by Annie Murray
When they had finished tea and chatted for a while they all got up to leave.
‘Fancy coming along with me for a bit?’ Dorrie said, casually, to Audrey.
Audrey, longing to put things right, agreed to go to Dorrie’s hut. The place was almost identical to the one Audrey slept in, though it was fractionally less tidy. Dorrie’s bed was at the far end. On a bed close to the door a gaggle of WAAFs were gathered around chatting, having just come off duty. Audrey realized it must be someone’s birthday, as there seemed to be cake involved. Another girl, further down, was lying staring at the ceiling. As they passed her, Dorrie made a face.
‘Man trouble, I think,’ she whispered. ‘She’s unlucky in love, that one.’ Louder she added. ‘Look, just wait here a sec. I must go and sort my face out.’ She draped her towel over her shoulder and rummaged among her things for a bar of soap. ‘Back in a tick.’
Audrey sat on Dorrie’s bed as she disappeared off to the ablutions hut. Bursts of laughter came from the girls at the other end and then a ragged rendering of ‘Happy Birthday’. The unhappy-looking girl didn’t stir. Audrey wondered about asking her if she was all right, but thought the better of it. She looked around. A dark corner of something caught her eyes, sticking out from under Dorrie’s pillow. It took her a moment to realize that it was her diary. Usually Dorrie kept it hidden away in a little white drawstring bag, but she must have pushed it under there in a hurry.
She looked away, but a strong impulse of curiosity overcame her. What did Dorrie feel about her – about what had happened? Would she have written anything? I can’t look, she told herself. That’s sneaky and deceitful. Her heart pounded faster. She looked around the room again. No one was taking the slightest notice of what she was doing. Leaning over slightly, she pulled the blue book from under the pillow, glancing nervously at the door.
Opening it to recent pages, she saw Dorrie’s looped, clear handwriting. Dorrie always wrote with a fountain pen, in blue-black ink. Quickly she turned to the latest entry, dated 2 September, written last night. It said simply:
I feel so lousy and miserable. Audrey’s avoiding me like the plague now. The inevitable, I suppose. Maybe I was wrong. Alone again.
The words pierced Audrey painfully. From Dorrie’s manner, it was impossible to see that she was feeling so bad. Flipping back, a word jumped out at her from an entry written a few days earlier: lesbian.
I love Audrey so much. The words won’t come out of my mouth because I’m so frightened to burst this magnificent bubble of happiness that we have. She’s the one, I think – the one I’ve been looking for all this time. Never have I known such a sense of peace in myself. I know I’m a lesbian – I suppose I have always known it, since I was old enough to think about it. But Audrey – oh God, I don’t know if she has any idea what I feel, or what she is, and I’m so terrified of losing this. I fear she’ll run away from me and I could not bear that. Oh, for a world where we can all just be the people we were meant to be, instead of all this hiding and pretence and having to fit the mould.
I know some girls just pair up here, but I’m a more private sort – I can’t stand the thought of them gossiping and pointing the finger, the way they do. I suppose this makes me a coward. I want to speak to Audrey, to hear her say loud and clear that she’s mine, that she’d stand by me through anything – her and me together, whatever. Maybe it’s too soon. Perhaps it will always been too soon. I can’t say it.
Audrey’s eyes dashed along the lines, eating up the words, torn between joy and exultation at how much Dorrie felt for her, and the appalling shock of that word. Cuddles and kisses were one thing; unspoken feelings, looks, even holding hands. But seeing that word, lesbian, she was filled with panic. Didn’t it mean sordid things, secrets and being outcast? Queer. Shoving the diary back under Dorrie’s pillow, she hurried out of the hut, glancing left and right to see if Dorrie was coming, but there was no sign of her.
She tore along to her own hut and threw herself, panting, on the bed.
Maggie watched, bemused. ‘Where’s the fire?’ she said.
It wasn’t hard to find Nick Reynolds that night, or any other night, because most days she saw him during training, and Nick was very keen to meet her later again, for a drink. She smartened herself up, dabbed a bit of lipstick on, lent to her by Cora, and put her hair up.
‘You going with that bloke I saw you with the other night?’ Cora asked, also titivating before a date.
‘Yup, that’s the one,’ Audrey said breezily.
‘Might see you later then – mine’s a corporal.’
Audrey looked round and smiled. This was more like it. Meeting men: the whole game of men and women, the courting procedure. She slotted herself back into it with determination. No one was going to call her queer. For a moment she imagined Sylvia’s baffled face, if Audrey was to announce that she had taken up with a woman.
‘But, Audrey, why on earth?’ she would say, with her innocent look. ‘Imagine what Mom and Dad will say. People will talk . . .’ Good old Sylv – straight as a die.
It was just unthinkable. She might have been a bit of a tomboy, but that didn’t make her one of those. Dorrie would just have to get over things. Then, maybe, they could be friends.
She put her jacket on and patted her hair. ‘Coming then?’ she asked Cora. ‘We might as well go together.’
They set out across the base, laughing and joking. It was a relief to be with someone uncomplicated and fun.
‘Hello, Beautiful,’ Nick said, when she met him outside the sergeants’ mess.
Audrey smiled. She knew she looked good, and she was feeling very healthy and fit from all the balloon work. She felt strong and powerful – and feminine, she thought, enjoying the desire she could see in Nick’s eyes.
They spent a couple of hours talking and drinking. Nick was keen on sport and could talk endlessly about cricket and football. Audrey listened politely, though she had never played either and therefore did not find them especially thrilling as a topic of conversation. But Nick did take an interest in her and asked about her family, her home life. She asked about his, but all Nick said was, ‘Oh, nothing much to say. Mother, father, one sister. No excitements!’
For her last two weeks at Cardington the warm evenings ended up in much the same way, in a dark spot somewhere on the base with Nick, in each other’s arms, kissing for a long time. Nick kept pushing things further and further. It was very clear what he wanted, and Audrey was having to work hard to fend him off.
Audrey got back to her hut one night, during the first week when she was seeing Nick. She came in screwing up her eyes against the light, her lips feeling bruised and her cheeks tingling from the rasp of Nick’s stubble.
Cora had got in just before her and everyone was getting ready for bed. Just as Audrey sat down to unlace her shoes, Cora came over and sat beside her with a solemn face. As ever, she looked immaculate. Audrey could visualize her in her department-store job, recommending nail varnish and face powder.
‘Nick Reynolds,’ Cora said, as if checking she had the right name.
‘Yes,’ Audrey said. ‘What about him?’
Cora hesitated. ‘You do know he’s married?’
Audrey wasn’t sure if she actually gasped out loud. She felt a plunging sensation of shock. Emotions followed: dismay, but then also a floating sense of relief. Nick could not expect any commitment from her. He was not free. No wonder he was not keen to talk about his personal life.
‘I thought he might be,’ Audrey said. She felt a blush rise in her cheeks.
‘The chap I was with tonight knows him – and the wife as well. There’s a child, too. Just thought I’d better say, so that you’re not the only one in the dark.’ Cora got up to head back to her bed. ‘All up to you entirely, of course. None of my business. I just didn’t want to see you heart-sore, darling.’
Thirty-Seven
It was not too difficult to avoid Dorrie on such a big, busy RAF base. Audrey and the other ba
lloon trainees were out almost all day, and Dorrie was not their driver. Nor did she seek Audrey out. They both did their jobs, and mostly their paths never crossed. Once or twice in the next week Audrey spotted Dorrie in the distance, both times walking alone, with her head down.
The second time she saw Dorrie coming along one of the camp roads heading towards the huts. Audrey dodged back down a side-road, praying that Dorrie wouldn’t come along there. Dorrie kept walking without even raising her head. As she passed the end of the road and Audrey saw her familiar form moving past, she was filled with agony. To anyone else, Dorrie might seem lost in thought. But to Audrey she appeared utterly dejected. All she longed to do was to run and put her arms round her.
But she shook that impulse away with a sense of horror. No, her head told her coldly. Dorrie was a queer, and she wasn’t. Simple as that. Surely Dorrie must have got the message by now? What had she made of Audrey disappearing from the hut the other day? Had she worked out that Audrey must have looked in her diary and seen her terrible, dirty thoughts?
But the moment Dorrie disappeared ahead of her, Audrey felt absolutely miserable. It was like a light being turned off, leaving her in foggy gloom. The extent of this feeling frightened her as well.
‘Damn it!’ she cursed, marching along towards her hut, angry now, though she could not have said why. She had a date with Nick tonight and she had to prettify herself. God knew, she was a woman, wasn’t she? That’s what women were supposed to do, not moon about drooling over other girls – that was queer.
‘I’ve got other fish to fry,’ she told herself determinedly. What did it matter if Nick was married? They were only having a bit of a drink together. It wasn’t as if she wanted to marry him herself, was it?
As she readied herself for the evening she hardly dared ask herself what it was that she did want. A man, was all she could think. I need to know that I’m attractive to a man.
They went out to a pub that evening, a few miles out of Bedford. There was a small group of them, and one of the men had the use of a car. Audrey found herself among a collection of people she did not know at all, apart from Nick. It was best that way. Even though Cora had spoken to her only in friendship to warn her about Nick, she didn’t want Cora watching her every move.
The driver and his girlfriend, Violet, sat in the front. Audrey and Nick were squeezed in the back with two others, a man and another WAAF called Elizabeth. She was rather buxom and space was tight, so Audrey spent the journey on Nick’s lap, her head bent so as not to bang her head on the roof of the old Morris. Nick had his arms round her waist. While he chatted to the others, Audrey tried to sit in as unprovocative a position as possible, although she could sense Nick’s excitement. All the while his left hand, closest to the door, was gently stroking her back. She felt a combination of excitement and embarrassment and throughout the journey did not turn to look at him once.
They all piled out and went into the busy little pub: Audrey and Nick; Elizabeth, the WAAF orderly (though not one Audrey remembered seeing when she was in the sick quarters), and her RAF boyfriend, Richard; and Joe the driver and Violet, a slender, ginger-haired girl. It was a warm evening, the sky was clear and tinged with mauve at the horizon. They joined others who had spilled out onto the grass at the back, which sloped gently down to a stream. They were a nice enough crowd. Audrey took a liking to Violet, who was not a WAAF, but said that she worked, for the duration, as a telephone operator at Bedford railway station.
‘My sister works for the railway as well,’ Audrey told her.
Violet’s face lit up. ‘Does she? Where?’
‘Birmingham. She’s a porter.’
‘Crikey!’ Nick laughed. ‘I bet she’s built like a prize fighter.’
‘No, she’s not at all,’ Audrey retorted. ‘She’s lovely and slim – and very pretty. She’s just doing a good job for the war effort.’
‘Like you girls on the balloons,’ Nick said. Joe and Richard laughed, though Audrey couldn’t see what there was to laugh about. She knew they were doing a perfectly good job. Nick took a drag of his cigarette. They all had cigarettes, the smoke wafting away on the light breeze. ‘Hey,’ he put his arm round Audrey. ‘Don’t take on. I’m sure your sister’s a little cracker.’
‘She is,’ Audrey said.
‘Pretty as you?’ Nick looked deep into her eyes.
‘Prettier.’
‘Bring her along next time!’ Joe joked.
Audrey was about to reply that Sylvia was engaged to be married, when she realized that this was long out of date. She wondered how Sylvia was feeling now. She must write to her! The days were so full, and passed so quickly, that she hardly ever got round to it.
The boys were laughing at something. Audrey dragged her mind back to the present. Elizabeth was too far away from her to get talking, so she struck up a conversation with Violet, who turned out to come from a large family, having six brothers and two sisters. They spent most of the evening chatting about home and their jobs.
‘I was glad to get out, to tell you the truth,’ Violet said. She wrinkled her nose, which was scattered with freckles. ‘I was stuck in a wet-fish shop before, so when the chance came to go into the railways, I jumped at it.’
Audrey laughed. ‘You must’ve stunk!’
‘I did!’
‘I was doing clerical work. It made me want to bang my head on the desk with boredom. You can see why people get married, just to get out of it.’
She expected Violet to look shocked, but she nodded. ‘You can, but that’s no answer, is it? My mum and dad shouldn’t’ve gone near each other with a ten-foot barge pole, but they’re stuck with each other now.’
Audrey wasn’t sure what to say. She realized that her own mother and father were quite happy, compared to a lot of people. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Like that, is it?’
Violet nodded. ‘It’s like that all right. But what can they do? They’ve got nine children.’ She looked away, to the sky in the far distance. ‘I’m not letting that happen to me.’ She smiled. ‘Look, the moon’s coming up – it’s nearly full. Isn’t that lovely?’
A big, golden disc was rising slowly above the fields, fresh and beautiful, as though to greet a world filled with peace. A pair of ducks flew over, yakking urgently in the gentle evening air. For a moment they all looked, in silence.
On the drive back, once again Audrey had to sit on Nick’s lap. As the journey progressed, and now that they had been drinking, she could feel him becoming amorous, his hand finding its way up to stroke her breasts in the darkened vehicle. She kept trying to fend him off, but it was hard work. Nick was not going to let her go easily when they got back to the base.
‘Come with me afterwards,’ he kept whispering. ‘I need you, Audrey. I need you badly.’ She could smell the drink on his breath. And the beer she had drunk gave her a devil-may-care attitude. It was fate. Whatever would happen would happen. And it was a heady feeling to be needed so much.
As they drove back to the edge of the town, Nick called to Joe, who was driving, ‘Stop, will you, pal? Audrey and I’ve got someone we’ve got to go and see. We can walk back to Shortstown from here.’
By the time she had begun to gather her thoughts, it was too late to protest. She and Nick were climbing out of the car at the very edge of town, where the houses petered out onto the country road. The others called out ribald goodbyes and there was nothing she could do about it. She was already half-walking, half-running as Nick tugged on her hand, back away from the town.
‘Come on,’ he urged her. ‘I know where we can go!’ He slowed, realizing, even in his half-drunk state, that this was no way to woo a woman. He turned and wrapped his arms round her. ‘God, Audrey, you’re a cracker, you are. I don’t know what you do to me. I can’t stop thinking about you every minute of the day.’
He pressed his lips to hers, clumsily, forcing his tongue between her teeth. She tasted tobacco and cheap Scotch. He released her and began to pull her along the road ag
ain. Audrey, with a cold feeling of helplessness, abandoned herself to fate. She had only the most basic knowledge of what men did, even now, after all these evenings of Nick fumbling at her in dark corners, his hands finding their way into the most intimate places he could manage, panting with frustration that he could not go any further.
‘Here’s a place.’ They were among the fields again now, in the moonlight – a bomber’s moon, she thought. Nick ran to a five-bar gate and vaulted over it, turning to help her climb over, which was made more difficult by the fact that she was wearing her WAAF skirt.
Once inside the field it was hard to see, despite the moon.
‘Are those cows over there?’ she asked fearfully.
‘They won’t take any notice,’ Nick said. ‘Here – come along here.’
There was a soft squelching feeling as she moved her right foot forward. ‘Oh no – ugh! I’ve trodden in it!’
‘Just wipe your foot off on the grass,’ he ordered impatiently. She obeyed, taking her time.
Nick reached for her and pulled her into his arms again. ‘Now’s our chance.’ His voice was low and urgent. ‘I need to have you, Audrey – none of this playing around. There’s only so much I can stand. I need to have you properly.’ He pulled her hips in towards his own, to make her feel how stiff he was, then stepped back to unbutton.
‘Take your things off,’ he ordered her.
This was being a woman, she thought. What she had to do . . . As she drew down her underwear, he reached for her hand.
‘Feel – this is how much I need you.’ He pulled her to his upright cock and made her close her hand it round it. All she could do was obey now. It seemed too late for anything else. She was surprised at how hot it felt, how smooth. He moved against her hand.
