by Milly Adams
‘’Ow you lasses doing?’ Arthur said, the icy wind doing its best to tug off his hat. ‘Yer got out from under, then?’
Verity sipped her tea as Polly replied, ‘Indeed we did, guided by our Sylv’s red nose. Do you need her to light up any dark corners in the factory, Arthur?’ Sylvia dragged her scarf up and over her nose, then realised she couldn’t drink her tea, so slipped it down again.
Arthur smiled gently. ‘Don’t yer pay them no mind, little miss. Yer brighten up lives, you do. Just like yer all do.’
Sylvia almost whispered, ‘And you, and your family, now your daughter’s gone?’
‘Oh, we just get on with it, but I does just think that to be killed by a doodlebug towards the end of the blasted war is … Well, you know, cos yer nearly copped it from the V2. Then I ’spect the bloody Nazis will bellyache that they’re being ’ard done by now we’re movin’ in. I’ll “hard done by” ’em, if I ever get me hands on ’em. Look at the bloody mess they’ve made of the bloody world.’
Polly and Sylvia took the mugs back to the office, handing them to the clerk. ‘Okey-dokey, are yer, gals?’ he asked. ‘Bit bruised and battered, but––’
‘Unbowed,’ Polly finished for him. They laughed together. ‘Thanks for the cuppa.’ She opened the door.
He said, as they left, ‘Not long now, lasses, got to be over by Christmas, eh? Then a land fit for ’eroes, if there’s anything left of it, the beggars.’
They headed on, approaching the south, waving as Bet and her girls headed towards them on Swansong and Seagull well north of Cowley Lock. It seemed so strange to see Saul and Granfer’s pair out and about again. Verity gave them a couple of blasts on the hunting horn, then yelled, ‘We said goodbye to Dog and put a note through the door for Fran. Granfer’s family is coming on well, but not quite 100%.’ Everyone was very careful not to name Maudie except at boater venues.
At the Cowley Lock they waited for another pair to come through, and it was now that the thought of the reunion gripped Sylvia by the throat. This time it refused to be shoved away but hovered just out of her control. She was torn between longing for Steve and dread at being back.
She made herself concentrate on the pair that were approaching. They were crewed by women as well, ones they barely knew. They all called, ‘’Ow do,’ and waved. Had Bet trained them too? Probably. Finally Verity lock-wheeled them through Cowley Lock, and then the Bull’s Bridge lay-by was in sight, but their day wasn’t over. They moored up stern first, as the sun was setting behind the clouds, and removed the tillers before dragging out brooms from the store. Sylvia was glad, for it kept her busy. She was about to head down into the butty hold to start the clear-out when the other two girls grabbed the brush from her.
Verity wagged a finger at Sylvia as though she was a five-year-old. ‘Certainly not, you make a cuppa, or take Pup for a walk, and we will do the dirty work. Then you will nip to the lavs, use the depot’s hot water for a proper wash and we will stand guard to repel boarders. The workforce can wait. After which, we will help you put a seam line down the back of your legs and some slap on your face because you have a reunion to go to, friends to see, and a bloke to meet.’
They pushed her off the boat, so she walked Pup along the kerb, chatting to the boaters who were boiling up their wash or returning from the shops, though they’d be shutting soon as the day was wearing to a close. She felt peculiar. Seam lines? Slap? She hardly ever bothered. What would Sister Augustine think? What about Harriet? Sylvia and Pup carried on to the end, and back, but she was too nervous to enjoy the puppy’s antics, though young Jimmy Porter made up for her as he leapt off his motor. Taking Pup’s rope lead from her he ran ahead, then stopped, making Pup sit. ‘See, Sylv, ’tis what you must be doing. Train ’er or she’ll end up in the cut, and it be dirty. I can remember that, afore Verity and Polly got me out again.’
She smiled but it was as though she was walking two feet above the earth, with her head all fuzzy and a tremble throughout her body. She returned to Horizon with Pup, then took her towel and headed for the yard, the girls strolling with her, making idle chatter. They stood guard while she took over the sink, washing, again and again, seeing the memory of Harriet, the one she kept trying so hard to repress, the one of Harriet walking from the dormitory towards her postulancy at St Cecelia’s Convent, alone, looking back at Sylvia who had shaken her head, calling, ‘I’m sorry, I know I promised I would come with you when we were younger, but I’m just not sure enough.’ Disappointment and accusation had shown in every move of Harriet’s body at her, Sylvia Simpson’s, betrayal.
The girls took her place while she returned to the butty, where she sat, hoping the boat would sink and so it wouldn’t be her fault that she was unable to go to the reunion. The girls arrived fifteen minutes later and made Spam fritters, which they all ate as usual in the motor cabin. Sylvia dressed in the butty, and they met up in Marigold’s cabin. The girls, who were dressed in skirts too, explained that they were coming with her to north London to make sure she actually entered the portals of the orphanage, and what’s more, stayed there.
Sylvia sat down suddenly on Polly’s side-bed, defeated. She had intended to spend the evening walking around, anywhere but near the orphanage, despite Steve saying that he would be there. Because so too would Sister Augustine, Harriet and Father O’Malley and she was frightened she would let the whole thing drag her back, away from her happiness.
‘Don’t worry, please, please,’ pleaded Polly. ‘Steve will come, he saved your life, remember that. He will come.’
They didn’t understand, Sylvia thought.
Verity said, getting her make-up case from the bottom of the cupboard, ‘Darling, we can see you are nervous, and we’re not having you doing a runner, my girl. We know you once thought of being a nun, but we also know that Sister Augustine said that you must make sure it wasn’t imagination. One has only to see your face with Steve to know where your happiness lies, so you’re not doing a bunk on our watch, is she Pol?’
Polly gripped her hand. ‘It doesn’t mean you don’t love God. You do and can go on doing so. But love has many forms …’
Verity put some rouge on Sylvia’s cheeks, a little lipstick, a smudge of Joy perfume behind her ears, and held up her mirror. ‘Look, you’re quite divine.’
Sylvia stared. She was different: her eyes seemed to sparkle, her lips were more obvious. The other two were busily applying a bit here and there to their own faces. ‘We’re going off to visit Solly at Jacob’s once you are delivered and the door shut behind you. We telephoned dear Solly after our ablutions, and he and Rachel will be delighted. Or so they said, so naturally we choose to believe them.’
The last thing was to put a seam line down the backs of their legs with the remnants of Verity’s eyebrow pencil and then they set off.
They didn’t arrive until eight o’clock, and the reunion was to start at 7.30. Sylvia stood across the road at the church, behind and to the side of which the orphanage seemed to tower, with a narrow entrance on to the street. To the rear of the orphanage was the convent. It was small but active, and it was here that Harriet was a postulant, before becoming a novice, and finally a nun. Sylvia pointed. ‘We’d come out from that door and head for school in a crocodile.’
She looked at the church and could smell the incense as though she was there. She could hear ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’. She could see Father O’Malley. She so seldom went to Mass; churches were hard to find along the cut. But not that hard, a small quiet voice said.
‘Come on,’ Polly said, slipping her arm through Sylvia’s. Together they walked across the road. Polly pulled on the bell. A small sliding peep-panel opened, then slammed shut, and the door opened immediately. Sister Augustine said, ‘You came. I’m so very pleased. Girls, will you come in too? The more the merrier.’
She held out her hand, beckoning to them. Verity said, ‘That’s so kind, but we have to see Solly, who was buried beneath rubble with us. Ah, but you met him in
the hospital. Be gentle with our Sylv, we’re all still a bit pale and interesting, if you get my meaning.’
Sylvia flushed; no one asked Sister Augustine to be gentle. But the head of the orphanage merely laughed, her white wimple juddering along with her chins. ‘Oh, I’m not sure about that, Verity. It is Verity, isn’t it? I might run your friend and mine round the play area a few times, don’t you think, to make sure she behaves appropriately.’
Sylvia realised that in her panic she had forgotten Sister Augustine’s normality, and her humour. She turned to her friends. ‘You go on to Solly, give him my love and tell him I’ll see him another time, would you?’ She followed Sister Augustine into the darkness, or so it seemed to her, but turned to wave. They still stood there. Verity blew her a kiss. They were worried, and Sylvia wanted to hug them both in thanks for their love for her.
A novice nun was in control of the door, and now it closed, shutting Verity and Polly from view. This was what it must be like if one took the step to postulancy, Sylvia thought. She shivered. Sister Augustine seemed to glide ahead, while Sylvia’s court shoes clipped on the flagstones. Sister Augustine said, ‘The reunion is being held in the refectory, which you will remember from your years with us. This time though, my dear, the tables and chairs have been pushed back, and we even have a little band. One hundred years is quite a cause for celebration, or so Father O’Malley feels, as do the sisters. I do hope you agree?’
They were at the double doors that led into the refectory, and Sylvia heard laughter, music and loud chatter. She had remembered life here as a murmur. The doors seemed to magically open, but in fact they were being handled by two postulants wearing black dresses and short white veils. Was one of them Harriet?
But no, she didn’t recognise either and breathed a little easier.
Sister Augustine stepped to one side, ushering her forward. ‘In you go, my dear. You will find your dormitory friends in a group near where your dining table was. Strange how we cling to familiar things, isn’t it?’
She didn’t wait for an answer but glided back down the corridor to receive whoever was ringing the doorbell. Sylvia entered into the light, remembering the bell that had rung at the start of the meals, and the scramble to finish before the next one sounded. At which point, finished or not, the plates must go to the monitor at the head of the table, to be taken to the trolleys.
She expected that like everything in the convent, the reunion had been organised to the sound of bells. Sylvia shut away the thought, and walked to the table that had been reserved for Dormitory St James, looking all around. He was not here. Would he come?
There were religious pictures on the walls: Jesus Christ as Light of the World, and another of Him knocking on a door, bathed in light. She could almost hear Him say that He was standing at the door and that if she heard His voice and opened the door, He would come to her. She dragged her eyes away. She wanted Him in her life, but not to be her life. Please, not.
She wouldn’t look at the postulants who stood behind a table where cups of tea were being served.
Instead she moved on to the Dormitory St James table where a small group of girls stood, and though they had become young women, she recognised a few. She waited until the group made room for her, and Rosemary, the tallest girl, in a WAAF uniform, smiled. ‘Well, it’s Sylvia. How’s life? Do you still talk in your sleep? I remember you waking the dorm with that nightmare you were having. I didn’t understand a word.’ Sylvia had no time to answer or collect her thoughts, because her dream was the last thing she had thought anyone would remember. Nora, who wore the uniform of the WRNS, smiled. ‘You doing all right, Sylvia?’ she asked. In fact, they were all in uniforms of some kind, including Dawn, who wore that of the Auxiliary Fire Service.
Dawn asked, looking her up and down, ‘So what are you doing for the war effort? Not a lot, from the look of it.’
Dawn had always been spiteful, wanting to get one up on everyone, Sylvia thought.
She said, ‘I was recruited for the Inland Waterways to take over from the men who went to war. We carry supplies in all weathers. I am a bit late, so sorry, just back from Tyseley Wharf; I probably smell in spite of the dab of Joy.’ She realised that she sounded much as Polly and Verity would in the same circumstances. Heavens, they really had become as one.
Dawn sniffed, and Sylvia said, ‘I wouldn’t sniff. You might get more of a whiff than you need or want.’ Heavens, she was Verity.
Just then Sylvia felt a hand on her shoulder and heard the words, ‘Hello, Coppernob.’ She smiled, overcome with relief, and turned to meet her Steve, the man who had saved her life and who she knew, without any shadow of a doubt as their eyes locked, that she loved beyond all else. And without whom there would be no light or joy in her life. Lovely Steve, who with one touch had caused her fears to melt away and leave her free.
They smiled at one another as though there was no one else around, and something more happened, something that took the breath from her body; not like the blast – something warmer, sweeter. He reached out to her, and she took his hand.
Dawn gasped, ‘Steve, what on earth?’
He wrapped his arms around Sylvia, pulling her against him. She had never felt so cherished. He said, ‘This young woman was one of those we dug out of rubble south of the canal when a couple of V2s came down close to one another. You might remember hearing about it, Dawn, from the safety of your office.’
The girl flushed. Steve continued, ‘Sylvia and her two crew members, with the lovely Dog, were making a phone call to their depot because another boating pair had been caught in the blast on the canal. Dangerous lives these girls lead, but I’m sure you all know that. They just don’t have a uniform to prove it, only scars and exhaustion, and grief for other boaters who haven’t been so lucky, and for Dog who died saving them and others.’
There was a general shuffling, particularly from Dawn, who disappeared to collect a drink of tea from the urn. The others clustered closer and really began to chat. Sylvia found herself sipping tea that Steve brought them on a tray, longing for half a pint of mild instead. Heavens, she really had changed, just like all these girls. Rosemary whispered, ‘Lord, I could do with a smoke, and a shandy.’
Steve, his arm around her, whispered in Sylvia’s ear, ‘That Dawn needed to be put in her place, I hope you didn’t mind me having a go. Her watch has been under a lot of strain with her gossip and tittle-tattle.’
The music had become louder and Father O’Malley called, ‘I think it is time everyone took a partner – any old one will do – and sort of shimmy a bit. Or shall I get Sister Augustine to show you all how? Now, that would be a sight to take home with you, I dare say.’
As they all laughed, Sylvia couldn’t remember Father O’Malley being anything other than rather frightening.
‘Oh come on, let’s make the old boy happy, and sort of shimmy,’ Steve grinned, and led her into the centre of the room. They were alone for a moment, and Sylvia didn’t know where to look as people stopped talking to watch, so she just stared at the top button of Steve’s uniform. He saw her looking. ‘I’m going straight on shift after this, so have to leave at ten,’ he said.
It was a waltz of sorts; the band were ex-orphanage boys, not professionals, so it was a bit patchy but nothing mattered as they danced and others took to the floor. Steve said, ‘I’d forgotten the humour of the staff.’
‘I had too. It took me by surprise,’ Sylvia replied. As they executed a turn, his grip around her waist tightened. She confessed, ‘I didn’t want to come.’
He just nodded, then after a pause, murmured, ‘It’s not somewhere I wanted to come again, it reminded me too much of what I am, but it’s all right, now I’m here, with you. Everything always will be, with you. But can you smell the cabbage they had at lunchtime?’
They both roared with laughter, and it was then that Sylvia saw another postulant taking over from a novice behind the tea urn. It was Harriet and as she scanned the room she saw Sylvia, a
nd cocked her head to one side. Steve whirled Sylvia away, back into the throng. He spun her, and she clung to him, but each time they turned there was Harriet, and the warmth ebbed from Sylvia and the fear was back, along with the guilt and the confusion. She made herself listen to Steve, who was talking of Dodge’s missus who had been waiting for such sad news since the war had begun. ‘He was like a dad,’ Steve was saying. ‘Not sure I know what a dad should be, though.’
Sylvia knew, because they must be like Henry and Thomas, and even Rogers. She focussed on the ‘family’ at Howard House, and Steve’s hand on hers. Did he mind the callouses? Would they remain for ever or would her hands soften again after the war as someone said. Who was that, perhaps Dr Havers? She couldn’t remember. And would she and Steve stay together, would everything be all right, as long as they were? Had she even answered him? If not, the words he had uttered had come and gone.
They were dancing in step now, closer together. She saw Father O’Malley then, his black-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose as they always had, weaving through the dancers, stopping for the odd word, until he tapped them both on the shoulder. ‘This is not an “excuse me” dance, but an “excuse me” to ask you to help the floundering band, dear Sylvia. Just sing us a tune or two, to help them along, won’t you? They’re getting a bit hot and sweaty with the stress of it all, don’t you know. Harry’s all right, of course, on the ivories, but the other two are reluctant conscripts to the stage. Your help would be magnificent too, Steve.’
It was posed as a question, but after her time on the waterway Sylvia recognised an order when she heard one. So did Steve, obviously, because he raised his eyebrows, and muttered, ‘Our master has spoken. Harry and I have a band – or had. Been too busy recently.’
