by Annie Groves
Rosie shook her head. ‘Take Angela first,’ she insisted. She saw the look he gave her before he turned away to help the other girl, and now it wasn’t just the smoke that made her eyes sting.
‘Come on, Rosie, lassie…’
Rosie clung on gratefully to the hand the ARP warden had extended to her, his voice so much warmer and kinder now. In no time at all, or so it seemed to Rosie, she was out of the shelter and coughing the smoke out of her lungs, then breathing in fresh air, whilst two of the men went back in to put out the fire.
‘How’s Angela?’ Rosie asked anxiously as soon as she could speak.
‘She’s pretty poorly but she’s going to be all right,’ the ARP warden assured her. ‘Daft thing didn’t think to tell us that she suffers from a bad chest. Now hold still whilst we have a look at that bump on your head…’ Rosie winced as she felt the sting of iodine being applied to her wound.
Someone had sent word to Angela’s family and her father pushed his way through the small crowd that had gathered. Having assured himself that his daughter was unharmed, although badly shocked, he had come over to thank the ARP warden.
‘It’s not me you should be thanking but young Rosie,’ Mr Walton told him firmly. ‘If it hadn’t been for her managing to keep calm and acting promptly, your Angela could have been a sight worse off than she is.’
Rosie blushed and protested that she hadn’t really done anything, but when Angela’s father had left to take Angela home, Mr Walton told Rosie firmly, ‘You’ve got the makings of a good fire-watch guard, Rosie. Your dad would be right proud of you. You’ve got a nasty bump on your head, though.’ He looked up and then called out, ‘Rob, will you walk Rosie home for us?’
‘Oh, no,’ Rosie protested uncomfortably, ‘I can walk myself home. Honestly.’ But it was too late. Rob Whittaker was already helping her gently to her feet from the upturned bucket where Mr Walton had made her sit down whilst he looked at her injuries.
‘Mr Walton was telling me that your dad’s in the merchant navy,’ Rob commented after they had walked to the end of the street in silence.
‘Yes,’ Rosie agreed.
‘So’s my brother, and I was all set to join him when a pal told me about this job that had come up in the fire service.’
As they turned the corner Rosie suddenly felt dizzy. She put her hand out towards the wall to support herself but immediately Rob Whittaker took hold of her in a firm but gentle grip.
‘Take it easy,’ he cautioned her. ‘You’re bound to feel a bit sickly, like. It’s the shock.’
‘I thought Angela was going to die,’ Rosie admitted shakily. ‘She was breathing that funny.’
‘It’s the smoke. It affects some that way.’ Something about the way he was looking at her made Rosie feel safe and very comfortable with him. Perhaps she had been wrong to give him the cold shoulder earlier, she admitted. He was every bit as tall and as dark-haired as Nancy’s cousin Lance, but where his eyes held an expression that Rosie didn’t like, Rob’s showed only kindness and warmth.
They had almost reached her front door so she stopped walking.
‘I’m all right now,’ she told him. ‘Thanks for seeing me back safely.’
He didn’t try to go any further with her, but Rosie saw when she reached the door and turned round to look, that he was still standing where she had left him, watching over her.
‘So what’s bin happening to you then?’ Sylvia demanded on Monday morning when she saw the bruise on Rosie’s forehead.
‘There was a bit of an accident when we were doing our fire-watch practice,’ Rosie told her.
It was a relief to come into the shop and get back to normality after the events of the weekend and the atmosphere they had left behind. Rosie and her mother were not on speaking terms and Rosie had hardly slept for worrying about what she had seen. Her mother had gone out on Sunday afternoon and had not returned until late in the evening. Rosie had been unable to help wondering if she had been with her lover, but since her mother was refusing to speak to her she knew there had been no point asking.
They had a busy morning, so Rosie didn’t see much of Sylvia, but when the dinner bell rang, instead of going to get her sandwiches and join her, Sylvia hurried to put on her coat, announcing that she was going out.
‘It’s raining cats and dogs,’ Rosie protested.
‘It’s not that bad, and besides, I want some fresh air,’ Sylvia told her.
‘It might be summat fresh she’s after but it isn’t fresh air,’ Fanny Williams, one of the older girls, snorted after Sylvia had gone. ‘She’ll be after meeting up with that cousin of Nancy’s wot came into the shop as bold as brass earlier, looking for her. Well, she’d better watch her step, that’s all I can say, because it’s as plain as the nose on her face what he’s after. You could see it in his eyes.’
Enid, the senior assistant, was already compressing her mouth with disapproval. ‘She’ll be getting a name for herself if she starts going with the likes of him, if what I’ve heard about him is true. And she’s got no business telling him to come to the shop. Mrs Verey would have a fit if she knew.’
Rosie’s heart sank. She hadn’t thought that Lance was serious enough about Sylvia to come looking for her at work. Rosie might not be very experienced where men were concerned but she instinctively knew a predator when she saw one.
It was well beyond their allotted lunch hour when Sylvia finally returned, pink-cheeked and almost giddy with excitement.
‘You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen,’ she said to Rosie.
‘That’s what you think,’ Rosie checked her. ‘Fanny told us all about Lance coming into the shop asking for you. You’ll be in real trouble if Mrs Verey finds out.’
Sylvia pouted and tossed her head. ‘Why shouldn’t he come in? He’s got the money to treat his girl.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Oh, Rosie, he’s just like an actor out of a film. He’s ever so handsome. He was asking if you and I would go out on a double date with him and that Johnny on Wednesday.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Dad’s ship is due in this week, and I wouldn’t go anyway. We don’t know them, Sylvia, and if you want my opinion I don’t think—’
‘Well, I don’t. And I’m going even if you aren’t.’ Sylvia looked close to tears.
‘Sylvia, you can’t,’ Rosie protested. ‘Your dad would never allow it.’
‘He isn’t going to know, is he? Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, Rosie. You only live once, you know.’
Rosie could see that there was no reasoning with her, but that didn’t stop her feeling concerned.
It was Fanny’s turn to go to the bank with the day’s takings and when she came back she burst into the workroom white-faced. Her brother, like Rosie’s father, was in the merchant navy and there were tears in her eyes as she told them the news she had just heard.
‘It’s one of the convoys. It’s bin torpedoed really badly, three ships sunk and others damaged. They was only a hundred miles off the Irish coast an’ all nearly home. Not that that means much with Hitler bombing the docks like he is. Our Marty was due home this week.’
Rosie felt as though all the blood was draining from her body. Her father’s ship was due in any day as well.
‘Did you hear which ships it was?’ she asked anxiously.
Fanny shook her head.
‘Quick, Sylvia, go and put the wireless on,’ Enid demanded sharply. ‘It will be on the news.’
Rosie’s mouth had gone dry and her heart was pounding heavily with sick dread. ‘It won’t,’ she said. ‘They don’t give out that kind of news – not at first.’ She bit her lip and tried to fight back her fear.
The Elegant Modes workers had still not heard any fresh news when it was time for them to go home. Rosie had been unable to concentrate all afternoon.
‘Try not to worry, Rosie,’ Enid told her in a kinder voice than she normally used to the junior girls. ‘I’ll have a word with my hubbie for you. With him working down at the docks, they nor
mally get to hear the news before anyone else.’
Rosie gave her a grateful look. She couldn’t bear to think of anything happening to her father. It was too atrocious even to contemplate. She cheered herself slightly at that – if she couldn’t imagine it, then it couldn’t happen, could it?
Normally she and Sylvia left the shop together but today Sylvia had rushed off without a word and although she was so worried about her father, Rosie still felt concerned for her friend.
It was still raining, and Rosie shook the raindrops off her umbrella as she let herself into the empty house.
She had just got the fire lit and made herself a much-needed cup of tea when she heard someone knocking on the front door. In her haste to answer it she almost knocked over her tea cup. In her mind’s eye she could already see the telegram boy waiting outside to hand her the message every household dreaded receiving. But when she opened the door it was Rob Whittaker standing there, his bicycle propped up against the wall. Rosie had never felt so relieved.
Rob was wearing his fireman’s uniform and he removed his cap when he saw Rosie, squeezing it in his hands.
‘I hope you don’t mind me calling like this, but I heard earlier on today that one of our convoys had been badly torpedoed and—’
‘Yes, I heard that too,’ Rosie sighed. ‘My dad is—’
‘It’s all right, Rosie. Seeing as I’m based down near the docks, I checked up, remembering you’d said he was due back any day. He’s on the Aurora, and she’s part of a different convoy. They should be anchoring up out over the Liverpool bar later on tonight and getting into the dock in the early hours, all being well.’
Rosie couldn’t speak at first, she was so delirious with happiness. When she did finally find her voice all she could say was, ‘Oh, thank God.’ And then her expression changed and her face became shadowed. ‘I was dreading hearing bad news. In fact I thought when I heard you knock that it was the telegraph boy, but here’s me over the moon because my dad is safe, whilst that boy will be knocking on the doors of some poor families tonight with the news that their men won’t be coming home.’ She pressed her hand to her mouth in an attempt to stop her lips from trembling. ‘I’m really grateful to you for taking the trouble to let me know that he’s all right, Rob.’ She hesitated and then opened the door a little bit wider, and offered shyly, ‘I’ve just brewed a pot of tea and you’re welcome to come in if you want.’
‘That’s kind of you, Rosie. I’d like to but I’d better not. Mrs Norris, whom I’m lodging with, will have the tea on. Mr Norris always gets in at seven o’clock. Woe betide if I’m a minute after. I tell you, even Hitler would be defeated by Mrs N.’ s moaning.’
Rosie could hear in his voice that he would have liked to have accepted her invitation and she gave him a small smile, suggesting, ‘Well, perhaps another time – when my dad’s here. I’m sure he’d like to meet you and have a chat with you, what with your brother sailing under the Red Duster as well.’
‘I’d like that.’ He was smiling so much she might have offered him the moon, and despite his dinner waiting, he was still standing on the doorstep as though he couldn’t bear to leave.
‘Your tea will be getting cold,’ she reminded him.
‘Rosie…’
‘Yes?’
‘I was wondering if sometime you might fancy going to the cinema with me?’
Rosie’s stomach did a little dance. ‘I might do,’ she told him, ‘if there was to be a good film on.’ She didn’t want him thinking she was too keen. Rob nodded and finally stepped back off the doorstep.
As she closed the door, Rosie told herself severely that if she had had any sense she would have turned him down, but there was a small bubble of happiness inside her that hadn’t been there before, and as she went to tend to the sulky small fire with its covering of slack, she was humming happily under her breath, thinking maybe the world wasn’t such a bad place after all.
‘I’m thinking of changing me job to the night shift.’
Rosie looked at her mother, who had just arrived home. Rosie had told her immediately that her father was safe – the first words they had shared in days. Christine had been typically blasé about the news.
‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘Well, I’ve bin talking to one of the other women there and she was saying, like I told you, that you can get five pounds a week if you do nights. With that kind of money we could afford to move out of here and rent somewhere a bit safer. That’ll please yer dad. He’s never liked living here.’
It sounded a logical reason for her mother’s decision to work nights, but Rosie could hear a note of evasion in her voice, so she pressed her uneasily, ‘You want to move out? But you’ve always said that you’d never move from here.’ She brought out the fish pie to dish up, which was in reality mostly mashed potatoes with a small helping of the reconstituted dried fish that everyone was being exhorted to eat. No matter its quality, she wanted something proper for her father to eat when he came in later.
‘That was before Hitler started bombing the docks,’ her mother retorted. ‘I can’t sleep in me bed at night any more for fear that we’re going to be killed, and as for that ruddy air-raid shelter…Besides, I thought you’d be pleased, seein’ as you was on at me to change me ways,’ she told Rosie meaningfully.
‘I didn’t say that you should work nights, Mum. In fact…’ Rosie paused. Now that her mother was speaking to her properly again this surely was an ideal opportunity for Rosie to say what was on her mind. ‘…It seems to me that it would be a good idea if you were to leave Littlewoods, and look for a job somewhere else.’
‘Oh, it does, does it, and why would that be, I wonder?’
Rosie tensed at the hostility in her mother’s voice, but she wasn’t going to back down now.
‘It would be for the best, Mum; you must know that.’
‘Because of Dennis, you mean?’
Rosie had to look away. She couldn’t bear hearing the man’s name on her mother’s lips but she dare not risk antagonising her too much She knew her mother and how she could fly off the handle if she was pushed too hard.
‘He’s married, Mum, and so are you, and with you both working at the factory…’ When her mother didn’t respond Rosie accused her miserably, ‘You’re still seeing him, aren’t you?’
‘What if I am? You think you know everything, Rosie, but you know nothing. Why shouldn’t I have a bit of happiness in me life? I’ve had precious little of it with your dad—’
‘Mum, can’t you see how much better it would be for everyone if you got another job?’ Rosie interrupted her.
‘For everyone but me and Dennis, you mean?’ Christine challenged her bitterly. ‘But of course what we want doesn’t matter, I suppose.’
‘Mum, you’re both married.’
‘Look, me and him won’t be seeing one another no more, all right, and I don’t want you going on about it to me all the time, Rosie, ’cos if you do I’ll start wishing that I hadn’t stopped seeing him. And as for me job – well, if you think I’m going to turn down the chance to earn a fiver a week then you can think again, miss.’
Rosie pushed her plate away, her appetite gone.
Her mother did the same, standing up and announcing, ‘I’m going up to get changed. I’m going down the factory to see about changing over to nights.’
‘Dad’s ship’s due to dock any time,’ Rosie reminded her quietly. ‘The least you can do is be here to welcome him.’
But her mother wasn’t listening. She had already disappeared into the hall.
Rosie sighed. What would happen to them now?
The sound of the air-raid siren brought Rosie out of her sleep. Getting out of bed, she pulled on her candlewick dressing gown, practically bumping into her mother on the landing. In the hallway they pulled on their wellingtons and grabbed their gas masks and the emergency boxes everyone was supposed to keep ready for air raids, with a few basic necessities in them: tea for a hot dr
ink, matches, a torch, toys for children if one had children, along with all their important papers, like their birth certificates, ration books and anything else of value.
As they hurried down the street towards their designated public shelter, overhead they could hear the drone of planes, heading for the docks – and their target. One of them picked out a target by the searchlights from the defence battery, banked and suddenly, up ahead of the people making for the shelter, a shower of incendiary bombs were fizzing from it, to explode in a dazzle of light.
‘Watch out, everyone,’ someone called.
Instinctively Rosie flung herself to the ground, covering her head protectively with her hands as the incendiaries fell all around them. One rolled so close to her she could feel its heat. Automatically, she kicked it out of the way and then jumped up to help cover the fires all around the street with sand.
‘Come on, let’s get into the shelter before he comes back with his big brothers,’ one of the men called out semi-jokingly, whilst the ARP warden urged them to hurry. The half-kilo incendiary bombs had become so commonplace that they no longer caused Rosie’s heart to contract with fear. So long as they didn’t have a direct hit and their fires were put out immediately, the damage they caused was limited. Unlike the much bigger parachute bombs the Germans were now dropping, and which were responsible for the ugly gaps that were appearing all over the city where once there had been buildings.
Overhead the bombers droned menacingly, the sound of their engines interspersed by the heart-stopping whistle of the bombs they dropped. Rosie could hear one now, but she refused to give in to her fear and look back over her shoulder. They said anyway that you never heard the one that got you and she could certainly hear this one. She winced as a dull boom echoed from a nearby street, whilst the ARP warden grabbed her arm and half pushed her into the shelter.
