The Grafton Girls (5 page)

There was a small pause – the kind Diane was familiar with – during which one mentally paid silent respect to those comrades lost, and then Susan rallied, saying determinedly, ‘That’s enough about me. What about you?’

‘Oh, there’s nothing to tell. I’m single and fancy-free, and that’s the way I intend to stay,’ Diane told her lightly. And meant it.

Myra took a slip of her drink and then leaned back in her seat, pretending to be absorbed in studying her fingernails.

‘Aw, come on, doll, I brought you the nylons, didn’t I, and there’s plenty more where they came from. You play ball with me and I’ll play ball with you, right?’

Myra took her time about lifting her gaze from her nails to the face of the young American seated opposite her. ‘Wrong,’ she told him, then stood up. They had gone to the matinée, which Myra had sulked through when her date had tried to get fresh with her, and in an effort to ‘make it up to her’ he had suggested they go on to Lyons’ Corner House for something to eat.

A brisk assessing glance round the chandelier-lit room had quickly informed Myra that there were some far better options open to her than remaining with her dull date.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ he demanded when she started to walk past him.

‘To the ladies’ room, and then back to my billet. I’m on duty in an hour.’ She had to raise her voice to make herself heard above the orchestra. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that a slightly swarthy-complexioned, very handsome GI, who looked both older and more experienced than her present companion, was leaning against the opposite wall, lazily surveying the room and its female occupants. He was, Myra saw, staring straight at her, very meaningfully, making it obvious that he was attracted to her. Not that she was surprised by that. Myra was used to her stunningly voluptuous figure and her dark lush beauty attracting male attention. Men’s desire for her normally left her cold. She was not a highly sexed or even a moderately sensual woman. Her childhood had left her with a deep-seated need to be in control within a relationship, rather than be controlled by it. Knowing that a man who had something she wanted desired her gave her a feeling of power. She was bored with the raw young GI seated opposite her. She noted the silver cigarette case the man watching her was using, and his expensive wristwatch. He was American; he had money; he wanted her and he had the confidence to let her know it.

‘You can’t just walk out on me like that,’ her companion was objecting loudly.

‘No? Watch me,’ Myra told him.

Angrily he made a grab for her, banging into their white-clothed table as he did so, sending some of the cutlery flying.

‘Let go of me,’ Myra hissed. She hadn’t been prepared for this. Bloody Yank. Was he really stupid enough to think that a girl like her would drop her drawers for a box of stockings?

‘Having trouble, ma’am?’

The other GI had levered himself away from the wall and was now standing in front of them.

‘Your countryman doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the words “get lost”,’ Myra complained. Her date had released her wrist but she made a play of rubbing it as though it was hurting her a good deal more than it actually was.

‘I gave her a whole box of nylons,’ he was complaining loudly to the newcomer, ‘and now she’s making like she doesn’t want to know!’

‘Like the lady just said, pal – get lost. Unless of course you want I should call in the MPs.’

Cursing under his breath, her date flung some money down on the table and then took himself off.

‘Thanks for rescuing me.’ Myra batted her eyelashes and gave him a limpid-eyed look.

‘My pleasure.’ Now he was close up she could see that there was a hardness about this GI, an echo of something she instinctively recognised without having to put a name to it. And he wanted
her. She could see that too. He wanted her and if she played her cards right he might be the man who could provide her with what
she
wanted. What a fool she had been to tie herself up to Jim, who could never make her dreams come true, but then she hadn’t known that men like this one would be coming into her life. Men who could give her the life she longed for in the country where she longed to live. America. Just thinking the word was enough to make her heart thud with longing and excitement. She gave the young nippy who was inexpertly clearing the table and who had bumped into her a scalding look. Catch her waitressing, Myra thought contemptuously. At least when you were in a services uniform you got a bit of respect.

‘Pity you’re going on duty. Otherwise I’d have asked you out to dinner,’ her new acquaintance was saying.

Myra gave a him a slow smile. Did he think she was going to fall over herself with gratitude and drop everything to date him? His sort enjoyed the chase, even if they didn’t normally have to do very much of it.

‘Oh, well, if you want to see me again, I’ll be going dancing at the Grafton this weekend,’ she told him airily.

Pity she wasn’t already wearing her new nylons, she thought regretfully as she sauntered slowly towards the exit, mimicking the slinky walk she had seen film stars like Vivien Leigh, Rita Hayworth and Greta Garbo using to such good effect. She had better make sure that that new billetee kept to her
promise to go dancing with her. Myra wasn’t very popular with the other girls, who tended not to include her in their off-duty outings. Not that she cared about that. But she could hardly turn up at the Grafton on her own. She’d wear that sateen halter-neck top that set off her creamy skin and dark hair. Jim had complained that it was cut too low, but so what, she would wear what she wanted now. With a last coy look over her shoulder, she walked out of the tearoom, eagerly anticipating Saturday night.

Ruthie was exhausted. She could feel her head dropping down towards her chest as she sat on the bus. Her nostrils were still full of the now familiar distinctive metallic smell of TNT from the munitions factory. It seemed to cling to her like an invisible extra layer of skin, even though she had changed her clothes. She had found everything so frightening and overwhelming. All the more so when she had discovered she had been posted to work in one of the most dangerous areas of the factory, where shells were filled with liquid TNT. The workers had been given a brisk no-nonsense lecture about the rules and the danger of breaking them. Ruthie had learned that the danger areas were known as ‘cleanways’ and were subject to strict regulations. She had also learned that everyone working in the TNT sheds was served with a glass of milk and a bun shortly after starting their shift, because the milk put a lining on their stomach that prevented it from being damaged from TNT fumes. Nothing metallic of any
kind was allowed anywhere within the cleanways because it could cause the TNT to explode if it came into contact with it, and this included such things as hairpins and even metal rings on shoe lace eyelets. For this reason those girls working in cleanway areas were provided with special leather shoes.

The day had seemed to go on for ever, filled with confusing instructions and experiences. Ruthie had been set to work on a production line filling shells. Initially she had been told to watch the other girls working, and the speed with which they filled the shells had dizzied her. She had felt almost sick with fear at the thought of trying to copy them, knowing that she would be all fingers and thumbs and terrified of arousing the foreman’s ire.

When eventually one of the girls had told her comfortingly, ‘Don’t worry you’ll soon get the hang of it,’ she hadn’t recognised Jess at first, under her overalls and with her red hair concealed by the protective cap she was wearing.

‘Who was that you was talking to?’ Maureen had demanded to know when they had finally been told to stop work for their dinner break.

‘She was on the bus this morning,’ Ruthie had answered her.

‘Well, just remember that you’re my friend, not her’s,’ Maureen had told Ruthie sharply.

‘Jiggered, are yer, Ruthie?’ Jess asked Ruthie sympathetically as the bus made its way slowly along Edge Hill Road. ‘It gets everyone like that on their first day.’

Ruthie forced her eyes open, nodding her head.
‘I’ve been trying to memorise the rules they told us this morning,’ she said tiredly, repeating, ‘No jewellery of any kind but married women can wear their wedding rings so long as they are bandaged up, no hairpins or metal hair adornments, no cigarettes, matches or lighters, and nothing that could ignite or cause an explosion.’ She knew she ought to feel more scared about the work she would be doing, only she was far too tired.

‘Like milk, I hope, only yer going to be drinking a lot of it. I reckon if I’d knowed in time I could ’ave told them I can’t stomach milk. Then they would have put me somewhere else,’ Jess told her with a grin.

‘I don’t mind the milk,’ Ruthie admitted, ‘but I don’t know how you can pack the shells so quickly.’

Jess laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll soon get the hang of it. You wasn’t too bad at all – better than that girl you was chatting with over dinner. Bit of an odd sort, if you ask me. Know her well, do you?’

‘No. She was new today too. She said that we should pal up because we’d both started together on our own.’

‘You wasn’t on your own, you’re with us,’ Jess told Ruthie stoutly. ‘Look, we all go down the Grafton Ballroom on a Saturday night – why don’t you come along with us?’

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you but I couldn’t…’

‘Don’t be so daft. Of course you can. We meet up outside at about half-past six, then we can get in early and get a decent table. And we allus stick together so that none of them lads start
thinking they can get away with any funny business. Having a dance is all right, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Sez you,’ one of the other girls chipped in. ‘Like you wasn’t smooching wi’ that soldier the other week.’

‘What? Charlie?’ Jess tossed her curls. ‘I’ll have you know that him and me was at school together. Like a brother to me, he is. Gone off to serve abroad, he has now.’

Wide-eyed, Ruthie listened to the talk. She would have loved to have gone to the Grafton. She had never been to a dance hall, but it was impossible for her to go. How could she leave her mother? But she couldn’t tell anyone about her mother, of course. It would be disloyal.

Half an hour later, having got off the bus, Ruthie turned the corner from Edge Hill Road into Chestnut Close. She could see the slim figure of a young woman several yards in front of her. Sighing enviously over the smartness of her WAAF uniform, Ruthie realised that she must be one of Mrs Lawson’s billetees. Mrs Lawson had complained vociferously at first when she had learned that she was to have service personnel billeted on her, but Mrs Brown, Ruthie’s mother’s neighbour, had confided to them that Mrs Lawson was doing very nicely indeed out of her billetees.

‘It’s not just the money – they bring her all sorts of extras from the Naafi canteen, they do.’

Mary Brown was a bit of a gossip but she had a kind heart and Ruthie was grateful to her for
the way she tried to cheer up her mother. She was standing in her small front garden when Ruthie walked past, so Ruthie stopped to say hello to her.

‘How did it go, Ruthie love?’ Mrs Brown asked. ‘Only your mam got a bit upset at dinner, like, wondering where you was.’

‘Oh dear, I was worried that something like that would happen. I’ve bin explaining to her all week about all women between the ages of twenty and thirty being called up by the government to do war work, and that with me coming up for me twentieth birthday I needed to get meself a proper war work job so that I could stay at home with her, instead of being sent away to work somewhere or go into uniform, but I could tell last night, when I was talking to her about it again, that she didn’t really understand. I thought there’d be ructions. I’m really sorry that you’ve had to deal with it, Mrs Brown,’ she apologised guiltily.

‘There, Ruthie lass, there’s no need for you to go feeling bad about anything,’ Mrs Brown told her firmly. ‘You’ve bin a good daughter to your mam, and I’d have summat to say to anyone who tried to say different. Not that folks round here would do that. They can all see how hard you’ve had it with your mam since your dad died.’

Ruthie gave her neighbour a grateful look, but she couldn’t relax.

‘You didn’t…you didn’t say anything to Mum about me working on munitions, did you?’ she
asked hesitantly. ‘Only, with Dad dying in the way he did…’

Her neighbour’s vigorous shaking of her head stopped Ruthie continuing.

‘No, Ruthie, you needn’t worry about that. The minute your mam started fretting and asking why you hadn’t come back from getting in the rations, I did what you’d said and reminded her that you’d had to go to work because Mr Churchill had said so, but I didn’t say nothing about it being in munitions.’

‘Oh, thank you. Mum thinks such a lot of Mr Churchill that I was hoping that that would stop her from worrying,’ Ruthie admitted. ‘It’s difficult for her to understand the way things are.’

‘No, she’s not bin the same since she lost your dad. Took it hard, she has, and no mistake. I’ve done a bit of bubble and squeak for me own tea and there’s plenty left, if you fancy some. It will save you having to cook.’

Ruthie smiled her thanks. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed. She hadn’t realised how tired she was going to feel but she would have to get used to it, she told herself firmly.

‘You’re a good girl, Ruthie, like I just said, but you should be having a bit more fun, like other girls do, going out dancing and that,’ Mary Brown told her kindly.

‘I’ve been asked out dancing by some of the girls I’m working with,’ Ruthie told her quickly, not wanting her to feel sorry for her.

‘Well, I’m right pleased about that.’

‘I won’t be able to go, though,’ Ruthie felt bound to point out. ‘Mum wouldn’t understand and she’d fret.’

‘Well, I can go and sit in with her for you, don’t you worry about that. It will give us both a bit of company, what with my Joe going off and doing his ARP stuff.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that, Mrs Brown,’ Ruthie protested.

‘Who said you was? It’s me as is doing the offering, not you doing the asking. And don’t you go telling me that you don’t want to go. Of course you do – any young girl would. And if yer mam was in her right senses she’d be wanting you to go as well. There’s a war on, Ruthie, and you young ones have to have your fun whilst you can, that’s what I say. It’s different for us; we’ve had our lives, but you…’