Home Front Girls (26 page)

On Thursday morning, Dotty was waiting for the train when it drew into Coventry station and she glanced expectantly into the carriages as it slowed. And then there was Robert walking towards her with an enormous bunch of flowers clutched in his good hand and her heart did a somersault.

Without being able to stop herself she raced towards him and then stopped abruptly in front of him feeling a complete fool. What must he think of me? she asked herself. It’s hardly the way for a friend to behave. Yet deep down she knew that she thought of him as much more than a friend now, even though her feelings would never be returned.

He hugged her to him with his short arm while holding the flowers out to her with the other.

‘Th-they’re lovely,’ she managed to stutter, deeply conscious of the passers-by who were smiling at them indulgently.

‘Not half so lovely as you,’ he answered, then it was his turn to blush as he took her arm and led her across the smoky platform to the exit.

It was on the bus to her flat that Dotty began to wonder if she had done the right thing in inviting Robert to her home. What would he think of it? It was so different to what he was used to – but it was too late to do anything about it now.

The smell of stale cabbage assailed them as they stepped into the hallway and she glanced at him apologetically. Unfortunately, it always smelled worse in the warm weather but there was nothing she could do about that either. The residents’ staple diet nowadays seemed to consist mainly of Spam and any vegetables they had managed to grow in the small garden at the back of the house. The sight of a lush green lawn was a rare sight now, in this area at least, as everyone was using every available inch to grow food to supplement their rations – when they could fit them around the Anderson shelters, that was.

‘It’s up on the top floor,’ she told him, avoiding his eyes, and they began to climb the steep narrow staircase.

As they passed Mrs Cousins’s flat they heard the baby crying and Dotty whispered, ‘A widow lives there with her three young children. It’s very sad – she lost her home when she lost her husband, and I know that she struggles now.’

‘How awful for her.’ Robert looked genuinely concerned as Dotty led him up the last flight of stairs.

‘Phew, no wonder you’re so thin,’ he teased breathlessly as she finally put her key in the lock. ‘That’s quite some climb.’

‘Well, we can’t all have lifts,’ she told him with a grin and she then beckoned him into her little home.

He looked about with interest before saying, ‘You’ve got this really comfortable, Dotty. Very cosy, in fact. You have the same flair for home-making that my mother had.’

She looked around, trying to see it as he must but could see nothing very special about it, although she did keep it as neat as a new pin. Today she’d made an extra-special effort because he was coming. Every single thing in the room was second-hand but she had made it her own with cheerful cushions and a few cheap ornaments that she had bought from the market. The curtains had come from a rummage sale at the church hall and she had found the rug lying in front of the fire in a pawnshop.

‘I’ll make us some tea,’ she said, and hurried across to the tiny kitchenette to put the kettle on. She’d saved up her food coupons for the last three weeks and now the smell of a lamb casserole slowly cooking wafted around the room. The oven was a very hit-and-miss affair, working when it felt like it, and she offered up a silent prayer of thanks that it hadn’t let her down today.

‘Something smells good,’ he commented when she came back a few minutes later with a pot of tea. She knew that Robert had a sweet tooth so she had saved up her sugar ration too.

‘Oh, it’s just a lamb casserole,’ she said casually, avoiding telling him that she had been up until late the night before reading recipe books. She found a jug to put her flowers in, and once they were standing in pride of place in the centre of the table she edged her manuscript towards him, telling him shyly, ‘There you are. It’s done. I finished it late last night, and I made a copy with carbon paper. There are another couple of short stories for you to look at too.’

He was just thinking what a remarkable young woman she was, when he suddenly remembered something. Taking a velvet box from his coat pocket, he handed it to her.

‘I er . . . brought you a little gift,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll like it.’

Dotty was flummoxed and it showed. ‘But you already bought me flowers,’ she objected. ‘There was really no need to bring anything at all.’

‘Even so I want you to have it. Open it, please.’

She hesitated before taking the box from him, and when she opened it her eyes stretched wide and she was rendered temporarily speechless. Inside on a bed of silk was a gold locket on a fine gold chain. A red stone that was set into the centre of the locket glittered in the sunlight that was filtering through the window.

‘That’s a ruby,’ he told her softly. ‘And it belonged to my mother.’

Now she did react. ‘Then I really can’t take it,’ she told him hastily, ‘It . . . it must be very precious to you.’

He shook his head. ‘No, I want
you
to have it – and I have a feeling that if my mother could have known you, she would have wanted you to have it too. It was her mother’s before her, and seeing as I have no sisters to pass it on to, it’s a shame for it to lie in its box. You
do
like it, don’t you?’

‘Like it?’ Dotty was stunned. ‘But
of course
I like it! It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen – but I’m afraid it must be very valuable.’

He shrugged. ‘It probably is, so it’s only right that it should go to someone who will treasure it, and I have a feeling that you will.’

‘But Robert, you hardly know me,’ Dotty protested. ‘I don’t think you should be giving this away.’

‘But I’m not exactly giving it away, am I?’ He smiled now as he lifted it from the box. ‘I’m entrusting it to someone who will love it as much as my mother did. Now turn around while I fasten it on for you.’

Dotty did as she was told as Robert struggled with the tiny catch. It wasn’t easy with his withered hand but at last he told her, ‘There you go. Have a look in the mirror over there. What do you think?’

Dotty crossed to the mirror and gently stroked the gift, still feeling in a state of shock. She had never owned a single piece of jewellery in her whole life and still didn’t feel quite comfortable accepting it. But she knew that if she didn’t, she might hurt his feelings and she didn’t want to risk doing that.

‘I really shall treasure it,’ she told him in a choky voice. ‘But I’ll only accept it on the understanding that should you ever want it back, you would tell me. We’ll consider I have it on loan.’

‘Fair enough, but it will be a permanent loan,’ he told her with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I don’t think it ever looked as good on Mother as it does on you. And I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me saying that.’

She impulsively leaned over and kissed him then; thanking her lucky stars for the day she had met him and thinking what a lovely woman his mother must have been. He looked momentarily surprised but then he lifted his mug of tea and the awkward moment passed.

Their time together raced by all too quickly. They had the lunch that Dotty had prepared, which Robert insisted was delicious, and then at his request she took him back into the city centre to see St Michael’s Cathedral. They then had afternoon tea at a restaurant – home-baked scones with jam and cream – a rare treat indeed – before slowly making their way back to the railway station.

‘I’ve had a wonderful day,’ he told her sincerely as they stood on the platform waiting for his train to pull in. ‘I almost don’t want to go home. The time seems to have flown by.’

Dotty felt the same and merely nodded because the lump that had formed in her throat was stopping her from saying anything. He had a bag with her manuscript tucked safely away inside it and now he told her, ‘I shall get this to Paul, my editor friend, first thing in the morning. I know he’s longing to read the rest of it, and between you and me, by the time you come next week I have a funny feeling I might have good news for you.’

Dotty felt bereft as he stepped onto the train after giving her a quick hug. Then he appeared in a carriage window and she waved until she felt as if her arm was about to drop off.

‘Until next week,’
he mouthed through the glass as the train chugged back into life. And then she was walking and running alongside it until she reached the end of the platform and the train disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

She moved disconsolately to the entrance and headed for the bus station, but she had gone no further than a few hundred yards when a piercing siren sounded. People were panicking and scattering in every direction as they rushed for cover, and it was then that she realised what the sound was: one that the people of Coventry had hoped never to hear. The siren was warning them that an air raid was imminent. For a moment Dotty was rooted to the spot and strangely her first fear was for Robert. A moving train on an open track would be an easy target from the air, and were the Jerries to drop a bomb on it, the people inside would stand no chance. But then surely they would be targeting the factories?

As her footsteps slowed, someone suddenly grabbed her elbow and barked, ‘Come wi’ me, love. There’s a shelter just down ’ere as will ’ouse at least a hundred people.’

Dotty made to pull away as panic engulfed her, but the man hauled her along as if she weighed no more than a feather and soon he was shoving her ahead of him into a dimly lit space that seemed to be full to overflowing with terrified people all talking and crying.

As Dotty’s eyes adjusted to the light she saw a young woman with a baby clutched tightly to her chest with tears streaming down her cheeks. There were people of all shapes, sizes and ages, but fear was on all their faces. The siren seemed to rip through every part of her, setting her nerves jangling – but then suddenly another noise sounded and leaning forward she stared up into the sky to see a large dark mass fast approaching high above. For a start it appeared like an enormous swarm of bumblebees, but as it drew closer the drone became louder and she saw that it was enemy planes.

‘Shut the door, for Christ’s sake,’ someone shouted from the back of the shelter and instantly two men leaped forward and there was a loud clang as the metal door slammed shut. Every sound was magnified as Dotty found herself in total darkness and she put her hands out wildly until they connected with another person. Then someone started to light some candles and suddenly the darkness was not quite so all-consuming. At the same instant, the ack-ack guns roared into life as they tried to intercept the enemy. Dotty clapped her hands over her ears and shrank against the wall as she prayed for the raid to end. And yet deep down she wondered if this was only the beginning.

Time became irrelevant as the people in the shelter sat whitefaced, wondering if they would ever get out of there in one piece. And if they did, what would they be going out to? Would their homes still be standing, their loved ones still alive?

And then the sound of an enormous explosion reached them, followed shortly by another and then another.

No one could have any idea what was being targeted, but one man muttered, ‘God help us, some poor buggers are coppin’ it.’

‘Looks like it’s our turn now,’ someone else said fearfully. ‘They must be givin’ them poor sods in London a night off.’

Dotty wrapped her arms about herself as her thoughts returned to Robert. London had been under attack for weeks and she worried about him every single day, although up to now the Germans had been targeting the docks and the East End. The first wave of bombs had hit the Royal Victoria Docks, and soon after the East and West India Docks had become prey to the Messerschmitts and Heinkels that had now become a far too familiar sight in the skies above London. Madame Tussaud’s had also been destroyed. The Tower of London had been hit, though not too badly, and some of the West End shops had also suffered damage. She wondered what Robert would be going home to.

There was nothing to be heard within the sanctuary; everyone was holding their breath, and as they stood huddled there in the semi-darkness, two more explosions sounded. And then the roar of the planes could be heard again as they turned from wherever they had been bombing and flew back directly over them. The roar became a drone before fading to a distant buzz, then dying away altogether.

‘Do yer reckon they’ve gone?’ A woman’s terrified voice broke the silence but for a while no one answered.

And then someone said, ‘Do yer think it’s safe to go back out there yet?’

‘Not until the all-clear sounds,’ someone else warned. ‘They might come back again.’

The woman clutching the baby began to cry, yet strangely the child was silent; he had fallen fast asleep impervious to the danger they were all in.

And then at last the sound they had all been waiting for came and two men wrestled to pull the heavy metal doors open. It was growing dusk by now but even so, the dim light that flooded the shelter was the most welcome sight that Dotty had ever seen.

They staggered out into the cooling evening and looked about, then someone said, ‘Over there – look. Seems they’ve hit Ansty Aerodrome from the direction o’ the smoke.’