Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

  ‘No, back to Sowerthwaite for me too for a couple of hours. I’d like to see the old HQ for one last time. Don’t know when I’ll be back again.’

  Everyone made such a fuss of him at the Brooklyn, plying him with buns and tea as if he was still one of the evacuees, asking about his square bashing and his new life.

  Greg was like a stranger. He’d grown inches, his voice was gruff and his hair Brylcreemed. He’d grown up and away from them in the last few months. It was if a barrier had come down, separating them from each other. Maddy felt awkward and silly in her uniform. Greg was about to start a whole new adventure without her. Like Gloria he was disappearing from her life and she might never see him again. For the first time she wished she was pretty and grown up. She flushed at the thought of the peck on her cheek, given just to shock her silly school friends. That’s all you got when you were fourteen, a peck on the cheek and a pat on the bottom from Old Uncle Algie. Kay was right. Who’d look twice at a cross-eyed freak?

  Part Two

  11

  Leeds, 1945

  Maddy sat up in bed and felt around the bandages, wondering when they’d come off and she could see the result of Mr Felstein’s effort to straighten her left eye. It was strange sitting in darkness without the usual country noises off in the distance: lambs bleating, dogs barking and the rustle of leaves in the trees. All she could hear was Leeds traffic, mill hooters, the rattle of vehicles in the street below and that hospital smell.

  They’d put off this operation for so long. Not that she thought it would do any good, and whatever the result she might still have to wear glasses, but the worst was over now.

  What a strange summer it had been since D-day and the excitement that the war might be over by Christmas–but it wasn’t to be.

  One more year at school and then she’d be let loose on the world as a grown up. Grandma was already talking about some cookery course in the Cotswolds. Aunt Plum suggested a secretarial course, but Maddy wasn’t in any hurry to decide. Everything was topsy-turvy now. She was waiting for the war to end and for life to start again.

  There were only a few evacuees left in the hostel and she was too old to climb trees and do mischief with them, and since Gloria had disappeared and Greg joined up it wasn’t the same. She spent her weekends hacking over the tops with Monty, helping out in the garden and trying to cheer up Grandma when she was in one of her ‘slumps’.

  Now she was the only one again in that rambling house. Uncle Algie had passed away suddenly. Aunt Julia was in a proper nursing home and her entourage dispersed other relatives. Uncle Gerald was still abroad and Grandma was busy ruling the roost so that all the old guests were leaving.

  Their war had been an easy one compared to most–no bombs or devastation–but she still couldn’t believe she’d never see Mummy and Daddy again, or Gran Mills and Uncle George. Sometimes it felt as if The Feathers and her life in Chadley had never existed, that it was all some dream. Only the smell of fish and chips brought it back and made her feel sick.

  Aunt Plum was kindness itself, but inside Maddy was feeling strange stirrings of confusion now that she had messy periods. She didn’t want to wear suspenders and stockings or put on a brassiere like the other girls. There was still nothing to fill it with, as the girls at school constantly reminded her. She’d grown so tall and gawky. Ballet had given her some grace to stand up straight but she was inches above the other girls at the bar re.

  Then there were the spots that kept popping up on her cheeks and her chin. Her dark hair was growing lank and greasy and she felt silly in plaits, but even sillier when Plum showed her how to pad it out into a Victory Roll.

  Gloria was the one who had breasts and curls and a waspie waist. According to her letters she could jitterbug better than anyone else in her new job. It was such a relief when letters appeared at the Brooklyn from her friend. Gloria said things were fine and dandy and they were going to go to Hollywood once Mick Delgado was out of the army, but she was vague about her new job, her mother and poor Sid, who wasn’t settling down back in the town and kept running away. She felt so sorry for them all.

  There’d been one funny letter from Greg telling her about square bashing and being stuck in a hut, being put on a charge for being late and how they’d put him in the cookhouse even though he was a first-class mechanic. Poor Greg sounded fed up. Now he was somewhere in France, moving eastwards.

  There was a flurry of nurses coming down the corridor, the squeak of brogues that announced the arrival of the eye surgeon on his morning rounds. Today was the day!

  They fussed around her bed.

  ‘Can you see him coming?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t be impatient. Mr Felstein will come to you in due course,’ snapped Sister.

  But Maddy was impatient. She’d been waiting so long to see if someone would straighten out her eye for good. She did so want to be like everyone else in school, not an object of pitying looks. She was sick of being called ‘sken eyed’ or ‘speccy four eyes’ by Kay Brocklehurst, but they’d laid off her a bit since Greg’s stunt with the sports car and the public kiss. It had been an agony to be pointed at and there wasn’t a name she hadn’t called herself when she dared to look in the mirror.

  It seemed like hours before the surgeon breezed in.

  ‘Well, young lady, let me see my beautiful handiwork,’ he laughed. ‘Let’s get those dressings off…’

  ‘And then can I go home?’ she pleaded, but the surgeon laughed again.

  ‘Not so fast. I want to make sure there’s no movement. You’ll have to stay still a little longer to let things settle.’ Fingers were loosening and lifting, easing off the dressing.

  Maddy opened her eyes to a blur of light, feeling the pressure off her brow as she stared at the little man in the white coat.

  ‘Will I do?’ she whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

  ‘Let me see…look this way…to my light…the other way to the wall. Hmm! That’s better, Madeleine…much better. Everything’s realigned nicely.’

  She sank back into the pillow, hardly daring to move in case it all went wrong again.

  ‘We must exercise the muscle but I want you still a little while longer. Be patient,’ the doctor smiled, seeing her lips pout with frustration.

  She was bored with sitting still but one more day or two was better than doing it all again if it would make her normal. Aunt Plum would come on the train to visit her and Gloria knew where she was.

  ‘There may be a slight shift, a little glide, but nothing like the last time, I promise.’ With that he flounced out of the room to the next patient.

  She was dying to find a mirror to look at his handiwork and see if the miracle was true–that there would be no more turn in her eye.

  When her visitors arrived, for them it would be like looking at a whole person–they’d see the real Maddy Belfield at long last. She couldn’t wait to see their faces. She stared at her wristwatch with despair, noting that it was hours before visiting time.

  Gloria was determined to catch a bus into town to see her friend in the Eye Hospital when she finished her shift. Putting on her best skirt and blouse, borrowing her mother’s duster coat with the swing back panel and a pair of real nylon stockings that she had to roll over at the top because her legs were still short, she primped in the mirror fixing her hair into a bang over her forehead.

  There was no way she wanted Maddy to see her looking like a mill girl, with fluff in her hair and overalls. Nor did she want her to know they were living back to back in Hunslet up a steep hill that was a buggar to push her baby brother up in his go-chair.

  She tried not to think of Brooklyn days, the green hills and gentle life they’d lived before Mam tricked them back with her lies.

  The nearest they’d got to Hollywood so far was seeing Danny Kaye at the Rialto.

  Every waking hour she hated living here, and Sid had run off twice as far as Skipton to be with his friend Alan. It wasn’t fair, and now she would see Maddy
and her old life would come flooding back.

  It was all right lying in letters. She missed Maddy. They’d had such good times and no chance to say a proper goodbye. She didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her. One minute she’d been racing round Brooklyn on Maddy’s bicycle, the next back on a train, with her mother promising them the earth and being as nice as pie. But it was all lies. She’d felt such a fool to have trusted her mother but with no money, no proper clothes, there was nothing she could do to get back.

  How could she have believed all that guff about America? This was like living in Elijah Street, only worse somehow, because now she knew there was another world outside these mean streets.

  Little Mikey was real enough, but the Yank had done a disappearing trick once he found out Marge had two more kids in tow. His letters just dried up with his money cheque, and Marge had stopped pretending she’d be a GI bride.

  Mother was working in a garment factory piecing up clothes while Mikey was in a day nursery. Sid was put in school and Gloria’d been given a job slopping out in a woollen mill canteen. Sometimes she felt so angry inside she thought she would burst.

  Mam just wanted her wage packet and a free babysitter for Mikey, and half the street seemed to think she’d sit for their kids too. If only she could tell her friend Maddy the truth–but she’d told too many lies in her letters about her wonderful life in Leeds. Better to lie than to be pitied.

  She walked into town to save the bus fare and in her pocket was a pair of real nylons as a present for her friend, nicked from her mother’s dressing-table drawer. They were payment for all the hours she’d sat amusing her brothers.

  As she walked over the bridge, making for the Headrow, the wind beating her face, she smiled, thinking about the tree house HQ in the Victory Tree. Those hikes into the Dales with Greg and the gang carrying her on piggyback, trying to jog on Monty’s back, the parties at Brooklyn Hall and the good times with Mrs Plum. It was all in another world. Coming to Hunslet was hate at first sight.

  Sowerthwaite was another life all together, a softer way of living, where people were polite and spoke in gentle tones and wore smart, freshly ironed clothes, sipping their drinks, not ramming them down their throats. They ate with forks and knives, not picking chips with greasy fingers and slurping tea. Even their swear words were easy on the ear.

  If only she’d not been so gullible last year as to believe her mam’s promises, but they’d been too young to say no to a grown-up. It was obvious that everyone was glad to see the back of another vaccy family, off the books and out of their hair. She knew now that Conleys were common and looked down upon for being townies. When she’d tried to be ladylike at the table, remembering the manners she’d learned from the Belfields, Mam just laughed at her and told her not to be so lah-di-dah.

  The Hollywood ruse was just the Yank’s excuse to get Mam’s pants on the floor. They’d all heard the joke about ‘Utility knickers: one Yank and they were off!’ Now there was yet another child to feed and Gloria felt trapped. Going to the pictures twice a week was no substitute for country life, and the food shortages meant queuing for everything they once took for granted in the country.

  There was a queue waiting for visiting hours at the hospital. She’d left a note on the table telling Sid to go next door till Mam came home. There’d be a row when she got back and there was no tea on the table, but this time she was doing something for herself and it felt good. Mam could look after her own kids for once.

  The bell rang and she walked down the corridor, wondering if Maddy would recognise her all grown up. She opened the door of the private room slowly and there was a roar of pleasure that made up for everything.

  ‘Gloria! Gloria! You came…you look so glam!’ Maddy’s arms reached out to her. ‘Sit down, sit down…I’m so glad you came.’

  ‘Try and stop me…Wow, you look so different. Your eye is straight!’ she peered at Maddy’s grey eyes, which were blinking with excitement. She’d never noticed how thick those lashes were and how long, as they were usually hidden behind thick glasses. Maddy was sitting in striped pyjamas, with bunches either side of her head like a schoolgirl. ‘How are things back home?’ Gloria asked.

  ‘Just the same. Plum and Grandma are at each other’s throats. Uncle Gerald’s in Germany now. Isn’t it exciting–the war will soon be over!’

  ‘Have you heard from Greg Byrne?’

  ‘Auntie P got a letter. He’s somewhere in Europe, fixing lorries, I expect. You know what he’s like if there’s any wheels to fix. I can’t imagine him in uniform taking orders.’

  ‘I can. He’d look good, don’t you think? Have you got a boyfriend?’

  Maddy blushed. ‘I’m still stuck in a girls’ school–where on earth would I meet a boy worth talking to?’

  ‘I’ve had three since I came back, but they’re not up to much. But I’ve had my first kiss and fumble,’ Gloria lied, wanting to seem sophisticated and experienced.

  ‘Gloria Conley!’ Maddy whispered. ‘You’re far too young for boys.’

  ‘You’re never too young to get experience but I don’t want to end up like my mam. I want to choose a good one who’ll take care of me good and proper.’

  ‘How’s your job?’ Maddy changed the subject.

  ‘Which one, serving in the canteen or baby-sitting all hours down the street? I should open a nursery,’ Gloria smiled, trying to make a joke of it all. But when she saw Maddy looking so young and carefree, she just crumpled with the unfairness of it all.

  ‘You always were good with kiddies, not like me,’ said Maddy, trying to be kind.

  ‘When do you leave school then?’ Gloria said, composing herself.

  ‘Next year, all being well,’ came the reply. No dirty canteens for Miss Belfield, she thought. Maddy didn’t have a clue about real life.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Secretarial college, I hope. I’m not going to finishing school.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘No, in Leeds. I don’t want to go far away from home.’

  But I’d love to be a million miles away from mine, thought Gloria, though she said nothing. ‘Goody, we can be pals again here if I can stick it out long enough…It’s horrible!’ To her embarrassment Gloria found herself weeping real tears onto the bed clothes.

  ‘What on earth’s upset you? Is it something I said?’ said Maddy holding her hand.

  ‘I hate it here. After the Brooklyn…why did it have to all change? It was the best thing living there. I miss it so much. I’ll never forget what you did.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get upset. You could always come back, you know,’ Maddy suggested.

  ‘And stay with you?’

  ‘Well, no, but I’m sure Aunt Plum could find you a job. There are loads of ladies who might need a mother’s help or something,’ she offered.

  ‘Do you think so? I’d never thought of that.’ Gloria felt a surge of hope.

  ‘Stay where you are, get a good reference and I’ll ask Aunt Plum if she can help.’

  ‘You’re an angel. Then we could go out together like old times!’

  ‘Hang on, I’ve got exams to do and then I’ll be studying in Leeds, but it’s worth a try. You know the area. I’m sure someone will want you. Here, blow your nose.’

  Maddy looked embarrassed, offering her a pretty lace hanky, and Gloria remembered the nylons.

  ‘I brought you these,’ she smiled, holding them out.

  ‘Gosh! Real ones. I’m still in ankle socks. Grandma says I’m too young for stockings and Plum says I’m not.’

  ‘Rubbish. I’m a bit younger than you and I wear them. It’s about time you glammed up a bit, new eyes and a new hairstyle, I say,’ Gloria added, sizing up the girl in the bed with a critical eye.

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘We’ll be the sirens of Sowerthwaite, you and me,’ Gloria laughed, feeling suddenly like there was hope of a return to Brooklyn in sight.

  ‘But I’ll still have to wear glasses f
or things,’ Maddy sighed.

  ‘Not all the time, and you won’t look like Long John Silver any more, will you? I think you should get rid of those bunches, for a start. Have you got any scissors?’

  ‘In the drawer, but Granny will have a blue fit. It’s taken years to grow them, my hair is so curly.’

  Gloria rooted in the bedside drawer and pulled out a pretty pink leather case with nail files, buffers and silver scissors. She combed out the tangled bunches and Maddy squealed at the lugs and tugs. ‘I see what you mean about the length, but let’s give you a bang at the front across your forehead like me.’

  Before she could protest, Gloria snipped a fringe from the front hair and released the rest on either side. ‘There, that’s better!’

  Maddy looked in the cabinet mirror. ‘Oh, what’ve you done?’

  ‘Made you look your age, that’s what, Madeleine Belfield. The rest is up to you…forever friends, remember? You will ask Mrs Plum, won’t you? I’ll do anything.’

  ‘Leave it to me, and do come again. If I’ve gone home you know where to find me. I’ve got your address. I promise we’ll find you something, and let’s write to Greg and tell him all about it. We can send him a parcel and some photographs of my new eye.’

  ‘You’re on, Maddy, and thanks.’

  Gloria skipped down the dark streets with a broad smile across her face. One day soon she’d be on that train to Sowerthwaite and nothing would induce her back again. She was going home!

  Greg sometimes wondered about the wisdom of the British Army in placing a perfectly able mechanic into a canteen. If an army marched on its stomach then heaven help anyone who trusted their strength to his feeble efforts at serving decent grub. No one took a blind bit of notice of his skills, only where the vacancies were.

  Everything about this institution was about churning men out in sausage machine regularity, ignoring their civilian aptitudes in favour of square pegs into round holes. He was better trained than most in institutional living and quite enjoyed his square bashing weeks: the marching parades, drums banging, kit inspections, the lads acting daft in the huts but before he knew what had hit him, he was ricocheting over the Channel onto Sword Beach in an old Bedford Truck.