Meet Me Under the Clock

by Annie Murray

  As they left the gym and headed out into the scented night, Hamish stopped her and looked seriously at her.

  ‘Thank you, Audrey. I’ve had a very good evening, and I hope you have.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said truthfully. He was a nice boy. Could she feel more for him than she had for Raymond?

  ‘I hope I’ll see you again? Tomorrow maybe?’

  She agreed, and there was an awkward pause as both of them wondered how to part. But Hamish backed away. ‘See you then,’ he said gently.

  ‘TTFN,’ Audrey said, keeping her voice casual.

  Sitting in her office now, she thought about Hamish. He had not been ‘pushy’ and kissed her, and she was glad of this. The extension of the party in their hut into the small hours with Cora’s nip of rum had rather wiped Hamish from her thoughts for the time being, even though the girls had ribbed her about it.

  ‘Who was that good-looking carrot-top you were dancing with all evening, Audrey?’ Joey demanded, her dark eyes full of mischief. ‘You looked as if you were well in there!’

  Audrey had pretended to be enigmatic. Hamish – she didn’t even know his surname, she realized. He was a nice boy. Raymond had been a nice boy too, of course, but she had not managed any sentimental feelings towards him. Did she feel obliged to love Hamish because she had not been able to love Raymond? And because she knew what they all knew, but tried not to dwell on: that in a few months’ time, when his training was over, Hamish too could very easily be killed?

  She rested her aching head in her hands for a moment, but, hearing the CO come back into the room, fed another sheet into the typewriter and began typing furiously.

  Nineteen

  April 1941

  Just before Easter, Sylvia went into work to find two new female porters chatting in the mess room. They were both in their early twenties: one was a gawky, buck-toothed woman called Elsie; the other, small, dark-haired and plump, was Gina.

  ‘The two of them together look like Stan and Ollie,’ Sylvia laughed to Kitty. ‘They just need a couple of bowler hats!’

  Both of them were pleasant, and Sylvia especially warmed to Elsie. And it was nice to have more girls around. One day, when Sylvia and Madge came into the mess room for a break, Sylvia heard the two of them talking.

  ‘I heard it’s one of the passenger guards,’ Elsie was saying. ‘But I don’t know who the girl is.’

  ‘Well, someone told me it’s one of the comptom . . . whatever they’re called, the operators – from upstairs,’ Gina said.

  Sylvia listened, with her back to them, pouring tea for herself and Madge. My, those two hadn’t wasted any time getting involved with the gossip! Sylvia hadn’t really taken any notice of the bits of chat she’d heard on this subject, but now, as they mentioned the comptometer office, she wondered if Kitty would know anything about it.

  ‘Have you heard anything about this, Sylvia?’ Elsie asked. Her sticking-out teeth gave her a permanent look of rabbity cheerfulness, which made Sylvia think of Mr Piggles. It was what had made her like Elsie from the start.

  ‘No more than you,’ she said, coming to sit down. ‘But there’s always some bit of tattle going around. I shouldn’t take any notice.’

  ‘Who’re you on about?’ Madge asked, sitting down, legs apart, with her mug in one beefy hand. The bench shuddered under her weight.

  ‘Some girl, works here,’ Elsie said. ‘Evidently this bloke – and he’s a lot older, and a married man – is besotted with her.’

  Madge shrugged. ‘So what?’ Madge liked to give off an air of being an expert on anything to do with men, which, Sylvia realized, she possibly was. Although her ‘Tone’ seemed to be enough of a handful by himself.

  ‘I wish someone was besotted with me,’ Gina said with a comical expression. ‘There’s hardly any flaming blokes left under fifty. And with us dressed up like this . . .’

  ‘Yes – and this girl they’re on about works in the offices,’ Elsie said with comical dismay. ‘Skirts and stockings: no wonder he’s keen.’ Elsie looked down at her skinny, trouser-clad legs. ‘He’s not going to look at us in this get-up, is he?’

  ‘It could be worse,’ Sylvia said, taking out a piece of bread and jam that she’d brought from home. ‘You could be one of the grease monkeys at Tyseley. They’ve got a couple of girls in, cleaning the engines, now. They have to get right in underneath – can you imagine?’ She looked at the other two, who were hungrily following her food with their eyes, like a pair of dogs. She held it out to them. ‘D’you want a bite?’

  ‘What’s this I hear about some girl in your office?’ Sylvia said to Kitty as they walked across from Snow Hill to get the bus home. They couldn’t get another train from New Street station now that the line to Kings Heath was cargo only. Going through town always made Sylvia feel sad. There was so much destruction and mess everywhere. She looked fondly at the Theatre Royal as they went past, but felt much happier in the job she was doing now. A pang went through her at the thought that she would have to leave, when she married Ian. She tried not to think about it. At least today she could have a nice cosy afternoon with Kitty while Ian was still at work.

  ‘What girl?’ Kitty said, frowning.

  ‘Oh, it’s just the gossip going around. She’s supposed to be carrying on with one of the guards – a much older man; well, aren’t they all!’ She laughed. ‘Honestly, it’d be like walking out with your dad. And apparently he’s married.’

  ‘I’ve not heard,’ Kitty said, not seeming very interested. ‘I suppose all sorts of things must go on. It doesn’t really matter, does it?’

  ‘Well, it does to the man’s wife, I should’ve thought,’ Sylvia said stiffly. She glanced at Kitty, who was staring stonily ahead of her, and thought she’d better change the subject.

  ‘Will you see much of your father over Easter?’ she asked.

  Kitty turned and suddenly smiled. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve said I’ll cook a meal for him and his sister, my auntie. She lives out at Wylde Green, but they like to get together now and again.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Sylvia said, relieved to hear that at least Kitty had a little bit of family that she seemed pleased to see.

  ‘Come on,’ Kitty said, grabbing her hand. ‘There’s a bus there, look – race you!’

  Never had Sylvia been so glad to be on an early shift, because she was back home when the air-raid siren went off, late one evening in April, just before Easter.

  ‘Oh Lord – there goes Moaning Minnie,’ her mother said, leaping instantly from her chair in the front, where they were listening to the wireless. Then she looked stricken. ‘Oh! Your father!’

  Sylvia felt a plunge of dread inside her. Her father was on fire watch at the Rover works. Jack looked up from his book, and for a second Sylvia saw fear in his eyes.

  ‘Come on,’ Mom said. ‘Shift yourselves, quick! I hope that flaming shelter’s dry.’ Without Dad there, she sounded much more panicky and vulnerable.

  They all rushed around as the horrible sound howled outside, jangling their nerves. It was getting on for half-past nine and dark.

  ‘I’ll go ahead,’ Jack said, piling on his coat, hat and scarves. Man of the house for now, he took the torch and disappeared into the garden.

  ‘Come on,’ Sylvia said, hugging the flasks of tea. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  They put the lights out in the house and went outside. The air was thick with smoke and mist, and although the sky was quiet as yet, apart from the siren, there was an ominous, menacing feeling that made their hearts pound horribly as they felt their way along to the shelter.

  ‘Go carefully, Mom,’ Sylvia said. ‘The path’s slippery.’

  ‘I hope Jack locked all the animals up properly,’ Mom was murmuring. ‘There’s no telling when we’ll get eggs again after this lot.’ The chickens did not appreciate Hitler’s intervention in their lives.

  Jack’s torchlit face appeared in the door of the Anderson. ‘It’s not too bad. No puddles.’

&n
bsp; They all went into its dank atmosphere. It always seemed to feel colder in there than anywhere else. Within a few moments they heard the first of the planes. They filled Sylvia with a sick, familiar feeling of terror.

  ‘Oh good Lord,’ Mom said. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.’

  ‘Let’s have some tea,’ Sylvia replied, forcing herself to do something, to think of anything other than what was out there. As she bent down to pick up the flask, they heard the first crumpling sounds of explosions somewhere quite close in the city.

  It was another terrifying, seemingly endless night, with the banging of the ack-ack guns and the ominous wait for explosions. Sleep was impossible. The planes came and came, with their menacing drone, as if they would never stop.

  ‘This is one of the worst,’ Mom said at some point in the small hours. She smoked one cigarette after another. Sylvia knew she was fretting about Dad. What was happening where he was? Sylvia felt a band of tension tighten in her head.

  Sometimes the planes roared right overhead and there were explosions very close by. They all doubled up, their arms clasped over their heads as the ground shook violently under them. Sylvia was overwhelmed by a feeling of powerlessness. She could hear her mother saying, ‘Oh dear God, dear God!’ in a muffled voice. As the shuddering and the sounds eventually died away, Pauline sat up again and reached for Sylvia’s hand, clinging to it.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ She sounded frantic.

  ‘Yes – Jack, you okay?’ Sylvia asked, leaning over to her brother.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said stoically, though she could hear a tremor in his voice. She reached for his hand with her other one and he did not shake her off. ‘That was damned close again. It sounded as if it was in the next street.’

  It was awful, waiting and waiting for this eternal night to end.

  The All Clear finally sounded in the early hours. They all crawled out of the shelter, stiff, freezing cold, their stomachs acid with fear and lack of sleep. It was still dark, with a morning mist, and everything looked ghostly outside. The air was horrible, full of acrid burning smells.

  ‘It’s not worth me going to bed,’ Sylvia said groggily. ‘I’ll have to go in about half an hour.’ When she went inside, she suddenly had to rush to the bathroom to be sick.

  Later, stepping out into the street to go to work, it was with a sense of horror at what she might find on the way. Things in their street seemed normal, but there was a strong smell of smoke and the dank, musty stench of wet plaster from somewhere nearby. At the bus stop on the Alcester Road a middle-aged woman told her there had been a direct hit on Grange Road, two streets away, and that several people had probably been killed.

  ‘It must’ve been terrible in town last night,’ the woman said. ‘It was non-stop.’

  On the packed bus, Sylvia wondered all the way about her father. Had the works been hit? Was he all right? Once they were turfed off the bus – early, as it could not get to the stop – she made for Snow Hill. Walking across town, she gasped with shock at the destruction. She found herself in tears at what had been done to their city as she struggled to make her way along, with other people who looked equally stunned. The air was thick with dust. The buildings at the end of New Street where it met High Street had collapsed, leaving a huge, wrecked space. The mess, and the stench of smoke and gas and burnt tar, was appalling, mixed with the damp plaster smell of ruined buildings. Firemen were still hosing down the ruins and New Street was full of rubble and mess. The smoke and dust and mist of early morning were all clogged together, making her cough as she struggled along, trying to get a grip on herself and not sob out loud.

  At Snow Hill her eyes widened even further. Parts of the precinct were in a terrible state and there was an atmosphere of barely controlled chaos. Inside, instructions were being shouted by railway officials and chalked onto blackboards, and people were scurrying about trying to make out how and whether they could get to work. She stopped one of the porters hurrying along the station passage, who looked her up and down, seeing her railway uniform.

  ‘Can I get across to Hockley?’ she said.

  The man stopped his barrow for a minute. He looked haggard and was covered in pale dust. ‘We’ve had direct hits: platform one’s out, the ladies’ waiting room – it’s all gone. Platform five’s down – and eleven . . . There’s a hell of a mess.’ He seemed to need to tell her. ‘Something’ll be going through, but I couldn’t tell you when.’

  Sylvia went carefully down the rubble-littered steps to platform seven to have a look. Glass crunched underfoot. Squinting upwards, she saw that the glazed roof had been blown in and scattered all over the place. Platform five was a mess of rubble. Odd things were dangling from the girders above. Something that looked like a pair of trousers hung limply. Nothing felt quite real, as if she was dreaming.

  I’ll try and get a bus, she thought. There seemed slim hope of getting to work anything like on time this morning. She wondered, with foreboding, in what state she might find the Goods Yard, after last night. When she at last found a bus going in the right direction, she sat squeezed against the dusty window, unable to stop the tears of shock and exhaustion running down her cheeks.

  Twenty

  To Sylvia’s relief, when she walked into the Hockley Goods Yard from Pitsford Street, things seemed, on the face of it, much as usual.

  But the first person she met, as she clocked in, was Froggy. Sylvia waited for his curses to fall on her head for being late. Instead, Froggy was dancing about like a madman, his strange grin revealing gumfuls of dodgy yellow teeth.

  ‘They missed us! Those buggers missed us . . .’

  Sylvia started to apologize.

  ‘I don’t care where yer’ve been,’ Froggy cut in. ‘Yer ’ere now. Just get on with it. I want you in the shed, unloading with . . .’ He named the checker and another male porter, and off he jigged.

  ‘Well,’ Sylvia said, hurrying to the mess room, ‘wonders will never cease.’ Nights of bombing took people in strange ways.

  She felt better for being at work. Her sickness and aching head began to clear as she worked, full of the crazed energy that can come upon you after a night of no sleep. She was unloading a huge consignment of rivets and studs and other metalware to go across to the LMS line and, tired as she was, all the exercise let off some tension. It was good to see daylight, to get on with something with other people. She didn’t envy her mother, worrying at home. But all the time anxiety niggled at her mind – was Ian all right? And Dad? Had anything happened to the works? She didn’t hear any bad news, but every time she thought of the sights she had seen in the middle of Birmingham that morning, a plunging, sick feeling of worry went through her.

  ‘God, what a night!’ everyone was saying.

  In their mess room at tea break there was more time for a chat. Sylvia already had the tea brewed when Gina appeared, dark rings of weariness under her eyes, but, like everyone, trying to put on a brave face. Gina was the oldest child in a large family and her father was a fireman. Sylvia knew she must be worried.

  ‘Here.’ Sylvia handed her a mug of steaming tea. ‘Get this down you.’

  ‘Hello, happy campers!’ Elsie said, hurrying in. Sylvia and Gina laughed at the absurdity of this.

  ‘Ooh, a cuppa tea!’ She poured herself a mug.

  ‘What the hell’s up with you?’ Gina asked. ‘Were you the only person in town who got some sleep or summat?’

  ‘Sleep?’ Elsie beamed, looking rather manic and even more rabbity than usual. ‘What’s that? Remind me!’

  In their pent-up state they all seemed to laugh at anything and everything. They sat in a little ring, in their trousers, jackets and heavy boots, caps on the benches beside them. A couple of other women came in and chatted by the stove, waiting for the water to boil again.

  ‘Did you see that pair of cami-knickers hanging from the rafters in Snow Hill?’ Madge chuckled after plonking herself beside them. ‘There was all sorts up there this morning!
’

  Sylvia laughed. ‘I didn’t see them, but I saw a pair of trousers. The mess. It was awful.’

  ‘I know – but I wonder whose knickers they were? They must be feeling a bit chilly this morning,’ Gina said.

  Madge snorted. ‘Talk about washing your dirty linen in public.’

  They all got the giggles, half-guiltily, but they couldn’t seem to help it.

  ‘Even Froggy was quite pleasant when I came in today,’ Sylvia said. ‘He was hopping about like a mad thing. I was more than half an hour late and he didn’t even seem to notice.’

  ‘Oh, you weren’t the only one,’ Gina said. ‘The distance some people have to come. Did you hear, the police station was hit – Steelhouse Lane? I saw, on the way in.’

  The others looked at her. It was hard to take it all in. As yet they had no clear picture of what had happened across Birmingham.

  There came a tap at the door of the mess room and, looking round, Sylvia saw Kitty at the door.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Come in.’ Only then did she see the expression on Kitty’s face and the unusually dishevelled state of her. Her clothes were crumpled, her stockings torn and her normally neat hair was unbrushed and full of dust. Sylvia jumped up. ‘Kitty, whatever’s happened?’

  Kitty sank down on the bench beside her and burst into violent tears, in a way that tore at Sylvia’s heart. All the women looked at each other in dismay. Sylvia put her arm round Kitty’s heaving shoulders. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, distressed. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Kitty was unable to speak for a moment and she was trembling all over. She gulped, tugging a handkerchief out from her sleeve to wipe her eyes.

  ‘It’s all gone – our house!’ she cried. ‘We had the most terrible night. I was under the stairs, in the cupboard, all on my own. My father wouldn’t come, said he wasn’t moving anywhere for anyone. He’s so stubborn.’ She banged her fist on her knee in frustration. ‘When it got bad, I ran up and tried and tried to make him get out of bed, but he was . . . Well, he’d had a bit to drink and I couldn’t wake him. I just had to go back down there by myself. And later – I don’t know what time, I lost track – there was a huge bang! It was so loud and the noises just went on. It was pitch-dark. There was dust everywhere – I was choking. I thought I was trapped under there. I thought . . . I was going to die.’ She sobbed so much then that she couldn’t go on.