The Red Ribbon Read online

  “I said, shut it!” Girder roared.

  The woman was too far gone. She screamed and screamed and screamed until I thought my ears would split. In the dark, Rose reached out a hand and found mine.

  Girder exploded into action. She dragged the woman from the bunk and shook her. “It’s not you!” she shouted. “It’s nothing to do with you. It’s Them. They want someone to hate. To kill. So They decided we’re all criminals.”

  “I’m not!” said Rose abruptly, in a tone of great indignation.

  “Me either!” cackled a rough girl from two bunks away. She had a green triangle badge; she was well known to have a criminal record longer than a roll of toilet paper.

  “I used to steal apples,” came a creaky voice from near the floor. “Sour as vinegar, and made your tummy twist inside out, but every autumn we nicked ’em all the same.”

  Girder folded her arms. “You stupid idiots. They don’t care if you shoplifted lipstick, or even if you mugged an old lady for her pension money . . . or hacked your mother to death for that matter. Whatever we might’ve done, we’re not here for real crimes.”

  The barrack went deadly quiet. Not even a stalk of straw rustled.

  Girder liked having an audience. “Haven’t you thick turds noticed They don’t care what we’ve done? We’re here because we’re not people to Them. Even us green-triangle criminals, that’s just an excuse. And you, red-triangle Rosy posy, with your manners and etiquette and all that crap — d’you think They’d sit down and have tea with you? It’d be like asking a rat to show you which feckin fork you need for the fish course!”

  “How very rude,” said Rose, though whether she was referring to Girder’s bad language or the thought of dining with a rat, I couldn’t tell.

  “Rude?” Girder spat the word out. “It’ll be the death of us!”

  “They don’t want all of us dead,” I objected.

  “Nah, not so long as we’re useful, little sewing girl. But what about when they’ve had enough of playing dressy-up? You think it’ll be all, Ooh, I’m loving this little silk number then? You’ll be crispy-bones up the chimneys, same as the rest of us.”

  “Shut up!” I shouted straightaway, putting my hands over my ears. “Shut up, shut up, shut up about chimneys.”

  Next thing I knew, Girder was dragging me down from the bunk, every bone banging against the wood. I’d barely found my feet before she punched me in the mouth, yelling, “I’m the boss. I’m the only one who shuts people up in here — get it?”

  She let go. I crumpled to the floor like a discarded rag. Girder looked down at me and sighed. Anger seemed to drain out of her, like pee leaking from the toilet bucket in the corner.

  I was trembling as she helped me to my feet and pushed me back up to the top bunk. She turned to the woman who’d started off the whole rant.

  “I want to go home!” the poor woman gasped, in between shakes and sobs.

  “And I want to murder every last beast in this hellhole with my bare hands,” Girder raged. She had hands as big as dinner plates. “The best we can do is live. Are you listening? The only way to beat them is by not dying. So shut up and survive, you miserable cow. And let the rest of us sleep.”

  I began to forget there’d ever been a world other than Birchwood. A world where people could travel by trains to proper destinations, such as places with shops, or the seaside. Where you could wear normal clothes and sleep in your own bed, and sit down to dinner with your family. You know — real life.

  Rose said stories were life. I knew better. Work was life. Whatever Marta told me to do, I said, “I can do it.” However tight the deadline, however fussy the client, I never ever let her down. In return I was getting the best jobs. The extra bread. The cigarettes and the occasional well done.

  I was learning a lot, sometimes just by looking, sometimes when I got help with a garment. The other seamstresses weren’t as unfriendly as I’d first thought. They didn’t begrudge sharing skills and knowledge. Bit by bit I found out their stories too. Real-life stories, from before Birchwood.

  Francine, for example, had been in a big industrial workshop before coming here. I’d thought that already, having seen her power through heavy jobs. For Francine it was a whole different kettle of fish to sit in a small room sewing different things every week. She didn’t get used to the toilet facilities, though. She kept badgering me for more “bog roll,” as she called it.

  Shona was once the star seamstress at a wedding-dress emporium. She told us all sorts of tales about obnoxious brides and their monstrous mothers. “Satisfying both at once was impossible,” she said. “When you finally made the bride happy . . . that was almost worth the aggravation.”

  Shona was always touching her finger, where a wedding ring would have been. They’d taken all jewelry when we arrived. I’d only had the little yellow-gold locket Grandad had given me for my last birthday. It had my name inside and my birth date.

  “Did you make your own wedding dress?” I asked Shona.

  Shona smiled. “I did. Just a day dress in caramel crêpe fabric. When I got big with baby I cut it into a romper suit for him.” Her face crumpled.

  By midsummer I had my own sewing machine that no one else could use. I was even trusted with pins — pins! When Marta was busy in the fitting room, I became boss of the workroom. The other seamstresses had to obey me. I managed to get Rose doing embroidery instead of ironing and cleaning all the time. Rose wasn’t exactly grateful.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re almost like prominents now. You’re the best embroiderer here: you deserve a promotion. Those dandelions you did on that nightgown the other day, they were so pretty.”

  “I like dandelions,” Rose said. “Except when I first came here and my job was picking dandelions and nettles to make into soup. I had more blisters than skin from that. Anyway, we used to have a meadow of dandelions on the palace grounds, and buttercups, too. Do you know that thing with buttercups, where you hold them under your chin to see if you like butter or not?”

  “What? Everyone likes butter. My grandma made the best bread-and-butter pudding, with really creamy milk, and . . . and that’s not the point! Stop distracting me from work. Carla’s after a new summer blouse with daisies embroidered on the collar, for starters. She’ll give me cigarettes if it’s nice. I could organize you a proper pair of shoes instead of those daft ones you’ve got now.”

  Rose looked down at her satin slipper and her leather brogue.

  “I’ve become rather used to them,” she said. “One makes me feel like a dainty lady, and the other is all about marking off the miles. There’s a story in that.”

  “How can you keep turning everything into stories?”

  “And how can you keep accepting gifts from a guard?”

  “She’s a client,” I corrected her, though Carla usually came to her fittings in full uniform, complete with whip. Sometimes she even brought Pippa, tying the leash around the leg of the chair. Pippa would lie down and watch my every move with her yellow teeth showing. Dogs here were trained to attack Stripeys.

  “Come on, Rose. Don’t look at me like that! Carla’s friendly in her own stupid way. Like a big sow that rolls around squashing her own piglets.”

  Rose smiled and tucked her arm through mine. I let her. We were outside lining up for evening coffee-water and it was safer to be two than one.

  “Do you always compare people to animals?” she asked. “You’ve got a whole zoo by now — Carla the pig, Francine the frog, and Marta the shark.”

  “Don’t tell them that’s what I call them!”

  “Of course I won’t. So what about me? What animal am I, then?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What animal?”

  “A squirrel.”

  “A squirrel?” she shrieked. “Is that how you think of me? All skittish and scared?”

  “Squirrels are cute! They have nice fluffy tails, and that way of tipping their head on one side when they look at you. I like s
quirrels. Why, what sort of animal do you want to be? A swan, I suppose. Something grand like that, fitting for a countess who lived in a palace with gold egg cups?”

  “Swans have got a good hard bite.” Rose laughed, pecking me with her hand.

  I fought her off, wriggling and giggling. “Stop it, you idiot!” It was really annoying how she kept making me happy. I was supposed to be concentrating on other things — like getting ahead and getting home.

  People in the coffee-water line looked at us as if we were mad.

  “Tell me — what sort of animal are you, then?” Rose challenged me.

  “I don’t know! Nothing. Or something stupid. Never mind.” Snake, piranha, spider, scorpion.

  Rose did that squirrel-tilt thing with her head. “I think I know what animal you are.”

  I didn’t dare ask.

  Day after day sewing. Night after night talking, then sleeping and dreaming.

  Dreams of home. Of the table set for breakfast, with a clean cotton cloth. Fresh toast slathered in proper yellow butter. Eggs with bright yolks. Tea from a pot painted with yellow polka dots.

  I always woke up before I got to eat anything.

  A runner came to the barrack block one evening after roll call. She was a teeny little Stripey, like a bird. A starling, perhaps. She spoke to Girder. Girder called my number. I climbed down from the top bunk, trying to hide my fear. It couldn’t mean anything good.

  “See you soon,” Rose called brightly, as if I was just popping out to pick up a pint of milk.

  Off I went with the Starling, running of course. Down the main street. Past row after row after row of barrack blocks. To a cobbled yard and a big building with glass in the windows and strips of material that looked suspiciously like curtains. To a door.

  Starling put her finger to her lips. You first, she mimed.

  Stuff that, I mimed back.

  Starling sighed and pushed the door open. I paused before following, as if I had a choice in the matter. I was nearly piddling myself with nerves (quite an achievement when all summer I’d been sweating more than I drank, so it was hard to pee at all ).

  Inside, rows of closed doors. The smell of lemon disinfectant. The murmur of muted voices. At one door, a pair of boots. The Starling tapped on a blank door . . . then vanished so quickly I almost suspected her of flying away like a real bird.

  The door opened.

  “Don’t just stand there, quick, come in — shut the door behind you. Wipe your feet. Take a seat. What do you think? It’s not much, but it’s home.”

  I was in the guards’ barracks. I was in Carla’s room.

  Carla looked cool and fresh in the yellow sundress I’d made for her. She pointed her toes like a ballet dancer so I could admire her slippers.

  “Aren’t these sweet? One of the girls spotted them at the Department Store and I knew they’d do for me. Just my size, too, luckily.”

  One of the girls — another guard.

  Carla laughed nervously. “Don’t worry, it’s all right: I won’t get into trouble having you here, as long as we keep our voices down and nobody sees you. Sit on the chair if you like; let me just take the cushion off. Or on my bed. This bed, not that one — that’s Grazyna’s. She’s on duty at the moment. You’ve probably seen her around. She’s got really frizzy hair — looks a fright. It’s all the swimming she does. I tell her she’ll get too muscly, but she doesn’t listen.”

  I’d seen Grazyna at work. Grazyna carried a well-worn wooden truncheon. This wasn’t the right time to tell Carla we Stripeys called her Bone-Grinder, after an ogre who featured heavily in one of Rose’s stories.

  Carla sat on the bed. The mattress springs boinged. I took the chair. She patted the patchwork quilt spread over the bed, all browns and beiges.

  “I thought you’d like this. See — it’s stitched from pieces of dress leftovers, all different sorts.”

  It looked like a mishmash of my grandad’s least-favorite ties. My grandma had a much nicer quilt on her bed back home, with cheerful flower prints and stripes. It was like a storybook of our lives. Grandma would say, Do you remember having a frock made of this when we went for a picnic by the river and ate custard tart with nutmeg on top? Do you remember your grandad’s old waistcoat, the one he wore to work, usually with the buttons done up wrong? Do you remember . . . ? Do you remember . . . ?

  The bed boinged again as Carla leaned forward. I could see speckles of face powder on her cheeks. “What’s the matter? Are you OK?”

  I nodded. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin as Carla thrust her wrist under my nose.

  “Smell this! It’s Blue Evening perfume. Look, here’s the bottle.” Up she sprang, going to a chest of drawers covered with cards and photographs. She picked up a blue cut-glass bottle with a starry metal cap. “I read somewhere that the most glamorous women spray a mist of perfume into the air then walk right through it. Try some!”

  I held out my wrist cautiously.

  “God, you’re skinny! I wish I could diet more. I suppose I’m just stuck with these curves,” she said.

  Drops of Blue Evening frosted my skin. I smelled sharp sophistication and soft fur wraps. Chilled drinks in fragile glasses. High heels and shimmering silk. After these first brash top notes came a more subtle aroma. Flower petals, slowly falling. I thought of a storybook place Rose called the City of Light, full of sparkle and style. After the War, me and her, we’d wear perfume every day to drive out the stink of Birchwood. But not this scent. It was so strong in Carla’s little room it made me want to gag, like a cat coughing up a hairball.

  “So . . . can’t you guess?” Carla demanded.

  Guess what?

  She twirled around in the middle of the room. “It’s my birthday! I’ve even had my hair done specially. The hair salon here is wonderful. I’m nineteen today — practically middle-aged! Look, the cards are from Mama and Papa and my little brother Paul, and my old gym teacher — what a dragon! — and Frank, this boy in the village, but I didn’t like him as much as he liked me. And that one’s from Aunty Fern and Uncle Os, who’ve got the farm next to ours. They’re the ones who sent the cake. Aren’t you just gagging for a slice? I know I am. Do you like chocolate? It’s chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream in the middle and chocolate icing on top. I’ve even got candles.”

  Carla lit the candles, puckered up her lips (glossed red for the occasion) and blew the candles out.

  “There! I made a wish!”

  Good for you, I thought. I had a few wishes stored up of my own. I wish I could go home. I wish I could be the most celebrated dressmaker in all the world, and, most urgently, I wish she’d just get on and cut the cake.

  That last wish came true pretty quickly. Carla passed me a big, brown slab of wonderfulness, with buttercream oozing out.

  “You don’t mind fingers, do you?” she asked. “There’s only us, and they don’t exactly go for cake forks in this place, do they? Ha, ha.”

  I tried a small nibble. Sugar! My taste buds threatened to explode with shock and delight.

  “I had presents too,” Carla announced with her mouth full. “Don’t look so guilty: I didn’t expect you to get me anything. Anyway, I got a new hairbrush and comb set from Mama and Papa. I told them I didn’t need one as there are tons for free at the Department Store. They sent these too — ha! I knew you’d like them. World of Fashion, every issue for the past three months, complete with paper patterns for a summer bathing suit and beach wrap, and all sorts . . .”

  Carla spread the magazines on the bed and began turning the pages one by one. In her faux-posh farm-girl accent she began a running commentary: Isn’t it divine. . . . God, that’s hideous. . . . I LOVE this one. . . . No one in their right mind would wear THAT in public!

  I felt sick. It was the sugar . . . the perfume . . . her voice, going on and on and on. Puking onto the patchwork quilt would be bad.

  Carla pointed a sticky finger to one of the magazine designs. “You can make this for me. What do y
ou think — too flashy? Too showy? I thought, with autumn not far off, it’d go well with a little knitted jacket from the Department Store. You know, I never realized Your Sort could sew so well. After the War I’ll open a dress shop. I’ll design and model the clothes and you can make them.”

  I nearly choked at the idea.

  Carla veered off to the next monologue, this time fetching a picture from the chest of drawers.

  “See this photo — this is me and Rudi, one of the farm dogs back home. Isn’t he adorable? I couldn’t bring him with me. Never mind, I’ve got Pippa now. A girl’s best friend is her dog, right? This field where me and Rudi are, it’s all buttercups and daisies this time of year — yellow from hedge to hedge. Did you ever do that thing with daisies where you pull the petals off to see if someone loves you? Loves me . . . loves me not . . .”

  She was so close I could see clots of mascara on her eyelashes. I thought of Pippa, who looked more likely to pull people’s heads off than petals. I put my plate down.

  “You’re not going, are you? So soon? Here, I’ll wrap more cake in a napkin for you to take. I can’t eat it all — not and still fit into this dress, ha, ha. The other girls aren’t getting any. They’re not really friends, you know, not even Grazyna. They don’t have an eye for fashion and nice things like me. You understand. I know you do. . . .”

  I made it to the door.

  “Yes, hurry before anyone sees you,” said Carla, suddenly anxious. “Go!”

  The whole time I hadn’t spoken a single word.

  Back at the barrack Rose and I curled into a secret circle on our bunk. The remains of the cake slice lay splodged on a napkin between us. It was a thing of wonder.

  “It doesn’t seem possible that cake and Birchwood can exist together in the same place,” Rose said.

  “I know! It’s crazy. What on earth made Carla invite me to her birthday? Some sort of sick joke? Then offering me cake!”

  “She’s trying to be friends with you. She’s wrong to abuse you like that, but she does sound lonely.”

  “Lonely? You didn’t hear her banging on about all her presents, and how she could get anything she wanted at the Department Store, and how the other guards don’t understand her.”