Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (22 page)

‘I’ve only just got here. And anyway, we didn’t want to wake you up! Dad says you’ve not been sleeping.’

Her mother slumped in the chair opposite May, still holding on to one of her hands.

‘Oh, take no notice of him… I can sleep when I’m dead!’ she said, a small smile on her lips as she stroked the back of May’s hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re back, darlin’.’

May looked into her red-rimmed eyes, seeing more than tiredness. There was a blankness there, which belied her assurances.

‘But let’s have a look at you. Your lovely hair! You’ve cut it all off.’

May put her palm to the bottom of the new waved style, rolled just above her collar. ‘Regulations. I like it, though.’

‘I think it suits her,’ Mr Lloyd said, and May flashed him a wide black-toothed grin so that even her mother had to smile.

‘Well, I’ve got to love you and leave you or I’ll be late for me shift,’ her father said, kissing the top of her new hairstyle.

When he’d gone her mother insisted on making May a cooked breakfast, which she thought must have contained the whole family’s monthly bacon ration. Afterwards, she and her mother washed up plates in the scullery.

‘Peggy said she’ll try to get round and see you tomorrow, after work.’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ May said, trying to sound unconcerned. ‘I bet she’s been finding it hard without George.’

‘Oh yes, she’s lost without him,’ her mother said wistfully. ‘Well, he was everything to her, wasn’t he?’

But May suspected her mother was thinking more about her own loss than Peggy’s.

‘Still, she’s enjoying being back at Atkinson’s, and her WVS work?’

Her mother polished the plate again, which she had already dried once. ‘She’s wearing herself out with it and it’s not necessary. Atkinson’s counts as war work. It worries me sick, her out all night in that canteen, down by the docks, bombs falling and gawd knows what.’

‘Perhaps she’s lonely at night, without George I mean. She might want the distraction,’ May said, secretly feeling Peggy might be getting distraction enough at the moment. ‘Does she get up to see George much?’

‘Oh, regular as clockwork. Never misses a visit. No, she’s a good wife… well, as good as she can be with him in nick.’

May was getting uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. ‘What about you, Mum? Are you going up London Bridge every night now?’

‘I have to! It’s the only way I get any sleep. It’s been terrible here since you left – well, you’ve only got to look at the streets. Not that you get much sleep up there, what with the kids larking about and the chatting. But at least I feel safe enough to close me eyes, which I never do at home, not no more.’

She was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed, as if searching out a time when sleep came easily. She shook her head.

‘No, I’d rather line up and get me spot on the platform. There’s a few of us got our regular places. Mrs Collins is always there, and sometimes Flo comes with me. We takes our eiderdowns and a primus so we can make a cuppa. The only thing you can’t do nothing about is the filth. Everything comes home grubby. I’m forever washing. You coming with me tonight?’

‘Mum! I’m not wasting half my leave queuing up for a shelter. Anyway, I’ve got to get used to being out in a raid, now I’m going on the ack-acks.’

‘Don’t talk to me about it. I don’t want to know.’ Her mother turned away abruptly and May followed her back into the kitchen. She was glad to have her mother to herself. It was obvious that her letters to May had masked her real state. They sat drinking more tea at the kitchen table.

‘Mum, you’ve got to stop worrying about me. That’s what all the training’s been for, and don’t forget, I’ll be the one behind a bloody great big gun! Now that should make you feel better, eh?’

May was trying to be light-hearted, but the furrows in her mother’s forehead only deepened.

‘I’ve already lost one child. I don’t want to lose another.’

May grabbed her mother’s hand, squeezing it tight. ‘And you won’t. I promise.’

‘You can’t promise me that,’ her mother said flatly and for the moment, May gave up trying to ease her worries.

‘How’s Nan? Does she go up London Bridge with you of a night?’

‘No fear! Not her – she shakes her bleedin’ fist at them when they fly over, won’t even go near a shelter.’

May laughed. ‘We can’t all be brave like her.’

‘Brave? No such thing – she’s seen it in the leaves! Says it’s not her time to go…’

May was silent, remembering her grandmother’s reading of the leaves before she’d joined up. Granny Byron had not, she was sure, revealed everything, and May wondered if her own ‘time to go’ had been written in the leaves on that day. But only Troubles, the dog, would hear of it, for her grandmother was adamant that there were things in the future it was really better not to know. Perhaps May had been right not to try to wheedle any more out of her. For May had been feeling her own youth far more acutely since joining up, and when she reported to her battery after firing-camp training, she wanted nothing to hold her back from living her own present. In spite of the war, there was never going to be another time when she would be this young again, and Jack’s death had convinced her that life was too precious to waste. Come bombs and destruction, come gunfire and danger, she knew that youth was on her side and, if that hadn’t made her exactly reckless, like her poor brother Jack, it had made her heedless of whatever perils lay ahead.

May went upstairs, and after unpacking, she spent the rest of the day with her mother, exploring the old house as if it were some new country, wondering at how small her bedroom was and how tiny the backyard and how close the next-door house was to theirs. Wherever she went she saw the familiar in a new light. At one point there was a loud bang and May noticed her mother flinch at the sudden noise. But it was only Flo knocking on the front door. She walked straight in through the unlocked door, calling from the passage, ‘It’s only me. There’s fish down the Blue!’

When her mother didn’t answer, May called back unnecessarily, ‘Come in, Flo!’

‘Oh hello, love! Stand up, let’s see your uniform then.’

May happily walked round the small kitchen, modelling her khaki shirt and skirt, and even put on the cap.

‘You look so smart!’ Flo exclaimed, glancing at Mrs Lloyd. ‘Don’t she, Carrie? Anyway, you coming down the Blue?’

‘I don’t think I can be bothered, Flo, not today.’ She sat at the kitchen table, fingering the cloth absent-mindedly.

‘Not bothered! Your old man won’t thank you when every one else’s got fish for their teas and he’s got potato pie!’

May was shocked. Her mother had always been a woman who showed her affection for her family in the size of the portions she dished up at dinner time. Before rationing, if a recipe had called for an ounce of butter, she would contrive to put in two, on the principle that more was always better. And in the early days of the war she’d cheerfully stand in line all day for fish.

‘Come on, Mum, it’ll do you good to get out. I’ll come with you.’

Mrs Lloyd let out a small sigh and shook her head. ‘No, you don’t want to waste your time.’

But May saw her glance at Flo; she was wavering.

‘It’s not a waste – it’ll give us a chance to chat. Besides we’ll need more tea, the amount I’ve drunk this morning!’ She plucked the coupon book down from the kitchen mantlepiece and handed it to her mother.

‘All right, love,’ Mrs Lloyd said, her face brightening.

‘Thanks, Flo,’ May said, as her mother went to fetch her coat.

‘No trouble.’ Then, dropping her voice, Flo said, ‘She’s not been very good, May. But she’s been talking about your leave all week. You’re a good girl – try and jolly her along a bit while you’re home, won’t you?’

May assured Flo that she would and as they walked towards the fish shop in the Blue, she linked arms with her mother. Though this wasn’t the way she’d imagined her first day’s leave, she found herself actually enjoying queuing with the gossiping, bantering women. When the woman in front of them asked Ray, the fishmonger, if he had any skate’s eyeballs, Flo said in a loud voice, ‘No, love, he keeps his balls under the counter, for the
special
customers, don’t you, Ray?’ The queue erupted into laughter, and May was grateful to the woman for drawing out her mother’s once ready laugh.

*

The next day May woke up with a sense of unease: she really was dreading her meeting with Peggy. Always good at hiding her feelings, May now worried that her discovery of Peggy’s infidelity might somehow betray itself in her manner. As it was, she needn’t have worried – in fact it would have been more suspicious if May hadn’t acted shocked. Her sister was so changed that May couldn’t take her eyes off her. Straight from her Saturday morning shift at Atkinson’s, she walked into the kitchen, where they’d just finished dinner, and threw off her coat to reveal a red siren suit, which looked almost elegant on her long-legged, slim frame. May only wished she looked half as good in those baggy, battledress trousers that she kept ironed to a knife-edged crease in an attempt to make them look stylish. Peggy’s fair hair was fashionably waved, and there was no sign of the net that used to confine it.

‘You’re wearing make-up!’ May said, astonished.

‘You’re wearing uniform!’ Peggy laughed and it felt to May like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. Her sister was happy, and it wasn’t just because she’d been able to go back to work. How could her mum believe that Peggy was ‘lost’ without George? Her mother’s own retreat from life must have clouded her judgement; she simply couldn’t see beyond the closed room of her own grief. But May saw it. Peggy had crept out of a dull chrysalis and spread her wings.

The sisters hugged and May stepped back, looking for any sign of guilt or shame, but Peggy wasn’t hiding anything. Her face was an open book to May, and on each of the leaves was written the same story, Peggy loved everyone. She had patience with her father, who pestered her for news of George; she was unusually gentle with her mother and she seemed more involved in the family than she’d ever been when George was around. It seemed that Peggy had been hiding in the wings all this time, curtained off by her husband’s popularity and notoriety, but now she had stepped on to the stage – though May knew there was more to it than that.

‘I’ve been hearing all about you and your big guns!’ Peggy squeezed her again. ‘My little sister, a gunner girl. I’m so proud of you, May.’

May was pleased by the praise, for her elder sister had never been lavish with it. May had sometimes suspected Peggy might envy her, though the reason was a mystery.

‘I reckon you’ve got it harder, Peg. Working all day in the factory,
and
all night on the canteen, you must be exhausted…’ But even as she made the comment, May could see it wasn’t true.

‘No, you don’t need as much sleep as you think you do. You must be up half the night yourself.’

May shook her head. ‘Not yet, but I will be once I get on active duty. It’ll be a case of sleep when you can, and be ready to jump up when the alarm goes.’

May’s mother was looking, in a bemused way, from one daughter to the other, as if she no longer knew either of them.

‘Well, I’ve got this afternoon off and I wondered if you wanted to go out, over the other side, make the most of your leave? My treat,’ Peggy asked.

May hesitated, conscious of her mother’s eyes on her. She remembered Flo’s plea and said, ‘I haven’t seen much of Mum.’

But Mrs Lloyd urged, ‘Go on! You two get out and enjoy yourselves while you can. You’re a long time dead.’

So that afternoon, May found herself sitting in Lyon’s Corner House opposite her sister and, after answering a hundred and one questions about army life, she finally broached the subject that had been on her mind ever since she’d seen Peggy’s passionate farewell scene with the young soldier. The previous night, lying awake in her old bed, May had gone over the scene again and again, wondering if there was anything to be gained by confronting Peggy. And she’d decided to stay silent. But now, faced with a sister so changed as to be almost unrecognizable, she found herself intrigued. What was so special about this man that now Peggy seemed so full of life? May needed to know, for selfish reasons. With Bill, she knew she herself had begun to skirt, cautiously, the unknown world of love, but she needed to know why, for the right person, it was worth risking everything.

‘Peggy, you’re so different... happier,’ she said, in a rush, before she lost her courage. ‘What’s changed?’

‘Different? Am I?’ A blush was creeping up Peggy’s neck. ‘The only thing that’s changed is George’s in prison, I suppose. Terrible really, if that’s the reason I look happier.’

‘Is that it then? You prefer life without your husband?’

Peggy was fiddling with her coffee glass. It was a tall tumbler, with a stainless-steel cradle and handle. She twisted the glass round and round in the cradle before answering.

‘It’s freedom. That’s what it is. You wouldn’t understand, May. You’re single and you’ve got all your life in front of you. But I’ve already made my choices…’

‘What, and they were the wrong ones?’ May said in a hushed voice. Suddenly the chatter of the crowded corner house seemed to recede and a confessional quiet fell over their little table.

‘Don’t get me wrong, May, I’ve wanted for nothing since I married George. It’s just that I kept feeling something was missing, and that seemed bloody ungrateful… you know, look around at the poor cows on the Purbrook with a dozen kids and an old man living up the pub… I thought, perhaps if we had a baby. But it’s only since I’ve been coping on my own that I realized. I didn’t have nothing to get up for, and now I do. Mum’s worried I’m worn out, but I’m loving it! You know how we always used to moan about work, but even Atkinson’s... I look forward to going in! But the WVS is the best thing I’ve ever done.’

She finally sat back and took a sip of the coffee. ‘I feel useful, I suppose, that’s what it is.’

May could understand that; it was why she’d joined up herself. But there was no avoiding the fact that it wasn’t the only thing contributing to Peggy’s newfound happiness.