A Soldier's Girl

by Maggie Ford

  ‘Yer do?’

  ‘Sometimes I’ve said his first name. It do seem a bit unsociable not to really. Do it matter?’

  Hurriedly she changed the subject. ‘Look, Mum, the water’s off so I can’t make a cuppa until it’s back on again.

  But J . . . Mr Stebbings filled a couple of buckets with water. He’s a warden so he knew in advance. He said he had a primus stove which he can boil a kettle on. You try and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll run down and see if I can make us a pot of tea.’

  Mum’s coat had come off. She was rolling up her sleeves. ‘I’ll sweep this lot up in ’ere and in the kitchen while yer gone, and sort Addie out,’ she said briskly, adding, ‘I don’t suppose yer’ll be too long down there, will yer? Now we’re ’ere?’

  Which to Brenda’s suddenly over-sensitive comprehension came as a somewhat pointed remark as she hurried off.

  ‘Thank Gawd it’s summer so we don’t need lights on all the time, and warm enough not ter get draughts from them blessed windows.’

  The windows had never been properly replaced. John had used all his persuasion on his middle-aged glazier, but materials were needed for more urgent cases. Dad knocked up proper solid blackout frames for the windows from pieces of wood scrounged from bomb sites, making sure of a good fit so that no chink of light showed, each morning to be taken down and stood against the wall. Cardboard took the place of many of the missing panes so there wasn’t too much fresh air coming in that could be termed a draught.

  Dad had stood proudly back having fitted the final one, announcing, ‘Better job’n ’im downstairs could of done, I bet. Yer don’t want a strange neighbour buggering about in yer place, do yer, Bren?’

  She could only smile, letting it go at that.

  What had promised to be a couple of weeks of them staying with her was running into months. There had been such extensive damage from that night in May on top of all the other raids preceding it for months that more urgent rebuilding was taking precedence over work on gutted private homes and there were few places for her family to go other than community centres.

  A lot of bombed-out Londoners had been found places in the country, often empty, practically derelict cottages on the edge of a village, miles from shops and unreachable but by a local bus once a week. The locals, digging for victory with their smallholdings or large kitchen gardens, their pigs and ducks and chickens and eggs, bartered purely among themselves regarded strangers from London with deep suspicion.

  ‘I ain’t goin’ ter be fobbed off with some flea- and bug-ridden, antiquated old cottage,’ Mum announced when a letter from the authorities arrived two months after coming to live with Brenda. ‘No runnin’ water, no roads, outside toilet . . .’

  For a moment it didn’t occur to her that her daughter’s was itself an outside one, but recalling that it at least had a flush, she hurriedly went on, ‘. . . all yer doings droppin’ straight into some stream.’ She had made a small sound of revulsion. ‘I’ve ’eard about it. Mrs Calvin – yer remember Mrs Calvin an’ ’er lot – lived a few doors down? They was given an old farm’ouse of sorts, Lord knows where, somewhere in blinking Wiltshire. They ’ad ter fumigate the ’ole place. ’ad no curtains, or bedding, no rugs nor nothink. The bedding they did get ’old of was runnin’ alive. They all got bites from bed bugs. After four weeks they’d ’ad enough – came back ’ere ter live with her daughter-in-law. Yer won’t get me bein’ sent away an’ going through all that. I’d rather be killed in me bed ’ere.’

  It was easy to say that now. There’d been no more raids since that night in May, the raids ceasing as abruptly as if a tap had been turned off. For the next few nights, Brenda and her visitors crowded down into the basement, which John was generous enough to allow though he no longer showed himself, and like everybody else they waited. But nothing happened. The night sky of early summer remained clear and starry, a perfect bomber’s moon lighting up the gaunt outline of wrecked and gutted buildings, many of which took a week of hosing before finally ceasing to smoulder, and still no bombers appeared.

  People had sat in their shelters waiting with bated breath. Rumours had flown far and wide. Had Hitler some secret weapon, biding his time to release it on London? Other cities had still been bombed, but to have ceased so suddenly just when poor old London had been on the brink of despair – it had been uncanny, it hadn’t made sense, but it had been welcomed with a sigh of relief.

  Slowly they had breathed again, clinging to every minute fragment of good news that might boost morale: Hess landing in Scotland at the beginning of May – were Hitler’s henchmen forsaking him? Did it mean the end of the war was near? The sinking of the Bismarck – perhaps that had made him realise Britain wasn’t yet finished? Obviously bombing London wasn’t the answer, and he’d turned his sights elsewhere. It seemed likely. Greece already lay in his clutches; by the beginning of June Crete had been overrun, and now he had broken his pact with Russia, was massing troops on its borders ready to strike.

  It at least gave everyone at home respite from air attacks, but it didn’t help those with homeless relatives living in with them nor those fearing for their men’s lives in North Africa. Brenda suffered the one and dreaded the other as she tried to keep the peace in an overcrowded flat (made even more so by Brian or Davy each coming home on separate weekend leaves during early June) and carry on with her hairdressing.

  ‘You ought ter give it up fer a while,’ advised her mother. ‘At least until we’ve bin rehoused.’

  ‘And lose the clients I’ve got? No, Mum, I’ve got to carry on somehow.’

  ‘It must make it awkward, Bren, us all being ’ere.’

  ‘I’ll manage. So long as I can use the kitchen and me bedroom.’

  She was now working in her bedroom, taking her ladies out to the kitchen to wash their hair at the sink, a kettle and saucepans forever on the boil. She thanked heaven for the good summer which meant she could leave the door open so that steam could escape. What would it be like when winter came if the family was still here?

  Yes, it was awkward. Often she had to move a lady closer to the sink for Mum or Vera to get by for the toilet. Dad, working all day, spent most of his weekends on an allotment he’d acquired; what he produced would come free at least. It also meant having to move Mum and Vera’s things off the bed and the old chair (all three women now slept in her bed, Dad on a palliasse in Addie’s room) to make room for a client to sit.

  The conditions under which they were having their hair done were enough to brown customers off forever, yet they still came, and Brenda felt proud that they had no wish to go elsewhere. Of course she was cheap, and that probably accounted for it, and she still managed to make do and mend despite the shortage of supplies that had already closed down many a salon.

  ‘I wish I had your talent,’ Vera said in July, gazing enviously after yet another satisfied customer leaving with her new set smelling of the shampoo which Brenda skilfully made up herself with shredded Knight’s Castile soap and boiling water. She used a lemon rinse on fair hair or vinegar on dark with a touch of perfumed glycerine.

  ‘It’s not a talent,’ Brenda told her, washing her hands free of the cloying smell of home-made setting lotion. ‘I had to learn it.’

  ‘I ’ate working in a factory doing war work, clocking on and clocking off, ’aving to do overtime. I don’t get no chance to go out of an evening.’

  In fact Vera was out most weekends with girlfriends, looking for boys. And on the odd occasion she’d gone with Brenda to see a film together. Brenda was hardly able to get out of the house and got no chance to find any friends of her own. She felt awkward asking Mum to give eye to Addie, though Mum was always willing. ‘Yer don’t get out ’alf enough,’ she would urge.

  ‘I’m sure I could of made a decent fist of hairdressing if I’d of bin given your chances,’ Vera went on. ‘Couldn’t you teach me?’

  ‘Vera, it takes more than just “couldn’t you teach me”. It took me a few years of
apprenticeship.’ She hesitated before Vera’s pleading look. ‘I suppose I could show you how to do a simple, straight trim. But you’d have to follow me very carefully.’

  Vera’s face was a delight to behold. ‘Would yer? Would yer really?’

  ‘But yer’ll have to stay in of an evening when someone comes, not go galivanting off out.’ She saw the doubt creep into the blue eyes. ‘If yer not serious about it.’

  Vera livened, already seeing herself one day owning her own salon, pots of money pouring in. Brenda could read her sister like a book. ‘Of course I’m serious. I want ter learn.’

  ‘Right then. And not just the odd night when it suits you. You might have to give up a couple of Saturday nights, if I get any clients on that evening. I don’t want yer playin’ around, Vera.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Vera spoke in all earnestness at this very moment. But how long would that last? Until the next boy came along? She’d finished with her Ron Parrish. Where he was now she didn’t know or care. Since then she’d had other boys – and one big scare last month due to a late period. She’d asked Brenda in confidence what she should do.

  ‘You let him?’ Brenda had exclaimed, and Vera, near to tears, had nodded dismally. ‘You silly fool, Vera!’ was all she’d been able to say. Brenda had no idea of how one brings on a period or gets rid of an unwanted pregnancy, so Vera would have to seek her own salvation. But her condemnation of her sister renewed her guilt over her affair with John. They’d always taken precautions but there could be a slip-up one day. Vera’s trouble was a warning that it could happen to anyone and even as Brenda bit back her censure of her to console her instead, it made her think about being so free with herself.

  A week later, Vera had come to her all smiles. ‘False alarm,’ she had trilled and gone merrily off to a date she had made with someone different.

  It had been such a scare and it had all come about so innocently. Going up West that Saturday with three girlfriends to a nice dance hall they knew, for Vera the evening had followed its usual lively routine, dancing with this one and that until finally ending up with the boy of her choice to take her home.

  There was so much choice these days for a single girl. Servicemen of all sorts, soldiers, sailors, airmen (boys in civvies didn’t stand a chance, too drab and too immature) and servicemen from other countries, flamboyant Canadians, smooth Free French – in fact she was having a lovely war.

  When she said this to Brenda, her sister had been shocked. ‘How can yer talk like that after what we’ve all been through with the Blitz – people being killed all over the place? People being made homeless. And there’s my Harry fighting in North Africa, and yer own brothers, and Harry’s brother – how can yer say that, Vera?’

  But she hadn’t meant it in that way. What she had meant was that the war had allowed a single girl so much scope with all these uniforms to choose from.

  It was more usually a British boy she picked to walk her to her bus to take her home. They were her sort, her countrymen, she’d always felt safer with them. That was until that night.

  It had been a British boy, a quiet lad from Northumberland, who had proved the exception. His accent had intrigued her; his shy request for a kiss couldn’t be refused. His hands on her shoulders as they stood in a dark shop doorway had been gentle, as had his lips. But when he had tried it on, fumbling up her skirt, she’d yelled at him and walked off.

  He had followed her. Almost in tears he had begged her pardon, telling her he was the only one in his unit who hadn’t had it off properly with a girl and that he had become the laughing stock of his mates. He hadn’t meant to upset her. He had seemed gauche and she’d felt so sorry for him. Finally she had stopped marching ahead, had let him slip into another dark doorway with her and kiss her again.

  That second kiss had been passionate, and what harm if his hands did happen to wander a little? It was wartime, everyone gave themselves a little licence. Her friends did, judging by their tales. So long as he didn’t go all the way.

  He hadn’t seemed the type who would, but then his grip had become fierce and when she started to fight against him he had murmured, ‘No, no, it’ll be all right, I won’t go that far.’ But he had and she’d been mortified.

  It was the first time she’d ever let anyone do more than kiss her. As a rule at the first sign of anything more, she’d shrug them off with plenty of light banter and usually they got the message. She hardly felt able to believe that she’d let it go this far; it wouldn’t have done any good having a go at him – she should have fought him off more determinedly.

  She did tell him what she thought of him. He’d said he didn’t know what came over him and she’d snapped back through stifled tears that now he could tell his mates he’d had a girl, couldn’t he. He hadn’t replied to that; in silence they’d adjusted their clothing and he walked her to her bus stop because she didn’t want to walk there on her own.

  He’d asked to see her again and for her address so he could write to her, but after what happened she wanted no more to do with him. He wasn’t even her type. She told him she never wanted to see him again and he left her at the bus stop.

  Then had come the counting, the waiting for her next period to show itself, panic when it hadn’t. It was all right now, but she had been taught a lesson and wouldn’t be so silly with her favours ever again.

  One thing she did wish, that she hadn’t been so quick confiding in her sister. Brenda now knew her little secret. But she trusted Brenda. She wouldn’t tell Mum. She wasn’t that sort.

  Brenda’s tone was downcast. ‘John, I don’t think we should go on like this.’

  In the poor light of the tiny back kitchen, despite a brilliant if narrow shaft of July sunlight squeezing between two pieces of cardboard that took the place of a windowpane, she saw his thin face become taut, his dark brows draw together.

  The shop had closed for the evening; he would soon be leaving for his own home in Leytonstone. A couple of times a week here with him was the only chance they had these days with her family breathing down her neck. She’d make the excuse that she had to change a book, John having begun a small private lending library a few months ago since so few people now actually bought books. She’d return upstairs, her book changed, making it all look right and proper. Of course it was foolish. She hated it, vowed that each time must be the last. But the ache to be with him would grow and grow until, unable to help herself, she would hurry down to the back kitchen moments after his shop had closed. Often they would merely talk. But other times . . . Then she’d come away ashamed and guilty.

  Today, she vowed, would be the last. What Vera had confided in her had changed her whole outlook. One day she and her lover would be found out. One day Mum or Vera on their way to the toilet would hear voices and peep through the narrow aperture in the boarded-up window that looked out on to the yard. With bright sunlight streaming in they would see her and John, even catch him kissing her.

  It was only a moment ago that he had leaned forward and kissed her. They had made love before in this confined space and somehow it gave it the feeling of spontaneity. Once he’d suggested the basement but knowing the bed was still there, to follow him down there made her feel that it would be changed into something planned and thus sordid. She had refused and he hadn’t mentioned it again. But today even his kiss had her pulling away.

  ‘No, don’t!’

  He too drew back. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t want you to, that’s all.’

  Not only had Vera’s revelation several days ago put her on guard but this morning a letter from Harry had strengthened her resolve that this business with John Stebbings had to end.

  Harry’s letter had come from a hospital bed. He had been wounded. Not too badly, he’d said – a lump of shrapnel had shattered his shoulder. He’d be in hospital for a while and when mended return to his unit. ‘Just a pity it weren’t a Blighty one,’ he quipped, using the old First World War term. />
  She was glad it hadn’t been. He could have come back crippled for life. In another way she wished it had, at least enough to have got him sent home. Either way it had shaken her, terrified her, and it was why she was facing John. How could this go on with Harry away fighting, wounded, and all the time so certain of her, his constant and loving wife. She did love him, so she must stop all this, stay true to him. He deserved nothing less from her.

  And now she was pleading, ‘I don’t think we should go on like this.’

  She’d said this so many times before that he must have become inured to it. But it always brought a look of fear to his face and he would catch her hands between his, melting her resolve. He caught them now.

  ‘Darling, don’t say that!’

  ‘This time I meant it, John.’ Forcing herself to be strong she told him of Harry’s letter. ‘I can’t carry on knowing he’s been hurt. I feel terrible for him. Please, please understand. It was hard enough for me before, but now, every time we kiss I’ll think of what I’m doing to him. He trusts me.’

  ‘But you love me, Brenda. You must do, to be doing what we do.’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve felt so lonely.’

  She had never said this before and she saw his face go bleak. ‘Is that all I am to you?’ he said slowly after a small pause. ‘Merely someone to fill your loneliness?’

  ‘No. Of course I was lonely. But once it happened I couldn’t let go of you. And it was wrong. I knew how wrong it was but I wanted you.’

  ‘Though not enough.’

  Tears clouded her eyes. ‘I still do, darling. It’s just that—’

  ‘He’s your husband,’ he interrupted. ‘And I’m merely . . .’

  ‘Don’t say that. You’re not merely. It’s just that I can’t anymore.’

  There was silence between them, then he said, ‘Well, if that is what you want, Brenda, I shan’t spoil things for you. I only want to say that I am in love with you. I’ll always be in love with you. I wish things were different, but I can’t make you love me, not the way I’d like you to, with no one else in the way. Maybe it’s best. There is only one thing – if you ever need anything, anyone . . . I’d like to remain a friend.’