by Nancy Revell
As Polly carefully folded her letter and placed it back in its box, along with all the others Tommy had sent her this past year and a half, tears started to trickle down her face.
Switching off her bedside light, she allowed her sorrow and heartache a free rein.
Next door, Arthur could hear Polly’s muffled cries, as he did most nights, and as he listened the ache in his own heart became even more unbearable.
Salty tears ran down the old man’s folds of weather-worn skin.
If he could only swap his own life for Tommy’s.
If only.
Chapter Seventeen
Wednesday 15 July
‘Good luck! You’ll be brilliant!’ Joe shouted out to Bel as she started to walk towards the large metal-gated entrance to Thompson’s.
‘Bye, Mammy!’ Lucille waved from the lofty heights of her daddy’s shoulders.
Bel threw them both a kiss. It was a quarter to nine and Bel was glad Joe and Lucille had accompanied her across to North Sands. On the way here, Joe had made her chuckle with his usual banter and carry-on, knowing it would keep his wife’s nerves at bay.
‘See you both later!’ She turned and walked to the timekeeper’s cabin.
After collecting her white board from Alfie, Bel headed towards the admin building. Reaching the main double doors, she stopped for a moment, her attention drawn to what looked like two huge mechanical lobster claws. A team of men were placing a metal plate between its nippers, while another gang of workers threw red-hot rivets onto the plate, just as the claws closed and pressed them into their designated holes.
‘After you, pet?’
Her attention was broken by an older man, wearing a dark grey suit and a bowler hat, who was holding the door open for her.
She smiled and thanked him and hurried up the stairs to the first floor.
‘Morning, Bel,’ Marie-Anne chirped when she saw the new girl walk into the office. ‘Let me take you to your workstation and show you the ropes.’
Bel felt a rush of nerves as they arrived at her designated ‘workstation’ – a solid wooden desk to the right of Marie-Anne’s, which was twice the size and piled high with files and what looked like very important paperwork.
‘I thought I’d put you here so that I can show you how things are done, but also because I want you to answer my phone if I’m not about.’
Bel looked at the black Bakelite phone – the only one in the entire office.
‘If you listen to me when I take calls, you’ll soon know what to do and what to say,’ Marie-Anne added. ‘But first off, have you any questions?’
Bel looked around her at the dozen women, all of whom looked about the same age as herself. Every one of them looked very serious and completely focused on whatever it was they were doing.
‘I am curious as to what the green machines are for.’ Bel looked over to the far side of the office where there were six women all using what looked like miniature tills. Every now and again they would stop and scribble something down.
‘Ah, the wonders of modern technology,’ Marie-Anne said. ‘They are comptometers – machines used to calculate numbers, to add and subtract, that kind of thing. That section you’re looking at is the finance department. How are you with numbers?’
Bel chuckled. ‘Not exactly a natural,’ she confessed, ‘although I had to do basic arithmetic when I was taking fares on the buses.’
Seeing the slightly apprehensive look on Bel’s face, Marie-Anne reassured her. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be required to use one, unless you’ve a burning desire to become a comptometrist.’
Bel chuckled. ‘I don’t think I could even pronounce it, never mind be one.’
Marie-Anne laughed.
‘You do, however, have to be able to use a typewriter,’ she added, ‘which the comptometrists might well argue is actually harder to use than their mechanical calculators – that is, if you type properly and don’t just stab away with one finger.’
Marie-Anne sat down in her chair and placed her hands on the round, ivory-coloured keys of the Imperial typewriter.
‘Stand behind me and watch.’
Bel did as she was told.
‘So, this is where your left hand goes,’ she demonstrated.
‘See how the little finger is resting lightly on the A key and the index finger on the F …’
The women all looked at Bel as she hurried over to meet them outside the canteen at the start of the lunch break.
‘Gosh, it’s quite nice being out here,’ she said. ‘At least there’s a bit of a breeze.’
Bel looked around at the huge, cathedral-like platers’ shed, the towering cranes and overhead gantries; there was a steel-grey destroyer in the dry dock, and, of course, everywhere there were scores of men, mostly in groups, laughing, chatting, smoking.
‘So?’ Dorothy couldn’t hold back. ‘How was it?’
‘Honestly,’ Rosie butted in, ‘let the poor woman get her breath.’
‘Come on,’ Polly said, opening the door of the canteen, ‘let’s get some lunch and then we can hear all about it over a big pot of tea.’
‘I think I’m more in need of a bucket of cold water,’ Martha said. ‘I’ve been sweating like a pig all morning.’
‘You ’n me both,’ Angie agreed, taking off her headscarf and using it to wipe her forehead and neck.
‘It’s being stuck in that metal box for the past two hours,’ Gloria said. She also looked flushed.
As most of the shipyard workers had opted to eat their packed lunches outdoors, the women were able to go straight to the food counter.
‘So, this is the new girl, is it?’ Muriel elbowed aside one of the younger girls who was just about to serve the women.
‘It is, Muriel,’ Gloria said, before turning to the women and nodding over to their usual table at the side of the canteen.
‘I’ll get this,’ she told them.
‘I think we’re all gonna have a big pot of tea, please, Muriel – and a round of sandwiches to share. Too hot for anything else. Bet your lot have been cooking in all ways in here today?’
‘Aye, we have,’ Muriel said, her eyes not once leaving Bel.
Rosie grabbed the tea tray while Gloria paid and took the sandwiches.
‘Well done,’ Rosie whispered under her breath to Gloria, as they made their way across to the women.
As Martha poured the tea, Bel looked about her. ‘I didn’t know they played music here.’
‘It’s the radio,’ Angie said. ‘Yer can’t normally hear it, ’cos of all the men gobbing off. It’s not usually this quiet.’
‘Here they are!’ Martha said as Hannah and Olly hurried over to them.
‘How was it, Bel?’ Hannah asked, pulling up a chair.
‘Dinnit speak too loudly,’ Angie warned, before Bel had a chance to answer. ‘That Muriel’s got flapper lugs on her.’
‘Yeh, and the next thing you know every word you’ve said is winging its way around the yard,’ Gloria chipped in.
They all chuckled.
‘So,’ Polly said, ‘how did it go?’
‘What’s it like working for the witch?’ Dorothy couldn’t hold back any longer.
Bel spluttered a little on her tea.
‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t really see her. Sorry to disappoint,’ Bel said, looking around the table at the expectant faces. ‘She only really seems to talk to Marie-Anne. She doesn’t even come out of her office all that much. From the little that I could make out from my desk, people go to see Helen, not the other way round.’
‘Sounds about right,’ Polly said.
‘But I’ve been warned more than once by a few of the other girls to keep my distance. If Helen takes a disliking to you she’s been known to make your life hell.’
‘Remember, people love to exaggerate,’ Gloria butted in. ‘I always think it’s best to make your own mind up about people.’
Dorothy looked at Bel and dramatically raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘
You’ll get used to Glor here defending Helen to the hilt. She won’t hear a bad word said against her.’ She dropped her voice to a hissed whisper. ‘Even though Helen’s been a total cow to us all since we started here.’
There were a few mutterings of agreement.
Bel looked at Gloria, who appeared to be about to say something then thought better of it.
‘Well,’ Dorothy said, ‘as long as she doesn’t pick on you because your Polly’s sister-in-law. If she doesn’t know already, she will soon enough.’
‘She better not,’ Polly said, her face stony, ‘otherwise she’ll have me to deal with.’
‘I’m sure she won’t,’ Rosie said, with a placatory smile. ‘She seems pretty preoccupied at the moment.’
‘Why’s that?’ Bel asked.
‘We’re looking towards hitting a thirty-six-year production record this year. Helen’s all out to make sure that happens,’ Rosie said.
‘Anyway, enough about Helen,’ Polly said, feeling herself getting angry again. ‘Did it go all right?’
‘And did you manage to type?’ Olly asked.
‘Well, I don’t know if you could call it typing,’ Bel grimaced, ‘but I managed to do a short letter. And Marie-Anne’s really nice.’
Another murmur showing they all agreed.
‘She’s teaching me how to “touch-type”. That’s when you use all your fingers,’ she explained quickly. ‘She says if I learn how to type properly from the off it’ll be much easier. And she says once I get the hang of that she’s going to see how I get on with learning shorthand.’
‘Blimey, you’ll be a proper secretary then,’ Angie said, taking a bite of her sandwich.
‘I think there might be a way to go yet,’ Bel laughed. ‘But enough about me – what have you lot been doing?’
This time there was a communal groan as they told Bel how they had been doing vertical and flat welds all morning inside one of the ship’s holds – how boring it was, and how hot it was, especially with their helmets on and their thick denim overalls.
‘Well, you either roast or you get burnt and are up all night with “arc eye”, so don’t think for one moment about doing even a few seconds of welding without your masks on,’ Rosie nagged them.
Bel looked at the splattering of burn marks on Rosie’s face and thought that if the women welders ever needed a warning, they had it right there in front of them. She would never forget how Agnes had nursed Rosie that night after her uncle had forced her head over a live weld – nor her screams of agony, which had resonated throughout the house.
‘So, when are you off to see Charlotte?’ Polly asked Rosie as they all polished off the sandwiches and drained the pot of tea.
‘A few weeks’ time,’ Rosie said.
‘When are you going to bring her here?’ Dorothy said.
‘We all can’t wait to meet her.’
‘Yeh, when we gonna get to see her, miss?’ Angie chipped in.
Rosie’s face dropped.
‘Don’t you lot start. I get enough hassle from Lily.’ Rosie looked over at Bel. ‘As well as that sister of yours. She’s been joining ranks with Lily, telling me I should bring Charlotte back.’
Bel had heard about Rosie’s dilemma, and could understand why Rosie was reticent.
‘I don’t want Charlotte thinking life here is a bed of roses. It’s not as if we’ll be living where we were brought up, in some cosy little cottage in Whitburn, spending our days walking on the beach and picking whelks off the rocks.’
No one said anything. They all knew that the only person Rosie was really fighting against when it came to Charlotte coming back home was herself.
‘Get her a job with the red-leaders,’ Angie said. ‘That’ll have her running back to that posh school she gans to faster than the speed o’ light.’
‘What’s a red-leader?’ Bel asked.
‘Only the most boring job in the yard,’ Dorothy said. ‘Bar being a sweeper-upper,’ Martha said.
‘Red-leaders,’ Rosie explained, ‘put an anti-corrosive paint onto the ship’s hull to protect against rust.’
‘Yeh, the stuff’s red ’n it’s got lead in it – ’n it stinks to high Jesus,’ Angie said.
‘It’s certainly not the nicest smell,’ Rosie agreed, ‘and you have to have a good head for heights.’
Bel nodded. She had seen the women she now knew to be red-leaders working from scaffolding that must have been a good thirty feet high.
‘So, Glor, are we ever going to see Jack again?’ Dorothy asked. ‘Or is he going to defect for good and run off into the Highlands in just a kilt and live off haggis, neeps and tatties for the rest of his life?’
Everyone laughed.
‘There’s more to Scotland than kilts ’n haggis, yer know,’
Gloria said, stalling.
‘Sorry, Glor, I forgot … There’s also bagpipes and the Loch Ness Monster,’ Dorothy said, straight-faced.
‘Seriously, though,’ Polly butted in, ‘do you think he’s going to be back any time soon?’
When Jack had initially been forced to leave town, Gloria had told the women that he was needed at Lithgows shipyard on the Clyde because of his knowledge of the new Liberty ships. The women had accepted that at first, but it was now over six months since he’d gone and Gloria worried that they might realise she wasn’t being entirely truthful with them.
Gloria took a slurp of her tea.
‘Actually,’ she said, looking at all the women, ‘he’s just been told he has to stay up there.’
‘Oh, no, Glor, that’s awful.’ Dorothy looked crestfallen. ‘Why?’ Martha asked.
‘It’s not like the yards here don’t need him,’ Polly said.
‘I couldn’t agree more, Pol,’ Gloria said. ‘But it’s them high up who think they know what’s best and what’s not, and they reckon they can’t do without Jack now ’n he has to stay there for a good while yet. Maybes even till the end of the war.’
The women all voiced their outrage.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Gloria,’ Bel said. ‘He must be dying to see Hope.’ She kept her voice down, having noticed Muriel loitering around the counter moving dishes about, but not actually doing anything.
‘Can’t he come back for a weekend?’ Dorothy asked; her face showed genuine concern.
‘Yeh, they’ve got to give him some time off,’ Angie agreed.
‘At the moment, they’re like us, working six, seven days a week.’
‘Well,’ Hannah said, ‘I think the solution is for you and Hope to go up there for a short break. You must be due some time off?’
Everyone looked at Rosie.
‘Well, yes, without a doubt. But it’s not me that makes those decisions. I can certainly ask, though, eh, Glor?’
Gloria nodded.
‘I’m sure we’ll work something out … Anyway,’ Gloria looked at the squad’s ‘terrible two’, ‘when are you two moving into your new pad?’
Dor looked up to the ceiling. ‘When this one here breaks the news to her mam and dad.’
‘Which I’m ganna dee this weekend,’ Angie said, sullenly. ‘When they’re both together. If I tell ma dad first, then ma mam’ll be like I’m the last to know and if I tell ma mam first ma dad’ll go off on one about him being the man of the house ’n he should’ve been told first.’
Gloria relaxed as the chatter turned to moving house, and what they would need and not need, and if they were going to have a ‘moving-in’ party, which Dorothy said they would be having, without a doubt.
As they all ate and chattered and drank tea, Bel admitted to the women that she had been knocked sideways by the noise and hadn’t realised it would be quite so loud and unrelenting. They all laughed and said she would get used to it, which was exactly what Marie-Anne had said.
When Polly nipped off to use the washroom, Rosie quietly asked Bel how she thought Polly was coping, and Bel admitted that her sister-in-law was crying herself to sleep most nights, but working at Tho
mpson’s seemed to be helping – or at least giving her some respite.
They quickly changed the subject when Polly returned. Dorothy and Angie told Bel to be wary of any pranks the men might try and play on her. So far they had all, at some point during their time working in the yard, had had a dead rat with a piece of string attached to it yanked across their path. It had caught them all out, even Martha, who claimed not to mind rats. Bel visibly blanched and they all laughed, giving her some comfort by telling her she might escape such stunts because she was an office worker.
Angie told Bel which workers – both in the yard and in the offices – were known Lotharios, and Polly said she would be spreading the word that her pretty blonde sister-in-law was very much taken, and that her husband was more than capable of sorting out anyone who might think about trying their luck. Bel pointed out that she was wearing a wedding ring, but the women just laughed and said that didn’t mean much these days.
‘Eee, well, I’d better get back,’ Bel said, looking up at the canteen clock. Her head felt like it was overloaded and she had yet to get through the afternoon. ‘I better get to my desk before that horn goes off. Give a good impression on my first day.’
‘See you back home later,’ Polly said as Bel stood up and straightened her dress, which was not only her best summer dress, but her only one.
‘Yeh, good luck,’ Dorothy and Angie chorused.
‘And don’t forget,’ Hannah said, ‘I’m just next door if you need anything.’
‘And if you can’t see Hannah, just get me. I’m usually on the benches by the front door,’ Olly added.
Bel thanked them all and hurried off out of the canteen.
‘That was a bit awkward, wasn’t it?’ Rosie said to Gloria as they made their way over to Brutus.
‘About Jack?’ Gloria said.
Rosie nodded.
‘I know. I’m surprised none of them have sussed out something’s up.’
