Rosie Goes to War (2 page)

‘Here we are,' Gran comes in with the teaspoons. I breathe a sigh of relief as she takes the attention off me.

While they chat, I'm thinking I should be able to escape soon. I still have to get a new phone charger, so that's a good excuse to go out. I hope old Nelly won't stay long if she's going to stare at me like that all the time. It's a bit rude, really. I'd be in loads of trouble if I did it. I must remember to call her Great-aunt Eleanor as well, otherwise I'll be for it, like last time. Just as I'm psyching myself up to interrupt them, Gran spoils it by pointing at me.

‘Our Rosie's doing ever so well at school, Nelly. She's doing loads of them GCSEs. I reckon she's got your brains.'

‘Gran,' I say. ‘It's no big deal.' Oh God, this is so embarrassing. I do all right at school, but I'm not one of the nerdy girls who are going to get all A-stars or anything.

‘Do you like school?' asks Great-aunt Eleanor.

‘Yeah, it's OK,' I say, sounding a bit sulky. I hate the way she's looking at me, like she's going to give me a test or something. ‘I'll probably stay on for A-levels.' But only because I don't know what else to do.

Gran is ever so impressed. ‘Good for you, girl. You'll go far, like Nelly. Me, I was glad to leave school. I never was much cop at lessons. Nelly hated having to leave school at fourteen, didn't you, love?'

Great-aunt Eleanor nods.

‘But our poor old Dad couldn't afford to keep her there after Mum died,' Gran went on. ‘He needed Nelly out earning, to help pay the bills. She got her qualifications after the war. Did evening classes, didn't you?'

Again, Great-aunt Eleanor nods, then takes a sip of her tea, her little finger raised, like she's having tea with the Queen.

Gran is on a roll now. ‘In them days there wasn't much money about – you've heard of the Great Depression, have you?' I haven't, but before I can say so, Gran goes on. ‘Before the war, there was so many men out of work.' She shakes her head, looking all tragic. ‘That's why our dad joined the Merchant Navy. It meant leaving us girls on our own, but it was steady money and he got fed and watered while he was at sea. That's how he managed to pay for this house. Reckoned it was a good thing to own the roof over your head. 'Course, we nearly lost it in the Blitz, didn't we, Nelly?'

I nibble on a biscuit, not knowing what to say. I can normally talk to Gran, no problem. But her sister's too scary. But good old Gran likes to chat, so she just carries on.

‘Ooh, Nelly, I nearly forgot. You'll never guess what me and Rosie found under your old bed upstairs.'

‘I suppose I won't,' she says, lifting her cup to her lips. ‘So why don't you tell me?'

‘Queenie's suitcase!' said Gran.

Great-aunt Eleanor blinks. Then she very carefully lowers her cup back onto the saucer, and puts them both on the coffee table. ‘It's still here? I thought we'd thrown it out years ago.'

‘I know you wanted to,' says Gran. ‘But don't you remember? Bill said we couldn't chuck it out because it wasn't ours. He reckoned she might come back for it one day.'

‘That's ridiculous. Even if she survived the bombing, she'd never have come back. Not after what she did.'

This is getting interesting. ‘Who's Queenie?' I ask.

‘A spy,' says Great-aunt Eleanor.

‘No,' says Gran, smiling. ‘She was a bit odd – downright daft sometimes – but she couldn't have been a spy. She was a girl who stayed with us for a bit in the war.'

‘She wasn't as stupid as she appeared. I think she was very cunning. She was far too vague about where she came from, and she disappeared without a trace.'

Gran sighs. ‘The poor girl didn't stand a chance. We should never have let her go out on her own that night. ‘

‘It was her own fault,' says her sister. ‘She managed to upset everyone. I'm sure it was deliberate. I'm convinced she'd completed whatever mission she had, and used our argument as an excuse to escape back to wherever she'd come from.'

‘Oh, for goodness sake,' Gran laughs. ‘What good would a fifteen-year-old girl be as a spy? There weren't no war secrets in our house.'

‘No, indeed, but she came to work with us at the factory, didn't she? She could have been spying there.'

‘Blimey, Nelly, what would Hitler have needed to know about the seams on sailors' trousers? Their inside-leg measurements? She never got good enough to do more than the basic stuff.'

Great-aunt Eleanor sniffs. I try not to smile. This is great. Whoever Queenie was, she'd caused a stir.

‘Maybe not,' Great-aunt Eleanor goes on. ‘But she certainly got friendly with the young men around here, in and out of uniform, as you well know.'

Gran tuts and waves a hand at her sister. ‘Are you still cross about that? After all these years? Come on, love, I'm sure she didn't mean no harm. It all worked out in the end, didn't it?'

‘What happened?' I ask.

‘She stole her man,' Great-aunt Eleanor points at Gran.

Gran laughs. ‘Oh, God help us. She did me a favour. Besides, it was seventy-odd years ago, Nell. It's all water under the bridge. Here, Rosie, nip up and bring that suitcase down, love. We'll have a look.'

CHAPTER TWO

I run upstairs for the suitcase. As I go into the bedroom to get it, the walls start doing their funny stuff again. The bedcover is dark red now, and there's brown lino on the floor instead of the beige carpet. But the case is still there on the bed, so I grab it. I nearly fall down the stairs rushing to get back to Gran and normality.

Great-aunt Eleanor opens the case. Inside are clothes, shoes, a gas mask, and some old notebooks. Gran picks up a buff-coloured booklet.

‘Ooh, look! It's an old ration book. I don't miss the food from them days, do you, Nelly? There was hardly anything nice in the shops, and what you got wasn't enough to keep a mouse fed. We had no trouble keeping our figures, did we?' She pats her belly. ‘Now we can eat what we like, we always have to watch the scales.'

‘You're not fat, Gran,' I laugh. I hope I'll be like Gran, but it's not likely, worse luck. I'm already taller than her. I'll probably end up more like Mum's side of the family. They're what Dad calls ‘substantial women'.

‘I'm not as skinny as I used to be, our Rosie. Like a stick insect, I was. No curves, just straight up and down.'

‘And what you lacked in inches, you made up for in chatter,' says Eleanor. ‘What else have you got there, May?' She rummages in the suitcase and finds some papers. I reckon that woman needs to chill out. Doesn't she ever smile?

The papers don't look very interesting. I'd rather look at the clothes. They're all neatly folded, and some of them are wrapped in tissue paper.

I take out a pretty blue cardigan. I'm careful, because I'm worried it might fall to bits since it's been in that suitcase for so long. It was obviously hand-knitted, and has some lovely pearl buttons. It feels so soft, but it smells so horrible it makes me cough.

‘Eeoogh, that stinks!'

‘Mothballs,' says Great-aunt Eleanor, still looking at the papers.

‘They keep the bugs out, love,' says Gran. ‘These are good quality clothes and mothballs keep 'em safe. Otherwise the moths'll eat their way through this lot.'

I shiver at the thought of insects crawling around in the suitcase

‘Right. Nice.'

I lay the cardigan carefully over the back of a chair, and pick up the next thing – an old-fashioned cotton nightdress. It's white, with tiny flowers embroidered in pinks and purples around the neckline. It stinks as well, but I turn my head away, and take a deep breath before I hold it up against me. It covers me from neck to toe.

‘Oh, wow! Did people really wear stuff like this?' I ask.

Gran smiles and nods. ‘Ah, that's lovely,' she says. ‘And cosy too. We didn't have no central heating back then. A nice long nighty was just the thing to keep your bum from getting frostbite.'

‘Gran!' I laugh. What is she like?

‘Well, it's true. Blooming freezing, this old house was. We had big candlewick dressing gowns too, and bed socks. Didn't we, Nell?'

‘Mmm?' Great-aunt Eleanor was busy studying the papers, but looked up when Gran said her name. ‘Bed socks. Yes.'

She's staring at me again. I feel cold all of a sudden. I turn round and stuff the nightdress back into the case.

Gran tuts. ‘No, come here, Rosie. Don't do it like that, love. Let me fold it proper.' She picks it up and sorts it out. But before she puts it back she gets all the other stuff out. ‘You should try some of these on.' She picks up a tweed skirt, shakes the creases out and passes it to me. ‘I reckon they're about your size.'

I hold the skirt against me. It's a lot longer than I usually wear, ending below my knees.

‘An excellent idea,' says Great-aunt Eleanor. ‘I believe the fashion these days is for “retro.”' She makes quote marks in the air. ‘Your grandmother will be able to style your hair as well.'

Gran nods, clapping her hands together. ‘Ooh, yes! I used to love hairdressing, didn't I, Nelly? With all that long dark hair, I can give you some really fancy do's. It'll be fun.'

I'm not so sure. This feels freaky. ‘Actually, it's vintage.' I say. ‘And it's not my sort of thing, thanks.'

Gran looks disappointed, making me feel mean. I really don't want to play dressing up with a load of old clothes. But I don't want to upset Gran either. Great-aunt Eleanor just looks annoyed.

‘Nonsense,' she says. ‘Just about everything you young girls wear these days is a copy of fashions your mothers wore in the 60s and 70s. You might at least try these on.'

I want to stick my tongue out at her for real now, but don't dare. Instead, I bite my lip. It just feels wrong, that's all.

‘You don't have to if you don't want to, love,' says Gran, making me feel even worse. What else can I do?

‘Oh, all right,' I say. ‘I'll give it a go.'

Immediately, Gran cheers up, and old Nelly nods, satisfied. I pick up a pale pink blouse to go with the skirt. With any luck they won't fit.

The skirt and blouse do fit, perfectly. I can't believe it. I go and show the old women, trying not to gag as I get a waft of
Eau de Mothballs
as I move. They're in the kitchen, brewing more tea. Gran fusses over me, while Great-aunt Eleanor watches, all narrow-eyed. I pretend not to notice, because she's freaking me out again. The sooner I can get my jeans back on, the better.

‘Come on then,' says Gran, ‘Let's do your hair. It's a shame I got rid of me old curlers. I could've made you look like a film star.'

I sit on the kitchen chair that Gran has put in the middle of the room and let her fuss. Her hands are a lot stronger than I expect, and I can't help yelping in pain as she yanks a comb through my hair and sticks it with a shed-load of pins.

‘Sorry, love. Nearly there.'

‘Here,' says Great-aunt Eleanor. ‘Put these on.' She kneels down, quite flexible considering how old she is, and slides some shoes onto my feet. Again, a perfect fit. I shiver and the walls of the kitchen wobble for a second then go back to normal. This is getting really weird. Or maybe Gran's been overdoing the hair pulling a bit and my eyes have gone wonky. I lift up my feet to get a look at the shoes. Black leather, plain like a court shoe, chunky heel. Not my usual style.

At last Gran is satisfied, and I'm allowed to stand up. The heels on the shoes are quite high, and I wobble a bit as I walk into the hall to look at myself in the big mirror on the coat stand. The silky lining of the skirt rustles against my legs as I move, and the heels make me walk differently. It feels quite sexy.

The old women follow me. I smile as I imagine walking down a catwalk, with loads of people watching and thinking how gorgeous I am. Yeah, right.

‘Wow!' I look like someone out of a black-and-white film! My hair, which is usually frizzy as anything, looks great. I put a hand up and feel how smooth it is.

‘That's a French pleat,' says Gran. ‘Very elegant.'

The clothes, which still smell of those awful mothballs, give me some curves. I look about twenty-five, in a vintage, Paloma Faith kind of way.

Gran and Great-aunt Eleanor crowd behind me at the mirror. But when I look at our reflection, I don't see two old women. Instead there are two girls, one blonde, one dark, and both are dressed like me. My mouth drops open, I can feel my heart start to race. It's impossible. It's like looking through a window, except I can still see myself clearly reflected, right between them.

‘You need a bit of red lipstick,' says the dark girl.

I blink. The girls disappear, and Gran's smiling at me in the mirror where the dark girl stood. Great-aunt Eleanor is glaring at me from where the blonde was. I blink again and for a split second the girls are there, and I want to scream but I can't, and before I can do anything they morph back into Gran and Eleanor.

‘Ooh, don't you look lovely!' Gran coos.

I'm too shocked to say anything at first, then I just blurt out, ‘Red lipstick?'

‘Yes, love. I used to have a lovely one from Max Factor,' says Gran. ‘It would've been perfect.'

Great-aunt Eleanor jumps, like she's had electric shock or something.

‘That's it!' says Great-aunt Eleanor. ‘Of course!'

‘Ooh, that's a good idea,' says Gran. ‘I might still have some somewhere.'

I look sideways at Gran. She can't be serious. I doubt if she's worn red lipstick in my lifetime. I dread to think what sort of bacteria might be growing on some old tube she's had for years.

‘Perhaps not,' I say.

‘Well, if you're sure?' she says. ‘I could probably find it.'

‘For goodness sake, May,' Great-aunt Eleanor snaps.