Oh, the telephone’s ringing!
WELL! IT WAS THE COLONEL, saying he was in the area and asking if he could drop in for a quick chat. So we threw ourselves into a cleaning frenzy, snatching up the damp stockings dangling in front of the stove and the newspapers carpeting the sitting room, slamming the bedroom doors shut on our unmade beds and piles of ironing, and making sure the bathroom was fit for company. It’s a good thing the flat’s so tiny, because we barely managed all this before we heard his knock on the door.
‘Oh, this is absolutely charming,’ the Colonel said, gazing around after we’d ushered him into our only armchair and I’d offered him a cup of tea. ‘No, thank you, Sophie, very kind of you, but I’m afraid I can only stay a moment.’
This was a relief, as I’d just remembered I’d used the last of the milk in my bread-and-butter pudding. Veronica and I seated ourselves on the sofa and gave him expectant looks.
‘The thing is,’ the Colonel said, ‘I’ve just been speaking to a chap I know in the Foreign Office, Veronica, and he’s looking for someone who can speak Spanish. All his best translators have been called up, so he’s very keen to find someone to replace them – especially someone with diplomatic experience.’
‘Diplomatic experience?’ said Veronica, one eyebrow arching.
‘Well, you certainly have that. I doubt if anyone else in his department has addressed the Council of the League of Nations, and you definitely know your way around the Foreign Office by now.’
‘But I thought the Foreign Office barred women from all jobs except typing and cleaning?’
‘Well, yes,’ the Colonel conceded, ‘they do. But there’s some pretty fierce lobbying going on behind the scenes to allow women to apply for higher-grade temporary posts, at least while the war’s in progress. Anyway, here’s my friend’s card. He’s expecting you to telephone him on Monday. I’m sure he’ll be able to work something out – he’s very resourceful. And Sophie, my dear, I haven’t forgotten you. You can cook, can’t you?’
‘No!’ I said quickly. I was imagining being asked to run a factory canteen, or cook meals at an army training camp, or something equally alarming and impossible.
‘Oh, but Julia said you had lots of experience at it,’ he said, glancing at a smear of egg I’d neglected to wipe off my jersey. ‘And what’s that delicious smell coming from the kitchen? Besides, it’s not so much being able to cook, as knowing about food. And being able to write, apparently. So, of course, I thought of you straight away.’
‘What job is it?’ I asked warily.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have all the details, but I do know it’s at the Ministry of Food. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve put your name down for an interview on Thursday morning at eleven. Here’s the name of the person in charge.’
‘An interview?’ I said, staring at the piece of paper. ‘But . . . but I haven’t even finished my secretarial course yet! My shorthand’s terrible and I –’
‘Oh, I’m sure that won’t matter, they must have plenty of other girls to do that sort of thing. Well, I must be on my way, there’s an aeroplane waiting for me at Croydon. Give my best to Toby and Simon, won’t you, and to Henry?’ And off he went.
!
The symbol above is my own personal shorthand for ‘I’m completely terrified about this interview, because I know I have zero qualifications for the job, whatever it might turn out to be, but how can I possibly get out of this without annoying the Ministry of Food people, and besides, the Colonel has the insane idea that I’m a competent and intelligent person and I’d hate to disillusion him.’
See how my shorthand system is far more efficient than Pitman’s?
24th October, 1939
I HAD THE LOVELIEST SURPRISE for my birthday tea on Sunday – Toby had a forty-eight-hour leave pass and drove down to London. He brought with him a bottle of champagne, a chocolate and hazelnut log, and Julia. Veronica had already bought a Victoria sponge, so there was an Abundance of Cake, which is always a good thing. We took the remains of the sponge to school yesterday and had a second party in our luncheon break, so my nineteenth birthday has now been thoroughly celebrated.
Toby looks amazingly grown-up in his RAF uniform, but is otherwise unchanged. He says life in the air force is just like boarding school – stodgy food, a complete lack of privacy, and tyrants barking out illogical orders all the time.
‘The flying makes up for it, though,’ he said. ‘We’re in the air all the time. Formation flying, spins, forced landings, night flying, everything. It’s brilliant! Well, except for the night flying, that’s a bit of a strain. One can’t see a thing apart from one’s instruments, of course, so it takes a lot of concentration. But I just need more practice at it. And oh – daytime flying! There’s nothing like it. Taking off on a dull afternoon and popping up through the clouds into a whole new world. Endless blue sky stretched out above, fluffy white carpet beneath, the sun beating down till it’s too hot to bear, then sliding open the canopy and getting a blast of freezing air. Absolute heaven.’
‘You’re worse than Ant,’ said Julia, giving him a fond, exasperated look.
‘I heard he’s had a go at flying a Spitfire, the lucky devil,’ said Toby. ‘Was that his squadron that shot down those Junkers over the Firth of Forth this week?’
‘No, and he’s furious about it,’ said Julia. ‘Did you see the Daily Express? “Saturday Afternoon Airmen Shoot Nazi Bombers Down”. The first enemy planes are brought down by auxiliaries, and he wasn’t part of it. One would think he’d been cheated out of his turn in some sort of game.’
‘But it is, darling, the biggest game in the world,’ said Toby, tipping the rest of the champagne into Julia’s teacup (as we don’t own any wine glasses). ‘Oh, and I forgot to tell you the funniest thing! I was talking to the commanding officer who recommended me for fighter pilot training, and do you know why he chose me out of dozens of others? He said he came into the mess one evening and saw me playing the piano! Apparently, he’s always on the lookout for good pianists and horsemen and yachtsmen, because they’ve got the right touch to handle a fighter plane. It’s all about good hand-eye coordination and rapid reflexes, he reckons – although he must have watched me fly, as well.’
‘What are the other pilots like?’ Veronica asked.
‘They’re great. A real mix. The usual lot from Eton and Harrow, but also some who’ve worked their way up from the volunteer reserves. We’ve got a former aircraft apprentice from Manchester, two Australians – they’re completely mad, but loads of fun – a Canadian, even a Czech. He’s the eldest, he’s twenty-five. The youngest is barely eighteen, but he’s a bloody good flyer – totally fearless.’
‘I hope you remember to be afraid,’ said Julia. ‘You do realise how dangerous it is, flying an aeroplane?’
‘Not half as dangerous as being one of your patients,’ said Toby. Julia had been telling us about the first aid course she’s doing, and how she’d tied the bandages on the poor volunteer so tightly that she couldn’t get them off and his leg turned blue. This reminded her that she had to get up very early the next morning, so she said she’d better go. Toby decided to stay the night at her house, after giving our sofa a dubious look.
‘But Toby,’ Julia said, widening her eyes, ‘aren’t you madly in love with me? Won’t it drive you insane with frustrated passion to be sleeping under my roof, knowing I’m all alone in the next room, wearing nothing but a flimsy negligee?’
Toby said he’d try to restrain himself. Then he hugged Veronica and me goodbye, and we went out to watch him drive off extremely slowly in his Lagonda, cursing the blackout all the while, as Julia waved out the passenger window at us.
Apart from large quantities of delicious cake, my birthday also brought lovely presents from Julia (the most beautiful silk scarf and a little opal brooch), Rupert (a carved pencil box, perfect for keeping all my school supplies together) and Veronica (a morocco-bound Complete Poetical Works of John Keats, which was extrem
ely selfless of her, because she loathes the Romantics and thinks Keats the most morbid and sentimental of them all). Aunt Charlotte sent a cheque and a long letter about how frantically busy she is with her WVS work, and how much things have changed in Dorset since the war began. She disapproves of most change on principle, of course, although she’s very pleased they’re going to cover up the naked Cerne Abbas Giant that’s cut into the chalk hillside near Dorchester, because she thinks he’s unbearably rude. Apparently, there’s a danger the Luftwaffe might use him (and his enormous phallus) as a landmark to navigate. I read this out to Toby and Julia, and they just about fell off their chairs laughing.
I also had a letter from Henry, written on the back of some lined paper torn from an exercise book (the other side was covered with blotchy sums and a great many red-inked corrections). She said she’d almost finished cross-stitching a bookmark for me in sewing class, but she kept pricking her fingers, and when she tried to wipe the dots of blood off the linen, they went all smeary and brown, so she wasn’t sure I’d still want it. She seems to have made a lot of friends, but has already set a school record for the number of demerits collected in a single term. Pupils acquire these for such grave sins as failing to fold their counterpanes neatly at the ends of their beds, wearing hair ribbons of the wrong shade of blue, whistling, chewing gum and talking in the corridors. If a girl has collected five demerits, she’s sent to the headmistress for a lecture, which reduces most pupils to tears and elicits fervent vows to mend their ways. Henry has had twenty-two demerits, and shows no sign of even noticing what she’s done wrong. Still, she seems happy enough, which is a relief.
Simon sent a letter, too. I’d like to say he sounded happy, but he didn’t. He said he was ‘making progress with the aeroplanes’ and that the rest of his time was ‘usefully occupied’. Simon, unlike Toby, doesn’t seem to be a natural at flying. Simon’s feet are too firmly planted on the ground, I think. I can’t imagine him actually being incompetent at anything, but I can see him working away doggedly at something he disliked, simply because he saw it as his duty – or as a stepping stone to some higher position. I bet he hates being ordered about by the commanding officers. Anyway, he sent birthday wishes and thanked me for talking to the matron of Rebecca’s clinic, following Rebecca’s latest drama. The staff and patients recently moved north, to a place further inland. Rebecca wasn’t very pleased about it, but then, she’s not very pleased about anything right now. She went berserk when the matron told her that Simon had joined the RAF, and now she’s not speaking to any of the staff. Apparently, she spends most of her time on her knees, muttering furiously at a little wooden crucifix on her bedside table. Poor Rebecca, she was born in the wrong era. A thousand years ago, people would have venerated her as a saint. Instead, she’s locked up in a mental asylum, with doctors prescribing her sedatives and therapists trying to get her to take an interest in the clinic’s sock-knitting circle.
And now thinking of Rebecca and her grim life has shattered all my lovely, shiny birthday feelings. Oh, how fleeting is Pleasure! ‘And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding adieu . . .’
I am going to lie on the sofa, sunk in melancholy over Keats dying of consumption in a foreign land when he was only twenty-five and never getting to marry the love of his life. And also, fret about my looming job interview.
23rd November, 1939
ANOTHER LONG AND TEDIOUS DAY at the Ministry of Food, made bearable only by the thought that it’s Thursday, rather than Monday. Sometimes I can’t understand why Veronica and I argued so fervently to be allowed to work in London . . . No, I do. It was to help the war effort. Which is important, even if nothing very war-like seems to be happening. I’m just in a grumpy mood because I spent the entire day removing apostrophes where Mr Bowker had erroneously added them, then retyping all the pages, then putting them in his tray, then having him summon me to his office so he could deliver yet another lecture about punctuation. This from a man who can’t tell the difference between possessive its and contracted it’s, who gets affect and effect confused, who spells necessary without a c! Why on Earth is he in charge of editing the food information sheets, anyway?
Well, I suppose it’s the same reason I’m working at the Ministry – because we both have friends in high places. Apparently, Mr Bowker is the son of a Very Important Parliamentarian, and something needed to be found for him to do. He used to work as an advertising copywriter, and he hasn’t been called up because he has flat feet. He tells everyone how unusually flat his feet are (I once got in a lift with him, and he told a complete stranger standing next to us). I’m not even sure what flat feet are. Not that I’m planning to ask him about it – I’d have to suffer through hours of explanation if I did.
The others in my department are nicer, or at least, more competent. There’s a brisk lady called Miss Halliday, who does most of the work that Mr Bowker is supposed to do, as well as her actual job, which is liaising with the people in the Ministry of Food kitchens and the scientific staff. Miss Halliday owns a dozen near-identical navy-blue suits and crisp white blouses, and her hair never moves at all – it looks as though a sheet of corrugated iron has been curved over her head and nailed into position with hair pins. There’s also Mr Bowker’s secretary, Miss Thynne, who is rather fat, and two other editorial assistants, Felicity and Anne. They are all what Aunt Charlotte might call ‘our sort of people’ if she were in a generous mood – that is, Mr Bowker went to Marlborough, and the others to finishing schools. Felicity and Anne keep crêpe de Chine evening dresses and silver dancing shoes in their lockers downstairs, so that they can race off to Claridge’s straight after work to meet their boyfriends for dinner, and then spend the rest of the evening careening from nightclub to nightclub. They’ve invited me along, but so far, I’ve always said no. They’re a few years older and far more glamorous than I am, and it’s a bit worrying when they say they’ll get their boyfriends to bring along a ‘spare man’ for me. I usually go home to cook dinner and do some laundry and labour away at my shorthand, but Felicity and Anne are convinced I’m sneaking off to meet a secret lover, and they take great delight in teasing me about him.
I suppose I ought to describe my work in more detail. Well, the day I started was the day that Mr Morrison, the Minister of Food, announced what Picture Post called ‘the most unpopular Government decision since the war began’ – that is, that food rationing will start in a few months. Britain imports a lot of its food, you see, and the German U-boats are doing their best to sink all our supply ships, so we’ll soon run out of things to eat unless the government takes action. Most of the people working at the Ministry are engaged in sending out ration books to householders, or having meetings with shopkeepers and farmers about the new regulations, or setting up Local Food Offices all over the country. However, my department is in charge of Food Education. It’s our job to inform housewives how to cook a week’s worth of meals with only four ounces of butter and twelve ounces of sugar, and to convince the British public that turnips and carrots and brown bread are far more delicious (and patriotic) than steak and bananas and chocolate cake. There is still debate about how we are to achieve these seemingly impossible goals, but the plan is that there will be official ‘Food Facts’ articles printed in the newspapers, and recipe booklets, and a poster campaign. Today, I spent the morning proof-reading a pamphlet extolling the virtues of oatmeal, while Felicity and Anne worked on a booklet about the vitamin content of various root vegetables. Mr Bowker sits in his office, supervising us editorial assistants and (more enthusiastically) unleashing his creative energies on potential publicity campaigns. Yesterday, he showed me a sketch of his ‘Potato People’, who had little legs and round, cheery faces, and were singing a song about how ‘delicious and nutritious’ boiled potatoes are. I’m not sure that making vegetables more human-like would motivate me to eat them in greater quantities, but at least it’s keeping Mr Bowker occupied. The more time he spends drawing spats and top hats on dancing potatoe
s, the less time he has to mess up my pamphlets with random apostrophes.
Veronica’s job at the Foreign Office sounds more interesting than mine, but also more challenging. At her interview, they asked her actual questions (that is, questions other than ‘When can you start?’), and she had to do a written and oral examination in Spanish. The gentleman in charge told her she had an ‘aristocratic accent’ – apparently that is a good thing, now that the Fascists have taken over in Spain. Officially she’s a ‘clerical assistant’, because it’s against regulations for women to do anything but typing, but she actually translates letters and documents. Her boss, an old friend of the Colonel’s, has lots of long luncheon meetings at expensive restaurants, and sometimes he’ll say, ‘Miss FitzOsborne, I’ll need you to accompany me as an interpreter’, even though he speaks perfectly good Spanish. Then it always turns out that the Spanish businessman or government official whom they’re meeting either knew Veronica’s grandfather (who was a Spanish duke), or her mother, Isabella (who seems to have been the Spanish equivalent of Debutante of the Year, with a dash of Tallulah Bankhead). The lunchtime conversations never appear to have anything to do with the war or the government, but her boss says that maintaining amicable relations with influential Spaniards is helping keep Spain away from the Germans and out of the war. I asked Veronica if the Spaniards were all ardent Fascists, because I couldn’t imagine her being polite to them if they were, but she said they don’t seem to be. Although perhaps they’re simply toning down their Fascism while they’re here, so the British will agree to help them rebuild their country? Things must be in a dreadful mess over there, after three years of civil war. One wouldn’t think Spain would be in any position to join another war, just yet. Anyway, Veronica says that she enjoys her work because there’s always some fascinating political argument raging about the office, as well as interesting archives to read in her spare moments.
The FitzOsbornes at War Page 6
