Meet Me Under the Clock

by Annie Murray

  Sylvia noticed the kindly voice of the ambulance man. He had a soft Welsh accent. ‘Nearly there,’ he said to Audrey as she moaned in pain. ‘We’ll be in the ambulance in a minute. Soon have you safe.’ Just as they reached the doors a fit of pain overcame her. She convulsed on the stretcher, trying not to make a noise, but her moans seemed to echo between the houses. A couple of people who were setting off to work on bicycles passed, staring. Sylvia realized with a shock that going to work was what she should have been doing too. Everything, apart from what was happening to Audrey, felt like another existence.

  As they at last got Audrey settled in the ambulance, the man, about forty and with a round, gentle face, turned to them.

  ‘Any of you going with her? You can, you know.’ He was going to travel with Audrey. The woman was the one driving.

  They heard Audrey’s voice from the back of the ambulance. ‘Sylv! Come with me. I want my sister!’

  Sylvia and her mother looked at each other. ‘I’m supposed to be at work,’ Sylvia said. She both wanted to go with Audrey and dreaded the thought of it. Then she looked down at herself. ‘I can’t go like this: I’m in my nightdress!’

  ‘She wants you. Run and dress – quick. I’ll go to the Goods Yard and tell them,’ Pauline said.

  Sylvia tore upstairs and flung on some clothes in seconds. As she ran out to the ambulance her mother pressed a half-crown into her hand. ‘Take this – you don’t know how long you’ll be there.’

  So Sylvia found herself climbing up into the back of the ambulance and driving away through the quiet morning, reaching for her sister’s hand.

  Forty-Six

  If it had not been for the ambulance man, Sylvia thought she might have passed out with worry. Audrey looked so bad. Sylvia had never seen anyone giving birth before and she didn’t know how it was supposed to be. What was wrong? Audrey seemed so remote, and at the end of her strength. But the man talked quietly to her. When she screamed in pain – a worse pain, it seemed, than any that had gone before – he held her hand and, as she lay back, tenderly wiped her hair away from her face. He also talked quietly to Sylvia, and the journey to Selly Oak passed more quickly than it might have done.

  ‘She your big sister?’ he asked.

  Sylvia nodded, mute with anxiety.

  ‘You’re quite alike,’ he said. ‘Both very pretty.’ His tone was one of genuine observation, not as if he was trying to butter her up.

  ‘Quite alike,’ Sylvia said. ‘Except for the hair.’ She pulled at a strand of her unbrushed, chaotic mop. ‘And if you knew us.’ She searched his face, the gentle grey eyes. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so,’ he said gravely. Did she imagine that he looked worried too?

  ‘She’s very brave, my sister,’ she found herself saying. ‘Very brave and strong.’ Tears came suddenly and she put her head in her hands.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the man said. He touched her shoulder, just for a second. ‘Don’t worry.’

  When she looked up again he was gazing intently into Audrey’s face as if willing her to be all right.

  When they rushed Audrey away, Sylvia sat in the side-room where she was told to wait, feeling desolate. The ambulance man had told her his name was Colin Evans. He had wished them both the very best. Then he was gone. Sylvia realized then that she had been up most of the night and was feeling very low. She went to see if she could at least find a cup of tea. In the corridor she met a woman pushing a trolley.

  ‘Is there anywhere I can buy a cup of tea?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a bit early for that.’ The motherly woman poured her a cup. ‘Here, this is for one of the wards, but we can spare you a cup, bab – you look all in.’

  Sylvia began to cry again. ‘It’s my sister. I don’t know where they’ve taken her. She’s having a baby. Something’s wrong . . .’

  ‘Oh dear,’ the woman said kindly. ‘Well, you’ll hear sooner or later. Go on, drink up – it’ll do yer good.’

  Sylvia thanked her and went back to the room and its uncomfortable chairs. She started to shake, as if she was going to pieces. She was filled with fear and dread, certain that she was never going to see Audrey again. Sitting back, she allowed herself to have a quick, sharp weep. Then, overcome by sheer weariness, and despite the hardness of the chair, she fell asleep.

  ‘Miss? Hello, Miss?’

  Someone was touching her shoulder. Nothing made sense for a moment when she opened her eyes to see a small, white room and a young woman with brown eyes and a white nurse’s cap looking down at her. Then it all came back.

  ‘Oh!’ She was about to leap up. ‘What’s happened? Audrey – where is she?’

  ‘Are you Miss Whitehouse?’

  Sylvia stared stupidly at her. ‘Yes. Has my . . . ?’

  ‘Your sister is still under. I mean she hasn’t come round from the anaesthetic. She won’t be able to see you until later. They delivered the baby by Caesarean section.’ She smiled then. ‘A little boy.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sylvia’s heart was suddenly beating so fast it made her feel quite peculiar. ‘A boy! Oh, are they – is she . . . ?’

  ‘She’s recovering well,’ she nurse said. ‘But it was an emergency. They needed to get him out quickly.’

  Sylvia burst into tears. ‘Thank heavens!’ she sobbed. ‘I thought she was going to die.’

  ‘Oh no, she’s going to be all right,’ the nurse said. ‘But why don’t you go home and rest for a while? She can’t see you yet. If you come back later, during visiting hours, I’m sure she and the little one will be much more ready by then.’

  Sylvia walked out, dazed, into the now sunlit May morning. As she stood waiting for the Outer Circle bus, it hit her in a blaze of amazement. Everything was all right! Audrey had had her baby and she was going to live! She realized how terrified she had been the night before. Now she felt like turning cartwheels along the street. All she wanted was to get home and tell Mom and Dad and Jack, who would all be fretting themselves silly.

  Most extraordinary of all, Mom had let Jack stay home from school. Never had such a thing happened before, even at the height of the bombing when they were all exhausted. Only Dad felt he had to get to the works. Marjorie was waiting with them, with Paul, and as soon as Sylvia opened the front door they all rushed towards her.

  ‘She’s all right. And she’s had a little boy! Everything’s all right.’

  Her mother put her hands over her face in tears of relief and gratitude. ‘Oh, thank heavens – oh, my little girl! I thought I was going to lose her.’ Marjorie comforted her, tears running down her cheeks as well.

  ‘A boy!’ Jack said. ‘How long before he can play football?’ But then his face crumpled and he rushed upstairs, embarrassed to let his emotion show.

  ‘Well,’ Pauline said, wiping her eyes. ‘A baby boy. Now the fun and games’ll really begin. Look what Marjorie’s brought us.’

  In the back room was a big pram.

  ‘I hadn’t the heart to part with it,’ Marjorie said. ‘I’ve kept all sorts of bits and pieces in it – nothing dirty, though. And I’ve given it a good clean-up for her.’

  ‘Oh, I remember that!’ Sylvia said. She had seen Marjorie pushing Paul around in it. ‘It’s lovely.’ In tears herself, quite wrung out with emotion, she said, ‘So, we are keeping him, Mom?’

  Pauline’s face took on a hard, determined air. ‘We’re keeping him. Whatever anyone thinks, he’s family.’

  As they were making a much-needed cup of tea, Jack came downstairs again, looking watery but under control. ‘Look,’ he offered, ‘I’ll bike over and tell Dad, shall I?’

  Sylvia and her mother caught the bus back to the hospital that afternoon. Pauline admitted that she had forgotten all about heading over to the Goods Yard to explain what was going on, so on the way Sylvia called them from a phone box. The woman’s voice on the other end was disapproving. ‘We’ll have to dock your pay.’ Sylvia couldn’t have cared less.

  Audrey wa
s lying quietly when they went in, but as she saw them come to the bed, she gave an exhausted smile.

  ‘Hello, Mom, Sylv.’

  ‘How are you, bab?’ Pauline asked softly, sitting beside Audrey. She wiped her eyes, determined not to get too emotional again.

  ‘Very sore. But I’m okay. I feel so weak . . . He’s doing well, they say. They’ll bring him in a minute.’

  Audrey couldn’t remember much about what had happened. ‘It was a shock when I woke up here. And then, just a few minutes ago, a bloke came and asked how I was and said he’d brought me in the ambulance. I couldn’t even remember him!’

  ‘I’m not surprised, the state you were in,’ Sylvia said. ‘That was kind of him. His name’s Colin. He’s ever such a nice man.’

  ‘Yes,’ Audrey said. ‘He seemed it.’

  A nurse came up and said to her, ‘Well, it’s nearly his feeding time. Shall I bring the little fellow through?’

  From the nursery there came the distant sound of babies crying. Women lay recovering on the surrounding beds. A few minutes later the nurse came back carrying a little bundle wrapped in a white blanket. As she handed him to Audrey, they saw a rosy face, his head topped by a slick of dark hair.

  Sylvia knew her mother had deep reservations about this baby, but she could see her being drawn in by his sheer loveliness. She wondered what Audrey felt. She was showing every sign of loving him as any mother would.

  ‘Oh,’ Pauline said, and a soft expression that Sylvia had never seen before came over her face. ‘He’s beautiful. He looks just like you did.’

  Audrey flashed a sudden watery smile. ‘Does he?’ She gazed at him as he lay in her arms. ‘I still can’t take it in. One moment I’m asleep – then they show me . . .’ Tears suddenly ran down her face. ‘It doesn’t seem right somehow.’

  ‘You laboured hard for him, love,’ Pauline said with surprising fierceness. ‘You just had a little help with the last bit. What weight was he?’

  ‘Seven pounds nine,’ Audrey said. ‘He feels even heavier, now he’s come out. Here,’ she offered. ‘D’you want to hold him?’

  Sylvia and their mother both had a hold. Sylvia felt the warm weight of the little boy, and his mysterious baby-smell. In amazement she took in his twitching face, his tiny lips and nose.

  Audrey watched them getting acquainted with her son. ‘Mom,’ she said softly, ‘they say I have to stay here for a few days.’ Then, with more vulnerability than Sylvia had ever seen in her, she went on, ‘I couldn’t part with him – not for anything.’ She swallowed and added. ‘Mom, I’m sorry.’

  Pauline looked up from gazing at her grandson and said, without rancour, ‘Too late to be sorry. Now we’re just going to have to get on with it – and think of this one’s future.’

  Forty-Seven

  30 May 1942

  Laurie Gould sat crammed into the hut, shoulder-to-shoulder with all the other men awaiting their final briefing. The air was full of smoke. Everyone needed something to calm their nerves before take-off.

  ‘Tonight’s the night,’ the Lincolnshire station commander told the assembled air crews. ‘The plan is on. Some of you will be familiar with the destination.’

  They had spent that morning carrying out aircraft checks, flying out over the North Sea to make sure everything was operational. All day the airfield was alive with activity: refuelling, maintenance checks and ‘bombing up’, for what was clearly going to be a massive raid. Trailer after trailer of bombs had moved across the base, some packed with incendiaries, others with high explosives, all to be stowed in the waiting planes. They had been in no doubt that this was to be a Big One. Now, at last, they knew the intended target: Cologne.

  Sitting beside Laurie was Sam Masters, their crew’s flight engineer. Nudging Laurie, he held out a packet of Lucky Strike. Laurie took one. ‘Thanks, chum.’ He lit up and drew on the cigarette, trying to ignore the cramping in his guts. It always took him like this. Nerves got everyone, one way or another. Some chaps couldn’t stop talking. Others went back and forth to the latrines. Almost all of them smoked. It was important never to think about what you were doing or allow the imagination to take over. That was the way to a complete funk. You had to joke with all the lads, and block out thoughts of anything other than the job ahead.

  The weather was fine, the commander’s brisk voice was saying. The moon was due to be full tonight and the skies clear, though there might be moderate cloud cover over Germany, which might make their life slightly easier. He outlined the route on the map. Laurie listened with exceptional care. It was his job to get them there, guiding the Avro Manchester with his plotting and calculations. His stomach churned again and he drew in some deep breaths to try and calm himself.

  The build-up was always bad, but this was by far the biggest mission that he personally had been on yet. The Luftwaffe had wreaked massive damage on Warsaw, Rotterdam and Belgrade. The RAF had replied by bombing Rostock and Lübeck, Essen and, already, Cologne. Now they were going on the biggest raid ever – with more than a thousand bomber aircraft. The centre of Cologne was to be obliterated. The word ‘Coventrate’ had become a new one in their language, since the devastating raids on Coventry.

  ‘That’s all,’ the commander concluded. ‘Best of luck to you all.’

  They ate a meal, got kitted up and waited. By eight o’clock they were climbing into the trucks that would take them out to the airfield. Laurie was once more crammed in with his crew, Sam Masters on one side of him and Ron Williamson, the wireless operator, on the other. There was the odd remark passed, a snigger of laughter, but mostly they were quiet now, reflective, keyed up for what lay ahead.

  Every few minutes Laurie reached inside his flying jacket for the reassuring feel of the folded sheets of paper. Pressed close to his heart were Sylvia’s two most recent letters. Thinking about his lovely Sylvia was his refuge, his dream. A pang of longing tightened his chest. Here was the world with this beautiful woman in it, his old friend, now his love. Everything was lit up in a blaze of loveliness, now that their feelings for each other had grown into the sweet, loving thing they were. And here he was, caught up in this wretched war, wasting every day of his life away from her, in this terrible, destructive job of work.

  Frustrated anger coursed through him. What was life for? For this? Being carried out to a dark airfield, from where he would fly to the country of other men, to wreak on it massive destruction? And all this when he could be at home with his girl, getting married, loving her and doing good, wholesome things that offered him a future. Would he ever see another dawn after this one? Six weeks’ life expectancy in Bomber air crews, they were told, when they arrived. Make your will, lads. That was something he had never told Sylvia. There were already too many men who had not come back – two of them the best friends he had made, the ones he would joke with in the crew room. For a few seconds he was filled with utter desperation. He pulled himself back from this, taking deep breaths again. He forced himself to think of Sylvia and nothing else.

  Earlier in the day he had found time to write to her. The letter would surely already be on its way, ready to greet her in the morning. He had memorized many of the words from her letters to him. He knew they were an effort for her, and he carried them close to his heart as his own personal mascot.

  Audrey had had the baby, Sylvia had told him, in the first letter. She described what had happened, the long night and Audrey’s distress, her own fear and then, at the end of it all, this beautiful little boy! ‘He really is such a sweetheart,’ Sylvia told him:

  I’m afraid Aud has been rather weepy for the past few days, though Mom says that’s often how it is after a birth. But it’s so sad that things aren’t better for A. I feel desperate for her sometimes. She’s very attached to the little boy and making a fine job, which is lovely to see, though she still hasn’t given him a name. I know Mom thinks he should be christened, but she doesn’t want to go to the vicar with A. not being married. There’s no sign of the father, of c
ourse. A.’s adamant that there’s no point even in telling him about the child, though I would have thought he could at least give some money to provide for him, married or not. I do have to try not to say the wrong thing.

  Mom and Dad are doing their best, and the person who has been the most help is your mother, bless her! She’s round all the time – can’t seem to keep her eyes off the little man. She just wants to coo and hold him, and never mind where he came from. Thank goodness for her – there are enough busybodies out there who like to condemn people, and I’m sure A. will have to cope with enough of them. So having someone like your mother around is a tonic for all of us. And it’s so nice to be able to write, my love, and tell you about how it really is.

  Laurie had smiled reading this, but there was a deep sadness to the smile. He knew his mother loved babies, but he knew too that she had had hopes for Audrey and Raymond. Perhaps this baby was like a replacement for the child that Raymond never had with Audrey – or with anyone. Laurie knew, with a sour feeling, that his father would never allow himself such an indulgence. Dad, ever tight and relentless, always expecting more from everyone than they could give. But Laurie was glad for his mother, that she could take so much pleasure in this little child.

  I so wish you were here. We are busy as ever, but I still find plenty of times to miss and miss you. Sometimes I dream that I’ll look up when I’m at work and you’ll come walking across the yard, like you did that day, and you’ll tell me the war’s over and you’re never going away again. Well, a girl can dream, can’t she? And one day maybe that’ll happen.

  I’ll make a date with you, my love. When you’re coming home, send me a wire with a time on it. All you have to say is ‘Meet me under the clock’ and I’ll be there – whatever time of the day or night!