six

On the Monday before the long weekend we were all in the cookhouse having our buns and cocoa and waiting for the post-corporal. There were no letters for me but one for each of the English girls, who on opening them each let out a whoop of joy then gathered in a huddle whispering to each other.

‘Backbiting us,’ said Deirdre, who with all her other faults had a suspicious mind. ‘Not that I care. It’s because we’re Irish.’ The huddle broke up and Edith came to where we sat. ‘We didn’t want to raise your hopes until our Mam’s wrote back. But it’s OK. You can all come.’

‘Come where?’ I asked.

‘Home with us for the weekend. You and Deirdre with me and we’ll sort out the others.’

‘You mean all of us. All the Irish girls?’

‘Everyone who fancies it.’

Edith lived in Morecambe and so did Marj. Edith’s mother and sister made us feel very welcome. We had a wonderful high tea on which her mother had spent some of her precious food points to buy Spam and tinned fruit.

Edith did imitations of the officers and Corporal Robinson’s plummy voice and exaggerated the fools we’d made of ourselves when we had started drilling. All the stories were accompanied by hilarious actions, so that I thought I’d choke from laughing. Before the meal finished I felt as if I’d known the family all my life.

Edith’s mother worked and had to leave when the meal was finished. She suggested that me and Deirdre should throw ourselves on the bed for half an hour before we got ready to meet up in the public house where she was a barmaid.

I’d noticed during tea that Deirdre was very quiet, although attempts were made to include her in all conversations. In the bedroom she started to cry. ‘What ails you? Don’t tell me you feel uncomfortable here. They’re gorgeous people.’

‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ She sniffed, blew her nose, wiped her eyes and said, ‘I had a letter from my mother this morning. She’s heard about Larry. That’s my husband.’

‘How did she find out? Where is he? Will you be able to go to him?’

‘A fella from our street told her. He bumped into him in a public house in England.’

‘That’s great. So you will be able to find him.’

‘I don’t know about that. The fella didn’t know much about him. Me ma only talked to him for a few minutes. He was over on embarkation leave and had just dropped in for a pint. He was going foreign the next day.’

‘But he must have told your mother something?’

‘He only mentioned a place called Lupinbeds, that’s where he said Larry was.’

‘That’s a queer name for a town.’

‘All the feckin’ names in England are queer if you ask me.’

‘Are you sure it was Lupinbeds?’

‘Read the letter and see for yourself.’ She found her mother’s single sheet of ruled paper written in pencil and gave it to me. She was right about the place name—it was spelled out in block capitals.

Handing it back I said, ‘Someone is bound to know where it is. Ask in the Company Office. Ask for an interview with the Junior Commander and tell her the whole story. She’ll probably give you compassionate leave to look for him.’

‘I can’t,’ she said, beginning to cry again, ‘I joined up under a false name. Used my sister’s birth certificate, she’s still single. There’s only ten months between us so no-one could tell the difference.

‘I joined up in my maiden name. God knows what the army’d do to me for false pretences. So you’re never to mention anything I’ve told you.’

Knowing how all-powerful the army was, I didn’t doubt that Deirdre would be in serious trouble for deceiving them. ‘On my mother’s life, not one word will ever pass my lips. So what’ll you do?’ I asked her.

‘Once I leave the training centre I’ll ask at railway stations anywhere I think that’s safe and find out where Lupinbeds is. And I’ll find him. I know that. I’ll find him and get him back. After all he is my husband. We were married in the sight of God.’

Deirdre’s second confession had drained me. I felt like lying down and sleeping for a week. But soon Edith was at the door telling us to get a move on or there’d be no seats in the pub.

I got ready and coaxed Deirdre to do the same. I wore my khaki fully-fashioned stockings not caring if I did bump into a military policewoman who would charge me for breaking King’s Regulations. My courage boosted by Edith’s reassurance that ,’Where we’re going? MP’s don’t.’ I undid the bootlace from my hair. The ends were kinked, the laces having acted like curlers, and I wore a newly laundered collar. Newly laundered they chafed your neck but like fat women enduring the discomfort of tight corsets because they improved their appearance, I’d endure the collar for the same reason.

To reach the public house we had to pass Morecambe Bay. The tide was in, the sun setting. A great expanse of water tinged red and gold stretched away towards Cumberland. In passing I noticed the beauty of the scene but my thoughts were more concerned with going to a public house for the first time and whether or not I would drink alcohol.

The bar was full of smoke, the ashtrays overflowing. There were a lot of men, mostly old. Old or not fit for call up or in reserved occupations. Edith and Marj who had joined us on the way with her Irish guests, were greeted rapturously: hugged and kissed, slapped on the back and bum. We were introduced. Drinks pressed on us. The room echoed with laughter. Everyone seemed to know everyone else.

‘Aren’t you going to drink that?’ Deirdre asked, eyeing the glass of port wine I held.

‘I’m not sure. What about my confirmation pledge?’ I asked, forgetting about a previous drinking bout when I was sixteen.

‘I broke mine ages ago. Give it to me if you don’t want it.’

‘I’ll give it a try,’ I replied and sipped from the glass. I liked the taste and put to the back of my mind the day the Bishop confirmed me as a Christian and I promised never to let intoxicating drink pass my lips. I drank another two ports and lemon before leaving for a dance hall where Edith said there’d be lots of smashing fellas, soldiers and airmen and never a red cap near the place.

The band played a selection of Glenn Miller, including ‘In The Mood’ to which Edith and Marj jitterbugged with amazing agility. Impressing the crowd so much that the floor was cleared for their exhibition. After a little while other couples took the floor including Deirdre and a soldier. Her pinned-up hair had fallen round her shoulders, her cheeks—always rosy—were in full bloom and like a sponge ball she bobbed and bounced, kicked one leg from the knee then the other, leapt onto the soldier’s hip and as supply and gracefully then on to the other. Another side of Deirdre that I hadn’t suspected existed.

For the first time in my life I wasn’t a wallflower. Soldiers, airmen, young and not so young danced with me. I was on cloud nine. I could have danced all night, the three glasses of port and two of cider which I didn’t think was alcoholic and which tasted delicious relaxing my limbs, releasing my inhibitions and flooding my body with a wild sense of rhythm. You danced a dance, the band stopped. With your partner you waited for the music to begin again. Some of my partners slipped an arm round my waist while we waited for the band to start the next number. I didn’t object to the intimacy. And lapped up the compliments. Sometime after the third session of dancing my partner asked, ‘Let’s have the next one,’ as we walked off the floor. Sometimes they didn’t. But immediately the band played again I was claimed. All too soon the band struck up the National Anthem and remembering my English roots, I stood rigidly to attention.

Out in the cold air I felt decidedly queer but in the pleasantest manner. I was light-headed, light-footed. Floating along. Feeling as if any moment I could take off and fly. In my euphoric state nothing seeming beyond my capability. I sang and heard my voice soar loud and sweet and clear. I was drunk and not aware I was. We linked arms, Deirdre, Edith, Marj and the Irish girls. And from my schooldays a memory came to mind. The Palais Glide taught by a fat old nun as a number for a concert we were putting on. Then I’d had two left feet and brought Sister Bridget’s unkind and personal criticisms upon me. ‘Lord bless us,’ I could hear her thick Kerry brogue, ‘What sort of a pair of feet have you got at all.’

But tonight there was magic in the same feet and singing ‘There Were Ten Pretty Girls in the Village School’ I glided with the grace of a swan until my head spun and I fell down still holding on to Edith and Marj’s arms. Bringing them down on top of me. I felt the knee go out of one of my precious stockings and sobered immediately. Everyone else found the collapse hilarious and staggered about laughing. I cried for my stocking.

Edith’s consolation didn’t help. ‘Buy another pair tomorrow, cock.’

‘With what?’ I asked.

‘With the ration money.’

‘But that’s for your Mam for keeping me.’

She laughed derisively. ‘Our Mam wouldn’t take a penny from you. Our Mam’s not like that.’ And she wouldn’t. Not only did she refuse the ration money but on the morning we left gave me and Deirdre two shillings each ‘for a few fags or sweets,’ she said, slipping us the florins.

Leaving I thanked her for the money, the hospitality and the gorgeous breakfasts. Bacon, eggs, the first real ones since I had left Dublin, and scallops which until then I had thought were luxury shellfish and which I had never tasted. Our Mam’s were thick slices of potatoes fried to a golden crisp on the outside and inside as soft as butter. I promised that on my next leave in Ireland I’d buy her a present and send it to her. Meat, butter, clothes anything that was scarce in England. Of course I never did. I never even wrote her a thank-you note even though after all these years I have never forgotten her kindness and generosity.

* * *

My visit to Bubbles’ home in Liverpool the following week was completely different from the one to Morecambe. On Saturday night she said, ‘Joe has to go to Liverpool tomorrow. Even if I could invite him to meet my parents he hasn’t the time. I’ll go along for the ride and surprise them. Would you like to come?’

I didn’t need any persuading. Apart from going to Mass there was little to do on Sundays. Joe was outside the barrack gates in a jeep. Bubbles sat in the front. I was on an almost non-existent seat in the back. I kept thinking as we drove along, if only they could see me now in Dublin. In a jeep being driven by an American Air Force Officer. Joe was glamorous, the tallest man I had ever seen, blonde and handsome. Like a film star. He and Bubbles laughed a lot at jokes I didn’t understand and in a constant stream she passed me back Camels, chewing gum and Hershey Bars.

When we arrived in Liverpool she directed him to the suburb where she lived. Where the houses were detached or semi-detached in streets with flowering trees, large gardens, and immaculate lawns . ‘Next turn on the left and third house on the right,’ said Bubbles.

‘Pick you up on the corner at seven, hon,’ Joe said before driving off. The house was detached, red-bricked and enormous. I followed her along the gravel-strewn drive and to the hall door with its panels of stained glass. ‘Not a word,’ she said before ringing the bell, ‘about Joe, we hitch-hiked, OK.’ I nodded my acquiescence.

‘Darling, what a lovely surprise,’ a woman who looked like Bubbles said when the door opened. She smiled at me, stepped back and we went in. Then she and Bubbles exchanged kisses on each others cheeks. From a room on the right-hand side of the hall a man appeared, a nice looking elderly man who for a moment peered at us short-sightedly. ‘And who is your friend?’ asked her mother. At the same time Bubbles’ father who had come closer exclaimed, ‘Darling, we weren’t expecting you.’

‘Not disappointed,’ she joked then introduced me to her parents before kissing her father’s cheek. Each parent in turn shook my hand then her mother said, ‘Let’s go into the drawing room. You must be thirsty. I’ll make some tea.’

In their own way they made me as welcome as Edith’s mother. In their calm, polite, well-mannered way. But I didn’t feel as immediately at home as I did at Morecambe. The voices probably for I had been in houses as large and well furnished as theirs in Dublin. The house from which my grandmother had run away with an English soldier was twice as big and maybe a century older. So it had to be the voices and restraint of manner. Voices like the officers and Corpral Robinson’s. I had become used to how Bubbles spoke, and in any case her speech in barracks was laced with army jargon and the current slang.

Her father asked how we had got there. ‘Hitch-hiked,’ she replied. Three lifts. A sweet old man and his wife, a doctor and a ride to the door in an American jeep.’

‘Was that wise, darling?’ asked her mother as she poured tea.

‘I was a little apprehensive but it worked out fine. He was an officer with the American Airforce.’

‘How will you get back darling?’

Bubbles gave her father a dazzling smile, ‘The same way Dad, and you mustn’t worry. Nowadays everyone hitch-hikes.’

‘I know dear, your father and I always stop for anyone in uniform. But when it’s your daughter you can’t help worrying,’ her mother said before going to prepare lunch.

It was a generous and beautifully served meal. A tin of salmon—a precious item on points —and a salad of home-grown lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions and radishes. ‘Dig for victory, I see,’ said Bubbles as we sat down. The table was covered with an exquisitely drawn thread cloth, the china fine, matching and the cutlery gleamed. There was rhubarb tart for pudding with evaporated milk and at the top of the dish a dessert spoon and fork. Never having used a pudding fork before I waited and watched to see how Bubbles did it.

During the meal her mother said, ‘I had hoped there might have been a break during the course, one long enough for you to have got home.’

Bubbles shrugged, ‘You know what the army’s like. Keeps your nose to the grindstone.’ Remembering my mother’s penetrating eyes which seemed to bore into my brain making a lie almost impossible to tell, and Bubbles’ seventy-two hour leave spent with her Yank in Blackpool, I marvelled at the unquestioning way her story was accepted. And wondered if voices were ever raised in this house.

Her parents tried very hard to make me feel at ease. They talked of holidays spent in Ireland before the war. How they enjoyed the salmon fishing. How welcoming everyone was. And told me when I was leaving that I must visit them again. They didn’t slip me two shillings as Edith’s mother had. I knew good manners, not lack of generosity, prevented them doing so. And I learned through the following years not to generalise about people. Not all Northerners were outgoing, good natured and generous. No more than all Southerners were stand-offish, cool, calm and collected. And that the voice wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of intelligence or education.

* * *

Every day after dinner Part Two orders were issued. Pinned to a notice board in the corridor. It was obligatory to read them to discover your programme for the following days. Times of lectures, parades, inspections, interviews with officers and on Monday after my visit to Liverpool details of interviews which would lead to our job allocations. Mine was for two o’clock on the following day with Junior Commander Bulmer. After tea I got busy bulling my kit and while pressing, spitting and polishing planned what I would say. ‘I’d like to be a Physical Training Instructress. And my second choice is to be a driver.’ I saw myself tanned, in short shorts, a pale blue aertex shirt with whistle swinging from my neck. Forming a class of girls into a circle then with a sweep of my arm and in an encouraging friendly voice, clear but not too loud, calling ‘Running this way round, run.’ Organizing games of netball. Teaching gentle rhythmic exercises. Correcting postures. All the things I had observed and learnt with such interest and pleasure.

Driving would be second best. I’d get to see lots of places in England. Wear the leather strap of my cap across its top. I never knew why drivers wore their caps so but it set them apart. Some drivers wore trousers. I longed for a pair of trousers.

The next day, smart as a new pin, I stood outside the office door nervous but hopeful that one of my choices would be granted. When given permission to enter I marched in, stood to attention and saluted. The officer was studying a file, leafing through it. She raised her head and told me to stand at ease, I moved one foot a shoulder’s width from the other and clasped my hands behind my back. For a little while longer she perused the contents of the file before addressing me. ‘Private Bolger,’ she said, ‘You’re one of the difficult ones to place.’

‘Yes ma’am.’

‘Good IQ. Well above average but little education.’

‘Yes ma’am.’ I repeated like a parrot while I fumed inside myself. What did she mean? Little education? I’d been one of the best in my class. Best in English composition, history and geography. And I had the Primary Certificate of Education to prove it. And what about my elocution lessons? I passed all the exams.

‘Have you considered anything in particular you’d like to do?’

‘ I wanted to be a driver. But now I’d like to be a Physical Training Instructor.

‘I see. Unfortunately they aren’t chosen here unless that is what you were doing before joining up. After you’re posted out you’ll be observed and should you show an aptitude for physical training your instructor may suggest a course in the subject. However, that’s all in the future. Driving is out, you’ve no mechanical aptitude.’ Her voice droned on and on. ‘With so little formal education I can’t recommend you for signals nor clerical work.’ My self esteem fell through the floor and I longed to follow it. I was humiliated and angry, on the verge of crying. Regretting that I had ever joined up. Wishing I was back in the factory where everyone thought I was the most intelligent and best-educated girl in the place. Able to remember everything. Recite verse after verse of poetry. Use what they good-naturedly called ‘jaw breakers’, words they didn’t know the meaning of. And here I was being made little of. Told I was an ignoramus.

Through the open window came the sound of a squad marching, a drill instructor calling out commands. I wished I was out there with them. Wished I was anywhere but where I was.

‘Have you considered cooking? You need intelligence for that. It’s also a trade. For every examination passed you are upgraded and have a pay increment. And of course it fits you for civilian employment when you leave the forces.’

A civilian! My God I had only just joined up and she was talking about when I finished.

‘Are you listening, Private Bolger?’

‘Yes ma’am.’

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I suppose so ma’am.’

No I wouldn’t, I’d hate it. I didn’t join the army to be a cook. I kept the thoughts to myself. Outspokenness wasn’t encouraged in the army.

‘Well then, that’s settled. I’ll put your name forward for a course. You’ll go to Aldershot. Quite a lively place. Magnificent avenue of chestnut trees along Queen’s Avenue.’ She gathered my papers and tidied them in the file. ‘That’s it then, you may go.’

I stepped back, saluted, about turned and left the room.

On the way back to the barrack room I passed cooks leaving the mess hall. Dressed in white stained overalls, their heads also turbaned in white, black clogs on their feet, and I was heart broken realizing that for the rest of my service I was condemned to wear two of the most hideous outfits ever created.

I didn’t moan or complain to the girls. And was surprised when they congratulated me on being chosen as cook.

‘Smashing job that,’ Marj said. ‘You have to have your buttons on to be a cook.’ Edith pointed out all the perks that came the way of cooks. The pick of the food. Good money. Quick promotion. I let on to be pleased.

By tea-time we had all been allocated our jobs. Bubbles would do a driving course. An Irish girl who had worked in a hospital be a medical orderly, me a cook and everyone else an orderly. For, like me, everyone else had no education.

I lay awake for hours, thinking about being a cook. Working all day in a roasting kitchen dressed in white overalls, black stockings and clogs. The smell of grease and fish always about you. Your face florid from the heat and growing fat from the pick of the food.

And then there was my mother. She’d go mad when she knew I was to be a cook. Increments, promotion, prospects of employment when I finished in the Services. She’d dismiss all of those. I’d deserted her, given up a good job to become a skivvy. A drudge. I’d never hear the end of it.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t become a cook. I couldn’t do that to her. But really it was the thought of the clogs, overalls and turban that made me go next morning, plead, cry and lie to the Junior Commander as to why I couldn’t become a cook. Half-way to the office my courage almost failed me. Seldom had I ever stood up for what I thought was right. Not to teachers, nuns or employer. And here I was only five minutes in the army about to confront an officer. That most intimidating of beings. Dead pan faces, with the voice and power to stop your pay, confine you to barracks and God knew what else.

By the time I had reached the office I had worked myself into such a state of fear, resentment and dislike for the woman I believed had made little of me that I was crying when I entered the office.

The Junior Commander was so surprised she told me to sit down and asked, ‘Why are you crying. Are you ill?’

‘No ma’am,’ I sobbed. ‘It’s just that I’m worried. I couldn’t sleep last night. It’s my mother. She mightn’t let me come back when I go on leave if I’m a cook.’

‘Do stop crying. I can hardly hear what you’re saying. Your mother wouldn’t let you come back from leave? Your mother would have no choice in the matter. Do control yourself and explain what you mean.’

‘I’m from Ireland, from Dublin, ma’am. She was against me joining up and if she knows I’m a cook she’d stop me coming back. D’ye see, ma’am, you can’t be touched by the British authorities in Southern Ireland.’

‘I understand all about that,’ she said, giving me a long steady look. While she did I noticed that her blonde hair was dyed. That she was really old. Forty maybe. Her eyes were a lovely colour, very pale blue. She could have been pretty once. But not now. She looked sick. Sick and tired. The flesh around her eyes was bruised and her skin had a yellowish tinge.

‘Are you telling me you want to desert?’

‘I wouldn’t want to. Not desert, ma’am. I love the army. But you don’t know my mother. And I’m in enough trouble over the allowance, I explained.

‘All the more reason for you doing the cookery course. Earn extra money and send it home.’

I surprised myself then by saying with tears, ‘But I don’t want to be a cook, ma’am.’

‘Private Bolger,’ she said with great control in her voice. ‘You are being rather difficult. However, despite the limited choices available to you I’ll see what I can do. You’ll be informed in a day or two. And now you may go.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ I was off the chair, saluted smartly, about turned and left the office in quick time, praying silently as I went that she would not summon me back to say she changed her mind.

Two days later I was informed that I would be a switchboard operator. Marj and Edith thought I was bloody mad. Answering a telephone all day when I could have been a cook. Passing up all the perks cooks had. Daft as a brush I was, they concluded.

* * *

Hitler was dead. Mussolini was dead. Even in Ireland where the war scarcely touched us everyone had been aware of the two monsters. Forever and forever it seemed as if they would exist and with them so would the war. But they met their ends and before I joined up the war in Europe had finished. Where or how I didn’t know, not being one for reading newspapers or listening to news on the wireless and my mind was already preoccupied with my decision to leave Ireland.

I did go into Dublin on VE night to witness how the peace was being celebrated. When the news of the Allied Victory reached Dublin, Trinity College, an enclave of pro-British students, had run up the Union Jack. Republican Nationalists then tied a Union Jack to Trinity’s gates and set it on fire. The students responded by sending the Irish Tricolour up their flag pole flaming.

Riots followed. The windows of Trinity were showered in. So were those of the British Embassy and British shipping lines. Celebrating ex-servicemen, Irish veterans of World War One, gloriously drunk, raucously singing ‘God Save the King’, ‘There’ll always be an England’, ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Roses in Picardy’ and ‘Tipperary’ were dragged from side cars and fights ensued.

In the ensuing melée I was tripped up and sprained my ankle. Even on that night you didn’t have to wait hours in casualty. And I hobbled away from the Adelaide Hospital unintentionally sporting the English colours. A red and blue dress and snowy white dressing round my ankle. No one paid me any attention.

No more than I paid much attention to the Labour Party’s overwhelming victory in the General Election of 1945. Marj, Edith and almost all the English girls were ecstatic. In most of the public houses in the town, people were in jubilant mood. Free drinks were pressed on us from all sides. Deirdre accepted every one. I half carried her back to barracks and she cried all the way about her missing husband and how she would ever find Lupinbeds.

* * *

VJ Day. The War was really over. And again I wasn’t aware of how or why. I don’t remember anyone talking about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. All that concerned us was that we were having a day off to celebrate the final victory. A group of decided to do our celebrating in Chester, hitchhiking there in an American jeep. Laughing and singing. Smoking Camels, chewing gum. Not noticing when I did arrive that Chester was a beautiful town. Aware only of the joyous atmosphere of strangers greeting strangers like long lost relatives. Dancing, kissing, embracing. Music, singing. Couples clicking. The kissing becoming more passionate. The embraces less discreet. No one fell over themselves to grab me or Deirdre. All the same I enjoyed myself. Carried along on the wave of joy, laughing, singing and dancing in the street.

* * *

Our six weeks training was almost over. Tomorrow we would know our postings. Soon we would be gone. Another contingent of rookies sleeping in our bunks. Never before had we made such close friendships with strangers. Poured out our hopes and secrets to girls who six weeks previously we didn’t know existed. Advised each other, laughed and cried together. Shared all we had. A coming together we would remember all our lives and never experience again.

The postings were up. Lancashire and Cheshire girls who had asked for them in the north-west were allocated to camps in East Anglia and the Home Counties. Irish girls who’d requested London, Birmingham and Coventry were sent to Wales and Devon, Deirdre to Catterick Camp, and instead of Brighton I was going to the Isle of Man.

‘Told you, didn’t I.’ Edith said after reading the list of postings. ‘Ask for Scotland and you’ll get Cornwall. But you’ll like the Isle of Man, Pad. Smashing place that. We used to go there on day-trips before the war.’ Deirdre was considered the luckiest. Catterick Camp, those in the know said it was chock-a-block with men. She whispered to me, ‘I wonder if it’s anywhere near Lupinbeds.’

* * *

Without being aware of it, we had been brain-washed. Corporal Robinson had imbued us with esprit de corps. We wanted to be the winning squad on the Passing Out Parade. And during the run up to it worked like Trojans. Marched perfectly. Kept our arms straight. Swung them shoulders high. Wheeled, marked time on the spot, left turned, right turned, about turned as if our movements had been choreographed.

The night before leaving we copied down each other’s new camp address. Promised never to lose touch and once every two years to have a reunion.

We weren’t the winning squad. Nevertheless Corporal Robinson congratulated us on putting on a good show. Hoped we’d continue to be a credit to the army and wished us luck.

No tears on the morning of our leaving. They’d been shed the night before in the pub and before we went to bed. Now we were nervous and excited at the prospect of new places: new adventures. Deirdre got me alone and extracted a promise to enquire about Lupinbeds, to write ever week and meet in Dublin on our first leave. And then I was on my way. Carrying my battered suitcase and long khaki kitbag. Staggering along the railway platform to find the Regimental Transport Officer for my travelling instructions to Fleetwood where I would board the Isle of Man Steamer. Where eventually I sat amongst strangers, apprehensive, heading for a place I knew nothing about except that the cats were reputed to have no tails. Dreading my arrival. A new girl having to make herself known. Learning to work a switchboard, something I’d never laid eyes on before.