A GIRL CALLED THURSDAY

Chapter One

11th November 1939

    ‘Twenty-one today!
     Twenty-one today!
     She’s got the key of the door,
     Never been twenty-one before….’
     The little house in Waterloo Street rocked to the sound of singing, and Thursday Tilford laughed, blushing at the attention. The song ended with cheers from the rest of the family, and Thursday’s father gave her a smacking kiss, his moustache bristling against her cheek.
    ‘There you are, love. There’s your key.’ He handed her a wooden key about a foot long, painted bright red. ‘Made it myself.’
    ‘Oh, Dad!’ Thursday took it in her hands and almost collapsed under the weight. ‘Am I supposed to carry this about in my bag?’
    ‘Well, only if you want to.’ He fished in his pocket and brought out another, an ordinary Yale this time. ‘You can keep that for best if you like and use this for every day.’
    Thursday grinned at him and slipped the Yale into her purse. ‘And can I stay out after ten o’clock at night now?’
    He rubbed his round, balding head and pursed his lips. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. Me and your mother will still worry about you, you know. That don’t stop just because you’re of age. Maybe we’ll say eleven on Saturday nights to start with, eh?’
    The rest of the family laughed. ‘Go on, Walter, you know young Thursday’s been able to twist you round her little finger since she was a baby,’ Thursday’s grandfather called out from the front room. There wasn’t space for everyone in either of the two downstairs rooms so they’d opened all the doors and spread between the two. ‘Not like in my day. Girls knew what was what then. Knew they had to toe the line, or else.’
    ‘Like our Flo, you mean,’ Walter retorted, grinning. ‘If I had a pound for every time I had to let her in on the quiet when she’d been out with Percy, so you wouldn’t know what time it was –‘
    ‘All right, our Wal, no need to give away secrets,’ his sister cut in. She touched her fair hair, newly waved for the occasion with a fashionable bang on her forehead - not that Auntie Flo needed much of an excuse to do herself up, Thursday thought with an inward giggle. That was a new jumper she had on too, pale blue in a lacy pattern, and she’d knitted one for Thursday’s mum as well, only in pink, as well as Leslie’s Fair Isle pullover. ‘Stop your nattering and cut this birthday cake into slices. It’s Thursday’s day, she doesn’t want to hear all about ancient history.’
    The cake stood in place of honour on the sideboard, flanked by a pile of plates. It was iced and decorated by Flo, who was clever at that sort of thing. The family had already admired it and sung ‘Happy Birthday’ as Thursday blew out the candles, and now they gathered round again as Walter picked up the big carving knife. Flo’s two younger children, Leslie and Denise, stood by with a proprietorial air.
    ‘I helped Mum make the icing,’ Denise told Thursday. ‘It took I don’t know how many egg-whites. And I made two of the roses on top – those two, see?’
    ‘The ones with wobbly petals,’ Leslie said, and she gave him a push. ‘Well, they are. And I helped too, it wasn’t just you. I helped beat the icing up.’
    ‘Sounds like you were in a fight with it,’ Walter remarked. ‘Move over now, let the dog see the rabbit.’ He lifted the knife and poised it above the centre of the cake. Thursday’s little mongrel dog, Patch, moved into the best position for catching crumbs and sat bright-eyed, his tail thumping the floor. ‘I didn’t mean you, you silly chump!’
    ‘I’ll have a bit with icing down the sides,’ Thursday’s younger sister Jenny said, her eyes fixed on the white sugar.
    ‘You’ll have what you’re given, my girl,’ her father told her. ‘Your auntie Flo made that for your sister, not you. And stop that shoving, young Steve, or I’ll end up cutting slices of finger.’
    ‘And the icing’ll get blood all over it,’ Steve told his sister ghoulishly. ‘And if it does, that’ll be your bit. And you know what you’ll be then? You’ll be a cannibal!’
    Jenny made a face and squealed. ‘Yeugh! That’s a horrible thing to say! Tell him not to say things like that, Mum.’
    Mary Tilford frowned at them, but it was a tolerant frown. Nothing was to be allowed to spoil this special day, Thursday thought affectionately. ‘Don’t start squabbling, now. Give your dad some elbow room.’ She looked at her husband, cutting the cake, and at her elder daughter, tall and grown-up with her dark brown hair cut in a long wavy bob, wearing that new green frock she’d made specially for the occasion. You could catch quite a strong likeness in their expressions sometimes, even though in colouring Thursday was more like herself, and it was there now as they concentrated on the cake. She smiled, and then her face saddened.
    ‘It’s a beautiful cake, Flo, and it’s been a lovely party,’ Thursday heard her say quietly. ‘But it’s not the birthday I wanted for her, not really.’
    ‘Nothing’s the way we wanted it,’ Flo said. ‘Nobody wanted this war, for a start. Except for Hitler, of course, he’s been wanting it all along only nobody could see it.’
    Thursday handed them both a plate with a slice of cake on it. ‘Bet we won’t see many more cakes like this for a while,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s a good job we saved up all the fruit beforehand.’ She sat down beside them and bit into her own slice.
    Mary nodded. ‘They say there’ll be a lot of shortages from now on. You know they’re talking about rationing. I reckon people will start hoarding all sorts of things.’
    ‘They already have,’ Thursday said through a mouthful of cake. ‘My friend at work says her gran’s got a cupboard full of tins. Ham, peas, baked beans, plums – she’s got enough to keep her for six months, Annie says.’ She bent and slipped a scrap of cake into Patch’s waiting jaw.
    ‘Well, she shouldn’t have. It’s taking food away from people who might need it. And that dog doesn’t need it, either.’
    ‘She thinks she’ll need it,’ Thursday pointed out. ‘And Patch deserves a treat, same as anyone else.’
    Jenny had managed to secure a piece of cake with icing down the side, and went into the front room to sit on the floor at her grandmother’s feet to eat it, curling her legs under her. She always preferred the floor, and in any case with the whole family squashed into the small room there wasn’t room to sit anywhere else. Her grandmother, Walter’s mother, ate a few crumbs of her cake and then slipped her the rest. ‘Can’t be doing with all that fruit,’ she whispered, ‘and the icing makes me teeth ache.’
    Jenny giggled. Granny had had false teeth since she was quite young and loved sweets, but Jenny was her favourite and could always rely on being given little extras. She went round to see her every Sunday morning after church, and passed on all the gossip from Waterloo Street as well as from the grocer’s shop where she worked.
    Steve had sat down beside his cousin Mike, who was in Army uniform. He’d been in the Territorials before the war started, and joined up straightaway, as a private. So far, all he’d done was basic training but already he was behaving as if he was in the front line, and Steve was half envious, half thankful that as yet he hadn’t been called up. It couldn’t be long, though, if the war really did get started as they seemed to think it would.
    ‘What sort of guns do they give you, Mike? D’you have your own special one?’
    ‘Course you do. You’ve got to look after it, see – clean it and make sure it works properly. I wouldn’t want to use another bloke’s gun, just in case he hadn’t bothered. Not that the serge would let anyone get away with not bothering!’ He made a face which conveyed to Steve exactly what the sergeant’s reaction would be to ‘not bothering’. ‘It’s Lee Enfield’s we’ve got. Rifles. But we’re learning to handle mortars as well, and then there’s machine guns and howitzers and stuff like that. There’s a lot to learn. It’s not just about pointing it at a Jerry and pulling the trigger. You’ve got to think about the weather – wind can make the bullets drift, see – and you can’t always see what you’re shooting at. That’s where the observers come in, they go forward of the line and register the targets.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I don’t know as I should be telling you all this. We’re not supposed to talk about what we do.’
    ‘Go on, I’ll be joining up myself before long,’ Steve said, hoping his mother couldn’t hear him in the other room, but Mike shook his head and refused to say any more.
    Thursday heard, however, and she felt a sudden chill as Mike’s words brought home to her the fact that there really was a war on and that young men like her cousin and brother could get killed – boys who had never even thought of joining the Forces, having to learn abour guns and fighting, having to go to war. And girls too – not fighting, but helping in different ways, doing jobs they’d never even have dreamed of, so that the men could go away.
    It was something she’d been thinking about more and more just lately, and she knew that soon she was going to have to tell her family about her own decision.
    Being twenty-one wasn’t all fun and cake and keys of the door, she thought. You got responsibilities as well. Responsibilities for your own life, and what you did with it.
    Soberly, she collected the plates and took them out to the kitchen. There was already a large pile of crocks waiting to be washed up, and she rolled up her sleeves and turned on the tap. Her mother followed her and turned it off.
    ‘Here, what are you doing? It’s your birthday, you’re supposed to be the guests of honour, not a skivvy.’
    ‘And you did all the work getting everything ready,’ Thursday told her. ‘Anyway, you can’t boss me about any more, not now I’m twenty-one.’ She turned the tap on again and ferreted in the cupboard under the sink for the washing soda. ‘You go and sit down and have another cup of tea with Auntie Flo. I bet it’s the first time either of you’s sat down all day.’
    ‘Well, I won’t say I’m not a bit tired,’ Mary admitted. She regarded her daughter fondly. ‘Mind you, I still can’t believe I’m old enough to have a daughter of twenty-one.’
    ‘Nor can I.’ The enamel washing-up bowl was full now and Thursday turned off the tap again and swished the dishcloth into the water. ‘You don’t look much more than twenty-one yourself, Mum. Not a grey hair in your head.’
    Mary looked into the scrap of mirror they kept over the sink. It was true that her hair was still the same rich brown, and even though she’d never bothered with her looks as much as her sister-in-law it suited her brushed smooth over the top and permed into neat curls at the side. She sighed. ‘There’ll be a few before this war’s finished, I’m afraid. It’s going to be a bad business, Thursday.’
    ‘D’you really think so?’ She thought of Mike, learning about guns, and pushed the thought away. ‘Nothing much has happened yet, and they say it’ll be over by Christmas.’
    ‘Christmas? That gives it five weeks!’ Mary snorted. ‘I lived through the last lot. They said that one’d be over by Christmas too, and it dragged on for four years. I can’t see this one ending any quicker, and it’ll be worse if we get the air raids they’re talking about. They had a few of those last time, over on the east coast, but we’ll all get a share this time.’
    ‘Not here in Worcester, surely?’ Thursday piled plates rapidly on the draining-board.
    ‘Why not? Why d’you think we’ve been dished out with all these gas masks and air raid shelters?’
    ‘Yes, but we’re right in the middle of the country. The Air Force will get them long before they get this far.’ She wasn’t sure if she really believed it or just wanted to, but it was better than looking on the black side. ‘They won’t let the Germans bomb us, Mum.’
    ‘Well, let’s just hope you’re right.’ Mary picked up a tea-towel and began to dry the plates. ‘I tell you, our Thurs, the idea of air-raids frightens me to death, it does really. I can’t bear to think about them.’
    Flo poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘What are you two doing, skulking out here? You shouldn’t be working anyway, it’s your birthday. Leave that for now – we’re listening to the wireless. The Queen’s going to make a broadcast. Come in and hear it.’



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