Читать книгу Wartime for the Shop Girls - Joanna Toye - Страница 13

Gladys, meanwhile, had planned her half-day with care. Time off from work without some chore to do for her gran, who was a bit of a moaner and inclined to take to her bed at the drop of an aspirin, was too precious to waste. Today, a neighbour was sitting with her, and, joy of joys, the Gaumont was showing That Hamilton Woman! again. Gladys had loved it first time round – a proper two-hankie job – so, with a bag of penny creams, she was planning a cosy, if weepy, afternoon in the stalls. Lily might normally have come with her, but Sid’s leave had put paid to that, and it was only natural she’d want to spend the time with him. And in truth, Gladys didn’t really need any more company than Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. The prospect unfurled happily in front of her as she walked towards the cinema. A lovely romantic weepie – and such pretty frocks too …

But then, there in front of her, leaning on a lamp post – all that was missing was the ukulele – was—

‘Bill! No! No! It can’t be! Is it really you?’

‘Hello there, Gladys. I’m real enough – pinch me if you like! Pleased to see me, are you?’

In films this was the point where the heroine would have fallen into her loved one’s arms, but Gladys was enough of a realist to know that she was no heroine, even in her own life. Though she was sure Bill would be quick and strong enough to catch her, she wasn’t at all sure she could manage the graceful, loose-limbed melting that others like, well, Vivien Leigh, say, could achieve. Instead she stared, dumb-struck and open-mouthed.

Bill grinned the gappy, jaggle-toothed grin that made her insides melt.

‘That’s a “yes”, is it?’

Leaving no room for doubt, he stepped forward and wrapped her in a close embrace.

‘Oh Bill! I can’t believe—’ was all Gladys had time to say before the rest of the sentence was lost in a kiss.

When their enthusiastic reunion had finally run its course, Bill tucked a lock of her disarranged hair behind her ear.

‘It’s good to see you, Glad,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Not as much as I’ve missed you!’

It was what they’d said last time they’d met. He’d promised they’d say it every time – and he’d remembered! Gladys gazed at him adoringly. She hadn’t seen him since the good news about her forthcoming promotion, but she’d written to him about it, and he’d sent back not a letter but a card, a proper ‘Congratulations’ card, with a little bellboy in a frogged red uniform on it, carrying a basket of flowers. Gladys had been moved to tears. Not only had he gone to all that trouble to find a card, he’d written inside: ‘So proud of you!’. It was still up on the little mantelpiece in her room: in fact, she doubted she’d ever take it down.

‘But how did you get leave?’ she marvelled. ‘And why didn’t you let me know?’

Bill folded her arm through his, and, taking the outside of the pavement – such a gentleman! – led her off towards Lyons Corner House. (‘No point being in the Navy if you can’t push the boat out!’)

‘There’s no hiding it, Glad, I’m on standby now. I could be deployed any day. So any chance I get for leave, I’m going to jump at it. No time to warn you, though. Good job you weren’t strolling along with your other boyfriend, eh?’

‘Oh, you! But—’ she paused. ‘How did you know where to find me? How did you guess?’

‘No guess needed. You told me you were going to the Gaumont, silly. Don’t you remember? In your last letter.’

‘So I did!’ Gladys leant over, aiming for his cheek, but kissing his ear instead. It didn’t matter. ‘So you do read my letters, then?’

‘All of them, every line!’ Bill sounded indignant. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Well …’ Along with Gladys’s growing confidence had come at least some self-awareness. ‘I know I can go on a bit. And often I don’t have anything that interesting to say.’

‘It’s interesting to me,’ Bill insisted.

Gladys clutched his arm more tightly. She’d at least had a childhood filled with love. Bill had never had anyone – no hugs, no one to wipe his tears when he fell down, or to make a fuss of his smallest achievements. No one to take an interest in his school work, to buy him a toy of his own, or even a bag of sweets. It was the same when he joined up. Pals, yes, but no letters, no birthday cards, nowhere to go on his leaves. No one to feel special about, no one who felt specially about him, who cared about him as much as they cared about themselves. Well, I do, thought Gladys fiercely. She cared about him more than she cared about herself.

Her insides turned liquid again. It was a good job they’d arrived at Lyons and Bill was holding open the door. Gladys didn’t want to blub in front of him. She knew she would when they parted, but for now, all she wanted was for his whole leave to be happy.

‘You’ll never guess, but Sid’s home today, as well!’ she informed him as the waitress put their plates down.

‘Is he, the crafty beggar?’ Bill shook salt enthusiastically over his fish and chips. ‘Good job I didn’t run into him. He’d only have tried to persuade me to go for a drink!’

Gladys passed him the tartare sauce in its little silver sauceboat. So refined, Lyons.

‘I’d have turned him down, though, don’t you worry.’ Not so worried by the niceties, Bill slopped out a hefty dollop of sauce. ‘I know where my priorities lie!’

Gladys looked at him from under her eyelashes. On Beryl it would have been a flirtatious look, but Gladys could no more have been flirtatious than have ridden the winner in the Grand National. On her, it was a shy look of sheer incredulity at her good fortune.

‘I still can’t get over you being here,’ she marvelled. ‘This is such a treat. Thank you.’

‘And you needn’t miss the film,’ Bill assured her, tucking in. ‘We’ll go tonight.’

For himself, he’d have preferred something with a bit of humour or a lot of action, but there were advantages to seeing a romance with Gladys. They both fell silent for a moment, thinking of the pressure of his knee against hers, his arm round her shoulders, and the way he could nuzzle her neck when she clung to him in any especially sad bits.

‘Eat up,’ he said, waving his fork. ‘You know I can’t tell you what I’ve been doing – it’s all boring technical stuff anyway. So tell me all about this Mr Whatsisname, the new floor supervisor feller, and these changes he’s making.’

So, between mouthfuls – the chips were very good – Gladys did, relaying Jim’s idea about starting a Fowl Club and all the eggs it would produce.

‘And I thought hens only laid powdered egg now!’ grinned Bill. ‘So what else? What about inside the store? You said something about keeping the staff happy?’

‘Like Mr Churchill says, it’s all about keeping going and keeping cheerful.’

‘Morale, yeah. Always banging on about it.’

‘Yes.’ Gladys nodded eagerly. ‘So there’s going to be sports clubs, football, and netball, and cricket and rounders in the summer – and maybe a sports day, even! There’s going to be a doctor once a week, for free.’

‘What, for the twisted ankles and groin strains?’ asked Bill wryly. ‘Go on!’

‘And a barber coming in, and a hairdresser.’ Gladys, like Lily, had days when she despaired of her hair, though for different reasons – hers was mousy and unbendingly straight – so she was especially pleased about this. ‘On Wednesday afternoons,’ she added. ‘So in our own time – but very cheap.’

‘Blimey, I won’t recognise you next time! Gladys the Glamour Puss!’

Fearing she might have raised his expectations a little too high, Gladys blushed and looked down.

‘I do try to look nice for you, Bill. I mean, if I’d had a bit more notice today …’

Bill speedily backtracked.

‘And you do! You do already! I didn’t mean anything by it …’ Remorseful, he grabbed her hand. ‘Gladys. I truly didn’t … I didn’t mean … I love you just the way you are.’

The words had spooled from his mouth before he could reel them back, but as Gladys stared at him, he realised he didn’t want to, even if he could.

‘There, I’ve said it,’ he added quietly.

Gladys started to tremble. She turned their joined hands over, stroking the fine, almost transparent, hairs on his fingers. ‘Do you really?’

‘Blimey, give a bloke a chance,’ protested Bill, blushing. ‘I just said so, didn’t I? Want me to spell it out in Morse Code? Or flags?’

‘No, of course not!’

Gladys screwed up her courage. She’d wanted to say it for so long, but now the chance had come … Still, if Bill had managed it …

‘I love you too, Bill, I do, I really, really do. So much. I only didn’t say, because … oh, Bill.’

Leaving one hand in his, she sat back and put the other to her chest.

‘Ooh, my heart’s hammering! I’m sorry, I don’t think I can eat any more. Do you want the rest of my chips?’

At the Collinses’ that evening, there was another surprise, though perhaps on a slightly lesser plane.

There was a new delicacy on the table, something that had sat in the larder all day with Dora peeking at it occasionally as if it might explode.

‘They call it Spam,’ she said, as Lily cut into the thick fritter of bright pink meat on her plate alongside the cauliflower and potatoes.

‘Special Processed American Meat,’ said Sid, who knew everything, or managed to give that impression. ‘We’ve had it in the NAAFI since last year. But if it’s reached Hinton, I’m telling you, it really has arrived.’

‘Well,’ said Jim, chewing thoughtfully. ‘It’s a funny texture. Sort of slimy, like a face flannel. But it doesn’t taste too bad.’

‘And at least it brightens things up,’ added Lily.

The colourlessness of the wartime diet was as much a trial to her as its sheer repetitive blandness. Everything looked beige and tasted beige. Never mind moaning about vanished brands of knitting wool or soap, how she longed for a vivid orange or a banana. She’d even have sucked on a lemon.

Dora made no comment. She’d acquired this tin quite legally, but Ivy, with her many and various ‘contacts’ about which Dora never enquired (‘Don’t ask a question to which you don’t want to know the answer’ was another of her mottoes) had offered her up to three more, and she was seriously wondering, after the family’s reaction, whether to take her up on it. Best change the subject.

‘Still nothing from Reg in the post,’ she observed sadly.

‘And it’s been a whole month since they left,’ objected Lily, looking to Sid for his superior knowledge of shipping.

‘They’re probably not there yet.’ Sid took a swig of tea. ‘No news is good news. If they’d run into trouble, we’d have known about it by now.’

Indeed they would: it had been a dreadful winter at sea. Ever since last November, when they’d sunk the Ark Royal, the Germans had seemed unstoppable, and January had been one of the worst months for shipping since the start of the war. German U-boats had sunk more ships than there were days in the month – thirty-five in all.

‘Where should his ship have got to by now?’ asked Jim.

‘Should be well past the Cape,’ pondered Sid. ‘But they may have had to put in somewhere en route. Refuel, take on supplies, some mechanical fault …’

‘So why didn’t he write from there?’ demanded Lily. ‘He might know we’ll be desperate to hear!’

‘He might have been a bad boy and not allowed onshore. No, scrub that,’ Sid corrected quickly as Dora looked concerned. ‘Not very likely with our Reg, is it? But maybe someone else was and they all got confined to barracks, well, had to stay on board.’

‘That’s not very fair!’

‘Nothing’s fair in love and war, Lil,’ Sid chastised. ‘Or, if they were going to be in dock a while, they might have been carted to a camp upcountry. Where the only post’s a forked stick or smoke signals!’

Dora sighed. ‘We’ll have to be patient, then.’

‘Yes, you will,’ said Sid. ‘I dunno why you’re getting so excited. What’s he going to say when he gets there, anyway – “I can’t tell you where I am but there’s lots of sand”?’

‘And what would your letters say?’ Lily felt obliged to defend Reg. ‘“I can’t tell you where I am but there’s lots of water”?’

‘Come on, Lil! I hope I’m a bit better correspondent than Reg!’

It was true – Reg’s letters, short and infrequent, were unlikely ever to give Freda, their post girl, a hernia.

‘Well,’ said Jim, who was privy to the contents – Sid’s letters were generally read out loud – ‘I admit your last darts match sounded pretty gripping, but let’s be honest, the only thing these two really want to hear about is who you’re courting.’

This too, was true. With Sid’s good looks he’d never been short of girlfriends, and it was hard to believe he wasn’t ‘up with the lark, to bed with the Wrens’, as the saying had it.

‘Crikey, don’t spare my blushes, will you?’ Sid, unusually, seemed taken aback by Jim’s directness. ‘You know me, same as always, taking my chances at village dances.’

‘Still no one special, then?’ enquired Dora.

Sid might not like being put on the spot, but Lily was delighted. Jim was quite right. It was the question she – and her mum, she knew – had been dying to ask.

Sid opened his mouth to answer, but the back door opened, and a familiar voice called ‘Only me.’

Lily looked at Jim and Jim looked at Lily, but instead of the eye-rolling that Beryl’s arrival mid-meal (again!) might have caused, their eyes telegraphed concern. It didn’t sound like Beryl’s usual cheery greeting. Nothing like.

Dora twisted in her chair to call through to the scullery.

‘Beryl? Never mind your boots, come on through.’ So she was concerned as well. Normally it was strictly boots off at the door. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’