Whistling in the Dark (5 page)

“Joan! How lovely to see you! How are your mother and the rest of the family?”

“We’re OK, thanks.”

“I’m dying to hear all the news. I hardly seem to get time for anything now that I’m driving this lorry for the WVS. They keep one at it till all hours! But won’t you have something to eat before the cinema?”

“No, thank you,” said Joan. She would have loved to have said, “Yes, please,” because she was very hungry, but in this era of food rationing, it wasn’t polite to accept food. Mrs Russell picked up a plate of biscuits from the coffee table.

“Do have one of these at least. We’ve just had a food parcel from America – a lucky windfall!”

“They’re delicious!” added Doreen, munching greedily.

Joan relaxed and took one.

Mrs Russell was not at all like the mothers of her other school friends. Most of them were kind enough, but tended to be wearily overburdened by war work and food rationing. They huddled in shapeless cardigans and tied their hair up in headscarves. Mrs Russell’s hair was short, ruffled and untidy, but it was the same lovely honey colour as Doreen’s. She was wearing slacks and an old open-neck shirt which she managed to make look like something out of a sportswear ad in
Vogue
magazine. One of the nicest things about her, though, was that she always seemed to have time to chat.

“I expect you and your mother will be going to this charity dinner dance at the golf club?” she said. “I’m on the organizing committee, worse luck. Captain Harper Jones roped me into it. I can’t think why. I only hope the air-raid siren doesn’t start up as soon as we’ve got things going.”

Doreen pulled a face. “Do we
have
to go? It is likely to be pretty awful. He’ll have no idea how to get hold of a proper band. It’ll be all old married people doing waltzes and foxtrots.”

“Oh, he’s not such a bad fellow,” said her father. “I work with him quite a lot at the docks and he’s very efficient. Anything he organizes is bound to go like clockwork, I should think.”

“Well, I’ll only come if you’ll promise not to dance with him, Mummy. He looks so silly when he’s trying to smooch around on the dance floor, sticking out his fat behind.”

Joan said nothing. She quickly glanced at David, but he had carefully detached himself from the conversation by returning to his newspaper. She was hot with embarrassment at the thought of her own mum dancing in public with Captain Harper Jones. Even worse was the thought of David being there to witness it. Happily, Mr Russell changed the subject.

“Doreen tells me how good you are at art, Joan,” he said. “How I envy you. If there’s one thing I wish I could do more than any other, it’s being able to draw.”

“Her homework exercise books are full of amazing drawings all over the margins,” said Doreen. “They are absolutely wizard!”

“Is there any particular painter you admire?” Mr Russell asked.

“Well, Mum and I used to go to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool before the war started…” Joan trailed off, shy but pleased by the compliments.

“What a shame that it’s no longer possible to go and see the paintings. But I’ve got a whole collection of art books here that you’re welcome to borrow any time. Lots of stuff on the Impressionists and more modern painters too, if you’re interested. Have a look next time you come to see us.”

“Thanks. I’d really like to!”

“Hey – we’ve got to go!” said Doreen, jumping up. “We’ll miss the Pathé news and the trailer before the main feature if we don’t hurry.”

CHAPTER 7

T
he Queensway Cinema was near the promenade – a draughty one-storey building lurking behind a shabby Art Deco façade. There was no smartly uniformed commissionaire standing outside to marshal the queue as there was at the big Odeon cinema in Liverpool; just a placard outside telling you what was showing and the prices of seats, which was difficult to read in the blackout. The lady who sold the tickets sat inside in her glass-fronted box office wearing a scarf and overcoat. A few servicemen from the nearby Royal Air Force station and their girlfriends were drifting in, and a gaggle of sixth formers from the secondary school. Most of the older crowd, like Audrey and Dai, were at the local hop down at the church hall.

A bored girl in an usherette uniform shone her torch to guide Joan and Doreen into their seats somewhere in the middle of the auditorium. The back rows were unofficially reserved for couples. They had double seats – “cosies” – with the arms between them removed to facilitate the complicated manoeuvre of cuddling up to somebody when the lights were low. Before the lights were lowered, it was possible for the rest of the audience to have an up-to-the-minute take on who was dating who. As soon as they were seated, Doreen miraculously produced a packet of crisps (another windfall from the American food parcel) and the two friends munched happily as they settled down to the show.

First there were the ads, which Joan found a bit dull. Shakily projected onto an elaborately draped curtain that masked the screen, they were mostly for local shops and cafes:

“Beat the Blitz at Handley’s Hardware Store! High-quality ironmongery at pre-war prices. Blackout shades always in stock.”

“Knit for victory! Wool, fancy goods and haberdashery. Unbeatable quality at Madame Beazley’s!”

“Jack’s Bicycle Shop! Repairs, and bikes for sale and hire.”

“The OK Cafe, two doors down from this cinema. Open till seven p.m.”

After the ads, the curtains parted and the Pathé newsreel began. Accompanied by a relentlessly optimistic commentary, it showed pictures of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth inspecting bomb damage in the East End of London, followed by cheerful British troops on the march, then women hard at work in munitions factories and something about the Italian invasion of Greece. Finally, there was a clip from a stirring speech given in Washington by the President of the United States, the recently re-elected and hugely popular Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The trailer for next week’s film followed. It was
The Philadelphia Story
, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

“I’m definitely coming to see this,” whispered Doreen. “Cary’s just
so
glamorous.”

“Jimmy Stewart’s in it too,” said Joan. “I think I like him better!”

At last the main film started. But they were not long into it, with Betty Grable dancing and singing her way through the first big number, when they heard the heart-sinking wail of the air-raid siren outside.

“Oh, Lord!” said Joan. “I’ve never known a raid start as early as this. It’s only been dark for about an hour. My mum’ll be going off the deep end.”

The film stopped abruptly, the house lights went up, and the cinema manager stood in front of the screen and told everyone to keep calm, advising them to stay under cover until the all clear sounded. The show would be resumed shortly.

“My parents will have gone out by now,” said Doreen. “They were going over to see some friends – walking, of course. Daddy never uses the car except for his war work. He says it’s unpatriotic, so I expect they’ll have to stay under cover like us.”

Betty Grable soon reappeared on the screen and the audience settled down, uneasily. Everyone was listening out for any kind of noise. For quite a while there was silence outside − an unusual stillness. Then they heard it, quite clearly above the film soundtrack: the throb of aircraft engines, far away at first, but getting steadily louder.

“Heading for Liverpool…” muttered the man in the row behind them.

Joan couldn’t concentrate on the film. Her ears, like everyone else’s, were straining to catch the sound of those engines getting nearer: German Focke-Wulf bombers on their way to drop their nightly barrage of high explosives to pound the Liverpool docks.

Joan glanced fearfully up at the ceiling of the cinema. It did not look particularly solid to her. There was a kind of ramshackle glass skylight in the middle, with makeshift blinds, that looked as though it might give way at the slightest impact, let alone a direct hit. She could not help wondering if the cinema manager’s instruction to stay under cover was such good advice after all. Those German aircraft would not be aiming at their suburban area, she knew that, but, flying at night, they had been known to make mistakes.

The raid lasted about three and a half hours, by which time they had seen both
Down Argentine Way
and the newsreel played twice. Every so often the electricity went off, and they were plunged into darkness. It was terrifying when this happened, and Joan was so relieved when the picture reappeared on the screen, somewhat jerkily. Nobody in the audience panicked – one girl in the back row was crying and clinging to her boyfriend, but most people remained grimly silent. They all knew that to make for the exits at this point would be more dangerous than sitting tight. The air was dense with cigarette smoke.

They could hear the distant sickening crunch and thud of explosions over Liverpool and the accompanying cracks of anti-aircraft gunfire. Once or twice the ceiling shook badly, and flakes of plaster floated down like grubby snowflakes onto their heads.

Doreen was amazingly brave. Every time there was a particularly frightening noise, her hand tightened on Joan’s arm, but she kept looking resolutely at the screen. Joan did likewise, determined to match her courage.

When at last the all clear sounded, the whole audience scrambled to their feet, struggling into their overcoats as they crowded towards the exits. Joan and Doreen were caught up in the rush. Outside, they joined other strangers in shaking hands and wishing one another good luck and a safe journey home. It was a starless night, but the sky over Liverpool was blazing orange and fiery red.

“The fire and ambulance services’ll be busy over there tonight,” said one man. His wife only shivered.

Neither Joan nor Doreen had remembered to bring their little electric torches. They set off silently, arm in arm, into the blacked-out street. It was not yet nine o’clock, but they were so tired they could hardly walk. A hurrying figure loomed out of the darkness ahead of them and a powerful flashlight was shone into their faces. It was David.

“Doreen! Joan! Are you OK? Everybody was out except me, so I thought I’d better come and meet you.”

Doreen threw her arms around him. “Oh, Dave! We were in there for
ages
. They showed the film over and over. We thought the roof was going to fall in on us all!”

“I’m not surprised. It’s probably held together with Sellotape.”

He took them both by the arm, and the three of them walked on together. When they reached the Russells’ house and David had seen Doreen safely inside, he turned to Joan and said, “It’s pretty late. I’d better take you home.”

“No, I’ll be all right, really.”

“Come on.”

They walked in silence. Normal chit-chat was out of the question at this point, and anyway Joan could not think of anything to say. The evening had been overwhelming. When they reached her front gate and she turned to thank him, they were interrupted by Mum’s frantic appearance on the doorstep.

“Joan! Is that you? Thank heavens! I’ve been worried stiff about you. Brian’s staying with a friend, and Audrey and Dai are at the dance, so I couldn’t leave Judy on her own in the middle of an air raid and—”

“It’s OK, Mum,” Joan said wearily. “We had to stay under cover until the all clear went, and then David came to meet us.” She was so glad to be home.

“Oh – it’s
David
! How kind of you to bring Joan home. Won’t you come in?”

“No, thanks, Mrs Armitage. I’d better be getting back.”

“Well, if you’re sure. Thank you so much.”

“Yes, thanks a lot,” Joan said.

She stood for a moment, watching the light of his torch bob away up the road, then walked slowly into the house.

CHAPTER 8

A
s the autumn wore on and the days grew shorter, a storm cloud loomed heavily on Joan’s horizon: the golf club dinner dance. The thought of having to get through a dinner with Mum and Captain Harper Jones, then sit there watching them dancing – perhaps even (heaven forbid!) cheek to cheek – was depressing. Worse, Doreen and her family, and maybe even David, would be there to witness it. But Joan’s efforts to get out of it were in vain. Excuses like having nothing to wear were briskly brushed aside by Mum.