All I Have to Give (10 page)

Alighting from the train with the hundreds of other workers, Ada felt glad to be out in the fresh air. The carriage had been stifling. Not that the feeling would last, as she
was soon inside the gates of Barnbow Munitions Factory and then inside the factory itself, stripping off her clothes and donning the special overall and cap they all had to wear.

Keeping her head down, she shuffled along with the rest of the women. The closeness of their bodies jostled her and caused more pain to her bruised insides.

As the factory doors opened, the smell of acetone stung her nostrils and made her feel giddy. The strong chemical odour of this component of the cordite that she worked with permeated the air
and clung to her clothes, giving her a constant headache. But that was the least of the worries that she and the other women had, as the packing of the shells with strands of cordite was dangerous
work. Explosions could happen at any time, and the cordite had the effect of turning their skin yellow. With this thought, Ada rubbed her arms, but then what did it matter what she looked like? Or
what colour her skin was, because inside she was nothing. She didn’t even bother to drink much of the extra rations of barley water and milk the workers were allowed, and which they were told
would combat the yellowing. Instead she gave it to Betsy, for her and her young sister and brother to get the goodness of.

Poor Betsy – she pined for Jimmy. But she was a strong lass, and a grand one, too. Sometimes she seemed like the only light in this dark world.
Oh, me Jimmy lad, make it home. Please
make it home!

‘Hurry up, you lasses. You’ve to be at the benches so the others can leave, you know that!’

The voice of their supervisor, Joe Grinsdale, didn’t hold anger or aggression. She doubted he had either in the make-up of him. She’d known Joe a long time. They’d played
together as kids and had gone to the same school. She’d always liked Joe.

‘Ada . . . Ada, are thee alreet, lass?’

Looking up into Joe’s concerned face nearly undid her, but she swallowed hard and replied in the strongest voice she could muster, ‘Aye, I’m grand, Joe. Yerself?’

‘I’m reet worried for thee, lass. Have you been drinking your rations? Eeh, that’s something of a daft question, for I can see you haven’t. Well, I’ll see thee at
break time and make sure as you have a glass of milk. I’ve seen you take your quota from the churns that come up from the farm, but I never see you drink it.’

‘I put it in me bottle and have it later. The smell of this place puts me off.’

‘Look, lass. I – I mean . . . Anyroad, you’d better get to the cloakroom and get into your overall. The time’s getting on.’

Too tired to wonder what Joe had been going to say, Ada filed in with the rest of the women, grabbed a set of overalls, a mask and a cap from the bins just inside the cloakroom and found a
corner where she’d be least noticed.

The soreness of her limbs had her wincing in pain. Clara Lightmoor stood near her and looked around at the sound. Clara lived just up the road from Ada and always had something to say. ‘He
been at you again, love? Eeh, you should leave him. He’s a bad ’un, if ever there was one. You know he’s been after that young Lilly Blanford – her as come from Wales to
work here – don’t yer? And there’s a rumour—’

‘Shut your mouth, Clara! You’d make out that the Devil was courting God, you’ve such a lying tongue in your head!’

‘Ha! Bloody cheek of you. Well, while I’m on, it’s common knowledge as your Paddy has put your sister— Hey, geroff me!’

The thin thread that had held Ada together snapped. Her hand lashed out, but Clara’s defending raised arm took the blow. Ada felt as though she was hitting a brick wall. Waves of shock and
nausea sent her reeling backwards.

The sound of the horn marking the shift-change brought her to her senses. She pulled herself together and pushed past Clara.

As she took the place of Jean Dwight she was treated to one of Jean’s lovely smiles. ‘Eeh, glad to see thee, lass. I’m tired to me heart. Though you look worse than I feel. Are
you alreet, lass?’

The same tears that had pricked the back of her eyes when Joe had asked this of her spilled over at being asked the question again. But Jean didn’t comment on the drops of water running
down Ada’s face; she just patted her gently and said, ‘It’ll all come out in the wash, love. It allus does. Concentrate on your work – it helps.’

Ada picked up the next shell on the belt, which replaced the one that Jean had just filled and hung on the moving runner above her. She began the task of filling it with the bundle of cordite,
and only managed to say a quick thank you to Jean. Turning her head to do this sent pain all the way down her neck. Her vision blurred. Looking back at the shell she held, Ada clung onto it.
God, don’t let me drop it, please!

‘Here, give me that, Ada. What d’you think you’re playing at?’

Beads of sweat joined the tumbling tears now running down Ada’s face. The burden of the shell had only just left her arms when a blackness descended on her and she slumped to the
ground.

‘Oh my God! She’s fainted.’

In the fog of Ada’s brain, the words sounded muffled, as if being said through water. But the effect of them brought her round. Opening her eyes, she looked into Joe’s lovely soft
brown ones. ‘Eeh, Ada lass, come on – let me help you up.’

His strong arms grasped her and propelled her body upright. Vomit rose to her throat with the motion, but she swallowed it down. Her throat stung with the aftermath, but she wasn’t going
to disgrace herself by being sick in front of them all.

‘Come on, I’ll take thee to the nurse. I told you, you need to eat more and drink your quota of milk.’

She couldn’t answer Joe, but was glad of his help as he kept his arm around her. A few sniggers went round the room, but the implication of them passed her by until they were standing
alone in the corridor. Then Joe shocked her by saying, ‘Ada, oh Ada. I’m sorry, but I have to say what’s in me heart. I love thee, Ada . . .’

‘What – what are you saying, Joe? You can’t. I – I . . .’ Confusion deepened inside her. Still fuzzy from the faint, her brain couldn’t process Joe’s
words and they didn’t seem real. Had he really said he loved her? Trying to find some clarity, she looked up at him. His smile jolted her heart.
This cannot be happening!
‘Don’t be daft, Joe. This is no time to take the rise out of me. Just help me to the nurse, and get back to your job – or we’ll both get the sack!’

‘But I mean it, Ada. I can’t sleep for thinking about you. And it breaks me heart to see what is happening to you. It’s like the light has gone out inside you, since Jimmy
went, and I know as you’re not being treated reet by Paddy.’

She had no words to answer him. Her emotions were all in tatters and she had lost control of them. A sob racked her. The concern in Joe’s eyes deepened. Ada felt herself swaying towards
him. ‘Help me, Joe . . . Help me.’

‘I will, me lass. Lean on me and I’ll get thee to the nurse. But know this, Ada: I am here for you, and you can lean on me anytime you like, lass.’

Once more his arms encircled her. She used his strength to make her way along the corridor. Her own feelings were tangled and confusing. Something had stirred inside her when Joe had declared
himself – something she hadn’t felt for a long time. It was as if the young girl trapped in this weary, sad body had popped out just for a second and had responded to the love offered
to her.

But she mustn’t go down that road. She must stop Joe from making the mistake of his life. A man in his early thirties, he had never married. He’d been engaged once, as she
remembered, but the lass had gone off with his friend and they had married within weeks. That must have scarred Joe. Some said he had a breakdown, but although he did go into hospital for a spell,
it was found that he had a murmur in his heart, and his collapse had been due to that weakness. This kept him from going to war.

Joe had little that was immediately eye-catching about him, but he was one of life’s nice people, who became more attractive once you got to know him. His grey-blue eyes framed with long
lashes – too long for a man – always held kindness, although just now she’d seen desire smouldering in them and that had shocked her. But she still couldn’t work out exactly
why she was suddenly affected by him. Joe was miles away from being the type that Paddy represented. Dark and handsome, charming and strong, Paddy had melted her the moment she’d met him; but
Joe, though as tall as Paddy, was on the fair side and shy, and . . . well, ordinary.

His lack of confidence often had him bending over, as if to make himself unnoticeable, and that is what had happened in her case. She hadn’t noticed him – not in the way a woman
notices a man. Not at all. At least, not until just now. Until that moment he’d just been Joe, someone she knew and liked.

By the time they reached the nurse’s office Ada had begun to feel better and tried to argue that she could carry on, but Nurse Penny insisted that she was examined
properly, before she would let her return to her bench. As soon as Joe had left, she asked Ada to strip off to the waist.

‘Eeh, lass, is that your husband’s work?’

Shame washed over Ada at these words.

‘It’s time we women stood up for ourselves, and men were prosecuted for treating their wives in this way – it ain’t reet, Ada. Look at your bruising. No wonder you feel
under the weather. But, y’know, there’s them as are fighting for our rights, and when this war is done, I might just join them.’

This surprised Ada. Penny Jarvis had always seemed the quiet, studious type. She’d never married, though Ada couldn’t imagine why, because although she was a rounded woman, with
plenty of padding and a huge bosom, she had a pretty face and a lovely kind way about her. She’d make a good wife and mother. It seemed a shame that no one had taken her up; and now, with all
the young men being killed off, there would be no one to do so.

To combat the pain this last thought brought her, Ada tried to make a joke. ‘Eeh, Penny, I can just see you chained to a railing and shouting, “Votes for women”, and no one
down London understanding a word you’re saying!’

Penny laughed. ‘Aye, so can I. But understand me or not, I’d do it. All of this makes me blood boil.’

She rubbed soothing oils into Ada’s skin as she spoke, which brought her some comfort. ‘I’m leaving him when I can, Penny. I’m saving up me money. Paddy has no idea how
much I earn, and he’s happy with what I give him, so he don’t ask questions as to what I keep back. Only he . . . he got me sister pregnant, and that were the last straw for
me.’

‘Eeh, Ada, you got a bad ’un in him. And, aye, I knew about your sister. She’s been having me attend her, as she’s trying to keep it secret. She asked me to rid her of
it, but I’m not into that game. I feel sorry for her, in a way.’

Hearing this made the pain of Ada’s betrayal fresh again. ‘Well, she shouldn’t have took me man – she’s got her just deserts, as I see it.’

As she tells it, she were seduced; and, because of her situation, she was easy pickings for a man such as Paddy. Now she’s lost you, and is likely to lose her husband and everything she
has.’

‘I can’t feel sorry for her, Penny. I would never do what she’s done.’

‘There’s none of us knows what we would do in a given situation, lass. Anyroad, I’m talking about anything and everything, other than the real reason I made you have an
examination. I need your help, Ada. I have some bad news to give to both Mabel and Agatha.’

‘No! No, no, no – don’t tell me. Not Eric and Arthur, oh God . . .’ Ada sucked in her breath.

‘I’m afraid so. Killed on the first of July, the day the papers are saying was a disastrous day. They numbered the dead at around twenty thousand, with another thirty thousand
wounded. How them nurses cope out there, I don’t know.’

Ada blocked out Penny’s words and wailed. Her only thought was:
Jimmy’s mates, dead! But what of Jimmy? My Jimmy . . .

Ada, love. Oh, I should have thought on. Oh God, Ada, I’m sorry. I forgot your Jimmy’s there and they were all mates, weren’t they? But, lass, you would have heard by now if
Jimmy had been hurt. The officer who brought the news would have known and would have told me. I just thought, as you’d been through this, you could help Mabel and Agatha. I was going to send
for you, if you hadn’t come through me door.’

How Penny could talk in such a matter-of-fact way Ada couldn’t understand. Two fine lads were dead! Two more from the street that had seen these lads kicking balls and giving cheek when
told to stop. Lads that had hung around with her Jimmy and had called out teasing words to her Bobby and Jack when they had swaggered up the street in their Sunday best, looking to pick up a couple
of girls.

‘Look, I’ll give you sommat to calm you, then I’ll sign you off for the day, Ada. I’m reet sorry, lass. Dealing with stuff, day in and day out, makes you immune to the
suffering of it at times. I just wasn’t thinking.’

‘No. You’re reet, I should be with them.’ As she said this, Ada felt a calmness take her and knew that she was the right one to be with Mabel and Agatha, and to tell them the
terrible news. She knew how gut-wrenching it would be for them, and how their world as they knew it would come to an end, never to be properly mended again. She knew the hollow feeling, the
devastation wrought – as if everything before the moment you heard your son was dead was all for nothing. Penny wouldn’t know that, or how to deal with it, as she’d never birthed
any young ’uns. Standing tall, Ada said, ‘Don’t send me home. At least not without Mabel and Agatha. I’ve got meself together. I’ll tell them, and then I’ll take
them home and stay with them. They will know that I understand.’

Aye, that’s what I thought. Y’know, I could have married. I had me chances, but it never appealed to me. And now, seeing what all of you are going through – lasses as were at
school with me, suffering like you are – I’m glad I didn’t. Reet, I’ll have Agatha and Mabel sent up here. God, it’s a cruel world, Ada. A cruel world.’