The Grafton Girls (17 page)

‘Sir…’

The speed with which Eddie suddenly saluted and the respectful tone of his voice caused Diane to turn round to see who he was addressing, her
expression giving her away, she suspected, when she realised that it was the major.

His ‘Dismissed, Airman,’ had Eddie giving her an apologetic look before obeying him and heading off in the direction of the bar, leaving her on her own with the major.

‘I thought it was the US cavalry that rode to the rescue, not its army,’ Diane commented grittily, before adding, ‘There wasn’t really any need, you know. He was perfectly safe, if a little homesick.’

‘I’m sure he was but, as it happens,
he
wasn’t the one I came over to “rescue”.’

His comment was so unexpected that Diane was shocked into looking up into his face, something she had tried to avoid doing since her unfortunate experience with the falling ladder. Now that she was looking at him, though, she realised that he had the most unusually intensely focused and compelling gaze. So much so that she couldn’t seem to drag her own away from it.

‘I can’t imagine why you should think it necessary to rescue
me
,’ she managed to say. The single raised eyebrow made her continue defensively, ‘I was enjoying listening to him talk about his family. He’s homesick and unsure of what the future holds. If I had a younger brother his age I’d like to think that someone, somewhere would take the trouble to listen to him—’ She broke off when she saw he was frowning.

‘You’re saying that,’ he told her, ‘but it’s no secret to those of us who have been here for a while that you Brits resent our presence.’

He was looking at her as though he was waiting for her to deny that. Well, she wasn’t going to. Listening to Eddie had brought home to her something she hadn’t recognised before, and it was something that her own innate sense of honesty was compelling her to admit.

‘Yes, in many ways we do,’ she agreed. ‘People talk a lot about how war unites those fighting on the same side, but they don’t often talk about the way in which it separates us. You are our allies, we know we need your support, but at the same time…’ She paused and shook her head. ‘At first when you came over, I admit that listening to you Americans irked me. Your manner seemed boastful and arrogant; you seemed not to know or care about what this war meant to us and had done to us. Where we feel like a…a doomed generation, you all act like…like victory is just going to drop into your hands. But now I realise that I felt like that because I was envious; envious of your confidence your enthusiasm, and your energy. You still have something that we’ve lost,’ she sighed. ‘This war has drained the youth and optimism from us. Whilst all of us were in the same boat it didn’t matter because it wasn’t noticeable, but now that you are here we can see it and it makes us feel—’ Diane broke off, her face suddenly flushing with self-consciousness. She had said far more than she had intended to, but talking with Eddie had brought home to her how very much the war had changed her and her perceptions, and inwardly she was mourning that
youthful part of herself that she, along with so many of her peers, had lost.

‘Makes you feel what?’

She had been so lost in her thoughts that the major’s prompt startled her. How on earth had she got involved in a conversation as deep as this with him – a man she barely knew, whom she certainly did not like and who she was pretty sure despised her? She shook her head and would have walked away if he hadn’t reached out and put his hand on her arm. Even through the fabric of her jacket she could feel the strength of his hold. In another life, a life before Kit had broken her heart, she might have interpreted the sensation his touch was causing her as one of interest and approval. But that was impossible. He was a married man and she was a woman with a broken heart.

‘Tell me.’

How commanding he sounded. And yet his voice was so low she had to lean towards him to hear it.

She wanted to refuse but instead she heard herself saying unsteadily, ‘I don’t know. Tired and old; envious of your energy and enthusiasm, resentful of the loss of our own; angry because you think you can do better than we have without knowing what we have done and how much it has cost us. Oh, so many things. In comparison to you we look and feel so tired and old, even though in terms of years we’re still young. It’s as though we’ve lost something. Somehow we’ve become separate from one another, in so many different ways, our men away at war,
whilst we are here, those who are engaged in the business of war here at home, and those who aren’t, men and women, children and parents, husband and wives…’

‘Is that why your engagement broke up?’

Her head jerked up her eyes widening. ‘How do you—’

‘I overheard you talking about it earlier in the Dungeon.’

‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask my ex-fiancé,’ she told him curtly, pulling away from him. Somehow their conversation had taken an unexpected and very dangerous turn.

She knew that this was not the sort of behaviour or the sort of conversation Captain Barker had had in mind when she had told her that she was putting her name forward for this extra duty. A sense of despair and loneliness filled her. She felt wretchedly aware of how alone she was, something that the major, with his wife waiting at home for him, would never be able to understand.

‘Your wife must miss you,’ she said, recognising immediately from his expression that he hadn’t welcomed her comment.

‘She knew she was marrying a soldier.’ His voice was clipped, warning her that she had overstepped the mark.

‘You don’t like it when I ask you personal questions – well, that works both ways,’ Diane told him.

‘You were happy to talk to your colleagues about your engagement,’ he responded.

‘That’s different,’ Diane protested. ‘I was talking to a friend, you and I aren’t…’

‘You and I aren’t what?’ he challenged her.

Something very odd was happening, something totally unexpected. Something she needed to bring to a halt right here and now before it went any further.

‘You and I aren’t anything,’ Diane answered flatly, ‘and now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and mingle.’

She didn’t give him the opportunity to stop her, slipping away before he had time to respond.

‘Who’s the broad, Mancini?’

Myra flicked a deliberately snooty look at the airman who had asked the question. When Nick had announced within a couple of minutes of them meeting up that he had arranged to see ‘a couple of guys’ at a bar close to Lime Street Station, she hadn’t been too pleased but she had hidden her displeasure. However, whilst she might be keen to make a good impression on Nick, she certainly did not feel similarly inclined where his fellow American friend Tony was concerned.

The minute the other man had come swaggering into the bar, Myra had experienced a sharp sense of antipathy towards him, and she had sensed from the look he had given her that it was one that was returned. Now, with his back to her, he was talking about her as though she wasn’t there, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was still not one hundred per cent sure of Nick, she would have made it clear to both of them that Tony’s company was not something she wanted. Tony was short
and square, with sallow skin and a hooded, somehow reptilian stare that made her want to shiver.

‘She’s my new girl, aren’t you, babe?’ Nick answered, grinning at Myra as he put his arm round her and gave her a hug. ‘The other guys in the platoon understand when a guy has the hots for a girl and wants to get a bit of time with her, and they don’t mind covering for me,’ he told his friend.

‘The MPs are pretty keen,’ Tony commented.

‘They ain’t too bad if you know how to handle them,’ Nick responded with a wink, before removing his arm from Myra’s shoulder and telling her, ‘Why don’t you go and powder your nose or something, sugar, whilst Tony and I discuss a bit of business? We won’t be too long – just fifteen minutes or so – and then I’ll take you out for dinner.’

She was being told to make herself scarce, Myra recognised, and she could guess why. She wasn’t so dim that she hadn’t heard about some of the Americans supplying black marketeers with goods from the American bases’ PX stores. Personally, she didn’t give two hoots about Nick being involved with the black market. She had already noted the spivs clustered round the bar and had guessed that this must be one of their favoured meeting places.

There were two other girls in the small ladies’ room already, both peroxided blondes with over-made-up faces, one chewing gum whilst the other smoked a cigarette.

‘…And I told him straight that there was no way I were putting up with being treated like some cheap tart -’ one of them broke off from saying as Myra walked in. ‘Here on yer own, are yer, duck?’ she asked Myra in a decidedly unfriendly voice.

‘No. I’m here with my date,’ Myra answered her deliberately, letting her know what her own status was.

‘GI, is he?’ the other girl asked, drawing deeply on her cigarette.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you mek sure he treats you right,’ she warned Myra, suddenly becoming almost motherly. ‘They’ve got the money to give a girl a good time, and it does none of us any favours if you don’t mek sure they learn how to spend it. Too many girls are going out with GIs and letting them treat them cheap, if you ask me.’

‘How come he’s brought you down here, though? This ain’t an American bar,’ the gum-chewing one asked.

‘He was meeting a friend.’ Myra kept her answer deliberately vague.

‘Business friend, is he?’

‘Another American,’ Myra answered. She glanced discreetly at her watch. Fifteen minutes, Nick had said, and so far she had been here for just over five.

‘So how long ’ave you been datin’ this GI of yours, then?’ the gum chewer asked, whilst the smoker blew out a cloud of smoke.

‘Not long.’

‘Well, let me warn you that there’s them wot will have it in for you for walking out with him. Found that out yet, ’ave yer? Stuck-up bitches,’ she continued without waiting for Myra to reply. ‘Give me a GI over one of our own lads any day of the week. Mind you, you’ve got ter watch out for some of them. I heard of a girl last week wot got herself knocked up by one of them. Swore blind to her that he was going to marry her and tek her home with him, but then when she tells him she’s having his kid he didn’t want to know. Daft bugger,’ she said scornfully. ‘All she knew about him was that his name was Joe.’

Fourteen minutes…Myra started to head for the door.

She exhaled in relief as she looked across the bar and saw that Nick was on his own.

‘Want another drink?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘Is Tony from the Bronx, like you?’ she asked him curiously. Immediately she knew that she had said the wrong thing.

Nick stiffened and put down his drink. ‘What do you want to know that for?’ he demanded sharply.

‘No reason. I just noticed that he speaks like you do,’ Myra told him truthfully.

‘Tony doesn’t like people asking questions about him, and if I was you I’d forget about ever seeing him.’ Nick looked at his watch, and Myra reflected again that it looked expensive. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back to the base.’

‘But you said you would take me out for dinner,’ she protested.

‘Aw, come on, babe. You don’t want me to get into trouble for getting back late, do you? Look, I’ll make it up to you. How would you like a trip to London?’

‘London?’ Myra stared at him. ‘I’d love it,’ she said truthfully, ‘but we won’t be able to get train tickets.’

‘Sure we will. Leave it all up to me.’ He put his arm around her and squeezed her. ‘We could take in a few sights, have some fun together, and now that you’re my girl…’ He paused meaningfully.

Myra looked at him, weighing up her alternatives. She couldn’t keep him dangling for much longer, without risking losing him and she didn’t want to do that. And, after all, he had publicly acknowledged her as his girl to a fellow American. But even so…

‘Saying I’m your girl’s one thing,’ she told him firmly. ‘Proving it’s another.’

‘Meaning what?’ Nick challenged her, his good humour fading.

‘The best way to show that you’re serious about a girl is to give her a ring,’ Myra informed him, adding pointedly, ‘especially if you’re thinking of taking her away to a hotel.’ She wasn’t going to let herself think about that other ring she ought to be wearing and she certainly wasn’t going to think about the man who had given it to her. She and Jim should never have got married, and Myra, with the mental facility for letting herself see and
know only what she wanted to see and know, had convinced herself that they were as good as divorced already. Jim, who had gone back to North Africa now, would come round to her way of thinking. After all, he always had done in the past, hadn’t he?

Ruthie’s back was aching, from bending over her bench filling shells with liquid TNT, which had to be carried from the large mixer that contained the hot TNT, back to the bench in a container shaped something like a watering can. But the pain in her back wasn’t anything like so bad as the pain in her heart.

It was Wednesday now, four whole days since Glen had walked away from her, leaving her standing in the middle of the Close. Not that she could blame him for what he had done. Seeing her mother like that must have shocked him. Ruthie could feel her eyes filming with tears but she dared not lift her hand to her face to wipe them away because of the risk of getting the TNT in them. Normally she quite enjoyed her work, despite the danger and the dreadful smell of the TNT, which filled the air and clung to everyone’s skin and clothes, but today the time just seemed to drag.

Maureen who had borrowed her locker key again and had promised to return it had forgotten it, and as a consequence of that Ruthie had had to leave her going-home clothes tied up in a cloth bag hanging from a coat peg in the cloakroom. With theft rife in the factory, she was already
worrying about whether or not her things would be there at the end of her shift. Only yesterday one of the other women had complained that she had had to walk home barefoot twice in one week on account of having had her shoes stolen.

Some of the women had even been talking about setting up their own vigilante group to track down the thieves.

‘That’s daft talk, that is,’ Jess had pronounced earlier during their dinner break. ‘They’ll never find them.’

‘That friend of yours wants to be careful what she says about it being daft to look for them wot’s bin thieving,’ Maureen warned as she returned to the bench with a freshly filled can of TNT. ‘Otherwise folk might start thinking that she’s one of them.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ruthie protested.

‘That’s typical of you – allus sticking up for them new friends you’ve made. Wot’s up wi’ that Jess anyway? Got a face as long as a fiddle today, she has.’

‘I don’t know,’ Ruthie admitted, looking over to where Jess was working, her head bent as she filled the shell in front of her and then deftly inserted the tube that would contain the detonator, before shaking the shell to make sure the TNT was at the correct level, then going on to the next shell. Her movements were so practised and quick and Ruthie acknowledged to herself how much slower she was in comparison. She wondered what it was that was causing Jess to be so quiet and unlike her normally fun-loving self.

As she turned back to her work, out of the corner of her eye, Ruthie noticed one of the women further up the line stick her foot out into the aisle right in the path of another woman, who was returning to her own bench with a freshly filled can of TNT. Ruthie started to call out a warning but it was too late. The woman carrying the TNT tripped and was starting to fall.

The one who had caused her fall called out sharply, ‘’Ere, watch where you’re going, will yer?’ But there was no time for Ruthie to worry about what she had seen. Instead, along with all the other women working nearby, she rushed over to the woman who had fallen.

‘Get out the way,’ the foreman was yelling as he came rushing over, cursing and shouting instructions to the two men following him, whilst Ruthie stared in shocked horror at the woman who had slipped. Her face was covered in the TNT, turning it into a horrific mask, the strong metallic smell of the spilled liquid so strong that it was making them all cough and gag.

‘Get her on that trolley,’ the foreman was instructing the other men, ‘and look sharp about it. Shift out of the way, you lot,’ he told the other girls, as the two with the trolley took the woman down to the medical centre.

‘What will happen to her?’ Ruthie asked worriedly.

‘She’ll have to wait for the TNT to set and then they’ll take it off for her,’ Mel, who had left her own work and was peering over Ruthie’s shoulder, answered.

‘She’ll be dreadfully burned,’ Ruthie whispered, still in shock and unable to blot out her mental image of the woman sticking out her foot and deliberately trying to trip her up.

‘It won’t be too bad. She’ll have a red face for a few days, that’s all. And happen it will teach her not to go nicking other folks’ stuff in future,’ Mel added matter-of-factly.

‘There you are, Ruthie. That’s what happens to folk who go stealing,’ Maureen told her when they were both back at their benches, ‘and if you was to ask me then I’d say it serves her right,’ she added. ‘Life’s hard enough without having them as you’re working with nicking yer stuff.’

Ruthie couldn’t bring herself to say anything. No matter what the woman might have done, surely it wasn’t right that she should have been treated so cruelly?

‘Get on with yer,’ Maureen mocked her. ‘Just look at yer, wi’ yer hands all trembling and yer face whiter than that ruddy milk they mek us drink. Anyone’d think you were stealing yerself.’

‘Of course I’m not,’ Ruthie protested.

‘Then don’t go acting so guilty, otherwise folk’ll think that you’re ter blame next time summat goes missing,’ Maureen advised her sharply.

‘But how did they know it was her?’ Ruthie asked.

‘Found some stolen stuff in her locker was what I’d heard,’ Maureen replied with a small shrug.

‘Then surely they should have reported her and not—’

‘Lor’, but you’re a softy at times. What’s the point of doing that? This way she’s bin taught a lesson she won’t forget in a long time, an’ she’ll have to explain to folk how she come by that red face she’s going to have. Now give over trembling like that, will yer, otherwise you’ll be having hot TNT all over yer hands.’

Jess observed the incident of the woman being punished for her crime of stealing without any real interest. Her thoughts were fully occupied with a different kind of crime. The crime against common sense and self-protection committed by Billy.

How could he have done such a daft thing as volunteer for the bomb disposal lot – and he
had
volunteered, she had now found out, despite him making out to her that he had been forced into it. Everyone knew that the life expectancy of anyone stupid enough to join was measured in days rather than years.

Billy’s reckless lack of regard for his own safety was still filling her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else when she got home.

‘What’s up wi’ you?’ her uncle asked her good-naturedly. ‘You’ve bin in ten minutes and hardly said a word. Not that I’m complaining, like,’ he teased.

‘It’s that Billy Spencer,’ Jess told him angrily. ‘Going and joining up for the bomb disposal lot. He must be off his head. Just because he wants to play the hero for some girl. Well, he’ll be a dead hero, and what use will he be to her then?’ Jess’s
voice had risen sharply, and now she put down her knife and fork, her appetite for her tea swamped by her emotions. ‘What does he know about bombs?’ she asked.

‘Well, he was allus tinkering with stuff and taking it to bits when he was a kiddie,’ her mother offered. ‘Happen he’ll be better at it than you think.’

‘He’ll kill himself,’ Jess pronounced starkly, oblivious to the looks her mother and uncle were exchanging as her mouth started to tremble betrayingly.

‘If you feel that strongly about it, lass, happen you’d better go and have a word with him,’ her uncle suggested gently.

‘What for? He won’t listen to me, not when he’s got some girl mooning around after him, telling him what a hero he is. Well, I hope she likes her heroes dead because that’s what she’s going to get if he goes ahead with this.’

‘It may not be as bad as you think, Jess,’ her mother tried to comfort her.