The Bells of Bow (45 page)

‘George mentioned that.’

‘George?’

‘George Bell.’

‘Aw, Ringer, yer mean?’

Maudie nodded.

Flossie looked her up and down. ‘So you’re the one he goes on about. I wondered why it was him brought you over.’ She frowned. ‘Yer different to what I thought. Older. Quite a bit older actually. Here, I hope you ain’t got a job here just ’cos he knows yer. Yer’d better pull yer weight.’

Maudie was a bit nonplussed; she wasn’t used to such blunt speaking and had to stifle a nervous giggle that was building up in her throat. She opened her mouth without really having any idea what she was going to say, but one of the telephones rang and Flossie held up her hand to silence her.

Flossie spoke rapidly into the receiver, jotted down some details and then ran over to a switch on the wall. There was a sudden, piercing clatter of bells.

‘Down go the bells!’ Flossie yelled, and shoved her swivel chair across the room to the switchboard. ‘Ever seen Hell break loose?’ she asked.

Outside in the yard there was what looked like a totally disorganised mad scramble.

Ernie, the mobilizing officer, rushed into the watch room. In one hand he held a sandwich and in the other his glasses. ‘Right,’ he said, twisting the arms of his glasses round his ears. ‘Let’s be having yer.’

He stuck the sandwich in his mouth and snatched the note from Flossie, sat himself down at the table and picked up one of the telephones. Before he dialled he pointed at Maudie with the receiver and said to Flossie, ‘Who’s this?’

Florrie shrugged. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. And we do need someone.’

‘We’ll see how she goes.’

Maudie stared at the switchboard. It had lit up like a shop window before the blackout. She was rapt with a paralysing mixture of excitement and fear.

‘Go on, get that headset on,’ Flossie instructed her. ‘Just follow me. Yer in at the deep end, girl. Can’t waste time gawping.’

Maudie pulled off her hat, sat down and did as she was told. At first she was totally baffled about what she was meant to do. Firemen ran in and out buttoning up their tunics, grabbing pieces of paper and shouting at the tops of their voices about exactly what routes to take to which fires. And then the AFS motorcycle despatch riders came in and the place turned into a madhouse.

She watched as they shoved the report forms they had brought at Ernie, the mobilizing officer, who scribbled something on each and then stabbed them onto a spike, ready for them to be dealt with in turn. Then the riders looked to Maudie and Flossie, urging them to hurry if they wanted any messages taking as they had better things to do than stand around or be polite. The adrenaline was rushing through the riders’ veins as they strained to get back on their bikes and speed from incident to incident through the smoke and rubble of the streets to collect the on-site reports from the wardens and the police and then race them back to control. They definitely weren’t prepared to stand around while Maudie dithered. She had to respond.

Following Flossie’s example, Maudie threw herself into what emerged as a sort of lunatic routine that involved doing countless things at once. They were expected to answer the switchboard and take brief but accurate notes; grab the piles of reports that Ernie had scribbled on and transmit his instructions to other stations about which pumps and units to send where, while at the same time plotting the locality of fires on the large wall maps of their and the adjacent sub-stations’ areas and mark on chalkboards the location of each fire and which unit was dealing with it. All that, as well as coping with the impatient and very noisy despatch riders.

While all that was going on, there was the faint but all too clear droning of planes passing overhead just loud enough to be impossible to ignore.

Suddenly, Maudie slammed down her pencil. ‘Listen to me,’ she shouted into the mouthpiece. ‘Central says to get there now! No, all our appliances are out. Just do it, all right?’

Flossie spun her chair round and opened her eyes wide at Ernie.

‘She’ll do,’ Ernie said, his mouth full of sandwich.

Almost as suddenly as the surge of activity had begun, it was over.

Flossie leant back in her chair and studied Maudie for a moment. ‘Yer did all right,’ she said.

Maudie smiled proudly.

‘Don’t get too carried away,’ Florrie warned her. ‘Ernie’ll tell yer, that was an easy introduction. Couple of stray incendiary raids like that are a piece of cake. Yer should have been here during the Blitz. Like being in the flipping monkeyhouse at the zoo, that was.’

Maudie felt intimidated. ‘That must have been something to see.’

‘It was.’ Flossie stood up and held her hands out. Her tough expression softened into a half-smile. ‘Looks like yer staying, so yer might as well take yer coat off.’

Maudie stood up, pulled off her coat and stretched. She felt as if she’d been on a ten-mile run.

‘What did yer say yer name was?’ Flossie asked, hanging Maudie’s coat on the stand.

‘Maud. Maudie Peters.’

‘Right, Maudie Peters, now yer know what that armchair’s for.’

Exhausted, Maudie collapsed into the chair and closed her eyes.

The next thing she knew, someone was touching her gently on the shoulder.

She opened her eyes. It took her a moment to recognise that it was Florrie standing over her.

‘Here y’are,’ she said with surprising softness. ‘Nice cup o’ tea and a slice of toast with a big dollop of jam. One of the shopkeepers sent it back with the lads.’

Maudie sat up. ‘They’re back already?’

Flossie grinned. ‘Yeah, Ringer and all. He’s fine.’

As if on cue, Georgie walked into the watch room, his eyes screwed up against the glare of light. He was black from head to foot.

‘But you weren’t on duty,’ said Maudie, pulling herself out of the chair.

‘Nor were you,’ Georgie said. As he smiled, white creases in the soot appeared around his eyes and mouth. ‘But I heard you couldn’t let this mob try and get by without yer either.’

Maudie ran her hands through her hair. ‘I must look a sight. What’s the time?’

‘Ten to two.’

‘In the morning?’

‘Yeah, you went out like a light, according to yer mate here,’ George said, nodding at Flossie.

Two freshly made-up, efficient looking young women came into the watch room, laughing and joking.

‘Here’s our relief,’ Flossie said, pulling on her coat. ‘Thank gawd for that.’

‘Watcha, Ringer,’ said one of the girls, settling herself at the table and flicking briskly through Ernie’s notes.

‘All right?’ said the other one, sitting down at the switchboard and putting on the headset.

Maudie looked bewildered. ‘I think this might all have been a mistake, George. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to cope with the fire service.’

‘Well, I hope you can,’ said Georgie. He looked at the two girls who had just come in, then leant closer to Maudie and whispered, ‘I’ve just told Smith I’ve decided to sign up to be a proper fulltime fireman.’

Maudie blinked. ‘You’ve what?’

Georgie looked at her so intensely she felt as though he were trying to read her mind.

‘I thought it might be a good idea,’ he said. ‘So’s I’ll have a decent trade to turn to. When this war’s over.’

In the front room of her house, Blanche was sitting with Babs and Evie on the newspaper-strewn floor making Christmas decorations. Blanche was painting eggshell halves and fir cones to hang on the tree; Babs was dressing up a clothes peg as a fairy and a scouring powder tin as Father Christmas; and Evie was glueing blue strips cut from old sugar bags to make paper chains.

‘I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas again,’ said Babs, fiddling with the cottonwool beard she was trying to stick onto the odd-looking Santa’s chin. ‘I must be getting old – they say time goes quicker the older yer get.’

‘Hark at you,’ said Blanche, squinting at the paint-splattered eggshell she was holding at arm’s length. ‘You ain’t even twenty yet. Wait till yer my age.’

‘What? Hundred and four, yer mean?’ grinned Eve.

‘More like hundred and five, how tired I feel.’

‘Yer know, I reckon it’s better making yer own decorations,’ said Babs. ‘More Christmassy like.’

‘I’d rather nip down Woolworth’s and buy ’em, if they had any,’ said Blanche. ‘But they ain’t, and I don’t want the kids to go without, so hand me another fir cone.’

When little Janey saw Babs reach over to the basket full of cones that they’d collected over the park and hand one to Blanche, she toddled over, tipped the rest of the cones onto the floor and began carefully putting them back, one by one.

‘Is your Ruby coming over to have dinner with yer?’ Babs asked.

Blanche looked at Janey playing happily on the floor, totally absorbed in her new game, and at Betty who was lying on her back cooing contentedly at the wooden spoon she was waving in the air above her. ‘No. No, she won’t. Can’t bear being with the kids, she said. Chokes her too much.’

‘Still in a bad way since, you know, the business with the baby?’

‘Yeah. Poor little cow. Don’t seem to be getting over it at all. Right down, she is.’

‘Has her Davey got leave yet?’ Evie asked over her shoulder as she climbed onto a chair and fixed one end of the paper chain to the picture rail with a drawing pin.

‘No, worse luck. They’ve tried, but his ship’s still gawd knows where. He ain’t expected home for at least another month, I think it is.’ Blanche hesitated. ‘Anyway, Ruby’s gonna stay over at Mum’s for Christmas. It’s for the best really.’

Evie twisted the paper chain into loops and fixed the other end to the far side of the room. ‘There.’ She stood back to admire her handiwork. When she turned round to get the reaction of the other two, she took one look at Blanche and ran dver to her.

‘Don’t upset yerself, Blanche. Yer’ve done everything yer could.’ Evie knelt down on the floor next to her and put her arm round her. ‘Come on, cheer up, yer’ll upset little Janey.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it,’ sniffed Blanche. ‘It’s just that everything’s …’ She buried her face into her handkerchief and started crying.

‘I ain’t having this,’ said Evie. She jumped to her feet, lifted Betty off the floor and handed her to Babs. Then, before anyone realised what she was up to, Evie had tucked her dress in her knickers, had flipped forward and was standing on her hands, giving a panting, strangulated rendition of ‘A Bicycle Made For Two’.

Janey clapped her hands with delight. ‘Look at Evie!’ she shouted. ‘Look!’

‘Come on, Babs,’ puffed Evie, still staggering around upside down. ‘Join in.’

‘Fat chance of that,’ Babs grinned with a shake of her head. ‘Yer barmy you are, Evie. I always said so.’

Evie dropped back onto her feet. ‘Yeah, but I make yer laugh, don’t I?’

Blanche blew her nose loudly. ‘You could make anyone laugh, Evie Bell.’

‘And I know someone who’s making Dad laugh,’ Evie said, straightening her dress and going cross-eyed at the giggling Janey. ‘Ain’t never seen him so happy.’

‘No, and I think it’s smashing,’ said Babs, putting Betty back on the floor and getting on with making her Father Christmas.

‘Maudie, yer mean?’ asked Blanche, stuffing her hankie back up her sleeve.

Babs nodded. ‘Yeah. Closer than ever they are. Giggling away like a pair of school kids half the time. It’s really nice to see them happy like that. Maud’s coming in for her Christmas dinner with us and everything.’

‘I wonder if they’re, you know, serious?’ mused Blanche. She threaded a piece of cotton through a hole in one of the eggshells. ‘I mean, they don’t seem bothered about anyone seeing ’em when they go out together, do they?’

Evie flung herself into the armchair that stood by the window, her hands dangling limply over the sides. ‘I wish I was going out with someone,’ she whined, her mood suddenly melodramatic. ‘Someone who’d really love me and wanna do all sorts of exciting things. Someone handsome like Clark Gable.’ She picked distractedly at the chair’s brocade upholstered arm. ‘Maybe I should get meself an airman.’

‘What,’ said Babs, ‘someone like Rita’s Bill?’

‘No fear,’ said Evie indignantly. ‘He might be a hero, but I’d want someone like a pilot. Someone with a little moustache and a posh voice.’

Babs looked at Blanche and stifled a giggle. ‘Queenie’d love that.’

‘Stuff Queenie.’ Evie let out an exaggerated sigh and looked out of the window at the rapidly fading winter light. ‘Don’t you wanna
do
something, Babs? Something different? Go somewhere with someone exciting?’

‘Course I do.’

‘I don’t,’ said Blanche.

‘It’s different for you, Blanche. You’re a married woman.’

Babs wanted to say that that had never stopped Evie when Albie was around. In fact, she was sorely tempted to say being recently widowed hadn’t stopped her either but, not wanting to cause a row in Blanche’s, she changed her mind. Then a thought came to her. ‘I know what we could do,’ she said brightly. ‘Me and you can go to that New Year’s dance next week. The one Maudie told us about. You know, that the WVS are putting on.’

‘Blimey, you youngsters. It’s only Christmas Eve and yer already making plans for New Year.’

‘I bloody ain’t,’ Evie sneered. ‘Sounds right exciting that does. WVS? It’ll be all spotty-faced kids with bum-fluff arid no money who just want a quick grope before they leave for the war. No thanks.’

Babs looked deflated. ‘Please yerself. I was thinking of going with Lou anyway. I only asked you to do you a favour.’

‘Well, I hope you enjoy yerself.’

‘I will.’

‘Good.’ Evie stuck her tongue out.

‘Ugly,’ countered Babs.

‘Fat bum.’

Blanche stood up and stuck her hands on her hips. ‘Will you listen to yerselves? Yer like a pair of five-year-olds.’

The twins looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

‘I still ain’t going,’ spluttered Eve, tears running down her cheeks.

Babs hugged her sides. ‘Good!’ she screamed.

‘Mad, the pair of yer,’ said Blanche with a shake of her head and started dabbing spots on another eggshell.

Blanche looked up at the big clock on the workshop wall. ‘Fancy coming up to the canteen now, Babs?’ she asked wearily.