by Annie Clarke
Bert steered the bus carefully around the long uphill bend before Sledgeford. Over to the right the Sledgeford slag heap stood guardian, and near it was the pithead with the cages working, bringing up coal and taking down miners. ‘Aye, well, it’s the lad Stevie himself I’m on about. He needs the lasses to sing for him at the Rising Sun on March fourteenth. Not a lot of notice, but he says it came to him at the wedding that it were time for another sing-song. Let me know on your way out, our Franny, if you and the lasses can do it. And don’t you go getting left out, Viola.’
The girls on the back seat listened with glee. Viola opened and shut her hand, wincing.
Fran whispered, ‘It would help the three of us to have a bit more money to pay the bills, but you don’t need it for that, Viola, because you can stay at Sarah’s or mine, or Beth’s, for free, just like you’re doing now. If you want to come, just sing – divint tax your hand.’
Mrs Oborne butted in, swinging round in her seat: ‘Or, do a bit of singing, bit of playing?’
Beth leaned forward, smiling past Fran and Sarah to Viola, who nodded. ‘She says yes,’ said Beth, ‘so you give Bert that answer, Fran. Don’t want “you know who” snapping it up if we dither.’
Mrs Oborne, who had ears like a bat, stood and shouted, ‘Aye, that’s a yes, Bert. Viola’ll do a bit of both, so that’s all four.’ Looking about the bus, she added, ‘Howay, we’re coming into Sledgeford, so if that Amelia gets on, keep quiet about it, everyone. You know how canny she is and’ll grab the booking for herself and her group, given half a chance.’
Bert shouted, ‘Took them words right out of my mouth, Tilly Oborne. Why d’you think I said it afore we got here? So, keep your traps shut, and I’ll let Stevie know.’ He was reducing speed as he approached the bus stop.
Talk began again as Fran called, ‘Why would she be on the bus? She’s nine to five, for heaven’s sake.’
No one replied, for Bert had stopped outside the Miners’ Club, where there was now a bus shelter, built by the women’s menfolk. The girls and women piled on, their noses red from the cold, contrasting with the yellow of their skin. Yawning, they slumped onto the slatted wooden seats.
The four girls watched their friend Valerie make her way down the bus, raising her eyebrows at Mrs Oborne and grimacing. Then they saw why. Amelia Cartwright from the Factory office was following along behind. There she was, the girl who had been going out with Ralph Massingham until recently. The girl whose mission in life seemed to be to get up everyone’s noses, with the three, now four, Factory Girls her particular target.
Valerie, in whose house Amelia lodged, ducked into an aisle seat in front of Mrs Oborne, while Amelia headed nearer to the back. Brenda and Rosie, part of Amelia’s singing trio, followed.
‘But why?’ whispered Sarah. ‘Their villages are on a different bus route.’
Mrs Seaton, who was sitting in front of Fran, turned. ‘Them two started lodging in Sledgeford while you and Sarah were in Scotland – don’t you remember, Beth? Something about it being on a shorter bus route. Them three’ll be in early to smarm up to Brown, the office boss, or do overtime, I reckon. Whatever it is, it’ll be something to benefit themselves.’
The three girls had not been invited to the wedding because by no stretch of the imagination could any of them be considered the Factory Girls’ friends, not after snaffling a New Year’s Eve booking at the Rising Sun whilst the girls had to remain on shift to get up to target when a conveyor belt broke. Amelia had refused to step in and had instead taken the booking with Brenda and Rosie. Fran pushed it from her mind and concentrated on Bert as they approached the bridge over Cod Beck, the drovers’ bridge that was very narrow.
She listened now, everyone did, and as always she heard Bert’s voice: ‘Don’t you bliddy take my wing mirrors, don’t you bliddy dare.’
It was as though hands were going to come out and grab them. Up and over they went, and were soon roaring along between high hedges, scattering the nesting birds.
Beth explained to Viola: ‘That Amelia sent an anonymous note to Davey’s mam to forward on to him, accusing Fran of messing about with Ralph, all because The Factory Girls were chosen to sing when Workers’ Playtime were broadcast from the Factory.’
Viola looked suitably shocked and there was some satisfaction in that, Fran found, but didn’t want to think of it, or feel the missing of Davey, so settled back, her head worse, if that was possible. She wished she had only had one glass of wine, but she had been so happy to be with Davey that she’d drunk without noticing. She wondered how he was, because he had sunk far too many beers before taking the night train down south, and would probably go straight into work when he arrived at Bletchley Park. She hoped he’d slept, for he needed his brain sharp for decoding the Nazi messages.
As the bus travelled on, Fran listened to the singing, the chatting and the laughter and joined in, but only superficially, for now she was remembering the cries beneath the rubble that had, as usual, woken her throughout the night. She pushed them from her as she thought of Ralph, and how he’d seemed to understand. She hoped he was right, that the dead didn’t want her sorrow or guilt and that all she could do was to go on. But it was easier said than done. She closed her eyes, but within seconds opened them again, for in that darkness the cries had grown louder.
She looked out of the window, up at the big sky, at the slag heaps dotting the landscape, the pitheads, the farms they passed, and the hamlets and pit villages, the smoke from the chimneys of the terraced houses, the skylarks lifting from the fields, the sheep …
She shook her head, then stopped because it felt as though her brain was actually throbbing. Water, she must have some water. If it helped to sluice the chemicals, it would do the same to the wine. She felt for the glass bottle in her bag, nestling there with her gas mask. As always, that made her tut – a gas mask when they worked with explosives? It was daft. She replaced the bottle, noticing the other three taking sips from theirs too.
They smiled at one another, drifting, chatting and listening until at last they neared the Factory. Fran snatched a look at her watch – five twenty. Perhaps she’d slept, for the last half of the journey had just disappeared, but surely not – there had been no dreams, or cries, and what’s more, she felt rested. Beth leaned towards her. ‘You were snoring, bonny lass, and dribbling.’
Fran gasped and wiped her chin. Sarah called, ‘Don’t be so daft, Franny, course you weren’t. Well, not dribbling, but the snoring would wake the d—’ She stopped as Beth poked her, frowning. Sarah began again. ‘Aye, you were snoring, but not a dribble in sight, thank the Lord, or we’d have to get Mrs Oborne to cut out and sew a bib for you, not a wedding dress.’
Fran, who had not sweated or shaken at the word ‘dead’, which was what Sarah had been about to say, allowed herself to begin to thank Ralph. For even if his niceness wasn’t as real as it seemed, she had indeed slept without dreaming for the first time since it had happened. He had said to face it, but no, not today, not yet, because it might just be the hangover that had made her sleep. Just that.
She stared out of the window at the scenery, which looked as though it was rushing by when it was actually they who were doing that. Things sometimes weren’t as they seemed.
But actually, now she came to think of it, the bus wasn’t rushing either, for Bert was driving cautiously. She snatched another look out of the window. Again, she thought of Ralph, his eyes so intense, his voice so urgent. His understanding was so surprising that perhaps she should look back as he had said. Fran was gripping her hands together, the yellow skin stretched across her knuckles, and she made herself breathe in for four and out for four, and again. She repeated the two times table to calm herself. Finally, she made herself think about the workshop.
There she was again, walking in front of the workbench, the girls, the machines, a man, elderly with dark hair, rather thin. Where had the security officer gone? Oh yes, he was the elderly man, just behind the new girl. She, Fran
Hall, was heading for her own workstation, but now someone spoke, called out. Who? She had, she realised. She had seen the glint, looked again – seconds it was, only seconds – because she was shouting. Yes, she had shouted, just seconds after seeing the glint. Then it fell, then darkness.
She blinked, her hands were still clenched in her lap, on the bus, but her knuckles weren’t as white. She looked out of the window. She had seen it, heard it, and she hadn’t been quite in time, but almost. And she had tried. Yes, Ralph was right. She really had tried and she must cling to that truth, just as it was true that it was the bus passing the scenery, not the scenery on the move. Would she remember, though? she wondered, shutting her eyes, feeling her shoulders hunch, but that hurt. She straightened, smiling. Of course she bliddy would, for she would just hunch her shoulders and they and her ribs would remind her. She hunched and rolled her shoulders. And then again, to remind herself. Then looked out of the window. ‘There,’ she muttered. ‘That’s really the truth of it.’
‘The truth of what, bonny lass?’ asked Beth.
Fran laughed now, really laughed. ‘Oh, that we’re passing the countryside, not the other way round.’
Viola leaned forward. ‘Oh aye, Fran, I know what you mean. Beth, remember what you said to Bob about the cake? It weren’t real, it was the little one that was, and truth would nudge out the pretence.’
Beth looked puzzled. ‘I divint remember, not really, but it sounds bliddy good, as though I have a brain.’ They smiled, though their headaches were still just as bad. Beth folded her arms, leaned back and nodded. ‘Aye, has there ever been such a happy time, eh? Three of us will be wedded women by this time next month, with only Viola to sort out, eh? And sort her we will, for there’s a bloke somewhere who will deserve her, and we’ll root him out.’
The four of them looked at one another and nodded. Fran said quietly, ‘Aye, a happy time.’ She meant it for the first time since the explosion.
Bert pulled into the Factory siding. ‘Off you go, ladies. Time for me to take the night shift back, and maybe get me head down, too. Keep your minds on the job – don’t want you coming back in little bits. Especially not you, Mrs Stanhope Hall.’
Mrs Oborne sat waiting for everyone to disembark, beckoning the girls to go ahead, but they waved her on because they knew from her grin she was up to something. Up she got, huffing and puffing. Her headscarf had slipped to her shoulders; she yanked it up, and then down the aisle she swept, all thirteen stone of her. She stopped at Bert’s cab and cuffed him lightly on the head. ‘Keep your mind on your driving, you old fool. No letting your lids droop till you’re in safe harbour, and I don’t mean Cod Beck with the wing mirrors wrapped round your neck.’
Off she got, roaring with laughter, as was Bert, and the four girls were hysterical too, and the five women hurried towards the guards at the gate. Dawn was beckoning as Harry Bishop and Barry Evans – ‘the unholy twins’, as Mrs Oborne called them – checked their passes, then searched their bags in case they were full of sabotage materials, grinning at their bottles of water. ‘One day it’ll be beer,’ Barry guffawed.
Beth groaned, her head throbbing. ‘Don’t mention alcohol, if you don’t very much mind.’
‘Or laugh so loud,’ ground out Maisie, standing to one side, fumbling in her pocket for the pass she so often mislaid. ‘At last,’ she muttered as Barry checked it before lifting the pole for them.
‘Alcohol?’ he queried. ‘Oh, aye, I’d forgotten we had a blushing bride with us. Keep your mind on your work, pet, not on your man.’
Sarah smiled weakly and hurried on, whispering to Beth and Fran, ‘I do wish people would stop going on. Not only have I a head on me like the rest of you, but me private life’s me own.’
Beth grinned. ‘Since when is anything private round here?’
They followed Maisie and Mrs Oborne along the wide roadway between the single-storey brick buildings that housed numerous workshops. In these the women filled munitions with explosive chemicals. Over to the left were the semi-underground shell-filling workshops where any explosions would put all others to shame. Had the women in these heard the detonator explosion in their sector a while ago?
In the distance was the storeroom, close to where there had been a thwarted break-in when the fences had come down during a vicious snowstorm. Who the hell had tried to do it?
At the wedding, Bob had asked Beth just that. She had played dumb, for to be heard chattering about such a thing would mean a warning, or worse, the sack. She had said, ‘I canna possibly comment.’ This was what her da had told her a union official always used to say whenever her da had wanted information about anything.
Bob had just looked at her, and she slowed now as she remembered, because he’d said, ‘I suppose a traitor makes a choice, a bit like love. Sometimes people have to choose …’
Looking back, she couldn’t understand why he’d kept going on about truth, pretence and love. As she headed for their section, Fran slipped her arm through Beth’s. ‘Penny for them?’
‘Keep your money, Fran,’ Beth said. ‘I’m just thinking about our Bob.’
‘Ah, love, eh?’
Beth nodded, and squeezed Fran’s arm. Viola and Sarah linked arms in front of them, and they turned left, down a narrower path, while Amelia headed for the office.
Their section, like all the sections, was brick-built with a flat roof. They hurried in through the double doors, down the corridor and into the whitewashed changing room. Here they stepped out of their boots, put on their day shoes and overalls, and took headscarves from their pockets to wind into turbans to keep their hair safe from the machines. But first they must be checked, and listen to the safety and security rules – again. It had become the norm after the detonator explosion to have them read out daily. Within two minutes the foreman, Mr Swinton, and the one-handed senior security officer, Miss Cynthia Ellington, commonly known as Cyn, arrived.
But where was the other security officer? Beth wondered, for there should be two.
Both Swinton and Miss Ellington were pale and clearly also had hangovers. Well, thought Beth, why should they be any different to every other wedding guest? She wondered if Stan and his marrers were suffering as much as they were, but they were pitmen so should be used to it. Bob had barely drunk at all and she was glad, for otherwise he’d probably have fallen off the back of Tommy’s motorbike.
The girls were putting all metal items into their individual boxes and then checking one another. Miss Ellington began to pass amongst them. ‘Silk, nylon – anything likely to cause static?’
As always, Maisie groaned. ‘Silk? Chance’d be a fine thing.’
Sarah asked, ‘Where’s Mrs Raydon?’
Mr Swinton heard. ‘She’s been transferred to another section. We’re expecting someone from Head Office any minute. Some sort of investigator, ’tis said. Happens from time to time, when there’s been, well, when things have gone awry. He’s in this sector to begin with, but’ll move on to the others. He’s said to be thorough, so let’s be on our toes.’
‘Oh aye,’ whispered Fran to Beth. ‘As though we aren’t always.’
‘Indeed, Miss Hall.’ But Mr Swinton’s voice was quiet and friendly, which it had been since her da had been killed. He’d even spoken up when Mr Bolton had ordered Sarah and Fran to Scotland, saying to the deputy section manager that it wasn’t fair that these two should go so soon after their tragedy. But Bolton had pointed out that Fran and Sarah were by Swinton’s own admission his best girls, and that’s who had been requested from someone on high. He’d meant Head Office, where many tin gods lived, Miss Ellington muttered later.
At that moment the door opened and a man of about fifty, roughly Mr Swinton’s age, entered, his hands bunched in his white overall pockets. Mr Swinton clapped his hands. ‘I’ll read the rules good and quick, for ’tis already five forty-seven. The first is, we need to keep alert because yesterday was a grand time, but the wedding is over. Work, work and work safely, eh? Th
ose working with detonators, remember there will be, as always, no music from the tannoy, no talking, or singing. Elsewhere, yes, you may hum, talk quietly occasionally, but always concentrate.’
The man turned to Mr Swinton and said something. Mr Swinton flushed. ‘My lasses are extremely responsible, and there’s no need for that, thank you, Mr Gaines.’
Sarah nudged Fran, whispering, ‘No need for what?’
Mr Gaines heard and snapped, ‘Young woman, I don’t approve of workers arriving with headaches, hangovers or any such thing, for we work in danger, and I’m not having flibbertigibbets causing mayhem or worse.’
Mrs Oborne stepped forward. ‘And just who are you to say these things, Mr Gaines? Mr Swinton is in charge and there’s no one more demanding of safety procedures, or so I’ll have you know.’
There was a general shuffling of feet and Beth snatched a quick look round, thinking how extraordinary it was that a few months ago they’d have been cheering Gaines – anything to get back at Swinton for his wretched bossing, which, they had only lately realised, made them efficient and careful workers.
Mr Gaines did not reply, but looked around, his hands still deep in his pockets. The girls all jumped as he suddenly bellowed, ‘I am the investigative security officer, that’s who I am, and you need to remember your place, my good woman, as do all of you.’
He swivelled to look at Miss Ellington, the workers and then Mr Swinton, whose colour had risen. Gaines then glared at Mrs Oborne.
‘Oh dear, bad Mr Gaines,’ muttered Beth as Mrs Oborne took a step, her chin thrust out, but Mr Swinton and Miss Ellington also stepped forward, in tandem, their hands up, as though stopping a runaway carthorse. Well, thought Beth, they weren’t far wrong.
Miss Ellington began to speak over Mrs Oborne, but it was Mr Swinton whose roar stunned the room. ‘Thank you, Miss Ellington. Last time I looked this was my section, and it is for me to reply.’
