Authors: Pamela Evans
‘We all have to grow up, Mum,’ said Sheila. She was sitting at the kitchen table smoking and drinking a cup of tea.
‘I hope the teacher realises that he’s quite a sensitive little boy even though he seems very confident,’ said Dot, too engrossed in thoughts of Joe to pay much attention to her daughter.
‘Yeah,’ agreed May, sounding concerned. ‘He doesn’t need the other kids to be too rough with him.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ said Sheila in a tone of affectionate admonition. ‘He’s gone to school, not into the army cadets to be trained for the front line.’
‘He’s still being plunged into a new world, though, isn’t he?’ her mother pointed out.
‘Gawd blimey, I don’t remember all this drama when I started school.’
‘You wouldn’t have known about it because you were only five, the same as Joe is,’ her mother pointed out.
‘Mm, there is that, I suppose,’ Sheila conceded. ‘Anyway, there’s tea in the pot, so have a cup and calm down, the pair of you.’
They did as she said and spoke of other things.
‘So what do you do for fun these days, May?’ enquired Sheila with interest.
‘Not a lot,’ she replied. ‘Usually go to the pictures once a week with my friend who’s staying with us.’
‘Don’t you go out dancing?’
‘No, not since Doug died.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Sheila. ‘It’s terrific fun now that the Yanks are around. They’re very smart, and boy can they jitterbug.’
‘I haven’t been to a dance since they’ve been over here,’ said May. ‘But I’ve seen them around in London and heard about the jitterbugging, of course.’
‘How about we have a night out?’ suggested Sheila. ‘Bring your friend along; the more the merrier.’
‘I’m not looking for a chap at the moment,’ said May.
‘I suggested we go out dancing for a bit of fun, not sign up at a marriage bureau.’
‘She’s sort of with George now, aren’t you, love?’ said Dot supportively.
‘And you think George doesn’t have any fun when he gets leave, wherever he is?’
‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ she said.
‘You’re not engaged to him, are you?’
‘Well, no . . .’
‘George is the last person to want you to stay at home every night,’ pronounced Sheila. ‘He would want you to enjoy yourself. God knows we need to take our minds off the flamin’ war.’
‘I’ll see what Connie has to say about it and let you know,’ said May.
‘Good.’ Sheila lapsed into silence. ‘So what time can we go and get Joe?’ she asked eventually.
They both stared at her.
‘What was all that about us making a fuss over nothing?’ asked her mother with a wry grin.
‘You were going on about it a bit, but . . . well, he is only little and he is my favourite nephew,’ she said.
‘You only have one,’ her mother reminded her.
‘All the more reason why I should come with you to meet him later on then,’ said Sheila.
‘Maybe you do have a heart after all,’ said Dot. ‘Even though you do your best to hide it.’
May kept a diplomatic silence. This was definitely a private moment between mother and daughter.
The Lyceum in London’s West End was crowded, smoky, dimly lit and buzzing with fun and laughter. Most of the men were in uniform and they were of many nationalities.
May had no shortage of partners. She waltzed with a Polish soldier, quickstepped with a Canadian airman and learned to jitterbug with an American GI called Tom, who was polite, smart and unbelievably handsome.
Once she began to get the hang of the jive and the jitterbug she couldn’t get enough of them and danced every dance after the interval with the gorgeous GI. It was fun, exciting, and she was having a wonderful time. When it came to the last waltz, however, it became obvious that he had mistaken her enthusiasm for the dance for something of a more personal nature, and she found herself fighting him off rather forcibly.
But she had enjoyed herself immensely despite this little misunderstanding. It was a tonic to see everyone looking so well turned out, the men in uniform, the women smart despite a shortage of clothes and stockings and almost non-existent cosmetics and toiletries. But they all looked nice with hair done, stocking seams painted up the back of their legs with charcoal and beetroot juice for lipstick.
It spoke volumes about the tenacity of the human spirit, she thought. No matter how hard life became, people could still go out and have fun. Hitler probably hadn’t bargained on that when he set out to seek world domination.
‘I didn’t expect you to come home with us, May,’ said Sheila when the three of them were on the train. ‘I thought you’d have a much more interesting escort.’
‘If you mean the American, he did ask to take me home as it happens,’ she told her.
‘And you said no,’ Sheila said incredulously.
‘That’s right.’
‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘Not at all. I’m very sane as it happens,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to do what he obviously had in mind and I think I have the right to refuse even if I did dance with him a lot.’
‘You could have held him off and got a good few treats out of it,’ Sheila said laughingly. ‘The Yanks are loaded and they can get all sorts of nice things. Think of all those lovely nylons and chocolates you could have had.’
‘I couldn’t be that materialistic,’ May told her.
‘Some women don’t seem to worry about that sort of thing when it comes to the Americans and all the goodies that come with them,’ Connie put in. ‘Nor do they seem to care about their reputations.’
‘My reputation would be the last thing I’d worry about if I had a gorgeous Yank after me,’ Sheila pronounced. ‘But I’m in the ATS so mine can’t be much worse anyway.’
‘It isn’t so bad now,’ May pointed out. ‘I think most people realise that you do a good job.’
‘It’s after work that the trouble starts, when we go to the pub,’ she said. ‘Decent women aren’t supposed to do that except on the arm of a man, so we’re considered to be fast and loose.’
‘Attitudes towards that sort of thing surely must be changing because of the war,’ said May. ‘At one time you wouldn’t have seen a woman smoking, now lots do.’
‘Me included,’ said Sheila, who was always puffing away.
‘So how come you two didn’t click with anyone tonight?’ said May, addressing them both.
‘I didn’t want to because I already have a boyfriend – Dave – my lovely brown-eyed soldier who’s overseas,’ said Connie.
May looked at Sheila, who had grown up into an attractive brunette with brown eyes and hair taken up at the sides. ‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘I’m obviously not as irresistible as you are,’ Sheila replied. ‘I had plenty of partners but no one asked to see me home.’
‘The main purpose of a dance hall is to get off with someone, so men think that’s the only reason women are there,’ mentioned May.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Shelia. ‘There has to be somewhere for people to meet.’
‘Of course, but if you aren’t interested in finding someone it seems a bit silly to go,’ said May.
‘Not if you enjoy dancing,’ Sheila disagreed. ‘It’s a dance hall; the clue is in the title.’
‘But you can’t just dance, can you? You end up fighting someone off like I did.’
‘I should be so lucky,’ Sheila joked. ‘But yes, I suppose it could send out the wrong message, though it shouldn’t stop anyone going if they like to dance.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. When that Yank was all over me, I felt cheap. I felt as though I had led him on just by being there.’
‘You shouldn’t have done,’ said Sheila with emphasis. ‘If he chose to get the wrong impression that’s his problem. Most of the fellas are decent types, though some are probably hoping for something a bit more spicy than a quickstep. It’s in a man’s nature.’
‘Come on, you two,’ said Connie as the train rumbled into Ealing Broadway station. ‘We’ve got the blackout to contend with yet. There’s no moon so it will be dodgy.’
The three of them alighted from the train and went up the stairs and out into the inky blackness of a wartime night.
Along with growing vegetables, keeping chickens became a way of life for the Stubbs family and was another thing that amazed May about the adaptability of human beings. Before the war their little garden had consisted of a scrubby area of grass that her father, to whom the job of gardening had been assigned, rarely got around to cutting.
Now, in the summer of 1943, it was cultivated into rows of carrots, potatoes, swedes, cabbages, runner beans and beetroot, a chicken run at the side next to the coal shed. Her father was very territorial about his vegetables and didn’t trust anyone to help tend them in case they pulled out a plant instead of a weed.
‘It’s done him the world of good,’ Flo could be heard to remark. ‘A complete change for him from being stuck in a shipyard all day.’
For May, the most exciting part of the whole self-sufficiency project was when they were rewarded with an egg, though they had to be patient because it wasn’t an everyday occurrence.
The chickens’ most ardent enemy was Tiddles, their most devoted fan Joe, who thought it great fun when they were let out to peck and cluck around the garden, at which point the cat hissed and arched its back before leaping to safety on top of the coal shed. Joe adored the cat and his loyalties were seriously divided one day when an aggressive cockerel they had named Horace chased Tiddles down the garden.
Although there hadn’t been any raids for a long time, neither was there any sign of the war coming to an end. Mr Churchill had warned the public some time ago, after several successful campaigns abroad, that they were only at the end of the beginning and not the beginning of the end, but everyone wanted peace with such ardour it was hard to stay patient.
People talked about something called the second front, or D-Day, which May understood to be another invasion of western Europe similar to the one that had failed earlier in the war. Everyone was expecting it at any time but still it didn’t happen.
The population in general took comfort from two of the heroes of the war: Churchill, whose gravelly tones came across the airwaves every so often, and General Montgomery, nicknamed Monty, the leader of the successful El Alamein campaign in the desert. As far as May knew, George was still abroad somewhere, but she had no idea where. His letters were more heavily censored than ever and didn’t give much of a clue. Home leave was never mentioned, so she assumed he wouldn’t be back until the war ended.
Then, as the summer progressed, May began to have worries of a personal nature to contend with, and the war was pushed to the back of her mind.
While not judging herself to be any sort of a heroine, May had thought she was a person who faced up to things with a reasonable amount of courage. Until now . . .
She told herself it wasn’t happening; that the exhaustion was due to long working hours and early mornings sorting the papers. She tried to convince herself that the night sweats were normal for this time of year and the general feeling of being off colour was all in her imagination. She rubbed her cheeks in front of the mirror to take away the horrible pallor. After all, she didn’t have a cough, so it couldn’t be TB back, could it? Well, maybe she was a bit chesty, but nothing like before.
But try as she might, she couldn’t erase the fear, which was physical in its intensity, giving her knots in her stomach and nausea, which added to the horrible feeling of being unwell. Guilt at not getting herself checked out and therefore possibly passing it on to other people added to her distress.
Already feeling below par, she made things worse by expending a great deal of energy trying to hide it from her parents. She sang popular songs like ‘Paper Doll’ around the house and laughed a lot even though it was the last thing she was in the mood for. Mum and Dad would be worried sick if she were to tell them how she was really feeling, and she couldn’t bear to put them through that again. Somehow she would have to bluff it out.
Of course, the rational part of her knew that this wasn’t a permanent solution and she was only making things worse, but her emotional side recoiled from the idea of acceptance.
‘So . . . what’s up, May?’ enquired Connie one day on their way to work.
‘Nothing,’ she replied.
‘Oh come off it,’ Connie persisted. ‘You might be able to fool your mum and dad with all that jolliness, but not me. I think you might need a friend to talk to at the moment.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ May lied huffily.
‘I think you do.’
May had the idea that if she spoke about it, it would make it real. While she didn’t say it out loud she could pretend it wasn’t happening.
‘Come on,’ urged Connie. ‘Has something happened between you and George? Is that what it is? Has he said something to upset you in one of his letters?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘What is it then?’ persisted Connie. ‘I know something is wrong so you might as well tell me, because I’ll keep on until you do. I don’t want you to be miserable on your own.’
At last May allowed herself to admit that it would be a tremendous relief to talk to someone about it. ‘It’s back, the unmentionable,’ she blurted out. ‘I’ve got it again.’
Connie turned pale; they both knew the seriousness of this, especially as May had already lost a lung. ‘Oh God,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought you might not be feeling well, but I didn’t dream it was anything like that. Are you sure?’
‘Oh yeah. No doubt about it. I feel exactly the same as before,’ she replied. ‘There’s no mistaking it.’
‘Oh May, I’m so sorry.’
‘Me too.’
‘You need to go to the doctor right away.’
‘No, I can’t face that.’
‘You’ll have to. You need treatment as quickly as possible.’ Connie swallowed hard, trying not to show her feeling of panic. Having experienced the illness herself, she could imagine how awful May must be feeling. She also knew that she would be tormenting herself about passing the infection on to someone else, and Connie didn’t want to pile on the agony by mentioning it.
‘I can’t go through all that again, Connie,’ May confessed. ‘All that illness and being away; the stigma and feeling set apart. I’d sooner be killed by a bomb.’