twelve

ATSs travelling alone at night by boat went first class. First class on the Irish Mail boats, fifty years ago was travelling in style. And style I admired, even at a distance. I had sampled it the previous night. Spending seven shillings and sixpence for a berth on the Euston to Holyhead train: for a further one and sixpence booking tea when we arrived at the port and grandiosely tipping the steward one shilling. That already an eighth of my two weeks pay and ration money was squandered caused me not the slightest worry.

On board the ship I settled myself in a lounge of chintzy sofas, deep armchairs, occasional tables and hovering stewards awaiting a beck and call.

The dining-room was furnished to the same standard. And the breakfast I ordered delicious. The fact that soon after docking an identical breakfast would be put before me caused me no concern. Money when you had it was for spending.

On the train into Westland Row each familiar landmark made my heart leap with joy and once past Ringsend Basin I was up leaning out of the window looking for sight of my mother.

And there she was on the platform as smart and elegant as ever. Wearing high heels, a slim-fitting coat and a little hat tilted over one eye. She had a head and face that could carry hats. Any hat. I’d watch her push it this way and that. Bend or tilt up the brim, set it on one side of her head or the other, all the while studying her image in the glass until it was to her liking.

At first sight of her my heart filled with love. Then she was holding me, kissing me, letting me go and, for the attention of anyone within earshot likely to be interested or impressed, asking me, ‘Have you been foreign?’ I could have killed her. ‘Shut up,’ I hissed. ‘You’re making a show of me.’ She smiled, displaying the gold teeth amongst her false ones as if I’d paid her a compliment. Full of affectation as always. Crucifying me with embarrassment. Plying me with more questions about my foreign travels. Hoping for an audience. Then a man bumped into her and she rounded on him. ‘You should look where you’re going. You could have knocked me under the train.’ ‘Bloody blind oul’ booby,’ she said when he was out of earshot. We both laughed. That was my mother. My erratic, volatile, warm-hearted, generous mother.

‘You must be jaded,’ she said picking up my case. ‘We’ll get a cab.’

She had a chat with the jarvey before we got into the cab. Telling me, as we leant against the musty-smelling leather seats, that years ago she used to dance with him. That he had been mad about her. According to her, every man had been mad about her years ago.

As we drove up Westland Row she took out her powder compact and studied her face. Something she always did after friendly contact with a man. Any man, the gas or electricity men come to empty the meters, the postman or one delivering coal. ‘You must be in the money,’ I said as she put away the compact. ‘We could have got the bus.’

‘I am. Wait’ll I tell you. Bernard advised me to settle out of court. I was awarded £25.’ Bernard was a childhood friend, now her solicitor.

‘What action was that?’ I asked. There had been so many I’d lost count.

‘For the food poisoning I got. Remember the quarter of cooked ham. I’d diarrhoea and vomiting for three days. Nearly killed. I wouldn’t mind only I gave the oul’ bester a chance. Dying on my feet I went to the shop to complain. Wouldn’t refund my money. I soon showed him what your mother is made of. Dying and all as I was down to the City Analyst I went with the ham. Every tin in the shop was condemned. We’ll have a grand Christmas on the head of it. Wait’ll you see your presents.’

Shopkeepers who sold inferior food or the corporation who didn’t maintain the paths causing her to fall off her high heels—she sued them all. The Irish were ever a litigious race.

My brother and sister had minded the fire. It blazed merrily and the big iron kettle sang on the hob. They had grown, changed in the time I’d been away. My sister nearly twelve beginning to titivate herself. My brother sixteen, out of Synge Street School, where despite the charitable Brothers having taken him without fees the cost of second-hand text books defeated even my mother’s resourcefulness. He had the promise of a job in a small upholstery factory.

They kissed and hugged me. Said Christmas without me wouldn’t have been the same.

After showing what she bought for me, an enamelled compact and a pair of kid gloves, my mother began to cook breakfast. Regaling me with tales of the neighbours while she punctured Hafner’s sausages, snipped bacon rinds and basted eggs. Starting a story about the woman next door, who’d been in prison again. Half-way through relating the incident she remembered another happening which took precedence over the prison saga and launched into it.

‘But what happened to Mrs James?’ I asked.

‘Oh, wait’ll you hear the outcome of that,’ she replied dishing up the food. And began a third story so that as we sat to eat three stories were on the go. Without a doubt I knew I was home.

What with the journey and two breakfasts inside me I wanted to sleep. Before lying down I was relaxing with a cigarette when she launched an attack about the dependant’s allowance.

Accusing me of not having applied for it. Which I countered with the fact she’d had a letter stating she didn’t qualify.

‘You could have got someone to write that. Some co-whiffler in the office.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Then tell me how everyone I know with a son or daughter gets an allowance.’

‘How do I know,’ I said and stifled a yawn. The surfeit of food and her voice, which hadn’t stopped talking since we met, were making me long for the oblivion of sleep.

‘Know well you do,’ she retorted.

‘I’m going to lie down.’

‘Don’t, not for a minute. Not until I put a hot jar in the bed.

* * *

I went to see the girls in the factory. In the narrow filthy cloakroom we talked and talked. They came down from the workroom a few at a time not to arouse the manager’s suspicion. They listened and questioned. Gasped than laughed about Poles who bit off nipples. I described the horrible food and the uniform you wouldn’t want to be found dead in. In turn they told me about their lives and loves. About boys and girls I had known who were in sanatoriums dying. About those who had died. I described the beautiful camp, the abundance of gorgeous men, the swimming-pool and tennis court. I showed them a photograph of Steve. They admired him. And all the while I was thinking how lucky I was to have escaped. Wondering how I could have been relatively contented working in the factory.

The girls went back to work. I promised to come and see them again. Jennie lingered after the others had left. She was a loner. Not from choice. A bit of a dope, was how she was described. What Edith and Marj would have called gormless. I’d very little to do with her and was surprised when she asked if I’d go to the pictures with her on Saturday afternoon. I couldn’t think of an excuse and agreed. We arranged a time to meet.

The film was ‘On the Road to Morocco’ starring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope. The cinema was the Savoy. The ceiling replicated a portion of a starry sky. The. cloakroom was warm, scented, furnished with full-skirted dressing tables. There was fragrant liquid soap, mirror tiles and deep carpets. If you never saw the film the cloakroom made the price of admission worthwhile.

Jennie insisted on paying for the tickets. Knowing how little she earned I was surprised but relieved at the same time for I had not much money.

Before the picture started a magnificent brightly lit Wurlitzer organ slowly emerged from somewhere beneath the

orchestra pit and played a selection of popular songs. The audience sang along aided by the words flashed on the screen. The atmosphere was magical. The stars above, the music, the luxury. The air redolent of women’s scent and face powder, of chocolate, sweets and oranges. A sense of joyful anticipation. Bing crooned, ‘Moonlight Becomes You, it goes with your hair’. Dorothy’s cloud of glorious hair flowed round her sinuous body in its captivating sarong. And I promised myself that when I finished in the ATS I’d grow my hair like Dorothy’s. I wanted to watch the picture a second time round. I whispered this to Jennie who whispered back, ‘You can’t, I’m taking you for tea.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Here, upstairs in the restaurant.’

Tea at the Savoy! That I couldn’t turn down. Apart from the dining salon on the boat I had only ever eaten in the village cafés, the NAFFI canteen and Woolworths in Dublin, chosen by my mother because the delft was sterilized. While you ate you could see the sterilizer in action.

Once when going to balcony seats I had glimpsed the Savoy restaurant. Individual tables, pink shaded lamps and black suited waiters. I was thrilled at the prospect. Following her up the stairs I asked how she could afford such generosity.

‘My uncle’s home from England. He gave me two pounds. Only don’t let on, you know, not to anyone in work.’ I gave her my promise.

I looked through the menu and chose scrambled eggs—the cheapest item I could spot. Followed by delicious cream cakes. Halfway through the meal, she said how much she liked me, how she had always wanted to be my friend. And would I meet her again before I went back. Sorry and grateful though I felt towards her, the lies tripped off my tongue. ‘I’d love to, but I’ve all these relations to see. But I’ll write when I get back to England.’ I never did.

* * *

Christmas came and went. Relations brought me presents. Bottles of scent, slips and knickers, new Rosary beads. And gave me advice. I was to mind myself. Not neglect my duties and write home regularly. And the advice of an old Jewish woman, a neighbour, was to never let a man touch me below the neck.

On Saint Stephen’s Day I went to a dance and saw the fella I had believed I had left home for. And wondered what I had ever seen in him. Compared to Steve he was a weedy bit of a thing. Wearing cheap clothes and his hair plastered with Brylcreem. Edith had been right, it wasn’t for unrequited love I had left home.

* * *

Now I was ready to leave again. I visited the factory for the second time. But for me and the girls the novelty of my return from England had worn off. Now we had separate lives.

My mother noticed my long face and kept asking what ailed me. Then hit upon what did. ‘You can’t wait to get back to that den of iniquity. Though how you showed your face here I don’t know.’

‘What have I done now?’ I asked falling into the trap.

‘Ran away and left me penniless. I’m a laughing stock in the post office. The woman with the big allowance.’

I tried changing the subject by telling her Deirdre’s story. She sniffed contemptuously. ‘He ran off with someone else,’ she said.

‘ He could have had an accident and lost his memory.’

She laughed derisively. ‘He could in his arse.’

I accused her of not being very romantic. ‘I was,’ she replied. ‘When I was your age I was. But the world does things to you.’

Trying to introduce a touch of levity into the conversation I said, ‘Maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe you’ll fall again or get poisoned and win an action.’

She wasn’t amused.

* * *

The first letter my mother wrote after I got back to camp told me that Jennie had been sacked for robbing the petty cash. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned the treat. An in-depth interrogation would have followed. Had Jennie confided where she got the money? Why didn’t I ask? Where did I think a young wan on small money got the price of the tickets and the tea?

Whenever I brought something into the house, bars of chocolate, lucky bags, every acquisition that she hadn’t paid for had to be accounted for in her determination to instil honesty into her children. Followed by grim tales of reformatories, dark cells and diets of bread and water.

* * *

This one and that slipped me shillings, half crowns and one very generous relation a ten shilling note. ‘For the journey,’ they said, ‘it’ll get you a cup of tea.’ The money burned holes in my pockets. Cups of tea was all I could afford. No breakfast in the ship’s dining-room. No sleeping car to Euston. I sat up for the six-hour journey. Ate boiled bacon sandwiches, drank cold coffee my mother had put into a bottle and corked with a wad of paper. Travelled across London on the tube blinded and choked by the smoke of dozens of cigarettes. From Waterloo I went to Brookwood where an army truck picked me up and took me and others who had travelled on the same train back to camp.

Katy, Steve and Breda were still on leave. I marked on the calendar their return date, felt guilty I hadn’t bought a gift for Steve and the girls. From the girl with the weak bladder I borrowed a few shillings until pay day.

In the afternoon I reported to the guardroom for my telephone duties. Ginger, the regimental police sergeant, was delighted to see me. ‘Kid,’ he said, ‘I never want to answer another bloody phone.’

‘I didn’t think someone of your rank would have had to. What happened?’

‘Half the buggers went sick. Delhi belly. Though if you ask me it was swilling beer over Christmas.’

Ginger was an old soldier, an ‘India Man’. Bald, pugnacious looking. I was afraid of my life of him when we first met. He looked so fierce and had a roar like a jack ass. It was, I soon discovered, all bluster. Now I was very fond of him. He didn’t approve of me going out with Steve. ‘Hope,’ he said when he found out we were courting, ‘you’re not thinking of getting serious. That bloke’s a bad ’un. Too hot headed. Lucky if he doesn’t finish up in the Glasshouse before his demob. You watch it.’

A lot of senior NCOs and Warrant Officers had manners and loud voices similar to Ginger’s. They strutted about, deafened you when they gave drill commands to the men. The regimental Sergeant Major was such a one. A caricature of a typical regimental Sergeant Major. Pot-bellied, straight-backed, as Katy said, ‘You’d think he was wearing a surgical spinal support or had a ramrod up his arse.’ He had the moustache and high colouring to match the rest of his appearance.

One morning not long after I came to the camp I slept late. Without having breakfast I ran all the way to the guardroom. There he was standing in the exchange puffed up like a rooster with his cane tucked underneath his arm.

I began to explain. To make excuses. He silenced me. Told me to stand to attention then bawled me out, reducing me to tears. ‘The telephone is a vital link in the communications system. It is your duty to man it at 09.00 hours. Nine o’clock,’ he thundered. ‘Do you understand?’ I nodded my head. ‘Nine o’clock means nine o’clock sharp not twenty past. You are guilty of being absent from your post. That is an offence for which you could be placed on a charge.’

I had stopped listening. Fear prevented me from comprehending what he was saying until lowering his voice slightly I heard him say, ‘And I suppose you missed your breakfast? Well then, speak up.’

‘Yes, sir.’ And I thought, missing breakfast is probably another chargeable offence like allowing yourself to get severely sunburned. I’d be charged all right.

‘Don’t ever let it happen again. No second chances,’ he said, about turned and marched out.

Once he had left the guardroom the RPs and Ginger came to comfort me. ‘His bark is worse than his bite,’ Ginger consoled me. And a lance corporal said, ‘Cheer up, Pad, Taffy’ll be back soon with the tea.’ Sergeant Major’s tea, the best in the army. How I needed a cup of that strong sweet brew.

During the tirade no calls had come through. Now every eyelid in the board was blinking. I felt as if I had two left hands, both stricken with a form of paralysis. I was just beginning to calm down when I glanced out the window. The RSM was marching up the path. He had changed his mind. He was going to charge me. I heard the soldiers in the next room come to attention and saw the door open. I longed for my mother’s presence. In the tyrant marched and held out a paper bag. ‘The missus sent it,’ he said, and marched out again. Inside the bag was a generous triangle of golden-brown Cornish pasty, home made.

‘Told you didn’t I pad, his bark’s worse than his bite.’ Ginger handed me a thick enamel mug brimming with tea.

* * *

Katy, Breda and my beloved had a glorious New Year. Katy and Steve first-footing and partying through the night. Breda had been in the bosom of her large family, which included an aunt visiting from Boston.

They bought me presents. Katy’s a miniature book of Robbie Burns’ poetry in red tartan. Steve gave me the first piece of jewellery I had ever owned. A silver horseshoe and chain. The horseshoe encrusted with tiny pearls to look like white heather. But the one which caused me the most excitement was the pair of nylons given by Breda.

I’d never seen nylon stockings before. They were to my eyes like gossamer. Precious beyond words. ‘My auntie told me you should keep them in a jam jar when not wearing them. They ladder and snag easy. In a drawer they could get caught up in something else,’ Breda informed me and Katy for whom she had also bought stockings.

I listened to their tales of revelry slightly enviously. In camp the night had passed with little celebration. Even so it was better than being in Dublin. For ours wasn’t a house that celebrated New Year. We would stand by the front door listening to the bells of Christchurch Cathedral ring out the old year and the new one in. I knew that in front of the cathedral crowds would have gathered. That there’d be dancing, singing and drinking. I had never been allowed to go. Not even now that I was eighteen. ‘A crowd of tinkers and gougers. Pissy-arsed drunk who’d as soon up with a bottle and split you open as wish you a Happy New Year,’ my mother would say when I asked.

And as the last peal of bells rang out the dying year my mother’s voice became mournful as she lamented all those she had known who had died in the one just gone, wondering how many of us would be alive to see the end of the year that was now being rung in. Her morbid fears were contagious. And I’d wonder if I’d be amongst the ones she’d be lamenting in twelve months time.

I hated what I considered the Irish obsession with death. For as I long as I could remember I had looked at dead bodies. Brought to wakes by my mother. Paying ha’pennies to the sisters of the dead being waked in their homes. Sneaking into the dead house in the hospice to thrill and terrify myself. Walking the Dublin streets where so many hall doors were festooned with black crêpe bows. Knowing that behind each lay a body surrounded by candles, crosses, Holy water, covered mirrors and praying friends and relatives keeping their watch on the dead. Living in a street which was the main thoroughfare to Mount Jerome Cemetery. Where funerals proceeded one after the other. So many that your right arm suffered a temporary paralysis from making signs of the Cross as the cortège passed.

And so for me New Year’s Eve was another depressing experience. Not so for my mother. Once back in the house her ebullient spirit soared. Her voice raised in song. Usually ‘I saw the old homestead, the faces I knew. I saw England’s valleys and dells. And I listened with joy as I did when a boy to the sound of the old village bells!’ As she sang she made ham sandwiches and wet tea. She had paid her homage to the dead. Now it was eat, drink and be merry.

England was so different. In the time I’d been there no one in the camp had been seriously ill. No one had died. I never saw or heard of a funeral. And the men I knew had cheated death. They were whole, handsome, alive and kicking.

England was glorious. Living without sorrow. Glorying in glorious health. Without ache or pain surrounded by others equally in exuberant health. So much energy coursing through you you wanted to run instead of walk, jump, turn cartwheels, dance. And always be in love.

As I was with Steve, who asked me to marry him. After he was demobilized, after he had been to university. But soon we would become engaged. I was ecstatic. Every girl I knew hoped for marriage. For an engagement ring. To be married in a white dress and veil. To be saved from the shelf, the slur of being an old maid.

We continued to find sheltered porches until the weather improved and when it did climbed down to the place of trees I had seen on my first day in camp. Found places where carpet upon carpet of leaves had escaped the rain. Where we lay and kissed. And where time and time again I stilled Steve’s hand when it began wandering. For though I loved him and chastity was fading from my conscience, the fear of pregnancy was as real as ever. Pregnancy and my mother’s warning that once you let a man have his way with you his respect was lost. You were less than the dirt beneath his feet. And he’d boast of his conquest. Tell his mates you were an easy mark. We’d smoke. We’d rise and walk through the woods admiring primroses and bluebells. Sometimes as an added precaution I took with me on our outings the blonde, beautiful three old daughter of my friends in married quarters.

Eventually I allowed him one liberty. Ignoring the advice of my Jewish neighbour I let him touch me below the neck, place his hand over my left breast pocket. Protected as it was by layers of thick khaki and the AB64 part two pay book in its stiff canvas cover. For all the sensation or temptation he might as well have been caressing the sole of my shoe.

* * *

During 1946 men and women who had been conscripted at the beginning of the war were nearing their demobilization dates. The majority of the women came from disbanded Anti-Aircraft batteries. Some had manned the guns alongside the men. Quiet, friendly women tired no doubt after their long ordeal. Several women serving with Anti-Aircraft batteries had been killed. Generally they didn’t frequent the cafés or canteen. Many were married. Some waiting to go up to University.

ATS drivers from redundant units were also posted in. They usually wore trousers, leather jerkins over their tunics and, almost permanently, their caps. I’ve seen them get into bed still wearing the soft flat cap with its leather strap worn across the cap’s top.

The men who were posted in swelled the ranks. From amongst so many there wasn’t a girl, be she bandy, boss-arsed, cross-eyed or buck-toothed, who couldn’t have got a man. Some, like Connie from Manchester chose not to, though attractive. She continued to read her Socialist literature and castigate Capitalism. Often she talked to me about the inequalities in society. I pretended to listen. Pretended to read the books and pamphlets she lent me. Despite her brusque, cynical manner and scathing comments when girls were broken hearted over a failed romance, I liked her, her generosity and caustic wit.

The men were buoyed up with the thought of becoming civilians. Laughing and mocking about the prospective ‘demob’ suits, generally double-breasted and chalk-striped with a choice of trilby. They talked. Some of returning to the office, factory or whatever their pre-war occupation had been. Others were going for further education. Others had grandiose plans to start a business from which they hoped to make fortunes but more importantly to be their own boss.

* * *

Two new girls were assigned to our barrack room. Both, like me, still in their teens. Kirsty was Scottish. Very shy. Friendly but reserved. Went to bed long before anyone else, got up early and had cleaned her bed space while we still slept. And refused invitations to the Demob parties which came about regularly.

The other was a tall mournful-faced girl called Janetta. Her eyes were big and brown with a cow-like expression. Though not a live wire she joined in everything and was well liked.

Along with two other new arrivals Kirsty and Janetta were allocated to the switchboard. There were now six operators. We worked two hourly shifts.

So much leisure. So many pleasurable ways in which to spend it. With Steve if his off-duty coincided with mine. Walking along the banks of the neglected Basingstoke canal. Its hedges entwined with honeysuckle, its heady sweetness inhaled with every breath. White and yellow water-lilies. Jewel-winged dragonflies skimming along the water. And on late summer evenings the hedge alight with glow worms.

I had time to read. To write letters to Bubbles, Edith and Marj. Bubbles was waiting for a passage as a GI bride. Edith and Marj’s letters were short on information but they wrote that they were well and happy.

Except on inspection mornings I could sleep late when not on first duty. Sleep in the afternoon. Attempt to swim in the scummy pool. Try my hand at tennis. Or walk to the village and join a crowd of men I was friendly with. Flirt with them and, though sometimes tempted, refuse dates. I was in love with Steve: we were going one day to become engaged.

Sometimes I chose to visit my friend in married quarters. If my hair needed trimming she trimmed it. Taught me how to apply nail varnish. Three strokes-a-broad, one to the centre of the nail and another to either side.

In her home I tasted for the first time home-made lemon meringue pie and learned that it was ill mannered to ask for brown bottled sauce when your hostess had prepared delicious gravy to serve with the roast dinner. I defended myself. ‘But we don’t have gravy with our dinner in Ireland.’

‘You’re not in Ireland now,’ she replied and offered me the sauce boat.

* * *

Breda’s American aunt sent her a parcel. Amongst its contents were two Maidenform brassieres. ‘Try one on,’ me and Katy urged. Breda turned her back on us, took off her shirt and vest. She wore a vest except in a heatwave. And put on the bra. ‘Don’t put that thing on,’ said Katy confiscating the vest, ‘Only your shirt. Now turn round.’

When she did Katy exclaimed, ‘God, it’s unbelievable. Lana Turner no less. The sweater girl herself.’ Breda blushed and giggled. The transformation was amazing. Gone was the lumpy appendage that had fronted her chest. Replaced by two pleasingly separated breasts almost on a level with her armpits.

‘You look smashing, Breda. I wouldn’t have thought a bra could make such a difference. Go and look in the mirror. Hang on,’ Katy said and rummaged in her locker. ‘Take off the shirt and try this.’ It was her special sweater. Shetland, fine and the colour of cream.

Breda looked terrific in it. Other girls came to look and admire. ‘Turn sideways, now the other side,’ Katy ordered. Breda’s face was the colour of beetroot.

‘Are you sure they’re not too, you know, too prominent. immodest, like.’ Katy threw the shirt at her and laughed. Gradually the blushes subsided, smiles replacing them. You could see Breda beginning to admire herself.

Every girl in the barrack room wanted a Maidenform. Army issue, we all agreed, were useless. One girl wondered aloud if you could get one in England. Maybe London, another suggested. But they’d cost a fortune apart from clothing coupons.

I made up my mind I would have a decent bra. I didn’t need one with as much uplift as Breda. My breasts weren’t pendulous. I’d try Camberley. Wealthy people lived in Camberley. Shops there stocked items not available in Aldershot or Woking. I’d save money. Sell half of my fag ration. Not buy my sweet ration. And something I’d never done before, sell my clothing coupons. Clothes rationing was non-existent in Dublin.

* * *

Katy and I often talked late into the night. Especially if she had been out on a date. Sometimes she reported in at the required time then pushed a pillow down in her bed to fool the duty corporal who often but not always came to stand at the barrack room door and flash her torch along the beds. Katy would be long gone out the back way.

After one such episode she came to my bed asking if I was awake. Laughing. ‘Ssh,’ I whispered, ‘You’ll wake everyone.’ I think she’d had a drink. Probably half a cider.

‘You’ve got to hear this. You know I went out with a Canadian tonight. Well,’ she was a great mimic. Able to imitate almost any accent. Now she spoke like the bloke from Saskatchewan telling her of his war experiences. The Dieppe raid. His home town. All the small talk of a first date as they ate their pie and chips before finding somewhere to have a necking session.

Reverting to her Scottish accent she said, ‘We went into that little wood by your church. He could kiss. Smelled OK. Then he got all worked up. Let go of me and started fumbling with his trousers. And the next thing,’ she was back with the Canadian accent, ‘he said, “Hold this”.’

‘“What?” I asked. “This.” He caught hold of my hand. I looked down and there was this enormous monster of a prick pointing at my belly button. “Please”, he said, panting as if he’d run a mile.’

‘And did you?’

‘Like hell I did. “Hold it yourself,” I said. “It looks too heavy.” And I went quick. Leaving him standing. Dirty sod.’

On another night she told me another story about another Canadian without mimicking his accent. ‘He was OK. We were stationed in Aldershot. I knew him for three months. Nothing special to look at. He was dark and on the thin side, not much taller than me. You’d pass him in the street without a second glance.’

Every so often during the telling she’d pause to drag deeply on her cigarette. Its tip glowed in the darkness of the barrack room.

‘I’d just finished my Basic. I met him the first day I was posted to Aldershot. It was the end of May. Aldershot was packed with troops. Commandos, Canadians, everyone in the British army so it seemed. Anyway I met him in a Sally Anne canteen. The chestnut trees on Queens Avenue were in bloom. Hundreds of trees with all these pinky white candles. Beautiful.

Then the rumours began. No one knew for sure but everyone guessed something was in the air. There were so many wild guesses. Such an air of expectancy. And then one night the sound of marching feet. I knew, all the girls in the barrack room knew it had to be the Canadians. Their barracks were the nearest to ours. They’d gone to Dieppe. A few days afterwards the news broke. The Canadian casualties were terrible. I kept hoping that maybe he’d been taken prisoner. But he’d have written.’

‘So you never knew for sure?’

‘No, never.’

The next morning Katy was her usual flip self and never again mentioned her Canadian sweetheart. But our storytelling continued periodically. Usually with me as the narrator. ‘Tell us one of your Irish stories,’ one of the girls would say on a night when for some reason or another a few of us were still awake after lights out. And I’d tell of the Banshee. Imitate the keen she was supposed to wail. How she sat combing her grey hair. The danger you courted by approaching her. For then she’d throw the comb at you and during the week you or one of your family was certain to die.

I told of the changelings. Ugly, grizzled fairy children swapped during the night for the plump, rosy cheeked infant put to bed by their adoring mothers who on waking found in its place the puny mewling fairy child. And explained the reason. D’ye see, the mother or father would have displeased the little people.’

‘How?’ someone would ask.

I invented as I went long. ‘Maybe they hadn’t left a saucer of milk out for them and they thirsty. Or might have said, “Wisha sure, seeing is believing and in all my born days I’ve never laid eyes on a fairy”.’

I embellished and exaggerated. Enjoying the sound of my own voice. One night I excelled myself and was so carried away by my narration that for a while I didn’t realize I was the only one left awake. The helmets and rolled up groundsheets hanging from pegs above the facing beds assumed terrifying shapes. Grinning skulls and limbless bodies. Visions of the Hospice wards and emaciated faces. The arch above the gates which spelled out the fate awaiting the sick who passed beneath them. ‘Our Lady’s Hospice for the Dying’. I saw again the mortuary chapel and the body of my father on his marble slab. And then I heard his voice.

Good-naturedly mocking my mother as she related her story of the Banshee and her keening. ‘Courting cats.’ And to myself I smiled. And remembered him as he was. My lovely, joyous father. The thudding of my heart subsided and when I looked again at the helmets and groundsheets I saw that that was all they were.