The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

by Jennifer Ryan

  I plunged down onto the forecourt, faster, faster, and then, quickly, frantically, pulled myself to a stop just short of him, a foot or so away, suddenly shy, afraid.

  Was he about to embrace me?

  “I thought you were dead,” I said, panting and quite unable to handle the whole situation.

  “I thought you might have,” he said, folding his arms around in front of him, as if that was what he’d intended to do all along. “I asked Venetia to go and see you when she got home, but of course you were here, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, letting out an embarrassed little laugh and looking at my feet. “Of course you’re all right.”

  He unfolded his arms and stepped toward me, and as I looked up at his large chin, he took me in his arms and held me there for a space of time that felt like a thousand years and a single millisecond simultaneously. I couldn’t think, although several dozen questions were colliding inside me, none of which seemed to have answers. But life is not always about questions and answers. It’s about things and feelings, like the sensation of someone’s arms around you, on a chilly night, beside a monstrous burning building. These things are real. Yet now I can’t quite put my fingertips on it. It has gone, subsumed into the past, gone with the moment.

  I drew apart before he did; I knew that he would take it better than I would. He looked down at me and smiled, taking one of my hands in his.

  “It’s nice to know that someone cares enough to miss me.” He smiled.

  “I’m glad you think that racing around like a demented rescue dog marks me out as caring.” I laughed back. “In any case, who knows what kind of person I’d get billeted with next time.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Around quarter past nine. Litchfield Park was a ball of flames. I heard that one of the shelters had given way.”

  “Yes, horrendous. We lost half our aerial defense team, truly wonderful people. An absolute tragedy.”

  “But you weren’t in it?”

  “No, I was one of the lucky ones. I was in a different shelter on the other side of the compound.” He looked at me with remarkable sadness. “It’s just a case of luck, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes,” I answered, and then more slowly, “Sometimes.”

  A thunderous explosion went off in the burning school, an unexploded bomb perhaps or something volatile that had just caught light, a bottle of paraffin or paint or something. I saw men running out, some with new flames on their clothes, and we ran forward to help them.

  It was a long night, arduous and distressing. I had to head back to the hospital and my line of injured. A different atmosphere had taken over the place, a quiet resignation, with the grunts and groans of those in pain combined with the odd snores of those who fitfully slept. The lights had been dimmed to get everyone to calm down and go to sleep. Lines of people and children on blankets of all textures and wear paved the floor, the white bandages of limbs and heads standing out in the darkness.

  “How utterly dismal,” I said to a fellow nurse.

  “At least they’re not in the morgue on the other side of town,” she replied. “They haven’t enough room inside, so they’ve lined them up on the pavement outside. The munitions factory said they can put them in their warehouse, but no one’s keen. It’s better than being left on the pavement, but I’m not sure I’d want to be surrounded by bullets after an awful death.”

  I cycled home slowly at dawn, leaving the hospital in a state of relative calm. When I got back, I had a wash and went to bed. The Colonel wasn’t home, and I wondered if he’d found a place to sleep for a while. He would have to be at work today, after all, taking charge of the pile of rubble that used to be Litchfield Park.

  THE VICARAGE,

  CHILBURY,

  KENT.

  Monday, 19th August, 1940

  Dear Clara,

  Today they kicked me out of hospital as they need the beds for the new lot of wounded. Trembling I was when they brought in some clothes for me to wear. Strange to think I have nothing except the slightly singed nightie I came in and these wretched old slippers. The secondhand skirt and blouse they brought were all right, but the shoes were too tight, rubbing my bunion something rotten. I didn’t complain, though. Too petrified of what was out there.

  I had the whole day planned out in my head. First, I needed to get that money back from Ralph Gibbs. Without it I have nothing, no way of running away from Mrs. Tilling, who threatened to hand me in to the police, or the Brigadier, who promised to kill me.

  But I had to get the money before Mrs. Tilling or the Brigadier saw me. I had to be quick, quiet, resolute.

  Of course I wasn’t expecting Ralph Gibbs to just hand over the money. I’d decided I would threaten him with telling the police about his black-market business and the ration book stamping being quietly forgotten for under-the-counter favors.

  I also had the scissors. I stole them off the nurse’s desk when she wasn’t looking, a big clunky pair as heavy as a hammer. Although they weren’t as threatening as a knife or a dagger, I knew how to wield them to best effect. I wasn’t thinking of killing him or anything, just brandish them around to let him know I meant business. I’d asked for my old nightie, ration book, and gas mask to be put in a paper bag for me to carry, and I slipped the scissors in between, a comforting security in their solid weight.

  As I stepped out into the warm August morning, I took a deep breath and set forth, getting on the bus for Chilbury (they’d given me the fare at the hospital—my last pennies in the world), and chivvying myself on as we circled the fields before pulling up on the square. I limped off the bus and set my sights on the shop. Pushing open the door, setting the bell jangling loudly, I watched the solid form of Ralph Gibbs appearing at the counter, appraising me with malice.

  He looked different. I remember him as always being a slight, small kind of lad, tagging along behind the big kids, playing silly tricks and making a fool of himself. Well, that had changed all right, there was no fool here. He looked bigger, bulkier, more muscular and rugged. A long uneven scar raged red down his face beneath a growth of tawny stubble. His eyes were marbled and ringed with the deep maroon of blood, a theme that was repeated in the little scrapes and cuts on his face and hands.

  It hadn’t crossed my mind how the army might have changed him, how fighting on the front line can make a young man dangerous. I recalled someone saying that he’d been damaged in the brain, that Mrs. Gibbs was having trouble with him. I’d thought that meant he was a bit down.

  But now I could see precisely what kind of trouble they’d meant.

  “What are you doing back around here?” he growled.

  I stood firm, clenching my paper bag.

  “I want my money,” I said with more determination than I felt.

  “And what money would that be?” he said gruffly. Mrs. Gibbs slipped in behind him, remaining half hidden by the till as Ralph stalked lazily around the counter into the main shop in front of me.

  “You know exactly what money I’m talking about,” I spat, my hand itching to get out the scissors. “The money you stole from the hop picker boy. It’s my money, Ralph Gibbs. You have to give it back to me.” I was shouting at him, shouting and crying, spelling each word out as if it was the end of the world. “I’ve lost my house, I’ve lost everything. I need my money.”

  He stood watching me for a moment, half bored, half amused. Then he said, “Or what?”

  “What do you mean?” I cried.

  “What, exactly, do you plan to do?” His tone was flippant, jokey. “If I can’t—or don’t—give it back?”

  “I’ll tell the police about your dealings with the black market.” I planted a firm look on my face, as if that would be that. “What with that, and your very casual use of rationing in the shop, you’ll be behind bars in no time.”

  “Oh really, Miss Paltry?” He seemed undaunted, leaning his hand on the counter, glancing around the shelves. “I don’t think they’ll do any
such thing without proof.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find it soon enough,” I sputtered, feeling the situation rushing out of my hands.

  “Is that the best you can do, Miss Paltry?” He smirked, a pitying look on his face. “Is that really the best you can do?”

  That did it. I rummaged into my paper bag as fast as I could and closed my fingers around the scissors. “I’m going to make you,” I said with relish as I brought them out, swooshing them in the air in front of his face.

  He laughed, yes, laughed, and took a step back away from me. “You don’t want to do that, Miss Paltry,” he said lightly.

  “I want my money,” I screamed, making a sweeping plunge toward his shoulder.

  “Oh no you don’t,” he said sharply, and, quick as a flash, he grabbed the end of the scissors with one hand and my arm with the other, and within the space of a few seconds he had my arm twisted around my back, the scissors dropping to the floor with a smattering metallic clatter. I felt something sharp, pointed, jabbing under my chin, the wincing pain of blood seeping out. It appeared that he had a knife of his own. I uttered a squeal, terrified that he would kill me, slit my throat like a pig’s. I squirmed to get out of his grip, but it only threw my neck further into his blade.

  “I warned you, Paltry,” he growled into my ear all sinister. “When I get angry I lose control of what I’m doing.”

  A tiny clang of a bell at the door made him lurch around, spinning me around in front of him.

  Who do you think it was? None other than Mrs. Tilling, who was clearly listening in, trying not to let the bells sound as she eased the door open.

  For a split second we all froze—Ralph uncertain whether to let me go, Mrs. Tilling sizing up the scene, Mrs. Gibbs still peeking out from behind the till, and me unable to move for the ruddy blade beneath my chin.

  “What’s going on here?” Mrs. Tilling demanded in a razor-sharp voice, striding forward to Ralph, who had decided to relax his grip, calmly slipping the knife into his pocket.

  “Nothing,” he said, rubbing his hands against each other to blend the spots of blood. “Just teaching Miss Paltry here one or two lessons I learned in the army.” He cocked his tongue into the side of his mouth flippantly.

  “You appear to have gone too far,” she said crossly, coming over and looking at my cut. “Do you realize that you’ve drawn blood?”

  “Have I?” he said, feigning surprise. “I might have got a little carried away.” He folded his arms in a rebellious manner, half of him the man who went to war, half still the schoolboy afraid of his friend’s mum.

  “Well, that’s quite enough.” She looked him over in a disapproving way. “I’ll be back later to deal with you. I’m sure that Constable Richards would be interested to hear about this.”

  Ralph slouched into his heels. Was she going to turn him in? I half hoped she would, as it would serve him right, but that would also mean that the origin of my money would no doubt become known, and I would end up in jail with him. I let out a long breath.

  Mrs. Tilling turned to me, and I cringed back into the shadows. “Why don’t you come home with me, Miss Paltry?” Her tone was lighter, gentler, filling me with a searing trepidation of the horrors awaiting me. “I’ll help clean that nasty cut.” With that she picked up the scissors and put them in the brown bag, took a firm grasp of my elbow, and marched me out of the door.

  We’d turned the corner out of the square and were heading down the road toward her house before I could shake her off.

  I stopped dead, dug my heels in. “Mrs. Tilling, let me go!” I snarled. “You can’t make me go with you.”

  “No, of course I can’t, but under the circumstances I imagine you might realize that it’s the preferable choice.” She didn’t say she was going to call the coppers, but I knew she could. The little charade she just witnessed was evidence enough to get me put away for something, if not everything.

  I stood away from her, grimly realizing that my only hope of escape was to hobble frantically down to the train station, and with my hip the way it is she could easily stop me. I was well and truly cornered.

  “Oh, all right,” I said, plodding alongside her like a disgruntled five-year-old.

  At least she was taking me into her house, away from the road where I might be seen by the Brigadier. I let her take my elbow again as I stumbled over the stone path to her front door. She opened it wide and walked me into her sunny front room, where I slumped down on the nearest sofa, desperate to ease the pain in my hip.

  Mrs. Tilling disappeared for a minute, arriving back with tea and sandwiches, further alerting my suspicions about her motives. “Why did you bring me here, Mrs. Tilling?” I blurted out.

  She didn’t look dismayed, just sat neatly on the edge of an armchair and began to pour the tea. “It was a good thing I came into the shop and rescued you when I did,” she said, completely ignoring my question. “Ralph Gibbs is a brute these days.”

  “Yes,” I muttered. “I suppose it was lucky you came when you did.”

  “Fortune had nothing to do with it,” she proclaimed, looking up from the teacups. “I saw you on the bus and guessed where you were headed.”

  I sat up, alarmed. “Ralph Gibbs?” I uttered. How the devil did she know that Ralph bleeding Gibbs had my money?

  As if reading my thoughts, she said, “Kitty told me.” It was as simple as that. She had the whole bleeding village informing on me. “Don’t worry,” she added, picking up her little teacup. “I’m not going to hand you in.”

  “If you mean you’re going to stop accusing me of some kind of baby swap, then I can only say it’s about time,” I snapped.

  She made a long, audible sigh. “It’s all right, Miss Paltry. I know you did it. I’ve just decided not to do anything about it. Now, do you want me to help you or not?”

  We sat in silence for a minute or two. I was busy trying to work out how she could help me, and whether she was bluffing about not handing me in. She, meanwhile, was eating a cucumber sandwich in the most irritatingly calm way. I felt like punching her delicately chewing mouth.

  “It’s not that it’s right, what you did,” she added, after swallowing her dainty mouthful. “But it was done, and exposing it would end in far more harm than good, especially for the poor babies. I dislike the dishonesty that this entails, the deceit that your little scheme has led me to, but I can’t see any other way. I must put the stability of the community above my own integrity.”

  I stopped myself from raising my eyes to Heaven, but, Lordy! Her moralizing makes me want to give her a hearty slap.

  “I do wonder sometimes if you ever felt any remorse about the action, though?” she asked, her eyes creased up in thought. “Do you think it’s wrong to put the babies with the wrong parents?”

  I looked at her blankly. One baby is much the same as the next, as far as I’m concerned. But I did feel rotten that it had all come to nothing. And I was certainly wrong for having touched it in the first place. So I put on a nice smile and said, “Of course it’s wrong. Says so in the Bible, doesn’t it?”

  She looked oddly puzzled, then continued, “Well, the babies are both doing well at the Winthrops’, and that’s the main thing. Venetia is taking her Godmother duties to heart and helping to look after Rose until Victor returns, and I must say the whole situation of her being surrounded by her real family makes me more comfortable.”

  “Well, I’m very glad for them, and pleased you’re drawing your accusations to an end,” I said brusquely. “Not that anything happened, mind.”

  “Come, come, Miss Paltry. All three of us know that you did it—you and I”—she paused, narrowing her eyes—“and the Brigadier. He told me about your corrupt little scheme. I know everything—the meeting, the money, the swap, the bomb, and your clumsy efforts to retrieve and then lose the money.” She gave her little Miss Marple smile. “You have nothing left to hide, you know.”

  I have to admit that at this point the fight had gone out
of me. It was as much as I could do to keep breathing, a fear gripping me like a snake tightening round my throat.

  “Calm down, Miss Paltry.” She came and sat next to me, put her hand on my arm. “I’m here to help you.”

  I drew a deep breath, wondering what was coming next. “What kind of help?”

  “Well, for a start, I’ve found you somewhere to live. I’m the Billeting Officer, so it’s my job.” She smiled, and I got the oddest feeling that this boring WVS stalwart was actually trying to help me. She got out some forms. “This is the billet information. You’re staying with the Vicar and Mrs. Quail for now. I’ve got some things for you, too, clothes and household things. They’re secondhand, but they’ll be fine for the time being.”

  I sat sullenly looking into my cup, unable to grapple with the situation. What was going on? Why wasn’t she turning me in?

  “Look, Miss Paltry, perhaps we could go about this a little differently.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if you told me all about it.” She paused, looking at me curiously. “On the basis that I promise not to expose you?”

  “Why do you want to know if you’re not going to hand me in?” I asked shiftily.

  “I want to know how it happened, to understand it all. I want to know the truth.” There was a tense pressure of her hand over mine. “And in return, I can make sure the Brigadier stays away from you.”

  Now, that made me sit up. How could this squirrel of a woman get one over on a man like that? I must have had the question on my face, because she smiled and said, “Don’t worry about the details, Miss Paltry. Just know that he won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  Then it all fell into place. She was threatening him with exposure, which was why he was threatening me, and that’s when it dawned on me that the more Mrs. Tilling knew what happened, the more she could ensure that he never laid a finger on me.

  And I know you’ll think me wrong, Clara, but I told her. I told her everything. Once I began my story, about the Brigadier pulling me into his office after the funeral, it all came tumbling out so fast I could hardly stop it. But then I went on, I told her more. How it wasn’t my fault, it was having to steal for food and shelter when I ran away from Uncle Cyril and found myself in King’s Cross. Thank God the Great War came along and I got that job in Bart’s Hospital, where they let me train as a nurse. But I was always broke, always running, taking chances when they came, however low and grimy. And as it all tumbled out, I realized that I had become a specialist in exactly that. Low and grimy had taken over my world.