Wedding Bells on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  Fran squeezed her hand. ‘That’s better, a grand smile, in time for your song. Give it a good belt, my sweet lass. Bob might not be here, but neither is Davey. Look around and see who is – our friends, our people, our marrers, and out there are the pits, the smell of sulphur, the smouldering of the slag, the whistle of the winding gear. Aye, we’re here, where we belong, lass, so sing “Ten Cents a Dance” and make them cry, eh?’

  She and Sarah stepped back and to the side, going to stand with Sid, Norm and Stan, who wrapped his arms around Sarah, his wife, as Bob used to do with Beth. Aye, his wife.

  Viola was playing ‘Ten Cents a Dance’, and Beth sang the words, and thought that Bob might well not have ripped and torn her gown but …

  She swayed and sang with her eyes closed. She stepped forward, paused, breathed. But … he had indeed torn her apart. Viola’s saxophone was sweet and true while Beth hummed and danced as she had rehearsed. Stevie turned off half the lights as they had instructed. Then, in the gloom, Beth took back the stage, all the time thinking of her husband … And now her voice was growing in power, one she had not known she had. She stepped forward again. Would he also rent the nurse, too?

  Viola followed with her saxophone as Beth sang, swayed, singing low, then high, wondering all the time how she could go on living. Aye, that was complicated. But no you couldn’t pay enough to rent me Bob. There was Eddie Corbitt studying her intently. There was Josephine from the sewing shop, and Mrs Iris, Valerie from Sledgeford, and tears ran down their cheeks.

  But there were no tears from Beth, because she was a star, she was Bob Jones’s wife and she had to be tough and strong she told herself. Again the two of them stepped back, and to the side and to the front. Yes, she was a star and not a hostess for rent.

  Viola was beside her now and her saxophone was rasping, then soaring. Together they swayed and stepped, and Beth’s voice was so pure that no one moved, no one drank, as the two girls held the stage. On she sang. On played Viola, her saxophone glinting. Can you hear my thoughts Bob as I tell you I own myself? Beth conducted. They stopped together, panting.

  They stood still in the silence. For a moment no one moved. The two girls held hands. Mrs Oborne had her hand to her mouth as Fran and Sarah stepped forward, but it was Sid who came to wipe Beth’s tears. It was then that the applause burst across the room, and Cyn Ellington forced her way through to Beth and Viola. She hugged both of them and whispered, ‘You should sing when the war is over, you two, and Fran and Sarah too, just as you have done this evening. But if you sing that song again, our Beth, and you play for her, Viola, I’ll have to bang your heads together, for ’tis too haunting, too true, and so strong.’

  Now others were clamouring around them, but it was Fran leading them towards the queue at the bar. ‘I reckon a glass of water and then wine, eh, girls?’

  She held Beth close, saying into her hair, ‘I divint know what’s going on, but you were the queen tonight, and Viola the princess. It was grand. Sarah and I don’t know where to put ourselves, because we love you both so much. The lads have a table. You go and sit.’

  ‘No, you go,’ said Viola, ‘we’re too happy, so we’ll get the drinks and bring them over.’

  Beth and Viola looked at one another and the world steadied for Beth, because Bob weren’t going to set her aside like a rented, ten-cents-a-dance hostess. She’d not let him.

  Stevie was serving those in front, but saw them and called, ‘Let the stars through, and don’t you two dare sing and play like that again, for me tea towel’s wet and it’s not seemly for a man to have something in his eyes that makes ’em run.’

  Mr Gaines stood to one side, gesturing them past, saying, ‘That was very grand. Something to remember.’

  Viola finally reached the bar as Eddie Corbitt turned to them, a glass of wine in each hand. He thrust one at Beth, one at Viola. ‘Get it down you, lasses. You deserve it. Your Bob’ll be proud when he hears about tonight, Beth. And your da would have been right moved.’

  At that moment, right behind her, Beth heard Amelia Cartwright’s harsh whisper, felt the moist heat of her breath on her neck.

  ‘Well, Beth, fancy you throwing back the wine as you’re doing when you’re the one who ticked me off in this very pub and warned me the drink was giving me a loose tongue.’

  Beth swung round, keeping her voice equally low. ‘Ah, Amelia. Aye, I did, but it wasn’t good to be speaking about the fence and making clear where you were really working, was it? You could have got yourself in a lot of trouble, and who’s to say someone weren’t listening, for divint forget, there were an attempt to break in not long after.’

  Amelia flushed and raised her voice. ‘At least I didn’t stand on a stage and make a fool of myself, caterwauling to all and sundry. What’s happened to you, anyway?’

  Viola turned round and caught Beth’s hand, which was about to come up and slap Amelia. ‘Beth was good to you,’ she whispered, ‘and tried to keep you out of trouble. You and everyone in the pub knows it.’

  Amelia thrust her head forward. ‘You weren’t there, and besides, all I said back then was that the fence round the Factory was down. How was I to know someone would break in? It’s not as though they blew up the ruddy detonator block or anything. Besides, that was then, this is now.’

  ‘Just be quiet,’ Viola continued in a whisper. ‘You’ve done it again, you idiot.’

  ‘D’yer want this tray of drinks or not, girls?’ Stevie called. Then, more loudly, ‘Thanks everyone, nice lot of money in the jug, but room for more.’

  Mr Gaines nodded. ‘I’ll take the lasses’ drinks to the table, Stevie. Pop them on my bill, and a pound for the jug, if you will.’

  Stevie grinned and passed the tray over Eddie’s head to Gaines, who forced his way ahead of the girls. Beth followed, worried that Gaines had heard. How could he not? Would she and Amelia get the sack? Behind her, Beth felt a tug on her arm. It was Amelia.

  ‘Did Mr Gaines hear?’ The girl was pale, anxious.

  ‘I hope not,’ muttered Beth. ‘Besides, his report is in and he’s away from here tomorrow.’

  Leaning towards Beth, Amelia nodded. ‘Anyway, I’m administration and it’s absurd to link me in any way to the break-in, and I’ll thank you to remember that. What’s more I suggest you don’t even think of taking to the stage when all you’re suited for is the factory floor.’

  Amelia’s voice might have been low, but Viola heard. ‘You’re a horrid piece of work, Amelia.’

  Amelia stormed off, and Beth just shook her head, because of course Amelia was right; she was in administration, and Beth was on the factory floor. Was it any wonder Bob loved a nurse?

  She was cold again as they followed Mr Gaines through the swathes of people who were patting them on the back and calling, ‘Grand you were, lasses.’ ‘Divint know you had it in you, our Beth.’

  When they reached the fireside table, Stan offered round his Woodbines, while Mr Gaines deposited the drinks, moving off to talk to Cyn Ellington and Simon Parrot. Beth sipped her drink while the conversation ebbed and flowed around her, but nothing seemed real, not even when Stevie made his way over to them as the clock struck ten.

  ‘Any chance of an encore, girls? After which I’ll call time, and I’m right sorry Norris Suffolk were bothering you earlier. He’s banned because we don’t want to be tarred with his black-market brush. It were Josie that served him, knowing no better. Sorry to you, Sarah, most of all, since he sold your mam all that back-of-a-lorry booze.’

  He was sweating with embarrassment. Sarah just smiled. ‘Don’t be daft, he was no trouble. Besides, we’re big enough to give him a good bop on the nose if needed.’

  They made their way to the stage, and the clapping of the audience somehow stirred Beth, who straightened up, smiled, and then found the strength to whisper to Viola, ‘Is your hand all right to play, or will you just sing?’

  Viola eased her saxophone strap and patted the instrument. ‘All right for now, but if it hur
ts, I’ll sing. It’s like your song made me feel like I own myself, so ’tis up to me to decide what I do and what I allow others to do to me. That was so clever and strong, but so sad.’

  Beth let the words sink in. Clever? She wanted to believe it. They sang their encore songs, and as Viola played the introduction to the favourite “Blue Moon”, Beth felt Sarah’s arm slip around her waist.

  ‘Beth, bonny lass, we all think you’re not feeling yourself, pet.’

  Beth forced a smile. ‘That’s because I’m not – it’s you with your arm round my waist feeling me, daft girl.’

  ‘Probably exhausted with the relief of hearing from Bob, eh?’ murmured Sarah.

  They sang.

  The audience joined in, and Fran saw Amelia standing to one side and beckoned her to join in, along with Brenda and Rosie. Amelia shook her head and wove her way through the audience, taking her coat from the hook by the front door and slipping out.

  Sarah waved the other two girls to the stage, and they came. The five of them rolled straight into ‘The Very Thought of You’, and as the girls swayed to the saxophone, Beth sang it for Bob, and saw Fran’s face, and knew she was sending it to Davey. There was Sarah, reaching out to Stan and joining him on the floor, dancing. Sid leapt forward and grabbed Beth, and Norm took Fran’s hand for a dance, leaving Rosie and Brenda to sing on. Just the two of them, for Viola was dancing with Eddie Corbitt. Beth closed her eyes and let Sid hold her, for he was her friend, part of the gang. On they danced, and in that moment she felt safe, protected, and as though she couldn’t possibly fail tomorrow.

  Fran grabbed her and they were back on stage for ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket’, and on they sang through their encore repertoire, but they weren’t singing alone. No, the whole pub joined in, and Beth felt the comfort of it, of them, and couldn’t believe that Bob could not see the value of this world, no matter how many others he experienced. She knew then that her task was to make him see the privilege of being here, in Massingham, with her.

  Back in his bedroom at the Rising Sun, Gaines wrote an addendum on the copy of his report. He noted that he had witnessed Amelia Cartwright being indiscreet when she’d had a drink or two, as well as deeply unpleasant. He noted down her exact words and advised a warning, or dismissal. One copy of the report, an updated one, would be left with the Factory. Another, also updated, he would deliver to Plomer at Head Office. A third would be delivered to Professor Smythe, for whom he also worked, though no one had any inkling of that.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sunday, 15 March

  Well before dawn, Beth rose, dressed and counted her share of the money earned last night. It should be sufficient. She crept from her bedroom – their bedroom – into the kitchen, where the range was only slightly warm, but to riddle the ash would alert her mam. She crept out in the dark to the netty, then back to the scullery to wash. She cut a few slices of bread, spreading a thin layer of dripping on each, filled a bottle with water, and put them all in her bag. She wasn’t going to work today, for it was Sunday and they weren’t often required. Even if they had been, she had something else to do. Something more important.

  There were very few miners clomping along the lane as she crept from the house into the yard. Those that were would probably be the maintenance crew. She squeezed her bike’s tyres. Yes, full enough. She placed her bag in the handlebar basket. Gently, she lifted the sneck, pulled the gate open and slipped through. The wind slammed it shut. She froze, listening. No, nothing. Her mam slept on.

  Her woollen hat pulled well down over her head, she rode towards Main Street, her lamp giving a slit of light on the cobbles. Bob’s letter, her husband’s letter, was in her bag. She had not telegraphed him, it would be a surprise, and if his landlady said he wasn’t in she would wait. Before she arrived, she would go into the lavatory on the train and put on the little bit of rouge she had left; she would also mark seam lines down her calves with her eyebrow pencil. She had a vestige of lippy, dry and cracked, but better than nothing. She would beg, plead, show him how much she loved him.

  She cycled over the cobbles, clenching her jaw as the jogging splintered her headache into jagged bits. She reached Main Street, and wondered how Mrs Bedley, Sarah’s mam, could have woken with a hangover every day when she’d been in her lost state. She turned right along Main Street, unsure what time the train really went, but Stevie Pertwee had said there was one about six thirty. It was only five now, maybe a little later, but she wanted to get there just in case Stevie was wrong and the train came earlier.

  Did she have to change trains? She didn’t know, but would ask when she bought her ticket. On she cycled, passing the bus stop. She’d be back for the bus tomorrow, happy because Bob would have held her, said he’d been daft, that seeing her was all he needed and it wasn’t complicated after all. Suddenly she was sobbing, her nose running. She had read books but never known what it meant to be blinded by tears. She squeezed the brakes and juddered to a stop, her hand to her mouth. ‘Shut up. Be quiet,’ she whispered, her voice hoarse, her throat sore. ‘I said no tears. It must be all right, for I canna be alone, I canna have me Bob not wanting me. I canna—’

  She heard boots on the road, someone was running, a man’s shout: ‘Beth, bonny lass. Oh, bliddy hell, Beth, what’s amiss, pet?’

  She gulped, rubbing her face with her hands, then pulling her hat further down, gripping the handlebars and finding the pedals, for she must escape. But it was Sid, still shouting, and now he was gripping her arm, stopping her and the bike.

  ‘Lass? What’s amiss?’

  ‘Leave me be, it’s just the bliddy coal dust in my eyes, Sid. Let me alone.’ The sky was lightening, dawn threatening, so it must be past five, nearer five thirty or later, and she must get to the station. She must go and she mustn’t look at him, or he’d see what she had hidden all last evening and throughout the long night in bed, alone, trying not to allow the tears. But they had come, here on the road, and she felt so sick, so scared, and now she felt her throat thickening, her eyes filling again.

  She mustn’t. No. Sid’s arm was round her now. She pressed her lips together, swallowed, cleared her throat and forced a sort of laugh. ‘Leave me alone, Sid. I have to go.’

  Sid, his cap slipped to the left as always, ignored her. He held her more firmly. She wrenched free and shouted, ‘I can’t miss the train.’

  He still stood firm. ‘Stop being such a bliddy fool and tell me, for you’re going nowhere like this. What train? Why the tears? Why the “Ten Cents a Dance” with its awful sadness, so …’ He stopped, but still didn’t release her. ‘It’s Bob, isn’t it? Is he hurt? Why didn’t you tell us? We’re yer marrers. I’ll get me bike. You’re not going nowhere alone.’ He stopped. ‘Where is he, anyway?’

  ‘I’ll miss me train,’ she whispered. ‘I have to tell him he can’t …’

  Sid stepped in front of her now, his hands covering hers, his legs either side of the wheel. A pitman was hurrying past, his bait tin rattling. ‘’Ow do,’ he called.

  The pithead gear was singing. Above, a crow cawed.

  Beth stared after it. Sid had said she mustn’t go alone. He cared, they all cared, but the girls were happy, and Viola were in pain with her hand. Ralph was right poorly and there was the rota, so she mustn’t heap more on anyone. Sid leaned forward now, so close she could feel his breath on her face.

  He whispered, ‘Bob’s not hurt, is he.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘But he’s hurt you. What’s he done? Tell me, for I’ll not let you go, bonny lass, till you do, whether you miss your train or not. Then I’ll come with you.’

  They stared at one another, and she hadn’t realised that his eyes were so kind and his lashes were so long they should be a girl’s.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t reckon it’ll help to have a lad along when I talk to him. You see, he thinks he doesn’t love me. He thinks he wants a divorce because war is complicated … He says war shows you different worlds, different people. I reckon he’s seen
and liked clever people – nurses who made him better. He’s found a special one.’

  She stopped, her voice breaking. ‘I ’spect what he means is his world divint just have to be factory girls with yellow skin, rashes and streaky hair.’ She could hear her voice; it was like a thin, torn proggy length. It didn’t sound like hers at all. ‘But the war won’t last for ever,’ she went on. ‘I could get another job, be more interesting. I worked in an office before the war, but he’s probably forgotten—’

  Suddenly, Sid let her go and stood to one side. ‘You haven’t told yer marrers?’

  ‘They’re happy making plans for the wedding, they have their men. There’s the worry about Ralph, and about Sandra. Viola’s hand won’t heal. Best to leave them be.’

  Sid tapped her on the arm. ‘You’re right, you don’t need me. You best get going, lass. Off you go now and may your God go with you. Be safe.’

  He had already begun to run, and she looked after him. Aye, even Sid had things to do in his own world, like the rest of the gang. Well, even if she were just a factory girl, she could still cycle, still catch the train, still try. She set off again, hearing Sid’s footsteps fading, and felt even more alone.

  Fran was riddling the grate and chatting to her mam about the feel of the silk on her body and Mrs Oborne saying it’d be such a beggar to sew that she was going to tack it with good, close stiches to hold it in place, else it would slip when it was machined. Fran felt tired and had wanted to sleep in, but her body couldn’t forget the habit of early mornings any more than her mam’s could. She muttered, ‘By, I’ll be glad when I’m back to office work when this bliddy war is done.’

  Annie Hall laughed. ‘I reckon you and your Davey’ll have a brood by then, and that’ll put paid to lie-ins till they leave home, if they ever do. And divint forget, you’ll be working on his crossword magazine, or maybe he, Ben and William will work together.’