East End Angel (11 page)

Pearl shook her head. ‘Course not. He’d have been upset.’

Her mother smiled. ‘You did the right thing.’

Just as Pearl was about to say that she was always trying to do the right thing where her mother-in-law was concerned, but it hadn’t got her very far, the air-raid warning went.

‘Blimey, it always catches you out unexpected,’ said her dad, jumping to his feet. ‘You girls, grab your coats and go out to the Anderson. I’ll make a flask of tea whilst Mum finds the blankets and candles.’

‘I’m staying put, Syd,’ said Amy resolutely, adjusting her turban as if it was a helmet. ‘The enemy can do what they will. Under the stairs is cover enough for me. At least it’s warm and we’ve got a lamp in there.’

‘I’m not going in the shelter either,’ said Pearl, looking at Ruby for support. ‘The last time the warning went, me and Jim got under the table. Anyway it might be a false alarm.’

‘Don’t forget July,’ her father pointed out gloomily, ‘when the Co-op wholesale was hit. There was fifty-three people killed around Hill Place and Broomfield Street.’

‘Yes, and it was a shelter in Broomfield Street that caught it,’ Amy reminded him. ‘So thank you very much, love, but the answer is no. I’ve got all me bits and pieces under the stairs, and to my mind it’s just as safe as the Anderson. You girls coming?’

‘No, we’ll go under the table,’ said Ruby nudging Pearl’s arm. ‘Sorry, Dad, but you’re outvoted.’

Syd Jenkins scratched the top his head. His blunt features and pockmarked skin around his cheeks and mouth wrinkled into a grimace. ‘Women. I’ll never understand ’em.’

‘You weren’t meant to, love,’ chuckled Amy, but with the low hum of the bombers, their laughter died. Syd ushered his wife to the cupboard whilst Pearl and Ruby crawled under the table. They pulled the sofa cushions with them, and a tartan rug. Soon even the tassels on the tablecloth shook.

‘Hope Jim’s all right,’ whispered Ruby as she wriggled next to Pearl.

When it all went quiet, Pearl looked at Ruby. ‘Jim told me he apologized for losing his temper at the dance.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘I was worried about you that night.’

‘I just don’t understand what he’s got against Ricky.’

Pearl didn’t want to talk about Ricky. All she had on her mind was Jim. ‘Remember when we used to play under the table?’ she asked Ruby. ‘Me, you and Betty and Janey? We’d tell ghost stories and listen to the grown-ups. They were always gossiping about each other, mostly in whispers, but we could hear everything.’

Ruby giggled. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Course, Aunty Till and Uncle Ted, and Aunty May and Uncle Ron hadn’t moved out to Barking then. We were a big family then.’

‘And now there’s only us.’

‘I miss all that.’

Pearl found herself wishing they were back in the Blitz. Though it had been dangerous, it had also been exciting as Jim saw her every day, and before the war life had been very different.

The moment arrived that Pearl had been dreading. Blackie was coming to meet Jim and they would catch the bus to the station. In the thin, grey light of Saturday morning, Pearl and Jim sat together at the kitchen table. It would be the last cup of tea they would share. As he lowered his cup and slid it away, Pearl knew he had become stronger as the week had gone on. He’d maintained a quiet resolution whilst she had done everything in her power, from tears to tantrums and back again, to stop the hand of fate. Nothing had worked. The war had lured Jim away from her.

‘Now don’t forget our savings,’ Jim told her patiently again, as he had done so many times over the past week. ‘With your wage and my army pay, you should be comfortable.’

‘I know. I know. But it’s not the money.’

‘According to my calculations,’ Jim went on insistently, ‘you should have roughly thirty-six bob each week to cover the rent and electricity. And you won’t have me to feed.’

Pearl smiled. ‘You might even put on weight.’

‘You’ll write, won’t you?’

‘I won’t have much else to do.’

‘And if there’s a raid, go to your mum’s.’

‘Jim, I told you, don’t worry.’

He held her hand. ‘After I’ve left, go back to bed.’

‘How can I sleep without you?’

‘Don’t make me feel bad.’

Pearl traced her thumb over his skin. All the blond hairs sprang up under her touch. How long would she have to wait before she could do this again?

He pushed back the chair. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Please don’t, Jim,’ she begged for the last time. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind.’

‘It is, love. I’ve signed on the dotted line.’

‘We could say you were ill.’

‘Pearly-girl, you ain’t half making this difficult.’

‘Why should I make it easy? They’re taking you away from me and I don’t even know when I’ll see you again.’

He pulled her into his embrace. ‘Stubborn as a mule and all mine.’

He kissed her long and hard whilst her tears ran down between their mouths and she could taste the salt and longing in them. The pain was like a knife in her ribs.

He slung his duffel bag over his shoulder. Then, in the early light, he was out of the door and gone.

From the front window she watched him join Blackie. Step for step, almost as if they were marching, they strode down the road. He didn’t even look back. She knew he didn’t want to see her crying.

Pearl went to work each day, came home again and went to bed each night. She felt like a sleepwalker. She couldn’t eat – food tasted like rubber. She tortured herself with fears, sunk into self-pity. One minute she was angry, the next afraid. And he wasn’t even at war yet.

The bed felt empty without him. For the first two nights she hardly slept. For the third and fourth she managed a few hours. On the fifth night she slept on the couch. In the cold and gloom of the early morning, she felt a slow resignation. She’d fought all she could. Now she had to accept, like millions of other women, that her husband was gone. It wasn’t as though he’d left for ever. It wasn’t as if he was sick and wouldn’t get well. He was only doing his training.

That night, there were no fire-watching duties and she made up a fire. It fizzled once or twice, but finally caught. Suddenly she was hungry. Opening a tin of Spam she ate it, cross-legged by the warmth. As it was Friday she brought in the tub from the landing outside and boiled three saucepans of water. It was shallow but hot. She even washed her hair afterwards.

The following morning, the first Saturday of December, she went to work with make-up. A week had passed since Jim had gone and she had survived.

At work, Moira relayed the news: Japan had refused Roosevelt’s olive branch; the Nazis shot people in Paris as a reprisal for resistance; the temperature in Russia was twenty-seven degrees below freezing.

‘We ain’t doing too bad here, then, are we?’ Pearl said when Moira finally took a breath.

‘Oh, you’re back in the land of the living, are you?’ Moira commented. ‘I was beginning to think you’d lost your voice as well as your husband.’

Pearl managed to smile. ‘At least I have got a husband, Moira, and he ain’t lost. I’m proud to say he’s a soldier and fighting for his country.’

Em nodded. ‘He’s very brave to have gone when he was in a reserved job.’

‘Jim is a man of action,’ Pearl agreed. It was a new feeling to be the wife of a soldier. She was proud in a way she hadn’t been before.

Em sneezed and blew her nose. ‘Think I’ve got a cold.’

‘You want to watch it,’ Moira warned. ‘This weather could bring on the flu. You don’t want to be bad for Christmas.’

Em looked downcast. ‘I don’t want me dad to catch it. There’s lots of germs about.’

Pearl wanted to know if Em’s romance with Colin was still on. But she didn’t want to ask in front of Moira.

When Mr Hedley came in at twelve, he enquired after Jim.

‘I haven’t heard yet, Mr Hedley,’ Pearl answered quietly. ‘But I’m sure he’ll write soon.’

‘Well, give him my best, won’t you? He’s doing a grand job. We’re all very proud of him.’

Once again Pearl felt a glow of pride. So many in the department had asked after him.

On her way home she splashed out. From Gwen she bought dried egg and a tin of corned beef. Both Gwen and Fitz were eager to know of Jim’s progress.

Pearl climbed the stairs and opened the door. She was beginning to get used to being single again. As she did the housework she listened to ‘Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy’ and managed a chorus or two of ‘White Cliffs of Dover’. That afternoon she was going to tea at Roper’s Way. Pearl smiled ruefully to herself. She hadn’t paid a visit to Jim’s mum. But she could always say she’d had a cold. As Em said, there were lots of germs about. And Mrs Nesbitt didn’t like germs.

‘So you’ve heard nothing from Jim?’ asked Ruby as they strolled to the market. They were walking down the aftereffects of their tea.

‘No, nothing.’

‘He’ll have to be careful what he writes. The censor vets every word.’

Pearl shrugged. ‘I only want to hear how much he misses home.’

‘He can’t fill up two pages with that.’

‘Yes, he can. If he doesn’t, he’ll get it in the neck when I see him.’

They laughed as they walked arm in arm. It was a mild December afternoon, with a hazy sun. The winter hadn’t been cold so far, more dull and dreary. Christmas decorations and trees were as rare as bananas. It was a year when the public at large were tightening their belts to the last notch.

‘I’ve heard from Ricky too.’ Ruby smiled dreamily from under her plum-coloured scarf, which she’d wound round her head.

Pearl wished Ruby wouldn’t go on about him. She tried to think of something else to say but Ruby was determined.

‘Even Ricky can’t guess how long the war will last. It could be over in a year. Or four or five. I want what you’ve got, Pearl: a man of my own. And not just any man. One as good as Jim. And I know that man is Ricky.’

If only he was one-tenth the man that Jim was, Pearl thought, but kept quiet. It seemed that being parted from Ricky was making Ruby even more eager to have him. Could love really change a man so much that, in Ricky’s case, he was really serious about Ruby?

‘Let’s go to the clothes stall,’ Pearl said as they came to Cox Street. ‘My astrakhan coat was a real bargain. She might have something nice for Christmas.’

‘You mean you’re not buying new?’

‘No, I’ve got to save.’

‘Some hopes,’ Ruby giggled.

Pearl grinned. ‘I haven’t got Jim to feed and I don’t like me own cooking.’

‘So when Jim comes home he could find a new woman in the kitchen?’

‘As long as it’s me. Look at these passion killers,’ chuckled Pearl as she held up a pair of extremely baggy drawers.

‘They’re enough to put you off having a bit of the other.’ Ruby screwed up her small nose. ‘When Ricky comes home I’m going to buy a pair of silk knickers like you had for your honeymoon.’

Pearl froze where she stood. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. I want to know how to please him. After all, one day he’ll be my husband. And don’t give me that old-fashioned look. This is the nineteen forties, not the fourteen hundreds.’

Pearl was horrified. ‘But you might – you could get pregnant.’

‘It’s a chance I’m willing to take,’ Ruby reasoned calmly. ‘Who knows what could happen? I don’t want to think the worst. But I may not have much time with the man I love.’

Shocked at this turn of events, Pearl wished more than ever that she could speak honestly to her sister, as they had always shared everything, but now Ricky was creating a chasm between them and Pearl was powerless to prevent it.

It was six o’clock on Sunday evening and Jim was lying on his bunk in the Nissen hut. He was trying to compose a letter to Pearl but the words weren’t coming easy. He’d written all sorts to start with. First just ‘Dear Pearl’, then rubbed it out and put ‘My darling’. When he’d reread it, he knew it wasn’t him and settled instead for ‘My dearest Pearl’. Now he’d exchanged that for something with a lighter touch, and begun, ‘Dear Pearly-girl, are you missing me? I’m missing you. The weather isn’t cold here and our digs are comfy and warm. Living with a bunch of blokes is all right, but I’d prefer to be with you. How’s your mum and dad and Ruby? How’s Mum? Tell her to keep her pecker up.’ And that was it, more or less. He wasn’t allowed to say where he was or anything about his training, or the fact that he now knew where he was headed.

He and Blackie had been issued their kit. Blackie had been sent to the armoury, whilst Jim was in engineering. Each day they learned more about the desert. Some were simple things, like survival; making meals of bully beef and dog biscuits, and using protective gear so you didn’t get sunstroke. But the other part, the exciting bit, was the mock-ups of the desert, the minefields, the boulders that had to be shifted to get the tanks through. This was Jim’s line of work, his niche; the hastily built camps, the roads, the drainage and water systems. There was so much to learn about North Africa.

Licking the end of his pencil he added a full stop and a comma to his letter, though unfortunately they didn’t take up much space. Perhaps he’d leave writing till tomorrow when he could think of something else to say.