Wedding Bells on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  Fran nodded as they shuffled forward. The coal that had fallen on Stan and Davey was a natural fall, but the explosion at the Scottish factory hadn’t been natural at all. That had been the result of a kirby grip falling into a machine on which one of the new girls was working. The metal grip had caused a spark, which had ignited the explosives in the machine. The whole lot had gone up and the ceiling had come down, and it was her – Fran Hall’s – fault. She had been too slow in calling out a warning as she walked along to take her place at the workbench, too unsure that it really had been a kirby grip she’d seen glinting in the girl’s hair.

  Fran moved down the aisle. She, Fran Hall, was moving down the aisle. She could move, smile, talk, kiss the man she loved because she was alive. Four others would have been if she hadn’t waited so long, peering forward to make sure, really sure.

  Fran had already told her friends and her mam that she hadn’t called the warning in time, but all of them just interrupted and wouldn’t let her say she felt so guilty. Instead, they just said it wasn’t her fault, stop going on about it. Even Viola had shouted, just as Sarah had, ‘Don’t be daft, it’s not our job – we check our marrers, not the whole bliddy shift. And no one else saw the glint. And no one screamed, or cried beneath the bricks, bonny lass. Pull yourself together.’

  Her mam had said, ‘Hush, Franny, these things can happen in a munitions factory. It’s not your fault.’ But she felt it was. So, what do I do about that? she wanted to scream. Let someone tell me what to do about it, because I can’t stand the dreams, but I canna stop them – or the guilt.

  Ahead of her the bridal pair were laughing at something. Davey murmured, ‘Cheer up, lass. Dreams aren’t real.’

  She felt rage sweep her – for if he didn’t know her mind, who would?

  ‘Come on, down with you,’ he said. They had reached the bus steps and Fran eased herself onto the ground. Davey followed, slipping his arm around her waist, careful not to jog her. She looked ahead to the club, where bunting hung over the doorway, each triangle of cream wallpaper coloured red, white and blue by the evacuees. Some of the red had smeared as the snow had fallen and it looked as though it had been weeping.

  Beth followed Viola along the bus and waited while the lass eased herself down the steps behind Davey and Fran. Aye, and I’d ease myself if I’d been hurt as Viola has, for it will hurt for a while yet, poor lass. Once down, Viola called after Fran and Davey, ‘Wait for us.’

  Beth was about to descend with Bob close behind her, when Bert muttered, ‘Leave a spam sandwich for me, pet.’

  ‘No spam for you, lad. I reckon it’ll be the best for the man who drove us in the snow squall, eh?’

  He smiled, tiredness dragging at his face. Well, she thought, he was about fifty, perhaps older, and drove the bus to and from the Factory, delivering and returning the shift workers at all hours, so of course he was tired. But then there was a war on, and everyone—

  Bob tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Howay, lass. Let’s get going or there’ll be nowt left, and I need to be gone by midnight or I’ll turn into a pumpkin. See you in there, eh, Bert?’

  ‘Aye, you will, lad. Be rough at sea today, so ’tis best you’re here.’

  ‘In refit, so we’ll be calm as a millpond, but still busy as hell.’ They set off, reaching Viola, who had almost caught up with Fran. Ahead of them, beyond the allotment, snow lay on the hills, with just a scattering left on the shed roofs.

  As they walked, Bob said to Beth, his voice low, ‘Hurry yourself along, pet, for I need to eat. Tommy’ll pick me up at midnight from the telephone box. He’s been up near the Scottish border on his motorbike and we’re to get to Grimsby and the minesweeper by dawn. But I’ll have to kill you if you tell anyone that’s where I’m headed.’

  She squeezed his arm. ‘I’ll not say a word, as long as you swear to take care, eh? Besides, everyone who’s anyone knows where you’re off to, daft beggar.’

  They reached the warmth and light of the Miners’ Club hall, where the food was laid out on trestle tables. The women of the Proggy Rug Co-operative, led by Mrs Bedley, Mrs Smith and Mrs Hall, were bustling about, whipping the greaseproof paper off plates of sandwiches and pouring wine into the glasses Stevie had loaned them from his pub, the Rising Sun. It always made the girls laugh that he doubled as a photographer, turning the small bedroom into a darkroom, having shoved Mildred’s sewing machine onto the landing. She had not been pleased. She still wasn’t.

  Beth knew exactly where the pheasant sandwiches were, since she, Fran and Viola had helped sort out the victuals at dawn. Sid and Norm, Stan’s marrers, had been there too, putting up the bunting, which had been a grand effort, given the hangovers they both had. Sid had said, winking at her, ‘Had to commiserate with the groom over a pint or two, for it’s not every day we get to offload a marrer into the wedded state … Poor devil.’ Beth had pulled his hair, which wasn’t quite as red as hers, and his eyes were blue.

  As they headed for the tables, Bob yawned, tired after his dash to get to the church, and though he’d been a bit late he’d been there to throw confetti, and Beth loved him for it. She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. ‘By, I love you, lad.’

  He jerked round. She said, ‘Don’t look so surprised. I’m just so pleased to see you, bonny lad.’

  Fran and Sarah, standing close by, nodded. ‘Aye, Bob,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s a grand effort, and one that’s brought a big grin to our Beth’s chops.’

  Bob laughed and Beth squeezed his hand. ‘We can just sit, not dance, eh?’

  He shook his head. ‘Dancing’s part of a wedding. Just like the cake.’

  Beth saw that the co-op had put the magnificent cardboard cake on a table in front of the stage. Underneath it was the small cake Beth’s and Sarah’s mams had made with ingredients supplied by everyone in the village who had a twist of sugar or flour to spare from their rations.

  Coming to stand alongside, Viola wondered aloud, ‘The cake is so huge – is it real?’

  ‘Things are as real as you want them to be, Viola,’ Bob answered. ‘You can pretend them into being real, if you choose to. That’s what you need to remember.’

  Beth put her arm around Viola and whispered, ‘You see, the cardboard one lifts up and there’s a tiddler underneath, and I reckon my lad is wrong, for you canna make pretend into reality – you can play along for a bit, but the truth is always there, nudging for attention.’

  Viola smiled as Bob wandered off just as young Ben clambered onto the stage and put a record on the gramophone player. It was a waltz. ‘Coats off,’ Ben yelled. ‘Let’s warm the place up with a bit of a dance while the mams get the urn on for tea, or a bit of the other.’

  ‘Watch your language, lad,’ yelled Sid.

  Ben smirked. ‘First waltz for the new Mr and Mrs Hall, but no kissing. It’s disgusting and too much of a shock for a young lad. Come on, all of you, get yourselves sorted, ’tis bliddy freezing, and Sid, that’s bliddy enough from you.’

  ‘Language,’ shouted everyone.

  Ben scowled and gestured them all to be quiet, or that was perhaps how the gesture could be interpreted. Beth muttered to Viola, ‘Thank heavens nothing changes.’

  Viola looked from Beth to Fran, who had just joined them, and smiled. ‘I’m beginning to see that.’

  Quietly, Fran added, ‘But let’s hope some things do.’ No one heard.

  They watched now as Stan and Sarah took to the floor. Bob returned and tried to get Beth to dance. She smiled. ‘Let the newly-weds have their moment, lad.’

  Bob nodded. ‘Oh aye, of course.’

  They watched the bridal couple, Sarah’s brocade dress shimmering against Stan’s dark suit. It reminded Beth of her parents’ wedding photo on their mantelpiece and she murmured to Viola, ‘Howay, lass. It must be hard, both your parents gone in the Newcastle bombing, along with everything you had. At least we three still have our mams, and you must remember your home’s in Massingham with us now, so never think you’
re alone. See, as long as we girls stick together, nowt can break us.’

  Behind them, coats were being thrown over the chairs lining the room or hung on the pegs along the wall and on the backs of the double doors. Though the walls were painted a dull green, the usual noticeboards were festooned with bunting, creating instant cheer. At the back of the hall stood the Massingham Colliery banner, which was another splash of colour. Beth glanced at the dance floor to see Stan leading his new wife into a turn, his hair black against Sarah’s blonde chignon. With a glance at Ben, and a wink, the only kiss he gave his bride was one on the forehead, and there was as much love in that as there would have been in anything more.

  At Ben’s urging, a steady flow of couples joined them. Among the first were Fran and Davey, as in love as the other two, and then Norm, Stan’s marrer, escorted Viola into a dance, holding her wounded hand as gently as if it were cut glass. Following them were Sandra Young from the top end of Leadenhall Terrace, who also worked at the Factory, and her lad, Andy.

  Beth looked on, loving the sight of her friends and neighbours, and then she felt Bob’s arm slide around her.

  ‘You all right, lass? Must be strange to see your old boyfriend wed to your marrer?’

  Beth was so startled she pulled away from him. ‘No, you daft thing, no stranger than Stan being at our wedding. You listen to me, Bob Jones – you know that I love you, deep through to me core.’

  He drew her closer. ‘I know you do. But this bliddy war makes things so difficult, such a bliddy mess, and changes so many things.’ He paused, then repeated against her hair, ‘Aye, all such a mess.’

  ‘There’s a way to go before the war’s done with, lad, so we just have to get on with it,’ Beth whispered.

  ‘Oh, I know, but …’ he started to say. ‘You see …’ He stopped, and began again. ‘I look around and I’m right glad you are here in good old Massingham, with your marrers, and your family. I heard you tell Viola she’d never be alone, and neither will you, here.’

  She kissed him, saying, ‘I know, and I have you, even when you’re away, and that’s enough.’

  He sighed, looked around, and gave a small shrug. ‘Give us a dance, pet. Then I’ll have a chat with some of me mates from Minton pit. It seems an age ago I were there.’

  Beth murmured, ‘Well it is. It was in a different world – peacetime, it’s called.’ They danced for just a moment, but then Beth saw Bert enter and groaned. ‘His sandwiches.’ She flew to the buffet and gathered up several pheasant and a couple of spam. She hurried to the hatch and passed the plate across to her mam and Sophia Massingham, Ralph’s stepmother. ‘These are for Bert. We promised.’

  Sophia laughed. ‘Then he has two platefuls, for we sorted it earlier. Lucky him.’

  ‘Well, guard ’em both with your life,’ said Beth, ‘for if they go walkies he’ll make our lives a living misery tomorrow, tearing round corners.’

  She left the two women laughing and almost banged into Ralph, who stepped to one side. ‘So sorry, Beth.’

  She smiled uncertainly for Ralph never said sorry. This was a bliddy miracle.

  ‘It was a lovely service,’ said Ralph, and leaned in closer. ‘But did I hear a mouse? There was a definite squeak.’ He winked.

  She laughed, surprised, and looked around to check that the organist, who was the Reverend Walters’ sister, was nowhere near. ‘Ah, Ralph … Sometimes there’s a problem with the organ – wind in the pipes, it’s said – resulting in a squeak.’

  They both looked at one another, then burst out laughing. His mouse-coloured hair flopping over his right eye, his light brown eyes alight with amusement.

  ‘Well, not quite like that,’ she said, and could feel herself blushing.

  Ralph nodded. ‘But something similar, no doubt?’

  Beth scurried off to dance with Bob again and told him of the conversation, and when Bob had stopped laughing, he said, ‘Aye, well, the pit’s a hard taskmaster, and perhaps our whelp met his match working on the face and has had to grow up.’

  Beth turned to watch Ralph, who was wandering amongst the villagers, talking, smiling, nodding, being friendly.

  ‘Come on, lass.’ Bob was jigging to the music of a foxtrot and she forgot all about Ralph as she danced in his arms, knowing that one day the war would be over and they’d be together every day.

  ‘Hang on to your hat,’ Bob murmured. ‘I’m about to sort out a turn.’

  As he manoeuvred, she saw the dithering and doddery professor who had mentored Stan at Oxford. He was chatting to his old friend Reginald Massingham, who had set up the Massingham scholarship that Stan had won. But as she watched, the professor tapped Reginald on the arm and began to wend his way through the tables and the chattering groups of guests towards Ralph, who was taking his coat down from one of the pegs near the door.

  What? she thought. It’s only just started. But then the lad had been ill. And he was really pale. She shrugged and turned back to Bob, kissing his cheek.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Going already?’ Professor Smythe almost whispered to Ralph Massingham. Ralph had to lean close to hear him over the music, the clatter of plates and the chatter of the guests. Smythe continued: ‘I had hoped I might have your answer before I left as to whether you are prepared to work with those of us in counter-espionage, focusing on your very own Fascist cell in particular?’

  Ralph wanted to beat away ‘your very own Fascist cell’, for it made him want to vomit. Suddenly the weight of his coat over his arm felt too much. He glanced around, frightened someone might be close enough to have heard, but he should have known Smythe was much too experienced to make such a mistake. He replied, just as quietly, ‘I need a bit more time. I’m not sure I can do it.’

  ‘Well,’ the professor said, under cover of coughing into his hand, his pale blue eyes sharp as tacks, his white hair thinning in a way that Ralph had not noticed before, a million miles from the dithery professor he purported to be. For Professor Smythe was not just an academic, but a guardian of their country, or so Ralph had confirmed while talking to him in the shadow of St Oswald’s. Ralph glanced across at his father. Was he more than a businessman too?

  ‘I understand,’ the professor was murmuring. ‘Counter-espionage is a dicey task.’

  Smythe lifted his head and his eyes were now as cold as steel as the two men exchanged looks, then stood together surveying the room. ‘Smile, lad. Look as though we’re enjoying a few pleasantries, eh?’ Smythe laughed and Ralph managed to produce the semblance of one too.

  The professor continued. ‘The point is, dear old thing, you are the one who approached me outside the church – once I’d dropped a few openings, admittedly. It was apparent then how desperate you were to make amends for setting the fuse that blew out the props and caused the roof fall. Not that you intended to snaffle the Hall and Bedley fathers, of course, just halt production like the good little Fascist – or perhaps we should say Nazi? – that you are—’

  Ralph cut across him, his voice harsh. ‘Like the good little one I once was, until I came to my senses.’

  Smythe smiled and turned to him. ‘Do keep your voice low, Ralph. Yes, as you say, like you were, or so one might believe. May I continue?’

  Ralph nodded and smiled, gesturing around the room. ‘Lovely to see everyone together.’

  ‘That’s better,’ Smythe replied. ‘Now, I know that the deaths were unintentional. I know that they grieve you, and I hear you when you say you have had a change of heart.’ He paused for a moment, waving towards Reginald Massingham, who was sitting at a table with the evacuees. ‘I accept that neither Fran’s nor Sarah’s father was expected to be surveying Bell Seam that morning. The overman was too damnably keen, but there we are, two men dead, a seam blocked. I accept your telling me just a few hours ago that you had to get out of the whole damned traitorous Fascist mess you have created for yourself.’

  Professor Smythe’s voice was little more than a breath, but his laugh was hearty, an
d he patted Ralph’s arm as he raised his voice. ‘Yes, those sandwiches do look scrumptious.’

  Ralph forced himself to nod and smile. ‘You really should try the pheasant. Father’s gamekeeper hung it for just long enough, and the co-op roasted it to perfection. Not that I’ve tried the sandwiches yet, but we know that whatever the co-op turn their hands to is a success. Lord, they even made me better, in more ways than one. Best tuck in, Professor, since you have a way to go, but delightful to see you, not to mention catch up on the news from Oxford. It seems so long ago.’

  He looked around. It was what he found himself doing a lot now, for who knew who might be a member of Tim Swinton’s Fascist cell, which he had joined while a sixth-former at home for the holidays. Back then it had been so different from anything else, a little gang of rebels intent on opposing the Communists. So many meetings, so many taking opposing sides – until war was declared. Ralph Massingham, a fool unto himself, had somehow stayed involved, but never, ever again.

  He stared at these people sitting, dancing, chatting, some on leave from fighting. God, he was a bastard, but worse, a traitor and a fool, and he had to make amends even if it killed him.

  Professor Smythe was still talking and Ralph made himself listen: ‘… sandwiches, so delicious. I can hardly wait.’ Smythe lowered his voice again, though no one was in the vicinity. ‘I do hope you do decide to work with us, for I repeat, it will put me in the most dreadful bind if you don’t, dear boy. One thinks of the monitored calls from Massingham Hall to and from your handler, Tim Swinton … They prove beyond all doubt that you committed treason by virtue of your act of sabotage in time of war.

  ‘Now, one should, of course, choose the spam, but … Pheasant was your idea, your father tells me and what matter if it’s out of season? Reginald is quite entitled to bag what he wishes on his own land, especially when it’s off ration. God bless the man is what I say. And the beer and wine paid for by your good self. The Rising Sun’s best—’