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.
‘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.
‘You’d better apologise for that.’ Gertie poked Olive in the shoulder. ‘’Cos if you don’t …’
‘Oh, shut up, you two!’ Dawn exploded. She’d just entered the dressing room to find the theatre’s cleaner and kiosk attendant at each other’s throats as usual. Her feet were aching and she had a thumping head because she’d been on the side of the stage close to the trumpet player. Her temples were still throbbing from the ear-splitting toots.
‘Customers won’t like hanging around in the foyer waiting for you to sell ’em tickets. If Phyllis finds out you ain’t where you’re supposed to be you’ll be for the high jump.’ Gertie stared pointedly at Olive until the woman stormed towards the door.
‘All her airs ’n’ graces yet she ain’t got a minute of time for those two boys of hers.’ Gertie’s lip curled in disgust. ‘Kids should come first in my book, not shoved to one side soon as the opportunity turns up.’ She glanced at Dawn for a comment but her colleague flopped down onto a seat at the dressing table.
Dawn averted her sore eyes from the glaring bulbs edging the mirror in front of her. She eased off the feathered headdress and once released from confinement her honey-blonde hair cascaded to her shoulders in untidy waves. She dropped her face forward and gave her tender scalp a massage with her fingers. ‘If Phyllis finds out you two are still at it you’ll be for the high jump too.’ Dawn’s caution emerged from behind a screen of glossy hair.
‘Well,
