Soldier Girl

by Annie Murray

  ‘What’s the matter?’ He looked into her eyes. ‘You’re all of a quiver. Oh Em, love – I ain’t going to hurt yer!’

  ‘I know – only, you know, it’s . . . I’ve never . . .’

  Very tenderly he put his arms round her again. ‘I’d never hurt yer. You’re everything to me – yer know that. I just want to love yer, that’s all.’

  ‘I know – just be gentle, won’t you?’

  ‘You’re my goddess. Course I will.’

  He lifted her frock over her head so that she was down to her camiknickers, feeling chilly and also shy, since he was still fully clothed and gazing longingly at her.

  ‘You get undressed as well,’ she said.

  ‘Oh – OK then!’

  Em got into bed, wondering whether she should take the rest of her clothes off. Already covered with goose pimples, she pulled the covers up, fumbling with the fastening on her brassiere, conscious of Norm’s urgent movements which were shaking the end of the bed.

  ‘I’m coming love,’ he said, bending down to unlace his shoes. Each was dropped with a thud on the floor and the clothes followed. Em braced herself for the sight of her naked husband as he quickly turned to her, but then just as suddenly, stepping towards her, he disappeared with a crash. She felt the bed jar.

  ‘Norm?’ She kneeled up, holding the sheet over her bare breasts. ‘What’re you doing – are you all right?’

  There was silence from the floor, then a groan. Em crawled along the bed to see him sitting up, hand over one eye.

  ‘I slipped on the flaming rug, didn’t I?’ he groaned. Cautiously, he removed his hand and squinted up at her.

  At the sight of him sitting there starkers on the floor, ears sticking out and with the makings of what tomorrow would be a huge shiner on his left eye, Em put her hand over her mouth and tried to choke back her giggles.

  Norm, still groaning with pain, managed a chuckle as well. ‘You can laugh – it blooming well hurts!’

  ‘I’m sorry, love . . .’ The laughter burst out of her. ‘You just look so funny . . .’ She lay back, cackling hysterically.

  Norm got groggily to his feet and came and lay beside her, and the fact that he laughed as well made her love him all the more. He leaned up on one elbow then, his face suddenly rapt and serious.

  ‘Well you look lovely,’ he said. ‘You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.

  Twenty-Eight

  Norm set off to begin his basic training a few days later. Em did not go to the station to see him off as she had to be at work that morning. As they lay cuddled up in bed together in his mom and dad’s house in Saltley very early that day, knowing that soon he must go, she felt as if she was being torn apart.

  ‘I don’t know why you had to go and do it,’ she wept, lying curled up next to him. ‘You could’ve stayed here where you were and we’d have been together.’

  ‘I know,’ Norm said, his hand moving across her soft hair. He sounded wretched, full of second thoughts about the wisdom of joining up too. ‘I wish I’d never done it now. It was all a bit spur of the moment. Only – I dunno, I s’pose I’d feel less respect for myself. Our mom’s proud of me for it, even though I know she’ll worry.’

  Em sobbed for a while, sad and a touch angry with him, then quietened, and lay treasuring the luxury of being there warm together, before it was snatched away.

  Norm turned to her and kissed her damp cheek, then her lips.

  ‘Oh, love . . .’ His arms wrapped round her. ‘Can we – you know – once more? Before I go?’

  ‘Again?’ Em teased. ‘Blimey, you’re a one!’

  ‘No, you are.’ He kissed the end of her nose. ‘I can’t resist yer.’

  ‘Oh, go on then.’

  But she was happy. Ever since their wedding night, when they had started to learn lovemaking together – one consequence of which being the dramatic black eye Norm was sporting the morning after – it had been a happy, loving thing. She had lost her fear of it and got past the strangeness of it, and she felt loved and wanted. They had spent a happy few days in the Stapletons’ house, where his mom and dad were kind and welcoming to her, and all she really wanted was for it to go on like this for ever.

  After Norm’s enthusiastic lovemaking, cold reality returned like a slap. He had to get up, and then leave on a train to Aberystwyth, and when she would see him again and for how long, none of them knew. And when she did see him, he would be different, with cropped hair and a uniform on.

  She clung to him before he left, not wanting to let go, until Norm almost had to prise himself away. He held her shoulders and looked solemnly at her.

  ‘Don’t cry, bab. I love yer – I’ll be back, and I’ll write to yer, often as I can.’

  He kissed her once more, parted fondly from his mother, and then Em and Mrs Stapleton stood at the door, each wiping their eyes, watching Norm’s loping, big-footed frame recede along the street, then vanish with a final cheery wave.

  ‘Ah well, bab,’ Mrs Stapleton said, rallying, ‘we mustn’t keep on. He’s a good lad and it’s got to be done.’

  But Em felt cold inside. At least he’s only training for the moment, she told herself. Even though he had only just gone, she ached for him to come back. That day she thanked Mrs Stapleton and said she would move her things back to Kenilworth Street after work. All day she felt on the edge of tears, trying to be brave and not cry in front of Mr Perry or the customers. The moment she set foot back home and saw her mom, she burst into sobs.

  ‘Oh I wish he hadn’t gone and joined up!’ she wept. ‘He didn’t have to – and he’s gone and left me, when we’ve only just got married!’

  Norm wrote faithfully, brief but affectionate letters, telling her a little about what he was doing and saying how much he missed her. Em soon felt better and got used to things. Life went back to how it had been before, though the absence of people who had always been there before did make her think.

  Perhaps I should have joined up? she mused one morning, absent-mindedly putting onions in a bag for one of their customers. Suddenly she was full of a restless sense of anti-climax. Things had quietened down, so that her warden duties were a routine thing now, with no raids. Life had gone back to normal, back home with Mom, while others had gone off for a new kind of life. Molly had done it, and now Norm. She found herself wondering about Katie O’Neill, who had once been a friend at school, though she had proved two-faced and turned her back on her when Em’s family ran into troubles. She hadn’t seen Katie or her mother in the area for some time. Maybe Katie had joined up as well? Anyway, it was too late for Em herself now, she realized – she was a married woman – even if it didn’t feel much like it at the moment.

  ‘Em, are you with us?’ Mr Perry called. ‘Mrs Clothier’s still waiting for her onions over ’ere!’

  And then she started being sick. The first couple of days she thought she was ill. She got up feeling very poorly, though the sickness cleared up as the day went on. When it had been going on for a few days, Cynthia noticed. She was washing up in a bowl on the table one morning when Em came in from the privy, her face a ghastly white.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked, guardedly.

  ‘I don’t feel too good,’ Em admitted, sinking onto a chair in the back room. ‘I keep being sick.’

  Cynthia paused. She rested her hands, pink from the hot water, on the side of the bowl.

  ‘How many days?’

  Em shrugged, resting her head wearily on her hand. ‘Dunno. A few.’

  ‘You know what it is, don’t yer?’ She moved over to the teapot, which was wrapped in a green and yellow crocheted cosy, and poured a cup, bringing it over to Em. ‘’Ere – get that down yer.’

  Em looked up into her eyes.

  ‘It means you’re expecting.’

  Em’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Does it?’

  Cynthia nodded, an odd, mixed expression on her face.

  Em’s heart was thudding hard. She suddenly felt hot, slightly faint. ‘Do
es it – I mean, I might just be poorly . . .’

  Cynthia sat down beside her. ‘You’re just sick in the mornings, bab, aren’t yer?’ she said gently.

  ‘Yes – well, I feel a bit sick of an evening too.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Standing in the shop – I just feel so tired, dizzy sometimes. And I keep forgetting things.’

  ‘D’you feel, sort of – different?’

  Em considered. ‘Yes, I s’pose I do.’

  Cynthia leaned forward emotionally and touched Em’s arm. ‘Oh love – I think you’ve got a babby on the way.’ Her face crumpled and she burst into fearful crying, one hand clasped over her mouth. ‘Oh I’m sorry, love,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Don’t, Mom,’ Em said, disturbed by seeing her like that. ‘Please don’t cry like that. It’ll be all right – I’m sure it will be!’

  The sickness, and Cynthia’s reaction, sent Em into a panic. Here she was, expecting a child – she knew Cynthia was right, all her instincts told her so – with no Norm here to make her feel safe, and with all her mother’s fears and suffering laid upon her. There were moments when she felt angry with Norm. Fancy going off at a time like this! She knew it wasn’t his fault really, and that there were women all over the country without their men at home. But her mother’s reaction had made all her old fears come crowding back and there was no Norm to reassure her. That first day her mind rushed back and forth like a rat in a trap. Why had she let this happen? Should she try and do away with the child? It was a wicked thought, she knew, but it came anyway. What if she was like Mom after the babby and lost her mind, what if she had to be taken away, what if . . . ? The thoughts churned round and round all day until she felt exhausted.

  After work she was desperate for someone to talk to. She went to call on Mrs Stapleton and give her the news of a grandchild on the way. Edna Stapleton welcomed her joyfully, which made Em feel a bit better.

  ‘Aren’t you a clever girl!’ she said enthusiastically, sitting Em down and giving her tea and a slice of dry cake. ‘Well, we must take good care of you, bab. That’s our first grandchild! What lovely news! Oh, Bill’ll be over the moon! Let’s see now – it’ll arrive . . .’ She counted on her fingers. ‘January or so. Well, you’ve made me a very happy woman, bless yer.’

  Em was cheered by her mother-in-law’s kindness, but she didn’t feel she could discuss her real fears with Mrs Stapleton. It would have felt wrong and disloyal talking about Mom and what had happened to her and how she was sometimes. But she longed to pour out her heart to someone, and when she’d left the house in Saltley, tired as she was, she made her way to Duddesdon, to see the one person who she knew would understand – Dot.

  As she knocked on the door of the tall terraced house she realized she had not come at the best time. Dot would be cooking tea and the family would be there, but she was so desperate and she’d come all this way and didn’t want to turn back now.

  The door was opened by Dot’s youngest, Nancy, who was thirteen, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a jaunty prettiness. Nancy’s father had been an Italian, a musician passing through the area whom Dot, then a widow with twin sons, had fallen for. She had had to bring up Nancy on her own, the itinerant father never knowing of his child’s existence. But now Dot had remarried, and she and Nancy had changed their names from Wiggins to Alberello, a surname that suited Nancy’s Neapolitan looks. Em saw she was growing up into a beauty.

  ‘Hello, Em!’ Nancy said, surprised. ‘What’re you doing here?’

  A smell of frying onions was wafting out from the back, which Em would normally have found delicious, but today it turned her stomach.

  ‘I just want a word with your mom. Is she there?’

  Dot’s tall, wiry figure came along the dark hall; she was wiping her hands on her pinner and looking concerned.

  ‘What’s up, Em? Is it Cynthia?’

  ‘No, she’s all right,’ Em said, feeling the tears prickling in her eyes. She was aware of Nancy hovering curiously in the background. ‘I’m ever so sorry to come when you’re cooking, but could I have a quick word, in private, like?’

  ‘Nancy – go and watch the stove,’ Dot ordered. ‘Come in, love, it’s no trouble.’

  Dot led Em into the front room, which was shrouded by net curtains. Em was in too much of a state to notice much, but she took in the atmosphere of formality, the heavy furniture and framed photographs on a table: Dot and Lou’s wedding and old First Communion pictures of his daughters. It was a much more comfortable house than Dot had had when she lived next to them in Kenilworth Street.

  ‘Sit down, bab,’ Dot said kindly. ‘You look in a bit of a state – what’s the trouble?’

  ‘I’m so worried!’ Em sank into a chair, the words pouring out confusedly. ‘I think I’m expecting a babby and I feel sick all the time and Mom cried and I’m so frightened! I don’t want to end up like her! D’you think I will?’

  ‘Oh bab!’ Dot came and sat on the arm of the chair, her strong arm round Em’s shoulders. ‘What’s all this to-do about? You think you’ve a babby on the way already! Bless yer – ain’t that lovely!’

  She sounded so pleased and not frightened and in a panic like Cynthia, and Em felt a bit better already.

  ‘Well, you and Norm haven’t wasted any time, have yer?’ Dot chuckled.

  Em was glad her blushes would not be visible in the shadowy room.

  ‘But I’m scared I’ll go like Mom – have to go to the asylum and . . . Oh Dot!’ She turned, frantically, to face her. ‘What if I get like that? The thought of it terrifies the life out of me!’

  Dot gently rubbed her back, her face serious, and Em was grateful to see that she was not going to dismiss her fears and tell her not to be silly.

  ‘I don’t s’pose you will, love. I don’t know what happened to your mom exactly. But remember she’d had three babbies and been all right before. I don’t know if it was anything to do with the shock of Joycie going missing so soon after. I don’t s’pose we’ll ever know. But I don’t know as it runs in families. Best thing is not to worry too much. You know – hope for the best and don’t get all down and gloomy. Keep cheerful for the babby’s sake! You’ve always been a happy little soul, despite it all – I’m sure you’ll be all right.’

  Em went home a little comforted, especially taking with her Dot’s reminder that she was always there, and to come and see her if she ever wanted a natter.

  Over the summer months, the sickness gradually wore off and Em adjusted to the idea that she was going to be a mother. Sometimes she felt completely unprepared, like a child herself, but mostly it was an exciting, awesome thought. Norm greeted the news with huge enthusiasm and at last, at the end of July, when his basic training was over, he was allowed home on leave. Once more they stayed for those few days in Saltley. Norm, Em realized with amusement, would have been happy to spend his entire leave in bed with her.

  ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he kept saying, before snuggling up to her and pressing her to make love all over again. Em wondered if it was safe, but it seemed to feel all right.

  ‘I thought you’d have a bit of a belly on you by now,’ he said the first time he saw her naked. She was lying beside him and he examined her carefully as if she was a precious piece of china and he was checking for chips and cracks.

  ‘No – I’m only three months gone,’ she said. ‘It’s at the end you get big.’

  He stroked his hand over her tummy. ‘Well, I wonder who’s in there. Oh love – it’s so . . . Well, it’s a miracle, ain’t it?’

  Norm seemed stronger, a little older somehow, with his service haircut and his blue uniform. Naked, he seemed to have filled out a little. He talked a lot, telling her all about it, the other lads he had trained with, from all over the place, about the planes and routines. She could see that, much as he missed her, in some ways he was having the time of his life, and she was both glad and a little jealous.

  ‘Don’t forget me, will you?’ she said, wistfull
y.

  ‘Forget you?’ Norm said, appalled. ‘How could I forget you? You’re my missus. You’re the most precious thing in the world!’

  The blissful days of his leave tore past. He saved the news that upset her until the end: he was going to Canada next, to complete his training as a fighter pilot.

  ‘Canada?’ she said, bewildered. He might as well have said Timbuktu. It was so strange and far away.

  ‘It won’t be for ever,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll most likely get a posting back here.’

  And he was gone. While holding fast to the knowledge of how much he loved her and she him, she resigned herself to adjusting to being without him and going back to her old routine once again.

  But things had a way of not settling down for long. A couple of weeks later, Em was walking back from work, her feet aching from standing in the shop, but appreciating no longer feeling sick, and enjoying the feel of the warm air on her bare arms and legs. She turned her face up to the sun, squinting. She was carrying a few vegetables that Mr Perry had given her which she knew Mom would be glad of for tea, and she stopped to donate a few of them to one of the elderly ladies along the street.

  The front doors of most of the houses were open and she heard the sound of music from several wireless sets floating out to her, then the music cut off and a man’s voice was talking. Their door was open too, but to her surprise, Cynthia was not listening to the wireless as she often did while she cooked. Em felt an immediate sense of foreboding. Had something happened? Was she going to find that Cynthia had taken to her bed upstairs?

  ‘Mom? I’ve got some stuff for you from Mr Per—’

  She stopped in amazement in the doorway through to the back. Cynthia was sitting at the table looking perfectly all right and a familiar figure was sitting opposite her with her back to Em, unmistakable at a glance, with her striking figure and thick blonde hair. But the face that then turned to greet her was pink and puffy with tears.

  ‘Molly?’

  ‘ ’Ello, Em,’ she said dully.