The Scarlet Sisters

by Helen Batten

  ‘No, you jolly well haven’t because my children have been a nice little earner for you, haven’t they?’

  ‘I told you I had no idea you were going to be charged too. And what if I did make some money? Would that be such a bad thing? Why would you begrudge me that? I needed the money you gave me and I needed the money the government gave me. Look at how I live. I’m hardly living the life of a princess, am I? Where do you think I sleep at night?’

  Alice had a point. She’d even taken lodgers in her front room. In the cottage, there were four children sleeping in a double bed, head to toe in the main bedroom; Clara had the back room; and there were two adults, a child and a dog in the front room. The only place left in the house for Alice to sleep was a chair in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t ever remember Mum sleeping,’ her daughter Jean said to me.

  When I asked Brian he seemed perplexed. ‘Do you know, I’d never thought of that. I don’t think she ever did sleep. She worked during the day and then she had a shift at the local parachute factory every night. She used to bring home the beautiful material and make white silk underwear out of it. If she did sleep, then I don’t know where she did it.’

  Is it possible that Alice just didn’t sleep? In a family renowned for its hard-working women, and also for its insomniacs, who can exist on unfeasibly small amounts of sleep (I’m one of them), perhaps she didn’t. They were all driven, but Alice most of all. Clara was very proud.

  But Grace had been spending time with Bertha, and at this point was so enraged she couldn’t resist … ‘Well, that’s an interesting question, where you sleep, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I think you know what I mean.’

  Alice blushed bright red. ‘I think you had better leave. I have always counted you as my best sister, the one I love the most, but you have insulted me in too many ways, Grace.’

  ‘Likewise. Don’t worry – I’m going, and I’m taking the children with me. You won’t get another penny from us.’

  Alice sat down in a state of shock while Grace marched out of the kitchen and shouted to the children to pack their cases, they were going home.

  As they came to leave Alice kissed them goodbye. Glenda looked nervous but Dennis was holding back tears.

  Clara was crying. She loved her grandchildren, especially the boys. She hugged Dennis tight and kissed him and whispered, ‘Stay safe, young man. Remember your Nanna loves you.’

  On the train back to Essex everyone was quiet. Dennis had a horrible lump in his throat. He’d been happy in High Wycombe, as the bombs never reached as far west as their peaceful patch of Buckinghamshire. Sometimes at night they could see the distant flash of gunfire from the direction of London, and he would say a little prayer of thanks that he wasn’t caught up in the middle of it.

  Now he was travelling right back into the eye of the storm, and it felt all wrong. As Dennis stared out of the window watching the trees and fields turn into houses and roads, he felt slightly distraught.

  Grace was not distraught – merely furious. She had expected an apology and couldn’t believe it when none had been forthcoming. She was so angry she hadn’t got to the point of wondering what on earth was she going to do with Dennis and Glenda; she was still stuck on Alice telling her how hard her life was. There was a big, ‘Yes, BUT!’ that Grace hadn’t got around to saying and was kicking herself for that. She’d gone off on a bit of a tangent with the, ‘Where was Alice sleeping?’ line, and she hadn’t really meant or wanted to go there. What she felt she should have done was say things like at least you’re not being bombed every night and at least you’ve got Mum there to help you. Basically: ‘Yes, you’ve got a hard life, but so have I. So have we all.’

  Back in High Wycombe, Alice was replaying the row in her mind too. In a state of shock at the sheer force of Grace’s anger, she had had to pour herself a drink. She didn’t drink as a rule, but she felt like she’d been hit by one of those German bombs. As she first gulped, then slowed down and sipped the drink, her mind raced. She was hurt that Grace could think she was deliberately misleading her about the money, but that last thing that she’d thrown at her – about where she was sleeping, that was niggling too.

  All she could think of was Bertha, because, just a month before, she had turned up on Bertha’s doorstep with a tall, dark, handsome GI in tow, asking for a room for the night.

  Alice remembered the moment when she started taking Mickey Edwardes Junior seriously. It was lunchtime on a Monday morning. She was sitting at her desk at work when she heard a plane flying low overhead. It was very noisy, and seemed to be going backwards and forwards over their roof, almost as if it was dive-bombing them.

  ‘What the blazes is that plane up to?’ said Mr Allsop, the manager.

  Suddenly an idea popped into Alice’s head. ‘Holy Mother of God, it can’t be!’ She leapt up from her desk and ran outside onto the street, her bemused colleagues following behind.

  Alice shielded her eyes with her hand and looked into the sunlight. And there he was, just as he’d promised – in a little Tiger Moth plane – looping the loop over her office. Her spirits soared with the little plane as it rose and her stomach lurched as the plane then fell, nose pointing to the earth. Everyone had stopped in the high street and there was a collective intake of breath as, just in time, he brought the plane steeply out of its tailspin and started to rise again.

  And he was close enough for everyone to see him turn around and blow a kiss in Alice’s direction.

  Alice realised she was biting her nails. She took her hands out of her mouth and, grinning from ear to ear, waved back and blew a theatrical kiss.

  ‘Mrs Corbett, is this flying circus anything to do with you?’ asked Mr Allsop.

  ‘Certainly not. As if!’ she replied. She winked at her fellow lady typists and then turned on her heel and strutted back into the office.

  Of course it was everything to do with Alice. It was the result of a giddy wager made late on a Saturday night when, on the long walk home from the dance hall in High Wycombe (made longer by the frequent pauses to kiss in the moonlight), they had fallen into bantering about how much Mickey loved her, and what he might do to prove it.

  ‘If you love me you’ll fly that plane of yours over my office on Monday lunchtime,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll do more than that. I’ll loop the loop over your office, sweetheart.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You betcha! But if I do, what will you give me in return?’

  ‘Hmm … I know. You keep asking me about where I come from. If you loop the loop, I’ll take you back to my home town.’

  ‘OK. You’re on, cupcake. Start finding us somewhere to stay in that town called Blue.’

  ‘Grays, Mickey. It’s Grays, and I’m not going to take you if you keep getting the name wrong.’

  ‘No, I’ve got it now – Greens. Yes, I can’t wait to go to Greens.’

  ‘Stop it!’ She hit him playfully and he grabbed her arms, suddenly serious. ‘Only … only if you kiss me, beautiful Alice.’

  She went giddy at the sudden intensity in his eyes and surrendered to a slow, lingering kiss, while asking herself, ‘For goodness’ sake, what’s wrong with me?’

  But Alice knew exactly what was wrong – she’d been living in something of a love desert for years, and now she had no ability whatsoever to withstand the onslaught of Mickey’s courage, certainty and charm.

  I feel it’s time for me to say something about wagers – you may have noticed they are a bit of a theme in my family. Actually, until I started researching the sisters I had no idea: Alice and Mickey’s loop-the-loop moment was the first wager I was told about. But when I was told, I couldn’t help chuckling to myself. Because ever since I’d met Mr D, we’d been engaged in a series of wagers.

  The next time I saw him I asked: ‘Do you always make wagers with your girlfriends?’

  ‘No. In fact I think you’re the only one I’ve ever made
a wager with,’ he replied, grinning.

  I had thought it was just him, but actually it looked as if it might be me. When I ’fessed up to my mum she said, ‘You’re a chip off the old block,’ and gave me a meaningful look.

  I’d had a moment with Mr D, just like Alice had had with Mickey Edwardes Junior. It was early on and we were sitting at his kitchen table, drinking some kind of spirit and shooting the breeze as the dusk turned to night. He was describing someone to me: ‘Yes, she’s very good at turning on the charm beams.’

  ‘Ooooh, what a great phrase! “Turning on the charm beams”,’ I said. ‘I must remember that. Mmmm. Although it’s not the sort of thing you can use in your reports, I suppose?’

  ‘What? Of course I can.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Bet you can’t.’

  ‘OK, what do you bet me?’

  I took a sip of the terrible spirit he’d given me and pondered. ‘I will give you a surprise if you do it.’

  ‘A surprise? Is that it?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, it had better be good.’

  ‘It will be. So if you manage to get the phrase “turning on the charm beams” into your next report, I’ll give you a surprise. And if you don’t think the surprise is good enough, I’ll have to try again.’

  He giggled like a girl. ‘Really? Now you’re asking for trouble. I’m just going to say it’s not good enough and make you try harder and harder and do more and more ridiculous things, aren’t I?’

  ‘No, I know you won’t do that. I trust you. I think you’re a man who plays fair.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  At which point he stopped teasing me and smiled a different kind of smile, his eyes turning soft and gentle.

  And no more was said about it.

  A few days later he sent me a text: ‘Switch on TV NOW’. So I did. He was doing a report on changes to the benefits system. ‘Surely not?’ I said to myself. But there he was, talking in all seriousness about a prominent politician ‘turning on the charm beams’ to bring his party behind him. I was impressed. In fact, I texted him: ‘You win. Respect!’ And the next week I did surprise him in a way that should probably remain between the two of us, and I was indeed right to trust him because he declared himself suitably surprised for the debt to be paid off.

  And something about that bit of playfulness made me take him more seriously. From then on we always had at least one wager on the go, as if, if we stopped making them, our relationship would stop too. They kind of locked us in – there was always a dare to be done and a prize to be awarded – future commitments booked in, if you like.

  What I couldn’t understand was why I lost every single one of them. It was almost as if unconsciously I wanted to lose. Why? Sometimes I had to give up small things; sometimes I had to do small things; and then sometimes I just had to do the daftest things – dressing up as a Korean airline stewardess was one of my favourites. Then there were the downright risky: a naked run through a public building was one of them, which I nailed after months of planning and the help of a friend.

  And then there is the romantic one, the one that was his idea, an idea he had on the first night we met, when I said I’d never been to New York and he exclaimed, ‘Oh God, I’d love to take you to New York!’ even though we’d only known each other for a couple of hours and yet already I found the idea quite attractive too. But it would be a year later, during an Easter Saturday spent entirely in the pub, and we were talking about the forthcoming Scottish Referendum and arguing about the likely outcome, and he said: ‘I tell you what. If the “No” vote wins by ten percentage points or more, I’ll show you New York.’

  At 6 a.m. on the morning after the vote I cuddled up with Amber and turned on the television. I was a bit blurry-eyed, so it was Amber who screamed: ‘It’s ten points! They’ve won by ten points, Mummy! You’re going to New York!’

  I squealed and hugged her and I texted him: ‘Ten points, eh?’

  And he simply replied: ‘A bit over, I think you’ll find x’

  So I said: ‘Is it Destiny?’

  And he replied: ‘We’ll see …’

  It’s interesting how being with someone new can bring out all sorts of things in each other that neither of you knew existed. And Mickey Edwardes Junior brought out something in Alice. Maybe it’s to do with where you are in life. When she met Mickey in 1943, Alice was forty-one years old, pretty much the same age that I was when I met Mr D. The last time I’d started a relationship I was seventeen. Now I felt more comfortable in my skin, like there was less to lose, and much more confident all ways round, really.

  Alice must have been ready to play. For too long she had been trapped with a man who made playing difficult. Tom was serious and silent, tough on his wife and his children. He locked Alice in the downstairs cupboard in anger. He later locked his daughter in there too. When he went off to war Alice didn’t want him to go, but she soon found it was something of a relief. It was hard work, but without the fear of his disapproval there was room to start being more like herself again. And it was a situation that felt uncannily familiar. Once again, with a war on, Clara and Alice were left to bring up the children and run a household together; and, just as Alice had been Clara’s general, Clara was now returning the favour.

  The day Tom left, as he closed the door behind him, Alice and Clara were left staring at each other.

  ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we, Mum?’

  ‘’Course we will. It’s just you and me again, and we’ll do fine, just like we did the last time. You’ll see!’

  Clara took Alice’s hand and squeezed it and this caused Alice to fling her arms around her mum and give her a massive hug.

  And that’s pretty much how it was – most of the time, anyway.

  Their one point of disagreement was over Alice’s dancing.

  In 1943 the Americans came into the war and set up their headquarters just outside High Wycombe. There was a huge influx of young men who needed to be entertained. Every Friday night Alice would put on her make-up, her best dress and her old dancing shoes (the ones that had helped her to catch two husbands), and she tripped off into the night.

  Clara would try and stop her. ‘Going out again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand you, Alice. Why do you have to keep on going out?’

  ‘You don’t have to understand, Mum. It is what it is.’

  ‘Well, what is it then? You’ve got two children and a home and a husband. All right, he’s not here but he’s out there somewhere. Surely there’s no point in you going out?’

  ‘You’re never going to understand. I’m different to you. Things are different.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘It’s not about getting a husband.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Not in this case. I’m going to have fun, to meet people, to dance, to escape. How many times, Mum? I. Love. Dancing. It’s the only time I really feel alive.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Look, it doesn’t matter what you say, I’m going. The children are fine. This way I’ll be fine. I’ve earned it.’

  Clara wasn’t sure about that. She knew how hard Alice worked, but for her generation that’s just what being a wife and mother meant. That was reward enough. She had never gone out dancing and wouldn’t dream of it. Respectable women didn’t do such things. But even by 1943, things were a little more liberated, especially in those war years, especially once the Americans had arrived. Many people just turned a blind eye, whatever their private feelings. And that went for Bertha too.

  When Alice turned up on her doorstep, Bertha was not happy. She had absolutely no idea about the existence of Mickey Edwardes Junior. To fling open the door and find a sister who was supposed to be 200 miles away looking after the next Swain generation, holding the hand of a tall handsome soldier – well, Bertha was completely lost for words.

&nb
sp; ‘Bertha. Hello. This is my friend Mickey Edwardes Junior. I’ve been showing him around. I wonder whether you could give us a bed for the night?’

  ‘Ah. Oh. Um … well, yes. Um … I mean, obviously I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Well, Mickey has heard so much about you and your wonderful bungalow, he really wants to meet you.’

  ‘Does he?’ Bertha found that hard to believe.

  ‘Absolutely, and you are just as beautiful a woman as your sister said.’

  ‘Oh, really,’ Bertha said in a tone which was supposed to imply that she wasn’t going to be taken in by any of his American soft soaping.

  ‘Do you know, you really remind me of Rita Hayworth?’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘But a more refined, English-rose version.’

  ‘Really? And you remind me of James Cagney.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘In Torrid Zone.’

  ‘Oh … something else Alice was right about. Your English humour.’

  Just at that moment Pat the neighbour walked past: ‘Afternoon, Bertha!’

  ‘That’s all we need,’ Bertha thought. ‘Come on, you’d better come in … before the whole of Grays gets to meet you,’ she added, under her breath.

  They trotted in. Alice was practically skipping. Mickey, so unusually tall and American, looked completely out of his natural habitat in Bertha’s parqueted hall.

  ‘And isn’t this just as wonderful as Alice told me. It’s like a film set.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that, never having been to Hollywood and never likely to go, either. Anyway, we were just having tea,’ Bertha said breezily.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Alice said.

  ‘Now you mustn’t go to any trouble for us, Mrs Kendall,’ Mickey said, his strong white teeth shining.

  ‘No! Absolutely no trouble at all,’ Bertha said, glaring at her sister. ‘That’s what family is for, isn’t it? These unexpected emergencies. One can never turn away one’s family, whatever the circumstances, eh? Oh, well, come through. I guess you’re going to have to meet the children. Hmph.’

  And with that Bertha shook her shiny red locks (which happened to be hanging in ringlets tied with an enormous bow round her head, very impressively) and flung open the door of the kitchen, where John and Dianne were tidily eating their meat-paste sandwiches.