The Gunner Girl (16 page)

The guard came out of the van and went along the train slamming the hanging doors. He looked at her as he passed – yellowing skin, face like putty – and she watched him
slam-slam-slam those doors like he hated them, like they all had a Nazi stormtrooper stuck behind them. She saw the driver get out of the front of the train, by the platform barrier. He nodded to
the guard, stretched, fiddled with his waistband and glanced up the empty platform towards her. When the guard reached him, they exchanged words and both looked up towards her. She felt herself
begin to flush.

‘Come along now, love, we're closing the barrier,' called the driver.

She opened up her gas mask, took out her old lipstick and dabbed a little of what was left of it on her lower lip. Then she clicked the lipstick back and closed the gas mask. Rob wasn't
here.

‘It's not a blooming beauty parlour. Get a move on,' yelled the guard. She kept her chin up and walked down towards them. The guard tutted as she drew near. The driver looked
pityingly at her. They let her through the barrier ahead of them.

She'd been stood up, but she wasn't about to let anyone feel sorry for her. Opposite the platform entrance the station pub was just opening. Blinds flew up inside, and outside the
door a man in a trilby hat and a trench coat was waiting with a newspaper under one arm.

‘Oh, there you are, darling!' she called, and ran across the concourse towards him, looping her hand through his arm as she got there. She looked back – the guard and driver
were laughing, walking off. In front of her a ruddy-cheeked landlord was just opening the pub's doors. And next to her – she looked up sideways . . . the man was looking down at her,
puzzled, but smiling. His teeth were nicotine yellow, and one of them was missing. He cleared his throat.

‘I don't think I've had the pleasure, love,' he said.

‘Are you saying you don't want to buy a girl a drink?' she replied, and he laughed and they walked together towards the open pub doorway. Walking inside was like going into a
dark, smoky cocoon.

In the end, she didn't let him, chickened out. Even drunk, she wasn't stupid, and she didn't fancy him at all. He had a hand on her knee most of the time,
squeezing intermittently. He tried a bit of a fumble when the landlord was changing the barrels, but some other customers came in, and there were no cloths on the tables, anyway, so people would
have seen what he was doing. He said he had to place a bet on a dead cert for the three-thirty at Epsom, and then he'd show her a good time. She swigged down her port and lemon and said that
sounded just peachy. When she put more lipstick on, he said she had a kissable mouth, and did she know she was a very pretty girl and she laughed, throwing her head back and tossing her hair, the
way they did in the films. He said he just needed to visit the little boys' room and then they could go.

When he was in the Gents', she legged it. She didn't bother with the tube – too obvious in case he came after her, and she hated the bloody tube anyway – and ran all the
way down Waterloo Bridge Road, imagining his footfalls behind her, until she reached the South Bank, panting, runny-nosed.

The grey sky and the buildings and the River Thames all swirled and snaked around as she stopped and tried to catch her breath. There was a flight of steep steps down to the water's edge
and she trod them with exaggerated deliberation. Everything was still spinning, fuzzy at the edges, and her heart thumped like a kettledrum. The steps were narrow, greenish with weed or mould and
she clung to the wet brickwork as she descended. But there was a little beach, with the low grey tidal Thames lapping gently, and she wanted to be there, down on the strand, away from him and
everything. The wet sand sucked at her army brogues and she walked across to a sheltered spot by the wall where there was a chunk of rock to sit on. She waited, but she had imagined his footfalls;
he wasn't coming after her. Her breathing slowed. Four port and lemons – he probably thought she owed him a hand job at the least.

It was cold, but she was out of the worst of the wind. She sniffed, letting her eyes follow a Thames barge snailing seawards along the estuary. Seagulls arced and screeched. The sand was dull
beige, strewn with empty oyster shells and tiny pebbles. Up on Waterloo Bridge, men in bowlers walked with umbrellas and briefcases, and red busses passed and delivery boys on bicycles, and there
was the occasional green army truck juddering along. Nobody thought to look down at her thin strip of tidal beach. Her fingers brushed the damp sand. Her head was spinning less, now she'd
stopped running.

Mudlarks, wasn't that what they called beach scavengers in London. Here she was, mudlarking about – wasn't much of a lark though. She blew on her fingers to warm them, and took
her cigarettes out of her gas mask. The matches kept going out in the wind, but eventually she got one lit, and let the smoke warm and soothe her. She drew patterns in the sand, and looked out at
the wide river. The sun came out, briefly, and she shut her eyes in the warmth, nodded off. When she woke up, the water was right up near her toes. Her head was clearer, now. She smoked another
cigarette and she heard Big Ben strike four times and thought she should probably move on – the sun had gone in, anyway, a misty clamminess descending.

She climbed back up the steep steps and walked towards Waterloo Bridge, licking her dry lips and struggling forwards against the stiff breeze. She caught the bus back to Marble Arch, going up to
the top deck and looking out at places she hadn't even seen before, even though she'd been living in Hyde Park for weeks now: Westminster, Trafalgar Square, the Tower. She'd
wanted to do this with Rob, look at the sights, hold his hand maybe. By the time she got to Marble Arch, all she wanted to do was go back to her bunk, have a couple of aspirin and a cup of tea and
forget the day ever happened – and forget all about Flight Sergeant Robin Nelson.

‘I'm looking for Gunner Tucker,' Rob said.

‘I'm terribly sorry, but she's gone to the station. Do you want to wait?'

He shook his head.

‘I'll let her know she had a visitor; who shall I say has called?'

The girl was as tiny as she was posh, Rob thought, looking down at the skinny redhead. ‘Rob,' he said. ‘Just say Rob came here.'

‘Oh, you're Rob!' said the girl, clapping her hand to her mouth. ‘But she's gone to meet you at the station – she swapped duties with Margaret Packham. She
wasn't at the station? How odd.'

‘I was late. I missed the train.' He shrugged. He missed the train. How could he have missed the train? But then again, how could he have rushed off to get the train, leaving Dorothy
Harper, in that state. What else could he have done?

His mind flicked back to Harper's widow: black roots were showing in her bleached hair under the headscarf, and her face, make-up free, looked blank and featureless. He almost hadn't
recognised her, there at the bus stop. He only had a few minutes to make it across the village to the station. If she hadn't noticed him, he could have walked straight past her; he would have
been in time.

‘Dorothy?' he said, after a pause.

She looked down, realising that he'd taken a while to recognise her. ‘I know, I look different. I don't – there doesn't seem any point in bothering, now.'

She and Harper had only been married a few weeks. The wedding was in the local church. Rob was best man: a nine-carat utility wedding ring, parachute-silk dress, borrowed ermine stole, cardboard
cake. They'd all got blistering drunk in the mess afterwards, someone got out the bagpipes, and Dorothy, with her bleached hair and white dress, had looked incandescent with happiness. How
long ago was it? Pammie was there, he remembered, and there was snow on the ground.

‘How are you?' said Rob.

‘How do you think?' she replied. They looked at each other and neither spoke. She breathed in, fiddled with her headscarf, collected herself. ‘I'm on my way home.
I've just been to see the doctor. I thought that maybe – but he says no. He says it's just, just grief.' Her face contorted as she said the word and he saw tears begin to
squeeze out. ‘I wanted to have his baby,' she said, putting up a hand, stifling a sob. ‘I thought I might lose him – you knew it could happen, of course you did, but I
thought that if I had his baby then at least there would be something left of him, something to remember him by,' she stuttered, wiping a silver skein of snot with her gloved hand. Rob felt
in his pocket, pulled out a clean handkerchief, and held it out. She took it, but did nothing with it, letting the snot and tears pour as she carried on: ‘But there's no baby,
there's nothing. There's nothing left at all.' Rob reached out, patted her shoulder and then drew her towards him. His face was in her headscarf. He could smell her hair. The
silky scarf was against his cheek. Her shoulders juddered and her face was wet against his neck and he held her and held her and cleared his throat and tried to tell himself that the dampness in
his own eyes was from the sting of the wind – because he had to be strong, because where would we be if grown men started breaking down like sissies in the middle of the street, because what
would Harper say if he could have seen? And by the time she pulled away, and her bus arrived, the London train was long gone.

‘Where do you think she might be?' Rob said, his mind springing back to the present, to the diminutive soldier in front of him.

‘I'm sorry,' said the redheaded girl, ‘I really don't know, I thought she was with you, but you're welcome to wait – I'll show you to the NAAFI
– but then I have to go; I'm on an errand for the Junior Commander and she'll be livid if I take an age. Honestly, she's a bit of a dragon. I'm Edie, by the
way.' She held out a hand. He shook it. Her handshake was dry and firm.

‘Joan's written to me about you,' said Rob.

‘All lies, I'm actually quite nice!' said Edie, grinning. ‘Come on, I'll show you the way.'

Rob checked his watch. He couldn't afford to get stuck in town. If he didn't make it back, there'd be hell to pay, and he couldn't let the chaps down. Damn. When would he
get another chance?

‘I'm sorry, I can't wait. I have to get back, but I just wanted her to know that I came. I didn't stand her up,' he said. ‘Will you give her these?' He
thrust out the flowers, bought at the station, crushed from the tube journey, already wilting.

‘Daffodils. How gorgeous,' said the girl, sniffing them. ‘I'll tell her. I'm sure she'll understand, dear,' said Edie. ‘You can meet up again next
time you get a day pass, can't you?'

Rob wondered when that was likely to be. There was a new boss coming – Harris – everyone was talking about him, rumours about his plans for bomber command. He wasn't expecting
leave any time soon. He thanked the redheaded girl and began to walk back to the tube station. The sky was grey and low, moisture-laden and chilly. At the entrance to the tube was a kiosk, selling
postcards and cigarettes. The stallholder had caved-in cheeks and a flat cap. Rob bought a postcard with a red London bus on it, just like the one drawing up at the bus stop opposite. As he began
the descent into the tube station, he was already planning what to write.

She would understand, wouldn't she?

‘Well, this is romantic,' he said.

‘I suppose so,' Joan replied.

The big houses in Holland Park were like toppling piles of meringues and the stars were out overhead. His arm was round her waist. She knew what was coming, but there wasn't much time. She
only had a pass until eleven, and she couldn't be late, not this week when she was acting bombardier, while Martha Toogood was away with her sick mother. There were low walls in front of the
huge houses, wrought-iron railings all sawed off like teeth. She paused, leant against a gatepost, let him swing round to face her, arms encircling her. The houses were mostly empty, some of them
bombed out, with odd slices of chintz wallpaper or gilded balustrade breaking the piled-up shadows. His breath was warm against her face.

‘Clear night like this, I suppose I should be worried,' she said, looking skywards. ‘Feels like we're due some action.'

‘Feels like I'm due some action,' he said, moving closer. She knew what he meant. She found herself wishing he'd just hurry up and get on with it.

‘You're a good-looking girl, and I've loved our nights out,' he said. ‘Do you mind if I . . .' He didn't finish the sentence because she'd pulled
him towards her and her mouth was on his. Momentarily, their teeth clashed in the confusion, and then they found the way. His lips were a little chapped, and his breath tasted of carrots. His hands
were stroking her and she could hear the swish of his palms against the wool of her coat. Without breaking the kiss, she unbuttoned it for him, leaving it agape, but then – her ruddy gas mask
was in the way.

‘Sorry,' she said, pulling away. She ripped the strap of the gas-mask case over her head and threw it down. As it clattered to the pavement, the catch went, spilling the contents
into the street. ‘Damn it!'

‘Let me help,' he said, and they bent down at the same time, foreheads bumping, apologising, scrabbling blindly on the dark paving stones. ‘I can't find the mask
anywhere,' he said, pulling out a tiny torch and switching it on. The beam was like a child's finger, poking nosily into the gutter.

‘Oh, I never carry it,' she said. ‘I'm more worried about my lipstick. You can't find Coty for love nor money at the moment.'

She was squinting, found her comb and powder compact, handkerchief. He passed her the lipstick and she thanked him. She was just putting everything back, when – ‘Is this yours,
too?' he asked. She didn't reply. She was concentrating on the catch on her gas-mask case; it wouldn't fasten properly. She should have responded, taken it from him before he
saw.