Their Finest Hour and a Half (12 page)

‘No,' she said, with sudden irritation. ‘I don't know anything.'

He smiled, apparently pleased at having goaded her. ‘They want films about what we're fighting for – the British way of life and civilian endeavour and all that sort of thing. And they want it optimistic but they also want it realistic, because half of us have been bombed, and all of us know someone in the forces.'

‘And have you got an idea to stick?'

‘Very nearly.' He leaned back and linked his hands across his stomach. ‘They've latched on to the idea of dramatizing true stories – John Citizen fights back, hurrah for the little man and so forth – and Parfitt spotted a likely one in a newspaper. We've mentioned it to the bigwigs and they've given us some preliminary encouragement, but they're tiresomely keen on authenticity.
Tiresomely
keen . . .'

*

South of Regent's Park there were no straightforward journeys any more. Every third street had a yellow diversion sign and a rope slung between the pavements, from which fluttered a collection of handwritten notices: ‘
For Wallace & Sons, please enquire at . . .' ‘Bettafitt Shoes relocated in
 . . .' Beyond the rope there might be devastation or there might be an eerie intactness, the latter supplemented by a notice reading ‘UNEXPLODED BOMB' and a bored policeman. Every morning brought a fresh rewrite of the bus routes – or, rather, not a rewrite but a wild, free-form extemporization of how to get from A to B via Q, H and Z.

There were side streets that had never seen a bus before, where the pavements were so narrow that pedestrians had to flatten themselves into doorways, and passengers found themselves face to face with a tortoiseshell cat in a window, or an old lady rinsing her teeth. There were buses that had never been to London before, buses sent from the north and the west to replace the damaged fleet: brown buses, fawn buses, buses with a destination board that read ‘All Stops to Harrogate', and which might be the 279, or the 24 or the 73, depending on the day, the hour and the whims of the Luftwaffe. Catrin, travelling east, waved down a maroon single-decker (‘Corporation of Weston-Super-Mare') that seemed to be heading roughly in the right direction.

Her thoughts were still sticky with sleep, and she found herself staring out of the window, listening to the conversation of the two girls in the seat behind.

‘I said, “I'm not staying in every evening.” I said, “You've got to be flipping well joking.”'

‘What did she say?'

‘She said, “You're coming to the shelter with us whether you like it or not.”'

‘That's not fair, is it?'

‘No, it's not.'

‘What sort of life is that, going straight from work to the shelter?'

‘I know. And Alan had got the tickets already, for me and Shirley and Ivor, and she just wanted me to waste them.'

‘So what did you say?'

‘I said, “It's not fair, you've had
your
time, haven't you, but you don't want us to have ours.” I said, “I'm going to ask my dad.”' ‘And what did he say?'

‘Oh, I got round him all right . . .'

The bus passed a succession of newly pulverized buildings, smoke still rising from some, fire hoses snaking across the broken bricks, rescue workers standing caked in red dust, the whole enveloped in the same filthy, pervasive smell of rubble and household gas and spent explosive that lingered on Ellis's ARP clothes when he came home. His eyes were permanently bloodshot from the dust. On most mornings he went straight from the wardens' pillbox to the studio.

‘Have you got the list?' said one of the girls in the seat behind.

‘You picked it up.'

‘Yes, but then Miss Clifford took it back again, didn't she, and added the muslin and pins? And then she gave it to you.'

‘She didn't.'

‘She did. She gave me the coupons and the map and she gave you the list.'

‘She
didn't
.'

‘She did, Nora. Look in your bag.'

The sounds of frantic searching ensued.

‘Well, it doesn't matter, I can remember most of it. Six yards of butter muslin, thirty packets of pins . . .'

‘She said even
one
packet would be a blessing.'

‘Number 3 Singer sewing machine needles, to send to Miss Beadmore.'

‘Ooh yes. Did you see that picture postcard she sent?'

‘I did. I said to Miss Clifford that I thought it looked a dump.'

‘I know, that's just what I said, I thought it looked a terrible dump.'

‘No shops. No parade. No pier.'

‘Grass going right up to the beach.'

‘A real hole.'

‘I'd go mad if
I
lived there . . .'

The bus juddered over a series of metal plates that formed a temporary bridge across a chasm in the tarmac, and then halted. In the road ahead, a man was sweeping glass into the gutter. That noise – rhythmic, almost musical – was to be heard everywhere now, the signature-tune of daytime London. A second broom joined the first, syncopating the beat, and the bus driver switched off his engine. A church bell became audible, ringing the three-quarters. Catrin craned her neck to view the road ahead and then caught the conductress's eye.

‘Where are you off to?' asked the woman.

‘Liverpool Street Station.'

‘If I was you,' she said, ‘I'd get a taxi.'

The novelty of taking an authorized trip to the seaside wore off very quickly. Even though Catrin arrived on the platform just after seven thirty, the 8.05 to Southend was already full – and not ‘full' in the pre-war sense of there being no seats left, but ‘full' as in the dictionary definition; the windows were a flattened collage of coats and duffle bags and the odd whitened palm.

‘Want a seat?' asked a private, as Catrin passed his carriage. He was wedged diagonally across one of the open doors, acting as a human brace against the press of people behind him. ‘Come on, gorgeous, I'll get you a seat.'

‘There aren't any seats,' said Catrin.

‘Yes, there are. Give us a kiss and I'll get you a seat.'

‘Give me a kiss, too,' shouted another face, appearing under the private's armpit.

‘Honestly,' said the private. ‘I can get you a seat. A kiss would be nice but it's not compulsory.'

‘Where's there a seat?'

‘I'll show you. They're keeping it warm for you – they told me to look out for a peach.'

He stuck out a hand, and after a moment's hesitation, Catrin took it and found herself being hauled through the crush, ducking under elbows, stumbling over cases, edging past vertical card schools and children sleeping in luggage racks. ‘Here you are,' said the soldier, stopping suddenly and moving to one side to reveal a narrow doorway billowing with cigarette smoke. ‘Your barouche awaits.' It was the train lavatory – a lavatory, moreover, already occupied by three Anzacs, one of whom was sitting down.

‘Please,' said the latter, getting hastily to his feet. ‘Be our guest. There's no lid, but when your bum's covering the hole the stink's not nearly so bad.'

At ten to ten, the 8.05 crept from under the blacked-out glass roof of the station and into the sunlight, and Catrin took a batch of mimeographed press cuttings out of her handbag. They had arrived in an envelope the day before, with a note from Buckley that read, ‘
You may as well have a look at these
', and she had saved them for the journey. The briefest was from
The Times
, though it formed part of a full-page article describing civilian endeavours at Dunkirk.

The
Daily Express
was a little more expansive, giving the sisters' names (Rose and Lily Starling) and the precise number of rescued soldiers on board their vessel. (Fifty-four, twenty-two of them French.) The
News Chronicle
had discovered that the twins' father, whose boat it was, had been bedridden, and that they had set out without his knowledge or permission. They cited the sisters as ‘modest' and quoted Rose Starling as saying: ‘We'd rather not talk about it, we were only trying to help.' The
Daily Mail
had decided that the name of their boat, the
Redoubtable
, summarized all that was great about the British people in their time of trial: ‘A time in which even the fragrant English rose has discovered its thorns.' All three newspapers had compared the twins to Grace Darling, while the
Daily Mirror
had gone one better and dubbed them ‘Britannia's Daughters'.
Tit-Bits
had pulled out all the stops and given the sisters a double-page spread in their ‘true-life story' section, with an illustration showing the
Redoubtable
ploughing through mountainous seas, piloted by two wasp-waisted blondes, both apparently oblivious of a Stuka heading directly for the wheelhouse.

After picking up a boat-load of soldiers (‘
Lumme, Sarge, they're girls!
') and dodging torpedoes on the way back (‘
They may be girls, but they're as good as any navy man
'), they returned home to their crosspatch father, who first told them off and then toasted them, gruffly, with his last nip of pre-war whisky. Buckley had written: ‘GOOD ENDING' beside the final paragraph, and a sarcastic ‘PITY GRABLE AND STANWYCK AREN'T AVAILABLE' across the drawing.

‘What's that bit about Grable?' asked one of the Anzacs, squinting over Catrin's shoulder. She passed him the article and he looked at it, frowning. ‘Not available for what?'

‘For the film of this story.'

‘Grable and Stanwyck, playing
twins
? No, I don't see that.'

‘I think—' began Catrin.

‘Betty Grable?' said the youngest of them, a blonde boy with gentle, sleepy eyes. ‘She's my favourite, she's . . . she's . . .' Words failed him.

‘Grable's what you'd call
cute
, but Stanwyck's more of a . . . a
broad
if you get my meaning. Of course, it depends if these girls who went to Dunkirk are identical or not. Are they?'

‘I don't know,' said Catrin.

‘So when's this film out?'

‘Oh, not for ages. It hasn't even been written yet.'

‘But you know about it?'

‘Yes.'

‘How do you know about it?'

‘Because . . .'

‘Because you're an
actress
?' asked the blonde boy.

She snorted. ‘No. Because I'm working for one of the writers, and he needs a first-hand account of the story.'

‘You mean you're going to talk to these sisters?'

‘Yes.'

‘When?'

‘Oh . . .' She checked her watch. ‘In about an hour.'

It was three hours, as it transpired. There was a long delay just outside Southend while the local police checked passengers' travel permits, and then the coastal line turned out to have been closed by a time-bomb, and there were no taxis to be found. In the end, she hitched a lift, and arrived at Leigh-on-Sea by coal lorry.

Number 15, Whiting Walk was not the picturesque fisherman's cottage that she had envisaged, but an end-of-terrace with a cracked gutter, from which a long smear of green stained the brickwork. The glass in the front door was missing, and the gap had been plugged by a piece of tea chest, across which the letters INEST CEYL were still legible. Catrin waited a good minute after knocking, and was reaching for the brass anchor again when a noise from the interior stayed her hand. There was whispering, and then the sound of a woman nervously clearing her throat. After a moment, the door opened just an inch or two. Catrin could see nothing but a section of wallpaper, and an elbow, clad in grey wool.

‘Is that Miss Starling?' she asked. ‘One of the Miss Starlings?'

‘Yes it is.' It was a chirrup of a voice, the sort of voice that a child would invent for a doll.

‘My name's Catrin Cole. Did you receive my letter?'

‘Yes.'

‘So you understand that I was hoping for a chat with you – with both of you? About your story?'

‘Yes.'

The door remained almost closed. There was another whispered conversation from within and then the resumption of the chirrup.

‘Dad said we wasn't to talk to the newspapers.'

‘But I'm not from a newspaper.'

‘We know. You're from the pictures, aren't you?'

‘Yes . . .' said Catrin, uncertainly.

There was a final burst of whispering (‘
It's all right, Lily
'), and then the door opened suddenly. The tiny voice belonged to a woman at least six inches taller than Catrin, with a round, pale face, fine hair pulled back into a bun, and large, red hands, one of which took Catrin's wrist and drew her into the unlit passage. The door shut firmly behind her.