Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (27 page)

‘George, I’m sorry, but there’s something I’ve got to tell you – I’m pregnant.’

‘You’re
what
?’

There it was, the instinctive moment of joy she’d seen on her mother’s face, followed by shock and a look of disgust, as if he’d swallowed bitter aloes and would like to spit her out.

He lunged at her across the table, only to be hauled back by a quick guard, who perhaps, seeing the signs – she pale and shame-faced, he shocked rigid – was already on the alert.

‘Steady on, Flint. No need for that, or your wife will have to leave.’

‘Fuckin’ suits me, the slut,’ George said, shrugging off the hand of the guard. ‘She’s no wife to me.’

George walked out of the visiting room without looking back. He left her there, face burning, hands trembling, as she held her handbag. He had managed to catch her cheek with the back of his hand. She felt its smart and, ducking her head, avoiding the eyes of the other visitors, she ran out of the prison. Outside, she leaned against the smoke-blackened, brick wall, sharp, shallow breaths raking her chest. It was done. She pushed herself off from the wall and walked shakily to the bus stop. Fearing that her legs would give way, she held tight to the stop sign until the bus came into view.

Once on the bus, she slumped into the nearest seat, closing her eyes and trying to breathe deeply. She’d imagined that she’d have to be brave to face him with the truth, but perhaps she was a coward still, for George’s imprisonment had spared her the full force of his anger, hurt and disappointment. He didn’t deserve such treatment from her, it was true, but didn’t she deserve love?

She opened her eyes as the bus passed through devastated streets. Gazing at ruined buildings, mere gaunt, blackened skeletons, their eyeless windows staring blindly back at her, she shuddered, wondering what sort of a life she had chosen for herself and her unborn child.

The following day, she guessed she wouldn’t be welcome at her parents’ for the traditional Sunday family dinner. Instead she went to Granny Byron’s, who was out, having her Sunday lunchtime drink at the Red Cow. Peggy waited in the yard in Dix’s Place, watching as some young girls sang ‘
The big ship sailed on the alley, alley-oh’
, linking arms in a writhing tangled mass. A ten-year-old, wearing pigtails and a too-small dress, was attempting to attach an unwieldy gas hood over her baby brother in a pram. Peggy went to help. Not many people bothered with gas masks these days. Peggy looked under the hood. The baby was wide awake, chewing on a teething ring.

‘Me mum says we’ve got to practise, just in case. But by the time we get it on we’d all be dead anyway.’

The little girl smiled brightly, as if this were just another street game, like alley-oh.

‘Where’s your mum?’

‘Up the pub. I was trying to get him off to sleep, but he won’t go.’

And Peggy wondered who would look after her child while she was at work. There were a million things she hadn’t thought through, but at least the war had meant an increase in nurseries. She knew that the WVS ran kindergartens for women in war work; in fact she’d thought of volunteering for one herself if the mobile canteens hadn’t wanted her. Money would be tight, but there were cheap ‘British Restaurants’ being set up for war workers and there were second-hand clothes coming into the country by the baleful. If anything, the war would be her lifeline, but the only thing the WVS couldn’t supply was a degree of tolerance among her neighbours. She’d be branded a whore, for certain, but even that wasn’t so uncommon an insult as before the war. Even her poor sister May, pure as driven snow compared to Peggy, had been labelled a scrubber by some for the offence of joining the ATS. It didn’t seem fair.

Peggy was about to give up and leave, when Granny Byron came rolling along with her drinking pals, Troubles trotting along beside her. The women were laughing loudly, Peggy knew, at some rude remark, probably made by her grandmother, and they all seemed a little unsteady.

‘Hello, me darlin’!’ Granny Byron opened her arms wide as she walked towards Peggy. ‘It’s me granddaughter!’ she explained to her friends, who all knew her anyway. ‘Beautiful, ain’t she?’

Peggy smiled. Thank God for Granny Byron.

*

She had no contact with her parents for over two weeks. Granny Byron had advised waiting for them to come to her, but Peggy had begun to despair of that ever happening. These days she was even more grateful for her night-time work on the canteen van, which kept her so busy that she had little time to think or regret, and she was so exhausted when she finally got to bed that she never lay awake worrying. One night, towards the end of November, she went home in the early hours, feeling her way along the railings with only the stars and a sickle moon to light the pitch-black street. She was so tired that as she put the key in the lock, her eyes were already closing. The blackout curtains were drawn, and even with eyes open, she had to feel her way. But something made her stop dead. She felt a presence, a stillness in the corner, an area less than black, in the shape of a man sitting in the armchair by the unlit fire. She stood on the threshold of the room, gripping the door jamb, unsure whether to scream or run. Then the ghostly shape stirred, its head rising, so that a thin seam of moonlight penetrating the edge of the curtains caught it, the sliver of light glancing off bright eyes that regarded her intently.

She threw herself across the room and into his arms. ‘Harry!’

His name on her lips was smothered by his kisses.

‘Oh, Harry.’

When she finally pulled away she searched his face, wanting to reacquaint herself with all its planes and lines, the curve of his mouth and the long line of his jaw. But most of all, his eyes told her that nothing had changed, that his heart was still hers. She hadn’t seen him since his last leave in August and the letters, no matter how fond, had never been able to say all that his eyes had conveyed in just these brief minutes together. She led him into the bedroom and to the bed, which no longer smelled of George, and as she melted at the merest brush of his fingertips on her skin, Peggy remembered why she was risking everything for the man in her arms.

It wasn’t until the following morning that she found out how he came to be there, just at the moment she’d needed him. He had received his overseas posting and had been granted what he laughingly called ‘passionate leave’, though Peggy didn’t laugh – it was too near the truth for her. She made him breakfast and, while he ate, feasted on the sight of him sitting opposite her.

‘How long have you got?’ she asked.

‘Only a forty-eight, darling, and it took me practically all day to get here. I’ll have to leave tonight.’

‘Oh no!’ She wanted to cry. ‘I’ve been without you for so long.’ She put out her hand and they linked fingers across the table.

He stroked his thumb across her hand. ‘It’s better than not seeing you at all.’ And he pulled her round the table, to sit on his lap.

‘I’m taking the day off.’ She smoothed strands of his dark blond hair, kissing the top of his head, stroking the back of his neck.

‘You’ll get the sack.’

But he didn’t wait to hear her say that she didn’t care. He lifted her into his arms and took her back to bed. They stayed there as the morning wore on, and once, when she had to get up, he reached his arm towards her, holding on to her hand, till her fingertips slid from his own, and she wondered at how being tethered to him could seem like such a joyous freedom.

It was only when the afternoon light began to fade and she knew that he must leave, that Peggy told him about the child, and for the first time, she didn’t see that initial light of joy fade to disgust or anger or bitterness. Instead she saw it change to something far more complex. His expression was both tender and sad. ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry I wasn’t here. Why didn’t you write and tell me?’

‘I couldn’t, Harry, not in a letter. I needed to see your face… when you heard the news. I needed to know it would all be all right.’

He gathered her in his arms. ‘It will be all right. I promise, but it’s not going to be easy for you, sweetheart. It’ll be easier for me off in Africa than it will be for you, my love. I’m so sorry.’

She told him about George and how she wasn’t sorry that he’d washed his hands of her, and she tried to make light of the painful sense of separation she had from her family, all except her one ally, Granny Byron.

‘We’ll get married as soon as we can, Peggy, if you’ll have me? We’ll be together, I promise, love, but I don’t know when I’ll get leave again.’

He was up now, packing kit absent-mindedly, the demands of duty already claiming a part of him. ‘I’ll send you money, whatever I can. But there’s something else you should know.’ He sat down next to her, after strapping up his kitbag.

‘Come here, my love. There’s something I haven’t told you.’

Christmas 1941

May couldn’t wait to get out of her uniform and into civvies. Two whole weeks of wearing whatever she liked, and she was going to make the most of it. She still took pride in the uniform, drawing jokes from her pals and praise from her officers for the knife-edge creases and spotless buttons on her uniform, but she had come to the conclusion that khaki had to be the most boring colour in the world. Not that she had many civvies to choose from. She’d saved up enough coupons to buy a new dress for this Christmas leave, a rich royal blue with boxy shoulders, and an A-line skirt. The trimmings were minimal, but army life had certainly improved her figure and when she looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror, wearing make-up courtesy of Atkinson’s seconds from Peggy, she was pleased with what she saw. She looked like a woman now, no longer the shy girl who had left home for the first time last year.

But it would not be an easy Christmas for any of them. The anniversary of Jack’s death had just passed, and then there was Peggy. The family had fallen into two camps: those who would speak to Peggy, and those who would not. May and Granny Byron were the only two in the former camp. When she’d seen Peggy and Harry kissing that day at London Bridge, she’d initially condemned her sister as selfish, unkind and spoiled, her sympathies firmly with George. But Peggy’s letter, confessing her pregnancy, had been heartbreaking in its appeal to May.
I know I’m burning my bridges
, she’d written.
I’ll be on my own and I don’t even know if Harry will still want me. But it’s a child, May. You might not know how much I’ve wanted one. How can I give up a child?

And May had immediately decided that, whatever her parents thought, morality could have no argument against a mother and her child. She would stick by her sister. She’d arrived home from Essex on Friday and had made the mistake of asking, on Sunday morning, where Peggy was, assuming she would be coming for Sunday dinner as usual. It was frightening to May how cold her father became at the mention of her sister’s name, as if the winter chill outside had invaded his heart. May decided it was better not to speak of her sister again to her parents. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to see her.

So that Sunday evening, May let her mother believe she was paying a visit to Emmy. Her friend was still on sick leave, but the broken collarbone had almost healed. May did plan to visit Emmy, but not until she’d made sure her sister was all right.

*

‘May!’ Peggy pulled her into the passage of her little flat and squeezed her tightly. ‘I didn’t know you were home!’

‘Just got back on Friday. I’ve got two weeks’ leave! Can you believe it?’

‘It seems strange to see you in civvies. You look lovely! Lipstick as well, wonder where you got that from!’

‘You’ve got your uses.’

They laughed and May thought how good it was to see her sister smiling. She’d imagined her sunk in solitary gloom. But she still had the brightness about her that May had noticed last leave.

‘What have you done to the flat?’ she asked, looking round. It looked so different, less sombre somehow.

Peggy looked puzzled. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, I did get rid of some of that heavy old furniture George’s pals nicked from Heal’s. Gave it to a young couple down the landing. They hadn’t got a stick, and there was nothing in the shops for them to buy. I didn’t need all that stuff cluttering up the place.’

‘But what about George, won’t he be angry with you?’

Peggy gave a rueful little laugh. ‘What, you mean, even more angry with me than he already is for getting pregnant by another man?’

May blushed with embarrassment at her own stupidity, but also at Peggy’s frankness. But what was the point of pussyfooting around the subject?

‘Have you seen George?’ May asked, taking off her coat.

‘Just the once, to tell him… you know.’ Peggy turned away from her. ‘Sit down, love, I’ll make us some tea. You’re frozen.’

May waited, leaving Peggy to make tea in the kitchen, while she sat in the much-changed living room. It was sparer, certainly, but the cushion covers were brighter and an embroidered tablecloth now softened the heavy oak table. One of the sideboards and an overstuffed chair was gone, and most of George’s knocked-off items had disappeared.

The grey afternoon light was already fading to twilight and when Peggy came back with the tea, May could see she had been crying. She turned away, pulling the blackout curtains and turning on a standard lamp, which glowed warmly in the corner.

‘Oh, Peg, love, come here.’ May got up and held her sister, who tried to wipe her tears away.

‘I’m getting so emotional. They say it happens, when you’re expecting.’

‘Peggy, you don’t have to pretend with me. If Mum and Dad was treating me like they are you, I’d be crying too, pregnant or not!’

‘Thank God I’ve got you and Nan,’ Peggy said, blowing her nose.

‘Have you told Harry?’

‘Harry?’ A smile broke through Peggy’s tears. ‘He was the only one that was happy about it. Everyone else got so upset and angry, but I just wanted someone to be pleased.’ She held May’s gaze, as if gauging her reaction. ‘I must seem so selfish.’

‘I was upset with you at first. But… well, life’s short, you learn that in the army. A few weeks ago I nearly got blown up, and I had your letter in my pocket. Peg, I might never have read it, could have been like the other poor buggers that didn’t make it that night. So when I read it next day, there was blood on your letter…’