five

Perhaps it rained during the first three weeks of Basic Training but I only remember long days of sunshine. I no longer dreaded drill parades. Turned left and right, about-turned, moved to the right in threes, swung my arms shoulder high, came smartly to attention and could salute an officer in the required manner.

Physical Training continued to delight me. Half-hourly sessions of rhythmic exercise designed to correct stooped shoulders, bulging bellies and large bums. Plumb lines against which you stood to improve your posture. And throughout the lessons the glamorous, sun-tanned instructor giving praise and encouragement. My eyes were constantly on her. I watched and listened, storing the information for the day when I too would be an instructor.

My mind was also easy. I had applied for my mother’s allowance, signed the forms, one of them compulsory, allowing my mother two and six a week to top up whatever monies she was granted. And I had written home, assuring her that any day now her allowance book would arrive.

Everything was wonderful. Such friends I had never known before. Warm-hearted, good-natured girls. Except for Bubbles, we owned few possessions, other than rosary beads, scapulars, prayer books and a few relics of saints belonging to the Irish girls. Few had watches, fountain pens, diaries or sponge bags and we had only a minimum amount of cosmetics. We shared stubs of lipsticks, and borrowed and leant pipe-cleaners and Dinkie curlers for our hair. The English girls shared their food parcels from home: cakes scarce of fruit made with dried eggs. We had midnight feasts reminding me of stories in the Girl’s Own paper.

Even the horrible uniform caused less heartache. Every night, in the way Edith had demonstrated, we folded our skirts. Frequent pressing had flattened the surplus nap. The cap no longer resembled the hat of a hydrocephalic chef. And the Chinese laundry had wrought a miraculous transformation with our collars. Stiff and shiny and crease resistant.

On pay-day we paraded and received our money. Then dashed to the NAFFI to buy our fifty duty-free cigarettes, our sweet ration and whatever cleaning materials were about to run out. Brasso and Dark Tan Kiwi polish lasted no time.

After tea we went to town. The girls had formed cliques. Edith, Marj and Bubbles, except when her American officer was off duty, went to the Public House. I knew I could have gone with them but my minder, Deirdre, reminded me of my confirmation pledge and her promise to my mother, so we walked the streets, where she endeavoured to click with the Yanks. Many got into talk with us, gave us Camels and gum, but it never went any further. Deirdre said it was my fault. ‘You’ve got a terrible short manner, d’ye know that. We’re just getting going and you come out with one of your jawbreakers and kill the whole thing dead.’

Without confiding my innermost thoughts and inadequacies to Deirdre, I couldn’t explain my behaviour. Believing that no man could find me attractive, I drew on all the advice I’d read in women’s magazines about intelligence and personality being more important than a retroussé nose, baby-blue eyes and curls. In an attempt to be interesting I introduced words I had learnt the meaning of from the Reader’s Digest. I did frighten them off. And because they hunted in pairs, Deirdre, with her winning smile, simpering and giggling, was dumped along with me.

I made excuses to her that I didn’t want to finish underneath the light by the barrack wall in the stranglehold of a Yank.

‘Not much fear of that,’ she retorted.

‘Then go out with some of the others,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t care.’

And I didn’t, knowing there were many groups I could have gone about with, whereas, not being popular, she was stuck with me. There was something about her that nobody warmed to. She would forget to buy toothpaste, borrow cigarettes and then, when she had her ration, not offer it around. A host of little things were noted. And when Bubbles reported seeing her in the post office depositing money in a savings account, she was truly recognized for being a cadger.

* * *

Half way through our training we were granted a seventy-two hour pass with travel warrant and ration money. The girls from Lancashire and Cheshire were ecstatic. Three days at home. They whooped with joy. For the Irish girls it was a bleak prospect. Myself and Deirdre could just about make it to Dublin. But for anyone from rural Ireland the seventy-two hour pass was a non-starter.

The English girls talked non-stop about the meals they would eat at home. Sleeping late in the mornings. Seeing their Mams and dads who weren’t in the forces. And I thought of three days without them. Without their laughter. Their songs. Imitations of Corporal Robinson and officers with plums in their mouths. Their discussions of the coming election and the wonderful world we would live in when a Labour government was in power. Even Sunday Mass wouldn’t be the same, for often one or other of the English girls came with me and Deirdre, and was fascinated at the amount of kneeling, standing, sitting and genuflecting. And asked again and again what it was that the ‘Father’ put on our tongues when we knelt at the Communion rails.

* * *

My mother wrote asking what had happened to the allowance she was supposed to get and I replied ‘any day now’, explaining that my voluntary contribution of half-a-crown a week was being deducted from my pay. Then one morning while we were enjoying our milky cocoa and currant buns the mail orderly brought our letters. Mine was a long brown envelope. A bulky envelope addressed in my mother’s handwriting. Hoping for a nice surprise, a pair of stockings, a couple of packets of cigarettes, sweets or letters from my brother and sister, happily expectant I opened it, reached inside and pulled out what looked like an extra long book of raffle tickets. Printed on the cover was my mother’s name and address, and printed in the right-hand corner the figures two shillings and sixpence. I flicked through the pages. The same sum was printed on each page. I didn’t know what to make of it until, delving into the envelope, I found a single sheet of copy book paper which read, ‘If you think I’d go to the post office and belittle myself to cash half-a-crown you’ve another think coming. May God forgive you for deserting your widowed mother. Leaving her destitute while you’re flying your kite in England. And as for the allowance book you know what you can do with that.’ She hadn’t addressed me nor signed the note.

I wasn’t hurt or annoyed. That’s how my mother wrote and spoke when in a bad humour. But the allowance book puzzled me. The half-a-crown was what I was allowing her. What had happened to the one the army should have awarded her? While eating more of my currant bun and drinking cocoa I thought two books must be issued. My allowance and the army’s. Yes, that had to be it. The allowance books had crossed in the post. I could see her regretting the snotty note, telling herself she shouldn’t have been so hasty. I ate and drank some more then doubts assailed me, so I asked advice of the oracle.

‘Something wrong there kid,’ Edith said after studying the book. ‘The allowance would have been lumped together. Nip round to the Company Office and ask the Sarge.’

The ATS Sergeant listened and examined the book. ‘Ah yes …’ she said. ‘The claim was turned down. You would have been notified and a letter will be sent to your mother.’

‘But why?’ I asked.

‘It wasn’t considered justified.’ She shrugged. ‘No explanations are given.’

‘Is there nothing I can do about it?’

‘You can stop the voluntary contribution. If in the future your mother’s circumstances worsen you can apply again. Otherwise you can do nothing.’

Half-a-crown a week. Well, it was better than nothing. In time my mother would realize that. But she’d let it run for several weeks. And verbally beat me round the head with accusations of never having applied for a dependant’s allowance in the first place. And enjoy every minute of her accusations and my denials. It would be another drama. That’s how she was, my warm-hearted, generous mother with a tongue like a knife. Never at a loss for the right word at the right moment. Cut and thrust, parry, riposte. And in the next breath she’d be telling me the news of the neighbourhood. Who had died. If it was a happy death or one where the dying did not go gently into that dark night. And in between feeding me lightly boiled eggs with fresh Vienna rolls or a duck loaf from the Jewish baker. The half-a-crown forgotten for the time being.

* * *

In the barrack room after dinner I held forth about the army not granting the money. And one of the Irish girls asked, ‘What did you put on the form?’

‘The truth. You know that my mother is a widow and I was the only one earning. And how much I gave her.’

‘That’s why she didn’t get it, because you told the truth. The army’d look at it this way. You weren’t giving your mother much money. They’d reckon she’d probably be better off not having to keep you. Work out how much you ate, wear and tear on bed clothes, hot water, all the things like that. The only way to beat them is to tell lies.’

‘But supposing you were found out?’

She laughed. ‘You’re a right eejit. There’s thousands of us in the Forces. Thousands working in England. No one can check all the forms. It’s the same with income tax. My father’s working over here and claims against his tax for my grannie and she’s been in the Union for the last five years. He puts her down as living with us, that she’s an invalid and needs special nourishment. Everyone does it, don’t they?’ she appealed to other Irish girls. Each had a tale to tell, of defrauding the army or the inspector of taxes.

Thinking over the advice I had been given I knew I couldn’t have lied on the form, whether from honesty or fear of being found out I was never sure. In the coming years, when I was promoted and earning more money, I made my mother a fairly generous allowance. But it never erased from her mind the years when all she got was the half-a-crown, and many times she aired her grievance.

* * *

One evening, when Deirdre and I were the only two in the barrack room, I’d been reading and had forgotten about her until she came to stand beside my bed and I saw that she was crying and telling me she had something to confess. ‘It’s something terrible,’ she said. ‘Promise you won’t breathe a word of it.’

I surmised that she was pregnant. And the first thought in my mind was what happened to pregnant women in the army? Was it a serious crime? Surely to God the army wouldn’t shoot you. Charge you, I supposed. Stop your pay. Send you back to Ireland. Back to Ireland and into the Union I for few parents would keep you at home. Into that terrifying building in James’s Street. Where the inmates were dressed in rough grey clothes. Where men and women who even though married were kept separate. That place once the Foundling Hospital where unwanted babies were placed in a basket, no questions asked and passed through a hatch window. The majority to die in early infancy.

Poor Deirdre. My heart went out to her. ‘Don’t cry,’ I told her, ‘and talk easy in case anyone comes in.’ I put an arm around her shoulders trying to hush her sobs. ‘Hang on, I’ll get down and we’ll sit on the bottom bunk.’

‘I’m a married woman,’ she hiccuped through her sobs.

Thank God, I thought. That must have been the man on the boat. I asked her this and she glared with such hostility the crying stopped. ‘What d’ye mean? What man? Wasn’t I looking half the night for you.’

‘I don’t know what I’m saying. You gave me a terrible fright, you know, coming out with it so suddenly,’ I lied. ‘Go on, tell me. When did you get married?’

‘Two years ago and six weeks after he walked out on me and I never laid eyes on him since.’

‘God that was a terrible thing. Did you search for him?’

‘Everywhere. The morgue, the hospital, his relations, went to the police. He was a grown man, they said. They couldn’t do anything about it. It was the slur. Being thrown over and everyone knowing it.’

I lit a cigarette and gave it to her. Then a drink of water and, remembering two squares of Tiffin bar I’d saved to eat in bed, gave her those as well.

‘I knew they were all laughing behind my back in work. Moryah full of sympathy but I knew. That’s why I joined up. And another thing, I thought I might find him in England.’ She finished the cigarette and the chocolate. ‘I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. You’re my best friend. But say as true as God you won’t breathe a word of what I told you.’

I took an oath and a thought came into my mind and I told her.

‘Maybe he could have lost his memory. I saw a picture about that.’ It was the truth. I had seen such a picture and sincerely believed what I was telling her. ‘This fella went out to work one morning. And didn’t he slip and crack his head on the path. Only a little bang. He didn’t have to go to hospital. After a few minutes he got up and walked away. Only he couldn’t remember who he was, his name, where he lived or worked, nothing, nor that he was married. He had money, after drawing out of his savings the day before for Christmas. But no papers, not even an envelope with his name and address. And wasn’t he afraid to go to a hospital or the police. You know, like you could hear him talking to himself. “Maybe I’m a criminal. Like where did I get two hundred dollars? I’d best lie low. Get work. Any sort. And a room.” And that’s what he did. Moved to another town, got a room. Made up a name he’d seen over a shop. You saw his wife as well. She was gorgeous and broken-hearted like you. I was crying my heart out. Anyway he has this makey-up name and keeps moving from place to place. And then one day he’s in Chicago or maybe San Francisco, I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He’s waiting to cross the road when this little girl, with lovely blonde hair lets go her mother’s hand and runs out into the road. There’s this big truck coming and doesn’t your man run after her, pushes her out of the way but he’s knocked down. Then you see him in hospital. And the doctors shaking their heads. He’s been in a coma for weeks and they think he’s going to die. And then he wakes up and his memory comes back. I was crying and laughing at the same time when I saw his wife and him together again. That could have happened to your husband.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ agreed Deirdre again with tears in her eyes. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have joined up for now he won’t know where to find me.’

‘Your mother’ll tell him.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, so she will.’

The barrack room was filling up so we stopped talking but only after Deirdre had once again sworn me to secrecy.

Later in bed I thought about her story and again felt sorry for her. The shame and humiliation she would have suffered. She, like me, lived in a small community. People knew and helped each other. Lent each other shillings and sixpences. Shared cough bottles, passed on clothes that still had wear in them. Sat up with the dying, laid out the dead, delivered babies and knew everyone’s business. As my mother used to say, ‘They know what you have for breakfast.’ And gossip of any kind added spice to their lives. Especially relationships between men and women. They’d divide into two camps. One supporting Deirdre. Branding her husband as a louser for deserting his wife. Wishing they could lay hands on him. Boasting of what they’d do to him. While the other camp would shake their heads and say, ‘Ah well, it takes two to make a marriage. I wouldn’t have wanted her for a daughter-in-law. And say what you like he was a well-reared fella. Came from decent people.’ And then some scandal from Deirdre’s family would be recalled. Maybe a long dead uncle, aunt, grannie, or cousin at a long remove. ‘That aunt of hers was flighty. Knocked around with British soldiers, even the Black and Tans and she a married woman. And as for her uncle he was a bowsie. Never sober a day in his life. And the grannie would drink stout off of a sore leg. How d’ye know what that young man had to put up with?’

No wonder, I thought, Deirdre had run away. In the same circumstances so would I. And then another thought presented itself. Deirdre on the boat. Deirdre’s habit of cadging. Deirdre the liar. Harmless lies so far. But lies all the same. And into my mind came a saying of my mother’s: ‘Give me a robber any day before a liar.’

I fell asleep convinced Deirdre had made up the story as she did about the American soldiers, promoted to the rank of officers in her version who had wanted another date with us. And how blatantly she had brushed aside my reference to the incident on the boat and pretended she had spent the night on board searching for me.

* * *

I was miserable. The weekend was approaching and Edith, Marj and the gang would be away on their seventy-two-hour pass. Bubbles too, off to Chester with her Yank. ‘D’ye know what we could do?’ the girl who had told me how to defraud the army and the income tax said to me at breakfast.

‘What?’

‘Apply for the seventy-two-hour pass, get a warrant and the ration money. Let on we’re going away. Stay out all day. We’d have the money to buy meals. And sneak into barracks every night.’

Edith who was sitting by us pointed out it wasn’t on.

‘Why?’ asked the Irish girl.

‘This camp’s too small. There’s only one way in through the main gate. The guard would spot you. Wait’ll you’re posted out. In a big mixed camp. Soldiers work the flanker all the time. Don’t even bother to leave the camp. Eat their meals in the mess and pocket the ration money. But not here, cock. You’d be spotted in a minute and it’s a serious charge.’

The Irish girl took her advice. But in years to come when stationed in a big camp I often worked the scam and only once was caught. But by that time had learned the tricks of old soldiers and got away with it.

But now was the present with a long weekend stretching in front of me without the company of my new dear friends. I decided to spend it concentrating on the following week when there were tests to sit that would decide what jobs we would be allocated.

Having scored the highest points at the intelligence tests on my first visit to Belfast, I felt confident of being able to pick and choose what I wanted to do. Physical Training was top of my list, if that wasn’t available then I’d be a driver. But it was the Physical Training I had set my heart on. Once I had left the training base never again would the uniform go on my back, unless at official parades. All day I’d trip round in shorts and track suits. And although we were forbidden to wear civilian clothes, I would risk it. Wear my lovely green and white check coat, civilian shoes and stockings. Everyone said, and I believed them, that away from the training barracks life was cushy.