit had been one – once.

Susan rolled her eyes. ‘Diane, once again, I do apologise for my ridiculous little brother.’

Diane laughed and shook her head, exchanging an understanding look with Susan. ‘I know all about younger brothers from my time in my previous posting,’ she assured her, deliberately not naming her previous post, in accordance with wartime regulations. As the posters had it, ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives.’ Not, she suspected, that there were likely to be any German spies here.

‘You promised the folks you’d take care of me and here you are refusing to introduce me to the most stunning girl I’ve ever seen.’

‘What happened to that redheaded Wren you were raving about last week?’ Susan teased him, relaxing when she saw that Diane was neither going to take offence nor read anything into his flattery.

‘What Wren?’ he demanded, looking injured.

‘I don’t want to break up the party, Flight Lieutenant, but if you don’t mind .. .’ The major’s voice had a hard edge to it for all the softness of his American accent. Susan looked uncomfortable and her brother crestfallen, whilst Diane was conscious of the condemning look the major was giving her. Well, let him think what he liked. She didn’t care. She knew the truth about herself. Diane lifted her chin and returned his look with one of her own – the kind she used to make it plain to overeager young men that she was not interested.

To her satisfaction she could see first disbelief, then incredulity followed by anger in the major’s eyes. That would teach him to look down on an Englishwoman, she decided sturdily.

‘Thanks for letting my wretched brother down lightly, Diane.’ They were in the canteen, having their break. Susan offered Diane a cigarette, which she refused. Diane had been horridly sick the first time she had smoked a cigarette – illicitly, of course, behind the church after Sunday school – and she hadn’t really smoked very much since apart from the odd social cigarette.

‘Bill, my husband, swears that Teddy is a danger to himself. None of us can believe he’s actually been made up to flight lieutenant. His CO must see something in him that we can’t.’

‘Is your husband in the RAF as well?’ Diane asked her.

‘No, Senior Service. But Dad’s an ex-RAF man – that’s why Teddy and I joined up. Bill’s posted to convoy duty. It doesn’t always do to be working so closely. I’m always on edge when his convoy is due back. The two girls we’re missing at the moment both had husbands in the navy. They were on the same ship – we were all here when we got the news that she’d been torpedoed. The girls kept on going until the end of their shift, even though they knew what had happened. It broke them, though. One asked for a transfer, the other…’ Susan sighed. ‘She was expecting their first baby. She lost it three days after we heard the news that he’d been killed. I hate this war so much sometimes.’

There was a small pause – the kind Diane was familiar with – during which one mentally paid silent respect to those comrades lost, and then Susan rallied, saying determinedly, ‘That’s enough about me. What about you?’

‘Oh, there’s nothing to tell. I’m single and fancy-free, and that’s the way I intend to stay,’ Diane told her lightly. And meant it.

Myra took a slip of her drink and then leaned back in her seat, pretending to be absorbed in studying her fingernails.

‘Aw, come on, doll, I brought you the nylons, didn’t I, and there’s plenty more where they came from. You play ball with me and I’ll play ball with you, right?’

Myra took her time about lifting her gaze from her nails to the face of the young American seated opposite her. ‘Wrong,’ she told him, then stood up. They had gone to the matinée, which Myra had sulked through when her date had tried to get fresh with her, and in an effort to ‘make it up to her’ he had suggested they go on to Lyons’ Corner House for something to eat.

A brisk assessing glance round the chandelier-lit room had quickly informed Myra that there were some far better options open to her than remaining with her dull date.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ he demanded when she started to walk past him.

‘To the ladies’ room, and then back to my billet. I’m on duty in an hour.’ She had to raise her voice to make herself heard above the orchestra. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that a slightly swarthy-complexioned, very handsome GI, who looked both older and more experienced than her present companion, was leaning against the opposite wall, lazily surveying the room and its female occupants. He was, Myra saw, staring straight at her, very meaningfully, making it obvious that he was attracted to her. Not that she was surprised by that. Myra was used to her stunningly voluptuous figure and her dark lush beauty attracting male attention. Men’s desire for her normally left her cold. She was not a highly sexed or even a moderately sensual woman. Her childhood had left her with a deep-seated need to be in control within a relationship, rather than be controlled by it. Knowing that a man who had something she wanted desired her gave her a feeling of power. She was bored with the raw young GI seated opposite her. She noted the silver cigarette case the man watching her was using, and his expensive wristwatch. He was American; he had money; he wanted her and he had the confidence to let her know it.

‘You can’t just walk out on me like that,’ her companion was objecting loudly.

‘No? Watch me,’ Myra told him.

Angrily he made a grab for her, banging into their white-clothed table as he did so, sending some of the cutlery flying.

‘Let go of me,’ Myra hissed. She hadn’t been prepared for this. Bloody Yank. Was he really stupid enough to think that a girl like her would drop her drawers for a box of stockings?

‘Having trouble, ma’am?’

The other GI had levered himself away from the wall and was now standing in front of them.

‘Your countryman doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the words “get lost”,’ Myra complained. Her date had released her wrist but she made a play of rubbing it as though it was hurting her a good deal more than it actually was.

‘I gave her a whole box of nylons,’ he was complaining loudly to the newcomer, ‘and now she’s making like she doesn’t want to know!’

‘Like the lady just said, pal – get lost. Unless of course you want I should call in the MPs.’

Cursing under his breath, her date flung some money down on the table and then took himself off.

‘Thanks for rescuing me.’ Myra batted her eyelashes and gave him a limpid-eyed look.

‘My pleasure.’ Now he was close up she could see that there was a hardness about this GI, an echo of something she instinctively recognised without having to put a name to it. And he wanted her. She could see that too. He wanted her and if she played her cards right he might be the man who could provide her with what she wanted. What a fool she had been to tie herself up to Jim, who could never make her dreams come true, but then she hadn’t known that men like this one would be coming into her life. Men who could give her the life she longed for in the country where she longed to live. America. Just thinking the word was enough to make her heart thud with longing and excitement. She gave the young nippy who was inexpertly clearing the table and who had bumped into her a scalding look. Catch her waitressing, Myra thought contemptuously. At least when you were in a services uniform you got a bit of respect.

‘Pity you’re going on duty. Otherwise I’d have asked you out to dinner,’ her new acquaintance was saying.

Myra gave a him a slow smile. Did he think she was going to fall over herself with gratitude and drop everything to date him? His sort enjoyed the chase, even if they didn’t normally have to do very much of it.

‘Oh, well, if you want to see me again, I’ll be going dancing at the Grafton this weekend,’ she told him airily.

Pity she wasn’t already wearing her new nylons, she thought regretfully as she sauntered slowly towards the exit, mimicking the slinky walk she had seen film stars like Vivien Leigh, Rita Hayworth and Greta Garbo using to such good effect. She had better make sure that that new billetee kept to her promise to go dancing with her. Myra wasn’t very popular with the other girls, who tended not to include her in their off-duty outings. Not that she cared about that. But she could hardly turn up at the Grafton on her own. She’d wear that sateen halter-neck top that set off her creamy skin and dark hair. Jim had complained that it was cut too low, but so what, she would wear what she wanted now. With a last coy look over her shoulder, she walked out of the tearoom, eagerly anticipating Saturday night.

Ruthie was exhausted. She could feel her head dropping down towards her chest as she sat on the bus. Her nostrils were still full of the now familiar distinctive metallic smell of TNT from the munitions factory. It seemed to cling to her like an invisible extra layer of skin, even though she had changed her clothes. She had found everything so frightening and overwhelming. All the more so when she had discovered she had been posted to work in one of the most dangerous areas of the factory, where shells were filled with liquid TNT. The workers had been given a brisk no-nonsense lecture about the rules and the danger of breaking them. Ruthie had learned that the danger areas were known as ‘cleanways’ and were subject to strict regulations. She had also learned that everyone working in the TNT sheds was served with a glass of milk and a bun shortly after starting their shift, because the milk put a lining on their stomach that prevented it from being damaged from TNT fumes. Nothing metallic of any kind was allowed anywhere within the cleanways because it could cause the TNT to explode if it came into contact with it, and this included such things as hairpins and even metal rings on shoe lace eyelets. For this reason those girls working in cleanway areas were provided with special leather shoes.

The day had seemed to go on for ever, filled with confusing instructions and experiences. Ruthie had been set to work on a production line filling shells. Initially she had been told to watch the other girls working, and the speed with which they filled the shells had dizzied her. She had felt almost sick with fear at the thought of trying to copy them, knowing that she would be all fingers and thumbs and terrified of arousing the foreman’s ire.

When eventually one of the girls had told her comfortingly, ‘Don’t worry you’ll soon get the hang of it,’ she hadn’t recognised Jess at first, under her overalls and with her red hair concealed by the protective cap she was wearing.

‘Who was that you was talking to?’ Maureen had demanded to know when they had finally been told to stop work for their dinner break.

‘She was on the bus this morning,’ Ruthie had answered her.

‘Well, just remember that you’re my friend, not her’s,’ Maureen had told Ruthie sharply.

‘Jiggered, are yer, Ruthie?’ Jess asked Ruthie sympathetically as the bus made its way slowly along Edge Hill Road. ‘It gets everyone like that on their first day.’

Ruthie forced her eyes open, nodding her head. ‘I’ve been trying to memorise the rules they told us this morning,’ she said tiredly, repeating, ‘No jewellery of any kind but married women can wear their wedding rings so long as they are bandaged up, no hairpins or metal hair adornments, no cigarettes, matches or lighters, and nothing that could ignite or cause an explosion.’ She knew she ought to feel more scared about the work she would be doing, only she was far too tired.

‘Like milk, I hope, only yer going to be drinking a lot of it. I reckon if I’d knowed in time I could ’ave told them I can’t stomach milk. Then they would have put me somewhere else,’ Jess told her with a grin.

‘I don’t mind the milk,’ Ruthie admitted, ‘but I don’t know how you can pack the shells so quickly.’

Jess laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll soon get the hang of it. You wasn’t too bad at all – better than that girl you was chatting with over dinner. Bit of an odd sort, if you ask me. Know her well, do you?’

‘No. She was new today too. She said that we should pal up because we’d both started together on our own.’

‘You wasn’t on your own, you’re with us,’ Jess told Ruthie stoutly. ‘Look, we all go down the Grafton Ballroom on a Saturday night – why don’t you come along with us?’

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you but I couldn’t…’

‘Don’t be so daft. Of course you can. We meet up outside at about half-past six, then we can get in early and get a decent table. And we allus stick together so that none of them lads start thinking they can get away with any funny business. Having a dance is all right, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Sez you,’ one of the other girls chipped in. ‘Like you wasn’t smooching wi’ that soldier the other week.’

‘What? Charlie?’ Jess tossed her curls. ‘I’ll have you know that him and me was at school together. Like a brother to me, he is. Gone off to serve abroad, he has now.’

Wide-eyed, Ruthie listened to the talk. She would have loved to have gone to the Grafton. She had never been to a dance hall, but it was impossible for her to go. How could she leave her mother? But she couldn’t tell anyone about her mother, of course. It would be disloyal.

Half an hour later, having got off the bus, Ruthie turned the corner from Edge Hill Road into Chestnut Close. She could see the slim figure of a young woman several yards in front of her. Sighing enviously over the smartness of her WAAF uniform, Ruthie realised that she must be one of Mrs Lawson’s billetees. Mrs Lawson had complained vociferously at first when she had learned that she was to have service personnel billeted on her, but Mrs Brown, Ruthie’s mother’s neighbour, had confided to them that Mrs Lawson was doing very nicely indeed out of her billetees.

‘It’s not just the money – they bring her all sorts of extras from the Naafi canteen, they do.’

Mary Brown was a bit of a gossip but she had a kind heart and Ruthie was grateful to her for the way she tried to cheer up her mother. She was standing in her small front garden when Ruthie walked past, so Ruthie stopped to say hello to her.

‘How did it go, Ruthie love?’ Mrs Brown asked. ‘Only your mam got a bit upset at dinner, like, wondering where you was.’

‘Oh dear, I was worried that something like that would happen. I’ve bin explaining to her all week about all women between the ages of twenty and thirty being called up by the government to do war work, and that with me coming up for me twentieth birthday I needed to get meself a proper war work job so that I could stay at home with her, instead of being sent away to work somewhere or go into uniform, but I could tell last night, when I was talking to her about it again, that she didn’t really understand. I thought there’d be ructions. I’m really sorry that you’ve had to deal with it, Mrs Brown,’ she apologised guiltily.

‘There, Ruthie lass, there’s no need for you to go feeling bad about anything,’ Mrs Brown told her firmly. ‘You’ve bin a good daughter to your mam, and I’d have summat to say to anyone who tried to say different. Not that folks round here would do that. They can all see how hard you’ve had it with your mam since your dad died.’

Ruthie gave her neighbour a grateful look, but she couldn’t relax.

‘You didn’t…you didn’t say anything to Mum about me working on munitions, did you?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Only, with Dad dying in the way he did…’

Her neighbour’s vigorous shaking of her head stopped Ruthie continuing.

‘No, Ruthie, you needn’t worry about that. The minute your mam started fretting and asking why you hadn’t come back from getting in the rations, I did what you’d said and reminded her that you’d had to go to work because Mr Churchill had said so, but I didn’t say nothing about it being in munitions.’

‘Oh, thank you. Mum thinks such a lot of Mr Churchill that I was hoping that that would stop her from worrying,’ Ruthie admitted. ‘It’s difficult for her to understand the way things are.’

‘No, she’s not bin the same since she lost your dad. Took it hard, she has, and no mistake. I’ve done a bit of bubble and squeak for me own tea and there’s plenty left, if you fancy some. It will save you having to cook.’

Ruthie smiled her thanks. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed. She hadn’t realised how tired she was going to feel but she would have to get used to it, she told herself firmly.

‘You’re a good girl, Ruthie, like I just said, but you should be having a bit more fun, like other girls do, going out dancing and that,’ Mary Brown told her kindly.

‘I’ve been asked out dancing by some of the girls I’m working with,’ Ruthie told her quickly, not wanting her to feel sorry for her.

‘Well, I’m right pleased about that.’

‘I won’t be able to go, though,’ Ruthie felt bound to point out. ‘Mum wouldn’t understand and she’d fret.’

‘Well, I can go and sit in with her for you, don’t you worry about that. It will give us both a bit of company, what with my Joe going off and doing his ARP stuff.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that, Mrs Brown,’ Ruthie protested.

‘Who said you was? It’s me as is doing the offering, not you doing the asking. And don’t you go telling me that you don’t want to go. Of course you do – any young girl would. And if yer mam was in her right senses she’d be wanting you to go as well. There’s a war on, Ruthie, and you young ones have to have your fun whilst you can, that’s what I say. It’s different for us; we’ve had our lives, but you…’

Ruthie shivered as she heard the sadness in their neighbour’s voice. It was true that she longed to go out and have fun as she saw other girls doing but she felt that it was her duty to take care of her mother now that her father was dead.

As though she had guessed her thoughts, Mrs Brown said gently, ‘It would break your dad’s heart if he could see you and your mam now, Ruthie. Thought the world of you, he did, and the last thing he would want is for you to be tied to your mam like she was the little ’un.’

‘Mum doesn’t understand…about the war,’ Ruthie defended her mother quickly. ‘She thinks if I’m not there that I might not come back like…like Dad.’

‘I know, lass. I’ve heard her crying and calling out when she’s having one of her turns. It’s just as well sometimes that we don’t know what life holds for us. And that’s all the more reason why you should do as I’m telling you. The more you mollycoddle your mam, the worse she’s going to be when you aren’t there. Settles down quite happily wi’ me once I’ve given her a cup of tea wi’ drop of Elsie Fowler’s special home-made elderberry cordial in it. Calms her down no end.’

Ruthie managed to give their neighbour a brief smile, but the last thing she felt like doing was smiling. Was it her imagination or was her mother getting worse? Was she becoming more and more like a small frightened child who could not understand the workings of the adult world? Some days she could be so much like her old self – the self she had been before Ruthie’s father’s death, that Ruthie couldn’t help but feel her hopes lifting that her mother was returning to full normality, but then something would happen, like Ruthie having to do her bit for the war effort, and her mother’s reaction would force her to recognise that her hopes had been in vain.

It was her screaming, sobbing fits of despair that were, for Ruthie, the worst times, when her mother called out again and again for the husband she had lost, like a small child crying for a parent. Ruthie felt so afraid herself sometimes, not just because of the war, but also for the future, after the war. What would become of her mother and herself in that future?

Sometimes Ruthie felt as though that fear was all she was ever going to know of life.

After saying goodbye to Mrs Brown, Ruthie hurried up the front path and unlocked the door. She found her mother sitting in the back parlour, listening to the wireless. The moment she saw her, her mother’s face lit up.

‘I’ve missed you,’ she said.

Immediately Ruthie went over to her and hugged her lovingly. ‘Just let me get my coat off and then I’ll put the kettle on, and then we can settle down and listen to the wireless together,’ she told her.

‘I didn’t know where you’d gone.’

Ruthie’s hands trembled slightly as she filled the kettle when she heard the almost childlike confusion in her mother’s voice.

‘I’ve missed you too, but I had to go to work to help with the war effort,’ she told her gently.

‘Yes,’ her mother agreed. ‘Mary Brown told me. She said I should be proud of you, and I am, Ruthie. I’m very proud of you and I know that your dad would have been as well.’

Only now, hearing her mother refer to her father in the past tense, could Ruthie allow herself to relax a little bit.

‘Mary Brown said that she knew that I’d be pleased that you’d be working with girls of your own age, with there not being many of them living here on the Close. And I am pleased, Ruthie. Pleased and proud.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Ruthie responded, her voice muffled as she left the kettle to go over to her mother and give her another gentle hug.