Ellie (17 page)

ATS and land-girls rode in on bicycles from nearby barracks or farms to meet airmen and soldiers. They filled the teashops, cafés and public houses and on Saturday nights they jitterbugged in the Corn Exchange to touring bands in the style of Glenn Miller.

The schools were overcrowded, and the doctor, billeting officers and police were all overworked. Housewives complained that this constant influx of people was reducing their rations of food and making the queues still longer. The old guard of the town said that drunkenness and ‘loose behaviour’ was rife amongst the young.

The meat ration had been cut again, so the country folk went back to their old ways, shooting rabbits and even blackbirds, which they claimed were better than pheasant. Stocks in shops were depleted, but while most people accepted the food shortages calmly, the lack of everyday things like elastic, batteries, face cream and candles infuriated them.

Yet despite all the problems and shortages, the war united people. Each East Anglian serviceman killed in action brought it home to people that tomorrow their own son or husband might be added to the ever-growing list. Fear and uncertainty drew different classes together in ways unknown in peacetime.

Land-girls with plummy accents palled up with cockneys. Women who’d lost husbands in the First War offered comfort to those recently widowed. Aristocratic ladies made room in the sewing bees for women they once thought of as ‘housemaid’ material. Crusty farmers were glad of a pair of extra hands, whoever they belonged to. Loneliness became a thing of the past for the many old people who opened up the doors of their cottages to strangers transplanted by war and suddenly found themselves part of a family again.

Shopkeepers had a brisker trade, the pubs and cafés were busier, and the churches were packed on Sundays. While many of the older folk wished for a return of quiet serenity, the young embraced the changes. Strangers added colour and excitement to their lives. Girls who once expected to stay at home until they married joined the ATS and the WAAF and delighted in taking an active part in the war. Danger brought a new romanticism, heightened by the films and songs. Long drawn-out courtships became a thing of the past. Love was to be savoured now: tomorrow might be too late.

Amos Gilbert had his share of headaches. Petrol was in short supply, and good timber and brass handles were hard to find. Few people found it appropriate to send their relatives off with style, when young men were giving their lives heroically for their country. His apprentice had been called up, and the stonemason was always off drilling with the Home Guard. On top of his own business he had fire-watching duties, and he’d cleared part of the yard to grow vegetables, enough to keep any man busy. But Amos was a happier man than he had been in years. He was growing increasingly fond of Ellie, and Grace had found a new interest.

Once Grace had discovered from a government leaflet that parsimonious talents such as hers were applauded by men in Whitehall, she made it a crusade to insure no one in the town wasted anything. Whether it was collecting jam jars and bottles, spare cooking utensils and scrap metal, or merely old jumpers to be unpicked and re-knitted as blankets, Grace masterminded the task. Because she had a reputation of being fearsome, people did as she said. It was less taxing to divide waste into separate bins for bones, paper, tins, bottles and food scraps, than have Grace Gilbert telling them they were ‘letting England down’ by throwing it all in together. Armed with a small cart converted by Amos out of an old pram, with a placard on each side proclaiming ‘Save for Victory’, Grace Gilbert was to be seen daily making her rounds up and down the streets whatever the weather. She smirked with pleasure when people said ‘What would we do without Miss Gilbert’, never knowing that she was also referred to as ‘Goebbels’ behind her back.

This collecting work proved to be the answer to Ellie’s prayers. It took Miss Gilbert out of the house for long periods and appeared to have a calming effect on her. She was no longer quite so fanatical about cleaning, and occasionally she would actually sit down in the evenings to knit or sew. She would flare up every now and again about something trivial, but overall, life at High Baxter Street was a great deal more pleasant.

With Grace away from the house so much, Ellie and Mr Gilbert formed a close alliance. Most days they would share the washing up and clerical work for the business and then go into the living-room to listen to
ITMA
or
Much Binding in the Marsh
on the wireless.

Soon Ellie was reading Amos her mother’s and Marleen’s letters and that brought her on to telling him about her previous life and the characters in Alder Street. It seemed to Amos that Ellie had seen far more of life than he had, despite her tender years. He encouraged her impressions of people, got her to rehearse her parts for the school productions in front of him, and found himself dreading the time when his sister would arrive home and halt such jollity.

It was the laughing together in secret that cemented their friendship, but it was the little kindnesses to one another that laid the foundations.

Amos would clean Ellie’s shoes, sneak her a glass of milk and a slice of cake and give her money to go to the cinema. Ellie dried his coat when he’d been out in the rain, and left him a hot drink in a vacuum flask when he came back late from fire-watching. She discovered the meals he liked best, and as far as rationing would allow, she tried to provide them, now that she was regularly preparing supper. Grace had never done such things and Amos was careful not to reveal them, for he sensed his sister was like a coiled cobra, perfectly capable of suddenly striking out in jealousy.

Amos watched Grace carefully. Although on the face of it she appeared more kindly disposed to Ellie, just occasionally he noticed an icy, calculating look in her eyes. She sniffed when the neighbours remarked that the girl was turning into something of a beauty, and when Mrs Forester sent money for a new summer dress, Grace deliberately bought it a size too large. She even insisted Ellie’s hair was tightly plaited at all times. But it did no good: anyone could see the girl’s beautiful eyes, the child’s body gradually turning into womanly curves, and guess at what was to come.

Amos smiled now as Ellie read this latest letter. He guessed that much of the comedy of this story about Polly Forester pursuing the star of the show with a needle and thread right to the wings wasn’t actually written down, as Ellie wasn’t following the written word too closely. As usual she had picked up the gist of the story and added her particular brand of humorous embroidery.

All through the year there had been letters from Mrs Forester about the Empire’s show,
Haw Haw
. Amos sometimes thought he’d actually seen it: he knew Max Miller’s co-stars were Ben and Bebe Daniels, he knew about Gusto Palmer the juggler who purposely dropped the balls, and about each one of the cancan girls. Now
Haw Haw
had ended and
Apple Sauce
had taken its place, but Max Miller was still the star, along with Vera Lynn, and according to the reviews enclosed with Mrs Forester’s letters it was even funnier than the previous show.

Since the London Blitz had started, Amos had become almost as anxious about Mrs Forester as Ellie, for she’d had several close shaves. Alder Street got a direct hit one night at the end of August and number 18 and the two adjoining houses were completely destroyed. Fortunately Polly was down in the tube station at Whitechapel, along with Wilf and Edna. In a letter just after this she had described how the next morning they picked their way through the smoking rubble to find their house completely flattened but somewhat incongruously a chair, still with her cardigan slung on the back, sitting there as if waiting for her.

This kind of stoic humour, when she had lost everything she owned, endeared the woman even more to Amos, so much so that he wrote immediately to the theatre and offered her a home here, without even thinking what Grace would say. Fortunately perhaps, Fully didn’t take him up on it, as by then she’d moved in with Marleen.

Being in London sounded like the worst kind of nightmare to Amos. Nights in tube stations, packed in like sardines with little or no sleep, often walking to work because bombing had created havoc with transport. Arriving home to find the water and gas had been turned off. Noises and confusion everywhere.

But still the show went on nightly, although earlier than usual so people could get home before it was dark. Polly had reported how the stage door man stood watching bombs drop in distant parts of London, daring Hitler even to think of dropping one on the Holborn Empire.

‘I wish Mum would leave London,’ Ellie said suddenly. A break in her voice made Amos look round at her. To his surprise, her eyes were welling up with tears. ‘What if she got hurt, Mr Gilbert?’

Ellie no longer ached to go back to London. She’d grown to love this pretty town and found joy in being the star of all the school productions. She was fond of Amos, who’d become the father she’d never had, and she’d even learnt to tolerate Miss Gilbert. If her mother would only come here, life would be just perfect.

‘Now, now.’ Amos got up and put one hand on Ellie’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘What would she do in the country?’

He had met Polly Forester just three times, but he liked her very much. Once or twice he had even allowed himself to weave a few romantic dreams of her moving here, of what might come of their shared interest in Ellie. But he was a practical man. Not only was the pretty little widow unlikely to fall for an undertaker, but she’d be like a fish out of water away from the theatre and London life.

‘I don’t know.’ Ellie sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘But I miss her so much and the war seems to be going on for ever, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ Amos agreed. He couldn’t admit that for him the past few months had flown by. ‘What if we both try and persuade her to come here for a holiday? I could ask George at the Crown to put her up. Maybe if she was here for a while she’d change her mind and want to move.’

Ellie’s face lit up. ‘Maybe she could come next month when we do the show.’ Her voice bubbled with excitement. ‘I’ll write tonight, Mr Gilbert. Would you really ask George?’

Amos smiled. ‘Of course I will. But not a word to my sister, though, not until it’s arranged. You know how prickly she is sometimes.’

As Ellie mixed some pastry on the kitchen table she was thinking up a persuasive letter to her mother, rather than concentrating on the few ingredients for the evening meal.

Mr Gilbert had managed to get a rabbit last weekend and they’d been eking out the stew all week. There was only a few tablespoons of it left now, but with a bit of onion, some diced carrots and potatoes there was enough to make three pasties.

One invaluable skill Ellie had brought with her from home was cooking. After years of watching her mother turn the cheapest cuts of meat into something tasty and satisfying, wartime rations were no real challenge. Even Miss Gilbert had been agreeably surprised and almost happily surrendered her former place as cook.

Her culinary skills had been widened still further by reading all the frugal recipes in government handouts, and learning from country women about herbs and vegetables almost unknown in London.

Ellie had learnt a great deal in her year here. Her cockney accent was all but gone and she had a broader vision of what she wanted for the future. In another six months she’d be fourteen and able to work, and if she hadn’t persuaded Polly to move out of London by then, she’d join her there and find an office job or something until she found a way of getting on to the stage.

It was frustrating just waiting for the time to pass, especially when she knew Mum censored her stories of how it was in London in exactly the same way the newspapers and the BBC did. But then Ellie censored her stories too. She never let on how horrid Miss Gilbert was, or how much she missed her mum.

She supposed everyone was the same. Men in battle didn’t whinge about how dangerous it was. Wives didn’t witter on about how little food they had. Instead they mentioned the good or happy things, just as she told Polly about Mr Gilbert and Miss Wilkins, and Polly told her all the jokey things that happened in the Empire.

Ellie placed the pasties on a baking tray and put them in the oven, then went to her school satchel to find the apples. They were windfalls: she’d discovered a tree overhanging an alley close to her school and she checked there every afternoon to see what had dropped. Ellie smiled as she cut out the bruised bits and sliced them up. Such economy would silence Miss Gilbert’s protests that they ‘only had puddings on Sundays’.

It was just after six when planes came screaming overhead, so low that Ellie involuntarily ducked, thinking for a moment they were German bombers. Going to the kitchen door, she looked up at the sky. Mr Gilbert was standing by the workshop, shielding his eyes from the sun. It was a tight formation – six Spitfires speeding across the clear sky, leaving white foam-like traces of smoke behind them.

It was a common enough sight – in the past few months it had gone on incessantly – but for some odd reason, this time Ellie’s stomach churned alarmingly, and she clutched her mother’s letter tightly in the pocket of her dress for comfort.

‘They’ll knock out a few Germans for us,’ Mr Gilbert shouted across the yard. ‘Let’s just hope they make it back.’

Despite Miss Gilbert returning home in an unusually pleasant mood and actually expressing pleasure at Ellie’s pasties, the gut-churning sensation stayed with her, preventing her eating more than a few mouthfuls. Miss Gilbert was gloating about the huge amount of jam jars and bottles the Brownies had collected in a house-to-house campaign, and then suggesting Ellie should help unpick some old jumpers with her that evening to be re-knitted into blankets.

It was just before the news at nine that Ellie felt ill. She was sweating, her mouth was dry and her heart started to pound. Miss Gilbert was sitting opposite her with the wireless on, surrounded by jumpers, and Mr Gilbert was in his office doing some paperwork.