Churchill’s Angels (6 page)

‘Lawks a’ mercy, Daisy Petrie. ’Course she hasn’t gone and died. Megan’s a … well, she’s not the best sister in the world but even she would know. Now, my girl, you need to take yourself off dancing with Rose and her friends. She meets lots of nice lads in the factory and at the Palais. Doesn’t mean you’ve promised to marry a chap if you dance with him, love, and you used to enjoy the dancing. Why don’t you go with them next Saturday, take Grace along too? Be good for her.’

Daisy stood up. ‘Can’t seem to think about anything but the war, Mum, and I can’t take Grace if I can’t find her. I’m going to pop round to the theatre, see if I can have a word with Sally. Maybe she’s heard something. Seems I’ve seen hardly anything of her since the theatre company took her in to train and it’d be ever so exciting to see backstage.’

Mother and daughter looked towards the door as they heard the bell and breathed a collective breath of relief as Bernie Jones entered.

‘Morning, ladies, you got a bumper crop today: one each, and some nasty ones I’ll put over here for Fred.’

They both laughed at this old joke, offered Bernie tea, which he declined, and turned to their letters.

For a few moments the only sound in the room was the tearing open of envelopes.

‘It’s from Phil, first from ’is ship. Imagine, Daisy, a letter from a ship.’

Daisy said nothing but continued to stare at the page torn from a jotter, on which her letter was written. She read it again and again, turned it over and looked at the blank back as if somehow, somewhere on that empty space, there was a message that would explain it. Nothing. She turned it over and read it again.

Dear Daisy,

I’ve gone and joined the Women’s Land Army. I don’t know where I’ll be sent but right now I’m here in Kent, but that’s just for learning and when I get sent to a permanent farm I’ll let you know and Sally, and maybe you’ll write to me. We’ll have proper tools for digging and such and I’ll learn lots and growing our own food is really important. I got a uniform, Daze, and everything from the skin out brand new.

Tell your mum and Sally’s mum thank you and sorry to have left like this but I just had to.

Grace

P.S. Tell your mum and Sally’s I’ll write when I get nice paper and if you write to me and please, please do, will you tell me if Sally’s an actress yet?

‘Are you all right, Daisy? You’ve gone all funny.’ Flora was looking at her daughter, her eyes full of concern. ‘It’s not bad news, is it?’

‘Some friend I am.’ Daisy handed her mother the letter.

‘Poor Grace. Now, did that trollop of a sister know she was gone when you went over there? Well, just in case she didn’t, we won’t tell her either, Daze. Let her stew a little – do ’er the world of good.’

‘Why didn’t she put an address on it? She asked me to write and she hasn’t put an address. Did she never have anything in her life that was new, Mum? And she paid her share of Sally’s costume. Why didn’t I help her?’

Flora pulled Daisy into the alcove and sat her down on one of the rickety chairs. ‘Pull yourself together, our Daisy, and think. Of course you helped her. She wrote to you, didn’t she, not to anybody else? And she had new things; me and your dad and Sally’s mum and dad, we gave her something new every Christmas, even if I made it myself. I want you to put on your outside clothes and go over to the picture house and tell the Brewers because they’re worried too. Grace will write when she’s ready, when she’s got used to her new life.’

‘She was happy in her little garden, Mum.’

‘Then think of the fun she’ll have in a blooming great field. In the meantime, there’s work needs doing here so you can pop round the Brewers when the shop closes. Days are getting longer and so you can run down to the theatre if Sally’s not at home.’

Daisy gave in gracefully. ‘All right. What needs doing?’

‘Be a good girl and fetch in a carton of the Bonn’s digestive biscuits. They’re a good seller and there’s only one or two packets left. And I think there’s a roll of nice, yellow Lancaster cloth somewhere in there. Your dad was just after saying the shelves need a bit of brightening along of our spirits.’

Those two jobs, plus attending to customers who always came into the shop late in the afternoon in the hope that something perishable had been marked down, kept Daisy busy. Two boys in particular worried her. The older one tried always to seem tough but Daisy felt it was all a pose. When she could, she slipped something extra into their bag, earning a look of scorn from the older boy and a dazzling smile from the younger one.

As soon as her father had locked the shop door she hung up her apron, rushed upstairs to wash, and changed her shop overall for a smart lightly fitted blue wool skirt and a round-necked striped blue and white short-sleeved woollen jumper.

‘I won’t be late back,’ she called to her parents, and hurried out.

She was prepared to find the house in darkness as Sally’s parents were usually in the picture house. She was therefore delighted to see a light on in the Brewers’ front room.

Sally herself, looking as if she was dressed for a special meeting, opened the door and was equally thrilled to see her friend. ‘How terrif, Daisy. Mum and Dad are at work but I have lines to learn. We’ll have a cuppa and you can hear them for me. It’ll be like old times. Remember doing our homework together in primary school?’

Daisy nodded. ‘Yes, Sally, and I’ll be thrilled to listen to your lines, but I’ve got a letter here I need to show you.’

‘Sounds scary, Daisy. Who’s it from?’ She was leading the way into the kitchen. ‘Sit down and tell me.’

Daisy handed the letter to Sally.

Sally stood quietly beside the table and read the letter. Daisy was not surprised when Sally, the great dramatic star of stage and screen, started to cry. ‘Oh, Daisy, poor, poor Grace. She must have been so miserable and we didn’t notice.’

Sally, a much loved and, to be honest, somewhat indulged only child, was not given much to introspection. She had accepted some responsibility for Grace because the twins had accepted her, and they always did things together, but she had not really thought about what it must be like to live, an unwelcome guest, in a home without love.

Daisy, a member of a large loving family whose creed could have been ‘we are responsible for those less well off than ourselves’ knew what Sally was feeling and gave her a quick hug.

‘You’re right, we didn’t realise how miserable she was, but we did know her life wasn’t happy. How could it be – living with that horrible, selfish sister? And, look, she loves our mums – and dads too, probably. So, cheer up, we can’t have been too bad. Next time we hear from her we’ll write back to tell her she’s always welcome with us.’

‘We can’t,’ said Sally, pointing dramatically at the letter, ‘unless she tells us her address.’

‘Don’t go looking for trouble,’ Daisy quoted her father. ‘It finds us easy enough.’

‘I have to go,’ she said some time later, after the girls had gone over and over the problem. ‘She’ll write again and she’ll write her address, but we have to be patient and wait till she’s ready. Now you go and learn your lines and we’ll all come and see the play. We’re all looking forward to it.’

A few days later, the
Dartford Chronicle
spread out in front of her, Daisy was totally involved in a report of German aggression all over Europe when she heard the melodic ping of the shop bell. She looked up. A tall fair-haired young man in air force uniform was standing looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

Cigarettes, Daisy decided, and stood up with a friendly smile. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes, if you really know how to take an engine apart, clean it, and put it together again.’

‘Well, if you don’t scrub up well.’ The words came tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them, and Daisy wanted to bite her tongue at this evidence of her lack of sophistication. She just knew that no one had ever spoken to him like that before. Girls from his class weren’t rude.

To her surprise he laughed. ‘So my grandmother used to say.’ He held out his hand. ‘Adair Maxwell.’

Daisy took his hand and the most pleasurable jolt went through her whole body. Why, why, why had she not put on the dark blue real linen dress with the pale blue Peter Pan collar that Mum had found in the market? She blushed furiously but obviously the jolt, or whatever it was, had not been felt by the young man in front of her, and so she managed to stutter, ‘Daisy Petrie.’

‘Who was born with a hammer in her hand, or was it a spanner?’

Had it been one of her brothers or one of the hordes of boys and young men who had been in and out of her home all her life, Daisy would have known how to answer. She would not have been left standing, as she thought, like a raving idiot while a real live pilot stood before her.

He put her out of her misery. ‘I have a twelve-hour pass, drove to the farm, and Alf passed on your extremely generous offer.’

She looked at him. Was this some kind of joke? How was she supposed to respond? ‘You’re welcome, I’m sure’ or, ‘Think nothing of it’? Again she said nothing.

‘Miss Petrie,’ he began, and then he laughed. ‘Your eyes shot open like one of those toys – what do they call them – automatons. I’ll start again. Miss Petrie, Daisy, I am extremely grateful for your offer of assistance with … my plane. Thank you very much.’

Daisy, who was now staring at the floor, said, ‘You’re welcome.’

Adair looked at his watch. ‘Nine hours and twenty-three minutes left, twenty-two, twenty-one.’

‘Stop laughing at me.’

‘Oh, my dear Miss Petrie, I’m not laughing at you, but it’s very difficult to talk to someone who finds the floor so fascinating. Did you mean it? Will you come out with me and have a look at her? Damn, you’ve done your automaton again – and lovely eyes they are too.’

A strange feeling travelled right down Daisy’s spine. She should have worn her new frock. He said she had lovely eyes. Sally had lovely eyes; everyone said so. She gained control of herself. ‘Right now? You want me to come and see the plane right this minute?’

‘Yes, please, my car’s outside.’ He looked again at his watch.

‘I’ll have to find my dad.’

He was startled. ‘You’re perfectly safe with me, Miss Petrie.’

‘Maybe, Mr Adair Maxwell,’ said Daisy, and this time she was laughing, ‘but somebody’s got to mind the shop.’

I’m helping a pilot friend maintain his aircraft …

I am doing war work, as it happens. I’m working on an Aeronca. You don’t know the Aeronca? American, of course, and practically the aircraft that started the entire craze for owning a plane.

Adair had to drop Daisy at the end of the back-street as he was already in grave danger of returning late to base, an unpardonable offence in the military. She walked slowly down the dark length of the street, feeling the euphoria of the afternoon seeping away, desperately trying to recapture some of it; trying out ways in which she might astound friends and family, and especially her brothers, by telling them about the experience. None of her carefully prepared little remarks would work with her brothers, of course. They would just laugh at her.

She got the fright of her life when she collided with a rather solid form.

‘Look where you’re going, young Daisy. You almost had me on my backside. What are you doing out by yourself at this time of night in the freezing cold?’

‘Sorry, Mr Griffiths. I was …’ She stopped. ‘I was working on an aircraft’ would not be believed, and besides, might it not be possible that Adair would prefer that the fewer people who knew of the aeroplane’s existence, the better? ‘I’ve been out with a friend. I’m on my way home. Dad’ll be looking out for me.’

Mr Griffiths, their local ARP warden, turned and looked up at the black shape that was the Petrie flat. ‘They better not be showing any lights, my girl. You get on home and tell your young man to see you to your door in future.’

‘Yes, Mr Griffiths,’ said Daisy again.

‘Your young man.’ Heavens. Mr Griffiths actually thought Daisy Petrie had a young man. She laughed. Adair Maxwell was not a ‘young man’. He was much more important than that. He was a pilot.

She carried on to the shop, feeling her way carefully. Not only was it impossible to see any distance at all because of the blackout and the starless sky, but the ground under her feet was very treacherous. She was relieved to put her key into the keyhole and happier still when she slipped inside. Immediately there was the glow of a muffled light from the top of the stairs. Her sister stood there with a candle.

‘Mum and Dad are in bed, too cold to stay up,’ she explained quietly as Daisy climbed the stairs. ‘We’re out of coal. Was it fun? Have you had a fantastic time? Did you get to sit in it, the plane? Come on in the kitchen and we’ll have some cocoa, and there’s a sausage and some mashed potatoes left if you didn’t have your tea. Crikey, look at your nails,’ she went on as they sat down in the kitchen. ‘No one’s going to want to buy butter from you tomorrow, Daisy Petrie.’

Daisy was tired and somehow too deflated to talk. She sat quietly, watching Rose prepare the cocoa.

‘Want the sausage, Daze?’

‘No, thanks. Nancy made us coffee and we had a big slice of what she called a game pie, whatever that is. It were …’ she began and then corrected herself, ‘… it was delicious.’ Daisy smiled quietly. She was learning more than just how to maintain a plane.

‘Come on, tell us all.’

‘We drove out to The Old Manor and—’

‘Tell me about the car and about him, this pilot person.’

‘I won’t be able to tell you anything if you don’t stop interrupting.’

Rose carefully undid a curl, rearranged it and pinned it down securely with a kirby grip before picking up the cold sausage. She began to eat it and so Daisy talked. She remembered little about the motorcar, having been too aware of Adair Maxwell to concentrate, but she described the little aircraft in detail, enumerating all its parts and telling Rose just what its owner thought needed to be done in order for it to be offered to the Royal Air Force.

‘Doesn’t seem to be too much, Daisy. Not too different from a lorry.’