Women on the Home Front

by Annie Groves

  Agnes had nodded her head, but inside she had felt sick with misery and fear. She still did, but now those feelings were even worse because this afternoon, instead of going to see Mrs Robbins at 13 Article Row, she had gone and sat on a bench in Hyde Park, where she had wished desperately that she didn’t have to leave the orphanage and that the orphanage didn’t have to be evacuated to the country. Agnes had never hated anyone in her life, but right now she felt that she could hate Adolf Hitler. She would have to go and see Mrs Robbins eventually, she knew that. And tomorrow morning she would have to present herself at Chancery Lane underground station, ready to start her new job. She wouldn’t be able to escape doing that, because Matron was going to take her there herself.

  Chapter Four

  ‘So you’re going ahead then with this taking in lodgers business?’

  Nancy had caught Olive just when Olive was in the middle of hanging out her washing, coming to the hedge that separated their back gardens and obviously determined to have her say.

  ‘Yes. I’ve got lodgers for both rooms now,’ Olive agreed as she pegged out the towels she had just washed. There was a decent breeze blowing, so they should dry quickly.

  ‘And one of them’s from the orphanage, so I’ve heard.’ Nancy’s voice was ominously disapproving. ‘You wouldn’t catch me taking in an orphan. You never know what bad blood they might have in their veins.’

  ‘According to the vicar’s wife, Agnes is a very quiet, respectable girl.’

  ‘Well, that certainly wasn’t her I saw coming walking down the Row yesterday afternoon then, all dressed up to the nines and on a Sunday too. Anyone could see what sort she is. Too full of herself for her own good. I hope you won’t be giving her a room.’

  ‘I think you must mean Dulcie,’ Olive felt obliged to say. ‘Yes, she is going to be moving in. She works in Selfridges.’

  ‘She might work in Selfridges but it’s plain where she’s come from, and where she’s going to end up if she isn’t careful. I don’t want to worry you, Olive, but there’s going to be a lot of people in the Row who won’t be at all happy about what you’re doing. You know me – I like to mind my own business – but I wouldn’t be being a good neighbour if I didn’t warn you for your own good. It’s like I was saying to Sergeant Dawson after church yesterday: we’ve got standards here in the Row.’

  Olive nodded but didn’t say anything. Inwardly, though, she suspected that she hadn’t heard the last of her neighbour’s disapproval.

  Agnes had had the most terrible day, the worst day of her life, starting from when Matron had left her in the charge of Mr Smith, the portly, moustached, stern-looking man who was in charge of the ticket office at Chancery Lane station and thus in charge of her.

  Her new dull grey worsted uniform piped in blue, which London Transport supplied for its female employees working on buses, trams and the underground, was too big for her. They hadn’t been able to find anything to fit her when she’d been taken to the large supply depot where the uniforms were handed out because she was so small and thin. Agnes knew she’d only been taken on in the first place because Matron had spoken up for her, and that had only made her feel even more as though she wasn’t really good enough. The grey serge didn’t do anything for her pale complexion and mouse-brown hair, her uniform somehow making her face look pinched and thin, and she’d seen from the look that Mr Smith had given her that her appearance hadn’t impressed him.

  She’d felt sick with anxiety before she’d even tried to follow Mr Smith’s brisk instructions, but that had been nothing to the horrible churning feeling that had gripped her stomach when a customer had complained loudly about her slowness and then she’d gone and given him the wrong change.

  After that the day had gone from bad to worse, leaving her filled with panic and despair. She’d seen from the look that Mr Smith had given her at five past five, when he’d told her to clock off because the evening shift was about to start, that he was angry with her because of all the mistakes she’d made. She’d let Matron down, she knew, and soon she was going to have to admit to her that she’d deliberately not kept her appointment with Mrs Robbins in Article Row.

  Now, still wearing her second-hand uniform, her head down, and tears not very far away, Agnes headed for the steps that would take her out of the station and into the daylight, gasping as she was almost knocked flying.

  Immediately a pair of male hands gripped her, a male voice saying, ‘I’m sorry. Are you all right?’

  Those words – the first of any kindness she had heard all day – were too much for her and to her shame she couldn’t stop herself from bursting into tears.

  Immediately the young man – she could see through her tears that he was a young man – pulled her into the privacy of a shadowy area against the wall and announced, ‘You must be the new girl that started at the ticket office this morning. I’m Ted Jackson, one of the drivers. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Everything,’ Agnes told him tearfully. ‘I made a customer cross because I was too slow and I got his change wrong. Mr Smith is really angry with me, and I know he’ll give me the sack and then Matron at the orphanage will be upset because I’ve let them down.’

  ‘Orphanage?’

  ‘Yes. I’m an orphan but I can’t stay at the orphanage any more because they’re going to be evacuated, and anyway you can’t stay once you’re fourteen. I was lucky that they let me stay for so long.’

  The poor kid looked as pathetic as a half drowned kitten he’d once rescued from the river, Ted thought sympathetically.

  ‘Look, I’m not due to start work yet, so why don’t you and me go upsides and have a cup of tea? It will help calm you down,’ he suggested, putting his hand under her elbow and leading her back towards the steps.

  Agnes experienced another surge of panic, but a different one this time. Matron was very strict with her girls, and Agnes had never ever been alone with a young man.

  ‘Come on, it’s all right, you’ll be safe with me,’ Ted assured her as though he had guessed what was worrying her. ‘Got two sisters of me own at home, I have.’

  They’d reached the top of the steps and somehow Agnes discovered that she was being bustled into a small café where the woman behind the counter greeted Ted with a broad smile.

  ‘Your usual, is it, Ted?’ ‘Nah, just two cups of tea this time, Mrs M.’ He glanced at Agnes and then added, ‘And a couple of toasted teacakes.’

  A toasted teacake – Agnes’s mouth watered. She hadn’t been able to eat the egg sandwiches she’d brought with her for her dinner because she’d been so worked up and upset.

  The café was only small but it was homely and looked clean and welcoming. It smelled of strong tea and hot toast. The counter had a glass display case in which there were some scones and sausage rolls and sandwiches. Opposite the counter was a window with a sign in it saying ‘Café’. A row of wooden tables and chairs ran the length of the wall from the doorway, past the window and into the corner of the room. There were red and white checked cloths on the table and the same fabric had been used to make curtains for the window. Brown linoleum covered the floor, and the two women behind the counter serving the customers were large and jolly-looking.

  ‘You don’t want to take too much notice of old Smithy,’ Ted advised Agnes once they were settled at a table, their mugs of tea and toasted teacakes in front of them. ‘His bark is worse than his bite.’

  ‘But I got everything so wrong.’

  ‘That’s only natural on your first day.’

  ‘I couldn’t remember which line was which, or any of the stations,’ Agnes admitted in a low voice. ‘I’ll be sacked, I know I will, and then Matron will be cross with me as well, especially when she finds out that I didn’t go to Article Row like she told me.’

  ‘Article Row? What were you going there for?’

  ‘To get myself a room. The vicar’s wife had told Matron that there was a room there for me and I was supposed to go round yesterday to see it but I didn
’t . . . I couldn’t.’ Her eyes filled with fresh tears. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay at the orphanage.’

  ‘What, and end up stuck in the country? That’s daft. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go round to this Article Row after you and me have finished our tea? You can tell the landlady that you made a mistake and that you thought it was tonight you were supposed to go. That way you won’t get into trouble with your matron and you’ll have somewhere to live.’

  Ted made it all seem so simple and so sensible. He made her feel better, somehow.

  ‘I’ll still lose my job. Mr Smith told me that I’d got to learn the stations on every single line, or else.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy enough to do,’ Ted told her.

  Agnes’s eyes widened with hope and then darkened with doubt.

  ‘I mean it,’ Ted assured her, adding, ‘I could teach them to you if you wanted. See, my dad worked on the underground as a driver all his life, and now I’m doing the same. Grown up with knowing what the lines and the stations are, I suppose. Dad used to sing the names to me when I was a kid and lying in bed.’

  ‘Sing them to you? You mean like . . . like hymns?’ Agnes asked in amazement.

  ‘Well, not hymns, perhaps, but like what you might hear down at the Odeon, you know . . .’ He cleared his throat and began to sing in a pleasant baritone, as though to a marching tune that he had made up.

  ‘Here’s to the Piccadilly –

  Cockfosters, Oakwood and Southgate,

  Arnos Grove, Bounds Green and Wood Green,

  Turnpike Lane, Manor House and Finsbury

  Park,

  Ar – sen – al

  Holloway Road, Caledonian Road

  King’s Cross and Russell Square,

  Holborn, Covent Garden and Leicester Square.’

  Agnes was entranced. Ted made learning the names of the lines and their stations seem such fun.

  Her obvious awe and delight had Ted’s chest swelling with pride. He was an ordinary-looking lad, of only middling height and a bit on the thin side, with mouse-brown hair and vividly blue eyes. His smile was his best feature in his opinion, and his ears his worse because they stuck out so much. He had long ago accustomed himself to the fact that his looks weren’t the sort that girls made a beeline for, so he’d learned to compensate for that with his friendliness – not that he was the kind to go chasing after girls. He’d got his mum to help out after all. But something about Agnes’s plight, coupled with her awed delight, touched his heart. Ted reckoned that the poor little thing needed someone to look out for her and give her a hand, and he’d as soon do it himself as see her taken in by some lad who might not do right by her. There were plenty of that kind about, and she obviously hadn’t a clue about how to look after herself properly.

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you what,’ he offered. ‘How about you and me meet up every teatime when you come off work, and I teach you the names of the lines and their stations?’

  ‘You’d do that for me?’ Agnes didn’t even try to conceal her disbelief.

  ‘I’ve just said so, haven’t I?’

  For a moment euphoria filled Agnes but then her ingrained lack of self-confidence swamped it.

  ‘It’s very kind of you but I just don’t think I’ll be good enough to learn them properly.’

  ‘Course you will,’ Ted assured her. ‘If my old man could teach me and I could learn, then I reckon I can teach you and you can learn.’

  ‘Does your father still drive the trains?’

  Ted shook his head. ‘He’s dead. Got killed upsides in an accident six years back. It was a foggy night and he got hit by a bus. Didn’t stand a chance. Killed him straight off.’

  He said it so matter-of-factly that Agnes could only stifle her shock to say politely, ‘How awful.’

  ‘Knocked us all for six when it happened, but we’ve got used to it now. Course, it’s meant that I’ve had to help Mum out with my own wages and take a bit of a firm line with the girls when they start giving her their cheek, and acting up.’

  ‘How old are your sisters?’ Agnes asked him shyly. She didn’t really know anyone who had a real family. She’d never met someone who was as frank and open as Ted was. His frankness enabled her to ask the kind of questions she would never normally have dreamed of asking.

  ‘Marie, she’s the eldest, she’s ten, and then there’s Sonia, who’s eight.’ He paused and then added, ‘In case you’re wondering how come I’m so much older, it’s because there was a couple of others – both boys – that died young. Talks about ’em still, Ma does, and then gets herself in a state about them, poor little tykes. Now, I’ve got to get on duty and you’ve got to get yourself over to – what was it? – Article Row, and get yourself sorted out. Then tomorrow teatime you and me will meet up here and get started off learning you your lines and stations.’

  He was already standing up so Agnes did the same, telling him emotionally as they left the teashop, ‘You’ve been so kind coming to help me just when I thought . . . You’re like a Good Samaritan.’

  ‘Aw, get away with you, it was nothing,’ Ted told her, looking embarrassed. ‘I’d do the same for any kid that was in the state you’d got yourself into. Now you remember, tomorrow teatime here. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ Agnes told him.

  The warm happy glow she felt from Ted’s kindness accompanied her as far as the entrance to Article Row, but once she could see how nice the houses in the Row looked, she felt her confidence start to slip away, and at the same time a feeling growing in her that if she couldn’t stay at the orphanage then this would be a lovely place to live. Out of the corner of her eye she could see two women walking on the pavement on the other side of the street, going in the opposite direction to her, both of them glancing at her, their curiosity making her feel self-conscious and awkward. Number 13, she’d been told; that was the next house. Now her tummy had begun to cramp nervously.

  Inside her kitchen, Olive had just sunk down into a chair to drink the very welcome cup of tea Tilly had brewed for her. Although she was glad to have both her rooms let, she would really rather not have had a girl like Dulcie as one of her lodgers. Her maternal instincts told her that Dulcie was not likely to be a good influence on Tilly, who was just at that age when she wanted to be grown up and go out to dances, and, of course, meet boys.

  The unexpected knock on the door surprised them both.

  ‘I hope that isn’t Nancy from next door coming round to complain about something,’ Olive sighed, getting up to go and see who it was.

  The thin mousy-haired and obviously anxious girl, standing outside in her grey serge underground uniform immediately broke into nervous speech.

  ‘Please, miss, I’m Agnes and I’m ever so sorry. I was supposed to come yesterday only I didn’t. It’s about the room. Matron at the orphanage said that you had a room for me.’

  Olive’s heart sank. The girl looked so on edge, and so much more the kind of lodger she had expected and wanted than Dulcie, who had now taken her room.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with genuine regret, ‘but the room’s already gone, I’m afraid. When you didn’t come yesterday, I thought you didn’t want it.’

  Olive’s words made Agnes feel as though a bucket of icy cold water had been thrown over her, drowning the hopes she had begun to build up and leaving her feeling as close to tears as she had done when Ted had found her on the stairs.

  Poor girl, Olive thought, seeing the shocked despair on Agnes’s face. Tears weren’t very far away, Olive could tell.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea?’ she offered kindly. ‘It’s a warm evening and you’ll have been working all day.’

  ‘Oh, no, you’re very kind but I don’t want to be a nuisance,’ Agnes began, but before she could turn to walk away, Olive was reaching for her arm and drawing her inside, guiding her down the hallway and into the kitchen, where a girl of her own age, but much prettier than she, with her dark curls and cherry-red
lips, was standing in front of the sink, drinking a cup of tea.

  ‘Tilly, this is Agnes who was supposed to come yesterday about the room. Agnes, this is my daughter Tilly,’ Olive explained, adding, ‘I’ve told Agnes that I’ve already let the room, but she’s going to have a cup of tea with us before she goes home.’

  Tilly nodded and set about removing a clean cup and saucer from the cupboard and filling the kettle with some water to make a fresh pot of tea, setting it on the stove and then lighting the gas.

  The girl who her mother had brought into the kitchen looked dreadfully upset, and so small and thin that Tilly immediately felt sorry for her.

  ‘I don’t know what Matron is going to say to me,’ Agnes told them both once she had been coaxed into a chair and a fresh cup of tea put in front of her. ‘She’ll be ever so cross. I should have come yesterday, but all I really wanted was to be evacuated with them. You see, the orphanage is all I’ve got – the little ones and Matron and everyone – but like Matron says, they can’t take me with them because really I shouldn’t be there at all, me being seventeen.’

  A tear rolled down her face and splashed onto her hand, followed by another.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, acting like this. It was just that I’d got my hopes up. And now I’d better go.’ Agnes looked agitated and even more upset as she finished her tea and then stood up. ‘You’ve been ever so kind.’

  She was trying to be brave but Olive could see how upset she was. There was nothing she could do, though. Dulcie was the kind who would make a first-class fuss if Olive tried to persuade her to give the room up, Olive knew.

  She walked with Agnes to the front door. Then, just as she was about to open it, Tilly called urgently from the kitchen, ‘Mum, can I have a word? Now!’

  Olive frowned. It was unlike Tilly to be forgetful of her manners, and not wait to say whatever it was she wanted to say until their visitor had gone.