The Grafton Girls (11 page)

‘That’s enough of that.’ Susan stopped the conversation quietly, and Diane remembered that Susan’s husband was on escort duty with the Arctic convoys.

‘Yes, Pat?’ Susan greeted the uniformed Wren hurrying towards her.

‘Can you lend us one of your girls, only we’re a couple short,’ she begged.

‘It depends how long you want her for.’

‘Only for the rest of the shift. We need someone to go up the ladder and write down information as it’s called out.’

‘You go, Diane,’ Susan instructed. ‘But I’ll need her back tomorrow,’ she warned.

‘Don’t worry if you haven’t done this before,’ the Wren reassured Diane as she hurried her to the huge information blackboards filling one wall. ‘All you have to do is write down what’s called out to you. You’ll need a quick hand and a decent head for heights, that’s all. You can take that ladder over there.’ She gave a brisk nod in the direction of the ladder, over twenty foot, closest to the door.

Obediently Diane did as she had been instructed, climbing up the ladder very cautiously, and listening out for the commands shouted up to her as she and the other girls worked to keep the blackboard information up to date. It wasn’t so very different from what she had been doing with her own team, except that they didn’t have to climb such high ladders, and of course she was dealing with the convoy itself rather than its air cover.

You certainly needed a good head for heights, Diane admitted, responding ruefully to the girl on the next ladder as she mouthed across, ‘It seems strange at first, but you soon get used to it. Just don’t look down too much.’

Although with a constant stream of personnel coming in and out of the ops room, and the work she had to do, she should have been far too busy to be aware of one unwontedly familiar voice amongst so many, somehow Diane recognised the major’s voice the moment he stepped into the room. The shock of hearing it had her forgetting not to look down, and determinedly she put the fit of
dizziness that swamped her down to vertigo than it having anything to do with the major himself. He was standing with his British counterpart, discussing the deployment of the reconnaissance craft, and surely far too involved in that to be aware of her, Diane acknowledged in relief. And yet whether because she was looking at him and he sensed it, or for some other reason, he suddenly looked up at her, catching her off guard so that their gazes locked. The contempt in his made Diane’s face burn. She was glad of a new instruction shouted to her for the opportunity it gave to turn away. And yet even with her back to him she was still somehow conscious of his every movement. Because of the humiliation she felt at knowing he had witnessed her drunken behaviour on Saturday night, that was all, Diane reassured herself. Behaviour that had been caused by his men.

Her ladder was positioned so close to one of the doors that the door itself had been pinned back to prevent anyone coming in banging it into the ladder. With so much going on no one had noticed that someone had inadvertently let the door close. The first Diane knew of the danger she was in was when she felt the door thud into her ladder, causing it to start to slip sideways.

‘Christ! Lookout!’ she heard someone yell, and then everything was happening so quickly that it all became a blur. Instinctively she knew she had to escape from the falling ladder.

‘Jump,’ a harshly familiar voice demanded. ‘Jump.’

Automatically she obeyed, gasping with shock as
a pair of strong arms caught hold of her and the air whooshed out of her lungs, whilst the stiffness of gold braid on a uniform jacket scratched at her face.

The major.

She could feel the fierce, fast thud of his heartbeat against her own. She could feel too the hard grip of his hands on her body as he held her and then slowly lowered her until her feet could touch the floor. She looked up at him and then forgot what it was she had been about to say – forgot everything, in fact, as her heartbeat picked up and matched his frantic race with a swift fierce pulse. The second turned into a full minute and still neither of them moved.
Was
this what happened when your body missed its physical contact with a man? Was this why it was so forbidden for young women to know the intimacies of sex before they were married; because of the need it might awaken within them? How could she even think about need and this man together?

A violent shudder went through her just at the same moment as the major released her, saying harshly, ‘Next time I suggest you try taking more water with it before you go climbing ladders.’

His comment made her gasp in outrage but it was too late for her to defend herself: he was already walking away whilst the other girls were crowding anxiously around her, demanding to know if she was all right, and the white-faced Wren who had been the cause of the accident apologised over and over again.

‘I thought you and me was going to be best friends, Ruthie, but it seems to me that you’ve got more time for that lot you’re going to the Grafton with,’ Maureen grumbled that morning at the factory.

‘Me going out with them doesn’t stop us being friends,’ Ruthie tried to reassure her.

‘But you’ll be going to the Grafton again wi’ ’em tonight I’ll bet,’ Maureen challenged her.

Guiltily Ruthie nodded. She hadn’t stopped thinking about last Saturday all week and she had been thrilled to bits when Jess had asked her if she fancied going to the Grafton again this week. Mrs Brown had been almost as excited for her as she was herself, proclaiming archly that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if a certain GI wasn’t going to make a beeline for Ruthie the minute he saw her.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Ruthie had felt bound to protest. ‘He may not even be there.’ But of course she was hoping desperately that he would be.

She did feel bad about Maureen, though. She
had told Ruthie earlier in the week that there was no chance of her ever going out dancing because she was needed at home to help look after ‘the little ’uns’.

‘Well, seein’ as you keep on sayin’ that you and me are friends, will you do us a favour then?’ Maureen asked.

All too relieved at the thought of being able to do something to alleviate her guilt, Ruthie agreed.

‘I’m trying to get some bits and pieces together for the little ’uns – a surprise, like, for Christmas – and I was wondering if you would keep hold of it for me, tek it home wi’ you, like, until I ask you for it.’

‘For Christmas?’ Ruthie asked surprised. ‘But that’s months away yet.’

‘Yes, I know that.’ Maureen sounded impatient. ‘But like I said, it’s to be a surprise and I don’t want the little ’uns cottoning on. It’s not much, just a few tins I’ve managed to save up to get on the black market and some bits and pieces.’

‘The black market! Oh…’

‘There! I knew it! You say you’re my friend but when I ask you for a bit of help you go all hoity-toity on me. It’s all right for the likes of you wot can manage on the ration, but my mam’s got her own kids and we’ve got our Fanny and our Mabel’s kids living wi’ us as well. Poor little mites are starving, crying half the night for their mams, their little bellies half empty on account of this bloody war. All I want to do is give them a bit of a treat for Christmas, but if you don’t want to help me…’

‘No. I mean yes, of course I’ll help you,’ Ruthie assured her sympathetically.

‘Well, that’s all right then. I’ll tell you wot: if you give me your locker key then I can put the stuff in your locker without anyone else seeing. Then you can tek it home wi’ you.’

‘Well…’

‘Well what? What skin is it off your nose?’ Maureen demanded almost aggressively.

‘All right then.’ Ruthie gave in. She wasn’t sure she felt comfortable about handling black-market goods, but she couldn’t refuse to help, not when Maureen had described the children’s hunger so vividly. It was bad enough being grown up and feeling hungry all the time, but it must be truly awful for the children, who couldn’t really be expected to understand why there wasn’t enough for them to eat. Everywhere you went people talked longingly about the food they would be able to eat once the war was over. Sometimes it occupied people’s minds as much as the war itself. That aching, gnawing feeling of hunger was always there, and no amount of Lord Woolton’s pie, or Spam brought all the way across the Atlantic by the convoys, could banish it. Everyone talked longingly of proper fruit cake, and Victoria sandwich cake with real cream and dripping with jam; of chocolate, of roast beef Sunday dinners, rich meaty stews with light-as-air dumplings, of proper bread, and as much of anything as you wanted.

‘It’s all right us talking about food like we all had everything we wanted to eat before this war,’
Jess had told them all at dinnertime earlier in the week when they had sat down together for their canteen meal of thin watery stew and boiled vegetables, ‘but, like my Auntie Jane says, there’s many a family now getting more to eat than they’ve ever had, and more money coming in as well.’

‘Well, we might have more money coming in,’ Lucy had sniffed, ‘but we ain’t got anything to spend it on, ’ave we?’

‘It will be different after the war.’ Those were the words on everyone’s lips and the hope in everyone’s heart, the belief they were all clinging to now with the war in its third year and the struggle of the last three years showing in people’s faces.

Liverpool, more than any other city outside London, had been savaged by bombing raids, the heart wrenched out of it with the destruction of its streets and buildings. Or at least that was what Hitler hoped. The reality was that the people of Liverpool were using their well-known sense of humour to keep them going.

‘We can’t do owt but go on,’ Ruthie had heard their neighbour saying. ‘Hitler won’t give up until he has us by the throat or we’ve beaten him, and I know which I’m putting my money on. Our lads can do it and, by golly, I intend to make sure that I do all I can to help them here at home.’

His were sentiments that Ruthie knew many of her parents’ generation supported. They had sons fighting for their country, after all, and daughters praying for their safety. Some of the younger generation, though – especially the girls who were having
to live with the reality of rationing, and the absence of the country’s young men – were beginning to chaff resentfully against the restrictions the war had brought. And now with the Americans arriving in increasing numbers, the gulf between the way they were having to live and the way their allies were able to live sometimes seemed to be dividing the women of the country into two opposing camps: one that welcomed the arrival of the Americans, and one that was bitterly opposed to it.

Ruthie knew which camp she belonged to, and besides, it was more the older generation that disapproved of the Americans, she suspected, fearing the effect they might have on young women having to live without their own men.

‘Give us your key this afternoon, when we go off shift, then. I’m volunteering to work overtime on Sunday, so I can put me stuff in your locker then and I’ll give yer your key back on Monday morning.’

Ruthie nodded. The foreman was looking at them, and she didn’t want him coming over. Only yesterday he had praised her for the speed she was developing at filling the shells. His praise had given her a warm glow of pride. It bucked a person up no end to know they were doing their bit. Every shell she filled was helping their men to do their job, and every one they didn’t fill properly was making it harder for them to do that job. That was what the foreman was constantly telling them, and Ruthie had taken his words to heart. But when she imagined someone using ‘her’ shells, that someone was wearing an American uniform not a
British one. Would
he
be there again this Saturday? And if he was, would he ask her to dance again? She could hardly breathe for the bubbles of excitement fizzing inside her tummy.

‘So you won’t be coming to Blackpool this evening, then?’

‘No. I won’t be off duty until eight and, to tell the truth, Myra, I really don’t want anything to do with the Americans. Not after what happened last Saturday.’

‘If I was you, I wouldn’t make so much of it,’ Myra told Diane carelessly. ‘It was just a bit of fun, that’s all.’

‘Just a bit of fun that nearly cost me my job and certainly cost me the respect of the other girls,’ Diane pointed out quietly.

‘Oh, don’t be so prissy. So you had a bit too much to drink? So what?’

Diane shook her head. Myra’s attitude underlined how very differently they felt about things. But they were billeted together, and being in the WAAF taught one to stick by one’s colleagues, even when you didn’t agree with what they were doing.

‘You were lucky to get someone to give up their Saturday night off and switch shifts with you,’ Diane commented, as she checked her reflection in the small mirror in their shared bedroom.

‘Well, as to that,’ Myra paused, ‘the truth is that I couldn’t get anyone to change with, so I’ve decided to play wag and just not go in.’

‘You can’t mean that!’ Diane said incredulously.

‘Why not? Other girls are off sick all the time.’ She picked up her hairbrush and started fiddling with her hair, avoiding meeting Diane’s appalled look.

‘Off sick, yes, but you aren’t sick. You can’t just pretend that you are so that you can go off to Blackpool, Myra. It’s wrong.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, I might have known
you’d
start moralising.’ Myra banged down her hairbrush. ‘Look, I’m going to Blackpool with Nick, and nothing and no one is going to stop me. I’ve
got
to go, Diane. If I don’t…well, Nick isn’t the type who is going to hang around waiting for a girl when he can see there are plenty of others willing to take her place.’

‘And that doesn’t tell you anything about the kind of man he is?’ Diane challenged her.

‘Of course it does. It tells me that he’s the kind of man who knows what he wants and who makes sure he gets it. My kind of man. I’m going to Blackpool and that’s that.’

Diane wanted to stay and talk her out of what she was doing but she knew if she did she would be late for her own shift.

‘Look, why don’t you change your mind and come too?’

Was that a note of pleading she could hear in Myra’s voice? Why? Because she wasn’t as sure of herself as she liked to make out?

‘I’m sorry but no.’

‘Well, suit yourself,’ Myra told her dismissively. ‘It’s your loss. I’ve heard that the Tower Ballroom is really something special.’

‘How are you going to get there and back in an evening?’ Diane couldn’t stop herself from asking uneasily. ‘You can’t rely on the trains.’

‘Who said anything about going on a train?’ Myra smirked triumphantly. ‘No, Nick said he would fix everything and that includes the transport.’

Diane frowned, her unease growing. Myra was placing a lot more faith in her GI date than she would have in her shoes. Meeting up with someone at the Grafton was one thing, going AWOL from her shift and agreeing to visit somewhere as far away as Blackpool with him was a different thing altogether, but according to Myra a crowd of girls and GIs were going. And, of course, the Americans, unlike their British counterparts, were not limited as to the amount of money they had to spend or, it seemed, the amount of off-duty time they had to spend it in.

‘Here I am, duck,’ Mrs Brown proclaimed as she knocked briefly on the back door and then came bustling into the kitchen. ‘Whatever’s to do?’ she asked when she saw Ruthie’s worried expression. ‘I thought you was looking forward to going out tonight.’

‘I am…I was…’ Ruthie admitted, ‘but I’m worried about my mother.’

‘Well, you must stop worrying. I’ll look out for her right and tight, you needn’t fret about that. Where is she? Listening to the wireless, I’ll bet. She loves them wireless programmes.’

Ruthie shook her head. ‘She’s in the parlour,
but…she isn’t her normal self at all. She’s hardly spoken all day, and when I talk to her she looks at me as though she doesn’t know me.’

‘She’ll be having one of those little turns of hers, Ruthie love, that’s all,’ Mrs Brown said comfortingly. ‘Thinking about your dad and the happy times they had together, I’ll be bound. She’ll be back to her normal self by the time you come back tonight, I reckon. Anyone would think that you don’t want to see that handsome GI of yours,’ she chuckled.

Ruthie blushed hotly. ‘He isn’t my GI, Mrs Brown. He only asked me for one dance, that’s all.’

‘Well, that’s enough where young love is concerned. More than enough sometimes. You stop worrying about your mam and think about yourself instead.’

Ruthie gave her a wan smile. She didn’t think she could bear not to go to the Grafton tonight, but her conscience was pricking at her, telling her that it was her duty to stay here with her mother when she was in this worryingly withdrawn mood.

‘Go on.’ Mrs Brown shooed her towards the door, flapping her apron at her and laughing. ‘Off you go and enjoy yourself. Your mam will be fine.’

‘I’ll just pop my head round the door and say goodbye,’ Ruthie said, hurrying into the narrow hallway, her heels tapping on the lino.

When Ruthie opened the door she saw that her mother was sitting in the fireside chair that had always been Ruthie’s father’s chair. She looked up
but her gaze was unfocused and unseeing and it caught at Ruthie’s heart. Perhaps she
should
stay…

She was just about to take a step into the room when Mrs Brown bustled up, calling out, ‘Here I am again, Mrs Philpott, come to sit with you and have a nice chat whilst your Ruthie goes out with her friends. See, I told you she wouldn’t mind,’ Mrs Brown told Ruthie firmly when her mother made no response. ‘Off you go otherwise them friends of yours will think you aren’t coming.’

Myra looked anxiously at the station clock. Five o’clock, Nick had said, and now it was nearly ten past. Had something happened to make him have to change their plans? If so, couldn’t he have got a message to her? He knew where she was working and American servicemen were in and out of the Dungeon all day long.

She would wait until a quarter-past and not a minute longer. She had her pride, after all. But what if he arrived after that and she wasn’t here? He’d think she wasn’t interested. And she…She tensed as she heard the screech of tyres and a Jeep came barrelling down the road, scattering pedestrians.

Nick! She was making her way towards him even before it had stopped, ignoring the irritated looks of the people she was pushing past.

‘What happened?’ she demanded when she reached him. ‘You’re so late.’

‘Sorry, babe…A bit of last-minute dickering
with one of the guys.’ He winked at her. ‘Had to collect my winnings to spend on my best girl.’

‘Where’s everyone else?’ Myra asked him. ‘You said there’d be a crowd of us going.’

He winked again. ‘I decided that it would be more fun if we were on our own. Come on, jump in.’

Myra didn’t hesitate. It was flattering to know that he wanted her to himself.

‘You must have felt a bit let down when the others decided not to come along?’ she commented archly as she settled herself beside him in the Jeep.