Victory for the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  ‘Bonjour, Pierre,’ the Frenchman said.

  ‘Bonjour, ça va?’ Peter asked as the two men gave each other cursory kisses on both cheeks before walking back down the platform and out of the station, as though they had been friends all their lives and didn’t have a care in the world.

  Chapter Forty

  Lily’s, West Lawn, Ashbrooke, Sunderland

  2.35 a.m., Friday 1 May

  Rosie was woken with a start by the sound of sirens. She lifted her head from her desktop and the pillow of her folded arms. This wasn’t the first time she had fallen asleep whilst poring over the bordello’s ledgers, but it was the first time in a while since she had been woken in the dead of night by the mournful wailing of the air raid warning. Over this last week the Luftwaffe had started another blitzkrieg in retaliation for the British bombing of Lübeck. Exeter had been its first target, followed by a three-day onslaught on Bath, which had resulted in more than four hundred people being killed. It was inevitable that Sunderland would also come under attack. It was just a matter of when.

  ‘Rosie?’ The heavy oak door opened a fraction and Kate’s head peeked round. ‘You coming?’ Her voice was tired but her large, doe-like eyes looked wide awake, despite the dark circles that seemed to have settled there of late. Rosie wondered whether her friend had been working late, or was just unable to sleep.

  Rosie stood up and looked about the room, a little disorientated. What she would have given to simply stay there and sleep. She felt exhausted. But exhaustion was her sole aim at the moment, and that meant working flat out for as long as she could, so that when it came time to go to bed there was no argument – her body’s need for sleep would easily overcome the galloping of her mind and its compulsion to keep churning over the same litany of worries.

  Where was he now?

  Was he all right?

  Was he alive?

  She knew Peter would have completed his training by now. He had told her that not everyone ‘cut the mustard’, but there had been no doubt whatsoever in her mind that he would be more than up to scratch.

  Walking over to the door, Rosie smiled at Kate and followed her down into the cellar. The mood was subdued, which wasn’t surprising as everyone had just been shaken from their slumber and parted from the warmth of their beds. Everyone had on thick dressing gowns and either woollen socks or slippers. Vivian and Maisie had also each brought a pillow with them and were nestling down on two narrow wooden beds that had been brought down after the last air raid, when it had finally been agreed that the war did not look likely to end any time soon. Lily had said they looked unsightly and took up too much room. She had finally got the cellar looking cosy and stylish, with its chaise longue, wind-up gramophone and drinks cabinet, but as George had pointed out, this was an air raid shelter, not an extra room for Lily to indulge her passion for interior design.

  ‘You, ma chérie, should really be at home in your own bed, or rather your own cellar,’ Lily chided Rosie on seeing that she had been right in getting Kate to see if Rosie was still in her office. ‘You are working too much. You’re going to wear yourself out and then you’ll be no good to anyone.’

  Rosie had heard Lily’s lament numerous times these past few months, and she let it float over her head.

  ‘Anyone for a snifter?’ George asked, going over to the drinks cabinet while Lily sat down at the little fold-up wooden table and started shuffling a pack of cards.

  Lily signalled that she just wanted a small one, and everyone else muttered a tired ‘No, thanks.’

  As George splashed Glenfiddich into two tumblers, Rosie sidled up to him. ‘You heard anything?’ She didn’t have to say more.

  ‘All quiet on the Western Front,’ George said quietly. He had decided that should he hear any bad news about anything that might be happening in France, he would not tell her. Instead he would tell her only good news. Some might see this as dishonest, but he didn’t care. He saw it as his responsibility to keep Rosie buoyant while Peter was ‘doing his bit’, and a bloody brave bit at that. If something happened to Peter, Rosie would be informed soon enough.

  Trusting what George had told her, Rosie felt a little relieved and went to sit down on a threadbare but comfy settee that had a little side table at each end with gas lamps that were throwing out a good light. Rosie picked up a book she had purposely left there. It was a ‘how to’ book on all things business and finance. George had given it to her shortly after she’d got back from Guildford, knowing that Rosie’s way of coping was to keep herself busy.

  Rosie looked at Kate, who was curled up like a cat at the other end of the sofa. In her hands, as usual, were a needle and thread and a piece of fabric. Kate’s hands always fascinated Rosie. Thanks in part to Lily, Kate had metamorphosed into a chic young woman who looked more French than English, with her short dark hair and simple black dress. It was her hands, though, that gave away her former life – gnarled and calloused, the nails bitten down to the quick.

  ‘Any more news about Charlotte?’ George asked as he sat down opposite Lily and waited for her to deal the cards.

  ‘I got a letter the other day.’ Rosie looked up from her book; she was reading but not really taking in the words. ‘It was basically a few sentences on school and what she’d been up to, followed by a page and a half of reasons why it would be “best all round” if she were to come back here and live.’

  ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake, Rosie,’ Lily slammed her cards down on to the table, ‘let the poor girl come home!’

  George let out a nervous cough. ‘Now, now, ladies, no arguments tonight!’

  Discussions about Charlotte’s return had caused Lily and Rosie to exchange more than a few harsh words, but although it had hurt Lily to hear that Rosie was a little ashamed and afraid of introducing her sister to Lily and the bordello as a whole, it had also cleared the air.

  ‘Rosie and I have spirited discussions, George, not arguments!’ Lily corrected.

  George raised his eyebrows and took a drink of his whisky.

  Seeing that Maisie and Vivian were wide awake and listening with interest to the conversation, Lily shot daggers at them. ‘I thought you two were getting your beauty sleep over there. I need you in tip-top shape tomorrow. We’ve got that council bloke round about the Gentlemen’s Club. It’s going to be a busy day – bombs or no bombs.’

  As if on cue they all heard a very distant, muffled explosion. The cellar fell quiet.

  ‘Bloody Jerry!’ George couldn’t contain his anger.

  They all looked up at the ceiling as if it would help them to find out where the bombs had just landed.

  ‘I think I’ll have that snifter now, George,’ Maisie said, getting up but keeping her blanket wrapped around her. Her thoughts were with her ma, her sister and her little niece. She didn’t mind admitting it now, but she would be devastated should anything happen to them. Maisie took her drink off George and sat back down on her temporary bed, telling herself that Joe would have made sure they all got to an air raid shelter in time. They would have had to have been quick, though. There had only been about twenty minutes – at the most – between the sirens going off and the series of blasts they’d just heard.

  ‘Well, my advice to Rosie,’ Maisie said, forcing her own and everyone else’s thoughts away from what might, or might not, have just happened, ‘would be to bring Charlotte back home, enrol her in that all-girls school up the road, and just bide your time … Introduce her to us lot when it feels right.’

  Rosie looked at Maisie, Vivian, Lily, George and Kate, who were all staring at her. She knew they were dying to meet Charlotte, as they had heard so much about her, and she felt terribly guilty that they knew about her reticence over bringing Charlotte to meet them all.

  ‘I know you think I’m ashamed of this place, but I’m not,’ Rosie told them. ‘Not now … I might have been a little before, when Lily and I had our “cross words”, but things change.’ A pause. ‘I’ve changed.’

  Everyone was
listening intently as it wasn’t often Rosie opened up and spoke so frankly – especially about personal matters. ‘I’m just not sure what the best thing to do with Charlotte is at the moment. Not sure what it is that’s making her want to come back here.’

  ‘Maybe she just wants to be with her big sister,’ Vivian said. Tonight there was not a hint of Mae West about her, she was just a girl from the Wirral. ‘Yer the only family she’s got. She must feel like a missing part amongst all those little princesses with their mummies and daddies and more money than sense.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,’ George spoke up, ‘but I think there might well be an element of truth in what Vivian says. She’s at the age when she’s got her own mind, her own thoughts, and perhaps, like Vivian’s just said, she doesn’t feel like she belongs and has decided that she wants to come home.’

  Lily was sitting up straight, her pink floral dressing gown pulled tight around her and her black sleeping mask on her forehead. She didn’t say anything, but didn’t need to, the look of self-satisfaction that she had been right all along was clearly plastered across her face, along with smears of the white cream that had been applied before she’d gone to bed, but not rubbed in properly.

  It wasn’t too often that Rosie paid much heed to what came out of Vivian’s mouth, but what she’d just said had struck a chord. Sometimes you needed to hear something without the sugar coating. ‘Well, I think I’m going to have to do something, as this is not just going to go away like I’d hoped,’ she acquiesced.

  Knowing that there wasn’t anything more to add to the discussion, Lily and George picked up their cards and continued their game of rummy. Vivian and Maisie were half chatting, half snoozing, and Rosie had her nose back in her book. Only Kate seemed unsettled. She sewed a few stitches and then stopped, before doing another few stitches and stopping again. After about ten minutes of the stop-and-start stitching, she gently pulled on Rosie’s sleeve. When Rosie looked up, Kate could see that she had been dropping off to sleep whilst still holding her book.

  ‘Sorry, Rosie, I thought you were reading,’ she apologised.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Rosie said, seeing the look of concern through the flickering of the gas lamp. ‘Are you all right?’ She kept her voice low, sensing that Kate wanted this conversation to be just between the two of them.

  ‘No, not really,’ Kate admitted.

  Rosie felt herself become more alert. Kate never admitted to feeling anything but fine and dandy. Rosie looked at Kate’s pale, anxious face.

  ‘What’s up?’ Rosie asked, her voice soft and cajoling. She shuffled a little nearer to Kate and tried to take her hand, but Kate pulled away.

  ‘You won’t want to be nice to me when I tell you what I’ve got to tell you,’ she said. Her voice was now a whisper and croaky, as though she was on the verge of tears.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Rosie …’ Kate’s words were followed by an intake of breath as she tried to hold back her tears. ‘I feel so terrible. So guilty.’ Pools of tears were now starting to brim over and run down her pale face.

  Rosie shuffled nearer, put her arm around her friend and pulled her close. It felt as though she was cuddling a child. Kate had always been waif-like; it was something she hadn’t outgrown.

  Another torrent of tears was precipitated by Rosie’s show of love.

  ‘And you won’t be wanting to give me a cuddle when I tell you what I’ve got to tell you,’ Kate said through her tears. Lily and George had heard and seen Kate’s upset, but didn’t let it show and instead carried on with their card game.

  ‘I’m sure nothing can be that bad,’ Rosie tried to reassure her friend, although she knew it must have been something serious.

  Kate took a deep, slightly juddering breath, and pulled herself into a cross-legged position. Rosie gave her the space she needed and put her hands in her lap.

  ‘Just before Peter came to see me, to give me your letter,’ Kate began, ‘I had someone come into the shop that I hadn’t seen in a long while.’

  Rosie was watching her friend’s face and could see how hard this was for her. ‘Who was the visitor?’

  Kate looked at Rosie with sad, slightly frightened eyes. ‘Sister Bernadette. One of the nuns from Nazareth House.’

  Rosie tried to keep the shock from showing on her face. Kate had not had any dealings with the nuns since she had left their so-called ‘care’ and gone to live on the streets.

  ‘That must have been a bolt out of the blue?’ she said.

  Kate nodded, her eyes now trained on Rosie’s.

  Lily and George were still holding their cards, but were no longer keeping up the pretence of playing and were quietly listening.

  ‘Yes, it was … To be honest, it really knocked me for six. It was the first time I’ve seen any of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth since I left the home. I might well have seen some of them when I was on the street, but if I have, I can’t remember … I didn’t know what to say or do. I just stood there like a right lemon.’ Kate’s north-east dialect was now surfacing.

  ‘She actually said to me, “Cat got your tongue, Kate!”, but even then I still couldn’t say anything, not that I think she would have been interested in anything I had to say.’

  Rosie could feel her blood starting to boil. Kate had never talked about her time at the children’s home, but Rosie had seen her as a child with bruises and welts on her skinny legs and over the years she had heard about some of the cruel and sadistic punishments the nuns had meted out to the girls and boys who lived under their roof.

  ‘So,’ Rosie asked quietly, ‘what did this Sister Bernadette do?’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t do anything,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think she’d have dared. Not with me being grown-up ’n all. She just let loose a load of nasty words, yer know, the usual …’

  Rosie didn’t know and shook her head.

  ‘Oh, it was always the same with Sister Bernadette: “You’re the devil’s child, Kate, spawned by Jezebel” … What did she say? That was it … I’m “doing Satan’s work by dressing women like whores”. All of that kind of thing.’ Kate paused. ‘Honestly, when I think about it now, it’s almost laughable.’

  Rosie didn’t think it at all laughable.

  Neither did Lily, from the look on her face.

  ‘The thing is,’ Kate said, her face clouding over, ‘I felt like I was a child again. I hate to admit it but I was terrified.’ Tears of frustration and shame appeared in Kate’s eyes as she thought about how she had been so petrified she had wet herself while Sister Bernadette had beaten her down with words.

  ‘I just stood there the whole time and didn’t do or say anything.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And then, literally seconds after she slammed the door and left, Peter came in – with your letter. I can’t remember a word he said, just him giving me your letter and asking me to pass it on to you.’ Kate’s face now showed pure guilt. ‘But I didn’t, did I? I shoved it in my pocket and I completely forgot. I shut up shop and came straight back here …’ She hesitated, knowing she had to tell Rosie everything, but knowing the shame it would cause her to do so.

  ‘And I went straight into the kitchen, got the bottle of cooking brandy and took it up to my room and drank until I passed out.’ Silent tears were now falling down Kate’s cheeks as well as Rosie’s.

  ‘Oh, come here.’ Rosie put her arms back around Kate and pulled her close. She cast a quick glance across at Lily and could see that although her eyes had not filled with tears, they shone with pure anger. George was holding Lily’s clenched fist in his own hand to try and subdue her. Lily had made Kate vow never to touch another drop again after she had helped her get through the awful withdrawal she had suffered coming off the drink.

  ‘When I woke up and saw the letter, still stuffed in the pocket of my skirt, I was mortified.’ Kate didn’t say she had been sick in her sleep, nor that she had dry retched as she had panicked and pulled on clean clothes and then, despite a thudding head and waves of
nausea, practically run all the way to Thompson’s.

  ‘I was so ashamed of what I’d done.’ Kate became aware that Lily and George were also listening and she looked guiltily at Lily, who tried to put a look of reassurance on her face. It was hard, though, as all she wanted to do was get out of the damned cellar, march across town and give Sister Bernadette what for – and all the other nuns while she was at it.

  ‘I felt so angry with myself,’ Kate said, looking up at Rosie, ‘so angry for being so scared and pathetic. So ashamed that I’d gone back to the drink and forgotten all about Peter’s letter.’ Another batch of tears came tumbling out. ‘And when you went running off to catch Peter leaving on his train and you missed it, and it was all because of me, I just wanted to die. I felt so guilty.’

  Kate looked across at Lily; it was clearly not just Rosie she felt as though she had let down.

  ‘I didn’t know what to say. I’d ruined everything and there was no making it better. I was trying to pluck up the courage to tell you – and Lily.’ Another shamefaced look. ‘And then you came bustling into the shop, telling me Peter had sent you a telegram and you were leaving for Guildford that afternoon. I was so happy for you, and so relieved that I hadn’t totally ruined everything.’

  ‘Oh, Kate, you didn’t ruin anything at all!’ Rosie reassured her. ‘If anything you actually helped matters.’

  Kate raised her head up to Rosie questioningly. Her tears had started to dry up and her body had stopped juddering.

  ‘Well,’ Rosie explained, ‘it was only because I didn’t get the letter, and didn’t get to the station in time, that Peter sent me that telegram. And if I hadn’t gone to Guildford I would never have had such a wonderful few days with Peter … and he would never have proposed to me and we would never have got married.’ Rosie looked down at Kate, who was listening intently.

  ‘So, really, I should be thanking you for forgetting to give me the letter!’

  Kate let out a choked laugh that was followed by a deluge of tears. Tears of relief that she had finally made her confession and been unreservedly forgiven.