In Rememberance (2021)

Drifting with the Current

“I’m not doing that for half a crown! It’s sixpence extra.”

Have you ever watched yourself making love?

Why am I even asking? This is… 2021, is it? You’ve probably filmed yourself with your telephone, and used an internet to let other people watch you. But imagine you’re living in the ’40s. The 1940s, not the 2040s; you don’t want to imagine living in the 2040s. If you make it to the ’40s, remember things will get better. Someone told me 2047 was the turning point. Hang on until then if you can.

Sorry, I wandered. That’s how I live now, wandering from one year to another, one thought to another. I was going to tell you about the war. Things were different. There weren’t any internets, so if you wanted to watch people make love you needed to be a peeping Tom, and to argue with someone in another country you had to actually go there. Some of our young men did that in ’39. They went to the continent, my husband among them. Many of those boys made it back in little boats; Frank wasn’t among them. We had rationing, bombs, poverty, fear, and loneliness. Mostly loneliness for me, with a little poverty and one life-changing bomb.

The bomb fell in 1942, the year the Americans arrived. The Yanks had chocolate, and confidence, and Hollywood accents, and I’m making excuses: they had money, is what they had. So much money, and not enough to spend it on. They were lonely too.

I didn’t know I was going to prostitute myself until May that year. The blitz had ended but there were still occasional air raids. One night a close one shook my Anderson shelter. I thought I was a goner but when the dust settled, I settled with it. The all clear came half an hour later, and I went back into the house to discover I was already there, in my bedroom, on my bed, with a young man between my legs, his hairy bum going like the clappers.

I had my eyes closed, luckily. Not me, mine were wide open, but the me lying on the bed had her eyes closed. She didn’t see me staring at her.

It’s not pretty, is it? Sex, I mean. It’s hardly the ballet. Why would you watch anyone doing that, let alone yourself? Pornography doesn’t become properly beautiful until the ’80s, when nothing’s real but you’re there, actually there, a part of it, and anyone can be with you, touching you, reacting to your touch, like they’re still alive.

Sorry, I got distracted again. My mind bounces about more than my body. I was only in 2085 for a week, years ago, but those fleeting moments of fake joy haunt me. The ’80s would have been bad for business though. Who pays for a flesh and blood woman with all her imperfections when they can plug in to free fantasies instead? And there was no job I could do in that time except the one I can do anywhen, so if I hadn’t gone to 2046 I might have starved. I was lucky I left, really. I didn’t feel lucky at the time.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual. I was in 1942, about to learn I’d become a prostitute. I couldn’t stand to see myself doing what I was doing, so I crept out of my bedroom. As I left I heard the man ask to take off his rubber and finish in my mouth. I assumed I’d say, “No!” but what I actually said was, “I’m not doing that for half a crown! It’s sixpence extra. Okay, Yank?”

I didn’t wait to learn whether he paid up. I fled to the garden, back to the shelter, and tried to work things out. Why was there another me, and why was she selling herself for two-and-six? The best I could come up with was the bomb blast rattled my brain, and I was hallucinating.

I stayed in the shelter until morning, and when I came out I saw bare trees, and brown leaves littering the lawn. I picked one up and felt it crumble in my hand. That wasn’t an hallucination; it was real. Somehow the bomb had knocked me into autumn, but also left me in spring, and in the months since May, spring me had become a hussy. Autumn me was homeless and destitute because spring me was using our house as a knocking shop, and she had our ID card and ration book.

I waited for spring me to go out, then I stole into our house and filled a handbag with a few of our bits and bobs. No money, though: she’d taken whatever she’d earned to the shops.

I walked to the east end. There were empty houses by the docks, because their occupants got evacuated during the blitz, so I had somewhere dry to sleep. The docks still got raided sometimes but if my new house was hit all I’d lose was everything I had — which was more or less nothing — and maybe my life, which belonged to the other me now.

I went hungry for three days before I seriously considered walking the streets. I didn’t want to, but I’d known from the start that I would eventually; after all, other me was doing it and she wasn’t even starving. Still, I resisted as long as I could. It wasn’t as if I didn’t enjoy making love — I never had to lie back and think of England with Frank, because he’d show me the whole world — but I knew when I sold myself it would be to strangers; men who’d use my body to slake their own appetites. I’d be lucky if they showed me anything more than contempt.

I learned some things fast, like how painful intercourse could be without Frank to put me in the mood. I persevered, because I was hungry, and afterwards I learned to lubricate myself. That meant stealing Vaseline from the first aid box at an ARP post, which is where I learnt that morality is sometimes a luxury. Things got easier after that.

I also learned that being alluring is easy if you’re doing it professionally. I didn’t have to make myself beautiful, or even pretty; I just had to look available. I learnt to hitch up my skirt, open a few buttons, and tolerate scornful eyes, except my own; I learnt not to look at myself in the mirror.

Other things I learned more slowly, like how to judge men and how important it was to go with my gut and turn down the ones who didn’t feel right, no matter how hungry I was. I learnt not to hide from coppers; I’d refuse their silver instead. I learnt not to get straight down to business but to talk to my customers first; that way I didn’t feel quite so used afterwards. And I learnt all men are different: some were callous, and some were tender, but none were Frank.

I learned more about sex too. Those few days every month when I earned a lot of sixpences taught me I didn’t mind earning them. Sometimes earning sixpence was preferable: one time, an American stevedore asked to use my bottom. I thought I’d dissuade him by saying I wanted a guinea for that, and he got quite rude. I had to explain I wasn’t prejudiced, and a guinea was twenty-one shillings, not an Italian. He said he’d come back later.

Later was the next night. Even with Vaseline, that sex hurt more than the first time I sold myself. He came back a week after with his pal. They’d been teaching our dockers how to play dice, and they were both flush. It wasn’t any less painful the second time — or the third — but it was lucrative, so I learned to use a lot of Vaseline, and relax. It got easier, eventually.

By 1943 I’d learnt shame was more of a luxury than morality. Between the dockers and the sailors I had enough regular business to eat well, off-ration. I could even afford a winter coat on the black market. I was less poor than in May, but just as lonely, despite all the company I was keeping. And there were more bombs, none of which knocked me back to my old life. None of them killed me either, so it was swings and roundabouts. I was surviving.

Then one evening in February ’43 I was outside the dock gates as usual and a little red car flew past me with its headlights on, full beam. I thought maybe the war had ended, and in a way it had: I’d travelled in time again. There wasn’t even a bomb, it just happened.

I couldn’t believe the 1960s when I first saw them. I thought times must be really hard because so many girls were on the game, but those skirts were just the fashion, and I could buy one, because clothes weren’t rationed any more. I learnt minis suited me, and rolling them up a little higher suited the dockers.

I had to find somewhere to sleep, but there were other women at the docks and they steered me right. I learnt new prices for old services, and why KY was better than Vaseline, and that some of my new friends could be very friendly — they taught me things Frank couldn’t know. So I wasn’t poor, I wasn’t lonely, and there were no bombs at all. I was doing better than surviving: I was happy.

That happiness didn’t last, but I’ve learnt nothing does. Every so often time’s current will grip me, and I’ll wash up on the shores of a new year. I’ve drifted around so much I’ve learnt how to sniff out the edges of society and find someone there who’ll tell me how to work safely. I’ve also learnt always to hold on to my handbag, and keep a few essentials in it: French letters, sanitary napkins, and cash which sometimes turns out not to be legal tender any more, or won’t be for decades. Apart from the bag, all I take with me when I travel is the clothes on my back, so when I arrive, I take off my clothes and lie on my back. That’s the one job I can always do, whatever else changes.

I’m not sure how long I’ve lived like this: it’s tricky to count years without Christmases to mark them, or even four seasons in the proper order. I know I’ve spent more than two years in 2046 alone; I’ve done that long summer five times. I think I’ve been travelling for forty years, all told.

So I’m about sixty-three… but still twenty-three. Time is a stream I swim in without getting wet: whenever I travel I arrive in the same body I had in May of ’42. That’s helpful, not just for keeping my value but because any diseases I’ve picked up stay behind, and I don’t carry passengers. That means crabs don’t come with me, but nor do babies. I must have fallen often — I know for certain there were three pregnancies in 2046 — but I’ve never stayed in one time long enough to come to term. Never long enough to leave a child behind either, so I suppose I should count my blessings.

I might be twenty-three forever. I think I’ve become an eternal — You say sex worker now, don’t you? I don’t like that label: it’s the most honest but the least truthful. I’ve been called a harlot, a hooker, a tart, a brass, and a coin-operated cunt, but I’ve never had ‘sex worker’ spat at me. Pardon my language.

So you call me whatever you want, but I’ll take a word people use to make me feel small and I’ll stand on it; I’ll stand tall and proud. I’m a whore, a time-travelling whore. Half my life is beyond my control and the other half is what I do to survive, so I’m no different to anyone else, really.

I might not even be the only traveller. One June in 2046 an American asked to finish in my mouth. My mind was elsewhere, and I said, “That’ll be sixpence extra.”

He laughed and said, “Like in the second world war?”

I was busy earning my sixpence before I realised what that might mean about him, so I couldn’t ask questions. By the time I’d wiped my mouth he was gone, the line had shuffled forward, and I had a new customer. I can’t be certain, but I think the eternal whore met an eternal soldier.

That same June, in the same camp, I saw a girl who was the spit of me at nineteen. She could have been my daughter… or my great-granddaughter, I suppose. I felt oddly happy. Not for her — she was working as hard as I was — but for the other me, the one who stayed in 1942. The one who had a family.

I went back to the war years once — I could have made a mint on VE day, except it didn’t seem right to charge — but I’ve never arrived before I left, before the bomb dropped. I used to wish I’d land in ’39, because I wanted so much to see Frank again. He asked for the sixpence service once when we were courting but I said no, what I was doing was quite dirty enough. I thought if I had a second chance, I’d promise to suck him dry every night if he’d only stay home with me. But that was melancholia and foolishness talking. Frank signed up the day he heard Mr Chamberlain announce we were at war, and he was in Belgium by Christmas. He wouldn’t have stayed for anything. That’s who he was; it’s why I married him.

I still want to go back though, except to 1940, after Dunkirk. I’d talk to myself. I’d tell her not to use the shelter when the bombs start falling. If one hit the house she’d never even know about it until she was in Frank’s arms, so why not stay cosy in bed? And she’d be cosier if she shared that bed with someone else. I’d tell her two-and-six is a fair price but she’d still be selling herself cheap.

I’d say, “Don’t take a soldier straight to bed. Give him a home-cooked meal first, even if it’s only a warmed-over slice of rabbit pie and a cup of weak tea. Chat to him. Find out his name, and use it. Be a wife or a mum before you’re his sweetheart, because that’s the comfort he’s missing.”

I reckon she could charge ten bob for that, then she’d only have to earn a guinea if she felt like it.

So, that’s my story, thanks for asking. There’s no discount for letting me bend your ear, though. It’s still fifty quid, or sixty if you want me to take my mask off.

The above story won the Fiction Marathon (A writing competition for all levels of writers) last month. Read about it here…

Article by Marie A. Rebelle

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