All the Sweet Promises. Elizabeth Elgin
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and placed three sixpenny pieces on the counter. That was something else she would have to get used to, she supposed. No purse. No handbag either.
She smiled her thanks, and placing cups and plates on a large tin tray, bore them triumphantly to the table.
‘Aaah,’ breathed Lucinda.
‘Food,’ Jane murmured.
Vi sniffed appreciatively, her neglected stomach churning noisily. The pies were round and flat, the pastry pale, their concave lids filled with beans in bright red sauce.
‘Aaah,’ Lucinda said again, impatiently sinking her knife into the pie crust, watching fascinated as hot brown gravy oozed out. Blissfully she closed her eyes. Nothing had ever tasted so good. Not even after-theatre suppers at the Ritz with Charlie. Eyes downcast, she ate without speaking, pausing only to smile at Vi. How lucky she had been to meet Violet, but wasn’t that the story of her life? Hadn’t there always been someone to make decisions for her, smooth her path? But she was on her own now. Henceforth she must carry on from where she had started that momentous morning in Goddy’s office. Heady stuff, it had been. That act of defiance warmed her even now, just thinking of it. Triumphantly, she forked a straying bean.
Jane ate without pausing. Hunger was an unknown experience; she had never imagined it could actually hurt. And wasn’t it wonderful to be here, actually here, in Rob’s city. Out there in the gathering darkness was the tenement where Rob had once lived with his mother and brothers. How strange that from all the many places to which she might have been drafted, chance had come up with Ardneavie. Two days ago she had stood in line in the drafting office at the training depot, wondering where she would be sent. The Wren immediately before her was assigned to Appledore, in Devon; the one behind her to Aultbea, in the far north-west; but for Wren Kendal it had been HMS Omega and the Wrens’ quarters at Ardneavie. In Argyll, they told her. Across the Firth of Clyde from Glasgow. It was Fate. It had to be.
Vi ate steadily, rhythmically, savouring every bite, looking around her at yet another facet of this, her strange new life.
Take this place, now – this green-walled, text-hung church hall where servicemen and women could sit out their loneliness for the price of a cup of tea. A place where men snatched from those they cared for could write cheerful, loving letters with no word of their secret worries. How would the rent be paid? How would the children be fed and clothed, on Army pay? Yet she, thought Vi, was as free as the air, with no home to worry about, no children to rear on a pittance as Mam had done. From now on the windows she polished, the floors she swept, the cups and saucers and plates she washed would not be her own. It would have been too sad to think about had she not met two apprehensive Wrens: Lucinda and Jane, kids hardly out of their gymslips who would need a bit of looking after. Count your blessings, Mam had always said, and she must never, ever forget it.
‘Hey, but that wasn’t half good.’ She rubbed the last of her bread around her plate. ‘Better than a Sunday dinner, that was.’
‘Mm. I feel almost human again.’ Lucinda took cigarettes and a lighter from the depths of her khaki drill respirator bag, and flicking open the expensive-looking case, handed them round. ‘I say, do you suppose they charged us enough? Sixpence seems so little …’
‘I don’t think they want to make a profit.’ Vi shrugged. ‘They open these canteens to help the war along.’
They were run by the women of a bombed city, most of whom had already lived through one war. Women who had been forced, in the name of Victory, to return to work in shops and factories, yet still found time at the end of the day to brew tea and serve hot meat pies, and smile. It made you proud, really, to belong to this daft, defiant little island.
‘Hullo there, girls!’ A soldier with the badge of the Gordon Highlanders shining on his cap leaned over, an unlit cigarette between his fingers. ‘Got a light, blondie?’ He winked broadly at Lucinda, who flicked her lighter and winked back.
‘Thanks, hen.’
‘My pleasure.’ The corners of Lucinda’s mouth quirked up into a beaming smile as Vi watched, fascinated. It was amazing, that quick, dancing smile of hers. A sudden dart of sunlight ending in deep dimples, one on either cheek. Lucinda was pretty, Vi acknowledged – chocolate-box pretty. Not at all like sad-eyed Jane, whose hair glinted auburn and who, one day, would be nothing less than beautiful.
‘Now then, tell me about yourselves.’ Vi wasn’t nosey, she just liked people. ‘We’re all goin’ to Ardneavie, aren’t we? HMS Omega? I wonder what it’s like.’
‘A shore station, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Lucinda hazarded. ‘Well, I’m a sparker – a wireless telegraphist – and Jane’s a coder, so it’s got to be something to do with signals. What’s your category, Vi?’
‘General duties.’ Vi smiled. ‘I’m a steward. Not a mess steward, though; more on the cleanin’ side, I think it’s goin’ to be. Where did you two meet up? Trainin’ depot, was it?’
‘No. I did my training in London.’
‘And I,’ Lucinda offered, ‘learned the mysteries of the Morse code and the iniquities of squad drill at Plymouth signal school. We met up at Crewe station. Funny world, isn’t it?’
‘Funny?’ Vi dropped a saccharin tablet into her tea, watching it rise, fizzing pale green, to the surface.
‘Y-yes, but I can’t explain.’ She could have, Lucinda realized, but they would think her a little mad if she did. How did you say you felt free for the first time in your life? A strange freedom, though; one a barrage balloon would know if someone severed its cable and set it at liberty to wallow and wander at will. Or until some highflying fighter pilot fired a cannon shell into it and it fell, deflated, back to earth. ‘I suppose it’s because joining up was something I had to do. My family – my mother, especially – were totally against it. Oh, I’d registered when I was eighteen, like everyone else. But that was in Lincolnshire, where we were living at the time. Then suddenly we had to leave for London, so I suppose the call-up people didn’t know where I was. I waited and waited, and my mother told me to leave well alone, that the war would get on very nicely without my efforts. W-e-ell …’
She paused. No need to tell them about Charlie and getting married or the unholy row with Mama or the hell that was let loose when she told them she’d had her medical for the WRNS and if anyone tried to stop her going …
‘Well, I felt dreadful about it, and one morning I went to see my godfather at the Admiralty and begged him to get me into the Navy. And so far, I haven’t regretted a minute of it, not even today. I shouldn’t be grateful to the war,’ she said softly, cheeks flushing pink, ‘but I am. Do you think me quite mad?’
‘No, queen, I know just how you feel.’ Vi nodded. ‘I came out of the shelter one mornin’ and all I had was gone. At first I couldn’t believe it. It was never goin’ to happen to me. To her across the street, perhaps, but not to me. Then I got mad. I cursed and blinded and I swore to get even …’
No need to tell them about Gerry. Not yet. Not ever, maybe.
‘… get even with big fat Hermann. I went to the recruitin’ office in a right old temper and I joined up there and then. “I’ll do anything,” I told them, and it wasn’t till afterwards that I realized I’d done the right thing ’cos where else was I to go? Only to our Mary’s, and she didn’t really have the room. So I do know what you mean.’
Jane flicked cigarette ash into the upturned tin lid. ‘I – I suppose I’m glad to be here too. I’m an only child, you see, and it gets a bit stifling sometimes. I registered just after my eighteenth birthday and had my medical almost at once. Then nothing happened.’ Not Rob. Don’t tell them about Rob. They wouldn’t understand. They couldn’t.
‘I really thought they’d forgotten me, lost my records or something. But my call-up papers came eventually. Report to Mill Hill, London on the twenty-fifth of May, they said. It was a relief, I suppose. Fenton Bishop – that’s where I live –