Chocolate Girls

by Annie Murray

  Edie’s heart ached for her. Mrs Bonner had been such a happy, sweet-natured woman before she lost her husband Sid and fell into the clutches of melancholy.

  ‘So, tell us then,’ Edie urged. ‘If everything’s so bad, how come you look like a cat that’s ’ad the cream?’

  Ruby laughed, bosoms quivering under her pink frock. ‘Thing is, Ede,’ she giggled, ‘well – you know Frank?’

  ‘Ye-e-es . . .’ Edie said, laughing at Ruby’s sudden coyness. Of course she knew Frank, Jack’s best man. He and Jack had been at school together and Ruby had walked out at one time or other with most of the lads in Jack’s group of friends. Frank had got one of the best apprenticeships of them all, at the Austin works. He was a strong lad, with a kind of restlessness about him that Edie had never been comfortable with, but he was all right.

  ‘Well, when you’d gone, after the wedding, Frank asked me out for a drink with ’im, to celebrate like. And, well, I’ve seen him a few times since. I think he’s changed, Edie. I mean last time I walked out with him we were much younger . . .’

  ‘You cheeky so-and-so!’ Edie laughed. ‘Well, you’re a fast worker!’ She was pleased for Ruby. She thought how bonny Ruby had looked at the wedding. Frank had seen her at her best.

  Ruby leaned forward with relish, seeing Edie’s freckly face smiling at her expectantly.

  ‘And I’m going out with him again – tonight. We’re going to the pictures.’

  By the first weekend in September there was no subject on anyone’s lips except war. On the Friday, the Germans invaded Poland. Children were evacuated from the centre of Birmingham in large numbers the next day and all the houses had to be shrouded in blackout material.

  The day before war broke out, Edie was only dimly aware of what was happening. On the Saturday morning she started with a violent bout of sickness and diarrhoea. After hours of being sick until her stomach felt as if someone had trampled over it in hobnailed boots, and dragging herself groggily down to the cobwebby outside toilet, she felt weak and wrung out. All other life felt distant. On Saturday night, lying in bed too exhausted to move, she turned to Jack and said tragically, ‘Just put me out of my misery will yer? I’ve never felt so terrible in my life.’

  ‘You’ll be awright,’ Jack said. ‘You must’ve eaten summat bad. It’s probably the heat. You look a bit better now though. D’yer want a cuppa tea?’

  Edie groaned. ‘Awright – but I don’t think I can stomach stera in it. Just leave it black.’

  She was touched by how kind and gentle he’d been with her while she was ill. Surprised by it. It had brought out the best in him. Seeing how ill she was feeling, Jack had even promised to sacrifice his Saturday night out with the lads. All right, he may not be perfect, Edie thought, but he’s been good when I’ve needed it. She basked in the unfamiliar feeling of being loved and cared for, listening to his movements as he brewed the tea next door. He brought two cups through and put hers on the chair by the bed. The tea was so strong you could have stood a spoon up in it. Sipping it, Edie wished she’d had sterilized milk in it after all, but she didn’t want to complain and tried not to make faces at the bitter taste.

  ‘Stay with me and drink it,’ she asked. ‘Tell me what’ve I missed? There’s everyone glued to the wireless and talking about war and I ’ave my head stuck down the pan!’

  Jack sat down on the bed with his tea. ‘We’ve got to make sure them blackout curtains are closed proper. They’re talking about gas attacks and all sorts. Things ain’t looking very good.’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give us a kiss.’

  He grinned and leaned down to kiss her cheek. ‘That better?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said happily. ‘Much.’

  She felt well enough to sit up and drink her tea. The next morning Mrs Pattison, the lady next door, came running in just before eleven to invite them all to listen to their wireless. Miss Smedley didn’t possess such a thing, of course. Edie felt well enough to go. So she and Jack were sitting in the Pattisons’ cosy back room when they heard Neville Chamberlain announce that Britain was now at war with Germany. After the broadcast, Mr Pattison switched off the wireless. There was a pause.

  ‘Oh well, there it is,’ he said gloomily. ‘Here we go again.’

  Five

  ‘Janet dear, are you ready?’

  Janet rummaged frantically through the little white chest of drawers in the bathroom.

  ‘Coming!’ she called, in what she hoped was a light, normal tone, then muttered, ‘Oh thank goodness!’ as her trembling hands at last uncovered a last few remaining Dr White’s sanitary towels. She already had her white summer hat pressed over her thick curls, ready to go out to Weekly Meeting. But just as they were about to go, she went to the lavatory and noticed that the few brownish spots of blood which had started yesterday were turning into something heavier. She’d gone all clammy under her arms and her legs felt wobbly as she fixed the towel to the little belt. What was happening? She must be losing the baby? Oh, please let her be losing it! Her mind sent out this terrible prayer without her even thinking about it. Please God, get me out of this . . .

  ‘We’re going to be late, my love!’ Her mother, Frances Hatton called from the hall.

  Janet took a second’s glance in the looking-glass, thinking, my goodness, do I look normal? Won’t they be able to see? Then she chided herself. How ridiculously self-centred of her. To everyone else she was still reliable old Janet. No one else knew about her sordid transgressions other than herself. Goodness knows, they’d be appalled, but now there were far graver things on people’s minds. This time a week ago Neville Chamberlain had announced the outbreak of war.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, dear?’ Frances held out the box with her gas mask in it. ‘You’re still looking very pale. You don’t seem quite right at all at the moment. I think we’ll definitely get you along to Dr Hartley this week.’

  ‘No need, it’s just my monthly visitor. I feel ropey with it this time.’ She forced a smile, then busied herself buttoning her cardigan. ‘Sorry, you could have gone on ahead.’

  They set off along Linden Road towards the Friends’ Meeting House. The war had started changing things straight away. Windows of houses were criss-crossed with tape against blast and the postbox along the street was now painted yellow.

  ‘Something to do with gas,’ Frances told her. ‘I believe it changes colour if there’s a gas attack.’

  Frances was a well-preserved woman for her sixty years, who had once been rather a glamorous beauty, her friends told Janet. The great suffering of her life, the death of Janet and Robert’s father in France in 1916, had caused her abhorrence of both war and religious dogmatism, and she had since adopted the Quaker way of Christianity and pacifist beliefs. Though she dressed now with a simplicity consistent with the beliefs of the Society of Friends, it was nevertheless simplicity with flair. She had an eye, which Janet had inherited, for choosing sensible yet stylish shoes. Her clothes were certainly free from fripperies, but with the cut of a collar, an unusual row of buttons, the most sober feather gracing a hat slanted just at the right angle over her thick salt-and-pepper hair, she was still a woman who could turn the heads of older men. Janet had grown up wishing she had inherited more of her mother’s looks than just her thick head of hair, and that she didn’t have to wear her beastly specs.

  They exchanged greetings with a few people on the way into the Meeting House. Mrs Bowles from Edgbaston, the Maylands from Selly Park. With relief, Janet settled into her place in the Meeting, welcoming the silence and lack of intrusion. She felt horribly self-conscious, as if everyone there must be able to see into her mind. It had been the same ever since she knew she was carrying Alec’s child, but she had done nothing about it. The fact that nothing was showing yet had paralysed her, as if she just could not face this reality. No one would guess yet. She could put off facing up to what was happening to her. But now she was horribly aware of the towel
between her legs. Why was she bleeding? Was she losing the child? Oh, if only she could ask someone for help! Frances had been a midwife before she married, but she couldn’t tell her. She mustn’t know, Oh heaven, what was she going to do? Panic rose like bile at the back of Janet’s throat and she forced it down. So far she could feel only a very light griping in her stomach. Otherwise she felt all right. The need to behave normally kept her calm. She fixed her eyes on the bowl of white roses on the small table in the middle of the room, trying to settle amid the gentle presence of the other Friends and bring herself into the right frame of mind for worship.

  But chaos reigned in her. Ever since that day when Alec Storey had walked with her brother Robert into the garden, Janet’s life had run off the rails so that she could barely recognize herself. The men had been playing tennis and were still in their whites. It was already autumn and they’d complained of leaves drifting all over the court. Robert worked at the bank in Colmore Row and Alec had recently arrived to work there. The two of them were much of an age. Alec had charmed both Janet and her mother over cups of tea and sponge cake. Only a week later a little note had arrived from him, in a sealed envelope. ‘I’d very much like to see you again.’ He hadn’t mentioned his little family during tea. She realized only later how odd this was, since it was only a few days before Robert’s own wedding and that had made up not a small part of their mother’s conversation.

  Alec kept Janet in the dark about it until she asked, straight out, one autumn evening. They were sitting in St Paul’s churchyard in the chilly dusk, his arm round her shoulder.

  She didn’t prepare him, just came out with it. ‘Alec, are you married?’

  A long exhalation of breath was all that followed. Alec seemed to slump down into himself, deflated. She gripped his arm as if to comfort him through the admission even though her nerves were screaming with dread at what he’d say.

  ‘The thing is, Janet . . .’ He didn’t look at her, but stared ahead at the row of gravestones across the path. ‘Once you have children . . . I have – we have – a son, Edward. He’s three. Lovely little chap. But so far as Jean and I are concerned, the, you know, the loving side of things sort of died out after he was born.’

  ‘Was the birth very difficult?’ Janet asked, trying to be sympathetic, though she was withering inside. She withdrew her arm from his.

  ‘Not especially I don’t think. She just lost interest. Thinks of nothing but the boy. When I saw you I just knew you had a loving disposition – that you are what I need.’ Coaxingly he added, ‘You mean so much to me, the way you’ve been such a friend over these last weeks.’

  His brown eyes were full of that longing which wrung her heart, and he leaned forwards to kiss her, but she pulled back. The truth of what she was doing appalled her.

  ‘But Alec, this is so wrong. You’re a married man with a child!’ She got up, backing away from him. ‘I don’t want it to be like this. You’ve been most unfair – you should have told me. How could we have any sort of future together? I want to get married myself, not steal someone else’s husband. You should never have asked to see me . . . led me on. It’s not fair . . .’ She began to cry and he stood up and came to put his arms round her.

  ‘No!’ She pushed him away. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t carry on like this. It’s terrible . . .’

  She ran away from him that night, went home and made herself believe it was over. They didn’t see each other for two miserable months. With Robert married and gone and now no Alec, life felt desolate. Then one evening in the depth of winter, he called at the house, very late. Her mother was in bed and Janet was already in her nightclothes. She fixed the chain across the door and squinted out through the crack.

  ‘Oh Alec!’ She was tearful even at the sight of him. ‘For pity’s sake, what on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Let me see you. Please, Janet.’ He came right up close to the door so she could feel his breath on her face. He looked cold, a scarf in the neck of his gaberdine coat, the shoulders wet with rain.

  ‘But I can’t. It’s useless. I can’t let you in. What if Mummy hears? And I’m undressed for bed!’

  ‘Dress again then. Please, darling.’

  And she did. Stupid, desperate, longing fool that she was, she went and put her slacks and sweater on under her coat and went out to him. In the back garden he pulled her close and kissed her with more insistence than he ever had before, his hands pressing her hungrily to him, urgent on her breasts. He left her weak with desire, unable to say no to his caresses, or to meeting him again, or to stand by her principles or her common sense. And that was how it had been all through the spring, furtive meetings and kisses, drinks in public places, until one evening when she’d lain back under his insistent body among the crackly leaves in a patch of woodland near Kenilworth. Even then she’d managed to delude herself that she wasn’t really doing anything so harmful. She was giving companionship to a lonely man. She’d tried to block out thoughts of his wife, his other life.

  Now, in the Meeting, she cleared her throat and shifted a little in her seat. The pain in her stomach was becoming more insistent, a low, burning gripe. After a time of silence people were getting up and ministering. Sharing the direction the Spirit was pointing in their lives at this time of crisis. But she couldn’t discipline her distracted mind. Over and over she remembered their lovemaking, that first time on that sultry evening.

  He led her under trees, their feet making fallen leaves rustle, stepping around branches and ferns and tree roots. The light was shadowy, and the little wood gave the feel of a fairy story. He looked for the driest spot near the trunk of a tree which was scattered with brown leaves, kicked some pieces of branch aside and laid out his coat. He reached for her hand. Janet hesitated, but his eyes beckoned her on. Slowly, hardly believing what she was doing, she raised her hand to meet his, knowing as she did so that she was saying yes to more than she had ever agreed to before.

  ‘Oh darling.’ He drew her into his arms, feeling her shaking. ‘I’ve been thinking of nothing but this all day.’

  She closed her eyes and raised her face to him. He removed her specs and laid them on his jacket. His warm lips closed on hers and she felt him begin to unbutton her dress. She had the presence of mind to pull back, her brown eyes stretched wide.

  ‘But Alec, no! What if I was to bear a child? I can’t . . .’

  He smiled, laughter lines appearing at the corners of his eyes in the way she loved. He caressed her face with his fingertips to quieten her. ‘You won’t, my darling. Look—’ Reaching in his pocket he produced a French letter. He had to explain what it was, as she’d never seen one before.

  ‘Oh Alec!’ She put her hand over her mouth, a blush spreading right across her body.

  She should have got up then, said no, never, she’d never . . . and run back to the road, run from him for ever. Her common sense told her this over and over again, but then he said how much he wanted her, needed her, and with that hungry look on his face he’d teased the front of her dress open. She’d always been bashful about the ample size of her bust as a girl during games at school, when she’d felt self-conscious and cumbersome beside some of the others. Now she heard a man gasp with pleasure at the sight of her, saw Alec bury his face in her pale flesh. She looked down at him, stroking his black hair, feeling herself go limp with desire.

  ‘We have tried to keep the peace,’ the voice of an elderly man was saying behind her. For a moment her mind was hauled back into the Meeting. She’d all but given up trying to centre her mind on worship. Fragments of his speech reached her.

  ‘We have failed and the darkness of war is upon us again after a brief interval . . . In rejecting violence, do we give the aggressor leave to do his worst? . . . No clear, comfortable answer is forthcoming . . .’

  Janet couldn’t keep her mind on the moral dilemmas posed by the war, even though she knew how urgently it affected the Friends. John Steven, a boy she’d grown up with, was sitting across from h
er. Surely he wouldn’t go to fight? He felt very strongly, she knew. He’d be a Conscientious Objector, like the others. To her shame her mind was still full of Alec. She had not been able to resist him. She had responded with all the passion of her nature. Alec had been highly excited by her. She burned with shame. She was a sinner, a hussy. Surely they could all see it! And as well as that sin, there were all the lies she’d told her mother. That she was going out with Joyce, one of the other typists. That she’d worked late. All the time she was haunted by the deceptions, by her mother’s trust in her, sitting there beside her with her hands in her lap, her eyes closed. During her upbringing Frances had read her selections of the writings of George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, and fragments of it haunted her now.

  ‘Friends, whatever ye are addicted to, the tempter will come in that thing . . .’

  Well, now she was reaping the consequences all right. She’d rebelled against being dear, sensible Janet, but dear sensible Janet, she could see now, might well have been a much more impressive person to be.

  Never had she been so relieved to see the Elders shake hands, signalling the end of the Meeting. She felt queasy, and wanted to get home, curl up in a ball and sleep, but people needed to stay on and talk, to encourage each other. All the way home Frances talked about the war and pacifism. At last they walked back into the house to the smell of a small knuckle of beef roasting in the oven.

  ‘A number of the Friends have taken in refugees now,’ Frances said, stirring the gravy. ‘The Pilgers and Mrs Bowles each have someone. Some are the Jews one sees advertising in the papers of course, and those poor Belgians. I do feel it’s perhaps something we could do – offering hospitality. Oh, my dear, are you all right?’