The Bluebird Girls: The Forces' Sweethearts 1

by Rosie Archer

  Bert lifted the sash window and let in the stuffy night air. He breathed deeply. He could smell cordite and brick dust from the last raid that had played havoc in Portsmouth. The dockyard was the prime target, along with the ships moored in the harbour.

  He thanked God he wasn’t expected to fight again. The Great War had been bad enough. His lungs were scarred with the gas, so bad he’d had to stop fighting in the boxing ring. The fear of the gas had never gone away. Nightmares left him shaking with terror, and damp cold weater often left him short of breath. He’d left the services and the hospital in his thirties, with money enough to buy this café on the corner. He’d been there ever since. He could still handle himself against drunken customers, if the need arose, but now he was in his fifties he wasn’t as nippy on his feet as he used to be. Mind you, he still had his hair and all his own teeth.

  He closed the blackout curtains and put the light on. This room was his sanctuary. He went to the chest of drawers and pulled out the bottle of whisky, pouring himself a nip. He wouldn’t let himself wonder what Della was up to.

  It was enough that she trusted him to keep an eye on Ivy.

  Della. When she’d first turned up in the café one wet, windy night, with the baby in her arms, she’d said her name was Doris. It had changed to Della after she’d met that greasy git Jim in the Fox. Bert had let her live rent-free in return for helping out in the café and mopping down the stairs. He’d felt sorry for the scrap of a child with the big dark eyes. Later, when her hair had grown straight and lustrous, he’d thought Ivy looked like an Egyptian princess.

  Della had tried picking up blokes in the café but Bert wasn’t having that. He didn’t want any trouble with the police and told her so. ‘Don’t do it on my doorstep,’ he’d said. Then she’d met Jim, and overnight she’d become a masseuse. She couldn’t even pronounce the word properly! She’d told Bert, ‘I’m a sort of nurse and help people to feel better.’ Della had told that to Ivy as well. Of course Ivy believed her, until she grew older and discovered the truth.

  Ivy was well aware of the relief her mother gave to gentleman callers in the flat opposite the bus station at the ferry, but she wouldn’t let anyone say a bad word against her. Ivy knew she couldn’t read or write, but Della was determined that Ivy would have the chances she’d never had when she was young and for that she needed money. Ivy loved her mother with a passion unusual in a girl of that age.

  Della was proud of Ivy’s sultry singing voice, and thrilled when Mrs Wilkes had asked her to join St John’s Choir. Bert, too, was proud. He didn’t have any kids of his own and to him Ivy was like a daughter.

  The woman he’d left behind during the war had gone off with a sailor, and Bert had long since given up on women, except Della, who had wriggled into his heart, like a rainbow after a downpour. Often he’d close up early so he could go along and meet Ivy from St John’s when she went to choir practice. Then she wouldn’t need to walk home alone in the dark.

  ‘Who is my real dad?’ Ivy had asked him once.

  ‘I believe he was a music-hall star with a wonderful voice,’ Bert had answered. Then he’d looked at her sadly.

  She had started to laugh. ‘Pull the other one,’ she’d replied. Truth was, he didn’t think Della remembered.

  He was sipping his whisky, the bottle a present from a customer, when there was a knock on his door.

  ‘Can I go down and get some milk, Bert?’ Ivy stood there, small in a long nightdress covered with a silk kimono Della had passed on to her.

  Honest as the day was long, was Ivy. Some of the tenants never asked, simply stole stuff from the kitchen downstairs, but not Ivy.

  ‘I’ve got some here, pet,’ he answered. He took a half-full bottle from the pan of cold water standing on the windowsill. Bert didn’t need a gas stove in his room but he liked to keep a Primus in case he needed to boil a kettle for tea. Ivy had followed him inside and he could smell Amami shampoo. She must have washed her hair.

  ‘Mum’s forgotten to get milk today.’

  He handed her the bottle. ‘Keep it. I don’t need it.’

  He could sense her excitement and the words tumbled from her lips. ‘Mrs Wilkes is entering us for a music festival at Fareham before Christmas,’ she said. ‘The judges are influential people and we might even get a certificate if we’re good enough.’ She paused, then burst out, ‘And we’re to do the panto this year. She’s hired the David Bogue Hall! People will have to pay to see us!’

  He looked at her excited face. ‘She must think you have a chance of winning a certificate or she wouldn’t do that. Is it the whole choir or just a few chosen singers?’

  ‘Bea, Rainey and I are singing “The Bluebird Song” – it’s an old folk song – and the choir are going to do a short medley.’

  Bert drained his glass and stared at her. ‘And do many people enter contests like this?’

  ‘Up and down the country, so Mrs Wilkes said. There’ll be choirs from all over competing. If we score enough marks we get a certificate. Mrs Wilkes said we must take advantage of this now before the bombing puts an end to all unnecessary travelling and stops people using public transport up and down the country.’

  ‘And has she got more dates for you lot to sing before Christmas?’

  ‘She has, and more to follow next year, in 1941. The panto is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘I’m to be Sneezy!’

  Bert chuckled. ‘Well, you can put me down for a ticket.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Are you crying?’ Syd removed his arm from the back of the cinema seat and Jo felt a handkerchief dancing in front of her face. She took it gratefully.

  ‘It’s not real life,’ he said softly, ‘only Bette Davis working her acting magic up there on the screen.’

  ‘But she thinks she’s cured and she’s not, and she’s going to die.’ Jo gave a sniff, trying to hold back more tears.

  ‘Sssh!’ came a voice from a seat behind them.

  Jo looked at Syd through the swirling cigarette smoke dancing in the beam of light from the film projector in the Criterion Cinema. He was a kind man.

  When the film ended, people began shuffling from their seats.

  ‘You ready?’ asked Syd, ‘This is where we came in.’

  Jo sniffed again, tucked his handkerchief up her cardigan sleeve and began fumbling for her jacket that had slipped to the floor among the empty ice-cream tubs and sweet wrappers.

  ‘So,’ asked Syd, standing up, ‘did you like Dark Victory ?’

  ‘I did,’ Jo said. ‘Bette Davis made me believe in her character and I couldn’t help crying for her.’

  She’d refused the first time Syd had asked her out, then felt mean because she remembered how shy and tongue-tied he’d been. When he’d scraped together the confidence to ask her again that day in the newsagent’s she knew she would agree. When she’d mentioned to Rainey she had doubts, her daughter had told her she was being silly. ‘He’s on his own, you’re on your own. He hasn’t asked you to marry him, he just wants to take you to the pictures.’

  ‘But I’m a married woman,’ said Jo.

  ‘Not to our new friends in Gosport,’ said Rainey. ‘They think you’re a fallen woman.’

  ‘I still think I’m going to meet your father around every corner.’ Jo shivered.

  ‘Now that’s stupid, because he doesn’t know where we are and more than likely he’s now serving abroad. What are you going to do? Stay indoors for ever, only going out one evening a week to choir?’

  When Rainey put it like that, Jo realized it made sense.

  ‘Do you miss him, Rainey, your dad?’

  Rainey had put her hands on her mother’s shoulders and stared into her eyes. Her voice was sarcastic. ‘I miss looking at his face as he steps through the door to see what kind of a mood he’s in. I miss him hurting you . . .’ She’d gathered Jo to her and her voice was softer as she continued, ‘That Syd sounds a nice bloke. You
liked walking through the fayre with him, didn’t you?’

  Jo had nodded.

  ‘Go to the pictures with him then, if you want.’

  Buoyed with new confidence, when Syd asked again, Jo had agreed. Perversely she thought it was worth the wait to see the delight on his face.

  She’d enjoyed his company and the film, and now as he pushed the brass-handled door of the cinema and held it open for her to step onto the pavement, she said, ‘Do you want to come to my house for a cup of tea?’

  Syd stopped battling through the crush of people leaving the Criterion. ‘I don’t want to compromise you, a woman on her own with a daughter. If neighbours see a man entering your house they might put two and two together and come up with five.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve got something I want to show you—’

  Jo didn’t get any further for a man shouted, ‘Don’t stand in the doorway. We want to get home, mate!’

  Syd took Jo’s arm and they melted out into the drizzle.

  By the time Syd’s van stopped outside Jo’s house, the rain was bucketing down and Syd held a newspaper over her hair while she unlocked the front door.

  ‘Phew,’ he said. He took off his jacket, shook it, then hung it on a hook inside the door.

  ‘Come on through and sit down. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Jo put a poker to the range, teased the fire into life, then went into the scullery.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ she heard Syd say.

  ‘It wasn’t when we moved in,’ she answered. ‘My Rainey did wonders with a scrubbing brush and paint.’

  ‘Where is she tonight?’

  ‘She’s round her mate’s house. They’re practising some music.’

  Jo paused, a cup in her hand that she was about to put on a tray. She was alone in the house with a man. Her heart began to beat fast. Don’t be silly, she told herself. Don’t spoil things. This is Syd and he’s a good man. He’s not about to hurt you.

  But what if . . . ?

  The cup slid from her fingers and crashed to the floor.

  In an instant Syd was in the doorway, bending down and picking up the shards of broken china. Jo stood, silent, shaking. Then she blurted, ‘I’ve become wary of being alone with a man.’

  Syd held the remains of the cup in one large hand. He stared at her, then said, ‘I won’t stay, Jo. I wouldn’t like you to think I might do anything that would upset you.’ Carefully he put the broken pieces on the wooden draining-board. His voice was soft as he said, ‘I think in the past you’ve not been treated well.’

  Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘I feel terrible now,’ she gabbled. She was trying to make amends for her strange behaviour.

  She remembered her earlier panic in the Criterion when they’d sat down in their seats in the dark. Whatever would she do if he wanted to hold her hand? she’d wondered. Or, even worse, tried to kiss her? Syd had done nothing except put his arm on the seat behind her head, not even touching her. And there it had stayed until the usherette had brought round the tray of ice creams. Then he had risen, moved past her and walked towards the searchlight, returning with two tubs.

  ‘I do like you,’ Jo said. ‘But I . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said kindly. ‘I understand how you feel.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You can’t possibly.’ Jo hated not being in control of herself. ‘I wanted to show you something . . .’

  ‘Another time perhaps,’ he said quietly, moving towards the passage.

  ‘But it’s the main reason I brought you here.’ Jo realized what she’d said, how it must have sounded, and felt the blush start from her neck and cover her face.

  A sudden smile lit his face. ‘Jo. It’s all right, honestly, it’s all right.’ She had the sudden feeling he wanted to hold her, give her a cuddle, to make sure she understood she hadn’t offended him. She let out a big sigh. Her heart was still hammering. He would leave without her showing him . . .

  Jo took a deep breath, went to the sideboard and took a key from a drawer.

  She walked down the passage, took his coat from the hook and passed it to him. She opened the front door. It was still raining, the drops hard and straight, like stair rods, hitting the pavement and bouncing back up.

  ‘Wait till I open the shed door, then come,’ she said, pulling a coat over her head.

  The lock was cold and slippery but opened easily. She slid inside the musty-smelling shed and called, ‘Syd! In here!’

  Within moments he was beside her, breathing heavily and cursing the rain. Then: ‘Oh, my! She’s a beauty.’ He ran a hand lovingly over the shiny red surface of the car. He squeezed himself along the side of the wooden building. ‘Can I get in?’

  ‘Course,’ said Jo. The rain was pelting on the tin roof. ‘She doesn’t go now but it’s what I drove to Gosport in. She had all our worldly goods in and I remember Rainey singing all the time to keep our spirits up. The car belongs to me. I have all the documents.’

  Syd was sitting in the driver’s seat running his hands over the steering wheel and the dashboard. Jo saw he was in a little world of his own: his love of cars had swept everything from his thoughts. In the shed’s confined space, the smell of the leather seats was heightened.

  ‘Can’t be much wrong with this little beauty. I bet I could soon get her going again—’

  Jo broke in: ‘I just wanted to show the car to you.’ She knew she was blushing again as she added, ‘We don’t have anything else of value. It’s my insurance for the future.’

  ‘Jo.’ Syd slid his long legs out of the car. He now stood in front of her, staring into her eyes. ‘There’s a war on. What happened round the corner in Spring Garden Lane, and the rest of Gosport, the bombing, isn’t going to stop. Let me get this car running. Sell it. Bank the money.’ For a moment he was thoughtful. ‘What would you do if one of Hitler’s planes dropped a bomb on her?’

  ‘If that happened, I’d be gone as well,’ she retorted.

  ‘Maybe, but if you’d banked the money and your girl was alive at singing practice, she’d be well looked after. Think about it.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eddie looked at the piles of rubble, his mind and body numb. He knew every street in Gosport but these hillocks of brick, stones, broken roof slates, water pipes twisted into grotesque shapes, shattered glass and smashed furniture were like nothing he’d ever seen, not even on the building sites. Everything was covered with dust. More floated in the air, like some strange sandstorm.

  He turned to face Harry Weldon, who was wearing the tin hat and the armband that told everyone he was an air-raid warden. ‘This can’t be White’s Place?’ A row of terraced houses had stood there, with white and red polished doorsteps. Children played in the street and women gossiped in their curlers.

  Harry Weldon put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. ‘It was,’ he said. ‘It got a direct hit. No one else is coming out of that alive.’

  ‘No one?’

  Harry dropped his hand and shook his head. Eddie thought he looked worn out. The man’s eyes were dull and his face was streaked with dust. Gosport had been bombarded all summer long and now, into autumn, there seemed to be no let-up.

  ‘Daisy Elkins at number four crawled from the wreckage but she died on the way to the hospital. Bloody Hitler. Your street’s all right, though.’ Harry took off his helmet and scratched at his sparse hair. ‘The Hun are after our airfields,’ he said. ‘Bloody pilots must be blind – they missed Lee-on-the-Solent and Rowner.’ He replaced his hat, ‘Still, that means our planes can get them back.’

  A voice called Harry’s name. Eddie watched him walk wearily away.

  Eddie set off towards home but paused at the corner of the street near the pub. In the large backyard near the wooden casks he could see the bodies laid out in rows on the stone floor, covered with sheets. Some had tags because the rescuers knew their identities, but many did not.

  Eddie wanted to be at home with his sister, grandfather and mother.

  He�
�d already walked Liz home after the darts match in the Corncob. They’d had a bit of a kiss and cuddle behind the neighbour’s garden gate where overhanging honeysuckle ensured they weren’t seen.

  Liz was one of those girls who wanted to settle down and Eddie knew he wasn’t ready for marriage just yet. So when the siren had wailed and Liz said, ‘Come into our Anderson,’ he’d declined. The last thing he needed was her family asking him questions about this and that.

  He’d watched as she’d banged on the shelter’s door, then gone back to his hiding place beneath the honeysuckle.

  He could hear bombs whistling down and drew his head further into the collar of his jacket every time one hit the ground. He knew they weren’t that close but he could still smell the cordite in the air and see the clouds of dust as the bombs landed. The sky was orange. Searchlights swept above him and the ack-ack noise of ground fire rent the air.

  He thought of his mother and hoped she’d been able to persuade Granddad to go down to the shelter. The old man had taken it into his head he’d be safer under the stairs as long as he took his gas mask with him. That put Eddie’s mother at even greater risk because she had to stay with him. He’d be shaking and crying and saying over and over again, ‘I don’t want to die. I’m not going out in that lot.’ And all the while the tears would run down his face.

  Eddie had dug the garden to a depth of four feet to install the Anderson shelter. Made of curved corrugated iron, the shelters were supposed to withstand all but a direct hit. But they were cold, damp and airless, and broken masonry sounded horrific when it fell on the earth-covered roof. His mum had made it comfortable inside with wooden bunks and a paraffin heater. She’d even brought down a kettle and the makings for tea. They’d be taking their blankets from the beds soon to stop the cold getting at them.

  Eddie had no idea how long he’d stood there with the sweet scent of the late honeysuckle vying with the smell of burning. He had his back to the brick wall and he thought of how the war had practically finished him as a builder. His employees, mostly able young men, had gone off to fight, and even though the local council had granted him the job of building new houses at Bridgemary, the bricks and wood were the devil to get hold of.