The Bells of Bow (44 page)

But when it really did seem that, for civilians on the home front at least, the war was all over, there was a massive raid. On the last Sunday night in July, a landmine was dropped in Poplar, destroying a brick surface shelter. The rumour machine sprang into action again and pubs all over the East End were full of people arguing as to how many were killed and injured. For a while, people were back on their guard, but then things quietened down again and got back to what, during the autumn and winter of 1941, passed for normality in the wartime East End of London.

Maudie clapped her hands together and stamped her feet while she waited for someone to answer the door, trying to get some feeling back into her freezing fingers and toes.

Finally the door opened. ‘Hello, Maud,’ Georgie said, smiling at his unexpected visitor, his breath making steamy clouds in the cold air. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the passage. ‘Sorry I was so long but I was just getting Betty settled down for her afternoon sleep.’

He stepped back and held out his hand, ushering Maudie inside. He shut the door and she followed him through to the kitchen.

‘Evie had to pop out,’ George explained, pulling out a chair for Maud from under the table and putting it near the stove so she could warm herself. ‘That’s why I’m minding the little’un.’

Maudie nodded understandingly.

Georgie sat down beside her. ‘She goes out more than ever lately. All the time really. Well, whenever she can get someone to sit with Betty.’ He rubbed his hand through his hair distractedly. ‘She’s trying to avoid Queenie – so she says. But Queenie don’t come round that often.’ He sighed loudly. ‘I ain’t sure what to do about it, to tell yer the truth.’ Georgie stopped abruptly and stared down at the lino. ‘Hark at me rambling on. Must sound like a right old woman.’

‘I don’t think you do, George,’ Maudie said sincerely. ‘I think you sound like a man who’s worried about his daughter. And there’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘Maybe.’ George shrugged. ‘That’s enough about me. What can I do for you, Maud?’

She stood up, lifted her basket onto the table and took out a parcel wrapped in newspaper. ‘I’d been round to the church early this morning to deliver some clothing. You know, for the bombed-out families. And I saw a sign in the fishmongers, the one just along from the vicarage. “Mackerel in at two o’clock, bring your own paper” it said. The thought of something different to eat was just too tempting to pass up. So I went along at midday and queued for some.’ She nibbled at her lip and looked up at him shyly through her lashes.

George blushed.

‘I hope you don’t mind – I got enough for you and the girls as well.’

He smiled soppily. ‘That’s really good of yer, Maud. I appreciate it.’

She smiled back. ‘You know me, George, always looking for something to do. I try to be of use, when I see everyone else doing so much. There don’t seem to be many ways I can contribute – except with my vegetables and knitting and odd bits and pieces round at the church. I wish I could do something more.’ She looked down at the parcel of fish. ‘I don’t want to sound too pushy, but I wondered if I could cook this for you and the girls. If you wanted me to, that is.’

‘That’d be smashing, Maud. I’d like that a lot.’ He laughed. ‘And it’s bound to be better than whatever Evie was gonna chuck in the pot five minutes before poor old Babs got in from work. If she even remembers, that is.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, George, but I’m really pleased to do it. I even brought some vegetables over just in case.’ She looked up at the clock. ‘Perhaps I could start cleaning the fish now.’

‘Sure.’

Georgie took Maudie’s coat out to the passage to hang it over the banister while she got stuck in at the sink, cleaning and gutting the fish and peeling the vegetables.

When she heard him come back into the kitchen, Maudie asked over her shoulder, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any mustard, have you, George?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, I think so. I’ll have a look in the cupboard. What d’yer want it for? To soak yer feet?’

Maudie laughed. ‘No. To make mustard sauce. It goes really well with mackerel.’

‘Aw, blimey.’ George raised his eyebrows. ‘That sounds posh. Mustard sauce, eh? The only sauce I’ve ever had is liquor with me pie ’n’ mash.’

‘I’m sorry, George. I didn’t mean to be …’ Maudie turned back to the sink. She sounded flustered. ‘If yer’d rather I just left the fish plain – I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry? Don’t be daft, girl, it’ll be a real treat. Fancy grub’s just not something I’m used to in this house, that’s all.’

He found the little tub of mustard powder and put it on the windowsill in front of her.

‘Yer know yer said yer was always looking for things to do? Useful things, like.’

‘Mmmm.’ Maudie was concentrating on lifting the central bone from one of the fish without leaving all the little sharp bits behind.

‘Well, I know something yer could do.’

‘There!’ She turned round to him with a triumphant smile, holding the bone aloft in her hand.

‘Yer can come and work down the sub-station with me.’

Maudie immediately turned back to the sink and got on with the fish. ‘With you at the fire station, George? I don’t think so.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t think.’ Now it was George who sounded flustered, and hurt. He sat down at the table. ‘Yer probably don’t wanna spend even more time with me.’

Maudie dropped the knife and the fish into the sink and sat down at the table next to him. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth,’ she said. ‘Don’t ever think that. I really look forward to the time we spend together.’

‘So what’s the problem then? Yer could work on the phones. I know they’re right short of staff now so many of the younger girls are doing munitions work. They’re even having to
conscript
single women for war work now, the chief said – everyone from eighteen to thirty. And they definitely need someone in the watch room. It’s interesting work and all, Maud. They have to take incoming messages and send out orders to the other sub-stations – where to send the pumps and that. There’s all these maps and charts and things.’ He tapped the side of his head with his finger. ‘Right up your street, it’d be, Maud, ’cos you have to be able to use yer noddle, see.’

‘I’m very flattered you should think of me, George, but there’s a problem. I’m a little bit older than thirty.’

‘Not much.’

‘Enough.’

‘Yer making excuses.’

‘George, I’m … I’m in my forties.’

‘Never. Yer must be a good five years younger than me.’

‘I don’t want to make myself look silly.’

‘It’ll be all right, you see. I’ll have a word with Sub-officer Smith. He’s a good old boy, retired regular fireman. Been around since the Great Fire of London by the look of him – he’ll think yer a slip of a gel, a bit of a kid, you wait.’

‘But George …’

He shook his head. ‘I won’t hear another word about it.’ He winked at her. ‘Now come on, woman, back to the kitchen sink.’

Maudie stood nervously outside the sub-station looking up at the sign that once had proudly proclaimed the name of the school but had now been painted out. ‘Are you sure he said he’d see me, George?’

‘Yes.’

Maudie fiddled with her hat pin. ‘And I really do look all right?’

‘Yes.’ George took her arm to lead her through the gates, but she wouldn’t budge.

‘He’s going to laugh at me, George.’

‘I thought you said you wanted to do something useful.’

‘I do.’

‘Well, here’s yer chance.’

Maudie took a deep breath and marched through the gate and into the playground. It was full of men busily doing things with complicated-looking pieces of equipment.

As Maudie passed them, one of the men let out a low whistle. ‘Hello, darling, want any fires putting out?’

‘Oi, Burns, watch it, she’s with me,’ said Georgie proprietorially.

‘Sorry, Ringer,’ said Burns.

‘How about, “sorry Miss Peters”?’ demanded Maudie, pulling her handbag further up her arm.

‘Sorry,’ muttered Burns.

Georgie bit on his lip to stop himself laughing at Burns’s sorrowful expression and went into the mess room for a cup of tea, satisfied that Maudie could look after herself as she went in to see Sub-officer Smith in what, before the war, had been the headmistress’s office.

Maudie handed Smith her completed form and waited while he glanced at the details she had filled in. As she stared at the top of his bowed head across the big oak desk, she felt an almost hysterical urge to laugh. She knew it must be nerves, but she really did feel like a little schoolgirl who had been hauled in for pulling someone’s pigtails in the classroom.

‘This part of the form appears somewhat smudged,’ said Smith with a sceptical flick of his eyebrows. ‘Can’t quite make it out.’

‘Oh?’ she said innocently.

He nodded. ‘The part about your date of birth. So, I have to ask you. How old are you exactly?’

Maudie looked directly ahead. ‘Thirty,’ she said boldly.

Smith raised his eyebrows again. ‘Thirty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any experience of this type of work? On a telephone switchboard, for instance.’

Remembering what George had told her, she said without any hesitation, ‘Of course. Although probably on a different system to the one you have here.’

Sub-officer Smith leant back in his chair and looked at Maudie. She didn’t dare move or show any sign of emotion.

‘Right,’ he said suddenly. Then he leant forward, stamped the form and handed it back to her. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ he said, sighing wearily. ‘Now get yourself over to the watch room. Someone there will explain the necessary.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Maudie smartly and left the office as fast as she thought was decent.

Before going to the watch room, she found the mess room. She popped her head round the door and gave Georgie a double thumbs up.

Georgie strode over to her. ‘“Beggars can’t be choosers”?’

She grinned and nodded.

Georgie bowed with mock solemnity and kissed her hand. ‘Welcome to the fun palace, Auxiliary Firewoman Peters.’ He held out his arm. ‘Can I escort yer somewhere, miss?’

Maudie curtsied. ‘The watch room, please, my man.’

‘My pleasure.’

Maudie might have sounded confident when she was fooling around with Georgie, but once he had left her at the door to the watch room with a whispered, ‘Good luck!’ she was shaking. Then when she peered round the door and got her first look at the room, she froze. What she saw was a harshly lit space hazy with cigarette smoke. There was no natural light as the windows were bricked up. Along one wall was a bank of lights and levers, presumably the switchboard. The other walls were covered with boards and maps dotted with pins and discs. In the centre was a long table loaded with apparently haphazard piles of papers and several telephones. The one welcoming looking thing in the whole room was a battered armchair with stuffing spilling from its seat that stood incongruously in the corner by a dull green filing cabinet. Maudie wanted to run all the way home to Darnfield Street. And she would have done, had Flossie, the fearsome-looking operator sitting at the table, given her the chance.

‘You the new girl Smith promised me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank gawd they’ve sent me some help,’ Flossie said, winding her thick, wiry brown hair round her hand and securing it on top of her head with a pencil. ‘I dunno how much longer I could have coped by myself. Have you ever seen so much bloody paper?’ She waved one of the sheets at Maudie by way of demonstration. ‘The other girl who used to do this shift with me got it in her head to train as a despatch rider. Silly cow. Two weeks’ training she done down the speedway on that motorbike of hers and she
still
falls off the bloody thing every five minutes. Right menace, she is. The messenger boys hate it when she’s driving them around. Every single bomb crater she gets near, the poor sods are off on their arses.’

Maudie wasn’t sure what response was expected of her to all this information, so she just smiled.

‘Right,’ said Flossie, pointing to the swivel chair next to hers. ‘Let’s get down to business. Now, there’s
usually
two AFS girls – Auxiliary Fire Service girls – that’s you and me, and a mobilizing officer, that’s Ernie for us; on each shift. Well, as I say, that’s the idea.’

She scooted across the floor on her swivel chair and picked up a pad.

‘We write down any details or requests that come in over the phones on one of these. Anything from Central maybe. Then there’s the despatch riders, they bring in the reports and we use them to sort out who does what. What pump goes where, which crews are available, pinpointing fires. You know. Ernie thinks he’s in charge but yer know what fellers are like. We do all the sorting and organising and he gets in a panic.’

Maudie smiled again.

‘Right, that’s in here. That’s us – control. Then, outside, we’ve got twenty maybe twenty-five firemen on duty at a time in this particular station. This is the usual, you understand. Or the ideal, I should say. What actually happens is more like flipping bedlam. We have to work with what crews are available in all the surrounding stations. Fires don’t run to time, yer see. Anyway, when the fellers are not on call-out, they’re either seeing to the equipment or resting.’

Maudie gestured vaguely in what she remembered to be the direction of the playground. ‘I think I saw them outside. Unrolling and scrubbing the hoses.’

‘Give you any lip or whistles or anything?’

Maudie smiled, sincerely this time. ‘Yes.’

‘That’ll be them.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Our brave boys. They’re all right once yer get used to ’em. They have to check all the equipment, see, test it and dry it. I mean, there’s no good getting to a fire and it’s not working. They depend on that equipment as much as they depend on us doing our job right. They might like having a laugh, but this ain’t a game. There’s lives at stake.’

Maudie looked a bit daunted.

‘Don’t worry, it ain’t all bad. There’s a kitchen in the mess room.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘The rations are all right. Not that tasty but plenty of ’em, which is something nowadays. And we’ve been talking about starting a pig club. Mind you, it’s usually so full of soaking wet uniforms drying out on the pipes, it’s more like a laundry than a mess. And then there’s the dormitory. Not very posh but the fellers could sleep standing up, they get that tired out. And last but not least, there’s the recreation room. We’ve had a few laughs in there.’