The Windmill Girls

With a scowl, George slunk out of the kitchen, leaving his sister to spread jam on chunks of bread.

A few minutes later Dawn gave George his tea plate. She left him in the parlour with it balanced on his lap, listening to the wireless and tucking into his jam sandwich, and went upstairs to her mother’s room.

‘Want a cup of tea, Mum?’ Dawn whispered into the gloom. The stale air hit her, making her wrinkle her nose. But she didn’t retreat; she approached the bed and looked down at her mother’s drawn profile. ‘It’s − not yet ten o’clock, why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll make you a snack? We can listen to the news on the wireless.’

‘No appetite, dear,’ Eliza mumbled. ‘Don’t want to listen to the wireless. Just bad news all the time, ain’t it.’

‘There’s a big old moon out tonight, have you seen it? Shall I open the curtains a bit?’

‘No … the light makes my headache worse …’

‘The gin gives you a headache, Mum,’ Dawn snapped. The fug in the room was overpowering her, making her tetchy. Suddenly she reached beneath her mother’s pillow, feeling for glass. With a mutter she pulled out the half-empty bottle and tossed it onto the coverlet.

Eliza burrowed further into the bed. ‘It’s alright for you. You ain’t been stuck out in that shelter with the bombs banging down all around,’ she moaned. ‘Bitter cold it was; enough to give a body pneumonia let alone a migraine. Anyhow … what have you been up to today?’

‘I did a couple of matinees and finished early. I told you about it yesterday.’ Dawn knew it was pointless trying to reason with Eliza, so gave up. ‘Have the Gladwins got their national assistance sorted out?’

A family in the next street had been made homeless last week following a direct hit on their house. Thankfully they’d all been in a shelter so only the property had been lost.

‘Those Gladwin kids should have been evacuated long ago, in my opinion.’

‘George should have been evacuated as well.’ Dawn’s blunt comment drew a snort from her mother.

‘George is old enough to stay where he is. He’s nearly thirteen and getting a job soon.’

‘Yeah … but he wasn’t when war broke out, was he, Mum?’ Dawn reminded dryly.

‘I will have a cup of tea, dear.’ Eliza meekly changed the subject as she invariably did when stuck for an answer. She liked having George’s company and was determined to keep it.

On the point of leaving the room, Dawn returned to her mother’s bedside. By the time she got back with a cup of tea Eliza would have emptied the bottle if she left it where it was.

‘I’ll put this in the kitchen cupboard.’ Dawn ignored Eliza’s peevish mumble and went downstairs feeling tempted to empty what remained of the booze down the sink. But she didn’t because it would make matters worse. Her mother would only buy more with their housekeeping money.

‘Can’t get a bit of extra sugar for love nor money up at Royce’s.’ Eliza’s complaint about the corner shop preceded her shuffling into the kitchen.

Dawn had hoped that her mother might drag herself out of bed and come downstairs for her tea. Although Eliza’s wispy hair looked matted and in need of a brush the simple act of putting on her dressing gown and slippers seemed to have bucked the woman up. Dawn set a steaming brew in front of her mother as she settled down at the kitchen table. Planting her elbows on its wooden top Eliza sunk her chin into her dry palms.

‘Don’t like me tea without two sugars in it. It looks weak as well. Have you used fresh leaves, Dawn?’

‘There isn’t any tea … only the grouts in the pot.’

‘I’m fed up with this rationing lark; the war should’ve been over by now. It started off like a damp squib …’

‘But it’s gone off like a rocket now,’ Dawn returned bluntly, setting two pieces of bread on the grill ready to be toasted. She shoved the pan into position beneath the gas flame. She found her mind returning to the looters and whether she’d been right in thinking her colleague Gertie was related to one of them.

Gertie Grimes was mum to a brood of young kids as well as being a cleaner. The woman worked very hard, not only at the Windmill Theatre but doing odd charring jobs in the evening. Dawn hadn’t known Gertie long as the woman had only recently started at the Windmill. But Dawn liked Gertie and wondered how the woman would feel knowing that her own brother was looting while she was working her fingers to the bone. Of course, Dawn couldn’t be sure it had been Michael …

‘There was a letter for you today. Reckon it’s from Bill.’ George had appeared in the kitchen to give his sister that news and to slide his empty plate onto the table. ‘Wouldn’t mind a bit of toast if there’s any going.’ He patted his belly.

‘Don’t be so greedy, George!’ his mother scolded. ‘Me and your sister’s not had a bite of supper yet.’

Dawn got up and felt on the shelf where the post was put every day. She usually checked it morning and night but George’s demand to be fed as soon as she walked in the door had broken her routine. The kettle started to steam but she ignored it for a moment and smiled at the envelope she’d found, recognising her boyfriend’s handwriting.

‘Go on then; open it,’ Eliza nodded at the letter. ‘And take the toast out of the grill or it’ll be charcoal. And that kettle’s hissing fit to put me teeth on edge.’

Dawn pulled out the grill pan and turned off the gas under the kettle. She was ready to pop Bill’s letter in her pocket to savour reading it in private but knew it would be mean to deprive her family of a bit of interesting news. She inserted a thumbnail under the envelope flap.

‘Oh no! Not again!’ An air-raid siren had made all three of them stand stock still, grimacing up at the ceiling.

‘Turn off the lights!’ Dawn ordered her brother and he obediently hurried round turning off the gas lamps on the walls.

‘Blackout curtains are all in place; I checked earlier,’ Eliza said. She’d suddenly bucked herself up no end.

‘Get that bit of toast spread,’ George called to Dawn, still thinking of his belly despite the imminent danger. He was hovering close to the last lamp still alight, before plunging them all into darkness.

‘I’d better get something warm to put on,’ Eliza wailed. ‘I’ll catch me death in that ice box in just me dressing gown.’

Dawn whipped her coat off the chair back. ‘Here, you can put this on. Now hurry up …’ She settled the warm tweed about her mother’s shoulders then opened the back door and looked up, straining her ears and eyes. In the distance she could see anti-aircraft ammunition tracing fiery lines in the sky.

Together, Dawn and George helped their mother down the back step into the garden then they hurried arm in arm towards the bottom end where the corrugated roof of the Anderson shelter was just visible.

CHAPTER THREE (#uc64c4289-e7d3-561b-b450-7ba6caccba8f)

‘Had a letter from my Fred.’

‘Ooh, ain’t you the lucky one …’ Gertie Grimes’s acid muttering was intentionally audible.

Olive Roberts turned to give her colleague a withering stare. ‘My Fred always keeps in touch. Doesn’t matter how busy he is with all his duties, he’s always found time for his wife.’

‘Way you go on about him you’d think he was a brigadier general instead of a bleedin’ corporal.’

‘He’s got the responsibility of having men under him …’

‘That wouldn’t surprise me,’ Gertie snickered.

‘What you implying, you dirty-minded cow?’

Olive was a skinny, big-boned woman of above average height but she didn’t frighten Gertie who was tubby, a good six inches shorter and, at twenty-six, nearly ten years younger. Gertie stuck her hands on her hips, staring defiantly at Olive.

‘We all know you’re like a bitch on heat but there’s no need to think we’re all at it,’ Olive spat. ‘Four kids and only in your mid-twenties?’ she scoffed. ‘You need to get that husband of yours down the recruiting office. A bit of active service’ll take the lead out of his pencil.’

‘My husband knows his duty to his family comes first, so you can piss off trying to tell us what to do. Just ’cos you ain’t got five minutes for those boys of yours, don’t think we’re the same. My kids are my life.’ Gertie began poking her broom beneath a chair to drag fluff and hair out from beneath it. ‘You’re just jealous of us because we’re a happy family.’ If Gertie was annoyed that her colleague had hinted she was a scrubber she didn’t let on. Gertie preferred talking dirty to actually doing the deed. The other, as she called it, robbed her of sleep and always seemed to bring her another mouth to feed.

‘Jealous of you, Gertie Grimes? You’re jealous of me, more like, ’cos your husband might get you up the spout regular as clockwork but he ain’t man enough to join up, is he.’

‘You leave my husband out of this!’ Gertie threw down her broom in temper. ‘Don’t you dare say nothing bad about him. He’s a father with little ’uns to consider before he considers himself.’

‘Reckon he is considering himself … that’s why he’s sweeping roads instead of carrying a rifle,’ Olive scoffed, turning away to bring the row to an end.