Meet Me Under the Clock Read online

  ‘To do what, pray? Drive a train?’

  ‘They want me as a porter. I told them I was no good with writing and such.’

  ‘A porter?’ Her mother removed the shawl from her head as if to make sure she hadn’t misheard. Her hair stood up in a wild coppery mass. ‘A little reed of a wench like you, heaving stuff about like a man? They can’t want you to do that!’

  ‘They do – and I can!’

  Pauline Whitehouse shook her head. In her world, the best thing was never to stand out or make trouble. Girls shouldn’t draw attention to themselves.

  ‘I can’t see the men putting up with it. They won’t want you taking their jobs.’

  ‘Mom, you used to work on a milling machine – like the men!’

  ‘That was only during the war.’

  ‘This is during the war, too. There aren’t enough men left – you know that.’ Sometimes it felt as if her mother lived with her head in a pile of sand.

  ‘But they are bombing the railways . . .’

  ‘They’re bombing everything. They could bomb the theatre just as easily.’

  There was a silence. Both of them stared down towards the railway line. Sylvia knew her fearful mother was torn between not wanting her children to take any risks, to wrap them up and keep them safe forever, and knowing that everyone had to do their best for the war effort. And no one was guaranteed safe. Not anywhere.

  Pauline let out a long sigh. ‘Well,’ she said at last, less frostily, ‘I hope you don’t live to regret it. But as you’ve already gone and done it without asking my advice, or your father’s, I suppose there’s not much left for me to say, is there?’ She paused and, to Sylvia’s surprise, a smile appeared on her lips. ‘Fancy, you’ll be at Snow Hill. I used to meet your father there when we were courting – under the clock in the booking hall. Handsome devil he was, in those days.’

  ‘He’s not so bad now, Mom,’ Sylvia said. Mom was coming round.

  Pauline smiled properly now and looked at her. ‘No, I s’pose not. Seems a long time ago, though.’

  Six

  Audrey sat crushed into the canvas-scented darkness of the heavy truck, holding on tightly to the handle of her old suitcase. Though the WAAF driver was speeding along expertly, the winding roads were making her feel sick. Around her was yet another collection of young women, mostly in their late teens and early twenties, a few older, all clad in Air Force blue uniforms and most of whom she had never seen before. Now that she had been in the WAAF a few weeks she was getting used to this: having to keep starting again and adapting.

  ‘Are we nearly there yet, d’you think?’ a voice asked above the roar of the engine. ‘If we don’t get there soon, I think I might lose my breakfast.’

  ‘Well, do try not to,’ the woman next to her pleaded. ‘I’m somewhat in the firing line.’

  Audrey looked round at all these new faces, missing the pals she had met during the intense weeks at the training camp in Harrogate. They had all ‘passed out’ now and were on their way to their first proper air base.

  The truck eventually lurched to a halt and the driver came round and let down the back for them. Audrey had her first proper look at her. She was a creamy, buxom girl with an overgrown, wavy Eton crop and a round, amiable-looking face. Audrey envied her driving job. To her disgust, having hoped for something more active and exciting herself, she was about to start work doing what she had always done – secretarial work.

  ‘Right, here we are, ladies!’ the young woman said. She was well spoken, but not in a cut-glass way. Audrey liked her voice. ‘Welcome to RAF Cardington.’ She stood back with her arms folded as they clambered out, squinting in the bright winter light. ‘Heavens!’ she added. ‘Look what the cat’s dragged in.’

  It was the latest of a number of such arrivals that Audrey had experienced over the past couple of months. The call-up had arrived just after Christmas. Since then, her experience of the WAAF had been a whirl of activity. After a tearful parting with her mother (Pauline was the tearful one, not Audrey) she went first to Croydon. From there, she had had to travel to Bridgnorth. Four days of initial training and kitting-out later, her vocabulary had expanded to include terms like ‘irons’ for her eating utensils, ‘blackouts’ for their far-from-glamorous underwear and ‘bumf’ for any of the heaps of paper that she might have to deal with.

  For those first bewildering days Audrey scarcely had time to think about what she had done in joining up. What she did feel, suddenly, was as small and insignificant as a grain of sand.

  ‘We’re just like links in a long chain, aren’t we?’ one girl said to her as they queued in another line, for a Free From Infection inspection. ‘It makes you feel humble.’

  It was true. Looking at the great mass of young women in uniform gave Audrey a shrinking, rather sad feeling in the beginning. Here she was, used to being at home where everyone knew her, and to being the oldest, so that she was accustomed to being in charge. Here, she was nobody special. She was suddenly aware of the variety of classes around her. There was what she called the ‘roughest of the rough’, like Cissy, one girl in her intake who had previously ‘worked’ at the Liverpool docks, and clearly knew the sailors in ways that involved a good deal more than conversation. At the ‘posh’ end were the likes of Daphne, who led a society life in London that Audrey could scarcely imagine. Audrey began to see that she would have to fit somewhere in the middle. She had never especially thought of herself in this light before. It seemed important to discover ways of getting along with everyone, as far as possible. She found herself behaving more quietly and less bossily than she would have done at home.

  After Bridgnorth they moved to the main training camp in Harrogate. Audrey arrived at their billet in the Queen’s Hotel in Harrogate in possession of a whole set of gear, including two royal-blue uniforms with brass buttons, a painfully robust pair of new shoes and a cap with a brass badge. They had to keep polishing the shoes, badge and buttons, so that her fingers smelled permanently of polish and Duraglit. But polish she did. She was surprised at how proud and pleased she felt to be wearing the uniform – she, who did not like to be bossed or ordered about, if she could possibly avoid it!

  The training at Harrogate consisted of hours of square-bashing, which did nothing to improve the comfort of her shoes, as well as freezing runs on the snowy Yorkshire Moors.

  ‘It’s so cold!’ one of Audrey’s room-mates groaned, when they came in after a bout of PT one morning, their cheeks pink and scalded by the wind and their fingers swollen like sausages. ‘I suppose it could be worse, though. Heaven help us if it gets as cold as it was last winter.’

  ‘We went skating on the river,’ said another girl, who came from Maidenhead. ‘It was frozen solid. I’d never seen anything like it before.’

  They were both pleasant girls, and Audrey found that in the huts where they had been housed in Bridgnorth and in the digs here, she enjoyed the camaraderie. They sat in their rooms at night chatting and drinking cocoa, the wind whistling in through the draughty windows. It came as a surprise to her. She had always thought of Sylvia as the feminine, domestic one of the family. But here she was, enjoying sitting in her bed to keep warm, darning a sock with a needle from her ‘hussif’, as they called their sewing kit, and whiling away the evening with the girls. It gave her a warm, companionable feeling.

  But she did miss home. Lying in bed at night, hearing the wind rattling the doors and window frames, she often longed to be back in her own bed. From a distance she saw her family differently, appreciating them now. There was Dad, exhausted from work, coming in faithfully every night; Mom always there, helping Marjorie with Paul, helping anyone who came along, Audrey realized. Mom’s home was her safe kingdom, but she was always open to others who might be suffering. And Audrey missed Sylvia mooning over that old stick Ian, and Jack spouting Latin and thinking he was the cleverest person in the world. She often lay smiling, thinking of them with an ache of homesickness, and hoped they were all safe. And
, though she would not have told anyone this, she thought a lot about Raymond Gould.

  Raymond had been even more in love with Audrey than either she or he had admitted to anyone else, though Sylvia seemed to guess it. Audrey knew that one of the reasons Raymond joined the Navy when he did was that, try as she might – and, despite her dismissive words to Sylvia, she had tried –she could not love him back. Sylvia couldn’t seem to understand this. If a man loved you, Sylvia seemed to think you were obliged to love him back. Audrey liked Raymond: why would anyone not like him? They had known each other for years, played together and been big chiefs to the younger ones. Raymond was a pleasant, polite, often sensitive boy and as they grew up she had watched him try to live up to all that his father expected of him. Stanley assumed without question that every generation must exceed the achievements of its parents. ‘Progress!’ he would cry. ‘That’s the aim of the human race.’

  To which Ted Whitehouse would reply, ‘Rags to riches to rags in two generations, Stan. It happens. No guarantees.’ Which would enrage Stanley Gould, exactly as it was designed to.

  Paul’s birth had been like a massive, immovable tree falling across Stanley Gould’s smooth highway. Paul had the moon face, slanting eyes and short limbs of a mongol child. He was sweet-natured. He could learn things, slowly, simply, if given time and patience. But he was handicapped. So far as Stanley was concerned, he was wrong. Paul would be lucky to fit into any school, never mind any of the King Edward grammar schools. His favourite pastime was waving madly at the trains through the garden fence. Paul was not progress.

  Audrey grew up watching Marjorie Gould, as well as Raymond and Laurie, protecting Paul against the barely hidden revulsion of his father. But while Paul could not really understand the feelings that were directed at him, Raymond could. Raymond was sensitive. He also understood that he had not measured up, either. He was supposed to have been a first-class engineer, on the way to running his own firm, patenting his own designs. Instead, he had only just scraped through. He went into a profession that many parents would have seen as perfectly satisfactory. But to Stanley Gould, technical drawing was less than what he had in mind.

  Late one evening, the summer before Raymond left, he and Audrey had sat talking at the bottom of the Goulds’ garden. Everyone else had drifted away inside. They faced the railway, Raymond in his baggy shorts with his legs drawn up, arms linked loosely round them; Audrey in a skirt, her legs bent sideways under her. That was when Raymond told her he was planning to join the Navy.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘maybe if I go and do that, and make a reasonable fist of it, the Old Man will look up to me a bit more. After all, he’s never been in the services.’ Audrey was unsure what to say. She had sensed something like this coming. She sat quietly, listening and feeling sorry for Raymond. ‘Maybe,’ she said eventually.

  Raymond sighed. ‘He’s always wanted such big things for us.’

  ‘He’s a bully.’ The words slipped out and even Audrey was shocked at herself. ‘I mean . . . Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .’

  Raymond turned to look at her. She could feel him examining her very closely in the dusky light, as if he needed something from her.

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I think . . .’ She hesitated, trying to be more careful. ‘I think that’s putting it a bit strongly. But surely it’s wrong to expect other people to fall into line with the things you think they should be, if it’s not what they want?’

  There was a silence. Raymond turned to look ahead of him. ‘Oh, Audrey,’ he said quietly at last, ‘you always are the one who can say what needs to be said. How do you manage to be so brave?’

  ‘I’m blunt, the rest of the family would say,’ Audrey laughed. ‘They don’t appreciate it much, I can tell you!’

  ‘Laurie’s more like you. I’ve never been able to stand up to the Old Man. I’m a coward, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re the eldest,’ she stated.

  ‘You’re the eldest, too.’

  ‘But I’m a girl.’

  There was a silence that seemed full of feeling.

  ‘Audrey,’ Raymond turned to her and she had a sense of a great tension coming from him. ‘Look, I know you don’t feel the same.’ He was struggling to speak. ‘But –’ His words came out in a rush – ‘I can’t seem to help it. I’m frightened to say this, because I know you don’t want me, but God, I do love you, d’you know that?’ He laughed as if at his own idiocy. ‘I really love you, Audrey. There’s just no one else like you – you’re terrific!’

  Audrey’s heart beat faster and she blushed, though she knew, gratefully, that Raymond could not see. It was not from passion, though she was very fond of Raymond. She valued him as a good, kind person. But they had been over this before. Perhaps he was hoping she had changed her mind. Audrey was embarrassed by what she had caused, and by her lack of feeling for him. She should never have stayed out this evening, in this caressing summer air.

  ‘I think I’ve been in love with you for years,’ Raymond went on, his courage increasing. ‘When we were young I looked up to you, and then it turned into – well, into something more than admiration.’

  He took her silence to be not discouragement at least. He moved close to her, about to put his arm round her shoulders.

  ‘No!’ Audrey leaned away from him. More gently she added, ‘No, Raymond. Don’t, please. Look. I’ve told you – you’re my friend. You’re like my brother! I’ve always liked you, but you know I don’t . . . I’ve told you before.’ She looked down, stroking the grass. ‘I’m sorry.’ Raymond was already moving away again. ‘No,’ he said, trying to recover himself. ‘I know. I know, really. I was just hoping . . . You’re too good for me, Audrey. Too brave, too fierce. I’m not—’

  ‘Please,’ she said, so uncomfortable now that she wanted to get up and leave. ‘Don’t say that. I don’t mean I’m better than you. You mustn’t think like that.’ She knew as she said it that, unfortunately, Raymond did think like that. He never thought he was good enough. ‘I’m just not . . . Maybe I’m not ready for love, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Raymond said. He sounded wretched, but he was trying to pretend everything was all right.

  It was close to dark and all she could see was his silhouette, his features so well known, so familiar. He was now a man, twenty-two and grown up. He was a man she could admire, but not one she was in love with.

  ‘D’you remember,’ he said suddenly, a smile in his voice, ‘that time the bank caught fire, when we were all quite small? The fire brigade came and they all stayed for a cup of tea?’

  Audrey laughed, relieved to be talking about something else. The sparks from the trains often set light to the dry vegetation on the banks in the heat of summer. They were used to it and kept buckets of water to hand. Mr Gould had a hosepipe. But that time the fire had got out of hand, burning right up into the garden, and the fire brigade had had to come and put it out, leaving tracts of black grass, which took weeks to recover.

  ‘Laurie thought it was a party and they all made a big fuss of him. He kept going out with a box of matches for ages afterwards, thinking that was a good way to get another party. I had to watch him, because Mom was having Paul!’

  They both laughed at the memory.

  Lying in her chilly bed in Harrogate, Audrey sometimes found herself in tears thinking of those times, the carefree days of childhood games with Raymond and Laurie. It seemed so far away. And now it was overlaid by the much more recent memory of the memorial service for Raymond. She recalled their faces: Stanley Gould looking thin and uncertain; Marjorie bent and shrunken with grief; and Paul sobbing like a little child. Laurie, home on compassionate leave, looked gaunt and haunted, suddenly no longer boyish.

  When she let herself think about Raymond she kept seeing the ship, the swelling grey sea, the terror and sadness of it – but she saw their faces as well, ravaged by the loss of him. Sometimes, once the others were asleep, she muffled her sobs in the
bedclothes, weeping for the cutting short of Raymond’s young life. She did love him in a way, for all the sweet childhood memories they shared. If only she could have felt the way he longed for her to do. At least then he could have died knowing that he loved, and was loved in return.

  Now that she was at RAF Cardington, Audrey’s WAAF life was to begin in earnest. With the icy February wind buffeting her face, she looked around at the base, at the huge hangars she could see in the distance. Across the building in front of them was a large sign: WELCOME TO THE ROYAL AIR FORCE. ALL NEW ARRIVALS REPORT HERE.

  Already the language and ways of the services, and the Air Force in particular, were becoming familiar. Strange as the place was, there was a feeling of home. She looked forward to writing and telling the family all about it. Stepping past the cheerful WAAF driver with her bag, she returned her smile.

  ‘Best of luck!’ the driver called.

  ‘Thanks,’ Audrey said, and thought what a nice face the girl had.

  Seven

  ‘’Ere, shift yerself, yer dozy mare – what’re yer doing hanging about over there? This lot won’t unload itself, yer know!’

  The foreman’s bawling cry reached Sylvia where she was standing at the end of one of the platforms, or ‘decks’, as she was learning to call them, in the top shed of Hockley Goods Yard, watching another trainload of wagons being shunted into place. They moved with crawling precision along the icy track or ‘road’ – another new term to her. A thin layer of snow whitened the rooftops round the railway yard and lay in smut-speckled patches on the ground.

  When they told her she was going to be a porter, she had pictured herself working at Snow Hill, the main Great Western passenger station in Birmingham. She saw herself under the grand, over-arching span of the roof, pushing barrows loaded with passengers’ suitcases. She would feel rather important and would overhear passengers exclaiming, ‘Look at her – a lady porter! Well, that’s a sign of the times.’ When they told Sylvia she was being assigned to Hockley, the GWR Goods Yard for Birmingham, she was at first dismayed. She knew of Hockley passenger station, just across the tracks, but she had never been to a goods yard in her life.