19 MAY 1940
Eight days on from Peggy’s inauspicious start at Trout’s, Flossy was saddened to see there had been no improvement in her new workmate’s attitude. At least she was now wearing a hairnet, but the flimsy pink chenille fishnet still offered little protection.
In contrast, Lucky had settled in well and had quickly been welcomed into the bosom of the Trout’s family. He was the perfect fit for the factory, and his quick banter and sunny smile already made him a welcome sight along the benches.
The Victory Knitters were going great guns too, with herself, Vera, Dolly, Pat, Ivy, Daisy, Sal, Lily and Kathy meeting every dinner break in the canteen and some evenings at Dolly’s house. But so far Peggy had refused to join in, preferring to mope over her boyfriend, Gerald, instead.
Flossy had written to the evacuated orphanage, requesting that now she was eighteen and had left, she be allowed to see what information her files contained. She was confident they would write back. They had to, because from where she was sitting, she had nowhere else to turn.
She glanced up at the giant clock on the factory wall. It was eight o’clock on the dot. The official start time to the working day was now, but Flossy, keen to impress, made sure to clock on at least fifteen minutes early. The workload was simply so enormous and there were so many sewing arts to learn that she felt she would master none if she didn’t put in the hours.
Peggy, in contrast, liked to sail close to the wind. At four minutes past eight, she burst through the door in a cloud of Evening in Paris, her chestnut curls gleaming under the coral-pink fishnet, and hastily punched her card in, ignoring Vera, who looked pointedly at her wristwatch from her desk outside the foreman’s office.
‘Working part-time, Miss Piper?’ enquired the forelady in a voice as tart as sour rhubarb. ‘If you’re so much as one minute late tomorrow, I shall be docking you a morning’s wage. You can take that as an official warning.’
Peggy’s porcelain cheeks flushed. ‘But that’s hardly fair, Mrs Shadwell,’ she protested. ‘I’m still finding my way around Bethnal Green. All these streets look exactly the same to me.’
‘My warning stands.’ Vera dismissed Peggy with a flick of her wrist.
‘Another day in paradise,’ Peggy muttered sarcastically, as she flung her bag down and sat next to Flossy on the workbench. ‘Honestly, that woman’s got a tongue like a nine-thonged whip.’
‘You should have said you were getting lost,’ said Flossy. ‘I could have knocked for you on the way. You’re right about these streets looking the same.’
Peggy turned abruptly. ‘You amaze me, Flossy Brown. I’ve been nothing but beastly to you since I started, and you’ve done everything in your power to be kind. Why?’
Flossy shrugged. ‘Why not? Kindness costs nothing, does it? Besides, it would be smashing if we could be friends.’
Peggy shook her head in astonishment. ‘Very well, Flossy. If you insist. But you might need danger money for being my friend round these parts.’ She swept a manicured hand down the line of chattering machinists. ‘These lot have it in for me all right.’
‘They might warm to you if you joined the sewing bee,’ Flossy ventured. ‘I really think you would love it, and it would improve your sewing and knitting skills no end. When you marry Gerald, it will be a very useful skill to have.’
‘That’s true,’ Peggy nodded. ‘Very well. I can’t make any promises, but I will think about it. Though if I do join up, I ought to warn you Gerald is my priority.’
‘Of course,’ Flossy replied. ‘Have you seen him yet since you moved?’
‘No, not yet, but he has been terribly busy at work,’ Peggy said defensively. ‘Now, I best get working, before that forelady gives me what for again.’
It was a start. For now.
‘Good to see you with a smile on your face, Peggy,’ came a nervous voice behind their bench, and both girls whirled round to see Lucky Johnstone. Well, at least it sounded like Lucky, but Dolly scarcely recognized the chap standing before them. He was head to toe in soot and grime; only the whites of his eyes and his teeth shone out.
‘Gracious, Lucky,’ Flossy chuckled. ‘You look like a chimney sweep.’
Lucky frowned and wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. ‘Have I got dirt on me?’ The question was directed at Flossy, but he couldn’t seem to wrench his gaze from Peggy.
‘Just a bit, Lucky,’ replied Flossy, handing him the compact from her handbag and a hanky.
He took one look in the tiny mirror and burst into laughter. ‘Blimey. Whatever do I look like? Archie’s had me clearing out the loft. I wanted to make a good impression on him, so I’ve been at it since six a.m. What a game, eh! He wants it empty for when—’ He shot a nervous look at Peggy and promptly dropped Flossy’s compact with a clatter. ‘Sorry, if Jerry decides to start chucking bombs at us. A full loft is a fire hazard, you see,’ he burbled as he picked up the compact from the floor and handed it back to Flossy.
‘The whole world’s gone mad,’ tutted Peggy, coming perilously close to impaling her thumb with the needle as she angrily fed a strip of khaki fabric through her machine. ‘I hardly think defacing flowerbeds and getting rid of a few dead pigeons from the loft will save this place in the event that the Germans do decide to attack, which they shan’t, in any case.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Peggy,’ said Lucky darkly. ‘The Dutch have surrendered, and they reckon France will be the next to fall. Jerry is crushing everything in his path.’
‘France will never give in,’ sniffed Peggy.
‘Yes, but we didn’t think Belgium would either,’ warned Flossy, suddenly feeling very weak. ‘The future does look uncertain.’
‘Well, I, for one, would rather die fighting than live the life of a slave,’ Lucky announced, his broad chest puffing out. ‘Which is why I joined the Local Defence Volunteers up at the town hall on my dinner break yesterday.’
At the mention of this, half the floor whirled round in shock.
‘You didn’t!’ shrieked Pat.
‘I only did,’ Lucky smiled, pulling an armlet emblazoned with the initials ‘LDV’ out of his pocket and proudly displaying it to the floor. ‘You’re looking at Bethnal Green’s newest member. It’s our job to be the eyes and ears, a secondary defence force in the event of an invasion. A quarter of a million men signed up within twenty-four hours of the government’s radio appeal a week ago, so I says to myself that I should get in on the act.’
‘Have you got your broom shank yet?’ heckled Sal. ‘I saw a load of ’em parading down Cambridge Heath Road the other day with theirs.’
‘The army can’t spare the rifles,’ replied Lucky defensively.
‘Well, I think it’s admirable, love,’ smiled Dolly, as she bustled past en route to the kitchens. ‘I feel much safer for knowing you’re in it, Lucky. Only, I worry you might have a bit too much on your plate, what with this place, the LDV, your ARP work and your boxing.’
‘Don’cha worry about me,’ he grinned, beating his chest. ‘English heart of oak in here. I’m built for hard work. Besides, Miss Doolaney, idle hands are the devil’s playthings.’
‘Dolly, please,’ she said on a smile.
‘Sorry. Forget my head if it weren’t screwed on,’ he grinned sheepishly. ‘Dolly.’
Peggy glanced up from her machine with a scathing look on her face and Flossy found herself dreading what she was about to say.
‘It’s nothing but a sop,’ she said blisteringly. ‘You know they’re calling it “Look, Duck and Vanish”? From what I heard, that quarter of a million volunteers consists mainly of the old, the deaf and a handful in the advanced stages of venereal disease,’ she smirked. ‘Oh, and those too crippled to fight.’
Flossy could see Peggy realized her faux pas instantly.
‘I-I didn’t mean you, Lucky,’ she blustered.
‘It’s all right, Peggy,’ he said, flinching as his damaged hand crept up inside his sleeve. ‘I know people regard it as a bit of a joke – see me as a bit of a clumsy joke, in fact.’ His usual twinkly smile had evaporated from his soot-smeared cheeks and in its place was a look of ragged pain.
‘Do you think I like not being able to get out there and fight with my pals? I put a good face on it, but I hate it. I’d do anything to be on the front line. Anything. I try to ignore the jibes, laugh ’em off, but I’ve been called everything from a parasite to an army dodger. But I ain’t no ducker, see.’ Defiantly, Lucky pulled out his hand and held it aloft for all to see. Thirty machines slowed as feet came off treadles and the women turned to stare.
‘Some folks don’t know why I grumble like stink about this hand. “We’d do anything to get out of conscription,” they say. The laugh of it is, there’s a doctor down on Brick Lane what hands out forged medical exemption certificates and here I am, exempt for real, and yet it makes me feel like half a man. So if I want to parade through Bethnal Green with a broom shank, or a bleedin’ broomstick for that matter, I flamin’ well will, and I refuse to feel ashamed. It’s my East End and I’ll fight to the death to protect it.’
Angrily, he stuffed his armlet back into his pocket. ‘Every story has a beginning, and this is mine . . .’
A stunned silence settled over the floor as Lucky marched from the room. This was a side to the usually good-natured odd-job man that Flossy had never seen. Something about his plight resonated deep within her. Lucky, like her – and indeed Great Britain herself – was fighting hard to find a new identity.
‘Now see what you’ve done,’ hissed Lily.
Once the door banged shut behind him, Vera rose sharply to her feet. ‘That young man needs all our support right now,’ she snapped. ‘Now stop gassing and get back to work.’
Peggy at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.
‘I didn’t mean him,’ she muttered defensively to Flossy. ‘Do you think I should go after him?’
‘Best you leave him,’ said Dolly.
‘I happen to think he’s right to join the LDV,’ said Pat in a low voice so the forelady couldn’t hear. ‘This area certainly needs all the help it can get right now in defending us from enemy aliens. Bleedin’ Huns.’
She scowled and picked up her copy of the Hackney Gazette from under her workbench. ‘Says here there are sixty thousand of the buggers at large in London. Probably undercover Nazis, the lot of ’em.’
‘That’s right – the only good German is a dead German,’ sniffed Ivy, brandishing her copy of the Daily Mail like a weapon. Intern the Lot, screamed the headline.
‘How can you fall for that propaganda claptrap?’ blazed Peggy, her violet eyes flashing furiously. ‘It’s just utter rot,’ she went on, angrily pumping her treadle underfoot. ‘The vast majority of Germans in this country are decent civilians just like us. Someone’s son, brother or husband, and— Argh!’ she screamed, yelping in pain. ‘Blast!’
Flossy took her foot off the treadle and peered over at Peggy’s machine. What she saw made her feel quite faint. In her anger, Peggy had accidentally managed to drive the needle clean through her nail and into the thumb on her left hand.
‘Help me,’ whimpered Peggy, her face draining of colour as she gazed, stricken, at the needle plunged deep into her flesh.
‘Over here, Vera,’ called Dolly calmly when she saw what Peggy had done. ‘And bring the first-aid kit too, will yer?’
When Vera saw Peggy’s predicament, she tutted. ‘There’s always one, isn’t there? You better not have broken the needle.’
As the forelady slowly turned the handle to remove the needle from Peggy’s thumb, Flossy closed her eyes, unable to watch. When she opened them again, Vera was briskly bandaging up Peggy’s thumb.
‘You’re lucky,’ she muttered. ‘The needle came out whole.’
‘Yeah,’ piped up Ivy. ‘Only gotta do it another two times, gal, and then you’re officially a machinist.’
Poor Peggy looked like she might faint on the spot as she slowly reached down for her handbag.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’Vera demanded.
‘Why, h-home, of course. I just presumed . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Well, you presumed wrong. I’m not sending you home for such a piffling little injury. Dolly, fetch her a sweet cup of tea, would you? I’ll put you on the steam press until you feel recovered.’
Peggy sighed heavily, but instead of sitting down again, she moved away from the bench.
‘I’m sorry, but did you not understand me?’ Vera said coldly.
‘I’m just going to the lavatory,’ Peggy retorted.
‘But you didn’t put your hand up to request a toilet break,’ the forelady replied.
Peggy closed her eyes and raised her hand weakly.
‘Very well, permission granted. Remember, though, four minutes, and I shall be counting, Miss Piper.’
Perhaps it was the drama of Lucky’s outburst or the shock of impaling herself, but Peggy flung her bandaged hand in the air in frustration. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, what a rigmarole,’ she muttered.
‘Fetch your coat and go home,’ ordered the forelady, a vein on the side of her head twitching dangerously. ‘I’ve had just about as much of your cheek as I can bear for one day. I’m docking you a day’s wages, and I suggest that when you return tomorrow, you adjust your attitude or you’ll be getting your marching orders with no reference.’
As Peggy fled from the floor in tears, Flossy’s heart went out to her. She could tell that Peggy was really trying hard, but why, oh why did she have to get herself sent home? Just when she was so close to persuading her to join the Victory Knitters as well.
*
As Peggy clattered down the stairs, pulling her cardigan tightly around herself, she passed Lucky coming back up to the factory floor. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his forearms, and he was clutching a bundle of heavy fabric and a box of buttons, which he promptly dropped when he spotted Peggy.
‘Your buttons,’ she murmured, as she bent down to help him pick them up off the stairs. She handed him the button box, and as her hand brushed the naked flesh on his arm, she saw his cheeks flush in the gloom of the stairwell.
‘I—’ they both went to speak.
‘Sorry . . .’ said Lucky softly. ‘You go first.’
‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry if I offended you earlier,’ Peggy said. ‘It’s admirable that you’ve joined the Local Defence Volunteers. It’s just that I find all this talk of the war very unsettling.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lucky replied. ‘I wasn’t cross at you, just at my situation. This war’s not easy for anyone,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve three older brothers all serving and I feel next to useless. I can’t even hold a box of buttons without dropping ’em. What hope would I have handling bullets?’
Close up and alone for the first time, Peggy was suddenly aware of how broad his shoulders were from a lifetime of manual labour and boxing. His chest looked as solid as a tank and yet his deep brown eyes were gazing at her with such gentle tenderness. He smelt of Lifebuoy soap and tobacco. He had obviously washed his face, but his muscled brown forearms were still covered in soot and grime from his morning’s toil.
The crooked nose, dark eyes and lips that curled up at the edges . . . It all added up to a face that would never grace the cover of a magazine, yet there was something strangely compelling about it. She forced herself to think about Gerald instead, and his smooth, freckled hands, neatly combed sandy hair and tailored suits.
‘Listen, Peggy, I wondered if you might allow me to take you for a cup of tea on Sunday?’ Lucky said, cutting through her thoughts. ‘I wouldn’t presume the date to be anything more than one of friendship. I know you have a fella already. It will just be a pot of tea, maybe a teacake if you’re lucky,’ he joked. ‘I could show you round Bethnal Green; then maybe you wouldn’t get lost anymore.’ His voice trailed off and he grinned hopefully at her from under his mop of dark curls.
Peggy suddenly felt a powerful urge to escape the stiflingly hot stairwell. This encounter was simply too uncomfortable for words.
‘I’m sorry for what I said earlier, but I . . . I just can’t,’ she blurted. ‘Gerald wouldn’t approve.’ She pushed past Lucky and ran as fast as her feet would carry her onto the hot cobbled street outside.
Peggy leaned back against the high brick wall of Trout’s and took a moment to gather her thoughts. She had no desire to be shown round Bethnal Green by Lucky Johnstone, or anyone else for that matter. For wouldn’t that be like admitting that she really would be staying here?
After the gloom of the stairway, Peggy’s eyes took some adjusting to the spring sunshine. At the end of the street, a tall grey factory chimney stack belched out smoke, and acrid fumes drifted into a hazy blue sky. In its shadow, a small huddle of raggedy-looking boys pushed a pram bundled high with firewood. She found it astonishing the sheer amount of factories that sat cheek by jowl with the houses. There were garment factories, breweries, tanneries, candle works and glue factories all pumping out noxious smells.
Peggy shuddered before she set off for the dismal terrace her mother now insisted on calling home.
When she arrived, she found her mother in the tiny kitchen, a pinny wrapped round her slender waist, stirring a pot of potatoes, turnips and carrots on the stove.
‘Hello, love,’ she smiled brightly. ‘You’ve come home for your dinner? That’s nice. You know, rationing’s really not all that bad, though four months on, you’d have thought I’d have got used to the coupons by now. At least potatoes aren’t rationed, so I thought I’d try out this new Woolton pie they recommend on the wireless. Not really sure why it’s got such a grand name. It’s vegetable pie when all is said and done. Still, Kate from next door gave me an Oxo cube to liven it up. I’d forgotten how friendly East Enders can be.’
‘I’m not here for pie,’ sniffed Peggy, sitting down heavily at the table. ‘I injured myself, and instead of showing me any sympathy, that awful forelady sent me home and docked me a day’s wages.’
Her mother’s face fell as she whirled round, clutching her wooden spoon. ‘Oh, love, no . . .’
‘I know,’ Peggy said, holding up her bandaged thumb. ‘Not a single care for whether I was seriously injured. Wretched woman. No wonder she’s a spinster.’
‘I’m not talking about your thumb,’ May went on, with a curious edge to her voice. Taking off her pinny, she sat down slowly at the table and took her daughter’s hands in hers.
‘Peggy, I don’t think you seem to grasp the seriousness of our situation. We desperately need the money now your father’s gone. I’m relying on your wage. The landlord’s coming round this week for the rent money and now . . .’ Her voice cracked.
Peggy realized with a jolt that her mother looked so much older since they had arrived in Bethnal Green. Her beautiful pale blue eyes had lost their lustre, and without the love of a husband who adored her, she looked stripped to the bone.
‘What I’m trying to say is that we’re living Friday to Friday now, Peggy, just like everyone else round here. We cannot afford to have you out of work. You mustn’t rub that forelady up the wrong way.’
‘Oh, please don’t send me back to that hateful place,’ Peggy pleaded, squeezing her mother’s fingers tightly. ‘I beg of you. How bad can it really be? Father will be home soon. He’s done nothing to betray his country, after all.’
Something about her mother’s slim, pale fingers felt odd, and when Peggy glanced down, she realized her mother’s sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring was gone.
‘Mother, your ring!’
‘I had to pawn it, love,’ May said, looking away sharply. ‘I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. I have to put food on the table.’
With that, she pulled out a telegram from her handbag and handed it to Peggy. ‘I . . . I wasn’t going to show you this, darling. It arrived a few days ago, but I can see now there’s nothing to be gained from shielding you from the truth. Your father won’t be home in a few days, or even a few months.’
Peggy read, and as she did so, a cold fist tightened round her heart.
‘But he’s done nothing to betray his country,’ she repeated tremulously, throwing the telegram back down on the table in anger. ‘They can’t do this.’
May shrugged, and her face fell into worried lines. ‘They can and they are. But now do you see? Things are about as bad as they can possibly be. You will return to Trout’s, love, for we have no choice. You’re eighteen now, a woman, and it’s high time you faced up to things. We both know your father’s innocent, but things won’t ever go back to the way they were. We’re all stepping out into the unknown now.’
*
Dinnertime at Trout’s and every available surface of the tabletops was covered in balls of wool, knitting needles and handbags. We Must All Stick Together blared out from the Marconi radio sitting on the canteen hatch.
The Victory Knitters had commandeered half the canteen for its sewing bee, and Pat Doggan was holding court like its queen.
‘I’m telling you, Miss High and Mighty’s got herself a German lover,’ she said knowingly to the group, as her pudgy fingers made a grab for her knitting needles. ‘Or my name’s not Pat Doggan. Did you see her reaction this morning when we were talking about enemy aliens?’
Next to her, Kathy held her arms out for the skein as Ivy made up fresh balls of wool from an old jumper she had unpicked.
‘You really think she’s having it away with the enemy?’ Kathy said, wide-eyed. ‘I thought she had some high-falutin’ fella already?’
‘It’s a front,’ Ivy nodded sagely, as she deftly looped wool round Kathy’s arms. ‘I mean, has anyone actually seen him yet? She’s been here eight days now and he ain’t visited her once.’
‘Never mind purling – my head’s whirling,’ Kathy quipped, her mischievous face alight. ‘She’ll find herself behind barbed wire if she ain’t careful.’
‘Or locked up in the Tower,’ Pat muttered darkly as she cast off.
‘Well, I can’t think why Lucky is so taken with her,’ sniffed Lily, over the furious clacking of needles. ‘Have you seen how clumsy he gets round her? What a rotten thing to have said to him. That snooty cow’s due one.’ The factory’s glamour girl had made no secret of the fact that she had set her sights on Lucky herself, and quite clearly her nose was still out of shape over it.
Dolly sighed inwardly and tried to tune out the women’s idle chatter. As a discipline, Dolly found knitting and sewing oddly calming. It stopped her from thinking about what the future held and brought her right back to the moment. The repetitive rhythm of working the same stitch over and over wove in her a sense of peace and created an inner calm she rarely felt these days. There was also a strange magic in taking an unpromising ball of wool and turning it into something warm to wear. She thought of all those young lads out there on HMS Avenge and realized there was something more fundamental at work than the alchemy of turning yarn into clothing.
She glanced up from the scarf she was knitting and caught Flossy’s eye. She hadn’t uttered a word as the rest of the sewing bee bad-mouthed Peggy. Not that Dolly was surprised. She doubted there was a bad bone in the whole of that young girl’s body. If only things could have been different. If only . . . Suddenly, Dolly started to feel lightheaded. The women’s babble was deafening, their voices fusing to a single high-pitched hum in her head. She laid her knitting needles down on the tabletop with a clatter.
‘Come on, girls, give it a rest and stop your grousing, eh?’ Dolly snapped. ‘We’re here to sew, not crow.’
The group all looked up in surprise.
‘You all right, Doll?’ asked Sal. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’
Dolly tried to still her desperately pounding heart. The palpitations were so loud she half wondered if anyone else could hear them.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, breathing out slowly. ‘I just think we should lay off Peggy a bit. She’s not from these streets and we should treat her with a little more kindness.’
‘But she ain’t one of our own,’ protested Kathy.
‘All the more reason to give the girl a fair go,’ insisted Dolly. ‘We’re all in it together now, remember?’
She picked up her favourite ivory needles – she had sent her steel ones to be melted down for the war effort – and forced a bright smile onto her face. ‘Now, come on, girls – less chat, more work. I promised Lucky our first batch of comfort items would be ready for him to deliver up to the WVS by tomorrow. There’s a postal boat going out next week to our boys and we want this lot on it.’
Despite their loquacious tendencies, Dolly had to hand it to the girls. Their thrift had run to new heights, and their output over the past week had been prodigious. New balls of wool were in short supply, but that hadn’t fazed the women. Pat had rummaged at a jumble sale at the Methodist Mission and come up with a load of worn-out old jerseys, which they had unpicked, steamed and knitted into twenty-seven balaclavas.
Lucky and his boys from the boxing club had come up trumps and sourced no end of swatches and samples from their mates down the markets, which when sewn together, made fetching patchwork quilts.
Dolly herself was rather proud of the length of material she had persuaded the local bus depot to give her. It had originally been the roller on the front of the bus to tell you its destination, but she had given it a good soaking in the tin bath in the yard out back to get the numbers off and bingo – five heavy cotton blankets. The boys on HMS Avenge would have no idea they had once been on the number 22 to Hackney.
‘Doll’s right,’ said Pat, conveniently forgetting her part in Peggy’s character assassination. ‘Look at this,’ she said, proudly holding up a soft wool scarf. ‘Unpicked my Sylvie’s old matinee jackets and made this with it.’
‘That’s smashing, Pat,’ said Dolly, feeling her spirits return and her heart rate steady. Say what you like about East Enders, they didn’t half know how to live on their wits.
‘Never mind the knitting,’ said Daisy, with an enigmatic smile on her face. ‘What I wanna know is what you’ve all written in your letters? I enclosed a photo with my letter and asked him to send one back. Hope he’s a dish.’
Daisy flicked her best friend, Sal, a sly sideways grin. ‘And failing that, I’ve found another way to meet a fella.’
Sal closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Don’t drag me into this, Daisy,’ she replied.
‘Ooh, whatever have you done?’ asked Kathy. ‘Come on, spill the beans, you little strumpet.’
‘I’ve been popping letters into the pockets of uniforms once I’ve sewed them on, and in the bandages,’ Daisy replied. ‘Nothing too saucy. If you’re single, drop a line. If you’re married, never mind . . . That kind of thing. I’m sure I’ll hear back from a nice handsome chap soon, and if I don’t, well, no harm done.’
‘Unless Vera finds out,’ warned Dolly. ‘There’ll be blood on the moon if she catches you, sister or no sister. You’re not quite seventeen, remember.’
A sudden thought struck her. ‘How many of you girls round this table have done the same?’
Nervous laughter rippled round the canteen.
‘Aah, come on, Doll,’ piped up Daisy. ‘There’s no decent fellas about at the moment.’
Her eyes sparkled as she patted her pinafore pocket. ‘Got another one right here: If this war’s driving you round the bend, you’re sure of a warm welcome in the East End.’
The girls howled with laughter. Dolly could hardly blame them. The workload was punishing, and when all was said and done, they were young women in search of romance and excitement.
‘Have you written to your sailor, Tommy, Flossy?’ Dolly asked.
Flossy flushed as her delicate hands worked her needles. ‘Yes, I have. It’s ready to give to Mrs Shadwell to be sent out. I’ve also knitted him a scarf and a pair of socks, and made this to send with it.’ She pulled out a beautifully stitched drawstring bag from underneath the pair of gloves she was knitting. ‘I’ve been collecting the rag ends off the floor and I made this with them. I thought it might be useful for Tommy to store his keepsakes in.’
Her face fell. ‘You don’t think Mrs Shadwell will mind, do you?’ she panicked.
‘Not at all, love,’ Dolly soothed, patting her hand. ‘It’s a terrific idea. Very thoughtful.’
‘You wanna slip a photo in there too, ducks,’ winked Sal. ‘You’re ever such a pretty young thing. He’s bound to go weak at the knees.’
Flossy’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, I could never be so forward,’ she squirmed. ‘Whatever would he think of me?’
‘He’d think you were an absolute peach, trust me. Don’cha wanna meet a man?’
‘Well . . . I . . . Oh, that sort of thing was never really encouraged at the home,’ Flossy replied. ‘Besides, I’m still under the care of the home until I’m twenty-one: any suitors have to be vetted and approved by Matron first before I can start courting.’
‘Well, I don’t need anyone’s permission, and I for one intend to meet a man and get married this year,’ said Lily assertively. ‘Half of Bethnal Green seems to be getting spliced at the moment.’
‘That’s right. No point delaying, is there? You could be dead if you wait until tomorrow,’ said Pat bluntly.
With that, the bell indicating the end of dinner break rang shrilly throughout the canteen.
‘Right, back to the coal face,’ said Pat, gathering her knitting and scraping back her chair.
Flossy made to move off, but Dolly caught her by the arm.
‘Why don’t you come to ours for your tea later, love? Mum’s only planning a bit of corned-beef hash, nothing fancy, but it can’t be much fun going back to your digs on your own.’
‘Really?’ Flossy asked. ‘That’d be smashing. As long as you don’t mind if I bring my knitting too? I may be able to finish these gloves off before tomorrow.’
‘Course not.’ Dolly smiled. She felt relief wash over her as they walked back to the factory floor together. It really would be lovely to extend a neighbourly welcome to young Flossy. But she did have an ulterior motive.
*
When 6 p.m. rolled around and the day’s work was over, Flossy was stunned to see the bright spring sunshine had vanished, to be replaced by a thick green pea-souper. She had been that absorbed in her machining she had scarcely noticed it. But now, standing on top of a long ladder, as she and Kathy fitted the heavy blackout blinds to the windows, she saw that a ghostly fog had crept in down the narrow cobbled streets outside Trout’s. A thick wall of white was already shrouding the windowpanes and clinging to the gas lamps.
‘We’ll have a right game getting home tonight,’ remarked Kathy, as she fitted the final blind and gingerly made her way back down the ladder.
Dolly was waiting for Flossy as she shrugged on her coat and pinned on her hat.
‘There you are, love,’ she smiled. ‘Shall we get cracking? It looks dreadful out there.’
The two linked arms and picked their way down the staircase. Once outside, the fog hit the back of their throats like needles.
‘Crikey! It’s bad this evening,’ said Flossy, pulling a cotton hanky from her coat pocket and holding it over her mouth.
‘Awful, ain’t it?’ agreed Dolly, doing the same. ‘Can’t see your hand in front of you.’
Conversation was impossible as the two carefully made their way down the road in the direction of Tavern Street, tapping their feet against the kerbstones as they went.
They had scarcely been going two minutes when Flossy heard Dolly start to cough, great rasping, shuddering gulps for air. As Dolly’s arm grew weak in hers, Flossy whirled round. Something about her friend’s pallor drew Flossy out by the roots.
‘Dolly!’ she shrieked, clutching her arm in distress. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’
Her breathing was shallow and she could scarcely draw a breath before she was hit by another convulsive coughing fit. Desperately looking around, Flossy spotted a low brick structure built up against the side of a wall. Flossy led Dolly inside and insisted she sit down on one of the long benches lining the wall.
‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss so,’ Dolly protested weakly, as she clutched at her chest.
‘Just sit here a while until you get your breath back,’ Flossy ordered.
As Flossy’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she realized this must be one of the new street surface shelters the council were building all over Bethnal Green. It was no more than forty feet long and was filled with rows of benches and little else. It stank to high heaven, and Flossy spotted a rat sniffing about under one of the benches.
Her eyes settled on some writing on the opposite wall. To let (furnished) had been daubed in white paint. Some wag’s idea of a joke, but Flossy didn’t find it very funny. A darker, more foreboding place you would be hard pressed to find.
Next to her, Dolly shuddered. ‘Grim, ain’t it? Heaven forbid you have to shelter in here if the worst happens. I don’t reckon it could stand up to a ball, much less a bomb,’ she said.
‘Dolly, are you all right?’ Flossy asked cautiously.
‘Course I am,’ she replied. ‘It’s the fog – it plays havoc with my lungs. I just needed a sit-down, but look, I’m right as rain now. Come on, let’s get out of here: it’s giving me the heebies.’
Dolly’s coughing fit had passed, but as they moved out of the shelter, Flossy noticed her stumble and she reached out her arm to steady her.
As they walked cautiously in the direction of Tavern Street, Flossy was still worried.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Dolly? You went an awfully queer colour back then, and I noticed you had a funny turn earlier on too.’
‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she insisted. ‘I’m just a bit below the mark, that’s all.’
Flossy said no more, but when they finally reached the doorway to number 20 Tavern Street, Dolly went to knock, but then stopped.
‘Listen, Flossy,’ she hedged. ‘Don’t tell my mum what happened earlier. There’s a good girl. She’ll only worry about me. Our secret?’
‘Our secret,’ Flossy murmured, but as Dolly pushed open the doorway and she followed her down the narrow passage, she had a feeling she might just come to regret her assurances. Their journey through the fog had a poignancy that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Dolly’s mother was every bit as warm and welcoming as Flossy had imagined, and she felt right at home the minute she stepped into the cosy terrace.
A coal fire crackled in the grate, and Dolly and Flossy set to their knitting as soon as her mum had plonked two large mugs of tea in front of them.
‘Got me hands on a lovely bit of beef fat down the market earlier,’ grinned Dolly’s mum. ‘Rendered it down in the range, so I thought we could have bread ’n’ dripping instead of corned-beef hash tonight, if that’s all right with you girls? I even baked the bread myself,’ she said proudly, crossing her arms over her large bosom. ‘A nice crusty white – none of this wholemeal muck the government’s insisting is better for us – and rice pudding for after. I like to spoil our Doll and her friends.’
‘Sounds smashing, Mrs Doolaney,’ Flossy said.
‘Good. There was some spiv selling some lovely lamb chops out of a box, but I thought I better not,’ she remarked, as she lowered herself down into an easy chair beside them.
‘Too right, Mum,’ said Dolly, looking up from her knitting. ‘You get your ration and you be thankful. It’s only giving them black marketeers a leg-up, and it ain’t playing fair.’
As Dolly and her mum bantered back and forth about the growing black market, Flossy watched them.
Mrs Doolaney was a large woman wrapped in a floral apron who smelt faintly of Sunlight soap. A smear of flour dusted her rosy cheeks, and two blue eyes twinkled inquisitively at Flossy. As for her humble home, it was so old it was only the wallpaper holding it up, and a framed oil painting of a country meadow scarcely concealed a damp patch on the wall. But despite all that, the house gleamed like a new penny.
That supreme symbol of respectability, a plaster-cast bust of King George VI gazed down at them from the mantel, which was clustered with framed photos of a smiling Dolly and her sister, surrounded by a gaggle of other lively-looking women.
‘That’s Mum’s sisters, my aunties Jean, Polly and Sylvie, and Mum’s aunties, Joyce and Mary, and my cousins – too many to name,’ said Dolly, as she noticed Flossy gazing at the photos. ‘Most of ’em live down Tavern Street, or no more than a few turnings away. You want to hear the noise of ’em when they all get together.’
Flossy’s head was still spinning as Mrs Doolaney made a playful swipe at her daughter. ‘Enough of your sauce, my girl,’ she screeched, laughing so loudly Flossy feared she might topple off her easy chair. ‘Least you was never lonely growing up. It’s good to have your kin near, I reckon. Don’cha agree, Flossy?’
Flossy nodded, and her mind grappled with what to say.
‘I mean, I’m glad I had daughters, not sons, truth be told,’ Mrs Doolaney went on. ‘Least I know they’ll never leave me. How’s the old proverb go? “My son’s a son till he gets a wife. My daughter’s a daughter all her life.”’
‘Well, you certainly have a lovely family,’ Flossy said, but she couldn’t conceal the sadness from her voice.
‘Vera lives two doors up,’ Dolly said, hastily changing the subject. ‘She’s pretty house-proud, but even she’s put to shame by Mum. You’re out there on that step with your birch broom, pail and hearthstone before the milkman’s done his rounds, ain’t that right, Mum?’ she smiled.
‘What can I say? A woman’s judged by her step, Flossy,’ chuckled Mrs Doolaney, holding up her hands. ‘My house may lack many things but not cleanliness. I just want my girls to come home to a nice place. After their father, Harry, died, well, they’re all I’ve got, Flossy. It’s my job to look after them, even after they’re all grown up. I’ve never had any money, but I’ve always had plenty of love.’
‘That’s true,’ Dolly said, gazing at her mum fondly. ‘She’s always been the same, and I can’t see Jerry changing that now.’
‘Right, this chat won’t get tea on the table,’ said Mrs Doolaney, heaving herself out of her chair and bustling to the range. ‘You girls must be famished.’
‘Your mother’s lovely, and so is your home,’ Flossy said, when Mrs Doolaney was out of earshot.
‘I know,’ Dolly replied. ‘I’m blessed in so many ways.’
Flossy hesitated and stared down at the knitting in her lap. Outside, the muffled cries of a rag-and-bone man drifted up Tavern Street.
‘Have you heard yet, from the orphanage?’ Dolly ventured.
‘Not yet, but I’m sure I shall soon,’ she replied. ‘But if I don’t, I’ve already decided to ask my welfare officer about it on her next scheduled visit.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about what you told me that evening outside the town hall,’ Dolly blurted. ‘About your childhood in the orphanage.’ She hesitated. ‘Were . . . were they cruel to you?’
‘No,’ Flossy replied thoughtfully. ‘Lacking in affection, but never wilfully cruel.’ She shot Dolly a wry smile. ‘Not unless you count two church services on a Sunday as cruel, or having Black Beauty confiscated and replaced with a new Bible. I never knew any other life, don’t forget, but I always felt that there was a better way of living, somewhere, or rather someone I could belong to. That yearning to belong, it never leaves you.
‘It’s funny, you know,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘The older I get, the more I remember of my childhood.’
‘Such as?’ Dolly asked, looking up sharply from her knitting.
‘Today, for example, I suddenly remembered how when I was seven, shortly after my friend Lucy was fostered, Matron called me to her office and told me how I was lucky enough to have been selected for a new government programme to send orphaned children to the Dominions. I was to be given a fresh start, full of blue skies, sunshine and opportunity in the New World. Well, at least that’s how Matron put it.’
‘Well, I’ll be,’ said Dolly. ‘Whatever happened?’
‘When they sent me off for my vaccinations, they discovered I had measles and I couldn’t go, but around that same time, I distinctly remember a fair-haired lady coming to see me at the home. She spent the morning playing and reading with me. I suppose she must have been a governess, or someone from the child migration programme perhaps, as I didn’t see her around much after that. The ship set sail soon after, minus one Flossy Brown.’ She grinned ruefully at Dolly. ‘Always the one left behind, eh?’
Dolly said nothing in response, just stared down at the knitting in her lap, and Flossy realized she had embarrassed her new friend by being so candid.
‘But what of you, Dolly?’ she said. ‘Did you not want to become a machinist?’
‘Me?’ she snorted, the sunny smile returning. ‘Nah, I’m too thick for that.’
‘No you’re not,’ Flossy scoffed. ‘You said the same thing on my first day and I didn’t believe it then either.’
‘I’m kidding, love . . . sort of,’ Dolly replied. ‘Actually, I prefer being a tea lady. I’ve done it for as long as I can remember and it suits me. I have got my own Singer, though.’ With that, she pointed to a beautiful black-and-gold sewing machine on the far end of a dresser. ‘I keep my hand in running stuff up, and Mum does the odd bit of homeworking. No woman worth her salt in the East End doesn’t have a machine.’
Flossy’s curiosity got the better of her.
‘Are you not tempted to marry and start your own family? You’d make a cracking mum.’
Dolly laughed. ‘What, and leave all this? Mum’s made it far too comfortable for me to move out. Besides’ – she shrugged – ‘I’ve never found a fella good enough for me.’
Flossy laughed along too, but she knew there was more to the apocryphal story than a desire never to cut the apron strings; besides which, didn’t half the women in Bethnal Green get married and move their husbands in with their mums, anyway? It just didn’t add up that someone as lovely as Dolly should end up a spinster. She didn’t like to pry, but Flossy got the distinct impression that Dolly was putting on a front as sparkling as her mum’s doorstep.
*
Once tea was finished, Dolly and her mother walked Flossy to her lodgings round the corner, before setting back off for home. The fog had cleared, and a few dark clouds scudded across the sky like they were being chased. She could scarcely see a thing in the blackout, but Dolly could already picture the look on her mother’s face.
As soon as they let themselves back inside their home, she turned to her.
‘I’m not daft, love,’ she said, licking her thumb and wiping a smudge of dirt from Dolly’s cheek. ‘I know you brought that young lass back because you are trying to avoid being on your own with me. You have to tell Vera and Archie.’
‘Please, Mum, not now. I’m tired. I’m just going to finish this scarf; then I’ll be up. We’ve got to have this bundle ready to take up the WVS in the morning.’
‘Well, at least let me fix you a nice cup of beef tea . . . Or are you still hungry? I’ve got some calf’s-foot jelly in the pantry.’
Dolly shook her head and felt her stomach heave. ‘Honestly, Mum, I don’t want anything.’
Her mother hovered anxiously by the table, and Dolly wished she would just leave her in peace.
‘Oh my days. Look at your feet,’ she exclaimed, staring down at Dolly’s painfully swollen ankles. ‘You know what that means.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been on my feet all day,’ Dolly snapped, feeling her patience desert her. ‘Please, Mum, stop wrapping me in cotton wool. I don’t want beef tea, calf’s-foot jelly or all the tea in China. I just want to be left alone to do my knitting.’
‘Stop driving yourself into an early grave,’ she implored. ‘You’re taking on far too much. Now, up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire and sleep.’
‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ Dolly blurted.
Her mother’s face froze and Dolly instantly regretted her glib comment. Stifling a sob, her mother turned and ran up the stairs. Dolly sighed and ran a hand through her strawberry-blonde curls. She was finding it increasingly hard to keep a lid on her emotions, but she knew why that was. She loved life with intensity and a passion, sharpened by the knowledge that it was running through her fingers like sand.
She walked to the scullery and steeped her hands in a bowl of cold water, before splashing her neck and chest. With her composure regained, Dolly returned to the table and picked up the scarf. But it was no good. Tonight, her head felt full of broken glass, not good intentions. As she knitted, an image of all the poor sailors risking their lives in the freezing oceans chased through her mind. How many times had she already switched on the wireless this year to hear a sombre BBC newsreader announce, ‘The admiralty regrets . . .’?
Letting the soft wool slip through her fingertips, it occurred to Dolly that her lovingly created handiwork, knitted to warm and protect, was also destined to suffer the same fate as her pen pal. Could the scarf she was knitting now end up as a bloodstained garment in a cold and watery grave?
Shuddering, she wondered what fate had in store for HMS Avenge, for all of them, in fact. Her tears flowed freely and Dolly suddenly had the strangest sensation that it was she, not them, who was drowning. She didn’t bother to brush away her tears. Better to do her crying in the dark of the blackout.
‘Dolly, Dolly, wake up,’ urged her mother, shaking her gently.
‘I must have fallen asleep at the table,’ she mumbled groggily. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s morning. You’ve been asleep here all night. I’ve just come down and switched on the wireless. It’s bad, love. Really bad.’
‘What is?’ Dolly asked, confused.
‘The Nazis have invaded France. Our boys are withdrawing. It’s time you left too.’
Dolly’s head felt full of wool as she attempted to gather her wits.
‘Oh, Mum,’ she sighed. ‘Stop being so dramatic.’
Hugging her housecoat tight about her, Dolly’s mum looked suddenly old beyond her years. ‘Dramatic, am I?’ she cried. ‘Our country is under attack, and when the Germans reach these shores, London is the first place they’ll head. You promised me you’d return to Bexhill, out of harm’s way, if that happened.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ Dolly snapped. ‘I’m not made of eggshells. I don’t want to shrivel up and die in that awful home.’
‘Well, at the very least you need to stop work . . .’
‘Never,’ Dolly flashed back. ‘I will never become a useless mouth . . . a burden. You hear me? Besides . . . how do we even know that physician was right? They don’t know for certain I’ve got it, do they? What was it he said? “Diagnosis can only ever be arbitrary.” I don’t even know what that means, but I do know it means there’s a chance they’re wrong. Look at me – I look healthy enough, don’t I?’
‘You’re kidding yerself,’ Dolly’s mum wept. ‘Besides, you’ve forgotten what else he said: “You cannot see the infirmities it causes: its cripples do not limp.”’
Dolly knew she ought not to say it, but the words spilt from her mouth unbidden. Years of pain and anguish came roaring out.
‘How do I know you and the doctor didn’t cook this up between you to keep me at home, eh?’ she sobbed. ‘You couldn’t stand to be alone after Dad died, could yer? What was it you said to Flossy last night? “My son’s a son till he gets a wife. My daughter’s a daughter all her life.”’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ she protested hotly, but Dolly, in her anger, wasn’t finished.
‘I was even sterilized because you and the doctor told me it was for the best after what happened.’
Her mother gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.
‘Well, invasion or not, I’m stopping here,’ Dolly insisted. ‘Fate has given me a second chance with Flossy. I’m not running away again.’