Secrets of the Singer Girls (17 page)

‘I’ll give you a penny for them.’ He smiled down at her.

‘For what?’ she frowned, shaking herself out of her reverie.

‘Your thoughts.’ He grinned.

‘Oh, sorry, Robert,’ she replied. ‘I’m all yours.’

‘Good,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her to the dance floor. ‘In that case, let’s dance.’

When the music slowed to a waltz, she nestled her head on his strong chest. He smelt delicious, of fresh-baked biscuits and cut grass.

‘I can’t stand to think of you going away, putting yourself in danger,’ she sighed. ‘Everything will feel so flat. Even Vera seems to have herself a new fella
now.’

‘Don’t begrudge her some happiness,’ Robert replied. ‘After all, it will be nice for her to have someone after we marry.’

Daisy stared up at Robert and her hand flew to her mouth in surprise. ‘Oh, Robert,’ she gushed. ‘Do you really mean that? Will we truly have a future together? You must have
read my mind!’

‘I sure hope so. I won’t lie. Like I’ve said all along, it will be hard, but I’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen.’ He smiled down gently. ‘I
don’t know when or how, but once this war is over, I intend to make you my wife, Daisy Shadwell . . . if you’ll have me, that is?’

‘Have you?’ she breathed. ‘Nothing would make me happier than to start a new life with you.’

They sealed the proposal, for Daisy was sure that was what it was, with a lingering kiss.

Sal arrived back from the bar clutching their drinks to find Poppy missing and Daisy on the dance floor with Robert.

‘Daisy!’ she called out to her. ‘Where on earth is Poppy?’

‘She wasn’t feeling well,’ Daisy called over her shoulder. ‘She’s left.’

‘But she can’t simply just go on her own!’ Sal protested. ‘We promised Vera we’d chaperone her.’

‘We did try our hardest to stop her,’ Daisy replied, shrugging, ‘but she seemed in a dreadful hurry.’

‘I’m going to follow her, Daisy,’ Sal muttered, trying to hide her irritation. ‘Enjoy your last night with Robert.’

‘I will,’ Daisy sang back, oblivious, and the love-struck pair melted into the sea of young people crowding the dance floor.

Sal put the drinks down on the table and sighed heavily. She loved Daisy with all her heart, but she could be a little self-centred at times. Fancy letting Poppy hotfoot it out of there like
that, all alone. There was no way on earth she would have allowed Poppy to travel back to the East End on her own. Perhaps it was the strong maternal urge in her, but at times she felt Poppy
wasn’t much more mature than her own boys. She was certainly less streetwise than them. The thought of her out there on her own made Sal shudder.

Sal said a hasty goodbye to Daisy and Robert before reaching for her bag and scurrying from the club, her heels clicking down the parquet stairs. She burst out of the door and onto the pavement,
just in time to see Poppy board a bus bound for the East End. Running as fast as her legs could carry her, she chased after the bus.

‘Poppy!’ she yelled, but the bus rumbled on ahead until it was swallowed up by the darkened street. ‘Curses,’ she mumbled.

Vera wouldn’t like it one little bit, but then neither did she. Poppy was far too young to be travelling alone at night and Sal knew she had let her young friend down. She glanced back at
the dance hall. Cigarette smoke and raucous laughter spilled out as servicemen stood huddled by the entrance. Sal suddenly felt a deep and aching tiredness. She had no desire to return and fend off
the attentions of amorous GIs. No, she would get the bus back to the East End, check Poppy had got home safely, then retire to the warmth of her bed. She had a half-written letter to her boys she
was dying to finish.

Alighting the bus back in the East End, Sal’s route to Poppy’s lodgings took her past Trout’s. Blearily, she glanced up at the darkened facade of the factory and saw something
that made her stop in her tracks. A chink of light spilt out from behind the badly drawn blackout curtain.

Must be Mr Gladstone working late, she mused. But it was not like him to be so sloppy with the blackouts. He was usually meticulous with these things.

Trout’s worked a night shift throughout the week, but not usually on a Saturday or Sunday, so Sal simply couldn’t imagine why her boss would be there at this time of night.

Shocked to find the factory door unlocked, she silently picked her way up the darkened stairs, moving softly so as not to disturb whoever was there. Scarcely breathing for fear of disturbing an
intruder, she pushed open the door to the fifth floor and gasped.

‘Poppy . . .’ she breathed, astonished. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

Poppy looked like a rabbit caught in the full glare of headlights. ‘Sal!’ Panic flitted over her pretty face. ‘Oh, Sal . . . I . . . I . . .’ but Poppy couldn’t
finish her sentence. Fat tears ran from her blue eyes as she gazed, stricken, at Sal. ‘I’ve done something so dreadful. Promise me you won’t tell Vera I was here so late at
night?’

Sal could see she was consumed with terror. Her heart filled with compassion for the young girl and she moved quickly to her side.

‘Dear, sweet Poppy.’ She smiled tenderly, pulling a hanky from her handbag and gently dabbing away Poppy’s tears. ‘Are you going to tell me why you’re here? You
gave me an awful fright, you know. Whatever it is, it really can’t be that bad, surely?’

Poppy’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, but it is, Sal, and Vera will give me my marching orders on the spot when she finds out,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve . . I’ve . . . Well,
I’ve been coming in here after hours, you see. Sewing little notes into bandages.’

‘Sewing notes into bandages?’ repeated Sal.

‘Well, not just bandages, sometimes into the hems of army jackets and trousers, but mainly the field bandages. This is only my second time, but oh . . . you must think me so
foolish.’

Sal felt her mouth twitch, but she couldn’t contain herself and soon her shoulders were shaking with laughter.

‘Oh, Poppy, you daft cow,’ she chuckled. ‘If I had tuppence for every note or love letter sewn into the lining of a jacket or a bandage, I’d be a rich woman by
now.’

‘You mean—’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I reckon half the young women in this place have done it at one time or another, and in broad daylight on a shift too. Young Betty and Kathy do it all the
time. Vera suspects, but she’s never caught anyone red-handed. I even found some saucy piece slipping a note that said, “If you’re in the mood, come to me and I’ll be in the
nude”, with her address on the back. She’s got more front than Blackpool that one!’

Poppy blanched a shade whiter. ‘Oh my! I can assure you my note wasn’t smutty, Sal. You have to believe me,’ she begged.

‘It’s all right,’ Sal said soothingly. ‘I do. To be honest, most of the women just do it for a laugh, you know, to boost morale or find a sweetheart. There’s quite
a shortage of young British men on the streets at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed.’ Sal broke off and stared curiously at Poppy. ‘But that doesn’t strike me as your
style, Poppy,’ she said quizzically.

‘No,’ replied Poppy, with a drop in her voice. ‘I don’t really do it for fun.’

‘Then just why are you doing it?’ asked Sal directly. ‘It makes no sense to run from a dance hall packed full of eligible young men to come here and write to anonymous
soldiers. I don’t get it, Poppy, really I don’t. You’re such a pretty young thing – you could be courting any number of men by now.’

‘Because I’m scared,’ Poppy replied, in a voice so quiet Sal could scarcely hear it.

Instinct told Sal not to reply. If there was a silence, Poppy would eventually fill it. As she waited with bated breath, you could have heard a pin drop.

Poppy cast her eyes to the floor and took a shaky breath. ‘I’m scared, Sal,’ she repeated. Her words were almost lost in the cavernous factory.

Sal gently took Poppy’s face in her hands and tilted it up until their eyes met. The look of hopelessness and fear lurking there nearly took her breath away.

‘What are you running from, Poppy?’ she urged quietly, holding her gaze. ‘You can tell me anything.’

‘But that’s just it, Sal. I can’t tell you.’ Poppy started to cry, shaking her head in bitter frustration.

Sal could feel Poppy’s whole body quivering and sensed she could push no further. Whatever it was that scared her would reveal itself in time. Secrets could not be forced out against their
will.

Instead, she summoned up all her courage and did something she knew would shock the young girl to her very core.

‘You’re not the only one with secrets, Poppy,’ Sal admitted.

With trembling hands she slowly pulled up the hem of her skirt to reveal the tops of her thighs. Poppy gasped and a startled squawk escaped her lips.

The skin at the top and inside of Sal’s thighs had bubbled clean off. What was left was raw and exposed, the scars snaking up inside her pants and nearly down to her knees. The flesh that
remained was stained from brown to purple like a tidemark, the skin so thin and stretched you could almost make out the tendons and bones beneath. It was barbaric and unspeakably sad.

Sal stared down at her deformed legs, her face etched with an ancient pain. The terrible silence in the room turned Poppy’s heart over as her mind grappled to make sense of what she was
looking at.

‘Who did this to you, Sal?’ she asked tremulously.

Sal looked up at Poppy, her expression changing from shame to blazing fury in the blink of an eye.

‘The man who pledged to love, honour and protect me,’ she flashed back. ‘Reggie, my
beloved
husband.’ She spat the words out as if she had a fish bone stuck in
her throat.

‘But . . . but why?’ Poppy stuttered, confused.

‘Why do you think?’ Sal shrugged. ‘Most men in Bethnal Green like to beat ten bells out of each other in the ring down York Hall boxing club, but my Reggie didn’t need a
punchbag, not when he had me. It was almost like a second job to him. When he weren’t working the docks, he was busy knocking the stuffing out of me. Started seven years ago, when I was
pregnant with our Billy. He reckoned I gave the baby more attention than him. What kind of man’s jealous of his own child?’ She shook her head so fiercely at the memory that her red
curls tumbled about her pale face.

‘Oh, Sal,’ cried Poppy. ‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’

‘The police,’ she snorted. ‘Don’t make me laugh. I did to begin with, but I couldn’t call them every time it happened, could I? They used to call Saturday night
– when Reggie got back from the pub – “flying plate” night, but they stopped coming out. Besides, if I did tell anyone, my Reggie would give me a right good hiding, so I
quickly learned to keep my mouth shut. It was the only way to survive, see. And you want to hear the funniest thing?’

Poppy stared back at her, struck dumb with horror.

‘I don’t think he even really thought he was doing anything wrong,’ she went on. ‘One night, we were walking down the street and he dropped his bag of chips. He was that
jibbed he turned round and, without saying a word, belted me across the face. Talk about a wallop! It was so hard it knocked me clean off my feet. When a passer-by helped me up and gave Reggie a
piece of his mind, he turned to the fella, completely baffled, and said, “But she’s my wife,” as if that somehow excused it.’

She let rip with a hollow laugh and fished a cigarette out of her bag, lighting it with a shaky hand. Drawing heavily on her cigarette, her eyes narrowed to slits. The crackling of the cigarette
caused the tip to burn more brightly, illuminating her scars even more vividly.

‘But your legs . . .’ murmured Poppy, gesturing to her thighs. ‘That’s more than a slap and a kick.’

‘Another hardship of the war,’ Sal replied in a voice as dead as dry leaves. ‘It happened on his last night at home before he was sent off for army training, a few days after
Chamberlain’s announcement. He was drunk, of course. Reckoned he was due some how’s-your-father, his conjugal rights, seeing as he was going away and didn’t know when he’d
next be getting it. I denied him. I knew it was my unsafe time. Last thing I wanted was another mouth to feed in the middle of a war. He won’t wear a sheath, of course. Mind you, show me an
East End man that will.’

The effort of recounting the story was almost too much and Sal took a deep, shaky breath before continuing.

‘He went mental. Told me I was silly whore. I turned my back on him and next thing I know –’ her voice cracked a little ‘– he did this. Poured boiling water from
the kettle straight over my thighs. Told me if he couldn’t go there, he didn’t want anyone else going there either. His way of marking out his property, I suppose. He marched off to war
the very next day. It’s taken two years to heal. I’ve had infection after infection, and the doctors don’t reckon it will ever look any better than this. Vera and Daisy came to my
rescue while I was in hospital, looked after my boys until they were evacuated. I owe them both a great debt.’ With that, she angrily tugged down the hem of her skirt.

‘So there you have it,’ she spat, so fiercely the breath whistled through the chip in her left tooth. ‘All I can hope is that he never comes back and my boys can return to a
home free from violence. Reggie’s been serving abroad since the war broke out, and I haven’t written to him once. He has no idea our flat took a direct hit during the Blitz, or that I
evacuated the boys the first chance I got, and I have no intention of telling him, not that
he’s
written once to see how they are.’

Rising sharply from her seat, Sal ground out her cigarette and started to pace the factory floor, her body as tense as a coiled spring. Poppy remained rooted to her seat, listening in horrified
silence.

‘The night the flat was bombed, I didn’t dare show it, of course, but inside I was jubilant,’ Sal went on. ‘It wasn’t a home, you see, Poppy – just a place
crawling with bad memories. I couldn’t wait to see the back of it. Most of the neighbours returned after the all-clear sounded, to salvage whatever they could. Me, I just walked right away
with only the clothes on my back. My boys were safe in the country by then, so nothing else mattered. I spent a week sleeping on the floor of the Salvation Army rest centre before the council
rehoused me into my new place. They asked if I’d like my husband to be notified, but I told them that I would write instead. Only my friends and my boys know my new address and that’s
the way it’s staying.’