Ruby's War (6 page)

‘He'll get over it,' Sadie said. ‘Look, he's over there now chatting, buying another round.'

Vera didn't reply. Holding a cluster of pint glasses in each hand, she went back over to the bar where Sadie saw Clay take her arm. Clay was Hal's shadow, following him everywhere. When he caught her watching them, he smiled and whispered something in Vera's ear.

‘Another lot of knock-off, no doubt,' Johnny said, squinting at the pair through the smoke from his cigarette.

‘Come and help us would you, Sadie, love?' Vera called, opening the flap on the bar to let Clay through. ‘Hal's brought some food for later.'

Hal smiled self-consciously at the group around the bar, and took a second round of drinks over to Henry's table.

‘I was wondering,' he said, putting the tray of drinks down. ‘If the ladies would excuse us, could we have one last game of darts?'

‘It would be my pleasure, lad,' Henry said.

Over time, the coating of nicotine on the vault's cream walls had turned into sticky, brown rivulets. The tables were stained, and the battered chairs – rubbed to a dull sheen by the movements of numerous backsides – were ancient. A domino school of older local men had colonised the tables next to the listless fire, others were hunched over games of cards and a small group of GIs were sipping beer and playing a friendly game of darts.

As Hal and Henry walked in, the landlady and Sadie began handing plates of ham, bread and pickles over the bar.

‘I'm leavin' tomorrow,' he said, smiling broadly. ‘So as this is my last night here, I thought we could have something to eat and drink, and a last game of darts.'

‘We'll all be sad to see you go, lad,' one of the elderly domino players said, to a general mutter of agreement from the other drinkers.

‘Who's this new lot coming in?' another asked, accepting one of the plates of sandwiches.

‘Well, not all of us are moving,' Hal said, ‘but there'll be some changes. There's another camp opening down the road. It's for Quartermaster Truck Companies. Not supposed to say how many,' he said and winked. ‘You should see that place.'

‘Nice?' Henry asked.

‘Naw. It's a dump.'

‘Not for you Yanks, then?' someone else asked.

‘Black guys,' Hal said, blowing the smoke of his fat cigar in the direction of the younger group of GIs at the dartboard.

‘Black? Black soldiers?' Bert Lyons, the landlord, asked.

Hal's pale eyes hardened. ‘Yep. But they're not over here to fight. They don't fight. Can't trust a black with a gun.'

Hal gazed around the room, and the group of GIs playing darts became watchful.

‘So, this is my last night here. My last chance to beat Henry at darts,' he said, smiling broadly.

‘Well, if they don't fight, how come they're over here?' Henry asked.

‘They just back up the real GIs. Maintain trucks, fetch and carry. More trouble than they're worth most of 'em, I'd say.'

‘I've never seen one, except on the pictures,' Bert Lyons said.

‘Lou's boyfriend has,' Sadie said, handing out the plates of food to the domino players. ‘He's in the merchant navy. He's seen 'em on ships, and in Africa. I reckon there's good and bad in everybody.'

‘Got to be very carefully handled,' Hal said, ignoring her comment. ‘Problem is, you can't never trust 'em. Don't know what they might do.'

‘Best to keep clear,' one of the elderly domino players agreed, sucking on a silver-skinned pickle.

‘Can't do that if they're here,' his companion pointed out.

‘Well, you'll have to be awful careful,' Hal said, with a concerned look at his audience. ‘I can't understand why you've never had the posters.'

‘Posters?'

‘Yep, you know, the government puts up warning posters when there's a danger, or sayin' how to treat foreigners.'

‘Never seen anything like that,' Bert Lyons said.

‘Well, it's lucky that I called in. I mean, a lot of it ain't their fault. It's like any creature, you've gotta learn how best to handle them. One thing you must never do, because it causes embarrassment, is to ask them to sit down …' he said, pausing for a moment, savouring the attention of the men in the shabby, little vault. ‘Tails. They got tails.'

‘Never. I've never heard of that,' Vera said.

‘Well, it's not something that's mentioned. Very sensitive. Our government don't like it brought up. Especially not, well if you'll pardon me, with another country's citizens. We like to keep it to ourselves. But, these poor guys will
soon be here, so it's best you know. You see,' Hal said, offering Henry a cigar, ‘if you'll pardon me bein' frank, you and me, us white folks, our tails dropped off long ago. But black folks … well, they still have one. Only a small one.'

‘But it don't drop off?' asked one of the elderly drinkers.

‘No, sir, and you see it makes it hard for them to sit like we do. And I know you wouldn't like to upset the poor guys. Can't understand your government not having given you this information. What I'm saying, sir,' Hal said, turning to Bert Lyons, who was leaning on the bar, ‘if these guys come in here, it's kinder not to ask them to sit down. You see unless they get stirred up, they're simply happy fellows, and it would upset them. They'd sit to be polite, but, you see, it would be very painful with a tail. Then there's the food,' Hal added.

‘Do they have special food, like?' Vera asked.

‘No. They eat same as us, but when they get hungry …' Hal paused and gazed around again at his audience. ‘Well, I don't want to say this, because I know you'll think I'm exaggerating, and it ain't commonly talked about, but they bark. Not a loud bark, like a hound. It's a sort of growl at the back of the throat. Something between a whimper and a growl. It's part of the way they're brought up. It's to tell their mammies where they are, an' that they're hungry. They don't sit down to meals, you see. At home, their mammies would go out and give them their food outside. It's just a different way of doing things.'

The vault fell silent. Mouths munched appreciatively on slices of thick pink ham enclosed in soft white bread, but most of all, relished the generous lashings of salty golden
butter. In the lull after all the customers had been served with the food, Sadie felt a cold draught, as the air from the quietly closing vault door brushed her legs; the younger GIs had left unnoticed, their half-finished drinks on the table beside the abandoned dartboard.

‘They're real nice folk, mostly,' Hal continued, picking up the darts. ‘My pappie was real fond of 'em. Where I'm from, folk know to be careful. They're like children, you see, an' it's unfair on them to get them excited.'

‘It doesn't seem right to have them come to war,' Vera said.

‘Well, like I say, ma'am, they're only helpin' us real soldiers out. They can be trained. We been trainin' 'em in the South for years. Oh, we sure do know all about training black folks. But if you hear this, well it's not a bark exactly, more kind of a mooing sound, then it's best to watch out, 'cos when they're hungry they can sometimes get real snappy.'

When she woke, Ruby heard someone lifting the back-door latch. The sharp metal clack was followed by the sound of her granddad coughing and then a rasping noise, as the edge of the toilet door caught on the stone flags. She sat up, pulled on her vest and jumper, and with her legs tucked under the blanket, unhooked the blackout curtain.

The frost had made a feathery pattern on the inside of the window, and Ruby used her thumbnail to scrape away two holes to see through. Everything was still. Instead of yesterday's grey clouds, there was a clear turquoise sky, yet a low mist hid the fields and the stream. By contrast, the garden was in dazzling sunlight. All the vegetables were covered with a thin coating of frost, and the leaves of the old marrow plants on the Anderson shelter had been turned into silver twine.

The cold made her fingers sting, so she snuggled down again, hugging them under her armpits. Ruby
lay for a while, her feet tucked under her nightdress, watching her warm breath quickly turn to plumes of dragon smoke in the freezing room. Then closing her eyes, she tried to imagine the clear sky outside was really over the sea and she was back in the bedroom she'd shared with her mother. But instead of the sound of her mother breathing softly in her sleep, Ruby heard her grandfather's clogs clattering back across the flags and thudding on the stairs.

‘Don't be long, lass,' he called, gently pushing at the open bedroom door. ‘I've brought you the big case. Your mum's things … that Ethel gave you. I know there's not much room in here, but I'd keep it by you.'

In the living room, Jenny was coaxing heat from the few remaining embers of last night's fire.

‘There's some tea in't pot,' she said.

She handed Ruby the teapot from the fender. Then, unhooking the shovel and brush from the brass stand in the hearth, she began cleaning the old-fashioned fireplace. From her seat at the table, Ruby watched Jenny, her large bottom encased in a floral overall, rock vigorously from side to side. At Everdeane all the old fireplaces had been replaced by smart modern ones – cream tiles in the guest's lounge and pink in all the best bedrooms.

‘Cut yourself a slice of bread,' Grandma Jenny said. ‘When you've had that, you'd best have a good wash. Have you got some other clothes?' she asked, using the chair to pull herself up from the floor.

‘I don't know,' Ruby said. ‘Auntie Ethel packed my things.'

Taking out a tin from her overall pocket, Grandma
Jenny sat down heavily on the chair next to her and began to roll a cigarette.

‘You'll have the rest of your school things. That can't be your only gymslip,' she said, licking the fragile cigarette paper and carefully lighting the end.

‘I've left school. I've been helping Auntie and Uncle. Before that, I'd only been going part-time because of the evacuees from Manchester.'

‘Well, we'd best look,' Jenny said, getting up from the table. ‘You're only going to be here for a while. Not long … just until we get things sorted out. I can't have you under my feet all day. We'll go to the school and see if you can go there until …'

‘I go back to Everdeane?'

‘Most likely. Is that what you want?'

Ruby nodded. ‘My dad will be coming for me, expecting me to be there.'

Jenny nipped the end of her cigarette and got up from the table. ‘Let's have a look at this case they sent you with,' she said.

The small suitcase revealed a change of underwear, a second gymslip, a navy-blue cardigan, a green-and-black tartan kilt, a green jumper and matching cardigan, two pairs of plain white socks and one lacy pair, and two red tartan hair ribbons. Ruby gazed at the pile of clothes and wondered if she should say that the gymslip was too short.

‘She hasn't sent any of my summer things, because I'll be going back before then,' she said.

Jenny didn't reply, but nodded in the direction of the large case. ‘What's in there?'

‘They're Mum's things.'

When Jenny tipped the clothes on to the bed, the little room filled with Pearl's perfume.

‘Well, a lot of good these are,' she said, lifting up a beaded silk slip.

Underneath the mound of silk and glitter, they found the black velvet dress Ruby had worn for her mother's funeral and a pair of patent leather shoes. There was also a pair of black woollen gloves and matching beret that she didn't recognise, along with a half-completed scarf her mother had once tried to make for her father.

‘These'll do,' Jenny said, picking up the gymslip and the green jumper from the bed. ‘You can wash in the kitchen. Use my hairbrush and put them ribbons in as well.'

Ruby ran cold water into the sink, barred the back door and undressed. When the living-room door opened, she held her rumpled clothes tight against her naked body. Jenny bustled in, carrying a kettle full of hot water.

‘Tha's got nowt I haven't seen afore,' she snapped, pouring the water from the sooty kettle into the sink. ‘Now, hurry up.'

Ruby obeyed, rubbing the coarse flannel over her body, reddening the delicate flesh already mottled with shame and embarrassment. Before her mother had died, she couldn't wait to grow up. In their bedroom at Everdeane, when she'd watched Pearl dressing to go out for the evening, she'd loved to try on her evening dresses and use her powder and lipstick. Sometimes, if her mother was in a good mood, she'd help her to put on the make-up. On those nights, they would stand together in front of the long mirror, and Pearl would hug her and say they could be
mistaken for sisters. Then she'd died. Now Ruby didn't want to grow up; she wanted to slip back to the dark winter afternoon before the accident, and before her body began to sprout hair and breasts.

By the time she was dressed, Jenny had changed out of her overall and was wearing a black coat with a fur collar and a bright-red hat. The hat was perched just above the row of yellow kiss-curls and skewered into place by a large hatpin in the shape of a bird.

‘We'll go by the lane,' Jenny said, locking the front door behind them. ‘Here, give me your arm. I thought this stuff would have cleared by now.'

The sky was still a clear pale blue, but beneath it, the early mist covering the fields had thickened into a milky fog. Ruby shivered and pulled on her newly discovered gloves. There was no sign of the hens; even Monty the cockerel was quiet. Instead of turning towards the main road as Ruby had expected, Jenny headed up the lane.

Despite the mist Ruby recognised most of the landmarks from her journey back from the village the day before. Close to the cottage the surrounding fields belonging to the farm were separated from the lane by a stout wooden fence. Beyond the fence, the mist had spun a dense web around the trunks and lower branches of the silent trees at the edge of the field, and fine tendrils had penetrated the neatly clipped hedge that pressed against it.

As they walked towards the stone bridge, Ruby heard footsteps rustling the frost-stiffened leaves. She imagined German paratroopers creeping along the other side of the neatly clipped hawthorns and was sure she felt Jenny's hand tighten on her arm. Then a basket appeared on top
of the hedge, and an imperious female voice boomed out from the fog.

‘I say, there. Take my basket would you, whilst I negotiate the fence.'

A large lady, wearing a tweed hat over her trailing grey hair, clambered on to the second highest rung on the old gate. She was dressed in a pair of men's corduroy trousers and an old, torn jacket. After a great deal of panting, she threw a muddy leg over and climbed down.

‘How do you do,' she gasped. ‘I'm Iris Bland. I live down the lane at the end cottage.'

‘Next to Nellie Lathom?' Jenny asked.

‘Is she the lady with the adorable little spaniel? I'm afraid I don't know her. I've only just arrived. My things are coming later today. I thought I'd explore. Do you live nearby?'

‘I … I live at the white cottage on this side of the lane with my daughter.'

‘Ah, then we're neighbours,' the woman said, taking off the shapeless hat and rubbing her purple face. ‘You seem to have quite a flair for gardening. How delightful. I've discovered some fungi, but I suppose you're an expert on wild foods. There's much less mist once you get out of the dip.'

‘I'm glad to hear it,' Jenny said. ‘We're walking into the village.'

‘It shouldn't interfere with your plans,' the woman called. ‘Lovely to have met you.'

‘Wonder why somebody that posh is renting one of John Bardley's old cottages,' Jenny said, as they watched Iris Bland stumping off up the lane. ‘I bet she's come out of
the way of the bombing. Or she's been bombed out.'

‘She might be a spy.'

‘Oh aye, and what's she spying at in Bardley's field?'

‘She could be sending messages to her leader.'

‘She'll be meeting her maker, if she eats them things in her basket. They looked like toadstools. You never know, she might want some washing or cleaning done. Though she doesn't look like she has much. Mind you, you can never tell with some posh folk.'

The old woman was right; once they reached the little stone bridge, the fog disappeared. In the sunlight, the lane looked so much prettier than it had when she'd walked along it the day before. On both sides, the hedgerows stretched into the distance, their glittering line broken only by the occasional stand of trees or an isolated cottage. Between the white lacy branches of one small coppice, she could see an old mansion and wondered how she'd missed it yesterday.

‘Who lives there?' she asked.

‘It's been empty a good while. I've heard it's going to be turned into a hospital, once they open the Second Front.'

In the early morning sunshine, the curtains of spiders' webs hanging from the iron gates appeared to have been stitched together with thousands of tiny glass beads. The tightly closed gates made Ruby think of the opening stage set of
Sleeping Beauty,
when Pearl had played the fairy godmother at the Theatre Royal. She'd gone to watch the panto with her father. From her place in the darkened stalls, Ruby had listened to the audience applause as the curtain went up, revealing the gates to the enchanted castle and her mother dressed in a beautiful ballet dress.

At the end of the lane, before they turned down the road of small, pebble-dashed semis she'd walked along with Bess, they came to the large house with the nameplate on the gate.

‘It's his shirts we're washing,' Jenny said. ‘He's very good about your granddad's medicine. He knows he was gassed, so he doesn't charge as much for it. He worked in one of the army hospitals as a young man. He knows what it was like. But you'd best not get ill. We can't expect him to take you on for free as well.'

The school was next to the church and consisted of two single-storey buildings. The smaller one was made of red brick, and the other was of older smoke-blackened brick and had tall windows.

‘That's the church hall and the infant school,' Jenny said, as they walked by the red-brick building and across the playground. ‘The older children are in this other place. Before the church was built, it was a chapel. Now, keep your mouth shut, unless you're spoken to,' Jenny warned, as they came to the heavy wooden door at the end of the old chapel, ‘and don't say anything about being here for a holiday.'

They stood together inside a small, square hallway. Through an open door, Ruby could see a table piled with papers and books. Near the door were two battered easy chairs; one had a coat over the back, and the other had a large handbag and a packet of ten Player's cigarettes on the arm.

‘Looks like where the teachers have their tea,' Jenny said.

The other door was closed. Jenny put her ear to it and listened.

‘That's one of the classrooms,' she said, as the sound of muffled chanting escaped through the stout door. ‘We'll have to wait here until they've finished. It can't be long off dinnertime. I think they're saying their prayers.'

In the chilly entrance hall, Ruby tugged nervously at the hem of her short gymslip. She hoped that the teacher would put her in the same class as the girl she'd met on the swings. If she had a friend, then staying at Granddad's might not be so bad: she would be at school all day, and at weekends she and the girl could take Bess for walks, so Jenny couldn't say she was in the way.

After a few minutes, a serious-looking boy with thick glasses came out of the classroom carrying a handbell.

‘Is your teacher in there?' Jenny asked. ‘Will you tell her I want to see her?'

The boy went back inside. When the classroom door opened again, a tall lady with wiry, marmalade-coloured hair followed him into the hallway.

‘Can I help you?' she said. ‘I'm Miss Conway.'

Miss Conway wore a custard-coloured blouse buttoned to the neck. An oval lattice-work brooch of dull, silver-grey metal sat between the points of the collar. She was what Ruby's Auntie Ethel would have called ‘a good class of guest'. Above the sound of closing desk lids and excited voices, Jenny explained that she'd brought Ruby to start at school that day.

The teacher didn't reply but led the way to the front of the classroom. A large, brown desk stood on the top of a plinth. Miss Conway climbed the three steps and gazed around.

The room fell silent. There were about fifty children in
the class, some sitting in pairs at heavy iron-legged desks, others behind long tables arranged around the walls. They were all between thirteen and fifteen. The girls wore jumpers or cardigans in different colours and styles; none of them wore gymslips. The younger boys wore grey, green or black pullovers, and most of the older boys wore jackets. Ruby could see the girl from the recreation ground sitting in the middle row next to a pretty girl with curly hair. The girl from the swings and the pretty girl smiled and whispered together as if they were best friends. Miss Conway brought a thick leather strap down sharply on the desk, making the exercise books dance and ending the quiet hum of chattering voices. Then with a nod to the child nearest to the door, she dismissed her class.