Chocolate Girls (19 page)

One of Edie’s favourite times came in the evening, on the days neither she nor Janet were out with the volunteer services. Frances always made sure the accumulator was topped up and they would shut out the dark, cold nights behind the blackout curtains, and gather round the fireplace with cups of tea and the wireless on for classical concerts and shows, Tommy Handley and ‘Hi Gang!’

Frances and Janet taught Edie how to play whist and canasta, as her family had never played cards at home, and Marie joined in enthusiastically. Frances usually had knitting on the go, Edie would sit with her sketchpad and they’d would turn the wireless off after the news and sit and talk until bedtime. Marie usually went up first and often Edie and Janet were left downstairs, Frances getting up wearily and saying, ‘Now don’t stay up too long you two, will you?’

Last night had been one such evening. Janet and Edie had each had a bath, Janet going first and Edie dipping into the same water and the two of them sat curled up in the two big armchairs in their nightdresses making the most of the last heat from the fire. Frances said goodnight soon after ten, smiling at the sight of the two of them drying their hair together, buxom Janet, rosy-cheeked from the hot water, her hair already beginning to corkscrew into curls when only half dry, and Edie with her elfin looks and freckles. She enjoyed the friendship that was blossoming between them. Edie’s background was a lot tougher than some of Janet’s other friends, Frances thought as she climbed up to bed. She’d seen that triangular scar on the girl’s arm and hadn’t liked to enquire. Janet had asked though, and Edie said, ‘Oh, bit of an accident. When I was small.’ Even so, there was something about Edie that made her feel very protective. Sometimes she seemed scarcely more than a child herself, and she was such a sweet girl: she warmed to her more than she ever had Joyce, whom she found a little insipid. She suspected Janet did too, but was too kind to say so.

‘Shall I make us a drop of Bournvita?’ Janet asked, struggling to tug a comb through her hair.

‘I’ll do it.’ Edie came back in a short time later with two cups of hot chocolate, half milk, half water.

‘We’ll get a little tree tomorrow,’ Janet said. ‘Well, Mom’ll get it I expect. We can decorate it.’

‘Ooh yes!’ Edie said, tucking her feet under the hem of her nightdress in the comfortable chair. ‘Davey’ll love it, won’t he?’

‘Of course he will.’ Janet smiled, seeing the way Edie’s face lit up at the mention of him. She had seen Edie transformed over the past month, from a sad, lost waif into a happy, loving young woman. While she rejoiced with her, Janet trembled for her as well. Supposing David were not an orphan. Supposing . . .? She knew Edie was aware of all these fearful possibilities, but they did not often mention them. It was too painful.

Over the past month the two of them had already grown very close. Sometimes Edie felt bad that she didn’t see nearly as much of Ruby as she had before, and Ruby had made one or two sharp remarks about it.

‘Aren’t you my pal any more?’

‘Course I am – don’t be daft,’ Edie told her. ‘It’s just that now I’m looking after David I’ve no time. Why don’t you come round to Janet’s and see us?’

‘Can’t, can I?’ Ruby said crossly. ‘What with our mom off tripping the light fantastic all the time. It’s just the same as when she was feeling bad nowadays.’

Edie was sorry for her, but it couldn’t be helped. If my own child had lived I wouldn’t have seen much of her, she reasoned. And she knew Ruby was hoping to have Frank home on leave immediately after Christmas. At least Ruby had a husband. They all had to get through the best they could these days. And Edie knew nothing mattered to her now as much as David did. But Janet, too, was a great source of happiness. She was so energetic and jolly and thought the best of everyone. Well – unless they were men, that was.

She’d been quite taken aback by her new friend’s attitude to the opposite sex. When she’d asked her innocently soon after she moved in, if she was walking out with anyone, Janet had said, ‘
No I’m not!
’ so emphatically that Edie hadn’t dared pursue it any further. She did wonder though whether those un-Janet like tears she and Ruby had witnessed the first day they met her had been caused by a man. After all, Janet was older than her, nearly twenty-six. She must have had some boyfriends by now. And one day, when they were talking in her room, Janet had opened a drawer to fetch out a pair of stockings. Janet’s belongings were always in chaos and from amid the jumbled items of underwear in the drawer, a photograph flicked out on to the floor by Edie’s feet. She caught a quick glimpse of Janet standing, with windblown hair, on a pier with the sea behind, beside
someone
. The someone was dark-haired and had his arm round Janet’s shoulders. Janet picked it up and immediately tore it up, casually dropping it into the waste-paper basket.

‘Some silly old thing,’ she said laughing. ‘I really should have a turn-out.’ Edie hadn’t liked to ask questions.

‘Feels quiet tonight,’ Janet said as they sipped their warm drinks. ‘Let’s hope it lasts.’

The past month had seen more terrible raids, one lasting thirteen hours. Edie and Janet had been at home that night and had spent the night in the Anderson, Edie carrying David and sitting with him in her arms. By morning they were stunned with fear and exhaustion. And on one of the nights of bombing this month, the bridge carrying the canal over Bournville Lane had been hit, so that water poured into D-block at Cadbury’s and the basements under the factory. Janet had told her that the wages department was down there and there had been pound notes floating about with the dead cats and pigeons from the Cut.

‘Be a nice Christmas present if they leave us alone,’ Edie agreed.

Janet, kneeling on the rug by the fire looked at her, head on one side. ‘I was wondering, and don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t you want to spend Christmas with your own family?’

Edie looked down, flushing, fingering the pale blue winceyette nightdress which Janet had given her.

‘Would you rather I did?’

‘I said don’t take it the wrong way!’ Janet reached over and squeezed her arm affectionately. For an uncomfortable moment Edie saw her eyeing the scar and she pulled her sleeve down. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, Ma and I love having you here.’

‘You’re so nice, both of you. I don’t deserve you.’ Edie stared into the fire. ‘But no, I don’t want to go to them. I’ve bought a couple of little things for Rodney and for Florrie’s kids but that’s all. Florrie’s gone back to Coventry now it’s quietened down.’ Her mom had the room for her now, but she wasn’t going back to that chilly welcome. ‘I’d much rather stay here, Janet.’

‘Good! And Christmas wouldn’t feel right without you now. Edie—’ Janet hesitated again. ‘Your husband, he died around Christmas, didn’t he? I realize it must be a sad time for you.’

For the first time, Edie told Janet everything about Jack, about Scottie MacPherson and how Jack’s death had come about. Janet shook her head as she listened, her eyes full of sympathy.

‘Oh Edie, how tragic. And he sounded so kind-hearted. And then your baby as well!’

‘Sometimes I think about how it would have been if they were both alive – Jack and my little boy.’ Edie pulled her knees up under her nightdress and stared into the fire. ‘Course, Jack’d be away now, like Frank. He’d just joined up. It was the night before he was going off to training camp. Frank was gutted. He was there, you see. I’ve never seen him like that before. He’s a tough sort normally. They were pals at school, he and Jack.’

There was a silence in which they heard rain blowing against the windows and the fire shifted.

‘You don’t have anyone then?’ Edie said.

‘I did.’ Janet spoke stiffly. ‘Well, I mean there’ve been a number over the years of course. I’ve been to dances and so on. No one special until the last one.’ She broke off.

‘Was he the one made you cry?’

‘Cry? Oh yes, he made me cry all right,’ Janet said harshly. ‘You mean that time at the bus stop? I feel so silly now, thinking about it.’ She leaned forward. ‘Thing is, Mom knows what happened, but we don’t say much about it now. You won’t breathe a word, will you?’

‘Of
course
not.’ Edie felt honoured to be confided in.

‘He was married, you see.’ Seeing Edie’s shocked expression she went on hastily. ‘I mean I didn’t
know
, that was the thing. Not to begin with. He kept stringing me along for quite a time and of course I was mad about him. When I found out I couldn’t just let him go like I should have done. Anyway, I did, in the end. Finish it.’ She stared sadly into the fire. Edie sensed that she wanted to say more, but she stopped.

‘It sounds awful,’ she said. ‘How could he?’

‘I know, and when I look back on it, he was so arrogant about things. So selfish. But I was in love, you see. He was rather handsome and took me out and about. Well, of course he did, he could hardly take me home, could he? He used me and I let it happen, silly little thing. Lied to my mother when I went to meet him, and that’s the part I’m least proud of. I don’t seem to be a very good judge of men actually. A couple of others didn’t treat me especially well. They don’t always seem to realize that we have feelings.’

Edie leaned down and put her cup on the floor. ‘You’ll find someone nice – I’m sure you will.’

‘I’m a lot more wary these days I can tell you. I seem to attract married men though. There’s one at the depot—’ She stopped herself.

Edie waited. ‘Go on.’

‘Oh, I don’t know why I even mentioned him. Except I got sent out with him one night. I thought he had an interesting look at first, but he turned out to be moody and full of himself. And what’s more – married.’ She shrugged crossly. ‘Time’s getting on – we’d best get to bed.’ She rearranged the cushion in the chair with a bad-tempered punch. ‘What annoys me is the way he kept looking at me. I mean why can’t men keep their eyes to themselves once they’re married? They ought to know how to behave!’

Good Friday (11 April 1941)

They thought it was going to be another quiet night but by nine o’clock the sirens were going. Since December, through the winter of bitter cold and deep snow, there had been a lull in the bombing: no more than a few scattered raids. But now they were back.

In the ambulance depot, Janet and the others looked at each other and there were the usual comments – ‘Here we go—’ and ‘It’s going to be one of those nights.’

The ambulances were ready outside. Janet waited with the others. Joyce was there that night, and Janet had seen to her discomfort as she came on duty; so was Martin Ferris. They had coincided on precious few occasions over the past months, and she had never been sent out with him again. Every time they met he was friendly and made a point of speaking to her. They were always part of the group waiting in the depot and she had begun to relax with him more amid the light, bantering conversations, though she found something disconcerting about her encounters with him that she couldn’t pin down. He was such a powerful masculine presence, and he did seem to make a point of singling her out, laughing at things she said, attentive in a way which, had he been available, she would have taken for attraction and interest in her. It was the double message she had from him which unsettled her – how dare he behave like this? Now, though, she accepted that this was just how he was. She kept every conversation chatty and impersonal, and because he was bright, interested in life and dedicated to his work, she found she enjoyed his company. He arrived rather late that night, not long before the raid began.

‘Evening Janet, Joyce.’ He sat down close to them, laying his hat on the table.

‘Hello stranger!’ Joyce said chirpily. ‘We haven’t seen you in a long time.’

‘We don’t seem to have coincided. Actually I’ve had to cut down my hours – exams are looming.’ He did look exhausted, dark rings under his eyes. He rubbed his hands over his face and Janet saw that his right index finger was badly bruised under the nail.

‘That looks painful,’ she said.

Martin looked down at his hands. ‘An example of my joinery skills.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I’m left-handed: cack-handed more like.’

Joyce gave one of her purring laughs. ‘What were you trying to do?’

‘Oh, just hang up a picture. Nothing too complicated! Can I get either of you a cup of tea?’

Janet said she’d like one and when he came back they chatted about his exams.

‘I’m living and breathing
Gray’s Anatomy
at the moment,’ he said wearily. ‘Even dreaming about it sometimes – bones, joints.’

‘The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone,’ Joyce sang.

Martin gave a faint smile, eyes flickering towards Janet for a second. ‘Precisely.’

Joyce was in a chatty mood and kept an inconsequential conversation flowing. They weren’t really expecting a raid. But when the time came, Janet found herself detailed to go with Martin to an incident in Small Heath.

They drove off into the threatening, lit-up night. Janet tried to close her mind to the noise outside. Martin, who was driving, glanced at her in the darkness of the cab.

‘If you could go anywhere you liked now, somewhere really nice, where would you go?’

‘Well,’ she laughed, grateful for his attempts to distract her. ‘If there was no war on, you mean?’