With talk that the Norwegian government might move to London setting everyone on edge with worry, was it tacky to ask about Bob? But Joan couldn’t think of any other way to track him down other than through Cordelia, whose job as a lampwoman meant she had met some of the signalmen. Then again, even if Cordelia was able to tell her the location of Bob’s signal box, what precisely did she think she was going to do with the information? March up the permanent way and loiter at the foot of the steps? Of course not. But at least the information would be a starting point. Although knowing where his signal box was wouldn’t lead to finding out where he went dancing, which was what she really needed to know.
Lord, what a mess. She had gone from one hopeless, yearning attraction to another. Steven – well, her feelings for him had changed in an instant, in a heartbeat, the same heartbeat that had thumped good and hard when Bob Hubble took her hand.
She should have said something then, should have said, ‘Actually, I do go dancing,’ but instead, with her breath caught in her throat, she had shaken hands – and then watched him walk away. If he had looked back – if he had only looked back …
But he hadn’t, and the next thing she knew, Lizzie had linked arms with her and she was drawn away in a triumphant group with Mabel, Letitia and Steven. As they left the premises, Letitia and Steven had parted company with them for Steven to walk Letitia home, and she, Mabel and Lizzie had headed for Wilbraham Road, walking Lizzie to her tram stop.
For once, in fact for the first time ever, she had seen Letitia and Steven on their way together without her heart tying itself in knots. Her feelings for Steven had already shifted into a new position. Already they had cooled and she felt a sharp annoyance at herself for having entertained such inappropriate feelings. Life would be easier and a lot less embarrassing if she never had to see him again. Could love change as swiftly as that? One touch of Bob Hubble’s hand and she had outgrown her girlish infatuation for her sister’s boyfriend. About time, too.
She had walked to Lizzie’s tram-stop in a kind of daze. She was in a state of acute self-awareness, to the point of feeling distanced from her companions. Thoughts of Bob caused tiny pin-pricks of delight inside her, little sparks of consciousness and need.
She had tried to join in with the conversation, but couldn’t have managed very well, because Mabel had said, ‘You’re miles away.’
She had laughed it off. ‘Just thinking about passing the test.’
‘It’s such a relief,’ Lizzie burbled. ‘My mum’s going to be so proud. I hope the three of us get put in the same first-aid party. That would be perfect.’
Joan’s heart had executed a little flip that sent the blood rushing through her veins. Might she and Bob be assigned to the same party? Would he still want to take her dancing? What would Gran think? She approved of Steven because he was a policeman, but what would she make of a railway signalman? She was snobby about social rank. Not that the Fosters were anything special, far from it, but she might not be keen on a working-class chap. She certainly wouldn’t have tolerated one for Letitia, but would it matter so much for second-best Joan?
Joan had wafted her way through Saturday evening and Sunday more in a daydream than in the real world. Now, on Monday after work, she was in the station buffet with Mabel, Cordelia, Lizzie and Alison. They were talking about the first-aid test and she had entertained the others with the tale of Mrs Parker and Myrtle, though she knew full well that she would have enjoyed telling the story a great deal more if she hadn’t been so anxious to steer the conversation towards Bob.
‘Your Mrs Parker sounds a hoot,’ said Alison. ‘I wish I lived nearer, so I could have done first aid with you. I’ll ask my sister if she wants to do it.’
‘I didn’t know you had—’ Cordelia began.
Joan felt a flash of panic. She had to prevent the conversation from moving on to Alison’s family. Leaping in, she said, ‘My first-aid partner was someone you might have met.’
‘Really?’ If Cordelia was taken aback at being interrupted, she was too well bred to show it.
‘Oh yes,’ said Lizzie. ‘You had that handsome signalman, didn’t you?’
‘Well, I don’t know about handsome …’ Was she blushing?
‘He was certainly strong. He carried that Mrs Parker all the way downstairs from the attic.’
‘His name’s Bob Hubble.’ Joan addressed Cordelia. ‘Have you come across him on your travels up and down the permanent way?’
Cordelia shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not.’
Oh well, it had been worth a try.
‘Did you say Hubble?’ Mabel put down her cup. ‘And he’s a signalman? I wonder if he’s …’ Her voice trailed off.
Joan pressed herself into her seat so she couldn’t lean forwards. ‘He’s what?’
‘The foreman – forewoman – of my gang is Bernice Hubble. I know her son works on the railways.’
Alison laughed. ‘He must be Joan’s Bob.’
‘Mrs Parker’s Bob, you mean,’ said Lizzie, inadvertently sparing Joan’s blushes.
‘What a coincidence,’ she said. But how would it help her? It wouldn’t, any more than it would have helped her if Cordelia had come across him on her travels. Even if Mabel had been her very best friend – and the reserved Mabel was far from being that – Joan could never have asked her to pass on a message via Bob’s mother. Not his mother!
‘Have you heard anything about the upper age of conscription being raised?’ Mabel asked. ‘That’s a depressing thought, the idea that they need more men to join up.’
‘I believe it’s due to take effect in the next few days,’ said Cordelia.
There was a silence around their table. Even the background hum of voices and clinking of teacups against saucers seemed to quieten as the railway girls looked at one another. Joan knew that the expression in her own eyes must be as sombre and thoughtful as those of her friends.
If the war was becoming more serious, wasn’t it trifling and superficial of her to be fretting over a man she barely knew?
Or – if the war really was becoming more serious – wasn’t this exactly the time when ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, should be making the most of what they had?
Wasn’t this exactly the time when she ought to have the chance of … something … with Bob?
‘We need to put old net curtains over these young cabbages,’ said Letitia, ‘or they’ll end up full of cabbage white butterfly eggs. The baby carrots have to be protected as well, in case the nights are cold. Does it show that Steven’s dad gave me a gardening lesson?’
‘I feel sorry for the butterflies,’ said Joan.
Letitia grinned. ‘I feel sorry for Gran, having to sacrifice one of her old net curtains.’
Joan sat back on her heels, rolling her shoulders to ease out the knots after an hour’s weeding, which was another thing Steven’s dad swore by. She and Letitia were perched on top of the mound that was the Anderson shelter in their back garden. Steven, his dad and various neighbours had all helped to prepare the shelter and cover it with earth, which, in common with the roofs of many air-raid shelters, now did duty as a vegetable plot. The flower beds had been turned over to veg as well.
As she took a breather from weeding, Joan’s tummy churned. She wanted to ask – but at the same time, didn’t want to. Oh, blow it. She couldn’t help herself.
‘Do you remember Bob?’
‘Bob?’ Letitia’s trowel stopped moving and she looked at Joan.
It took Joan a moment to realise. Drat. She had used Bob’s first name without thinking. Or rather, she had thought about him so much that his first name was now lodged firmly in her consciousness. What a slip!
‘Bob Hubble.’ She glanced away, tried to be casual. ‘He was my partner when we did the first-aid test in the Con Club building.’
Letitia made a sound that could have been the beginning of a laugh, instantly stifled. ‘There’s no need to ask why you’ve mentioned him. That “Bob” says it all. I thought you weren’t keen. He asked you to go dancing – I heard him – and you said no.’
‘I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Still thinking about him? Oh, Joanie.’ Letitia leaned over and gave her a hug.
‘I had hoped we might be assigned to the same first-aid party.’
‘But now we’ve had our letters,’ said Letitia, ‘and he’s not on your list. Nor mine, unfortunately, or I might be able to help.’ She shook Joan’s arm in loving frustration. ‘And you seemed so pleased to be in a group with Mabel and Lizzie.’
‘I was. I am. It’s what we wanted. I just wish you could be with us.’
‘We knew that wouldn’t be allowed. Anyway, Bob wouldn’t have mentioned dancing if he wasn’t a dancer himself, so we need to visit every dance hall we can find.’
Joan laughed, heartened. ‘I wish I’d told you before.’
‘You’ve told me now and that’s what matters. I want to hear every detail of that first-aid afternoon.’
‘I’ve already told you.’
‘Ah, but this time I’ll pay special attention to the Bob bits.’
What a wonderful sister she was. Joan’s heart swelled with love and appreciation. Letitia encouraged her to rattle on about the afternoon she had spent in Bob’s company and she was only too happy to indulge in the memories. Or was she just setting herself up for a bigger disappointment later, should she never see him again?
That night, they lay whispering in the bed they shared. Even in the dark, the blackout left its mark, the darkness deeper and more intense than it ought to be. Would the night be as black as this even when they reached the height of summer?
‘Do you remember that thing in the papers you told me about?’ Joan asked softly. ‘About girls in wartime who don’t get married not really trying.’
‘Goodness!’ Letitia exclaimed. Her voice dropped to an urgent hiss. ‘You’re not thinking of you and Bob?’
‘No, of course not. You and Steven, actually.’
For a moment, she thought Letitia might keep her own counsel, but then she spoke.
‘Steven would get engaged like a shot, I’m sure, but I don’t want to. If we got married, there’d probably be a baby and I’d have to stay at home and look after it.’
‘Don’t you want children?’
‘Of course I do, but there’s plenty of time for all that.’ Letitia turned onto her side and the bedclothes shifted as she propped herself up on one elbow. ‘Shall I tell you a deathly secret?’
‘Go on. I’ve told you about Bob.’
‘I’m enjoying the war. There: I’ve said it. I adore working at the munitions. I love feeling that what I do is helping the war effort and making a difference. And the work’s so interesting. I was a wages clerk before. They wanted me because I’m good at maths, and the work was all right. I had to calculate hours worked and rates of pay and deductions and what have you, and I had to pay attention, but let’s face it, when you’ve totted up one week’s wage slips, you’ve done ’em all.’
‘But then, surely, when you’ve checked the maths on one shell …’
‘No, you’re wrong, because it matters so much.’ Although Letitia’s voice was quiet, there was an intensity in it that sent a shiver through Joan. ‘When this war is over, I want to be able to say, “I helped win it,” not “I spent it changing nappies and wiping snotty noses.” I know there’s more to motherhood than that, and I’ve every intention of loving my children to distraction, but they’re not here yet and I am.’
‘You could get engaged and not get married until later.’
‘It isn’t like that these days. It’s down on one knee, followed by a quick sprint to the registry office. I can understand why couples do that, I truly can, and maybe if Steven was in the forces, I’d be the same. But he’s not, so we can have time together, which is a luxury most young couples don’t have these days. Maybe something will change at some point and I’ll want to get married at once, but for now I like things as they are. I have a hugely responsible job, which in the normal run of things would never have been given to a woman, no matter how capable or experienced she was, and certainly wouldn’t have been entrusted to a girl my age. I’m younger than the daughters of the engineers whose work I double-check. I don’t want to sound big-headed, but I’m proud of that and I don’t want to give it up. Not yet, anyway.’
‘You’re not big-headed,’ Joan assured her. ‘You’re amazingly clever and I’m proud of you.’
It was true. She had never begrudged Letitia her brains or her grammar-school education. As for her position as Gran’s favourite, that sometimes made Joan feel miffed with Gran, but never jealous of her sister.
Letitia soon dropped off to sleep, but Joan stayed awake, staring into the darkness. Letitia had spoken of enjoying the war. It had brought challenge and opportunity into her life, but all it had given Joan was a typewriter to sit behind. Was it small-minded to wish for more? Was it … unpatriotic?
In the darkened cinema, Letitia’s hand crept into Joan’s and Joan squeezed it tightly as they gazed at the screen, unable to look away from the Pathé newsreel. There had been so many important days, so many significant events, but yesterday, Friday, the tenth of May 1940, seemed important like no day had before. Even though the change of prime minister had occurred yesterday and they had already heard about it on the wireless, seeing it on the cinema screen this evening endowed it with even greater consequence.
On Joan’s other side, Lizzie huddled closer. Joan reached out her free hand and, after some flapping in the darkness, Lizzie found it and held on. Mabel was on Lizzie’s other side. Was Lizzie hanging on to her too? Joan couldn’t be sure. There was something stand-offish about Mabel. No, that wasn’t the right word. It sounded cold and unfeeling. Just because she was less open to the casual arm-linking that the others did, didn’t make her uncaring. Oh, she never refused you if you took her arm, but she never linked first. Maybe she had been brought up to keep her hands to herself. But there was nothing inappropriate in girl chums linking arms, was there? It wasn’t like a girl straightening a chap’s tie, say, if she wasn’t engaged to him, or a girl smoking in public. Anybody would know exactly what to think about a girl who did either of those things.
No, there was just something reserved about Miss Mabel Bradshaw. As cordial as she was towards the others around the buffet table, she seemed to hold something of herself back.
Joan hoped for Mabel’s sake that she had a hand to hold right now as the words swept over them, sharing the chilling news that the Germans had invaded Belgium and the Netherlands. Moreover, Mr Chamberlain had resigned and their new prime minister was Mr Churchill. Was that a good thing? Did changing prime ministers make the country look weak? Ripe for invasion?
At the end of the evening, after Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland had agreed to head for Virginia City, which was as deeply in need of taming as Dodge City, Joan rose with the rest of the packed house, sensing that nobody moved a muscle while the national anthem was played.
When they got home and had their bedtime Ovaltine, Joan dared to voice her uncertainty about changing prime minister, but Gran wasn’t having any of that.
‘Mr Chamberlain is a decent enough gentleman, I daresay, but it’s the job of the prime minister to make every single person in this country feel they can win this war and Mr Chamberlain would never be able to do that.’
And Mr Churchill would? How could anybody possess such personal strength and determination that they could inspire and embolden every single person in the country?
But, two days later, when she heard Mr Churchill’s speech on the wireless, when he offered ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’, she knew that Gran was correct. Mr Churchill was the right man, the only man, for the task, a true leader to whom folk would give their trust and be proud to follow. His words made her want to spring to attention, as if standing for the national anthem. She might not be required to give up any blood, tears or sweat in her office job on the railways, but she had other wartime toil to offer as a first-aider, and the news from the Continent made it a certainty that her toil in that capacity would be called upon sooner rather than later.
‘You’ll never guess what I’ve bought.’ Lizzie’s eyes sparkled.
‘That sounds exciting,’ said Joan. ‘Do you want to wait for the others before you say?’
She and Lizzie were the first to arrive in the buffet. By unspoken consent, whoever arrived first chose a table by the wall, if possible, because it felt more private, but today all those tables were already occupied, and Joan had come into the buffet to spy Lizzie at a table in the middle. For once, Lizzie was wearing a lightweight mac over her uniform, so she didn’t have to stand.
‘No, you already know about them,’ said Lizzie.
‘Know about what?’
‘The red shoes. D’you remember the red evening shoes I showed you the day we sat our tests in Hunts Bank?’
It took Joan a moment. ‘You’ve never bought them?’ Something chilled inside her, but she merely said, ‘They must have cost a pretty penny, coming from a shop on Deansgate.’
‘Not those actual shoes. Another pair. I found them in our local shoe shop. They’re not exactly the same, but they’re just as swish. They’re bright red and shiny.’ Lizzie gurgled with the laughter that came so easily to her. ‘My mum says I look like I should dance down the Yellow Brick Road.’
‘Your mum doesn’t mind?’
‘Mind what?’
Ah. And there it was – the difference between the Foster family and everybody else in the world. How did you say, ‘Doesn’t your mum mind you having shiny red shoes, when red is for tarts?’ Well, of course you didn’t say it, even if that was what you meant. Something inside Joan struggled to comprehend this new reality. Lizzie was not, absolutely not, a tart. She was warm and vibrant and took everyone on trust. She said what she thought and she was one of those rare people who always thought nice things. She was a real tonic. Anyone less like a tart would be hard to imagine. And her mother sounded so sensible and caring. Yet Lizzie had bought shiny red shoes and her mother, apparently, didn’t mind.
Gran would throw forty fits if one of her girls dared to buy such a thing.
Red was for tarts. Red was for girls who were no better than they should be. Red shoes were for the likes of Estelle.
‘Mind what?’ Lizzie asked again.
Joan improvised. ‘Your mum doesn’t mind … you buying something so frivolous?’
‘Not in the slightest. She said I work hard and I deserve a treat.’ Lizzie extended her leg to place her foot alongside Joan’s. ‘What size shoe d’you take? It looks like we’re the same. I’ll lend you my red shoes if you like.’
‘There’s just one thing wrong with that,’ Joan teased. ‘We go dancing together, so you’ll be wearing them.’
Lizzie laughed at herself. ‘There’s Dot ordering her tea – and Mabel’s joined the queue.’ She leaned forward. ‘What does your gran think of this first-names business? Especially calling proper grown-up ladies by their first names?’
‘I haven’t told her,’ Joan confessed. ‘She’d be outraged. ‘It’s fine for me to be on first-name terms with you and Mabel, but I’d never dare tell her about Dot and Cordelia. To be honest, I still don’t feel comfortable using their names. I avoid it if I can.’
‘Me too.’
‘Have you told your mum?’
‘Oh yes, I tell her everything.’
‘Even about using Dot and Cordelia’s first names?’ Joan experienced a frisson of shock. Gran would hit the roof.
‘She doesn’t like it, but I explained about Miss Emery and sticking together and she said that, as long as Dot and Cordelia don’t object, I’m allowed to do it, but only around the buffet table, never in public and never in the workplace.’ Lizzie glanced at Dot, who was heading in their direction. ‘I’m the same as you. I never use their names if I can help it.’ Lizzie beamed at Dot, half-rising to pull out a chair for her. ‘Have you had a busy day? Come and sit down.’
Joan smiled to herself. She hadn’t met Lizzie’s mum, but presumably that was where Lizzie’s warm-hearted behaviour came from.
Soon Mabel joined them.
‘Look!’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘Mabel, isn’t that your friend in the queue?’
Joan turned to look. Oh yes, the violet-eyed stunner from their first day as railway girls. Persephone, that was her name, though Joan couldn’t recall her surname off-hand. She expected Mabel to signal to her, but it was Lizzie who waved.
Carrying her tea, Persephone headed towards them. Did the volume lower as this beauty made her graceful way across the buffet? If it did, Persephone appeared unconscious of it.
‘Miss Cooper,’ she said, ‘how perfectly sweet of you to remember me.’
‘You remember my name,’ breathed Lizzie.
‘Naturally,’ said Persephone.
Everyone looked at Mabel as she performed the introductions. The Honourable Persephone Trehearn-Hobbs – that was Persephone’s full name and rank.
‘Take the weight off your feet,’ said Dot.
‘Are you sure?’ Persephone glanced round the table. ‘I don’t want to barge in.’
Again, everyone looked at Mabel.
‘Have a seat,’ she said.
Persephone sank onto a chair, popping her cup and saucer on the table.
‘What brings you to Victoria?’ asked Joan.
‘I accompanied a friend of Miss Brown, the lady I live with, to catch her train. I’ve just waved her off in the company of some handsome young soldiers.’
‘Lucky her,’ laughed Dot.
‘What job do you do on the railways, Mrs Green?’ Persephone asked.
They chatted for a while. If Joan had expected sitting with an Honourable to be somehow different to being with a plain Miss or Mrs, she was agreeably surprised to find that Persephone slotted in with ease.
‘I remember that the first time we saw you,’ Lizzie said to Persephone, ‘you mentioned writing an article.’
‘I’m interested in journalism,’ said Persephone. ‘I had a few pieces published before the war, but they weren’t serious pieces, and, frankly, it was my social position that got them into print.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘I used to write for the society column – you know, who danced with whom, things like that. But what I want to do now is write about the experience of war from the point of view of the people at home.’
‘I’m sure you’re clever enough,’ said Dot.
‘That remains to be seen. Let’s just say, my hopes of writing something publishable have so far come to nothing.’ Persephone came to her feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I ought to go. It’s been a pleasure to meet you all.’ She looked at Mabel. ‘I expect we’ll see one another again shortly, and I don’t mean at Darley Court. I’ve signed up as a railway girl, passed the tests and everything.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Joan.
‘When do you start?’ Dot asked.
‘Monday the twenty-seventh. It was hearing bits and bobs from Mabel that inspired me.’
Lizzie’s delight was transparent. ‘You’re going to be one of us.’
Joan felt a little flush of delight at the thought of all the dances Letitia was insisting they go to in her determination to reunite her with Bob Hubble. Usually, the two of them went with Mabel and Lizzie, and, of course, Steven came too if he wasn’t on nights.
‘Doesn’t he mind going out with a crowd of girls?’ Joan asked.
Letitia laughed. ‘Find me the man who’d say no to escorting a group of girls.’
Whatever Steven thought of it, he certainly appeared perfectly at ease with the arrangement. There were never enough male partners these days and often girls danced with one another. Sometimes Steven would dance with two girls at once, the second girl positioned behind the first with her left hand resting lightly on the girl in front’s shoulder and her right hand under the first girl’s elbow, while Steven led the pair of them through the steps of the dance. It wasn’t unheard of to dance like that these days, but it still turned heads.
Joan felt easier in Steven’s company now. She no longer felt that edgy annoyance with herself for her old love. After all that time keeping her feelings for Steven a secret, sharing her interest in Bob with Letitia seemed to have loosened something inside her that had been wound up tight. Now she felt warmth towards Steven – and it was a safe, sisterly warmth.
‘Is everything all right, Joan?’ Steven asked as he waltzed her expertly round the crowded floor of the Palais in Chorlton. Joan had been smiling to think of how Letitia seemed to be bent on taking her round every Palais in Manchester, until Steven’s question put her on her guard.
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘I mean between you and me. I – well, I thought I’d offended you not so long ago, though things seem fine now.’
‘Things have always been fine between us.’
‘Good.’ Steven negotiated the corner and plunged her back into the throng. ‘You’re my little sister.’
Just days ago, those words would have crushed her, but now she could embrace them and hold them to her heart. Steven’s sister was precisely who she wanted to be, for Letitia’s sake, which enabled her to say in all sincerity, ‘Then I’m pleased to have a brother who’s so light on his feet.’
Steven laughed and twirled her round, laughing again when she called him a show-off. ‘It’s a good job I’m competent on the dance floor. That sister of yours has always loved to go dancing, but I have to say she seems even more keen these days.’
Joan hugged her secret to her. She was glad that Letitia hadn’t confided in Steven. The search for Bob was something just for the two of them.
‘It seems hopeless,’ Joan said that night as she and Letitia were putting their rollers in before bed. In her heart, she didn’t really mean it, but it wasn’t so very wrong to seek reassurance, was it?
‘Maybe,’ said Letitia, ‘but it’s a lot of fun looking,’ which wasn’t quite what Joan had wanted to hear. ‘We’ll go to the Ritz next.’
‘I love the Ritz.’
‘Me too. See if Lizzie and Mabel want to come.’
But the night that Letitia suggested wasn’t suitable for Lizzie.
Sitting in a corner of the buffet, she groaned. ‘That’s Mum’s and my evening for mending club. Never mind. There’ll be other times.’
‘What about you?’ Joan asked Alison. She hadn’t seen Alison in a while and didn’t want her getting the idea that doing first aid with Mabel and Lizzie, and also going dancing with them, meant she wasn’t interested in being friends. ‘You and your boyfriend could come, couldn’t you? It would only be a matter of coming into town, same as us, but from a different direction.’
‘Thanks for asking,’ said Alison. ‘We’d love to, I’m sure, though I’ll have to check that Paul hasn’t made other plans for us.’
‘Is he very attentive?’ asked Lizzie. ‘Is he all protective and loving, like Colette’s husband?’ She wriggled her shoulders. ‘I hope my husband looks after me like that.’
‘I’m very lucky,’ Alison murmured.
On the day of the visit to the Ritz, Joan was leaving the office when she heard footsteps flying along behind her. Turning, she found Lizzie in her porter’s uniform, running full tilt, clutching a cloth bag. She blew out a huge breath as she reached Joan.
‘I’ve caught you. I was worried I wouldn’t get here in time. Here.’ She thrust the bag at Joan. ‘For you for tonight.’
Even before she opened the bag, Joan knew what would be inside. The red shoes. She felt torn up one side and down the other. The red shoes. They were stylish, with a heel the perfect size to lift you a little and make you taller, but without in any degree compromising your ability to dance, and they were pretty. Not tarty, not vulgar, not in bad taste. Just pretty dancing shoes.
Could she wear them? They were just shoes. They weren’t going to turn her into something she wasn’t.
Just pretty dancing shoes.