thirteen

‘Don’t go yet, Private Bolger,’ the voice of the Physical Training instructor halted my rush to the gymnasium door.

As always during the training period I had been vigorous, supple, eager to impress her with my aptitude for exercise and activity. She stood, smiling, winding a skipping rope round its handles. Her shorts were short, her white aertex shirt immaculate and although it was early May, her skin already tanned.

‘I’ve been watching you for a while. You’re good. It’s obvious you enjoy the lessons.’

‘I love them.’

‘Have you ever thought of being a PTI?’

‘Always. From my very first lesson.’

‘Would you like me to put your name forward for a course?’

I was suffused with joy. At last my dream was about to come true. Many times I despaired of the call. Now it had come.

‘Would that mean I’d be like you? A full Corporal?’ Through my mind flew visions of snowy lanyards and silvery whistles. Shorts made to fit. Sports shirts, extra money to up my mother’s allowance.

‘No,’ she said, ‘not at first.’ The dreams tumbled about my feet.

‘If you’re accepted and pass the course you’d be a part-time instructor. Take classes when I’m not available. As you know I cover a large area and don’t always get to this camp on a regular basis.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And the track suit and all the things you wear?’

‘I’m afraid not. They are only issued to full-time instructors.’

‘But the promotion, I’d get that?’

‘Only after becoming a full-time instructor, then you’d get two stripes. I suppose you are aware that if you were eventually made up to full Corporal it would mean a posting out of here?’

I had a lump in my throat. My dream shattered. No posh kit. No elevated rank. And supposing one day I did become a full-time instructor I’d be posted out. Away from all I loved. Steve. My friends. This lovely place. What good would two stripes and a track suit be amongst strangers? It wasn’t fair. I’d been tricked into believing something that wasn’t true.

My heart dropped. Misery must have been apparent on my face. For the instructor said in a consoling voice, ‘Cheer up. Don’t look so disappointed. I’m sure you’d do very well on the course. And by this time next year get the full-time one. In the long run the choice is yours. Don’t decide now. We’ll talk about it again next week. You’d better go or you’ll miss breakfast.’

I slouched back to the billet. My hunger gone. The thought of bread and margarine with steamed fish or dried egg making me feel nauseous. I wasn’t on duty until after lunch. I’d go back to bed. Go to sleep. Feel sorry for myself. For being cheated. If the Company Sergeant Major should come into the barrack room and asked why I wasn’t up I’d lie. Say I had a headache. Period pains. I hugged my misery and was about to drop off when I heard Sylvia’s voice.

Sylvia had recently been posted in. She was years older than me, Katy and Breda. A conscript who was now on a long-term engagement. A corporal in the clothing stores who had attached herself to us.

She was extraordinarily generous. Treating us to suppers if we weren’t dating. Tea, coffee and cakes at break time. Imitation bakewell tarts made with semolina in place of ground almonds. Banana sandwiches which consisted of parsnips flavoured with the fruit’s essence. Lent us money and flashed her fags around.

‘I dropped in to see if anyone was about. What’s the matter with you?’ She sat on the side of my bed while I sobbed out my story. ‘You daft ha’porth. Here. Sit up.’ She put a pillow behind me. ‘Anyone would think you’d been turned down. You go on the course. You’ll walk through it. You’re good. I’ve watched you. You won a medal for the hundred yards last year. You’re a reserve for Southern Command netball team. The stuff PTIs are made of. But you’ve got to have patience. One step at a time. That’s how it is in the army. Next year you’ll be full time. A corporal. I’ll buy your stripes and stitch them on for you.’

‘But then I’ll be posted out.’ There was still a catch in my voice. ‘Have to leave you all and Steve.’

‘That’s what the army’s about—moving on. And Steve will be gone himself by then. Now, get up and get dressed. It’s Thursday—deep fried jam butties.’

I looked at her coarse featured face. She was so good, so kind. And felt guilty for all the times Katy, Breda and I, while mumping from her, laughed not with her but at her.

Katy said she had a face like a potato. Reminding us of the celluloid noses, mouths and pairs of eyes we’d had as children to stick into potatoes. Cynical Katy also said Sylvia bought our friendship, for who else would listen to her tall stories. Her refusal to use the swimming pool was because the diving board wasn’t high enough. Her serve was too powerful to play tennis with us. But it was the story of her life that had Katy tearing her hair out.

According to Sylvia, her mother had been a great beauty. A poor girl, reared over a tripe shop in Accrington. She ran away from home. In London she met a young Hussar. They fell in love. His family was fabulously wealthy. Fortuitously they were killed in a car accident. The Hussar inherited their fortune. Married Sylvia’s mother, went with his regiment to India where Sylvia was born. Where she lived until she was seven. She described her ayah, tiger shoots, pig sticking, monsoons, her pet elephant, muezzins, vultures, dhobis. Going up into the Hills in the hot season.

Then tragedy struck. Her father was eaten by a tiger. Her mother inherited the fortune. And set off by the longest route back to England. Changed ship many times. Disembarked anywhere there was a casino and arrived in England penniless.

Back to Acerington and the tripe shop. Where her granny was less than welcoming. And her mother died of a fever. Caused, Sylvia said, by the chitterlings, pigs feet, sheets of tripe and buckets of blood for making black puddings which went off in the summer.

As soon as she was old enough Sylvia ran away to work in a hotel. In Blackpool she got a job as a cocktail waitress and there met Hutch, the famous black singer. He fell madly in love with her. And bought her an engagement ring so valuable she never wore it. It was kept in a display case in the opulent foyer.

At this point in the story Sylvia would look at her watch, gasp, and announce she had forgotten she was meeting someone. One of her mysterious admirers. All of them officers whom she entertained in her room. She had one attached to the clothing store.

We never met any of her admirers. But were shown the gifts they gave her. Silk scarves, scent and expensive soaps, creams and toiletries.

When she talked about Daddy and India she had ‘the voice’, but for everyday she spoke with a Lancashire accent.

As I dressed I thought how she was what would be described as a fine lump of a woman in Ireland. Big and tall. A great help on a small farm.

She had beautiful eyes. Blue like a Delft plate and they were seldom without a smile. She never said a malicious word about anyone. And encouraged us to beware of men’s promises. Never to bestow our favours lightly.

* * *

In the NAFFI while eating our deep fried jam butties she asked, ‘Are you coming to the dance on Friday?’

‘If Steve will. Are you?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s a dress affair.’

The voice came into play after I’d asked, ‘A dress affair. What’s that?’

‘The officers will wear Number One dress and their wives beg, borrow or steal a ball gown. This is one of the first dress affairs since the war. I finished mine last night.’

Katy would have loved what followed. Confirmed her belief that Sylvia was a lunatic. ‘It’s fabulous. Black, floaty and I’ve ordered a pale pink orchid from Camberley.’

I was impressed. ‘You must have been saving or buying coupons from that spiv.’

‘Not on your nelly.’ Her northern accent was back. ‘Mosquito netting. Yards and yards of it. I dyed it black. The skirt has three layers.’

I nearly choked on the last mouthful of jam butty. She had a machine. She could sew but knew as much about style as I did about mathematics. I was familiar with her creations, her dying results.

She had three suits. A black, nigger brown and navy blue. Made from surplus ATS uniforms which she had dyed, replaced the brass buttons and trimmed every available space with matching silk fringe. They looked what they were, badly dyed ATS uniforms. With the black and navy one she wore a large brimmed hat in vivid red and with the brown a canary yellow beret.

Many times when wearing the red hat she told us she had been mistaken for Rosalind Russell and Marlene Dietrich when wearing the beret. With that she didn’t agree. ‘Rosalind, yes, we are the same build and colouring. How people can compare me with Marlene I don’t understand.’

‘I’ll definitely go to the dance,’ I told her as we finished coffee and lit up. ‘Whether Steve comes or not.’ Not for anything in the world would I miss the woman in black make her entrance.

‘Then come with me on Friday afternoon to pick up my orchid.’

‘OK. Maybe I could get a bra at the same time. But I’m short of …

‘Money?’ Sylvia asked.

‘I have enough money. I’ve been saving. No, it’s coupons.’

‘Not to worry, cock, I’ve loads of coupons.’

So on the following Friday we went by bus to Camberley. Before setting off I saw her ball gown. She tried it on. Three layers of skirts. Soft lifeless netting which clung to her legs and bum. ‘There’s so much fullness,’ she said, ‘I won’t need an underskirt.’

The dye had taken unevenly. It resembled smoke from a variety of fuels. Patchy jet black as if from a conflagration of rubber and ashy grey as if damp peat had been burned.

I could have worn my lovely coat, nylons and a pair of court shoes a relation had given me. But I knew that Sylvia preferred me to dress casually. Casual clothes she told me suited me. Maybe they did. Maybe she didn’t want competition, for she was wearing her black suit and large red hat. I wore a pair of scruffy corduroy trousers with a beautiful pure fine wool blouse in green and blue checks. A gift from the giver of the court shoes.

Sylvia told me I looked like Huckleberry Finn and mentioned again her resemblance to Rosalind. I was embarrassed for her but consoled myself that as far as she was concerned she was a ‘knockout’ and that was what mattered.

The nearer we got to Camberley the more she used ‘the voice’. Talking loudly. Sometimes lapsing for seconds into her Lancashire accent. Hitting her G endings too hard and saying uz instead of us.

She knew which shop sold lingerie. And there I soon owned two Kestos brassières. Frail, pale pink cotton cups with an elastic arrangement which fastened by loops to buttons beneath each breast. Examining them in the shop I was doubtful they would give me the line which Breda’s Maidenform had. ‘Try them on. You should never buy foundation garments without trying them on,’ the assistant advised.

I did. ‘And now your shirt,’ said Sylvia. ‘You can’t judge properly without a sweater or blouse.’ I put on my shirt and viewed myself sideways. My breasts were uplifted, pointed, my nipples prominent. I told the assistant I’d keep it on. And walked through Camberley streets as sure as Sylvia was of the impression she made that I was getting my share of attention. And imagined the effect when I would wear the bra beneath my longed for aertex sports shirt. When eventually I did I was banned from crossing the square when officer cadets were on parade. The Commanding Officer passed word to the ATS CO that I had a distracting effect on his men.

Sylvia pointed out the Staff College where the cream of the British army was commissioned. And how on passing out parades the adjutant rode his white horse up the college steps.

We left collecting the orchid until the last minute. Going beforehand to a cafe called, I think, ‘The Copper Kettle’. A genteel woman in a floral smock brought a cake stand of home-made scones, two tiny pats of butter and a small bowl of quince jam. The clientele was mostly middle-aged women, a sprinkling of officers and cadets. Sylvia talked loudly and then brayed a laugh. People stared. Lowering her voice and smiling, she said, ‘They’ve noticed the resemblance. Everywhere I go the same thing happens.’

I was too engrossed in wolfing down scones to feel embarrassed for her. Later on that night at the ball I did. I could have cried for her as she paraded round in the hideous dress. Approaching and engaging in conversation with officers and their wives who politely snubbed her. Warrant Officers with whom I had seen her flirt flagrantly shunning her because they were accompanied by their wives. No one asked her to dance. The pale pink orchid drooped.

I had gin. Neat gin. I had two. I don’t remember who bought them for me. Their effect was startling. Suddenly I wanted to be with Steve in our sheltered porch. But as often happens at mixed gatherings he was in deep conversation with another soldier who was going to read medicine. By the time he was ready to take me to the billet or porch the effect of the gin had worn off and I was sad and depressed. Having seen Sylvia leave the gymnasium and return after a little while wearing a royal blue, blanket-cloth dressing-gown. ‘I didn’t have a wrap,’ she said, ‘and I was freezing so I put this on.’