Christmas Past (7 page)

Mary felt the blood rush to her face.

‘I’ve been in service and I’m seventeen. I’m here because there’s a war on, but if you don’t want me then I’ll be going.’ She turned on her heel
and reached the door.

‘Here, hold yer horses. Come back here. Don’t yer know it’s Monday morning, and I’m not in the best of moods on a Monday. Anyway, yer look like a lass with a bit of
spirit, and we can do with a few like you. Did yer have owt in mind? I mean, do you know anyone who works here?’

‘I know Bessie and Lucy Downing in the spring shop.’

‘Oh, well, if yer pull yer weight like those two yer’ll not go far wrong.’ He reached out and opened a book, scanning the pages. ‘Hmm, I don’t know about the spring
shop – set a bunch on only last week. We’re desperate in the strip department, though. I’ll give yer a try in there.’

He wrote something on a card and asked her name and address, raising an eyebrow when she mentioned Moorland House. ‘Take this to the strip across the lines, third door on the left, and
watch the loco’s.’

When Mary found the place she opened the door to a dazzle of artificial light, the smell of paraffin and the noise of at least a dozen slitting machines all working at once. A young lad whistled
at her even though she felt like a frump in the brown melton trousers and overall which showed inches below her coat. Another man in a brown overall came and took the card, beckoning for her to
follow him. She walked up the aisle between the machines until he stopped and spoke to a woman quite a bit older than Mary.

‘Yer’ve got a new mate, Madge,’ he said. ‘Show her how to go on, will yer, an’ fit her up with an apron and some gloves.’

Madge showed Mary where the stores were and Mary went in search of gloves and an apron which seemed to be made of cardboard rather than cloth. She returned to the bench in front of one of the
machines and Madge explained how it worked.

‘What’s yer name, love?’ she asked.

‘Mary O’Connor.’

‘Right then, I’m the pairer, you’re the packer. I cut the coil into strips and your job is to lift the coiled strips off the machine and secure them with pieces of flat band
ready for the inspector,’ Madge said, demonstrating as she spoke. ‘Then they’ll be taken to the warehouse. All right? Now you have a go.’

Mary lifted the next coil off the machine and began to spin it to remove the centre.

‘Now then.’ Madge put out a hand. ‘Never do that without gloves or you’ll cut your hands to smithereens.’

Mary donned her gloves and had another go, fastening up the coil with flat band.

‘Good,’ said Madge. ‘Now see how fast you can do it. More tonnage we get out, more money we take home on a Friday.’

Mary liked Madge. Not only did she work with her, helping her to pack, but she explained what the different-sized coils were to be used for. Most of them would go through to the spring shop;
some would be made into razor blades and watch springs but most would end up as cartridge clips for machine guns.

‘It was mainly umbrella strip before the war started,’ Madge explained. ‘Now I suppose the poor buggers’ll just have to get wet.’ Mary smiled, grateful to have
found a mate like Madge.

At one o’clock Madge asked, ‘Did you bring some snap?’

Mary looked at her blankly.

‘Sandwiches. Snap,’ Madge said.

‘Oh, yes. On the table with my coat.’

‘We’ll find a locker for you tomorrow to put them in.’

Suddenly the buzzer went and everybody downed tools and made for the end of the mill.

‘Bring your snap,’ Madge said.

They all went into a room which Madge said was the canteen. Pots of tea stood on a metal table and everybody grabbed one and found a chair.

‘Have you a spare pot, Doris?’ Madge enquired of a small plump woman. ‘We’ve a new lass here.’

Doris produced a huge pint pot and slammed it in front of Mary. ‘Here you are, love. Pay on Friday when yer get yer money.’

The tea was strong and delicious and Mary enjoyed listening to the chat of the girls and a couple of young lads.

After snap time she quite enjoyed her new job, but she didn’t know how she was going to pedal her bike up those hills after standing for an eight-hour shift.

The first week Mary wanted nothing on her return from work other than a hot meal and bed, and she thought she would never become accustomed to the long daily routine. But
gradually she found the energy to resume some of the household tasks, insisting on doing the washing on a Saturday instead of the usual Monday. Gladys quite enjoyed pampering Mary by preparing a
lovely hot meal on her arrival home in the evening, relieved to see her back to her normal cheerful self.

By the end of the second week Mary had got to know all the slitting shop girls by name, and some of the mill men as well. She had also discovered that Madge wasn’t only money-mad but
man-mad too. If she was to be believed she had been with quite a few of the mill men, regardless of whether they were married or single.

‘I could tell you stories that’d make yer hair curl, if it wasn’t curly already,’ she said proudly.

‘I don’t doubt it.’ Mary laughed.

Madge also tried to draw Mary into telling her if she had had any sexual experiences herself, but Mary simply kept quiet, though she did ask once, ‘Is that all you can talk about? I think
you’re manmad. No wonder they call you the merry widow.’

‘Jealousy, love, that’s all it is. Take that Doris on the oiling machine. Never had a man in her life, wouldn’t know what to do with one if she got chance, so she simply makes
out she doesn’t want one. No, lass, you’re only young once; enjoy yerself while yer can, that’s what I say. Mind you, when my Walt was alive it was a different matter.’

Madge’s face clouded over for a second and suddenly Mary realised that the brittle exterior was actually a sham to disguise the sadness at the loss of her husband. After a moment Madge
continued, once more her cheerful self. ‘Now, when my Walt was alive I would never have looked at another man – never needed to. A lovelier man you couldn’t wish to meet, nor a
better one in bed. Still, you can’t bring them back, and if you do right by them while they’re here you’ve nothing to reproach yourself for when they’ve gone, that’s
what my mother told me after he’d died, and nobody can say I didn’t do right by Walt. Never left his side at the end only to wash the dirty linen, and though I say it myself his bed was
kept spotless. I was right relieved when he finally went, poor soul, nothing but skin and bone. They wouldn’t let a dog suffer like he did. They’d have had it put down. Oh, well, you
can’t live in the past. Like I said, enjoy yerself while you’re young, love.’

Mary thought she was lucky to be working with Madge, but the other girls didn’t like it when they earned more bonus than anyone else in the shop, and Mary soon realised that she would have
to work full tilt to keep up with her mate. Instead of using the small portable crane which had to be brought from one machine to the other, Mary felt obliged to lift the heavy coils manually in
order to work at twice the speed. She soon got the knack of supporting the weight on her stomach and swinging the coils from machine to bench, though it was heavy work and according to the other
girls it was against the rules. Madge told her to use the crane if any of the bosses were about and they’d be all right.

It was during the third week on her new job that Mary made friends with one of the other packers, a girl named Theresa Murphy, who invited Mary to go with her to the Saturday night dance in
Millington. Although she was tempted, she declined on the grounds of not being able to get home, knowing she wouldn’t enjoy it without Tom anyway.

‘You could stay at our house. My mother won’t mind, and you could go to church with us on Sunday morning before you went home.’

‘Got to go in the sin bin to confess after Saturday night, have yer?’ Madge laughed.

‘Don’t class everybody with yerself,’ Theresa retorted, to much laughter.

Mary said she would think about it, but that was as far as it went. She mentioned Theresa’s invitation over dinner on Sunday.

‘You ought to go out more often,’ said Dr Roberts. ‘It would do you good.’

‘It wouldn’t be right, not while Tom’s away. I wouldn’t mind going to church, though. It isn’t the same at the convent, which is why I don’t go very
often.’

‘Then go you shall. I shall take you over in the car next week. A visit to my friend Ernest is long overdue. I need some sheet music for the choir, though when we’ll get round to
practising I don’t know, since they’re all occupied with this home guard business at present. I know we ought to be grateful, but I’ll be darned if I can see the need for it out
here. So you arrange it with your friend, and I’ll visit Ernest and pick you up when the service is over.’

St Catherine’s was packed to capacity. Nowhere near as large as the Protestant church which dominated the main street, St Catherine’s was situated halfway up the
hill. Theresa’s large and friendly family accepted Mary into their midst and made her promise to stay to lunch next time. Mary felt at home immediately in the church, though she left feeling
more sinful than ever, having shirked confessing what she privately thought of as the Christmas sin.

Dr Roberts had a brainwave on the way home. ‘You can learn to drive the car and then I can lend it to you on a Sunday. That way you won’t be so tied, and what’s more you can go
into Sheffield with Gladys on a Saturday. She needs to get out more and I must confess I’m really not up to town driving.’

‘You’re surely not serious?’ said Mary. ‘Why, I don’t know one end of a motor from the other. We’re likely to end up in the reservoir with me behind the
wheel.’

‘If the girls at the ambulance station can drive then so can you. I’m sure you’ve more brains than the giggly lot of them put together, and they’ve taken to the wheel as
though they were born to it.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Well, we’ll see. You can have a go after dinner.’

Mary couldn’t help feeling excited. Tom had once suggested letting her take the wheel but it hadn’t seemed right without the doctor’s permission. The image of Tom warmed her
heart and as always when she thought of him she prayed that he was safe. She suddenly realised that her job had diverted her mind from the desolation and doom that had occupied it after Tom’s
departure, and she was thinking about the future more positively. Suddenly she felt fulfilled. She was doing a worthwhile job, even if it was only cutting steel strips to make cartridge clips.

Mary made up her mind she would learn to drive. After all, how many girls were given a chance like that, especially in wartime? Besides, it would provide a way of paying back the doctor for
everything. She knew how much he hated driving, so now she could take them out at weekends. That was one thing about being a doctor: he was allowed a fair amount of petrol. Another incentive was
the thought of Tom’s face when she picked him up at the station in the car. She would wear her pink satin on that occasion.

Oh, it had done her good to go to church again, even though she hadn’t confessed her Christmas sin.

Robert Scott crumpled up yet another sheet of paper and gave a deep sigh. How the hell was he expected to write a letter of such importance when he was in this state of
physical and mental exhaustion?

He had thought the horror was over once he was picked up on the boat. How bloody wrong could a man be? That had just been the beginning of the nightmare.

The nights were the worst: the cold sweats, the trembling, the palpitations and the churning pain in the region of the solar plexus. Worst of all the constant reliving of the train of events
from the time Tom and he had arrived at Cherbourg. The first week hadn’t been too bad; in fact the only thing to spoil the peace of the farm buildings they had taken residence in had been the
bloody church clock which had struck every quarter-hour day and night. They had laughed then and sung. That was before they moved to Armentiers. It was there that all hell broke loose; things
happened so fast then that they hadn’t known where they were. He picked up the pen once more.

Darlington, June 1940. Dear Mr Downing ...
He paused, head in hands, unable to go on. How the hell could he be expected to write such a letter? They should never have made each other such
a promise. Yet he knew if the boot had been on the other foot Tom would have kept his word and written to Robert’s parents.

He would make it easy for them, distort the truth; in fact it would have to be a bloody great barefaced lie. He began to tremble as another panic attack began.

He covered his ears as he heard once again the sound of Messerschmitts above him, and saw again in his mind’s eye the Hurricane as it came down at what must have been about three hundred
miles an hour. He smelled again the blood of the young pilot, whose head had been completely severed by a piece of propeller blade.

Robert cried out in agony at the memory. He could hear Tom’s voice again, singing as they drove towards the Dunkirk road, trying to shut out the sound of divebombers overhead. He tried
again to write, something to soften the news, but all he could think of was the truck suddenly caught by the Jerries, the shells shooting through the roof within inches of their heads, the
whistling of MG bullets and a hand grenade which seemed to come suddenly from underneath. The panic to abandon truck, only to find themselves prisoners, completely surrounded by tanks and armoured
vehicles, unable to do anything for Tom and Jocky Johnson still trapped inside the blazing truck.

It was the French who had given the prisoners the chance to escape to a nearby ditch, by opening fire on the Jerries. Robert had stayed knee deep in water for what seemed like hours until it was
safe to return to the truck, only to find it completely burned out. He had sheltered, soaked to the skin, in a wood near Dunkirk, watching as sixty or seventy bombers worked at finishing off what
was left of the docks, and then he joined the mass of men thronging the beaches, shuffling slowly forward, carrying injured and dying covered by greatcoats. Shell-shocked men wandered about,
wondering what on earth they were doing there; others, dispirited by the surrender of the Belgians, marched half asleep, following the crowd.