Keep Smiling Through (11 page)

‘She’s doing very well, and she’s started to make friends with some of the other women.’ Rita smiled with warm affection. ‘She’s much happier now she has other things to keep her occupied, and often comes home with a funny story to tell. It’s lovely to see her smile again.’

‘I’m glad,’ murmured Peggy as she watched Mrs Finch make a complete hash of her knitting. ‘Would you like me to sort that out for you, dear?’ she bellowed.

‘There’s no need to shout. I’m not deaf.’ Mrs Finch sniffed. ‘You know very well I dislike beer, so I can’t quite see the point of asking me if I’d like one.’ She gave up on the knitting with a cluck of frustration. ‘Can you make sense of this, Peggy? I seem to have lost my way.’

Peggy began to unpick several rows so she could get to the problem. ‘This is supposed to be a matinee jacket for Anne’s baby,’ she said quietly to Rita. ‘Though if it ever gets finished it’ll be a miracle.’

‘How’s Anne doing? It can’t be easy for her with Martin flying so many missions now.’

‘She’s doing very well, considering. They’ve bought that sweet little cottage in Wick Cross, which is too close to the airfield for my liking, but at least she gets to see Martin a bit more often. But I do worry about her when he’s away, and I’ve made her promise she’ll come back home for her last few weeks.’ She gave a sigh. ‘I know she has a telephone, the RAF insisted upon that, but the thought of her being alone and in labour doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘I’m sure Anne’s sensible enough not to take any risks,’ murmured Rita. She studied Peggy and saw the weariness in her. ‘But what about you, Auntie Peg? How are you holding up now the boys have been evacuated?’

Peggy rested the knitting in her lap and gave a beaming smile. ‘I’ve arranged to go and visit Bob and Charlie in Somerset,’ she said, ‘and I can hardly wait. Jim managed to get me a travel warrant, and I leave tomorrow. I’ll be gone for three weeks, which is why it was so important you came today. I couldn’t leave without making sure you and Louise were all right.’

‘That’s wonderful news,’ Rita breathed. ‘They’ll be so happy to see you.’

Peggy’s expression was soft with love. ‘Yes, I know they’re not babies any more, Bob’s almost thirteen, but I couldn’t bear to think of them being so far away over Christmas, and Jim’s been very understanding. It’s just a shame he can’t come with me, but there’s his job at the cinema, and his Home Guard duties.’ She looked at Rita and smiled. ‘I just hope I don’t come home to chaos. You know what men are like when left to their own devices.’

They shared a knowing grin. ‘I’m sure he and Ron will manage just fine, and of course you’ve got Cissy and the other girls to keep an eye on things.’

Peggy picked up the knitting again, the smile still playing on her lips. ‘Cissy has some news of her own, which I won’t spoil by telling you. But my two evacuees have left for pastures new, and the three nurses are either at the hospital or out on the tiles dancing the night away. I doubt they’ll be of much use to anybody.’

Rita was intrigued as to what Cissy had been up to, but no doubt she would soon hear all about it. Cissy was not one to keep a secret for long. ‘I’m sure your sister would be only too pleased to lend a hand,’ she teased, knowing full well that Peggy and the extremely snooty Doris could barely be in the same room together for more than five minutes without falling out.

Peggy grunted. ‘Doris would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot,’ she said, ‘and she’s the last person either Ron or Jim would want in the house.’ She looked up, caught the glint in Rita’s eye and laughed. ‘You are naughty,’ she scolded softly. ‘Poor Doris, she’s far too grand to roll up her sleeves and get stuck in here – and I doubt it would even cross her mind to do so. I just hope she never gets bombed out, because the thought of her moving in with us makes me shudder.’

They were both startled by the loud snore coming from the fireside chair. Mrs Finch had gone to sleep.

Peggy giggled and shook her head. ‘Poor old duck. She can go to sleep at the drop of a hat these days. But at least it means she sleeps through all the air raids. We’ve had to rig up her deckchair in the Anderson shelter with pillows so she doesn’t fall out of it.’

‘Will Jim and Ron be able to cope with her while you’re away?’

‘They adore her as much as she does them, and will look after her like cut crystal.’ Peggy grinned. ‘Actually, Mrs Finch has been helping with the cooking lately, and she’s doing a sterling job. I suspect the men will mostly leave her to her own devices as long as their stomachs are attended to.’

‘Hello, Rita.’ Cissy breezed into the kitchen looking refreshed and lovely, her blonde hair swept back from her perfectly made-up face in an elegant chignon, the fetching little cap placed just so over one finely plucked eyebrow. ‘What do you think?’ She gave a twirl to show off the neat WAAF’s uniform which enhanced her narrow waist and hips.

Rita gasped in admiration. ‘Since when . . .?’

Cissy giggled and gave her a swift hug. ‘I’m glad you’re suitably impressed.’ She carefully settled her pert bottom on the edge of a kitchen chair and crossed her long, shapely legs. ‘After the dancing troupe folded, Amy and I decided it was time we did something sensible for a change, so we enlisted a few weeks ago.’ She gave a delighted grin. ‘It’s ever so exciting, Rita. You should give it a go.’

Rita was infused with the other girl’s excitement. ‘What sort of work are you doing, Cissy?’

She shrugged and stirred her tea vigorously. ‘It’s only shorthand and typing, but there’s lots of other girls to chat to and have a giggle with, and of course we’re surrounded by all those lovely, lovely pilots.’ Her expression grew dreamy as she sipped her tea. ‘There’s the Poles and the Free French, the Canadians, the Aussies – and of course our own lovely boys. Amy and I are having the time of our lives.’

Rita regarded her friend with admiration. Cissy had always been a pretty girl, but now she was positively glowing. ‘You certainly look well on it,’ she murmured, feeling the teeniest bit jealous of the uniform. ‘But I’d be hopeless in an office, and they’ve already turned me down as a mechanic.’

‘But there’s other things you could do,’ said Cissy excitedly.

‘I think Rita’s got enough on her plate with the factory and fire-watching,’ interrupted Peggy sharply.

Cissy frowned. ‘But she’s been wanting to join up ever since the war started.’

‘Rita has other responsibilities,’ said Peggy, giving Cissy a warning glare. ‘Louise couldn’t cope without her for a start.’

Now it was Rita’s turn to frown, for she couldn’t understand why Peggy was putting a dampener on her and Cissy’s enthusiasm.

But Cissy was made of sterner stuff and obviously decided to ignore her mother’s warning. She turned back to Rita with sparkling eyes. ‘You won’t have to be stuck in an office, Rita,’ she began. ‘There’s a posting that would suit you down to the ground.’

‘Cissy.’ Peggy’s voice was low and warning.

Cissy hesitated before ploughing on. ‘I just thought Rita might be interested in becoming a motorbike dispatch rider,’ she said defiantly.

Rita felt a thrill of hope. ‘Really? They have them in the WAAFs? Do you think they’d take me on?’

Peggy butted in again. ‘I don’t know that your father would want you haring about on that bike – not up at the airfield. It all sounds very dangerous, if you ask me – and I doubt very much if they’d take on a slip of a girl like you.’

Rita’s hopes plummeted.

‘Actually, Mum,’ said Cissy fearlessly, ‘they are recruiting women of all ages. Rita would be perfect.’

Rita looked at Peggy, waiting for her approval – longing for her to give her blessing for this miraculous chance to do something extraordinary.

‘It will probably mean having to leave Cliffehaven for several weeks to be trained,’ Peggy said with rare asperity. ‘Would Louise be able to cope without you?’

Rita tamped down on the sliver of doubt. ‘She’s working now, and much happier. I’m sure I wouldn’t be away for long – after all, I could handle a bike by the time I was ten, so I wouldn’t need
that
much training.’

Peggy gave a deep sigh, her face still etched with worry. ‘It’s obvious you’ll go ahead and apply no matter what I say,’ she murmured. ‘So I suppose I’ll have to give this madness my blessing. But I don’t like it, Rita – I really don’t.’

‘Then that’s settled,’ said Cissy. She clapped her hands in delight. ‘What fun. You, me and Amy, all in the WAAFs. Who’d have believed it?’

‘It strikes me that the RAF have enough problems without scatterbrained girls cluttering up the place,’ muttered Peggy, her lips twitching with a reluctant smile.

Rita’s eyes were shining and her cheeks were flushed with hope and excitement. She’d never even considered such a thing as becoming a motorbike dispatch rider – but now she could, she realised it was a job she was born to do. ‘Do you think they’ll let me take my own bike?’

‘I expect so. You’ll have to ask at the recruitment office.’ Cissy glanced at the sleeping woman in the chair and stood, smoothing the neat blue serge over her slender hips. ‘Come on, let’s go upstairs and I’ll tell you all about life in the WAAFs and the brilliant time you’ll have. I’ll even let you try on my spare uniform if you promise not to get it creased.’

‘You’ve got a letter from Joe Buchanan,’ said Peggy, still out of sorts at having been defeated by her garrulous daughter. She retrieved it from amongst the litter of ration books and lists on the mantelpiece above the range and held it out.

Cissy studiously ignored her mother’s disapproving expression as she took it. ‘Thanks, Mum. I’ll read it later.’

Rita followed her friend upstairs to the top floor and made herself comfortable against the pillows on one of the single beds as Cissy perched on the dressing stool. The room was decorated with dainty sprigged wallpaper, the pale pink bedspreads and quilts matching the heart of each little flower perfectly. The same material covered the padded stool and fell in pleats around the kidney-shaped dressing table, which was smothered in make-up, cheap jewellery and perfume bottles. It was an intensely feminine room and a world away from the rather austere, damp and untidy surroundings Rita slept in back at home.

Cissy noticed her surveying the room. ‘It’s heaven not having to share with Anne any more,’ she said, carelessly dropping the letter in amongst the debris on her dressing table then turning her attention to her smudged, lipstick. ‘I have plenty of room for all my things, and it doesn’t matter if I come in late when I’m on leave, or keep the light on half the night while I catch up on my magazines.’

‘You don’t seem terribly keen on reading your letter,’ said Rita. ‘I thought you and Joe Buchanan were sweethearts?’

‘We are – or at least, I thought we might be.’ Cissy opened the window, offered a cigarette to Rita, who refused it, and lit one for herself. ‘You’ll have to learn to smoke if you don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb in the WAAFs,’ she said, watching herself blow smoke in the mirror. ‘Everyone smokes – it’s quite the thing, you know.’

‘I won’t be able to smoke and ride a motorbike at the same time,’ said Rita reasonably, ‘so I’ll pass on it for now.’ She eyed Cissy, who was puffing smoke out of the window as if she was in a Hollywood film. Peggy had always banned smoking in the bedrooms, and for all Cissy’s sophistication and devil-may-care attitude, she was still in awe of her mother’s rules. ‘You were telling me about Joe Buchanan,’ she prompted.

‘He’s lovely and I adore him, I really do, but I wonder now if we weren’t just caught up in the moment – he was leaving, you see, and we only had that last day together. But it’s terribly difficult to keep up any romance with someone who isn’t even in the same country, and there’s an awful lot of distraction at the base. It’s hard for a girl to make up her mind about what she wants.’

Rita had heard all about the quietly spoken, handsome Australian soldier who’d turned up at Peggy’s with two of his mates, and a coat full of chickens. He’d sounded really nice. ‘I can see it must be a bit of a dilemma,’ she murmured, ‘but if you’re having doubts, you really should write and tell him.’

Cissy forgot she was supposed to be emulating Bette Davis and puffed furiously on the cigarette before grinding it out in a glass dish on her dressing table. ‘I know. But he’s right in the middle of things, and I don’t have the heart to let him down.’ Her smile was uncertain as she looked at Rita. ‘Those “Dear John” letters are ghastly, Rita. I’ve seen what they can do to a chap.’

‘Then I suggest you just keep the letters light and friendly and promise nothing,’ said Rita, who knew nothing about romance other than what she’d read in books and magazines or been told by May, who was inclined to exaggerate. She fidgeted on the bed. ‘Now, come on, Cissy. I want to hear all about the WAAFs, and I especially want to hear about these motorbike dispatch riders. What do they do exactly?’

‘I don’t know a lot about it, to be honest,’ Cissy confessed. ‘I see them rushing about, of course, but what they actually
do
is a mystery.’ Her face brightened, ‘But I can tell you all about the fun we have. Those fly boys are always up for a party, you know, and . . .’

As Cissy happily prattled away, Rita’s thoughts drifted. Louise was settled at the factory and they only spent the occasional night together when they were not doing night shift or fire-watch. The recruitment office was in the High Street, so surely it wouldn’t hurt to go and ask for a form? She could get one for May, as well, and they could have them filled in and returned before tomorrow.

She tuned back into Cissy, who was in full flow about the car one of the Poles had borrowed, so they could get into town for one of the many dances. ‘Of course it was all highly irregular,’ she said happily, ‘and we all got a terrible ticking off. But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?’

Rita nodded, but she had no real idea, and would probably never have the chance to find out. Not many boys would be interested in a girl with dirty nails and smears of engine oil on her face. Roberto wouldn’t have minded, of course, but then he was just like an older brother and didn’t really count. ‘Do you really think they’ll take me on?’ she persisted. ‘I mean, they are recruiting girls – you’re sure about that?’