by Jojo Moyes
‘Children are a blessing,’ said Mrs Proffit, benignly, as she checked the stitching of a green hat on a brown woollen monkey. Today they were Gift-making for the Bombed-out Children of London. One of the girls had been sent a book called Useful Hints from Odds and Ends by her English mother-in-law, and Mrs Proffit had written out instructions on how to make a necklace from the metal rings for chickens’ legs, and a bed-jacket from old cami-knickers for next week’s meeting. ‘Yes,’ she said, glancing fondly at them all. ‘You’ll understand one day. Children are a blessing.’
‘No children is more of one,’ muttered the dark-eyed girl next to Avice, accompanying the remark with a rather vulgar nudge.
In other times, Avice would not have spent five minutes with this peculiar mixture of girls – some of whom seemed to have landed straight off some outback station with red dust on their shoes – or, indeed, have wasted so many hours enduring interminable lectures from middle-aged spinsters who had seized upon the war as a way to enliven what had probably been dismal lives. But she had been in Sydney for almost ten days now, with her father’s friend, Mr Burton, the only person she knew there, and the Wives’ Club had become her only point of social contact. (She still wasn’t sure how to explain Mr Burton’s behaviour to her father. She had had to tell the man no less than four times that she was a married woman, and she wasn’t entirely sure that as far as he was concerned that made any difference.)
There were twelve other young women at today’s gathering; few had spent more than a week at a time with their husbands, and more than half had not seen them for the best part of a year. The shipment home of troops was a priority; the ‘wallflower wives’, as they had become known, were not. Some had filed their papers over a year previously and heard little since. At least one, tiring of her dreary lodgings, had given up and gone home. The rest stayed on, fuelled by blind hope, desperation, love or, in most cases, a varying mix of all three.
Avice was the newest member. Listening to their tales of the families with whom they were billeted, she had silently thanked her parents for the opulence of her hotel accommodation. It would all have been so much less exciting if she had been forced to stay with some grumpy old couple. As it was, it became rather less exciting by the day.
‘If that Mrs Tidworth says to me one more time, “Oh dear, hasn’t he sent for you yet?” I swear I’ll swing for her.’
‘She loves it, the old bitch. She did the same to Mary Knight when she stayed there. I reckon she actually wants you to get the telegram saying, “Don’t come.”’
‘It’s the you’ll-be-sorrys I can’t stand.’
‘Not much longer, eh?’
‘When’s the next one due in?’
‘Around three weeks, according to my orders,’ said the dark-eyed girl. Avice thought she might have said her name was Jean, but she was hopeless with names and had forgotten them all immediately she’d been introduced. ‘She’d better be as nice as the Queen Mary. She even had a hair salon with heated dryers. I’m desperate to get my hair done properly before I see Stan again.’
‘She was a wonderful woman, Queen Mary,’ said Mrs Proffit, from the end of the table. ‘Such a lady.’
‘You’ve got your orders?’ A freckled girl on the other side of the table was frowning at Jean.
‘Last week.’
‘But you’re low priority. You said you didn’t even put in your papers until a month ago.’
There was a brief silence. Around the table, several girls exchanged glances, then fixed their eyes on their embroidery. Mrs Proffit looked up; she had apparently picked up on the subtle cooling in the atmosphere. ‘Anyone need more thread?’ she asked, peering over her spectacles.
‘Yes, well, sometimes you just get lucky,’ said Jean, and excused herself from the table.
‘How come she gets on?’ said the freckled girl, turning to the women on each side of her. ‘I’ve been waiting nearly fifteen months, and she’s getting on the next boat out. How can that be right?’ Her voice had sharpened with the injustice of it. Avice made a mental note not to mention her own orders.
‘She’s carrying, isn’t she?’ muttered another girl.
‘What?’
‘Jean. She’s in the family way. You know what? The Americans won’t let you over once you’re past four months.’
‘Who’s doing the penguin?’ said Mrs Proffit. ‘You’ll need to keep that black thread for whoever’s doing the penguin.’
‘Hang on,’ said a redhead threading a needle. ‘Her Stan left in November. She said he was on the same ship as my Ernie.’
‘So she can’t be in the family way.’
‘Or she is . . . and . . .’
Eyes widened and met, accompanied by the odd smirk.
‘Are you up for a little roo, Sarah dear?’ Mrs Proffit beamed at the girls and pulled some pieces of fawn felt out of her cloth bag. ‘I do think the little roos are rather sweet, don’t you?’
Several minutes later Jean returned to her chair, and folded her arms rather combatively. She seemed to realise that she was no longer the topic of conversation and visibly relaxed – although she might have wondered at the sudden industriousness of the toy-making around her.
‘I met Ian, my husband, at a tea-dance,’ said Avice, in an attempt to break the silence. ‘I was part of a young ladies’ reception committee, and he was the second man I offered a cup of tea to.’
‘Was that all you offered him?’
That was Jean. She might have known. ‘From what I’ve heard I don’t suppose everyone’s idea of hospitality is quite the same as yours,’ she retorted. She remembered how she had blushed as she poured; he had been staring conspicuously at her ankles – of which she was rather proud.
Petty Officer Ian Stewart Radley. At twenty-six, a whole five years older than her, which Avice considered just right, tall and straight-backed with eyes the colour of the sea, a gentlemanly British accent and broad, soft hands that had made her tremble the first time they ever brushed hers – even holding a shortbread finger. He had asked her to dance – even though no one else was on the floor – and with him being a serviceman, she had thought it mean-spirited to refuse. What was a quickstep or a Gay Gordons when he was looking death in the face?
Less than four months later they were married, a tasteful ceremony in the Collins Street register office. Her father had been suspicious, had made her mother quiz her – in a discreet woman-to-woman way, of course – as to whether there was any reason for such a hasty marriage other than Ian’s imminent departure. Ian had told her father, rather honourably, she thought, that he was happy to wait, if that was what Avice’s parents wanted, that he would do nothing to upset them, but she had been determined to become Mrs Radley. The war had hastened everything, foreshortened the natural timescale of such things. And she had known, from that first cup of tea, there was no one else in the world she could envisage marrying; no one else upon whom she could consider bestowing her many gifts.
‘But we know nothing about him, dear,’ her mother had said, wringing her hands.
‘He’s perfect.’
‘You know that’s not what I mean.’
‘What do you need to know? He’s been out there holding the Brisbane line, hasn’t he? Doesn’t protecting our country, putting his own life at risk twelve thousand miles from his home to save us from the Japs, make him worthy of my hand?’
‘No need to be melodramatic, sweetheart,’ her father had said.
They had given in, of course. They always did. Her sister Deanna had been furious.
‘My Johnnie was billeted with my aunt Vi,’ said another girl. ‘I thought he was gorgeous. I sneaked into his room the second night he was there and that was that.’
‘Best to get in early,’ said another, to raucous laughter. ‘Stake your claim.’
‘Especially if Jean’s around.’
Even Jean found that funny.
‘Now, who wants to practise making one of these lovely necklaces?’ Mrs Proffit h
eld up an uneven-looking chain of aluminium coils. ‘I’m sure it’s what the best-dressed ladies are wearing in Europe.’
‘Next week it’ll be how to make couture evening cloaks from horse blankets.’
‘I heard that, Edwina.’ Mrs Proffit placed the necklace carefully on the table.
‘Sorry, Mrs P, but if my Johnnie saw me wearing one of those he wouldn’t know whether to kiss me or check my rear to see if I’d laid an egg.’
There was an explosion of laughter, an outburst of barely suppressed hysteria.
Mrs Proffit sighed and laid down her craftwork. Really! It was only to be expected, as embarkation drew closer – but really! These girls could be so wearying.
‘So, when are you out?’
Jean’s host family were two streets away from the Wentworth, and the girls had ended up walking back together, dawdling. Despite the air of mutual dislike between them, they were reluctant to sit alone in their rooms for yet another evening.
‘Avice? When are your orders for?’
Avice wondered whether to answer truthfully. She was pretty sure that Jean – immature and coarse as she was – was not the kind of girl she would normally want to associate with, especially if what had been said about her condition was true. But neither was Avice a girl used to self-restraint, and the effort involved in keeping quiet for an entire afternoon about her own plans had been a strain. ‘Same as you. Three weeks. What’s she called? The Victoria?’
‘It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’ Jean lit a cigarette, cupping her hands against the sea breeze. As an afterthought, she offered one to Avice.
Avice wrinkled her nose and declined. ‘What did you say?’
‘It’s a bugger. They get the bloody Queen Mary and we get the old tin can.’
A car drove past slowly, and two servicemen hung out of the windows, shouting something crude. Jean grinned at them, waving her cigarette, as the car disappeared round the corner.
Avice stood in front of her. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Didn’t you hear Mrs Proffit? The one who’s married to the commander?’
Avice shook her head.
Jean laughed humourlessly. ‘I don’t think it’s quite hair salons and first-class cabins for you and me, girl. Our Victoria is a bloody aircraft-carrier.’
Avice stared at the girl for a minute, then smiled. It was the kind of smile she reserved at home for the staff when they did something particularly stupid. ‘I think you must be mistaken, Jean. Ladies don’t travel on aircraft-carriers.’ She pursed her lips, as smoke trickled her way. ‘Besides, there’d be nowhere to put us all.’
‘You really don’t know anything, do you?’
Avice fought back irritation at being addressed in this manner by someone who had to be at least five years younger than herself.
‘They’ve run out of decent transport. They’re going to stick us on anything to get us over there. I reckon they figure whoever really wants to go will put up with whatever they throw our way.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Even old Mrs P seemed a bit concerned. Think she’s worried about her young ladies arriving in England wearing overalls and covered with fuel. Not quite the impression she wants for Australia’s finest.’
‘An aircraft-carrier?’ Avice felt a little wobbly. She reached for a nearby wall and sat down.
Jean seated herself comfortably beside her. ‘That’s what she is. I never bothered to check the name of it. I just assumed . . . Oh, well, they’ll have modified it a bit, I should think.’
‘But where will we sleep?’
‘Dunno. On the deck with the planes?’
Avice’s eyes widened.
‘Strewth, Avice, you’re even more gullible than I thought.’ Jean cackled, stubbed out her cigarette, stood up and began to walk on.
It might have been her imagination but Avice thought she sounded increasingly coarse.
‘They’ll find some way to fit us on. Got to be better than sticking around here, anyway. We’ll get a bed and our food, and the Red Cross will look after us.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ Avice’s face had clouded. She walked briskly. If she rang now she might catch her father before he left for his club.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t possibly travel on something like that. My parents wouldn’t have it, for a start. They thought I’d be travelling on a liner. You know, one of the ones that had been requisitioned for transport. That’s almost the only reason they let me go.’
‘You take what you’re given in times like these, girl. You know that.’
Not me, said Avice silently. She was now running towards the hotel. Not a girl whose family owned the biggest radio manufacturer in Melbourne.
‘They’ll be providing us with engineers’ uniforms too, just in case they need us to do a little scrubbing down.’
‘I don’t think that’s very funny, actually.’
‘You’ve got to laugh.’
Go away, you horrid girl, Avice thought. I wouldn’t set foot on the same ship as you for a trip round Sydney Harbour, even if it were the Queen Mary.
‘Don’t worry, Avice. I’m sure they’ll be able to fix you up with a first-class berth in the boiler room!’ She could still hear Jean’s unpleasant cackle half-way down the street.
‘Mummy?’
‘Avice darling, is that you? Wilfred! It’s Avice!’ She could hear her mother yelling down the hallway, could picture her on her telephone seat, the Persian rug on the parquet floor, the ever-present vase of flowers on the table beside her. ‘How are you, sweetheart?’
‘Fine, Mummy. But I need to speak to Daddy.’
‘You don’t sound all right. Are you really fine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has Ian sent any word yet?’
‘Mummy, I need to speak to Daddy.’ Avice struggled to keep her impatience out of her voice.
‘You would tell me?’
‘Is that my littlest princess?’
‘Oh, Daddy, thank goodness. There’s a problem.’
Her father said nothing.
‘With the transport.’
‘I spoke to Commander Guild myself. He promised me you’d be on the next—’
‘No, that’s not it. He’s got me on a boat.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
She could hear her mother behind her father: ‘It’s the young man. Ten to one it’s the young man.’
And Deanna: ‘Has he told her not to come?’
‘Tell them it’s nothing to do with Ian. It’s the ship.’
‘I don’t understand, Princess.’
‘It’s an aircraft-carrier.’
‘What?’
‘Maureen,’ he hissed. ‘Be quiet. I can’t hear a word she’s saying.’
Avice let out a short sigh.
‘Exactly. It’s an aircraft-carrier. They’re expecting us to sail to England on an aircraft-carrier.’
There was a brief silence. ‘They want her to travel on an aircraft-carrier,’ her father told her mother.
‘What? An aeroplane?’
‘No, you stupid woman. One of the ships they put the planes on.’
‘A warship?’
Avice could almost hear her reeling theatrically in horror. Deanna had started laughing. She would: she hadn’t forgiven Avice for marrying first.
‘You’re going to have to get me on to something else,’ Avice said urgently. ‘Talk to whoever it was who got me on. Tell him I need to travel on something else. Get me on another ship.’
‘You never said anything about an aircraft-carrier!’ her mother was saying now. ‘She can’t travel on one of those. Not with all those planes going off the deck all the time. It’ll be dangerous!’
‘Daddy?’
‘They sank the Vyner Brooke, didn’t they?’ her mother clamoured. ‘The Japs might try to sink the aircraft-carrier, like they sank the Vyner Brooke.’
‘Shut up, woman.
&nb
sp; ‘What’s the matter? Are you the only girl on board, Princess?’
‘Me? Oh, no, there’s six hundred or so wives travelling.’ Avice frowned. ‘It’s just that it will be awful. They’ll have us sleeping on bedrolls and there won’t be any facilities. And, Daddy, you should see the kind of girls they’ve got me going over with – the language! I can hardly say—’
Her mother broke through on to the line. ‘I knew it, Avice. They’re just not your sort. I really don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘Daddy? Can you sort it out?’
Her father sighed heavily. ‘Well, it’s not as easy as that, Princess. I had to pull quite a few strings to get you on board. And most of the brides have gone now, anyway. I’m not sure how many more transports there are going to be.’
‘Well, fly me over. I’ll go with Qantas.’
‘It’s not as easy as that, Avice.’
‘I can’t go on that awful ship!’
‘Listen, Avice, I paid a lot of money to get you on to it, you hear me? And I’m shelling out a damn sight more to keep you in that ruddy hotel because you didn’t fancy naval lodgings. I can’t pay out even more for a flight to Blighty just because you don’t like the facilities on board the ship.’
‘But, Daddy—’
‘Sweetheart, I’d love to help, really, but you’ve no idea how hard it was to get you on board.’
‘But, Daddy!’ She stamped her foot and the receptionist glanced at her. She lowered her voice to a whisper: ‘I know what you’re doing – don’t think I don’t know why you’re refusing to help me.’
Her mother broke in, her voice firm. ‘Avice, you’re right. I think the ship thing is a very bad idea.’
‘You do?’ Avice felt a flicker of hope. Her mother understood the importance of travelling comfortably. She knew that things should be done properly. What would Ian think if she turned up looking like a navvy?
‘Yes. I think you should come home today. Get on a train first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘Home?’
‘The whole thing has just too many ifs and buts. This ship business sounds absolutely awful, you haven’t heard from Ian in goodness knows how long—’
