Reaching her back door, she found it was locked so took the key off the lintel and let herself in. She entered the kitchen and found a note on the table asking her to start the supper since Mam had taken Billy over to the Stanley for a check-up. As soon as she saw the words, Kathy remembered that Billy had an appointment with a new consultant at the hospital, who had considerable experience of head injuries such as Billy had suffered. The staff at the Stanley were hopeful that the new doctor might be able to start some different treatment which would help Billy to overcome his fits completely. For a year now, her little brother had been aware that he was in some way different from his classmates, and though he still did not know what happened when he had a fit and seemed to assume that he fell unexpectedly asleep, he no longer took such moments in his stride. He worried that he might ‘nod off’ at some important time and had actually confided in Kathy that he meant to stop himself ‘nodding off’ when he was a bit older, though he was unable as yet to explain how he could do such a thing.
Kathy and her mother were full of hope that the treatment the new doctor might recommend would help Billy. She settled down to the task of preparing vegetables, scrubbing potatoes and flash-frying the pieces of scrag end which Sarah had left ready. When someone rattled the back door, she looked up with a smile, expecting her mother and Billy, and was almost disappointed when Jane bounced into the room. Her friend was flushed and bright-eyed but Kathy saw at a glance it was temper, and not pleasure, which had brought the roses to her cheeks. Jane slammed the back door behind her and, to Kathy’s astonishment, shot the bolt across before sinking on to one of the wheel-backed chairs and addressing her friend in a hissing whisper.
‘The bugger! Oh, I’m so angry I could hit him! When he told me I just ran out of the house, didn’t bother with me coat, didn’t tell anyone where I were goin’. I left him standing in the middle of our kitchen with his gob open and his eyes like saucers. Just like a bleedin’ man to think he can break your heart and trample on your feelings and you’ll never say a word, just tell him what a clever feller he’s been. Well, he knows different now and if he comes knockin’ on your back door we’ll pretend you’re out, shallus? Only I don’t want to see ’im or talk to ’im until I’ve cooled off a bit.’
Kathy, standing at the stove and stirring the pieces of scrag end, stared round eyed at her friend. She had never seen Jane so angry and realised, with a little shock of surprise, that she had never seen her look lovelier either. Jane’s mass of golden curls, which she usually wore pulled back into a bun, were tumbled round her face and her big blue eyes, sparkling with anger, looked larger than ever. Her creamy complexion was greatly enhanced by her angry flush and she had bitten her lower lip until it glowed scarlet. However, now was scarcely the time to congratulate Jane on her looks; instead, Kathy said placatingly: ‘What on earth’s the matter, queen? Surely you’re not getting into a tizzy just because Jimmy’s joined the air force? After all, he’ll have a choice of trades now, whereas if he waited for war to break—’
‘He
told
you?’ Jane squeaked. The colour in her cheeks brightened to scarlet. ‘He told
you
? But – but how could he possibly have told you? He only signed on an hour or so ago and he said he’d come straight to me.’ She ground her teeth; Kathy distinctly heard her and could scarcely stop herself from smiling. She had never expected to see the mild and sweet-tempered Jane in such a rage and suddenly realised that she did not fancy the rage being turned on her. She had best explain quickly how she and Jimmy had met by the merest chance before Jane stormed out as she had stormed in, intent upon facing Jimmy with this new perfidy.
‘Calm down, queen,’ she said, therefore. ‘I were walking back from school and your Jimmy caught me up. He started being nasty to me – he tipped me hat over me eyes, the way he always does – and I asked him why he was so rude. He seemed a bit took aback and said he supposed it was force of habit and then I asked him why he wasn’t at work and he told me he’d signed on with the air force. He was on his way to see you so we walked up the Stanley together; that’s all there was to it.’
‘Oh,’ Jane said rather lamely. She was clearly taken aback by the explanation but unwilling, as yet, to surrender her grievance. ‘Well, he shouldn’t have told you, even though you’re me best pal. He – he should have talked about other things instead of showin’ off and boasting about joining the cream of the Forces, or wharrever it is he’s been saying this past month. I’m sick of the sound of the Royal Air Force, I don’t
want
to be told how marvellous his life is going to be.’ She sniffed and Kathy saw a tear trembling on her friend’s long, curly eyelashes. ‘He expects me to be pleased,
pleased
– that he’s going away from me, leavin’ me stuck here with me family, workin’ every hour God sends at the market and then goin’ home and workin’ at housework and cookin’ and cleanin’ until I bleedin’ well drop.’ She sniffed again and knuckled her eyes with the backs of her hands. ‘I were really lookin’ forward to marryin’ Jimmy and havin’ me own littl’ home somewhere nice and quiet, out in the suburbs,’ she wailed, her voice wobbling. ‘And now I’m worse off than before because I won’t even have Jimmy to take me about or buy me chocs when we go to the cinema. It’ll just be work, work, work.’
‘Yes, of course, you’ll miss him horribly,’ Kathy said tactfully, putting into her friend’s mouth the words she should have said, Kathy felt. ‘And it is hard on you to be left behind but, as Jimmy said, if he hadn’t volunteered he would have been conscripted as soon as the war actually started. This way he’ll have a choice.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, I’ve heard it all before,’ Jane said dismally, but her colour was beginning to fade. ‘I know all the arguments because Jimmy’s been bombarding me with them for weeks, but I still think it was a mean thing for him to do, to go and leave me before he had to.’ She produced a large and very ragged handkerchief and blew her nose violently, then stuffed the handkerchief back into her pocket, saying in a choked voice: ‘I really love him ever so much, Kathy, and that’s the trouble. I want what’s best for him, I want him to be happy, and I don’t really think that joining up is what he wants. He thinks it’s all going to be glamorous and wonderful; he can’t see beyond the lovely smart uniform – blue was always his colour – to what might happen when war really does start. You’re ever such a long way up in an aeroplane and if you get shot down . . . oh, Kathy, I can’t
bear
it! Suppose he’s killed? People do get killed in wars; remember Claude and Neville Ellis? They went off to fight Franco and – and never came back. And in the last lot, ever so many fellers copped it – me Uncle Fred, Mam’s cousin Cuthbert . . .’
By this time, Kathy had abandoned her scrag end, pulling it away from the heat before she did so, and had both arms tightly round Jane. ‘Poor old girl, poor old Janey,’ she crooned. She was so used to Jane’s being the taller of the two that it came as quite a shock to realise they were now the same height, but it certainly made comforting Jane easier. ‘Look, it’s useless reproaching poor Jimmy, because what he’s done can’t be undone. He’s joined the RAF, signed all the papers, and he’ll be going off to training camp before you know it. So if you love him like you say, you’ve got to tell him so and pretend like mad that you know he’s done the right thing. You’ve got to back him up when he tells his mam and dad what he’s done and you’ve got to be proud of him, tell all his pals how brave he is and agree with him when he says it’s a grand life in the Royal Air Force, even if you secretly believe he’ll be fed up and disillusioned in a month. Because if you go on moping and whining, it’ll be a downright pleasure to get away from you and he won’t miss you one bit! Now what do you say to that?’
As it was meant to, this made Jane give a watery laugh and presently, when someone tried the back door, she did no more than murmur a protest when Kathy went over, slid back the bolt and flung the door wide. A wild-eyed Jimmy erupted into the room, beginning to speak as he did so, but his words were muffled as Jane shot across the kitchen into his arms and began to kiss him, muttering that she was so sorry, that it was because she loved him and would miss him so much that she had been nasty earlier, that he was to forgive her at once please, because she could not bear him to be angry with her.
Jimmy, clearly considerably taken aback, cuddled and fussed and winked at Kathy over his love’s tousled golden head. Then he steered her, with an arm still about her shoulders, out of the back door. He called to Kathy over his shoulder that they would probably see her later, but Kathy, closing the door thankfully behind them, thought that this was unlikely. Lovers’ quarrels might be long and painful, but she imagined the making up would take even longer and be eminently satisfactory. She did not expect to see either Jimmy or Jane again that evening but settled down to the task of preparing a meal with a contented mind. She was sorry that Jimmy was going away, for Jane’s sake, of course she was, but for herself it was a different matter. Jane would be eager for Kathy’s company and Kathy looked forward to renewing their old intimacy once more.
She was thinking how pleasant it would be to go about with Jane again when another interruption occurred. The back door shot open and Billy ran into the room with Sarah close on his heels. Both were beaming. ‘I seen the new doctor, Kathy,’ Billy shouted joyfully as soon as he saw her. ‘He’s ever so young and ever so nice and he thinks he can help me stop my little sleeps so I’m going to the hospital three times a week after school and they’re going to put a thing on my head – it don’t hurt, he done it today and it didn’t hurt – an’ I’ll soon be better. What do you think of that, eh?’
‘It’s wonderful, Billy,’ Kathy said and saw that her mother had tears of relief in her eyes.
PART II
Chapter Ten
‘Kathy! Hey, Kathy, wait for me!’
It was a cold, dark February afternoon. Because of the blackout there were no streetlights to show Kathy who had shouted, but she knew her friend’s voice so well that it was no surprise when Jane pounded up beside her. Both girls were now working in a large factory making parts for guns and had just finished the day shift. Kathy’s dreams of a place at university and then a degree had come to nothing, because war had been declared back in ’39 and everything had changed, almost overnight it seemed.
Mr Bracknell and Mr Philpott had joined the army and Navy respectively, and though Mr Bracknell had kept his promise to see that part of his wages were sent home to his landlady every month, Sarah Kelling had not argued when her daughter had not returned to the high school for her final year but had got herself a job. First of all, she had gone to the Empire works in Park Street, Bootle, working as a packer, but when Jane told her that she was going up to the munitions factory in Long Lane, she had decided to go there as well. Everyone knew that such places paid high wages – as much as £3 a week – and such a sum would relieve Kathy’s mother of a good few of her worries.
But now, almost eighteen months later, she was beginning to be irked by the boredom of her work, and also, if she was honest, the attitude of the factory girls. They talked of nothing but clothes, make-up and young men, and when Kathy admitted that she was studying in the evenings so that, when the war was over, she might perhaps get some higher education, they had made it clear they considered her a prig, not one of themselves. Jane was different, of course, but it was hard to work amongst people who despised you and did not attempt to hide it.
But there were advantages, too. The money was good; she and Jane took home double what they had earned at the jam factory, but there they had been able to walk to and from their place of employment, whereas now they caught first a tram and then a bus to reach their destination. They then worked a twelve-hour shift, standing at their bench and concentrating on what they were doing, for men’s lives might depend on their work. Whenever she was tempted to chat to her neighbour or to glance around the room, Kathy remembered that somewhere a soldier might one day pull the trigger only to find his gun jamming when he needed it most. If he died it would be her fault and Kathy was determined to have no one’s death on her conscience if she could possibly help it.
Others, she knew, were not so fussy, and this was another reason for not wanting to be on particularly friendly terms with her fellow workers. A good few of them, she acknowledged secretly, were grand but there were others whose selfishness extended even to their work. Of course the supervisors who patrolled the vast echoing factory floor soon jumped on anyone who did not keep her nose to the grindstone, so though Kathy was beginning to dread the long, darkening days at her bench she did not intend to abandon the best paid job she had ever had.
Not that money was as short as it had been in the early days of the war. The new doctor’s treatment had worked wonders for Billy; he had not had a fit for fifteen months and Sarah Kelling had gone back to work with the hospital’s full approval. She had returned to Dorothy’s Tearooms and despite the complications caused by rationing was managing their largest café and bringing home as much money as she could have earned in a munitions factory.
Billy, meanwhile, returned to the O’Briens’ home after school and at holiday times, where Jane’s grandma, who had moved in with them at the start of hostilities, looked after him, as she looked after the young O’Briens. Tilly had left school and was a machinist in a factory that made uniforms for the Forces, but old Mrs O’Brien was strict and sensible and of course, being so much older, could control her charges even better than Tilly had. Sarah and Kathy were happy to leave Billy with her, therefore, and arranged that whichever of them arrived home first would pick him up.