Shipyard Girls at War, page 9
George had started to nod off but shook himself awake when he heard Lily talking.
‘Who Rosie? Yes, yes … brains and beauty,’ he agreed, before sinking back into his daytime slumber.
Lily had seen Rosie’s natural flair for business shortly after she’d started working for her. She had just turned seventeen, but was managing to juggle what money she had to pay for her little sister’s boarding school fees, as well as keep her own head above water.
For Lily, it had been like looking into a mirror. She had seen the same determination and financial acumen as she herself had possessed when she had started building her own business just after her eighteenth birthday.
But when Lily had suggested Rosie become more involved in the business, she had knocked her back, saying she saw her work at the bordello as just a temporary measure.
Lily, of course, knew the kind of work she and so many other women had done throughout the ages required you to cross a certain, invisible line – one over which you could never return. It was never ‘just temporary’.
But Lily knew Rosie had had to learn this for herself.
Now, after last year’s nightmare, it seemed Rosie had not only finally realised this, but, moreover, was determined to make it work for her.
It was as if, contemplated Lily as the train pulled into York station, as the scars on her face healed, Rosie had finally been able to accept her life.
Rosie had been heading for self-destruction but, like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, had pulled herself back up and more than dusted herself down. The horror she’d endured at the hands of her sadist uncle might have left her permanently branded and without the advantage of her looks, but it had not pushed her under, but actually made her stronger.
As if echoing Lily’s private thoughts, George half opened his eyes and said aloud: ‘She’s a survivor that girl. Born survivor. They could do with more like her in the army …’
And if the past few months were anything to go by, it was working well for the pair of them, as well as the girls they employed.
Which was all the more reason Rosie did not need any man meddling in her life, Lily reflected, gazing out of the window.
‘We really don’t need any nosy parker copper sticking his oar in.’ Lily voiced her thoughts aloud, shuffling uneasily in her seat.
‘Life’s good for us all at the moment – we don’t need anyone upsetting the apple cart.’
George thought for a moment.
‘I don’t think Rosie wants any more complications in her life at the moment,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘I hope you’re right, George. I really do,’ Lily said, settling back into the comfort of the padded seats and closing her eyes for a little cat nap before they hit the hustle and bustle of the capital.
‘But,’ she philosophised, ‘love’s so bloomin’ unpredictable. It takes you places you just don’t expect to go.’
‘Here, here. I’ll agree with that,’ George said, a big smile spreading across his face as he put his hand on Lily’s and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Chapter Thirteen
Lunchtime, Saturday 22 February 1941
‘Hey, Polly,’ Dorothy called over to her workmate. ‘Was that your brother I saw here the other day – fraternising with the hoi polloi in the main office?’ Dorothy had eagle eyes and never missed a trick; Gloria had often commented that Dorothy really did have eyes in the back of her head as there was no way she could know so much about the yard’s comings and goings when her face was covered by a mask all day.
Polly felt her body stiffen and she turned round to look at Dorothy.
‘I don’t know. He didn’t tell me he’d been … Then again, no one tells me anything any more. Did it look like our Joe?’ The strained tone of Polly’s voice told Dorothy that she’d said the wrong thing. She silently cursed herself for being so gobby. She had just presumed Polly would know if Joe had come into the yard. After all, they were brother and sister and, as far as Dorothy was aware, they not only lived together, but were also very close; which made it all the more unusual that she didn’t know about Joe’s visit. Something was amiss.
‘I might well have been mistaken.’ Dorothy desperately tried to backtrack, did not want to be the cause of any aggro between Polly and her brother, even though she knew the tall, lanky young man who she thought looked a lot like Rudolph Valentino with his short, slicked-back, dark brown hair, and who had struggled to get through the heavy doors to the administration office with his wooden crutch, was indeed Joe. Dorothy had met him a few weeks ago when she’d been heading into town to meet a girlfriend for a coffee and a gossip in the tearooms at Binns, where she’d worked before starting at Thompson’s. Joe had been walking back from the museum with Polly’s adorable little niece. Before she had recognised the pair, Dorothy had presumed the man and child coming towards her were father and daughter. Apart from their hair colour, the pair of them looked uncannily similar, which, with hindsight, Dorothy realised was not so unusual, given that Joe and Lucille’s father were twins, after all. But it wasn’t just their looks which had made Dorothy think that, but the way the pair of them had seemed so naturally at ease with each other.
‘No, I don’t think you were mistaken,’ Polly told Dorothy, trying her hardest to keep the anger out of her voice.
It wasn’t Dorothy’s fault she had seen her brother, Polly reprimanded herself. But still, she couldn’t seem to stop the swell of growing fury rising up in her.
‘Isn’t he still poorly?’ Hannah butted in. They all knew about Joe’s injuries and Polly’s worries that his wound was not healing as quickly as it should.
‘Yes, he is – or rather his leg is,’ she said, now quietly seething.
Sensing Polly’s disquiet, Martha put down the doorstep sandwich she was eating and took a few steps over to Polly. Talking was still a relative novelty for Martha, and she seemed to think that when you did so, you needed to be right in front of the person you were speaking to.
‘We find out why?’ Martha asked.
Perhaps because of her closeness to Hannah, she appeared to have adopted her pronunciation and slightly off-kilter grammar, and was also in the habit of missing out the odd word. Dorothy constantly had to bite her tongue to stop herself correcting Martha, for fear it might inhibit her foray into speech.
Polly put a hand on to Martha’s shoulder, touched by her workmate’s concern and offer of help; but before she had a chance to tell her not to worry, and that she was sure she would find out soon enough, Rosie came over to the group.
‘Time’s up everyone, back to it,’ she commanded, before adding, ‘Polly, can I have a quick word?’
As the noise of welding machines started up, Rosie took Polly over to the edge of the quayside, a place that always made Polly think of Tommy. She still half expected to see his massive twelve-bolt copper helmet emerge out of the water, and for him to clamber on to the divers’ pontoon in his heavy, lead-soled boots, water pouring off his huge metal corselet and canvas body suit.
‘I thought you might like to know that Joe was asking about coming back to work in the yard. He’d already been over to Bartram’s before he came to us, but they didn’t have anything for him either.’
Rosie looked at Polly with concern. ‘That was where he worked before the war, am I right?’
Polly nodded her agreement.
‘Well, I’m sure he heard the same there, but the office manager here had to tell him straight, though Joe knows it better than anyone, that any kind of shipyard work is physically hard and his leg is just not healed enough, even for operating one of the cranes, never mind riveting.’
Rosie looked at Polly before asking as sensitively as she could, ‘Is it money? Does the family need another wage coming in?’
‘God, no,’ Polly said, ‘but even if we were destitute, we’d never agree to let him out to work in the condition he’s in. I really don’t know what he’s playing at. He mentioned this the other night, but I didn’t think he was going to go out and look for work straight away … He’s only been back just over a month.’
Polly put her hands on her hips and tried to stem her frustration before she glanced up at the admin office and saw Helen peering out of the window.
‘I’d better get on, otherwise that bossy cow will be out like a shot accusing me of shirking and trying to get me sacked. She’d love that.’
‘You’re right there,’ Rosie agreed as they both turned away from the river’s edge and started walking back over to the dry dock where they were presently all working.
And Polly’s not the only one Helen’s trying to get shot of, Rosie thought as she made a beeline for Hannah, who was struggling with a relatively straightforward vertical weld. She was working shoulder to shoulder with Dorothy, who Rosie knew was covertly doing a good percentage of Hannah’s work. Dorothy was as speedy as she was skilled, and, like them all, she would do anything to keep their little bird safe from the yard’s circling vulture.
‘You just need to angle your rod a bit more like this,’ Rosie said, shouting over the noise, which was even more intense than normal today as they were working right next to the riveters. Rosie put her gloved hand over Hannah’s and demonstrated to her how it was done. She had shown her many times already, but Hannah just did not seem to be getting any better.
Rosie felt Hannah’s arm droop, followed by her shoulders, which then started shuddering.
‘Hey.’ Rosie turned Hannah around and pushed up her mask. Her pinched, pale face was wet with tears.
‘I just can’t do it, Rosie,’ Hannah said with complete hopelessness. ‘Practice does not make perfect with me. I’ve tried and tried … and practised and practised, but I just don’t get any better.’
‘Think of how you were at the start,’ Rosie told her sternly. ‘And how much you have come on since then. You can do this. Go and have a little breather and start again … And pace yourself. Don’t worry about going fast, just do what you can and do it well.’
Hannah forced herself to smile, but her eyes looked tired and dejected. Rosie knew she was on limited time here in the yard. Dorothy might be covering for her, but she could not keep on doing it; she’d get caught out before long. Rosie knew she had to think of something, and quickly, otherwise she was going to lose one of her team. She’d been determined from the off, when the shipyards had been forced to give women jobs, that she’d show that shipbuilding need not just be the domain of the men – but that women too could be just as good, if not better than their male counterparts.
So far she was pleased that her little group of women welders were not far from proving her right. Dorothy and Martha were her star players; Dorothy was a natural, whereas Martha had incredible strength and stamina. Polly and Gloria were now just about up to scratch, and certainly worked as hard, if not harder, than the men. But Hannah, unfortunately, was the runt of the litter, and it was looking more and more unlikely that she’d survive the harsh world of yard life.
It took a few minutes for Rosie to make her way over coils of welding leads and snakes of metal chains before she reached the other side of the hull, where Polly, Martha and Gloria were all working.
As she made her way past the flat-capped young apprentices heating up the rivets around their mini-furnace, she spotted Martha’s huge frame and realised that she didn’t have a welding rod in her hand but a rivet gun.
‘You lot aren’t trying to pinch my number one worker from me?’ Rosie said. Her voice sounded jokey but she meant every word. She couldn’t afford to lose any of the women – not with Hannah barely hanging on to her job by her fingernails, and with Gloria having only two months at the most before her pregnancy would force her to stop welding.
And now it looked as if the riveters were trying to poach Martha from her.
Who could blame them, though? Martha was a proper workhorse – had been born to work in the yards; something Rosie had told Martha on a number of occasions.
Looking at the head riveter’s slightly guilty face, Rosie might have known they would want her. They had lost too many of their men to the war, and it was not a trade most women had the strength or the will to do. The riveters had been known as ‘the kings of the shipyard’ for decades; now it looked as if they needed a few queens. Seeing Martha now, standing holding the ton-weight rivet gun as if it were a child’s toy, there was no doubt the woman would be a natural and, more importantly, had the strength in her thick, muscular arms to rivet all day long.
‘How about we share her for the day?’ Jimmy, the head riveter, asked her with a pleading face.
Rosie owed Jimmy because of the way he had helped out with Hannah. It was payback time and they both knew it.
‘Just for today,’ Rosie told him, but she knew that now she had to find a way not only to keep Hannah, but also Martha.
At the end of the shift, when the women were all on the ferry heading back over to the south side, Polly sidled up to Rosie. Their journey back over the river had reminded her of the evening she had spotted her boss chatting away to the smartly dressed man in the black three-piece suit and trilby hat.
‘Did I see you with a rather dashing older bloke the other day on the south dock?’ she asked with a cheeky grin.
‘Oh.’ Rosie laughed a little too loudly. ‘That was Detective Sergeant Miller. Remember, the one from last year?’ Rosie dropped her voice, so that only Polly could hear. ‘The one who came to see me about my inheritance?’
‘Oh yes,’ Polly whispered back conspiratorially, adding, ‘You said he was really nice, but not that he was also rather “scrummy”, to use Angie’s favourite word.’
Rosie laughed again, a little embarrassed.
‘Well,’ she mused, ‘if a middle-aged man with greying hair can be classed as scrummy …’
The sentence was left open-ended as she looked up the river to the sea lock, where the small Dock Police cabin stood. When Polly stole a glance at her boss, she could have sworn she saw the faintest of blushes appearing on Rosie’s pretty but scarred face.
When Polly got home a short while later, she let out a big sigh of relief to find Joe on his own in the kitchen, sitting in front of the range with his bad leg stretched out in front of him, staring into the grated fire that was now just about out, the heap of remaining ashes barely smouldering.
Everyone else – Agnes, Arthur, Bel and Lucille – was in bed; everyone, of course, apart from Pearl, who was, as always, out. Polly had joked with Bel the other day that the term ‘night owl’ had been invented for her mother, but Bel had not laughed as she would once have done – as the old Bel would have done – but instead had merely huffed her agreement, adding that it was ‘better than having her around the house, that’s for sure’.
‘You must be dropping on your feet,’ Joe said as he turned to see his sister entering the room. As he spoke he started to struggle to his feet so that he could sort Polly out with a cup of tea, but his little sister stopped him.
‘Don’t worry, Joe, just sit down, I can get my own cuppa … I want to talk to you,’ she said, pouring herself a drink from the big porcelain pot, and pulling out another chair from under the kitchen table so that she could sit next to her brother. As she eased her tired and achy body down on to the chair, she took a slow breath before saying, ‘So, what’s this about you turning up at the yard asking for work?’
Joe shuffled in his chair and used both his hands to move his injured leg a little to one side. It was done for no particular reason, but it was evidence of his unease. He hadn’t been sure whether or not his sister would get to know about his visit to Thompson’s. He should have guessed she’d find out. The yard might be immense, but any kind of tittle-tattle or gossip spread like wildfire. He knew because Bartram’s had been the same; it gave the workers a reprieve from their exhausting – and also what could be mind-numbing and repetitive – work.
‘I know … it was stupid. I left there feeling like the biggest fool ever … trying to convince them that I was man enough to do a normal day’s work …’ Joe’s voice trailed off in thought. It was the lowest Polly had heard him sound since his arrival back home.
‘Oh, Joe, you are man enough. You don’t have to go back to work to prove yourself. You just need to get yourself better. Not just for your sake – but for all of our sakes.’
‘I know. I know,’ he agreed; what he wanted to add was that he was going to get better, and that he would get back to work – by hook or by crook. It was just going to take him a bit longer than he had anticipated.
Polly had thought she might have a fight on her hands, but was thankful for small mercies that it looked as if Joe’s visit to the yard had brought him to his senses.
‘Let’s just take one step at a time,’ she said, adding, ‘and in the meantime, let’s try and sort our Bel out – and get her back to the way she was before.’
Joe straightened up in his chair and looked at Polly.
‘I don’t think we’ll ever get her back to the way she was. Some things change you, and you cannot change back again.’
Polly looked at her brother and thought that he was not just talking about his sister-in-law.
‘She’s just going to need some time. Probably a lot of time. She’s got a lot of grieving to do. Bel worshipped the ground Teddy walked on, and always did, even from being a bairn,’ Joe said, his mind slipping back to more innocent times; a period when life had seemed so straightforward – not all buckled and bent like it was now.
‘And to add to it all,’ he added, ‘Pearl’s suddenly tipped up out of the blue. She couldn’t have come at a worse time.’
Polly listened to Joe’s words and agreed with him – Pearl’s presence in their home was far from helpful, even though she’d claimed to have come back for Bel’s sake. They were not fools; they were all well aware that something else had propelled Pearl back into their lives, and that, somewhere along the line, it probably involved some good-for-nothing bloke. What was more concerning, though, was that it looked as if she was set to stay for a good while longer.
