China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3)

by Madalyn Morgan

  ‘Good work, all of you,’ Martin said, when they were back in the hanger.

  ‘I think I speak for all of us when I say we’ve had a marvellous time, sir,’ Johnny said.

  Claire nodded. ‘We’ve learned so much. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, all of you. Working with young people like yourselves makes my job not only worthwhile, but pleasurable,’ he said, shaking each of their hands. ‘Now go home and...’ They waited for the usual instruction which was Go to bed, you’ve got a big day tomorrow, but instead their instructor said, ‘put on your best bibs and tuckers and go out dancing, or whatever it is young people do these days. You’ve worked hard and deserve some fun.’

  They left the hanger chatting and laughing. Claire felt a pang of sadness collecting her hat and coat from her locker. It had been an extraordinary week – and she had enjoyed every minute of it.

  ‘You ready, Claire?’ Ellen shouted from the doorway.

  ‘Coming!’ she shouted back, as she put on her coat. Pulling on her hat, Claire joined the others at RAF Ringway’s main gate. The car was waiting and no sooner had they jumped in than they were speeding though the Cheshire countryside. When they arrived at Dunham they went to the sitting room for tea. No one spoke for some time. It was Johnny who broke the silence.

  ‘Hands up all those who think we should celebrate our last night at a dance in Manchester!’

  Claire, pretending her hand was too heavy to lift, said, ‘I’m game after dinner.’

  ‘And me, but I’m going to have a bath first,’ Ellen said, jumping up.

  Claire followed her out. ‘See you at dinner, lads.’

  Ellen was first in the bathroom, but wasn’t long, saying steam made her hair frizzy, so Claire allowed herself to lie back and relax for ten minutes. By the time she had dried herself and returned to the bedroom, Ellen was dressed and brushing her hair into curls that framed her face. At the back she had twiddled her hair into curly-rolls and pinned them in the nape of her neck. She looked pretty.

  ‘Do you want me to do your hair for you, Claire?’

  ‘That would be lovely, Ellen. I’m not much good with hair.’

  ‘Sit here,’ Ellen said, taking a brush and comb from the dressing table.

  Claire sat on the stool and looked in the mirror. ‘I’m useless, but my sister Ena has a real knack with hair. She does everyone’s hair in the factory where she works.’

  ‘She isn’t a hairdresser then?’

  ‘No, she’d have liked to have been, but mum and dad couldn’t afford to buy all the equipment that’s needed, or keep her while she did an apprenticeship, so she became a nanny.’

  Ellen turned her nose up. ‘Rather be a hairdresser than a nanny. Right,’ she said, ‘we’ve got to wait for the Amami lotion to dry. Get dressed and I’ll brush it out just before we go down.’

  Claire had only brought two dresses, which she had intended to save until she got to London, but this was a special occasion. She took her blue dress with a full skirt from a hanger in the wardrobe and put it on. Buckling the belt at her waist reminded her of Eddie and she wished she was there. Claire stepped into her navy shoes and took the matching handbag and her white gloves from the drawer.

  ‘Let’s see if your hair’s set,’ Ellen said, standing behind the stool. Claire sat down and watched Ellen take out rows of Kirby grips. She took the comb and lightly combed through Claire’s hair, loosening the waves and pushing them back into place. Then she wound the length round her fingers and pinned it into a long roll that ended behind her ears. ‘How’s that?’

  Looking in the mirror, Claire turned her head from left to right. She leaned forward. ‘It’s the best it has ever looked,’ she said, jumping up and hugging Ellen.

  The two new friends stood side by side and looked in the mirror. Ellen wore a pink and green floral frock with white shoes, handbag and gloves, and Claire wore blue with white and navy accessories. ‘Come on, Claire, we’ll knock ‘em dead looking like this,’ Ellen said, and arm in arm they went down to dinner.

  Johnny and Nick stood up as they entered the dining room. ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ Johnny said. ‘My friend and I are waiting for two girls. You don’t happen to have seen them anywhere?’ Ellen slapped him playfully on the shoulder and sat down. The others followed.

  It was noticeable during the meal that Johnny was sweet on Ellen, because he directed everything he said to her. And Ellen clearly liked him, because she batted her eyelashes and looked serious, or amused, by everything he said. Their mutual attraction didn’t abate when they were in the taxi on the way to Manchester, or in the dance hall.

  ‘Would you do me the honour of this dance, miss?’ Johnny said, bowing with a flourish at Ellen’s side. She took his arm and, as he led her to the dance floor, looked over her shoulder and giggled at Claire.

  Clearly unimpressed by his friend’s flamboyant gestures, Nick raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Would you like to dance, Claire?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said, and took Nick’s arm.

  On the dance floor it was obvious to Claire that Ellen had drawn the short straw. Nick was by far the better dancer of the two men.

  ‘Johnny had his heart set on Ellen the second he saw her,’ Nick said, as they danced.

  ‘Are you sure it was his heart?’ Claire said.

  ‘No I’m not, that’s the trouble. But what Johnny wants Johnny gets.’ There was a bitter edge to Nick’s voice.

  ‘You should have asked Ellen to dance before Johnny did. She’d have said yes.’

  ‘Would she? I wonder,’ he sighed. ‘Claire, I am sorry. Dancing with one beautiful woman and talking about another is impolite. What must you think?’

  ‘That you like my friend?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t when the four of us first met, but it is now.’

  ‘Still, I’ve got the better dancer,’ Nick said.

  Looking across the room at Johnny and Ellen, Claire said, ‘That’s exactly what I thought. About you, I mean.’ They both laughed. ‘I appreciate the compliment, but when this dance ends we’re going to go back to the table. Then, when Johnny and Ellen have finished dancing, you’re going to ask Ellen to dance.’

  Nick’s forehead wrinkled in an exaggerated frown. ‘I feel awful now. Are you sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘Why should I? We’re all friends.’ The music came to an end, and the band leader announced the band was taking a fifteen minute break. ‘Blow!’ Claire said. ‘We’ll have to go with plan B.’ Nick looked puzzled. ‘You must be first to buy the drinks. That way Johnny won’t get the chance to show off by flashing his money about. Then, when the band strikes up again, ask Ellen to dance before Johnny gets the chance.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I won’t sit at the table like a wallflower. Johnny is bound to ask me to dance. If he doesn’t I’ll ask him.’

  ‘And you’re not offended?’

  ‘Just get the drinks,’ Claire said, linking her arm through Nick’s and jokingly dragging him back to the table. ‘Gin and orange, thanks Nick,’ she said, as soon as Johnny and Ellen were near enough to hear.

  ‘Yes, of course. Ellen? Johnny?’

  ‘Gin and orange for me too, please,’ Ellen said.

  ‘I’ll come with you, old chap, help you carry them,’ Johnny said. Putting his arm round Nick’s shoulder, he looked back at Ellen and winked.

  The dancing plot succeeded. Nick and Ellen danced the first couple of dances in the second set and Claire danced with Johnny. Johnny got the next round of drinks and they chatted while they drank. They danced some more and talked some more – and by the end of the night they were all pleasantly merry and danced off their feet.

  Back at Dunham House Ellen and Claire gave in and went to Johnny and Nick’s room for a nightcap. They discussed Paratroopers’ Wings, and admitted to each other that they would love to wear them. They talked about spending Christmas with their families, an
d Nick said perhaps they could meet up in the New Year. Claire didn’t say so – she didn’t want to put a damper on their last night together – but it would be impossible for her to see anyone from Dunham again until the war was over – and perhaps not then. The SOE manual stipulated that, even if agents bumped into one another in the street, they must walk on without acknowledging each other.

  The atmosphere was subdued at breakfast. Even Johnny was quiet. It was sad saying goodbye. They hadn’t known each other long, but working together so intensely, they had become close. Claire looked at each of her friends and hoped that, wherever they were destined to go, they would be safe.

  At Manchester’s Piccadilly station, Ellen gave Claire her address. ‘Drop me a line sometime,’ she said. Claire lowered her eyes. She wished she could give Ellen her address, but… ‘I won’t ask for yours. I’d probably lose it anyway,’ she said. Claire hugged her friend goodbye. ‘Let me know you’re safe, if you can,’ Ellen whispered.

  Claire’s train was first to come into the station, so after hugging each of her friends she picked up her suitcase and said goodbye.

  ‘Keep an eye on my bag, Johnny. I’ll carry Claire’s case for her,’ Nick said, taking the case out of Claire’s hand.

  ‘That’s very chivalrous of you, Nick.’

  ‘I have an ulterior motive, I’m afraid. I was wondering if we could write to each other?’

  ‘I can’t, Nick, I’m sorry.’

  ‘What, not even as pen-pals?’ Claire shook her head. ‘Take my address anyway and perhaps when the war’s over we could go dancing again, just you and me?’

  ‘This is my train,’ Claire said, and began to walk faster. Nick put the case in the train and helped her up the steps. ‘Thank you, Nick,’ she said, and as she bent down to kiss him on the cheek, he turned his face and their lips met. Claire heard a whistle blow somewhere in the distance, the train clunked and started to move, and she broke away from him. ‘I think you’d better go if you don’t want to end up in Rugby.’

  ‘If that’s where you’re going I shouldn’t mind,’ he said. Slamming the door on the moving train, Nick ran along the platform until the train picked up speed. The last Claire saw of him, he was waving in a cloud of steam.

  Claire closed the window and found a seat a couple of carriages along. After putting her case on the overhead rack, she sat down and thought about Nick’s kiss. She could have sworn he was sweet on Ellen. He was when they first met, but the kiss he’d just given her said something quite different. She hadn’t thought about Nick in a romantic way until now. A smile played on her lips.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Anyone home?’

  ‘Claire? What on earth? Thomas, our Claire’s here. Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’ Claire’s mother said. Wiping her hands on her pinafore, she crossed the kitchen with outstretched arms. ‘Bess would have fetched you from the station.’

  ‘Bess has enough to do up at the Hall. Besides, it was a last minute thing.’ Claire dropped her suitcase and hugged her mother. ‘A few of us were given forty-eight hours leave for good behaviour,’ she joked, ‘so I thought I’d surprise you.’

  ‘You’ve certainly done that,’ Claire’s father said. ‘Come here girl, let’s have a look at you.’

  Claire threw her arms around her father. ‘Oooooo I’ve missed you, Dad. And you, Mam.’

  ‘We’ve missed you too,’ her mother said. ‘Go through to the front room, it’s warmer in there. Top the fire up, Thomas, the girl must be perished,’ she called. ‘Tea’s almost ready. I’ll bring it in shortly.’

  ‘Thanks, Mam.’ Claire followed her father through to the small sitting room with its familiar dark wood table and sideboard and comfortable old settee and armchairs. ‘It’s lovely to be home,’ she said to her father.

  ‘It’s good to have you home, love. Your sisters will be pleased to see you. Ena’s up at Foxden Hall helping Bess,’ he said, adding a log to the fire. ‘She’ll be back for her tea, I expect. If not we’ll go up there, see Bess at the same time. But first I want to hear about you. From your letters you seem to be enjoying the WAAF. Are you still learning French?’

  ‘Yes, German too.’ A frown replaced the look of interest on her father’s face. ‘They need German speakers to translate what Luftwaffe pilots say to each other, and what they say to their control room in Germany.’

  Smiling again, her father shook his head and lit a cigarette. ‘Who’d have thought when you were teaching young Franek English and he was teaching you Polish that you’d end up being able to speak foreign languages well enough to translate them.’

  ‘I haven’t got the posting yet. I might not be good enough.’ Claire didn’t want to lie to her father, which she would have to do if she didn’t change the subject. ‘Do you see anything of the Polish lads that were billeted in the village?’

  ‘No, they’re on the aerodrome now. There’s all sorts up there; Australians, New Zealanders, Jamaicans, Canadians--’

  ‘Tea’s ready,’ Claire’s mum called, bringing in a tray. She put the teapot, milk jug, cups and saucers and a plate of tinned salmon sandwiches on the table. ‘We’ll start without Ena, she won’t mind. She often has her tea up at the Hall with Bess and the land girls,’ she said. ‘Tuck in, Claire. You look as if you need feeding up, girl.’

  ‘It’s all the training we do, Mam.’

  While they ate their tea, Claire’s mother told her how hard her sister Bess was working. ‘It’s a big job, turning the estate into arable land.’

  ‘She’s not doing it single-handed,’ her father said, laughing.

  Claire’s mother tutted. ‘Course not. There’s a lot of land girls work with her. Bess is in charge, of course. We thought she’d miss teaching, regret coming back, didn’t we Thomas?’ Claire’s father nodded. ‘But we needn’t have worried.’

  ‘With the farm work and turning a wing of Foxden Hall into rooms for recuperating servicemen, she’s too busy to miss her old life in London,’ Thomas Dudley said.

  ‘Bess wrote to me, told me Tom came home after Dunkirk.’

  ‘He wasn’t well,’ her father said, ‘but Bess had him helping up at the Hall and it did him a power of good. He’s gone back now.’

  ‘Probably to France.’ Lily Dudley drained her cup and stood up. ‘I’ll make more tea,’ she said, reaching into the middle of the table and snatching the teapot as if it offended her.

  ‘With Tom overseas and Margaret in London, you’re just the tonic your mum needs,’ Claire’s father said, when her mother was safely out of earshot. ‘How long can you stay?’

  ‘Forty-eight hours.’ Claire saw the disappointment in her father’s eyes. ‘Sorry it isn’t longer, Dad.’

  ‘Oh well… Forty-eight hours is better than nothing.’

  ‘What’s better than nothing?’ Ena shouted from the hall.

  ‘Come in and see,’ her father called back to her.

  Ena opened the living room door and squealed. Leaping up, Claire met her youngest sister in the middle of the room. They hugged each other and danced round in a circle. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come home to see you, skinny,’ Claire said, tickling her sister.

  That evening, Claire told Ena about RAF Morecambe and Coltishall, her best friend Eddie, and about training with the Canadian captain. She told her how she had hated him when they first met, but liked him better after he’d given her a good report.

  Ena told Claire that she was doing work for the government. ‘What I do is called sensitive work,’ she whispered. ‘I had to sign to say I wouldn’t talk about it.’

  Claire laughed. ‘I thought you worked in the factory?’

  ‘I do!’ Ena said, indignantly. ‘But what I do is secret!’ Red-faced, Ena stormed out of the room and ran upstairs. Claire heard the bedroom door slam.

  Claire ran up after her. ‘I’m sorry, Ena. I wasn’t laughing at you, or at your job. It was the way you said it. I thought you were joking.’ She tried the doork
nob, but the door didn’t open. ‘Let me in, Ena!’ Damn, she had only been home a few hours and already she and her sister had fallen out. ‘Ena?’ She tapped on the door. ‘Please let me in, so I can say I’m sorry.’ She put her ear to the door and heard Ena blow her nose. ‘I might not be able to get home for a long time. Please don’t let’s fall out.’

  She heard the key turn in the lock. ‘I’m sorry,’ Claire said, as she entered, ‘I really am.’

  Ena sniffed and pushed her hanky up her sleeve. ‘What do you mean you might not get home for a long time?’

  ‘I’ve got an interview coming up and if I get through it, I’ll be doing sensitive work too. I understand why you can’t talk about what you’re doing, because I can’t either.’ Ena rolled her eyes. ‘I know what you think – that I’m only saying it – but it’s true. I’m going to be listening to what German pilots say to each other and translating it to English,’ which wasn’t far from the truth – and was what she’d told her father.

  ‘Mine isn’t that important. I just make thin wires. I solder the ends into a tiny box that fits into a big machine. The boss and his assistant take my box of wires down south to where the machine is – and fit them on site. None of the other girls can do the job. It’s ever so fiddly.’

  ‘If it’s labelled sensitive,’ Claire said, ‘it’s important war work.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Ena shrugged, smiling. ‘But we’re not at work now. It’s Christmas!’ she shouted. ‘Come on, let’s go down, it’s cold up here.’

  ‘Friends?’ Claire said, holding out her hand.

  ‘Friends,’ Ena said. Taking Claire’s hand, Ena let her older sister lead her from the bedroom.

  Christmas morning after church, Claire, Ena and their mother and father walked up to Foxden Hall. The Dudley women went to the kitchen to help Mrs Hartley, Foxden’s house keeper and cook, to prepare Christmas lunch for the land girls and evacuated children.

  An hour later Mrs Hartley and Claire’s mother carried two large chickens into the main hall – and Claire and Ena brought in the vegetables. After lunch the little girls played with dolls that Father Christmas had brought them and the boys, wrapped up in winter coats, hats and gloves, went outside to build a snowman.