Wish Me Luck (7 page)

Ruth’s hazel eyes clouded for a moment. ‘It is a bit. An RAF intelligence officer usually asks the questions and I write down their answers. But if it’s been a rough one and the crews are dog tired, sometimes their stories take a lot of unravelling. Still, it’s an interesting and – I think – worthwhile job. Though you’re right, it’s harrowing at times.’

Fearing she had touched on something sensitive, Fleur changed the subject swiftly. ‘So – how do I find this billet we’re sharing?’

Ruth’s expression lightened at once. ‘I’ll take you. I’m not on duty for a couple of hours or so when the first planes start coming back.’

‘There’s a raid on tonight then?’

‘Mmm. Not a very big one, just a gardening run …’ She grinned. ‘Mine-laying, you know, but we still have to go through the routine, of course. Come on. Let’s get your gear. We’re only a few yards down the road on the outskirts of the village. With a widow. She’s a nice old dear. Fusses a bit, but then I think she’s lonely. Her husband died a few years ago and all her chicks have left home. Oh, you’ll get the full family history within the space of ten minutes, believe me.’

As they walked out of the main gate and along the road, following the pencil-thin beam from Ruth’s torch, she chattered. ‘I’m from Lincoln. I live with me mam and dad and two sisters. They’re younger than me and keeping their fingers crossed that the war’s going to last long enough for them to join up.’ She pulled a face. ‘Selfish little devils – fancy anyone wishing such a thing!’ But Fleur heard Ruth’s soft chuckle through the darkness. The girl linked her arm through Fleur’s as she confided, ‘Mind you, it could be my fault. I’m always telling them what a great time we have and how we’re surrounded by all these handsome chaps.’ Then her voice faltered as she added sadly, ‘I can’t bring myself to tell them the truth, see. Of course, we do have fun, but … but it’s no fun, is it, when you wave all the bombers off at night and know what they’re going to face? And then, when they come back, counting them all. One by one. Only they’re never all there, are they? They never
all
come back, do they?’

Fleur shook her head. ‘Not very often.’

Ruth squeezed her arm and forced jollity back into her tone. ‘Hark at me, getting all serious. As if I need to tell you. You’ve worked on another operational bomber station, haven’t you?’

Fleur nodded. ‘Yes, down south, but I applied to remuster as an R/T operator and hoped I’d get a posting a bit nearer home and here I am.’

‘Me too. I was up north for a while straight after training and I’ve been very lucky to get a posting so near home. What about you? Did you manage it?’

‘What?’

‘To get a posting nearer home?’

‘Oh yes. I live at South Monkford. Do you know it?’

‘Near Newark, isn’t it? Well, you should be able to get home on leave easily enough. Even on a forty-eight-hour pass. You might have to hitch, but we’re really lucky. Some of the girls are hundreds of miles from home. Peggy’s from Newcastle. And Kay’s from London. They can really only get home about once every three months.’

At the mention of Kay, Fleur remembered what had been said at the table. ‘Has … has Kay got a boyfriend here then?’

‘Yes, she has,’ Ruth said with a snort that sounded very much like disapproval. ‘Silly mare!’

‘Why do you say that? Haven’t you got one?’

‘Me? Oh no. Fancy free, me. And I mean to stay that way.’ Again there was a sniff. ‘It doesn’t do.’

Alarmed, Fleur said, ‘What do you mean? Isn’t it allowed?’

‘Well, you have to be careful, but they can’t stop it, even if they’d like to. No, what I mean is, you’re stacking up a load of heartache for yourself if you let yourself get close to anyone.’

Fleur thought she detected a note of real pain in the girl’s tone and she was about to ask gently if she had lost someone close to her, but before she could form the words, Ruth said brightly, ‘Here we are. Rose Cottage. “Home, Sweet Home”.’

She pushed open the wooden gate and they crunched up the narrow cinder path.

‘Watch yourself. The garden’s so overgrown the long grass falls onto the path. When it’s wet, your ankles are soaking by the time you reach the door.’

In the wavering torchlight, Fleur caught glimpses of the neglected front garden. The grass looked so long it would need a scythe to cut it now, she mused. As if answering her unspoken question, Ruth said softly, ‘Poor old dear loves her garden. Her old man used to keep it immaculate, she says, but since he’s gone it’s got topside of her. She’s got a huge back garden with an orchard at the end of it. Used to grow veg and all sorts. But she’s got arthritis, see, and can’t cope with it. But she won’t move. Says she came to this cottage as a young bride and she’ll die here.’

Briefly, Ruth flashed the torch over the low, oblong shape of the cottage. ‘Typical “roses-round-the-door cottage” we all dream of, eh? But she really got it.’

‘Mm,’ Fleur murmured. ‘No wonder she doesn’t want to leave it.’ Even before she had met Mrs Jackson, she knew she was going to be a sweet old lady who’d lived a lifetime of love in her little cottage. Fleur had a sudden mental picture of a young bride being carried over the threshold to start a long and happy life with her groom in the idyllic little house. However, the image in her mind’s eye was not of the unknown Mrs Jackson but of herself and Robbie.

‘I’m surprised the authorities haven’t been on to her about her garden,’ Fleur said, dragging herself back to the present.’ ”Dig for Victory” and all that.’

‘I think they did try. Got some local boy scouts to come and dig the back garden, but they made a right pig’s ear of it.’ She giggled in the darkness. ‘There was even talk of them building her an Anderson shelter, but after a couple of spadefuls, they gave up, so she says.’

‘Not got a shelter and living so close to an airfield!’ Fleur was shocked. ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that.’

‘Come on, then,’ Ruth urged. ‘We’ll go round the back. Tell you the truth, the front door’s stuck and she can’t open it.’

They followed the narrow path round to the back, brushing through long wet grass so that by the time they arrived in the unevenly paved back yard their ankles were quite damp, just as Ruth had predicted. She shone the torch and nodded towards a brick building a few steps across the yard from the back door. ‘That’s the lav.’ She leant closer and whispered, ‘It’s a bit basic. No indoor facilities, but the old dear cooks like a dream.’ Ruth patted her stomach. ‘Makes up for a bit of discomfort in other areas. ‘Sides, she provides us with a potty under the bed so we don’t have to come tripping out into the back yard in the dark.’ Ruth giggled again as she added, ‘She calls it a “jerry”. I always imagine I’m piddling on Adolf’s head if I use it in the night.’

Fleur laughed softly. ‘Home from home, Ruth. It’s what I’m used to. We’ve no inside lav either.’

Ruth’s eyes widened. ‘But I thought you said you lived in South Monkford? It’s a town, isn’t it?’

‘A small one. But I live on a farm about five miles from the town itself. Right out in the wilds.’

‘You’re a country girl, then?’

‘Born and bred.’ Fleur moved carefully across the cobbled yard towards the rickety little gate leading into the back garden. As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she could see the shapes of trees silhouetted against the night sky. Ruth came to stand beside her and shone the torch and now Fleur could see that the whole area was as overgrown and choked with weeds as the front one.

‘There’s raspberry and gooseberry bushes and all sorts down the bottom there. The old dear said they even had a strawberry patch once. And you can see the fruit trees. There’s a lovely old apple tree with a little bench seat under it. It’s where her and her Arthur used to sit on a summer’s evening, she said.’

‘You know,’ Fleur suggested, ‘we could help her in our spare time.’

‘Hey, hang on a minute. I’m a city girl. Born and bred in Lincoln. That’s why I chose the WAAFs instead of the Land Army. You’re welcome to go grubbing about in Mother Earth but don’t ask me to join you.’ The words could have been tart and dismissive, but they were spoken with such a warm humour that Fleur laughed.

‘We’ll see,’ she teased, as Ruth grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the back door. As she pushed it open, it scraped and shuddered on the uneven floor.

‘Coo-ee, Mrs Jackson. You in?’ She turned and whispered. ‘She hardly ever goes out, ’cept to church on a Sunday and sometimes as far as the village shop, but her legs are getting that bad, poor old thing. She walks with a stick as it is, though she can move about the house without it. Come on in. Mind the blackout curtain. It’s a bit long and trails on the floor. It gets caught under the door if you don’t watch out.’

They moved through the back scullery, which housed a deep white sink and wooden draining board with shelves of pots and pans above. There was also a cooker to augment the range that Fleur knew would be in the kitchen. Ruth flung open the door into the kitchen-cum-living-room where an elderly lady was struggling to lever herself up out of her armchair in the far corner of the room beside the black-leaded range that Fleur had expected to see. A fire burned in the grate and a kettle stood on the hob. It really was just like home, Fleur thought.

‘Don’t get up, Mrs Jackson,’ Ruth was saying. ‘I’ve brought another lodger for you. This is Fleur Bosley. She’s just come to work in the watch office.’

The old lady sank back thankfully into her chair, but she beamed up at Fleur with such a wide smile that her rounded cheeks lifted her spectacles. She was a plump little woman, with her white hair pulled back and wound into a roll at the nape of her neck. She wore low-heeled lace-up shoes and lisle stockings, and her striped blouse and navy skirt were almost hidden by a paisley overall. Fleur smiled. It was identical to the one her mother wore. This woman could be Betsy in thirty years’ time, she thought, though she couldn’t imagine her mother welcoming complete strangers into her home the way this woman was doing. Her mother wouldn’t even make someone she knew welcome, Fleur thought wryly, thinking of the uncomfortable last few hours she had spent at home. It was a sad fact – and it hurt even to think it – but she’d been glad to get away.

Fleur quickly scanned the room, taking in the other armchair on the opposite side of the range and the table with its white lace runner and two chairs set against the wall. On a small table beside the old lady sat a wireless with a polished oak cabinet, silk front and black Bakelité controls. It seemed out of place in the old-fashioned cottage, yet Fleur knew that the wireless had become almost a necessity in the homes of those anxious for news of the war.

Fleur crossed the room to stand on the pegged hearthrug. ‘Hello, Mrs Jackson. I’m pleased to meet you.’

‘You’re very welcome, lass,’ the old lady said, her faded blue eyes smiling up at Fleur. ‘Mek yourself at home. Ruth’ll show you your room upstairs. I can’t get up there now.’

‘Mind your head,’ Ruth warned, as she led Fleur up the narrow staircase to the two attic bedrooms under the eaves. ‘There’s only us here. We have a room each. I’m in the bigger room with the double bed and you’ll be in here …’ she said, opening the door into a small room that only had space for a single iron bedstead, a wardrobe and narrow dressing table. But the bed was covered with a cheery patchwork quilt and there was a pegged rug beside the bed to step onto instead of the cold floor.

‘Do you mind?’ Ruth glanced back over her shoulder.

Fleur smiled reassuringly. ‘Course not. Don’t be daft. It’s fine. It’s not much smaller than the one I have at home. Honest.’

‘The old dear sleeps downstairs in her front parlour now. Bless ’er. I’ll show you when we go down.’

As Ruth helped her unpack her belongings, hanging her clothes in the narrow wardrobe with a creaking door, she pulled a face and said, ‘At least staying here we don’t get those dreadful kit inspections every morning. Mind you, I’ll warn you now. Ma’am has eyes like a hawk so it pays to keep your uniform spick and span. And she has been known to make an unannounced inspection of our billet now and again.’

‘Is she very strict?’

Ruth turned surprised eyes towards her. ‘Who? Mrs Jackson? Heavens, no!’

‘I didn’t mean her.’ Fleur laughed. ‘I meant the WAAF CO. I mean, are we allowed to meet the RAF lads?’

Ruth stared at her for a moment. ‘Well, of course we meet them at work. And there’s the dances on camp, usually in the men’s NAAFI or sometimes in the sergeants’ mess. Then there’s the Liberty Bus on a Saturday night.’

‘What on earth is the “Liberty Bus”?’

Ruth grinned. ‘A bus laid on to take us into Lincoln. To dances or the pictures.’

She was silent a moment, watching Fleur sort out her underwear and put it away in one of the drawers in the dressing table. Then Ruth said quietly, ‘Why all the questions? Do you know someone on camp? Someone – special?’

Fleur felt the blush creep up her face and knew she couldn’t hide the truth. ‘Well, sort of. I’ve only just met him. We bumped into each other – literally – on Nottingham station. He’s just been posted here an’ all. That’s how we met.’

‘Oh, Fleur!’ Ruth flopped down onto the bed. The springs protested loudly, but neither of the girls noticed. ‘Don’t get involved with someone – with anyone. Not if he’s a flier. He is, I take it?’

Fleur nodded. ‘He’s a wireless operator on bombers.’