Authors: June Gadsby
Mary’s mind, however, was wandering. Alex’s leave had been cancelled. She had seen him only once since he joined up. It was a short, stolen moment and she felt guilty about it, though they had done
nothing
to be ashamed of; just walked, talked and laughed a lot.
She sighed, thinking how she longed to have him back with her now, have him touch her, kiss her. But he always kept at a respectable distance, even though she sensed that he saw something in their relationship that was more than casual.
Mary had come along today with her mother, who was a founder member of the Social Services Club. The women had given her a grand welcome. All help, they told her, was gratefully received since they weren’t too numerous. Two of their ladies were expecting babies and not up to hours of non-stop knitting on hard kitchen chairs and church benches. Four other young women had joined up. One was with the ATS, two had gone to the Land Army and the fourth was now with the FANYs.
‘I’ve heard of the FANYs,’ Mary said. ‘Anne Beasley’s with them.’
‘It’s voluntary, of course,’ said one woman. ‘But I hear they do a grand job.’
‘They used to wear red jackets when they were first formed,’ said another and everyone laughed. ‘That must have made it easy for the enemy to spot.’
‘That Miss Croft up Cube Pit way used to be one, so I hear.’
‘Good gracious! Maybe that’s why she’s so miserable and crotchety. I always put it down to her being an old maid.’
‘Aye. Men do tend to drive you mad, one way or another. It seems to me that being without one is just as bad as t’other way round, if you know what I mean.’
There was more laughter, then the vicar’s wife presented Mary with a pair of knitting-needles and a ball of grey wool.
‘It’s nice to see that even a young, single woman can find the time to support us, Mary,’ she said and there was a murmur of agreement.
‘There aren’t many young people around any more, these days,’ said one stout lady in a floral frock, a black, squashed, felt hat and a skein of wool in her outstretched hands.
‘No, you’re right there,’ said a thin, sticklike creature with
horn-rimmed
glasses. She stitched away at some garment or other, her needle
flying in and out and missing the earlobe of the woman next to her by a fraction of an inch. ‘They think war’s something to enjoy – you know, gives them something exciting to do.’
‘They’ll find out it’s not like that,’ said a morose woman dressed in black who had lost her husband in the First World War. ‘You stay at home with your mam as long as they’ll let you, Mary, love.’
As Jenny West went to scald the tea in the big brown teapot, the needles came to an abrupt halt at the wail of the air-raid siren. As always, Mary’s skin crept with the fear the sound instilled in her, but she no longer felt sheer panic. They all knew that most of the warnings were for the coastal areas. A scattering of German bombs had been dropping on the north of England since May, but, except in freak circumstances, they felt pretty safe where they were.
‘Should we go to the shelter, then?’ A jolly-faced woman with strands of wool spilling out of voluminous pockets in her wraparound pinny, looked at her companions, who didn’t show any signs of moving.
‘Is it worth it?’
‘It’s a damn sight colder down in that shelter than it is up here. We’re more likely to die of pneumonia than a bomb.’
‘I read in the paper this morning that this winter’s been the coldest winter since 1881. Can you believe that?’
‘Aye, I can. The water froze in the tap last month and we had to scrape the ice off the inside of the bedroom windows.’
‘I wish I’d seen the River Thames when it froze over. I bet that was a sight for sore eyes, eh?’
‘Well, if the Tyne ever freezes I’ll be able to skate over to Newcastle instead of catching the tram.’
‘Once we get this month over things should start getting better.’
‘Aye, I hate February. Always have.’
Mary watched and listened to the conversation carried on through the warning cry of the siren. Then it stopped and all, including the women, fell silent. Only the click of the knitting-needles continued, some slowing down to a soft swish, others going fast enough to strike sparks.
Distant aircraft droned, followed by a loud explosion that made the building shiver and the floor beneath them vibrate. The
rat-a-tat-tat
of ground fire followed immediately. Mary caught sight of her mother, pouring tea and passing it around with hands that weren’t quite steady, but only her eyes betrayed the fact that she was really scared. They were all scared, but none of them wanted to show it.
Woooooo-ooooo!
There were sighs all around as the all-clear blew. The
knitting and the sewing were put to one side and the women relaxed, drank their tea and ate the rock buns that the vicar’s wife had so
generously
provided for them.
‘I wonder if they got them?’
‘Who?’
‘Those blinking Jerries, that’s “who”. How dare they think they can get the better of us? They lost the last war and, by God, they’ll not win this one.’
‘You going to go over there and give them what for, are you, Minnie?’
‘I hear one of them crashed the other day. Our lads shot him down just off Whitby.’
‘Aye, I read about that. It was a handsome young lad that did it. Flight Lieutenant Peter Townsend, he was called. Comes from a posh
background
, but it makes no difference, does it, when you’re faced with kill or be killed. They’re all just canny lads when it boils down to it, and some poor mother’s sons. Bairns, the lot of them.’
The conversation had taken up where it left off, almost as though the air-raid had never happened. Mary looked down at her knitting and groaned when she saw the mess she had made of her stitches. And she was only knitting a scarf, too.
‘Eeh, our Mary!’ her mother came and stood beside her, taking the needles from her and holding her work up for all to see, which produced a ripple of kindly laughter. ‘This lass of mine can sing and dance like an angel, she’s good at English … we won’t mention arithmetic … can speak fluent French and a bit of German … and just look at the way she knits.’
‘Leave the bairn alone, Jenny. With all those talents and a face like one of them Leonardo da Vinci portraits, she can be forgiven for not being a good knitter.’
‘Aye, pet, come on. Never mind the knitting. Give us a song to cheer us up. I remember you at that Christmas benefit. No wonder you got a kiss from Dr Craig.’
‘And don’t forget the dance. Didn’t they make a lovely couple!’
‘Stop encouraging her,’ Jenny West said stiffly, giving them all a chastising look. ‘We don’t want any involvement with married men.’
‘Aye, ye’re right, Jenny. Pity that stuck-up wife of his wasn’t there to give him the last waltz. She doesn’t deserve a nice man like Dr Craig.’
‘I wonder what he’s doing right now. Eeh, I don’t know how they can do it. Be a doctor, I mean. And they say there are a lot of nurses out there in France too. Better them than me, I can tell you.’
‘Did you never fancy being a nurse, Mary?’
Mary shook her head. No, she had never thought about it. All she had ever wanted to do with her life was work in an office, get married and maybe have a couple of children. Get married to Walter. It was strange how the thought of it no longer inspired her. When she had said no to a quick register office wedding, he had wanted her to sleep with him before he went off to Catterick. She hadn’t done that either. She felt bad about it, too, because it was a purely selfish act to refuse him. Walter had looked so sad, like a little boy whose first toffee apple had been taken away from him before he’d had a lick.
‘I hope you won’t forget me, Mary,’ he had said, his voice thick, as she waved him off at Central Station in Newcastle.
‘How can I do that, silly?’ she said. ‘We’re engaged, aren’t we?’
‘Are we?’
He didn’t seem so sure, but she was saved a reply because at that moment the guard called for everybody to be on board. There was an owl-like hoot, steam hissed, and the train put out a trail of acrid blue smoke as it started to pull out of the station. All she had time for was to blow Walter a kiss.
‘’Bye, Walter. Take care. Keep safe.’ She shouted all the usual phrases she could think of as she trotted beside the carriage, waving and blowing more kisses, along with dozens of other young women doing the very same thing.
By the time the tail end of the train disappeared from sight, the
platform
was practically deserted. But already Walter no longer occupied Mary’s thoughts. He had been replaced by Alex Craig as he had been the last time she saw him, when he had taken such a liberty with her and kissed her in the middle of the street on Christmas Day. She hadn’t slept a wink all that night because of it.
‘Penny for them, love?’
Mary’s head shot up and she blushed, remembering where she was, with a group of industrious housewives working feverishly and
apparently
enjoying every minute. She wondered what they would think if they knew what was going through her mind at that moment. They would be shocked, no doubt, especially her mother. Some might laugh, call her all kinds of fool. And they’d be right, of course.
‘Let’s have another go at that knitting,’ she said, picking up her needles and pulling the stitches off so she could make a fresh start. ‘Now, how does it go again?’
‘What do you think?’ Iris linked her arm in Mary’s as she put her
question
and gave a squeeze.
‘I’m game if you are,’ Mary told her and each gave a nervous laugh as they stared at the mobile recruitment office parked in Victoria Square in front of the Wool Shop. On the side of the van were painted the letters F.A.N.Y. and below it, in brackets: First-Aid Nursing Yeomanry.
‘Well, it was your idea, Mary,’ Iris said, still hanging back. ‘If it
doesn’t
work, we’ll almost certainly lose our jobs at the Pensions Office, just for being late in this morning.’
‘Oh, Mr Hornby’s not that bad. He’s quite a sweetie, really.’ Mary licked her lips and wondered if it had been such a good idea after all to come here, for her courage was suddenly failing her. ‘You know what he’s like. He’ll roll those wobbly eyes of his and quiver all over—’
‘All that pink blancmange quivering,’ Iris butted in with a shudder. ‘I could have nightmares about that.’
‘Well, are ye’s gannin in or not?’
The coarse but highly recognizable voice behind them made the two friends jump. A figure pushed past them and stood on the wooden steps of the recruitment van with a small, but challenging grin twisting her face.
‘Effie? Are you joining up, then?’
‘Aye, if they’ll have us. Ye divvint have to talk posh to drive and I’ve driven everything from a kiddie car to a hearse, including that thing there.’
Effie Donaldson pointed to a rather scruffy Norton motorbike parked at the kerbside. It had been there when Mary and Iris arrived, but they had assumed that it belonged to one of the local men.
‘You ride a motorbike, Effie?’
‘Aye. It’s me brother Joe’s, but he’s not going to be needin’ it no more. We got the telegram yesterday.’
‘Oh, Effie, I’m so sorry.’ Mary stepped forward, full of sympathy, but the girl backed off stiffly.
‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘He was always a bleedin’ idiot, our Joe. Well, now, he’s a dead hero and folks are sayin’ what a good lad he was. Maybe they’ll say the same about me when I catch a Gerry bullet. At least it’ll be better than laying oot the dead.’
She turned on her heel and marched into the van, her back as straight as a ramrod. Mary and Iris exchanged looks and followed her.
‘If she can do it …’ Iris said.
‘So can we,’ Mary finished for her.
Inside the van, there were two uniformed girls, much the same age as Mary and Iris. They were directed to take a seat on a long, leather-
upholstered
bench, where they would have to wait their turn to be interviewed. The interviews were conducted in a closed-off section and only a muffled murmur of voices could be heard through the hardwood partition. Once interviewed, the girls left the van by another exit, probably to stop them exchanging notes about the system.
Mary was the last to go through and she was surprised to see that one of the two interviewing officials was Anne Beasley who stood stiffly to attention by the desk and said nothing, keeping her eyes to the front all the time, just like a regular soldier.
‘Sit down, please,’ the older woman behind the desk said without looking up. ‘Now then, I’m sure you want to know all about our corps, the F.A.N.Y. We are, of course, an old established institution, founded in 1907—’
‘Good heavens!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘It’s Miss Croft, isn’t it?’
The woman recoiled slightly, her eyelids fluttering. It was obvious that she had not recognized her old pupil. She looked at Anne Beasley for information, her thin eyebrows raised.
‘It’s Mary West, ma’am,’ Anne said deferentially. ‘You taught us both …’
‘Ah, yes, indeed. Mary! What on earth are you doing here, child?’
‘I want to help my country,’ Mary said, gazing with mixed memories on the face of this woman who had aged so considerably in the years since she had tutored in French and German. ‘I didn’t know you were in the FANYs.’
She saw Miss Croft’s chest rise and fall beneath the khaki tunic, heard a soft sigh, but the face that had always been and still was melancholy, remained bland.
‘It wasn’t something I talked about,’ Miss Croft said. ‘I became a commanding officer during the First World War, but in those days we were involved more in a nursing capacity as well as driving ambulances for the Red Cross. Now, I have been asked to help recruit the new FANYs.’
She went on to explain the essentials of being a member of such an illustrious corps and the rigorous training that was required.
‘Do you have any questions up to now, Mary?’ Miss Croft asked
eventually
.
Mary looked back blankly and glanced up at Anne Beasley to see if she could see any kind of signal from that direction, but Anne continued to ignore her.