by Ruby Jackson
Rose, and Grace, who claimed to be tired from her journey, went off to bed as soon as the dishes were washed and put away. Sam, his mother and George returned to the front room to play board games.
Close your eyes, Grace said to herself, and it’s like before the war.
Rose climbed into her bed and pulled up her blankets. ‘Remember at Christmas, we talked about that awful Anderson shelter you had in the garden?’
Grace nodded, although Rose could not see her. She remembered talking about an unhappy experience but, of course, she had never told her friends about the many times she had been alone in the shelter and very frightened. ‘I hate earwigs,’ was all she said, and was answered by a soft snore.
Grace had intended to ask Rose the result of her application to the Auxiliary Transport Service. Several times, Rose, and even Daisy, had put off their applications because of worry over their mother, who had, naturally, taken the news of the capture of her eldest son and the death in action of her youngest very badly; but Flora seemed to be much happier now with Sam home and young George to look after. Grace looked across at the sleeping Rose. Perhaps she should wait and let Rose tell her when she wanted to do so.
So there were rumours that Jerry wanted to renew his bombing campaign. She had forgotten where the Petries went during air raids, or perhaps she never had known. For a moment, Grace wondered how she would behave in an air raid. She hoped she would not disgrace herself.
She lay down. She had been so tired and now she felt wide awake. She listened to the family sounds in the flat around her, an occasional frustrated cry from young George, ‘Cheat, cheat,’ as Sam was obviously winning, and short welcome bursts of laughter from Sam. It was all so very different from living at Whitefields with her new friends, but very much like sun-filled days before the war. She relived the moments when Sam had held her close to him. She had longed to relax against him, to feel his strong arms about her, keeping her safe from all harm. For a moment, she had felt that, at last, she was really where she belonged, not in this flat, but with Sam – for wherever he was she should be too.
There was no need to visit the solicitors’ office on this quick visit. Mr Crawford had assured both Mrs Petrie and Lady Alice that they – and Grace – would be alerted if any more information relating to Grace’s life or her family was uncovered.
‘You can keep my Sam company for me, Grace. I need to get down to the shop and give Miss Partridge time off. She’s been doing so many extra hours and, you know, she’s a lady, not with a title like Lady Alice but she wasn’t brought up to serve in a grocer’s shop.’
‘She loves it, Mrs Petrie. What else would she do all day?’
Mrs Petrie nodded as she stuck the ends of her turban in at the top. ‘Still and all, we won’t take advantage. As it is, she’s an absolute godsend with young George. She says he’s a clever lad. Never was in school long enough to learn to read and write proper, but you should just see his writing these days, and he’s reading ever such thick books, Dickens and that.’
‘Sounds fabulous. Well, if you’re sure, I’ll see if I can help Sam with anything.’
‘If you could get him out of the house, that’d be nice.’
‘He never leaves?’ Grace could scarcely believe it. Sam, like all the Petries, was or had been an athlete. He had played football for a local team before he joined the army and as a soldier he had played for his regiment.
‘Says he’s had enough fresh air in the last two years to last him a lifetime. He’s avoiding people, Grace. You’re the first person he’s spent any time with – apart from family, that is. I suppose he thinks of you as another sister and so he’s relaxed.’
The words that seemed to cheer Mrs Petrie struck Grace like hammer blows. Sam thought of her as another sister. She wanted to curl up into a tight little ball and cry her eyes out. But she could not do that in Sam’s own home. ‘That’s lovely, Mrs Petrie. Probably, I’ve always thought of him as a big brother.’
‘Then I’ll get off to the shop. If you can persuade him to go for a walk, the park would be nice, but if not, would you be a good girl and make us a nice pot of tea around ten? There’s scones and carrot cake in the tins. Lovely and moist, it is.’
Grace assured her that she would carry out her wishes. She waited until Sam’s mother had descended the stairs before going to the front room. It was empty, only the snakes and ladders box on the card table near the fireplace showing that there had been recent occupancy. He had to be in his bedroom and she could not follow him there.
She remained near the window, enjoying looking out at the street below, seeing herself, Daisy and Rose and the fourth member of their tight little group, Sally Brewer, walking, skipping or running down that street, and always four abreast. The past few years had put tremendous strain on their friendship, for how can a friendship survive when the friends rarely see one another? We’re managing, thought Grace. We don’t see one another for months but when we meet it’s as if we’ve never been apart. Fourteen years now, the four of us have been friends, and the twins and Sally at least three years before that.
‘Why so pensive?’
Startled, she jumped; she had not heard Sam come in. ‘Silly, but I was watching your sisters and Sally and me walking down the street. How many years have the twins and Sally been friends?’
He came over to stand beside her. ‘Anybody looking up would think we’re an odd couple, Grace. You’re so tiny and I swear I grew even taller in Italy. But the answer to your question is, forever, I suppose. They were in the same first infants’ class and I think Mum took the twins to a …’ he thought for a minute, ‘… tiny-tots dance class or Tiny Teddies before that. Yes, I think it was teddy bears. Even then, Sally was the star. Did you ever take dancing lessons?’
Grace was about to say, ‘Never.’ Then an image appeared in her mind. She was the same age as she appeared in the dreams of the little girl and the young woman, whom she now knew to be her mother, and she was dressed as a fairy in a pretty pale blue dress of some type of soft floaty material. A pale blue ribbon was threaded through her hair and she had a pair of sparkling wings attached to her back. In her hand was a tall stick with a star on the top.
‘They’re giving you a very special job, my darling. You are the fairy guard who needs to stand at the door of the palace so that the bad fairies are unable to enter.’
Grace laughed ruefully and answered Sam’s question. ‘A few, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Problem was that I had two left feet and, instead of dancing around in a circle with the other fairies, the poor teacher invented a special dance for me. It was called standing still, and I was told to dance it through the entire performance.’
Sam laughed. ‘I bet you were a wonderful little soldier.’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t really remember anything, Sam, but I do know I still have two left feet.’
‘Bet you don’t.’ He looked down at her only pair of civilian shoes. ‘In fact, your little feet look absolutely perfect. I bet you’re a grand dancer.’
‘No. I have rarely tried.’ The damped-down memories of that ghastly night when dear Harry had been attacked came flashing back and she struggled to banish them. She tried to laugh as Sam was looking at her, a question on his face. ‘Deep down I must have remembered not even being good enough even to skip around in a circle.’
‘Poor Grace. I haven’t danced in years either. Come on, we’ll give it a try together.’ Before she could do or say anything, he clasped her right hand with his left, raising them towards his shoulder: her left hand instinctively rested on his right shoulder and she almost winced as his right hand went around her waist, guiding her gently against his body. The heat from it seemed to burn right through both her Fair Isle cardigan and her WLA Aertex shirt. So intense were the strange feelings that she feared she might faint. This was not the brotherly hug of their earlier meeting or even the fevered action in the back seat of Jack’s car.
Sam looked down at her but appeared not to notice a
nything odd. ‘Dancing’s easy. All you need to do is listen to the music. The rhythm will tell you what to do. Now, I learned a really lovely tune when I was in Germany. It’s called “The Blue Danube” waltz, though that’s not what the Germans say. They call it “An der schönen blauen Donau”. One of the guards either played it on his record machine or whistled it all day and sometimes all night. I was humming it on the way back home and the pilot told me its name in English. I’ll hum it now and you count. Ready?’
Speechlessly, she nodded and he began to hum. It really was a pretty tune, Grace agreed, but, although she started at one, she had no idea where to stop as he half guided, half carried her around the room.
‘Looks like I’ll have to hum and count at the same time,’ he said with a gentle smile, the smile that had plagued her dreams for years. ‘One, two, three, one, two three,’ he sang as he danced, Grace desperately trying to put her feet in the right place at the right time.
‘You’re not humming,’ she protested.
‘In my head, I am,’ he said and, picking her up, he waltzed around his parents’ front room, Grace in his arms.
At the end of the dance to no music, Sam stopped, but he did not release Grace. ‘Well, who’d have thought it?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘I was right. Grace, how about a little turn around the town?’
Grace thought her heart might stop beating, so filled with joy was she. She tried to be casual. ‘Sounds lovely, Sam. I bet there’s spring flowers out in the park.’
‘Can you keep up with me, Grace? Remember, I walked across Europe.’
How was she to answer? Did he know his mother had wanted her to coax him outside the family flat? Was he angry? With his mother? With Grace?’
‘Sorry, Sam, no snow-covered peaks in Dartford, no great rivers carving their way to the sea.’
‘You’ll need a coat,’ was all he said.
EIGHTEEN
He was standing on the platform. He stood out, not because of his height, which was in no way unusual, or his looks, which were pleasant and attractive although not particularly noteworthy, but because, among all the many men milling around in that few feet of ground, he was the only one not wearing a uniform. Although other men stood near, chatting, smoking, occasionally laughing, he was not part of them.
Grace lifted her hand to wave, but was unsure as to whether or not she had his attention. It was possible that he did not see her or, perhaps, he chose to ignore her and, drawing back as if she feared a slap, Grace let her hand drop to her side. There was some relief as the train drew her away more and more quickly each time the sweating stoker threw yet another shovelful of coal into the furnace. She felt chilled, not merely because the train was not well heated – it was, after all, still only spring – but because she felt that he wanted to make it quite obvious that he preferred not to acknowledge their acquaintance. But was that true? She was on a train; he was on the platform. Perhaps he had not seen her. After all, why should he think she might be on that train?
But she refused to be comforted. Jack … her body seemed to sob his name. You made love to me and now will not even say hello.
Grace pulled her coat – WLA issue – around her for warmth – and possibly for comfort. Obviously, she thought, he has had leave and yet made no effort to contact me. But she had been in Dartford. The Petries were not teachers with telephones, but grocers; had he wanted, he could not have contacted them. Does he find me unattractive? Or is it that he finds me quite below his notice?
It was the lack of respect that she found so difficult to bear. I gave him what he wanted but lost his respect. She relived the few moments as the train had drawn in. I did not catch his eyes. Angry and humiliated, Grace lay back in the crowded compartment and faced the truth. Impossible to say for sure if he had seen her. She must put it out of her mind and think of her long walks with Sam.
For the first slow hour of her journey from London to Biggleswade, her mind had been filled with images and recent memories of Sam. Now, she sat looking through the windows as the English countryside flew past, and saw nothing. Two faces swam in her thoughts: Jack’s, dark, lean, sharp-featured and, as she had been shocked to see in that quick glance, almost skeletal; and Sam’s, equally thin and drawn but open and trusting. For the past two days, Sam and Sam alone had filled her thoughts.
For almost three years, she had missed Sam, and worried about him as he moved from his army base in Aldershot to ‘somewhere in Europe’, from battlefield to hospital, to prisoner-of-war camp, and then she had heard of his escape. In her imagination, she had pictured Sam, but she had not seen the tall, lanky, fair-haired Sam with the happiest smile, but, instead, a furtive figure in a dirty and torn uniform, running across ploughed fields in search of food and shelter in old barns and deserted houses – for was that not what Europe had become? There had, he told her quietly, been abandoned farmhouses, bombed-out hamlets, but there had been scenes of incredible beauty and majesty, and humbling courage and generosity.
For almost the whole of that three years, she had put a great deal of hard work into convincing herself that she thought of Sam only as the twins’ oldest brother, a strong influence in her life as she grew up and, more importantly, as the man who loved the beautiful and talented Sally Brewer. That conviction had helped her deal with her relationship with Jack Williams, a relationship that had taken so much from her and seemed to offer little in return. Too late to wish it had never happened. Her first experience of intimacy had been powerful but she was sure that for the rest of her life she would regret that it had happened. She felt bruised but was glad that the bruises did not show, as she felt her relationship with Sam change and develop.
The past two days in his company had changed her perceptions of Sam and of herself. Once again, memories of his kindnesses and dreams of him had followed her and stayed with her. They had walked through Dartford, hand in hand, anonymous even to those who thought: surely that big laddie has to be one of Fred Petrie’s boys? Or, that land girl, did she not live with that Megan Paterson, her as was found to be no better than she should be? Her daughter, was she? Or sister, some say. But apart from a few old and close friends who stopped for a moment to wish Sam well, no one bothered them, and Sam and Grace wandered through the town of which they were both fond. Sam exclaimed in pleasure when he saw a church or ancient house or structure standing untouched by enemy bombing and prepared to stand another thousand years.
‘The destruction I saw in Europe, Grace … A lifetime isn’t long enough to repair it.’
Hearing the note of tension in his voice, Grace steered them into the lovely gardens of the park. Daffodils and tulips enchanted them both, and Sam refused to compare them with the Alpine flowers he had seen, but spoke instead of how happy he was to be safe at home, to see his parents and one of his sisters every day, to get to know the boy, George, who had turned up at the right time to fill the gap left by young Ron – not that it could ever be filled completely, but George would carve out his own place in the family and be loved for himself. The same with this girl at his side, no longer the child he had championed but an attractive young woman, taking control of her life, showing courage in leaving an unhappy situation about which she had never complained.
‘Can you believe I thought of you a lot over there, Grace? What a scrawny little creature you were, the first day I saw you, bloodied little knees from being pushed down in the playground, tears in your eyes you wouldn’t let fall? I see eyes before I see the whole face somehow, and you’re like Daisy, really lovely eyes, and sometimes it would be your big eyes, dark eyes, but neither blue nor grey, a mixture somehow, but still I would see you smiling at me, scared-looking sometimes, like a puppy that’s not sure if it’s in for a slap or a treat. And the daft thing is, somehow you’re more like Daisy than her twin sister.’
She said nothing, her heart beating faster with delight. He had thought about her. He thought she had lovely eyes.
‘My dad’s annoyed he never spoke to Megan,’
he said quietly, not looking at her.
She had looked up at him then, her eyes bright and happy. ‘No one spoke to Megan, Sam. Why should they? She kept a roof over my head, fed me, clothed me—’
He had not allowed her to continue. ‘Mum told me she had kept papers about your parents, and photographs from you. That was wicked, Grace. And your inheritance? Why did she never tell you about that?’
Grace had wondered about that too but had tried not to think about it. It was in the past and best left there. ‘I was twenty-one a few days ago, Sam. She was probably going to tell me then.’
‘Twenty-one. And no party.’ He grabbed her hand and pulled her round. ‘We need to have a party, Grace, for you and for me. Have you any idea what this walk with you has done for Sergeant Sam Petrie? No?’ There were other people in the park but he put his arms around her and held her close to him. ‘He relaxed. I swear he actually felt stress fall off his shoulders and slide down his back, like snow off the roof in the winter. One minute, it’s piled up there and, the next, whoosh, it’s on the ground. Well, Sam Petrie’s built-up snow has gone, he’s himself again, and feeling a million tons lighter. Look.’ He picked her up and swung her round so that the red bonnet Sally had given her on Christmas Eve fell off and landed among the daffodils.
He put her down and stretched over into the flowerbed for the hat. Then he put it on her head and pulled it down over her ears. ‘Lovely hat, lovely eyes, lovely face,’ and to Grace’s surprise, he bent down and kissed her very gently on the lips. ‘Lovely Grace,’ he said, and kissed her again.
He still held her and she was glad, for her knees seemed to have melted like butter in the sunshine and she could not feel her legs at all. He was looking down into her eyes, as if searching for something: a message, a question, an answer?
‘Should I say sorry?’
She shook her head. She was glad the kisses had been tender, for the moment would remain lovely; nothing in his kiss had made her think of Jack. ‘Sally gave me the hat.’ What possessed her to bring the beautiful, talented Sally into the conversation?
