‘It’s that bad?’ Daisy asked.
Eileen nodded. ‘I’m the second generation born in Glasgow, but as far as they’re concerned I’m still Irish.’
‘Same in Newcastle!’ Daisy said. ‘I’m the third generation, but it doesn’t matter a damn. Doesn’t matter to the Irish either, come to that, they still see themselves as natives of the ould country.’
‘And do you have Orange Walks?’
‘Yes,’ Daisy laughed, ‘not that we take much notice, because that’s what they want. My father says when he was young everyone used a bucket during the few days before a march instead of the toilet, and they welcomed the Lodge with the contents.’
‘Same in Glasgow!’ Eileen replied delightedly. ‘Yet they always march through Catholic areas.’
‘That’s what always puzzled me, too,’ Daisy giggled. ‘They knew what was waiting for them, yet they kept coming back year after year.’
‘Are there certain jobs the Irish can’t get in Newcastle?’ Eileen asked, making a face at the plate of food in front of her. ‘Do you ever get used to this stuff?’ she added.
‘Well, you do or die, as they say,’ Daisy replied.
‘Like in the shipyards on the Clyde,’ Eileen continued, ‘Catholics aren’t allowed to work there. Not long ago they weren’t allowed to be tradesmen of any kind. I don’t think it’s changed much, to be honest; it’s just gone underground. Employers don’t turn people down and say it’s because they’re Catholics any longer, but my father remembers job adverts in the twenties carrying notices that no Catholics should apply, and that meant anyone with an Irish name.’
‘I don’t think it was as blatant where I come from, but put it this way,’ Daisy said with dark humour, ‘on Tyneside, Catholics know better than to look for jobs in the shipyards.’
‘They know their place!’ Eileen chuckled.
‘That’s about the size of it,’ Daisy said cheerfully.
They sipped at their teas.
‘One of the pilots over there offered to take me up for a spin,’ Eileen said, ‘but I was warned by another WAAF to check with you first.’
Daisy scowled. ‘Which one?’ she demanded, and the girl pointed out the culprit. Daisy nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ll deal with him later. Never understood the desire to fly, but lots of girls seem to want to do it.’
‘Do they?’ Eileen asked, sitting down.
‘Yes, and the Fly Boys know it, too. They take them up unofficially hoping for action of the other kind in return. One girl went up in a fighter a while back, it crashed and she and the pilot were killed. Didn’t seem so exciting after that somehow.’
‘Good heavens.’
‘Maybe,’ Daisy replied, ‘but very definitely hard earth.’
Just then the crew of Lady Groundhog arrived and sat down not far from them, Bruiser smiling stupidly at Daisy and regarding her with soft adoration.
‘Are they friends of yours?’ Eileen asked.
Daisy, who had seen them arrive, didn’t look round. ‘That’s a nice boy,’ she said wearily, ‘a couple of other guys, and the one that’s smiling soppily is an idiot.’
‘He seems to be quite sweet on you,’ Eileen said.
‘I told you, he’s an idiot,’ Daisy replied. ‘He’s harmless, really, he’s called Bruiser because he hits people.’
‘And he’s harmless?’
‘Totally. He’s not violent or anything, he just gets fed-up when people won’t give in to the obvious, so he belts them one as a kind of full stop. But don’t look at them, that’s what they want. If you look at them it encourages them and they’ll talk to you, and if they talk to you you’ll have to waste time slapping them around to get rid of them.’
Eileen put her head down and laughed.
‘Well at least you’re laughing,’ Daisy said, looking at Eileen’s fellow recruits. ‘Look at that miserable bunch of perishers.’
‘They’ve had a rough night. The recruiting office kind of led them up the garden path and they all want to go home. You should’ve heard the sobbing in the hut last night.’
‘Heard it before,’ Daisy sighed. ‘Were they promised nice sitting rooms with plush furnishings, by any chance?’
‘Exactly!’ Eileen said. ‘And we’re all still looking for it. I have this feeling it doesn’t exist.’
‘I’ve got a feeling you’re right on top of this!’ Daisy smiled. ‘Look, I’ve got to get some sleep. See you later?’
Daisy got up and walked past the table where the nice boy Calli, Bruiser and the others were sitting, sashaying her hips slightly more than necessary for Bruiser’s benefit and giving him the very slightest irritated glance. Then she walked out, knowing without looking that Bruiser was blowing her a kiss and still smiling stupidly behind her back as usual.
‘I wish to God you’d give up on her,’ Calli said, shaking his head.
‘Calli, my man,’ Bruiser said contentedly, ‘you have no idea about women. She loves me.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Calli MacDonald asked. ‘And just how do you work that one out?’
‘Her hips.’
All the others laughed and threw playful punches at him.
‘Her hips?’ said the rear gunner, who really was called Charlie.
‘I tell you, Charlie, her hips wiggle every time they see me.’
‘Her hips see you?’ Charlie asked.
‘And they wiggle,’ Bruiser nodded.
‘You’re a sad creature, Bruiser,’ Calli laughed at him, ‘and you bring Canada into disrepute by virtue of being such an idiot.’ He slapped Bruiser on the head with a teaspoon.
Bruiser smiled his stupid smile. ‘I know, I know, Skip,’ he said. ‘But this is love, you wait and see.’
‘She does nothing but give you the elbow!’
‘Ah,’ said Bruiser cunningly, ‘that’s just what it looks like to guys like you lot, but I can tell – I can tell. Every remark she makes to me might sound like a putdown, but her tone of voice is a give-away.’
‘That she’ll crush you like a bug!’ Calli teased.
‘No, no, fair dos,’ said Taffy, ‘I can see something of what Bruiser says he sees.’
‘There you go!’ Bruiser shouted happily. ‘The mad Welshman here can see it!’
‘Only,’ Taffy said seriously, lining up Bruiser’s usual claim, ‘I think it’s me her hips see when they wiggle.’
Bruiser took his cap off and beat Taffy over the head with it.
Much to her relief, Daisy managed to avoid discussing Celia and Bobby’s first night as man and wife on a one-to-one basis for a couple of days. But the other girls crowded round her on domestic night, desperate to hear every detail in an era when virgin marriages were in the majority, even though there was a war on. Celia described the dress, the flowers, the church, the reception, the small sponge cake hidden under a highly decorated card-board cover before the girls got down to the nitty-gritty.
‘What was it like?’ a voice asked as they sat round the stove. ‘I mean, when you did it for the first time, what was it like?’
‘Oh, it was fine,’ the bride replied, head bent over her darning.
‘Yes, but, what did he, you know, do?’
There was a pause as Celia struggled to untangle a very difficult knot and Daisy glanced up at her and saw tears brimming.
‘Oh, come on!’ she said to the others. ‘That’s private. How’d you feel if you were asked to describe every detail?’
Mother Hen had spoken and the others giggled and changed the subject. Later, though, Celia sought Daisy out and threw herself into her arms. They all brought their problems to Daisy, and the fact was that, however reluctantly, Daisy was always there.
‘It was awful!’ she sobbed. ‘I hated it, Daisy, and I wanted to like it for Bobby’s sake. It hurt and it was just awful. Every time he came near me after that I froze, and he wasn’t very pleased. I don’t know if he’s even talking to me now. He’s been posted away and I’m glad I won’t have to see him for a while.
I feel such a failure.’
‘There, there,’ Daisy soothed her. ‘It was your first time, I’m sure it’ll get better.’
‘But it was horrible, Daisy, I never want to do it again,’ Celia sobbed. ‘Was it horrible for you the first time?’
‘Ssh,’ Daisy said quietly, ‘don’t get in such a state, it’ll all work out.’
Sitting in the tower that night, the boys having flown off and with little to do till they were on the way home, Daisy thought about Celia. They all assumed Daisy was a veteran, a sexual acrobat who regularly took part in those fabled London orgies, so Daisy knew it all. And she couldn’t blame them; it was an image she had created all by herself.
‘Was it horrible for you the first time?’ Celia had asked. If only Celia had known, she thought. If only the leader and protector that Daisy had become to her girls could reassure confused, disappointed Celia by telling her about her first time. But she couldn’t. She relived it in her dreams often enough and wakened terrified and feeling sick, but she could never tell anyone. More times than she cared to think about she had heard airmen, full of bravado, make crude remarks about her as she passed. She had a body made for sex and that’s what she used it for, it was common knowledge, that’s what they said, as though because she had swapped bodies with a sex bomb one night years ago, the sex bomb’s experiences had come as part of the package. She had reinvented herself as Langar’s Mae West, quick, witty and choosy, and she never chose Fly Boys like them.
Long ago she had decided to walk away if the remarks were not intended for her ears, pretending not to hear them if they were far enough away. But if they were being really loud as well as offensive, and for her benefit, she would walk up to the big mouths, the crudest creeps, lean close with her breasts almost touching them and say, ‘Fancy your chances, sunshine? Take my word for it, you’re not man enough, you wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them.’
The creep, now having to deal face-to-face with Daisy, or as near as, would always gulp and look sheepish as she called his bluff, then she’d walk away slowly and calmly with a bored expression on her face, to the cheers of the others.
It was like water off a duck’s back to Mae West, but inside Daisy she was still Background Daisy Sheridan from Heaton via Byker, who cringed as she lay in her bed in the darkness – her old friend – and released her real feelings. To men like that she was no more than an object but she would never let them know how they made her feel. Never.
As the first call came in from a homeward-bound Lanc, she was recalling Celia’s anguish.
‘I never want to do it ever again,’ the girl had said.
‘Amen to that,’ Daisy thought. ‘Amen to that, Celia.’ Then she went back to work.
15
It was some weeks before Daisy and Eileen caught up properly with each other again, and by that time Eileen had been put through her truncated Radio Telephone Operator’s training and was about to join Daisy in the tower. Celia had just returned from a leave with her husband that Daisy had assured her would make everything right, but it had ended in tears and, naturally, it was Daisy she sought out.
‘How did it go?’ Daisy began brightly.
‘It was terrible, Daisy,’ Celia replied, her face a blank.
‘I just froze again. I tried not to, but I didn’t want him to touch me, and he got angry and shouted at me, then he made me.’
‘He “made” you?’ Daisy asked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He said I was his wife and he had rights, and he just made me do it,’ Celia said flatly.
‘Did you try to stop him?’ Daisy asked, her mind a mass of emotions.
‘I said I didn’t want to and Bobby said he didn’t care whether I wanted to or not, I’d have to, and if I didn’t buck my ideas up there were plenty of other females who’d be happy to do it with him. He said there was something wrong with me; other women don’t mind, why should I?’ She sat silently on Daisy’s bed then looked up at her. ‘I think I hate him, Daisy,’ she said flatly.
‘Oh, it’s just how you’re feeling,’ Daisy said, trying to sound encouraging and worldly wise. ‘Remember how excited you were about the wedding? You didn’t hate Bobby then, did you?’
‘Well, he didn’t behave like that then. I watched him the other night, you know, afterwards, and he couldn’t look me in the eye, and I thought “You bloody coward!” ’
‘Celia, remember that Bobby’s being worked off his feet, he’s probably not behaving as he normally would, none of us are.’
Celia nodded. ‘I know that, I’ve been making every excuse for him, but none of them work. I hate him. He forced me, he knew I didn’t want to, Daisy, he’s supposed to love me and he forced me. I’ve tried to pretend that it doesn’t matter, but it does, and now I just feel so angry and stupid for letting him. What kind of man does that to his own wife?’
To any woman, Daisy thought, but didn’t know what to say. In defending Celia’s husband she was putting up defences Dessie could have used, and there was no defence.
‘Look, Celia, you’re not likely to be seeing him for a while, are you? So take this time and think it through, wait till you’ve calmed down and you’ll probably find that it’ll work out. You’ve got off to a bad start, and no wonder, you’re not having a chance to have a normal married life, are you? When all this is over you’ll forget it ever happened.’
Daisy didn’t add ‘like I did’, because she hadn’t.
She sighed, thinking of Celia’s husband. Odds on Bobby was just a boy, every bit as inexperienced as Celia was, who had no more than a general idea of what to do; a boy who belonged to the ‘have someone waiting’ way of thinking. He would have left home too early, though in years he was old enough for war, but he wanted to be looked after as he had been at home, with regular sex thrown in.
Once, down in the pub, Daisy had overheard two airmen talking. The younger one was about to marry and the older one, who obviously regarded himself as the re-incarnation of Rudolph Valentino, was giving him advice for his wedding night. ‘Just keep jabbing away and it’ll be all right,’ he said, in a leering way, and Daisy had turned round and thrown her drink in his face. She could imagine Celia’s Bobby confiding in one of his colleagues that all was not as he had expected of marriage, probably after he’d had a few, and he would have been advised to put his foot down, show her who was master, demand his rights. Daisy could almost hear it. And the boy had done it, of course, and look where it had landed him and Celia.
It was just like Fly Boys to think they knew it all when they didn’t, and then to pass on what they didn’t know to impressionable boys like Bobby. There was nothing Daisy could do about that, she was on Celia’s side here, so she took her on a night out in nearby Nottingham to cheer her up, and invited Eileen to join them.
They had signed themselves out and were sitting at a little café they had found that sold pancakes and syrup, but only to Forces personnel.
‘Tell Eileen about the pigeons,’ Daisy ordered, to get Celia thinking and talking about something other than Bobby and their marital problems. ‘Something big’s just happened in the world of pigeons, Eileen, you’ve got to hear this.’
Eileen looked at Celia, her eyes shining. She had heard about the pigeons but she didn’t really believe it.
‘I’m a pigeon handler,’ Celia stated.
‘Oh, get on with it!’ Daisy said, dabbing some syrup on Celia’s nose with her spoon.
‘So what does that mean?’ Eileen encouraged her.
‘Well, we’re part of Signals,’ Celia said self-consciously. ‘We breed pigeons and train them, then when they’re ready we put a metal tag on each bird’s leg, with the date, the basket number and the aircraft’s number. There’s a container on the leg with a white SOS strip and one showing the station, then they’re put aboard the planes before takeoff on Ops.’
Eileen was chuckling, sure this was a joke, and Daisy kicked her under the table and threw her a warning look.
‘But why?
’ Eileen asked.
‘Well, if the plane goes down, one of the aircrew writes down their last position on the SOS strip with an indelible pencil. Then the pigeon flies home and we know where to pick the crew up. That’s the theory – it doesn’t always work.’
Daisy threw her arms up in the air. ‘Will you get to the point?’ she demanded. ‘Tell her about Winkie before I thump you!’
‘Winkie?’ Eileen asked, looking from one to the other.
‘Yes, Winkie,’ Daisy said impatiently, ‘she’s a damned pigeon! Tell her!’
‘Oh, I see, yes,’ Celia smiled. ‘Well, Winkie is a blue chequered hen—’
‘Does it matter?’ Daisy asked, rolling her eyes. ‘I mean, would it make any difference if she was polka-dotted?’
‘—and she was on a Beaufort in the North Sea last winter when it was brought down. The crew got into the raft and they didn’t see Winkie had got herself free, so they were just sitting there waiting to die of cold or to be picked up by the enemy. But Winkie flew over a hundred miles covered in oil, and her code number was relayed to the Ops Room of her home station, and even though there wasn’t a message, the number gave an idea of where the crew could be, and they were picked up. Winkie got a medal.’
‘Good old Winkie,’ Eileen said diplomatically, wondering if pigeons could get medals and, if they could, where they were pinned.
‘Wait, there’s more,’ Daisy said.
‘What?’ Eileen giggled. ‘A pigeon with a medal, and there’s more?’
‘And you won’t get to hear it if you don’t stop being sarcastic,’ Daisy reproved her. ‘Will you tell her the rest, Celia, or do I have to get the electric wires out?’
‘You only want me to tell her so that you can both laugh again,’ Celia protested.
‘And what’s wrong with that? Don’t you think we could do with a laugh?’
Celia sighed. ‘Daisy thinks this is really funny for some reason, but the crew the pigeon helped save had a big celebration dinner for her and, as Winkie was the guest of honour, she was placed in her cage at the top table.’
Daisy's Wars Page 20
