Again they were laughing. It was easy to talk to her about the doings of the camp.
He stared at her. She was looking towards the fire. Was it his imagination, but her face was thinner? Perhaps it was the reflection of the flames; she looked different sitting there. Again he had the impression of an overgrown child…well, of a schoolgirl.
‘Joe.’
When the voice came from the kitchen Maggie turned to him, laughing now, saying, ‘There’s your mother calling,’ and her eyes widened just the slightest at his change of expression. It had been momentary, like the flicker in a film, but nevertheless the word ‘mother’ had struck a disruptive chord in him. It was, she supposed, that mental business Aunt Lizzie had told her about. With a sense of deep sadness, she thought it wouldn’t have mattered a jot to her if all his people were mad, and he too, as long as she could say he was hers.
A few minutes later he returned from the kitchen carrying a pair of slippers. He was smiling now, and as he handed them to her he said, ‘I am to deliver the message word for word: you are up the pole, asking for trouble; nobody in their right mind goes round in their bare feet, not with a chest like you have.’
She gave a little huh-ing sound as she eased herself forward out of the deep chair to take the slippers from his hand. Then he could find no explanation to give himself why he should have dropped onto one knee and, lifting one bare foot after the other, put her slippers on.
Their faces were on a level now; her eyes were round, the colour dark and bright, and for a second he again had the impression, as he had had that day by the river, of looking into the face of an oriental, a beautiful oriental.
He was saved embarrassment by her again making the huh-ing sound as she said, ‘Well, well! That’s the first time I’ve had me slippers put on for me. I can remember back to when I was two, putting them on meself. I must have gone barefoot before that.’ She laughed outright now, and he with her.
He had just seated himself in a chair once more when again his name was called: ‘Joe!’ and as he rose he looked at Maggie, but this time she made no reference to his mother. Instead, she said, ‘She’ll keep you at it; far better to stay in the kitchen.’
When he returned, he was carrying a heavily laden tray of tea things; Lizzie followed, carrying the teapot, and saying, ‘Ah, this is nice. This is nice.’ Then, ‘Don’t you sit back there as if you were finished: get that table set.’ She pointed to a little table, ‘What do you think the cloth is for?’
The tea was a jolly, bantering affair, brought about by Lizzie and her reminiscing on her past life: no mention of air raids, sunken convoys, Russia, Tobruk or missing planes.
The tea over, Joe went to gather the dishes together, but Lizzie said, ‘Oh, just leave them; I think I’ll have a ding-on.’ She inclined her head towards the piano, then looking at Maggie, she added, ‘I set the notes out for the verse. ’Twas tricky, that bit: it’s in a different key to the chorus altogether. I think you should alter it.’
Joe looked from one to the other, slightly amazed now, and put in quickly, ‘You write music? You compose?’ while at the same time recalling that Lizzie had once mentioned this.
‘She does that.’ It was Lizzie nodding at him.
‘I don’t. I don’t.’ Maggie shook her head, and now thumbing towards her aunt, she added, ‘She’s an expert at it.’
‘Don’t look surprised, laddie’—Lizzie was pulling a face at him—‘I did eleven years hard labour from six to seventeen. But she’s as good as me’—she jerked her head towards Maggie—‘and with only a couple of years’ learning.’
‘Nonsense.’ Maggie was looking at him. ‘I can’t write music. I put notes down, you know, but anyone can do that.’
‘Yes, anyone can do that.’ Lizzie was at the piano, and after rubbing her fingers over the keys she began to play a melody.
A moment or so later Joe, looking from Maggie, who was sitting by the fire, to Lizzie at the piano, said in a soft voice, ‘It’s a lovely tune; what are the words?’
Maggie didn’t reply but Lizzie stopped playing, and reaching to the end of the piano, took up a sheet of manuscript, placed it on the rack and, in a voice that held only a slight tremor and was pleasantly husky, began to sing:
Do not go, do not go
My love, from me,
For no blanket can warm
My frozen heart.
Do not go, do not go
My love, from me,
For the years ahead are dark,
So dark without you,
So full of lonely fear;
What does life hold for me,
Without you, my dear?
Age has touched me
And I can charm you no more,
But remember, when you go to her,
She but thirty and you all of three score,
There’ll come a day
Not far away
When, like me, you’ll beg her to stay,
Saying:
As she now went into the chorus again Joe found his back stiffening against the chair. He looked at Maggie. She had her head turned fully towards the fire, her feet were tucked under her, and her arms folded across her breasts, a hand under each oxter. Her pose suggested someone in deep pain. She had written a song about an aged woman losing her man. What knowledge had she of such a situation? He had the urge to go to her, to put his arms about her and say, ‘It’s going to be all right; you’ll come through.’ But she wasn’t an old woman who had lost her man, she was still a young girl, and she’d never had a man to lose.
‘There, did you like that?’ Lizzie had turned round on the swivelling piano stool and, looking towards her, he said quietly, ‘I did, I did indeed. It’s a beautiful song; it should be published.’
‘That’s what I say. That’s what I’m always telling her.’ She was coming across the room towards them when the sound of a knock on the back door caused her to stop. At the same time the sound brought Maggie twisting in her seat to sit upright.
Getting to his feet, Joe said, ‘I’ll see who it is.’
‘You’ll not bother yourself’—Lizzie flapped her hand at him—‘I know who it is. But why has he come to the back door? It’s Donald from the farm. He usually drops me in something on a Saturday.’ She winked at them. ‘It’s good, as the saying goes, to have friends in court.’
As she went out of the room Joe, on impulse, went over to Maggie and, pulling a low stool from the side of the fireplace, he sat down by her side and, leaning his elbow on the arm of her chair, he looked at her for a moment before he said, ‘You’re a clever girl, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, aye, clever as owt.’
She sounded almost like a Northerner as she derided herself, and he smiled for a moment, then said, ‘I’m serious. We’re friends, aren’t we, and so I can say this to you: you’ve got a lot inside that head that very few people know about, and I think you should use it, make something of it, especially through that.’ He pointed towards the piano.
Her voice was as serious as his now as she answered, ‘As I said, I can’t write music, although the tunes come easy to my mind; as for rhymes, I’ve always been able to knock them off.’
‘Well, now’—he was smiling broadly at her—‘we have something firmly in common, because so have I. I’ve always been able to knock them off, too.’
‘Really?’ She was laughing at him now. ‘What kind?’
‘Well…so-called poetry.’
‘Come through. Come through.’ They both turned their heads sharply towards the door, and then almost simultaneously their mouths fell slightly agape. But their astonishment wasn’t anything to that of the man standing looking at them.
Bill Regan was one of the corporal instructors in Joe’s section. He was, if a vote had been taken, the only unpopular man there. The others got on well together, but Bill Regan was an argumentative individual, always finding something to grumble about. He didn’t make friends, and was aware that he didn’t.
Joe had turned slowly on the st
ool as the man came into the room, with Lizzie explaining, ‘This young man’s after a spanner; his bicycle chain let him down. If you have a bicycle you should always carry tools, that’s what I say. But sit yourself down; I’m sure you could do with a cup of tea. You’ll have it in a minute. Go on, sit down.’ She pointed to the chair that Joe had previously been sitting in, then limped out of the room.
Neither Joe nor Maggie had moved, and it wasn’t until after Bill Regan had slowly lowered himself into the seat, and had brought out two words that spoke volumes, that Joe got to his feet; and it was he who repeated the two words. ‘Well! Well!’ and, coming straight to the point, he added, ‘And what are you going to make of it?’
‘Make of it?’ Regan pursed his lips, then wagged his head as he said, ‘No business of mine, only I never knew you two were thick.’
‘We are not thick, as you put it.’ It was Maggie speaking now, her tone vehement. ‘Joe here’—she nodded towards him—‘well, he knew my Aunt long before he knew me, and so he comes up to see her. Is there any harm in that?’
‘No; and don’t get yourself aerated, Lemon.’
He now looked at Joe and, his face going into a grin, he said, ‘Lucky you, knowing someone with a nice place like this,’ while his eyes took in the absence of Joe’s jacket and tie.
As if made aware of this Joe went quickly out of the room into the passage, and there put on his jacket and tie and his greatcoat, then returned to the doorway, saying in no small voice, ‘You want a spanner?’
‘Oh, yes, yes.’ Regan got to his feet. But before he went down the room he turned to Maggie and said, ‘Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself, Lemon.’
As they passed through the kitchen Lizzie said, ‘Aren’t you going to have this cup of tea?’ But before Regan could answer, Joe said, ‘He’s got to get back, Mrs Robson.’
‘Oh, I see, I see. Well, it won’t go to waste.’
Out in the shed, Joe took tools from his tool bag and handed them to Regan, and he directed his flashlight on the chain until the job was done. Neither of them had spoken since they had left the house, but now, as Regan prepared to push his bike towards the house, Joe said, ‘Don’t make anything out of this, Bill.’
‘What could I make out of it? It’s all above board, isn’t it?’ There was a sneer in his voice. ‘You and Lemon are just pals, aren’t you? Nothing else.’
A swift rise of anger suffused Joe, so much so that he found himself wanting to hit out. He glared at Regan through the light of the torch and growled at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, she’s not everybody’s cup of tea, is she? And with one or two lookers in the camp, I would have thought…well, you know what I mean, I don’t have to go into detail. But after all, it’s your own business. Every man to his taste.’
‘Now, you look here!’
‘Oh, don’t get on your high horse.’ Regan was pushing his bike across the yard now. ‘But I’ll say this.’ And now his voice was stiff. ‘If you weren’t ashamed to be seen with her why couldn’t you have brought it into the open? I mean, you’re never seen together in the camp, are you?’
Joe was stumped for words for a moment; then he muttered between his teeth, ‘I have my reasons. And so has she.’
‘Oh, well. If you understand each other, that’s everything, isn’t it?’ He adjusted the dimmed light on his bike, mounted it and half turned as he rode slowly away, calling, ‘I could’ve done with that cup of tea. But thank her, anyway.’
Joe stood in the dark yard, his eyes closed, his hand to his brow. He knew what would happen now and he’d be ribbed to death, they’d both be ribbed to death, and all kinds of assumptions would be put on their association. How would she take it? Oh—he moved slowly towards the back door—she would likely laugh it off; she’d had long practice of that kind of thing. But what would be his reaction? He didn’t know.
‘He’s gone then?’
He nodded across the kitchen table at Lizzie, saying, ‘Yes, yes; he’s gone.’
‘He was quick.’
‘He wanted to get back.’
‘Aye, yes. Well, here, take it inside; I’ll be there in a minute.’
Having put the tray down on the table, he turned and looked at Maggie, and she, returning his gaze, said, ‘Well, that’s blown it, hasn’t it? I’ll have to run the gauntlet tomorrow. But that’s nothing; I’m used to it. What about you?’
‘Huh!’ He forced himself to smile. ‘Let them think what they like; we know where we stand, don’t we?’
Her eyes were unblinking as she looked at him and it seemed minutes before she said, ‘Yes, we know where we stand.’
Then in a low voice she added, ‘May I give you a word of advice?’
The smile widened and he made no answer, and she said, ‘Laugh at it, make a joke of it, make a joke of me…’
‘I’ll do no such thing!’ The smile had gone from his face. ‘We’re friends, and I’ll stand by that.’
After staring at him for a moment longer, she turned away and said softly, ‘Thanks, Joe. Thanks.’
Five
‘Why have you kept it to yourself? Surely you could have told me. I thought we were friends.’
‘Oh, Len’—Joe jerked his head to the side—‘our meeting happened by accident and the association just grew, and we both knew what the reaction to it would be down here.’
‘Well, if you had come into the open right away, it wouldn’t have been anything like it is now. They skinned her alive in the NAAFI.’
‘Well, very little has been said in front of me.’
‘That’s true; you’ve lost a bit of esteem though. Oh, you can look like that, but what did you expect? What you don’t seem to understand, Joe, is that Lemon’s a sort of mascot in that NAAFI, and be what she is, I mean in looks, she’s well liked, and not only because she can sing as she does. Then here’s you, takes her off on the side, too ashamed to come out in the open. All right. All right. That’s what they’re saying. Anyway, if you had taken up with her in the ordinary way you might have had to stand a bit of chipping, but nothing like this. And then there’s her boss: the fellows usually have to ask her for a pass.’
‘Look here!’ Joe pulled Len to a stop. ‘Whose bloody business is it, anyway?’
On another occasion Len might have laughed, for it was the first time he had heard Joe swear, and his ‘bloody’ seemed to have a peculiar ring to it, sounding like ‘bleedy’. But this wasn’t an occasion for laughter. He liked this fellow, he had even felt protective towards him because, he had surmised, he was carrying a load of some kind on his mind, and so he would have been the first person to applaud him taking up with a girl, even if it had been Lemon. But he was disturbed by the reaction to Joe in their own section. Sam Temple and Amos Bernstein were, last night, still talking about it, and the sensation should have died down now, being a week old. But they kept bringing it up. It was an underhand business, they said. If he hadn’t been ashamed to be seen with her, he shouldn’t have taken up with her on the side, for it was bound to be discovered sooner or later. And they had endorsed what others had often said: a close, secretive sort of fellow, something odd about him. And that’s what Len was thinking himself: there was something odd about Joe. He was a young, very presentable looking fellow, educated, too, yet apparently had not thought about putting in for a commission …
He said now in a mollified tone, ‘I…I had to speak like this, Joe, because…well, I felt a bit hurt. And, of course, when big-mouth Regan went into details about you both being comfortably ensconced before the fire, you in your shirtsleeves, et cetera, well, what could I think but that you hadn’t just met up that afternoon? And I also thought that…well, when I used to invite you home you could have told me the reason why you didn’t want to come.’
‘Len. Len’—Joe’s steps slowed as they neared the labs—‘it…it didn’t start until the end of September. I was out bike-riding. I was hot. I knelt down by a stream to take a drink and there she was on top o
f the bank looking at me. She told me her aunt lived near and would I like a cup of tea? Now what could I say? That’s how it started. I may have been up to the house a dozen times since but, believe me, half those times she hasn’t been there: she’s been on duty. The aunt’s a dear old soul and she’s somebody I can talk to. As for Maggie and me, well, she, Maggie, understands the situation, and there’s nothing between us. Believe that, Len. Not a thing, not a damn thing.’
‘Well, you’ve put yourself in an awkward position then, haven’t you? Anyway, you’d better get a move on and meet this bod from Cranwell, who the sergeant says has it all up top, being one of the back-room boys.’
A moment later they entered the first lab, in which a group of airmen were standing around waiting for instruction. They walked past the benches which held set after set of radio equipment and through a door into another lab which, this morning, was unusually crowded with about twenty instructors, together with lab sergeants, flight sergeants, and a warrant officer.
The warrant officer was standing apart talking to a flight sergeant as Joe and Len took their places at the end of the almost half-circle of instructors. The flight sergeant turned slowly about to face his audience and Joe’s mouth, snapping into a gape, unconsciously uttered the name, ‘Mick.’
His voice wasn’t loud: in fact, he could hardly hear the name himself, and it only reached Mick as a whisper. But Mick turned in the direction from where it came, and then he said, ‘Joe.’ Immediately he turned to the accompanying officer standing just at the side and said, ‘Sorry, sir. An…an old friend.’
The warrant officer smiled and said, ‘It’s good to meet old friends. But shall we get on?’
My Beloved Son Page 19
