Time to Say Goodbye (33 page)

The driver, a man in his forties with sandy hair and a thin, knobbly face, grinned. ‘Well, you ain’t a Waaf or a Wren or an army lass,’ he said cheerfully, ‘because if you was, you’d be in uniform. So let me guess: you’re goin’ to sign on . . . or have you got a factory job in your eye? The pay’s mortal good . . . how old are you, sweet’ art?’

Warning bells sounded in Rita’s head. ‘Old enough to know it’s rude to ask a woman her age,’ she said coldly. ‘How old are
you
?’

The driver laughed; he had, Rita decided, a most unpleasant laugh, more like a neigh. He slowed his vehicle as they approached a crossroads, however, and turned towards her. ‘My age ain’t no secret,’ he said loftily. He stared at her as he drew his vehicle to a halt, then reached out a hand and pushed her headscarf back so that he could see her curly fair hair. ‘Let’s have a little guessing game,’ he suggested. ‘I’d guess you at, say, eighteen or nineteen; what would you put me at?’

Rita opened her mouth to say something placating but her tongue as usual let her down. ‘Oh, I’d put you at fifty or sixty,’ she said airily.

The driver had been looking quite pleasant, but now a flush stained his thin, acne-marked face, and he reached out and slapped her, not all that lightly, across the cheek nearest him. ‘You saucy mare,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘Get out of me cab! If an insult is all I get for helping you on your way . . .’

Rita was horrified. She reached out a hand and patted his arm. ‘I’m very, very sorry, and you’re quite right, I was rude and horrid,’ she said in a small voice. ‘And you’re right about my age too; I’m eighteen and a half. And now please take me the rest of the way into the city and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’

The driver pulled away from the crossing and smiled at her, clearly mollified. ‘Right you are, sweet’ art,’ he said jovially. ‘Let’s hear the tale, then!’

That first lift had taught her a thing or two, Rita concluded later as she waved goodbye to the driver and his lorry. She had boarded the lorry in full daylight and she made up her mind that she would not take any lifts offered once it began to get dark. Though the driver had behaved perfectly properly, she had seen an odd sort of gleam in his eyes a couple of times and got the definite feeling that a slapped face as reprimand for her rudeness might, in other circumstances, have been something far worse. She did not quite know what revenge the man might have taken, but she had a horrid feeling that it was the sort of revenge Auntie and Jill had warned them about in hushed tones.

So having waved the lorry driver off she began to ponder what she should do next, and his suggestion that she might join one of the forces was tempting. She would get paid, fed and clothed, and once she was in uniform she was highly unlikely to be spotted as a runaway.

As she had asked, she had been dropped off at the railway station, so her next move must be to ask the way to the recruiting office. But having discovered that it was only a short walk away she found herself hesitating. She had no objection to lying about her age but knew she would have to get rid of her plait because grown-up people rarely plaited their hair, and when she approached the recruiting office she began to waver. She had heard that recruiting was going down as the war progressed and conscription reached its peak. Suppose they turned her down, yet made a note of her details, just in case? She had no address she could give them, a sign of guilt in itself. She hung around for perhaps half an hour, then turned and headed for the marketplace. Whenever they visited the city they always made a beeline for it because you could buy all sorts of things there. Rita had removed the haversack whilst sitting in the lorry, but now she slipped both arms through the straps so that it rested quite comfortably in the small of her back, then dug her hands into the pocket of her coat and was both surprised and delighted to find a sixpence and three pennies which she had not known she possessed. She remembered going into Mrs Bailey’s shop a couple of days before and buying the only sweets the old lady had in stock: Fox’s Glacier Mints. She did not recall being given change, but she must have been.

Made bold by the feeling that she was affluent she reached the market and went straight to the first stall, which happened to be selling fish, and fish of course was not rationed, so the stall was quite busy. Rita pushed her way through the people waiting to be served and went behind the counter. Back there, the smell of the innards and entrails of fish which had been gutted and filleted for sale was almost overpowering, and she was tempted to cut and run, but the enormously fat woman in the blue and white striped apron turned and saw her and raised a thick grey eyebrow. ‘You’re the wrong side of the perishin’ stall, my woman,’ she said reprovingly. ‘You’ve got to take your turn, like all them others, and Friday’s fish day if you’re a Catholic so we’re rare busy.’

Rita looked up into a round, red-cheeked face and saw a pair of very shrewd boot-button eyes looking down at her. All the way to the market she had been concocting a variety of dramatic stories to account for her desire to work – a sick mother, an ailing sister, a teacher who had asked her to do her shopping and given her money which had been stolen from her as she made her way towards the market – but under those sharp and knowing little eyes, truth won the day.

‘I want a job,’ she said bluntly. ‘Any chance of you needing some help? I’m a hard worker, honest to God I am.’ All the while she had been talking the fat woman had been gutting a large fish which she proceeded to fillet and then to throw on the scales.

‘Four fillets come to five and eleven; we’ll call it five and six,’ she told her customer. ‘That’s one each for you, your hubby and them fellers what’s boardin’ with you. Awright?’

The customer groaned, but comically. ‘Fust time I heared cod fillets was wuth more’n gold,’ she said resignedly, fishing two half-crowns and a sixpence out of her shabby little purse, whilst the fat woman, taking the money and throwing it into a drawer under the counter, raised those bushy eyebrows at Rita.

‘Well, gal? Can you skin a skate? It’s hard on the fingers but I can show you the best way to do it.’ She looked at the increasing crowd awaiting her attention. ‘Come to that I could do with someone else to wrap the goods and take the money. I’d pay you three bob an hour . . .’ she chuckled hoarsely, ‘and all the fish heads you can eat. Are you on?’

Rita longed to say that desperate though she was, she was not that desperate, but common sense for once prevailed. ‘I’m on,’ she said briefly, and took the enormous skate which was held out to her. She looked hopefully into the woman’s sharp little eyes. ‘Show me how to skin it,’ she suggested. She moved her fingers on the surface of the fish and dropped it back on the counter with a squeak. ‘It’s – it’s like sandpaper!’ she exclaimed. ‘Where do I start?’

The woman laughed, picked up an oddly shaped knife and skinned the fish in seconds, shaking her head at Rita. ‘Don’t you a-worrit yourself, my woman; I were teasin’ when I suggested you might learn to skin,’ she said. ‘Just you put ’em on the scales when the customers say what they want, tell me the weight and I’ll price ’em. You can take the money, but don’t pick the fish up without you put a piece of newspaper around ’em first, ’cos folk don’t like their money smellin’ of fish . . .’ she winked at Rita, ‘even though my fish is fresh as a daisy and only smell of the sea. Now no more chattin’, ’cos I want to sell every fish on this stall before the day’s out.’

And by the time the day was out every fish had been sold and Rita had learned the art of filleting and had grown almost used to the smell of fish. She was glad the fat woman had had no crabs and lobsters, but decided that her labour had been worth it when she trotted back from the standpipe with a bucket full of water, and was paid generously for her work.

She beamed at Mrs Boston, who said she had done well but added that the money included a task which she had not yet done: that of washing down the stall and its surroundings, for the market authorities insisted that there should be no whiff of fish left to prove that the stall had not been properly cleaned. Rita sighed but tipped strong-smelling bleach from a big commercial bottle into the bucket, and then, at Mrs Boston’s command, picked up the stiffly bristled broom, tipped the bleach and water over the concrete and began to brush.

It wasn’t until she was thanking Mrs Boston and saying yes, if she was able, she would try to return the following Friday that she realised how very tired she was; obviously she would have to find somewhere to sleep. There was a pub quite close to the church which had a board outside offering bed and breakfast for a sum which would pretty well do away with her earnings; she could not see herself surviving on whatever was left until the following Friday. Yet she was clutching the very first money she had ever earned, and this made her reluctant to go far from the marketplace. There were other stalls selling other goods; if only she had not gone first to the fish stall she might have got herself a job selling vegetables or second-hand clothing; anything, in fact, which would be available on the market for six days of the week and not just one. As she brushed she put the point to Mrs Boston and was disappointed though not particularly surprised when that knowing woman shook her head. ‘What with rationing and that, the stalls are mainly run by the farmers themselves; they don’t employ no outside labour.’ She looked shrewdly at Rita. ‘I don’t meself, as a rule, but today my son Freddy what normally help on the stall have gone off with his old dad in the trawler, so you fell lucky. Tomorrer, Saturday, we stand King’s Lynn market and don’t come here again until next Friday, and then only if the men have a good catch.’

Rita finished scrubbing down and emptied the now filthy fishy water down a nearby drain, then returned to the stall. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Boston,’ she said politely. ‘I’d best be getting back to the bus station; I told you I lived in the country, didn’t I?’

‘You did,’ Mrs Boston admitted. ‘But I’d still like to know why a neat young woman like yourself want to work on a fish stall. Care to tell me?’

‘To earn some money,’ Rita said promptly. ‘I thought I would like to join the WAAF, but . . .’

Mrs Boston nodded sagely. ‘But they ain’t recruitin’ right now. I heared it from several gals, but mostly they goes in for the factories. We’ve plenty of them around them here. Pay’s good, and provided you don’t do munitions working conditions is good, too.’

Rita was beginning to reply when she glanced up at the clock tower which loomed over the marketplace. ‘Oh, dear, it’s past six o’clock. I don’t imagine anyone will be employing staff now until tomorrow,’ she said. ‘But thanks for your advice, Mrs Boston; I’ll catch the early bus into the city in the morning and see what factory jobs are available. And if I can’t find one, I’ll maybe see you again in a week’s time.’

The day was still warm, but clearly Mrs Boston was a creature of habit. She took off her striped overall, which by now was extremely fishy, and tucked it into an American oilcloth bag which had been hanging up behind the stall. Then she donned an old black serge coat which had seen better days and plonked on her head a felt hat with violets round the brim. ‘I’m headin’ for the bus station meself,’ she announced, and they set off together, Rita thinking whilst Mrs Boston talked. She was not going to be able to join one of the services if they were no longer recruiting, but when Mrs Boston returned to the subject of the factories, and the way they employed young people who wanted to earn good money, Rita realised this must mean that smaller establishments whose proprietors could not pay high wages would be in need of staff. If this was indeed so, then provided she could find somewhere cheap to spend the night she could start job-hunting again first thing in the morning, and the best place she knew for a vagrant needing a free bed was a farmer’s barn. She tried to forget that she had promised herself she would not remain in the city a moment longer than she needed because this was where Auntie and the others would look for her first. They all knew that she had no money with her – or almost none – and would guess she must find paid employment or give up her daring escape and crawl back to the Canary and Linnet with her tail between her legs.

August evenings are short, however, and Rita also remembered her vow not to take lifts from anyone at dusk, but a bus was not like thumbing a lift and she could pay her way as far as the bus fare was concerned. By now they had reached Surrey Street, and even as they did so the nearest double-decker began to draw out. Rita shouted a goodbye over her shoulder to Mrs Boston; then, without checking the destination board, she leapt for the platform, climbed the stairs and settled herself in the front seat, slipping the haversack off her shoulders. She had no idea how long it would be before the bus left the suburbs and gained open countryside, but paid the conductress a shilling, deciding she would just abandon the bus when she saw agricultural buildings near the road. Satisfied with her plan, she sat watching the passing scene. The bus stopped several times and began to fill up, and presently Rita had to move over a little when a tall man in a flat cap, an open-necked shirt and corduroys came and sat beside her. ‘You’ll ha’ to move that bloody great bag, pretty miss, else my feet’ll stick out into the aisle,’ he said. ‘Where are you a-goin’? If you’re gettin’ off first we could mebbe swap seats, save a lot of fiddlin’ around when we reach my stop.’

Rita looked at him with disfavour. He had a boil on the back of his neck, badly cut hair poking from beneath the ancient cap and a great many spots and blackheads; and his small, light-coloured eyes were sly. An unsavoury character, she thought, trying to move nearer the window, for at present their thighs were positively rubbing against one another. But he was looking at her enquiringly, and she realised he was still waiting to hear at which stop she would alight.

Putting on her coldest voice, Rita told him that she would be getting off quite soon but refused to change places. ‘I can get past you easily,’ she informed him, and turned her shoulder, pressing her nose against the glass and hoping that suitable country for her purpose would soon arrive.