And come to that, how could she look so innocent when she’d just been telling lies? Well not exactly lies perhaps, but not the whole truth, and she’d always been a stickler for the truth. But tonight, when Steve had asked her whether she and Vic were related, she’d said no, at once and without thinking, and that wasn’t strictly true. And it wasn’t fair to Vic either. Until that evening, she’d accepted that they were as good as engaged. Not committed, with a ring and everything, but sort of understood so that she knew what sort of direction her life was going to take – a few years earning her living and larking about with her friends, dancing and going to the pictures, keeping her admirers at arm’s length, a little while in the army if the war was still going on when she was eighteen, and then she and Vic would get married and settle down and raise a family the same as everyone else in the North End. They’d been going out, off and on, since she was sixteen and although she didn’t exactly love him, she liked him well enough, they got on all right, they were well matched. And she knew how to handle him, which was half the battle when it came to being married. Now she wasn’t so sure that that was what she wanted to do. In fact, she wasn’t sure about anything. I don’t know what’s got into me, she thought.
But that wasn’t true. She did know. It was because Steve was so attractive. Because he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Because he was tougher than she was. Not tough in the way she was used to in the North End, all fists and mouth, but in a gentle way. Strong and silent, leading her away from trouble, with his hand under her elbow, insisting without saying a word. She’d never been treated like that before, not in the whole of her life. And especially by such a looker. The way he laughed, throwing back his head, brown eyes shining. You could like him for that alone. And she did like him. There was no doubt about that. She liked him very much. He couldn’t jitterbug for toffee nuts but waltzing with him had been terrific. She’d fancied quite a lot of young men in the last couple of years but always in a rather cerebral way, aware of their charm but physically unmoved by them. Now it made her blush for the second time that evening to remember what she’d been feeling as she danced with this one.
Behind her, the room was in its usual evening order, clean, tidy and swept speckless, but for once that was an irritant to her rather than a comfort. It wasn’t right for the world to be so ordinary and predictable when she had changed so much. She could still smell the sausage and chips that she and her aunt had eaten for supper although the gate-legged table had been cleared, folded down and stood against the wall, all crumbs had been burnt, the frying pan scoured clean, and the remaining food carefully stored away, marge in its dish, bread in its tin. Her aunt Becky was a careful housewife and did constant battle with cockroaches and ‘other such vermin’. Even the rag rug had been given a beating before she settled for the night. The red circle at its centre might keep out any devils that happened to be looking down the chimney but lack of dust and crumbs was the best deterrent to black beetles.
The two rules of the house were clean as you go and a place for everything and everything in its place. Even now, excited as she was, Barbara was careful to take her coat upstairs to put it away and she carried the candle guardedly, shielding the flame with the palm of her hand so that it wouldn’t splutter and drop wax.
Like most of the cottages in the North End, Becky Bosworth’s was a basic two-roomed dwelling with no hall, no kitchen, no bathroom, no running water, no means of cooking other than the open fire and no sanitation. The two rooms were built one on top of the other like a pair of boxes and the stairs were in one corner, closed off by a door at either end and rising in a very steep spiral and complete darkness. So a candle was a necessity. As was a chamber-pot under the double bed to save you having to run out to the privy in the cold. And a stone hot-water bottle for warmth in the winter.
The one in the bed that night still had quite a bit of heat in it. Barbara eased it over the mattress until it was underneath her cold feet. Now that she’d blown out the candle and opened the curtains to let in the moonlight, she could see that frost ferns had already grown halfway up the window and that her breath was pluming before her in the cold air of the room. She heaped the bedclothes round her shoulders and tried to settle to sleep. But she was as wide awake as if it were early morning. Steve, she thought. I wonder what you’re doing now. Halfway back to base, I s’pose. And she wondered whether he was thinking of her.
The minutes flowed pleasurably by, rich with remembered delights. Aunt Becky snored companionably. The last of the night’s revellers made their noisy way back to the North End. There was quite a racket going on in one of the adjoining yards, a gang of boys horsing around and hollering, singing rude songs at the top of their voices, ‘Roll me oover in the cloover …’ kicking the dustbins. They go on like that, Barbara thought, someone’ll be down after them an’ they’ll get a whack round the lugs. I bet you never see Steve kicking the dustbins – even if he did trip over the mangle.
On which thought, she finally drifted into sleep.
Three rows of houses away, over in Cooper’s Yard, Vera Castlemain was waiting up. She always sat up on a Saturday night, to keep the fire in until her son came home. When her husband Shrimpy wasn’t at sea with the fishing boats, he spent his evenings in the pub and took himself off to bed as soon as he got in, usually grumbling that she spoilt the boy and that she was wasting good coal. But she sat on, her head bent over the book she wasn’t reading, her ears strained for the first sound of her returning darling, eager for his company.
Even when he came home after midnight, she was glad to see him and got up at once to brew him a mug of tea or Camp coffee and to say, as she did that night, ‘Did ’ee have a good time, lovey?’
Vic settled in his father’s seat before the fire, propped his feet on the fender and smiled at her. ‘You know me.’
‘Was your Barbara there, my lovey?’
He smiled again. ‘Of course. I took her, didn’t I?’
She couldn’t help admiring him. He was such a good boy, so strong an’ clever an’ handsome, an’ head over heels in love with his Barbara. Had a picture of her on the ol’ wall upstairs an’ everythin’. Though she didn’t always treat him right, bad little mawther. Teased him ragged sometimes. ‘Be nice when you’re married,’ she said, handing him his mug of coffee.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It will.’ There’ll be a bit less of this silly nonsense in the dancehall then. He’d spent the last half of the evening in the pub with his friends drinking a pint of bitter and talking himself out of his ill-humour, but the memory of being manhandled still rankled.
He looks a bit down, poor lad, Vera thought, settling back in her own chair on the other side of the fire. And she tried to cheer him up by reminding him of how popular he was. ‘I s’pose all your friends was there.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘They were. Matter of fact, I went off to the pub afterwards with Spikey and ol’ Tubby.’
‘That was nice.’
‘We been planning our futures,’ he said. Actually they’d been bragging about their ambitions – but that was planning in a way. ‘I’m not going to be desk clerk all my life. You watch me, Ma. In five years’ time I shall have business of my own. Staff, big car. There’ll be no holding me then.’ And no frogmarching me out of a dancehall either. ‘You just watch. Then I’ll come back here an’ build you a big house by the river with a garden and a summer house, an’ you can sit out in the sun an’ eat strawberries all day an’ be a lady of leisure.’
Vera didn’t doubt it. He was so clever he was capable of anything. ‘That’ll be lovely,’ she purred, round face beaming. ‘Drink your coffee, lovey. Don’t let it go cold.’
‘I think I shall have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow,’ he decided, as he sipped the coffee. His father was at sea till midday so the luxury was possible. ‘I’ll probably nip round an’ see Barbara in the afternoon.’ She might need talking round a bit after all that stupid nonsense with the soldiers but she usually went out with the gan
g of a Sunday and he was part of the gang. ‘We might go to the pictures. There’s a cowboy on.’
‘Thass right, bor,’ Vera approved. ‘You like good cowboy.’
The sight of her bland doting face was making him feel irritable, the way it so often did, reminding him of how badly he’d been treated. Under the muddling haze of hurt pride and ignominy, grievance still swelled and prowled, a dark pirhana in a murky pool. ‘There’s too many soldiers in this town,’ he complained.
She agreed with him automatically. ‘Too many on ’em. Yes, my lovey, thass the size uv it. Millions so that say in the paper. Off to France, poor boys. An’ then what’ll happen to ’em out there? Thousands’ll be killed so that say in the paper. That don’t bear thinkin’ about.’
Vic was lost in his complaint and paid no attention to her. ‘Far too many,’ he said. ‘You can’t move for them. Great feet everywhere.’ He looked down at his own neat size eights and remembered the great feet of that soldier, walking out onto the dance floor with Barbara. Just because he’s tall and he’s got great big feet, that doesn’t give him the right to walk all over us and he needn’t think it.
Back in the barracks, the big feet were propped up on the bedrail while their owner stretched out on the inadequate length of his mattress and smoked his last cigarette of the evening – like everybody else in the hut. Their twenty-four, companionable red fireflies glowed and eddied in the darkness around him. It was long past lights-out and they were gradually settling for the night in a diminishing murmur of voices and a fug of stale sweat, beery breath, discarded socks and dying cigarette stubs. Despite the discomforts of army life, Private Steve Wilkins was supremely and utterly happy. Not for him the surprise of his dancing partner, far less the jealousy of Victor Castlemain. He had found his girl.
Chapter Three
That Sunday morning was the longest and most enervating that Steve Wilkins had ever dawdled through. It was intolerable to be stuck in camp when the sun was shining as though it were already spring and his girl was a mere ten flat country miles away. There were newspapers to read and routine chores to get through but neither occupied him for long. By mid afternoon, his renowned calm was being sorely tested.
He climbed aboard the bus to Lynn in a scramble of boots and impatience and began to crane his neck for his first sight of her long before he reached Tuesday Market Square. And then to tangle his eagerness into frustration, she was late.
Woman’s privilege, he told himself, trying to stay calm and be sensible about it. But his heart was racing as if he were on manoeuvres. He leant against the wall of the Corn Exchange, fished in his battledress for his umpteenth cigarette of the day and settled to wait, one foot on the pavement, the other resting against the base of the central column, his face serious in the pale sunlight of the afternoon.
Which was how Barbara saw him as she came briskly round the corner and set off at a stride across the square. He looked so handsome that her heart gave a sudden lurch at the sight of him. And it leapt again, when he turned his head, smiled, stubbed out his cigarette and strode towards her. Oh the rhythm of those long legs, the strength of that face, the warmth of that smile. It lifted his entire face, widening his eyes, rounding his cheeks, stretching his mouth. That’s a Cupid’s bow, she thought, gazing at it. And, before she could stop herself, she imagined being kissed by it. And that took her breath away. So naturally she took instant refuge in ribbing.
‘Don’t start,’ she warned, her face bold with daring. ‘I know I’m late.’
He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Did I say anything?’ he laughed. ‘I appeal to you, your Honour, did I say a word?’ His face was glowing with the delight of seeing her again, brown eyes shining, skin flushed with so much happy colour he could have rivalled the tan of the Desert Rats.
‘You can look words,’ she said.
They were so close he could feel the warmth of her body. And her eyelashes were wondrous, so long and thick and tender that he was weak with desire just looking down at them. Then she lifted them and looked up at him with those amazing eyes … Seen in daylight the impact of her eyes was extraordinary. In the dancehall and on their magical walk home, he was sure they’d been brown. He’d dreamed of them as brown, sleeping and waking. But they weren’t. They were green, like the curve of a sea wave just before it breaks, a stunning, gorgeous, translucent, radiant green.
‘You’ve got green eyes,’ he said, inadequately. And was then confused.
Now it was her turn to laugh at him. ‘Yes. I’ve noticed. One on each side of my nose an’ all.’
He wanted to tell her how beautiful they were, how beautiful she was, but it was too early for that, so he simply asked, ‘Where’re we going?’
‘The pictures?’
‘Which one?’
‘There’s a musical on at the Majestic.’ She knew some of the gang would be there and she’d get ribbed rotten when they next saw her. But living in a small town that was something she had to expect. There’d be people she knew wherever they went and at least it was supposed to be a good film.
‘The Majestic it is then,’ he said and wondered whether they could sit in the back row. And that made him aware of how much he wanted to kiss her.
‘Hassen you up then,’ she ordered. ‘Thass too cold to be standing about.’
‘You’re such a bully!’ he laughed. ‘I’ll bet you bully the cat.’
‘We hain’t got a cat,’ she said.
‘But you would if you had. Look how you thumped that Victor feller.’
As they strode off to the cinema, she wondered whether they would bump into that Victor feller and hoped they wouldn’t. It surprised her to realise how much she wanted privacy that afternoon.
As it turned out, the cinemas had to do without Vic’s custom that day because his bit of a lie-in lasted until his father came bellowing home for Sunday dinner and by the time the meal had been eaten and he finally got to Rag’s Yard, the light was already fading and Barbara had been gone for over an hour.
That was the trouble with that gang of hers. They were too quick off the mark. ‘Where’ve they gone?’ he asked Mrs Bosworth. ‘Did she say?’
Becky Bosworth pushed a wisp of grey hair back inside her hairnet and gave him a quizzical look but she didn’t enlighten him. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Who’d she go with, then?’ he insisted, scowling at her. With that foxy face and those boot-button eyes looking at him so sharply, she could be very off-putting. ‘Was it Mavis and Joan and that lot?’
‘No.’
‘Who then?’
‘A friend.’
His heart sank so suddenly it was painful. She couldn’t have gone with a friend. All sorts of people asked her out but she always said No. It was never just one friend. If she wasn’t going out with him, she always went round with her gang, hordes of them, giggling and horsing about. Safety in numbers, she said. The stupid old mawther was making a mistake, or making it up.
‘What friend?’ he asked and his face was dark with suspicion.
Becky didn’t know who it was except that it was a feller. That much was obvious. You only had to see the way she’d gone rushing off, in her best blouse an’ all. Not that she was going to tell Victor Castlemain that. ‘’Ers,’ she said.
A combination of hurt pride and monosyllabic answers drove Vic to insolence. ‘A friend! Hers!’ he mocked. Some of these old women round here were so dumb, it was all you could do not to holler at them. ‘Which one? Hain’t she got a name?’ A girlfriend he could tolerate. But his head was spinning with remembered images and all of them wearing khaki. No, no, no, it couldn’t be a soldier. She was scathing about soldiers. It couldn’t be. Mustn’t be.
Becky decided to give him the benefit of a sentence. ‘Git you off uv my doorstep, bor,’ she said. ‘You mek the ’ol place look untidy.’ If Barbara was going to annoy him by going out with someone else, let her deal with it when he hollered.
So he had to leave her none the wiser. He storme
d out of the alley dark with temper, his fists in his pockets. Dusk was already masking the debris in the yards and the sky was full of turbulent clouds. If he had any idea where she’d gone he could have followed her and seen for himself who she was with. But she could be anywhere.
There was a squashed tin can lying in the runnel directly in front of his shoe. He kicked it viciously into the wall. Bloody war! Bloody army! Bloody Desert Rats! She couldn’t have gone out with a soldier. Not his Barbara. Not Spitfire Nelson. But where was she? And who was she with?
*
She was in the back row of the Majestic, blissfully warm and sharing Steve’s last cigarette. They were being terribly well-behaved. He hadn’t even put an arm round her shoulders or anything. But she was so aware of him it was as though there was an electric current crackling between them, linking them together. Neither of them had paid much attention to the second feature, which was pretty ropey, but the main film had been diverting in its technicolored, all-singing, all-dancing, totally incredible way and now the familiar globe was spinning on the screen and British Movietone was about to bring the news to the free peoples of the world. And that had to be watched no matter what they might be feeling.
‘Monty visits the famous Desert Rats,’ the voice-over said. And there he was, surrounded by men in khaki, as the snow fell steadily upon them, flecking his familiar black beret with white. And it wasn’t just the beret that looked familiar.
‘Why thass Lynn,’ Barbara said, leaning forward for a closer look. ‘Thass the station. I didn’t know he was down here. That must ha’ been las’ week, when it snowed.’
‘That’s right,’ Steve said, his voice proud. ‘It was.’
‘Were you there?’
He tempered his pride with self-mockery. ‘I’m the third beret along on the left.’
Avalanche of Daisies Page 3
