Dancing in the Moonlight (42 page)

‘Desert rats are cunning and tough and vicious,’ Jacob had written in his last letter:

She slept with his letters under her pillow, taking them out of their envelopes at night when she couldn’t sleep and touching and kissing the words his hand had written.
They were a physical link, however tenuous, with him and, as such, infinitely precious.

By the time the summer was over and a wet and windy autumn had arrived, many areas of Sunderland had suffered considerable bomb damage and some famous landmarks had been blitzed. The Winter
Gardens, Daisy’s favourite place, had been badly damaged and Binns Store on the east side of Fawcett Street was reduced to a shell, along with others. Everywhere you looked, there was
devastation. The newspaper and radio reports declared that a jubilant Hitler was nearing the gates of Moscow, and General de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French, called for a national five-minute
strike in protest at the German occupation, which was carrying out scores of civilian executions daily. No one in England was unaware that what was happening in France could easily happen on
British soil, should the Germans invade, and the Channel seemed a very narrow barrier.

At the end of October, with Lucy’s blessing, Ruby answered the increasingly strident calls of the government for women to enter the hitherto male domains of industry, particularly the
shipyards. At the outbreak of the war such a thing would have been deemed unthinkable, but now, with the supply of men to the front becoming desperately urgent, it was a necessity. Frank and Ralph
had been called up at the end of the summer, much to Enid’s despair, and more men were leaving every day. Someone had to take their place and, in spite of old-timers like Aaron complaining
that the shipyards weren’t suitable places for the fairer sex, women were invading this sanctum of male labour.

Ruby took to the work with gusto. From sweeping up and generally making herself useful, she had progressed to trainee crane-driver within weeks. Furthermore, to Lucy’s surprise and
delight, her sister began walking out with a nice young man who’d been injured at Dunkirk and now worked in the yard office.

Lucy replaced Ruby in the shop with an elderly ex-fishmonger, who was more than seventy years old but as sprightly as a young lad and, as November passed, worked longer and longer hours to keep
the business ticking over.

The garrison in Tobruk was reported to have been relieved in November, after a siege of 242 days, fifty-five days longer than the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War. Rommel had been forced to
abandon his position and retreat, the radio broadcaster crowed, but when Jacob wrote to her, he wasn’t as elated as Lucy had expected:

But for now Jacob was safe. That was the main thing, Lucy thought, pressing his letter to her heart. He and his fellow soldiers must be exhausted. It seemed so strange that he
was far away in a hot country and she was here in the midst of an icy winter, with the snow a foot deep and winds cold enough to cut you in two. But she would be thankful for what she had. A day at
a time. It was the only way to get through the war. She had said the same to Enid, when she had visited Jacob’s mother a few days ago. Enid was a shadow of her former self, beset by remorse
and sorrow, but Frank’s and Ralph’s wives and their bairns were very good to her, calling round more or less every day and spending hours with her until Aaron got home from the
shipyard. No one had put it into words, but in the early days after Tom’s death they’d all been frightened of what she might do to herself, if she was left alone for any length of time.
Lately, though, she was beginning to pull round, albeit slowly.

It was in the first week of December that several things happened in quick succession that rocked Lucy’s world and caused her to remember what she’d said to Enid.

She and the family had just sat down to their evening meal when there was a knock at the front door. Lucy answered it, and for a moment she didn’t recognize the woman standing on the
doorstep. It was the twins’ landlady. There had been a direct hit on the factory, she explained. A number of women had been killed, Flora and Bess among them. It was a terrible, terrible
tragedy, but by all accounts they wouldn’t have known a thing, which was a blessing, wasn’t it? She’d wanted to come and tell them herself, the girls had been such dear souls. No,
she wouldn’t come in, thank you. Her Henry had brought her, he had his own taxi business, but time was money and he needed to get back to Newcastle to earn some proper fares. She’d
brought the twins’ things with her. Perhaps someone could help Henry bring them in?

Charley obliged. As the taxi drove off, the four of them stood numbly in the hall with the front door wide open and Flora and Bess’s belongings at their feet. It was Daisy collapsing on
the floor in a heap that brought Lucy to herself. She would have given anything to be able to give way to the hysteria of shock and grief that was just below the surface, but Daisy needed her to be
strong, and so did Ruby and Charley.

The endless night passed in a haze of getting a distraught Daisy to sleep sometime after midnight, and then an hour or so later Charley, who was all for lying about his age and joining up
immediately so that he could ‘bomb them filthy Nazis to hell and back’. Once they were finally alone, Lucy and Ruby sat in the kitchen and gave vent to the storm of tears they’d
been struggling to hold at bay. When they were cried out, they sat numbly holding hands over the kitchen table, hardly able to believe what had befallen their family.

‘They had their whole lives in front of them,’ Ruby whispered after a while. ‘And they were so excited about being in Newcastle and at the hub of everything. It isn’t
fair, I can’t bear it.’

Nor could she. Lucy gazed at her sister, but in her mind’s eye she was seeing Flora and Bess when they were small. Their tiny hands, their little faces which were so ridiculously alike,
and the way they’d hugged their raggy dolls before going to sleep. She had brought them up, she had been both sister and mother to them, with her own mam so poorly after their birth, and
she’d been so very proud of the fine young women the twins had become.

It seemed impossible she would never see them again. Never feel their arms round her, in one of the quick hugs they always gave her upon walking in when they came home. And to die like that.

Please God, she prayed silently, let it be true they didn’t suffer. She wanted to believe what the landlady had told them, but folk said such things at times like this to comfort the
relatives of the ones who had gone. Please, please, let it be true that it all happened so quickly they knew nothing about it.

Dawn began to break and Lucy made a pot of tea, but neither she nor Ruby could eat anything. They sat watching the sky lighten as it brought forth a new day, but Lucy knew this day and the ones
that followed would never be the same again. She would carry the ache in her heart until the day she died, the sense of loss and anger at the futility of the twins’ passing, the regret that
she hadn’t stopped them going to Newcastle, that she hadn’t done something – anything – to stop their lives being cut short so horribly.

A wan Daisy and a subdued Charley came down later that morning to find Lucy and Ruby on their umpteenth pot of tea. The panacea for all ills, her mother had used to call it, Lucy remembered. But
not this ill.

The day was a Sunday, the first in December, and the four of them spent it quietly together, trying to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. They all felt they wanted to go to
the eventide service at the local church, although they knew they would cry, but when they arrived a little late to find the service under way, it soon became apparent from what the vicar was
saying that something catastrophic had happened over the ocean in America. For once Lucy hadn’t turned on the wireless and so the news had passed them by, but apparently Japanese war planes
had made a massive surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet in its home base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Japanese planes had also attacked American bases in the Philippines and on Guam and Wake
Islands in the middle of the Pacific. The US was at war.

After the service ended the congregation gathered together in hushed but excited groups talking about what a difference this might mean to Britain, but Lucy and the others made their way
straight home. As she walked, Daisy’s arm linked through hers, all Lucy could think of were the many grieving families over the ocean who had lost their loved ones as unexpectedly as they had
lost Flora and Bess. She had tried to pray in church, but she’d been able to form no words other than ‘My darling girls; God, my darling, darling girls.’ But perhaps He understood
when words were inadequate.

Three days later it was reported that Japanese divisions had invaded British-held Malaya and the northern Philippines. British forces were fighting hard to hold the offensive, but were being
forced to retreat south. The British Army had no tanks, whereas the Japanese had more than 200, and the Japanese Air Force was also carrying out a series of air attacks on Allied positions.

Daisy summed up what everyone was thinking when she said, ‘Not John, too. Isn’t it enough that Flora and Bess have been killed in this horrible war?’

‘John will be fine.’ Lucy hugged her. ‘I know he will.’

‘No, Mam.’ Daisy looked at her, a long look. ‘You don’t.’

It was true. She didn’t. Lucy stared into the young face swollen with crying, and then glanced at Ruby and Charley. ‘We can’t give up hoping for John, for them all,’ she
said gently. ‘If we do that, the enemy has won. John and Matthew and Jacob, and us here in our own way, we’re all fighting for what is right. We didn’t start this war and I
can’t bear it that Flora and Bess have gone, but I’ll fight the Nazis to my last breath.’

‘Your mam’s right.’ Ruby put her hand over that of Daisy, who was now sobbing, curled up in a corner of the sofa. ‘My Ron says that Hitler might have crushed one of his
legs so it’s no good, but the Nazi scum’ll never crush his spirit. He says you have a choice about that.’

Even in the midst of her sorrow and worry, Lucy liked the sound of ‘My Ron’. It sounded permanent. Ruby had never walked out with a fellow before; she’d had offers, but had
always declared she hadn’t got time for ‘all that’, but from the minute she’d laid eyes on Ron Stratton she’d been smitten. Not that Ron was particularly handsome or
charismatic, but he did have a quiet strength about him, which was immensely attractive. Certainly to Ruby.

Daisy sat up and then flung herself at her mother’s feet, putting her head in Lucy’s lap. ‘I’m frightened,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry, but I am. I know
I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help it.’

Charley, Daisy’s hero, spoke before Lucy could. ‘There’s nowt to be sorry about,’ he said gruffly. ‘Everyone’s scared, Daisy. Manning them anti-aircraft guns
regularly gives me the skitters – me bowels have never worked so well before – but it don’t mean I’m a coward. A coward is someone who runs away from what they’re
frightened of and you’d never do that, same as the rest of us. Matthew told me on the day he joined up he felt sick, but it didn’t stop him doing it.’

Daisy raised her head, sniffing and rubbing her nose. ‘I wish there was something I could do. You all
do
something.’

Lucy stared at her daughter. She hadn’t known Daisy was feeling like this. She was so busy trying to cope with the refuge and the soup kitchen, and running the other two shops whilst
keeping an eye on how Charley was managing the East End premises, that she hadn’t talked to Daisy –
properly
talked – for months. She still thought of her as a little
bairn, for she was small for her twelve years and slender, but at her age Lucy had been running a home, with her mother so ill. Quietly she said, ‘I need help, Daisy, I really do. After
school you could come to the refuge and help me. I’d have said something before, but there’s your homework and, war or no war, your schoolwork is important.’

‘I’ll fit my homework in.’ Daisy knelt on the floor, looking up at her. ‘I want to help.’

She had none of her father’s innate selfishness and lack of compassion, Daisy was all hers. Lucy bent forward and hugged her daughter, feeling the slim arms come round her with a deep
thankfulness. Thank God. Oh, thank God!

Flora and Bess’s funeral was harrowing, but somehow they got through the day. Nine other women and one man, a foreman, had also died, but the fact that the whole factory
hadn’t exploded, which would have devastated the surrounding streets, was a miracle, according to the vicar who took the service. Lucy and the other mourners couldn’t quite see a
miracle in the loss of their loved ones. Christmas that year was a subdued affair, the only light on the horizon being that Britain no longer stood alone against her enemy. Backed now by powerful
allies – Russia and the United States – the odds were, perhaps slowly, being stacked against the Axis forces, the government assured the people in every radio broadcast and all the
newspapers; 1942 would be a year in which the tide turned. It didn’t seem that way to Lucy, who missed Flora and Bess more with each day that passed, especially when January saw the Allies
failing to halt the Japanese invasion of Malaya.