THE H-BOMB GIRL Read online

  Laura was relieved when the morning break came.

  All the kids spilled out into the yard again. A teacher walked around sternly, bell in hand. There was no equipment in the yard. The kids organised themselves into huge games: football with fifty boys on each side, complicated chase games like alley-oh fought out between whole armies. In their purple blazers, the kids looked like flocking animals on the bare concrete.

  Laura didn’t know anybody here. She didn’t want to be here. She drifted towards the gate. But the gate was padlocked shut, like a prison door.

  Some of the older kids gathered by the gate. Ciggie smoke hung around their heads like helmets. Laura saw a girl from her class snogging a boy, or a young man, through the railings. He wore a scruffy parka with an immense hood and a Union Jack sewn to the back.

  “Look at them.” Lu-chh at th’m. “Like monkeys in a zoo. Pathetic.”

  Laura turned. It was Bernadette, hanging around by the railings with the rest. She had her uniform skirt rucked up in her belt so you could see her knees—laddered tights—and her blouse was open low enough to show a bit of cleavage. She was taller than Laura, tall for her age, and she might have passed for eighteen or twenty. But her fingers were stained by Quink ink, like every other schoolkid’s.

  And she had a friend on the other side of the railing, a tall, pale boy in a frock coat, with his black hair piled on his head in a vast quiff. Teddy Boy, Laura thought straight away, though she had never seen a Ted in her life.

  He pranced around, showing Laura his drainpipe trousers. “Hello, gorgeous. Do you like me kecks?”

  He made Laura laugh.

  Bernadette prodded her arm. “What you looking at?” This was in Bernadette’s thick Scouse, that Laura had had trouble understanding all morning. Wot chew luckin’ atts?

  “I’m sorry.”

  That set them off. “Oh, Ai’m saw-rry, Ai’m saw-rry, look et mee, Ai’m the Quee-een…”

  Laura just put up with this until they ran down.

  Bernadette said, “You can never miss Nick. Always done up like a pox-doctor’s clerk. Nick, this is the Posh Judy I told you about.”

  “I’m not posh. And my name’s not Judy.”

  That set them off laughing again.

  The boy, Nick, looked her up and down. She didn’t like it when boys, or men, did that, but there was something cool about Nick’s inspection. “So what is your name?”

  “Laura.”

  He shrugged. “That’ll do.” It was hard to tell his age: twenty, maybe. He wasn’t that bad-looking if you got past the quiff. “So where you from, Posh Laura? London?”

  “No. High Wycombe. About thirty miles west of London.”

  “That’s where Strike Command is. The air force control centre.” The black boy from class, Joel, came up to them. He was limping. He wore a huge floppy hat knitted in bright scarlet and white stripes. “Americans too.”

  “My dad’s in the air force,” Laura admitted.

  But she was staring at Joel, and he stared back. She looked away, embarrassed.

  Joel snapped, “If you want to know I had polio. The epidemic in 1956. I wasn’t vaccinated in time. That’s where the limp comes from. The hard cases here call me the Hunchback of Knotty Ash. Ha ha.” He ran a finger down his face. “And no, the black doesn’t wash off.”

  Laura said, “Actually I was looking at your hat.”

  Joel stared back at her for a tense second. Then he laughed. “My grandmother knitted it for me to wear on the Kop. Liverpool Football Club. My name’s Joel.”

  “I know. I heard at registration.”

  “Isn’t this nice,” Bernadette snapped. “All the class outcasts together. Per-heps we should h-eve a naice cup of tee-ee, Posh Laura.”

  Beyond the railings, Nick blew cigarette smoke out of his nose. “Ignore Bern. She’s just got a cob-on because we’re not all looking at her.”

  Bernadette jabbed him through the railings with her elbow. “Shut your gob, skiver.”

  “I’m no skiver. I’m working for Her Majesty.”

  “On the dole,” translated Bernadette.

  “Resting between career opportunities, while I develop my music.” He said to Laura, “Maybe you’ve heard of my group.”

  “Group?”

  “You know, beat group.”

  “One of only about four hundred and eight in Liverpool,” said Joel dryly.

  “Nick O’Teen and the Woodbines. We’re playing Sunday. You should come.”

  “His real name’s Ciaran,” Bernadette told Laura. “He went to this school. They let him out a couple of years ago, didn’t they, Ciaran? He’s got two A-levels.”

  “Aside from Joel, here, I can’t say I’m impressed by the company you’re keeping, Miss Mann.” Miss Wells had come up behind them, cold and severe in her overcoat.

  Even though he was beyond the railings, Nick threw down his ciggie and stubbed it out quickly.

  “Hello, Miss Wells,” Bernadette said innocently.

  “Don’t push it, O’Brien,” Miss Wells said. Her accent was neutral Home Counties.

  Laura didn’t like what she had said about the company she kept. She had hardly made a friend of tall, too-adult Bernadette, but at least she’d made contact. She said, “It was you who put me with Bernadette, Miss.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I’ll have to sort that out.” Miss Wells glanced around the playground. “Look at all those kids, swarming like rats. So many of them—of you. Every school in the country is as crowded as this. There’s been nothing but more and more babies, ever since the war. One day they’ll call you ‘baby boomers.’” Ignoring the others, Miss Wells stepped close to Laura and stared into her face. Laura looked into those eyes so like Mum’s, and she had a strange swimming feeling.

  Then Miss Wells turned away, breaking the moment. “I hope you remembered your plimsolls for PE, Miss Mann. And you, O’Brien, button yourself up. Marilyn Monroe has sadly departed this mortal coil, but we don’t want any tributes from you.” She walked back towards the school.

  Once she had gone Nick sneered. “Yes, auntie, no, auntie.”

  Laura was confused. “What do you mean, auntie?”

  Bernadette said, “Come on, Posh Judy. You’ve got to admit that weird old witch looks like you. Or the way you’ll look in thirty or forty years.”

  Nick laughed. “In the year 2000, when we’ll all be living on the Moon and wearing silver suits.”

  “I’m not related to Miss Wells. I never met her before yesterday.”

  “Then why’s she so interested in you?” Bernadette asked. “Maybe she fancies you.”

  That shocked Laura. “I’m a girl!”

  Bernadette and Nick both laughed. Nick said, “You really haven’t lived much, Posh Judy, have you?” “Ave yer?”

  Bernadette said, “Nothing but mysteries about you, is there? The teacher’s your evil sister, your dad’s in the air force. And what’s this you’re wearing?” She reached forward.

  The Key had worked its way out of her blouse. Laura tucked it back in. “It’s nothing.”

  Joel had been standing quietly. “I think I know what it is.”

  Laura was supposed to keep the Key secret. That was what Dad always said. “No, you don’t. How can you know?”

  “I read a lot.”

  “He’s not kidding.”

  Nick shut Bernadette up. “Go on, Joel. What was that thing?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” Joel’s Scouse was as strong as anybody else’s, but he spoke thoughtfully. “I think it’s something to do with Vulcan bombers.”

  “You what, soft lad? What’s a Vulcan bomber? An upper or a downer?” Bernadette laughed, trying to get the attention back on herself.

  “It’s an air force plane,” Joel said, “that will drop hydrogen bombs on Moscow, if we ever go to war with the Russians. A British V-bomber armed with American Thor missiles.”

  Nick turned his gaze on Laura, lively, fascinated. “Well, well. You are an exotic specimen. T
he H-Bomb Girl!”

  They all stood there, three pairs of eyes locked on Laura.

  Laura’s panic deepened. She had no idea what to say. If Dad found out about this, he’d chew her up.

  Then, to her relief, the teacher rang her bell, and break was over.

  Nick pushed a grubby newspaper through the railings at Laura. “Come and see us on Sunday. The Woodbines. It’s all in there.”

  Bernadette stomped off, fixing her skirt.

  Joel walked beside Laura. “Don’t worry about Bernadette. She just doesn’t like anybody to be more interesting than she is.”

  Laura remembered what Miss Wells had said about “Black Saturday.” “Joel. If you know all this stuff about bombers, what’s going to happen on Saturday? Not this Saturday. The twenty-seventh.”

  He frowned. “Liverpool are away at West Brom. Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  As they went into the school, he pulled off his Liverpool FC hat and stuffed it into a blazer pocket.

  Chapter 3

  Friday 12th October. 5 p.m.

  Back from school. Good.

  Stuck at home for two days. Bad.

  Mum in living room chatting away with our American lodger. A fug of ciggie smoke, bottles of beer on the occasional table (Dad will love that), and Glenn Miller 78s playing on the Dansette (Dad will love that too). It’s always Glenn Miller with Mum. Always the war. I think she’s sorry it ever ended.

  They were talking about me. “There were no teenagers in the old days. Just children and adults, and you went straight from being one to the other. Now they swarm everywhere with more money than sense.” And blah blah.

  I like the idea that my life is different from theirs. That we’re the first real teenagers. Good.

  Mum sounds childish when she speaks to Mort. No, not that. Girlish. More girly than Bernadette, say.

  As for Dad—

  She couldn’t think what to write about Dad, who was due to drive off back to Wycombe and leave them, thus completing the Separation.

  Still in her school uniform, she went downstairs. Mort and Mum were laughing in the living room.

  Dad was alone in the poky little parlour, sitting on a footstool before the television. The news was on, and he was making notes about it.

  Mum’s furniture, crowded in with the old lady stuff, was too big for the room. But then this was a smaller house than the one they had had in Wycombe, because it stood for Mum’s half of the family savings.

  The telly showed a flickering map of North America, highlighting an island south of Florida. Cuba. The Americans were agitated because the Cubans were pally with the Russians.

  It was always Americans and Russians in the news, annoying each other around the world, like two gangs in a playground. It was boring. Except that if they went to war Britain would be caught in the middle, and everything would be blown up with nuclear bombs.

  “Well, that’s torn it,” Dad murmured. He was so close to the thick, dusty screen that silver light played on his face. Not a handsome face, she thought. Strong, though.

  “Dad, can I watch Six-Five Special?”

  He snapped, “Can’t you see how important this is?”

  She flinched.

  He seemed to catch himself. He turned to face her. The muscles in his neck were taut, like ropes. He always had a tension that seemed on the point of breaking. Once he had flown Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. That was probably the trouble, why the Separation had happened. He had always been in love with somebody else—the air force.

  “All right, chicken.” He patted the carpet beside his stool, and she went to sit beside him. “So how was school?”

  “OK, I guess.”

  “Did you make any friends?”

  “Dad, I’m fourteen.”

  He laughed. “So how’s Miss Wells?”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Dad, do you think she looks a bit like Mum?”

  He thought about that. “Maybe.”

  “She couldn’t be some kind of cousin, could she? A long-lost auntie.”

  “I don’t think so. Your mum’s family are close. Does it matter who she looks like?”

  “She’s a bit funny with me.”

  “Life’s complicated, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “Well, you won’t be here to see one way or the other, will you?”

  “No. Look—I’m sorry if I was a bit brisk with you this morning.”

  It was very rare for him to apologise, even if he kept slipping into RAF jargon when he did it. A bit brisk.

  “I just want to make sure you understand what’s going on,” he said. “Mum and I still love each other. And you. We just can’t live together, that’s all.”

  “But you can’t divorce.” Mum was a Roman Catholic from Liverpool. Roman Catholics from Liverpool didn’t divorce. Even Auntie Eileen hadn’t got divorced, despite her colourful life.

  “No. So Mum has come home to be near her family. And I, well—”

  “You’ve got your work.”

  He pulled a face. Then, astonishingly, even though the news wasn’t finished, he reached over and turned off the telly. The grey image collapsed to a white dot that slowly faded.

  If he rarely apologised, he never turned off the news. It made her realise how serious things were.

  “Yes, I’ve got my work. But it’s not, you know, a rival for you. You’re my only daughter, chicken, and you come first. But I have to keep at it. For your benefit. And Mum’s, and everybody else’s, in fact. And that’s why,” he said, “you have to wear your Key.”

  “Dad, if you’re going to start that repeating thing again—”

  “I won’t. But I’m going away tomorrow, chicken, and I don’t know when I’ll see you again, and I have to be sure you’re safe. Even though I’m not here. You know what to do with it?”

  She knew. She’d been told often enough. If the worst came to the worst—though Dad had never spelled out what that “worst” might be—she was to call a phone number he had made her memorise, which would put her through to somebody called the “Regional Director of Civil Defence.”

  “Then tell him the Key’s War Ministry code number.” She’d had to memorise that too. “If you tell him my name, and tell him you have the Key, and give him that code, he will have you found and brought to safety. Make sure you always know where the nearest telephone is. And keep a threepenny bit in your sock to pay for the call. But keep it secret.”

  She didn’t know what the Key actually was. He had never said. But it was an important enough bit of military hardware that if the government or the air force or the police found out she had it, they would come looking for her and take her in. They would protect her, not for herself, but because of the Key she carried. “They’ll probably arrest you,” Dad said, “but at least you’ll be safe.”

  To Laura the key was just a Magic Token that would keep her safe, even if Dad couldn’t help her himself. At least, that was how Dad wanted her to think of it.

  It was scary to think that Joel might actually find out what the Key was for. Scary, and exciting.

  She’d wear the Key to keep Dad happy. But she resented all this confusion and worry.

  Maybe he sensed what she was thinking. He hugged her to him, and kissed the top of her head. “Mmm. Always did like the taste of Vosene.”

  That made her giggle.

  “Oh. Sorry, folks.”

  Laura pulled away from her father. Mum and Mort, the American, were standing in the doorway. Both had drinks in their hands, ciggies in their lips. Mort was holding a parcel, wrapped up in silver paper.

  “It’s all right.” Dad stood up, supple.

  Mort eyed Laura. “We got off to a bad start, little missy. In the line for the bathroom, remember? I’ll try to stay out of your hair. In the meantime—” He held out the package. “Peace offering?”

  Laura took the parcel and opened it. Inside, in a plastic box, there was a doll, with a pointy chest, lon
g legs, beehive hairdo and high heels.

  “It’s a Barbie,” Mort said. “New toy. All the rage in the States.”

  Mum giggled. “Isn’t he something? He always brings such great stuff from America. Used to bring me nylons during the war.”

  Laura stared at the doll with disbelief.

  Mort shrugged. “So. Did I do wrong? Look, I don’t know diddley squat about kids. I guess you’re more of a bobbysoxer, right?”

  “Say thank you, Laura.” Mum sounded desperate.

  Her bedroom was just a box with her stuff still in a suitcase, or in heaps on the floor. The wallpaper was stained yellow. It looked like somebody had smoked themselves to death in here, and maybe they had.

  She threw herself on the bed and opened her diary.

  Friday 12th October. 6 p.m.

  It makes sense to have It here. The Mort-Monster. That’s what they all say, all three of them.

  It works with Dad. It is in Liverpool to see about “civil defence preparations,” whatever they are.

  And It knows Mum from the war, when she was in London.

  Mum and Dad were well off before they split, but now everything is divided in half and we’re all poor. To keep the house, we need the rent It will pay.

  How sensible.

  Here’s what I think of It.

  She started a list of every spiteful, obscene thing she could think of to say about Giuseppe Mortinelli the Third, Lieutenant-Colonel, US Air Force.

  Her diary was a thick book bound in real leather that Dad had given to her on her eleventh birthday. She was embarrassed now by the early entries with their round handwriting and pictures of horses and dogs and stupid boys’ names. But the diary had stuck by her through the Separation, and was still with her, a little bit of home.

  She felt like crying. None of that.

  Her list of swear words looked stupid. Childish. Bernadette could surely do a lot better. She crossed it all out.

  She hated Mort, though. She hated the way he had come into her home, his murky old relationship with Mum coming between her and Dad.