The Gunner Girl (29 page)

She'd bathed the twins, but Ma never let her bath Baby. Ma said it was a mother's job to bath her own baby. As if Baby wasn't Bea's at all.

Bea sighed, watching the water slow to a trickle and then dipping the cup in again. She wasn't Baby any more, though, was she? She was Valerie. In the last letter, Vi said she was starting
to walk, now. She wasn't a baby any more. Bea sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, which made it all wet. Edie looked round, with those big doll's eyes, blue and
empty.

‘Edie, what happened out there tonight?' said Bea. Edie was silent. She blinked, once, and held Bea's gaze.

‘He forced himself on you, didn't he?' said Bea. Edie's chin moved down a fraction. Her bottom lip moved and her tongue made a faint clicking sound, as if she were about
to speak, but nothing came out but a breath.

‘I knew it,' said Bea, shaking her head. ‘I knew something was up after I saw those tea leaves. I should never have let you out of my sight.' Bea dipped the cup back into
the water and Edie turned away. ‘But listen, girl,' Bea said, pouring the hot water over Edie's shoulders. ‘It doesn't have to be like that. It's not always like
that, really it's not.' Bea carried on tipping the bubbly water over Edie and thought about Jock. She thought about when she used to hold hands with him when they walked along the
Strand. She thought of the secluded patch of sunlight behind the ice-cream stall, just off season, when the crowds had all gone home and the estuary air tasted salty and Jock's breath was
warm on her neck. She dipped the cup into the water and it came up with foam topping, like ice cream. It was like a bath full of ice cream. Jock had had a rum-'n'-raisin ice, that time,
and his mouth tasted sweet and pungent. ‘If it's with someone you love, it's like – it's like a blessing,' Bea continued, in a low voice, watching the water
glide down. ‘You know you said to me that sometimes, when you've been praying and you feel all warm and filled with joy, remember you said that? Well, if it's with someone you
love, it's even better than that, girl.'

The water sluiced over Edie's creamy skin, with its freckles like sand. Bea thought about the Strand and the sea wall and the walk that followed the estuary right out to the marshes where
there was nothing but waving grass and the mewing sea birds and the blue, blue sky overhead.

‘I've got a baby,' Bea said to the back of Edie's head, but Edie stayed facing forward, not moving. ‘I did it with a boy called Jock because I loved him and he said
he'd marry me when he came home on leave, just as soon as he'd saved up for a ring. But he didn't come back and I had a baby. My ma – my ma pretends the baby's hers.
She pretends because she lost one of her own – stillborn, same time I fell pregnant. And she thinks the soul of her dead baby is in mine. She thinks my baby is hers. But she's not.
She's my baby and she always will be.'

Bea could hear the break and crash in her voice, like waves hitting the shore. ‘She's mine, and one day I'll get her back. As soon as he writes back. As soon as he comes
home.' Bea's throat was tight. She dropped the cup in the bathwater and buried her head in her hands. She felt like a piece of paper someone had crumpled up, ready to chuck into the
hearth. She rubbed her eyes, and then dipped her fingers back into the bathwater. It was getting cool.

‘Come on, girl, let's get you out,' she said, standing up and holding a hand out to Edie. She helped her out of the bath and ushered her into a towel and rubbed her until every
droplet of water was gone. Then she got Edie to hold up her hands and slipped the nightdress over her head. She pulled out the bathplug, swirling the water round so that it wouldn't leave a
soap-scum rim, then she gathered Edie's clothes from the nail.

The satin knickers, ripped, lay on the floor. They were expensive, beautiful and ruined. Bea sucked her teeth. The water gurgled down the plughole. She thought about that yellow-haired Yank.
Should they have tried to do something more for him? What about his two pals? She sighed and reached down to pick up the soiled underwear. It would have to be burnt.

Joan forced her eyes open as she exhaled. The smoke hung in front of her face like a veil. It wasn't exhaustion that made her eyes heavy-lidded and her head pound, it was
concern. Poor Edie. She inhaled again and this time exhaled with a sighing rush.

‘Penny for them,' said a voice. She looked round. It was Billy, the store man.

‘Oh, nothing just that Monday-morning feeling, I suppose,' she replied.

‘Thanks for giving me your spam and egg,' he said.

‘You're welcome. I'm watching my figure,' she said, which wasn't true, but she couldn't exactly tell fat little Billy from stores that the reason she had no
appetite was because her best friend had been raped and they'd all left a GI for dead at the 400 Club.

‘You're not the only one watching your figure,' said Billy with a leer as he took out his packet of Craven ‘A'. She shot him a sideways look. He sniggered and lit
up. Joan leant back against the corrugated metal wall of the hut and tried to wriggle her toes in the too-tight shoes; they were her ones from before, black civvie shoes that had never fitted. But
there was a reason she was wearing them this morning. Edie had come back the other night with no shoes; her ATS brogues were somewhere in the wreckage in Leicester Square, along with the drowned
American.

‘You know what, you're right, Billy, I do have something on my mind,' said Joan, continuing to lounge against the metal hut wall, even though it poked hard into her shoulders.
‘Have a look at me and tell me what my problem is.'

He narrowed his conker-coloured eyes, appraising her, blowing smoke in rings as his gaze travelled over her body like searchlights. ‘Nah,' he said at last. ‘No problem I can
see.'

‘Look further down,' she instructed.

He grinned, enjoying the game, and his eyes lingered over every inch of khaki, all the way down to her . . . ‘Shoes,' he said. ‘What's up with your shoes?'

‘Oh, Billy, I've only gone and lost them. These are my old civvie ones. We were out dancing on Friday and I took them off because – well, you know how it is – and then
there was that air raid and . . . and Staff Farr will kill me, Billy, you know what she's like, don't you?' Joan let the words hang.

‘I don't open the stores until nine,' said Billy.

‘Can't you make an exception?' she said, turning her face towards him but leaving her body draped against the hut wall.

‘It's more than my job's worth,' he replied. ‘You think you're the only one with a bastard for a boss?'

‘You never know, it might be worth your while,' she said.

‘Will it, though?' he said, looking her in the eye and blowing a large smoke ring in her direction.

‘Oh, I don't know, might be, might not be.' She shrugged, maintaining eye contact and smiling.

‘All right, I'll meet you at the stores in two ticks,' he said. His tongue flicked out briefly to lick his lips and his fag end fell to the ground.

She finished her own cigarette and counted to one hundred before walking to the stores. The morning cloud was low and wet on her face. Her shoes – the wrong shoes – were still full
of the pinch and grief of last winter. Every step hurt as she followed the path. The Quartermaster's stores appeared suddenly out of the fog. The door was slightly ajar. She pushed it open a
little further and stepped inside. In front of her was the wooden counter and beyond it, darkness. The blackout curtains were still down.

‘Billy?' she called.

‘Ssh. Shut the bloody door, will you?' She did, and then she noticed the glow of a hurricane lamp, bobbing towards her between high shelves laden with army kit, and Billy's
face, greenish yellow and pitted with dark hollows in the lamplight. His shadow bounced and fled down the gap between the shelves.

‘Here,' he said, and as he came closer his face loomed like something from the ghost train at the fair. He put the brogues on the counter and she picked them up to look at them,
squinting in the dimness. He lifted up the hinged portion of the counter and slid round next to her. She felt a hand on her bum, warm and sudden. She shoved it away.

‘Wrong size. I need a three.'

‘You? You're never a three, not those plates of meat. You're at least a size six or my name's not . . .'

‘I need a three,' she interrupted, holding out the shoes.

‘All right, all right.' He sucked his teeth, took the brogues and slid back round, and away, taking the lantern with him.

For a while, she was in darkness again. Billy would want something in return for the shoes, wouldn't he? He'd want to cop a feel, at least. You didn't get something for
nothing. Boys will be boys – that's what Edie found out. Joan heard his footfalls getting closer and watched the orb of lamplight growing larger and brighter. Billy plonked the brogues
down and she quickly picked them up and checked the size again. Then he was coming back round, a solid shadow, getting closer.

‘Thanks so much for this, Billy, you're a pal,' she said.

‘Just a pal, Joanie?'

‘Just a pal, Billy,' she said, as he inched nearer.

‘We could be more than pals,' he said, and for a moment she thought it would be easier just to shut her eyes and let him get on with it.

‘You know I've got someone, Billy.'

‘But he's not here, now, is he?'

‘No, he's not, but I'm not like that,' she said.

‘That's not what I heard,' said Billy, and she could feel his breath, damp on her neck. He was an inch or two shorter than her, and the skin on his cheek was smooth and plump,
like a boy's. ‘It's just a bit of fun, between friends. I've done you a favour, now you can do me one,' he said, warm and close in the darkness.

‘I can't,' she said, side-stepping away from him. She checked her watch. ‘Blimey, Billy, look at the time. We'll both be late for first parade at this
rate.'

He checked his own watch and sucked his teeth. ‘You can't blame me for asking,' he said.

‘I don't. No hard feelings?'

‘All right, no hard feelings,' he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. ‘That bloke of yours is a lucky man.'

She brushed past him as she left, and then paused in the doorway. ‘Thanks again, Billy,' she said.

She was so preoccupied with the shoes, and the time, that she didn't notice Staff Farr walking towards her through the mist and all-but ran into her.

‘Watch your step, Tucker,' said the staff sergeant, her eyes darting over Joan. ‘What are you doing all the way out here at this time?' she began.

‘Sorry, Staff, I was just . . .' Joan's mind raced ahead to try to find a plausible explanation.

‘Oh, never mind, just get a bloody move on or you'll be late for first parade.'

‘Yes, Staff.' She hurried on and banged open the door of their hut. In front of her Bea was just doing up Edie's buttons, dressing her, like a child. Bea gave her a look, round
eyes and downturned mouth.

‘Sorry I took so long,' said Joan, handing over the new shoes.

‘Thank the Lord you've got them, or there'd be some explaining to do,' said Bea, taking them from her. Then, turning to Edie. ‘Sit yourself down, girl, and
we'll get these shoes on you.'

Edie looked down at the shoes as if they were the first pair of shoes she'd seen in her life.

‘Come on, now, it'll be fine,' Bea soothed Edie, kneeling down and taking one foot and guiding it into the brown leather.

Joan watched as Bea slipped Edie's feet into the tiny shoes, and thought about Cinderella – the bit where the Prince finds her and the slipper fits. Then the image was replaced by a
memory: craning her head; black all around and in the distance a jewel-lit stage with a prince in blue bending over a blonde-haired Cinderella; ugly sisters were fat men in dresses with gurning
faces, throwing sweets into the crowd; laughter; applause. A pantomime – when was that? Who took her?

There was a thumping on the hut door and Sheila's voice, shrill and urgent: ‘The reserve team are already forming up, hurry up or you'll let us all down!'

Joan knelt down next to Bea, her fingers weaving and tying Edie's laces. She gave the toes of the brogues a quick rub; they were still dusty from the stores. Bea stood up, tugged at
Edie's arm, told them both to hurry up or there'd be hell to pay. ‘A three's right isn't it? Do they fit okay?' said Joan, helping Edie up. Edie nodded.

A sound of running footsteps went past the hut. ‘Come on,' said Bea, tugging Edie towards the door. ‘Your cap!' said Joan, and there was a panic as they searched for
Edie's cap and made sure it was placed exactly an inch over her eyes. From outside came the muffled sound of voices and laughter from the drill square, the whole battery assembling in time
for first parade.

Bea pulled Edie back towards the door. They were all properly dressed now; they should just make it. As the door opened, the voices on the drill square suddenly went silent. Joan glanced over
her shoulder as she followed the others out, and that was when she noticed the letter on her bed.

‘Hang on a sec, girls,' she said.

‘We wouldn't be here if you hadn't gone back for that letter,' said Bea, snatching a cloth from her.

‘We would've been late anyway,' said Joan. ‘What with—' she stopped herself. Edie was nearby, looking through the grimy windows at the men playing football on
the grass. Joan lowered her voice: ‘We were lucky we made it to work at all this morning, with her like she is.'

‘It's not her fault.'

‘I know it's not her fault, I'm not saying it's her fault, but it's hardly bloody mine, is it?'

‘If you hadn't gone back for that letter, though . . .'