As Time Goes By

by Annie Groves

  He wasn’t gone very long, returning in about ten minutes, a clean bandage on his arm.

  ‘Now remember what the doctor said – no getting that wound wet or dirty until it’s healed.’

  ‘Cat got your tongue then, or are you just disappointed that they didn’t keep me in to cut my arm off?’ Sergeant Everton taunted Sam as they walked back to the car.

  For some silly female, womanly reason, the thought of him without his arm made Sam’s eyes sting sharply with threatening tears. Tears for him? This man who made her feel … but no, better by far that she didn’t think of that. Just like she hadn’t been thinking of it all week, pushing it out of sight because she was afraid? Quickly she blinked her tears away, not trusting her voice not to betray her as he opened the car door for her.

  ‘The Bentley needs petrol,’ she told him without looking at him.

  ‘Fine,’ he answered. ‘I don’t mind the ride.’

  Sam said nothing. She had been going to suggest that she dropped him off first and then drove to the fuel store.

  ‘You handle the car well.’

  ‘For a woman?’ Sam suggested through gritted teeth.

  ‘I didn’t say that. Turn left here,’ he told her

  Thinking he knew a short cut to the petrol store, Sam automatically did as he had instructed, only to find she had driven into a narrow cul-de-sac surrounded by windowless stores.

  ‘What …?’ she began, but the sergeant shook his head.

  ‘Switch off the engine for a minute.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

  Something … didn’t he really mean someone, that someone being Frank Brookes? He didn’t know just how very badly he was getting things wrong, and she intended to make sure that he never knew, even if that meant letting him continue to think badly of her. If she had been in danger of having some kind of silly crush on the other sergeant, she definitely didn’t have one now, and the reason she was so clearly aware of what her true feelings were was sitting right here next to her, and those feelings were becoming clearer – and stronger – with every hour, never mind every day, she spent in his company. Not, of course, that she could ever or would ever tell Sergeant Johnny Everton that she had done the most stupid thing she could and that she suspected she had fallen in love with him.

  ‘What kind of something?’ she asked him warily.

  ‘This kind of something.’

  For a man whose arm was heavily bandaged he was able to put it round her very quickly and easily, but Sam wasn’t able to say so for the very good reason that with him kissing her the way he was doing she wasn’t capable of thinking or saying anything.

  So this was kissing … proper kissing … the kind that made a ‘good’, ‘nice’ girl forget that she was any such thing and ache very much to be something else. Her heart was beating so heavily and loudly it was drowning out any inner warning voice that might have been trying to make itself heard.

  When Johnny lifted his mouth from hers she made a small soft sound and declared in a wobbly voice, ‘You kissed me!’

  He still had his arm around her, and she could see his mouth curving into a smile.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘and I’m going to kiss you again.’

  This time the pleasure was deeper and sweeter, running through her body like liquid heat, making her physically aware of herself as a woman; making her wrap her own arms around his neck and hold on to him whilst she closed her eyes and trembled under the shocking intensity of their intimacy.

  She was still trembling slightly when the kiss ended, and so, she saw with swift hot pleasure, was Johnny.

  ‘Why?’ she asked him dizzily, both of them knowing that she wasn’t asking him why he had kissed her so much as why this had happened to them; why they had both been caught up in this intense desire for one another, which neither of them had encouraged or wanted. ‘We don’t like each other.’

  ‘You’re not exactly my type,’ he agreed.

  Jealousy, sharp-clawed and sabre-toothed, savaged her, making her catch her breath. ‘And you aren’t mine.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you haven’t had time to experience what your type is. I have.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning that I should know better. Less than a month ago you were mooning around all big-eyed over Frank, looking at him like a kid with her nose pressed up against the window of a sweet shop, and with about as much understanding of men-and-women stuff as that kid. You’re a baby still, a tomboy who hasn’t learned yet to be a woman.’

  ‘I’m twenty-one,’ Sam defended herself.

  ‘What I’m talking about doesn’t have anything to do with age. Some girls are born as old and knowing as Eve, but not you. This is crazy. If I had any sense I’d walk away from it and from you right now, for your sake as well as mine.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She didn’t. She felt as though her heart was being wrenched in two. How could he have kissed her in the way that he had and now be saying what he was?

  ‘No, of course you don’t. How can you? There’s too much of a gulf between us for you and me to be right together. You’re still learning things I learned long ago. By rights I ought to leave you to do your growing up with boys who are doing some growing up of their own, boys who you can flirt with and then walk away from. I’ve already done all of that. And more,’ he told her meaningfully.

  Sam’s heart gave a funny little painful thud. ‘I could do those things with you,’ she forced herself to say.

  He was looking away from her now, but she could see the way his mouth hardened.

  ‘Yeah? The fact that you think so is just one of the reasons why you’re too young for me. You haven’t been to those places yet, and I need a woman who has. A woman, Sam, not a naïve girl. And even if I could find her I’d have no right to ask her to share my life, and even less right to ask you.’

  Sam gave a small whimper of anguish. ‘You can’t say that.’

  ‘Yes I can.’ He swore savagely beneath his breath. ‘Have you any idea what the average life expectancy is for someone working on UXBs?’ he demanded.

  Now it was her turn to look away from him. She knew perfectly well how dangerous what he was doing was and that on average the lives of men working on the ground in bomb disposal were measured in months and not years, and that that was why most of the men were unattached.

  She heard him exhale, then saw his chest expand as he refilled his lungs with air. Out of nowhere she was filled with a longing to touch him, to press her hand against his flesh and to feel the beat of his heart beneath it. She knew that for as long as the war continued she would never be free of her fears for his safety, and that her love for him was what chained her to that fear.

  ‘I should never have started any of this.’

  ‘Yes, you should,’ Sam told him.

  ‘I should have left you to do your growing up with someone else. You’re such a kid still.’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  He looked at her in derision. ‘You didn’t even know that I wanted you until I kissed you, did you?’

  ‘No … but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I knew when you did kiss me how good it felt and how much I wanted you.’

  It was the wrong thing to have said – if she had still been that girl he was deriding. But she wasn’t, and it certainly wasn’t wrong for the woman she now was. For her, that woman, it was entirely right, and she could feel that in the grip of his fingers on her arms, see it in the glitter of his eyes, hear it in the rapid way he was breathing.

  ‘Don’t,’ he groaned. ‘That’s one hell of a dangerous thing to say to a man, especially when he’s been thinking the thoughts about you that I’ve been thinking these last few weeks.’

  He was weakening, Sam could sense it.

  ‘We’re living in dangerous times,’ she reminded him. ‘Life is dangerous and precious, too precious to be wasted, so why s
houldn’t love be the same?’

  There, she’d said it, that one small word that changed everything between them beyond any going back.

  ‘Love!’ He breathed the word as though it was torturing him, sliding one hand into her hair, his fingers splayed against the back of her head as he twisted her round so that she was half lying against him; half lying beneath him, the weight of his torso pressing her into the leather seat whilst he kissed her fiercely and possessively, teaching her the potent intimacies of kissing as easily as he had shown her the sensuality of dancing. But even more extraordinary to her than how he felt about her was her own uninhibited and eager response to him, her complete willingness to be swept up and possessed by the feelings he had aroused within her. It was like flying, Sam decided helplessly, dizzy with joy and excitement, a kind of freedom and delight that took her soaring to heights that giddied her, into an atmosphere where what she breathed released bubbles of intoxication into her veins.

  ‘You haven’t the first idea of what love is, or what it does to a man.’

  Her heart was thudding so heavily she felt sure he must be able to feel it. ‘Then show me,’ she urged him softly.

  She could see shock, followed by excitement, darkening his eyes. He exhaled again as though in defeat.

  ‘You’re playing with fire now,’ he warned her. ‘Do you know that?’

  Mutely Sam shook her head, although she knew perfectly well what he meant. He might call her naïve, but she wasn’t that naïve.

  ‘I’ve been wanting you like this ever since that first night,’ Johnny was telling her, softly rubbing the pad of his thumb over the swollen contours of her mouth and then smiling when he saw her response to his touch. ‘Even though I’ve fought like hell not to. All that blood I’ve lost must have weakened me, and now look what’s happened.’

  ‘What has happened?’ Sam whispered.

  ‘What has happened is that you’ve made me break my own rules and go crazy for the kind of girl who doesn’t have the first idea of what she’s doing to me. The kind of girl that a chap doesn’t play around with. A wedding vows and for ever kind of girl. Because that’s what you are, isn’t it, Sam?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

  ‘So there it is,’ he told her lightly. ‘You and me.’

  His words brought Sam back to reality with a sharp jolt, guilt flooding her as she remembered what she ought to have been thinking about all along.

  ‘But what about Lynsey?’

  ‘Lynsey?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve been seeing her, after all, and she thinks that you and she …’ She could feel herself floundering.

  ‘Seeing her? I haven’t been seeing anyone,’ Johnny denied.

  ‘Lynsey’s told everyone that you and she are an item.’

  ‘Well, she’s lying because we aren’t.’

  Sam looked up into his eyes and knew that no matter what Lynsey had said, Johnny was telling her the truth.

  ‘The thing is, Sam, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do before you catch up with me, and I don’t rightly know if it’s fair to you for me to want you to do that growing up exclusively with me, or if it’s fair to meself to take the risk that you won’t take off and want to do it with someone else.’

  ‘I’d never do that,’ Sam protested.

  ‘You can say that now but things change, people change.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You shouldn’t say that, Sam.’

  ‘Why not, when it’s the truth?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because like I said, a person can change. Any person.’ He gave a small shrug.

  The way he was talking was beginning to make her feel anxious and uncertain, plummeting her down into despair where only minutes ago he had taken her up to the heights of dizzy excitement and joy.

  ‘I knew the moment I met you that you were trouble, the kind of girl a man could never relax around because he’d be forever wondering just what the hell kind of trouble she was going to get herself into next,’ he was telling her. ‘The kind of girl who a man needs to keep a constant watch out for in case she hurts herself. If you want the truth, when I saw the way you were going all big-eyed over Frank I was pleased, or at least I would have been if it hadn’t been that I know he’s married to Molly. You see, the way I looked at it, you wanting him should have made it easy for me to not want you myself.’ He shook his head. ‘You aren’t my type.’

  Sam tried hard not to let him see how much those last few words hurt her. ‘So what is your type?’ she asked him as brightly as she could.

  ‘Quiet, gentle girls who don’t keep a man awake at night.’

  ‘I keep you awake then, do I?’

  The look he gave her made her feel as though a jolt of electricity had struck right through her body.

  ‘That’s what I mean about you still having a lot to learn, Sam. If you had learned you wouldn’t need to ask me that question; you’d know that I can’t sleep at night for thinking of you and wanting you.’

  She closed her eyes, excitement and joy sizzling through her.

  Sally saw him whilst she was queuing up inside the butcher’s. She was just looking through the window to check that Tommy was standing where she had left him with Harry in the pushchair, lined up between two large prams, when she saw him coming down the street.

  It didn’t matter she told herself, not even if he saw them. Why should it? He had told her himself that the Boss had said she would give her a bit more time – and charge a lot more interest. If she kept her back turned to the window then Sid the debt collector probably wouldn’t even see her, but the problem was that she couldn’t do that. Not with Tommy and Harry outside. Tommy was a good boy and she had told him to stay with Harry and the pushchair, but he was only three and easily distracted, and three-year-olds could wander off and get themselves into all sorts of danger and mischief.

  Sid had drawn level with the shop now. Quickly Sally looked the other way but not quickly enough, and her heart sank when she realised that he had seen her. He was standing outside now and …

  Sally’s heart jerked on its maternal strings as she saw him say something to Tommy, putting one hand on the pushchair handle as he did so.

  ‘Excuse me …’

  ‘’Ere, wot’s going on? There’s a queue here, you know.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, love, it’s your turn next …’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sally apologised, ignoring the objections of the woman behind her in the queue packed into the narrow shop, as she caught her with her basket in her desperation to get to her sons.

  ‘Watch what you’re doing,’ she complained, but Sally didn’t have time to apologise or explain.

  ‘Thought these must be your two,’ the debt collector said to her. ‘They’ve got a look of you.’

  ‘Come on, Tommy,’ Sally urged her son as she took hold of the pushchair, trying desperately to sidestep Sid.

  ‘What’s your rush?’ He was standing in front of her now, blocking her exit, coming towards her so that she was forced to back away from him and into the shadows. ‘I’ve bin thinking. Can’t be easy for you with your hubby gone. I’ll bet you’re lonely too wi’out a man. Why don’t I call round after I’ve finished me round on Friday and you and me could have a bit of a chat?’

  The leer on his face told Sally everything she needed to know about his intentions. Her stomach curdled with loathing and disgust.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t I walk back wi’ you now? Come on, son, you hold my hand.’

  ‘No!’ Sally almost shouted her fear-filled denial but it was too late, he was already reaching out to take her son. Sally reacted with a strength and speed she hadn’t known she possessed.

  ‘Let go of him.’ She pulled Tommy away from Sid, holding the little boy tightly to her side and slightly behind her in an attempt to protect him. In retaliation the debt collector stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder, standing so close to her that she could smell the sour odour of his breath.

&n
bsp; ‘I’m the one who gives the orders, not you, and don’t you go forgetting it.’ He squeezed her shoulder hard, making her flinch and cry out in pain.

  Tommy’s face had started to crumple.

  ‘Leave us alone,’ Sally snapped.

  ‘Now that’s not a nice way to talk to someone who wants to be friendly, is it? In fact if I was you I’d think about being a bit more careful,’ cos a person might just take offence, and we don’t want that, do we?’ His hand had moved from her shoulder to her throat, and as he finished speaking his fingers tightened, almost choking her. How far he would have gone if two women who Sally knew by sight and who lived a couple of streets away from Chestnut Close hadn’t been coming towards them Sally didn’t know.

  As it was she made good use of the opportunity they had unknowingly given her to escape. Taking advantage of the debt collector releasing her, she pushed the pram towards them, saying with the kind of forwardness she would never normally have exhibited, ‘You’ll be walking back my way, I expect. I’ll walk along with you, if you don’t mind.’

  She knew that Sid would not risk following her in broad daylight, but she also knew that the danger she was in now was far greater than it had been, and that the next time he came knocking on her door it would not just be money he would be expecting to collect from her.

  There was only one thing she could do now, only one option left open to her.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The minute they were safely inside the house, Sally set to work. She had dragged a pair of heavy wooden step ladders in from the garden shed, locked both the back and front doors and then struggled to get the step ladders up the stairs so that she could drag down from the loft space the battered dust-covered suitcases that had lain there ever since her and Ronnie’s honeymoon. She wouldn’t be able to take anything she couldn’t carry, so she would just have to take what was essential. The rest of their things she would have to ask Doris to store for them until such time as it was safe for her to come back and get them. Not that she intended to tell her neighbour what she was planning to do until the very last minute.