Читать книгу Where the Heart Is - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 13

‘Come on, Lou, don’t let her get away with it,’ Ruby called out mischievously and challengingly, as a sponge filled with water hit Lou on the side of her face.

‘Yes, come on, Lou,’ Betty, who had thrown the sponge, teased her.

‘I’m going to get you for that,’ Lou warned mock threateningly as water ran down her face.

They were in the showers, in their bathing suits, having just been put through their paces in the gym by the PT instructor, and were in high spirits knowing that their Easter weekend break was only a handful of days away, especially Lou, who only the previous day had been praised by their instructor for her riveting skill, an essential component of their training to become aircraft repair mechanics.

Still laughing, Betty threw another water-laden sponge at her, mocking, ‘You’ll have to catch me first,’ as she did a triumphant dance on the tiled floor outside her shower cubicle.

Spluttering and laughing herself, Lou set to work soaking both sponges, along with her own and a fourth she quickly grabbed from Ellen, who was standing just outside the shower adjoining her own, Lou’s back to the room as she worked to gain her revenge, knowing that Betty would be working equally hard to beat her.

The silence that now filled the room as the others obviously waited for her return attack only added to her determination to score a hit so, when she turned round, a dripping sponge in each hand, she was already raising her arm to let fly, only realising when it was far too late that the reason for the silence was the presence of a sergeant between her and her intended victim, watching her, a sergeant whose face and uniform was now soaked in the water from the two sponges. Betty was now standing white-faced behind the dripping sergeant with a mixture of guilt and shock. It might seem a small offence and nothing more than a silly prank, the kind of thing that Lou herself would have shrugged off dismissively in her old pre-WAAF life, but, as she had quickly learned, Forces life was very different from civvy life. Once you were in uniform very strict and rigid rules controlled every aspect of your life, right down to the smallest detail. That breaking the rules was a serious crime had been dinned into them all from the moment they joined, and now Lou felt sick with the same shocked horror she could see so strongly in the faces of her pals. No one was laughing now. What Lou had done, no matter how innocently inspired, and despite the fact that her sponges had been intended for someone else, was tantamount to an assault on an NCO. And for that she could be drummed out of the service in absolute disgrace.

Where the old Lou would have had to fight back laughter at the sight of her unintended victim, her hair and the shoulders of her uniform wet, the new Lou was instead filled with stomach-curdling dread, and a very deep sense of regret.

The sergeant – not one Lou knew – looked so implacably stony-faced that Lou didn’t even dare try to stammer an apology in case it was interpreted as an attempt on her part to cheek her unintended victim. The atmosphere in the showers, so light-hearted and filled with laughter only a few minutes ago, was now thick with apprehension, and no one, Lou knew, felt that more strongly than she.

Easter was only a matter of a few days away. Katie had volunteered to work over the holiday, feeling that she would far rather one of her colleagues enjoyed a well-deserved break than that she herself was off with time on her hands and nothing to do but think about last year when Luke had loved her.

She was on her way for her morning tea break when Gina Vincent, who had been so friendly since Katie’s first day, called out to her to wait.

‘Look, I know we’re both down to work over Easter, and that we’re getting a long weekend leave to make up for it later in the month. I was thinking of going away then for a bit of a break. I’ve always wanted to visit Bath – I’m a Jane Austen fan – and I wondered if you’d like to come along. No offence taken if you don’t, mind, but it’s always more jolly if you’ve got a pal to share things with.’

‘I’d love to,’ was Katie’s immediate and genuinely delighted response.

It was the way of things now with the war: friendships were often quickly made, people seizing the moment because time was precious; people, especially young women working together, finding that they were making friends with a speed they might never normally have done and with girls from a wide variety of backgrounds. Katie was by nature solitary, enjoying her own company and hesitant about ‘putting herself forward’, but the warmth she had found within the Campion household had shown her how much happiness there was in being close to like-minded others.

She might only have known Gina for a few short weeks but what she did know of her she liked.

Tall, with mid-brown wavy hair and a calm manner, Gina was friendly to everyone, but not the kind of girl anyone would ever describe as ‘bubbly’ – not like Carole, whom Katie had once thought was her best friend.

‘Good show,’ Gina smiled, putting her arm through Katie’s. ‘We’ll have tea at Joe Lyons one evening, shall we, and make plans? I have a pal in the navy – we grew up in the same village. He recommended an hotel in Bath to me that he says is pretty good.’

Katie nodded.

Living and working in London as a single young woman, as the ATS girls were keen on proving, meant that one need never be short of a date. The city was constantly full of men in uniform on leave, determined to enjoy themselves.

Katie had quite got used now to being stopped in the street and asked for a date by some young man eager for female company on his precious time off. One learned to accept that eagerness and not be offended by it, whilst determinedly checking it – or not, if you happened to be the kind of girl who was as keen to enjoy all the fun that came your way, just in case there was no tomorrow. ‘Good-time girls’, some people referred to them disparagingly, but not Katie. She felt she understood what lay behind their sometimes desperate gaiety, and she sympathised with them.

Not that the number of testosterone-fuelled young men visiting the city was without its problems. Already there had been ‘words’ and a distinctly frosty atmosphere in the billet because Gerry had been dating an American serviceman.

The six of them – Sarah, Alison, Hilda, Gerry and Peggy as well as Katie herself – had been in the small dark basement back kitchen at the time, and Peggy Groves, who had been making tea for them all, had been unusually outspoken on the matter, making it plain that she disapproved, and asking pointedly, ‘What about that Royal Navy chap you’ve been writing to, Gerry?’

‘What about him?’ Gerry had responded with a defiant toss of her head.

‘Peggy’s right,’ Hilda had stepped in. ‘He isn’t going to be very happy when he finds out that you’re dating someone else, especially an American.’

‘Who says he’s going to find out?’ Gerry had challenged. ‘A girl has to have some fun, and Minton is fun.’

There the matter rested, for now, but privately Katie agreed with Peggy and Hilda.

As a result of the sponge incident Lou had been put on a charge and had been marched out to the guardroom, which was a small room in the admin building, in which she had been locked for twenty-four hours before being taken in front of the WAAF commander to have her case heard and punishment handed down.

She had been left in no doubt how serious her assault on an officer was, even if it had merely been a prank and its intended victim not the NCO but her pal. Now she wouldn’t be going home for Easter. Lou felt sick with misery and close to tears, but of course she wasn’t going to show that. Not when she was standing in front of a grim-looking commanding officer and about to be marched back to the guardhouse.

Not only was she on a charge but her hut had also had twenty points removed from it because of her behaviour, and she herself was going to have to do ‘jankers’ as punishment for seven days.

Lou had learned enough about being in uniform to know that there would have been no point in her protesting that she had simply been retaliating to another’s deliberate provocation, no matter how strongly she had been tempted to speak the hot words in her own defence. The Forces didn’t care about the whys and wherefores that might prompt an offence, only the offence itself. Not, of course, that Lou would have given Betty away anyway; that was simply not done. No, it was her own fault for not realising what the silence meant and checking before she had thrown those sponges. Her fault. How many times when she and Sasha had been growing up had she been told off for being ‘too impetuous’ and ‘not thinking’ through the consequences of her actions? Then she had shrugged off those criticisms because there had always been Sasha to share the blame with her, the two of them together against everyone else. Now, though, Lou was beginning to see that she had always been the one to institute things, dragging Sasha along with her whether or not her twin shared her desire to be rebellious. Then she had hated and resented rules of any kind, and having to do what other people did because someone else said so, but now that she was in uniform she was beginning to understand that discipline was necessary in order to achieve goals. Even something simple, such as parade ground marching, had a purpose to it. How would it be if they all marched in their own way and to their own tune? What a muddle it would cause. More important, though, than enforced discipline was, Lou recognised, learning the virtue of self-discipline, and of thinking for oneself – knowing one had to think beyond one’s own immediate wishes and look to what was right for everyone in a group. Lou had a great deal of respect for the manner in which the services’ way of doing things made a person feel different about themselves. For the first time in her life she was actually enjoying working for praise, and aware of how horrid it felt to be criticised and told off. Poor Sasha, was that how she had sometimes felt when she, Lou, had got them both into trouble? She’d make it up to her, tell her how much she had learned and how sorry she was for the way she knew her own past rebelliousness had sometimes upset her twin.

Sasha. Only now could Lou admit how desperately she had been longing to see her twin. But now she wasn’t going to. She’d been thinking about her parents too. Her mother had been upset over Christmas when she’d told them out of the blue that she’d joined up, and her father had been angry. Then she’d shrugged aside their reaction, but even though she’d written to them telling them how happy she was, and had received loving letters back from them, Lou felt that she owed them an apology for not discussing her plans with them first and for not being grown up enough to explain how stifling and depressing she had found the telephone exchange, instead of going off like that and joining up behind their backs.

‘Halt.’

Obediently Lou stopped walking. They were outside the WAAF guardhouse again. Her stomach was churning with misery in a way that reminded her of being a little girl and wanting to cling to her mother and Sash on the first day at school, but there was no Sasha here now to share that feeling with her, and no mother either to hold them both tight for a few precious extra seconds of comfort.

Her mother would be disappointed and upset when she learned that Lou wasn’t going to be home at Easter. For a few desperate seconds Lou tried to think of some suitable excuse she could make that would enable her to conceal the truth from everyone, but there was no story she could tell that her mother would accept. She had felt so proud about being able to go home and tell them how well she was doing, but now that wasn’t going to happen.

At least Sasha’s boyfriend would be pleased, Lou reflected bitterly, as she heard the guardhouse door being locked with her inside it.

Doing jankers would no doubt mean that she’d be set to work in the mess, peeling potatoes, washing up and scrubbing dirty floors, and of course everyone who saw her there would know that she was being punished.

Now that she was finally on her own, a solitary tear was allowed to escape.

‘Oh, Mum, it’s so good to see you,’ Grace greeted Jean as they exchanged hugs in the Campion kitchen.

‘Here, let me have a look at you,’ Jean demanded, holding her eldest daughter at arm’s length. ‘Your face looks thinner.’

‘Well, if it is it isn’t for any lack of food,’ Grace assured her, as Jean turned to hug Seb. ‘You’d never guess what a difference it makes living in the country, Mum. I had a farmer’s wife come round the other day and bring me some of her own butter as a thank you for me bandaging up her little boy’s leg after he had fallen almost outside our front door. I suppose I should have refused, but, well, with me coming home I thought that you could use it.’

‘I dare say you should have said “no”,’ Jean agreed, her eyes widening as she saw the good half-pound of butter Grace was handing over to her. Two ounces was the ration, that was all. ‘But I have to admit that I’m glad you didn’t. Best not say anything to your dad, though, love. He’s just gone down to the allotment to water his lettuces but he should be back any minute. He’s been asking me since first thing what time you were due.

‘I hope she’s feeding you properly, Seb,’ she smiled warmly at her son-in-law.

‘Impossible for Gracie not to be a good cook with a mum like you,’ Seb assured her.

‘Where are the twins?’ Grace asked, as she took off her coat and the pretty, rather gay little hat that had been perched on top of her curls – both 1939 buys, but Grace had a good eye and was now learning to be clever with her needle, thanks to treasured copies of Good Housekeeping that one enterprising member of the WVS had organised to be handed on to those who put their name down on the requisite list and paid a penny for the privilege of reading it.

Jean’s expression changed immediately to one of disquiet. ‘We got a letter from Lou on Thursday telling us that she’s been put on a charge, ‘she began as she went to light the gas under the kettle she had filled earlier. She was using her special tea set, the one that Grace had given her for Christmas the year she and Seb had got engaged.

Grace and Seb exchanged glances.

‘You can imagine how your dad reacted to that, Grace. I’m just glad in a way that Lou wasn’t here, because he’d have torn a strip off her and no mistake.’

‘What did she do? To get put on a charge, I mean?’ Grace asked as she went to get the milk from the cold slab in the larder to fill the milk jug, mother and daughter working harmoniously together. Grace was a housewife herself now, after all.

‘Well, as to that, from what she wrote – and of course the letter had been censored – it seems she was involved in some sort of prank that went wrong. It’s like your dad said, that’s Lou all over, acting first, without thinking, being too high-spirited. I don’t know, Grace. I just wished she’d talked to us first before going and joining the WAAF. She’s never taken kindly to rules and regulations and I’ve been dreading something like this happening. I just wish …’ Jean looked out of the kitchen window, her hand still on the handle of the teapot she had just filled.

Grace knew what her mother wished: that Lou had stayed at the telephone exchange with Sasha.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Seb tried to reassure Jean, stepping in in a calm reassuring way that made Grace smile gratefully at him. ‘The services are tough on sticking to the rules, but they aren’t the place for people with no back bone, and Lou has plenty of that.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ Grace agreed quickly, picking up on Seb’s attempt to cheer her mother up. ‘And from what Lou wrote to me in the letter I got the other week, she’s taken to this course she’s on like a duck to water.’

Jean had begun to lift the teapot but now she put it down again, smoothing her hand absently over the scarlet poppy embroidered on the starched white linen tray cloth. The tray cloth and its matching napkins had been a Christmas present from the twins before the war.

‘Oh, well, yes, but that’s another thing. Your dad isn’t happy at all about this business of her training to mend aircraft. He doesn’t think it’s women’s work at all.’

Grace pulled a face, setting about buttering the bread her mother had already cut and covered with a cloth.

‘Well, you know Dad, Mum, but the fact is that women are having to do men’s work because the men are fighting for this country, and I dare say that the pilots and crews are glad enough to have their aircraft working properly not to turn up their noses at a woman doing that work.’

‘You’re right, of course, love, but it might not be a good idea to say too much to your dad.’

Grace had been married less than four months but already she seemed to have grown up so much, no longer a girl, but a woman with her own opinions and ready to state them, Jean thought, torn between a sense of loss and pride.

‘Your dad’s temper’s a bit on the end at the moment, with all this bad news from the desert,’ she warned Grace.

‘Have you heard from Luke recently?’ Grace asked immediately.

‘We had a letter in March saying not to worry and that he’s well, but of course we do worry.’ A look at both Seb and Grace’s sombre faces confirmed to Jean that they shared her feelings.

‘Rommel’s a first-rate commander,’ Seb said at length, ‘but our lads are good fighters, good men.’

Jean nodded. Of course they were good men – her Luke was one of them – but being ‘good men’ wasn’t going to keep them safe from Rommel’s tanks, was it?

‘I’ve got to admit that I’m still ever so sad about Luke and Katie splitting up,’ Jean told them in a valiant attempt to take their attention away from the desert and the fact that the British Army was being beaten back by Rommel and his tanks. ‘I’d have liked to keep in touch with her but, bless her, being the thoughtful girl she is she said that it wouldn’t be right or fair to Luke …

‘Oh, we’ve got Vi and Bella coming round for tea. Vi’s running poor Bella ragged, and her with that nursery to run. Not that I don’t feel for Vi, I do, but she doesn’t make it easy for herself or for anyone else. Anyway, Grace, love, tell me your news. Are you liking it at the hospital in Whitchurch?’

‘Yes, I love it,’ Grace answered her truthfully. ‘I wasn’t so sure at first, because it’s so much smaller than here, but you do get to see a bit more variety. Mind you, I had ever such a moment a few weeks back, Mum. We had a POW in, a German – a nice chap,’ she emphasised when Jean frowned. ‘Speaks good English and seemingly was one of those forced to enlist. Anyway, he was sent in by a local doctor because he’d got a puncture wound to his leg that had gone bad. The POWs are sent out to work for the local farmers and this chap had had a pitchfork in his leg – an accident. I really thought he was going to lose his leg and it brought it all back to me how Seb had been so poorly with his own wound.’

‘So what happened to the POW?’ Jean asked, concerned on the man’s behalf in spite of herself.

‘Oh, he’s made a full recovery. The doctor is a friend of a friend of someone who wanted to try out this new stuff. Penicillin, it’s called. It’s like a miracle, Mum, but it’s all a bit hush-hush at the moment.’

‘Well, I dare say it’s all right giving him something like that, since he’s got better, but I wouldn’t have wanted them trying it out on one of my own. Say it hadn’t worked?’

Grace exchanged looks with Seb. She loved her mother dearly, but Jean could be a bit old-fashioned about some things.

Emily could hardly believe what had happened. It was like something out of a book, or a film – well, almost – and she was still all aflutter over it. She’d hardly slept last night and now here she was, all fingers and thumbs over her knitting, as she set about making socks for Wilhelm, who had come round yesterday afternoon to say especially to her how much he appreciated the pair she had already knitted for him, and asking her if she would let him come back to work on the garden. If she minded! A pink glow warmed her face, a slightly dazed but very happy smile curving her mouth.

Who would have thought yesterday morning, when she and Tommy had set out for church together, what the day would bring?

Of course, there’d been a good turnout for the eleven o’clock service, it being Easter Sunday, and not just from the congregations. All the scouts and guides and the like had been there, along with the Boys’ Brigade and a band. Those members of the WVS who had wanted to do so marched into church in their uniforms. Emily had chosen instead to wear her own clothes and stay with Tommy, but she had still felt a thrill of pride seeing her fellow WVS members looking so smart and businesslike.

There’d been a handful of young men and women in uniform, those lucky enough to have leave, and of course there’d not been a dry eye in the church when, after the service, their vicar had read out the names of the newly fallen from the parish.

It hadn’t been until after the service, when people were chatting outside the church, that Emily had allowed herself to look discreetly in the direction of the POWs with their uniformed escort. Wilhelm hadn’t been to church since she’d given him the socks, and she had known why. It was because he hadn’t wanted to see her.

But then yesterday he’d been there, and she’d been so taken by surprise to see him that she’d flushed up like a fool and looked the other way, wanting to get Tommy away before he noticed and said something or, worse, wanted to go over and talk to Wilhelm.

Shamefully she hadn’t even noticed that Wilhelm was using a crutch until Ivy from next door had commented on it, saying, ‘Well, I never. There’s that POW that used to come and do your garden, Emily, and he’s been in some kind of accident, by the looks of it.’

Of course, that had her forgetting her own feelings and turning round immediately to look anxiously at Wilhelm. And sure enough, there he’d been, standing with the other men.

She’d seen often enough at the pictures what she had thought of as daft scenes in which a couple would look at one another in silence whilst some soppy music played and you’d just know that this was IT, but she’d thought it was all so much nonsense, especially after her experience with her own husband. A right one for giving those kind of looks, he was, and to any pretty girl who took his eye. But then Wilhelm had looked right at her, and she’d looked back, and then he was saying something to the soldier guarding them, who had looked across at her and nodded, and then Wilhelm had come towards her, and Ivy had given her a bit of a nudge in the back and said, ‘Go on, he wants to say something to you and you surely aren’t going to make him walk all the way with that bad leg?’ And somehow they had met in the middle of the lane, still thronged with churchgoers, and he had explained to her about having had a nasty accident and being too poorly to come to work, and she had been so concerned that she had asked him a lot of anxious questions and then she had been jolted by someone by accident and Wilhelm had reached out to steady her – he had ever such a lovely touch – the feel of his hand on her arm warm and steady and kind.

Of course, when he had asked if he could come back to continue doing her garden she couldn’t have said ‘no’ even if she had wanted to, could she, as she had said to Ivy, not with him having that bad leg, and her worrying about Tommy missing out on his fresh veggies.

And it had been then that he had said them, the most wonderful words, just as though somehow he had known, which of course he couldn’t have done, and right in front of Bridget, who being the busybody she was had made sure that she got close to them to find out what was going on.