Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (42 page)

But what had seemed like an eternity lasted only an afternoon. And though she hated having to leave that charmed circle, May was the first to draw away.

‘We’ll have to go, Bill. I’m on duty tonight.’

He sighed. ‘Me too.’

‘I don’t want to step outside, do you?’ She stared out from the fairy ring into the wood as they sat side by side, he with his arm round her, she with her head leaning on his shoulder.

The sun was lower now, glancing through the leaf canopy, dancing its light over the flat tops of the toadstools, turning them golden.

‘We don’t have to leave it. We’ll keep it here.’ And he placed his palm first on her heart and then on his own.

That night, back at the gun emplacement, the long, fire-breathing snouts of the guns seemed like beasts of another world, massive and ponderous, having very little to do with the new world she’d entered that day, where everything felt as light and pure as angel’s wings. But the dream of love confused her instinct. She miscalculated the fuse several times, and when the sergeant cursed her, she forced herself to suppress her distracting euphoria. She mentally left the forest behind. She couldn’t live there forever, but tomorrow she would see Bill and, for now, that hope of heaven would have to get her through this hell of pounding guns and raining shrapnel.

In fact, the only thing that fell from the skies was their own shrapnel. They’d shot down no planes, and though it went against all her training, she was glad that no one had died at her hand that night. As they’d lain in each other’s arms earlier, Bill had whispered to her that she was his angel, and she couldn’t bear that those longed-for words should be overshadowed by death.

*

Their next meeting was at the slightly less magical Odeon in Gant’s Hill. When she saw Bill waiting for her outside, handsome in his blue uniform and field cap, she wished they’d chosen a less public place for their first real date. They sat through a silly George Formby comedy, which made her laugh, but the flickering images were only the backdrop for the more compelling feeling of Bill’s hand in hers. Then came a short film entitled
An Airman’s Letter to His Mother
, which sent a chill through her. She hated the thought of ever receiving a last letter from Bill. Although he was ground crew – a gunner armourer not a pilot – an overseas posting with a fighter squadron was never a safe option. And she certainly didn’t want to see fighter boys on the screen putting their lives in danger, however noble the intentions.

After the film, they walked through the blackout to a nearby pub. Sitting in a corner, their hands intertwined, she confessed to him how she longed to protect their love from the war. He brought her hand to his lips and smiled.

‘You really do want to live in the fairy ring forever?’

And she loved him so much that she allowed herself to seem foolish in front of him, and nodded her head.

‘We’ll have to agree on a time and place, where we imagine ourselves both there, and no matter where we are, how far apart, we’ll go there in our minds. It’ll be our safe place, forever.’

May sighed, relieved that he had understood. ‘All right, before we go to sleep, every night, let’s meet each other there,’ she said.

‘And if I’m overseas, I’ll have to work out the time difference. But don’t worry about that – my maths is up to it!’ And he laughed.

But May didn’t laugh. ‘You’re not being posted overseas, are you? I’m not having that, not now I’ve found you again!’

‘I’m not going anywhere! I’m keeping my head down. I’ve got no stripes yet, not like a certain ATS corporal, and my sergeant always says the only sure way to get yourself a posting is by getting stripes or by getting married. And I’m not planning on getting any stripes… so I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance,’ he said with a mischievous smile, which earned him a playful slap from May. ‘But seriously, they need all the armourers they can get over here at the moment, so you’re not to worry,’ he added, squeezing her hand.

After extracting senseless promises, which she knew Bill might not be able to keep, he took her back to base, where the girls had a barrage of questions ready for her, along with the traditional mug of cocoa keeping warm for her on the potbellied stove.

In the following weeks, whenever Bill had a half-day’s leave he cycled over from his base, and they would walk in whatever part of the countryside hadn’t been commandeered by the army or the air force. They wandered the paths of Hainault Forest, seeking out their fairy ring and the nearby lake, where they spent the fleeting summer days cocooned in their own world. For them, the future was a country more real than the one they lived in, a place where the fields weren’t zigzagged with new concrete runways, or tangled with barbed wire, and where the blue skies weren’t scarred with the white trails of fighter planes or bombers.

Pat’s wedding gave her a glimpse of that tomorrow. She was to be bridesmaid, and Bill was invited too. They all took the same train together to Moreton-in-Marsh and it felt like a holiday. But Bill was nervous about meeting her mother.

‘What if she doesn’t like me?’ he asked, as the slow train chugged its way westward, stopping at stations thick with servicemen who tried to crowd into their compartment. Fortunately, all the girls had managed to get leave for the wedding, so their carriage was already full to bursting.

‘Oh, I can tell you how to get on her good side!’

Bill leaned forward and was paying such close attention, she felt like one of his armourer instructors.

‘Got a pen and paper, want to write it down?’

‘I just want to make a good impression,’ he said, his face very earnest. Then, laughing suddenly, he kissed her quickly on the cheek.

‘Just give me a clue.’

‘It’s easy. When she gives you one of her fairy cakes – which she will – just make a bloody big fuss about how nice they are. It worked for Peggy’s George every time.’

The swaying of the warm carriage made her sleepy and leaning her head on Bill’s shoulder, she closed her eyes. Mention of George had set her thinking of her sister. Poor Peggy, ousted from her home, living with Dad in the ruin of the old house and dreading having to send her baby to live with their mother in the country. Peggy had paid a high price for following her heart. But it was only now she had Bill that May realized what Peggy must have gone through, being married to a man she hadn’t loved. And she realized that her sister had tried to warn her. She would always be grateful to Peggy, for urging her to keep looking for Bill. For as much as he had found his angel, May knew that she had now found hers.

Summer 1942

She had Jack’s eyes, bright jewels that shone out of the darkness as Peggy leaned over the cot next to her bed.

‘Are you hungry again?’ she asked her daughter wearily, to be met by a small protest which Peggy knew would soon rival an air-raid siren if left unanswered. Pearl had already earned herself the same unflattering nickname of ‘Moaning Minnie’. Peggy’s worries about the house hadn’t gone away, and she fought a constant battle to keep this little corner of the downstairs dry and warm. Though it was now summer, embers of last night’s coals still burned in the grate, for they needed a fire to keep the chill damp from the walls. But with fuel getting scarcer, soon they simply wouldn’t be able to keep a fire going all the time. She lifted Pearl to her breast and, as she nursed her, stroked the little cap of silky black hair she’d been born with. Harry had written that it was a family trait and that, like little Jack’s, soon the black hair would disappear to be replaced by pale blonde.

‘I love your hair, whatever the colour,’ Peggy crooned to her baby. ‘And we’ll have your photograph taken soon, to send to your daddy, so he can see just how beautiful you are.’ The bright eyes opened wide for an instant. ‘Yes, he’ll be so proud of you.’ She smiled at her daughter, who hiccupped loudly. Peggy patted her back till a little milky froth bubbled from her rosebud lips.

‘Good girl.’ She yawned, gently laying Pearl in her cot.

Tomorrow they were going to Moreton-in-Marsh. Though the constant hammering of the Blitz had passed, nothing on earth would induce her mother to return to Bermondsey. So, if Mrs Lloyd wouldn’t come to see Peggy’s baby, then the baby would just have to go to her. She’d even managed to persuade her father to leave guarding the house and come with them. These past months he’d protected the place like a battered guardian angel in an old tin ARP hat. But even with new windows in the downstairs rooms, the house had been open to the elements for so long that it was crumbling with damp. The upstairs floorboards were slowly rotting and if the roof wasn’t repaired soon, she feared the place would be declared unfit. Then, like so many other Bermondsey families, they’d be traipsing from rest centres to temporary accommodation, with nowhere to call home.

She listened to the wind, snuffling around upstairs, wheezing its way down through cracked plaster into her room. She hated the sound, for it resembled George’s laboured breathing and always managed to stir up her half-buried guilt. Sometimes, as now, the wind would bring down plaster in dusty trickles. She brushed away a gritty handful that had covered her face and turned over to check Pearl, who’d begun to cry. Peggy put out a hand to pat the baby back to sleep, but her palm closed instead over a jagged lump of ceiling plaster. She leaped up, fumbled for the lamp switch and froze. Blood stained the cot pillow, and there was a scarlet thread oozing from Pearl’s forehead.

‘Oh, my poor baby!’ Peggy snatched Pearl from the cot. The child’s face crumpled as she gulped in enough air to fuel a nerve-wrenching wail. Frantically brushing off the pinkish gravel from her baby’s head, Peggy examined the cut just above her eye. She hastily dipped a handkerchief into the jug on the washstand, and dabbed at the cut. It didn’t seem deep, but Pearl struggled and screamed until Peggy felt like crying herself. She was a bad mother; she’d always known she would be. Why else had it been so hard for her to have a child? It was nature’s way of telling her she couldn’t do it. She’d been selfish, thinking she could keep such a fragile little thing safe in a place like this. The house was a ruin, and as a mother, she was a disgrace.

Her attempts to soothe Pearl only seemed to agitate the baby more. She was standing by the washstand, hardly knowing why she had the wet cloth in her hand, aware it had something to do with the fact that her perfect child had been damaged and it was all her fault, when her pyjama-clad father burst into the room. He had taken the precaution of putting on his tin hat, though sometimes Peggy thought he might actually sleep in the thing.

‘Nah then, what’s all the fuss? What’s the matter with Moaning Minnie now?’

Peggy held the child for him to see. ‘The ceiling’s come down on her!’

He peered at the baby’s forehead. ‘Good gawd, it’s a scratch, Peg! What are you getting in such a two and eight for? Give her to me.’

Her father cradled the baby, and Peggy looked on in wonder. Her mother had told her he never picked them up as babies, in fact took no interest at all until they could speak. But now, by some magic, Pearl’s screaming died away to be replaced by some small shuddering sobs. The child allowed his leathery hand to pat the wound clean, without further protest.

‘There,’ he said, ‘right as rain now.’ And planting a kiss on the child’s forehead, he handed her back to Peggy.

‘Babies are a lot tougher than you think, gel. I’ve seen ’em pulled out of the rubble after three days and they still give you a smile! I’m going back to me bed.’

Perhaps he was right, but Peggy was glad to be taking Pearl out of Bermondsey, and not just because of the dangerous old house. There was another more selfish reason for her eagerness to be going to the country: George was back. She’d heard he was frequenting his old haunts and the other day when she’d taken Pearl out in her pram he was standing outside the Raymouth Tavern, taking bets. She was on the opposite side of the road, but she knew he’d seen her and felt his hostile stare following her. She couldn’t blame him. Though he might have deserved his time in prison, he didn’t deserve the shame of his unfaithful wife parading another man’s child in front of him.

She’d wanted to turn round, tell him she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant to hurt him. But what good would that do, when the impulse was merely one of pity? It could only deepen his injured pride, so she looked straight ahead and kept on walking. But it had made her wonder about the future. With George out of her life, the early years of the war had widened her choices, and she’d found she was capable of so much more than he’d ever allowed. But now she had Pearl to consider and her life belonged to someone else again. Her choices had narrowed and if they should have to move out of the house, though she might be able to bear the gypsy life, she wouldn’t want it for her child.

*

The tiny cottage in the grounds of the major’s house was as pretty as her mother had described in her letters. Its cosy warmth was everything Southwark Park Road no longer was. She and her father looked out of place, her mother’s sun-browned face contrasting starkly with their own city pallor. There was a pot of tea steaming on the table and Mrs Lloyd had just removed scones from the oven. The smell filled Peggy with a memory of coming home from school, comforted by the knowledge that her mother would always be there. When Mrs Lloyd had gone away into that grief-fuelled exile, Peggy had resigned herself to the loss. She could hardly believe it, but here was her mother again, risen from the ashes, smiling and reaching out floury hands for her grandchild. There wasn’t a trace of her earlier vagueness, nor a sign of her disappointment in Peggy.

‘Thank God, she’s here safe and sound. Got all her toes and fingers?’ Her mother counted. ‘She’s perfect!’ And then she spotted the little gash on her forehead and had to be told the story.

She shook her head.

‘You know I wouldn’t mind having her here, Peg. That house is a death trap and I’ve told ’im.’ She inclined her head towards Mr Lloyd. ‘But he won’t listen. I do believe he won’t leave it till it’s fallen down on top of him!’