Pearl’s eyes widened. ‘But you walked out on me anyway!’
‘I was angry. Upset.’
‘And you don’t think I’d be upset?’ Pearl demanded. She could hardly contain herself. She felt indignant, angry and terrified. No matter how she carried on, he seemed to have decided.
He sat down in the armchair. ‘Let me explain.’
‘I wish you would.’
‘Me and Blackie were interviewed along with another two blokes at the council. Me and Blackie got picked.’
‘But Blackie only mends engines!’
‘He’s a top-notch mechanic, love.’
‘And I suppose you’re a top-notch engineer?’
‘Engineering and mechanics is what the government is interested in at this moment. I’m not allowed to know the details, but I can tell you where I’m to be trained.’
‘Trained?’ she repeated in a daze. ‘So you really are going?’
‘It’s my duty.’
‘What about your duty to me?’ she burst out. ‘Or have you forgotten we was only married in June.’
Once more he was beside her, comforting her. ‘Come on now, gel, buck up.’
‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded. ‘Tell them you’ve changed your mind.’
‘I can’t do that.’
She began to cry.
‘Come here . . .’ He tried to hold her but she pushed him away. ‘Don’t do this, sweetheart.’
‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed.
He spread his fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck. ‘Do you remember in August of last year, when they bombed the factories at Luton?’
Pearl shrugged. ‘S’pose I do. What’s that got to do with us?’
‘It was just before the Blitz. They used to make cars at the Vauxhall factory but now it’s tanks. Special ones, called the Churchill.’
‘Jim, I—’
‘Listen a minute. I’m trying to explain. See, Britain was so short of tanks after Dunkirk – we only had about a hundred left – that Winnie goes to Vauxhall and asks them to dream up a new one. Well, that’s just what they did. The first batch are out next month. The rub is, we’ve got to account for the terrain they cover. The desert ain’t all sand dunes like you see at the flicks; it’s rocky as well. That’s where the engineering comes in, creating ways for our tanks to get through.’
‘Desert? Do you mean in Africa?’ she screeched.
‘I don’t know exactly. But that’s my guess.’
‘All that sand!’ she gasped. ‘You didn’t even like it at Margate.’
He smiled. ‘I’ll have to get used to it, won’t I?’
She could see the fair hairs on his knuckles. She loved his hands so much. She didn’t want to think of a gun in them. ‘But Africa’s thousands of miles away,’ was all she could think of to say.
‘And Africa is very important to us,’ he said gently. ‘The Axis forces have got Western Europe tucked up and now they’re gonna try for the Suez Canal. This will give them your old carrot blanche to the oil fields. If they get these, they’ll starve us of oil. Not to mention cut us off from India, part of the British Empire.’
Pearl was too ashamed to admit that she didn’t know much about oil or the Suez Canal. All that was important was Jim.
‘So you’re really going?’ she whimpered.
‘Pearl, think, love. If Britain don’t go out to meet the war, it will come to us. We’ve fought off one invasion. But another? Could we do it again? And at what cost?’ He looked into her eyes and that was her undoing. The tears overcame her anger. He wrapped her in his arms. She knew she couldn’t change his mind. The war now had them in its grip.
Chapter 7
Pearl sat in the front room of her parents’ house. She’d called in after work, needing to talk. Em had been very kind and listened to her troubles but now she needed her mum and dad. There were two days before the 29th and Pearl hadn’t slept a wink.
‘I don’t suppose he had a choice, love,’ said her mother calmly. ‘You can’t be angry with him.’
‘But he wants to go.’
‘He doesn’t want to leave you, obviously,’ reasoned her father, folding up the newspaper and sticking it down the side of his chair. ‘A man’s got his duty to do.’
‘But he was doing it at the council,’ Pearl protested. Everyone saw Jim’s point of view and not hers.
‘I read all about them new tanks,’ her father said. ‘Not details, of course – no, they don’t give those. But they sound pretty formidable. And Jim knows his onions when it comes to engineering.’
Ruby sat beside her. ‘I’m sorry, Pearl.’ She seemed to be the only one to understand.
‘I won’t let him go,’ Pearl said fiercely. ‘I’ll think of something to stop him!’
‘Now, now, ducks,’ reproved Amy as she got up from her chair and closed the heavy curtains. ‘There’s no use getting cross and wasting your energy. Jim has done what he thinks best and you must come to terms with it. If your father had gone into the services in the last war, I would have had to do the same.’
Pearl sighed, knowing that was true. Her dad’s job, making and fitting parts for ships, had kept him at home in the Great War. But she had no doubt that if he’d had to go away, her mum wouldn’t have been the baby her daughter was.
‘You’re going to be ill if you carry on like this,’ Ruby said quietly. ‘I’ve never seen you without make-up on before.’
‘I keep crying it off.’
‘You don’t ever cry.’
‘I do now. I hope it will make Jim change his mind.’
Ruby grinned. ‘That’s just like you.’
‘Is Jim calling by before he goes?’ asked her mother, retying the straps of her pinny round her waist. ‘Your dad and me would like to wish him well.’
Pearl smiled weakly. ‘Yes, after he’s seen his mother.’
‘How has she taken it?’ Amy enquired, eyebrows raised.
‘I tried to talk to her yesterday,’ Pearl sighed. ‘I said I’d go round just the same whilst Jim’s away. That she could rely on me for the shopping and I’d do the cleaning and even the washing if she wanted. But all I got was that it’s my fault he’s going. A real wife would have known how to keep her husband at home.’
‘The old witch!’ cried Ruby, but Amy put up her hand.
‘She was just upset, I expect.’
‘But why should she blame Pearl?’ demanded Ruby angrily.
‘Don’t take it personally, love,’ said Syd. ‘She’ll come round.’
‘I don’t know, Dad.’
‘Did you tell Jim?’ asked her mother with a frown.
Pearl shook her head. ‘Course not. He’d have been upset.’
Her mother smiled. ‘You did the right thing.’
Just as Pearl was about to say that she was always trying to do the right thing where her mother-in-law was concerned, but it hadn’t got her very far, the air-raid warning went.
‘Blimey, it always catches you out unexpected,’ said her dad, jumping to his feet. ‘You girls, grab your coats and go out to the Anderson. I’ll make a flask of tea whilst Mum finds the blankets and candles.’
‘I’m staying put, Syd,’ said Amy resolutely, adjusting her turban as if it was a helmet. ‘The enemy can do what they will. Under the stairs is cover enough for me. At least it’s warm and we’ve got a lamp in there.’
‘I’m not going in the shelter either,’ said Pearl, looking at Ruby for support. ‘The last time the warning went, me and Jim got under the table. Anyway it might be a false alarm.’
‘Don’t forget July,’ her father pointed out gloomily, ‘when the Co-op wholesale was hit. There was fifty-three people killed around Hill Place and Broomfield Street.’
‘Yes, and it was a shelter in Broomfield Street that caught it,’ Amy reminded him. ‘So thank you very much, love, but the answer is no. I’ve got all me bits and pieces under the stairs, and to my mind it’s just as safe as the Anderson. You girls coming?’<
br />
‘No, we’ll go under the table,’ said Ruby nudging Pearl’s arm. ‘Sorry, Dad, but you’re outvoted.’
Syd Jenkins scratched the top his head. His blunt features and pockmarked skin around his cheeks and mouth wrinkled into a grimace. ‘Women. I’ll never understand ’em.’
‘You weren’t meant to, love,’ chuckled Amy, but with the low hum of the bombers, their laughter died. Syd ushered his wife to the cupboard whilst Pearl and Ruby crawled under the table. They pulled the sofa cushions with them, and a tartan rug. Soon even the tassels on the tablecloth shook.
‘Hope Jim’s all right,’ whispered Ruby as she wriggled next to Pearl.
When it all went quiet, Pearl looked at Ruby. ‘Jim told me he apologized for losing his temper at the dance.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘I was worried about you that night.’
‘I just don’t understand what he’s got against Ricky.’
Pearl didn’t want to talk about Ricky. All she had on her mind was Jim. ‘Remember when we used to play under the table?’ she asked Ruby. ‘Me, you and Betty and Janey? We’d tell ghost stories and listen to the grown-ups. They were always gossiping about each other, mostly in whispers, but we could hear everything.’
Ruby giggled. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘Course, Aunty Till and Uncle Ted, and Aunty May and Uncle Ron hadn’t moved out to Barking then. We were a big family then.’
‘And now there’s only us.’
‘I miss all that.’
Pearl found herself wishing they were back in the Blitz. Though it had been dangerous, it had also been exciting as Jim saw her every day, and before the war life had been very different.
The moment arrived that Pearl had been dreading. Blackie was coming to meet Jim and they would catch the bus to the station. In the thin, grey light of Saturday morning, Pearl and Jim sat together at the kitchen table. It would be the last cup of tea they would share. As he lowered his cup and slid it away, Pearl knew he had become stronger as the week had gone on. He’d maintained a quiet resolution whilst she had done everything in her power, from tears to tantrums and back again, to stop the hand of fate. Nothing had worked. The war had lured Jim away from her.
‘Now don’t forget our savings,’ Jim told her patiently again, as he had done so many times over the past week. ‘With your wage and my army pay, you should be comfortable.’
‘I know. I know. But it’s not the money.’
‘According to my calculations,’ Jim went on insistently, ‘you should have roughly thirty-six bob each week to cover the rent and electricity. And you won’t have me to feed.’
Pearl smiled. ‘You might even put on weight.’
‘You’ll write, won’t you?’
‘I won’t have much else to do.’
‘And if there’s a raid, go to your mum’s.’
‘Jim, I told you, don’t worry.’
He held her hand. ‘After I’ve left, go back to bed.’
‘How can I sleep without you?’
‘Don’t make me feel bad.’
Pearl traced her thumb over his skin. All the blond hairs sprang up under her touch. How long would she have to wait before she could do this again?
He pushed back the chair. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Please don’t, Jim,’ she begged for the last time. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind.’
‘It is, love. I’ve signed on the dotted line.’
‘We could say you were ill.’
‘Pearly-girl, you ain’t half making this difficult.’
‘Why should I make it easy? They’re taking you away from me and I don’t even know when I’ll see you again.’
He pulled her into his embrace. ‘Stubborn as a mule and all mine.’
He kissed her long and hard whilst her tears ran down between their mouths and she could taste the salt and longing in them. The pain was like a knife in her ribs.
He slung his duffel bag over his shoulder. Then, in the early light, he was out of the door and gone.
From the front window she watched him join Blackie. Step for step, almost as if they were marching, they strode down the road. He didn’t even look back. She knew he didn’t want to see her crying.
Pearl went to work each day, came home again and went to bed each night. She felt like a sleepwalker. She couldn’t eat – food tasted like rubber. She tortured herself with fears, sunk into self-pity. One minute she was angry, the next afraid. And he wasn’t even at war yet.
The bed felt empty without him. For the first two nights she hardly slept. For the third and fourth she managed a few hours. On the fifth night she slept on the couch. In the cold and gloom of the early morning, she felt a slow resignation. She’d fought all she could. Now she had to accept, like millions of other women, that her husband was gone. It wasn’t as though he’d left for ever. It wasn’t as if he was sick and wouldn’t get well. He was only doing his training.
That night, there were no fire-watching duties and she made up a fire. It fizzled once or twice, but finally caught. Suddenly she was hungry. Opening a tin of Spam she ate it, cross-legged by the warmth. As it was Friday she brought in the tub from the landing outside and boiled three saucepans of water. It was shallow but hot. She even washed her hair afterwards.
The following morning, the first Saturday of December, she went to work with make-up. A week had passed since Jim had gone and she had survived.
At work, Moira relayed the news: Japan had refused Roosevelt’s olive branch; the Nazis shot people in Paris as a reprisal for resistance; the temperature in Russia was twenty-seven degrees below freezing.
‘We ain’t doing too bad here, then, are we?’ Pearl said when Moira finally took a breath.
‘Oh, you’re back in the land of the living, are you?’ Moira commented. ‘I was beginning to think you’d lost your voice as well as your husband.’
Pearl managed to smile. ‘At least I have got a husband, Moira, and he ain’t lost. I’m proud to say he’s a soldier and fighting for his country.’
Em nodded. ‘He’s very brave to have gone when he was in a reserved job.’
‘Jim is a man of action,’ Pearl agreed. It was a new feeling to be the wife of a soldier. She was proud in a way she hadn’t been before.
Em sneezed and blew her nose. ‘Think I’ve got a cold.’
‘You want to watch it,’ Moira warned. ‘This weather could bring on the flu. You don’t want to be bad for Christmas.’
Em looked downcast. ‘I don’t want me dad to catch it. There’s lots of germs about.’
Pearl wanted to know if Em’s romance with Colin was still on. But she didn’t want to ask in front of Moira.
When Mr Hedley came in at twelve, he enquired after Jim.
‘I haven’t heard yet, Mr Hedley,’ Pearl answered quietly. ‘But I’m sure he’ll write soon.’
‘Well, give him my best, won’t you? He’s doing a grand job. We’re all very proud of him.’
Once again Pearl felt a glow of pride. So many in the department had asked after him.
On her way home she splashed out. From Gwen she bought dried egg and a tin of corned beef. Both Gwen and Fitz were eager to know of Jim’s progress.
Pearl climbed the stairs and opened the door. She was beginning to get used to being single again. As she did the housework she listened to ‘Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy’ and managed a chorus or two of ‘White Cliffs of Dover’. That afternoon she was going to tea at Roper’s Way. Pearl smiled ruefully to herself. She hadn’t paid a visit to Jim’s mum. But she could always say she’d had a cold. As Em said, there were lots of germs about. And Mrs Nesbitt didn’t like germs.
‘So you’ve heard nothing from Jim?’ asked Ruby as they strolled to the market. They were walking down the aftereffects of their tea.
‘No, nothing.’
‘He’ll have to be careful what he writes. The censor vets every word.’
Pearl shrugged. ‘I only want to hear how much he misse
s home.’
‘He can’t fill up two pages with that.’
‘Yes, he can. If he doesn’t, he’ll get it in the neck when I see him.’
They laughed as they walked arm in arm. It was a mild December afternoon, with a hazy sun. The winter hadn’t been cold so far, more dull and dreary. Christmas decorations and trees were as rare as bananas. It was a year when the public at large were tightening their belts to the last notch.
‘I’ve heard from Ricky too.’ Ruby smiled dreamily from under her plum-coloured scarf, which she’d wound round her head.
Pearl wished Ruby wouldn’t go on about him. She tried to think of something else to say but Ruby was determined.
‘Even Ricky can’t guess how long the war will last. It could be over in a year. Or four or five. I want what you’ve got, Pearl: a man of my own. And not just any man. One as good as Jim. And I know that man is Ricky.’
If only he was one-tenth the man that Jim was, Pearl thought, but kept quiet. It seemed that being parted from Ricky was making Ruby even more eager to have him. Could love really change a man so much that, in Ricky’s case, he was really serious about Ruby?
‘Let’s go to the clothes stall,’ Pearl said as they came to Cox Street. ‘My astrakhan coat was a real bargain. She might have something nice for Christmas.’
‘You mean you’re not buying new?’
‘No, I’ve got to save.’
‘Some hopes,’ Ruby giggled.
Pearl grinned. ‘I haven’t got Jim to feed and I don’t like me own cooking.’
‘So when Jim comes home he could find a new woman in the kitchen?’
‘As long as it’s me. Look at these passion killers,’ chuckled Pearl as she held up a pair of extremely baggy drawers.
‘They’re enough to put you off having a bit of the other.’ Ruby screwed up her small nose. ‘When Ricky comes home I’m going to buy a pair of silk knickers like you had for your honeymoon.’
Pearl froze where she stood. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. I want to know how to please him. After all, one day he’ll be my husband. And don’t give me that old-fashioned look. This is the nineteen forties, not the fourteen hundreds.’
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