Bluebirds Read online

  She and Susan had found a sackful of potatoes in the scullery and two smelly, rubberized aprons hanging up on a hook. They had begun work, peeling the potatoes and dropping them into huge pans of cold water. She couldn’t get the hang of it at all. The peel came off in thick, uneven chunks, leaving misshapen lumps a third of the size. Her arm still ached from the injections the RAF medical officer had given them all, her fingers grew tired and the metal handle of the knife began to rub a sore place in her palm. She had cut her finger badly and the makeshift handkerchief bandage had quickly become a sodden pink mess. Susan had added to her disenchantment with her know-all remarks.

  ‘You’re doing it all wrong. Didn’t they teach you how to hold the knife properly in cookery classes?’

  ‘I didn’t go to any cookery clases.’

  ‘Goodness, didn’t you? Why on earth did they put you in here then?’

  ‘Because I lied and said I could cook.’

  Susan had looked shocked and disapproving.

  Corporal Fowler had been far from satisfied. ‘You can take that lot back and get all them bits of peel off; and all them eyes out. Make a proper job of it.’

  After the potatoes there had been carrots to be peeled and chopped and cabbages the size of footballs to be washed, trimmed and sliced. And later on came the washing up – a never-ending stream of dirty plates and cutlery and a tottering stack of pots and pans. All had to be washed, scoured, rinsed, dried and, finally, put away in their correct places. Enid, sent to help in the scullery, had cried enough to make everything wet again.

  Pearl and Sandra, waitressing in the dining-room, had done better.

  ‘Officers!’ Pearl had crowed. ‘Pilots! Whoopee!’

  On their one day off a week she and Pearl took the bus into town. They wandered happily round the shops, gazing into windows, and went into Woolworths where Pearl wanted to buy a lipstick. It amused Anne to be entering somewhere ruled strictly out of bounds at St Mary’s for its open counters of cheap merchandise, its supposed germcarrying unwrapped sweets, its dirty wooden floor and its defiantly common shop girls. Pearl spent a long time trying to decide between Pillar Box Red and Flamingo Pink. She daubed two vivid streaks of colour across the back of her hand and considered them at arm’s length.

  ‘Which do you think, Anne, love? Can’t make up my mind.’

  ‘Aren’t they both a bit bright?’

  ‘Not for me, dear. Got to go with the red hair, see. I think I might dye it different next time. I’m getting sick of it.’

  Anne looked at the massed fringe of russet curls beneath Pearl’s hat brim. ‘Isn’t it really red, then?’

  Pearl laughed. ‘Gawd, no! Straight out of a bottle. Autumn Glory it’s called.’

  ‘It suits you anyway.’

  ‘Ta, very much. Well, I think I’ll take the Pillar Box Red. It goes better.’

  They progressed to the Regal Cinema to see The Ghost Goes West with Robert Donat, and then treated themselves to sausage, egg and chips and a pot of tea for two in the cinema café. Pearl sighed over Robert Donat.

  ‘Now that’s what I call a real gent. Class. Lovely manners. He’d make you feel a lady – which I’m not. That voice sends shivers up and down me to hear it. I used to have a picture of him pinned up over my bed – him and Alan Ladd. That’s another one gives me the goose pimples. What about you? Who’s your favourite?’

  ‘Me? Gosh, I’ve never really thought . . .’ Anne looked at the coloured photographs of Hollywood film stars hanging round the café walls . . .

  ‘That one’s rather nice.’

  ‘Robert Taylor? Yeah, he’s all right. And I wouldn’t say no to Clark Gable. See that picture there of Ginger Rogers? Now that’s what I’d really like to look like. I keep trying to get my hair to go the same as hers but it’s got a mind of its own. Have you got a steady boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Funny, I’d’ve thought you would have. One of those upper-class johnnies who speak like they’ve got plums in their mouths. You soon will, I ’spect, with all those officers roaming around. They’ll soon spot you.’

  ‘I’m not really that interested.’

  ‘Aren’t you? Blimey, that’s one reason I joined up. Thought I might get myself a nice pilot.’ Pearl lifted the teapot. ‘Fancy another cuppa?’

  It was pitch dark when they left the Regal café. The town was blacked out and they groped their way along the pavement in the direction of the bus stop. When they passed a telephone kiosk Anne phoned home, fumbling with coins while Pearl, squashed in beside her, held the torch. She dialled for Trunks and gave the number into a receiver that smelled strongly of disinfectant. The operator’s voice told her to kindly insert one shilling and sixpence in the box and she dropped her only shilling on the floor. Pearl dived after it. After a moment she heard her mother’s voice answering, miles away in Buckinghamshire.

  ‘Darling! What a lovely surprise! How are you?’

  She could picture her mother standing beside the telephone in the drawing-room at home, see the room behind her. She saw the whole familiar scene – the big chintz sofa and comfy armchairs, the grand piano by the french windows with all their photographs on the top, the bookcases, the magazines strewn about, the vases everywhere filled with flowers from the garden and greenhouse . . .

  ‘Are you there, Anne? I can’t hear you.’

  She fought down the sudden huge wave of homesickness that threatened to overcome her. It had taken her completely by surprise and left her close to tears and speechless. She swallowed hard.

  ‘Yes, I’m here. I’m in a phone box in the town. We’ve just been to the cinema.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Another WAAF and me.’

  ‘You’re making friends then, darling . . . that’s nice.’

  Pearl’s Pillar Box Red mouth was grinning above the torch. Anne knew what her mother would have to say about Pearl. A barmaid, darling! Surely you could find someone else to be friends with.

  ‘How are you and Daddy?’

  ‘We’re both fine, thank you, darling. Daddy’s been asked to do some sort of war work, but I can’t tell you anything about it as it’s all terribly secret, apparently. He won’t even tell me. Some old Army friend of his rang up about it . . . Anne, are you all right? Are you enjoying it?’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Are you getting enough to eat?’

  ‘Masses. Lots of stodge and stews. Just like school.’

  Someone was rapping impatiently on the phone box door. Pearl swung the torch beam onto a man’s face, mouthing widely like a fish against the glass – a beefy soldier in button-to-the-neck khaki.

  ‘Bugger off!’ Pearl told him clearly.

  Anne covered the mouthpiece quickly and made a warning face at Pearl.

  ‘What on earth is going on, Anne? Who was that?’

  ‘Just someone wanting to use the phone . . . they can wait.’

  Her mother sounded anxious. ‘I hope you’re behaving sensibly, darling . . . not getting into any trouble. Do try hard, for once. They won’t put up with any nonsense, I’m sure. We got your letter, by the way. Perhaps they’ll find something better for you to do soon than peel vegetables and wash up. It does sound rather awful.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘It’s such a pity you didn’t take that typing course –’

  ‘Have you had any news from Kit?’

  ‘Yes. We had a long letter from him yesterday. He says he’s quite all right. He’s hoping to get some leave soon so he’ll be able to come home.’

  Her mother’s voice had lightened at once and taken on an entirely different note. Well, she couldn’t really blame her for the fact that Kit was her favourite. Not if she was honest with herself. She must have been a pretty bloody-minded pain in the neck, one way and another, and specially lately. But it always hurt. It always had done ever since she had realized it long ago when she and Kit were still in the nursery. It had dawned on her gradually as she began to notice the special smile
her mother reserved for Kit, and the particular tone she always used when talking to him. It was never overt, but it was there. Kit had always said that she was imagining things but she knew that wasn’t so.

  ‘Super! I shouldn’t think I’ll be getting any leave for ages. Do you think you could send me a decent pillow? The ones here are ghastly bolsters stuffed with straw.’

  ‘Straw, darling?’

  She started to ask for some more money as well when the pips suddenly went and she was cut off in mid-sentence.

  ‘Pips go?’ Pearl asked, juggling coins by torchlight. ‘You want to try and get through again?’

  ‘No . . . it doesn’t matter.’

  The soldier jerked open the door. ‘You two goin’ to stay in there yakking all night?’

  ‘Oh, belt up!’ Pearl snapped at him.

  They stepped icily past him, and an accompanying reek of beer and Brylcreem. It had begun to rain and Pearl played the torch over a running wet pavement. She shivered in her thin coat.

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t we find a pub. Get a bit of warmth and cheer. Good idea?’

  Anne shrugged. ‘I don’t know . . . I’ve never been in one.’

  ‘Blimey! Then it’s high time you did.’

  Pearl located The Saracen’s Head down an alley, apparently guided by some natural homing instinct. They fumbled their way beyond the heavy blackout curtain hanging across the door and passed, as though by a magician’s trick, from cold, wet darkness into convivial warmth and light. The pub, crookedly ancient, was crowded, mainly with servicemen. The atmosphere was heady with alcohol and thick with cigarette smoke that wreathed the low black beams. Faces turned towards them, wearing lecherous grins.

  Pearl was unconcerned. ‘Take no notice, love. I can handle ’em easy. Leave it to me. I’m for a port and lemon, then. What’s yours?’

  Anne remembered that Kit sometimes drank gin and tonic and thought she’d try that. She shook the raindrops from her hair, brushed down her costume and looked curiously about her. She was on more forbidden territory . . . a place designated off-limits by her parents and completely unthinkable by St Mary’s – a place even more evil and corrupting than Woolworths; a public house.

  Pearl was elbowing her way through the crush round the bar, her feathered hat bobbing jauntily among the khaki, blue and navy, and parrying remarks with sharp retorts of her own that had the men laughing. She returned in triumph, bearing two glasses, and they sat down at an empty table near the fireside.

  Pearl raised her port and lemon. ‘Bottoms up and down the hatch!’ She took a gulp and then nudged Anne with her elbow. ‘See those two RAF blokes over there – the short dark one with the fair fella? They’re sergeant pilots from Colston. I’ve seen them around.’

  As Anne looked across at the two men with the V-stripes on their arms and wings on their chests, the dark-haired, stocky one smiled directly at her. He strutted over, cocky and confident.

  ‘You two lasses are from Colston, aren’t you? The new WAAFS? Mind if we join you, seeing as we’re all part of the same happy family?’

  Pearl inclined her head graciously. ‘So long as you both behave yourselves.’

  Two more chairs were dragged up and introductions made. The dark-haired pilot was a Yorkshireman by the name of Dusty Miller and his companion, younger, slighter built and a great deal less sure of himself, was called Jimmy – Jimmy Shaw. Anne soon discovered that he was painfully shy.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry if we barged in on you,’ he told her, flushing. ‘I hope we’re not in the way.’

  He reminded her a bit of Latimer, Kit’s bashful school friend; he had the same sort of doggy brown eyes. She smiled at him kindly.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re not. We could do with some cheering up.’

  He was cradling his beer mug awkwardly against his tunic, just below the wings. She reckoned that he was about nineteen – perhaps twenty. Not much older than herself. His wrists and hands, beyond the blue cuffs, looked too small and boyish to be capable of handling one of those terrifying machines that roared about the skies.

  ‘Do you fly those Hurricane things?’

  He said diffidently: ‘Yes . . . not very well, I’m afraid.’

  He must be pretty good, though, she thought, or he wouldn’t be a sergeant pilot. He was different from most other fighter pilots she’d come across so far – swanking about with their top buttons undone. Interesting.

  ‘How did you come to join the RAF?’

  He flushed again. ‘I just happened to see an advertisement for it one day. There was a picture of some chap looking up at the sky and some ’planes in the background . . . I sort of liked the look of it and I couldn’t think of anything else to do when I left school anyway.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Nothing very noble about it, I’m afraid. It just sort of happened. How about you? Do you like being in the Women’s Air Force?’

  ‘Not much. It’s pretty dire, to be honest. We’re just skivvies and slaves, most of us. It’s not a bit like any of us thought it would be.’

  He nodded towards Pearl who was engaged in a sparky exchange with Dusty Miller. ‘I’ve noticed her around the station, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you.’

  ‘I’m in the Officers’ Mess kitchens. We don’t often see the light of day.’

  He set his mug of beer down on the table and unbuttoned his breast pocket to take out a packet of Players, offering them to her. When she took one he struck a match and lit her cigarette and his own very carefully, as though the whole process of smoking was new to him.

  ‘I can’t imagine you working in a cookhouse. What do you do exactly?’

  ‘Anything but cook. I’m a spud-basher. I peel potatoes. Sometimes I get to cut up carrots, or slice cabbages or chop onions – that’s a killer – or take the outside bits off Brussels sprouts, but mostly I just peel the spuds. If I’m very lucky I’m allowed to put out the breakfast bacon rashers on the trays ready for the oven, if I’m on the early shift. I’m rather good now at making the lean overlap the fat. Oh, and I wash and dry up, of course. That’s never-ending.’

  He looked shocked and shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘It doesn’t seem right to me – someone like you doing that sort of work. Not right at all.’

  ‘I don’t think the RAF thinks we’re capable of much else. We haven’t exactly been welcomed with open arms, you know. They’ve given us all the grotty jobs.’

  He said, embarrassed: ‘I’m really sorry . . .’

  She laughed. ‘It’s not your fault, so don’t worry. They’ll change their tune one day probably. Except for Corporal Fowler, of course. He’ll never change his.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Head cook in the Mess. He hates us. Lord knows why. I expect he thinks we’re toffee-nosed and look down on him – which we do because he’s such a pig. It doesn’t stop him asking me out, though. And every time he does and I say not bloody likely, he gives me some other horrible job to do. Perhaps your ladyship will condescend to clean the ovens . . . And he’s always pinching our bottoms.’

  The young pilot went brick red. ‘That’s pretty foul sort of behaviour.’

  ‘He’s just living up to his name and there’s not much we can do about it.’

  They stayed at the pub until nearly closing time and then caught the bus back to Colston with the two sergeant pilots. In the dim-lit interior Anne observed that Dusty Miller’s arm had found its way round Pearl’s shoulders in their seat ahead. Jimmy, sitting beside her, kept at a respectful distance.

  He said suddenly, without much hope: ‘By the way, there’s a dance in the Sergeants’ Mess soon . . . I don’t suppose you’d want to come, though.’

  ‘You suppose wrong,’ Anne informed him, agreeably under the influence of four gin and tonics. ‘I’d love to.’

  The squadron CO’s party was already in full swing when Felicity arrived at the stone cottage in Colston village where Squadron Leader Ross and his wife lived. She had been surprised to receive the invitation
and reluctant to brave the occasion alone, but, in the end, she saw it as part of her duty. She hesitated for a moment at the half open front door, listening to the party sounds within . . . the hum of voices, laughter, glasses clinking. A batman showed her into a large sitting-room which seemed full of strangers. She could see no other women in uniform. Those present were all civilians and some of them turned to stare at her, hostility in their eyes. She had met this before in the Ladies’ Room of the Officers’ Mess, where she was still condemned to take her meals. Since they had all the advantages of pretty frocks, long hair, jewellery and unlimited make-up, she found this very strange. But then she was quite unaware of how well her uniform suited her.

  Squadron Leader Ross appeared before her, genially smiling. ‘Glad you could come. Have a drink.’ He thrust a full glass into her hand. ‘My patent mix. Guaranteed to make you forget all your troubles in one minute flat.’

  A sudden roar of laughter behind her made her jump and nearly spill the drink. She turned and saw that it came from a group of pilots standing close by.

  ‘Badger’ Ross said: ‘Don’t mind that lot. They’ve never learned any proper manners. Too much time in the air and not enough on the ground, that’s their trouble. Don’t know how to behave like human beings, let alone gentlemen.’

  One of the group detached himself. ‘I say, sir, I heard that. Bit unfair of you, getting me off on the wrong foot, so to speak.’

  The squadron leader touched Felicity’s arm. ‘I take it you’ve been lucky enough to avoid meeting this joker before. May I introduce Flying Officer Dutton, a member of my squadron, worse luck. You’d better behave yourself, for once, Speedy. This is Company Assistant Newman, and she’s both an officer and a lady.’

  The pilot shook Felicity’s hand reverently. ‘I can see that, sir. Best behaviour and all that, I swear . . . Scout’s honour.’

  ‘I doubt if you were ever in the Scouts, Speedy. They wouldn’t have you. Too risky for the Girl Guides.’

  With that caustic comment, the squadron leader moved away to other guests. Speedy Dutton took out a silver cigarette case and flipped it open to offer to Felicity. She shook her head.