Meet Me Under the Clock

by Annie Murray

  ‘Nice will do for a start,’ Audrey said, with a tart edge to her voice. ‘If you like him so much, why don’t you go out with him?’

  ‘It’s not me he’s keen on – he’s crazy about you, Aud!’

  ‘He likes you too. I can see that he does.’

  Sylvia waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, not me. I don’t want anyone. But you . . .’ Seeing the forbidding expression on her sister’s face, Sylvia didn’t dare ask any more.

  It was the day after the disastrous raid on Dieppe, an afternoon of August warmth that made Sylvia feel even more dopey than usual. She had just woken from a long doze in the chair and was cautiously stretching herself when there was a knock at the front door.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ Audrey called, running down the stairs. Mom was next door with Marjorie.

  Sylvia, getting slowly out of her chair, wondered if it was Colin again. She smiled to herself. He was certainly persistent and she could see that he was very keen on Audrey, though her welcome towards him was polite rather than enthusiastic. As she crossed the room she heard Audrey exclaim loudly, ‘My God, you’ve got a nerve – what the hell do you want?’

  Sylvia was horrified. Who on earth was Audrey talking to like that? She peered into the hall and it was only then that she took in the voice and saw the figure on the front step: a familiar, tall man in a brown suit. But it took a moment to recognize him, because he was now wearing spectacles. It was Ian Westley.

  ‘My mother heard what happened,’ he was saying. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought I must come round and see if—’

  He stopped talking as he caught sight of Sylvia coming along the hall.

  ‘Oh, did you now?’ Audrey said bitterly. ‘God knows how you’ve got the cheek to turn up here.’

  Sylvia moved closer.

  ‘I just wanted to ask after her, talk to her for a moment, that’s all. Sylvia?’ He appealed to her over Audrey’s shoulder.

  Sylvia felt a deep, cold calm come over her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Let him in. Can you make some tea, Aud?’

  Audrey gave her an outraged look, as if to say: You want me to make tea for him? But she went into the kitchen.

  ‘Come through,’ Sylvia said. ‘I was sitting in the back.’

  It seemed both familiar and uneasily strange, having Ian in the house again. As he followed her, she was acutely conscious of him. At her first sighting of him in so long, she was shocked by how he looked. He was definitely thinner and worn-looking, and the spectacles aged him. When she turned round she saw that he looked very tired, and his skin was dry and pale. She felt conscious of the ugly red welts on her own face.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, going to her comfortable chair and leaving him to bring one from the table.

  Ian obeyed, flicking away the flaps of his jacket as he sat in the way she remembered. He settled in an uncomfortable, temporary manner on the edge of the chair.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked with cautious politeness.

  ‘I’m all right.’ Glancing down at the sling, she said, ‘My collarbone’s mending. I have some broken ribs – they’re getting better, too. Otherwise it was cuts and bruises.’ She fingered the scar. ‘I was outside, you see. I got blown against the garden wall.’

  Ian nodded, frowning in concern. ‘Ma heard from – I don’t know, someone. I just wanted to come and . . .’

  ‘That was kind,’ Sylvia said. She found herself looking at him dispassionately, as if he was a stranger. Her feelings towards him really had closed off completely. She saw a worn, rather stiff, fussy sort of a man who looked older than his years. I could be married to this man now, she thought. The idea seemed absurd, and this recognition strengthened her.

  Ian made various attempts to speak, with such hand-wringing and shifting in his seat and staring at the floor that Sylvia almost wanted to giggle. Eventually, still rubbing his hands together, he burst out with, ‘She left me, you know.’

  Sylvia stared at him, stunned. To her own surprise, she found she was laughing. ‘Of course! Well, she would, wouldn’t she?’ The words just slipped out, and she suddenly found it all so amusing that it was a struggle to get to grips with the hysteria rising within her. She was shocked – of course she was. But with all that she knew about Kitty Barratt, it did not seem surprising in the least.

  Ian looked down, as if she had completely knocked the wind out of his sails.

  ‘I didn’t think you were a vindictive person, Sylvia.’ He looked up with a hurt expression. ‘I know I didn’t behave very well, but I thought you might . . . The thing is, she – Kitty, I mean – I don’t know what came over me. She sort of bewitched me. That way she had, with her.’ He shook his head, appealing for her understanding. ‘I suppose I’d have to admit that I’ve not had as much experience with women as might have been useful, in the circumstances. We did get married – I suppose you heard?’

  Sylvia nodded, solemnly. What an idiot Ian was! She wondered if Audrey was listening outside the door and hoped that she was.

  ‘Well, we set up home and she . . . she changed. Almost immediately. She was a different woman: cold, sullen. I just couldn’t understand it. And one day I came home from work and she’d gone – everything, not a stitch of anything left. Just like that! I’ve no idea where she went. We only lasted three months, barely even that.’ He was shaking his head again. ‘It was terrible, Sylvia. She’s not normal. I don’t know what you’d call it. She’s a . . . a . . .’

  ‘Two-faced, cold-hearted bitch?’ Sylvia suggested.

  Ian stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. The Sylvia he had known would never have said such a thing.

  ‘Didn’t you think, Ian, that when she left this house – where we’d put her up, free of charge, for months – without a word of thanks to my mother, and ran off with someone else’s fiancé, that she might not be a very nice person? Did it never even cross your mind?’

  ‘Well, yes, but – well, no. I mean, she was so sweet and pretty – so feminine. I’d never have dreamed that she could even . . . I mean, we were in love. It was going to be the one and only time either of us ever did such a thing. We were just carried away by it all – or I was.’ He stopped, seeing the forbidding expression on Sylvia’s face. ‘Of course I treated you disgracefully.’ He stared down between his knees at the floor. ‘I know that. I behaved like a worm.’

  Sylvia didn’t disagree. She sat quietly, wondering dispassionately how on earth and why on earth she had ever come to be engaged to this droopy-looking specimen who was sitting opposite her. Laurie! Oh God, Laurie. Her heart hurt inside her.

  ‘The thing is,’ he went on, seeming to be working up to something, ‘We’re both in a fix now. You’ve had a spot of trouble, and so have I . . .’

  ‘A spot of trouble?’ She almost laughed again. ‘Look, what d’you want, Ian? Why don’t you just spit it out?’

  Again he looked startled, then sighed and gave her a fond, almost amorous look. ‘Sylvia, you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I was a complete fool, throwing it all away like that. We were so right together as a couple, and I chucked it all away. But can’t we – you know – water under the bridge. With the war on, you have to value certain things, be grateful for every day and . . . I’m not free from her yet, obviously, but eventually – I mean, a fresh start. Perhaps you and I . . . ?

  ‘Ian.’ Sylvia cut into this intolerable stream of platitudes. ‘I don’t suppose you know that I was engaged to someone else?’ It didn’t matter that she and Laurie had never been formally engaged; she knew this was the truth. ‘I was going to marry Laurie Gould. And three months – less than three months – ago, Laurie was—’ She swallowed. ‘He was killed on a night flight over Germany, fighting for his country.’ She stared hard into Ian’s eyes. ‘I loved Laurie, Ian, really loved him. He was brave and kind and the best man I’ve ever met. And he loved me. He knew what love was. Whereas you – you haven’t got the first idea.’

  Ian tried to say something in response, but
she cut him off.

  ‘Please leave this house, Ian,’ she said turning towards the window. ‘I’m tired now. Just go away.’

  She heard him get up and hesitate for a moment before going to the door. His footsteps moved along the hall and the front door opened, then banged shut. As it did so, Audrey came in carrying a tray of tea. She looked round in bewilderment.

  ‘Where the hell’s he gone?’

  ‘I told him to get out,’ Sylvia said. She turned round with a triumphant smile, though there were tears in her eyes at the same time. ‘Would you believe it: he asked me to go back to him?’

  Audrey put the tray down. ‘What’re you on about? What about her?’

  ‘She left him apparently – after just a few weeks.’

  Audrey sank onto the chair that Ian had just vacated. As this news began to sink in, her reaction was much like Sylvia’s. She sat back and roared with laughter.

  ‘My God,’ she said, once she could speak, ‘if there were ever two people who deserved each other!’

  Fifty-Four

  ‘Who’s that from?’ Mom asked when the post arrived a few days later. Luckily she was too preoccupied with the morning busyness to take too much notice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Audrey murmured, knowing perfectly well. As soon as she saw the letter her heart began thumping and she hurried upstairs. By the time she reached her bedroom, her hands were shaking so hard that she struggled to slit open the envelope. She sank, weak-kneed, onto the edge of the bed.

  There was one sheet of cream paper inside, sparsely covered in the looped blue-black handwriting that had filled Dorrie’s diary and which, until now, Audrey had not set eyes on for almost a year. She pulled it out with trembling hands, almost too scared to read it:

  Dear Audrey,

  It’s taken me all this time to find the guts to write to you. First of all, when you left Cardington, I felt that you never wanted to see or hear from me again, the way you were then. I was so wounded and confused that I didn’t know what to make of it all. Have you any idea . . . ? But I wasn’t going to say these things. And it was only quite a bit later, through the grapevine (the grapevine being Cora, who I ran into in London one weekend, looking very glam as usual, and the make-up) – oh dear, running away with myself, as if you might be . . . well, as if we were chatting. Even now feels like a habit – sorry!

  Cora told me what had happened, or some of it. I’m not sure how she knew, come to think of it. Goodness knows, you must have a child by now. I wonder how you are, and how he/she is, and – dash it, I can hardly imagine really. If you felt you could write back, no one would be more delighted than me! I’m not at Cardington any more – they moved me over to Hendon, which I was not best pleased about at first. Driving lots of top brass about. I suppose one gets used to anything after a while. There’s talk of postings abroad – I might offer myself – but nothing certain at the moment.

  All I really wanted to say was: no hard feelings; and to wish you well, in friendship. Best stop now. All the very best to you, Audrey. Do let me know how you are.

  With love from Dorrie (Cooper)

  Audrey spent much of the morning in her room with Dorian, unable to face seeing anyone else. While the baby was asleep she sat on the bed, reading the letter over and over again until she knew it by heart. She could hear Dorrie’s voice in it – hurt, brave, uncertain. For a long time she stared out of the window. It was open a crack, and she could hear her mother going out to hang out the washing; the little buk-buk noises of the hens; and the passing clank of trains. But her mind was mostly far away, remembering, regretting.

  After reading the letter for the umpteenth time, she folded it and tucked it away under her pillow.

  ‘Oh, Dorrie,’ she whispered as the tears began to run down her cheeks. ‘Dorrie, Dorrie.’

  It was impossible. She could not just be friends with Dorrie. Not with all this feeling inside her. She knew she was not going to write back.

  At least once a week now Colin Evans came to visit her. His hours were irregular as he was working shifts, but quite often he had an afternoon off and would arrange to come on the bus from Cotteridge.

  He came the afternoon after Dorrie’s letter. ‘I’ve got a whole day off today.’ He beamed as Pauline opened the door to him. ‘Thought I’d leave Audrey to get things done this morning, but I hope she doesn’t mind me coming a bit earlier.’

  ‘Come through, love,’ Pauline said. ‘Sylvia’s in here, having a rest. I’ll tell Audrey for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Whitehouse,’ Colin said. He always sounded cheerful.

  When Audrey came down, with a wide-awake Dorian in her arms, Colin was sitting chatting to Sylvia, who looked as if she was struggling to keep awake. But she liked Colin and was pleased to see him. As soon as he saw Audrey, he jumped up eagerly.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming a bit early.’

  ‘No, don’t worry – you’re all right,’ Audrey said. She found that Colin’s almost puppyish eagerness made her turn brisk and businesslike, all the more so because he was nearly fifteen years older than she was, although it often felt as if it was the other way round.

  Colin stood very politely, seeming entranced by the sight of her. ‘Would you fancy a walk – maybe even some tea somewhere? It’s not a bad day.’

  Audrey smiled, determined to be kind. Colin was so nice, so unremittingly pleasant. Why would anyone not want to go out for a walk and tea with him – a man who knew all about her circumstances and still adored her? It was not as if she was overwhelmed with other offers. And she had, she knew, somehow to make a life for herself.

  ‘Looks as if we need to get this little feller to sleep,’ Colin said.

  ‘Good luck to you,’ Sylvia said through a yawn. ‘He looks ready for anything, that one.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll settle in the pram,’ Audrey said.

  Colin came to help her, and Audrey quelled a desire to ask him to leave things alone and just let her do it. He eased the pram out of the front and down the steps. Audrey looked up and down the street, hardly realizing she was doing so. It had become second nature to watch out for gossips and spiteful tongues.

  As usual, she and Colin walked round the park. The day was warm, but overcast. Colin asked her eager questions about her week, about how Dorian had been, and Sylvia. She answered with every show of interest and enthusiasm. Colin was just so nice. He was one of the nicest people she had ever met. He was kind and considerate; he always put her wishes first, was eager to listen and be helpful – not just to her, but to the whole family. Last week he’d helped Mom put up a new washing line when the old one snapped and the post holding it was rotten. Colin had come and banged in a new post and helped tighten the line to the right height.

  ‘He’s ever such a nice lad,’ Mom said afterwards. ‘I wonder he’s not married. That mother of his seems to have a tight hold on him.’

  Audrey knew that her parents, and even Sylvia, were watching very carefully, with high hopes. Mom and Dad didn’t need an unmarried daughter with an illegitimate baby on their hands forever.

  As they crossed the park, trying to lull Dorian to sleep, Colin was chatting about his mother, whom Audrey thought sounded a nice, but rather helpless lady in her late sixties, a widow who relied too much on her only son. They had moved to Yardley Wood when Colin was fifteen and he still had a strong Welsh accent. He chatted about his shift the day before, telling her stories about some of the people whom he’d taken to hospital.

  ‘It’s a funny job, yours,’ she said. ‘Exciting really, the way you never know what you’re going to get from day to day.’

  ‘It is,’ Colin laughed. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t exchange it for anything. Especially when,’ he gave her a significant look, ‘you find that one day someone really special comes along, when you’re not expecting it.’

  Audrey could feel his gaze on her. She turned to him for a second and smiled, acknowledging the remark, then looked away again. She felt conscious of different layers of h
erself when she was with Colin. There was the outside layer, which could see, like everyone else, what a good and nice man he was. She appreciated his steadfastness and kindness and she was grateful. But beneath that, there was the Audrey who was never fully present with him, who was bored, unengaged; who in fact would rather have been alone. She found Colin very, very dull. He lived with his mother and always had; he didn’t drink or smoke or appear to have any real interests – except in her. She wondered if he had had many other women friends, but did not like to ask. He was never harsh or funny or even naughty, in ways she would have found exciting – he was pleasant, and pleasant only.

  They walked alongside the expanse of grass, across which four magpies were hopping about and chattering. They stopped to watch them.

  ‘Lovely, aren’t they?’ Colin said.

  ‘They look as if they should come from somewhere else, don’t they?’ Audrey said. ‘Somewhere exotic. All our other birds are brown.’

  ‘Now you mention it, they are, aren’t they?’ Colin turned and looked at her again. She could feel him looking and tried to stop herself blushing. ‘I want to kiss you,’ he said. ‘For ages I’ve wanted to kiss you, but you’re so pretty and so terrifying.’

  His use of the word ‘terrifying’ made her like him more. She looked at him – they were roughly the same height. His earnest face looked longingly back at her. She did not want to kiss him. There was not a single spark of desire for him in her, other than enjoyment of someone desiring her. Maybe that should be enough? Don’t be so fussy, she told herself.

  The park was quiet, except for an old man sitting on a bench a good way away. Since she didn’t look away, Colin moved closer. A moment later his arm was round her, his lips pressed to hers and his tongue searching into her mouth. Audrey was taken aback. She had expected something more timid, and there was an excitement in the force of him. He closed his eyes and supped her like a delicious drink and, when he pulled away, he seemed almost in a trance.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’re lovely. So very lovely.’ His Welsh accent made this sound poetic. He was so happy. It felt nice to make someone this happy. Watching his enraptured face, Audrey thought about Hamish and Nick and the other RAF men she had been with. There was always this sense they had found something in her that she could not possibly find in them. She thought of Dorrie for a moment, with an anguished pang. A sad anger filled her. Why did she feel like this? There was nothing she could say to Dorrie now – what was the point in thinking about that summer they had spent together? This was real life, not WAAF high jinks. She had a child, and a child needed respectability – and a father. She must kiss Colin back and she must try to love him!