Spitfire Girls (19 page)

‘You must train for something.' Her worry was intense.

‘My every last penny goes into the household. It is a horrible prospect to be useless and unskilled for anything else. I'll tell you a secret: I have followed you several times to Maylands and have met Slater. He wants to set up in business with me – running his own airline.'

‘You and Noel Slater? Unbelievable!' she exclaimed. ‘He's a maniac.'

‘Not to me he isn't. My boys take no notice of me – never have – but this lad looks up to me. None of my boys would give me the time of day – it's all contempt – nor would they think of me running a business. They claim I can't even run the household.' Hardwick sat forward in his chair and noticed Nora fumbling in her bag. She reached out and put a handful of notes on the table:

‘Take it.'

Hardwick was flabbergasted. ‘That's a year's wages,' he protested.
‘Today I will pack up my London lodgings and go home to the country – as if these last twenty-four hours had never happened.'

‘Please don't make me take that money.'

‘You can use the cash for flying lessons – they'll be wanting old men before young girls.'

Hardwick stood and picked up the bills. He folded them carefully then pushed them into Nora's small bag. Flashing through his mind was an image of Neville Chamberlain, whom he knew to have no comprehension of Hitler's awesome evil. His back straightened as he said:

‘When we meet on the airfield, as I think we shall, I'll be Sam to you, and Hitler will have made us companions. If Slater succeeds, I'll be rich. If Hitler invades, he'll be our boss. You'll still have your aging heirlooms and your young bloodstock, and maybe I'll still have my boys.'

‘That sounds like treason.'

‘When you have a child of your own, you'll understand why I ‘d rather be a traitor.' Hardwick hugged the girl, and for the first time she noticed the smell of his worn clothes and faded necktie.

Nora went to the door and her footsteps echoed on the empty cavern that had once been a living Smithfield. Had this not been a place for martyrs once? Ghosts already booking space echoed as she sped out of the market, and they whispered prophetic words to her that she could not yet comprehend: Burma, Singapore; Dunkirk; Hertgen Forest … more places for martyrs?

Nora headed home to the bloodstock.

In a room at the Air Ministry Sir Henry Cobb sat at the back of the chamber as Balfour, Brabazon, Lady Londonderry and a new committee member, Lord Beaverbrook, heard d'Erlanger and Valerie stating the case for female pilots' active service – a women's RAF. Cobb was not taking part, and he had chosen this back seat to be invisible. He could take it all in as a bystander, mute as one of the birds carved into the top of the pillar that partially obstructed his view of the proceedings. Perhaps, he thought, he could change places with a curiously macabre stuffed fox, which had somehow found its way to a table in this otherwise characterless room in the halls of occasional power.

Cobb turned his attention to his daughter, who at this moment was confirming that she had access to ten highly qualified women pilots who could replace the men sorely needed by the RAF for combat duty. They would be available for ferrying all types of craft, she reported, as opposed to your average RAF man who would have spent a career knowing just one type of plane …

Where had she got this audacity?

Cobb switched his gaze from the stuffed fox to his dazzling daughter and nearly spoke aloud. His ancestors had been clergymen and naturalists, always taking time to do a bit of missionary work for the Church of England but never stepping out of the prescribed middle-class mould – certainly not the women! Had his wife been of exceptional
stock? He racked his brain. So much they had shared, so intimately, and now she was dead and he hardly knew anything about her forebears.

Brabazon was shouting. All this talk was well and good, he scoffed, but for every woman there were a hundred good men, Hitler was manufacturing aircraft at a hundred times the capability of any other country, and here in England Winston Churchill was coming up against a brick wall.

Why does Winston get all the attention?
Cobb crossed his legs and folded his arms across his tightening chest.
I've been browbeating the House but only Churchill leaves an impression. Why …

Brabazon was still shouting: Winston was trying to generate enthusiasm for war mobilization, and side issues about women's rights were a damned nuisance.

Now there was Lady Londonderry raising her voice.

God
, thought Cobb,
how war brings out the amazon …

Her Ladyship was astonished, she confessed. And if the reason for convening could be regarded as a side issue, well, then she would simply have to step down.

Voices overlapped and Sir Henry cast a glum look at his daughter. For once she was keeping quiet.

Cobb sat forward in his seat. What an absurdity! Here were some of the most powerful people in the country, debating whether ten girls should be allowed to hop in and out of aeroplanes in between love affairs ending as marriage, pregnancy and ultimate uselessness. What a waste of national funds. Fancy Lady L becoming militant! Would he were a reporter – her home county might never recover from the disturbance.

Beaverbrook had restored order, and Cobb chuckled.
The committee wrestled with the proposal that the female air force should not be wasted, particularly if a full-scale war meant the ferrying of thousands of combat-ready aircraft from factory to base. Combat-ready! Some would never leave the ground, and parents would grieve twice as hard for lost daughters as for sons. Women as test pilots? His constituency barely tolerated female show-jumping and it surely deplored his daughter's single-sex cohabitation.

Now Valerie was speaking.

Had he missed anything?

Valerie talked of having as many flying credentials as an RAF squadron leader. He knew little of his dead wife, and less of his living child. The committee seemed bewildered. To emphasise her point, Valerie reeled off the names of other remarkable characters in her circle who had similar credits in their airborne records. All she asked of the committee, she explained winningly, was that her squadron not be left behind …

What an astonishing thought!
Here is my girl, of all the spinsters in Norfolk, being recorded for all time in committee records as having a squadron to her name.
Cobb sank down in his chair and was glad of the pillar.

Valerie looked up for him but he was obscured from her view. Where was that fox? He searched the room and focused on its glass eye. It brought him comfort. Had pride confused him? He wanted to hug the girl but felt better behind the pillar.

Next there was some talk of Amy Johnson, and Cobb half-listened. Valerie was keen to have her in a first ferry squadron. There was noise. Sir Henry moved to a seat
away from his pillar. Suddenly he would see and be seen. He murmured an objection, as if he were still in the House.

Some eyes looked up.

Balfour met his gaze.

Pride had made Sir Henry Cobb want to go down to the floor, and now he was enraged. This girl had come from his loins and others dared discuss her like a publicity poster. Perhaps he should not have come at all.

Suddenly Lady Londonderry stopped the din and sat up like a schoolmistress. She let her eye catch Cobb's for a moment and he smiled.

Her Ladyship asserted that a decision must now be made, and she recommended that ten girls from diverse backgrounds, each with no less than two hundred and fifty flying hours, be sent to Hatfield to be tested for uniformed service in an Air Transport Auxiliary – Johnson to be tested along with everyone else.

For once, Valerie Cobb was speechless.

Simultaneously her father, shaking with desire to hold her, was for once puffed up with pride.

D'Erlanger continued:

Perhaps Valerie's father might be able to speak in the Commons about equal wartime pay for men and women …

All was well, and the two women in the room had no more to say.

Outside, Sir Henry Cobb MP showed a rare fatherly smile. A hug came as well. Valerie had got nearly everything she had wished for, and he could pursue equal pay in the Commons whilst she went out and lured her ten aces in.

In the taxi she was silent, and Sir Henry waved to the
Three Big Bs, now standing outside the majestic building. He liked Beaverbrook – but why was Valerie grieving?

She turned her face away and was relieved when they finally drove off, never noticing the fiendishly handsome presence of d'Erlanger lingering by the gutter. Images of her with Kranz made his body throb all over and his brain go numb.

Could Haydon be pressured to intern these Austrians?

D'Erlanger would make enquiries.

Summer was lingering, and in Shirley Bryce's house preparations for a midday lunch party were under way. In the background the wireless played Sophie Tucker. Humming to the music, Mrs Bryce bore a close resemblance to the lady on the radio, and her large but handsome figure moved swiftly about the kitchen, the white apron bulging over her opulent bosom.

‘Another party filled with couples, and you the odd character,' she said, half to herself.

‘Talking about me, Mum?' Shirley shouted from the small drawing room.

‘I'm singing along with Sophie.'

Shirley came through to the kitchen and her underweight frame contrasted starkly with her mother's cheerful aproned figure.

Looking at her critically, Mrs Bryce said:

‘There is something about … your disinterest in men.'

‘There's no point in losing oneself to someone who will soon be gone?'

‘
You
'll soon be gone if you don't start eating normally.'

‘Mum, I'm talking about war – men should be ignored for the immediate future.'

‘What does Valerie feed you in that caravan?' Mrs Bryce looked with puzzlement at the girl. How sad that she had never known her father. Had he not died, would destiny still have fixated her on the person of Valerie Cobb?

‘
I
feed
Valerie
. We eat well, but I never stop working.'

‘I never stop working, either. When I had your father, sex kept me thin.'

‘What are you saying, Mum?'

Mrs Bryce was perspiring. She wiped her face with a corner of her apron.

‘Please don't do that when Valerie is here.'

‘My sweat is as good as hers, my girl.'

Mother and daughter faced each other, as they had done countless times before.

The doorbell rang.

Shirley did an about-face but her mother grabbed her by the arm, its bony wrist looking fragile enough to crack.

‘Remember,' said the older woman darkly. ‘Hitler would have a field day with you and your woman friend.'

‘She's a friend, Mum, and just that,' Shirley muttered. ‘She loves men, and I don't.'

At the door, Valerie Cobb and Friedrich Kranz made a glamorous couple, his cashmere coat and extravagant shoes making Mrs Bryce gasp as she emerged from the hot kitchen. Valerie's skin seemed to glow from under a grey suit, and as Shirley kissed her lightly, her mother wiped her fingers on her apron and shook Friedrich's outstretched hand.

Shirley's emotions were confused, and she let her mother gush while her own stomach churned. Why did he make her shake? Her uneasiness in his presence, of late, had given her the urge to go to Haydon – if it could only mean Kranz's disappearance …

The bell rang again and the rest arrived. Nora Flint had brought her daredevil pilot friend Gordon Selfridge. Marion was with Alec, and Amy was accompanied by Jim and Hamilton on either side.

‘You three look like clothes on a hanger!' Shirley quipped at the sight of the trio.

‘What sort of hangar?' punned Hamilton, kissing Shirley. Her mother was overwhelmed, as always, by the abundance of males.

‘Friedrich and Valerie are lovers,' Shirley lied, whispering in her mother's ear.

‘That's sinful, too,' she whispered back, and her daughter gave her a playful slap. ‘So why couldn't you have found him first?'

At table, Valerie took in her surroundings more closely. She could never understand what attraction Selfridge held for Nora, whom she saw as a prospective Commanding Officer. Was it his money? And Amy? She seemed to fade into a shadow when Jim was present. What could her future be when she was torn between two men and hounded by a clamouring press? One day she would let it all cave in on her and go down … Shirley's mother was the sanest person here.

‘Friedrich is a refugee,' remarked Marion. ‘He has lots to tell and he's training to fly the new machines.'

Shirley reacted sharply:

‘Of course we all know that my house is marked as a haven for German spies,' she snapped, glaring at Valerie.

‘Austrian,' Kranz said sweetly.

‘An Austrian must be like a Scot,' mused Alec, wanting to defuse Shirley's aggression. ‘May I lighten the atmosphere by commiserating with an outcast?'

‘What atmosphere?' Shirley asked sarcastically.

Her mother glared at her and there was an embarrassed silence.

‘If anything has a bad atmosphere it's Smithfield,' Nora commented lightly. ‘It's a ghost town, and I'll not be going back.'

Mrs Bryce brought in a meal of dumplings in soup, potato pancakes and chicken stew.

‘This is like home for me,' Kranz observed.

‘Do you live in a little place like this?' asked Selfridge good-naturedly, provoking another scowl from Bryce junior.

‘Gott, no! My home is a mansion. But a few peasant delicacies creep in every so often – kreplach, latkes …'

‘My impression is that German Jews don't stoop to Yiddish,' joked Mrs Bryce, smiling at Friedrich.

‘We stoop.' He smiled back.

‘You lot always seem to make good wherever you turn up in the world,' Marion said.