The Gunner Girl (43 page)

‘What fella?'

‘The one from before – your fiancé,' she said, shoving past. ‘In the NAAFI.' Sheila waddled off. The sunshine suddenly hardened, and Joan felt cold.

‘I'll check for you,' said Edie, reading her mind, shoving her hankie in her pocket.

Joan watched Edie scurrying ahead, past the cookhouse and on towards the NAAFI. Edie's hair was escaping from her cap, her head dipping as she ran. It reminded her of how Edie had run off
that day when they were cleaning the cookhouse windows. She remembered how Bea had had to finish the windows for them. Oh, Bea.

Edie's frame got smaller with distance, then paused and faltered by the NAAFI entrance. The door opened and a handful of girls spilled out, and Edie disappeared inside. Joan looked at the
group of girls who came scudding up the path towards her. They were newly posted-in. She didn't recognise any of them. They passed like a khaki sandstorm, trailing looks and whispers in their
wake. Word had got out, of course. It always did.

She thought of Laurel and Hardy, at the flicks. ‘Look what a fine mess you've got me into!' said the fat one, and the skinny one scratched his head, looking stupid. The ground
tilted and all her edges blurred and she was back there again, where the air smelled of stale smoke and she hadn't got the right change for the ices, but she didn't want to go back to
the office to ask, and get her arse felt up by Mr Evans and these bloody shoes, how they squashed her toes. When would it be home time? There was the sudden flashing ahead as it came to the end of
the reel. Then the screen flickered and went dark—

‘It's him!' A posh voice, suddenly.

She blinked her eyes open, took a gulping breath, and told herself to focus, but the path felt soft as quicksand and the air was already beginning to hum. She looked down the snaking grey path
and saw the NAAFI door begin to open and the figure of a man emerge. The sunshine struck the side of the man's face; it was livid red on the left-hand side. He was carrying a piece of
paper.

‘The Junior Commander,' said Edie, pulling her sleeve. ‘Mary will know what to do.' Joan let herself be tugged away, in the opposite direction, towards the CO's
office.

‘Yes, Brigadier, I think she's the right sort,' Junior Commander Churchill was saying into the receiver as they entered. ‘Shall I send her over? Very
well. Goodbye, sir.' She clicked the receiver into its cradle.

‘What is it now, for goodness' sakes?' she said, scribbling a note down on a piece of paper. ‘I thought you'd both been given instructions to prep for your
hearing?' She began to rootle through desk drawers, not looking at them.

‘The thing is, ma'am,' Edie began.

‘Oh, where does he keep the envelopes?' Mary Churchill interrupted. ‘Here – what a silly place to have them. Yes, Gunner, what is it?'

The office smelled of school. It smelled of the schoolrooms where she'd been asked why she couldn't just sit still and write neatly like her big sister.

‘It's Bombardier Tucker,' said Edie. ‘You see, she—' Edie faltered.

There were crunching footsteps getting louder as they approached, up the cinder path. Mary Churchill folded the paper and put it inside the envelope. ‘Get on with it,' she said,
licking the envelope and pressing it shut.

The footfalls stopped outside the door.

Closing her eyes, Joan saw clouds of powdery dust, red hair fanned out on shattered floorboards, sticky and matted with blood and grit. There was a burning smell in the air. She opened her eyes,
sucked in a breath, and watched as Mary Churchill wrote something on the front of the envelope and pushed the lid back on her pen.

‘Spit it out, then,' said Mary Churchill, looking up. There was a knock at the door.

Bile in her throat, and everything swelling, liquid, unfocused.

‘One moment, please,' Mary called out. ‘Perhaps Bombardier Tucker could speak for herself,' she said, getting up.

Images flashed like the screen at the flicks when they reached the end of a reel: an airman with his outstretched arms; a mess of bricks that used to be a home; the blank scream of an empty tube
tunnel in the darkness.

And then a voice. She heard someone calling: ‘Joan, Joan,
Joan!
'

With an effort of will, she opened her eyes, back in the room.

‘I'm not Joan.'

The knock came again. ‘I beg your pardon?' said Mary Churchill.

‘At the door, that knocking. It's a man called Fred. He was my sister's fiancé. My sister died when our house was bombed. She was Joan. She was Joan Tucker. I'm
not – I'm not anyone, really.'

‘
Mon Dieu
,' muttered Mary Churchill. The knock came again, more insistent. ‘You'd better come in then,' said Mary, and the door began to open.

Edie watched how Joan flinched as Fred entered. Apart from glimpsing him just now in the NAAFI, the last time she'd seen him it had been twilight, and she hadn't
fully appreciated the extent of his burns. The whole left-hand side of his face was like red wine mopped up with a crumpled napkin. She tried not to stare.

‘How can I help you?' said Mary Churchill.

‘This girl is not who she says she is,' said Fred, gesturing at Joan. His voice was gravelly. Whatever had happened to him must have damaged his throat, too. He thrust out his hand.
He was holding a large piece of cream paper, folded. Mary Churchill took it from him without comment, opened it and read. Edie glimpsed angular black lettering, dates and lines.

Mary Churchill cleared her throat and placed the paper down on the CO's desk behind her. ‘Thank you for drawing this to my attention. I shall see that this is dealt with in the
appropriate manner,' she said. ‘You may go.'

But Fred took a step forwards. ‘I don't think you understand, ma'am,' he said, breathing heavily. ‘This girl is an imposter. She shouldn't be here. She should
never have been here, she—'his words were slurring, jostling into each other.

‘I see that. And as I said, I shall ensure that this is looked into.' Mary interrupted. ‘Now, if you don't mind, I need to be getting on . . .'

‘Something has to be done, don't you see?' Fred carried on. ‘She's stolen my Joan. She's taken her. I've got nothing now, nothing. She's mocking
the memory of my Joan; she's laughing at me, and what I went through. She's a silly little tart and she needs to be punished. Punished for taking away my Joan.' It would have been
less frightening if he'd shouted, Edie thought, if he'd yelled and writhed like a drunkard. But his understated rage had them all transfixed. ‘She was never going to amount to
anything. She knew that. Her sister's death was an opportunity. The Joan you know doesn't exist, should never have existed. This isn't Joan. This is Vanessa. And you need to send
her back to where she came from.'

As he carried on speaking, Edie noticed Mary Churchill reach behind her and pick up the telephone on the desk. She mouthed something into the receiver, but Edie couldn't catch it, because
Fred had moved closer towards them now, still talking.

‘Look at this.' He pointed to a scab on his cheek, a curved bite mark, a burgundy crescent on top of the scarlet skin. ‘You did this, Vanessa. Little bitch. You're a
thief and a liar and a cheat.' His face was close in now, cream skin and red burns fighting a violent struggle as he spat out his words. He was so near that Edie could smell Fred's
breath: pungent, like rotting fruit. She saw Joan rock backwards on her feet. But Fred wouldn't stop, pushing forwards, insisting that Joan was a liar, a tart, and worse, and then he was
talking about sea ice and diesel fumes and the heat of the air when the engine room is on fire, and how Joan had promised to wait, how he'd come back all that way to find her. He carried on
and on, until Joan began to stagger backwards, as if his very words were thumping her in the gut. Edie watched as Joan turned pale, began to slump.

‘That's quite enough!' Edie said, starting forward, reaching out to help her friend. She hadn't noticed Mary Churchill move away behind them, silently opening the door.
Suddenly, the RMPs were there, grabbing Fred's arms, pulling him away.

‘Take him to Queen Alexandra's,' said Mary Churchill, ‘he needs help.'

It seemed strange that Fred didn't resist the two military police at his shoulders. He just kept on talking, about ‘his' Joan and how she'd been taken, and about the ice
and the flames and the smell of death. As Fred was shunted to the door, he kept looking at them, kept on saying those quiet, horrid words. Edie could feel his eyes, even as she struggled to hold
Joan upright.

‘You're nothing, Vanessa,' he said, as he was bundled away and the door slammed shut.

Joan's head lolled, and Edie could no longer hold her weight. She watched, horrified, as Joan slid down onto the floor and began to twitch, gutteral sounds escaping her slack mouth. She
knelt down next to her friend, but could do nothing more than hold Joan's head in her hands as she writhed, eyes wide and unseeing. Edie heard the door slam, and Mary Churchill was there
beside her.

‘She's having an epileptic fit,' Mary said. ‘Help me get her into the recovery position.' Together, they shifted Joan's pulsing body into a lumpen
‘S' shape on the floor. Edie asked what else they should do, but Mary said just wait, and make sure she doesn't choke. Saliva was beginning to drip out of Joan's mouth onto
the lino. She was making a strange ticking sound, and her head was jerking. Mary went to call a medic.

There was the scuffling from outside as Fred was shoved up the path, and inside, Joan's throaty ticking sound. Edie kept her hands around her skull, cradling it like a newborn. It felt
like for ever before the fit finally stopped. Joan opened her eyes, unfocused, and let out a brief cry of panic.

‘Ssh,' said Edie, stroking her hair off her face. ‘It's all right, dear. You're not alone,' she said.

A first-aider came and checked Joan's pulse and said she seemed fine but that she should probably get herself checked out by a doctor before returning to duty. Edie thought it strange,
nobody seemed bothered: shouldn't Joan go to hospital? But the first-aider made a tutting sound and said no one would thank her for clogging up the wards with someone who'd just had a
bit of a funny turn. They helped Joan up into the chair and brought her a glass of water. She said she only felt a bit woozy, but Edie had never seen her so deathly pale.

‘You know what this is,' said Mary, when Joan seemed a little calmer. She held up the piece of paper Fred had brought, as Joan sipped the water, white-faced and silent. Joan shook
her head. ‘Have a look,' said Mary, passing it over. Edie, standing behind Joan, saw the fluttering cream sheet, with its important black writing.
Death certificate
, it said.
Joan Chastity Tucker.

‘She's in the CO's office. They've just taken her fiancé to the loony bin and she'll be in the clink this afternoon for going AWOL,'
said the fat girl, grinning at the thought of the slab of juicy gossip she'd just doled out.

‘Thank you,' said Robin. ‘Thank you for letting me know – erm –'

‘Gunner Carter,' she replied. ‘Sheila, if you like.' He smiled his thanks again. Was it his imagination or had she actually just tipped him a wink. No matter. He had to
find Joan. There wasn't much time. There was the sound of talk from inside the hut, and he paused at the door, not wanting to eavesdrop, but not wanting to interrupt, either. His fist was
clenched, ready. From behind him, on the distant emplacements, came the shrill shriek of a gunner shouting orders, blaring out the voices from inside the hut. He let his fist fall, three times.

‘Who is it, please?' came the voice from inside.

‘Flight Sergeant Nelson,' he said. ‘I'm here to see Joan—' he didn't have the chance to finish his sentence before the door was flung open from the
inside. He could see her there, sitting inexplicably in the CO's chair, sipping a glass of water and holding a sheet of paper. She looked up as he entered, and her face was pale, make-up free
– she looked about thirteen years old, like a schoolgirl, sitting behind her desk, studying an impenetrable piece of algebra. She looked at him as if he were a ghost, as if seeing him here
was a total surprise. But she must have got his telegram?

The red-haired girl – Edie, wasn't it? – closed the door behind him. Nobody spoke at first. They all just looked at him, as if him being there were a mystery. But he'd
sent the paperwork days ago, and the telegram just this morning, before he cadged the flight with the WAAF woman to RAF Redhill.

‘You got the form, and the telegram?' he said.

‘I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about,' said the woman officer standing next to Joanie. Joan's hand was shaking, he noticed. She put the glass of
water down, and it slopped onto the blotter on the desk. What was it that fat girl had said about her being on a charge or something?

‘I got your note, Joanie,' he said. ‘And I sent a request for leave for us to get married straight away. Didn't it arrive?' Joan started, dropping the piece of
paper she held in her other hand. But she didn't get up. ‘I understand,' he continued, looking at her, wishing there wasn't the expanse of floor and desk and other people
between them, wishing they were alone, like they'd been in the church, all those months ago. ‘What you told me doesn't change a thing. I want to spend the rest of my life with
you, whatever you damn well call yourself.'

He turned his attention to the woman officer. ‘I sent the paperwork, but I couldn't get leave until now. I telegraphed, earlier. I thought you would have received it.' Joan was
chewing her lip, looking like she wanted to say something, but couldn't. ‘I don't know when I'll be able to get leave again,' he said. Whatever Joan was in trouble
for, whatever had happened, he wasn't leaving now. Not this time.