When the Lights Come on Again by Maggie Craig Read Free Book Online Page B

lower orders just don’t know their place any more.
    Served them bloody well right. It was 1938, after all, not the dark ages. Then her momentary satisfaction at answering back evaporated. That’s you cooked your goose, MacMillan. They’re never going to let you join now. Not after that performance. When are you ever going to learn to hold your tongue, you stupid bisom?
    She’d forgotten about the girl standing beside her, who now began to speak. She seemed to be battling against shyness, traces of a nervous stammer in her voice. All the same, she managed to sound both persuasive and conciliatory.
    Somehow smoothing over the awkwardness of the last exchange, she brought the discussion back to the point at issue. Wouldn’t it be useful to have people of all ages who knew what to do in an emergency? Especially somewhere like Clydebank - as the young gentleman had said, she added, flashing Liz’s champion a shy smile.
    They could perhaps be enrolled for classes on a probationary basis. How about a trial period of three months? The crisis might even be over by then. Whether it was or not, the powers-that-be could then make a decision about keeping them on.
    Liz could see that the woman was wavering, impressed by both the argument and the gentle maturity with which it had been put, not to mention the skilful pouring of oil on troubled waters.
    ‘Well, if you’re both sure ... if you’re happy to be enrolled on that basis ... there is going to be a class starting up in Clydebank. Let me take your details.’
    Liz turned to her new friend and smiled.

Five
    ‘Are you a communist? You were that fierce in there.’
    Both girls were standing in the lobby of the church hall, making preparations to brave the downpour. The force of the deluge had diminished, but a steady rain was continuing to fall on Buchanan Street.
    Liz laughed at the question, and the way in which it had been put - a mixture of disapproval and reluctant admiration. Her voice was tinged with scorn as she answered.
    ‘Why is it that everyone thinks you’re a communist because you speak your mind and don’t let people like that walk all over you? No,’ she said irritably, pulling on her gloves and getting ready to put up her umbrella, ‘I’m not a communist.’ Preparations complete, she turned to the girl. ‘My brother Eddie is, though. He says it’s the way of the future.’
    Her companion’s blue eyes grew wide.
    ‘But they do the Devil’s work!’
    Liz snorted.
    ‘That’s just propaganda. Don’t tell me you believe everything you read in the capitalist press?’
    The girl’s face fell. Realizing she was taking it out on the wrong person, Liz held out her hand.
    ‘I might have been fierce, but it was you who managed to get us enrolled. Thank you. I’m Elizabeth MacMillan - Liz.’
    The other girl shook Liz’s hand with a firmness which belied her ethereal appearance.
    ‘Helen,’ she said, with a shy dip of the head. ‘Helen Gallagher.’
    ‘Oh!’
    Cursing herself for the reaction she hadn’t managed to suppress, Liz felt the firm clasp on her hand relax. Helen took a step back, lifted her chin and gave Liz a wry smile.
    It was her surname that had done it, marking her out immediately as coming from an Irish - and therefore Roman Catholic - family. It went along with the universal question: what school did you go to? Clydebank High provoked one response, Our Holy Redeemer’s quite another.
    ‘Well,’ said Helen Gallagher after a tiny pause, ‘perhaps I’ll see you when the class starts.’
    She turned and headed for the doorway and the rainy street beyond. The street lamps had been lit early. One was casting a pale glow over the slick wet pavement, the illumination it gave fighting a losing battle with the spring twilight.
    Liz, following her out, noticed for the second time that the other girl wasn’t wearing a mac, but a heavy winter coat - a rather shabby one at that. That told its own story. She didn’t seem to have an