Women on the Home Front (27 page)

‘Well, if he does let's hope we're better protected than the BEF,' another woman said grimly.

No one challenged her because they had all seen and heard too much to do so, Olive recognised.

It seemed ironic now that she had worried so much that going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais might encourage Tilly to grow up too soon, when over the last four days she had had to grow up so brutally fast with what she was having to witness. Tilly couldn't be protected from the cruel realities of war, though, not when men not much older than she was herself were returning from Dunkirk with the horror of what they had seen and experienced stamped so clearly on them.

On previous occasions Tilly had enjoyed the drive back to the church hall, happy in the knowledge of a job well done, secretly marvelling at her mother's skill and very proud of the fact that she was the driver, but tonight the events of the last few days and what they meant weighed too heavily on her for that. The expressions on the faces of Rick and the young injured soldier refused to be ejected from her memory. Such grimness and pain couldn't be forgotten or dismissed. Tonight she would say a special prayer to add to all her other prayers for the young man she had tended, in the hope that he would live to see his mother.

* * *

News of the British Expeditionary Force's retreat and the desperate efforts to bring home as many of them as was possible might have the rest of the household at number 13 scurrying around and doing their bit, but Dulcie wasn't going to allow it to change any of her plans.

Tonight was Saturday night and she was dancing at the Palais just as she would have been on any other Saturday night – especially since Arlene at work had read out to them all the news of David's marriage with Lydia.

Not that she had ever expected anything else. He had as good as said himself that he had no choice, and it wasn't as though she had ever tried, or wanted to try, to change his mind. She had done what she wanted to do, proved what she had wanted to prove, and that was an end to the matter. If Arlene thought that it meant anything to Dulcie to have his engagement announcement read out to her then she was wrong. Nevertheless, the fact that Arlene had made a point of showing it to her had rubbed against Dulcie's pride, as had the sly, almost knowing look that Arlene had given her when she had made a comment about like always marrying like. Dulcie had longed to tell her that David might have married Lydia but he certainly didn't love her, but she had held her tongue. After all, she hadn't wanted David herself. Not really. Because if she had done then Dulcie knew she would have made sure that she got him, Lydia and marriage or no Lydia and marriage.

Even so, her pride demanded that the girls she worked with now needed to be shown that she could get a beau who was even more handsome than David. She wasn't going to have them gossiping about her behind her back and laughing at her, just because David had paid her a bit of attention. That meant having a new and, of course, adoring beau she could flaunt in front of her work colleagues.

A couple of young Australian soldiers caught her eye, but Dulcie speedily dismissed them. They might be tall but they were also gangly. No, her new beau had to be handsome and stand out as special, someone better-looking than David and more eye-catching. She studied the groups of men clustered close to the bar, but they appeared too ordinary for her purpose.

She looked away and then tensed as a familiar group of Italian men came in. They always hovered on the edge of the dance floor, eyeing up the girls, but those in the know were wary of dancing with them, knowing perfectly well what they were after and that they were all destined at some stage to obey their mothers and marry a girl of their own sort. Tonight, though, there was a man with them whom Dulcie didn't recognise, and she knew she would have done if she had seen him before. For a start he was taller than the others – at least six foot, she reckoned – and broader shouldered too. He even held himself differently, standing tall with his head up, not surveying the dancers surreptitiously but instead focusing on listening to the other man who was talking to him Best of all, though, he was good-looking. Very good-looking, matinée idol good-looking, Dulcie thought with growing satisfaction, and smartly dressed as well. He stood out against the group he was with like a silver coin in a handful of copper, and Dulcie made up her mind there and then that he was ideal for her purpose.

Confidently she got up from her seat at the table, saying over her shoulder to the girl sitting next to her, ‘Save my seat, will you, only I'm just going to the lav.'

Opening her handbag as though in search of a handkerchief, her head down, it was easy for Dulcie to stage manage accidentally bumping into her target and then dropping her handbag in supposed shock.

Of course he would pick it up for her, that was what men did and what Dulcie expected, but what she hadn't expected was that he would also give her a level look from amused brown eyes, as though he knew perfectly well that what had happened was no accident.

Dulcie, though, didn't respond to the knowing gleam in his eyes. Instead she thanked him prettily for helping to collect the powder compact and brush that had fallen from her handbag and then, as they both stood up, Dulcie making sure that she was close enough for him to be aware of the scent she was wearing – a tester she had ‘borrowed' from Selfridges and which she would have to return – before saying in a deliberately husky voice, ‘How kind of you to help me. I don't know what I can do in return, except offer to dance with you. I'm Dulcie, by the way. What's your name?'

No red-blooded man could possibly resist her. Dulcie waited confidently for his delighted response.

But instead he bent his head and told her calmly, ‘Raphael – Raphael Androtti, and I must say, Dulcie, that I'm surprised that an attractive girl like you needs to pull a trick like that in order to get a dancing partner. What was it? A bet with your girlfriends?'

Dulcie was stunned into momentary silence. No man had ever spoken to her like that before. By rights he ought to be falling over his own feet with gratitude, and what did he mean, describing her merely as attractive? She wasn't attractive, she was beautiful.

‘No,' she denied his allegation, telling him crisply – after all, she had nothing to lose now so there was no point in being sugary sweet with him – ‘I don't need to make bets about getting someone to dance with me, especially not one of your sort.'

‘One of my sort? What's that supposed to mean?'

His manner was now as hostile as hers was dismissive.

‘You're Italian,' she told him, not mincing her words. ‘Everyone knows that the only reason Italian men come down here is because they're hoping to get from one of us what they know they'd never get from an Italian girl. That's why no one wants to dance with them.'

‘Except you.'

‘I was just trying to be kind.'

‘How charitable of you, if that were true. But it isn't, is it? I saw the way you looked at me when you were sitting down. You targeted me deliberately. Why?'

‘No, I did not,' Dulcie denied furiously.

The Italian gave an exaggerated sigh that lifted and then lowered his impressively broad chest and then told her very slowly, ‘In Liverpool, where I come from, the only reason a girl drops her handbag in front of a man is because she wants him to notice her, and if you're going to try to convince me that it isn't the same here, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you that I don't believe you.'

‘I don't care what you believe,' Dulcie snapped.

‘But you did want me to dance with you.'

‘No.'

‘So then why the dropped handbag trick?'

He wasn't going to stop questioning her until he'd got the answer he wanted, Dulcie recognised, and the only way she was going to get rid of him was by telling him the truth. That way she could satisfy her own pride by making it clear to him that it wasn't him she was interested in.

‘Someone I work with has recently got married. Her husband – before they were married – was showing a bit too much interest in me, and I thought she'd feel better if she thought I was involved with someone else,' Dulcie lied smoothly.

‘By seeing you dancing with me?'

‘No,' Dulcie corrected him. ‘By coming to Selfridges, which is where I work, on the makeup floor. If you'd danced with me and asked to see me again then I could have suggested that you come into the store.'

‘Funny how wrong you can be about a person,' he told her. ‘Somehow you don't strike me as the kind of girl who puts another girl's feelings before her own.'

‘Well, that just shows what a poor judge of character you are,' Dulcie informed him, before stepping past him and marching back to her chair, her back stiff with disdain.

No one had ever spoken to her as the Italian had done, and now Dulcie was angry with herself for telling him as much as she had done. Still, she'd rather have him knowing the truth, or at least a fictionalised version of it, than have him thinking that she had actually been interested in him as a man. The girls in Liverpool could do what they liked, but at least she'd made clear that in London things were different and that she wasn't in the least bit interested in getting his attention.

At Barts Sally prepared to finish her shift. She had already worked two hours longer than she should have to help with the influx of wounded soldiers. Of the supposedly walking wounded, many had turned out to have far more serious injuries than they had wanted to admit to.

There'd been an awful lot of cleaning of hastily bandaged wounds to do, a lot of removing shrapnel from men who had borne the probing of tweezers with stoic silence, their tears only coming when they spoke in the darkness of the night about fallen comrades and those who had not made it.

Sally was supposed to have been going to the pictures with George Laidlaw after his own shift finished but when they finally met up in the main entrance to the hospital it was so late and they were both so exhausted that they agreed that a cup of tea at Joe Lyons was all they felt up to.

Their friendship had grown over the months. Sally enjoyed George's company and, of course, they had a shared interest in talking ‘shop' and a shared understanding of what it meant to be dealing with young men whose battle scars weren't always only from their physical wounds.

Sally loved her job and the extra responsibility she had been given, but she wouldn't have been human if she hadn't grieved for those boys who came into the theatre and then left it with their lives saved but far too often without a limb. It would have been hard to talk as openly with anyone else as she could with George about her professional pride in being part of a team that saved lives, but her distress at this being at the cost of an arm or a leg.

‘It's their acceptance of what they've been through that does it for me,' George told Sally as she poured them each a cup of tea. ‘Some of the tales they have to tell . . .' He paused and shook his head. But Sally knew what he meant.

‘I had to remove half a dozen pieces of shrapnel from a sergeant tonight who swore that all he'd got was a bit of a cut. He never made a sound, but afterwards he cried like a baby when he was telling me about having to leave a dog he'd befriended behind on the beach.'

‘I had a young lad in, leg badly damaged, and I reckon we've been able to save it. He reckons he'd have bled to death but for the medic on the naval vessel that picked him up after the boat he'd been in had been shot to pieces.'

Sally nodded, and then picked up her cup so that she could avoid looking directly at him whilst her heart was still thudding so fast. She was a fool to react like that simply because he'd mentioned a naval vessel. Callum could be anywhere, and anyway, what did it matter to her where he was?

‘Some date this is,' George was saying ruefully as he reached for her hand.

Sally let him take it, but her thoughts weren't really with him. His mention of the navy had been as effective at holing her defences as Germany's torpedoes were at holing British ships. Now the unwanted thoughts she had thought successfully blocked were pouring in. And not just thoughts about Callum. She was acutely aware that the baby Callum had told her about would have been born by now. Her father's child. Her half-brother or -sister. The child of betrayal and adultery.

No one in Olive's household was more aware of the number of lives that had been lost than Sally. The newspaper lists of shipping losses were something she made herself avoid. After all, why should she worry about Callum when he didn't mean anything to her any more? She had been out on several dates with George now, and she enjoyed his company. They shared similar tastes in music, both great admirers of Dame Myra Hess and her lunchtime piano recitals at the National Gallery, preferring to attend a concert rather than go out dancing, just as they preferred the theatre to the cinema. George had a good sense of humour, and a manner that made Sally believe that he had the makings of a first-class consultant, although she knew that ultimately his plans were to return to New Zealand and follow in his father's footsteps as a GP. George hadn't said anything to her about them putting their friendship on a ‘going steady' basis, but Sally suspected that he would. And if he did, what would she say to him, Sally asked herself as she entered the hospital, ready to start night duty.

Sally exhaled painfully. The truth was that she liked George, but she didn't think that right now, with a war on, was the time to get involved in a serious relationship. She had seen the strain and anxiety on the faces of those girls who had serious boyfriends, fiancés and husbands. She'd miss his friendship if she turned him down and he left her life, she knew, but was she really ready to start going steady?

‘Come on, Agnes, we'd better hurry otherwise we'll be late,' Tilly exhorted.

It was one of their St John Ambulance evenings and, having spent an hour in the garden removing weeds from Sally's vegetable plot, they were now later than they had planned setting out for the brigade's meeting in the church hall.

With the return of the BEF from France, the WVS, the St John Ambulance and various other voluntary organisations were all working at full stretch, with volunteers being asked to put in as many hours as they could. This meant that Tilly and Agnes were returning home from work to quickly eat the meal Olive had cooked for them, before all three changed into their uniforms and dashed out of the house to join their respective voluntary groups. Olive was in particular demand because of her driving abilities and had even been called upon to drive a temporary ambulance to and from St Pancras to St Thomas's Hospital one evening when the normal driver hadn't turned up. Tilly and Agnes had gone from practising first aid to actually doing it, and as Tilly said to Agnes as they hurried to meet up with other members of their group, after the first few real wounds they'd had to check and dress, they'd been so busy that she'd forgotten to be nervous.

Christopher had reached the church hall before them and was checking through their main first-aid box.

Tilly nudged Agnes, telling her, ‘Let's go and give Christopher a hand rolling those bandages.' He was standing with his back to them, dressed in stone-coloured cavalry twill trousers and a checked shirt with a Fair Isle-patterned sleeveless pullover on top. Tilly had noticed how some of the other members of their group avoided Christopher, turning their backs and refusing to speak to him, and their attitude made her feel sorry for him and protective towards him. He might be a conscientious objector and not prepared to fight but at least he was doing something towards the war effort.

‘I didn't have time to change into my St John Ambulance uniform because Mum needed me to give her a hand setting up a bed downstairs for Dad. He's been bad with his chest these last few days and the doctor said that he didn't want him going up and down the stairs.'

Tilly knew from her mother that Christopher's father's health was declining, and Nancy next door had said that she reckoned he wouldn't see Christmas. Tilly hoped that Nancy was wrong. She knew how close Christopher was to his father, and she knew too how she would be feeling if it was her mother that was so seriously ill.

Half an hour later, when everyone had arrived and the tea urn had been filled, Lucy Higgins, whose father was an ARP warden came round with a tray of tea for them all, but when Christopher reached for a cup she deliberately jerked the tray away from him, so that he couldn't get a drink.

‘Here, Christopher, this is for you,' Tilly announced, firmly handing him her own cup, before heading for the small kitchen to get a clean cup for her own drink.

Lucy Higgins appeared in the doorway, blocking her exit as she told her with contempt, ‘You want to watch it, you do, making friends with that coward. Otherwise people will begin to think that you're just as bad as he is.'

‘Christopher is not a coward.' Tilly immediately countered.

‘Course he is. He's a conchie, and he's refusing to fight.'

‘He objects to the war on moral grounds, not fears for his own safety.'

‘Oh ho, moral grounds, is it?' Lucy mocked. ‘He's a coward and a traitor, and he ought to be strung up. That's what my dad says.'

Lucy's unkindness and bullying manner towards Christopher left a bad taste in Tilly's mouth.

She was still feeling sorry for him when the three of them walked home together later in the evening, both her and Agnes having to walk a bit faster than normal in order to keep up with him, his speed no doubt because he was anxious to get back to his father, Tilly guessed.

She, on the other hand, would have liked to linger. The long daylight hours and June sunshine were a relief after the winter nights of blackouts and absolute darkness.

It had been a severe winter, with the loss of many, many sailors and a great deal of shipping, due to the successful attacks of Hitler's submarines on the navy-escorted convoys crossing the Atlantic and bringing much-needed supplies to the country. The convoys and the goods they carried were a vital lifeline for the country.

Despite the warmth of the June evening Tilly gave a small shiver. Everyone had been so confident when the war had first started, that they would have Hitler beaten within months, his army retreating back to Germany with its tail between its legs. The reality, though, was that it was the BEF that had been driven into retreat and now the whole counry was aware of how vulnerable Britain was. The fear of invasion was gripping everyone. Tilly knew that her mother was worrying about it, even though she wasn't saying so, and Tilly knew too that her worry was for her.

She felt afraid herself sometimes listening to people talking about the horror stories the refugees who had made it safely to London had to tell, especially those from Poland. Another shiver gripped Tilly. There were two Polish refugee families sharing a house in Article Row, two women with children, and an older woman.

According to Nancy, who made it her business to know everything that went on in Article Row, the two women were sisters, and the elderly woman was their mother. Their husbands had been killed fighting against Hitler, whilst the eldest son of one of the women, a boy of fourteen, had been shot through the head by a German soldier for trying to protect the cousin the soldier had then gone on to rape, and who had shot herself with the soldier's gun rather than bear the shame of what had happened to her.

Tilly had guessed from the look exchanged between her mother and Sally when Nancy had told them all this story that it was both true and not an isolated occurrence.

She didn't dare let herself think about what might happen here in London if the Germans did invade and ended up marching on the city like they were now marching on Paris.

Sally wasn't the only one concerned about the important matter of ‘going steady'. It was an issue that had been on Ted's mind since Christmas, and now, his feelings heated by the June sunshine and the sight of couples walking and sweet-talking together in London's streets and parks, he ached to tell Agnes how he felt about her and to ask her to be his girl.

There were problems, though. Ted was the sole breadwinner in his family, his earnings desperately needed to supplement the small income his mother received as a cleaner. The need for her services, and thus her income, had decreased since the start of the war with many well-to-do families leaving London for the safety of the country for the sake of their children.

There was no way Ted could move out of the family home, a tiny rented flat provided by the Guinness Trust, and no way either that he could move Agnes into it as his wife, as he suspected it would be against the rules, and besides, his bedroom was no bigger than a cupboard and had room for only a single bed, whilst his mother shared the single bedroom with his two young sisters.

Agnes was a lovely girl and a very special person, who had blossomed from the shy shabby girl he had first met to a confident happy young woman. Even old Smithy was now putty in her hands, mellowed by her smile and her genuine kindness. Ted was happy that Agnes had found her feet – of course he was – but at the same time he was also worried that some other chap with better prospects and more to offer her might win her heart and steal her from him. For that reason he longed to be able to declare himself but how could he when all he could offer her was the prospect of a long engagement?

Rick downed his pint of beer. It had been a mistake coming here to the working men's club where his father's friends wanted to talk about the war and ask him questions. He still felt too raw for that. Dunkirk had left him feeling as though a layer of skin had been ripped from his body, leaving him sensitive to the lightest touch.

He had seen and experienced too much that his mind and body wanted to forget and couldn't. Men – his comrades, his friends – left dead and dying during their retreat; good brave men, far braver and better than he. And then Dunkirk itself.

The dead and dying everywhere, like the tension that gripped them all as they stood in line waiting . . . waiting. He'd given up his chance of being the last onto one boat to allow an injured comrade to take his place. Rick reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. That act of generosity had saved his life, because the boat had been attacked by the Luftwaffe. He had seen it hit as he stood on the beach. He had heard the screams of the men dying in the hail of fire, or burned alive in the fuel it discharged as it caught fire. He should have been on that boat . . . His hands started to shake, making it impossible for him to light his cigarette.

He ordered another pint, drinking it quickly, trying to drown out his memories, but they refused to leave him in peace. The heat of the packed club brought him out in a sweat, the stale beer and cigarette smells filling his lungs and making him long for fresh air. Finishing his drink, he left the club, taking a deep breath of the mild late evening air as he headed homewards, his stomach heaving as he drew level with the chip shop and breathed in the smell of the cooked food.

Someone hailed him from inside the shop – Rita Sands, a local good-time girl. She had a reputation in the neighbourhood for being the girl that most of the local lads had had their first sexual experience with. Rick didn't stop.

Making his way home through the warren of backstreets of the East End, he was just about to cut down a narrow alleyway that was a bit of a shortcut, when he heard someone running after him, and Rita's voice calling, ‘Hey, Ricky, hang on a minute, will you?'

Grimly Rick turned round, demanding, ‘Leave me alone, will you, Rita? I'm not in the mood for company.'

Unabashed she told him, ‘Bet I could get you in the mood.' She moved closer to him, putting her hand on his arm. Her hair smelled of grease and fish and chips. Rick wanted to recoil from her. Just as he had recoiled from the sight of his dead comrades? Bile filled his throat as he fought to stand where he was, just as he had done in France.

‘Oooh, them's ever such strong muscles you've got there, Ricky,' Rita cooed. ‘I'll bet it isn't only there that you've got them neither, is it? There's something about a man in uniform that makes a girl go weak at the knees, if you know what I mean.'

Rick knew what Rita meant all right. It was still light enough for him to see the way her breasts strained against her too-tight top.

He started to turn away from her, repelled by her sexual obviousness, but instead of letting him go Rita moved closer, flinging her arm round his neck and kissing him wetly on his mouth, her free hand moving to his groin.

‘Come on,' she said, ‘you know you want me really.'

Filled with revulsion, Rick shrugged her off, ignoring her outburst of insults and anger as he pushed past her, intent on putting as much distance between them as he could.

‘Coward,' she called after him, jeeringly. ‘Running away from me just like you ran away from the Germans.'

Rick stopped dead in his tracks. A red mist of rage descended on him, a desire to turn round and shake Rita until she took back her insulting words, not for his sake but for the sake of the men who would never come home, men who knew more about bravery and courage than someone like Rita could ever grasp.

His anger left him as abruptly as it had seized him. All the anger in the world wouldn't bring those men back, but he would damn well make sure that when he was eventually facing the Germans it would be those fallen men he would be fighting for.