Читать книгу Turn Left at the Daffodils - Elizabeth Elgin - Страница 6

Life at Farthing Street could be a whole lot worse Nan was bound to admit, especially since her aunt managed to put a reasonable meal on the table most days.

‘Filling if not fattening,’ she had said of the Woolton pie they ate for supper that evening, made entirely of unrationed ingredients. Packed with vegetables, topped with a crust made from the piece of suet Nan had queued for at the butcher’s on the corner, and moistened with gravy made from an Oxo cube, it was a triumph of ingenuity.

To Miriam Simpson’s delight, Nan was very successful in queues. Since they had decided it wasn’t worth her while looking for a job – for who would employ a young woman, knowing she was soon to be called into the Armed Forces? -she was free to hunt for under-the-counter food. It saved Miriam’s feet and helped pass the days which Nan mentally ticked off as one nearer her entry into the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

‘Shall we have fish and chips tomorrow,’ she asked. ‘I’ll get there good and early.’

Neither fish nor chips were rationed. The government, in one of its wiser moments, had seen to it that they remained so. A housewife who once would never have dreamed of entering a fried fish and chip shop, now queued eagerly for them, especially on Fridays, when rations were running low.

‘And you can go to the butcher’s on Saturday, Nan.’ Her niece did far better out of the old skinflint than she had ever done, especially in the under-the-counter suet and sausages department. It was probably, she thought, because the girl looked at him with her big eyes, then fluttered those eyelashes for good measure. ‘Tell him that anything at all would be much appreciated.’

‘A leg of lamb?’ Nan giggled, to which her aunt replied that she had just seen a purple pig fly past the top of the street! Legs of lamb, indeed!

‘When do you think you’ll hear from the ATS, then?’

‘Dunno, Auntie Mim. Once I’ve had my medical, they might send for me pretty sharpish. I asked the corporal to do what she could for me. Fingers crossed there’ll be a letter in the morning.’ A buff envelope with no stamp on it, and O H M S printed across the top.

She switched on the wireless, settling herself in the fireside rocker, tapping her toes in time to the dance music, thinking that if she wasn’t so set on joining the Army and Auntie Mim had a spare bed, of course, Farthing Street would have suited her nicely for the duration.

Oh, hurry up buff envelope, do!

On Saturday night, the telephone in Jackmans Cottage rang.

‘It’s for you.’ Janet Tiptree, who always picked up the phone, handed it to her daughter. ‘Jeffrey,’ she mouthed.

‘Darling,’ Carrie whispered, startled. ‘How lovely of you to –’

‘Caroline – listen! I’ve been hanging about outside the phonebox for ages waiting for this call to come through and we only have three minutes, so what are you thinking about, joining up! If you must do something so stupid, why not join the Wrens? And why did I have to hear it from your mother? Surely I merit some consideration?’

There was a small uneasy silence that seemed to last an age, then she said,

‘I – I – well, I was going to tell you Jeffrey and anyway, nothing is settled, yet.’

‘I should damn well hope not. We’re supposed to be getting married when I’ve finished my training – well, aren’t we?’

‘Y-yes,’ was all she could say, because she could hear his angry breathing and besides, there wasn’t a lot she could say to the contrary in three minutes. ‘But please don’t speak to me like that? And I’m sorry you are upset. I’ll write, shall I? A nice long letter…?’

‘The only letter I want from you is telling me you’ve forgotten all about the ATS. Did you have a brainstorm, or something?’

‘N-no!’ Oh, why did she let him boss her around so? ‘And thank you for ringing, Jeffrey,’ she hastened when the warning pips pinged stridently in her ear. ‘Take care of yourself. I’ll write. Tonight.’

The line went dead, then began to buzz. She looked angrily at the receiver, then slammed it down.

‘So? Your young man wasn’t best pleased?’ Janet Tiptree said softly, smugly.

‘No, he wasn’t. He yelled at me! How dare he! And you shouldn’t have told him, mother. It wasn’t up to you, you know!’

‘Maybe not, but someone had to. Perhaps now you’ll give a bit more thought to your wedding! You are engaged, or had you forgotten?’

‘Of course I hadn’t!’ Being engaged, surely, was something you didn’t forget, especially when you wore a ring on your left hand. ‘Jeffrey and I will be married.’

They would. It was what getting engaged was about. But not just yet. Or would he bluster and bluff and demand, as he did the night her mother was out and they had done – that? She hadn’t wanted to and it mustn’t happen again, or next time she might get pregnant and her mother would have every excuse, then, to get them down the aisle at breakneck speed.

‘Ah, yes.’ Her mother interrupted her thoughts. ‘But when?

‘When the war allows,’ Carrie answered cagily, which was true, really, because now her war had to be taken into consideration.

She closed her eyes, wondering how she would face her mother when the letter telling her to report for her medical arrived; wondered, too, how she was to explain the forged signature on the bottom of her application form.

‘Are we going to listen to the news, mother? Shall I switch on? It’s nearly nine o’clock.’

It was all she could think of to say, dammit!

On May 24th, the newsreader announced in a graver than usual voice that HMS Hood, the biggest and fastest ship in the Royal Navy, had been sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, and only three from a crew of almost fifteen hundred had survived.

It was as if, Nan frowned, Hitler’s lot could do what they wanted, even at sea. The Hood had been sunk, the morning paper reported, by one chance shell landing in the ship’s magazine. Dead lucky, them Jairmans!

She rounded her mouth and slammed down her feet. She was on her way to the medical centre in Albion Street, and the sooner they pronounced her A1 fit, the sooner she would be in uniform, because this morning’s terrible news made her all the more sure it was what she must do.

She pushed open the door. There was brown linoleum on the floor; the walls were green-painted. The place smelled of damp and disinfectant.

Nan was pointed to a cubicle, told to undress to the waist, put on the white cotton smock and wait to be called.

Someone examined her mouth and muttered, ‘Two cavities,’ and Nan was as sure as she could be that that meant fillings. She had never had fillings. Just to think of them made her flinch, because she had heard they were excruciatingly painful.

A doctor listened to her chest, counted her pulse rate, made muttered asides to the clerk beside him who wrote on a notepad.

She was told to get dressed again, hang the white cotton smock on the hook in the cubicle, then follow the nurse to the ablutions, where there were more cubicles.

‘Please give a urine sample. In this.’ A kidney dish was thrust at each young woman. ‘Then you transfer it into this.’ A small, wide-necked bottle. ‘And try not to spill it on the floor. When you have provided your sample, you will take it to the desk, give it, together with your surname and initial, to the nurse there, and she will attach a label to the bottle. Oh, hurry along, do!’

Some looked shocked. Others giggled. A few blushed. Nan thought it was a lot of fuss over a bottle of wee, but she supposed they knew what they were doing.

‘There was one girl there who couldn’t do it, so they stood her in front of a running cold water tap, but it made no difference,’ Nan told Auntie Mim that evening. ‘She’s got to go back tomorrow and have another try, poor thing.’

‘And do you think you have passed?’

‘I reckon so. They said if we weren’t told to report back within three days, we could take it that we were OK, so it’s fingers crossed.’

‘And you still want to go, Nan?’

‘Yes, I do. Let’s hope I’m on my way before your lodger comes back.’

‘You’ll have to sleep on the sofa in the parlour if you aren’t, young woman.’

Nan hoped she would be in uniform before then. The parlour sofa was hard and stuffed with horsehair.

‘Can we run to a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘In celebration, sort of, of me bein’ half way there.’

‘We’ve been having too many cups of tea lately, miss. But there’s cocoa on the shelf, if you fancy that. And make it with dried milk.’ Cocoa was unrationed when you could get it, as was powdered milk, in a blue metallic tin. ‘Can’t get those sailors on HMS Hood out of my mind,’ she whispered, picking up her knitting which usually soothed her. ‘There’ll be all those women getting telegrams, poor souls.’

‘Yes, but I’ll bet you anything you like that Winston Churchill’s fightin’ mad. I’ll bet he’s rung them up at the Admiralty, and told them to get that bluddy Bismarck!’

‘I hope he has, and I hope they do,’ Miriam said without even reminding her niece that swearing was not allowed at Number 16. ‘Sink it before it can get back into port!’

And could they have known it, the entire North Atlantic fleet was already hunting, enraged, for the German ship, and before four more days had run, Bismarck would be sunk. An eye for an eye, people would say it was.

Four days later, Caroline Tiptree picked up the letters that fell on the doormat at Jackmans Cottage.

‘Post,’ she called, chokily, pushing a buff OHMS envelope into her coat pocket. ‘Only one. For you, mother.’

Then she ran up the garden path and down the road to the bus stop, all at once apprehensive. Because the buff OHMS envelope could mean only one thing.

She collapsed on the wooden seat in the bus shelter, asking herself if joining the ATS was such a good idea after all, and knowing there was nothing she could do now, except fail the medical. Which she wouldn’t.

She rose shakily to her feet as the bright red bus rounded the corner, wondering where she would be in August when Jeffrey came on leave and praying that it was miles and miles from Nether Hutton.

But it wasn’t August she should be worrying about, was it? It was when she must tell her mother about the buff OHMS envelope. Not tonight, of course. Afterwards, perhaps, when she knew she was medically fit, or perhaps when her calling-up papers came would be the best time, because then her mother wouldn’t be able to do anything about the forged signature.

But what had she done? What had made her do such a thing when she knew that soon, anyway, she would have to register for military service? Couldn’t she have waited just a few more months?

‘No, Caroline Tiptree, you could not,’ whispered the small voice of reason in her ear. ‘You know that if you are around when Jeffrey comes home in August, your mother will have arranged a wedding, and you will go along with it as you always do!’

But not any longer! Oh, she loved Jeffrey and there would be a wedding, nothing was more certain. But when the time came it would be she, Caroline, who would name the day.

Sorry, mother, she said in her mind, I have done the most awful, deceitful thing, and you’ll have every right to hit the roof when you find out about it.

And sorry, Jeffrey, too, but just this once I was doing what I want to do. How it would turn out she dare not think, and what Nether Hutton would make of her slipping away to be an ATS girl would take a bit of facing up to, as well. Little villages were like that. People knew everyone, and their ancestry, too. What The Village thought was very important, and Mrs Frobisher – as well as her own mother – had left people in Nether Hutton in no doubt that a wedding was in the offing, just as soon as the Royal Navy allowed.

She handed a florin to the conductress, said ‘One-and-three return, please,’ then stared fixedly out of the window to wonder, yet again, where she would be in mid-August? In uniform, perhaps? Or if she were lucky, driving an Army truck? And thinking about the fuss and bother at Jackmans Cottage there had been when her deceit came to light.

The bus stopped at the crossroads and the young woman who always got on smiled and said ‘Morning,’ as she usually did, then sat down beside her. The buff OHMS envelope was still in Carrie’s pocket. No chance of opening it, now, thanks be.

‘Mm,’ she smiled back. ‘Looks like being a lovely day…’

Which was, of course, the understatement of the week!