Ruby's War

by Johanna Winard

  Mrs Grey nodded and handed the mother-of-pearl cigarette box to Ruby to take over to Mr Prendergast.

  ‘Dowler’s notes would seem a good place to start,’ she said.

  ‘I took the liberty of explaining to Reginald, dear, that we both think we could use the notes as a guide. Very sensible it seems, with the army base being so very near.’

  ‘Quite,’ Mr Prendergast said, taking a cigarette from the open box.

  Ruby was returning it to the table by Mrs Grey’s side, when the living-room door was thrown open and Mr Rollo walked in.

  ‘Oh, Rollo, it’s you,’ Mrs Grey said, getting to her feet. ‘You’re not well enough to be up, and I think I’ve just heard my other guests arrive.’

  Mr Rollo, who was wearing a loose velvet dressing gown over silk pyjamas, took the cigarette box from Ruby and sat down next to Mrs Prendergast.

  ‘I’ve been driven down by Alice. She’s banging around up there. What does she find to do that makes so much noise?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that was someone on the drive,’ Mrs Grey said, looking nervously at her brother, who was swinging an embroidered slipper from a naked foot.

  ‘Ruby, come with me. You too, Rollo, darling. You really aren’t well enough to be out of bed.’

  Ruby, who was sure there wasn’t anyone outside, followed Mrs Grey and her brother.

  ‘What are you plotting?’ he asked his sister, as she closed the living-room door behind them.

  In the hall, the shadows cast by the dull afternoon light from the long windows made his face look older. His skin looked dry, almost scaly, and the way he stared at his sister reminded Ruby of the look in Monty’s red-rimmed eye when he was about to peck at her leg.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m not plotting.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you ask me to stay for a cup of tea?’

  ‘You’re not dressed for afternoon tea. Now go back to your room, darling. Please. For me?’

  ‘Well, what about some coffee and some more cigarettes?’ he said, but as he turned to go up the stairs, they heard the sound of Alice banging somewhere above them, and throwing back his head, exposing the long black hairs escaping from his open collar, Mr Rollo started to moan.

  ‘Have pity, Diana,’ he begged. ‘Let me stay. Get Ruby to bring me a pot of coffee. I’ll sit quietly. I promise.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rollo. The coffee isn’t ready. I’ll send you a tray. You are ill, remember? There’s the bell. My guests are here. Ruby, get the door.’

  ‘Some cigarettes? Get me some, or I shall have to go back in the living room and get my own.’

  ‘I’ll send you some with the coffee. Please go. Ruby, the door, now!’

  Mrs Grey took the two officers back with her into the living room, and as Ruby hurried to the kitchen to make the coffee, Alice appeared at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Ruby, put the water on,’ she called. ‘I’ll come down to make the coffee.’

  When Ruby carried the tall silver coffee pot in to the guests, they were chatting about the weather. The afternoon light had almost gone, and before she served the sandwiches, she put on the table lamps, closed the curtains and poked the fire. As she lifted the tarry mass gently with the brass poker, the coal sighed and orange flames began to leap, adding to the room’s soft yellow glow. Then she served the visitors tea and coffee, sandwiches and cakes, all the time listening, hoping to find out something about the planned dance that she could report back to Sadie and Lou.

  ‘Tell me, Captain,’ Mrs Grey said, as Ruby waited for Captain O’Donal to help himself to the paste sandwiches, ‘how are your men settling in?’

  ‘Oh, very well, ma’am. People have been very kind. They appreciate the welcome.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to hear it. We wanted to discuss plans for Christmas,’ she said, holding up her cup for Ruby to fill. ‘We want the men to feel at home and we thought it would be best to try to coordinate our celebrations.’

  ‘It’s the little touches, don’t you think, that can make the difference,’ Mrs Prendergast said, waving away the sandwiches and selecting a cream-topped cake from the cake stand. ‘Touches can mean so much and … customs … recognising our different customs is important.’

  ‘There’s the question of how the celebrations should be organised,’ Mr Prendergast added. ‘How best to organise the religious services and … dances and such … in a way that would make the men feel at home. All the men must be included, of course.’

  ‘The men won’t expect … They’re used to separate facilities …’ Captain Leary said, turning to choose a cake. As he took a small cake, decorated with a sliver of candied peel, Ruby caught the fluted cake stand on the edge of the table. The noise startled Mrs Grey, who put down her cup.

  ‘I think we can serve ourselves, Ruby,’ she said. ‘Will you pour a cup of coffee and ask Alice to take it up to Mr Rollo?’

  Reluctantly, Ruby poured out the coffee, and as she closed the door, the conversation started again.

  When she got to the kitchen, she was surprised to see Holt sitting opposite Dick and Alice at the table drinking tea. Under the soft kitchen lights, Holt’s dark skin had a damson’s sheen, and she noticed that he was shivering.

  ‘They left him outside in the cold, so I brought him in,’ Alice said. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Madam said you were to take it up to Mr Rollo.’

  ‘Ill, he’s supposed to be. Out at all hours. You get on with that washing-up, and then we can have a bite to eat.’

  ‘Young chap, here, tells me he knows your grandpa,’ Dick said, as Holt grinned at her across the table.

  ‘He does,’ Ruby smiled. ‘Michael’s helped him with his motorbike.’

  ‘What they up to in there?’ Dick asked, refilling Holt’s cup and pouring one for her.

  ‘It’s all about parties for Christmas. I promised Sadie I’d listen and let her know what they was going to do, but Mrs Grey sent me out with the coffee. So I don’t know. They’d only just got started.’

  ‘Going to be a grand Christmas. I’ve heard all the kiddies are going for a party at the camp,’ Dick said.

  ‘Is that at your place, Michael?’ she asked.

  ‘I … I don’t …’ Holt struggled to imagine children in the damp collection of huts that made up the camp. ‘I don’t rightly know,’ he said.

  ‘Well, your captain is here, but I suppose it might be at the place the other chap comes from.’

  ‘If they’re going to be some time, I’ll show Michael, here, my greenhouse. Get us from under your feet. He’s been telling me all about growing cotton, and all sorts of things. Fascinating. His granddad was a gardener. Had a hundred men working under him.’

  Late that same afternoon, as Con was heading back to the camp, he felt edgy and decided to drop off in the village.

  ‘I need some cigarettes,’ he told the truck driver. ‘I’ll hitch a ride back.’

  Almost unwillingly, his legs took him from the village shop over the two railway bridges. He hoped Henry would be home and invite him in for a drink and a chat, but when he knocked at the door, the cottage was empty. He wandered on down the little lane. He’d reached the stone bridge when he saw Mrs Bland coming towards him, pulling a tree branch behind her. The branch didn’t look very big, but the old lady, who was tugging it with one hand, looked out of breath.

  ‘Oh, good afternoon,’ she said. ‘Con, isn’t it?’

  In the dusk, Con thought for a moment that he could see a child or a doll swinging limply from her free arm, but when she changed hands and adjusted the bundle, he could see it was the body of a dead rabbit dangling from the crook of her elbow.

  ‘I wonder if I could prevail upon you to help me back to the cottage,’ the old lady said. ‘I’m afraid the branch is much harder to carry than I first estimated. I have been checking my traps, you see. Quite a poor haul, I’m afraid,’ she said, handing over the branch and taking the dead creature by its ears, ‘but I was fortunate enough to find some w
ood.’

  ‘Does the stream have fish in it?’ he asked, carrying the bough, which was ungainly rather than heavy, over the little bridge.

  ‘Some of the smaller pools, possibly, but the stream as it goes by the cottages doesn’t, I’m afraid. Although I’m sure it must have done. Sadly, it’s very polluted. It’s the cotton industry, you see. Originally, the stream would have been the main reason the factory was sited here. Water power and then steam, of course. Must look very small to you. Detroit, isn’t it, where you come from? A majestic river. The first settlers must have been amazed, don’t you think? Just imagine, the great river and then the lakes.’

  ‘Do you want me to chop this up for you?’ he asked. ‘I can do it now, if you have an axe.’

  ‘Well, that would be awfully kind, and then you must let me offer you some refreshments. I’m afraid it will be dark soon. Will you be able to see?’

  ‘Oh, it won’t take long, ma’am.’

  Con put the meagre pile of wood in the coal bunker at the back of the tiny cottage.

  ‘Come through,’ Mrs Bland called, from the door of the poky wooden lean-to that served as her kitchen and held a sink, a cooker and two battered cupboards. ‘I’ve made us a cup of tea. Would you like to stay and eat with me?’ Inside the living room, the rabbit’s corpse lolled on a rough wooden table between a dainty china tea set and a pile of carrots.

  ‘No thank you, ma’am,’ he said, looking at the soft creamy fur on the animal’s chest and the tiny thread of blood hanging from its mouth. ‘I’ll be expected back at the camp. I stopped by in the village to buy some cigarettes.’

  ‘It is rather chilly in here,’ the old lady said, pushing up the sleeves on her worn coat and picking up one of the carrots. ‘Still, the winters must be much colder in Detroit.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, but not so damp,’ he said looking at the listless fire. ‘The air there is drier, somehow.’

  ‘It was the damp climate here that made this area ideal for cotton. Needs to be damp for the thread. Vital. The first mill owners built the mills by the water. Had to. They used it as a source of power. In those days, there wasn’t a village here. The place would have been quite isolated. They needed workers, of course, and they solved that problem by using orphaned children from the workhouses. No one would have complained. They brought the children here. Appalling conditions. They slept under the looms. If the mill failed, the children were left to wander the countryside and starve. Cotton has a cruel history. The conditions in the Manchester slums shocked the world. Money makes men cruel, and smug,’ Mrs Bland said, tugging open the table drawer and taking out a broad knife. ‘Took their own families out to the clean Cheshire air,’ she added, slicing off the rabbit’s head with one blow, and with barely a flash of the blade, quickly unzipping the creature from its brindled fur. ‘Pass me that bowl from the dresser would you, dear? But the people … the working people of Lancashire, now they were a different breed. The American Civil War is a case in point. They felt a common fellowship with the slaves. In the face of the blockade, the Lancashire workers were very brave, stoical. Sent messages of support to Lincoln, even though they were starving, while their masters held bales of raw cotton in their warehouses, speculating on the increase in the price.’

  Con sipped the pale tea and watched as Mrs Bland chopped at the peeled carrots, as if each represented the tender parts of a despised cotton master.

  ‘My grandma was from the South,’ he said. ‘Moved north in her twenties. She was brought up on a plantation. Educated with the daughters of the owner until she was fourteen.’

  ‘What happened then?’ Mrs Bland asked, pulling the naked carcass towards her. ‘Was she sent to the fields?’

  ‘No,’ he said, as the rabbit’s inquisitive eye peered at him around the floral cream jug. ‘Her family had always been indoor servants. In fact, she looked down on the field hands.’

  Con eased his chair back, avoiding the gobbets of sleek, purple wetness splashing into the bowl at his elbow.

  ‘Divide and rule,’ Mrs Bland said, dropping the carrots into a blackened saucepan and hacking at the pink rabbit flesh.

  As the sharp tang of blood and freshly exposed intestine rose from the enamel dish, he fingered the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and asked for permission to smoke. After a couple of deep inhalations, Con found the taste of tobacco in his throat had successfully masked the smell of decaying grass rising from the freshly exposed entrails. He couldn’t help thinking that Grandma Eloise would not have approved of squat Mrs Bland with her uncombed hair and slovenly dress. His grandma, as daughter of the head footman, had modelled her own dress and manners on those of Miss Grace and Miss Susanna, the daughters of her employer, and she’d looked down on not only the field hands, but all the lower order of workers in the house as well.

  ‘She became secretary to their mother and read to their grandfather, who was going blind. She read him the newspapers and his correspondence, but she also read literature to him. Her favourite writer was Shakespeare. She loved Twelfth Night. It was always performed in the house at Christmas time when she was a small child. All the household were allowed to watch, and she never forgot it. She read it to me as a little boy. Not that I understood it, but I loved the sound of her reading it, I suppose. I still read it to myself now. I imagine the characters on the stairs in the old mansion out in the middle of the cotton fields.’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t care to stay and eat with me?’ she asked, dropping lumps of the meat into the blackened saucepan.

  ‘No thank you, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’d best be on my way, but thank you for the tea and the history lesson.’

  ‘As you can see,’ she said, getting up from the table and wedging the pan on the smoking fire, ‘I’ve a good library. Please feel free to avail yourself of my books. You might want to try another Shakespeare play. Hamlet, perhaps,’ she said, nodding to the bookcases as she led the way to the front door.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am, I’d like to. I only have the one book with me.’

  ‘Well call any time,’ she said, opening the door. ‘All my books are unpacked now, and I think I should be able to find something that might interest you. It’s strange isn’t it, when you unpack things in a new house, how you discover a little treasure that had slipped your mind. I’d forgotten all about my Ophelia,’ she said, pointing at the picture of a red-haired girl hanging by the front door. ‘Who does she remind you of?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘Why, the little girl at the cottage up the lane. Mr Barton’s granddaughter. She’s going to be quite a beauty.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The following Saturday night, Con climbed into the back of the truck and sat down next to Holt. The wrapping around the nylons he’d bought for Rita crackled inside his jacket. Holt handed him a cigarette.

  ‘You goin’ to the movies?’ he asked.

  ‘Naw. I’m meeting Rita.’

  ‘You got a late pass?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And you got protection?’

  ‘Holt, you ain’t my daddy.’

  ‘This Rita … Wes says she’s …’

  ‘She’s what?’

  ‘Older than you, and …’

  ‘Wes don’t need to talk. He didn’t exactly struggle …’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Card game. Says he don’t want to come to town. Got a letter from his girl, and gone all gooey-eyed.’

  ‘Why don’t you come to the movies with the rest of us? I’ll save you a place in the queue.’

  ‘Rita … I don’t know. I might do.’

  ‘Bring her. You need to watch your back around town. I hear some guys got into a fight.’

  ‘Yep, with some white guys. I know. They were GIs. I’ll be fine. It’s a real friendly place. What you goin’ to see?’

  ‘Don’t know. Just wanted to get out. Somethin’ happy.’

  ‘You got bad news?’ Con asked, gazing out at the shadowy
outline of the terraced houses along the road.

  ‘Naw. It’s just … Well, I suppose getting Arleen’s letters … It makes Paradise Valley seem an awful long way off.’

  When the truck dropped them in town, Con made his way to the old barn of a pub near the dance hall where he’d arranged to meet Rita. He waded through the smoke-fogged room until he found her sitting with a crowd of girls. When she saw him, her chubby, yellow-stained cheeks flushed with a pinky glow.

  ‘Oh, excuse me girls,’ she giggled, draining her glass. ‘My bloke’s here.’

  The five women at the table turned, taking in his athletic frame and mellow brown skin. A pale, thin girl with heavily made up eyes gazed up at him.

  ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said, addressing Rita.

  The other women continued to gape, and Con shifted uneasily. Rita got up and slipped a proprietary arm through his. Holt was right; she was older than he was. In fact, she was almost nineteen. Almost, he told himself, as old as Sadie. The thing Con liked best about Rita, though she wasn’t nearly as pretty as Sadie, was that she adored him. At least, he thought she did. She certainly didn’t flirt like Sadie. The night he’d met her, Rita hadn’t looked at another guy, and there were plenty – at least six guys to every girl. It was like that most nights in town.

  They walked across the road to the dance hall, and he followed her between the rows of seats to the dance floor, squashing the occupants who were packed so closely together they were scarcely able to drink from their glasses.

  Rita barely reached his shoulder, and as they danced, Con looked around the crowded floor. Holt’s warning had made him feel nervous. There were rumours around the camp of white GIs hunting in packs, ready to beat up any black guy they saw. And the thing that made them real sore was a black guy with a white girl. There were plenty of white guys in town and plenty at the dance. As well as English soldiers on leave, there were French, Dutch, Norwegians, Danes and Canadians. The week before, there’d been a group of Polish guys, who’d bowed and clicked their heels when they’d asked for a dance, and the girls had loved it. Everyone had been real friendly. None of them worried about the black GIs. They were all glad the Americans were here. It was the white GIs who were the problem. Holt had been right; it was best to stay in a group. If you came across trouble in a group, you had a chance.