‘Oh, it were always old, I expect they did put screws in in them days,’ said Lottie, fair-haired and a country – jumper-and-skirt type.
‘It won’t fall over,’ I said, ‘it’s got a heavy cupboard foundation.’
‘Yes, you seen it when you fixed my shed and come into my kitchen for tea and cake,’ said Lottie. Kit rolled her eyes. ‘It’s got them little brass flaps, where the screws are comin’ out. I’d be that grateful if you could fix it, Tim, afore young Wally gets at it with his mendin’ hammer. Anything goes wrong around the place, he thinks a bang with his hammer will mend it. That boy, he’ll knock the house down one day. I know you been busy fixin’ little things for Mrs Beavers and your widow woman up at Elsingham, but if you could come in some time and do my dresser, Tim—’
‘All right, some fat new rawlplugs will do it,’ I said.
‘You’re such an obligin’ help to a woman,’ said Lottie. To Kit she said, ‘Not many like Tim, that there aren’t.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Kit and we went on our way. ‘Are you a compulsive fixer of women’s problems?’ she asked.
‘Are you kidding? I’m just an odd-job bloke, not the village doctor.’
‘Tim! You Tim! Come ’ere!’ Minnie was at her gate and not caring who heard her or saw her.
Kit turned and took a look at her. ‘I can’t believe this,’ she said. ‘Young ones as well, you fix their problems too? What about the war?’
‘You’re looking after that,’ I said and told her to go on and I’d join her in a tick. She went on, leaving me to find out if anything new was biting Minnie. In a Sunday dress she was everything a senior Boy Scout could wish for, except that her eyes were flashing storm signals.
‘Is there a fire?’ I asked.
‘Yes, there is,’ she said, ‘you been out with that tarty Wac again!’
‘She’s just a soldier mate of mine.’
‘You’re makin’ me ill, you are! You’re goin’ out with her all the time! And you’ve never took me out once, not once, not ever!’
‘Well, I can’t, can I?’ I said. ‘It’s against the King’s Regulations. I told you, soldiers can get stoned to death for going out with under-age schoolgirls. Can’t you wait a few years? Then, if you’re still keen and I’m not doing anything much, we can write to each other.’
‘Oh, rats and rotten leavings to you!’ cried Minnie. ‘You’re doin’ me down, you are and I’m sixteen now – well, I will be in ten days.’
‘Yes, good luck, Min, happy birthday. You’ll soon be a growing girl, then you can look around for a really deserving bloke.’
‘Don’t want a deservin’ bloke,’ she said, ‘want you. Better you don’t get soft on that ugly American sergeant.’ Her eyes went dark and brooding. ‘I’m not well, I’m not.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Don’t know, do I?’
‘Well, buck up, Min. So long now, regards to your mum.’
‘Oh, I could spit,’ breathed Min.
In the pub, Kit had found a place at a table with Cecily, Frisby, Cassidy and Top Sergeant Dawson, whose bulk made Cecily look hemmed in. But she wasn’t fraught about it. She was cured. It was Frisby who had worries. He had fashioned a psychoanalyst’s couch for her and he had to make up his mind whether he was going to lie on it with her or not.
Kit gave me a smile and asked for a cider. First I had a word with Jim, who was in his usual place at the far end of the bar counter, sucking his pipe and his beer alternately.
‘’Ello, Tim lad,’ he said, ‘thought you might foller Kitty Lou in, ’eard you was out with ’er again.’
‘Something ought to be done about your ears,’ I said. ‘Listen, your Minnie. Find her someone who can keep her company.’
‘Ain’t goin’ to find ’er no bleedin’ GI,’ said Jim.
‘Well, how about a young chicken farmer?’
‘What’s she done to yer?’ he asked, grinning. ‘Told yer not to get too close, told yer she’d eat yer. Still, it’s up to you, lad.’
‘I don’t know why I bother,’ I said. ‘First you encourage me to help myself to your Missus, now you’re pointing me at your daughter.’
‘Don’t you damage ’er, Tim. She’s a ripenin’ girl, but still pure.’
‘Oh, you’re a nut on purity now, are you?’
‘I ’ope you ain’t goin’ to start shoutin’, Tim, not in ’ere.’
Kit came up. ‘Excuse me, Mr Beavers,’ she said and drew me aside. ‘Listen, old buddy, after a woman who’s having trouble with her kitchen dresser and a girl young enough for Peter Pan and now that old coot Jim Beavers, I guess I’m not sure if you’re sure who you’re with. I thought it was me. Is it OK, mentioning it?’
‘I’m glad you did, Kit. You should have had your cider by now. Sorry.’
‘It’s nothing serious,’ said Kit, ‘just that you’re not a bad old buddy.’
‘You’re a good old sergeant,’ I said.
‘You’re cute,’ said Kit.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT COULDN’T LAST, of course, this lack of action. No-one was surprised when rumours began to circulate, rumours that the whole regiment was finally going to be posted to Burma, where our Fourteenth Army was locked in jungle warfare with the Japs. Well-travelled people, especially well-travelled writers, who liked the masses to know where they’d been, had always said what a nice polite race the Japanese were, going in for very civilized cultural stuff like flower arranging, honouring their parents, bowing to visitors, taking their shoes off before going indoors and producing soft twittering Geisha girls. It had been a shock to find out from war correspondents that the Japanese could be horrendously nasty. Accordingly, Burma postings were very unpopular.
The rumours put some of us off our food. I thought I’d better ask Jim or his Missus about them. They’d know whether they were true or not. Some evenings I was on fire picquet or guard duties, but I was free most evenings to make myself out a chit and go off to the village.
I put it to Jim, were we going to Burma? Jim said he didn’t reckon Burma. Didn’t need our kind of artillery in Burma. ‘Cutlass, more like,’ he said.
‘Cutlass?’
‘For chopping and sticking Japs,’ he said. ‘No, don’t reckon Burma, lad. Italy, more like.’
‘Italy? Are you sure?’
‘Well, I ain’t the War Office, mind, but I reckon,’ he said.
I passed the word around to all my mates at BHQ. Italy? Nothing was happening in Italy, you twit. Just some bombs on Sicily.
‘Horse’s mouth,’ I said.
‘Horse’s arse, more like,’ said Gunner Parkes.
I went to fix Lottie Ford’s kitchen dresser one evening. Lottie was grateful to see me, showing me where the old original screws were loose and plaster crumbling. Young Wally Ricketts appeared.
‘I got me ’ammer, Tim,’ he said, ‘I’ll ’elp yer.’
‘This is a repair job, not a wrecking one,’ I said. ‘Buzz off.’
‘But I can bash the new screws in with me ’ammer,’ he said.
‘Where’d you get that hammer?’
‘Found it, didn’t I, Mrs Ford?’ said Wally.
‘I were thinkin’ you’d like to go out and play,’ said Lottie. ‘Clara’s in the garden with Neddy.’ Clara and Neddy were her two children.
‘Can’t I ’elp Tim? ’E’s me mate.’
‘Hoppit,’ I said.
‘I dunno,’ said Wally gloomily, ‘yer can’t even ’elp a mate round ’ere, I fink I’ll go back ’ome and ’elp me mum.’
‘Poor old mum,’ I said and Wally took himself and his hammer out into the garden, where he was immediately set upon by sturdy Neddy and ferocious Clara and buried alive. Well, almost.
‘Kids,’ said Lottie indulgently and watched while I made short work of the little job. I fitted fat new rawlplugs, borrowed from the QM stores and put in new screws.
‘There we are, Lottie.’
‘You’re a nice chap, Tim
. Other people, well, you’d never believe. Mrs Roach round in Farm Lane, she has American soldiers goin’ in and out every evenin’ after dark. Well, not every evenin’. Most, though. What goes on, I hardly dares think. And with her husband in the Navy too, like my Nathaniel is.’ Nathaniel Ford was her old man.
‘Have you noticed if they’re young GIs?’ I asked. You had to go along with a chat. They all liked a chat.
‘Oh, all sorts, Tim.’
‘It’s not a question of Mrs Roach learning them, then?’
‘Learning them?’
‘I just wondered,’ I said.
‘That were a funny question, Tim, I never heard about learning them,’ said Lottie. ‘Learning them what?’
‘Nothing they don’t know, I suppose, if they’re all sorts.’
‘I heard she’s bought herself two new coats for the winter, ever such expensive ones and where could she have got the clothing coupons from, I wonder? Funny, that is. Well, I mean, like. I don’t like thinkin’ about such things. Oh, you finished already, Tim?’
‘Those screws and rawlplugs will hold for years, as long as you don’t let young Wally loose on the dresser.’
‘Little monkey, that boy is,’ said Lottie. ‘That Mrs Roach, though, the money as well for them coats, where did she get it all from, I’m sure I don’t know.’
‘Look under her mattress.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, Tim, I don’t go round there a lot these days. Would you like a glass of something? I were thinkin’ a minute ago you might like a drink, there’s some nice bottles of beer that’s been at the bottom of the larder ages.’
‘Thanks, Lottie, but no.’ I tidied up. She hovered. ‘Well, I tell you what, give us a kiss for the odd job and keep the beer for Nat.’
‘Oh, I don’t know I should kiss you, Tim,’ she said and gave me a warm and generous one on the lips. Her bosom made warm contact. ‘A nice soldier, you are, Tim,’ she said shyly. I couldn’t quite make out where that suddenly came from, the shyness, but it takes a mature and experienced bloke to understand women and I dare say he can still get it wrong.
Actually I was a bit shaken by what was happening to women. I knew GIs were everywhere, they could even be found under beds as well as in them, but all the same I was losing a lot of my admiration for the integrity of the women of old England. I hoped they weren’t falling from grace in Scotland and Wales too. I liked to think there was some faithfulness about, I liked to think that my own wife, if I had one, wouldn’t be getting GIs in and out of the house and that I wouldn’t be going in and out of the house of somebody else’s wife. Being a bit of a prude, I did think like that.
‘Must go, Lottie,’ I said, ‘they want me for the war.’
‘Oh, you can drop in anytime, Tim, that you can,’ she said. ‘Nathaniel wouldn’t mind.’
Holy cows, wouldn’t mind what? ‘Well, I did do a good job on his shed,’ I said jokingly. ‘So long, Lottie.’
Young Wally made one of his shifty appearances when I left the cottage. ‘’Ere, Tim, could yer lend me a tanner?’
‘Why should I?’
‘I wasn’t lookin’ on purpose, honest,’ he said. ‘I only seen yer kissin’ Mrs Ford by accident – ’ere, what yer doin’?’
‘Twisting your lughole off.’
‘Cor, it don’t ’arf ’urt and I wouldn’t tell on yer, Tim, you’re me mate.’
What a funny old lot we all are.
‘Gunner Hardy!’ Wheeling a bike over the forecourt towards the open gates, I stopped and looked back. One man and his dog had just come out of the house. The dog bounded forward. Major Moffat advanced. I saluted.
‘Sir?’ I said.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing with his stick at the bike.
‘WD bicycle, sir.’
‘What’s it doing next to you?’
‘I’m going to ride it, sir. Down to the station, to get a new railway timetable. The orderly room one’s just fallen to pieces. Sir.’
‘You’ve a certain kind of genius in you, Hardy,’ he said. ‘If it ever gets out, you’ll blow the world in half. Tell me, what’s the precise nature of your present objective?’
‘Pardon, sir?’ It was always wise to encourage him to rephrase a question. It gave a squaddie time to think up an answer and it helped the major to lose interest. Sometimes.
‘Getting hard of hearing, are we?’ he said. The murmur of work in progress reached the ears from the vehicle yard. An ATS girl crossed the forecourt to enter the mansion. Lucky for her that her stockings were straight. ‘Deaf personnel get posted to the Pioneer Corps,’ said Major Moffat. ‘Just tell me if it’s true that you’re going regularly out of bounds.’
‘Not without a pass, sir.’
‘And a chit, I suppose. That won’t save you if you’re mucking about in school playgrounds. School playgrounds are right out of bounds.’
‘You’re joking, sir,’ I said, but I didn’t feel like laughing.
‘Is your present objective one of the village schoolgirls? I hear it is.’
I tottered. The bike nearly fell over. The daft dog growled at it. ‘You’ve got to be joking, sir. I do happen to know a girl, but only because she’s the daughter of friends of mine.’
Major Moffat looked me in the eye. A brutally vigorous figure, he was admired by Suffolk females. He made me feel my number was up. ‘Let me tell you, Gunner Hardy,’ he said, ‘if you’re caught going to work on a schoolgirl, it’ll count as rape. Have you got that loud and clear?’
‘Yes, sir, I’ve got it and a headache as well. Who wouldn’t have? I’m not the type, sir, and you can take my word for it. You’ve been misinformed about my present objective.’
‘That’s man to man, is it?’ he said.
‘If you like, sir.’
‘I’m watching you,’ he said. ‘Well, don’t stand about, get going.’
I got going, after saluting him again. I rode out through the gates, his lunatic hound bounding and barking beside me. I stopped when I’d rounded the first bend and detached the pump. The Dalmatian sniffed it, recognized it, turned tail and went off howling.
I cycled towards the village and the station. Missus must have seen me coming a mile off, or she must have heard I was on my way because she was waiting for me at her gate. I had to stop, after all, I was still getting eggs and some of my mates like Frisby, relied on the occasional fried one. And perhaps it wasn’t her fault that she’d inherited unmentionable ideas from her Aunt Flossie. She gave me a creamy smile, her beige jumper hovering over her gate.
‘Watcher, Missus. Can’t stop, I’m afraid. Got the Major checking up on me.’
Missus laughed. It was like the rich sound of churning butter. ‘Tim, pet, what you been gettin’ up to with Lottie Ford?’
‘Just screwing her dresser to the wall, Missus, you must have heard.’
‘Heard a bit more than that, lovey. I don’t hardly remember any soldier bein’ as ’elpful to ladies as you, what with what you done for me, then your Elsingham widow woman and now my friend Lottie across the street, who don’t have her husband around to oblige her. Ain’t Lottie a nice woman? But a bit starved like.’
‘Is that a fact? What a crying shame. Look, send Jim across. When it’s dark. He could be there and back in two shakes of his pipe and I don’t suppose Lottie will mind if he doesn’t take his hat off.’
Tim, what a vulgar thing to say, I couldn’t ask Jim to do that.’ Her jumper quivered in some kind of protest. ‘I couldn’t lift my head up in church if I let Jim commit adultery with a neighbour. Besides, Nathaniel wouldn’t like it. He wouldn’t mind you, though, you both bein’ soldiers.’
‘He’s a sailor.’
‘Same thing, love.’ Missus smiled fondly.
‘Bloody earthquakes, Missus, you—’
‘Don’t swear, ducky. Jim don’t like swearing and carrying-on.’
‘Well, hard luck on the old goat, he’ll have to put up with it. Believe me, Missus, what goes on in the wi
lds of Suffolk is all too much for me and the sooner I get posted to Margate the better.’
‘Won’t be Margate, Tim. More like where Hitler’s lot is.’ Missus acquired a comforting look. The parlour curtain moved and I glimpsed Minnie. She looked fed-up. ‘Don’t you worry now, Tim, I’ve been readin’ the tea cups, and they don’t show anything about Hitler’s lot gettin’ the better of you, just a surprise marriage.’
‘A what?’
‘You’re goin’ to have a surprise marriage,’ said Missus.
‘Well, any marriage is a surprise when it happens in a tea cup.’
‘You’re a laugh, you are, lovey,’ said Missus. ‘Min says she likes that, she says much better to die laughin’ than cryin’. Pity she’s not nearer your age, fancyin’ you the way she does. Mind, now she’s sixteen, she wouldn’t mind waitin’ a bit for you to start courtin’ her, except Jim says he’s not goin’ to have none of that till she’s eighteen. Still, you did send her a nice birthday card and a little brooch—’
‘What’s she doing home from school?’
‘Feelin’ a bit poorly again, poor lamb. Well, think about when you want to come and see me one evening.’
‘I’ve got nothing left to think with, Missus, I’m hollow all over.’
Missus laughed. I had a feeling that the three of them, mother, father and daughter, were all having me on.
Aunt May wrote to say she was quite pleased with my last letter as it told her a lot more about my American lady friend than any of the others. The other letters hadn’t made a lot of sense, she said. She thought it was very interesting that I’d got to know an American girl so well. The war is full of surprises, she said. She also said she couldn’t think what I meant about Kit being a bit too efficient, she didn’t know how anyone could be too efficient. I didn’t want to end up with a girl who didn’t know how to boil an egg properly, did I? That reminded her to say she was getting used to dried egg, it came out quite good scrambled and was also useful for making cakes.
She said she was already looking forward to my next leave, when I’d be able to talk to her about Kit. She’d never met any girl called Kit before, only Kitty. Still, it sounded quite nice, she said. Yes, she’d really enjoyed the rabbits and had invited another friend in to enjoy the last one with her, as she couldn’t eat a whole one all by herself. She wanted to know if I was doing any soldiering, because I seemed to spend such a lot of time doing work for widow Mary Coker, which didn’t sound much like soldiering to her.
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