Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys Read online

  ‘You’re wearing make-up!’ May said, astonished.

  ‘You’re wearing uniform!’ Peggy laughed and it felt to May like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. Her sister was happy, and it wasn’t just because she’d been able to go back to work. How could her mum believe that Peggy was ‘lost’ without George? Her mother’s own retreat from life must have clouded her judgement; she simply couldn’t see beyond the closed room of her own grief. But May saw it. Peggy had crept out of a dull chrysalis and spread her wings.

  The sisters hugged and May stepped back, looking for any sign of guilt or shame, but Peggy wasn’t hiding anything. Her face was an open book to May, and on each of the leaves was written the same story, Peggy loved everyone. She had patience with her father, who pestered her for news of George; she was unusually gentle with her mother and she seemed more involved in the family than she’d ever been when George was around. It seemed that Peggy had been hiding in the wings all this time, curtained off by her husband’s popularity and notoriety, but now she had stepped on to the stage – though May knew there was more to it than that.

  ‘I’ve been hearing all about you and your big guns!’ Peggy squeezed her again. ‘My little sister, a gunner girl. I’m so proud of you, May.’

  May was pleased by the praise, for her elder sister had never been lavish with it. May had sometimes suspected Peggy might envy her, though the reason was a mystery.

  ‘I reckon you’ve got it harder, Peg. Working all day in the factory, and all night on the canteen, you must be exhausted…’ But even as she made the comment, May could see it wasn’t true.

  ‘No, you don’t need as much sleep as you think you do. You must be up half the night yourself.’

  May shook her head. ‘Not yet, but I will be once I get on active duty. It’ll be a case of sleep when you can, and be ready to jump up when the alarm goes.’

  May’s mother was looking, in a bemused way, from one daughter to the other, as if she no longer knew either of them.

  ‘Well, I’ve got this afternoon off and I wondered if you wanted to go out, over the other side, make the most of your leave? My treat,’ Peggy asked.

  May hesitated, conscious of her mother’s eyes on her. She remembered Flo’s plea and said, ‘I haven’t seen much of Mum.’

  But Mrs Lloyd urged, ‘Go on! You two get out and enjoy yourselves while you can. You’re a long time dead.’

  So that afternoon, May found herself sitting in Lyon’s Corner House opposite her sister and, after answering a hundred and one questions about army life, she finally broached the subject that had been on her mind ever since she’d seen Peggy’s passionate farewell scene with the young soldier. The previous night, lying awake in her old bed, May had gone over the scene again and again, wondering if there was anything to be gained by confronting Peggy. And she’d decided to stay silent. But now, faced with a sister so changed as to be almost unrecognizable, she found herself intrigued. What was so special about this man that now Peggy seemed so full of life? May needed to know, for selfish reasons. With Bill, she knew she herself had begun to skirt, cautiously, the unknown world of love, but she needed to know why, for the right person, it was worth risking everything.

  ‘Peggy, you’re so different... happier,’ she said, in a rush, before she lost her courage. ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘Different? Am I?’ A blush was creeping up Peggy’s neck. ‘The only thing that’s changed is George’s in prison, I suppose. Terrible really, if that’s the reason I look happier.’

  ‘Is that it then? You prefer life without your husband?’

  Peggy was fiddling with her coffee glass. It was a tall tumbler, with a stainless-steel cradle and handle. She twisted the glass round and round in the cradle before answering.

  ‘It’s freedom. That’s what it is. You wouldn’t understand, May. You’re single and you’ve got all your life in front of you. But I’ve already made my choices…’

  ‘What, and they were the wrong ones?’ May said in a hushed voice. Suddenly the chatter of the crowded corner house seemed to recede and a confessional quiet fell over their little table.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, May, I’ve wanted for nothing since I married George. It’s just that I kept feeling something was missing, and that seemed bloody ungrateful… you know, look around at the poor cows on the Purbrook with a dozen kids and an old man living up the pub… I thought, perhaps if we had a baby. But it’s only since I’ve been coping on my own that I realized. I didn’t have nothing to get up for, and now I do. Mum’s worried I’m worn out, but I’m loving it! You know how we always used to moan about work, but even Atkinson’s... I look forward to going in! But the WVS is the best thing I’ve ever done.’

  She finally sat back and took a sip of the coffee. ‘I feel useful, I suppose, that’s what it is.’

  May could understand that; it was why she’d joined up herself. But there was no avoiding the fact that it wasn’t the only thing contributing to Peggy’s newfound happiness.

  ‘Peg,’ May took a deep breath, ‘I think you should know… I saw you at London Bridge.’

  ‘When?’ Her sister blanched, the newfound bloom fading, quickly replaced by fear.

  ‘Yesterday morning, when we got off the train. You were on the next platform – with a soldier.’

  Peggy looked away, still fiddling with the glass coffee mug. ‘Don’t look at me like that, May,’ she said finally.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like I’m a slut.’

  May had been careful with her expression, but perhaps a part of her had already condemned her sister.

  ‘I don’t think that, Peg. I just want to know why.’

  ‘Have you ever been in love, May?’

  Now it was her turn to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘No, I thought not. Well, if you had, you wouldn’t even have to ask why, love. I wasn’t looking for it, I’ll tell you that. I know it sounds selfish, but I was just enjoying being on me own. No one looking over my shoulder, telling me what I could and couldn’t wear, watching my every move.’ Peggy sighed.

  ‘I met him one night, on the canteen round. His platoon was helping clear up a bombed street. They’d stopped work… unexploded bomb. He came up, face covered in dust from the rubble.’ Peggy smiled. ‘He looked like someone had dropped him in a hopper full of face powder! But when he held out his hand for the tea, his poor fingertips were ripped to shreds. Bleeding, broken nails, where he’d been digging out some poor soul with his bare hands. And he was shaking. So I got hold of his hands and put the cup in them and when he looked at me, that was it.’

  ‘That was it? What d’you mean, you fell in love there and then? But you hadn’t even spoken to him.’

  ‘I didn’t need to.’

  This was nothing like her experience with Bill. They’d done nothing but talk. So perhaps what she’d felt wasn’t love, or being ‘in love’.

  ‘But then he was there the next night, and the next, and one night he asked me out for a drink… It just went on from there.’

  ‘But didn’t you think about George?’

  ‘Of course I did! But me and George – Oh, May. I made a mistake, all right.’

  ‘What, with your soldier?’

  Peggy gave a bitter laugh. ‘No, love, by marrying George in the first place.’

  It was as if another of the foundations of her life had collapsed. Images of Peggy’s wedding, with herself as bridesmaid, of George moving heaven and earth to find Jack; Wide’oh filling their kitchen with his wheezy presence and his dodgy goods. She felt a surge of anger towards her sister. As if the war wasn’t enough to tear their world apart, she had to turn everything upside down.

  ‘Poor George,’ May said.

  But her sister’s stricken face stopped May from saying anything harsher. Peggy might be happy but a part of her was also suffering. May stretched a hand out to Peggy. ‘Poor you.’

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, love, I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘So y
ou and him, on the station. Was that the end of it?’

  Peggy’s soldier had been carrying full kitbag and webbing. It didn’t look like he’d be coming back soon. She was surprised at the defiant look Peggy flashed her.

  ‘You really haven’t got a clue, have you? Some people wait a lifetime for what I’ve got with Harry. No, it’s not the end.’

  ‘But don’t you care what this’ll do to the family?’ It was incomprehensible to May that anything should come before that.

  Peggy’s face grew redder, but not with shame. ‘See, that’s your problem, May. The war’s not taught you nothing, has it? We’ve only got one life, and that’s short enough. Look at our poor Jack. You need to start living your own life. I thought you might have changed – the fight you put up to join the ATS – but if you want to live your life around other people, that’s up to you. One day, if you’re lucky, someone’ll come along that’ll mean more to you than anything, or anyone.’

  She hadn’t expected to be the one under fire, but now her thoughts returned to Bill. Would she give everything up for him? Peggy’s look sharpened.

  ‘What about that feller you was seeing, at Garner’s?’ May felt suddenly like a German plane caught in a searchlight beam.

  ‘We lost touch.’ And to hide her confusion, she took a sip of the cooling, bitter chicory that pretended to be coffee.

  ‘Well, the way he was looking at you that day I met him, I’d say you’ve already let your someone special slip right through your fingers.’

  ‘I’ve got no way of finding him.’

  ‘Too scared to, more like.’

  ‘We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you and the mess you’re in,’ May said, feeling too exposed for comfort now.

  ‘Listen, May, I’ve made some bloody bad choices in my life, and I daresay I’ll make a lot more, but at least now I know that if you find someone who makes you happy, you bloody well hold on to them. For me it’s Harry, and if you think it’s Bill for you – then get out there and find him!’

  14

  No Taste in Nothing

  Summer 1941

  She really should say goodbye to Granny Byron before she left. She had spent most of her leave with her mother, trying to lure her back into some life which didn’t centre around sleeping at London Bridge Station. She’d been unable to persuade her to sleep at home, but it did seem that her mother was making more effort to get out of bed in the morning now that May was home. Her father had told her that Mrs Lloyd sometimes stayed in bed all day, until it was time to queue at London Bridge.

  But one morning, after the bombs of the previous night had been particularly vicious, she emerged from the shelter to the sight of smoke spewing in heavy plumes from the direction of the river, and the occasional spout of flame stoking the sky with lurid light. May’s first thought was for her mother – she hadn’t come home.

  Her father was still out on ARP duties and she could only imagine what devastation lay between here and London Bridge. She couldn’t bear the thought of her mother battling home on her own, so she dressed hurriedly and set off to find her. She shuddered as she walked under John Bull Arch. She could never now pass beneath any of the railway arches bisecting Bermondsey without a shiver of fear. All the bombed arches – John Bull, Joiner Street, Stainer Street, Druid Street – were like a litany of destruction. She broke into a trot. No thunder of trains echoed overhead, only a sepulchral silence filled the vault. Perhaps the railway viaduct had been hit, further up or down the line; please God, she prayed, not another arch.

  As she emerged from the tunnel into the light, she heard the toot of a car horn, then someone calling her name. It was her father, leaning out of the window of an ARP van, which came to a halt beside her.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked, worry lines creasing his forehead. ‘When you wasn’t at home, I thought something had happened to you!’

  ‘You shouldn’t have worried… you know what sort of bird I am!’ She smiled crookedly.

  He raised his eyes. ‘I know, I know. I was worried about Mum. But I’m needed over at the docks – there’s a big one gone off down there last night. She’s probably all right, but can you go up London Bridge, and turf her out of there?’

  ‘That’s where I was going!’

  Her father’s grey face revealed more worry than his words did.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll find her.’

  ‘Get in then, we’ll give you a lift as far as Dockhead.’

  She got into the back of the van, making a space amongst the spades, buckets of sand and stirrup pumps. It was a short, uncomfortable ride to Dockhead, where the air was thick with acrid smoke, and she choked as it caught in her throat. ‘Bye, Dad!’ she croaked, jumping out of the van and putting a scarf to her face before waving him off.

  From Dockhead she walked to London Bridge, skirting a little lake that had formed above a burst water main. Just a few streets away was where she and Bill had found little Jack, and she wanted to turn aside, to see what was left of the place, but instead she hurried on and was soon making her way against the tide of commuters coming out of the station.

  She went down to the Tube, passing a few shelterers still wrapped in their blankets on the stairs. Those too late to find a place on a platform would use escalators and staircases for their beds instead. She picked her way down through the central space they’d left, checking each face. But her mother was not among them. Down and down, she went, to the Northern Line platform.

  The trains had begun to run, and a blast of warm air blew up from the tunnel entrance as one pulled in. Commuters stepped off and over the sleeping bodies, without a second look. May was amazed at the number of people still asleep on the platform. She wrinkled her nose as the smell hit her, an unsavoury mix of unwashed bodies, damp blankets, urine and fear. Compared to this, their Anderson shelter was luxury, and she wondered how her mother stood it. But May could only think that this, the deepest of all the Tube lines, with the weight of all that London clay above them, was the only thing that could appease her mother’s terror.

  As she walked the length of the platform, more and more people began gathering up their cases and blankets, and retrieving their coats and hats, which were hanging from any available hook. She walked against the tide of shelterers trudging back up to the surface. It wasn’t until she neared the tunnel mouth that she found her mother, sitting on her blanket, knitting.

  ‘Mum? Ain’t you coming home?’

  At first Mrs Lloyd didn’t look up, but kept on knitting till she reached the end of the row. She turned her knitting round and only then looked up, with watery, dark-ringed eyes.

  ‘Oh hello, love!’ Her voice was a whisper, and she bent her head almost immediately, carrying on with the knitting as though May wasn’t there. Her case was close by and May sat on it, noticing the carefully spread newspaper beneath her mother’s blanket. But still, dirt and oily fluff balls had blown in from the tunnel mouth, a fact that her houseproud mother seemed oblivious of.

  ‘It’s time to come home, Mum, Dad’s been worried.’

  Mrs Lloyd shook her head and May noticed that her hair was now almost entirely grey. She’d had such beautiful, glossy dark hair; the shine, she swore, was down to Sarson’s vinegar, the secret ingredient in the rinsing water.

  ‘I think I’ll stay here, love.’

  ‘Mum! What are you talking about? You can’t stay here all day!’

  Mrs Lloyd turned her knitting again and looked into her daughter’s eyes. ‘No, May. I don’t want to go out there.’

  And May realized that grief and naked fear of the relentless, pounding bombs had finally transformed her sturdy, rock-like mother, pulverizing the strength at her core, till all that remained was a fine and insubstantial sand.

  She began to panic. What if she couldn’t persuade her to go to the surface; what if her mother really did intend to live down here. She glanced down the platform and spotted a little tea stall, with the familiar green-uniformed WVS la
dies serving drinks to shelterers and commuters alike.

  ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea, Mum?’

  ‘Oh yes, love, if you’re making one.’

  ‘Yes, I’m making one,’ May said gently.

  She got up and as she was walking to the stall a woman stopped her. Rolling up her bedding, she said, ‘You her daughter? She shouldn’t be down here on her own.’

  ‘I know. She says it’s the only place she can sleep,’ May explained.

  ‘Well, she’s had no sleep last night. Every time I wakes up there she is, clacking away with her knitting, wants to tell me all about her son, coming home from the army.’

  ‘Sorry she kept you awake,’ May said, grieving for her poor, broken mother.

  ‘Oh don’t worry, love, none of us sleeps much these days, do we?’ The woman smiled cheerfully.

  At the tea stall, May bought two teas and a bun, and explained to the green-uniformed volunteer the problem with her mother.

  ‘She just won’t leave, but if you could come up in about five minutes and say you’ve got to clear the station, I think she’ll listen to you.’

  Mrs Lloyd had always been in awe of anyone in authority, eager to do as she was told, apart, of course, from the odd misdemeanour involving George Flint’s knocked-off stuff. May knew that anyone in uniform would impress her.

  They sipped the hot tea and her mother seemed to rally. ‘Oh, did you get that rabbit?’

  May’s hand flew to her face. She’d been charged with getting rabbit from the butcher’s in the Blue.

  ‘The rabbit! It’s been out on the side all night. I had to run to the shelter and leave it. Do you think it’ll still be all right?’