‘Does her now?’ The deep voice rose over the strident jarring of structures threatening to fall. ‘Well, your mother’s going to have to manage on her own.’
‘You don’t understand . . .’
‘Neither it seems do you! Tonight don’t be Guy Fawkes’ night, them lights be pretty to look at but they don’t be fireworks, they be shells bursting and that glow you sees don’t be your usual garden bonfire, but people’s homes and work places burning. Now you three young ladies have a choice, either you goes into a public shelter or I arrest you for loitering with intent.’
‘Intent?’
‘That’s what I said.’ The constable glanced at the building they still stood beside. ‘This here is a bank and unless I am mistaken, which I’m not, then you three were loitering and that is a serious charge when you be found hanging about a bank, especially when doing so under the cover of an air raid.’
A public air raid shelter! Repugnance a quiver along her spine, Katrin joined the others, following after the policeman across the junction of Bridge Street and Holyhead Road.
‘He’ll leave us here.’ Alice whispered to Katrin as they approached the police station. ‘That’ll be our chance to scarper.’
Her brain busy, Katrin made no reply. Just a few yards further on would bring her to Russell Street and then into Lower High Street; once there it would take only a few minutes to run along Spring Head and across into Hollies Drive.
Drawing level with the police station, the constable halted.
This was it. This was their chance. The moment he disappeared through that door they would run.
‘I have to make my report.’ He paused, a fresh shower of bursting shells studded the sky with diamond points of shimmering light. Then, as if reading the thought passing through Alice’s mind, added. ‘But first I’ll just see you three safe in the shelter.’
15
Would she ever feel really clean again? Eyes closed, Katrin lay in the bath whose water she had scented with the last of Violet’s precious
Les Parfums de Molinelle
‘English Roses’. Not her preferred choice, but much more preferred than the scents of slurry and machine oil.
How many hours had she been forced to sit in that shelter? So many she thought they were never going to end. Situated opposite the Municipal buildings, they were intended mainly for people from those offices but last night they had been filled with people who had had to leave public transport: men from iron and steel foundries, their hands and faces streaked with sweat-caked dust, and others who, though having washed, still smelt of oil and grease.
So many bodies, and all so close together. She settled lower in the water, drawing the fragrance into nostrils and lungs in which the odour of factories and oil-stained clothing still lingered. She would rather have faced the blitz, run home despite the danger of shells bursting overhead.
Was that how Freda Evans felt? Did she long to walk free of her ‘shelter’, to breathe air that was not stale with perspiration? Katrin smiled. Freda Evans would not walk free for quite a time. Maybe she should visit, wear the smart costume she had worn to the funeral, teamed with the hat she had chosen for that day – a jaunty chenille astrakhan, its grey and fawn giving the effect of tweed. The outfit had drawn several envious glances. She rubbed soap onto a flannel and smoothed the cloth over her breasts. Yes, she would visit Freda Evans, remind her of what she was missing by being imprisoned, give her a glimpse of the type of clothing she had never had.
A Cross Street girl! A convicted criminal! Katrin creamed scented lather along her arms. Freda Evans would never be more than that, never more than a factory worker in a soot-grimed Black Country town.
But Katrin Hawley was no Cross Street girl and, like the woman who had reared her, she had no desire to live the rest of her life in Wednesbury. Had Violet thought that one more fact the young girl had not recognised? Had she mistakenly believed it was hidden along with that other secret?
The flannel slipping from her hand, she slid lower into the water. No, mother, she murmured, your daughter knew them both.
‘You heard them, didn’t you Kate, you heard them girls talking?’
Yes she had heard them, possibly half the people in that public shelter had heard them.
‘It sounded great didn’t it?’
‘Sounded more like the circus to me,’ Alice answered, ‘all that jumping and twisting, you’d need be a contortionist to do half what they reckoned to be dancing; what was it they said it were called, Kate?’
‘Jitterbug.’
‘The jitterbug!’ Becky’s blue eyes gleamed. ‘It must be so exciting. Lor, I’d give a week’s pocket money to learn how to do that.’
‘Don’t need no learning.’ Alice shot a conspiratorial wink at Katrin. ‘Just go along to them houses the Corporation be demolishing along Lea Brook way, the bugs you pick up from one of them will have you jump and twist more than any dance them Americans can teach.’
‘Not only Americans, there were others, Continentals,’ Becky smiled dreamily. ‘They sound so . . . ooh.’
‘More than “ooh” considering the giggles that were going on, I’d say a few of them wenches had been given lessons in somethin’ more than jitterbuggin’.’ Alice folded the newspaper which had held her margarine spread sandwiches. ‘My advice, Becky Turner, is stick to your church social.’
‘Huh!’ Becky sniffed disparagingly. ‘A cup of tea and no man younger than your granddad to dance with! I’d better not go too often, I don’t think I can take the excitement.’
Alice picked up her teacup. ‘Mebbes not,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘But one thing there ain’t no mebbes about, seeing the photos being among them girls I’d say them fellas ain’t no granddads.’
The shelter had been dimly lit but she had caught glimpses of the photographs courtesy of a torch held by a girl next to her. Katrin looked into her own cup. There was a saying, ‘A picture speaks a thousand words.’ She was hearing them now and each word held a promise.
‘I’d say they was the very opposite of granddads,’ Alice said again, ‘but even if they wasn’t I’d take me one any day.’
‘I wouldn’t refuse, they all looked . . .’ Becky giggled self-consciously, ‘. . . you know what I mean . . . attractive ain’t the word for them, they was gorgeous, and them uniforms so smart they had them looking more like film stars than pilots. Imagine.’ Becky’s dreamy look returned. ‘Dancing with an aeroplane pilot.’
‘You wouldn’t be, least not right off.’ Alice was matter of fact. ‘Going on what was said, them Americans come to Cosford bringing planes sent over from America while them from the Continent be there to train as fighter pilots.’
Aeroplanes were not all they brought. Katrin remembered giggling whispers of ‘stockings so fine y’can hardly tell a wench be wearin’ any.’
‘Did you see the stockings one of them wenches took out of her bag? They was like nothing I’ve ever seen, talk about pure silk, they was finer even than that, more like gossamer; said the fella offering them to her called them . . . ? I can’t remember . . . I know it were a word I’ve not heard before.’
Feed the enthusiasm, give Becky all the rope she needed. Katrin answered. ‘It was nylon, Becky, the girl said the stockings were called nylons.’
‘Well, whatever . . . I’d give my eye teeth for a pair.’
‘A week’s wages for the teaching of the jitterbug and now your eye teeth for a pair of stockings, wonder what it be you’ll go offerin’ next.’
‘Oh you!’ Becky expostulated, ‘You always sees things as don’t be there Alice Butler!’
Perhaps. Katrin answered silently. But this time Alice was not simply imagining, this time there was definitely something to be seen, all it needed was an outlet . . . maybe she should provide that.
Innocence personified, Katrin smiled. ‘Why not both go on Saturday, that way you can determine for yourself whether or not these girls were . . .’
‘Shootin’ a line!’ Becky put in quickly. ‘That’s what I heard one say the Americans called tarting up the truth, he said it were “shootin’ a line”.’
‘Huh!’ Alice retorted. ‘You’ve already got the lingo without being nowhere near that dance hall.’
‘But we could, we could go Alice,’ Becky leaned excitedly across the scrubbed bench of a table. ‘So shall we?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Depends,’ she said doubtfully.
A breath of exasperation adding to a frown nestling between carefully plucked eyebrows, Becky demanded, ‘Depends on what? There’s neither of us working after six on Saturday.’
‘Not so we’ve been told up to yet.’
‘All right, then if we don’t get called for extra hours will we go?’
‘Going be one thing, but Wolverhampton’s no two minutes away, how do we get back? You know buses run far less frequently after nine o’ clock at night and if there’s an air raid they don’t run at all.’
‘We will just have to do what them girls do.’ Becky’s determination was not to be outdone. ‘Make sure we don’t miss the last one, and if there’s a raid we either waits it out or leg it back to Wednesbury, either way it’ll be worth it.’
Worth a pair of stockings? It would be worth much more to Katrin Hawley if the promise of those words which had echoed in her mind became fulfilled.
‘
There is one more thing we would like you to do
.’
Miriam Carson’s insides fluttered at the remembered words.
How could anyone ask such a thing of a boy? Yet Philip Conroy had asked and the glance he had shot to her on hearing the answer had been one of quiet congratulation.
‘
Mum, granddad
. . .’
Reuben had looked at them both with eyes that tore her heart. ‘. . .
before dad went away he told me always try to face up to things, never to run away. I don’t want to run away from this, please let me do it, let me do it for my dad
.’
She had looked to her father for support in saying no, but the same tears of pride had glistened in his eyes as had glittered in her own.
‘
If there was any other way then we would not ask Reuben to take part . . .
’
We
. Just how much thought had the so secretive ‘we’ put into finding some other way?
‘
. . . believe me Mrs Carson, had we reason to think your son would be in danger . . .
’
How could he not be in danger! Miriam’s mind snapped accusation. It was so easy for Conroy, it was not his son being asked.
‘
. . . let me do it for my dad
.’
As she nodded to the man adding her work to the large container, Miriam blinked against tears misting the gleaming brass cartridge cases into a glittering golden stream.
Tom! Deep in the silence of her heart she had cried to the husband who could not help, called to a love which could not hear. Yet in that same silence had come an answer. Trust him Miriam, it had whispered. Trust our son.
And so she had said yes.
Philip Conroy had smiled that brief smile which seemed to say he understood her fears; but he didn’t understand, how could he? How could anyone other than a mother know the fear of having her child walk into danger? This was no game he was about to play, no chat with a school friend. If discovered, then retaliation would be no tap on the wrist.
Trust our son! It was as if Tom had spoken to her. Tom telling her he had trust. And so she had kept her fears locked inside.
‘
Before I say what it is we would ask you to do, let us go over things one more time
.’
‘
It was not like the little ’uns in junior school do . . .’
Reuben had smiled at Conroy
. ‘. . . you know, they collect newspapers, and depending on how many they bring in, are awarded a paper badge which says “corporal, sergeant” or whatever. Well, we were no longer juniors, Mr Browne said, collecting newspapers was not proof of quality of leadership. An officer, a good officer, needed knowledge of terrain, of what it held and where. If it were an industrial town what was its major source of industry? Where were those sources located? How were they transported? How well were they defended? Mr Browne said knowledge of geographical location was an important aspect, one any officer would familiarise himself thoroughly with when out on field expeditions, and though we couldn’t do that, we could, by means of a project, demonstrate our ability for leadership as a school prefect. I wasn’t all that interested until he explained that for the duration of the war the term “prefect” was to be replaced by similar rank of officer in the armed forces . . . and like I told my dad I wanted some day to be a lieutenant. I wanted to be like him and this seemed a good way to start so I did a project on Wednesbury
.’
‘
That is the one we have here?
’
The signal for the end of her shift sounded over the noise of machinery and Miriam murmured goodnight to the young woman waiting to take over, but her mind did not so easily relinquish its hold on the past, did not blot out the question pointed at her son.