Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (45 page)

‘She’ll get through it
because
she’s got the baby,’ Bill said.

May nodded. ‘You’re right, as usual.’

Bill smiled down at her. ‘I’ll remember that. But, May, listen, it’s made me think about us, and I know it’s not the best time in the world, but you said I needed to ask you first. Well, I’m asking you now – May, will you marry me?’

She took in a deep breath. ‘I want to keep you,’ she whispered.

‘So, is that your answer? Is it yes?’

‘It’s my answer.’ Her voice trembled and she hugged herself against the chill and the shaking of her body. ‘But it’s not yes.’

‘What? But why not?’ He sprang away from her. ‘I know you love me, May.’

His face was in shadow but his voice, trembling as much as her own, revealed his shock.

‘Yes, I do love you, Bill, and that’s why I won’t marry you. You told me yourself that as soon as you apply to get married, you’ll be flagged up on some list and get sent overseas!’

Bill had mentioned several pals landing overseas postings directly after marrying – it was like sticking your head above the parapet it seemed. This had been the root of her nagging unease about marrying Bill.

‘But that could happen anyway, May – nothing’s guaranteed!’

‘Well, I think we should wait – till the war’s over. I’d rather have a fiancé here, safe and sound, than a husband dead a thousand miles away! I don’t want to end up with nothing but a telegram, like our Peggy. Can’t you understand that, Bill?’

He stood up now and began pacing up and down in front of her.

‘I understand, but it’s precisely because of Harry that it’s made me want to do this now. We’re always talking about tomorrow, May. What were we singing the night Peggy found out? It’s a lovely day tomorrow? Well, it’s not. We’re always singing about it, dreaming about it, making up stories about it. When the war is over, we say, we’ll do this or that. But in this war, there
are
no tomorrows, don’t you see, there’s only today. Today!’ His voice rose and suddenly he was on his knees in front of her. ‘How many times have you said, you’re so glad we found each other again? Well, how can you be sure today won’t be the last time you see me? You say you don’t want to lose me, but every day we’re not together you’re losing me, and I’m losing you. It’s got to be now or never, May – it’s the only way I can get through this bloody war.’

He took her hand in his and she could feel tremors of emotion passing through him to her. His expressions of love had always been so restrained, always as if he were half surprised at his own captivation, a willing but puzzled slave to his love for her. But now his passion was almost fierce and, taking her in his arms, his kisses were insistent, as if he wanted to distil all the essence of his love through normally gentle lips.

When he drew back, she saw tears shining in his eyes.

‘Believe me, May, there
is
no tomorrow. Marry me now.’

And though she had promised herself she would not be dissuaded, love proved stronger than her fear and she had no strength left in her to deny him.

‘Yes, Bill, I’ll marry you,’ she said and, enveloped in his arms, she let herself believe only in today.

***

Bill and May applied for permission to marry and told their friends and a few of the family their happy news. But there was one person in particular May couldn’t bring herself to tell. The others were sworn to secrecy, until May felt the time was right to tell her sister. The leaves had just begun to turn gold, drifting about them like late butterflies, as they took their bike rides into the forest, snatching whatever time they could together in their time off. The tree above the fairy ring had shivered and begun to shake its golden coins into May’s lap, before she decided she could put it off no longer. For though Peggy had continued her life with a brittle courage which had surprised them all, insisting on returning to Bermondsey with Pearl, May knew she was still as fragile as one of those dying leaves herself.

Even now May wondered if her sister would forgive her. Her mother had cocooned Peggy in the country for as long as she could, but within a month Peggy was back home, hardly time enough for Angelcote to work its magic. It was too soon, her mother said. But May had only had reports and she’d not seen Peggy for herself. Now she would have to, for she could only break the news face to face.

She set off on a cold autumnal morning and, with only a forty-eight-hour pass, she prayed that for once the trains would be running smoothly. It would be too cruel to turn up, tell her the good news, and then run away. But as she’d feared, a tip-and-run raid and a burst water main delayed her train, so that she didn’t arrive until late afternoon when the light was already failing.

She always loved the feeling of coming home, however much it had changed. Trees still lined Southwark Park Road, planted almost two decades ago by their MP, Dr Salter, and his wife, Ada. They were familiar sentinels, now doubling up as signposts in the blackout, white rings painted round every trunk marking the way home. Their filigree of branches looked pretty tonight, she thought, as the dying sun caught their last leaves on fire. Repair crews had obviously been hard at work, for there were fields of razed rubble where jagged ruins had stood a year ago, and she noticed that some houses, once uninhabitable, had been reoccupied.

But as she approached her home, she realized something wasn’t right. Flo’s house was gone! So was the Harpins’ house on the other side of the Lloyds. When had that happened? And how could her father have failed to tell her? Perhaps he’d got so used to bits of their world disappearing that the vanishing of their nearest neighbours no longer deserved a mention. Their house stood alone, its sides shorn up with timber and iron ‘s’ frames bolted to Flo’s bedroom walls. May could make out Flo’s rose-patterned wallpaper and her fireplace, hanging precariously from the bedroom wall. It was as if a giant cheese-cutter had sliced the houses into neatly rationed pieces, leaving only their own unconsumed. May craned her neck as she walked along. At least their house had a new roof.

She felt ill at ease. Her life, so long bound up with this house, now felt set adrift. She
should
have known Flo’s was gone! And she was rehearsing the scolding she would give her father, when she saw Peggy pushing Pearl’s pram towards her. Her sister was leaning down over the pram handle, talking to Pearl as she walked.

‘Peg!’ she called, running to meet her.

But when Peggy looked up from the pram, May let out a gasp. ‘Oh, Peg!’ She threw her arms round her sister, who looked ten years older.

‘May!’ Peggy’s smile creased, pale papery skin taut on her cheeks. But the over-large eyes in her shrunken face failed to smile. ‘We were expecting you earlier!’

‘Oh, the trains were all up the wall. Here, let me carry that.’ She took a heavy shopping bag that Peggy was trying to lever out from the end of the pram. Her thin wrists looked as if they might snap under its weight.

They manoeuvred the pram into the passage and only then did May allow herself to look under the pram hood, for the baby had looked near to tears at the sight of her.

‘She’s gone all shy!’ Peggy explained. ‘She’ll get used to you again.’

‘Oh, look at you, blondie! You’ve turned into a little angel!’ May said, smiling at Pearl, who burrowed deeper into the pram.

Just then their father came into the passage. ‘Hello, love! I was beginning to think I’d have to go out before you got here.’ He kissed May, smiling broadly. He was already dressed in his warden’s uniform. ‘Here, giss me granddaughter.’ He lifted Pearl, because it was clear Peggy couldn’t, and gave a small shake of his head to May.

She was sad that she’d only have such a short time with her father, but there wasn’t much that would prevent him from turning out every night to man the wardens’ station.

He sat at the kitchen table with May, while Peggy went to feed Pearl. ‘She’s not eating,’ he whispered.

‘No one told me!’

‘Well, we don’t like to worry you. You’ve got enough to do on them guns all day and night.’

‘And when were you going to tell me about Flo’s? And the Harpins’?

He looked sheepish. ‘Didn’t like to upset you…’

‘Well, it don’t look safe, Dad.’

‘Safe! ’Course it is, safe as houses!’

‘Well, I hope it’s safer than Flo’s!’

‘Did you see the new roof?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ she said, raising her eyes. ‘What’s keeping it up?’

*

After her father had left, May went with Peggy to put her niece to bed in the newly repaired upstairs bedroom. The smoke-streaked wallpaper hadn’t been changed, but there was a new ceiling and it was watertight. The only furniture was a second-hand double bed, cot and chest of drawers.

‘It’s better than sleeping in the front room. But I think Dad still prefers his camp bed in the kitchen. Sometimes I come down in the middle of the night and he’s just collapsed on it.’

‘Are you having trouble sleeping then?’ May asked and Peggy gave a sharp laugh.

‘Having trouble living, truth be told, love.’

May placed her hand over her sister’s, which, she noticed, was trembling on the edge of the cot. Pearl gave May a wide-awake smile, lifting up her arms to be held.

‘You want me now, don’t you? Now it’s time to go to sleep?’

Pearl blew a bubble at her and Peggy slipped a knitted bear into the cot.

‘She’ll be all right if we creep out.’

She switched off the light and once they were downstairs, May asked her, ‘Don’t you think you should have stayed with Mum?’

‘No. It’s too quiet there, too much time to think. I don’t need quiet, May, I need noise. Tell the truth, I can’t wait to get back to work.’

‘You sure you’ll be strong enough? You’re wasting away, love. If you’re doing ten-hour days you’ll need to start eating, won’t you?’

Peggy brushed away the suggestion. ‘Some women lose weight after a baby. I was never big. I’ll be all right.’

‘What about Pearl, though?’

‘Oh, Nell Gilbie’s offered to look after her for me. She’s a good woman. I didn’t ask – she just said she thought it’d be nice for Pearl to be with her brother. Don’t you think that’s kind of her?’

There was the same brittle smile, which showed too much bone beneath the skin, testament to every tear her sister had shed since Harry’s death.

‘Yes, she’s a diamond,’ May said, taking a deep breath. ‘But, Peg, talking of the Gilbies, I’ve been wanting to tell you something… about me and Bill. We’re getting married.’

‘Oh, love, I’m so pleased for you!’ Peggy hugged her and May’s arms wrapped easily round her sister’s thin frame.

‘Are you pleased, really?’ she asked.

But her sister’s smile this time had reached her eyes, which were now shining.

‘Oh yes, love, of course I am. Why? Didn’t you think I would be?’

‘It’s early days, Peg. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’

‘I know what you’re saying, but life can’t come to a stop, can it? Don’t matter how much I miss him, don’t matter how long you hold off getting married, you could stay a spinster all your life… but nothing’s going to bring my Harry back.’

*

That night she and her sister slept in the same room they had as children, in that other life, when all they knew of war were the games of English and Germans they played in the street, re-enacting battles of a Great War, fast disappearing into history. Back then their house had felt as safe and solid as everything else in their lives. But now May lay awake, fretful, eager to get back to Bill and set a date, yet loath to leave her sister alone in her desperate bravery. Everything had a feeling of being stretched too far here: time, food, energy. Even grief had been a luxury her sister felt she couldn’t afford, and it made May quail to think what might happen when Peggy could no longer hold back its rising waters.

But she had to leave, and after a brief stop at the Gilbies’ to give Bill’s mother a letter and a parcel of service-ration chocolate he’d been saving for them, there was just time enough for one more stop on the way to London Bridge. She got off the bus at Grange Road, and passed her old workplace, or what was left of it. The leather factory had stood with several other tanneries, corralled into a triangle of land reserved for the smelliest of Bermondsey’s industries. But now they had been virtually bombed out of existence. All but one of the main buildings of Garner’s had gone, and this stood on a blasted field of burned stones. From this single-storey building, business had carried gamely on, churning out thousands of military leather jerkins, perhaps one of which had kept her warm through all those cold nights on the gun park. But it was a sorry sight and, remembering how the place had once been all the life she knew, she wondered what had happened to the other hundreds of workers like herself, flung out of their predictable working lives by the bombs that had destroyed it. She felt oddly out of place and hurried on towards Dix’s Place.

*

His scrawny wattle was bunched up over a spotless white cotton scarf and his flat, peaked cap bobbed atop a sea of foaming white hair. May stood at the door, with her mouth open.

‘Hello, sprout!’

‘Grandad! What are you doing here?’

‘Well, blow me, not so much as a how are ya, kiss me arse, nor nothing.’

Her grandfather turned back towards the kitchen. ‘Sal! Get the kittle on, we’ve got a visitor.’

‘That’s it with yer orders. If you think I’m running round after yer mates, you can go and axe my arse,’ her grandmother called back.

From the passage May saw Granny Byron sitting by the fire, furiously sucking on her old clay pipe, while Troubles stood to attention wagging his tail just as furiously.

‘Now don’t be like that, Sal, it’s yer granddaughter.’

‘Hello, Nan!’

Her grandmother’s scowl turned to a smile and she jumped up, almost tripping over Troubles.

‘Hello, love! I didn’t know you was home. I’ll put the kittle on.’

Her grandfather pulled at his choker. ‘That’s what I said.’ Then, turning to May, he looked her up and down.

‘You been out in the rain?’

May put a hand to her hair. ‘What do you mean?’