Secrets of the Singer Girls (10 page)

‘Do we have to?’ Daisy protested.

‘Yes, unless you want to walk all the way home. Besides, Vera will string you up if you’re late.’ She took Daisy by the arm. ‘Now come on – give lover boy a last
kiss goodbye and look lively.’

‘Will I see you again?’ Daisy murmured to Robert.

‘I sure hope so,’ he grinned. ‘We’re to be stationed in London for a little longer, while we complete our training here. I’ll look you up. Trout’s is near
Bethnal Green, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and make sure you do,’ whispered Daisy, before reaching up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, ‘And thank you for the most wonderful evening.’

‘It’s me who should be thanking you,’ he said. ‘I never met anyone like you before.’

‘I’m not like most girls,’ she smiled breathlessly.

‘Let’s go, Cinderella,’ snapped Sal.

Laughing, Daisy ran to the exit. Pausing at the door, she managed a last backwards glance. Robert’s eyes were still fixed on hers through the crowded dance hall, full of hunger. She
stopped in her tracks, her heart pounding fiercely. No. No. No. Her fairy-tale night wasn’t ending like this. On impulse, she unclipped her heart necklace and, turning back, weaved her way
frantically through the crowd.

‘Dais, what you doing?’ Sal called after her.

Robert’s eyes widened in surprise when she reached his side. Taking his hand in hers, she pressed the necklace into his palm and closed his fingers over it.

‘Now you have my heart – don’t be careless with it,’ she urged. And with that, she took her leave.

Two days, thirteen hours, thirty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds. That was how long it had been since Daisy had kissed Robert. Not that she was counting, but his silence was
causing her agony. She hadn’t even touched the Spam sandwich laid out on a plate in front of her in the factory canteen.

‘Why hasn’t he visited?’ she sighed to Sal during their dinner break. ‘I gave him my heart, for pity’s sake.’ Forlorn, her fingers traced the spot on her neck
where her necklace used to lie. ‘I told Vera I took it off to clean it and then forgot to put it back on, but there’s only so long I can keep fobbing her off,’ she said, her voice
breaking a little. ‘She’s getting suspicious already.’

Sal faltered. Daisy knew she was trying to find the words to let her down gently.

‘Who knows, Dais?’ she said at last, stirring her tea and staring thoughtfully at the swirling brown liquid. ‘Maybe he’s forgotten where you work.’

Daisy felt herself growing impatient. ‘Don’t give me that flannel,’ she snapped, instantly regretting her outburst. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sal,’ she cried,
exasperated. ‘I shouldn’t take it out on you. It’s just that he said he’d get in touch and now . . . nothing. I should have heeded Pat’s warnings, but I’ve never
met anyone like him in all my life.’

‘Phooey,’ scoffed Sal. ‘Don’t listen to anything Pat’s got to say about men. What does she know? Empty vessels make the most noise.’

And then, closing her hand over Daisy’s, she lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I understand why he’s turned your head, but maybe it’s better we stick to our own kind,
Dais. Those soldiers never know where they’ll be from one day to the next. Besides, they ain’t going to want to settle down here when the war’s over, are they? There’s
nothing left but rubble. They’ll return to their world and leave us to ours.’

‘I suppose,’ sniffed Daisy. ‘It’s just that . . . Oh, I don’t know.’ She shook her head in frustration and her sleek dark hair shimmered as her eyes drifted
to the window. ‘I really thought he was my ticket out of here. And that kiss. It was something else.’

Sal’s eyes lit up with mischief, and a second later, she had whipped the piece of Spam out of Daisy’s uneaten sandwich and clamped it between her lips so that it flopped out like a
tongue.

‘Give us a kiss, Daisy,’ she said in a gruff voice.

Daisy’s laughter nearly took the roof off Trout’s.

‘Oh, stop it, Sal,’ she roared. ‘You really are the giddy limit sometimes.’

‘Cheered you up, though, didn’t it,’ Sal grinned, flinging the pink luncheon meat back on the plate with a slap.

The parcel landed with such a thud on the table in front of Poppy that she jumped.

‘Cor, blast me,’ she cried, clutching her chest. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Nervy little thing, aren’t you? You’ve been jumping around all morning like you’ve got a touch of the St Vitus’s dance,’ chirped a young machinist by the
name of Kathy ‘We’re used to loud bangs round here.’

Vera silenced Kathy with a glare and placed a gentle hand on Poppy’s shoulder.

‘Sorry, Poppy. It’s just the post. I didn’t mean to alarm you.’

‘The post?’ murmured Poppy in a trance.

‘Yes, post, letters,’ laughed Kathy. ‘You know, a paper affair usually with a stamp on the front.’

‘All right, Kathy,’ snapped Vera. ‘See those boxes of bandages over there? Take them down to the loading bay to be collected, would you? The delivery boy’s off
sick.’

‘But it’ll take me forever,’ Kathy protested.

‘Not if you put your back and your heart into it,’ Vera replied swiftly. ‘Chop-chop.’

Kathy moved off begrudgingly and Vera crouched down beside Poppy.

‘Are you sure you’re all right, my dear?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘I’m fine, Vera . . . Mrs Shadwell,’ she blustered. ‘I just feel a bit on edge, that’s all. I’m not sleeping so well. The noise of the artillery guns in the
park is fearful.’

‘But your lodgings, they’re suitable now, aren’t they?’ Vera persisted. ‘That slattern of a landlady’s not giving you any grief, is she?’

‘No, no. She’s perfectly nice,’ Poppy reassured her, omitting to tell Vera that the loathsome Mrs Brown had taken one look at the new, improved room and promptly put up the
rent.

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ Vera replied.

Poppy knew that her new friend was only displaying concern, but at times she had the strangest sensation that Vera was trying to open up her thoughts and fish out her secrets.

‘Quite sure,’ she said. ‘Can I be of any assistance?’ She motioned to the pile of mail.

‘Well, yes, actually. A lot of the workers have their mail directed here. During the Blitz, a number of the women and their families were bombed out and were forced to move to temporary
accommodation, so many have their correspondence sent here. Would you be so kind as to hand the letters round, Poppy?’

Poppy smiled and sprang to her feet. ‘I’d be happy to.’ Judging by the eager looks on the faces of the Singer Girls, she would have a warmer greeting than Santa Claus himself.
Another heartening thought struck her: perhaps her mother would have written to her. She was longing to hear news from home and half felt like flicking through there and then, but she resisted. It
would be so selfish to put her own needs before those of these women.

Poppy spent a very happy half-hour handing round the post. She knew from the daily chat that nearly every woman in the place had a husband, sweetheart, brother or son away fighting and news of
their well-being was eagerly received. Soon the floor was filled with relieved exclamations of joy and tears of happiness as letters from all corners of the globe were swapped or quietly read in a
corner.

Happiness swelled in Poppy’s chest, and with a jolt, she realized how much she was starting to like working in this community of lively women. Their spirit was something to behold. To see
the women’s pride in their menfolk was humbling too, though Poppy was also in awe of how they fought the war on the home front. It rather put her own problems into perspective, she thought
sadly.

As she approached Sal’s bench, she piped up, ‘Anything for me from my boys?’

Poppy quickly riffled through the envelopes and produced one with a Devon postmark on it.

‘“Sal Fowler” and in brackets “Mum”. This must be yours,’ she chuckled.

Frantically Sal ripped it open and a photo fell out. Sal gazed at it, then her legs abruptly gave way beneath her, and she sank heavily into her chair.

‘Oh look, Poppy,’ she breathed. ‘It’s a picture.’

Poppy looked at the photo Sal had just handed her with a trembling hand. Two little boys stared back at her from outside a well-kept cottage. The elder boy grinned self-consciously, showing off
a big, gappy grin. The younger boy raised a chubby little hand to wave at the camera.

‘Is this Joey and Billy?’ Poppy gasped, for she barely recognized Sal’s sons from the previous photo she had shown her in the pub. Gone was the dyed-in grime. These little
lambs were squeaky clean and as hale and hearty as they come.

‘My, haven’t they changed?’ she said.

Sal’s face crumpled as she read aloud from the letter.

‘Oh, my days,’ she wept. ‘Joey’s lost two more teeth, and Billy’s learned to swim. Whatever next? Says the lady they’re billeted with even lets Billy help out
in the village post office counting the day’s takings.’ Her face fell. ‘He couldn’t count when he lived with me,’ she said sadly. ‘So that’s something,
isn’t it?’ Her voice trailed off to a barely perceptible whisper. ‘Maybe he’s better off without me, or maybe when this war’s over, he won’t want to come
home.’

‘What rot, Sal,’ interrupted Vera, as she bustled past on her way to Mr Gladstone’s office. ‘You’re his mother. There’s no replacement on earth for your own
flesh and blood.’

Her eyes narrowed as she glanced over at a subdued Daisy. ‘Talking of which, Daisy, for the umpteenth time, just where is Mother’s necklace?’

Daisy’s stricken face glanced up, then she fled from the floor in tears.

‘What did I say?’ asked Vera in dismay.

‘I’ll go,’ sighed Sal, leaping up and running after her.

‘Oh look,’ said Poppy brightly, trying to avoid another confrontation. ‘One left and it’s for you, Betty.’

Hurt stabbed at Poppy’s heart as she walked over to her workbench to deliver the letter. Nothing at all from her own mother. Oh well, she was obviously too busy tending to Her Ladyship, or
maybe she had been caught up with her WVS work since she left, Poppy thought charitably, but in her heart she knew this wasn’t true. For all her mother’s aloofness, Poppy still missed
her desperately, just as much as she missed the endless skies of Norfolk. She thought with a pang of her half-day off, and how she would pull her rattly old bike out from the stable block and tear
down the country lanes, her hair flowing behind her in the breeze, the tang of sea salt from the wash tingling her nostrils. The wild strawberries would be ripening in the meadows and the fens
groaning with wild flowers. But those innocent, carefree days were over now.

A sudden feeling of homesickness mingled with the harsher taste of abandonment washed over Poppy. There was no escaping the truth. Her own mother had banished her from the village in which she
was born and failed to stand by her in her greatest hour of need. What, Poppy wondered, with an aching sadness, did that say about her? Surely if even her own mother didn’t want her anywhere
near, then she must be very hard to love?

Shaking herself a little, she painted a brave smile on her face and handed Betty her letter. The young girl greedily tore open the envelope.

‘You didn’t?’ gasped Kathy ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘I only did,’ Betty replied.

‘You little bleeder,’ giggled Kathy, full of admiration.

‘Did what?’ asked Poppy.

‘Well, why should Daisy get to have all the fun?’ Betty shrugged. Checking to see Vera was out of earshot, she leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘I wrote to a serviceman,’
she giggled. ‘Nicked his name and address off my big sister. He thinks I’m a twenty-one-year-old seamstress who can do the jitterbug. I even squirted the letter with some of my
sister’s perfume.’

‘Betty,’ admonished Poppy, ‘whatever will he say when he finds out his pen-pal sweetheart is a fourteen-year-old apprentice?’

‘He won’t find out,’ she shot back. ‘There ain’t a snowball’s chance in hell of me actually meeting him. Besides, what hope have I got of getting a
sweetheart? I’m plain as a pikestaff – I don’t have Daisy’s good looks or Sal’s banter, so I’ve got to use what I can. That’s the beauty of letters,
Poppy,’ she said. ‘You can be whoever you want to be.’

Poppy said nothing, but the young girl’s words had filtered into her brain. She had to admit that to a girl as shy as her, a letter had an almost irresistible allure.

‘All right, girls,’ said Mr Gladstone as he bowled in from his office, ‘gather round.’

His gruff voice wrenched Poppy reluctantly from her train of thought.

‘I need some volunteers to go up to the children’s hospital this Sunday. Let’s have a show of hands, then.’

‘To do what, Mr Gladstone?’ asked Betty.

‘To perform an enema, what do you think?’ He laughed, shaking his head. ‘To sing, of course. Your reputation as Bethnal Green’s most talented singers precedes you.
I’m forever telling people about your voices.’

‘Saying what?’ heckled Pat. ‘That we ought to use ‘em less?’

Laughter rang out across the floor. Poppy giggled along too as Mr Gladstone’s head slumped into his hands in a gesture of mock despair. But when he lifted his head, their boss had fire in
his eyes.

‘Seriously, girls, you have to know that I’m proud of you. You have some decent lungs on yer, and what better way to use them than to cheer up some sick kiddies? Let’s show
them Jerries we’ll never be silenced.’

A loud cheer erupted from the women. Even Daisy had re-emerged and, after fixing her face, was chatting excitedly at the prospect. The only person not joining in the revelry was Vera.

‘I thought that hospital had been evacuated out of London,’ she said cautiously.

‘Parts of it were,’ replied Mr Gladstone, ‘but there are some kiddies too sick to move.’

‘I’m not sure it’s a suitable place for our girls to visit,’ Vera warned. ‘They’ll be some sad sights.’

‘Vera,’ chided Mr Gladstone gently, ‘I thought you’d be the first to want to do your bit to help.’

‘I can’t . . . I’m too busy on Sunday – I’m helping out at the Red Cross jumble sale at the Methodist Mission,’ she blustered.