Triumph of the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  Seeing that Joe had his bad leg extended in front of him, and that he kept moving it every now and again, Bel knew it was paining him. Thank goodness he wasn’t on duty with the Home Guard this evening, although there was no doubt that this would not stop him from hobbling off to do what he could as soon as the all-clear sounded out.

  ‘You worried about your ma?’ Polly asked Bel.

  ‘No. If she’s with Ronald, which she clearly is …’ Bel felt a wave of disappointment ‘ … then she’ll be fine.’

  ‘He’ll make sure she’s all right? Sounds like she was totally blotto.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t particularly like Ronald, but he’s not a bad egg. Certainly not as bad as most of the men Ma’s had.’

  Bel let out a sad laugh.

  ‘He might well have had to carry her down to the basement, mind you. I know what Ma’s like after she’s had a skinful. Dead to the world. And it might seem like she’s all skin and bone, but she’s heavier than she looks.’

  ‘And it’s not as if Ronald’s Mr Muscle either, is it?’ Polly tried to keep the conversation light. She knew how much it hurt Bel when her ma went off on a bender. How much she worried about her. After what she’d told her this evening, she could understand that more now.

  ‘I just feel it for Bill,’ said Bel. ‘He looked so gutted, didn’t he?’

  Polly nodded. ‘Heartbroken.’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ Bel said, ‘you’re going to make me feel all depressed. Ma’s such a train wreck when it comes to men.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Polly said. ‘Perhaps that’s because of what happened.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Bel said. ‘I’ve thought that since she told me.’

  Polly took hold of her friend’s hand and squeezed it. She had no idea what it must feel like to know that your father, someone who was still living and breathing, had done something like that to your own ma.

  She understood now why Bel had been so reticent about sending Mr Havelock a thank-you letter – and why Pearl’s reaction had been so venomous.

  ‘What do you think’s going to happen now?’ Polly asked.

  ‘What, with my ma?’ Bel asked.

  ‘No, with Helen,’ Polly said, trying to work out what her sister-in-law was really feeling. It still concerned her that Bel had kept this terrible secret to herself for so long, but what worried her more was that Helen’s visit this evening would have repercussions. Perhaps not straight away. But it would. In time.

  Of that she had no doubt.

  When the sirens sounded, Helen dragged herself out of bed. It was almost a relief to be brought out of the dark, disturbing dreams she had been plunged into. Dreams of her grandfather’s twisted, laughing face had plagued her for what seemed hours as he stomped around in a field that had been burned and charred. He was carrying a knife and occasionally stabbed at some invisible opponent. And there were rats everywhere. Big black rats scurrying around. It was as if her grandfather and the rats were one entity, as though he were their master and the fat, well-fed rodents his dutiful cohorts.

  Pulling on her dressing gown and slippers, Helen grabbed her torch and made her way down to the first floor.

  ‘Mother! Wake up!’ She banged on her mother’s bedroom door. No answer. The sirens seemed to be blotting out thought, never mind any other sound. How on earth could her mother sleep through this?

  ‘Wake up, Mother!’ Helen shouted, walking into her room and going over to her mother’s bed. She was out for the count. Her bottle of sleeping pills was standing next to a crystal tumbler. Helen didn’t need to smell it to know that the few drops of liquid left in there were the remnants of a G & T nightcap.

  Her mother was lying on her back, her hands neatly clasped on her chest as though she was praying, an ivory-coloured silk mask over her eyes. Helen might have thought her mother dead were it not for the slight rise and fall of her chest.

  ‘Mum, wake up!’ Helen took hold of her mother’s shoulders and shook her. Gently at first. Then more vigorously.

  ‘What’s wrong!’ Miriam pulled off her mask and looked up at Helen. Her eyes were confused and bloodshot and for the first time, Helen thought her mother looked old.

  ‘There’s an air raid, Mother, and unless you fancy sleeping under a blanket of bricks tonight, I suggest you get yourself out of bed and down to the basement.’

  Miriam sighed like a petulant child and hauled herself out of bed, pulling on her dressing gown and automatically sliding her feet into her slippers. She grabbed her glass tumbler and followed Helen out of the door and down the stairs.

  ‘I’ll meet you down there, darling.’ Her words were slurred. ‘Just need a little nightcap.’ She staggered a little.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum.’ Helen grabbed the tumbler from her. ‘Get into the basement and try not to fall down the steps.’

  Helen hurried into the living room, sloshed gin and then some tonic into her mother’s glass and hurried back out. As she headed down it occurred to her that Pearl and her mother were not dissimilar. They were both wrecks. Only her mother hid it better.

  And, of course, they had something else in common.

  Her grandfather.

  As she reached the bottom step, she heard the first boom of an explosion.

  After a few sips of her gin, Miriam curled up on the makeshift bed that had been put there at the very start of the war, and which lately had been getting plenty of use.

  A few minutes later Helen could hear gentle snoring.

  Normally she would have been glad that her mother had clapped out so quickly, but tonight she was particularly relieved. How could she have chatted to her mother after all she had just found out?

  As she looked at her now, oblivious to the bombs going off, she wondered what her reaction might be, should she ever find out what her father was really like. Perhaps, deep down, she knew. Perhaps not. Helen didn’t know any more.

  Wrapping a blanket around herself and switching off her torch, Helen closed her eyes. She wondered what John was doing now. He wouldn’t be sitting in some shelter, that was for sure. He’d probably be getting beds made up, ready for any casualties, going round the wards and checking on patients. That was assuming the Ryhope wasn’t a target this evening.

  God, she hoped not.

  Rosie and Charlotte were on their own in the Jenkins’ shelter. Their neighbours had decided they’d had enough of all the recent air raids and had gone to stay with an aged aunt not far from Lake Windermere.

  Rosie was especially thankful, as the last thing she needed after the day that had just been was to deal with Mrs Jenkins’ incessant chatter. She had just spent most of the evening answering a stream of questions from Charlotte.

  Rosie knew her sister’s head must be full to bursting and it was for this reason that she had not told Charlotte about their uncle’s incarceration for rape, or that he had been the hit-and-run driver who had killed their parents. That could wait.

  ‘You all right?’ Rosie asked. She was lying on the bottom bunk bed, a thick blanket covering her from top to toe.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Charlotte said.

  Rosie could feel her shifting position, trying to get comfy.

  ‘Rosie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Obviously, Peter knows everything?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘When he comes back …’

  If he comes back.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll mind me being here, will he?’

  Rosie smiled. This was the easiest question Charlotte had asked so far.

  ‘Far from it.’

  ‘Far from it?’

  ‘Charlie, there were two people fighting in your corner, arguing the case for me to allow you to come back to live here.’

  Rosie felt Charlotte scoot round in her bed before her face appeared over the side of the bunk.

  Rosie rolled her eyes. ‘Lily, o
f course …

  ‘And Peter.’

  Rosie saw a big smile spread across her little sister’s upside-down face.

  ‘Now, can I please attempt to get some sleep?’

  Charlotte’s head disappeared.

  More shifting about.

  ‘Rosie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you.’

  Rosie’s eyes immediately clouded over.

  ‘I love you too, Charlie. Very much.’

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The air raid lasted a total of one hour and twenty-five minutes. Not as long as most air raids, but long enough to do more damage than any bombing the town had suffered so far in the course of the war.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mrs Perkins looked at her daughter as she came back down the stairs dressed in her air raid protection overalls and boots.

  ‘I’m going to help.’ Martha looked at her mother as though she was senile.

  ‘But you’re not meant to be on duty tonight?’

  ‘I’m needed out there, Mam, you know that. You heard what the warden said on the way back from the shelter. It’s pandemonium out there. They need all the help they can get.’

  Mrs Perkins wanted to cry.

  Didn’t Martha understand? She just wanted her safe. Out of harm’s way.

  ‘Martha.’ She grabbed hold of her daughter’s arm. ‘Just promise me you’ll be careful. That you won’t go and do anything daft.’ She looked up at her strapping girl. ‘Like walk into a collapsing building or anything like that?’

  Martha saw the worry in her mother’s eyes.

  ‘Of course I won’t, Mam,’ she lied, bending down and wrapping her arms around her mother, giving her a bear hug.

  ‘And just so you know,’ Mrs Perkins said, ‘I’m putting my foot down about you going to work in the morning. When you come back here, you’ll have a good feed and rest, you hear me?’

  Martha smiled at her mam and at her dad.

  ‘Agreed.’

  She knew it would take her mother all of thirty seconds to realise that it was Sunday – and that she wasn’t due to work anyway.

  When Martha left, Mr Perkins walked over to his wife, still standing in the hallway, and held her in his arms.

  She spoke into his chest. ‘Do you think Martha wants to be a hero, to save people’s lives, as a way of making up for what her real mother did?’ It still horrified her that a mother, one who had given birth several times over – who had carried life in her belly for months on end – could then kill a child. Children. Poison them.

  ‘I sometimes wish we’d never told her about her real mam.’ Mrs Perkins rested her head on her husband’s shoulder, not wanting to break free of his embrace.

  ‘I don’t know, my dear.’ He stood and continued to hold the wife he loved. ‘Perhaps she does think that – that she has to make amends for her mother’s actions … Perhaps she doesn’t.’

  He thought.

  ‘I really don’t know. Perhaps she’s simply a good person who knows she can help others, so that’s what she does.’

  When Martha stepped out into the street, she saw an army truck and waved it down.

  It stopped just long enough for Martha to haul herself into the passenger seat.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked.

  ‘Barrack Street,’ came the reply.’

  ‘How bad?’ Martha asked.

  ‘Two big ones,’ the Home Guard soldier said, ‘took out five houses and two pubs.’

  ‘Any casualties?’ asked Martha.

  ‘Dozens injured … At least four dead.’

  Chapter Sixty

  Hundreds of air raid wardens, Home Guard soldiers, Civil Defence and emergency services worked through the early hours of the morning.

  This time, the Luftwaffe had hit four out of the nine shipyards along the Wear. Greenwell’s on the south dock, Austin’s further upriver, Laing’s, and Thompson’s.

  Martha returned home to find her mother was up, with breakfast on the go and a big mug of Ovaltine.

  Her daughter had come back safe and sound and she had that to be thankful for. Like William kept telling her – she just had to take one day at a time. During times like this, there was no other way. She tried to heed his advice.

  It was hard, though.

  When dawn broke, Aunty Rina took Hannah a cup of tea in bed and told her to get herself ready for the day.

  Half an hour later they had a kosher breakfast of cereal and toasted home-made bagels before leaving their house on Manila Street. Walking down Villette Road, they stopped off to collect Olly, and from there they walked the mile and a half to High Street East.

  They would not have been able to take public transport even if they had wanted to as many of the main roads had been pockmarked with craters during the night.

  They walked via Tatham Street and looked up Borough Road. The homes of those they knew and loved were still standing. ‘Díky Bohu,’ Rina muttered, looking up at a sky that seemed so pure, so untainted, despite being contaminated by Hitler’s harbingers of death just hours previously.

  On seeing that Vera’s café was still standing, Rina said a second ‘Díky Bohu,’ and when Vera herself came to the door, griping about the ungodly hour she was being forced to leave the comfort of her bed, Rina smiled for the first time since the sirens had sounded out.

  ‘Come on,’ Rina told Vera in her sternest voice. ‘Get your pinafore on. There’s work to be done. Sandwiches to be made. Tea to be brewed.’

  Vera huffed loudly, ushering Hannah and Olly into the café before poking her head out and looking down the street. It looked like a war zone. She could see rubble strewn about the road, shattered glass and a burst water main gushing everywhere.

  An ambulance heading from Barrack Street further down the road trundled past slowly in an effort to avoid the mounds of bricks and mortar lying across its path.

  If anyone had been scrutinising the old woman’s face, they would have seen shock, then sadness – followed by defiance.

  Flicking the sign on the front door of the cafe to ‘Open’, and kicking the wooden triangular door wedge into place, Vera turned round and marched back into the café.

  Looking at Rina, Hannah and Olly, she waved her hand in the air impatiently.

  ‘Well, come on, what yer all waiting for?’

  When Helen woke up she looked at the time. It had gone nine o’clock. She’d slept surprisingly well. Probably because her mind was at rest knowing that those she loved were safe and sound. Once the all-clear had sounded out, she’d rung the Ryhope, and although she’d not been able to speak to John in person, she’d been reassured that he was all right. As expected, both the Ryhope and the Borough Asylum were expecting patients from town. John would be run off his feet.

  She had also managed to find out from the operator that although both sides of the river had been badly hit, the Borough Road and Tatham Street had thankfully escaped unscathed.

  Helen stretched and began to get herself ready for the day.

  It was going to be a really important day. One, she realised, that had been a long time coming.

  Now that the fog had lifted, she could finally see what was right in front of her.

  Last night, while the town had been shaken to its core, her mind had gone to John. She’d realised how much he occupied her thoughts, her time, and, moreover, how much she actually missed him when she wasn’t with him. How crazy was that?

  Gloria was right. John felt the same. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be spending every minute he had spare with her either.

  As she’d sat in the cellar, she’d realised how stupid she had been to believe her mother’s poisonous words. John didn’t care about her past. She knew him better than anyone. Certainly better than her mother did.

  Slipping on the dark green dress that brought out the emerald of her eyes, she looked at herself in the mirror. She went over and sat at her dressing table. Just a little make-up. Not too much. And she’d put her hair back in victory
rolls. Attractive but casual.

  Down in that dark basement, she had seen the light.

  There was too much awfulness in the world and – thinking of her grandfather – too many awful people. So, when something rather lovely came along – like what she had with John – you just had to grab it with both hands and make the most of it.

  It was this realisation that had made her resolve to go and see John.

  If he was in theatre, or conducting consultations, she would wait.

  When she saw him, she would ask him to go for a walk with her around the grounds.

  And then she would tell him what she really thought. How she felt.

  Or perhaps she would simply show him.

  When Pearl woke up she had the hangover from hell.

  Not an uncommon feeling, though one she hadn’t felt for a while now.

  She sat up and looked around at her surroundings.

  It took her a few moments to work out where she was.

  Ronald’s.

  Then came a feeling she wasn’t so used to. Guilt. And regret. Neither emotion usually succeeded in penetrating the layers of thick skin she had grown over the years, or the barrier of booze that shielded her from reality most of the time, but this morning they’d slipped through her defences and caught her off guard.

  She flung off the blanket that was covering her.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  She still had her clothes on.

  She vowed not to get so paralytic again.

  Scrabbling around for her cigarettes, she found a squashed packet on the coffee table and lit one. Smoked. Coughed. Smoked some more. Then she stood up.

  ‘See yer, Ronald,’ she shouted up the stairs. She listened for a reply but heard only snoring.

  She looked at the clock. Eleven. That gave her an hour to turn herself around and get to work.

  The guilt returned.

  She knew she had to apologise to Bill.

  She didn’t like saying sorry, but she needed this job.

  Pah! Who was she kidding? This wasn’t about her keeping her job.

  She was sorry because she could remember the look on his face. It was about the only thing she could remember from last night.