Shipyard Girls at War, page 6
‘I think your coat’s shrunk, Glor,’ Dorothy teased, pushing her mask up to speak as soon as she’d spotted her workmate struggling to do it up.
Gloria couldn’t help but laugh.
‘When I was expecting Gordon and Bobby, I hardly showed until I was about five months pregnant. Slim as a pin I was. This time, though, I’ve piled on the weight from the second I fell.’
‘Yes,’ Dorothy mused, ‘but you were half your age then.’
‘I know, don’t say it, I’m old enough to be a “nana” and not a “mammy”. I’ve thought it more than once myself believe you me – but I still can’t understand why I’m piling it on. It’s not as if I’m exactly stuffing my face – not with all this bloody awful rationing. And to make things worse, I seem to be craving anything and everything even remotely sweet – just typical with sugar being like gold dust these days.’
Just as Gloria was starting to imagine eating a big apple turnover filled with a good dollop of cream and sprinkled with lots of lovely crystals of brown sugar, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
It was Rosie.
‘How are you feeling?’
Ever since the day they had all come to Rosie’s rescue and saved her from that evil, abhorrent man who they’d come to learn was her uncle, Rosie had made a point of keeping a very close eye on all her women welders. She reminded Gloria of a lioness keeping a vigilant watch on her young – not that Gloria felt even remotely like a small, young cub; all the same, Rosie was determined that no harm would come to either Gloria or the little life growing inside her.
‘I’m all right,’ Gloria said. ‘Everything feels fine,’ she added, glancing down at her stomach.
Rosie lowered her voice.
‘You thought any more about what you’re going to do when Jack gets back?’
Gloria’s face fell.
‘I just don’t know. I can’t help but think that it’ll feel like history repeating itself for Jack. And,’ Gloria added thoughtfully, ‘I want Jack to be with me for the right reasons. For love. And for love alone. And not just because I’m carrying his baby.’
Rosie nodded. She could understand Gloria’s dilemma.
‘I know, but it’s not as if you’ve tricked him like his wife did. This baby is very obviously real.’ Rosie smiled as she looked at her workmate’s expanding waistline.
Gloria nodded her agreement; this child growing inside her was certainly very real – and very unexpected. And they did love each other. Always had. Since they’d been childhood sweethearts.
To this day, Gloria could not understand how Miriam could have done what she’d done all those years ago, stealing Jack off her by seducing him one night and then pretending that his one indiscretion had resulted in her falling pregnant.
They’d all been so young and naïve back then – all apart from Miriam. She’d got exactly what she wanted: Jack, a ring on her finger, and then, after an alleged miscarriage, she’d fallen pregnant for real and given birth to Helen.
‘Well, whatever you decide, you know I’ve got your back, don’t you?’
Gloria nodded as Rosie stood up.
‘And, just stop if you need a rest or you don’t feel good, all right?’ Rosie said with a face that showed she meant every word.
When Gloria pushed her mask back down and carried on with her weld, she knew it would not be long before she wasn’t all right, and that not only would she not be able to keep up with the workload, more importantly it would not be good for her unborn baby for her to be grafting the way she was now.
Gloria had loved working at Thompson’s from the off – had thought the place incredible. She’d never been anywhere that was so full of so many different sights and sounds; she’d gone home after her first day with her ears ringing and her head buzzing. Her love for this huge concrete expanse of metal and steel and half-built ships had grown greater with time, especially after she had started to make sense of the chaos and had begun to understand the whole shipbuilding process.
But, as much as Gloria loved working in the yard, the life of her unborn baby took precedence over everything else, and always would. Ever since the day, not long after she’d found out she was pregnant, and her husband Vinnie had punched her in the stomach so violently she feared she’d most certainly miscarry, she’d resolved that no one, or anything, would harm the life growing inside her.
When the time eventually came and her pregnancy could not be hidden any more, and it was no longer safe for her to work the way she was now, then she’d have to chat to Rosie to see if there was any chance of her staying on at the yard, perhaps in a different capacity. Although she had no idea what she’d do, as she couldn’t envisage herself doing office work – and she certainly couldn’t see Helen sanctioning a job for her indoors, especially if the truth came out about the real parentage of her unborn baby.
In fact, if Helen were to find that out, Gloria was fairly sure she would not be allowed to put a step over the yard’s boundary, never mind still have a job there.
But that was a worry for another time.
By the end of the shift the temperature had dropped even more, and a low-lying sea fret was creeping across the river.
‘No overtime tonight,’ Rosie said, quickly packing up her belongings.
‘Get yourselves off home – or to the pub,’ she added, glancing at Dorothy, who had just been joined by Angie.
The women were all pleased they were not required to do any extra hours – all apart from Polly, who would have worked around the clock and quite happily slept at the yard too.
As Hannah and Martha trudged off, followed by an excited Dorothy and Angie, Gloria slung her gas mask over her shoulder and looked at Polly, who was still faffing about.
‘Come on, slow coach,’ Gloria said. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t have a home to go to. I thought you’d be racing out of those gates. It’s not very often these days we actually get off on time.’
Polly stood up, and sighed.
‘If truth be told, Gloria, it’s not exactly a barrel of laughs at home at the moment,’ Polly admitted.
Gloria crinkled her forehead into a questioning frown.
‘The atmosphere is what you might call “emotionally charged”. Has been for weeks now. More so since Joe got back, which is madness. You’d have thought his return would have brought a little happiness into the house. But, if anything, it’s been the reverse.’
‘Go on, tell me more,’ Gloria said, linking Polly’s arm as they both sauntered towards the yard’s main gates, neither in a rush to go home.
Gloria listened as Polly told her that Tommy’s grandad, Arthur, was now ensconced upstairs, although that was one change Polly positively welcomed, as she loved the old man to pieces.
‘Nice to have just a tiny little bit of the man you love near to you, eh?’ Gloria added, feeling her bump and thinking how she felt Jack’s presence in the growing life inside her.
Polly smiled and squeezed Gloria’s arm.
‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed, adding, ‘but you know I would have thought having Joe at home would have really lifted everyone. It was such a massive relief he was all right and that he got back home safely.’ Polly paused. ‘His leg’s still a worry and Ma’s particularly anxious, as she thinks there may be some small bits of shrapnel still in his leg that’s stopping the wound from healing properly.’
Gloria nodded her understanding. She knew plenty of war vets who had become amputees a while after being injured due to an infection spreading.
‘But,’ Polly continued, ‘he’s being well looked after and he seems happy enough. And it’s lovely to see how much Lucille obviously adores him, and how much he totally dotes on her.’
And it was true; their little niece always made Joe’s face light up. In fact, the little girl’s buoyancy and natural chirpiness was like a breath of fresh air to them all. Everyone, that was, apart from Bel.
As if reading her thoughts, Gloria asked, ‘And Bel. What about Bel? How’s she coping?’
‘Not well, to put it bluntly. I can’t seem to get through to her – at all. It’s as though the Bel I’ve known all these years has simply disappeared in the blink of an eye.
‘And what I really cannot fathom out is just why she seems to hate the fact Lucille has taken so well to Joe. You’d think she’d be chuffed. At least her daughter’s happy, even if no one else is.’
As they both reached the timekeeper’s cabin and handed their cards in, Gloria kept her own counsel on why she thought Bel’s behaviour was so out of character. She knew Polly needed to just talk and she was happy to simply listen to her friend.
As they walked down to the ferry landing, Polly spoke about how awful it was seeing how her brother’s death had changed her sister-in-law, and that, although Teddy’s death had deeply affected them all, it had wreaked devastation on Bel.
‘I suppose that’s not surprising,’ Gloria said as they waited in the growing queue of workers all eager to get on the ferry and get home.
‘She’s still young,’ Gloria mused. ‘If it hadn’t been for this damned war, there would have been no reason she couldn’t have expected to grow old with your Teddy, and had more children – brothers and sisters for Lucille.’
‘You’re right,’ Polly agreed.
Bel’s hopes and dreams of a future had been ripped from her – obliterated with the arrival of a single telegram. It had been nearly two months now since they had found out Teddy had been killed. Polly knew that was not a long time, and that Bel would be grieving for a good while yet, but she seemed to be sinking further down into the dark pit of bereavement, not slowly clawing her way up.
‘Perhaps she hasn’t hit rock bottom yet – she’ll need to do that before she starts to recover,’ Gloria volunteered as they followed a group of laughing and joking shipwrights on to the boat.
‘And it’s not helped that Pearl’s back on the scene,’ Polly added. ‘I can’t stand the woman. She just needs to open her mouth to be totally annoying. Heavens knows how Bel must feel; it’s her mother after all. But what can we do? We can’t just boot her out on to the street, no matter how much I’d like to – and I know for certain Bel would love to.’
As the two women looked out to sea, the sound of the waves lapping against the wooden sides of the old ferry and the gentle sway of the boat induced a feeling of calm; even the other workers had quietened down. Polly let her mind flee her present reality and, closing her eyes and lifting her face to the darkening sky, she imagined herself transported across the waters, across Europe, and down to the southernmost tip of Spain – to Gibraltar – and into the arms of her fiancé.
The thought of her and Tommy’s first Valentine’s Day spent apart made her feel sad, but she knew she was not alone in feeling the way she did. How many other women like herself, who had loved ones away fighting on some foreign battlefield, or holed up on a ship, praying to God they didn’t get blasted out of the water or sunk by the Luftwaffe’s bombs, were thinking the same. She really had to count her blessings that Tommy, as far as she was aware, was alive and well, and that she didn’t have to contemplate a life without ever seeing the man she loved again.
Unlike Bel.
A few minutes later, as the ferry reached the south dock, Polly opened her eyes. To her surprise she spotted Rosie, still in her overalls, her hair tied up in her headscarf, standing halfway up the embankment and happily chatting away to a very smartly attired older man.
Although they were both dressed as polar opposites, and there was a clear age gap between the two, there was no denying they looked good together, and very comfortable in each other’s company. If Polly hadn’t known it was Rosie, she would have presumed the man and woman chatting away to each other were most definitely a couple.
‘Eee, Glor, can you see what I’m seeing?’ Polly asked.
Gloria squinted before a surprised looked crossed her face.
‘Aye, I most certainly can. Well, that’s a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’ she said with an amused smile.
*
‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ DS Miller joked, catching up with Rosie as she made her way up the embankment.
‘DS Miller. I mean Peter. Nice to see you. Been catching any black marketeers down that dock?’ She smiled.
‘Not today,’ he laughed. ‘Perhaps I might hook one or two tomorrow – along with a nice big crab,’ he joked.
There was a moment’s pause, before he added, ‘I’ve finished for the day, and I’ve got a few hours to spare until I go and do my air-raid warden duties. Would it be improper of me to ask if you would like to have a cup of tea with me in the little café at the top the road?’
By the look on Rosie’s face, DS Miller was prepared to be turned down, so he was taken aback when she said, ‘Yes, why not? I could do with a nice cuppa after the day I’ve had.’
DS Miller’s own face immediately cheered up and he broke into a big smile.
This woman is full of surprises, he could not help thinking, before saying out loud, ‘Sounds like an interesting day.’
Rosie laughed. ‘If work was just about the welding, it would be a breeze. But add people into the equation and it all gets terribly complicated.’
‘Aye, there’s nowt as strange as folk.’ DS Miller chuckled as they both walked side by side up on to the main road, before making their way to the little tea shop nestled halfway along High Street East.
As they chatted away to each other, Rosie suddenly recalled Dorothy and Angie’s dreadful rendition of ‘I’ve Got My Eyes On You’, and she realised that today, funnily enough, was Valentine’s Day.
Chapter Nine
The next morning in the Elliot household, Bel came bustling out of her room looking spic and span in her smart blue tweed conductress’s uniform. It had been languishing in the back of her wardrobe since the arrival of Teddy’s death notification almost two months ago and hadn’t been touched since.
Unusually for this time of the morning, just about everyone was up: Agnes was in the scullery, Arthur and Joe were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea, and Polly was stirring a big pan of porridge simmering on the range. Even Pearl was up and was braving the cold, having her first smoke of the day out in the back yard.
‘Ah, she’s pretty as a picture, isn’t she?’ Arthur’s pale blue eyes shone towards Bel. Joe smiled and nodded his agreement.
Polly stared at Bel for a moment before allowing a wide smile to appear on her face.
‘Bel would look gorgeous in a sack,’ she said, taking the pan off the hob and serving up four bowls. Neither Agnes nor Pearl were ‘breakfast people’, as they put it – Agnes just wanted her fix of tea, and Pearl her fags.
‘I didn’t know you were going back to work, Bel,’ Polly said as Bel pulled up a chair next to Arthur and poured herself a cuppa.
‘Well, I thought it about time I get out of everyone’s hair and start to earn my keep – unlike certain other people in this house,’ she said, throwing a derisory look out of the kitchen window at her mother, who was gripping her faded pink cotton dressing gown under her chin with one hand as she smoked with the other. Her slight frame was visibly shivering due to the early morning frost.
Polly’s smile dropped. Bel did not seem to be able to speak without either criticising her mother or taking a snipe at someone or something else; but at least she was trying to get herself out and about. Hopefully, this was the turning point that Gloria had talked about.
‘I’ll make two lots of sandwiches, then?’ Agnes shouted through to the kitchen as Polly took her pan into the scullery and plunged it into a sinkful of water.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Bel replied. ‘I’ll just get something in the canteen.’
As Polly watched Bel take the first mouthful of her porridge, she sidled up to her mum.
‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books,’ she whispered. ‘Work’ll take her mind off everything. Hopefully get her back to her old self.’ Polly looked and sounded both relieved and hopeful.
‘Mm,’ was the only reply Agnes offered, before shouting back through to her daughter-in-law.
‘All right, but take some change out of the jar. And don’t worry about doing Joe’s dressing. You don’t want to mark your uniform. And if Lucille’s still sleeping, leave her and I’ll sort her out when you’ve gone.’
Bel’s face brightened.
‘Thanks, Agnes, you’re a star.’
Bel pushed her bowl of half-eaten porridge away, and went to stand in front of the mirror in order to pin her hair up so that it would fit under the little peaked cap all the ticket collectors, conductors, bus and tram drivers had to wear.
‘You should try and eat a bit more breakfast,’ Joe said. He hadn’t been the only one to notice just how little Bel was eating at the moment. She’d always been petite, but now she was starting to look undernourished and skinny – not unlike her mother.
Bel shot Joe a sharp look as she stabbed another hairpin into her thick twisted golden hair, which seemed to be fighting to be free.
‘You my ma now, Joe?’ Her retort was more accusatory than jokey. Both Joe and Arthur looked back to their own bowls of porridge and started eating.
‘Not that she ever gave two hoots whether I ate or starved.’ Bel let out a bitter half-laugh.
Polly came back into the kitchen to see Bel disappearing back into her bedroom.
‘You two are as quiet as mice this morning. What? Cat got your tongues?’ Polly’s cajoling was met by two equally weak and unconvincing smiles.
Polly lowered her voice as she poured a splash of milk on to her porridge.
‘It’s a start, isn’t it? Bel going back to work?’ she asked, before tucking into her hot oats.
Joe and Arthur nodded but did not voice an opinion. Neither man looked quite so reassured – or seemed quite as optimistic – as Polly about Bel’s return to work.
‘Welcome back, Bel!’
The depot manager, Howard, was genuinely pleased to see his former worker back, although he was a little surprised, as it wasn’t that long since Bel had learnt of her husband’s death and he’d expected her to take a lot more time off to mourn her loss.
