Ruby's War (19 page)

‘“The Magnificat”,' Ruby said. ‘It was part of it. I could remember it from school.'

‘I said she had it off pat, didn't I?' Alice said. ‘I thought it must be something like that.'

‘Well, the missus couldn't understand how you could have, and Alice kept telling her you did.'

‘They was sat there tryin' to think who they could get, but there was no one. All the children have parts, or are off with mumps,' said Alice.

‘There's I don't know how many off with it. Some of them's right bad. Poor little things. They'll miss the party, and going to the Yank's camp to see Father Christmas. They come for them in a truck last time, and you can't take sick kiddies in a truck. Perhaps they'll get their presents sent.'

‘Shut up, Dick. I'm tryin' to tell her that the missus said
she wants to see her. In the end, they decided you'd have to do it, even if you're not at the school. There was no one else. You'd best go and see her now.'

As she walked towards the living room, Ruby's stomach began to squirm and wriggle. Mrs Grey was sitting on the couch, her legs tucked under a hairy picnic rug. She looked rather pale and she wasn't wearing make-up.

‘Ah, Ruby,' she said, putting down the cut-glass tumbler she'd been drinking from. ‘Alice and Dick have assured me that you know the part of Mary. Miss Conway needs to hear you, but we are desperate. Do you think you could do it?' she asked, swishing the golden liquid around in her glass. ‘I know you can perform before people. Do say you'll have a go.'

Ruby dug her nails into her hands and took a deep breath. ‘I … Please, madam … I'm to ask if there'll be a payment.'

‘What on earth do you mean?'

‘I'm to say are there wages?'

‘Oh really, Ruby,' Mrs Grey sighed, and put her hand to her head. ‘This really is too bad. I'm trying to help. The Nativity play is in jeopardy. And all you can think of—'

When the door opened, Mrs Grey put down her glass. Ruby, who didn't dare turn around to see who it was, felt her ears begin to burn.

‘May I go, madam?' she asked.

‘No you may not.'

The room fell silent and she stared hard at the carpet. She heard someone move to the table near the door and pour out a drink. Then Doctor Grey walked by her and sat in his
usual chair. He lifted one eyebrow and sipped his drink.

‘We don't get paid, Ruby. It's for our community. Most people would think it an honour. Humphrey, darling, will you fill my glass? I'm exhausted.'

‘Then I think you should go and lie down, dear,' he said. ‘Alcohol … Unless you have a sherry. That might help your appetite.'

‘I don't want a sherry. I've had the most awful day. All the children in the Nativity play have mumps, and I had hoped Ruby could help us out, but she's holding me to ransom.'

‘Ruby, will you excuse us for a moment? Run along to the kitchen and tell Alice that Mrs Grey will take lunch in her room. Doctor's orders, Diana.'

Ruby sat down at the kitchen table, attacked the pile of carrots with the vegetable knife and prayed that she wouldn't be sent home and told never to come back. She'd almost peeled the whole pile when the door opened. Doctor Grey sat down and picked up a carrot.

‘Was it your idea,' he asked, considering the deformed vegetable thoughtfully, ‘to ask for payment?'

‘I was told to … Grandma Jenny said next time to ask if there was wages.'

‘Ah. Well, in that case, I think you should do whatever Mrs Grey has asked you to do, and then report to me. We can't have Mrs Grey upset. When the play is over, I want you to come to me, and I'll pay for the hours it has taken.'

Then Doctor Grey squeezed her hand and left. Ruby picked up the twisted carrot and began to chop. When Alice returned from taking Mrs Grey's meal up to her
room, the pile was almost done and Alice remarked that, from the amount of sniffing she was doing, Ruby might be coming down with a chill, or something, as well.

‘So,' Sergeant Mayfield said, looking at Con who was perched on his bed. ‘You men be careful. Watch out for each other. The guys who attacked Con were southerners. No surprise there. There's a rumour some of them are tryin' to organise a clan chapel and they've got some support.'

‘Not in our town,' someone called from the back of the hut.

‘Don't push it,' the sergeant replied. ‘I know young Con here, and the rest of you, want to have a go at these guys, but we need to keep the officers on our side. We don't want to give them any call …'

There was some restless muttering from the men in the crowded hut, and Bo, who had been leaning against the wall, pushed himself up to his full height.

‘Can't agree with you there, Sarge,' he said. ‘The officers ain't ever goin' to be on our side. The way I see it, we got to look out for ourselves.'

‘If there's trouble, they'll start to cut down the number of passes into town.'

‘They're doin' that already,' Wes said. ‘We used to go into town to the movies, but now there's less late passes. There's more an' more guys stuck here all the time.'

‘You said it yourself, Sarge,' one of the southern soldiers added. ‘You told us last week a lot of the white officers, an' most are from the South, believe black men are natural cowards. It's why they don't want us for combat. If we let 'em git away with what they done to this
guy … Well then they're goin' to think they was right.'

‘All I'm saying, and I think Bo will back me up on this, is that it would be wrong to go out looking for trouble. Give me a week or so. I'll see what I can find out about passes. I'm tryin' to get us more facilities here. Basketball, baseball. I got them thinkin' about it, and Lieutenant Hart is on our side. Don't want anything to happen to mess that up. All I'm sayin' is keep in groups, and don't give 'em cause to point to you as the troublemakers.'

When the group began to break up, Holt sat down beside Con. ‘You fancy getting out of here for the day?' he asked. ‘Bo can get passes for us and for Wes. We're picking greenery to decorate the church. We tell them we're goin' out helping, doing stuff for the church, and they don't care how long we stay away.'

The next day was cold and sunny. The privet hedges were stiff with frost, and in the distance Con could see a sugaring of snow on the hills. When he'd woken up that morning, he'd been torn between the desire to get away from the camp's drab routine and the idea of spending the day with Bo and Sadie. But once he'd looked out at the sparkling weather, he couldn't wait to leave.

When they arrived at the cottage Sadie and Lou were waiting, together with Johnny Fin, who swung himself up on to the truck and grinned his gummy grin.

‘Johnny's coming with us to help us find the best stuff,' Sadie said, handing up a bag and a pair of gardening shears. ‘And to pick some for the pub – and some to sell, if I know 'im.'

Sadie and Lou were dressed in boiler suits and old tweed jackets. Con noticed that, despite her practical clothes,
Sadie was wearing her lipstick and a pair of earrings.

‘Hello Con, love,' she smiled. ‘You don't look as bad as I expected.'

‘He was real bad when he got back,' Bo said.

‘You've not been to see us,' Lou said, sitting down next to Con. ‘You'll have to come over at Christmas, won't he, Sadie? We need some help trimming up and Ruby's in the play at church, so you'll have to come to that and join in the carols.'

‘Con remembered one of their voices,' Bo said. ‘This guy had this real slow way of talkin' and he'd recognise his voice again. There's a lot of trouble in town. Some of our guys ran into this big blonde sergeant called Hal. Our sarge asked around and he reckons he knows who the guy is. Been around here before.' Sadie, who had been lighting her cigarette, stopped and looked over at Johnny Fin who twitched violently, bumping into Con's still-tender ribs.

‘Sound … sounds like the same bloke as used to sell black-market stuff round the pubs,' he said. ‘Went down to the south …'

‘The south … That's right,' Bo said. ‘Well, he's back.'

‘You know him?' Holt asked.

For a moment there was silence, and Sadie looked out at the passing landscape and shivered.

‘Keep clear of him,' Johnny said. ‘He can be an awkward sod.'

He directed them out of the village and away from the flat, open country they had driven through in their trucks. The lanes were steep and deserted, with only a scattering of farmhouses and cottages. To the west, they could see the coast. Inland, there were the mill chimneys each with
streets cross-hatched around them and near the centre of the town a tall, white spire. When they climbed down from the truck, Johnny led the way along a steep, rutted path between the trees. At the top of the climb they could see the flat, open valley and the river swinging out in a long crescent towards the town. It was clear that their guide knew the wood well and he found them enough fresh greenery to fill the truck. Under Johnny's direction they worked methodically, cutting down the boughs of holly with the brightest berries, hacking down branches of evergreen and picking the mistletoe hidden in the knobbly oaks, but when they began bundling up the greenery to carry back along the narrow path, Johnny disappeared.

‘I know where the old bugger will have gone,' Sadie said. ‘Listen.' In the wood, in the cold air, they could hear the sound of sawing. ‘He's after fetching some logs.'

Johnny was in a clearing, his jacket on the floor, his back and legs bent and his toes turned in. He was pushing at his saw, straining with the effort as the teeth sank deeper into the trunk. Bo and Holt took off their tunics and took a turn with the saw. Lou and Sadie held the rough hessian sacks, and Con helped Wes to collect the logs.

‘See, I told you he was crafty,' Sadie laughed. ‘I thought you'd brought these sacks for us to sit on and have our butties. You said you just wanted some holly.'

Johnny smiled, his eyes sapphire blue in the frosty sunlight. ‘We can walk round t'other side, when we've done this. There's some sights the lads might like to see, and there's some rocks there we can sit on. They'll be in the sunshine.'

When they'd filled the sacks, they followed Johnny out of the wood and along the top of the rocky escarpment. Out to the west, near the horizon, they caught the shimmer of the sun on the sea. To the south, in the middle of the rolling pasture, there was a single hill, little more than a mound, with a castle poised on top and the river snaking around it. Con laughed and turned to the others. Their faces reflected his surprise at the storybook castle, barely three miles from the clattering mills.

‘It's real beautiful,' he said.

‘Aye, it's a bonny thing.'

They sat down on a muddle of flat grey stones, and Sadie handed out sandwiches and cold tea from a billycan.

‘It's almost like spring,' Lou said.

‘It'll not be, later,' Johnny said, munching his sandwich. ‘I can smell snow.'

Con sniffed. The air was cold, clear, but there were no clouds.

‘You could bring your girl with you to the play and stay for your tea,' Sadie said, ignoring Bo's warning look.

Con pressed his still-swollen lip. ‘I don't see Rita no more,' he said.

‘Well come for your tea, anyway. Oh, I almost forgot. I've got some whisky to put in the tea, if you're a bit cold.'

‘I'll have some, lass,' Johnny said, holding out his tin mug. ‘You come down to Henry's, lad, and I'll show you how to box, and next time …'

‘Boxing wouldn't have helped none,' Bo said, getting up to give Sadie a hand collecting the waxed wrapping paper from their sandwiches. ‘There was three of them against him. Come on, let's get this stuff back.'

When the others began to move away, Con stayed, looking at the castle in the sunshine.

‘You okay love?' Sadie asked.

‘It's so pretty here,' he said, ‘when it stops raining.'

Ruby was looking out through the high classroom windows at the blue, cloudless sky. Miss Conway, who had already reduced most of the choir to tears at least once, crashed to the end of ‘Silent Night' and began to shout. Pauline rolled her eyes, and Ruby grinned. She already knew her lines, where to stand and how to move, but the more time Miss Conway kept them at it, the more hours she could tell Doctor Grey she'd spent on the rehearsal.

When Miss Conway began to play the next carol, Pauline wandered over and propped her elbows on the windowsill next to Ruby's.

‘It's not their fault,' she said. ‘It's Miss Conway. She's playing much too high.'

They heard the jeep on the road before they saw it, and when the driver swung into the playground, they stood on tiptoe to see who would get out.

‘That's Captain Leary,' Ruby said. ‘I've seen him at Mrs Grey's.'

‘He's nice.'

‘The other one, Captain O'Donal, is nicer. He looks like Rhett Butler.'

Just then, Captain Leary looked up at the school windows, and the two girls ducked their heads below the sill. When they looked out again, Mrs Grey, dressed in a pale-blue fitted coat and a blue hat with a peacock feather, was standing next to the American.

‘Do you think they're in love?' Pauline asked.

Ruby gazed at the couple in the middle of the playground and thought of the handsome, if rather short, Doctor Grey.

‘They can't be,' she said. ‘She's married to Doctor Grey.'

‘That doesn't matter,' Pauline said knowledgably. ‘Scarlett was in love with Ashley Wilkes, and he was married.'

They watched as the couple walked by the window, and Ruby had to admit that Captain Leary did look very smart in his uniform. They didn't notice that the singing had stopped, until Miss Conway joined them at the window.