Rising Summer

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ I said, ‘ask Cecily. Pop the question.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ he said. ‘Someone’s got to save her. She’s a nice girl.’

  I called on Missus one evening. Jim had dropped by and rustled six eggs into my keeping. From Missus, he said. So I had to call on her and say thanks. Missus had been a good friend until she went mad. Minnie answered the door in a jumper and skirt. The jumper shouldn’t have been allowed.

  ‘Hello, Min.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be a tick,’ she said, ‘I’ll get me beret.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Wearing. Where we goin’ to walk to?’

  ‘Evening classes at your school?’

  ‘Who’s goin’ to evening classes?’ asked Min.

  ‘Good idea if you did,’ I said. ‘Better for you than buzzing round to Aunt Flossie. I don’t trust Aunt Flossie.’

  ‘What d’you mean? You’ve never met her.’

  ‘I’m lucky, I suppose. Is your mum in?’

  ‘Mum’s out. So’s Dad.’ Minnie smiled. ‘You can come in, Tim, we don’t ’ave to go walkin’. We can just do sittin’ and cuddlin’.’

  ‘That’s it, get me locked up. So long, Min – oh, tell your mum thanks for the eggs.’

  ‘Oh, you’re rotten,’ said Min. ‘I’ll find a GI, you’ll see.’

  ‘Not if your dad finds him first,’ I said and hurried away.

  ‘’Ello, Tim.’ Young Wally Ricketts materialized. ‘I just seen yer talkin’ to that Minnie. Ain’t she an eyeful? I got yer the rabbits, trapped ’em meself, I did.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you I only wanted them when the right kind of bloke was going on leave and could drop ’em in for me?’

  ‘Yes, course yer did, Tim,’ he said, ‘an’ I ’eard yer Bombardier Wilkins is goin’ tomorrer. I ’eard as well that ’e lives near Camberwell.’

  ‘I see. All the village dicky birds use your earhole as well, do they?’

  ‘Well, fings do get around, Tim,’ said young Wally. ‘’Ere y’ar, I got the rabbits under me jersey.’ He pulled out two rabbits wrapped in brown paper. ‘I’ll only charge yer one an’ six.’

  ‘Hold on, it was a bob last time.’

  ‘Yer, well, they gone up a bit since, yer see.’

  ‘Ninepence,’ I said, ‘and stop trying to teach me how to suck eggs.’

  ‘’Ere, ninepence is only fourpence-’apenny each,’ he said indignantly.

  ‘Ninepence and a clip round each ear for coming it, you horrible little Peeping Tom.’

  ‘Well, I was only sayin’ like, that Mr Beavers ain’t keen on ’is Minnie goin’ kissin’ and all – ’ere, what yer doin’, Tim?’

  ‘Turning you round so that I can boot your backside.’

  ‘I dunno, yer can’t do nuffink round ’ere wivout someone givin’ yer a wallop. An’ what about me ninepence?’

  ‘All right, here you are. Now beat it.’

  ‘Well, ta. I likes it that you’re me mate, Tim.’

  I gave the rabbits to Bombardier Wilkins. Aunt May had thoroughly enjoyed the others. She’d had a friend round to enjoy them with her. Bombardier Wilkins made a fuss about delivering them. I said all right, one bunny for her, one for you. I had to make a concession to the fact that he was an NCO. He was happy then.

  Some of us were beginning to wonder if the War Office had lost us, if we’d fallen out of their files. A lost record and a battery can cease to exist. A whole regiment even. It could mean missing the rest of the war. Outside the UK, the war was going on in the Atlantic, the Pacific, Sicily, Russia, China and Burma. We hadn’t seen action for a year and more. No-one complained, of course, except Major Moffat, a man who definitely hadn’t joined to sit the conflict out.

  Walking along the path to the ablutions one evening, I saw the major and Sergeant-Major Baldwin coming the other way. We had to meet. I had my towel over my shoulder, a cake of soap in my hand and no cap on. As I couldn’t salute without a cap on, I came to attention.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Major Moffat.

  ‘I appreciate your question, sir,’ said Sergeant-Major Baldwin, who had a waxed moustache. ‘Answer it, Gunner Hardy.’

  ‘Well, frankly, sergeant-major,’ I said, ‘I can honestly say I’m a loyal conscript and subject of the Empire.’

  ‘Did you hear that waffle, sergeant-major?’ asked the OC.

  ‘Sad case, sir,’ said the sergeant-major.

  ‘Has he done any soldiering?’ asked Major Moffat. His dog came up and investigated my trousers. ‘No never mind. There was something else. Let’s see.’ He eyed me in a razor-sharp way. ‘Gunner Hardy, I understand you’ve put it about that this battery, during certain actions against German bombers, shot down two Spitfires.’

  ‘Just joking, sir.’

  ‘Spreading false and malicious information detrimental to the war effort is no joke, Gunner Hardy. It’s punishable by a dawn execution.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Saddest case I ever come across, sir,’ said Sergeant-Major Baldwin.

  ‘Where are you going with that towel, Gunner Hardy?’ asked the major.

  ‘For a shower, sir,’ I said, doing my best to keep Jupiter from making a bone of my left leg.

  ‘Any chance that you’ll drown yourself?’

  ‘Hope not, sir.’

  ‘Well, carry on,’ said the major, ‘make an attempt.’

  I carried on. I had a shower.

  Coming out of ablutions a little later, I saw Kit. She stood in my way. She saw the towel over my shoulder and my still damp hair.

  ‘You’ve just showered,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen our shower,’ I said, ‘you’d say I was an optimist in search of a miracle. Still, I managed to get rained on for ten seconds. That’s a minor miracle. By the way, I’m going to be executed at dawn for telling you we shot down two Spitfires.’

  ‘Serve you right,’ said Kit. ‘I’ll get you for that, Tim, I’ll get you good. You made a Patsy of me. Major Moffat was talking to me about the bombing raids and I naturally said it must have been disastrous news to him when it was reported that his battery had downed two Spitfires. I said you’d mentioned the disaster to me. He said he was going to have you torn apart by elephants. I’ll be there watching.’

  ‘Sounds painful,’ I said. ‘For me, I mean, not you.’

  ‘You know, old buddy,’ she said, ‘I sometimes wonder if you’re not just something I dreamt up.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ I said, ‘we don’t all have pleasant dreams.’

  ‘You’re cute,’ she said. ‘Are you going out later?’

  ‘Only to the pub.’

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Wake up,’ she said.

  ‘Meet you at the gates in twenty minutes, love?’

  ‘OK, twenty minutes,’ said Kit, ‘but don’t overdo it, soldier.’

  We had quite a nice evening together.

  *

  On three Sundays in succession, I worked on fixing a door to Mary’s porch. Kit came with me on each occasion, and took a keen and interfering interest in my labours. Mary’s cottage echoed to the sounds of sawing, planing and hammering. I got quite involved with the job and having got involved, I wanted to make a resounding success of closing in Mary’s porch. Mary said I was a really nice chap. Kit said I was quite a useful guy, but just a little screwy.

  My relationship with her was friendly. At times she was a bit like a sister and at Mary’s she was a bit like a foreman. I didn’t really need her as either a sister or a foreman. She was a lot too kissable. I couldn’t think of any other girl I’d like to have for keeps. There were occasions, of course, when she needed talking to. That was when she was bossy. If I could work myself up to it, I’d do that, I’d give her a talking to.

  I was sweating and swearing a bit on the third Sunday. I’d got everything in place, including a deep lintel that filled in the gap above, and I’d bolted on
the well-planed doorposts and chiselled out the hinge beds. But I couldn’t get the perishing door flush, shave it though I did.

  Kit appeared. She watched. And she listened. Then she said, ‘If you took the door into the shed and planed it there, you’d be free to throw things about and swear your head off without offending anyone.’

  ‘Listen, gaffer,’ I said, ‘I’m working here because I have to keep checking the size of this large lump of wood with the size of the large hole and it would be too inconvenient and too harrowing to cart the walloping hunk backwards and forwards from the shed. I’d get injured. And who’s throwing things about?’

  ‘You are,’ said Kit, ‘all Mary’s tools, one after the other and sometimes three at a time. It’s worrying Mary. She thinks it’s all becoming too much for you.’

  ‘Well, bless my soul, fancy that. And who’s swearing?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Oh, dearie me,’ I said. I hefted the door. It slipped, I grabbed at it, and all it did was to drop on my right foot. ‘Oh, dear,’ I said, ‘well, I never, clumsy me.’

  ‘You clown,’ said Kit and went away.

  I sweated a bit more, planed a bit more and suddenly the door was flush and house-proud. I held it in place against the temporary struts I’d nailed to the posts. I felt weak with triumph, so much so that when the door tilted and leaned on me, I gave in and we hit the ground together. Mary, hearing the noise, rushed to the scene. She gave the anguished cry of a motherly body.

  ‘Oh, lor’! Kit quick, it’s Tim, the door’s on top of him! Oh, help, he looks struck dead.’

  Kit’s arrival was calmer than Mary’s. She made a professional survey of me and the door. ‘I can’t see any blood,’ she said.

  ‘Kit, he’s hurt,’ protested Mary.

  ‘Try him,’ said Kit, ‘give him a prod.’

  I lay there not unhappily. I took the weight comfortably enough and the door, which had spent most of the afternoon being mucked about and reviled, seemed as glad as I was of a short break. It pressed fondly on me and we became friends.

  ‘Tim, say you’re all right,’ pleaded Mary.

  ‘Oh, bless us, Mary, yes, of course I’m all right,’ I said. ‘Dearie me, it’s only a door and I’m only half unconscious.’

  ‘He’s showing off,’ said Kit.

  ‘Oh, hadn’t we better get the door off him?’ asked Mary.

  ‘OK, let’s humour him,’ said Kit.

  They lifted the door.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ I said and got up. I shoved the door into place and they held it while I screwed in the hinges. And there it was. My door, firmly hung. I’d done it. It even opened and closed. I removed the struts. What a work of art. Mary had a closed-in porch and a little entrance lobby where she could hang wet coats.

  ‘Tim, what a treat, what a nice door you’ve done for me,’ she said and gave me a kiss. ‘You’re a real love, I don’t know anyone who could’ve done it better. I’m ever so grateful.’

  ‘Light the geyser, that’s all I ask,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll have to be painted and a bell fixed,’ said Kit.

  ‘Painted?’ I went hoarse. I’d removed all the old paint and rubbed it down to the grain. ‘A bell?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Kit.

  ‘Painted?’ I said again. ‘It’s oak, woman.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Kit at the word ‘woman’.

  ‘You don’t paint oak,’ I said, ‘and whoever painted it in the first place was probably some woman having a female fit.’

  ‘I don’t like the way you said that, old buddy, and I think a nice coat of white paint—’

  ‘Nice? Nice?’

  ‘Oh, lor’,’ said Mary.

  ‘It would look very nice,’ said Kit, ‘and you could fit one of those bells that chime.’

  ‘Bananas,’ I said hysterically, ‘piddle, pee and essing bananas.’

  ‘Oh, dear, we’ve upset him now,’ said Mary. ‘Couldn’t we go and see if Winston Churchill’s makin’ one of his uplifting speeches on the wireless?’

  ‘Bananas,’ I said.

  ‘Control yourself, soldier,’ said Kit. ‘Really, all this verbal mayhem. Mary and I are only making suggestions.’

  ‘Kindly pay attention,’ I said. ‘This is my door, my labour of love. All it requires is a little oil from year to year. If I ever see paint on it, I’ll fire thunderbolts at it. And it needs no ruddy bell. It’s got a handle that opens it and there’s a knocker on the inside door. The nancified ping-pong of chiming bells is out. Out. Is that clear, Sergeant Masters?’

  ‘He’s shouting now,’ said Kit, ‘but God knows what he’s saying. Do you know what he’s saying, Mary?’

  ‘I’ll go and do some nice scrambled egg on toast,’ said Mary and hurried to the calm of her kitchen.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done with all your shouting,’ said Kit, ‘you’ve upset Mary.’

  ‘How would you like a good hiding?’ I asked.

  ‘You and your ambitions,’ said Kit and made a crisp getaway through the cottage to the kitchen. I went after her. She hared through the back door into the garden.

  Mary said, ‘Oh, lor’,’ as I chased in pursuit.

  I caught Kit on the lawn. She whirled inside my arms and we fell. There was a flurry of legs in fully-fashioned Waac stockings and then a kiss as I trapped her mouth. She gurgled and brought her knee up to smartly punish my navel. I let her go. She lay on the grass, skirt rucked, sparks in her blue eyes.

  ‘I could get you for that,’ she said.

  ‘Court martial?’

  ‘Can you be court-martialled for assault?’ she asked.

  ‘You could ask Major Moffat.’

  ‘I’ll ask his dog and set the brute on you.’

  Mary came out. ‘Are you two fighting?’ she asked.

  ‘Not now,’ I said, ‘I won that one.’

  ‘That’s a laugh,’ said Kit.

  ‘I don’t like to see you two having a quarrel,’ said Mary. ‘Shall I do the scrambled eggs for supper now?’ It was seven-thirty. I’d had a long afternoon.

  ‘I’d like a bath first, Mary,’ I said.

  ‘You know you’re welcome,’ said Mary.

  ‘Cold shower, try that,’ said Kit and laughed.

  I had a good soak in hot water and thought about her. Lovely girl really, even if she was bossy. I’d heard you had to expect that in most American females. Funny thing about Cecily, though. All that aggression to begin with. She’d looked as if she could see off Top Sergeant Dawson, given the right kind of provocation. Now she went around like a genuinely feminine bird, saying a friendly ‘Hi!’ to all the personnel. She even liked it at BHQ, she said all the guys there were great. She and Cassidy were popular figures. They mingled with the ATS girls and other ranks in the canteen some evenings. Kit did most of her mingling in the sergeants’ mess, as an invited guest.

  Mary served scrambled eggs on toast with a salad for supper. ‘Kit did the salad,’ she said, ‘she’s been a nice help.’

  Having this fondness for the way women can perform in a kitchen, I said, ‘I like that piece of news, I like the picture.’

  ‘Can you work out the meaning of most of what he says, Mary?’ asked Kit.

  ‘Oh, I think Tim likes us with our aprons on,’ said Mary.

  ‘Don’t fall for that one, Mary,’ said Kit, ‘guys like that point girls like us only one way, to the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Mary pacifically, ‘that’s where our work is mostly, Kit, while they go out and make doors and windows.’

  ‘Good point, Mary,’ I said.

  ‘Yuk,’ said Kit.

  We left immediately after supper, Mary giving me a pat and thanking me again for my joinery work. The double summertime meant the evening was still full of warm light. Everything that was rural was a pleasure to the eye, the hedgerows dappled with colour. Kit was chatty as we pedalled side by side, and made kind remarks about the countryside. Old England wasn’t bad to look at, she said. It had trees
too. In New England it was mainly pines and maples.

  ‘Well, that’s good, lovey,’ I said.

  ‘Lovey sounds as if you’re trying to strangle Shakespeare’s English,’ she said.

  ‘It’s London talk, it’s matey.’

  ‘What a guy,’ said Kit.

  ‘Shall we stop at the pub? We’ll be in time for a quick one.’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Kit and pedalled away, humming a song of summer.

  When we got to Sheldham, Mrs Lottie Ford popped out of her cottage and called to me. We stopped and wheeled our bikes up to her gate. Lottie Ford, in her early thirties, had her husband away at the war, two children whom she handled indulgently, an evacuee – none other than young Wally Ricketts – whom she had to watch like a hawk, and the same kind of healthy look as most of the women of Sheldham.

  ‘I saw you comin’, Tim,’ she said, ‘so I thought I’d have a word.’

  They all had good eyesight, either from their parlours or anywhere else. They could see through curtain, blinds and garden fences and they could see round corners.

  ‘Evening, Lottie,’ I said and introduced Kit.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ said Lottie, ‘I were only wonderin’ just now if Tim was out with you again.’

  ‘Were you?’ asked Kit.

  ‘Hadn’t you heard, then, Lottie?’ I asked.

  ‘I been that busy today,’ said Lottie. ‘Tim’s a nice obligin’ young chap,’ she said to Kit and Kit gave me one of her searching looks.

  ‘Shed still standing up, Lottie?’ I asked. Hers was the shed that young Wally said accidentally fell to pieces around him and which I’d rebuilt.

  ‘Oh, that shed weren’t never standin’ up better, Tim. It’s my Welsh dresser now, it’s comin’ away from the wall. It’s the screws, they’re comin’ out.’

  ‘A Welsh dresser screwed to a wall?’ I said.