‘Thanks. Do you like bein’ in the ATS Miss -er – Corporal?’
‘Yes, I do. Very much.’ She rose to her feet.
‘Ta-ra, then – and thanks.’ Nan pushed back her chair. The interview, she realized, was over. She was in the ATS – if she passed the medical, that was. No going back, now. ‘And you won’t forget to add the note?’
‘I won’t.’
Shakily, Nan made her way to the street outside, blinking in the bright sunlight. Shakily, because it wasn’t every day you did something as mind-boggling as joining the Army.
She looked at the clock above the Market Hall. Eleven, exactly, which meant that in the span of two hours, she had changed the address on her ration book and identity card from Cyprian Court, Liverpool, to Farthing Street, Leeds; had obtained an emergency card for two weeks’ food and offered herself to the Auxiliary Territorial Service for the duration of hostilities. Strange that only yesterday she had walked out on her old life for ever, and if she didn’t get into the Army, heaven only knew what she would do, or where she would go. But she had learned, in her nearly eighteen years, not to look for trouble and anyway, nothing could be worse than being at Cyprian Court with her stepmother and her Georgie. Now dad had gone, there was nothing at all to keep her in Liverpool and if Nan Morrissey had anything to do with it, she would never go back there!
She crossed the road to the Market Hall, in search of a queue. Queuing was part of daily life, now. You saw a long line of patiently waiting women, then hopefully joined on the end of it.
‘What’s it for?’ she asked of the woman in front of her.
‘Fish.’ The reply was brief. Usually people talked to you in queues, but the one in front didn’t seem to want to gossip. Nan turned to the woman behind her.
‘Fish,’ she beamed. ‘Fingers crossed, eh?’
Carrie folded the greaseproof paper in which her sandwiches had been wrapped and put it in her handbag. Paper was in short supply, so you used it again and again. She had made her own sandwiches this morning, her mother’s bedroom door being firmly closed, with no answer to her knock and her whispered, ‘Tea, mother?’
Janet Tiptree, it would seem, was still asleep, though the minute the bus left the village, Carrie was as sure as she could be that she would be out of bed and downstairs before the teapot had time to get cold.
Carrie brushed the crumbs from her knees and stuck out her chin. Today, in her dinner hour, she had resolved to go to the recruiting office and there must be no going back, now. A short walk would take her there, after which heaven only knew what would happen…
Yet that was the way she wanted it, and if her mother tried to block her way by refusing her consent, she would try again after her twenty-first birthday. But she was going. Somewhere. Some place out of her mother’s reach to do what Caroline Tiptree wanted – needed – to do.
All she knew – really knew – at this moment was that there was a war on and it was going to last for years and years. Longer than the last one, some said. It was a terrible thought but if, by joining the Armed Forces, her small effort could shorten that war by just one day, then she had to do it, no matter what her mother said. Or Jeffrey, for that matter.
The door of the Recruiting Office was wide open, the room inside bare and empty except for a row of wooden chairs and a desk behind which sat an ATS sergeant.
‘Er – hello,’ Carrie whispered.
‘Hello,’ the sergeant smiled. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes please.’ She was surprised her voice should sound so croaky.
‘Then take a pew.’ The sergeant was still smiling.
‘That was a lovely supper, Auntie Mim.’ Nan wiped dry the pan she had just scrubbed.
‘Good of you to get the fish.’
It had been a very small piece of haddock, but her aunt had made it into fishcakes, followed by bread and butter pudding, conjured up from a little milk, the egg from Nan’s ration card, the remains of a loaf and two precious prunes, chopped into tiny pieces to resemble currants.
‘And good of you, lass, to help with the washing up.’
‘Think nothing of it.’ Nan had done all the dish-washing and pan-scrubbing at Cyprian Court, with never a word of thanks. She settled herself in the kitchen rocker, pink-cheeked at the compliment.
Miriam Simpson took out her knitting. It was all very cosy, Nan was bound to admit; like it would have been at Cyprian Court if Mum hadn’t died. She wondered if the Queer One was having trouble getting Georgie to go to bed on his own, and hoped he was being a right little sod. She waited until her aunt had finished counting stitches, then said,
‘There’s something I want to ask you – about Mum and Dad…Did they have to get married?’ The words came out in a rush.
‘Nobody has to do anything, lass – but what made you ask? I thought you’d have known.’
‘Well, I didn’t. Not till yesterday. They were married three months before I was born. It was a shock, I can tell you.’
‘Does it matter when? You were born in wedlock. That’s all that need concern you.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t think dad was the sort to get a girl into trouble, then take six months to make an honest woman of her. I thought better about him than that, if you must know.’
‘Oh dearie me.’ Miriam laid her knitting on her lap, then folded her hands over it, staring into the empty fire grate. ‘Now see here Nan, you’re almost a grown up and for better or for worse, you’ve decided to branch out on your own and join the Army. So I reckon you should know the truth of it, because I don’t want you to think ill of your father – and that was what he became, the minute he married your mother.’
‘Became?’ Nan whispered.
‘That’s right. Will Morrissey had always cared for your mother – was willing to wed her. He gave you his name, and you should be thankful for it.’
‘So am I to be told who my real father was?’ Nan’s heart thudded, her mouth so dry it was difficult to speak.
‘No you aren’t, because we never knew. Your mother refused to tell anyone, even Will, who’d been decent enough to marry her. All I know was that she went to her wedding with a hundred pounds in her pocket and a house full of furniture. She was lucky. A lot of women in her predicament got nothing!’
‘Ar.’ Still dazed, Nan filled a glass at the kitchen tap and drank deeply. ‘A hundred pounds was a lot of money in them days.’
‘It still is. Whoever it was fathered you, Nan, was of moneyed folk.’
‘And where was Mum when it – when I happened?’
‘Working for a ship-owning family in Liverpool. She was a sort of companion-help to the old mother, I believe. Didn’t you know?’
She hadn’t known, but it all added up Nan thought, wiping the glass, returning it to the shelf. A hundred pounds and enough furniture to fill the house in Cyprian Court would mean nothing to the likes of them.
‘And nobody ever found out?’ she persisted.
‘No. Your mother could be the stubborn one. Why she had to go to Liverpool to work, heaven only knows. You’re like her, Nan. Rushing off to join the Army, I mean.’
‘But I was never like her in looks, Auntie Mim.’
‘True. You must’ve favoured your – the other side. Your mother was fair, as well you know.’
Her sister’s child, Miriam pondered, had very little to commend her. If you wanted to be brutal, Nan was very ordinary, but for one thing. She had the most beautiful brown eyes,