When the Lights Come on Again (6 page)

Liz felt her cheeks grow pink under the careful appraisal. She was being sized up. She hoped she was making a good impression, but somehow she doubted it.

Coming out of work at the end of the afternoon, she had made it along Clyde Street, through Dixon Street and up into St Enoch Square before the fat raindrops bursting as they hit the pavements had marshalled themselves into the torrential summer rainstorm which had been threatening all afternoon.

She had thought about seeking the shelter of the huge Victorian railway station which occupied one complete side of the square, then decided against it. She’d be better off making a run for it. She’d no idea how long it might take to enrol and she didn’t want to risk getting in after her father came home at the end of his evening out.

So she crossed Argyle Street and made a mad dash up Buchanan Street, the skirts of her raincoat getting soaked, traffic in the road next to her more than once splashing water over her feet and ankles. A horse-drawn coal lorry passed her. She spared a thought for the beast, a solid Clydesdale getting ready for the extra pull as the road began the climb towards the eastern end of Sauchiehall Street. Wisps of steam were rising off the animal’s warm back as the raindrops struck him.

Liz herself was feeling unpleasantly warm on the inside, the rubberised material of her mackintosh sealing the heat of her exertions firmly in. The summer shirt-waister dress she wore beneath the raincoat was clinging to her. Since the morning had been hot and sunny, she hadn’t worn a hat today either. That meant that her dark brown hair had done what it always did in the wet - gone into a mass of unruly curls and waves. She could feel them, curling round her hot and sweaty temples. She must look like something the cat had dragged in.

‘I’m eighteen,’ she repeated, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the desk in her determination to put her case.

The elegant lady smiled - and instantly seemed much less fierce.

‘I’m afraid that’s my point, my dear. You see, the Red Cross doesn’t have a junior branch - not as yet, anyway - and there might be things our helpers would be called upon to do... well ... that we feel youngsters like yourself shouldn’t see.’

She was very refined, her cultured accent only just recognizable as belonging to the west of Scotland.

‘It’s very good indeed of you to come along to offer your services in the current crisis. Perhaps you’d like to leave your name and address and we can get in touch with you at a later date. If necessary.’

The smile was apologetic. It was also dismissive. Any minute now she was going to raise her beautifully modulated voice in a shout.
Next!
Liz lifted her head and looked about her. Surely she couldn’t be the only younger person interested in enrolling?

There was half a dozen registration tables set up around the hall. They didn’t have many customers as yet, potential volunteers presumably waiting for the rain to go off. The men and women waiting to receive them all looked ancient to Liz’s young eyes.

A small knot of people stood a few yards away. Looking at the clothes and listening to the accents, she mentally categorized them as Bright Young Things. She was unlikely to get much help there. Anyway, they all looked a bit older than her, in their early twenties perhaps. She caught the eye of a tall young man who glanced over with an expression of polite interest on his face. He smiled at her.

Hearing a discreet cough at her elbow, Liz turned. A pretty fair-haired girl stood there. Judging by the damp patches on the heavy woollen coat she wore, she too had only recently come in off the street. She took the few steps necessary to bring her to stand beside Liz. She was almost the same height as her, and about the same age.

‘I-I’d like to enrol too,’ she said. ‘I was w-wondering if you m-might be running classes in Clydebank?’

Liz turned to her enthusiastically.

‘I’m from Clydebank too.’

The girl, clearly nervous, gave her a little nod of acknowledgement. Both she and Liz turned to look anxiously at the woman behind the desk, who surveyed them for a moment or two before letting out a long, exasperated sigh.

‘My dear girls... you’re both very young—’

Liz’s patience snapped. ‘Would we be too young to be bombed? If the war does come?’

Her impassioned outburst fell into an uneasy silence. Every head in the echoing hall seemed to turn towards her, the other conversations going on grinding to an abrupt halt. The pale, shocked faces indicated that everyone present knew exactly what Liz was talking about. She obviously wasn’t the only person to have been struck by the newsreel pictures from Spain.

Support came from an unexpected quarter.

‘The young lady has a point.’

It was the tall young man who had smiled at her. He moved to stand behind the woman sitting at the desk, and Liz wondered if he was her son. While his accent wasn’t quite so refined as hers, he was very well-spoken, and their colouring was the same, his lanky frame topped with a thatch of hair the colour of a corn field. Assuming hers owes nothing to the peroxide bottle, thought Liz irreverently.

Young lady
, indeed! He could only be a year or two older than she was. What did her age matter, anyway? She was old enough to be out at work earning a living - which was probably more than this well-off chap had ever done. On the other hand, he did seem to be trying to help.

Liz felt a spurt of amusement. To think that she, a daughter of Red Clydeside, was considering using one of the Idle Rich as an ally in her plans to join the Red Cross! Eddie would be doubly horrified.

Mind you, what was that phrase he had used when he and Grandad had been arguing about the show trials in Russia? The end justifies the means? If this posh young gentleman could help her get enrolled, that was fine by her.

She gave her unexpected knight in shining armour a broad smile and received one as warm and friendly in response. He had nice eyes. They were a warm hazel, a striking contrast with his fair hair.

‘After all,’ he said, ‘if the worst does come to the worst, Clydebank’s going to be one of the places that—’He broke off, looked embarrassed, and started again. ‘The Red Cross could do with a lot of volunteers in Clydebank...’ His voice trailed away.

Liz knew exactiy what he had been about to say.
Clydebank’s going to be one of the places that’ll get it.
If war did come, the town on the banks of the Clyde, full of shipyards and factories, was going to be a prime target for enemy bombs. And all those yards and factories sat cheek by jowl with the packed three-and four-storey tenements which housed the people who worked in them.

Unexpectedly, somebody laughed. It was one of the Bright Young Things, a pencil-slim young woman with hair the same colour and length as Liz’s. Hers, however, was beautifully coiffed, curling smoothly under at the ends.

‘I thought you were all conchies down there,’ she observed, her voice an amused drawl. ‘Just waiting for the Germans to parachute down and help you start the revolution. Send all us lot to
Madame la Guillotine
. Isn’t that right, darling?’

Coming forward, she slipped her arm through that of the fair-haired young man. Her last comment had been addressed to him, and now she turned and looked up at him with an expectant smile.

Eddie would have said that the Bright Young Thing’s reading of modern politics was somewhat defective. She didn’t seem to know the difference between fascism and communism. All Liz knew was that the comments had made her blood boil.
How dare she?

It was true there was little appetite for war in Clydebank, its inhabitants still pinning their hopes on the League of Nations being able to find a peaceful solution to the continuing crisis. Damning her home town as being full of potential fifth columnists was, however, too much for Elizabeth MacMillan to take. Tossing her unruly head, she prepared to do battle.

‘Surely no sane person actually wants there to be a war?’ she asked haughtily.

‘And,’ she finished up, having made her points in her usual forthright manner, ‘personally I’m of the opinion that conscientious objectors deserve our respect. They stand up for their beliefs.’ She swallowed. Eddie might be going to be one of them.

Squashing that thought, Liz smiled sweetly at her adversary. ‘We’ve got some in Clydebank,’ she said. ‘You’ve probably even got them in Bearsden,’ she added, ‘or wherever it is that you live.’

‘Well, really!’ came an older female voice, the precursor to a chorus of disapproving murmurs. Liz couldn’t make out all the words, but she could guess what was really being said. The lower orders just don’t know their place any more.

Served them bloody well right. It was 1938, after all, not the dark ages. Then her momentary satisfaction at answering back evaporated.
That’s you cooked your goose, MacMillan. They’re never going to let you join now. Not after that performance. When are you ever going to learn to hold your tongue, you stupid bisom?

She’d forgotten about the girl standing beside her, who now began to speak. She seemed to be battling against shyness, traces of a nervous stammer in her voice. All the same, she managed to sound both persuasive and conciliatory.

Somehow smoothing over the awkwardness of the last exchange, she brought the discussion back to the point at issue. Wouldn’t it be useful to have people of all ages who knew what to do in an emergency? Especially somewhere like Clydebank - as the young gentleman had said, she added, flashing Liz’s champion a shy smile.

They could perhaps be enrolled for classes on a probationary basis. How about a trial period of three months? The crisis might even be over by then. Whether it was or not, the powers-that-be could then make a decision about keeping them on.

Liz could see that the woman was wavering, impressed by both the argument and the gentle maturity with which it had been put, not to mention the skilful pouring of oil on troubled waters.

‘Well, if you’re both sure ... if you’re happy to be enrolled on that basis ... there is going to be a class starting up in Clydebank. Let me take your details.’

Liz turned to her new friend and smiled.

Five

‘Are you a communist? You were that fierce in there.’

Both girls were standing in the lobby of the church hall, making preparations to brave the downpour. The force of the deluge had diminished, but a steady rain was continuing to fall on Buchanan Street.

Liz laughed at the question, and the way in which it had been put - a mixture of disapproval and reluctant admiration. Her voice was tinged with scorn as she answered.

‘Why is it that everyone thinks you’re a communist because you speak your mind and don’t let people like that walk all over you? No,’ she said irritably, pulling on her gloves and getting ready to put up her umbrella, ‘I’m not a communist.’ Preparations complete, she turned to the girl. ‘My brother Eddie is, though. He says it’s the way of the future.’

Her companion’s blue eyes grew wide.

‘But they do the Devil’s work!’

Liz snorted.

‘That’s just propaganda. Don’t tell me you believe everything you read in the capitalist press?’

The girl’s face fell. Realizing she was taking it out on the wrong person, Liz held out her hand.

‘I might have been fierce, but it was you who managed to get us enrolled. Thank you. I’m Elizabeth MacMillan - Liz.’

The other girl shook Liz’s hand with a firmness which belied her ethereal appearance.

‘Helen,’ she said, with a shy dip of the head. ‘Helen Gallagher.’

‘Oh!’

Cursing herself for the reaction she hadn’t managed to suppress, Liz felt the firm clasp on her hand relax. Helen took a step back, lifted her chin and gave Liz a wry smile.

It was her surname that had done it, marking her out immediately as coming from an Irish - and therefore Roman Catholic - family. It went along with the universal question: what school did you go to? Clydebank High provoked one response, Our Holy Redeemer’s quite another.