Meet Me Under the Clock

by Annie Murray

  ‘Oh, he loves it, as long as you don’t mind. He’s a bit grubby.’

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ Kitty said, holding her arms out.

  Sylvia handed Mr Piggles to her, enjoying her pleasure. She couldn’t help just looking at Kitty as she held the rabbit, at her strange mixture of delicate and ample features. With her slender limbs, there was something doll-like about her, yet she was curvy in all the right places to make her look very womanly. Kitty squatted, holding Mr Piggles and snuggling her face close to him.

  ‘Oh, he’s adorable! I’ve never had any pets.’ She looked up from stroking the rabbit with a wide, delighted smile. ‘Animals are so nice. Much nicer than people really, don’t you think? But your family are lovely too, Sylvia. You don’t know what I’d do for a family like yours – a brother and sister, and everything.’

  ‘We’re nothing special, you know,’ Sylvia said, but she was pleased that someone liked something of hers. She showed Kitty round with pride, and they stood outside until they were too cold to stay any longer and had to go in and warm up.

  Jack had just arrived home as they got in and, when she introduced Kitty to him, Sylvia saw him staring at her in fascination. She seemed to have that effect, Sylvia thought, proud that Kitty wanted to be her friend.

  ‘Well, you’re a handsome fellow,’ Kitty said to him, and Jack blushed mightily and muttered something about needing to go upstairs. He was looking grubby and dishevelled.

  Kitty and Sylvia laughed. ‘Have I scared him away?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Oh, he’ll be back. He’ll be too hungry not to come down – he’s been playing football.’

  Kitty immediately went over to the two cats, which were lying in a heap together by the fire, and stroked them again. Sylvia, feeling she was neglecting Ian, went over and sat with him. In a few minutes Jack came down again, having at least combed his hair, and tucked into slices of toast.

  ‘Let’s play something, can we?’ he asked. ‘Instead of just sitting around.’ He loved games, and the family were more likely to agree to play if there was a visitor to entertain.

  ‘Oh, can we!’ Kitty said, full of excitement. She faltered, blushing. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so forward. It’s just that I’ve never had anyone to play with!’

  ‘Just for a while,’ Mom said, smiling at Kitty’s eagerness. She was knitting. ‘You don’t need me, do you?’

  Jack brought in cards and Monopoly. ‘What shall we do?’ he said, excited that anyone was prepared to play with him.

  ‘Monopoly, I think,’ Ian said. Sylvia groaned inwardly. She found Monopoly hard going – all those cards to read, and it was so involved! But she didn’t want to say so. She sat beside Ian, enjoying the fact that she was there with the man she loved and a new friend who seemed to be relishing everything about the afternoon. She caught Ian’s eye and gave him a radiant smile. He laid his hand on her thigh and she shifted closer to him.

  When Kitty left to catch her bus, she thanked the family with such feeling that Sylvia’s mother said, ‘Do come again, love, any time. We’ll be pleased to have you.’

  ‘That’s ever so nice of you, Mrs Whitehouse,’ she said. Sylvia was very touched to see tears well in her eyes as she spoke. ‘I’ve had such a nice time, and it really means a lot to me to be in a proper family. Bye-bye, Sylvia – see you at work, I expect.’

  ‘What a nice girl,’ Pauline said, once the door was closed. ‘And what a sad thing, her mother dying so young like that.’

  ‘Come on.’ Ian took Sylvia’s arm. ‘Let’s go in the other room for a bit.’ Sylvia knew he wanted her to himself for a while.

  ‘Your father’ll be home soon,’ Pauline said. ‘I must get cracking.’

  ‘So did you like Kitty?’ Sylvia asked Ian, scattering a few pieces of coal onto the fire in the front room.

  ‘Yes, she was all right,’ Ian said.

  Sylvia turned to him. ‘Just all right?’ She felt childish asking, but it was important that he liked her friend. She felt entranced by Kitty, as if something new and important had happened, and she wanted Ian to feel it too.

  ‘Well,’ he shrugged, ‘yes. You know – nice. What else d’you want me to say?’

  Turning her back to Ian, Sylvia held a sheet of paper across the hearth to draw the fire, feeling suddenly enraged. Why was Ian so dismissive about things that were important to her? In the beginning she had told herself that it was because Ian was a man and he was much cleverer than she was. Why would he be interested in the little things she told him? She wanted to snap at him now, and tell him how fed-up with him she was. First over her job, and now this! But she knew she would feel even more foolish if she did, and he would tell her that she was being silly and would get the hump. In the end all she said was, ‘I don’t want you to say anything. Just don’t say anything you don’t mean, that’s all.’

  Fourteen

  Kitty lay in bed that night in her blacked-out bedroom, wearing socks and a jumper over her nightclothes, trying to get warm. She knew her father was about downstairs, roaming the house, and it made her nervous. She had moved her heavy armchair across the door. Turning onto her side, she curled up tight, but sleep would not come.

  She lay thinking about her visit to Sylvia Whitehouse’s home. What a lovely, happy household! It filled her with longing. She had never known anything like that herself. Sylvia’s mother was such a kindly, comforting sort, such a contrast to her own thin, frightened mother. For a moment the image of her mother’s pain-racked face came to her and she forced it from her mind. Sylvia was so lucky, she thought bitterly.

  On top of that, there was that fiancé of hers. He was obviously quite a bit older than Sylvia. He had a rather fusty look, Kitty thought, as if he ought to have been a vicar or one of those university men. But he seemed all right, and certainly had a good job. He obviously adored Sylvia – she was so natural and sweet-looking, with those lovely rosy cheeks and her striking dark hair. It was almost enraging how someone could be like that: so happy with herself and so innocent. It was enough to make you spit. Kitty felt very hard and old in comparison. When would Sylvia ever have thoughts like the ones she had about Joe Whelan? Kitty had had boys interested in her before, of course, but no one who had ever stuck around. The boys she met all seemed rather wet and timid compared with a big, grown-up man like Joe. Joe, over whom she had cast her spell . . .

  She turned on her back and ran her hands over her body. Her breasts were such a good, ripe shape, it seemed only right that someone should see them and pay homage. She pictured Joe’s face if they could only be alone together in the right place! He was already half-mad with desire for her, she knew, and she revelled in the sensation of seeing the blazing hunger in his eyes.

  She had first met him the morning after a heavy air raid. On the train everyone looked exhausted, but they were more forthcoming than usual, all spilling out stories of the night before. Joe checked her ticket and exchanged a few words. He asked how things had been up her way. After that she’d seen him quite often. Kitty could not remember exactly when they had moved into the stage they were at now. He had begun to pause near her and chat. His eyes would linger on her longer than was quite usual; she would gaze back at him, wide-eyed.

  One day, only a few weeks ago, she asked if she might see inside the guard’s van. Already by then she could see the attraction written blatantly on his face. She asked before she had even boarded the train, making sure no one else heard. It was raining that day and everyone was hurrying to get on.

  ‘Sure, it’s a filthy day,’ he said, trying to sound as if she had asked something reasonable. ‘You’d better step up inside, quick.’

  The van was dark inside. Joe had the little stove for brewing up at one end, so it was very warm and snug and there was a whiff of fried bacon. All sorts of bits of luggage were piled in there. Kitty even saw a parrot in a cage in one corner. The parrot was silent and looked pretty fed-up. Joe slammed the door shut and they stood looking at each other a moment.
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  ‘Well,’ he said, as if wondering why he had allowed this, for he was now embarrassed.

  ‘Your name’s Joe?’ she said, coming up seductively close to him, thinking what a fine, strong man he was, like a rock or a cliff. ‘I’m Kitty. I’ve been waiting to be alone with you, Joe. I’ve been thinking about it.’

  ‘Have you now?’ he said helplessly.

  ‘You know I have. And you have too, haven’t you?’ She laid her palms on his chest. ‘Hello, Joe.’

  Joe Whelan seemed paralysed. There was a terrible struggle going on inside him.

  ‘Won’t you put your arms round me, Joe?’ she asked sweetly.

  Awkwardly he did as she asked and she raised her face to him. Their eyes met in the gloomy van, and seconds later he pressed his lips hard to hers, clumsy with desire.

  Now, whenever she saw him, it was the same. It had reached such a pitch that she knew that soon something had to change. She wasn’t sure whether she desired Joe Whelan, or just needed to conquer him. Either way, she kept trying to think of ways they could be alone. She imagined unbuttoning her clothes, his face as he took in the sight of her . . .

  Kitty jumped, her dreams interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps outside her door. Her heart started pounding so hard that she could hardly breathe. The footsteps stopped. She was sure she could hear her father’s heavy, inebriated breathing. The handle turned and he pushed the door, which gave an inch before it crashed up against the back of the heavy chair. There were several bangs, as if he could not take in that there was something blocking his way. Kitty could see light through the crack in the door, as if he was carrying a torch.

  ‘Mary?’ his voice said. ‘What’s going on? I can’t get the door open.’

  Kitty lay silent. He was very drunk. Whatever she said, he would not be able to take it in.

  ‘Mary! Open this door, at once! I want yer. Let me in, wife. I need to have you.’

  This had started in the past few months, since her mother died. Previously, he had drunk, but not like this. Somehow he was all right at the works, went in every day, the great Josiah Barratt, in his car with his bowler hat, a wide, lumbering figure in charge of his domain, doing very nicely out of the war, thank you. But once at home, he was like a different person. He had started drinking more and more heavily, showing his dependence on the woman for whom he had shown so little regard when she was alive, but whom he was now missing and was desperate for.

  The first time he had come into Kitty’s room she was already asleep. She heard nothing until she became aware of a light in the room and the fact that someone was trying to climb into bed with her. After a moment’s fearful paralysis she leapt up with a shriek.

  ‘Dad! What the hell are you doing?’ She backed up against the wall. ‘Dad, stop it. Wake up!’

  He stank like a distillery and was almost past sense.

  ‘Mary . . .’ He reached out for her and pulled her roughly to him, fastening his stubble-edged lips to hers. The taste and sensation were horrible. Kitty pushed him away with all her strength and managed to scramble past him off the bed. She ran to the door and switched on the light.

  ‘Dad! I’m not Mom!’ Tears ran down her face. She would never forget the revulsion and sadness she felt at the sight of this pathetic man crouching on her sheets, staring at her with bleary, confused eyes. ‘Get out of my bed,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll take you back to your bedroom.’ She went over and pulled on his arm.

  ‘Mary? I want Mary. You’re not Mary!’ He pushed her away.

  ‘I’m Kitty, your daughter,’ she sobbed. ‘Mary’s not here. She died. She’s gone . . .’

  Slowly it sank in and she persuaded him to get off the bed. It was as if he was waking out of a dream. He stood up, slow as an ox.

  ‘I need to go. I’m going to wet myself.’ And then he started crying. His shoulders started to shake and big, blubbering sobs came out of him.

  ‘Come on, Dad – we’ll go to the bathroom,’ Kitty said, horrified by the idea that he might lose control of himself over her bedroom carpet. She led him along the landing, as if he were a big, frightened child, as both of them wept. She pointed him at the toilet bowl and waited to lead him to his bed. Once she was back in her own, she lay shaking and weeping with grief and revulsion.

  Now he was out there again.

  ‘Go to bed, Dad!’ she shouted to him. ‘I’m not Mom. I’m not letting you in.’

  There were indistinct sounds of cursing and a few more bangs of the door against the chair and then she heard him shuffling off along the landing. She did not know if he went into his own room. She no longer cared, so long as he was not in hers.

  Fifteen

  Hockley Goods Yard now had to cope with the fact that there were more women working there than ever before. Even Froggy had begun to wear out his sarcasm and accept that the women were pulling their weight. By now some of the mess rooms and toilets had been allocated to women porters and other staff, and Sylvia sometimes ran into Kitty in the Ladies. Otherwise they occasionally snatched a cup of tea together during a break, but the place was so busy and the work so pressurized that it was hard. ‘Us girls have to stick together,’ Kitty said sometimes. Sylvia would laugh, but this felt an exciting and strong thing, as if they were pioneers in a world run by men.

  ‘You’ll just have to come round more on the weekend for a proper chat,’ Sylvia told her the next week as they snatched a quick conversation. ‘Although it seems such a bother for you.’

  ‘No, it’s not a bother – I’d love to,’ Kitty said. ‘I really enjoyed it last week. If your family don’t mind . . . I could make a cake. We never really eat that sort of thing at home, so I could scrape enough together for one, I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, we’re never short of eggs, that’s one good thing. But I’m sure whatever else you can lay hands on would be very welcome. Jack’s like a goat – he’ll eat anything!’

  Sylvia always felt a pulse of excitement when she saw Kitty’s face across the yard or her waving to her along the passage inside. It was so good to feel she was making friends.

  That week Sylvia was on the late shift, from two in the afternoon until ten at night. It meant doing quite a bit of work after dark, in the blacked-out yard. Shunting was especially hazardous at night, with the yard prevented from showing all but the minimum of light. Even the tender-engines had tarpaulins stretched across them, to hide the light from their fires, meaning that the trains were even more invisible. The lights in the Main Shed were shaded, the roof lights and windows all painted over or blacked out with roller blinds. But the work had to go on, day and night, to feed the war machine. Work went on even during air raids, and she lived in dread of there being one when she was on shift.

  It was still bitterly cold. One evening Sylvia was pushing a barrow along the second deck of the shed in the dim light, heading for the wooden ‘bridge’ where she could cross over about halfway along the tracks, between two of the wagons. She passed a number of wagons covered by tarpaulins, which would hold food or all sorts of other merchandise. Behind them were open wagons of coal. Earlier the foreman she was on with that night – not Froggy, for a change, but a tall, thin, lugubrious man called Percy Price – had beckoned her solemnly towards him at the end of this second platform, or deck.

  ‘I don’t s’pose you’ve ever given a thought to how they heat the offices and why you can wash your dainty little hands with hot water, have you?’ Percy asked, peering at her through his wire specs in the manner of one who has superior, if not sacred, knowledge. He was a new foreman to her – she hadn’t worked with him before.

  Sylvia pretended to consider. ‘Er, no, I haven’t,’ she said sweetly. ‘But I can see you’re going to tell me.’

  Percy stared at her for a moment, as if trying to identify the slightest trace of sarcasm in her voice, but failing to do so for sure.

  ‘See them wagons of coal there, on the stop-blocks?’

  ‘Yes?’ She rested her empty barrow upright on its
end. She really wanted to go across to the Amenities block to relieve herself, but she could see she was not going to get away easily.

  ‘Well, hot water has to be heated by a boiler. And the boiler,’ he pointed downwards, ‘is under ’ere. Under this shed.’

  ‘Ah,’ Sylvia said. ‘I see. Well, thanks, Mr Price.’ She took hold of the barrow again and was just about to move off when Percy Price’s eyes swivelled towards an untidy pile of boxes and crates on the other side of the deck.

  ‘What’re them lot doing there?’ he said, his voice rising in annoyance.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sylvia said truthfully. ‘It must’ve been the last shift . . .’ Sometimes piles of stuff got left, if there was no loader available or the goods had been left next to the wrong wagons. Clearing them up was one of the yard’s unpopular jobs, like cleaning out all the rubbish that got thrown down onto the tracks.

  ‘Get it moved!’ he commanded shrilly. ‘Christ Almighty, you can’t turn your back for one second around ’ere.’ And he strode off along the platform on his pin-thin legs.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Sylvia muttered. Everyone was on such a short fuse these days. The sheer pressure of work, on top of the nerves and food shortages of the war, made everyone tense and prone to fly off the handle.

  She loaded her barrow with two of the abandoned boxes and wheeled them along to the carters’ deck. She was about to go back for more, but her bladder was insistent.

  ‘Blow it – I’ll have to go!’

  She hurried across and did her business. As she came out again, she could just see someone leaning against the wall a bit further along, and the glowing tip of a cigarette. Sylvia narrowed her eyes. Wasn’t that Kitty? Moving a bit closer, she was sure it was Kitty and was just about to go and have a quick chat, when a large figure emerged out of the shadows and reached the woman first. The voice that spoke out of the gloom was definitely Kitty’s.