Under the Apple Tree (18 page)

to Chris Barrett in the corridor? He surely hasn’t upset you,

has he?’

‘Is that his name?’ Judy said off-handedly. ‘I’ve never

bothered to ask. I don’t like him much.’

‘Don’t like him?’ Laura asked in astonishment. ‘Why, half

the girls in the building are head over heels about him. He’s

gorgeous!’

Judy shrugged. ‘He’s all right, I suppose. Thinks a bit too

much of himself, that’s all. Anyway, I’ve got more

important things to think about. My dad was taken into

hospital this morning - he’s had a really bad asthma attack.

I’ve got to find Polly and tell her what’s happened, and then

I’ve got a load of work to do.’

Laura looked concerned. ‘Oh Judy, that’s awful. I am

sorry. Look, Polly’s in the small office - you go and see her

first. And don’t take any notice of Chris, it’s just his way.

He’s a nice chap, and if he asked you for a date he meant it.

He wouldn’t fool about. I tell you what, he wouldn’t have to

ask me twice!’

Judy shrugged again. She found Polly and gave her a

brief account of what had happened at the hospital, then

went to her desk and started to deal with the pile of papers

that seemed to have appeared overnight. The Lady Mayoress

was there this morning, interviewing some new recruits

and Judy was in charge of sending them in. After a time,

Polly came over and asked if she could have a few minutes,

too.

‘Why, you’re not thinking of resigning, are you?’ Judy

looked at her aunt in alarm. She knew that seeing Sylvie

yesterday had upset her and she wondered if Polly was

thinking of going out to the country to be with her

daughter. ‘I suppose you could get a transfer,’ she added

doubtfully. ‘The WVS does a lot of work in country places

as well.’

Polly shook her head. ‘I’m not thinking of that. But

there’s a notice up about a driving course and I thought I’d

go in for it. It was seeing Gladys Shaw with that ambulance

last night - I’d like to do something like that, something

really active. I mean, I know helping at the Centres and

taking kiddies out to the country is valuable work too, and I

expect I could still do that as well. But I’d like to do

something more.’

She went in to see the Mayoress and asked if there was

any chance of her becoming a driver. ‘I don’t really mind

what I do, madam. I’ll do anything to help. But I did do a

bit of driving before the war - my hubby was a mechanic

and he used to get a car and take me out in the country

sometimes of a Sunday and give me a lesson round the lanes

- and I think I’d pick it up quite quick. And when I saw the

notice …’

‘Yes.’ The Lady Mayoress regarded her thoughtfully.

‘Yes, I think you could do well as a driver. You’d have to

learn to drive in the blackout as well, you know.’

‘Yes, I understand that. Not that it’s very dark when the

raids are on,’ Polly added, thinking of the red glow that had

lit Portsmouth during the night of the Blitz. But the

Mayoress shook her head.

‘Not just during raids. At other times too. You see, we

have a car pool and we get called upon to use it for all kinds

of things, at any time of the day or night. Last week, for

instance, one of our volunteers had to meet a visiting

Minister at the railway station and bring him here for a

meeting. Before the meeting was over she was asked to take

a bundle of clothes to the Clothing Depot at the warehouse

then on the way back she was flagged down by a man whose

wife was in labour and had to be taken urgently to St Mary’s

Hospital to have her baby. She still managed to get back in

time to return the Minister to the station - where she found

herself collecting a load of sandbags to go to the canteen in

Commercial Road! All that was during the day, of course,’

she added, ‘but she could equally well have been asked to do

similar journeys during the night, without lights to guide

her.’

‘I think I could do that,’ Polly said. ‘I know Portsmouth

like the back of my hand.’ She looked at the Mayoress. ‘I

want to do something that - that sort of asks a lot of me,’

she said quietly. ‘You see, I lost my hubby over a year ago his ship was one of the first to go down - and I feel I want to

make it up to him, somehow. I can’t explain it any better

than that, but I want something more difficult to do.’

The Mayoress looked at her steadily, then nodded her

head. ‘Yes, I understand completely, my dear. I’ll put you

down for the driving course, and I’m sure you’ll be a credit to us. And to your husband,’ she added. ‘I know that

wherever he is now, he’s proud of you.’

Polly went out of the room and stood for a moment taking

deep breaths and blinking away her tears. She was still there

when Judy emerged from the main office and looked at her

enquiringly.

‘Well? Did she say yes?’

Polly grinned a little shakily at first, then her smile

broadened. ‘Yes! She did. She’s putting me in straight away.

I’m going to learn to drive, Judy! I’m going to learn to drive

a car!’

Polly’s lessons began almost at once. Determined to learn

quickly, she begged to go out as often as possible and soon

passed the test and gained her licence. But before she was

allowed to join the WVS pool or drive an ambulance, she

had to master the art of driving in pitch darkness with only

two narrow slits of light to guide her.

‘Honestly, it’s like driving with a blindfold on!’ she

reported, coming home after her first lesson. ‘You don’t

know what you’re going to bump into! I was frightened to

go more than five miles an hour — the instructor said it

would be faster on a push-bike! It’s not so bad when there’s

something light-coloured to pick out, but some streets are so

black you could be out in the middle of the countryside for

all you know.’

‘Is that why all the trees along Copnor Road have got

white bands painted round their trunks?’ Cissie asked, and

Polly nodded.

‘People were forever driving into them before they did

that. Still, I’ll get used to it - and, as I said to Mrs Parker, there’s plenty of light to see by during the raids, what with

searchlights and fires and everything!’

Alice went out to the scullery and returned with a

steaming casserole. She’d managed to get some oxtail from

the butcher yesterday and it had been simmering all day

with vegetables from the garden. She’d skimmed off most of

the fat and put it aside for dripping, and it was a rich,

gleaming brown.

‘My, that looks good,’ Polly said, drawing up her chair.

‘I’ve been looking forward to this all day.’

Alice nodded. ‘It’s so tasty, oxtail - makes a lovely gravy.

I just wish Dick could have some, it would build him up.

Say what you like, hospital food doesn’t have the nourishment

you get at home.’

‘How is he today?’ Polly asked her sister. ‘You said he

was a bit better yesterday afternoon.’

Cissie lifted her shoulders a little. ‘Well, they had him out

of the oxygen tent then for a while, but he’s back in it again

today. He’s still poorly. They think the crisis will come any

time now.’ She laid down her fork and stared at the

tablecloth. ‘I wish they’d let me stop with him. I can’t bear

to think of him so ill, and me hot there. And - and when the

crisis comes — he could die. He could die, and me not

there

Polly and Judy gave each other a swift glance, remembering

their own shared grief, and the words of the song Dick

used to sing to Cissie. ‘Let me be there with you…’

Simultaneously, they reached across the table and laid their

hands on Cissie’s. Alice too laid a hand on her daughter’s

arm.

‘Dad’s not going to die, Mum,’ Judy said in a shaking

voice. ‘He’s not. By the time you go back tomorrow, he’ll

have passed the worst and be on the mend. I know he will. I

can feel it.’

‘I can too,’ Polly said. ‘We’ll have him back here before

you know it. All the same, it’s a shame you can’t stop with

him. He must want you there.’

‘Well, that’s the way hospitals are,’ Cissie said, wiping her

eyes. ‘They have their visiting hours and you’ve got to stick

to them. But I’ll be there on the dot tomorrow, you see if

I’m not.’

‘And I’ll go with you,’ Judy said. ‘I know they probably

won’t let me in to see him but you need someone with you,

Mum. Just—’ She bit her lip and stopped, but they all knew

she’d been going to add, ”Just in case’ They knew that

however strongly they hoped for Dick to get better, however

strongly they believed that he would, he really was

dangerously ill.

‘We’ll say our prayers for him tonight,’ Polly said soberly.

‘We all will.’

Once Polly had satisfied her instructor that she was

competent to drive at night as well as by day, she was

assigned a number of duties. Mostly she undertook these in

an old van that had been converted to act as an ambulance,

but could also transport various bulky items or people, but

sometimes she found herself driving one of the cars that had

been donated to the pool ‘for the duration’ as the expression

was. On these occasions she usually had a passenger of some

importance - the Lord Mayor himself, going to meet some

visiting dignitary at the railway station, or a high-ranking

official arriving from London. Once, she found herself

holding a baby while its mother, the wife of-, a Naval

Captain, struggled to get twin toddlers off the train. ‘It may

be the last chance for them to see their daddy for a long

time,’ she explained to Polly, lifting them down to the

platform. ‘There you are, darlings, now just stand still while

this nice lady helps us with all our bags. It’s just not possible to travel light with three little ones,’ she said, brushing her ash-blonde hair back from her forehead while she tried to

count the pieces of luggage strewn around them. ‘I don’t

know how I’d have managed if all these kind people hadn’t

been so helpful.’ She indicated the two blushing sailors and

a middle-aged man who had formed a chain to get the

suitcases and naval holdalls off the train and were now

apparently awaiting further orders. ‘But people always are,

don’t you find?’

Polly smiled and nodded, but she wondered privately if

the Captain’s wife would have been offered so much help if

she’d been elderly and rather less glamorous. Her pearl-grey

suit was probably at least three years old, yet the quality of

its cut and fabric ensured that it still looked smart, and the

stole draped carelessly round her shoulders looked like

ocelot. Her hair was styled with the latest rolled-up pleat at

the front, and her fingers glittered with diamonds. But her face was friendly and the smile she bestowed upon her helpers so dazzling that they almost reeled.

‘You’ve got a car.’ she said to Polly, as if she’d expected

to be guided to a truck. ‘Oh, how kind. If you wouldn’t

mind carrying Benjamin for a little bit longer … He’s been

most dreadfully spoilt on the train,’ she continued, wafting

down the platform in a cloud of scent. ‘Everyone wanted to

hold him. And the twins have been treated like princesses.

We couldn’t have had a nicer journey. Oh, just look at that!’

She stopped at the entrance to the station and gazed

rapturously across the harbour.

Polly followed her gaze. I suppose it does look quite

interesting, she thought, although having lived all her life

with this view on her doorstep she had never taken much

notice of it. Now she looked more attentively at the wide

expanse of shimmering water, its green, broken surface

speckled with white foam, and at the craft tossing about on

its waves. Tugs, Isle of Wight paddle-steamers, Gosport

ferry-boats, naval pinnaces and, towering over them all, the

ships of the Royal Navy, sleek and grey, anchored in the

middle of the harbour or tied to the dockyard jetties with

the Semaphore Tower and the masts of HMS Victory behind them.

‘It’s splendid,’ the Captain’s wife said. ‘Quite splendid.

You’re so lucky to live here. We’ve always been based at

Chatham, so we’ve made our home there, but I should just

love to live in Portsmouth. The harbour is so much a part of

the town, don’t you agree?’

By the time Polly dropped her at the hotel where she was

to spend a few days with her husband, she felt that she was

seeing her home town with new eyes. The Captain’s wife,

who seemed no older than Polly herself, was so interested,

so enthusiastic and so sympathetic over the raids they had

suffered that Polly felt as if they’d been friends for years.

She helped her into the hotel, and said goodbye with regret.

‘Now, you must come to see us,’ the Captain’s wife said,

pressing her hand. ‘Milly and Mandy have obviously taken

you to their hearts and I don’t think Benjamin would mind

at all if you took him home with you! I know your name,