A Soldier's Girl

by Maggie Ford

  She had been gratified by her mother shaking her head in agreement. ‘Well, ter see his mum, yer’d think it was,’ she’d added.

  So in came Harry’s mum and dad, interrupting Harry’s precious few hours with her, spoiling their last Sunday afternoon alone together for God knows how many months to come. They sat at her table drinking her tea, his mother holding Addie on her lap and demanding Harry’s entire attention.

  His dad wasn’t so bad. After a while he fell into conversation with her, leaving his wife to commandeer her son.

  ‘Makin’ ends meet?’ he asked, lighting a hand-rolled cigarette while Brenda took one from the packet Harry offered. She nodded to her father-in-law’s enquiry.

  ‘Sort of.’ She wasn’t going to tell him of her little sideline. In fact that didn’t help her make any ends meet, being put away for something far more important. They would assume immediately that she was rolling in it if they knew; at least Harry’s mother would, she was sure.

  Without moving her body, Mrs Hutton turned her head to glance at her. ‘Hope little Adele ain’t goin’ short.’

  ‘No, Mum, she ain’t.’ It was hard to disguise the edginess in her voice. ‘Do she look as if she is?’

  ‘They should give army wives a bit more,’ his dad said. ‘After all it’s our boys fightin’ fer their country . . .’

  ‘No one’s done any fighting yet,’ Brenda put in hurriedly, controlling a shiver at the thought of Harry being sent off to fight.

  ‘We ’ad that air raid the day war was declared,’ Mrs Hutton reminded her.

  ‘That was a false alarm,’ Brenda said. ‘Turned out ter be an ordinary plane crossing the Channel which no one identified.’

  ‘Even so,’ Mrs Hutton went on, ‘they must be expecting somethink, what with all them children evacuated out of London and all the big cities. Enid and Iris’s boys ’ave gone. Didn’t even know where they was going, and my ’eart bled for them two girls ter see the look on their faces when they came ’ome after seein’ ’em off. You’re lucky, Brenda, your little Adele ain’t old enough ter be ripped from yer like my Iris and Enid’s was. They weren’t told where they’d ended up until two days later. Two days later! On some farm it was, near some village called Blighstone in Huntingdonshire. They’re not sure if they like it there or not, but they’re already ’omesick, poor little devils, torn from their ’omes ter live with strangers. An’ now, everywhere yer go the streets feel all dead without the kids. Sort of eerie. It must mean they expect us ter all be bombed in the very near future. And you’re saying there’s not been any fighting yet.’

  ‘Well, so far it seems a bit of a farce,’ Brenda protested. ‘They’ll be sending the kids back ’ome again before long. I don’t think Hitler’s got the stomach ter take us on properly, not this time, or he’d of ’ad a go already. In fact some people are calling it the Phoney War.’

  ‘Let’s ’ope it stays that way,’ Harry’s dad remarked with a significant ring to his tone before taking a long, slow, meaningful drag of his cigarette, so thinly rolled that its tip hardly glowed, while a now-thoughtful family took in his words.

  Chapter Ten

  Wartime made a strange Christmas. But for Brenda it made a lovely one, if freezing cold, with Harry home on seven days leave and already in civvies.

  ‘Can’t wait ter git out of these bloody army togs!’ he grunted, perched on the edge of the bed to drag his legs out of his harsh khaki trousers. ‘Wot a bloody relief!’

  Brenda stood watching on this Christmas Eve, remembering how he’d held little Addie to him seconds after clumping up the iron stairs, bursting into the kitchen to dump his kitbag so as to enfold her in his arms.

  ‘Bloody ’ell!’ he’d exploded as she presented him with Addie. ‘She ain’t ’alf bloody grown!’

  ‘Well, she’s nearly a year old,’ Brenda had laughed.

  ‘But it makes yer fink just ’ow long yer’ve bin away. I ain’t seen none of ’er growin’ up, ’cos of this bleedin’ war. S’pose I’ve been lucky not to’ve been sent orf ter France wiv the Expeditionary Force or I wouldn’t of got ’ome fer Christmas.’

  After the so-called Phoney War much had happened in quick succession since October. Tons of merchant shipping being sunk daily by U-boats had caused the government to announce that butter and bacon had to be rationed in mid December, which at last made it feel like a war was on. Then war had really been brought home to everyone with the devastating sinking of the Royal Oak in its home base with the loss of eight hundred men. Not long after had come a general call-up of all single men over twenty.

  Davy had been called up and, away from his old mates, had realised there were girls in the world and that, according to his letters, his uniform was attracting them like flies.

  There was the blackout, of course, and the business of having to stick strips of gummed brown paper across all windows to safeguard against flying glass if there were air raids. So far, however, it looked as though more people were being injured by the blackout itself, not seeing icy patches on pavements or walking into things or being knocked down by vehicles with their lights covered and nothing to show up a pedestrian. Silly things were being done: white paint added to mud-guards and, according to some newspapers, in the country black cows having white stripes painted on them. People too put little strips of white paper on their sleeves so as to be seen by vehicles.

  Abroad, the RAF, dropping leaflets on Germany urging the people to surrender, was at least bombing the German fleet at the same time. And a few days ago came heartening news that the battleship plaguing merchant shipping in the South Atlantic, the Admiral Graf Spee, pride of the German fleet, had been scuttled after British warships had trapped her in the mouth of the River Plate.

  Thankfully there had been no ground fighting so far in France. But the one thing that mattered to Brenda was that Harry was still in England, still safe, and today here over the Christmas holidays.

  She looked at him slipping into his civilian trousers and standing up to fasten them about his waist. They were slightly loose, but he had grown leaner rather than thinner, his physique brimming with full health, his muscles forming ripples beneath his skin as he reached for his clean white shirt which she had washed and ironed in readiness for his homecoming. They were going to have a glorious seven days together.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said as he slipped a pullover over his shirt. The weather had turned freezing cold and the flat only had the one fire in the parlour. ‘When we’ve spent Christmas at your parents and mine, we’ll pop off up the West End an’ see a show. We’ll get your mum or mine ter give eye ter Adele. ’Ow about that?’

  The theatres that had closed at the declaration of war had all opened again. Piccadilly and its surrounding areas might be blacked out, but inside each theatre the management had more than made up for it with brilliant lighting. Brenda’s heart leapt at the suggestion and she clasped Harry to her.

  ‘What would yer like ter see?’ he asked. ‘We’ll ’ave ter line up though and take a chance. I can only afford ter go up in the gods.’

  ‘I’d really love ter see that musical, Me and My Girl. I could do with a bit of cheering up. If we can get in.’

  ‘We’ll get in,’ he said in a sure tone. ‘I’ll put me uniform on. It might ’elp the commissionaire to give it anuvver thought if he starts ter put ’is arm down as we get ter the ’ead of the queue – he might lift it ter let us two in if he sees me in khaki.’

  He chuckled and draped an arm about her and she felt with pleasure the smoothness of his civvie clothes, the strength of that arm, and smelled the fresh scent of shaving soap on his cheek.

  This year Christmas Day was being spent with her family, it being their turn and Brenda keeping to her rigid stipulation of alternating her festive-season visits.

  Harry’s mother wasn’t too pleased. ‘I thought being as Harry was ’ome, you’d of stretched a point this year.’ But Brenda was sticking to her guns, offend or please. Harry, it seemed, was conten
t the way things stood. He would get his share of petting from his mum the next day.

  Davy was also home on leave, proudly displaying the corporal’s stripes on his sleeve. ‘I’m really enjoying it, Mum,’ he said, despite the accepted notion that no one enjoyed being in the forces. But then he was athletic, an enthusiastic and, so it was turning out, natural leader of men, having honed his leadership skills in the group of friends he’d gone around with since school days. But now, of course, he’d found girls at last and stripes had proved an added attraction for them.

  Mum was pleased and concerned all at the same time, ever protective of her sons. ‘I ’ope you ain’t getting in wiv the wrong sort, Davy.’

  To which he smiled covertly, knowing what she was getting at, and said to Brenda, ‘Yer’d think I was fifteen instead of twenty-five wouldn’t yer?’

  ‘Enjoying yourself then?’ Brenda countered meaningfully and he nodded as he swigged from a pint glass of beer.

  ‘I’m watching it. She thinks ’cos I never bothered wiv girls, I don’t know what I’m about, but I know what ter pick and choose from, and I ain’t ready ter go down with a dose of clap. Now where’s our mum’s mince pies?’

  They were all here this Christmas, almost as if they were making the most of it while they could. Mum had excelled herself with her festive fare – sugar promised to be put on rations three days after Christmas, so she’d gone to town with her Christmas cake, pudding, mince pies and sherry trifle, and damn the expense. If rationing became really tight, she’d be saving money on food anyway for a long time to come. It now looked as though the war was going to be a long drawn out affair after all and things would get even tighter according to the government.

  Mum’s table groaned under its weight of delicious goodies. It practically sagged with the numbers sitting around it for Christmas dinner, all the aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews not in the forces as yet. In the evening the Johnstons from next door came in with their own family; the two houses were thrown open so that the drink was stored in one house along with the leftover food for the evening. The dancing and general merrymaking took place in the other, as both houses were accessible by way of the gate that had been made in the dividing wood-stake fencing years ago. That’s how neighbours were around here, Brenda thought as she and Harry went next door, he for a beer, she for a gin and orange.

  Adele had been put to bed among all the visitors’ coats, along with the other tots in the family, all curled higgledy-piggledy, a heap of tired-out little forms, while the older children in the other bedroom slyly consumed the dregs of beer glasses and half-empty beer bottles which they’d pooled. The parents knew, but turned a blind eye. They’d learn! Tomorrow with heavy heads, they’d learn. But come next year, they would probably be at it again, the little sods! The parents smiled and got on with their own jollifications.

  Boxing Day with Harry’s people was equally jolly, but for Brenda, though she laughed and chatted with everyone, not quite the same as at Mum’s. She wondered if Harry felt the same way about her family. He was bound to and she couldn’t blame him, because she couldn’t blame herself.

  As with Brenda’s people, little Adele was made much of by her grandparents, being unique on both sides, with one family the first grandchild, with the other the first granddaughter.

  Brenda could see Harry’s sisters’ noses put out of joint, since their boys were virtually taking a back seat in favour of a sweet little baby girl. Rather than embarrassment, Brenda knew a certain tinge of triumph but did her best to hide it. She never saw them much, but she had nothing against them.

  Both had brought their sons back home. The evacuation at least with them had not lasted long. A wailing letter from her boy had sent Enid hot-foot to Huntingdonshire to drag him away from the couple who’d looked after him. They were left in tears, having become attached to him and feeling they had failed in their efforts to do their duty.

  Seeing her sister’s boy home, Iris had made her own tracks to the farm where her sons were, only to find them contentedly stuffing themselves on home-made pork pies around a blazing farm kitchen fire and talking about how they had enjoyed themselves in the straw barn during the autumn, throwing straw at each other, and how they helped feed the pigs and chickens. They were even happy to rise at dawn having gone early to bed in the winter evenings.

  They had been enthusiastically talking about Christmas with all the fare a well-kept farm could provide when their parents appeared at the door. Iris had been in tears. An argument had ensued between her and the wife of the farmer – so the story went – with Iris indignantly accusing the woman of setting young children to work contrary to the law and demanding of her boys that they pack their belongings and come home with her.

  Brenda had stemmed a chuckle as the story was relayed to her and managed to keep a straight face. She could just see Iris laying down the law, very much like her mother.

  Her brother-in-law Bob was altogether different, rather like his father, and chatting with him and his wife Daphne, she spent a more pleasant time than she’d expected, feeling more at ease than usual in the Hutton family, as she did with Harry’s grandmother who lived with his parents.

  It was a houseful on this Boxing Day and two days later with his mum willingly taking charge of Addie it was good to be on their own up in the crowded gods of a packed theatre, enjoying the music and dancing and joining in with the words of ‘The Lambeth Walk’.

  They spent New Year’s Eve alone, happy to be so though Harry was due back off leave the following morning.

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said as he left, kissing her and the baby. It was a formal farewell. They’d said their goodbyes the evening before as the clock struck midnight, making love as if they might never see each other again.

  Harry’s return to his unit left Brenda unsettled and listless. It was going to take a while to get back into her stride and she had to push herself to do so. If she wanted to keep her little business, as she liked to call it, going she would have to take herself in hand and get on with the job. What upset her more was that apart from Joan Copeland she had no one to tell.

  It came out while sitting round the Sunday dinner table at Mum’s, with Dad, Vera and Brian there. She spent a lot of time at Mum’s, trudging through the streets with frozen slush getting into her shoes and sending brown splashes up Addie’s pram.

  ‘It’s a wonder yer find enough ter do in that little flat of yours, up there all by yerself, except fer little Addie,’ Mum remarked after Vera had asked if she ever went out with friends and she had answered very seldom, her only friend being Mrs Copeland.

  ‘That old thing?’ Vera had scoffed, immediately putting Brenda’s back up.

  She ceased eating abruptly. ‘I’m not like you. I can’t go gaddin’ about – I’m a married woman with a baby. I’ve got responsibilities. I can’t just pop out for a bit of enjoyment just when I feel like it.’

  ‘Don’t this Mrs Copeland offer to ’ave Addie for yer so’s you can?’

  ‘She does lots for me.’ Brenda returned to eating. ‘I couldn’t ask her.’

  ‘What about Harry’s mum? Don’t she ever give eye to ’er?’

  Brenda stopped eating again. ‘What, and ’ave her asking me where I’m going and what for and making me feel as if I’m ’aving a swell time while her poor son’s away? No thank you!’

  Vera grinned. ‘So yer ’appy ter let yerself become a recluse? It’s no good pining after Harry, Bren. Yer’ve got ter ’ave a bit of life or you’ll go daft. Making a martyr of yerself, that’s your trouble. It ain’t being disloyal wantin’ ter go out and enjoy yerself sometimes. Ain’t as if yer was goin’ ter make an ’abit of it. Ain’t as if you’re goin’ ter mess about with someone else or something like that. Yer’ve got ter go out an’ meet people or yer’ll go crackers.’

  It was then Mum asked her question after saying she’d always have Addie. Hot under the collar from Vera’s observations, she blurted out that she was all right and that she s
aw plenty of people when she did their hair.

  It was Mum’s turn to stop eating. ‘Do their ’air? Yer mean yer doing ’airdressing again? Yer didn’t say. What d’yer do with little Addie while yer out? I told yer I’d always look after ’er.’

  Now she had to admit it. ‘I’m doing it at ’ome, privately. Harry don’t know. He didn’t want me ter start working. Said he can provide well enough fer us all.’

  ‘We know ’e didn’t.’ Her pale eyes took on a sly gleam that suggested collusion. ‘But ’e ain’t there now ter say, is ’e?’

  Brenda smiled too. ‘No, he ain’t.’

  ‘And what he don’t know won’t hurt him, will it?’

  Vera gave out with, ‘Ooh,’ but Brenda was quickly on to it all.

  ‘I don’t mind you knowing, Mum, but Harry’s mum don’t know. And I’m not going to tell her if I can help it. She’ll only start going on about me not telling Harry and how underhanded that is, and hinting I might not be looking after Addie as I should. As if she imagined me making pots of money to spend on meself. What I do make, and it ain’t that much, I’m saving. Every penny. Every last ha’penny is going into me post office savings fer when Harry comes home and we can find ourselves a proper house to live.’

  Mum went back to her meal. ‘I think that’s really commendable, luv, and I can see ’ow yer feel about yer muvver-in-law. But I wish yer’d of told me sooner. I wouldn’t of disapproved.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t,’ Brenda said, cutting into her baked potatoes with nervous energy.