18
RUBY
Early May
‘The Welcome Club?’ I said. ‘But Grandmother, I thought—’
She fixed me with her usual flinty stare. ‘You thought what, Ruby?’
‘Well, that you weren’t awfully keen on the Americans.’ I gazed at my bowl of tapioca pudding, moving the lumpy mixture around with my spoon.
Grandmother sniffed. ‘How I personally feel about the Americans is of no consequence. Dorothy Blythe asked us to assist her at this party, which the Welcome Club are throwing on Sunday afternoon for the evacuees, and assist her we shall.’
I sighed. The Women’s Voluntary Service had set the Welcome Club up just after the GIs arrived to promote cordial relations between them and the townspeople and, despite her intense dislike of all things American, it hadn’t taken Grandmother long to involve herself. I glanced across the kitchen table at Father, who had his spoon in one hand and was making notes with the other, so absorbed he didn’t even look up. I was beginning to suspect he used his work to escape Grandmother’s incessant nagging as much as anything else.
‘I – I don’t know if I’ll have time, Grandmother,’ I said, feeling slightly desperate. Sunday was mine and Sam’s day – I couldn’t let her take that away.
‘Nonsense. One has to make time. This war won’t be won by people sitting around doing nothing. Now, wash the dishes for me, please, Ruby, and before you report for duty I’d like you to help me unravel some old seaboot stockings. The Naval Comforts Committee in Exeter have sent them to Bartonford WVS to re-knit them into jerseys for the men.’
Sighing inwardly, I heaved myself out of my chair and went over to the sink, trying to keep my resentment off my face.
‘Perhaps she’d like you to stick a broom up your backside and sweep the floor while you’re at it,’ Vera said at work the next day when I grumbled to her about it.
‘Vera!’
‘Well, it’s true.’ She plonked a mug of tea down in front of me. ‘I know we all need to do our bit, but this is ridiculous. You already have a job and all your ARP stuff, and that granny of yours has got you volunteering with the Red Cross and the WVS on top of it all too. Now the Welcome Club party! When are you supposed to sit down? Or sleep?’
‘I do sleep.’
‘Could’ve fooled me. And what about those awful men she keeps trying to introduce you to?’
‘Oh, don’t,’ I groaned. ‘It was only one awful man.’
‘Only one so far. What was his name again? Hubert?’
‘Humbert. Humbert Spriggs.’
‘Humbert. Oh, Lord!’
I shook my head, remembering Humbert, a bank clerk from Ilfracombe and the son of one of Grandmother’s Red Cross ladies. She’d invited him to lunch last Sunday and it had been hideous. He’d had a nervous sniff, and had been wearing so much hair cream you could have scraped it off his head and used it to grease tank axles. That afternoon, sitting in the lodge with Sam, we’d both cried with laughter as I told him about the barely disguised look of horror on Father’s face when Humbert had launched into a detailed tale about his mother’s gout, thinking he’d be interested, and Grandmother’s desperate attempts to steer the conversation onto safer ground.
‘What did your father make of him?’ Vera asked.
‘He loathed him. Said he’s never met such a stupid young man, although not within Grandmother’s earshot of course. I’m not sure Grandmother will try to pull a trick like that again, even if she is desperate to get me married off and out of hers and Father’s hair.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’ Vera’s expression grew serious. ‘You don’t think she’s found out about Sam, do you?’
‘No! How could she? I only see him once a week – sometimes not even that – and I always take Toffee with me and walk the long way round to the lodge through the fields and the woods. I’m sure she’d like to stop me doing that, too, because she hates dogs almost as much as she hates the Americans, but she can’t because it’s Helping Someone in Need.’
I knew I should feel guilty about sneaking off to see Sam, but for some reason, I didn’t – not a bit. Those snatched, precious hours with him kept me going, through Grandmother’s “little jobs”, Father’s coughs and nightmares and the long nights on ARP duty as I trudged up and down the streets until my feet ached, looking for chinks of lights around the edges of people’s windows. And they kept me going through the days when it had felt as if we’d be locked in winter forever, and everyone had been holding their breath as the news from Europe grew steadily worse and the Germans kept trying to pound us all to bits. Now spring was here, but it still felt as if this war would never end. Sam’s training was getting more intense, and sometimes, at the lodge, he’d be so tired he’d fall asleep in one of the armchairs, quite suddenly, as if someone had flicked a switch. I’d be talking, he’d go quiet, and I’d look over to see him with his head back, his eyes closed, snoring softly. I didn’t mind, of course, but it was a reminder that the day the war would take him away from me was drawing closer, and I was dreading it.
‘Anyway,’ I said to Vera, wanting to change the subject. ‘How’s Stanley?’
She smiled – a dreamy smile; it was utterly unlike her. ‘He’s very well, thank you.’
I shook my head and smiled too.
‘What?’ Vera said, narrowing her eyes.
‘I never had you marked as the settling-down type, that’s all.’
‘No,’ Vera said thoughtfully. ‘Neither did I, to be honest.’
Alfie arrived with the post. Things were a little easier between me and him again now. Just after Christmas, he’d started going out with a girl from his father’s works, Maud Tinney, and the little gifts he used to bring me – the eggs and, once, horrifyingly, a bunch of snowdrops from his father’s garden – had stopped. I suppose he gave them to Maud instead. It was a relief, being able to go back to being old school friends.
Sunday soon came around. I’d given Vera a message to take to the camp for Sam, explaining why I wouldn’t be at the lodge that day, and had received a mysterious reply: Don’t worry about a thing, you’re in for a surprise. As I dressed and made breakfast, I veered between scowling at Grandmother whenever she wasn’t looking, filled with resentment, and wondering what on earth Sam meant.
When we arrived at the Bartonford Arms Hotel, there was already a crowd of soldiers in smart khaki uniforms gathered at one end of the ballroom, arguing good-naturedly with a group of women as they helped them set up tables of food. Others were blowing up balloons and stringing paper streamers across the room, and on the stage, there was a band, tuning their instruments. I was surprised to see that these men had dark skin, as I knew that in the camp, black soldiers were segregated as they were in America, living in a separate camp from the white soldiers. Here, however, relations between them and the other soldiers seemed quite cordial – they called out to one another, joking and laughing, and the atmosphere was carefree. When Grandmother saw them, she sniffed, but all she said was, ‘Hm. I do hope they’re not going to play any of that awful jazz rubbish.’
I was relegated to a side room with a group of women who were all around Grandmother’s age, helping prepare the rest of the food. Mrs Blythe was there, and Barnaby Sykes’s and Tom Bidley’s wives. ‘Just look at it all,’ I heard Mrs Bidley say as I came in. ‘All come from the Americans, that has. I can’t remember the last time I saw a nice bit of ham like that!’
‘Lucky devils,’ Mrs Sykes grumbled.
‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Blythe chipped in. ‘If I was being sent off to fight Jerry I’d want feeding up too.’ She saw me and smiled. ‘Oh, hello, Ruby love. Come with that grandma of yours, have you?’
‘Hello, Mrs Blythe,’ I said. ‘Where d’you want me?’
As we finished making sandwiches and cutting cake, I heard the band strike up a jaunty tune and the air swelled with excited shrieks and laughter. The children had started to arrive.
‘Bless ’em,’ Mrs Sykes said. ‘I’m glad some of them evacuees ’ave got a chance to ’ave a bit of fun. Can you imagine what it must be like for ’em, so far from home, and not even knowing if they’re gonna have a home to go back to? Poor little tykes.’
Mrs Bidley snorted. ‘Poor little nothing. That pair that’re stayin’ with me got into the hens yesterday and let them all loose. Took old Tom almost an hour to round ’em up again.’
Mrs Blythe and I exchanged glances and smiled. Her evacuees had gone back to London after their parents had decided it was all a fuss over nothing and that they wanted them home again. (Father had been exempted from taking anyone in because of living at the hospital, a relief to us both.)
The party was riotous, with games of pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey and musical statues – and dancing, of course. I was so busy helping serve the food that I didn’t realise Sam was there until almost halfway through the afternoon when, suddenly, I spotted him standing near the stage with Jimmy, Stanley and another friend of his, a man with dark curly hair who I vaguely remembered him telling me about – Davy, I think he’d said he was called. Heat flashed through my body and I almost smiled and called out. So that’s what his message had meant! Just in time, I remembered where I was. I turned away, wondering what on earth I was going to do if he tried to talk to me.
A little later, I was sitting with Grandmother at the side of the hall, resting for a moment, when a familiar voice, American with a distinct British twang, said, ‘Would either of you two ladies care to dance?’
Another wave of heat went through me as I looked up and saw Sam standing in front of us.
‘No thank you.’ Grandmother’s tone was positively dripping with frost. ‘I don’t dance.’
‘How about your daughter, ma’am?’ Sam said, equally politely, and I realised, with a little jolt, that he was pretending not to know me. Thank you, I telegraphed to him with my eyes.
I could see from the look on Grandmother’s face that she was fighting her disdain for the Americans with being flattered someone would call me her daughter. ‘That’s up to Ruby,’ she said at last. She didn’t try to correct Sam’s “mistake”.
I smiled innocently at Sam. ‘I’d love to dance, thank you. You don’t mind, do you, Grandmother?’ I added, putting a slight emphasis on the last word.
She waved me away, looking cross.
‘I’m Sam Archer, ma’am,’ Sam said as he led me away, loud enough for Grandmother to hear. ‘And you’re Ruby—?’
‘Ruby Mottram. Nice to meet you.’ Sam’s mouth was twitching, as if he was trying not to grin; I bit back a smile too.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he murmured in my ear as we twirled around the room to a Glenn Miller tune. ‘I couldn’t put this in a message in case it got intercepted, but I can’t get away next Sunday – we’re going down to south Devon for some sort of big training exercise a couple of days after, and they’ve cancelled all our time off. I think they’re worried someone’ll spill the beans.’
My heart sank a little at the thought of being stuck at home with Father and Grandmother next Sunday. I could still take Toffee out, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same. ‘Does this mean they’ll be sending you to France soon?’ I murmured back, trying not to let my disappointment show on my face.
‘I dunno. I guess the top brass know, but they’re not saying anything to us.’
We spent the rest of the dance in silence. I wanted to lean into him like I did when we danced at the lodge, our bodies fitting together like two puzzle pieces; take in deep lungfuls of his tobacco and cinnamon gum scent; kiss him until we were both breathless and giddy with it. But with Grandmother’s gaze on us the whole time, we had to keep our bodies apart, and I could only rest my hand lightly in his.
When the dance ended, I was overtaken by a sudden, irrational wave of terror. ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ I said quietly as he released me. ‘This weekend, I mean?’ I couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful was going to happen to Sam down in south Devon and this would be the last time I saw him.
He nodded, looking slightly puzzled. ‘Course I will. I’ll be back before you know it.’ He gave my hand a little squeeze. Heart hammering, I glanced round, praying Grandmother hadn’t seen, but she was engrossed in conversation with Mrs Blythe.
Nearby, a little girl in a brown frock started wailing. She was about six or seven years old, with bobbed, mousy brown hair. Sam crouched down beside her. ‘Hey, honey, what’s wrong?’
‘I don’t fe-e-el well,’ the girl sobbed, tears streaming down her face. ‘I want my mu-u-ummy!’
Sam grinned at me. ‘Too much candy and ice cream, I bet.’ He took the girl by the hand. ‘C’mon, let’s go find your mommy. What’s she look like?’
I watched him lead her across the hall, wishing I had the same easy way with children that he did. I always felt so awkward around them; I couldn’t imagine ever having any of my own. His sister, Meggie, was about the same age as that little girl, wasn’t she? Whenever he talked about her – and he talked about her a lot – I could hear how desperately he missed her.
‘Ruby!’ I heard Grandmother call sharply. I jumped, realising I was still watching Sam.
‘Stop mooning over that soldier and go and help clear the tables,’ she snapped when I went back over to where she was sitting. ‘You look like a complete fool.’
I bowed my head demurely, so she wouldn’t see the anger in my eyes. ‘Yes, Grandmother.’