Wedding Bells on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  It was a whisper. Her throat was too tight for anything else. And she wouldn’t read his words, his complicated, stupid bliddy words. Of course, she wouldn’t.

  She rose, walked to the window, looking at the darkening March evening. No one used the front road of the terraces unless they were the postman or had cars, and no one had cars. Or rather, few had cars. Yes, just a few, like the Massinghams, who were married, so they shared a car. Married people shared with one another. Aye, they did. She rested her head against the cool glass. Made herself breathe in for four, out for four, as Mr Hall had told them all. She recited the two times table, as Sarah had taught those caught under the rubble in Scotland.

  ‘See, that’s what is complicated. I don’t want to read what your sort of complicated is, Bob Jones. You have a nurse, and I’m just a factory girl – is that your “complicated”?’

  She looked down at the letter in her hand, stared at the royal blue ink – not the words, just the colour – scrunched it up and threw it across the bed, their bed, until it hit the wall and bounced back to lie on the rug. She stared at it, then out of the window, breathing, reciting the three times table now, but still her throat was tight, and though her words floated on the top of her mind, beneath it was numb.

  But then she turned again and walked across the threadbare rug to the ball of paper. She opened it up. Had the evening become so much darker in just a few minutes? Because she couldn’t see even the colour, and it couldn’t just be because her eyes were full of unshed tears. She blinked. Her eyes cleared as the tears ran down her face, off her chin and onto the paper. Smudging the ink like she had thought the seawater might. She had to read on. She could be wrong. Aye, that was it. She was wrong.

  You see, bonny lass, it’s like when you left Stan for me. You see, I am leaving you for someone. I wrote, so you’ll understand. You can see how Stan picked himself up, and with your marrers you can do the same. By, lass, it doesn’t mean I didn’t love you once, it just means my world is bigger now, with more people to choose from, different sorts, interesting sorts, and it’s here I’ve found love. Nowt wrong with you, lass, it’s me that’s changed.

  Don’t you go fretting about what to do with any of my things I might have left at your mam’s. You keep them, or sell them for what little they’re worth. I’ll be here for a while, ashore, refitting, but I don’t need them.

  ‘Oh, aye, that means I chuck away that wedding photo on the mantelpiece, does it? Or I can keep that for meself, can I, Bob Jones? All to myself to look at, and it’ll keep me warm of a night?’

  She slumped onto the bed, aware that she was shaking her head. He’d gone into the wide world and seen her and Massingham for what they were – shabby, sad, stupid – worth nothing more than a letter in royal blue ink. For she wasn’t a nurse, different, interesting.

  The light was fading, and she realised he hadn’t even signed it. The letter lay on her lap and she stared at nothing. And thought of nothing. She made herself breathe, concentrating only on that, for she had a concert tonight. Her throat must open enough to sing. She must stand upright. She must smile. For it’s what Fran would do, and Sarah, and Viola. She straightened, but the effort was fit to break her in half.

  Her mam knocked on the door, then opened it. ‘Just look at you, sitting in the gloom, dreaming. Draw the blackout and put the light on, lass, for you’ve to change into your smart clothes. That frock you wore last time, eh? Or would have worn if Miss fancy-pants Amelia hadn’t butted in and taken your booking.’

  Be quiet, Mam, she wanted to scream. Just be quiet, for I am trying to breathe. Her mam pulled the curtains and put the light on. ‘There you go. Smarten yourself up, even though you’ll be on cloud nine now you’ve heard from him. Quick, quick, for you’ll want to eat.’ She closed the door.

  In the light Beth breathed in for four, out for four. Again and again. She saw then that there was a PTO in the bottom right-hand corner. She turned over the paper.

  I know it seems cruel, abrupt, but I tried to warn you at Sarah’s wedding, though for a moment I were conflicted. I was there, with you, the smell of the pit, the familiar faces, and I tried to pretend, to make the pretence real. But it weren’t enough, for I didn’t fit no more. So, bonny lass, I need that we divorce. ’Tis the right thing to do, you know, bring it to a tidy end. And you see, I want to marry me nurse. Write to me at this address, me digs, it is. Let me know you are all right, and will sign the papers when I sort out what’s needed by the court.

  Bob

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The girls’ cycle lamps were mere slits, the moon bright enough to remind them of the road to Minton, but not bright enough for them to see one another. Beth hadn’t eaten her meal, which she had put in the bin when her mam wasn’t looking. She felt bad about the bacon, and had slipped it back into the remains of the pie. Beth had drunk her tea, though, for it was warm and she was so cold. Deep down cold, and she’d shivered. Her mam had seen and brought down her own best cardigan. ‘Put this on under your mac, pet. Spring evenings are a mite chilly.’

  Beth had wanted to lean her head on her mother’s shoulder and feel her strong arms come around her while she wept. ‘Hush, pet, my wee one,’ her mam’d say. ‘I’ll go and see him, sort it out for you. You leave it to your mam, or if your da was alive he’d go and see him. Daft beggar. I’ll send that nurse on her way. Who does she think she is?’

  As the owl hooted, Beth lifted her head to the moon. Aye, that’s what her mam would say. But Beth had said nothing to her mam, for she had to sing for her money, and would use it to go to Grimsby first thing and see him at his digs. Why else had he written his address? He would just send the papers, so it meant he wanted her to come. She’d show him that her love was big enough for his world, and that she was a singer as well as a factory girl, and could be as complicated as he liked. Of course she could.

  As she cycled she thought of the co-op, who always said, ‘Once you have a plan, everything’s better.’

  ‘Well, it bliddy isn’t,’ she whispered as they cycled round the bend.

  Fran laughed. ‘Isn’t what?’

  Beth shook her head. ‘Never mind. Let’s go through the songs, eh?’

  They did, and were word-perfect. Stan, Sid and Norm brought up the rear, clapping, cycling along ‘no hands’. The girls laughed, Beth too, or so she pretended. Bob was interested in pretending. For a moment the bitterness almost choked her. She sensed Fran drawing alongside, and then Viola, and they cycled three abreast while Sarah slipped back and rode with Stan. For once, Norm and Sid were not smoking, for their Woodbines had burned through so fast in the night air that they ceased to bother.

  When a van tooted behind them, they slipped into single file so that it could pass, and Beth thought of Mrs Bedley, whom she had helped to stop drinking while Sarah and Fran were in Scotland. Remembrance of Mrs Bedley’s battle forced her to breathe more easily, for a moment, for surely that mammoth effort cancelled out her hurting Stan, for that’s where her mind had been taking her. She had left Stan for Bob, she had hurt the lad, but as Bob said, Stan was happy. So, she could tell Bob that she didn’t deserve to be dropped in her turn. Would it help? She doubted it, but she must try.

  She bowed her head, hearing the swish of their bike tyres, just as she had heard it over the years as they’d cycled here, there and everywhere. Who in the whole of England was better than these people? ‘Who?’ she said aloud. ‘Not a nurse who’s a stranger.’

  Fran and Viola dropped back to cycle with her again and Viola asked, ‘Who? What? Where?’

  Beth didn’t know what she was talking about and just shook her head, for she was reciting her times tables silently. She laughed aloud, but it sounded harsh, even to her. So far, she hadn’t been under rubble, but if it happened it would be a relief. She could die then. Fran looked at her and muttered, ‘Nerves, we’re all feeling them.’

  Beth was glad no one had heard that she’d had a letter, not yet. It was only the neighbour who knew. But
news would carry on the wind, she was sure. Not tonight, though. Please, not tonight.

  Viola started singing ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.’ They all joined in, even the lads, and Viola’s saxophone, perched in her basket, was rattling so loudly in its case, that she reached forward and patted it.

  They moved on to ‘All or Nothing At All’, panting as they pushed harder on the pedals. On they sang through their repertoire, and finally came to ‘Ten Cents a Dance’. Beth let the others sing, hardly able to listen when they reached ‘sailors … can pay for their tickets, and rent me.’

  Are you listening in your digs, bonny lad? she thought. Is that what you did, paid for a ticket and rented me? You might just as well have been those rough guys in the lyrics who ‘tear my gown’. But not my gown, just my bliddy heart.

  Finally, they rode into Minton, in good time for their eight o’clock start.

  They scrambled from their bicycles, propped them up against the rear wall, and felt their way in the darkness to the rear entrance and through the outer door. Stan led the way, knowing where the sneck on the bar door was, as Sid muttered, ‘Fiddling about, he was, when the snow were on the ground and it were cold enough to freeze the whatnots off brass monkeys.’ He called over the girls’ heads, ‘Aye, howay, lad, remember ’tis high up, for the love of Mike.’

  Stan had already found it. ‘Hush yerself, you daft ha’p’orth.’

  They laughed as they half fell into the bar, and no one noticed that every sound Beth made was false.

  The bar was already full to bursting, and there were Mr and Mrs Oborne, waving madly at them, and Mildred, Stevie’s missus, pointing to glasses of elderberry wine set out on a tray, waiting for the girls. The air was full of smoke from the fireplace, the clay pipes and cigarettes. There was the scent of beer, a drink that Beth’s da had told her, when she was a bitty bairn, burned out tonsils. Stevie was pulling pints, though only of the regular kind, not the special brew.

  Fran led the way to him. ‘Are we all right for the special on April second, Stevie?’

  Stevie shrugged, his tea towel over his shoulder. ‘What’s important about the second?’

  As the chorus of protests rose, he conducted it, grinning. ‘Ah, that’d be the wedding then, eh? Would I let you and Davey down, lass? ’Tis all ready. Mr Massingham paid the bill. And no, Ralph’s not recovered consciousness, but Mr Massingham was just making good on the lad’s promise.’

  Stevie nodded at Beth. ‘It’s a shame you and Bob were wed before Ralph changed his spots, eh, Beth.’

  Beth nodded. Viola was making her way to the ‘stage’ in the corner, and lifting her saxophone from the case. Stan passed the wine to the girls, and tankards of beer to Sid and Norm. Norm put up a hand, surveyed the room, and looked at Sid.

  ‘Three, two, one,’ Sid muttered. He and Norm put their fingers in their mouths, and their combined whistles silenced the room. Sid grinned. ‘The girls are here and will sing in ten minutes, so hush your noise when you see them reach that corner, eh?’

  ‘You hush your own noise, young Sid,’ shouted Tilly Oborne. ‘Course we will, or I’ll want to know the reason why.’

  ‘Oy, oy,’ Stevie said, wiping the bar. ‘I’ll have no fisticuffs in here, our Tilly, you hear?’

  Beth heard it all, and somehow it was as if she was clinging to all these friends, all these voices, to the taste of the elderberry wine. All these fragments of memories. Aye, Bob, this is my shabby world, and once it were good enough for you, she thought. There was a draught as the door opened, and Stevie forced a smile as a quietness descended.

  ‘Howay there, Mr Gaines. Just in time for the show. Did you manage to make your phone call?’

  Fran stepped forward into the quietness, for Mr Gaines had come good, eventually.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink, Mr Gaines, to thank you for telling us that the Factory was one of the best you’d ever investigated. A factory that makes domestic utensils, I might add.’ There was a general rustling of interest amongst the drinkers.

  Sarah and Beth dug into their pockets and brought out coins. ‘Make that the three of us buying you a drink,’ Sarah said.

  But then Mr Swinton rose from the settle at the back. ‘Howay, it’s my turn. I reckon I owe you a thank-you, too, Mr Gaines.’ He drew close and in an undertone said, ‘Mr Bolton had a quiet word with me and I’m much obliged for your kind remarks on me training and running of the sector.’ He was holding out his hand, and Gaines shook it, the two men smiling at one another.

  Miss Ellington, who had been chatting quietly to Simon Parrot by the fireplace, came across. ‘Much as I like this bonhomie, you should be on, lasses.’ She pointed to the clock. ‘And I’d like you to sing “My Baby Just Cares for Me”.’

  ‘Oh, would you indeed?’ called Stevie.

  Mildred flicked him with her tea towel and said, ‘Mind your own business, you meddlesome old fool.’

  Stevie grinned, his gold tooth glinting. Fran stared. Glinting just like—She stopped the thought. No, she’d faced up to the glint of the kirby grip. This thought no longer belonged in her head.

  Stevie raised his voice over the quietening drinkers. ‘Note, if you will, the jug on the counter for the widows, the injured and all what …’

  The girls made their way to the ‘stage’. The wine hadn’t touched Beth’s core. The three of them stood together, with Viola off to the left. Above the clapping they heard Tilly Oborne boom, as only she could, ‘“Blue Moon” would be grand, lasses.’

  Fran laughed. ‘You’ll have what you’re given, Mrs Oborne.’

  Sarah nudged Beth, who forced a laugh, for these were her people, her marrers, but the floor wasn’t firm, the air seemed to whirl. She shivered. Sarah’s arm slid around her.

  ‘Makes you nervous, doesn’t it, bonny lass? But they’re our friends, our world, and they just want to listen. Howay, maybe your Bob’ll be here next time, and in two weeks it’s Fran’s wedding, and he’ll no doubt stay longer than just a few hours. You just think on that.’

  Fran was tapping her foot to the saxophone introduction of ‘Putting on the Ritz’, and then they were into the song, and Beth knew the words, knew the steps they had decided to include and the smile that must match the smiles of the others.

  As the song ended, a man brought over more glasses of elderberry wine on a tray for them. She thought she knew him. Viola played the first few bars of ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’. Beth took a glass. Sarah nudged her and frowned, whispering, ‘No, not from that beggar Norris Suffolk. Don’t you remember, he sold me mam the drink night after night, racking up a load of interest.’

  Beth stared at the wine, then at Norris, the black marketeer. He winked at them. Beth replaced the glass on the tray.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I helped Mrs Bedley to stop drinking your stuff. Stan saw you off. I came out with the rolling pin to whack you, but I wasn’t needed.’

  He shrugged and walked away. There, Bob, she thought. I’ve helped see him off twice now, so I’ll see off the nurse, you see if I don’t. She stood straighter as Sarah whispered, ‘I’m surprised Stevie’s let him in.’

  Her words were as wispy as the wind and floated up and away. They sang ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’, then straight into ‘Blue Moon’ to cheers from Mrs Oborne, and this time it was Norm who brought wine, which they took and sipped during Viola’s saxophone solo. Beth looked out at the audience, not at her friends, for they mustn’t see her face, not really see it. She sipped, felt her body loosening, and it didn’t matter that it seemed a cloud of lights was whirling around her head.

  They clapped Viola; Beth gulped her wine. They sang ‘Embraceable You’ and she moved with the three girls, for now Viola was singing too, and they kept on the notes even though there was no instrument to help them. They sang on and on, and the room was getting warmer. Sweat trickled down Beth’s back, but inside she was still so cold.

  As they sang ‘Night and Day’ she saw Norris being shown the door, and Valerie passing hi
m on her way in. Valerie waved. Another tray of drinks arrived, this time from Amelia. How odd. Beth was swaying to the music, but smiled her thanks, though Sarah shook her head, so Beth took hers, too, and put it behind her on the table that stood to one side.

  Fran said, ‘We’ll need water, it’s so bliddy hot.’

  Beth nodded. ‘So hot … too hot to breathe. Yes, breathing is hard, but we have to try, or we’ll die. We shouldn’t die, should we?’

  Fran eased herself to Beth’s side. ‘Howay, sweet lass,’ she murmured. ‘What’s to do?’

  Beth felt Fran’s arm around her shoulders now, and her head lying against hers as Sarah sang ‘Love is the Sweetest Thing’. She wanted to tell Fran, wonderful Fran, that love wasn’t sweet, it cut and sliced into every part of you till all you could do was keep breathing. But why? ‘Why breathe?’

  Fran tightened her grip. ‘Beth, what’s happened? We breathe to live.’

  Beth sighed. Fran, upright, strong, about to be married to her Davey, so in love, so happy. Who was Beth to complicate it? Aye, complicate. She shook her head. ‘I miss Bob summat terrible sometimes, that’s all. Daft.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Fran, ‘do our steps, eh? One step forward, one to the side and one back, and just think, you’ll see your sailor soon, eh. You’ve had a letter, we’ve just heard from Mrs Oborne. No need of telephones while the co-op has ears like bats. That’s so wonderful, but no wonder it’s made the missing worse – for tonight.’

  Beth reached back for the wine that Sarah didn’t want and drank it. It was sour, warm, but she was so thirsty, and her head were banging fit to burst. She looked at her friends, who were her strength, especially Fran. ‘Aye, but I will see him soon. And you will be married and we’ll be the three married girls, eh.’

  To the soaring sound of the saxophone, they started to sing ‘Blue Moon’ again as people had asked. She’d be paid tonight, and tomorrow she’d catch a train to Grimsby. Once he saw her, he’d know she was enough, because she could sing, she could dance, and she had made him happy before, so she would again.