Bluebirds (11 page)

She picked up her knitting again, the unexpected exhortation finished. Virginia went on with her work. Mavis, if she had heard Miss Parkes, would have been equally astounded; she would probably, being Mavis, have cheered.

The tube was even more crowded than usual that evening, and Virginia had to strap-hang most of the way to Wimbledon. She walked in the pitch darkness up the hill from the station to the flat in Alfred Road. Her torch battery was wearing out and gave only a glimmer of light but she knew the way so well that it scarcely mattered. Her mother was in the sitting-room, sewing, and she began complaining at once about Mrs Barton who lived in the flat upstairs.

‘She has her wireless on far too loud. It's so inconsiderate . . . I've told her so several times but she still takes no notice. I had to speak to her again about it today. Do you know she had the effrontery to suggest I should help her in some canteen . . . I told her that, as it happens, I do a great deal of work knitting for the forces, and I can do that perfectly well here in my own home. The war will be finished by Christmas, in any case. I've no intention of becoming involved with people like Mrs Barton . . . such a
common
woman. It's quite bad enough having to live cheek by jowl with someone like her . . . were you going to say something, Virginia?'

‘No, Mother . . . no.'

‘You looked as though you were. Will you turn on that other lamp, please. I can't see properly.'

On the nine o'clock news that evening it was announced that negotiations between Finland and Russia had broken down. The Russians were accusing the Finns of firing on their border patrols. More trouble seemed to be brewing in the cold wastes of Northern Europe. And Christmas was only six weeks away.

DEAR KEN, I
hope you are well
 . . . Winnie chewed the end of her pencil, thinking hard.
I hope your mother is well too
. That was a lie. She didn't really care if Mrs Jervis was well or not. Maybe it was wicked to think like that, but she couldn't help it. Ken's mother was the only person in the world whom she almost hated. It wasn't just because she was always so sharp-spoken and critical, no matter how hard Winnie tried to please her, but mostly because of the way she treated Ken. She was always going on and on about how delicate he was, making him out to be a useless invalid. He was a bit liable to catch chills and get bad chests, that was true, but Mrs Jervis made things much worse for him by the way she behaved.

I'm sitting on my bed in our hut writing this letter and it will soon be time to put the lights out. It's very cold in here, even though we have two coke stoves. They don't seem to give out much heat and everyone crowds round them so you can't get near them anyway. I'm enjoying the work in the Orderly Room
 . . . That was a lie too. She wasn't enjoying it at all. It was very dull and she hated being cooped up indoors and hardly ever seeing an aeroplane at all.
You wouldn't believe the number of forms that have to be filled in. There's hundreds of them with different numbers for all sorts of different things. You can't do anything in the Royal Air Force without filling in a form for it.

The RAF corporal in the Orderly Room who had taught her the procedure seemed like an old man to her. He had gone through it all slowly and patiently.

‘There's a correct form for every occurrence you can
think of,' he had told her, ‘and ones for some you can't. And every one of them's got a number that you've got to learn. That way you can put your hand on the right form for the job straight away. For instance, these are 143s,' he had picked up a sheaf of forms. ‘They're for Service Railway Warrants. These over here are 2084s – they're Billeting Forms. Then you've got your 551s, Report of Accident, your 1771s, Travelling Claims . . .' He had worked on steadily through the long list. ‘You'll have to learn them all and know how to fill them in properly. It's not difficult but it's got to be done according to Regulations, see?'

Ken wouldn't want to hear about all that . . . there was nothing very interesting about a lot of numbers. Winnie racked her brains. She looked across at the two circles of girls sitting close round the stoves.
The officer in charge of us is always trying to make things better for us. She got us some chairs for this hut and a kettle and teapot so we can make tea on the stoves. And some of the civilian people who live near here have given a whole lot of things for our recreation hut – curtains and armchairs and a carpet, and things like that. One of them gave us an old gramophone and some records and somebody sent an old wireless. It didn't work very well at first but one of the RAF men has mended it and now we can listen to the news and everything
.

Winnie lifted her head again, searching for more inspiration.
The girls are all very nice.
That was another lie really. Some were and some were not. Ruby, two beds away, for instance, was horrible. She pushed and shoved her way around the whole time, ate disgustingly with her mouth wide open and never bathed or washed properly so that she smelled worse than any farm animal. But she didn't want to tell Ken about her. Or about how stuck-up and unfriendly Susan could be. Or how Pearl used swear words all the time. Or how Maureen was always grumbling and complaining. Or the way Gloria went out with lots of different airmen . . . There was no
sense in telling him any of that. He'd want her to come straight home.

She pulled up the collar of her dressing-gown round her neck and blew on her cold fingers. She could hear Susan, in the nearest group, telling Sandra all about a dance she had once gone to in a big country house. Sandra was listening to every word and kept on asking questions, as usual. Maureen, beside them, was knitting one of her ever-lasting garments, this time in a dreary grey, and she was wearing a very sour expression on her face from over-hearing Susan. Gloria was filing her nails, her back turned to Maureen. Pearl, who had washed her hair, was curling it up with pipe cleaners and, Anne, her mouth full of hairpins, was showing Enid how to do her hair up with an old stocking. She had cut the stocking in half and tied it round Enid's head. Winnie watched as she brushed the hair upwards and then tucked the ends into the stocking, into a long roll, and fixed it cleverly with the pins. She thought Enid looked a lot better without that lank hair hanging down each side of her face, and her Terry would be pleased if she didn't have to have her hair cut. Not that Enid seemed to talk quite so much about Terry these days, or about what he might think of everything . . . not nearly so much as she used to do.

Winnie sucked the end of her pencil for a moment and then bent over her writing pad again.
We get paid every fortnight. We have to march into the room and go up to a table one at a time and say the last three figures of our numbers. Then we have to take the money with our left hand. The first time I said thank you, but we're not supposed to. There are all sorts of funny customs in the Air Force
.

Maureen was saying something crotchety to Susan and Susan was looking down her nose at her as though she'd just crawled out from under a stone. Nobody liked Maureen, she was such a sour-puss. After the first Pay Parade she had been as bitter as anything.

‘Do you all realize that we're only paid two-thirds of
what they give to the airmen, even though we work just the same hours. And I'm much better at my job than they are.'

Anne had laughed. ‘Well, I'm not, so I can't really complain.'

Maureen had rounded on her. ‘It's nothing to you what we're paid, is it? But
I
have to send money home. So does Gloria. Several of us do. Every penny counts with us. We don't get it sent by our mothers like you. You might remember that.'

Anne had flushed, and said nothing more.

The food's all right. We have things like bacon, eggs and chips, baked beans and kidneys on fried bread, meat pies, toad-in-the-hole and lots of steamed puddings with custard. We're all putting on weight
. She wouldn't mention the gristly rissoles, the faggots, the semolina pudding or the frogspawn tapioca, or anything of the things that made her feel sick to look at, let alone eat.
We still haven't got any uniform, except some of the girls have been given shoes because they had only high heels or sandals
. Gloria had made a great fuss about the black lace-ups from Dolcis.

‘Schoolmarm's boats, that's wot they are! Beetlecrushers like Beaty wears!'

Maureen had said tartly: ‘I sometimes wonder, Gloria, why you joined the Services if you object so much to wearing proper uniform.'

‘For the blokes, dearie. Same as you.'

‘How dare you say that! Some of us have joined to serve our country in her time of need.'

‘Oh, balls!'

‘I
beg
your pardon!'

‘I said balls! Not that you'd know anythin' about them, Maureen. Not with that lemon face of yours. Enough to put any bloke off.'

Pearl had had to go and stand between them, arms outstretched. ‘Break it up, girls. Little birds in their nests should agree . . .'

Our officer has said they've promised to give us some uniform by Christmas. She thinks it will be raincoats and berets and some shirts. We'll have to wait for the tunics and skirts and everything else to come later. One of the girls has had her own uniform made privately at a shop in London. It looks very smart
. Susan's beautiful new uniform had been sent by post and they had all gathered round to see her put it on. The blue was exactly the same as the RAF wore and the tunic had shiny brass buttons and a belt with a brass buckle and big patch pockets on the front. It fitted Susan perfectly and the cap sat just right on her head. Her mother had also sent three blue Van Heusen shirts, two pairs of Kayser Bondor grey chiffon-lisle stockings and a pair of hand-stitched lace-up shoes. These had been fingered by everyone in the hut.

Sergeant Beaty had exploded when she had seen it all lying on Susan's bed. ‘This uniform's made of officer's material, Courtney-Bennet!'

‘Is it, Sergeant? Does it matter? I mean, if I'm prepared to pay for a better quality out of my own pocket, I don't see what difference it makes. That other material is terribly rough.'

‘It's against Regulations. And those shirts aren't proper issue either. Nor are those stockings – they're much too thin. And those shoes shouldn't have all that fancy punching on them. I'll have to report this.'

But Susan had been allowed to keep it all and to wear it. She seemed not to notice, or care, that it made her unpopular when nobody else had uniform yet.

Our sergeant isn't very nice and everybody hates her. She's always telling us off and getting people into trouble. If you do something against Regulations they can make you stay in the camp for a week or more and scrub floors and clean windows, and things like that. One of the girls here, called Anne, is always getting into trouble and being given punishments. The RAF call it jankers. They have slang words for everything.

The hut door opened and Winnie looked up from her writing to see Corporal White.

We have a corporal now who sleeps in a room at the end of the hut. She's quite a lot older than us and much nicer than the sergeant. We all like her. She's just come in because it's time to turn out the lights, so I'll have to stop now and finish this letter tomorrow . . .

Later, Winnie lay in bed thinking. She watched the dull reddish glow from the two stoves in the darkness, and listened to the sounds as the hut settled down to sleep – the creaking and coughing and whispering. She had got used to it now. And she had learned to anchor her biscuits so they stayed in place by wrapping one of the blankets tightly round them. She had learned all sorts of other things too, like how to make a bathplug out of a penny and a hanky when there wasn't one, and how to fold and stack her bedding in the morning in a jiffy and so neatly that even Sergeant Beaty couldn't find fault with it. Even though the work in the Orderly Room seemed so dull to her and she hated being shut indoors, she still didn't want to go home. Not while there was a chance of getting to work with the 'planes one day. Company Assistant Newman had said there was and she believed her.

She pulled the blankets round her chin and curled up to get warm. Today was Wednesday. If she had been at home today Ken would have come to tea like he always did on early-closing day. He would have sat at the table beside her, not saying very much, and Mum would have poured the tea from the big brown pot while Dad grumbled on, as usual, about something on the farm. Ruth and Laura would have been wriggling about on their chairs and misbehaving and getting all their own way, and Gran would have been guzzling her food noisily and making sucking noises as she drank her tea. Afterwards Ken would have helped her wash up in the scullery. They couldn't have gone for a walk in the dark so they would have sat in the kitchen for a while, where it was warmest. Gran would have been in her
chair close by the range, smoking one of her cigarettes with the ash dropping off the end down the front of her long black dress. And she'd have been making her sharp remarks every so often. Ken was afraid of Gran and Gran knew it. But then everyone was a bit afraid of her – even Dad. That was one reason why he'd let her join up in the end – because Gran had said he must. She'd let fly at him in her old-fashioned Suffolk way of speaking.
Yew let the gal go, Josh, an' doan't be tanglesome and ullus thinkin' o' yarself
. Winnie knew, because she understood Gran better than anybody, that she was really hoping that if she went away then she might not marry Ken.
What do yew want t' wed that tibby for? Can't yew find yarself a better fellah
? She was always saying things like that.

But whatever Gran had hoped, she wasn't going to go and forget Ken, or go out with anyone else. It wasn't easy to keep saying no all the time whenever she was asked. And they none of them liked taking no for an answer. Specially not Leading Aircraftman Jones.