скачать книгу бесплатно
‘True. You must’ve favoured your – the other side. Your mother was fair, as well you know.’
Her sister’s child, Miriam pondered, had very little to commend her. If you wanted to be brutal, Nan was very ordinary, but for one thing. She had the most beautiful brown eyes, and lashes so long a film star would have killed for them. Those eyes lifted her out of the ordinary.
‘So I won’t ever know?’
‘Not from me, Nan, and not from poor Will, who knew nothing, anyway. You’ll just have to accept – well – that -’
‘That I’m illegitimate. A bastard.’
‘Now that’s enough! Whilst you are under my roof, miss, you will not use bad language. And you are not one of those! You were born in wedlock, so that makes you legitimate – in the eyes of the law, anyway!’
‘So my mother wasn’t good enough for my real father – is that it?’
‘I don’t know, I swear it, Nan, so the whole thing is best forgotten.’
‘So if I hadn’t asked about my birth certificate, would you have told me, Auntie Mim?’
‘No. Don’t think I would’ve, if only out of respect for your father – for Will. He was a decent man.’
‘He was. Did any job he could lay his hand to; never had reg’lar work, till the war started. That was when he got a porter’s job at the hospital. That’s why he was killed that night, him and sixty others. I hate Hitler. And I’m sorry I thought wrong about Dad.’
‘Then as long as you think of him as your dad like he intended, I know he’ll forgive you. So how about putting the kettle on? I reckon we deserve a cup of tea after all that soul-searching. Only the little pot – and don’t go mad with the tea leaves.’
Indiscriminate tea drinking was not to be encouraged on the miserly rations folk had to make do with, but tonight it was medicinal, Miriam Simpson decided.
Nan lit the gas with a plop and put the kettle to boil, busying herself with cups and saucers and all the time thinking about that birth certificate and being stupid enough to land herself with another worry. Because being illegitimate was a worry, no matter which way her aunt put it.
‘Y’know – it’s like I said. Once I’m in uniform I’ll be the same as all the others, won’t I?’
‘You will, so don’t be going on about it. None of it was your fault.’ She picked up her knitting. ‘New beginnings for you, that’s what it’ll be. And shift yourself with that tea, lass!’
‘Mother?’ Hesitantly, Carrie Tiptree pushed open the kitchen door. ‘My, but something smells good.’
‘Very little meat and lots of onions.’ She said it without glancing up from the pan she was stirring.
‘Can’t wait. I’m ravenous. Any letters for me?’ She was amazed her voice sounded so normal.
‘There was nothing from Jeffrey, if that’s what you mean, Caroline. But I wrote to him today. I mean, someone has to tell him what you’re thinking of doing. He’s your fiancé – he has a right to know!’
‘But don’t you think you should have let me tell him? And yes, he is my fiancé, but he can’t forbid me to do anything. Not yet. And why is it so awful to think about joining up? Is it wrong, mother, to be patriotic?’
‘Patriotism is all very well, but it didn’t do a lot for your poor father, did it? But I don’t want to talk about it. I had my say last night and I won’t budge. You’re still a minor and I won’t give my permission for you to go.’
‘All right, then. But please, let’s not you and I quarrel. I’m sorry if I have upset you.’
‘Oh, I know you are, darling.’ Janet Tiptree was magnanimous in victory. ‘Just wait till the Government sends for you, eh? After all, you might well be married before your age group comes up for registration and married women can’t be made to do war work.’
‘They can, mother, but they can’t be made to leave home. But I’m going upstairs to take my shoes off. I had to stand all the way home on the bus, and my feet hurt.’
‘Do that dear, and wash your hands. I’m going to dish up, now. And try to understand that I only want what is best for you? You are all I have in the world. Don’t leave me just yet?’
‘I won’t. Not just yet…’ she called.
She took off her shoes and placed them neatly beneath her bedside chair, took off her stockings and wriggled her feet into her slippers. Then she went to the wash basin in the corner of the room and stared into the mirror.
Later, she would tell her mother. She would have to, because she had done something so deceitful that now, when she thought about it, for a few fleeting seconds she wished she had not done it.
But she had done it, and anyway, she shrugged, by the time the ATS got around to sending for her, she would be as near to twenty-one as made no matter, so why was she having second thoughts?
At lunchtime, at the recruiting office, she had had no doubts at all; not until the sergeant had handed back her application form.
‘You will, of course, have to get this countersigned by your next-of-kin. I know you will soon be of age, but it’s best that you do. Just in case we are able to process you fairly quickly, I mean.’
‘H-how quickly,’ Carrie had asked.
‘W-e-e-ll, you did say you can drive and we are recruiting drivers as a matter of priority. That is why we need your father’s signature. Is there anything to prevent you joining within a couple of months, say? Always provided you are medically fit, that is.’
‘N-no. Nothing. And my mother is my next-of-kin.’
‘So take this form home, get her to sign and date it, then post it back to us. I’ll give you an envelope – OK?’
And Caroline Tiptree, of the glib tongue and unflinching gaze, had said that would be fine, and tucked it into her handbag and smiled a goodbye, even though it made her heart thud just to think of what she would do.
Mind, it had taken a little courage, when she got back to the bank, to borrow a colleague’s fountain pen and write Janet L. Tiptree (Mother) beside her own signature, then add the date -13.5.41. And she had slipped out and posted it in the pillar box outside the bank, just in case she had second thoughts.
‘And that,’ she whispered to her flush-faced mirror image, ‘is that.’
No going back, now. The buff envelope with On His Majesty’s Service printed across the top, was already on its way and Caroline Tiptree was a step nearer to joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
Now, there was only her mother to tell – and Jeffrey, of course – and that, she thought as she washed and dried her hands, was going to take some doing.
Oh, my word, yes!
Two
Life at Farthing Street could be a whole lot worse Nan was bound to admit, especially since her aunt managed to put a reasonable meal on the table most days.
‘Filling if not fattening,’ she had said of the Woolton pie they ate for supper that evening, made entirely of unrationed ingredients. Packed with vegetables, topped with a crust made from the piece of suet Nan had queued for at the butcher’s on the corner, and moistened with gravy made from an Oxo cube, it was a triumph of ingenuity.
To Miriam Simpson’s delight, Nan was very successful in queues. Since they had decided it wasn’t worth her while looking for a job – for who would employ a young woman, knowing she was soon to be called into the Armed Forces? -she was free to hunt for under-the-counter food. It saved Miriam’s feet and helped pass the days which Nan mentally ticked off as one nearer her entry into the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
‘Shall we have fish and chips tomorrow,’ she asked. ‘I’ll get there good and early.’
Neither fish nor chips were rationed. The government, in one of its wiser moments, had seen to it that they remained so. A housewife who once would never have dreamed of entering a fried fish and chip shop, now queued eagerly for them, especially on Fridays, when rations were running low.
‘And you can go to the butcher’s on Saturday, Nan.’ Her niece did far better out of the old skinflint than she had ever done, especially in the under-the-counter suet and sausages department. It was probably, she thought, because the girl looked at him with her big eyes, then fluttered those eyelashes for good measure. ‘Tell him that anything at all would be much appreciated.’
‘A leg of lamb?’ Nan giggled, to which her aunt replied that she had just seen a purple pig fly past the top of the street! Legs of lamb, indeed!
‘When do you think you’ll hear from the ATS, then?’
‘Dunno, Auntie Mim. Once I’ve had my medical, they might send for me pretty sharpish. I asked the corporal to do what she could for me. Fingers crossed there’ll be a letter in the morning.’ A buff envelope with no stamp on it, and O H M S printed across the top.
She switched on the wireless, settling herself in the fireside rocker, tapping her toes in time to the dance music, thinking that if she wasn’t so set on joining the Army and Auntie Mim had a spare bed, of course, Farthing Street would have suited her nicely for the duration.
Oh, hurry up buff envelope, do!
On Saturday night, the telephone in Jackmans Cottage rang.
‘It’s for you.’ Janet Tiptree, who always picked up the phone, handed it to her daughter. ‘Jeffrey,’ she mouthed.
‘Darling,’ Carrie whispered, startled. ‘How lovely of you to –’
‘Caroline – listen! I’ve been hanging about outside the phonebox for ages waiting for this call to come through and we only have three minutes, so what are you thinking about, joining up! If you must do something so stupid, why not join the Wrens? And why did I have to hear it from your mother? Surely I merit some consideration?’
There was a small uneasy silence that seemed to last an age, then she said,
‘I – I – well, I was going to tell you Jeffrey and anyway, nothing is settled, yet.’
‘I should damn well hope not. We’re supposed to be getting married when I’ve finished my training – well, aren’t we?’
‘Y-yes,’ was all she could say, because she could hear his angry breathing and besides, there wasn’t a lot she could say to the contrary in three minutes. ‘But please don’t speak to me like that? And I’m sorry you are upset. I’ll write, shall I? A nice long letter…?’
‘The only letter I want from you is telling me you’ve forgotten all about the ATS. Did you have a brainstorm, or something?’
‘N-no!’ Oh, why did she let him boss her around so? ‘And thank you for ringing, Jeffrey,’ she hastened when the warning pips pinged stridently in her ear. ‘Take care of yourself. I’ll write. Tonight.’
The line went dead, then began to buzz. She looked angrily at the receiver, then slammed it down.
‘So? Your young man wasn’t best pleased?’ Janet Tiptree said softly, smugly.
‘No, he wasn’t. He yelled at me! How dare he! And you shouldn’t have told him, mother. It wasn’t up to you, you know!’
‘Maybe not, but someone had to. Perhaps now you’ll give a bit more thought to your wedding! You are engaged, or had you forgotten?’
‘Of course I hadn’t!’ Being engaged, surely, was something you didn’t forget, especially when you wore a ring on your left hand. ‘Jeffrey and I will be married.’
They would. It was what getting engaged was about. But not just yet. Or would he bluster and bluff and demand, as he did the night her mother was out and they had done – that? She hadn’t wanted to and it mustn’t happen again, or next time she might get pregnant and her mother would have every excuse, then, to get them down the aisle at breakneck speed.
‘Ah, yes.’ Her mother interrupted her thoughts. ‘But when?
‘When the war allows,’ Carrie answered cagily, which was true, really, because now her war had to be taken into consideration.
She closed her eyes, wondering how she would face her mother when the letter telling her to report for her medical arrived; wondered, too, how she was to explain the forged signature on the bottom of her application form.
‘Are we going to listen to the news, mother? Shall I switch on? It’s nearly nine o’clock.’
It was all she could think of to say, dammit!
On May 24th, the newsreader announced in a graver than usual voice that HMS Hood, the biggest and fastest ship in the Royal Navy, had been sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, and only three from a crew of almost fifteen hundred had survived.
It was as if, Nan frowned, Hitler’s lot could do what they wanted, even at sea. The Hood had been sunk, the morning paper reported, by one chance shell landing in the ship’s magazine. Dead lucky, them Jairmans!
She rounded her mouth and slammed down her feet. She was on her way to the medical centre in Albion Street, and the sooner they pronounced her A1 fit, the sooner she would be in uniform, because this morning’s terrible news made her all the more sure it was what she must do.
She pushed open the door. There was brown linoleum on the floor; the walls were green-painted. The place smelled of damp and disinfectant.
Nan was pointed to a cubicle, told to undress to the waist, put on the white cotton smock and wait to be called.
Someone examined her mouth and muttered, ‘Two cavities,’ and Nan was as sure as she could be that that meant fillings. She had never had fillings. Just to think of them made her flinch, because she had heard they were excruciatingly painful.
A doctor listened to her chest, counted her pulse rate, made muttered asides to the clerk beside him who wrote on a notepad.
She was told to get dressed again, hang the white cotton smock on the hook in the cubicle, then follow the nurse to the ablutions, where there were more cubicles.
‘Please give a urine sample. In this.’ A kidney dish was thrust at each young woman. ‘Then you transfer it into this.’ A small, wide-necked bottle. ‘And try not to spill it on the floor. When you have provided your sample, you will take it to the desk, give it, together with your surname and initial, to the nurse there, and she will attach a label to the bottle. Oh, hurry along, do!’
Some looked shocked. Others giggled. A few blushed. Nan thought it was a lot of fuss over a bottle of wee, but she supposed they knew what they were doing.
‘There was one girl there who couldn’t do it, so they stood her in front of a running cold water tap, but it made no difference,’ Nan told Auntie Mim that evening. ‘She’s got to go back tomorrow and have another try, poor thing.’
‘And do you think you have passed?’
‘I reckon so. They said if we weren’t told to report back within three days, we could take it that we were OK, so it’s fingers crossed.’
‘And you still want to go, Nan?’
‘Yes, I do. Let’s hope I’m on my way before your lodger comes back.’
‘You’ll have to sleep on the sofa in the parlour if you aren’t, young woman.’
Nan hoped she would be in uniform before then. The parlour sofa was hard and stuffed with horsehair.
‘Can we run to a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘In celebration, sort of, of me bein’ half way there.’
‘We’ve been having too many cups of tea lately, miss. But there’s cocoa on the shelf, if you fancy that. And make it with dried milk.’ Cocoa was unrationed when you could get it, as was powdered milk, in a blue metallic tin. ‘Can’t get those sailors on HMS Hood out of my mind,’ she whispered, picking up her knitting which usually soothed her. ‘There’ll be all those women getting telegrams, poor souls.’
‘Yes, but I’ll bet you anything you like that Winston Churchill’s fightin’ mad. I’ll bet he’s rung them up at the Admiralty, and told them to get that bluddy Bismarck!’
‘I hope he has, and I hope they do,’ Miriam said without even reminding her niece that swearing was not allowed at Number 16. ‘Sink it before it can get back into port!’
And could they have known it, the entire North Atlantic fleet was already hunting, enraged, for the German ship, and before four more days had run, Bismarck would be sunk. An eye for an eye, people would say it was.
Four days later, Caroline Tiptree picked up the letters that fell on the doormat at Jackmans Cottage.
‘Post,’ she called, chokily, pushing a buff OHMS envelope into her coat pocket. ‘Only one. For you, mother.’
Then she ran up the garden path and down the road to the bus stop, all at once apprehensive. Because the buff OHMS envelope could mean only one thing.
