The Gunner Girl (23 page)

‘Mr Lavery's got a new walking stick,' she said, turning back, plait twitching like a cat's tail between her shoulders.

‘You stay away from Mr Lavery, you hear?' said Bea, counting spoonfuls of tea from the caddy into the pan. ‘Look what I got, May.' She held up a tin of condensed
milk.

‘Cor!' said May ‘Posh tea!' and she ran off to tell the others.

‘Get that from work?' said Joan.

‘I told someone in the cookhouse something they wanted to hear, is all,' said Bea, scooping the condensed milk into the pan. ‘It's nice for them to have a treat,
sometimes.'

Joan counted the slices of bread: just enough, so long as someone could have the crust.

‘Was he pleased to see you?' said Bea, suddenly, and Joan realised she was talking about Rob.

‘Yes,' said Joan. ‘We went for a walk. We – we went to a church.' That was all she said, but Bea gave her a sharp, sidelong look, and she felt she must have given
something away. ‘You?' she said hastily, before Bea asked more questions.

‘I went for a walk, too,' said Bea. ‘With Baby Val.'

‘Nice to spend some time with her?' said Joan.

‘Yes. And I caught up with someone I hadn't heard from for a while,' said Bea, staring down at the boiling tea.

‘Will you see them again soon?' said Joan.

‘I'm sure I'll see them again,' said Bea, stirring the leaves. ‘And Rob – when will you see him again?'

‘I don't know,' said Joan. And then the windowpanes quivered and there was a roar overhead.

‘They're on their way!' yelled one of the boys, and the others made zooming sounds, running into the kitchen with arms outstretched, round and round the kitchen table making
stuttering machine-gun fire and crashing salivery bomb sounds. The engine noises got louder, mingling until they were one huge roar and then there was the thunder as the planes bansheed overhead,
like a flock of murderous geese, flying away from the pink-tinted evening countryside, away from the golden skies and the setting sun, right over her head, east and on across the channel and over
to Germany. She resisted the urge to put her fingers in her ears. She wanted all of the painful loudness, all of it: one of those planes was Rob's. Round and round ran the noisy boys, as the
sound of engines droned away eastwards.

‘David, John and Bertie, you get out of it or I'll be giving you what for!' yelled Bea, but they took no notice, running round and round until one of them stuttered machine-gun
sounds at the others and they ran in decreasing circles, yelling out and falling, roiling on the threadbare rug by the fireplace. Joan watched the boys scream, falling down onto the floor.

‘I don't know when I'll see him again,' she repeated.

‘Lord, that's all we need,' said Bea, as the siren started. They were halfway up the street, on the way to the pub. ‘Better get down the shelter.'
Bea pulled her sleeve and led her through an alley and across a piece of rough ground. Joan couldn't see a thing and trotted blindly, trying to keep up. Bea was swearing softly under her
breath. ‘Down you go,' she said aloud, stopping suddenly. ‘The steps are a bit slippy, so watch yourself, girl.' she gave Joan a nudge. ‘I'll just wait up here
for the others.'

Joan inched down the damp steps, keeping one hand against the rough brick wall for guidance. She still couldn't see properly, edging down into the tarry blackness. At the bottom, the air
was clammy and smelled of old urine. She could just make out a door, and felt for the cool metal handle. She turned it and pushed inside. Was there a light switch? Her fingers fluttered against
chipped plaster. Yes, here. She flicked it on and a single bulb cast a jaundiced light into the underground space: cracked yellow-cream paint, bare concrete floor, wooden benches pushed up against
the walls, in the middle a broken brazier, spilling ash. Joan went to sit in the furthest corner.

It wasn't long before the door opened and the benches began to fill: women with knitting, a boy with a book, twin girls with a loop of string to play cat's cradle, a bony grey man
whittled a stick with his penknife. They nodded at her as they filed in and sat down, but nobody said much. The wood creaked as a fat woman in curlers plumped down next to her. Eventually Bea
appeared, trailing siblings. Finally, her mum arrived, carrying Baby Val, and shutting the door firmly behind her. Nobody talked of lighting the brazier, but it began to warm up anyway, once
they'd all squeezed in. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies.

‘What happened to the wireless?' said Bea, sitting near the door. She pulled her crochet out of her coat pocket, fingers twitching round the red wool; hook flashing dully in the
half-light.

‘Mr Lavery—' May, Bea's little sister, began.

‘You shut your trap about Mr Lavery,' Bea's mum hissed. Joan noticed how her breath wheezed. Someone tutted.

The siren had stopped now. ‘Another false alarm,' sighed the fat woman in curlers, ‘and my scones'll be ruined.'

But Joan knew it wasn't a false alarm. She always heard the planes before anyone else: a tinnitus-whine snaking closer. She thought about Rob, in his plane. She took her lipstick out of
her gas-mask case and the lighter Rob had left there. She used the back of the lighter as a mirror, but her reflection was smudged and dull. She pursed her lips, pouting, hoping she hadn't
gone over the edge. She put the lipstick and lighter back, and pulled his flying jacket tight against her chest.

The planes were getting closer, a humming vibration in the stale air. They could all hear it now. Joan saw people tilt their heads to one side, catching the distant noise, but nobody remarked on
it. ‘Where's Vi?' said Bea, suddenly.

‘She'll be in the pub cellar,' said May.

‘With Frank Timpson.' Rita snickered.

‘Who's Frank Timpson when he's at home?' said Bea.

‘Mrs Morley says he's a spiv!' Rita burst out, giggling.

‘Vi and Frank, up a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g,' started May.

‘Give it a rest, May,' said Bea, glaring at her little sister.

The fat lady sighed again, shifting on her ample haunches. And the droning of the bombers was louder still. Suddenly, Joan couldn't bear it any longer. She stood up. ‘Who's for
a song?' she said, brightly. There were a few desultory nods. She forced herself to smile, make eye contact with them. The old man carried on whittling his wood, but the little girls with the
cat's cradle clapped their hands. ‘I'm no Vera Lynn, so I'll need all the help I can get!' she continued. Anything, anything to drown out the noise of the bloody
bombers. ‘Everyone know ‘‘Run Rabbit Run''?' May and Rita nodded, and Bea looked up from her crochet and smiled. ‘Well, come on then, after three . .
.' She didn't want to think about Rob, stuck in the sky over Germany, or the enemy bombs that were just about to come pelting down on them. Sometimes having a good time and forgetting
about it all was the only thing to do.

‘One, two, three!'

Spring washed over London like a spritz of perfume. Hyde Park had been dug over for communal vegetable patches, and was now lush with marrows and new potatoes. In Kensington
Gardens, netted-cane wigwams protected fruit bushes from birds, and the roses were in bloom.

‘I say, we could really use some secateurs,' said Edie, sucking a dot of blood from a pricked fingertip.

Joan, holding a half-full basket of roses, laughed, tipping back her fair curls into the sunshine: ‘I don't know why you're so set on doing this, anyway, Edie. Isn't it
treason or something, stealing royal roses?'

‘What, like killing swans?' said Edie, struggling again with the rose stem. ‘I don't think so, dear. In any case, who'll notice? We're so tucked away
here.' They were almost hidden, far beyond the Peter Pan statue, where a row of fruit canes bordered a hedge of rose bushes. Bumblebees tumbled and glanced off the roses. The sun was shining
and the scent was glorious. ‘Anyway, Bea deserves a bunch of flowers to cheer her up.'

‘Kitchen fatigues are the worst,' Joan said, nodding. ‘Last time, I peeled so many spuds, I thought I was going to turn into one.'

‘I know – poor thing – and it wasn't her fault, really. She had to catch the post to get that little matinee jacket she'd made for her little sister in time for her
first birthday, didn't she? And she was only a moment or two late for last parade.'

‘Well, that's Staff Farr for you,' said Joan, swinging the basket.

‘Yes, it did seem somewhat harsh of Staff to put her on a charge, just for that,' said Edie, finally managing to release a long-stemmed crimson bloom. She felt the outer edge of a
rose petal – soft, like a baby's cheek. ‘She really loves her baby sister, doesn't she?'

‘She does,' said Joan. ‘And, have you ever wondered—' but she didn't complete the sentence because there was the sound of a man's voice from the end of
the fruit canes. ‘The royal guard, they're onto us!' Joan giggled, whipping a tea towel over the basket of roses so it looked just like a picnic hamper. Edie held the rose
she'd just picked behind her back with one hand, and linked arms with Joan. Together, they began to walk away.

As they reached the end of the fruit canes, there was a swishing of cloth against cloth, and the sound of the man clearing his throat. They rounded the corner. Not one man, but two, Edie
noticed. No, not two men – a man and a woman. Heavens, had they intruded on some kind of a tryst? The man was pushing a wing of white hair back off his face, the woman smoothing down her
skirt. The man was tall, with a long nose. He—

‘Quelle surprise!'
he said, stretching out his arms. ‘Half Pint – what the devil are you doing here?' He began to stride towards her. Edie looked beyond
him, to the woman: her face was flushed and she was fiddling with a button on her blouse. It wasn't Mummy. ‘Fancy bumping into you here,' Pop said, catching her up in a hug. She
smelled gin on his breath. ‘And your pal, too.' He lunged at Joan, who quickly held out a hand and said, ‘A pleasure to meet you again, sir.'

‘Oh, nonsense, nonsense, we know each other, don't we, Jeannie? You don't need to “sir” me,' Pop said, kissing Joan on both cheeks.

The woman was still a distance away, rummaging in a handbag. ‘Anyone for a smoke?' she said, trotting towards them and holding out a gold cigarette case.

‘Ah, Meredith, marvellous idea,' said Pop, turning round as if he'd only just noticed she was there.

Edie was still holding the stolen rose behind her back. She felt the thorns crushing into her palm. She opened her fingers and let it fall softly to the grass. ‘Mrs Cowie,' she said,
as the woman approached. They touched cheeks and Edie was reminded of the rose petals: scented and downy. ‘Joan, this is Mrs Cowie. Mrs Cowie, this is Joan.' They both said, ‘How
d'you do.'

‘May I?' Edie said, indicating the cigarette case. Mrs Cowie said, ‘Of course,' opening and proffering. It reminded Edie of the magazine of bullets, from that time on the
range, on their last day of training. She pulled one of the smooth white cylinders out. It had two gold bands on the filter. They huddled in as Mrs Cowie produced a slim gold lighter that matched
her cigarette case. She lit Joan's and Edie's, but Pop put a hand out to stop her lighting her own.

‘Three in a row's bad luck,' said Pop. ‘Jerry sees the first strike, takes aim at the second and, if you show him a third Lucifer, then your number's up.' He
took his pipe out of his pocket.

‘We're hardly in no-man's-land now, Neville,' Mrs Cowie drawled, clicking the lighter again.

Edie inhaled deeply. Smoking still made her feel a bit dizzy. She glanced across at Joan, who winked at her, then looked away. Pop was stuffing his pipe and getting out his matches. ‘So
Meredith – Mrs Cowie – and I were just out for a stroll,' he said. ‘Such a glorious day for it!' Mrs Cowie nodded, lips clamped round her cigarette. Her lipstick was
smudged, Edie noticed. ‘And what brings you here, Half Pint?'

Edie exhaled. ‘Picking roses, that's all,' she said.

‘Ah, yes, a rose by any other name, and all that,' said Pop, sucking on his pipe until the tobacco caught, blistering orange, and the blue smoke began to rise.

‘Romeo and Juliet,' said Mrs Cowie.

‘Star-crossed lovers,' said Pop, looking at her through his pipe smoke. Edie watched as their glance connected. Then they both looked away.

Edie looked over at Joan. ‘Mrs Cowie is Mummy's best friend,' she said, flinging her half-smoked cigarette onto the grass and stamping on it. Joan nodded, and looked
thoughtfully at Pop.

‘Indeed she is,' said Pop. ‘And we were just talking about her, weren't we, Meredith? It's been an age since you two had a girls' night out,' he added,
and then cleared his throat, chewing on the pipe stem.

Mrs Cowie looked stonily into the middle distance. ‘Maud should come up to town more often,' she said.

‘We should really go,' said Joan, touching Edie on the sleeve. ‘We've got that thing on later, remember?' Edie nodded, going along with the half-truth. As they
left, Pop gave her another bear hug and whispered into her ear, ‘There's no need to mention this to your mother, Half Pint – we wouldn't want her getting the wrong idea,
would we?' As they were leaving, Pop then called out after them. ‘You must swing by the club sometime – bring your pals – they've started letting the gentle sex into
the lounge bar, and there's a piano there.' But Edie couldn't bring herself to shout back an acknowledgement. Her jaws felt as if they were bound together with wire, clamped tight
and aching.

They walked on past the round pond, where an old man in his shirtsleeves was pushing out a model square-rigger with a large stick. Joan stopped. ‘Come here,' she said, wrapping her
arms round Edie. ‘You do look down.'