An Army of Smiles Read online

  Her father had died when she was two, in an accident at the flour-mill where he worked. Then her mother had met Geoff, who had given the ultimatum to choose between him and Rosie, as he did not like children. Her mother chose Geoff and a very confused Rosie had been left with Nan. Since then there had been no contact with her mother and Nan had been her only family. It made it very difficult to tell her loving grandmother that she wanted to leave.

  * * *

  Kate Banner was eighteen a few days after Rosie Dreen. An only child, she sat up in bed surrounded by neatly packed parcels, most of which were provided by her parents. The rose-coloured eiderdown and cover were thick, ornately embroidered and obviously expensive. Her elegant pink nightdress was lacy and the bed-cape was crocheted in fine pink wool and fringed with swan’s-down. Her fluffed-out hair, a bright blonde which was occasionally assisted by the contents of a bottle, framed her pretty face with its long-lashed, greeny-grey eyes.

  She knew she looked a picture and that her parents adored her. How could she tell them she wanted to leave home?

  She heard her mother coming up and fluffed her hair a little, rubbed her cheeks to add to their rosiness, and glanced into the dressing-table mirror to satisfy herself that, even without makeup she looked good. Then she turned her eyes towards the door and smiled.

  ‘Mummy, you shouldn’t,’ she said as her mother appeared carrying a tray.

  ‘My little baby girl is eighteen, of course I have to give her breakfast in bed,’ Mary Banner smiled. ‘Happy birthday, darling girl. Daddy will be here in a moment, he’s just removing the blackout screens so you can come down to a cheerful room. He’s bringing your special present.’

  Hopefully, Kate imagined her father struggling up with a bicycle, something for which she had been asking for two years. ‘Is it something I really want?’ she asked.

  ‘Something you want and need,’ her mother replied.

  Not working, just staying at home and helping her parents by dealing with the accounts of the grocery business her father ran, she knew she didn’t really need a bicycle and also knew that her parents thought riding a bicycle was rather common when they owned a car as well as a van. Prepared for disappointment she managed to show great excitement as she unwrapped a watch.

  ‘Now, Daddy, show our girl her other gift.’

  Giving her a kiss, Henry Banner handed her an envelope. Opening it with curiosity creasing her brow, Kate read the note inside which told her she was starting driving lessons that afternoon. Her delight was genuine. The ability to drive would help her decide what she would do when she joined up for some war work. Her thanks, her declaration that she was the luckiest of girls were accompanied by tears, and as she tucked into the breakfast of a fresh boiled egg followed by best butter and homemade marmalade to spread on dainty triangles of toast, her mind was buzzing with plans, which, had her parents known, would have had them in tears of a different kind.

  Downstairs there were further surprises. A new dress, in pink, with a hand-knitted jacket to match and a bow for her hair in the same colour.

  ‘Mummy, why didn’t you choose a different colour?’ she asked with a gentle sigh.

  ‘Nothing suits you as well, and pink is a colour few can wear to such effect, darling girl.’

  Unkindly, ungratefully, Kate wondered how her mother would cope with her wearing khaki!

  The first driving lesson began in disaster, with the mysteries of double declutching and hand signals seeming to need more hands than she possessed, but by the end of the second, she felt confident that driving was something she would enjoy.

  * * *

  Ethel knew there was trouble brewing. Her father’s rage had begun a week ago and had been slowly, terrifyingly building. Next week she would be eighteen and for some reason she couldn’t imagine, that fact seemed to be the centre of his fury. He hadn’t mentioned it but when she did, she found he was staring at her with a strange look in his round, angry blue eyes.

  Not for the first time she blamed herself. It must have been a disappointment for him to have had a child when Glenys and Sid were almost grown up. The extra expense, the lack of freedom when they had been able to come and go more or less as they pleased, her mother giving up the job she had in the wood yard office. Even with Sid and Glenys working, because of her father being in prison several times, twice for long stretches, the family had suffered the lack of her mother’s earnings. Her father had been in prison when she was born and hadn’t appeared in her life until she was more than one year old. The house was shabby, there was no money for anything beautiful. When something wore out or had been broken, the replacements were never good quality, just sad, utilitarian basics. Her mother’s attempts to brighten the place only emphasized its drabness. It must be her fault, her birthday bringing back reminders of how much they had lost because of her unwanted arrival.

  She was careful not to cause offence. Anger filled the house, everyone was subdued and as she watched the behaviour of her family she began to realize that her sister was unusually nervous, starting in alarm every time someone spoke. The tension and anticipation of trouble that was almost palpable, was emanating not from her father, but seemed to come from Glenys. Perhaps she was wrong and it was not herself whom her father blamed for whatever was gnawing at him. She wondered what her quiet, inoffensive sister could have done to cause such seething resentment in their father. She gave a sad grimace of a smile as she realized it was April Fool’s Day. No possibility of any fun in the Twomey household.

  She coaxed her sister to go for a walk. The weather was mild, the April sun weak but adding a cheerfulness to the bare trees and the early flowers. The blossom on the leafless branches of the blackthorn hedges had spread its lacy white beauty around the fields and Ethel’s heart lifted with the excitement of burgeoning spring. She glanced at Glenys in the hope of seeing similar joy reflected in her sister’s blue eyes, but Glenys’s face was sombre, she was clearly worried.

  ‘Glenys? What’s wrong?’ she asked as they bent low to avoid spiky branches as they went into the wood. At first Glenys forced a smile and denied her melancholy. Some of the sturdy lower branches of ancient ash and sycamore were distorted and made enticing seats though they were damp and covered with mosses. Nevertheless Ethel sat on one and patted encouragement for her sister to join her.

  ‘Have you thought any more about joining up?’ Glenys asked before Ethel could repeat her question. ‘I think you should. Wesley will be away from home and I… well, I might be leaving and Sid almost certainly will. I don’t want to think of you being here with just Mam and Dad.’

  ‘Dad wouldn’t hurt me if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Ethel said bravely, although from the way her father had been with the whole family there, she had wondered whether he might be even more unpredictable with only two people to shout at and bully. She bounced to make the branch swing. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘You and Sid don’t have to join up, your work in the factory is classed as war work.’

  ‘I’ll have to go away, I can’t stay here,’ Glenys spoke sadly. Ethel instinctively hugged her.

  They walked on, looking at the ruined barns and other places where they had both played as children. Secret places where they had acted out their adventure games. Years apart, both had enjoyed the freedom. ‘Don’t go if you’d rather stay. Don’t let our dad drive you away. You see,’ Ethel admitted, ‘I think I might do as you say and join the ATS or something. What would Mam do without either of us?’

  ‘Promise me something, Ethel!’ Glenys, with her red hair burnished gold by the early sun and her beautiful alabaster skin, stared at her in such an intense manner that Ethel felt afraid.

  ‘Of course. What is it? You aren’t ill, are you? Tell me what’s worrying you!’

  ‘I can’t tell you. I hope you’ll never know. Just promise me that you’ll move away as soon as you’re able. You’ll be eighteen next week, you aren’t a child any more. You can be free if you choose to be.’

&nbs
p; ‘How will Mam manage?’ Ethel repeated. She was frightened by Glenys’s unwillingness to tell her what was wrong and her imagination spiralled into panic. ‘You’re ill, aren’t you? Tell me, Glenys, please tell me?’

  Glenys hugged her and said, ‘Remember always, that I love you. Very, very much.’ Then she ran from the wood across the field towards the distant rooftop that was Wesley Daniels’s house but veered off before she reached it and disappeared through the hedge in the direction of town. Ethel didn’t see her again that day. The following morning Glenys had gone out before Ethel rose.

  It was very early and she walked through the field and into the wood and stood near the tree on which they had both sat the previous day, listening as though the trees could answer the questions her sister had refused to explain. She waved at Wesley as he set off across the field to the hospital where he worked in the kitchens.

  The smell of bacon frying enticed her and as she turned to go back inside to eat and get ready for her own day’s work, she heard her father shouting. Her mother’s voice then, high pitched and fearful. The rumble of her father’s complaints was followed by the scraping of a chair, the crash of china and more shouting. She ran in and saw her parents glaring at each other across the room, her mother holding a poker for protection against the huge angry man who was her father. Pointless to intervene. She’d learned that long ago. A number of bruises had taught her to walk away, to leave them to it. Forgetting about breakfast, for which she no longer had an appetite, she grabbed her coat and handbag and ran to the bus stop.

  * * *

  Rosie Dreen stared at the poster and read and reread the words.

  Join NAAFI. The Ideal War Job For Women.

  Her heart raced with excitement. She had all but made up her mind. Tomorrow – or some day soon – she would make herself walk into what the locals referred to as the call-up office. Telling Nan she was leaving would be easier once she had signed the forms and was committed. Telling Nan first meant there was a strong chance of her being persuaded against it. For a moment she was tempted to do that. Nan would make up her mind for her. She would stay at home and tell herself the alternative was impossible. That her duty was to stay with Nan. She looked again at the poster. Servitor Servientium (Service to Those who Serve) – that was the Naafi motto. She knew she had prevaricated too long. Tomorrow she would sign.

  She had been shopping, her arms were full of packages. While she had been standing there cogitating about her war effort, it had begun to rain. The moment she moved, the paper carrier fell apart, leaving her holding the cardboard strip and the loops of string. The paper bags gave no protection to the biscuits or silverfoil packet of tea and a bag of sugar would soon be ruined. In her hand she held a white paper bag containing eggs brought from the farm, the paper opaque and useless.

  Sheltering in a shop doorway she struggled to get as many packages as possible into her pockets. With the eggs held precariously in her hand she stepped out into the now steady downpour. A girl was running past, wearing a pink dress, and a grey, pink-trimmed coat swinging open. She couldn’t see where she was going because of the open umbrella she carried. They bumped together, both sliding on the wet surface of the pavement and slithering to a halt just yards apart and falling to the ground.

  ‘Idiot!’ Kate hissed. ‘Look what you’ve done to my stockings. And this is a new dress! Now I’ll have to go home and change!’

  ‘Look what you did to my eggs!’

  Both girls stared at the growing patch of yellow on the pavement between them and then at the buckled umbrella which Kate still held. Inexplicably they laughed like friends sharing a huge joke.

  Rosie picked up the mess of shells and soggy paper, squealed with laughter and threw it into the gutter. When they had picked themselves up, Kate examined her new coat to assess the damage.

  ‘I expect it was my fault, stepping out from the doorway,’ Rosie conceded.

  ‘No. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I was in a hurry to catch the recruitment office before it closes.’

  ‘You’re joining up?’ Rosie’s wide blue eyes opened in what Kate thought was admiration.

  ‘We have to do our bit, don’t we?’ Kate replied airily.

  ‘You want to escape from home too?’ Rosie queried.

  ‘Well, yes, I admit that’s the big temptation.’

  ‘Me too. But we can’t go looking like this or they’ll kick us out.’

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea in the café around the corner,’ Kate invited.

  ‘Nan will wonder where I am,’ Rose said doubtfully, shy of this smartly dressed girl, conscious of her own shabby appearance and surprised at the result of the unexpected encounter.

  ‘If we’re going to join up and help fight Hitler you can’t start off being afraid of offending your Nan!’ Kate announced firmly.

  Kate placed her distorted umbrella in a corner and rather haughtily ordered tea and cakes. Rosie rubbed egg from her shoes and tried to hold back nervous laughter. The café was a rather expensive one and a place she had never entered before. Her new friend Kate seemed perfectly at home there.

  ‘I thought I’d join the Naafi,’ Rosie told Kate.

  ‘Now that isn’t a bad idea. All those hungry men to look after. I hadn’t thought of the Naafi.’ Her greeny-grey eyes gleamed with mischief as she added, ‘I’d better tell Mummy and Daddy I’ll be working in the office though, not at the counter! Will your parents cause a fuss?’

  ‘I only have Nan,’ Rosie told her. Opening out to this girl was a new experience for Rosie, who had kept her thoughts, disappointments and dreams locked safely away all her life. She was thankful that Kate Banner accepted the story without excessive sympathy and declared it interesting. ‘Interesting’, Rosie was soon to learn, was one of Kate’s favourite words.

  They met the following day and went for an interview at the information centre in the church hall. Rosie went in first on Kate’s insistence. She recognized in the unsure Rosie a person who might back out, use some invented excuse and go back home to ‘Nan’.

  Rosie came out and told Kate that she had agreed to sign up for the Naafi.

  Kate went in and was asked if she would consider the army. The thought of marching and the heavy uniform made her shudder. The Wrens didn’t appeal either and when she mentioned the Naafi her first question was about the uniform.

  ‘I expect it will make me look like a sack of coal,’ she sighed prettily. The officer handed her a photograph of the trim blue counter-overalls and Kate nodded. ‘So long as it isn’t pink,’ she said without explanation. Beaming, she went out to join Rosie and they went to the café again to celebrate.

  ‘Now we only have to tell our families,’ Rosie said, making a moue, opening her blue eyes wide.

  Kate gave a broad wink. ‘Tears. Shed a few tears and they’ll be so busy comforting me they’ll forget to be angry.’

  ‘If I tried that I’d end up giggling,’ Rosie confessed.

  * * *

  Ethel Twomey went home on her birthday not expecting any celebration. The atmosphere at home had made it impossible to even consider a party. She would meet Wesley later and he would give her his ring. It was a Monday just like every other Monday. She approached the house with her usual expectation of trouble. She was not disappointed. Shouts and screams filled the air, punctuated by the sounds of furniture being dragged around. She wanted to run, cover her ears and run, but this was different from the usual argument. She had to make sure her sister and her mother were all right. Then she would run as far and as fast as possible and wait for her father’s latest rage to die down.

  She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Wesley running to catch her up.

  ‘I’m coming in with you.’

  ‘No, you might make things worse. You know what Dad’s like, it’s probably nothing more than a complaint about the fire needing coal or his tea not ready when he wants it.’

  ‘Mam says they’ve been arguing since dinner time and your sister
ran out of the house with a terrified look on her face about an hour ago.’

  Ethel’s footsteps slowed as she walked over the little footbridge and began to make her way up the front path. ‘Perhaps, if Glenys is safely out of the way, I’d better wait until they’ve calmed down,’ she said. Instinct told her that this was something worse than one of her father’s usual moods. ‘Perhaps we’d better go and find Glenys.’

  They went back to Wesley’s house where his mother made sandwiches and a pot of tea. Sitting in the front room, a paraffin stove sending out some heat and a lot of smell, Wesley tried to take her mind off the violence going on between her parents.

  ‘I wanted to tell you this in better circumstances, but I’m leaving next week to work for the Naafi.’

  ‘The Naafi?’ Ethel frowned, only half her mind on what he was saying. The fact of his leaving so soon didn’t register at all.

  ‘I have experience in catering. My first aid certificates will be an advantage too they told me. And, I don’t fancy learning to kill. I suppose those are the only real reasons. And the fact the Naafi needs men like me with some ability to feed large numbers of people.’

  ‘I might come with you,’ Ethel told him. ‘I can’t stand much more of this.’ She gestured in the direction of her home. ‘Glenys told me she’s going away. Sid might too. He might be told he has to do something more than he’s doing at present.’

  ‘You’d hate it, love. Stay near, so I can picture you here, waiting for me.’

  ‘I have to get away from Dad’s anger.’

  ‘It’s rarely directed at you.’

  ‘Not yet. But if there’s only me there you don’t think he’ll suddenly turn into a calm, quiet man, do you? Someone will have to take the stick and I don’t want it to be me. 1 can’t think of anything that would be worse than living at home with only Mam and Dad for company. Specially if you’re going.’