Daisy's Wars

by Meg Henderson

  He gulped.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Daisy said sadly, ‘I’ve asked too much, please forgive me. Obviously that’s way too far.’

  ‘No,’ he almost yelled, ‘no, I can do that. No problem, just tell when you want to go and I’ll arrange that!’

  God, they were so easy!

  Eileen’s departure had left a huge gap in Daisy’s life. It had taken her by surprise even though it was the way of their world these days, these years; after all, people were always coming and going for one reason or another. Eileen, she decided, was special. The affection and friendship between them would have been as strong even without the war, so it was natural that she should miss her, and she had turned her mind to her friend’s new life.

  It hadn’t been as simple as love, marriage and family for Eileen, but to the outside world and, more importantly, to Eileen’s childhood sweetheart, it looked that way. The plan had worked. If Daisy was honest she hadn’t expected to see Eileen again, not really. A new leaf is a new leaf after all, who wants last season’s mouldy ones turning up to spoil the greenery? But the Major’s ‘offer’ changed her mind. On her next weekend she would pay a flying visit to Eileen and the baby in Glasgow, if he could pull it off, that was.

  Much to Daisy’s surprise, the Major came through, for which she was grateful, even if she hadn’t yet worked out how she would make him pay for his generosity, rather than the other way round. The only usual way of getting around in wartime was on a slow-moving, cramped train, usually full of predatory servicemen, and it had been part of her reassessment of herself that Daisy Sheridan did not travel steerage. The little Major had promised transport and transport he had provided, and she felt a pang of, not sympathy exactly, more pity for the Major when she laid eyes on the staff car he turned up in at the base the following week.

  This was no front-line vehicle, no basic London run-around either; the poor besotted and deluded Yank had obviously called in a few favours to lay hands on a more luxurious model than his rank allowed him, purloined rather than provided, she imagined. The back seat was roomy with comfortable leather upholstery and armrests, and the windows had dinky little curtains held back with a strap that made them look almost homely, despite being a boring shade of brown, colour being one of the many things that the world had to give up for the duration. It also had a radio that seemed unable to play anything other than the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Not that she minded for the first couple of hours, but she had grown up in a house full of music, and if she didn’t hear dear old Glenn’s ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ ever again she wouldn’t protest over-much.

  Situated in front, on the board separating the passengers from the driver, was a flap that folded down to provide a serving table for a small bar, complete with booze, glasses, cocktail shaker, cherries and olives. If there was one thing Daisy had learned it was that wartime rationing applied to only the poorest sections of the population. There was always plenty of food, drink and luxuries in the circles she now mixed in, especially now that the Americans had arrived. On the outside of the passenger doors was the usual large star, and miniature stars-and-stripes flags flew on the bodywork above the two front wheels, so that everyone seeing the car pass by would be in no doubt that an American of some note sat inside.

  America liked to advertise itself. It was a proud nation, or arrogant, Daisy thought with a silent grin, depending on your opinion of the Yanks being ‘overpaid, over-sexed and over here’. On hearing this well-known put-down, some wit, usually someone who had joined up on the outbreak of war, would yell out, ‘And over-late, just like the last time!’, a judgement on the American habit of entering world wars somewhat later than the rest of the world. They had been embarrassed into entering the 1915–18 show in 1917, only because their President could no longer ignore the rising number of American ships being sunk by the Germans, and WW2 in 1941, when Japan launched its infamous attack on Pearl Harbor. Few Americans were spared teasing when they did arrive on the battlefield. Now that they were finally here the word was that the war was all but over. There were rumours of some big push coming up, but by May 1944 how many times had the world heard that kind of rumour? Until it did or didn’t happen there was no point in thinking about it, let alone believing anything would bring the end of the war any closer.

  If there was one thing Daisy had learned in her twenty-odd years it was that being cynical saved you a lot of grief. And she would shortly be in the place that had caused her most of it. Newcastle. It couldn’t be avoided, it was the price she would have to pay to see Eileen and the baby.

  They would be going via Newcastle, the Yank being sure she would want to see her home town, apparently. She didn’t, as it happened, but why argue, so she steeled herself to see Newcastle again for the first time in years, gazing out on the depressingly dull landscape. Her home town, whatever that meant, and she had sworn she would never be back here, yet here she was, though she had no intention of stopping.

  One thing was sure, she thought, the city slipping past her eyes as the car sped on, she wouldn’t be back here again, never, not even if Eileen had quads! There was nothing to come back for and, furthermore, her home city had been full of that same nothing for her for as long as she could remember, with one or two exceptions, now all gone. Looking at familiar scenes she felt no emotion, just a deep gratitude that she had no connection to the place any longer, though there was an illogical anxiety to be gone, as though a huge hand might reach into the car and snatch her out, as a voice said in a thick Geordie accent, ‘Got you, Daisy Sheridan! Thought you’d escaped forever, did you?’

  The stuff of nightmares, she thought with a shiver, and it had been a recurring nightmare, that hand and that voice. The war had thrown up more horrors than she could ever have imagined and she had coped, but the ‘Newcastle Hand’ dream was something else. It told her Newcastle was where she belonged and was waiting to reclaim her when the war ended.

  Not that it wanted her, it hadn’t ever wanted her kind, the Irish were no more welcome nearly a hundred years after their arrival than they had been on their first day there. No, it didn’t want her, but it owned her and at least there she wouldn’t be allowed to be any better than she should be, the Geordies would see to that. Newcastle would take her back to punish her for Bernard’s folly in coming to the area.

  Not if Daisy could help it, though. In these last few years she had learned that it was possible to be noticed for what you could do, for your worth, not for the sound of your surname. And for how you presented yourself, she thought with a grin. A little acting ability went a long way.

  They stopped at Coldstream, a little place in the Borders, where they lunched on the contents of a particularly fine hamper the Major had provided, full of succulent items that the people outside the car hadn’t seen for a long time, if ever. Then it was on to Glasgow, a dark city showing the results and atmosphere of years of war.

  When they arrived at Eileen’s home she noticed that her friend had altered in some indefinable way. Motherhood, she supposed. After the hugs and tears she gazed at the beautiful, ugly little bundle Eileen held in her arms, a dark-haired little girl called Anne, after Calli and Eileen’s mothers, and Martha, after both their grandmothers, two coincidences that doubtless had convinced them that they belonged together forever. The little girl had a vertical line of annoyance between her eyes that so reminded Daisy, and Eileen, too, no doubt, of her father, who had died without knowing she had been conceived.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Daisy cooed, ‘she’s really beautiful!’

  ‘I know,’ Eileen laughed.

  ‘And the image of—’

  ‘Her father, yes,’ Eileen said sadly.

  ‘And you’re well? Everything’s, you know, all right?’

  Eileen nodded. ‘Everyone up here sees her like Alex,’ she said. ‘They had the same colouring, if you remember. Dark hair and eyes, that’s all they see.’

  ‘Well that’s OK then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eil
een replied, but it didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘So what’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. The plan has worked out, Daisy, but at the end of the day Calli’s still gone, isn’t he?’ She laughed uncertainly. ‘Just being ungrateful, I suppose. At least I have Annie, don’t I? And what about you? The Yank, is he the one?’

  ‘Oh please!’ Daisy said dismissively. ‘You know better than that! He was fool enough to try to impress me with claims that he could provide me with transport anywhere I wanted to go, so I called his bluff, that’s all.’

  ‘He’ll be hoping for something in return, though!’ Eileen chuckled.

  ‘No harm in hoping, is there?’ Daisy laughed. ‘People do it all the time!’ And they laughed together almost like the old days of nine short months ago.

  ‘So there’s still no one special?’ Eileen asked.

  ‘No,’ Daisy replied brightly. ‘I’m surprised you even ask!’ Her mind tried to suppress an image of Frank Moran.

  ‘And how are the others?’ Eileen asked.

  ‘Well, I think Edith and Doug are fine.’

  ‘Doug?’

  ‘Yes, I decided to graciously allow him a name other than “Edith’s Aussie” after she asked me to, and besides, he’s really all right.’

  ‘For a Fly Boy,’ Eileen teased.

  ‘Exactly!’ Then Daisy told the tale of Doug versus the Great Walendo to justify her change of heart about him. ‘Besides, he doesn’t consort, if you get my meaning. He and Edith may well win.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s good. And Dotty?’

  ‘Up to her ears in sick Fly Boys, from the little I hear from her. Not at all the gadabout she once was.’

  ‘It comes to us all, Daisy, we all have to grow up,’ Eileen said. ‘Except you, of course, you were born grown up!’

  I wish, Daisy thought, laughing back, I wish.

  All too soon the visit had to end so that Daisy could be back in Nottingham for her shift the next day. The two young women clung to each other and wept.

  ‘Will you keep in touch?’ Eileen asked.

  ‘Of course, of course. And you’ll send pictures of Annie for the girls to go gooey-eyed over?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Eileen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Will we ever see each other again?’

  ‘Of course we will!’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Get on with you, you silly cow!’

  The visit to Eileen had been a brief one. It had felt as though there had barely been time to say ‘Hello’ before the car was turned round and the return journey started. Daisy doubted if the driver had time to step out from behind the steering wheel, and now Glasgow had been left behind as they headed once more in the direction of Nottingham. On the journey south they would pass through Newcastle again. Oh joy, Daisy thought.

  The anticipation that had made the journey up from Nottingham seem short had disappeared. Now she was pensive, a bit down, though she was having difficulty fully understanding why. The American Major beside her was totally oblivious, prattling on as usual. On the way up he had regaled her with the merits of the various bridges crossing the River Tyne, almost lapsing into poetry when he talked about the big iron one, as though he thought that just because she had once lived there he was praising her by association.

  There was probably a compliment in there, she thought, if she felt like looking deep enough, which she didn’t. Still, there was little to be gained from being unpleasant. Nottingham and Glasgow were both a long way off and she didn’t feel like walking to either, especially if he pushed her out of the car in Newcastle. A fate worse than death, she thought glumly. So she sat there smiling as required, while thinking that the only good thing about the bridges, even the iron one, was that they took you out of Newcastle, north or south, it didn’t really matter, just as long as they took you away.

  On the return journey the driver had noticed the changed mood in the rear seat and was glancing back more often. He could have been watching the traffic very carefully, of course, except that he was making eye contact with her in the rearview mirror, so either he was concerned about her or he was just giving her the eye. Probably the latter, she thought with a sigh. He was a man, after all, and few of the breed didn’t chance their luck where Daisy Sheridan was concerned.

  Sitting in the back of the staff car as it sped through Newcastle, Daisy was thinking of her life, past and present, and wondering what the future held. She looked at her reflection in the car window. If she had seen a woman like herself when she’d been growing up, she would have said, ‘She’s a film star.’ The Adelaide or the Empire cinema screens were the only places women like her existed where she came from. She shook her head wryly, remembering the child she had been: Background Daisy. She had no idea how the transformation had come about, but somewhere inside the woman of the world who stared back at her from the window, she knew that ‘the real Daisy Sheridan’ was still alive and waiting, even if she wasn’t quite sure what she was waiting for. Not that it mattered; she suspected life had been arranged so that there would always be something else to wait for, but maybe everyone felt like that, especially in wartime.

  The war had been a godsend to young people like her. It had given them freedom, even if that freedom meant death. You never really thought about the death part, not at the time, just the freedom, until death touched you at any rate, and it had touched Daisy in many ways these last few years. She was hardly alone in that, though. There was no going back, certainly no going back home, not least because Newcastle had never been home.

  Daisy could feel a sense of danger lurking if she let her mind wander down that road, so she sighed again and tried to turn her thoughts to something else. She had always had trouble switching her mind off. ‘Too bright’, that was what her father always said, though not bright enough to see that one coming, she thought, hankie at her eyes again. That was the trouble with long journeys, especially in boring company. They gave you time to think, and Daisy didn’t want to think, at least not now. There would be plenty of time for that when she got back to the base.

  RAF Langar was her domain, where real life existed. Now Eileen and their friendship existed in another time and she suspected that time was over.

  Oh, God! There it was again, that prickly feeling behind her nose. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, trying to think herself away from the moment, trying desperately to come up with a different thought. She opened her eyes again and stared determinedly out of the car window on her right, as the American Major’s southern voice drawled on – about the bridges again! Dear God! Into her left ear the words went, as irritating as a buzzing insect she couldn’t risk swatting, at least not yet, in case it stung her. Why did they always think they should, or even could, provide diverting conversation? she wondered, nodding at various intervals in his monologue as though she gave a damn.

  Having finally managed to get up to Glasgow to see Eileen, she now realised she had been as unprepared for what she found as she had been for Eileen leaving Langar. An old friend and her new-born daughter, that was what she’d expected to see and that was what she had seen, but her own reaction had thrown her. And now here she sat, weeping quietly in this talkative Yank’s staff car, or some other Yank’s staff car, more likely, wishing he’d shut up.

  It was over, completely over. As they parted it felt like they had just seen each other for the last time, which made the whole sad, sorry affair that much more touching. Daisy knew, knew without a shadow of a doubt, that they wouldn’t keep in touch, far less meet again. The first time she had seen that beautiful, ugly little bundle Eileen held in her arms would be the last time, too, she realised, though she suspected she would always wonder about her and never be able to get her or Eileen out of her mind for the rest of her life.

  The whole world was bleak, of course, had been for years, but Daisy had never felt so trapped in it as she did now. She felt alone and friendless now that Eileen – and Annie – would
fade from her life. She pictured Eileen waving her off, Calli’s precious child in her arms. There was something strangely touching about true love, and something infuriatingly stupid as well, almost as infuriating as the way her eyes kept filling up.

  Why was this happening when everyone knew Daisy Sheridan didn’t do tears? Tears were for the defeated, the ones who couldn’t think themselves out of a paper bag. Tears were an admission that there was nowhere to turn, and, as a matter of principle, Daisy always had somewhere to turn. Daisy thought round corners, in advance, tactically. That’s who she was: people, especially her girls on the base, depended on it. And yet, and yet. There had been something totally disarming about the sight of Eileen and the tiny, unsuspecting little soul that had caught her off-guard, another female brought into the world fighting from her first breath, before that, in fact. Why was it that females had to battle for everything?

  It was always the innocents who came a cropper, Daisy mused. How many times had she said that to yet another intake of fresh-faced young girls into the ranks of the WAAFs? ‘Look after yourself,’ she would say, ‘because no one else will,’ even though she was doing just that. ‘Don’t take any chances,’ she told them sternly. ‘Don’t have anything to do with Fly Boys. They’re men, they’re only after one thing, and they want it today because there might not be a tomorrow, for them especially. And they’ll use that line every time, so don’t fall for the “I may be dead tomorrow” routine. What you have to remember is that that’s not your fault, it’s Hitler’s, and I don’t see any Fly Boys demanding their oats from that bastard. Don’t give in, because when they’ve had what they want they’ll leave you in one way or another. They’ll go on to the next innocent or they’ll die, and you’ll be left to pick up the pieces. Keep away from them at all costs, and if they give you any trouble, come to me and I’ll sort them out.’