Shipyard Girls in Love Page 9

  Bel rarely allowed herself tears, but these were happy ones so she permitted them to flow.

  ‘Oh, Pol, thank you! Thank you so much!’

  Chapter Nine

  Grindon Village, Sunderland

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Sarah jumped up off the sofa and stubbed out her cigarette as Vinnie let himself into the flat. Her flat. Recently she’d started to regret letting him move in. Not that she’d had a lot of choice, mind you. Vinnie had just tipped up one night with his bag, declaring that he had left Gloria and that it was Sarah he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  Of course, she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t surprised when she’d heard the next day that it was Gloria that had sent him packing, but she hadn’t minded. She’d wanted him back then. Now, though, she wasn’t quite so sure. Vinnie always seemed to be kicking off about something or other, and it was starting to get wearing.

  Last night he hadn’t come home, and she’d been worried sick, imagining all sorts. She’d had images of him lying half dead in some gutter, or a hospital bed, or worse still, lifeless on some cold mortuary slab.

  ‘Are ya all right, Vin?’ Sarah put her hands up to her lover’s face to check for any evidence that he had been in a fight. ‘Where’ve yer been?’ She wasn’t quite sure whether she was angry at him or just relieved he was back home alive and well.

  ‘Where’ve I been?!’ Vinnie grabbed hold of both of Sarah’s hands, now lightly cupped around his face. He squashed them in his own, before flinging them aside as though they were pieces of screwed-up paper. ‘Where’ve I been?!’

  Sarah rubbed her hands. He had squeezed so hard it hurt. Vinnie had never been violent towards her, but lately she had felt that a part of him sometimes wanted to be. Sarah knew Vinnie hadn’t been averse to giving Gloria a few slaps, but he had always made out that she had been the one to start it and she’d given back as good as she got.

  ‘I’ve been banged up in town. Stuck in a soddin’ police cell all day yesterday and all last night! That’s where I’ve soddin’ well been!’

  Sarah was taken aback.

  ‘You? Banged up?’ she asked, her face contorting with disbelief. Vinnie, generally, kept his snout clean. Especially when it came to the plod. ‘What the hell for?’ Her voice rose, but just as she was asking the question, she guessed what the answer was.

  ‘Please don’t tell me it’s anything to do with yer ex-missus, or that bab you keep going on and on about?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Sarah, I’ve got a good right to rabbit on about the bairn! Especially with you putting it into my head that the bab mightn’t even be mine! It’s your fault I ended up stuck in a stinking cell all night! You wound me up a treat with yer “Have you thought it might not be yours?”’ Vinnie put on a whiny voice, mimicking Sarah’s. ‘Bloody hell, I couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about it, that’s why I decided to go to the christening. See for myself.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sarah’s hands went up into the air. ‘I might have guessed I’d be to blame for this!’ She walked over to the coffee table and snatched her box of fags. As she did so, she knocked the overflowing ashtray and cigarette butts spilled onto the table.

  ‘So, come on,’ she snapped. ‘Tell me all the gory details. I might as well hear it from the horse’s mouth rather than from chatty Cathy down the road.’

  Vinnie huffed.

  ‘Like I said,’ he started to explain, ‘I was going to the church. To see the bab. To see my daughter being christened. The christening I hadn’t even been told about – never mind invited to! My own soddin’ bairn’s christening!’

  ‘Well, why didn’t yer tell me yer were going?’ As Sarah spoke, a stream of smoke trailed out of her mouth.

  Vinnie dismissed her question with an irritated shake of the head.

  Sarah was riled now. ‘So, go on, what happened? Did yer see the bab?’

  ‘Did I hell!’ Vinnie snatched the packet out of Sarah’s hands, rammed a cigarette into his mouth and looked around for a box of matches.

  ‘Here.’ Sarah struck a match as Vinnie bent down to take a light off her. ‘Go on.’ She sat on the little two-seater settee and tried to calm herself down.

  ‘Well, I was walking to the church – that one down Hendon, the big one on Suffolk Street?’ Sarah nodded, she knew which one he was talking about. ‘When all of a sudden, I felt a hand on the back of my shoulder and it was some copper asking me where I was going and – what were his words? – what my “intentions” were!’

  ‘Then what?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t any of his business and to sod off! Then I guess there was what yer might call an “altercation”. The next thing I knew I was being hauled off to the cop shop,’ Vinnie told Sarah, as if he were the epitome of innocence, never having done anything even remotely wrong in his entire life.

  ‘So, how come they kept you in? What did they charge you with?’

  ‘They said they were going to slap some trumped-up charge of “intent to commit serious bodily harm” on me. Complete bloody joke! There’s a soddin’ war on and they’re wasting their time on people like me who only wanted to go to a bleedin’ christening!’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’ve never heard the like!’ Sarah said, although she wasn’t stupid and was sure there was more to it and she’d hear it when they were down the pub, which was where they would inevitably end up this evening.

  There had been a time when she would have hung on Vinnie’s every word, believed everything that came out of his mouth, but since they had been living together she had seen a different side to him. His interpretation of events was often very different from reality, not that he could or would see that for one second. In Vinnie’s eyes, he was always right. He would never back down. And he would certainly never apologise, because nothing was ever his fault.

  ‘Obviously, I haven’t cooked,’ Sarah said, stubbing out her cigarette and looking at her packet to see how many she had left. ‘I’ve been that worried about yer, I haven’t been able to do anything.’

  Vinnie let out a burst of genuine laughter. ‘Pull the other one, Sar, it’s got bells on.’ He blew out smoke. His tone of voice was evidence that his mood was improving.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ he added, walking over to the sofa and sitting down next to her, ‘I didn’t fall for yer cooking skills, or yer housekeeping.’ As he spoke they both looked around at the flat, which was in need of a good clean and a tidy-up.

  Vinnie put his arm around the woman who had been his mistress well before Gloria had chucked him out and whom he still fancied like mad, even if she drove him round the bend half the time.

  ‘Come here, give us a kiss ’n a cuddle,’ he said, pulling her close to him. ‘I missed ya last night, lying there on my lonesome on a slab of cold concrete.’ Vinnie’s voice had softened, and Sarah knew what was coming next. Part of her couldn’t be bothered but the other part of her relaxed, knowing that Vinnie’s temper was being replaced with a need for intimacy.

  ‘Let me make a sandwich, then we can go down the pub – and when we come back we can kiss and cuddle all night long,’ Sarah said with a suggestive smile on her face. This was a part of Vinnie she had control over and always had. When it came to the bed department she could wind him round her little finger.

  As Vinnie watched Sarah get up from the sofa and walk into the kitchen to make the sandwiches, his eyes were drawn to her pert, rounded bottom, which he knew she was proud of, considering her age, and was the reason she always wore skirts that looked just a little too small for her.

  As he lit another cigarette, he knew that he had a good life here with Sarah, and that he had to be careful not to ruin it. Besides, if she chucked him out, he’d be stuffed. He didn’t have a pot to piss in, never mind the money to pay any kind of rent for a roof over his head.

  He had to play this one carefully, but by God he was going to see that baby if it was the last thing he did. Gloria was not going
to get one over on him, and he needed to make absolutely sure that the bairn was his. He’d had the slightest of doubts when he’d first found out Gloria was in the family way – but only because they very rarely slept together and whenever they did, he was always careful.

  Well, he’d know for sure when he actually got to see the bab. His two boys had looked the spit of him when they were born. Same deep brown eyes. Both chunky – like little barrels, they were. He just needed to find a way to do it. The custody sergeant had warned him to stay well away from Gloria, telling him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t, he’d find himself right back in police cells – and this time they’d charge him.

  As he listened to Sarah clatter around the small kitchen, his mind drifted back to the copper who had arrested him. What was his name? That was it – Detective Sergeant Miller. He thought he recognised his voice. He’d sounded very like the balaclava man who’d given him a thrashing a while ago and told him he’d be drinking beer out of a straw if he ever hurt Gloria again. Could they be one and the same? And if it was the same bloke, did this mean that Gloria had him in her pocket?

  ‘Here you go.’ Sarah placed a plate of spam sandwiches in front of Vinnie. ‘I’ve put a good lashing of mustard on there. Just how you like it,’ she said.

  ‘Ta,’ Vinnie said, but his mind was still on the detective. No, he argued with himself, Gloria wouldn’t even know any plod, never mind a detective, and a detective sergeant at that, would she?

  But then how had this DS Miller known he was on his way to the christening? He’d thought it was just a coincidence, but last night when he’d been stewing over it all in that bloody awful cell, he’d started to have his doubts.

  ‘Get us another beer, Sar,’ Vinnie asked through a mouthful of bread and spam.

  He heard Sarah walk back to the kitchen, open the cupboard door and pop the top off another bottle of Double Maxim. He watched her pouring it carefully into a pint glass.

  Well, it didn’t make any difference either way if the copper knew him or not, or if Gloria had friends in the force – he couldn’t give a fig. He had a bloody right to see his own bairn.

  And by God, he was going to, come hell or high water.

  Chapter Ten

  J.L. Thompson & Sons Shipyard, North Sands, Sunderland

  Monday 24 November 1941

  Helen stood looking out of the main office window of Thompson’s on the first floor of the administration building. It was a typical, overcast November morning. The wooden venetian blinds had been pulled right up so that she could see what was happening in the yard below, as well as on the river, which, as always, was filled with an array of half-built ships, cargo vessels, trawlers and punts, all overshadowed by a northern sky that since the declaration of war had been punctuated with huge torpedo-shaped barrage balloons.

  Helen never got tired of looking at this view. She had been on day trips and holidays, both further down south and in Scotland, and she had admired the stunning beauty of the lush green countryside and picture-perfect villages that seemed untainted by time or technology – but those views had never kept her attention like the one she was looking at now.

  This urban landscape could not have been more different and Helen loved it with a passion. She loved the expanse of metal and concrete, and she loved the noise, the sounds of men and machinery working – creating – together.

  Perhaps, she wondered, as her eyes sought out the women welders who today were working in the dry basin, what she loved most about this view, or indeed any view of the River Wear, was the fact that it was never the same from one day to the next. And that out of the constant chaos that seemed to fill the winding banks of the river rose the most magnificent beasts of steel. Metal monsters that rode the waves across hundreds of thousands of miles of oceans and seas. Warriors against the elements of God and Nature. And now warriors against Hitler and his army.

  As a child, Helen had listened to her father talk about how Sunderland had become ‘The Biggest Shipbuilding Town in the World’, and how ships used to be made from wood and sail, carrying huge quantities of coal, glass and pottery around the world. She was always begging her father to take her to the yard – it had been something her mother had fought vehemently against, but it had been one of the few battles she had lost as Jack had taken his daughter to Thompson’s as often as he could.

  ‘Miss Crawford?’ Helen heard a polite voice call out and she turned to see one of the secretaries standing a few yards away from her, clutching what looked like an order form.

  ‘Can you check and sign this off, Miss Crawford, please?’ The young girl was clearly nervous about approaching her boss.

  Without speaking, Helen took the piece of thick white paper that was embossed with big bold black lettering: J.L. Thompson & Sons – Shipbuilders – Ship Repairer, North Sands Yard, Sunderland. She took a few minutes to scrutinise the order, checking quantities and pricing, before taking the pen and signing her name at the bottom. She returned the form and pen to the secretary without saying a word, then turned back to the view of the yard.

  Her eyes picked out Rosie and her squad, all working on a large patch of the ship’s decking, and she felt a familiar twinge of envy. Was it because they were a part of this massive army of workers building ships with their bare hands? Or because the squad of women welders were such good friends, who always had each other’s backs?

  It had made her mad earlier on in the year when she had tried – unsuccessfully – to divide them. She had been so furious with Polly for stealing Tommy from right under her nose, and then she’d found out that it had been the young, dippy one called Dorothy who had told Ned the plater’s wife that Helen had been spreading false rumours about Polly seeing her husband. God, she’d never forget how the wife came waddling into the yard, showing off her huge bump, before publicly humiliating her in front of the whole workforce.

  At the time she had felt as though that was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. But so much had changed in such a short period. After what her father had been through, her own humiliation seemed almost pitiful. When her father’s ship went down, her whole outlook on life had changed. Those few days thinking that he was dead had been the worst ever, followed by the painstaking wait to see if he would come out of his coma – and praying that if he did, he would be the father she had always loved and adored and not some shell of a man, unable even to feed himself.

  Helen looked at her watch just as the klaxon sounded out the break for lunch. Behind her she heard chairs scrape back as the two dozen secretaries, clerical staff and comptometer operators made good their escape from their monotonous labour. Not that they themselves particularly saw it as boring work, but Helen had done the kind of typing, filing and note-taking required of the basic office worker when she’d first started at the yard and the tedium of it had driven her to distraction.

  Helen remained standing by the window as everyone hurried out of the large, open-plan office. As usual, her personal secretary, Marie-Anne, a ginger-haired girl with a wealth of freckles covering her pale face, asked Helen if she wanted anything for her lunch; as usual, Helen simply shook her head, not even deigning to look at the girl, whom she had employed not just because of her efficiency and incredibly speedy shorthand, but also for her plain Jane appearance.

  Helen had been intending to go and spend her lunch break with her father over at Crown’s, but he had told her that he was meeting up with Arthur again.

  The rain was starting to come down more heavily now and Helen could see the mass of flat caps hurrying to the canteen. The headwear of the mainly male workforce made it easier for Helen to pick out the women welders, for in place of tweed caps, they were wearing headscarves. Everyone, that was, apart from Big Martha, who didn’t need one as her trim bowl haircut was short enough not to get in the way or to risk being singed by the heat of a weld.

  Helen felt her stomach rumble and she regretted telling Mrs Westley that she didn’t want a packed lunch today. She had d
ecided her mother was right and that she had put on weight. Her aunty did make the best potato pancakes – even better than Mrs Westley’s, which was some feat – and Helen knew she’d been a bit of a pig when she was there.

  Putting her hand on her stomach, Helen kept her eyes on the women as they all switched off their machines and started hurrying across the yard to the canteen.

  Bet you they’re going to have a nice hot mince and onion pie and gravy, Helen thought with a mixture of irritation and envy. Martha would probably be having double helpings. The woman must eat her parents out of house and home. And then there was Gloria, who still looked like she was eating for two.

  Just then Helen’s attention was diverted by what looked like a child dodging the rivet catchers and sidestepping heaps of chains and the five-barrel fires that were now burning more or less constantly to provide some respite from the bitter cold.

  Of course, Helen thought, who else could it be but Hannah? Her short black bob made her appear much younger than her age. Now that was someone who really did look like she needed a good feed. The girl was all skin and bone.

  ‘Ooh,’ Helen exclaimed to the empty office as she saw Hannah trip over and fall flat on her face. If there was one person who was really not suited to working in a shipyard, it was Hannah.

  Helen leant down to pick up her prized Schiaparelli handbag, from which she retrieved a packet of recently acquired Pall Mall cigarettes and a chrome Ronson lighter. If she was going to start smoking, she had decided she would do it with style. She’d read that a lot of the stunning and very slim French actresses lived off coffee and Gauloises, so that was exactly what she was going to do.

  She lit her cigarette and suppressed a cough as she inhaled, then with her free hand picked up the gold-framed photo of her parents from the top of the desk.

  Helen looked for a long time at the photograph of the two people who appeared so handsome and so happy, but although it was an image of a true moment in time, it was by no means a reflection of the truth. The photograph, like most of the others her mother had dotted around the house, was a lie – a mask hiding the fact that her mother and father, as far as she could remember, had never been happy, or in love.