Girls on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  It was the first time he’d mentioned the pit and she examined him closely, but he kissed her cheek. ‘I’m canny about it, pet. It happened, it’s over, life goes on. Accidents can give opportunities, you know.’ His voice and expression were calm, accepting, and she wondered about the details of the interview for he had not expanded on what he had already told her. But he had secrets, and she had too. That’s just the way it was.

  She remembered her ‘homework’ and drew out the music, humming the first three lines as the other passengers talked. As she finished she realised the compartment was silent and a woman across the way said, ‘I love “All or Nothing at All”.’

  The woman joined in, and soon the whole of the compartment was singing. Fran explained that their choir was competing in a competition in their factory.

  ‘What do you make?’ asked one.

  She shook her head. ‘That’d be telling, but let’s just say, something useful.’ She pointed to the posters above the seats. BE LIKE DAD, KEEP MUM. ‘Perhaps it’s pots and pans,’ she murmured.

  The woman winked. ‘Ah well, now the day has broken and we can see your skin, there’s not much of a secret to it.’

  Fran braced herself, remembering being called a warmonger. The other passengers just shook their heads and an elderly man murmured, ‘We all have to do what we can to help.’

  Davey hugged her and whispered, ‘Aye, that we have, bonny lass.’

  As they approached London they began to see war as it was in the capital, the damage and debris more extensive than in any of the other towns they’d passed. As they reached King’s Cross, the passengers heaved themselves into their coats and one gave Davey a couple of biscuits made by her mother with her sugar ration. He refused; the woman insisted. ‘One each,’ she whispered. ‘The lass needs feeding up. And best move her to another sector for a while. It’s what we did in the last war. Rotated, they called it.’

  Fran smiled, tired again now, because it brought Mr Swinton to mind. He was still rotating their sector, but she and her marrers kept finding themselves back amongst the chemicals. Perhaps by the time Fran returned Miss Ellington would have had better luck talking to the deputy manager, who had been off sick.

  They took an Underground train to the ‘specialist’, as they continued to call the interview. As Davey swung along on his crutches they passed by the debris of house after house, building after building, and breathed in the smell of destruction. She said, ‘I didn’t know.’

  Davey gripped her hand when they paused for him to rest. There was a bench beside a blasted tree. They sat. He gripped her hand again and, only now told her more of what Massingham had said. About crosswords, about codes, about a big place quite near London, but he couldn’t say what or where, about the German he’d learned for the scholarship. Finally he reminded her that, like her Factory, this really must be secret, ‘But I have to help defeat Hitler.’

  They sat side by side as tired people passed by or queued at nearby shops. It was all because some madman and his nation had decided they wanted more than they were entitled to, Fran thought, and the British were right to do what they could. It seemed she was for ever telling herself this, as the hours they worked were increasing, with Sunday working becoming more frequent.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Davey asked.

  A red double-decker bus full of passengers passed them, weaving round a deep bomb crater that had a sort of fencing around it. She kissed his hand. ‘We live in strange times. Who would have thought we’d be in this pickle, all of us? Who’d have thought a Hitler would spring up and make life so sad and painful?’

  They set off again towards Whitehall. While Davey walked around the sandbags, and showed his letter to the guards on the door, and entered the Foreign Office, Fran walked to St James’s Park and sat on a bench. The summer was well and truly over, the leaves changing, falling and scudding in the wind. She found herself sobbing because life was so different to how anyone had thought it would be, and her Davey was leaving her.

  Davey stood for a moment, in awe at the sight of the vaulted ceiling and the paintings on the walls. He was surprised his crutches didn’t echo as he stotted and jigged across the marble floor to the reception desk, where he gave his name and the time of his interview.

  The man in the peaked cap and dark uniform made a telephone call. ‘Sit yourself down, lad. Rest your plaster, eh?’ He pointed to a row of chairs against the wall, but they seemed a mile away, and Davey’s armpits were sore from the crutches. Davey nodded and set off, but a woman caught up with him, her footsteps out of time with his hop-along gait, and gestured for him to follow. Past the main desk and along a corridor they went at such a speed that Davey swore silently with each step. She swept before him into an office where files were piled in columns on a desk. The room was no more than a cupboard, he thought, with no window. Bit like the pit. He grinned to himself. She indicated a chair in front of her desk.

  He settled down, laying his crutches across his legs, feeling that somehow this woman, with her stern bun and dark-rimmed spectacles, wouldn’t be signing his plaster. She asked him in German if he was fluent. He replied, also in German, that clearly he was not. She didn’t laugh, or even smile. She nodded, then introduced herself as Miss Downes.

  She talked about his crosswords and in particular the coded clues he had introduced. He explained then about the need to allow the crossword puzzler to access the key … He paused. The key … He remembered, quite suddenly, that beneath the coal he was thinking of a key … He was staring at her, a key … to … Damn, a key to what? Ralph came into his mind. How ridiculous. He shook his head as Miss Downes asked, ‘Mr Bedley, are you quite all right? Would you care for a glass of water?’

  He concentrated then – on her. ‘No, I’m all reet, just remembering … Or sort of …’

  ‘Ah.’ Her expression was one of sympathy. ‘Yes, I see, Professor Smythe did apprise us of your recent situation.’

  Before he could recover from his shock at the mention of Professor Smythe, who had written to him about his crosswords and sent the notebook, she was off again, talking of his scholarship examination and more about his crosswords and his choice to remain in the colliery. He said nothing, just nodded. They were facts and therefore irrefutable, so there was no need for further discussion, surely.

  Miss Downes shuffled some papers on her desk before looking up. ‘We are looking primarily for graduates to intercept and help decode messages being sent between the enemy’s army, navy and air force. This will enhance our knowledge of their movements and intentions. You are not a graduate but come highly recommended, as your recent crossword settings support.’ She fumbled in a drawer on the right side of her desk and brought out several copies of the crossword magazine. ‘The question is, are you interested in working at our newly established nerve centre, which is much further south than Massingham? I will remind you now that this conversation is covered by the Official Secrets Act.’

  There it was, the chance of a lifetime. The chance to help, to use his brain, to play with codes. But Fran? Darling, bonny Fran.

  He found himself nodding. Miss Downes continued. ‘Ah, good. You will be quite near London. It’s a pleasant area, and considered by many to be the countryside, to the extent that even evacuees find themselves there.’

  That was all, for she was rising and walking towards the door. She stopped, turned and beckoned. ‘Come along then, Mr Bedley.’

  He gathered up his crutches, wincing as they settled into his armpits, and swung himself after her along the corridor to a room with maps on the walls. There was a large table in the centre, with several army officers sitting around it while another stood. Miss Downes ignored them, just as, after their brief examination of Davey, they ignored Miss Downes and him. Instead, she picked up a document from a side table and explained how signing it would mean he would be breaching the Official Secrets Act if he disclosed any information about his work, his place of work, or anything about his work.

&n
bsp; Because it had sounded like a prayer, Davey said, ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, amen. Me fiancée can’t talk about hers, either.’

  At this the officers swung round, then looked at one another, raised their eyebrows and grinned. They got back to murmuring quietly, staring at the maps as they did so. ‘Ah, so you fully comprehend?’ Miss Downes insisted.

  ‘Oh aye.’

  The door swung open and in strode a civilian. ‘Ah, at it again, Miss Downes. She means, dear heart, “so you understand”, but you know that because you, Davey Bedley, are a bright young lad, with a bit of a clipped wing at present, but your loss is our gain. Professor Smythe, at your service, dear heart. Know and admire young Stanhope Hall. Hear you have a penchant for his sister. Good stock, should work well, eh? From what I know she’ll understand, and what’s more she’s no wilting violet herself. Likes to give a belt or two when needed. Swinton’s a case in point. And that lad of his who … well, who knows. And let’s not even mention the whelp. I tend to say about that young man that the apple fell far from the tree. Like his mother, of course. Funny woman, mean of spirit. Best she popped her clogs, but I suppose one shouldn’t say that.’

  Professor Smythe smiled, but his eyes were busy. He carried on: ‘Young Swinton and the whelp, quite a pair, oh … Still waters, dear boy. Find him a pen, Miss Downes. The sooner we win this war the better.’

  He disappeared again and Miss Downes handed Davey a pen. He felt he was signing his life away, but that’s what Fran had also done. And she was mixing bloody chemicals and God knew what, with explosions likely at any time.

  The officer who was standing said, as Davey followed Miss Downes out of the room, ‘I’d sign your plaster, but I’d have to kill you if you knew my name.’ He laughed.

  Davey stopped and said over his shoulder, ‘Not before I broke your neck, sir. Pongos are no match for pitmen.’

  The men laughed and one of them rose and walked across to hold the door for him. ‘Good luck, pitman.’

  Fran was waiting. Davey had said an hour, because that’s what Mr Massingham had told him. It was an hour exactly. They made their way back to the station, but stopped for a late lunch at the restaurant Mr Massingham had booked for them. There was lamb and she hadn’t tasted it for so long, and though it was only one slice, it was a thick one. They whispered together as Davey told her a bit, just as she had told him, but no one else, ever.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he said, ‘but I will be back when I can. I’ve been thinking that I could telephone the call box at the same time on certain evenings. If you’re on nights we can make it another time?’

  ‘Aye, sounds grand, Davey.’

  She felt as though they were two lovers who trusted one another enough to share more than they should, and could never be parted, not really. They finished, and for a moment Fran felt a bit recovered, and her stomach rather more settled. It would improve once they were in the sewing sector again, but when would that be?

  Mr Massingham had an account so there was nothing to pay. ‘I’d have ordered the meal twice for us both if I’d known that,’ Davey said to the maître d’.

  The maître d’ smiled, but didn’t reply. Fran poked Davey in the back, and outside they laughed together.

  They made the train and as the darkness fell they slept, their arms around one another. As they drew into Newcastle, Davey woke with a start, knowing he’d understood the key that would break the secret of his accident in the pit – but … No, it had gone again. All he could think of were Professor Smythe’s words about that whelp of Massingham’s and also Swinton’s lad, and it had jogged Davey’s memory of passing the Blackshirt meetings on the bus, and seeing the pair of them together. But who hadn’t gone to a meeting or two, out of curiosity? First the Commies, then the Blackshirts …

  But what about the accident? He closed his eyes. Think, he urged himself. But no, he still had no memory of it. The train screeched to a stop and Fran woke. ‘I love you,’ she murmured.

  When they left the station, Mr Massingham’s Rolls was waiting. Davey pulled her to a stop. ‘The two of us are bound never to talk of what we’re doing – for ever. So, we’re bound together for ever, aren’t we?’ The Rolls had made him anxious. What if Ralph was driving? What if the whelp kept on chasing Fran?

  She stood in front of him. ‘For ever,’ she said. ‘For ever and ever, Davey Bedley, or I’ll come down and pull your lugs off and any girl’s an’ all, if she dares to tempt you from me, all reet.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s not me I’m thinking of, bonny lass.’ He nodded at the Rolls.

  She sighed. ‘Ralph is a right menace, but not a danger. I don’t even get the snidey comments from the women any more, but that were the chemicals making them poky, and aye, it does make us strange, right enough, and sort of tight in the head, and soul. That Ralph’s a daft lad who needs to grow up, so don’t let’s even think on him.’

  The Rolls’s horn sounded. They set off again, with Alfie driving and muttering about wanting to get to his rooms over the Massingham garages for his supper. The world was light under the bombers’ moon, and Davey thought of London, Newcastle, Hull and all the other towns, and was glad he and those he knew were doing their best.

  Chapter Twenty

  Davey was discharged from hospital a few days later, plaster-free but well bandaged, and for Fran it was bitter-sweet for they were both on tenterhooks, waiting for the letter or telegram that would summon him away. After his return, Davey used two walking sticks rather than the crutches. As he said to Fran and Sarah when he met them from the bus on the day he arrived back, ‘Me armpits have said, any more of them things and they’ll go on strike.’

  A day later the three girls supported him on the way back from the bus at four o’clock, two of them holding one arm, Fran taking the other, until he stopped and shouted, ‘One of you daffodils let go, or I’ll fall flat on me face. And time you were out of the whatever-it-is.’

  Sarah shrieked with laughter. ‘The real Davey is back, eh, our Fran?’

  Beth called, ‘I have to get back anyway to keep an eye on me da as Mam is at your place, Sarah. Just hope Mam’s already wrapped his chest in brown paper and goose grease. He’s such an old mitherer when I do it. See you later.’ She walked down the back lane of Langton Terrace with Sarah calling after her, ‘Come to our place if he’s asleep. Mam will have tea mashing and we can do yet another run-through of our three-person solo.’

  Stan called out then, hurrying along, washed and buffed, his scarf streaming, and Sarah spun round, knocking one of Davey’s sticks. Fran steadied him, calling after her, ‘Well, just leave your brother to fall in the street, eh?’

  Stan yelled as he caught Sarah and lifted her off the ground. ‘Aye, as though you can’t sort out Davey with one hand tied behind your back, Fran, before moving on to the rest of the world.’

  Stan and Sarah caught up with them, and all four walked on. Fran thought she could never be happier, but yes, she could, once they could trust their tomorrows. They headed for the Bedleys’ and the co-op’s laughter and chat reached them as they crossed the backyard. The boys shook off their boots, and the girls theirs, and they entered into the light and warmth. It would make their itching worse, but Fran could almost forget it until she lay in bed wanting to scratch herself raw. And it was what it was, so aye, if they weren’t iching and yellow from the pellets, they were yellow and itching from the stemming, and she half smiled. What a game it all was, like a revolving door, one day pellets, one day stemming, and ending up itching wherever they were. But at least they still had both feet, and were alive.

  Mrs Bedley turned. ‘Sit yourselves down. The wounded warrior must have his da’s chair. Fran, you take the arm. Sarah and Stan, sort yourselves out a seat.’

  Fran exchanged a look with her mam, who had fallen silent, as indeed had everyone around the table. Her mam glanced meaningfully at the mantelpiece, where a telegram was propped against the clock. Mrs Bedley said, ‘Your
orders, lad, I reckon.’

  The women, their hooks and proggy sticks poised, looked at Davey, who had already settled himself in the chair, his leg out straight, but plaster-free.

  Davey looked at Stan and Fran thought it was like a game, everyone looking at everyone else. Stan sighed. ‘I suppose you want your servant to hand it to you?’

  ‘Aye, that about sums it up, lad.’

  Stan, who had been leaning on the back of Sarah’s armchair, did so. Now the co-op had stopped all pretence of work and watched as Davey opened the buff envelope. Fran read the telegram with him, her heart sinking. Davey folded it carefully. ‘Well, Monday it is.’ His mam nodded, Sarah too, though she held Stan’s hand as his grip tightened on her shoulder. Davey said, ‘There it is, ladies, I leave to do an administrative job in London, which, let’s face it, is better than on the screens, and what’s more, I won’t have to rub shoulders with these bliddy hewers for a while.’

  Stan laughed. ‘And we won’t have to put up with your mithering, so always a silver lining.’

  The women all nodded, but it was clear that no one believed his story of an administrative job.

  Mrs Bedley nodded too. ‘I reckon our Sarah and Stan could trot on down to Simon Parrot’s shed and let Da know.’

  Sarah smiled at her mam, but her voice was sad as she said, ‘Aye, we’ll do that right now.’

  But Davey was struggling to his feet. ‘Fran and me’ll come too. Exercise is good for me leg, and we could do with some fresh air.’

  Madge, adjusting her eyepatch, shoved her hook through the hessian and almost sang, ‘And a bit of a cuddle on the way, eh?’

  Audrey Smith was wrapping up her rug. ‘If you’re picking up Beth, tell her I’ll be along in a minute. But no cuddles around me, or I’ll blush, eh?’