Bobby closed her eyes and let the sounds of music and merriment wash over her. She tried to shut out the image of the uniforms, and any thought of the war.
If she listened carefully, she could pick out the voices of her friends and family. The Parry girls, giggling as they played with their friends. Reg and Mary, talking to her father. Lilian and Tony, Piotr and Jolka, Topsy and Teddy, Andy and Ginny. She tried to fix this moment in her memory – the people she loved best, safe, filled with joy, untouched by the conflict raging outside. Soon it would be the day after tomorrow, and a new life would be waiting for her. But at least she could take this one perfect moment with her.
Chapter 29
The day after the wedding – Bobby’s last as a civilian – rushed by all too quickly in a flurry of packing and preparation. The morning soon dawned when she would have to leave Silverdale and go to her new life in the armed forces.
She tried not to linger over goodbyes. She knew that the longer she spent on them, the more painful it would be. Farewells were exchanged quietly in the kitchen at Moorside after a last family breakfast. One by one she took a sober leave of Tony, her father, Lilian and Mary, and finally the Parry girls, who wept copiously as they hugged her. Bobby tried to maintain a bright demeanour for their sake, but she couldn’t help a few tears escaping.
It reminded her of the sunny day Charlie had left for the RAF, and how they had lined up to say goodbye in the garden. This wasn’t the same – she wasn’t going into danger the way he had been – but it felt just as heart-wrenching. Just as final.
‘Oh, girls, I shall miss you,’ Bobby whispered, bending to kiss first one little ginger head, then the other. ‘Tell Mary all your news to send. Don’t forget me.’
‘We wouldn’t. Not ever,’ Florrie managed to say through her sobs. Jess was too overcome to speak.
‘Now, childer, you must let Bobby go,’ Mary said gently. ‘She’ll miss her train if she don’t leave soon.’
Florrie reluctantly detached herself, still sobbing, but Jessie refused to let go. Mary, who had tears in her own eyes, had to carry the little girl away. Bobby swallowed hard as the two children were taken from the room.
‘Please let me and Dad come with you to Skipton Station,’ Lilian said, coming forward to embrace her. ‘I hate the idea of you going off alone.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ Bobby took out a handkerchief to dry her eyes. ‘It’ll only set me off crying again. I don’t want to arrive with swollen eyes. Besides, there’s only room in the trap for me and Reg.’
But it proved no good trying to keep her eyes fresh. As soon as Reg and Boxer had dropped her off by the Black Bull to wait for the Skipton bus, Bobby felt tears pricking once more. She watched the little pony and trap as it plodded back to Silverdale, eventually becoming no more than a speck, and felt as if it were taking her life away with it. By the time she was on a train, she had already soaked one handkerchief and was forced to rummage through her suitcase for another.
It seemed strange that such a short journey could nevertheless feel like a complete separation from the world she knew. When Bobby got off at the small station that served the village of Beckfoot, nearest RAF Ryland Moor, she was still surrounded by the same rolling landscape and heath-covered fells as she had been an hour earlier on leaving Silverdale. And yet she felt like she had landed on another planet.
According to the letter she had been sent, she and the other recruits would be collected by lorry and taken to the camp. Bobby found a gaggle of women outside the station who she assumed must be her fellow WAAFs-in-waiting.
They seemed to have bonded already, chattering, smoking and laughing together. Bobby stood at the edge of the group, the last to arrive, feeling awkward.
One woman with a lilting Welsh accent – or rather girl, for she couldn’t have been more than nineteen – turned to look Bobby up and down. Bobby attempted to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. The girl wrinkled her nose before turning back to her companion. Bobby saw her mouth the word ‘prig’.
Bobby turned away and rummaged urgently for her handkerchief to mop up another tear. Already she was failing tomake friends among this new group of people. If they marked her down as not only a prig but a cry-baby, she’d find herself a social pariah before the lorry had even turned up to collect them.
A wave of homesickness billowed through her as her eyes rose to the fells, dragging her mind back to Silverdale. She thought of Lilian, and wished her sister was here.
Bobby had always struggled to make friends in groups of her own sex. Boys had been easier – at least, once she had passed the age where the two sexes shunned each other as a matter of course. They often teased and joked, which she enjoyed, and as long as they didn’t get fresh or go all soppy romantic then platonic friendships were easy enough to strike up. But with other girls, Bobby could often feel like an outsider.
Too frequently they seemed to see her as an oddity. She was largely indifferent to matters of dress or hair, she was too quiet to enjoy going out much and she had never had any interest in casual boyfriends: all things her peers would bond over. She knew she probably came across as cold on first acquaintance. It had been lively, likeable Lilian who had made friends easily when they had been at school, and helped her twin be accepted within the group. Left to herself, Bobby was sure she would have been a far lonelier child.
Pushing down the wave of homesickness, she turned back to the group of women, wondering what Lil would do. No one would ever look at her twin and declare her to be a prig. How would Lilian join the conversation? Some easy compliment about dress or hair? Something about the films she loved?
Bobby sidled up to a group and lurked by them, trying to smile a Lilian-esque smile as she waited for an opportunity to join in.
‘It’s a shame they didn’t get whoever designed the Wren uniform to do the WAAF one as well,’ a well-spoken woman with dyed blonde hair was saying. ‘Obviously it’s still ten times betterthan those frumpy ATS tents, but the belts make your arse look the size of a panzer tank.’
‘You should see the undies they give you with your kit,’ a woman with a Yorkshire accent piped up. Bobby looked at her, recognising the voice. ‘My sister showed me hers when she come home on leave. The girls on her base call them blackouts and knockouts – their mufti ones are knockouts, I mean, and the kit ones are blackouts. Honestly, they look like Queen Vic’s drawers. Knitted dark blue bloomers right down to your knees. Our Trish refused to wear hers. Said she’d rather do time in the glasshouse than spend all day with an itchy backside.’ The woman caught sight of Bobby and grinned. ‘Heyup. Didn’t think I’d see you again.’
It was Carol Boyes, who Bobby had met the day of her medical. She smiled, pleased to see a familiar face.
At that moment, an RAF lorry pulled up and a tiny WAAF NCO who had been driving the hefty vehicle jumped out.
‘All right, ladies, pile in,’ the Motor Transport sergeant said. ‘Don’t get too comfy, it’s not a long ride. Squadron Officer Mulligan, the WAAF commandant, is waiting to welcome you.’
Bobby frowned. ‘Mulligan?’
‘Ugh, not that old cow,’ groaned Carol, who had appeared by her side. ‘Didn’t realise she was in charge here. She gave me a right hard time at my interview. Looked at me like dirt. Did you have her as well?’
