The Girls They Left Behind (34 page)

It’s not knowing that’s the worst, Alice thought. Not knowing whether Mutter has been bombed by our planes, perhaps buried or burned alive like so many of our people.

Not knowing whether Heinrich …

And there she was, back to the beginning again, in the ceaseless circle of her anguish, on a road that had no end.

As Ethel Glaister had said, in early October the 698 Royal Engineers Unit was brought back from its wanderings to Portsmouth in order to clear some of the bomb damage and demolish the shattered buildings, and Derek was able to spend time at home.

‘I never thought you’d be back so soon,’ Olive said, hugging Derek in the double bed that had been squeezed into her room. ‘Will you be able to get home every night?’

He shook his head. ‘They’ll want us in the barracks. But most of the blokes are Pompey chaps so they’ll have to let us off some of the time, or there’ll be a riot! I’ll be here every

minute I can be, you can bet on that.’

‘It’ll be like being properly married,’ Olive said blissfully, and he laughed.

‘We are properly married! At least, I hope so, I wouldn’t want to think of you carrying on this way with a man you’re not married to.’

‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ she said, punching him. ‘With you coming home every day, just like it ought to be. I’ll be able to cook your supper and mend your clothes and everything.

I’ll feel more like your wife.’

‘You don’t have to worry about cooking and mending,’ he said, pulling her closer. ‘There’s a better way than that of feeling like my wife.’

Olive laughed and nuzzled close. Her heart was alight with happiness. She and Derek had had so little time together, and although he had warned her that the Unit would probably not stay long in Portsmouth, she refused to look ahead to a time when it might move away again. There was plenty to do here, wasn’t there? And more damage being done with every raid.

Why should it ever be moved away?

She wondered if she should tell Derek that she thought she might be pregnant. It was a bit soon really, only a few weeks since that night he’d had at home in the first week of September. But she’d missed once since then, and been feeling a bit queasy in the mornings. It wasn’t enough to be sure, but if she missed again she’d tell him, and they could go and see the doctor together.

We’ll be a real family then, she thought. Mum and Dad and baby. A real family.

The Shaws were pleased with bob’s return too, for they had missed Bob. They sat around the supper table on the first evening, eating rabbit pie and listening as he told them about Devon and Wiltshire, and about the aerodromes they had been servicing. Before the evacuation of Dunkirk, the Unit had been on active service in France, building advanced landing strips at somewhere called Thelus, and since their return they had been employed in repairing RAF Bomber Command runways damaged by bombs. Bob, who had been unemployed before the war, had found himself enjoying the strenuous work, and his body had filled out as a result.

‘Just look at you,’ marvelled his sister Gladys. ‘You were just a weed when you went away.’

‘Thanks for nothing, sis.’ But he was grinning as he gave her shoulder a gentle thump. ‘I could always rely on you for a kind word.’

‘I think you look smashing,’ Diane declared. ‘Like Mr Universe. I think I’ll join the WAACs when I’m old enough.

Or maybe the Wrens.’

‘Why, what d’you want muscles for?’ Bob asked, and Gladys snorted.

‘She doesn’t. She’s more interested in the blokes’ muscles than her own.’

‘That’s enough of that kind of talk,’ their father said sharply. ‘Tell us a bit more about the building you’re doing, Bob. Sounds as if it’ll set you up in a good trade for after the war.’

The two men plunged into a discussion of different kinds of bricks and mortar and the girls made a face at each other.

They looked at their mother, but Peggy shook her head.

‘Let them natter. It’s the first time your dad’s ever talked to Bob man-to-man. It’s good for ‘em. Come and help me get a pot of tea.’

It didn’t take three women to make a pot of tea, but when they came back into the room with the tray Bob and his father were sitting back looking pleased with themselves, and there was a new confidence in Bob’s face as he took his cup. He gave Diane a wink and then turned to Gladys.

‘So what’ve you been getting up to, then? Still learning to drive?’

This was the chance Gladys had been waiting for. She put her nose into the air and said airily, ‘No, not any more. I’ve passed.’

‘Passed? What, passed your test? Your driving test?’

‘Well, it’s not a spelling test!’ she retorted, and then let her grin break out. ‘I passed last week. Last Wednesday. First time.’

‘Well, that’s a turn-up,’ he said admiringly. ‘So what are

you going to do? Get a job as a bus-driver?’

‘She’d better not try,’ Bert said disapprovingly. ‘And don’t you encourage her, Bob. It’s a man’s job, that is. I don’t approve of women driving as it is.’

‘And what if there’s no men to drive the buses?’ Gladys demanded. ‘Have we all got to walk everywhere? Anyway, I don’t want to drive buses. I’m going to drive ambulances.’

‘Ambulances?’

‘Yes, ambulances. I’ve joined the Red Cross, along with Mum. We go to the First Aid post whenever there’s a raid and look after casualties. And some of’em need taking to hospital, so that’s what I’m going to do.’

Bert looked annoyed. ‘I’ve heard nothing of this.’

‘What’s the point of telling you?’ Gladys said. ‘You’d only tell me I couldn’t. And I’m going to, so there’s no point in arguing.’

Bert’s face reddened. He leaned forward, laying his arms on the table, and raised one hand to jab his finger at Gladys.

‘Now, you listen to me, my girl ‘

‘No,’ Gladys said. ‘You listen to me. There’s a war on, isn’t there? They’re crying out for people to help, and that means people, not just men. They’re sending all the men away to fight, aren’t they? So who’s going to run things here? We’ve all got to look after ourselves in this lot and it’s time you men realised that you’re not the only ones capable of doing a job of work. There’s not much a woman can’t turn her hand to, just as good as a man. We proved that in the last war, that’s why they had to give in and give us the vote.’

‘More’s the pity too,’ her father retorted. ‘It gave you all big ideas, that’s what that did. Women doctors! Women drivers!

Women this, women that. Who’s looking after their homes, that’s what I’d like to know, who’s getting their husbands’

dinners for them? Well, I’ll not have such goings-on in my house.’ He glared at his wife. ‘I’m still master here, even if your daughters don’t seem to think so, and you needn’t think you’re going to go gallivanting off at all hours driving ambulances and such capers!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Gladys began, but her mother cut in sharply.

‘That’s enough of that kind of language, our Glad. And you don’t have to annoy your father more than you already have done, specially not on our Bob’s first night home.’ She turned to her husband. ‘As for you, Bert, you’re just getting silly. I’ve never said a word about driving ambulances, nor anything like it. All I do down the First Aid Post is put a few bandages on, as well you know. And Gladys is quite right, we all have to pull together in this war and if that means changing our ideas a bit about what we do, well, that’s all there is to it. D’you think our Bob wanted to go off and and risk getting killed being a soldier? But he’s had to do it all the same, and ‘

‘Get away,’ Bert said, ‘it’s done him the world of good.

Given him a trade and made a man of him. Hasn’t it, Bob?’

They looked at the young man sitting there, his skin tanned with fresh air, his body filled out and strong. He looked awkward and selfconscious, as though not certain which parent to support, then shrugged and said, ‘Well, it’s a pretty good life, but I wouldn’t say it was much fun in France.’

‘No,’ Peggy said, ‘you were lucky to get back alive from that. So don’t try to make it out to be better than it is, Bert. It’s a muddle, the whole thing, and we just have to do our best and not start quarrelling amongst ourselves, all right?’

Bert Shaw pushed out his lower lip. He had grown up believing in certain traditions, and every day it seemed that a new one was upset. And he was alarmed by the rate at which his children were growing up - especially the girls. It seemed only yesterday that they had been in pigtails, running to him with their dolls, climbing up on his knee and, most important of all, behaving as he wanted them to behave. Being seen and not heard. Keeping their opinions - if they had any - to themselves. Playing quietly in a corner, and not arguing with their elders and betters.

Now, it seemed as if they wanted to rule the roost, as if they thought they could do as they liked, and they were altogether too free with their opinions. Learning to drive, indeed - and driving ambulances, of all things! Why, his Gladys would be in the thick of any bombing if she did that, just when he wanted her safe in a shelter. He’d rather she was driving buses after all.

‘All right, Bert?’ Peggy repeated, and he scowled.

‘I suppose it’s as all right as anything is these days. I don’t pretend to understand anything. But there, I’m getting old and old men aren’t wanted these days, not when there’s bits of girls can do their jobs better than they can.’

‘Oh, Dad!’ Gladys jumped up and came round the table, she put her arms round her father’s neck and pulled his head jack against her. ‘You’re just being silly. Of course you’re not old! And if there were more men like you, well, maybe girls wouldn’t have to do the jobs. But we’re needed. And we can do them - some of them, anyway. And anyway, why should we have to spend our time in shops and offices when there’s so many more interesting things to do ‘

‘Because men are the ones who have to work!’ For a few moments, Bert had seemed to be mollified by her words, but her last question had touched a nerve that many men, and women too, were still finding raw. ‘It’s men who have to provide homes for their families, men who have to earn the money. Women should stay at home and look after their families, not take away the jobs men need just because they’re “more interesting”. That’s the way it is and it’s the way it always has been. And the way it always will be, if there’s anyone left with any sense after all this is over.’

‘Oh yes,’ Gladys said, moving away. ‘And it’s the men who start wars, isn’t it, and land us in messes like the one we’re in now.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Bert was breathing heavily, his face suffused with anger. Peggy looked exasperated and anxious. Diane was watching with suppressed enjoyment and Bob was staring at the tablecloth. Gladys stood by the fireplace, her expression sulky but her eyes full of tears.

‘Let’s drop it,’ Peggy said at last. ‘You’re both getting overheated, and all over nothing. I don’t know what you wanted to say that for, Gladys, setting him off all over again.

You ought to have known better. And Bert, you’ve got to realise the girls are growing up. They know their own minds.

And things are different from when we were young.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ he returned sullenly. ‘I can

see it for myself. It doesn’t mean to say I have to like it.’ Ś

‘No, but you’ve got to put up with it,’ she said sharply ‘Same as we all have. And just remember that it’s men and women younger than our Bob and Gladys, no more than boys and girls really, who are fighting this war, and getting killed or maimed for life doing it. And if they’re old enough to do that we can’t turn round and tell our Glad she can’t drive an ambulance, now can we?’

There was another silence. Then Bob lifted his head. He glanced around the table. It’s always been like this, he thought. Dad claiming to be ‘head of the family’ and ‘master in his own house’, laying down the law and getting us all in a knot. And then Mum, only half his size, putting us all right with a few sharp words. And the girls in tears and me wishing the earth would open …

But it didn’t have to be like that now. As Mum had said, they were growing up. They didn’t have to be treated like kids, and they didn’t have to behave like them either.

‘Well,’ he said with a grin, ‘I must say it’s good to be home again and find nothing’s changed. D’you know, for a while I was afraid you were going to treat me like a visitor. It don’t seem like home when you’re all on your best behaviour!’

They all turned and stared at him. For a moment, he was afraid that his joke had fallen on stony ground or, worse still, caused even more offence. Then Diane began to giggle and Gladys’s face relaxed into an unwilling grin. Peggy gave him a wry smile and they all looked at Bert.

‘Come on, Bert,’ Peggy said cajolingly. ‘Don’t let’s have a row on Bob’s first night home in months.’

‘I didn’t want to have a row,’ he muttered righteously, but he picked up his cup and looked at it. ‘I suppose this has gone cold after all that shenanigan.’

‘Maybe it has,’ Peggy said equably, ‘but we can soon make another pot. I don’t think the rationing’s that bad we can’t afford another spoonful of tea to celebrate. And then I suppose Bob’ll have to be getting back to the barracks and we’ll be off down the shelter for the night. It’s nearly time for the warning to go, isn’t it?’

Bert nodded. He didn’t want upset in the family any more than the rest of them, but he felt scared and uncertain by the way things were changing so fast. The whole world was upside down, he reflected as Peggy filled his cup with fresh tea. And maybe he was just too old to keep up with it all.

I just wish I could go and fight too, he thought, and clenched his big fist on the table. I’m as fit and healthy as any of these youngsters, and got the experience too - yet because I’m over forty, I’m chucked on the scrap heap and left to do the jobs that young girls like our Gladys think they can do better! Why, me and Frank Budd, we’ve already been through a war - we know what it’s like. Why can’t we go and sort ‘em all out?

Instead, they were reduced to being firewatchers. Or members of the Home Guard - parading with broomsticks instead of guns, playing games like kids in the street.