Kerry Barrett - The Hidden Women

I breathed out in relief. An hour was more than enough. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Can I grab a cuppa?’

He pointed his head in the other direction. I picked up my bag and went the way he’d indicated. But instead of going inside the mess hut, I slipped round the side of the building and out towards the main gate. I hoped the woman would be here – I didn’t want to risk missing my flight back; that would lead to all sorts of trouble.

‘Just going for some cigarettes,’ I told the bored man on the gate. He barely acknowledged me as I sauntered past and out on to the road. It was quiet with no passing traffic. Across the carriageway, a woman stood still, partly hidden by a tree. She was wearing a long coat, even though it was summer, and she was in her late thirties. Her hair was greying and she had a slump to her shoulders that made me sad. She looked at me and when I raised my hand in greeting, she smiled a cautious, nervous smile. Confident she was the person I was meant to meet, I ran across the road to her.

‘April?’ I said.

She nodded, looking as though she was going to cry.

‘I’m Lil.’

‘Lil,’ April said in a strong north-east accent. ‘I need to go. I went early with my others and I’m sure this one’s no different. I can’t be here when the baby arrives. I can’t.’ Her voice shook.

I took her arm. ‘I’ve got a family in Berkshire,’ I said. ‘Lovely woman. She’s wanted a baby since they got married ten years ago but it’s not happened. Her husband’s a teacher – so he’s not off fighting. They’ve got a spare room for you.’

April flinched and I looked at her.

‘He was a teacher,’ she said. ‘The man. The baby’s father.’

I stayed quiet. Sometimes mothers wanted to talk and sometimes they didn’t but whatever they wanted, it was easier for me to stay silent.

‘He was so nice,’ April went on. ‘Charming. Kind to my boys. Helpful to me. You know?’

I nodded.

‘And then one day he wasn’t so nice,’ she said. ‘And I know I should have told him to stay away, that I was married. I should have made it clearer. But I missed Bill, you see. And I know it’s my fault.’

She paused.

‘It’s my fault.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, wondering how many times I’d said that and why it was easy to tell others that and not myself. ‘And it’s not the baby’s fault.’

I unzipped my bag and pulled out an envelope.

‘Your train tickets are in here,’ I said. ‘And the name and address of the family. You need to change at Birmingham and they’ll meet you at Reading station – they know what train you’ll be on.’

Looking a bit stunned, April took the envelope. ‘Why do you do this?’ she asked. ‘What’s in it for you?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s the right thing to do,’ I said.

April looked doubtful but she didn’t argue.

I glanced at my watch.

‘I have to go,’ I said. I took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Good luck.’

After dinner I cornered Miranda in the kitchen as we washed up.

‘What was all that about?’ I asked her.

‘Should we club together and buy the parents a dishwasher,’ she said, squirting washing-up liquid into the sink.

‘I can’t afford it,’ I said. ‘And they wouldn’t use it anyway.’

Miranda frowned. ‘True.’

I elbowed her in the ribs as I passed her a stack of dirty plates.

‘Miranda, focus. Did you see Mum and Dad look at each other when I mentioned Lil?’

She elbowed me back like we were still ten and twelve, not thirty-four and thirty-six.

‘That was a bit weird, wasn’t it?’ she said.

‘What was weird, darling?’ Mum wandered into the kitchen clutching two empty wine glasses. ‘Is there another bottle?’

I thought Miranda might burst with the effort of not rolling her eyes. ‘In the fridge,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘You watched me put it in there.’

Mum blew an air kiss in her direction. ‘Don’t get snappy, Manda,’ she said, mildly. ‘What was weird?’

‘Work stuff,’ I said. ‘Manda was telling me about some really important deal she’s doing. Worth millions. Trillions even.’

Miranda was the youngest ever head of international investment at Ravensberg Bank and also the first woman to do the job. I was fiercely, wonderfully proud of her and in total awe of her skills. Our anti-capitalist parents, however, thought it was terrible. They always appeared faintly ashamed of Manda’s money, which I thought was ironic considering she’d honed her financial management skills by organising the family budget before she hit her teens. And she still invested both of our parents’ erratic income wisely and made sure they never ran short.

In fact, thanks to Dad composing the scores for huge blockbuster films since the Nineties, and Mum’s enthusiastic love of art history earning her spot as an expert on an antiques valuation television show, my parents were both pretty wealthy. Not that they’d ever admit it. If they even knew. They shared a vague ‘it’ll all work out’ approach to money and mostly ignored anything Miranda said about it.

‘Urgh,’ said Mum, predictably. ‘It all sounds so immoral somehow, finance chat.’

I grinned at Miranda over Mum’s shoulder and she scowled at me.

‘Take the bottle into the lounge,’ she said to Mum. ‘We’ll be in when we’re done.’

‘Is Dora asleep?’ I asked. Friday nights were dreadful for my daughter’s carefully crafted routine. She absolutely adored my parents and tended to run round like a mad thing for the first half of the evening, then drop.

‘Curled up on the sofa like an angel,’ Mum said, soppily. The adoration went both ways.

‘And Freddie?’

‘Playing piano with your father,’ Mum said.

Freddie was Miranda’s seven-year-old son who could be adorable and vile in equal measures but who had apparently inherited Dad’s musical talent – much to our father’s delight.

Mum opened the fridge, took out the bottle and retreated. I turned to Miranda, who’d finished the washing up.

‘So, you saw the look, right?’

She nodded.

‘What do you think it meant?’

Miranda shrugged. ‘Probably something completely unrelated, knowing them,’ she said. ‘They were interested though. Dad especially. Do you think it is our Lil?’

‘No,’ I said, though I wasn’t as sure as I sounded.

‘Where did you see her name?’ Miranda asked. She pulled out the wooden bench that lived under the kitchen table and sat down with a sigh. ‘I’m exhausted. Freddie was up half the night.’

I didn’t want to talk about Freddie; I wanted to talk about Lil.

‘On a list of people approved to fly bombers,’ I said.

‘Did women fly planes in the war?’

I nodded. ‘I don’t know a whole lot about it, but it seems so. Not in combat, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ said Miranda drily. ‘It’s funny that Lil’s never mentioned this because it sounds amazing. Flying bombers?’

‘Not just bombers,’ I said. ‘The records I found are from something called the Air Transport Auxiliary. They flew all the planes. Took them from the factories where they were built to wherever they were needed.’

‘And it was women doing this?’

‘Mostly,’ I said. ‘But men did it too. Jack Jones’s grandad did it because he was too short-sighted to join the regular RAF, which is faintly terrifying.’

Miranda chuckled.

‘But yes, mostly women. They called them the Attagirls.’

‘I like that,’ Miranda said. ‘It’s clever. And only a tiny bit patronising.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘They were really impressive,’ I said.