Birmingham Rose

by Annie Murray

  New Street Station was seething with people, many of them service personnel in their blue or khaki uniforms. Rose wondered if there were others going to the same place as her. Trains were constantly moving in and out with a great clamour of engines and whistles blowing. The air was full of sharp smells of soot and cinders and acrid whorls of smoke from cigarettes.

  Rose picked her way along the crowded platform, saying ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ until she was somewhere near the middle. According to the long fingers of the clock there were still twenty minutes until her train to Oxford was due to leave. She wondered whether to go back and try to get a quick cup of tea.

  A train slid slowly into the station from Rose’s right. She stood on tiptoe to watch. It was a grand sight as it hissed finally to a halt, steam clouding up to the steel beams of the roof. The doors opened and people clambered out on to the already packed platform. Rose, like everyone else, shuffled back to give them room.

  She was standing like that, deciding against the tea, when she heard the voice: a strong, well-spoken woman’s voice but containing a waver of uncertainty.

  ‘It is, surely – is it? Rose? Rose Lucas?’

  Rose turned and found herself face to face with a smartly turned out WAAF officer, her fair, wavy hair fastened back stylishly under the grey-blue cap. Her vivacious face wore an apprehensive smile. In the five years since she had seen her, Diana had matured into a beautiful, poised young woman.

  ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ Diana exclaimed.

  The two of them eased further back into the crowd to let the other passengers past and someone behind said, ‘Here – watch who you’re pushing, will you?’

  Diana made a helpless gesture as if unsure where to begin the conversation. ‘Well. Where are you off to?’

  ‘The army. ATS,’ Rose managed to gasp out. Her heart was beating breathtakingly fast. She was amazed how Diana could begin chatting as if they’d only seen each other the week before. But then that was her upbringing – politeness, social graces.

  ‘Good for you,’ Diana said. ‘I’m a WAAF – well, as you can see . . .’ And she giggled, looking down at her uniform. For the first time Rose realized that Diana was as nervous as herself. ‘I’m just off home on leave. Mummy and Daddy will be thrilled I’ve seen you!’

  Rose found herself unable to speak. Lying remembering it now, she thought of all the things she should have said. She should have asked after Catherine and Ronald, said how pleased she was, something at least. But she had felt so scruffy and ignorant and overpoweringly awkward, and those feelings were made worse by the memory of how much the two of them had shared and of the way she had cut Diana off so abruptly.

  Diana quietened suddenly and looked serious. ‘Listen. I’m going to have to be off shortly – train to catch. But Rose, I . . .’ She struggled for the right words. ‘What happened to you? We were all so worried about you and it made me so unhappy. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t answer my letters.’

  Seeing the tears in her old friend’s eyes Rose realized that she was, beneath all the jolliness of her class and of service life, still the same, kind girl she had known.

  ‘I couldn’t . . .’ Rose’s face felt hot and red and she knew that if she tried to explain here she would be unable to stop crying. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she stumbled on. ‘But you’d have hated me if you’d known . . .’

  The sight of Diana’s blue eyes so full of concern made Rose feel even more emotional. ‘Look. You’ll miss your train. Give me your address. I’ll write. There’s no time now and I’d just make a fool of myself. But I’d like to tell you . . .’

  Diana handed her a slip of paper with her WAAF address on it. They reached out and awkwardly gripped each other’s hands. And then she was gone, vanished among the other drably clad bodies. Rose was left feeling weak-kneed and suspecting it had all been a daydream.

  She tossed and fidgeted on the hard bed. What am I going to say to her when I write? she wondered. More than ever, Diana had seemed to come from a different world. But the only thing to do was to tell her everything, truthfully. She owed Diana that. To finish things off. But as she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help wondering whether this might also be the beginning of something new in a friendship that had never truly died.

  Fifteen

  ‘Oh, these confounded blisters!’ Muriel groaned, gingerly trying to squeeze her feet into her slippers.

  They were all in Hut J because it was domestic night. Each Wednesday of the three weeks in camp they were expected to scrub the hut and catch up on any cleaning or mending chores. Some of the girls were crowded round the stove, which was lit only in the evenings.

  Squatting in front of the glowing coals with her legs apart in a silky confection of a nightie was Gloria. She was holding out a large pair of scissors on which was stabbed a slice of bread she was toasting. Rose, Tilly and a couple of others were sitting round in stiff blue and white striped army pyjamas. Muriel was wearing her own floral cotton nightie, and Gwen sat swamped by a pair of pale pink winceyette pyjamas. Both she and Tilly were dabbing at their feet with blobs of cotton wool.

  ‘Our feet’ll be in ribbons by the end of this,’ Gwen moaned.

  All of them had sore feet but they also had pink, healthier-looking cheeks than when they’d arrived, after the new experience of half an hour’s vigorous PT every morning. They tucked into the toast with increased appetites from all the fresh air.

  In between the gripes about blisters and arms throbbing from the inoculations they’d had, Gloria was regaling them with tales of her men. She apparently had several in tow at once. To prove the point she’d pinned four photos on the wall behind her bed, and went through a half-joking ritual of kissing them all at length before she settled down to sleep.

  ‘That one’s Bob,’ she told them, pointing out a dark, moustachioed figure. ‘He’s my favourite really. It was him who give me this.’ She flounced round in front of them in the shimmering, peach-coloured folds of cloth.

  ‘Under the counter stuff,’ Tilly said knowingly. ‘Has to be. How’d he get it otherwise with rationing on?’

  Gloria stood magnificently above her, curling a lock of her pale hair round a finger. ‘I’ll have you know,’ she said disdainfully, ‘that my Bob actually owns the factory where they used to make these here gowns.’

  Gloria turned to Rose, who was sitting with her army jacket in her lap, lighting matches to burn off the pinkish film which covered the buttons. It was something they all did to make the jackets look more presentable.

  ‘You’re a looker,’ Gloria said. ‘Why ain’t we seen any pictures of your bloke? Or ain’t you interested in fellers?’

  ‘I’m – sort of engaged to someone,’ Rose told them hesitantly, still not feeling sure it was really true.

  Muriel and Gwen both said, ‘Ah, how lovely.’

  ‘Where is he then?’ Tilly asked. ‘He in the army too?’

  ‘Yes, but he’s in Germany.’

  There were noises of horror from the others.

  ‘Picked him up, did they?’ Gloria asked, more gently. ‘Is he in a Kraut prison camp?’

  Rose nodded. ‘I just had one of them cards, a couple of months ago. You know, name, in good health and all that. The camp’s called Felsig. I think they picked him up in France.’

  The others sat silent for a moment.

  ‘That must be terrible,’ Muriel said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Gloria joined in, trying to cheer things up. ‘But at least you know where he is and that he’s alive. Eh,’ she nudged Rose playfully with her elbow, ‘he won’t be getting up to much mischief in one of them camps!’ She gave her loud laugh. ‘So in the meantime you can have some fun, can’t you? I mean being engaged ain’t the same as being married, is it?’ She laughed again. ‘I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll give this army lark a chance, and if I don’t like it I’ll be over the men’s quarters right quick, getting meself a Paragraph 11!’

  Paragraph 11, in army regulations, prov
ided a let-out clause for women who were having babies. The others laughed, rather uneasily, at the thought of Gloria going brazenly over to the men’s side of the camp to help herself to a pregnancy.

  ‘That’s awful,’ Gwen said, blushing.

  ‘Oh, ta very much.’ Gloria was unruffled. ‘I can’t see any point in not having a good time when you can – specially with a war on. And I don’t know why you’re looking so bug-eyed about it. You only joined up to get away from that bleedin’ mother of yours, didn’t you?’

  Gwen leapt to her feet, her face instantly a hot red. ‘That’s not true!’ she cried. ‘How could you say something so awful?’ And she ran sobbing over to her bed and lay down on it, curled up tight.

  Rose put her jacket down. ‘I thought I had a gob on me till I met you,’ she said matter-of-factly to Gloria, and went to sit on Gwen’s bed. The other girl wouldn’t say anything, but gripped Rose’s hand.

  ‘Time for bed, methinks,’ Muriel said, with all the authority of a boarding school prefect, which until a few months before was what she had been.

  Gloria grinned, making a thumbs up sign at Muriel and winking at the others. ‘Definitely officer material there!’ she said.

  Every morning they were up at six-thirty and ready for PT by seven. This was made even more of an agony for the first few days by pain in their arms from the injections. Rose felt as if the scab was lifting up and down every time she swung her arm in the freezing air.

  Compulsory inoculations had only been one part of the medical when they’d first arrived. They had also had to go through the dreaded ‘free from infection’ inspection.

  ‘Oh my Gawd,’ Gloria had said as they queued up. She seemed genuinely rattled by it. ‘It’s the bugs, babies and scabies job isn’t it? Do we really have to take our bits off in front of that lot?’

  They all stood in line outside the chilly medical hut. Weak sunshine lit the grey camp buildings and a damp wind swept across the downs. Their grumpy corporal kept shouting ‘NO TALKING!’ and refused to answer any questions.

  All of them were anxious. Most had never taken off their clothes even in front of their closest family before. When they had filed inside and Rose was stripped down to her vest and pants, she found herself trembling, and not just with cold. The stale, sweaty smell of some of the girls reminded her sickeningly of Mr Lazenby. She saw with enormous relief that the medical officer was a woman.

  She listened to Rose’s heart, poked about in her hair and felt along her spine. She pulled out the elastic of her knickers to have a quick, impassive glance down them, and then it was over and Rose was pronounced nit-free and fit for duty.

  ‘It’s nothing much,’ Rose whispered to Gwen, who was standing outside looking pale with fright.

  Every day there came another trial: kit inspection. Beds had to be ‘barracked’ – arranged with the sheets and blankets folded in a very particular way – and then all of the kit had to be laid out in precise order and immaculately folded. Woe betide you if any of it was missing and could not be excused as being in the laundry.

  And then drill. They stood in lines, an extraordinarily unformed-looking bunch in the first few days, as one of the male NCOs bawled relentlessly at them.

  ‘Right, you lousy shower. Let’s see some discipline around here! You’ve got to learn in three weeks what we normally take three months of army life to pick up, and I’m damned if any of you are going to let me down! Right. Chests foward, shoulders back, bottoms in. Atten-shun!’

  Gradually, as the days of marching and saluting and manoeuvring back and forth went by, their bodies creaked and cranked into familiarity with it. They began to look as if they might belong in the army.

  After lunch, for which they lined up in the canteen, men and women bantering together, they sat down for a bewildering assortment of lectures and films. One talk on army regiments or history might be closely followed by a luridly educational film about VD or how a baby is born. This was a mixed camp in a mixed army and they were expected to take all this in their stride, but there was many a green, shocked face after they’d seen the festering genitals in the VD film.

  And then came the fatigues or camp chores; scrubbing floors, washing dishes or spud bashing.

  One afternoon Rose was standing in the canteen hut with Gloria. They both had their khaki sleeves rolled up so they could dip their hands into the freezing, muddy water.

  ‘You know, gypsy Rose,’ Gloria teased. ‘I can never make you out. What d’you really make of the army?’

  Rose was silent for a moment, working on the cold, earthy skin of a potato. She turned her strong gaze on Gloria.

  ‘I don’t like being pushed around, except when I can really see the point of it. I mean I’ll do what they say if it’s right – for the war effort like. And I’ve always wanted to get away, see a bit more of life than just Brum. I miss home of course, but my mom’s died anyhow and I can’t stick living with my dad.’

  Gloria seemed in an unusually solemn mood. ‘Seems like everyone’s running away from something when you come down to it, doesn’t it?’ She grinned. ‘Quiet here though, isn’t it? We hardly had a wink of sleep back in Deptford. They was bombing the balls off of us.’

  Rose pulled back a wavy strand of hair with cold, wet fingers. ‘Is that why you joined up then?’

  ‘Not just,’ Gloria said briskly. ‘They got me brother. He was a rear gunner in the RAF. Went through all the Battle of Britain, right till the end. Then he went out one day and they lost him over the Channel. We was close, me and Jo. It was only me he told how scared he was – brown trousers, the lot – you know. When he went I thought, I’m not going to just sit here with them dropping this bloody lot on us night after night. I’m going to get the buggers.’

  Rose still found Gloria an unlikely addition to the army with her peroxide hair, her curl papers and slinky nighties. ‘D’you think you’ll stick it?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll stick it,’ Gloria said grimly. ‘I’ll stick it if it kills me.’

  ‘So all that you said about Paragraph 11 – you was joking?’

  Gloria gaped at her in astonishment. ‘Course I was bleeding joking! What d’you take me for?’ With a broad grin on her pink face she picked up a wet potato and lobbed it over in Rose’s direction. ‘The very idea, you cheeky bugger!

  It was two weeks before Rose found an opportunity to write to Diana. She sat under the stark light in the hut with her pillow propped against the black iron bedhead. She wanted the letter to be warm and friendly. It was easier to write than she’d feared. Away in this place that was so different from home and Birmingham life, she felt almost as if those terrible years had happened to someone else. She wrote about Lazenby’s and, as clearly but briefly as she could, about what Mr Lazenby had done to her.

  Yet when she described Joseph’s short, fragile life, tears began to pour down her face and on to the paper. It brought back vividly what she tried to keep from her mind: the feel of his soft, downy head, and the tiny frozen hands she’d found that terrible morning. She knew with renewed clarity that that day would be the worst of her life – far worse than the day Mr Lazenby assaulted her and worse than anything she might face in the future.

  ‘I wish now I’d told you, Diana,’ she wrote.

  Now I think back I know you’d have understood – and your mom and dad. But at the time I wasn’t thinking straight. I just felt dirty and ashamed all the time and I couldn’t see how you’d want to be friends with me again. I hope you can forgive me. I know you’d never get yourself in a mess like that – much too clever, you are! And I want you to know I never stopped thinking about you and wondering how you was getting on. And your family too. They were all so kind to me. Please remember me to them.

  I’d like to see you again some time. Maybe in more cheerful days after this war’s over?

  She signed the letter,

  With kind thoughts from your friend,

  Rose.

  After that, when she’d wiped her face, she das
hed off a quick note home. She usually found herself talking in her mind to Grace as she wrote.

  ‘I miss you ever such a lot,’ she finished off. ‘When I come home next I want to see you in your nurse’s uniform!

  ‘Love to all – Rose. xxxx’

  She heard the door open, and glanced up to see Gwen come in looking wet, dishevelled and flustered. She sat down miserably on the edge of her bed without even taking her coat off. After a moment Rose realized she was crying. She put her writing things down and went rather timidly to sit beside her.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ she asked.

  Gwen looked up, startled and rather uneasy. She hadn’t even noticed Rose when she came into the hut, and she wished that if anyone had to be there, it had been Muriel.

  ‘You’ll think I’m so stupid.’

  ‘Why should I?’ Rose asked, genuinely surprised.

  ‘You give the impression of being, well, not exactly worldly, but of knowing a lot about life.’

  ‘Me?’ Rose couldn’t help bursting into laughter. ‘Gwen, you do know this is the first time I’ve ever set foot out of Birmingham, don’t you? Come on – out with it.’ She patted Gwen’s shoulder.

  Gwen mopped her eyes with a delicate lacy handkerchief. ‘I went to the Naafi tonight. And one of the chaps – it doesn’t matter who – kept making up to me all evening. He seemed quite nice, but then he asked me to go outside with him. It’s raining, so it wasn’t very pleasant, but he didn’t seem to care. He pushed me up against the ablutions hut and started . . .’ She paused, her head down, ashamed. ‘He kept pawing at me. And then he grabbed hold of me and started sticking his horrible tobaccoey tongue in my mouth. It was disgusting. So I just pushed him off.’ Her voice had gone high and plaintive with emotion again. ‘I mean it was all wrong! D’you think there’s something the matter with him, Rose? Or with me?’