Soldier Girl (16 page)

‘You’d best get home for the afternoon, love,’ he’d say. ‘Family comes first. I can manage, now the rush is over.’

He was a gentle, burly man with a shiny bald pate and a wide, humorous mouth. He kept a good temper even though Em knew he was very lonely without Jean, who’d been a sweet-natured, cheerful soul. His wistfulness at Christmas time had brought tears to her eyes. And she found working for him reassuring. He was fatherly to her, and she liked the way he was always there with his big green apron over his clothes, had a habit of always saying the same old things as if they’d never wear out. ‘Fine weather for ducks,’ when it rained, or ‘Cheer up, it may never happen.’ Lately he’d taken to saying, ‘We’ll ’ave to take it as it comes’ and occasionally, in a surprisingly steely voice, ‘We ain’t gunna let them buggers finish us off.’

Em helped him open up every day, arranging whatever there was to sell, the fast-dwindling array of fresh fruit and vegetables, then dealing with the queues of short-tempered customers who waited, after standing long in other queues with their ration books for their bacon or cheese or tea, to buy minute amounts of whatever was available. A tomato, a beetroot, stored since the summer. At least potatoes weren’t on the ration, and there were still winter veg about.

‘Heaven help us when we get to the hungry gap,’ Mr Perry forecast gloomily. There was always a lean time, come April and May, when the winter produce was running out and the summer stuff had not yet come in.

Em liked working with Mr Perry. She liked the predictability of it, the arranging of the vegetables in their boxes outside, the way she could make things look nice. Before the war she had gone to great trouble every day building pyramids of oranges and turning the wrapped mandarins round so that their delicate printed wrappers were all facing the same way. She built cascades of bananas and hung bunches of them from hooks around Mr Perry’s awning. It was a long time now, though, since she’d seen a banana. But she liked Mr Perry’s habitual ways, and the easy chat of the customers, the faces she recognized, taking the money, wrapping things up tidily in their paper bags. Vegetables were good, easy friends. They stayed where you put them on the whole, except for the occasional breakaway potato, and they didn’t do anything alarming. Em had found herself what she craved – a quiet, safe way of life.

And she had found Norm. She had run into Norm – literally – over a year ago in a bus queue one evening in town, during the blackout. Or rather he had run into her. He had been walking along, a bit too fast considering how hard it was to see, and calling, ‘See yer later, mate!’ to one of his fellow coppers over his shoulder.

‘Watch it!’ Em called out, but too late, as he slammed into her. She was right at the back of the queue and there were exclamations of annoyance from the others near her.

‘Oh my word – I’m ever so sorry!’ Norm cried, leaping back from her as if she was scalding hot. ‘I never saw yer! Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ Em said, deciding not to mention that he had also stamped on her toe. ‘I’m all right. Doesn’t matter.’

She couldn’t see him very well in the gloom, but she smiled at what she saw – a tall, skinny outline topped by a policeman’s helmet with great big ears sticking out from underneath.

Norm produced a little torch and held it high, pointing its beam down between the two of them. He smiled at her endearingly and even with such a small amount to go on, they liked each other immediately.

‘You off down Vauxhall?’ he asked.

‘Yes – that’s where I live.’

Norm gasped as if this was the most amazing coincidence in the world. ‘That’s a funny thing – I live in Saltley! What road’re you from?’

‘Kenilworth Street. Off of Rupert Street – near the gas works.’

‘Oh – I know, yeah!’ He continued to beam at her.

‘So,’ Em said stupidly, thinking he was sweet, ‘you’re a policeman.’

Norm looked himself up and down. ‘Yeah – yeah, that’s me!’ They both laughed.

The bus loomed up and stopped, its engine throbbing.

‘I’d better go then,’ Em said.

‘All right then. What’s yer name?’ he asked hurriedly.

‘Emma Brown. Em to most people.’

‘That’s like me – I’m Norm to most people. Or Staples. My proper name’s Norman Stapleton.’ He gave a quaint little bow and Em was enchanted. No one had ever bowed to her before.

‘Well, it was nice knowing yer,’ she said as the bus quickly swallowed up the queue.

‘Can I come and see yer?

She already had her foot on the step. Did he mean it?

‘If you like.’ She spoke a bit teasingly in case he was having her on. ‘Number eighteen, Kenilworth Street.’

‘Lovely – ta-ra then!’

‘Ta-ra.’

She saw him gazing adoringly at the bus as it pulled away.

He came, even though she didn’t expect him to. And he kept coming. In the daylight she saw that he was pale and very thin, and his ears seemed to stick out all the more, often glowing pink in the cold, but his hazel-brown eyes still gazed at her with adoring amazement.

‘I knew you were the one for me from the minute I saw yer,’ he told her later.

‘Even though it was pitch dark!’ she teased.

‘Even though.’

Norm’s dad was a railwayman, born in Vauxhall; his mother, Edna Stapleton, was a kindly birdlike woman who Em felt safe with. Norm had one younger brother, Richard. Bob and Cynthia liked Norm. He was polite and helpful, he obviously meant a great deal to Em, and soon he was like part of the family. Joyce made comical faces and waggled her ears with her hands behind his back, making Violet giggle, but no one could dislike Norm. He was too sweet-natured and so accident-prone that he provided a lot of laughs. Em couldn’t believe her luck. She had met someone by chance who she could love, who had asked her to marry him. Norm was to be her safe rock in the storm of life, and the wind had blown him to her almost before she had had time to wish for it.

Em’s childhood had not felt in the least safe. After giving birth to Violet, their mom, Cynthia, had gone to pieces and spent time in the Hollymoor asylum. Em had only been eight at the time, and was left to cope at home, looking after Sid and Joyce. Bob had not coped well, had turned to the bottle and to the comfort of another woman. Em, frightened and alone, had felt as if their life had fallen apart. It had been a dark, desolate period in their lives that Em tried not think about now. Even though Cynthia was finally restored to them, it had not been the last time she had a breakdown. She had been back inside Hollymoor on a number of occasions, though now when it happened, they had faith that she would come back – not like that first, terrifying time. The last thing Em wanted after that was any undue excitements in life, or too many changes. The war was already more than enough. All she really wanted was a quiet, preferably predictable existence – and she hoped she could have it with Norm.

As she got ready for work that cold morning, though, her thoughts were uneasy. Norm was a decent man, and a patient one. But now she had agreed to become his wife at some date in the future, there were changes that Norm wanted. In fact, she had been surprised, rather shocked at him and his persistence. She washed her face in the scullery, peering into the little rectangle of mirror with the crack across one corner.

‘You look a proper wreck,’ she told her reflection. Her brown hair had gone limp, and her face was pinched with tiredness, mauve rings under her eyes. For a moment she imagined Norm’s face appearing over her shoulder, looking into her eyes in the mirror.

‘Go on – we’re getting wed. It won’t hurt will it? It’s not as if we’re religious or anything.’

She stared back at his imaginary reflection.
No – please don’t make me . . .
Of course she knew that once they were actually married she’d have to do all the things that were expected of a wife. The sexual act itself was only the beginning of her worries. She had a basic idea of what would happen and it just seemed embarrassing and a bit disgusting, although when she and Norm managed rare private times together, she certainly had feelings for him, loved him kissing her and the way he held her as if she was so precious to him. She thought she could probably put up with the rest of it. But it was what would come after that . . . She shuddered. It meant children, it meant swelling up, those screams of pain, and it meant . . . She told herself that her mother had had four children before there was trouble. Other people didn’t go the way her mom had. Look at Mom’s friend Dot – she remembered Dot having her little girl Nancy soon after Mom had Violet. Dot hadn’t sunk into herself as if the very drawing of breath was a hopeless task. She certainly hadn’t been sent into the asylum. Lots of people had babies and were perfectly all right.
But their moms were not Cynthia . . .
Could it be that if your mom was like that, you would be as well? The thought filled her with a deep, sickening dread.

Drying her face, she became more determined about what she’d say to Norm. It wasn’t right before marriage and that was that. She wasn’t fast. She was a respectable person. Then Em found herself wondering about Molly. The two of them had never talked about things like this – they were far too shy about it. Had Molly been with a man – all the way? She wondered. Things seemed to be changing now the war was on. Morals were looser. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. She thought Molly probably
had
by now. But she knew she wouldn’t ask her.

And it doesn’t mean
I
have to,
Em thought, wincing as she combed the knots out of her hair.
Norm will have to understand. He’s waited this long – it won’t hurt him to be a gentleman and wait a bit longer.

There was a knock at the front door. That’d be Frankie and Brenda arriving, poor little mites. Em dismissed her disturbing thoughts and went to open up.

‘Here yer go, you two,’ she said, as the tousled-haired children tumbled through the door. Of course Irene never came with them; she just turfed them out, each with a piece of stale bread clasped in one hand. ‘Sit down while yer eating that.’

She poured Cynthia a cup of the stewed tea and took it upstairs.

‘Mom? Frankie and Brenda’re here. And I’ve got to go.’

Cynthia uncurled from under the bedclothes, her face puffy. Em waited, dreading the dead look in her eyes of her bad days, but today there was light in them. In fact, considering how bad the night had been, she looked quite lively. She was a rounded, fleshy woman with tumbling dark hair, and wore her age of forty-four well.

‘ ’Ello, love,’ she said to Em, looking bewildered for a moment. ‘Is it that time already?’ She lifted herself up on one elbow, memory flooding back. ‘What a night! You all right?’

‘Yeah. Not a wink of sleep, but we got through it.’ She never said much about the nights. In fact, last night hadn’t been too bad, but there were horrors other nights. The night they’d pulled Mr and Mrs Jenkins out from the remains of their house. Mrs Jenkins’ dust-embalmed face had been contorted, the mouth open as if in a scream, and his arm was locked round her. But she wouldn’t say anything to Mom.

‘Good for you,’ Cynthia said. She pushed back the bedclothes. ‘It’s all right. No need to wait on me. I’m up now. I’ll take the two of them up to the Baths with me.’ Nechells Baths was the grand building where they handed out the ration books.

‘See yer later, Mom,’ Em said, spirits rising gratefully.

She picked up her things, her gas mask, which she still carried although others had long given up, and her bag, and opened the front door. Even though the worst of it had not been directed at their area last night, you could always see the signs there’d been a raid. A smokiness in the air which was different from the usual factory smoke, the musty smell of houses, seeping gas and soaked dust and plaster. Sometimes after a night of fires came the whiff of burned flesh mingled with the smoke. And then there were the exhausted, shocked faces of people. They had a look in their eyes, the release of tension, the bubbling relief at being among the ones left alive. Now and then she found herself laughing hysterically at the slightest thing.

‘Morning, Em!’ Jenny Button was out at the front, emptying a pail into the gutter. Lemon sunshine broke along the street and the colours emerged like flowers.

‘Morning, Mrs B,’ Em called. ‘You and Mr B all right?’

‘Right as rain,’ Jenny Button called. ‘No need to worry about us.’

Em crossed the street. ‘I had a letter from Molly. She’s going along well. They want her to be a cook.’

‘A cook!’ Mrs Button laughed until all her body wobbled. ‘That’s a good ’un. I ’ope she don’t poison the whole lot of ’em! Still, I s’pect she’ll do all right. Molly’s a good girl if you treat her right.’

‘Yes,’ Em agreed. ‘I s’pect she’ll be OK.’

Full of admiration for Mrs Button, she walked on. It did worry her that they didn’t go down into a shelter of any kind, but they were far from being the only ones, and it would have seemed cruel to move poor Stanley Button from his big bed and make him squat all night in some stinking, chilly cellar. A lot of older people didn’t bother. The Foxes didn’t either, she knew, but then it was hard to dredge up any protective feelings towards Iris Fox. But she always wondered if she could do more, find a place for the Buttons.

‘Fancy seeing you, Emmy-Wems,’ a voice said behind her. Em had been lost in thought, and she jumped, her heart pounding. The low voice held mockery, and threat, and the breath stank of alcohol.