Ruby's War Read online

Each man fumbled in the darkness with the unfamiliar money. The girl shone her torch on their hands, taking three large brown coins out from each soldier. As she picked through the coins in his cupped palms, Con noticed that her red fingernails were chipped and her hands were grubby. It was hard to see her face, but he could make out a cap perched on top of a mass of dark hair. In the half-light her curls took on a strange bluish tinge. As the girl was punching out their tickets, the bus swayed and she grabbed the rail.

  ‘Nearly had me on your knee there,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll give you a shout when we get to the Railway.’

  ‘Here, never mind him,’ an old man on a nearby seat shouted. ‘Come and sit on my knee.’

  ‘You’re not as good-looking, Walter,’ the woman with the basket said, and Con could hear the girl chuckle and the other passengers’ good-natured laughter around him in the darkness.

  ‘Here we are,’ the conductress shouted, from the middle of the bus. ‘The next one’s yours.’

  As the dark shape moved off, they heard the hissing and clanking from the railway siding.

  ‘I guess it must be over here,’ Holt said. ‘I saw the sidings just before the landlord shouted.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Bo said, ‘they were blowing their hooters.’

  Con followed the sound of his friends’ voices. These people with their shabby clothes and funny accents might stare, but he thought they meant to be friendly. He’d found them hard to understand, but the white men at the bus stop and the conductress called them all ‘lads’ not ‘boys’ and there was warmth in their tone, not contempt.

  ‘Do you reckon anybody can sit where they want here?’ Wes asked, as they reached the pub door.

  By the time Granddad arrived home from work, Ruby had washed all the clothes and put them on the line. Jenny didn’t come home for tea, so she and Granddad ate alone and listened to the news on the radio. When she’d cleared away the pots, Granddad spread his newspaper out on the table and settled down to read before he went on fire-watching duty at the church.

  ‘Looks like our lads have given Jerry a beating again,’ he called to her in the kitchen. ‘That’s the idea. If we keep hitting their factories like this, it’s bound to hurt production. It says it were a main centre for their engineering that was hit. Made parts for aircraft, warships, heavy guns, all sorts.’

  Ruby put the food she’d made for him on the table. It wasn’t much, but by stretching out two thin slices of ham and some onion she’d managed to fill the sandwiches for his breakfast, together with a couple of twists of tea and sugar so that he could make a warm drink in the chilly sacristy.

  ‘It’s me and Johnny on at the church tonight,’ he said, taking his coat from its hook near the door and squashing the carefully made sandwiches into the pocket. ‘It’s not too bad. You can usually get your head down. Only trouble is, Johnny snores. Sounds like an old engine. The other night, I was well away. He wakened me up. Reckoned he could see a ghost. Turned out, it was the reflection from the sanctuary light. It reflects on the wooden panels at the back of the altar, see. Johnny swore it was moving. I said I’d meet him at the Railway for one first. You’ll be all right on your own here, love? I don’t know how long Jenny will be across the way, and Sadie’s working until late. Then she’ll probably go to Lou’s. She’s going to be upset, no doubt.’

  ‘Can Bess stay here?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose so, but watch she doesn’t upset Monty if you take her outside. I don’t want him upset. Or the hens. They can be put off laying, see.’

  When Granddad had gone, she took Bess into the yard. She couldn’t hear any sounds from the cottages down the lane, and she thought that Mrs Lathom would be exhausted after so much sobbing and Jenny might be helping her to bed.

  When her mother died Ruby didn’t cry. She’d had the odd feeling that she was floating above everything, looking down on herself. She didn’t cry when Auntie Ethel moved her out of the room she’d shared with her mother and into the box room, or when Ethel had thrown all her mother’s stage make-up away. She didn’t cry at the funeral, when her mother’s friends from the theatre hugged her and left her face sticky with lipstick kisses. Then weeks later her teacher had read her class a story called Black Beauty, about a horse that was treated cruelly. When they read about the horse’s death quite a lot of girls cried, but Ruby couldn’t stop. In the end, the teacher took her into the office, and the caretaker made her a cup of tea.

  Ruby tried to imagine what Jack was like. She wondered if he was handsome. She’d thought the soldier on Preston station was quite handsome and imagined Maggie Joy sitting in her sunny bedroom stroking the creased envelope. She wondered if she should have written on the back to explain to Maggie Joy how her soldier boyfriend had given her the letter at the railway station.

  Ruby could hear Bess snuffling in the garden and followed her. On the other side of the lane, she could see the dark outline of Bardley’s farm and the illegal slivers of light leaking through the gaps in the milking parlour’s wooden door. The sky was clear. It was a night that would be good for the bombers. Then the hens in the shed began clucking, and she called softly for Bess and went back inside.

  Bo pushed open the pub door and the others followed. The air was warm and smelt of beer and cigarettes. When his customers fell silent, the portly landlord, who was reading a newspaper on the bar, looked up and reached for one of the glass tankards hanging above his head.

  ‘Now, lads,’ he said with a smile, ‘the first pints are on me.’

  On the other side of the bar, a row of men in overalls and railway workers’ uniforms stared over at them, as the landlord took down five glass tankards hanging above his head and pumped each one full of pale golden beer. For a moment, the five pint glasses stood on the bar. Then the landlord handed one to each of them, before taking the final one for himself.

  ‘Your good health, sir,’ Bo said raising his glass to the landlord.

  ‘And yours too, son,’ replied the landlord.

  The beer was the colour of honey but tasted bitter. Con found the sensation of warm beer in his mouth unpleasant. He tried to avoid meeting the eyes of the silent men on the opposite side of the bar and forced the bitter liquid down. Bo was the first one to put his pint glass back on the bar, and with relief, Con did the same.

  ‘That’s a mighty nice drink, sir,’ Bo said, wiping a line of white froth from his pencil-slim moustache.

  ‘Aye, we like to think so,’ replied the landlord. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Aye, cheers,’ called the men on the opposite side of the bar, suddenly nodding and smiling as Con put the glass to his lips again.

  The room on their side of the bar was in semi-darkness, lit only by the wall lights and the blazing coal fire. An elderly couple with sunken faces sat at one side of the fire, and on the other side of the hearth, a British soldier and a plump light-haired girl whispered together. The only other customer was a lone man in a raincoat, sitting under one of the wall lights reading a newspaper. By contrast, the opposite side of the bar was full of customers. They were, Con noticed, all men. Some sat at the bar, others at tables playing cards and three more, a fat clergyman and two men in caps and mufflers, threw arrows at a bullseye on the wall.

  ‘You ever played darts, son?’ an elderly man at his elbow asked.

  Con smiled shyly. ‘No, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Well, don’t get Henry to show you how,’ the landlord laughed. ‘He can’t play for toffee.’

  The old man, who wore a porter’s cap set at a jaunty angle, pulled a face, and the men on the opposite side of the bar chuckled.

  ‘You settled in at the new camp?’ he asked, as the landlord refilled his glass.

  Remembering the humiliation of the night before, Con looked down at his feet, unsure what to say.

  ‘I was in the last lot. Me and Johnny Fin, here,’ the old man said, nodding in the direction of another old man who’d just walked in the bar.

  The second man smiled and extended a large
hand. When Con took it, the man’s face suddenly contorted in a series of twitches, as though he’d been electrocuted.

  ‘N-n-nice t-to m-m-meet you,’ he stuttered.

  ‘Here you are, Johnny,’ the man in the porter’s hat said, handing his friend a pint.

  To Con’s surprise, when he was handed the drink, the man’s twitches stopped and he walked steadily over to the piano.

  ‘I’m Henry,’ the old man said, shaking each of their hands in turn, ‘Henry Barton.’

  ‘My father was there, as well,’ Con said. ‘In France. He came out of it okay, but his friend was shot. Sniper.’

  ‘It was the gas that got me,’ Henry said. ‘Johnny, there, carried me for miles on his back. Wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for him. Any of you lads play?’ he asked, nodding over to the piano.

  ‘Wes does,’ Con said. ‘Come on, Wes, when’s the last chance you got to play?’

  ‘Move over, Johnny,’ Henry shouted. ‘Let’s see what this lad can do.’

  The landlord leant over the bar and grinned at the three other soldiers.

  ‘If the rest of you lads are interested,’ he said, nodding over to the fat priest who was grinning at them from the other side of the bar, ‘Father O’Flynn wants to know if you’d like to learn how to play darts. You’ll be all right with him,’ he said, winking at them. ‘He’s had some of the Yanks playing like champions in no time.’

  ‘Except that Hal and his mate,’ one of the old men wearing mufflers called, as Bo and Holt made their way through to the other side of the bar, and Con followed Wes over to the piano. ‘They couldn’t play for toffee.’

  ‘You play as well, son?’ Henry asked Con.

  ‘Me? No sir, I don’t.’

  ‘He can sing, though,’ Wes said with a wink.

  ‘Only in church, and my grandma said I make a bullfrog sound tuneful.’

  As Wes played and Johnny sang, Henry told Con about the time he and his old friend Johnny had spent as soldiers.

  ‘The last lot did for poor Johnny’s career,’ he said, accepting the pint of beer Con brought him from the bar. ‘As a young man he was the prizefighter “Gentleman” Johnny Finlay. You might have heard of him. Fought all over the world.’

  ‘Is the … twitch … from the war?’

  ‘Oh no, that’s the boxing. Punch-drunk,’ Henry said, pointing to his own head. ‘Odd thing is, you’ll notice when it gets busy, he waits on tables and collects glasses. Lives over the shop, so to speak, and helps out around the place. When he carries a tray of drinks, or piles of empties, he’s as steady as a rock, but the rest of the time … Doesn’t seem to bother him when he’s playing, neither. No. He reckoned he’d seen so much killing in the war, he never fancied the fight game after. Mind you, by then he was too old, anyway.’

  Towards the end of the evening, at Henry’s suggestion, Con switched to mild and found it far pleasanter.

  ‘We’re off fire-watching. Thought we’d get a few down us first,’ Henry said. ‘Me and Johnny is calling for fish and chips before we go on duty. If you’re hungry, we’ll introduce you to another treat, now you’ve got your taste for the beer.’

  From the outside, there was no hint of what kind of place the small building was. The old man opened the door and they stepped down into a small, dimly lit room. A queue of people waited in a line that ran along the bare, light-green walls and doubled back on itself in front of the wooden counter. Behind the counter, a man in a white apron stood over a shiny, green range and lowered wire baskets of pale sliced potato into the bubbling fat. His assistant, a small, bent woman with sparse black hair curled around her heavily made-up face, wrapped up the food in white paper, and then into newspaper bundles.

  As they edged to the head of the queue, Con was able to watch the rest of the customers through a mirror set into the back of the range. Nearly all the people waiting in line looked grey and tired. From their dress, the men in overalls or long greasy macs, and many of the women in trousers with headscarves tied around their heads in a turban style, he guessed that most of them were shift workers on their way home. There wasn’t the same banter as there had been on the bus, or in the pub. But when a customer, a bony-faced man with frayed cuffs, caught Wes studying the unfamiliar brown coins that he was counting out into the hand of the bent woman, the man nodded shyly and then called ‘good neet’ to them as he slipped out into the darkness.

  Con watched the bent woman who, despite her awkward gait, moved briskly, scooping up the fish and fries. When they reached the front of the queue, she looked at him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘What would you like?’

  Con’s eyes met Bo’s in the mirror. His throat felt dry as, in the silence, the woman’s face creased into a ghoulish smile.

  ‘Fish and chips six times,’ Henry said at last.

  ‘Do you want salt and vinegar?’ the lady asked.

  As Con nodded dumbly for all of them, a voice from the back of the queue called, ‘Can you make that seven times, love?’

  Henry turned and smiled. ‘Hello Sadie, love. I’m glad you’re here. We’ll just get served and I’ll introduce you.’

  The girl grinning across at them had an almond-shaped face, with a delicate tapering chin, green eyes that slanted upwards at the corners and perfect, white teeth.

  ‘This is Sadie,’ Henry said, when Con stumbled out into the darkness.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, as someone handed him a bundle in hot newspaper. ‘Now come on, eat your chips or they’ll get cold. I’m starving. There’s nothing like chips and fish after a long shift. You off fire-watching, Da?’

  ‘Aye,’ Henry said in between mouthfuls. ‘I’ve just thought, these lads will need somebody to show them how to get back to their camp. Can you manage on your own, Johnny, whilst I show them the way?’

  ‘No need,’ Sadie said. ‘I’ll walk them part of the way. I’m calling in on Lou on my way home. Just let me finish these chips.’

  The group wandered along until they reached a school. Then Henry and Johnny said goodnight and walked up through the playground.

  ‘Them was lovely,’ Sadie said. ‘Can you see that building?’ she asked, pointing towards a single-storey building just visible through the gloom. ‘Well that’s the church hall where we have the dances.’

  She led them down a quiet suburban lane, pointing out shops, asking where they were from, laughing and chatting with them as easily as if it was something that she did every day.

  Con walked a few steps behind. He could hear her laughing, and Bo, in his deep growl, asking her about Henry and her job. The hot food had warmed him, but as he followed them, Con felt the damp air creep inside his clothes and a chill rippled through him.

  The sky was clear and the moonlight lit up the wet road in front of them, making it shine. In every garden wet leaves glistened and dripped. He thought of home and the summer heat and wondered if he would ever feel dry and warm again. Then he heard the guys giggling with Sadie about some joke, and the sound of her tinkling laughter made him smile. When they came to a crossroads she stopped. ‘I go this way,’ she said. ‘You keep straight on and you’ll come to the camp.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’ Bo asked. ‘Should we see you home?’

  ‘No. No thanks. I’m fine from here. But thanks for asking. I’m calling in on my friend; she only lives a couple of houses down. Listen, if you can get passes for Saturday, why don’t you come to the dance at the church hall?’

  They watched her until she disappeared. It was too dark for Con to make out the others’ faces.

  Then Holt laughed softly, ‘Ain’t she the prettiest thing you ever saw?’

  ‘And she asked me to the dance,’ Bo said.

  ‘Us,’ Con said. ‘She asked us all to the dance.’

  ‘But she’s …’ Wes whispered.

  ‘What?’ Bo growled. ‘She’s what?’

  ‘You know what,’ Wes said. ‘You wouldn’t go to meet a white girl. At home …’

&nbs
p; ‘We’re not at home, and she asked me …’

  ‘Us.’

  ‘She probably wants you to sing. They got groups goin’ round all the churches singing. Everybody likes to hear happy, singin’ black folks,’ Holt said. ‘I told her I got prizes for dancing. She’s—’

  ‘No you ain’t.’

  ‘I do so. I got a prize in high school.’

  ‘You’re lying, man. You’re no better mover than me.’

  ‘I am so. I’ll show you. May I have this dance?’ Holt asked and grabbed Bo’s arm.

  ‘Get off me. You lied to that little white girl. You said …’ Bo tried to wrestle him, and when Holt broke free, he chased him along the road. ‘I’m gonna make you sorry.’

  ‘You can’t dance as good as me. An’ you can’t run as fast.’

  ‘Yes, I can. Bet you didn’t tell her you was married? You’re a disgrace.’

  ‘Can you believe this place?’ Wes said, as they watched Bo chase Holt down the lane. ‘These people … white people. Dressed like poor folk, all of ’em …’

  ‘Might be, but they’re friendly. Talk funny too, but they’re good people.’

  ‘Folk here might be shabby,’ Wes said, offering Con a cigarette, ‘but they still white and the people on the bus, the old guy and the landlord …’

  ‘The woman in the shop … she called me “sir”.’

  ‘I know …’ Wes grinned. ‘Never thought I’d hear that. Like you said, folks here … they’re different. Got to give you that.’

  They caught up with Bo and Holt, who’d grown tired of wrestling. Wes tried again to persuade Bo that to dream of dancing with a pretty white girl was crazy, but he refused to be discouraged and began to sing. He continued to sing as they walked the rest of the way down the lane and up the main street, his deep, rich voice rising in the night air, followed by Wes’s lighter tenor. As they neared the turning to the base, a jeep swung out and blocked the road.

  ‘Hey, you. You, boy,’ one of the MPs in the jeep shouted. ‘Quit that racket.’

  But Bo sang louder, and the others joined Wes’s sweet tenor, lifting their voices to follow the harmony.