by Juno Dawson
‘Aw, that guy had it coming if you ask me.’
‘That he did. Won’t you come inside? I could make us some tea.’
‘I spend so much time inside at the hospital I wondered if you might want to accompany me on a walk in the woods? The sun is out and I could use the fresh air.’
My last walk through the woods had ended with finding a dead body in a cave, but I could overlook that fact to be at Rick’s side. Even so, it wasn’t entirely appropriate for a young woman to vanish off into a forest with a gentleman. ‘I’d better ask Glynis … she might need me around the farm.’
As it was, Glynis found it highly amusing that I would even ask her permission and sent us off with her blessing. I changed into a smarter skirt and blouse, putting on some lipstick and blush as quickly as I could.
The sun was out and the air promised the first of spring. Buds were ripe on the trees and bluebells sprouted up among the long grasses. As we weaved in and out of shards of meek winter sunshine, Rick told me about life in the RAF. He described his childhood on a sprawling wheat farm outside of Banff, about bears plucking salmon from the river, wolves running wild and proud Mounties in red. It all sounded wonderfully exotic to me, but he assured me it wasn’t so different to Wales, only instead of sheep there were bears. He walked with a pronounced limp that I hadn’t noticed before, but if he was in pain he didn’t wear it on his face.
‘What about you?’ he said. ‘London, huh? I can’t imagine living anywhere so noisy.’
‘I think London’s in my blood. I was born there. I don’t even notice the noise. I love it; it’s so colourful, so fast, so vibrant. All different types of people living their lives and no one bats an eyelid. Although I’m very lucky, I suppose: they say there’s one London for the rich and another for the poor.’
‘Is your father a rich man?’ he asked.
‘Not so much rich as powerful, although arguably they are one and the same. He works very hard so the navy looks after us. I’ve never wanted for anything.’
‘Look!’ he said suddenly in a hushed voice. ‘A robin!’ He took my hand and steered me to follow his gaze. His hand in mine felt so natural a fit.
Its red breast flickered at the centre of a holly bush. ‘Oh, how sweet!’ We watched it together until it took flight. He didn’t let go of my hand and I didn’t try to pull away.
‘Only child?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Mother wanted to be a mother but isn’t altogether keen on babies, it has to be said. And with Father away so often … What about you?’
‘I’m one of six boys.’
‘Six boys! Goodness!’
‘Yeah, you didn’t let food go cold at our table!’
‘Five brothers? Gosh, I can hardly imagine.’
‘I like having a big family. Christmas back on the farm is something to behold.’
‘I bet it is.’
‘Family is very important to me. Sure we fought and scrapped when we were kids … See this scar?’ He pointed to a fine line running through his left eyebrow. ‘That’s from where Ennis shot me with a BB gun.’
‘That’s a good thing?’
‘No! But you know what I mean. It doesn’t matter that there’s an ocean between us; I know they’re out there and that feels good. Wherever they are is home.’
I looked down at the footpath. ‘I’d have liked brothers or sisters, I think. I care deeply for Mummy and Daddy, but they’ve always been so much older than I, sort of distant. We don’t talk about the things that really matter. We’d never talk about love or family.’
‘That’s a damned shame.’
‘Is it? One can’t miss what one’s never had.’
We came to a rest in a broad clearing not far from the stream. I could hear the rapturous applause of the waterfall over the next hill. There was a fallen log, just the right size to serve as a bench. Rick sat and I perched next to him, smoothing my skirt – a heavy wool number in a burnt-orange shade. ‘My mom –’ I loved how he said ‘mom’ – ‘always let us know it was OK to cry, you know? Being all the way out there on the farm, away from prying eyes, meant it was just us. We didn’t have to do anything or be anybody we didn’t want to be.’
‘Where was your father?’
‘He died.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘No, it’s OK. He got tuberculosis in ’29. There wasn’t anything we could do. It crept up on him pretty fast so he didn’t suffer for too long. Died the way he lived – on the back of a tractor!’
‘And he left quite the legacy … six little Sawyers!’
Rick smiled and it felt like there were coals glowing in my chest. I tingled all the way down to my toes. He was achingly handsome, and next to him I felt positively square. I don’t know how best to describe it; it was like standing on a very high, very precarious ledge. ‘Margot?’
‘Yes?’
‘I think you’re quite the lady. Might I call on you again?’
I found myself slap-bang in the middle of a dreadful romance paperback and I didn’t mind one little bit. ‘I’d like that very much,’ I said, and his face lit up once more.
Hand in hand, we walked alongside the stream, talking about everything and nothing, until it became clear his back was causing him pain. He accompanied me back to the farm, ever the perfect gent, and we said our farewell at the kitchen door.
I wasn’t sure quite what the etiquette was in that situation, but Rick made it easy by simply kissing the back of my hand and retreating with a warm smile. ‘I’ll see you on Friday night,’ he said, giving an absent-minded salute as he left through the gate.
‘I can’t wait.’ I think at that point I experienced my first swoon, dear diary, a breathless, light-headed rush of anticipation. I was so high it felt a lot like vertigo.
The rest of the week is going to be a turgid countdown to Friday, I can already tell. It’s funny, isn’t it? You never think you’re going to be that kind of girl until you are.
Chapter 15
I tuck the diary under my pillow, a little envious of the heart-coals Margot wrote about. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that, but it’s the kind of movie love everybody wants – Cher and Josh in Clueless, Ross and Rachel, Meg Ryan and any man in a Meg Ryan movie. God, I hope that’s the ending I get with Thom.
It’s weird though, thinking of Margot having hornyteengirlsexythoughts. Like gross or what? She’s practically a corpse. I remind myself she used to be pretty foxy, even if it was the olden days. I guess part of me thought sex didn’t really exist before colour TVs, as if babies used to be knitted instead of born.
Something else is apparent too. My grandad was not called Rick, so Margot evidently erm … dated … people before him.
The next morning I burn the toast – annoying – and quiz Mum. ‘When did Margot meet Grandad?’
‘Fliss, that toast is going to burn again. Will you please keep an eye on it?’
‘Damn.’ I yank out the grill, because, unlike the rest of the civilised world, Margot doesn’t own a toaster.
‘And I have no idea. I think they got married in ’53 though.’
‘And you were born in …?’
‘1957. Thanks for the reminder.’
‘But where did she meet Grandad?’ I vigorously scrape the black layer off the top of the toast into the sink, which never really works – it still tastes burned.
‘Fliss, I have no idea, and there’s a much more efficient way of finding out.’ She nods towards the garden.
Man, I wish I weren’t so nosy. I take my charcoal toast into the garden, the paving flags freezing cold under my bare feet. ‘Margot?’
She’s scattering feed for the chickens and they’re happily pecking it up. ‘Is the kitchen on fire? I can smell burning.’
‘Oh, that was just the toast. Margot, where did you meet Grandad?’
She stops throwing the feed and looks at me, frowning slightly. ‘Just after the war,’ she says after a pause.
‘Not when, where.’
Another pause. ‘London.’
I wait for more information, but she offers nothing further. ‘Oh, OK.’
‘Why the sudden interest in your grandfather?’
I want to know everything: I want to know about Rick, about the farm, about Ivor and Glynis who I love. I have about a trillion questions and I can’t ask any of them. ‘No reason. I just realised I had no idea how you two met.’
Margot shrugs and continues to feed the chickens. ‘It was the early fifties … 1950 or ’51, I expect. We courted, we married, we had your mother. Things back then were delightfully linear. The done thing was done without exception.’
‘How romantic,’ I mutter.
‘Romance,’ Margot guffaws, ‘is the hallmark of truly uncreative souls. Any fool can do hearts and flowers, Felicity. Real love is both silent and invisible, in my experience.’
It angers me. She’s lying. How can she have forgotten how it felt to get those flowers from Rick? I want to pull the daisies up out of the rockery and slap her around the head with them. ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ I say. ‘Who doesn’t love flowers?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Strange gesture, I always thought. Pulling something up by their roots and then displaying them as they wither and die. They’d be better off left in the earth.’
‘Wasn’t Grandad romantic?’
‘He knew better, and that’s why I loved him.’ She stops as if she’s said too much. Her words knock me back a little. Yeah, she was always honest, brutally so, but that statement felt a little less stony than usual. It was weird.
I don’t know what to say so I retreat with, ‘I’d better get ready for school.’
‘Yes, you better had.’
About halfway through chemistry, I become aware of a mean giggle behind me. I look around and immediately Megan and Rhiannon duck below their Bunsen burner. I turn to Bronwyn. ‘What are they sniggering at? Do I have something on my back?’
Bronwyn checks. ‘Oh, shit. Don’t move.’
Of course I move immediately, my hands reaching up behind me. ‘What? What did they do?’
The giggles get louder. ‘They’ve thrown little balls of chewing gum into your hair. Sit still. I’ll sort it.’
Those bitches. You don’t mess with the do. ‘Is it coming out?’
‘Some of it’s tangled.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
‘Keep your head still. You’re making it worse.’ Bronwyn pulls on my hair and I feel it tug.
‘Ow!’
‘Sorry. We might have to cut it out.’
‘No way! I need a mirror.’ I ask to use the bathroom and scowl at Megan on my way past. I head to the nearest girls’ toilets and crane my neck to assess the damage. I can see little hairy clumps where the gum has matted it. This isn’t going to be easy. I’m in front of the mirror for a good ten minutes, carefully prising my hair out, strand by strand, and, even when I’m done, I don’t feel sure it’s entirely gum-free. I give it a brush with my Body Shop pop-out, and it more or less runs through. As a precautionary measure, I then quickly braid it into a plait.
The second I leave the toilet, I see Megan heading my way. She tries to push me back into the bathroom, but I grip the door frame. I don’t want to be alone with her in there. ‘Get off, Megan. I mean it.’
‘Or what?’
‘Just get off me!’ I shove her back but she grabs my new plait and yanks my head down.
‘You better not grass on us, or the next time I’ll just cut it all off, yeah?’
‘Ow! I won’t!’
‘What is going on?’ There’s something unique about the way a teacher’s voice can boom down a corridor. I recognise the voice as Thom’s. He’s struggling down the hall with a trolley full of books. ‘I said, what is going on? Megan Jones, get off her right now.’
She lets go of my hair. ‘Sorry, sir, I was just messin’, like.’
‘Fliss? What’s going on?’
I say nothing. Nothing at all. I won’t grass, but I won’t lie either.
‘Megan, I think you should get back to class.’
‘Sir, I need to use—’
‘Now, Megan. Get back to class right NOW.’ The last word is barked.
Megan skulks back towards the lab, muttering, ‘Ginger faggot,’ under her breath. ‘Fliss?’ says Thom. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘What was all that about?’
‘It was nothing.’ I press my back against the door frame, just wanting to get away before I burst into tears. If he says or does one more nice thing, that’s very likely to happen.
‘Fliss, I’m not stupid and I know what I just saw. Listen, I’m not supposed to say things like this, but Megan Jones is only hanging on at this school by a thread.’
It sounds almost too good to be true, a school without Megan. But what would happen at three twenty? Would she be waiting for me every day a hundred metres beyond the school gates? She knows where I live.
I just can’t. I shake my head.
‘Fliss, all you have to do is tell the truth. We’ll make sure you’re looked after.’ That’s the one more nice thing I can’t hear. Tears erupt in the ugliest way along with a high-pitched sob. I don’t want to cry and I especially don’t want to cry in front of Thom. I cover my face with my hands. ‘Fliss, come here.’
He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his chest. He’s warm and his cashmere jumper is so soft. I rest my head on his shoulder as he pats my back. It’s like I’m a sad blob of butter melting on him and his strong arms are holding me up.
Now I’ve started, I can’t stop. All the sadness and frustration I’ve been bottling up since I arrived in Wales is now pouring, unfiltered, onto his sweater.
‘This is so embarrassing,’ I say between sobs.
‘Don’t be silly!’
‘Please don’t look at me. I must look so awful.’ My mascara is not waterproof.
‘Come with me,’ he says. ‘Let’s go back to the library. I’ll tell your teacher I borrowed you to do a job.’
I wipe my eyes, which must look full-on Marilyn Manson, and follow him towards the library. That’s when I feel it. I feel it. I feel the same blazing warmth in my chest that Margot did with Rick.
Oh my God. This is so much more than just a random crush. I am in love with him.
Friday 21st February, 1941
I’m tired and blissfully happy, but I wanted to write about tonight before I fall asleep, as I believe some of the magic will have worn off in the light of morning.
It occurred to me after my last meeting with Rick that there was precious little for us to do in Llanmarion. There’s a war on after all, and there are no restaurants or dances – if he even can dance with his bad back – to attend. I wondered, perhaps, if he might drive us into Cardiff or Swansea to the pictures, but I know from the listening post that Cardiff is under constant threat of air raids and I’d rather not spend my night out with Rick in a shelter.
Once more I asked Glynis’s permission to go out with Rick. In the absence of Mother and Father it only seemed appropriate, although again Glynis seemed to find my formality amusing.
At six o’clock on the dot Rick arrived at the farm gate, in a car he’d borrowed from a soldier friend for the evening. He was out of uniform, but dressed smartly in a blueish-grey suit and matching trilby. I had also brought some of my finer clothes out of retirement: my jade-green coat paired with a peacock-blue beret Father bought me in Paris.
‘Good evening, Miss Stanford,’ he said, standing on the front step.
‘Lieutenant Sawyer, how do you do?’
He smiled again and I melted a little; I’d forgotten how crushingly handsome he is. ‘I wondered if you’d like to accompany me on a picnic?’
‘A picnic? It’s dark already!’
‘Trust me, ma’am, it’s all under control.’
I took his arm and he led me to the car. From their bedroom window, Peter and Jane spied on us as we left, giggl
ing behind their hands.
He drove us up into the hills, the car chugging along the winding roads, brushing against wild hedgerows that spilled over. It was frightfully dark away from the town, but I felt safe with Rick. He seemed to know where he was going and eventually he pulled into a lay-by and told me to wait while he unpacked the boot. ‘You think you can manage a short walk in those heels, miss?’
‘I’m quite sure,’ I said, stepping out as he held the car door open and offered a supportive hand.
‘It’s not far, I promise.’ He helped me over a wooden style and we stuck to a well-trodden path that led further into the hills. My shoes were woefully inadequate, but I didn’t complain. Eventually it became clear where we were headed: the lake; the source, I supposed, of the stream that runs past the farm. ‘Have you been up here before?’
‘No,’ I admitted, ‘I can’t say I’d thought about it.’
‘It’s quite something.’ And it was. We arrived after walking for about fifteen minutes. The still, black water was surrounded by dramatic cliffs, the pearly moon reflected on the surface. ‘It’s called the Devil’s Cup,’ Rick said. ‘You can see why.’
‘Yes, it’s very apt.’ The rocks made it rather like a vast stone bowl. On this lip, however, there was a shallow rocky bay of sorts, where one could wade into the water if one so desired. There were large, flat boulders on which to rest also, and on one of these was set up a bonfire. ‘What’s all this?’
‘I came up this afternoon to set up,’ he said, and I was touched he’d gone to so much effort. In no time at all, an impressive fire was crackling and snapping. Still, he wrapped a tartan blanket around both of our shoulders and we huddled together. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, revealing a picnic basket full of crusty fresh bread, cooked meats and cheese. I have no idea if he has his own ration book or not, but he’d obviously found a way.
‘Oh, Rick, this is just lovely. Thank you so much.’
‘Not at all. I figured there had to be something we could do in this Podunk town.’
