Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings

by Julia Stoneham

  Alice greeted them and invited them to join the birthday party. But Winnie declined and Marion took her friend by the arm.

  ‘I’ll see to her,’ she said, drawing her towards the narrow staircase.

  ‘Light duties for a week,’ Margery brusquely informed Alice. ‘Then she should be as good as new. I’ll let Roger have the certificate.’ She smiled at Edward-John and agreed to stay long enough to eat a slice of his birthday cake.

  In their room Marion and Winnie exchanged glances.

  ‘You OK, Win?’ Marion asked, lighting their cigarettes. When her friend nodded she continued anxiously, ‘At the hospital… Did anyone…?

  ‘No. No one guessed what happened. When they told me I’d lost it,’ Winnie said, exhaling, ‘I made out it happened natural.’ There was a pause.

  ‘I’m ever so sorry, Win.’

  ‘Not your fault.’ Winnie said dully.

  Marion stared at the floorboards. ‘What bugs me is that sergeant! Struttin’ around, not knowin’ what he’s done or what’s ’appened!’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Well, nothin’ ’as, ’as it! Well, not to ’im any road!’

  ‘And here’s you, looking like you’ve been hit by a Sherman bloody tank!’

  Winnie drew in smoke. She was safely back in their room. She felt tired and her legs were a bit wobbly but she had survived. She felt almost magnanimous.

  ‘It might not have been the sergeant…’ she murmured, ashing her Woodbine in a saucer on their overcrowded dressing table. They sat, one on each of the two beds, and looked at each other. They heard a burst of applause from the recreation room, then, to a piano accompaniment, the girls sang ‘Happy Birthday’. There was a tap on the bedroom door and when Marion asked who was there it was Mabel who pushed it open with her foot. She carried two plates of raspberry jelly, each decorated with a blob of Devonshire cream but her usually sunny face was overcast.

  ‘Mrs Crocker said I was to bring you these,’ she announced flatly. ‘And Edward-John and Iris says do you want some of their cake…’

  ‘So why the po-face, Mabel?’ Marion’s tone was defensive. ‘Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry Win’s been poorly?’ There was a pause while Mabel struggled to hold her tongue and failed.

  ‘She hasn’t been poorly though, has she!’ she said, her fleshy face colouring as her feelings revealed themselves. ‘I weren’t born yesterday! I know what went on! We all do!’

  ‘Nosy bloody parkers then!’ Marion snapped, dragging on her Woodbine, while Winnie, unable to withstand Mabel’s accusing eyes, lowered her own and stared at the floorboards.

  ‘You should of kept it! Not done that to it!’ Mabel blurted.

  ‘Who says?’ Winnie demanded but her voice was fragile.

  ‘I does! Poor little beggar… You got no right!’ But Mabel’s anger was dissolving into grief, leaving her with brimming eyes and the image of the small twist of gory tissue that should have been a child. Marion’s shrewd eyes were narrowing.

  ‘What’s it to you, Mabel, eh?’ she said. ‘’Ow come you’re in such a state about it? Unless…’ She saw Mabel blanch. ‘Unless that “baby brother” of yours…!’ Mabel’s reaction confirmed her guess. ‘Little what’s-his-name…’

  ‘Arfur!’ Winnie breathed, her attention caught.

  ‘’E does look like you, Mabel! Very like you! ’E’s your kid, in’t ’e!’ Mabel protested that she didn’t know what Marion was on about. ‘Wonder what your new fella would make of that then, eh?’ Marion continued spitefully. ‘Your Ferdie? Told him about it, ’ave you? Have you, Mabel?’

  Mabel was blundering towards the bedroom door when she was confronted by the warden who had come up to check on Winnie. For a moment the three girls stared at Alice, who suggested that Mabel and Marion should go and join the birthday party. Closing the door behind them she sat on Marion’s bed and regarded Winnie who seemed, understandably Alice thought, to be on the verge of tears.

  ‘D’you reckon I done the right thing, Mrs Todd?’ she blurted out and suddenly, before Alice could react, continued, the words tumbling out. ‘Mabel thinks I done wrong!’ For a moment Alice wondered what Mabel had to do with it. ‘It’s OK for her though!’ Winnie went on, ‘she’s got her gran to look after her Arfur! But I ain’t got no one, see!’ She paused, registering Alice’s astonishment as she suddenly, at last, understood the situation. ‘Oh Gawd!’ Winnie moaned as she identified the cause of Alice’s surprise. ‘I thought you knew, Mrs Todd! Mabel said everyone knew! But you didn’t, did you! All that stuff about me lifting the swedes…’ Winnie began to laugh shakily. It could have developed into hysteria but she managed to stifle it. In the silence Alice recovered fast. She took Winnie’s hand and stroked it saying quietly that it was not for her to judge and that with hindsight it is all too easy to be wise. ‘I feel rotten about it, Mrs Todd, I do! Like I did the other time!’ Winnie, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes, failed to see Alice’s reaction to this last statement.

  In the recreation room the girls were singing, ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’ to Edward-John and Iris.

  Later, while her son amused himself with his Meccano set, Alice took Rose into her room and told her what she had discovered about Winnie that afternoon. ‘She is the first person I have ever really spoken to who has led that sort of life!’ Alice said and noticed Rose’s lack of surprise. ‘You knew, Rose, you knew all along that Marion and Winnie were…’

  ‘On the game?’ said Rose and then hesitated, reacting to Alice’s expression. ‘S’pose I shouldn’t say that, should I? But they was billeted in the village, see, and word gets around.’

  ‘Gossip, Rose?’

  ‘Bit more than that I reckon.’ Rose paused. ‘Anyhow, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘What will you tell Mr Bayliss and Mrs Brewster?’ Before Alice had to answer this they were interrupted. Marion wanted a word in private with Mrs Todd. Rose left them.

  Marion held out a Post Office book.

  ‘It’s mine and Win’s,’ she said. ‘Look inside, Mrs Todd.’ Alice took the book, turned the pages and scanned the columns of entries which were mostly in the same hand, which was that of the village postmistress. ‘There. On the last page. That’s what Win and I have saved since we come ’ere.’ The balance was two hundred and fifty pounds, seventeen shillings and ninepence. Alice stared. ‘It’s more’n we could ever have saved from our wages,’ Marion said. ‘See, Win and I – from way back when we was in school…we knew we could never get what we want from just savin’ our pay and it wasn’t like we was pretty or clever or nothing. And our families couldn’t give us a leg up like some… There’s no future for girls like us, Mrs Todd. It were just factory work till someone wed you – if they wed you – and then a struggle to make ends meet for the rest of your life. Win and I didn’t want that, see? There was only one thing we could do as would earn us the sort of money we need. And it’ll only be until we get it. So we started doing that. Mostly all we done is sell the presents the boys give us… stockin’s and scent and stuff…to the other girls for a bob or two… You’re shocked, I suppose… I’m not makin’ no excuses but everyone has to make some sacrifices to get what they want and it wasn’t hurting no one, leastways not till Win got caught out… We put every penny we earnt in that book, Mrs Todd, and we reckon, in a couple of years, we’ll have enough.’ She stopped and searched the warden’s face for her reaction.

  ‘Enough…? Alice asked. ‘Enough for what?’ She found herself considering the possibility of Marion and Winnie as the joint proprietresses of a house of ill repute. ‘What exactly are you saving up for, Marion?’

  ‘A pub,’ the girl answered firmly, her face hard with determination. ‘That’s what we want. That’s what we’re aiming for, Mrs Todd. Our own pub.’ Alice felt very slightly relieved. ‘Five hundred quid we’ll need for a down payment,’ Marion elaborated enthusiastically. ‘Win’s uncle’ll apply for the licence ’cos they don’t like givin’ ’em to women.
’

  Alice was dumbfounded, uncertain whether her reaction was simply shock and disapproval or whether it contained a trace of admiration for the enterprise and determination of these two underprivileged girls. She was, however, incredulous that such a situation could have been running undetected, under her nose in the hostel she was hired to supervise. She stared at Marion, forcing herself to concentrate on the girl’s next words. ‘You see, Mrs Todd, most of the girls here are “good girls”, right?’ Alice smiled and heard herself say that she certainly hoped they were. ‘I’m not sayin’ as they don’t enjoy theirselves,’ Marion added. ‘But, when it comes to it they…well…they draw the line, don’t they… Which means there’s a lot of fellas out there as is desperate for…well…for a girl who’ll go a bit further, if you take my meaning, Mrs Todd.’ Alice concealed a fleeting inclination to smile and Marion continued. ‘There’s Tommies from the camp and the Navy lads over at the Fleet Air Arm place and now there’s the Yanks… They give us loads, see – candy and fags and stockin’s and scent and undies – in return for a kiss and a cuddle! And sometimes…well… if they’re nice fellas, for a bit of the other.’ Marion glanced nervously at Alice. ‘They know what our wages are, see, and the GI boys are that generous! They slip us a few quid. Sort of… as a present. But mostly it’s the stockin’s and make-up and ciggies and stuff – that we flog to the other girls. Not only the Post Stone girls, Mrs Todd, there’s lots more land girls round about here. We’re known, see, for having the things they want. It were dead easy when Win and I was living at the pub… But we manage… You didn’t know nothing about it, did you!’ Alice admitted that she had not.

  ‘If I tell Roger Bayliss,’ Alice said to Rose the following Monday morning on returning from a visit to Exeter, ‘he’ll dismiss Winnie and Marion and they’ll go from bad to worse… Probably take rooms in some boarding house near an army base. At least while they’re here there’s some sort of safety net if anything goes wrong. They’re amateurs, Rose. Their payment seems to be more in the form of gifts than professional fees.’ Rose was unmoved.

  ‘You’re not hoping to reform them, by any chance?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘Do you think that’s a possibility?’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  ‘The place is crawling with servicemen,’ Rose went on, peeling the last of a pile of carrots. ‘All after one thing. There’s some as seems to reckon a uniform gives ’em a licence to go on just as they please. What’s to stop Winnie or Marion falling pregnant again? I’m surprised that staff nurse at the cottage hospital swallowed Winnie’s story! She won’t get away with “lifting swedes” a second time!

  ‘I tried Doctor Strong,’ Alice said and Rose laughed scornfully.

  ‘For preventives?’ she scoffed. ‘He’ll be no help on that score!’

  ‘No. He wasn’t. But I had a word this morning with the matron at Edward-John’s school and she’s put me in touch with a woman who runs a clinic in Exeter and has agreed to provide Marion and Winnie with contraceptives.’ Rose was impressed. She stared at Alice with a respect that had now been growing for several weeks. ‘Diaphragms, since it’s obviously useless to expect the men to take precautions.’

  ‘I thought only married ladies was allowed them things!’ Rose exclaimed with a hint of disapproval.

  ‘Officially,’ said Alice ‘But, on compassionate grounds, there are those who are prepared to bend the rules.’

  ‘Stupid rules is meant to be bent,’ said Rose who, although disinclined to condone Marion and Winnie’s morals, enjoyed a suggestion of subversion.

  ‘And as “cure” seems unrealistic,’ Alice continued, ‘we shall try prevention. I’ve made appointments for them.’

  ‘You reckon they’ll keep ’em?’

  ‘It will be a condition of my silence!’

  Rose grew pink with approval of Alice’s deviousness.

  ‘So you’ll not be tellin’ Mr Bayliss, then?’

  ‘Everyone believes I fell for Winnie’s story. Having a reputation for naivety carries its own advantages, Rose! And it gives Marion and Winnie another chance here.’

  ‘And you!’ said Rose.

  ‘And me.’

  ‘I’m surprised at you!’ Rose said, impressed.

  ‘Me too!’ said Alice.

  It was not until later that night when Alice sat drowsing beside the ashes of her fire, Edward-John sleeping soundly at the far end of her still warm room, the farmhouse quiet in the long night, that she suddenly remembered Winnie’s words, recalling them vividly, as though the girl was in the room with her. ‘It’s OK for her though,’ Winnie had said, meaning Mabel. ‘She’s got her gran to look after little Arthur!’ Suddenly Alice was wide awake. Mabel’s resemblance to the little boy, her overwhelming affection for him and her distress at their parting, were suddenly explained.

  Alice was now in possession of several new pieces of information about the young women in her care. Added to the fact of Winnie’s abortion was her admission that this had not been her first. Another was that Mabel, huge, ugly, foul-smelling Mabel, was a mother, had been somebody’s lover, however brief the liaison. Then there was Georgina’s concern for Christopher and her increasing doubts about her own pacifism. Alice felt her sense of responsibility deepened by these complexities but, despite herself, smiled. Ten land girls, she had been informed. Only eight to start with. ‘You just have to run the hostel,’ Margery Brewster had said encouragingly. ‘Order the food, see that it’s cooked, make certain the girls are in by ten. And report any problems to me.’

  With the completion of the sowing of the spring wheat, Jack arrived sullenly at Lower Post Stone having been instructed to take his orders from Mrs Todd regarding alterations to the kitchen there. For three days the farmhouse reverberated with hammer blows and the sound of sawing. The preparation of meals was disrupted and suppers were late.

  Alice was unused to dealing directly with tradesmen. Previously her experience of plumbers, carpenters or gardeners had involved referring them to her husband or, in his absence, relaying to them his instructions. ‘Mr Todd wants…’ ‘My husband thinks…’ When work on the farmhouse kitchen was completed Alice realised with a pleasing frisson that it had been she alone who had decided on the precise position and height of the work surfaces, she who had thought of ways of utilising space and incorporating existing features. She had referred to no one apart from Rose whose input had in some instances been useful but the initiative and the responsibility had been hers, as was the credit for the final result.

  The kitchen was transformed. Wide expanses of dapple-grey marble supported by solid oak framing provided surfaces where cabbage could be chopped, meat sliced, pastry rolled, sandwiches cut, bread buttered, fruit peeled, potatoes mashed and onions skinned. Below, on wide shelving, the huge pans and baking trays were stacked close to where they would be used, together with sieves, colanders, steamers and marmites. The dining table, its surface no longer required for the preparation of food, was moved to a position that not only allowed more space for the distribution and consumption of the land girls’ meals but gave better access to both scullery and larder. Roger Bayliss inspected the work and was hugely impressed. He told Alice that he had been unaware of the importance of the layout of a kitchen and that he believed his neighbour, a woman who owned a small private nursing home, might be interested in picking Alice’s brains regarding the organisation of her own kitchens. Flattered, Alice agreed to meet with the woman. Margery Brewster was also impressed, hinting that the kitchens in some of the other hostels under her supervision might benefit from Alice’s ideas.

  Before the transformation had been completed, and while the kitchen was in a state of turmoil, Alice had received a visitor.

  ‘A Commander Maynard has come,’ Rose had announced and Alice, overalled and with her hair tied up in a scarf, couldn’t recall where or in what circumstances she had heard the name. It was not until the commander stepped, smiling, ducking his head under
the low lintel of the kitchen door, that she remembered the incident of the confrontation between his staff car and her bicycle.

  On this occasion he was here on official business and, after enquiring politely after her health, and having had the chaos of the kitchen explained to him, he stated it. Rose, from the scullery where she was scraping turnips, listened as attentively as Alice herself. As Camp Adjutant it was Oliver Maynard’s responsibility to organise social events at which his men might meet with local civilians.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Rose and then lowering her voice. ‘Local girls more likely!’

  The commander continued, outlining his immediate project, which was the planning of a cricket match, his men versus Alice’s girls.

  ‘So…’ he concluded persuasively, using every ounce of his considerable charm, ‘do you think your young ladies would be interested, Mrs Todd?’ In the background Rose’s comment made both Alice and the commander smile.

  ‘There’s some that’s interested in anything in trousies!’ she announced curtly, intending to be heard.

  ‘The third Sunday in May has been suggested,’ the Commander continued. ‘About three? Simply a bit of fun, you understand. We’d give them tea in the mess afterwards.’ Ignoring Rose’s disapproval, Alice said she thought the girls would love it.

  One day, towards the end of her son’s Easter holidays, Alice left Rose to prepare the evening meal and went with Edward-John to Exeter. James Todd had travelled down by train from London. He met his wife and his son in the foyer of the Rougemont Hotel, where he gave them lunch. The slices of roasted lamb were thin, grey and tough, the peas had come out of tins and the trifle which followed was watery. Nevertheless, Alice found herself charmed by the fact that she was eating food which she herself had not had to prepare. Afterwards they made their way through bomb-damaged streets to the cathedral close. James put a pound note into Edward-John’s hand, pointed to a toy shop and suggested that the boy went to spend his money there, joining his parents when the cathedral clock struck three.