Girls on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  Davey was looking downright confused now. ‘An appointment for what?’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Let us just say it will be to discuss your language skills, for I happen to have heard that you were learning German whilst swotting for the scholarship, and more to the point, it will include a chat about your crossword expertise.’

  Davey was shaking his head slightly. ‘Language skills? I don’t think skill is involved. My German is rudimentary.’

  ‘But good enough to use as clues in an international crossword competition – before the war, of course?’

  ‘How did you—’

  Reginald pointed to the clock at the head of the ward. ‘Let’s just say I did, and now I must continue as the clatter of bedpans draws nigh. The country could well need you, and if so, your work would be more valuable than working on the screens or other such surface work. After the war, Oxford awaits.’

  ‘But I don’t want to leave Fran.’

  Reginald saw the longing in the lad’s face, and thought of his own dear Sophia, and how he would drive back through the night to take breakfast with her rather than be absent for longer than he had to. He was indeed fortunate to have married such a wonderful woman after the rather fraught—No, one mustn’t speak ill of the dead. He sighed, wondering if he and Sophia should have waited longer, but the boy had had no need of a nanny once he was at school—

  He cut off the thought, looking at the blue scars and the healing red ones on the hands and face of the lad before him. ‘In war there are many things we don’t want to do, but at least you will be in this country, not fighting abroad. Know, however, that the work you do, should you prove suitable, would make the lives of those who are fighting safer and the end of Hitler more likely, with less bloodshed all round. David Bedley, it is up to you. Is it to be the lives of others or your own needs?’

  Davey stared at him. ‘Howay, man, I see why you run a bliddy good ship.’

  Reginald smiled, wanting to reach out and shake this lad’s hand, for he liked him more with every second that passed. A son to cherish indeed. The Bedleys were fortunate, or perhaps just better parents than he. He felt the weight of his failure with Ralph lie heavily on his shoulders.

  They talked for a little longer, with Reginald creasing the spotless bed as he leaned on his elbows and listened to Davey. Davey listened to him in return and the more they talked, the more Massingham admired the quickness of the lad’s mind, and his endurance, for clearly the pain still beset him. Finally, Sister Newsome stood at the foot of the bed, brandishing a bedpan and saying, ‘Quite twenty minutes have gone by, Mr Massingham, not ten.’

  Reginald laughed and ended their conversation by saying to Davey, ‘One round peg, your friend Stanhope, has arrived back to a round hole, and another should depart – you. Dr Wilson will receive your decision, and he will convey it to me.’ He looked at Sister Newsome. ‘That is, if you would be kind enough to inform Dr Wilson, as he is completely au fait with all this.’

  ‘Which is a damn sight more than I am,’ grumbled Davey.

  Mr Massingham rose, reached out his hand, and shook Davey’s, careful of his cuts and bruises. ‘Your Fran will wait for you, you know, for the Hall family has a true core. You should respect that in her, and she is doing her bit too, of course. By the way, say nothing to her, to the family or anyone else about where we will be going. Well, if you agree, of course. Perhaps it could be put that you are seeing a specialist – yes, I feel that is less than a lie. I will talk to Dr Wilson when I hear from him. I hope the pain improves soon. I have much enjoyed our meeting.’

  He walked past Sister Newsome, saying, ‘Thank you for your indulgence.’

  ‘Not so fast, Mr Massingham.’ She took a pen from her top pocket. ‘You need to sign the plaster. Everyone else has. Preferably something that doesn’t aspire to the heights of vulgarity or rudeness. Or if it must, that it is not a repeat of the many such things already inscribed.’

  Reginald grinned, enjoying his farewell. He scribbled something, returned the pen and walked from the ward.

  Davey watched him go, knowing he had been offered a chance to do something important, though in what way he couldn’t quite fathom. But how could he leave Fran with that idiot Ralph sniffing around?

  Sister Newsome was reading Mr Massingham’s message.

  ‘Well,’ asked Davey, ‘what does it say?’

  ‘“It’s best to be fiddling about above, rather than being banged about below”, which I feel is probably very rude and suggestive.’

  Davey grinned, and he realised that his boss – after all, he still owned the mine, their cottages, and perhaps their souls – was just a man like the rest of them, and a rather fine one.

  In spite of himself, he felt hope stirring, because if whatever it was that was in him could really help the war effort, he and Fran could be together, in a peaceful world, sooner.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That evening, Fran and the other two girls cycled to the train and thence to the hospital, but it was late and they could only stay for an hour, which was entirely at Sister Newsome’s discretion since it was after visiting hours. The time seemed to fly, but each day Davey was looking so much better that the trip was no burden to them, not even to Beth, who insisted that if the other two were going, there was no way she wasn’t.

  As always, Sarah and Beth sat in the corridor for the last fifteen minutes while Fran and Davey said their goodbyes. Fran held his hand, ‘Reet, out with it, lad. Why’s that look in your eyes? You’re sitting on something good, I can tell.’

  Davey laughed. ‘I shouldn’t tell you anything, but you told me a bit about where you are working. I promised secrecy, though, so you must do the same.’ He waited. She did. He said, ‘Mr Massingham came to see me. He wants me to have an interview in London for some sort of job, a safe one, where I use me noddle. Something that’ll help the war, and to do with me crosswords, though I expect I’ll be a clerk somewhere.’

  He sat back against the pillows and Fran reached forward to stroke back his blond hair, then ran her fingers down to his lips. He kissed them. She gripped his hand with both of hers then, looking at the blue scars. London? Well, it wasn’t a trawler, or a beach where he’d be blown to smithereens. ‘Then you must go,’ she said. ‘Find out about it. As long as you don’t forget me.’ Though she was smiling, she’d never been more serious, because her heart was sinking. Davey gone from Massingham, leaving her alone. No, not alone, with her family and her marrers. She sat up straight and repeated, ‘Yes, you must go.’

  She was glad when Sister Newsome called, ‘Off you go now, Fran. Don’t fret, I’ll look after him.’

  But when she tried to release Davey’s hand, he held her tight, and his voice was firm as he said, ‘Forget you? Never. If the earth froze over, I’d fight to find you, daft lass. This way I might be able to help end the war and get back to you quicker. And there are telephones, trains, leave. But I haven’t got a job yet. Let’s wait, eh. I’m supposed to be going down in a couple of days’ time.’

  She kissed his lips and walked away.

  Two days later, in the evening, Davey was sitting by his bed, his leg stretched out before him. His cigarettes had just been confiscated for the umpteenth time and Sister Newsome was not amused. She’d said they would be flushed down the lavatory, and if she caught him out on the fire-escape platform once more, now October was waning and the weather cooling, he would not live long enough to regret it.

  Fred, in with a broken arm after a fall at Sledgeford Pit, cackled from his chair and called after her, ‘So you say, but they’re in your top drawer, lass. With our names written on them and we know how many were in each.’

  Sister Newsome continued on her rounds, but not before calling back, ‘That’s quite enough from you, young man, or it’ll be an enema before bedtime, you mark my words.’ Fred laughed more at the ‘young man’ than the enema, since he was fifty if he was a day.

  Sister Newsome reached the end o
f the ward, and her clarion call made everyone jerk to attention. ‘Now, lads, listen up. Remember, if there’s a raid the doctors will come and help us shove you under the beds.’

  Tobias, a youngster who had lost a leg in the bombing of the New Bridge Street goods station, called, ‘Aye, that’ll be grand if you tuck in with me, Sister.’

  Sister Newsome surveyed her charges. ‘Right, that’s two for my enema list. Any more for any more?’

  The laughter did them all good and stopped Davey’s mind from playing with all that would happen at the interview that the ‘powers that be’ had arranged for tomorrow rather than today. It was at the Foreign Office, which sounded a bit bliddy grand. In spite of Mr Massingham being in London today, he had suggested the car should turn about and take Davey all the way to London the next morning. Davey had refused, for he wasn’t a babe and, after all, he had his painkillers and was steady on his pins. But Mr Massingham was insistant that at least his car should drop him at Newcastle station for the train to London, and pick him up on his return, and this Davey had accepted.

  Sister Newsome walked back now and stopped at the foot of his bed, lifting his clipboard and checking it. She hung it on the bed frame again and smiled at him. ‘I hear you are to go to a specialist appointment tomorrow, young man, at the crack of dawn and deposited back here again, late in the day, by Mr Massingham’s driver. Her voice dropped. ‘Such has been your improvement, a little bird tells me that you should be going home very soon after that.’ She winked.

  Davey knew that Sister Newsome and Dr Wilson had become engaged yesterday, so presumably shared this, that and the other. He smiled. She checked the clock. ‘Your three admirers will be allowed in now. You know, Davey, that fiancée of yours needs a break. Would a day in London be a good idea? I suggested the same to Mr Massingham, and I believe he is taking a hand in acquiring permission for a leave of absence. Only for Fran, though. The trio will have to be a duo for a day.’

  Davey stared, astonished. The two of them together, for a day? ‘But … it was supposed to be a secret?’

  Sister Newsome came to the side of the bed, her voice low. ‘Her place of work has been advised that you need an attendant to accompany you to London for a possible medical procedure. This has also been conveyed to Miss Hall. I hasten to add I am using the language used by the esteemed Mr Massingham. Of course, bonny lad, what you care to tell her, or have already told her about the reason for your journey, is between you and her, but if Dr Wilson kept anything from me, I would strangle him with his own stethoscope.’

  Davey laughed and asked, ‘But he’d escape an enema, at least?’

  ‘Oh no, that would be administered first.’

  He whispered, ‘She reads me like a book and knew something was up right away, so I told her what I knew, which is diddly-squat.’

  She laughed and swept off to open the double swing doors, and in came the three canaries, as the lads in the ward had nicknamed them, for they were back in stemming. But Fran had told him that if he repeated that, she’d have to kill him.

  The girls kissed him and sat on his bed to tell him about their progress with the choir, for the women were practising in one another’s homes – the sopranos in one, the contraltos in another. Mrs Oborne was now not a drum but the conductor, and it was chaos. They were all laughing so much that they were shouted at by Sister Newsome: ‘A, get off the bed and B, less of the noise.’ They stood instead and giggled quietly and a couple of the patients brought chairs across, earning the girls’ profuse thanks.

  Finally, Davey and Fran sat close together, hand in hand, while the other two girls talked of the canaries, which were sitting on eggs, and Tubby Smith, who wasn’t at all well so Beth was glad she was home to help. They moved on to the specialist Davey was to see, and how devastated London might look after the bombing, and then on to the wall hanging and rug cooperative. There was a new girl, June Archibald, and Sylv’s mam was teaching her to use a hook to get a looped finish, and a longer run of colour.

  Meanwhile, Davey and Fran spoke in whispers of nothing in particular except love, and finally he whispered, ‘I’ll bring you up to scratch on the train about what’s really going on, bonny lass.’

  Fran looked so tired that his growing guilt at lolling about when the pain was improving, nagged at him. In fact, all three looked tired. The other two leaned forward, berating him for only needing one nurse on the journey to the specialist. They wondered if they could break his other leg so he would need more help.

  Sister Newsome returned and handed a folded piece of paper to him. He opened it. It was a note from Dr Wilson, saying that the two return train fares were booked and paid for courtesy of Mr Massingham.

  Fran returned home on the train with the others. She listened to their chatter as they dug and delved into Davey’s improvement and the puzzle of why he had need of a London specialist, fearing that he was keeping the truth from them. Sarah, sitting one side of Fran, said, ‘By, lass, I hope to goodness it means that they can work miracles and make his leg perfect. But at least he’s got his one good leg, so I suppose that’s something.’

  They leaned against the back of the seat, listening to the engine, feeling the wheels rumbling over the points. Outside it was dark with no lights showing, and Fran said, ‘It’s going to be so strange to see lights on again. If that ever happens,’ she muttered.

  Beth nudged her. ‘Enough of that. Just take the music with you. It’s getting so complicated with Miss Ellington wanting us three as a front-line group, while the choir hums like a sort of low-key orchestra, breaking into song from time to time, and she loves Marjorie and Valerie as drums. And it’s best Amelia is singing with the office choir. Our rehearsal times never mashed with hers.’

  Fran was laughing. ‘And what about the other passengers, while I rehearse?’

  Sarah was laughing so hard she could hardly speak. ‘They’ll be so in awe they’ll fall at your feet.’

  ‘In horror,’ crowed Beth. ‘But seriously, you must try and squeeze in some rehearsing, because we’ll be hard at it. The competition’s only a week or so away and you can’t miss a whole day.’

  The train whistle blew as they came into Massingham station. They buttoned their mackintoshes and wound their mufflers round their necks as the train stopped. Once on the platform, they hurried to find their bikes in the corrugated-iron shed, and were wheeling them out of the side gate when they heard the roar of a car, and the roadster swept up to the entrance of the station.

  ‘Guess who?’ groaned Sarah.

  ‘Quick, he hasn’t seen us,’ Beth whispered, getting onto her saddle.

  The roadster was idling, its exhaust billowing into the air. They stood on their pedals and pumped clear of the station yard, their laughter catching in their throats as they tore along the road, listening for the car on their heels, but it never came. Beth said, as they neared their homes, ‘I don’t know if he’s being kind, or after you again, Fran?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Fran replied. ‘So best just to thank him if he catches us. Come on, keep pedalling.’

  The next day the Rolls picked up Fran from her house in the early-morning darkness. After checking it was Mr Massingham’s driver, Alfie, the hewer Fred Biggins’s lad, Fran clambered into the front of the car, her sandwiches tucked in her bag. She was wearing her best coat, which was from the Salvation Army shop, and a newly knitted scarf, with another for Davey from the co-op ladies.

  Alfie chatted as they drove to Newcastle station via the hospital, where Davey was waiting on the doorstep. He made her stay in the front, so he could use the back seat as a sofa, sitting sideways and resting his plastered leg along the seat, but only after Alfie tutted, and put down a newspaper. As they drove the short distance, Davey issued orders to them both until Alfie and Fran threatened him with death and disaster, which he ignored. It took a reference to Sister Newsome having a good cure for such silliness to bring stifled laughter and then silence.

  When they arrived, Alfie tugged him ou
t, and walked with them to the platform as Davey swung along on his crutches. Finally, huffing and puffing, the train arrived, just as Alfie finished writing a message on Davey’s plaster. Fran and Alfie helped Davey into the carriage and as the train hurtled towards London, the pair of them sat next to one another, and at last Fran felt herself relax. She was away from the chemicals, and from the explosion that had happened in the detonator sector yesterday on the night shift, while she was with Davey.

  Even now she couldn’t quite believe what had happened when one of the girls, who was on the Minton singing team, had dropped a tray of detonators, and lost both feet. She’d sung in the ambulance, in her shock. Her rendition of ‘All or Nothing at All’ had filled the vehicle, so it was whispered, until she’d suddenly fallen silent, and died.

  The Minton bus team had withdrawn from the competition that very night, until the rest of the night shift convinced them that their choir must sing in memory of their star and the other two girls who’d been injured.

  Fran shut her eyes and Davey held her hand, knowing something had happened but not what. He did not ask, for it was war, and war got into every damned crack in their lives. His arm slipped around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. For two hours they slept, his head on hers, and it was the first time both had slept so deeply for what seemed like months.

  They woke when more passengers embarked at another station and had to clamber over Davey’s outstretched and plastered leg, Davey apologising as they said, ‘No, lad, it’s nothing. What happened?’

  He told them and they wrote on the plaster – polite messages – and Fran and he hoped they wouldn’t read all the others, but most of them did, and laughed. As they travelled, everyone talked to everyone else, and it was as though they’d all been let out of a cage, just for a day. Fran handed him a breakfast of jam sandwiches and cold tea. ‘By, just like Auld Hilda,’ he said.