Avalanche of Daisies (16 page)

But Sis didn't say no, the way she expected. Instead she plodded on as though she was deep in thought.

‘I do miss him,' Barbara confessed.

‘'Course you do, duck,' Sis said comfortably. ‘That's natural.'

In the darkness it was possible for Barbara to say things she wouldn't have dared in the light. ‘I wish he weren't in the army. I know he had no choice but I wish he weren't.'

‘I felt the same way about my Percy,' Sis told her. ‘Re'glar army he was. He never had much of a choice neither, poor bugger. He was out a' work fer two an' a half years. Signed on in '32. Seven years in the colours, five in the reserve. An' then this lot come along an' buggered everything up an' they packed him off to France an' that was that. Thirty-seven he was. He'd've been forty-one last week.'

‘I know what happened to him,' Barbara said, tingling with sympathy and foreboding. Wasn't that just what she was afraid of? ‘Steve told me. I'm ever so sorry.'

‘War, you see,' Sis said. ‘Don't give none of us a chance. We just have to put up with it. I'll tell you what though, gel, once we've won, we'll make damn sure it don't happen again.'

‘That's what Steve said,' Barbara remembered.

‘He would,' Sis nodded. ‘He's a good lad.'

‘Yes.'

She sounded so bleak that Sis felt compelled to cheer her up and she did it in the best way she knew. ‘It'll all be different after the war,' she said. ‘We'll have full employment for a start. That's the answer. A proper job a' work for everyone. No more hangin' about street corners with nothin' to do. No more idleness. Mr Beveridge hit the nail right on the head about that. He
said it
destroys wealth and corrupts men.
One a' the five giants, he called it.'

Barbara didn't know what she was talking about and she was missing Steve so much she couldn't listen with any attention. The words flowed over her, ‘Five giants. Giant Idleness. Giant Want. Giant Disease. Giant Squalor. Giant Ignorance … if we want a better world when we've put a stop to Herr Bloody Hitler, we're gonna have to fight the lot of 'em … You read it, have yer?'

The question was so direct it had to be answered. ‘What?'

‘The Beveridge Plan.'

‘No,' Barbara admitted. ‘I haven't. Should I have?'

‘It's Steve's Bible. There's a copy on his bookshelf.'

They'd reached the corner of Childeric Road and paused to smile at one another in the torchlight. ‘Well look after yourself, kid,' Sis said.

‘I will.'

‘Tell you what,' Sis said after a pause for thought, ‘I could get you a job an' all, if you like.'

There was just enough light for Barbara to see the gleam of her brown eyes. ‘Thass ever so kind,' she said, ‘but I shan't be here long enough.'

‘No,' Sis agreed, but her voice sounded vague. ‘Well bear it in mind. Just in case it don't work out the way you've planned. Let me know when you get your letter. I'm easy to find. I'm in the booking office most days, New Cross Gate. An' if I'm not there, I live over Green's the newsagent's. Just up the top a' the road. You can't miss it.'

Barbara wasn't sure whether she was supposed to kiss her goodbye or not, but decided to risk it. And was quite pleased to be kissed in return.

Sis shone her torch onto the face of her watch. ‘It's three minutes to ten,' she said and grinned. ‘You'd better look sharp or she'll lock you out. Hope you get your letter all right.'

It arrived, as promised, first thing on Monday morning, just as Bob was leaving for work. And it crushed them all.

This won't be much of a letter because I can't tell you where I am or what I'm doing. The camp is sealed which means that all mail is being censored and that there will be no further leave so there is no point in looking for a flat. This is just to let you know I've arrived and to send you all my love. Stay where you are. Mum and Dad will look after you. I will write to them tomorrow but warn them not to expect any news. We are very busy here, waterproofing our vehicles. A damn sight too busy. Still at least it keeps us occupied. Write soon. I miss you more than I can tell you.

All my love.

‘The invasion's coming, ain't it?' Barbara said. There was such a pain in her chest she could hardly breathe. ‘
No further leave … waterproofing our vehicles.'
It could be any time. Oh dear God, any time. But not yet. Please not yet. Let me see him once more before he goes.

For a second, watching her daughter-in-law's smitten face, Heather felt sorry for her, but then that chin went up and she put on that awful bold expression and her compassion melted away. ‘Yes,' she said, distress making her brusque. ‘It is.'

‘Write an' tell him not to worry,' Bob suggested, offering what comfort he could. ‘Tell him you'll be all right with us.'

Barbara was still looking at the letter. And she was remembering what Sis had said to her. ‘
Just in case it don't work out the way you've planned
.' She knew this was going to happen, she thought. She was warning me, offering me something to do if I had to stay here. Thass why she told the girls to take me round the shops. And
fixed for us to have tea with Betty afterwards. She knew.

‘What'll you do now?' Heather asked. With a bit of luck she might go back to King's Lynn.

There was no doubt about the answer to that. ‘I shall get a job. I can't sit around all day doing nothing. I'd be better occupied.'

They were both surprised but Bob approved at once. ‘That's the ticket,' he smiled. ‘Don't you think so, Heather?'

‘Very sensible,' Heather said, but she was thinking, if she gets a job here we're stuck with her, and that didn't please her at all. ‘Ah well,' she said. ‘I suppose we'd better get that boiler lit. We got the washing to do, an' I'm back at work tomorrow.'

That afternoon, when the washing was on the line, the flat was dank with steam and the bathroom walls were still dripping water, Barbara put on her cardigan and walked out into the summer sunshine and down to New Cross station with Steve's letter in her pocket.

Aunt Sis was in the booking office, where she'd said she would be, busy at the window with her rack of tickets behind her. She read the letter between serving passengers and gave it back with a rueful expression on her round face.

‘You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?' Barbara said.

Sis nodded. ‘I had a rough idea, duck. Yes, sir? Single to Crystal Palace.'

She was so calm about it that Barbara found it was possible to ask her the awful question, the one that had been filling her mind ever since the letter arrived. ‘How long will it be before they …?'

The answer was honest. ‘Not long, I shouldn't think. It'll depend on the tides. Day or two. Week at the most. What will you do? Stay here or go back to Lynn?'

They had to wait until another passenger had bought his ticket before Barbara could answer. ‘Stay here. You said you could get me a job.'

The understanding between them was quick and easy. ‘That's right,' Sis agreed. ‘What sort a' job d'you want?'

Barbara had considered that on the way to the station. ‘Demandin',' she said.

‘How about being a clippie?'

‘What's that?'

‘Tram conductor. It's the sort a' thing I do, only you'll be on the move. Yes, madam? Return and two halves to London Bridge.'

Barbara stood aside to allow the woman to buy her tickets and watched as her two boys kicked one another while her back was turned. ‘Yes,' she said when they'd taken their quarrel down to the platform, ‘sounds just the thing.'

‘I'll call for you after work,' Sis said, ‘an' we'll go an' see old Charlie Threlfall. He's the feller. Good union man our Charlie. Seven sharp.'

Old Charlie Threlfall worked in the New Cross Road tram depot, which was a large square vaulted building hidden behind the shops on the south side of the High Street. Trams buzzed busily in and out through an unobtrusive entrance but inside they stood in line on rows of parallel rails, patient and empty like liners in dry dock. Barbara liked the place on sight. It was important and dependable and very busy. There were drivers and clippies everywhere she looked, all in navy-blue uniforms, the drivers wearing enormous leather gloves, the clippies with wooden ticket racks full of coloured tickets slung across their chests like a row of campaign medals. If I can work here, she thought, I shall be kept too busy to sit around an' mope.

Mr Threlfall was short and stout and walked with an odd bouncing gait like an Indiarubber ball. He was checking in the latest arrivals, carrying a clipboard in his left hand and a pencil in his right, but he waved when he saw Sis and called out that he'd be with her in a minute.

‘Brought you a new clippie,' Sis called, when he came bouncing across the yard to them. ‘If you still need one.'

He tucked his pencil between his cap and his ear. ‘Still need two, as a matter a' fact,' he said, and then turned at once to his new applicant. ‘Done much a' this sort a' work have you?'

‘No,' Barbara had to admit. ‘Afraid I haven't.'

‘She's from Norfolk,' Sis said. ‘Married our Steve.'

Now he'll notice my accent and think I'm a country bumpkin, Barbara thought, and she wished her new aunt didn't have to be quite so outspoken.

Mr Threlfall smoothed his greying moustache thoughtfully, right side, left side. ‘Need a bit a' training then,' he said. And before she could open her mouth to point out that she was quite prepared for it, he asked, ‘When could you start?'

It was all so quick. ‘Tomorrow,' she told him, covering her surprise by boldness.

The boldness pleased him. ‘Capital,' he said. ‘You can follow Mrs Phipps around for a day or two. See how you get on. She'll show you the ropes. There's nothin' to it really, once you get to know the fare stages. You'll soon get the 'ang of it.'

They're all so quick and confident here, Barbara thought, watching as two trams buzzed out into the evening sun, one after the other. And she made up her mind that that was how she would be too.

But the next day, when she reported for duty, she felt very far from confident although she put on a brave face. It seemed to her, as she stood beside the office waiting to be given her orders, that she was the only person in that vast place who didn't know what she was supposed to be doing, and her ignorance made her feel insignificant and small, as though she'd shrunk to half her size. But she'd made her decision and she'd manage, somehow or other. No matter what she might be feeling, there was no doubt about that.

Mrs Phipps turned out to be a small, skinny woman in her forties who brisked out of the office and told her that she'd soon pick things up, which was reassuring, and to come this way, which was aboard the third tram along. But it was a bewildering ride, for she assumed that Barbara knew the fare stages because she lived in the area, and she did everything so quickly it was hard
to keep up with her. I'll need a map, Barbara thought, as she followed her mentor about. But she could hardly keep looking at a map when she was supposed to be punching tickets. And as the journey continued, she was alarmed by how many passengers asked for directions and wanted to be told when they'd reached their stop. Mrs Phipps knew every stop and every street and could give directions and sell tickets at the same time. But how would she manage to do it?

That night she wrote a long letter to Steve. A long careful letter, for she'd decided not to let him know how nervous she'd been. That would only worry him and she'd soon get over it. So she told him that she'd started the job and learnt how to clip the tickets and that she was feeling quite at home on her great rocking vehicle. ‘
That's like a ship at sea,'
she wrote, ‘
the way that moves. Good job I come of a family of fishermen and I don't get sea-sick!'

She was pleased and gratified when he wrote back by return of post to tell her he approved and to say how proud of her he was.

I knew you'd settle in. Let me know how you get on. I can't tell you anything about what's going on here. There are guards on the gates and the censor reads every letter. They've even sealed up the telephones, not that that makes any difference to you and me. Non-stop drill, pep-talk yesterday, another one this afternoon. Keep your letters coming.

So she kept them coming as her training continued – for two more bewildering days, which she spent trying to memorise the fare stages and calling them out whenever she was sure she knew them. On Thursday evening, as Mr Threlfall seemed satisfied with her progress, she was given a uniform, kitted out with a clipper and her own rack of tickets, and told that she
was to report for duty the next morning ready to join a driver called Mr Tinker and to take a tram out on her own. It was quite a triumph. That night she wrote to Steve
and
Becky to tell them how well she was getting on.

And even though her first day was horribly difficult, it wasn't as bad as she'd expected because her passengers were kind and made a joke of her mistakes. They showed her where to clip the tickets when she wasn't sure, and called out the stops for her when she hesitated, and generally turned the whole thing into a sort of pantomime. ‘Big place, London,' one old woman said to her. ‘Don't you worry, duck. You'll soon get the 'ang of it.'

By the end of her shift she was very tired and on Saturday morning she overslept and was late for breakfast, which annoyed her mother-in-law.

‘Just as well you haven't got to go in this morning,' she said, rather acidly, ‘or you'd have missed your shift.'

Barbara didn't know how to answer without appearing rude, but luckily, at that moment there was a ring at the doorbell which took her disapproving in-law downstairs.