Ruby's War

by Johanna Winard

  ‘How long have you been working here?’

  ‘Since just after Christmas. Did you only start last week?’

  ‘Yes, bookkeeping and wages clerk.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. The novelty will soon wear off, and they’ll find somebody else to torment,’ Ruby said, as the door swung open and Mrs Rostron peered out.

  ‘Never mind canoodling,’ she said. ‘We’re waiting for that truck in here.’

  Now that the days were getting longer, Ruby helped her granddad in the garden. Since his illness, he’d found the digging harder and would often sit on an old bench against the house wall, resting between bouts of gardening.

  ‘Them’s coming through grand now,’ he said, nodding towards a row of cabbages showing their pearly green heads above the soil. ‘Nice time of year this. The beans is doin’ nicely as well. Jenny likes a few beans. She’ll be pleased with them.’

  Ruby rested her head against the cottage’s rough white wall. She liked this part of the day, sitting with a bowl of vegetables to peel for the next day’s meal or just looking at the garden and listening to the birds, until it was time to help Jenny with the tea. Glancing at her granddad on the bench beside her, she noted how the neck of his collarless shirt – now at least two sizes too big – sagged around his scrawny neck, and how the belt on his gardening trousers was pulled in by two extra notches. In the weeks after the theft of the black-market sugar, Ruby had carried buckets of coal upstairs to feed the bedroom fire. It was then, listening for each struggling breath, that she’d begun to fear that he might die, and now – like a faithful old dog – that same wordless dread nudged her awake each morning.

  Leaving Granddad contentedly smoking a Player’s, she went to help Jenny. The evening before, the remaining scraps from the lamb Bo had brought them at the weekend had been used to flavour the stew of carrot and potatoes that was now simmering in the oven by the fire.

  ‘This looks thin,’ Jenny said, poking at the contents of the pot.

  ‘It smells good, though,’ Ruby said, ‘I could smell it when I walked in, and I’m that hungry. Shall I set the table? I think I heard the gate. I bet it’s Sadie.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait a bit. She can help you sort out tomorrow’s tea first.’

  Sadie put her gas mask on the draining board and began to untie the scarf she wore turban-style around her head.

  ‘Peel them two onions for me, love,’ her mother said, dropping two sad-looking onions on the draining board next to the oilcloth-covered box. Sadie wrinkled her nose and dug a fingernail into the blackened vegetables.

  ‘These onions are that soft,’ she said, wiping her fingers on her overalls and moving her stylish gas-mask box away from the offending vegetables. ‘They smell horrible as well.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I’ve just seen Lou up the lane. She heard this mornin’, her Frank’s brother-in-law, you remember, Lydia’s husband?’

  ‘The one with two little girls?’

  ‘That’s right. His convoy was attacked and he’s missing.’

  ‘Oh, them poor kiddies.’

  ‘Lou says she can’t stand to think of it,’ Sadie said, picking up one of the onions. ‘Lydia must be out of her mind with worry.’

  ‘What about Frank?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Oh, he’s not on the same ship. They’ve never gone on the same one for that reason,’ Sadie said, slicing one of the onions in half. ‘These will hardly be worth cooking, Ma.’

  ‘It’s either that, or it’ll just have to be cheese and potatoes, and there’s not much cheese, so I’d do your best. Slice them potatoes thin, Ruby. I was thinkin’ of layers and crispin’ the potatoes on top.’

  ‘Well there’s not much here, and if there’s not much cheese why don’t we have a pie instead?’

  ‘I’ve done the potatoes thin, but they’d do just as well in a pie.’

  Jenny wiped her hands on her apron and opened the door of the kitchenette. ‘I was goin’ to make jam window pie tonight as a treat, with that stew not being so tasty. You’ll have to go easy with this flour, Ruby,’ she said, handing Ruby the large blue-and-white striped flour jar. ‘You know what they say, “flour costs ships” and, if we’re havin’ cheese and potato pie tomorrow, you’d best let me roll the pastry out. I can get it thinner than you.’

  The meal was spoilt not by the stew, which was saved by the addition of plenty of mint and some sage, but by Sadie’s sad news.

  ‘Frank’s always said their safety was low down on the list. He told Lou that when they’re attacked and they’re at their stations, the ship sometimes rolls and they lose their lifeboats …’

  ‘Thought Frank said it was gettin’ better?’ Granddad said. ‘More aircraft, supposed to be. Gap narrowing where there was no protection, and radio officers getting more information?’

  ‘It’s just the same if they’re hit, the rest still have to go on, and then it’s up to the navy to look for them. Lou and me was supposed to be goin’ out on Friday as well. Now she’s talkin’ about tryin’ to get time off to go and see Lydia. I don’t think they’ll let her, but she says she doesn’t fancy coming out anyway.’

  ‘Let’s talk about something a bit more cheerful,’ Jenny said, getting up from the table and taking the jam pie from the oven.

  ‘Oh, that looks grand, Jenny, love,’ Granddad said, as the smell of blackberry jam filled the room. ‘Jam window pie.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ she laughed. ‘I had to swap the rest of the eggs for this jam.’

  ‘If Lou wants to do something for Lydia’s little girls,’ Ruby said, ‘why doesn’t she bring them up here for a break? They’d get fed, and we could take them to the seaside. Con said he wants to take us to the seaside for the day.’

  ‘When did he say that?’

  ‘After the dance, when they dropped us off. Said we could all go in one of the lorries. We’ll be goin’ on a Sunday, so we could take some of the little ones from the school.’

  ‘He’ll need passes. Bo said they—’

  ‘He said he was goin’ to see them about it, and tell them it’s not fair.’

  ‘It’s one thing puttin’ them two stuck-up women in their place,’ Jenny said, topping the helpings of pie with mock cream, ‘it’s a different thing to tell them at the camp.’

  ‘They were talking about it at work,’ Ruby said. ‘I heard them.’

  ‘There’s all sorts of gossip goin’ about,’ Sadie said, catching Ruby’s eye. ‘I reckon her and that Prendergast woman are starting a lot of it, and folk are daft enough to believe it, ’cos of who it comes from. She said she was goin’ to report Con to them at the camp; if she does, he might not get any passes at all, and they might take it out on the rest of them.’

  ‘I thought it was brave,’ Ruby said. ‘He was only saying to Mrs Grey what he thought, and it wasn’t rude. He was polite.’

  ‘Well, you’ve changed your tune,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s only a couple of months ago you thought the sun shone out of her backside. If she has complained, I bet I can guess whose side they’ll take, and it’ll not be his.’

  Con had hoped to see the new lieutenant alone, but when he opened the door, instead of the new guy, it was one of the other lieutenants and Captain O’Donal who were waiting to see him. It was clear that the confrontation at the dance was on their minds, and he got the usual lecture about being visitors in the country and respecting the way the British did things. As he listened to the lecture, Con fixed his eyes on the maps and copies of orders pinned on the wall behind O’Donal’s head. Unlike the shabby huts that made up the rest of the camp, the administration building was a neat wooden construction that he guessed had been purpose-built, and from what he could see, it didn’t leak.

  ‘Are you listening to the captain, soldier?’ the lieutenant yelled.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Con barked.

  The sudden holler made Captain O’Donal’s eyes flicker, and when Con asked for permission to speak, t
he captain glanced uneasily at the lieutenant, before nodding and shifting forward in his chair. The lieutenant, unlike O’Donal, was a southerner and a regular soldier, and like most southerners in his position, bitterly resented his posting to an all-black unit.

  ‘From what I understand, sir,’ Con said, addressing himself to the captain, ‘the British don’t have laws about whites and blacks mixing …’

  ‘That’s enough,’ the lieutenant roared. ‘We’ll not have a lecture from an uppity …’

  It was little more than a beat, but was enough time for O’Donal’s colour to rise, and for the lieutenant to gobble down the word.

  ‘What happened, then?’ Wes asked the next day, as they were grooming the baseball pitch.

  ‘I was dismissed,’ he said, remembering his heart’s involuntary leap, as he flicked his gaze from the senior officer and looked straight into the lieutenant’s pale-grey eyes, knowing that the swallowed insult would lay hard and dry for a long time in his gullet.

  ‘Didn’t get the chance to ask for any pass, or ask about the seaside.’

  Sarge Mayfield, who’d wandered down to the pitch, shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t have given you one anyway. If you’d come to me, I’d have told you that. The seaside towns are all for white R&R. We could perhaps get a truck and take these kiddies to see Bambi, or somethin’ in town. You won’t get a pass to go to the seaside, no matter how many kids you want to take. Let me go to O’Donal. I’ll have to get him on his own.’

  ‘He’s runnin’ scared of some of the more experienced lieutenants,’ Wes said, leaning on his rake. ‘That’s always been the problem. That lieutenant is dumb, but he’s regular army.’

  Mayfield grinned. ‘It’s true what they say about you young northern boys, you sure are somethin’ else, but take care: the guy is old South and he’s not goin’ to take that off you. You faced him down, and he’ll be after your hide.’

  ‘He wants so bad to go to the seaside, Sarge,’ Wes grinned.

  ‘Are you helpin’ or are you talkin’?’ Con asked, scowling at him.

  Wes loved teasing Con about Ruby, and tempting him to admit he’d lied about his own age to get into the army.

  ‘Tell you what, that film Bambi sounds like a good idea,’ Wes said, moving out of reach. ‘Con will like that.’

  Con tried to grab him, but Wes yelled and jumped clear as Con made a dive for his feet. Then he kept him at bay with the end of the fork, and they dodged and chased around the pitch, until they were both breathless and Sergeant Mayfield called them to order.

  One hot June afternoon, shortly after his interview with O’Donal, Con went to the cottage. As he closed the little gate, Henry came down the path to meet him.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he said. ‘Our Ruby said you might be coming by today. She’s at work, but she’ll be here in about an hour. Come on round the back and I’ll show you.’

  Con followed him along the old brick path and around the side of the cottage.

  ‘Now what do you think about that?’ he asked.

  At the edge of the yard, there was a large tin bath half full of water and next to it a small patch of sand.

  ‘If you can’t go to the seaside,’ Henry said with a smile, ‘the seaside has to come to you. Sit down. They should be deckchairs, really,’ he said, patting the faded upholstered seat of one of the two dining chairs standing on the patch of sand, ‘but these will have to do. Take your boots and socks off and have a paddle. I’ll not be a minute.’

  Both the tub and the sand were protected from the lane by the side of the house, and it was a hot day. Con sat down on one of the familiar hard-backed chairs; he untied his boots and pulled off his socks, telling himself it was really to please the old man. When Henry reappeared, he was carrying a couple of beer glasses.

  ‘I’ve got the bottles cooling in the tub,’ he said, bending over to pull at a piece of parcel string attached to the neck of a beer bottle. ‘Mind you, they’d probably have been just as cold left in the pantry.’

  The old man fished out the bottle, and after pouring the tepid beer into their glasses, he sat down with a contented sigh.

  ‘Grand this, isn’t it? When we’ve had these, we can have a paddle. In a way, I’m glad this trip of yours didn’t come off. Might have unsettled our Ruby; she’s only just got used to it here. She was living with her mother’s family in Blackpool. They have a boarding house. It was where she was born, Blackpool. I’d hoped that her aunt and uncle would have taken her in for good. She’s a handy girl, and Walt and Ethel are both in their sixties. They never had any kiddies of their own. I’d hoped that if they took to her she’d get the business, once anything ’appened to them. She was undone when they wanted her to leave. It was the only home she’d ever known, what with her parents travelling so much. Though, it would have been nice for the kiddies, just the same. There’ll be some round here that’s never been to the seaside, not since the war’s been on, anyway.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to do this, Henry,’ Con said. ‘This beer tastes pretty good after a hot day.’

  ‘My pleasure, lad. Go on, enjoy yourself, feel this nice bit of sand in your toes. I’m looking forward to havin’ a bit of a paddle as well,’ he added, taking off his slippers and socks and waving a veiny foot in the direction of the water. ‘Should have put a bit of salt in it.’

  Con closed his eyes, and Henry lifted his old, wrinkly face to the late-afternoon sun. They were still happily squidging their toes in the sand and sipping their beers, when Ruby walked around the corner of the cottage, followed by a tall boy in glasses.

  ‘Granddad, what’s going on?’ she laughed. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Me and Con is at the seaside,’ he said, his knobbly hands resting on the front of his grubby railway shirt. ‘Since they’ll not let him go there, we’re havin’ it here. Go and get you and your young friend a chair and come and join us.’

  ‘Where’s the sand come from?’

  Henry sat up and looked sheepishly at their visitor. ‘It’s from one of the fire buckets at the church. I’ll be takin’ it back, when me and Johnny go on duty later. Now then, young man,’ he said, smiling at Trevor, who was staring with undisguised fascination at the pink undersides of Con’s feet. ‘Can we interest you in a paddle?’

  ‘No, he’s not stopping. This is Trevor, who played Joseph in the play,’ Ruby said, taking off her headscarf and brushing away the stray cotton threads that were trapped underneath. ‘I told you, he’s working in the office at the factory.’

  ‘Oh aye, Mrs Pye’s lad.’

  ‘I’m taking him round to see Mrs Bland in a minute. We saw her going over to Bardley’s. She’ll have gone for some milk for the cat. She’s some books that he wants to look at.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, lad, and how do you like it at the factory?’

  ‘Folk keep teasing him,’ Ruby said, smoothing down her hair and pulling out the cotton waste from her curls.

  ‘Let the lad answer for himself.’

  The boy was dressed in a pair of shapeless trousers that were too short and tight for him. He was clearly nervous and when he spoke, his voice was high and childlike.

  ‘I’m working in the office, bookkeeping,’ he said, ‘but I want to do something for the war effort. I want to enlist when I’m old enough, but my eyesight’s against me.’

  ‘Aye, well ’appen it’ll be over before then,’ Henry said. ‘This here is Con, by the way. He’s like you, can’t wait to go. Both of you should listen to your elders and hope that, now we’ve broken through them dams, our Lancasters will make short work of the rest of the buggers.’

  ‘If Con wants to wriggle his toes in some sand,’ Ruby said, ‘then I’ll take him down the field to the river, once I’ve taken Trevor to Mrs Bland’s. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘I never thought about the river,’ Henry said, looking around critically for the first time at his efforts to create a seaside environment for Con.

  ‘It was kind of you
r grandpa, to try and make up for not going to the sea,’ Con said later, as he and Ruby walked across the field to the river.

  ‘I wondered why he was asking if I’d brought some seashells with me from my Auntie Ethel’s,’ she said, leading the way across the field to the bend in the river.

  She strolled along the water’s edge, where the mud deposited by the winter floods had been dried by the unseasonably hot weather into a substance that resembled sand. Then untying her hair, she pulled out the last of the tiny threads of cotton and let them fall into the water. Con sat down on the edge of the grassy bank, watching the sunlight sparkle off her curls and light up the fiery copper in her hair.

  ‘One day I would like to take you to the seaside,’ he said.

  ‘Just me?’ she asked, squinting back at him curiously, and pushing her hands in the pockets of her brown wrap-around overall.

  ‘Just you,’ he said.

  Later that evening, when Con had left for the camp and the shadows in the garden began to lengthen, it was so hot that they ate their meal – lamb and new potatoes – cold.

  ‘I hardly feel like eating, never mind cooking,’ Jenny said, rubbing her distorted ankles. ‘It was that hot in the factory. I could have done with you leaving that tub of water, Henry. It would have been nice to soak me feet in.’

  ‘Most of it’s gone on the veg,’ he said. ‘The ground is that parched. They need plenty of water this weather.’

  ‘Some ice cream would be nice,’ Sadie said. ‘I could just fancy some. I’m going to get in the bath and wash my hair, though I don’t know why I’m bothering. Might as well, I suppose. Bo’s gone to Manchester in one of the biggest lorries they’ve got. He’ll be back too late to go out, and Lou’s going to Liverpool tomorrow, so she’s not coming out.’

  ‘I’ll do your nails for you after tea,’ Ruby said. ‘I’ll show you how to do shell stitch on the bottom of your underskirt as well, if you like.’

  ‘Oh, government’s banned embroidery on underwear, don’t forget. We might get arrested if you do,’ Sadie said, pouring herself another cup of tea.