by S Block
‘Why not? You love dogs. And I know how much you miss Boris. ’
‘I do, very much, but Boris was special. Don’t forget we ’d been together for years and rubbed along well. I always found him to be excellent company. Whereas this little one . . . ’ Alison frowned. ‘It’s as if she’s in a world of her own. She behaves well enough – eats everything I put in front of her, walks to heel when I take her out, curls up on the chair in the evening. Beyond that, though, it’s as if she ’d rather keep her distance. A bit like a lodger who wants to have their landlady at arm’s length. ’
Teresa smiled. ‘Perhaps she can sense that you’re not keen on her being there. Animals can be incredibly astute. ’
‘I can’t imagine . . . ’
‘What’s she called?’
Alison looked away. ‘I’ve not managed to come up with anything that suits her yet. ’ She had thought of calling her Milly after her first puppy, a boisterous Jack Russell, but it didn’t seem quite right. Poppy, Betsy and Dotty followed, only confirming that anything ending in a ‘y’ was just not going to work.
‘There you are, then. It sounds to me that you’ve not yet made up your mind about her. If you were sure you wanted to keep her, the first thing you ’d have done would be to come up with a name. The poor creature must have been horribly traumatised when John found her – imagine what she ’d been through – and now she’s probably waiting to be turned out again without notice and left to roam. ’
‘Perhaps you’re right. ’
After all, Teresa had a point. It was unfair to accuse the dog of being distant when Alison herself had made so little effort with it. Perhaps the reason she was behaving like a lodger was because Alison’s coolness made it plain the arrangement between them was temporary. As Teresa had rightly said, dogs could be remarkably sensitive. Boris had certainly seemed able to read her moods. When she thought back, she had known right away she intended to call him after her favourite actor, Boris Karloff. They both had the same brooding eyes.
Truthfully, deep down, Alison was in two minds about becoming attached to this dog, and had considered suggesting to John that once it got its strength up he might return it to Liverpool. And do what with it, she now wondered? Leave it to fend for itself once more? What if the little stray had intuitively detected her half-heartedness and was guarding itself against rejection? She wondered how much of this John – also astute enough to work out what was going on in her mind – had guessed, and what he must think of her.
Teresa grinned. ‘I must say, John does seem to have something of a knack for rescuing lost souls. Look at the way he scooped Noah up and brought him home. ’
Alison would never forget that day. The overwhelming relief that Noah, hungry and cold, having run away from his hated boarding school, was safe. John’s concern for the boy had shone through. How like him to feel sympathy for a stray rummaging about in the bomb ruins.
She wished she hadn’t been so sharp with him for bringing the animal to her. It had been such a thoughtful gesture.
Part of the problem was that she simply didn’t know where she stood with John. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted from him. Simple, uncomplicated friendship? Something more? In which case, why did she always push him away? As for John, his very decency and sense of propriety made it nigh on impossible to know what his intentions might be. Was he content with an easy friendship? The occasional meal together, an innocent walk in the countryside? Was that sufficient to explain why he trekked to and from Liverpool to spend time in her company? Would he make such an effort if there was nothing more to it?
Perhaps he would. Alison had never had the courage to ask him.
‘I think I may have been . . . oversensitive about the whole thing,’ Alison said. ‘I was rather offhand, concerned that John might be taking me for granted. I hadn’t asked for another dog, after all. ’ She saw Teresa’s puzzled look. ‘As I said earlier, I reacted rather badly. ’
‘Oh, Alison. John would never take advantage. He’s far too decent, and you know it. ’
‘I ’d hate to lose his friendship. ’
‘Then talk to him,’ Teresa advised. ‘Properly. Ask for his help with the dog, for a start. Be honest. Say you can’t seem to get through to her and you wondered if having him around more might make a difference. Go for long walks, the three of you. Take a picnic. ’
‘It’s a long way for him to come to walk the dog,’ Alison said, doubtful.
‘Except that’s not the only reason he ’d have for coming, as we both know. From what I’ve seen, John’s a perfect gentleman. He’s the type of man to go out of his way to make sure he doesn’t overstep the mark. He must feel he misjudged things by presenting you with a dog you hadn’t asked for. He might want to keep his distance now, until things settle down between you again. So, it’s up to you to let him know you want to see him. I don’t suppose he has much of a life in Liverpool just now. The city’s in a dreadful state, by all accounts. Didn’t he lose his home in one of the bombing raids?’
Alison nodded. The entire street had gone. He now had a room in a hostel. She didn’t even have an address for him.
‘When are you expecting to see him again?’
‘At the weekend. ’
Provided he still felt like making the journey. And if he didn’t, she only had herself to blame.
Chapter 15
M
IRIAM WASN’T CONVINCED THEY’D done the right thing taking on the lease for the shop next door. David had been so determined, persuading his parents the ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’, as he put it, was too good to miss.
‘If we wait someone else will come along and turn it into a roaring success,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll be sorry. ’
In the end, it had seemed impossible to deny him.
On the day they got the keys, the three of them inspected the new premises, David full of ideas to bring the place back to life, Miriam thinking only of how much work it would take. She had envisaged a bit of smartening up, a fresh coat of paint, not much more – but on closer inspection, the scale of the task ahead of them began to sink in. The old shop fittings had more than had their day. There were signs of damp in the storeroom. The floor was cracked and uneven, dangerously so in places, and would need to be replaced. They were practically going to have to gut the building and start again to bring the premises up to scratch.
Miriam thought back to when the Collinses were in business. Part of the charm of the old greengrocer’s was its slightly shabby, old-fashioned atmosphere. A traditional, family-run establishment. Now, only a few weeks on, it seemed devoid of all appeal, as far as she could tell. Had it deteriorated in such a short time, or had she simply never noticed how run-down it had become?
David didn’t share her concerns. ‘It’s empty, Ma,’ he said, laughing. ‘Of course it’s not at its best. You have to think of how it’s going to look when it’s done up with all the stock in and a new awning. Something bright that catches the eye. ’
‘An awning?’ Bryn repeated.
‘We’ll need an awning to shelter the produce we have out front,’ David went on, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It’s half the battle, getting the shop front right. ’
Miriam stopped herself from asking how much it was all going to cost. Seeing David so fired up, brimming with enthusiasm, was something she couldn’t put a price on.
‘It’s going to take a heck of a lot of work,’ Bryn said, looking doubtful.
‘And we’ll get it done, you’ll see,’ David told him, striding across to the window and checking the frames. ‘Solid,’ he declared, and grinned.
*
The new shop wasn’t the only reason for David having something of a spring in his step of late. Much of his cheerful demeanour was down to Jenny Marshall, the glamorous radio operator from Tabley Wood.
David had known Jenny all his life; they had been at school together. Not tha
t they’d been friends then – she had always seemed vastly superior, confident, even somewhat intimidating. She was the kind of girl who got her own way. In the playground she had taken charge and bossed the other girls about, and they all seemed thrilled to be told what to do by their rather haughty classmate.
David had been slightly terrified of her.
Back then, she had never given him a second look. ‘Boring Brindsley,’ she called him on a number of occasions. Now, however, much to his amazement, things had changed. One day, when he was out walking, he ran into her on her way home from the air base. He was wearing the scruffy old trousers and shirt well past its best that he reserved for tramping about in the countryside, and Jenny was in her smart WAAF uniform, blonde hair pinned in neat waves, her face expertly made up. She was a beauty all right, if a little hard-edged with it. She had the look of the film star, Jean Harlow, about her. When she stopped in front of him, blocking his path, he felt at a distinct disadvantage. Vastly superior, he remembered.
‘What are you up to?’ she asked, eyeing the binoculars in his hand. As if she ’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t.
‘Not much. A spot of birdwatching. ’
‘I just saw a kestrel,’ she said, surprising him. ‘On the base, next to the perimeter track, when I was coming off duty. It stopped dead in flight right in front of me and hung in the air, still as anything. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. You wouldn’t believe how long it was up there . . . anchored. They must be so strong to be able to hold fast like that when they’re being buffeted about. It makes you wonder how they do it. ’
‘It’s to do with how they fly into the wind and the speed of their flight,’ David had said, and at once wished he ’d kept quiet. It made him sound as if he was showing off.
‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ she had said, not taking her eyes off him.
‘A bit. ’ Most of it was gleaned from The Observer’s Book of Birds he ’d received one Christmas. ‘I’ve always liked watching birds. You never know what you’re going to see. On the way up here I saw a pair of crows mobbing a much bigger bird. Working as a team, dive-bombing, chasing it off. It was a buzzard, I think. I couldn’t get the bins on it quick enough to be sure. ’ He cringed. Bins. What was he thinking? It was impossible to read her expression. Boring Brindsley.
Only, it turned out Jenny Marshall didn’t find him boring. Quite the opposite. She seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say, even suggesting he take her birdwatching with him one day. It was so like the fearless girl he remembered from school to put him on the spot like that, confident he would agree. She was used to getting her own way.
The idea of spending time alone with Jenny wasn’t something David felt entirely comfortable with. She was vivacious, a head-turner, and he was . . . well, ordinary. He wondered what they’d find to talk about.
But, as it happened, he needn’t have worried. The war had mellowed her. She ’d seen things, she said. David didn’t ask what; he could imagine only too easily what these ‘things’ might have been. He already knew she was on the radio the day the Spitfire crashed onto the village. He ’d been in the Observation Post and watched the plane limp in, low in the sky, belching out a thick plume of sooty smoke.
‘I was the one trying to talk to the pilot,’ she told him. ‘Saying the same things over and over, hearing nothing back, just an awful empty crackle that tells you something’s gone badly wrong. ’ She had felt sick, she said, willing it to be a communications error, praying the plane would land and there ’d be relieved faces all round. In her heart, though, she knew the pilot was dying or already dead. ‘I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, an awful churning, cramping up,’ she said. Dread, one of the other girls called it. It had been the worst moment of her life.
It wasn’t anymore. Now she thought of it as the first of the worst moments. There had been many others since.
David had the feeling he ’d underestimated Jenny. She was every bit as fearless and bossy as he ’d always imagined, but she could be equally thoughtful and sensitive. He wondered if that other side of her had always been there and she ’d chosen to keep it hidden, or if it was a product of the war. The latter, he expected. He knew well enough how it could change someone. When she asked about his ship going down he said little; just that he, too, had seen his fair share of ‘things’.
*
The work on the new shop was keeping the Brindsley family busier than ever, with both Bryn and David working long hours. Both shops would eventually be combined so that shoppers could go straight from one to the other, and that meant alterations to both properties. Fortunately, they ’d persuaded a builder with a first-rate reputation to come out of retirement to tackle the work – Old Mr Jenkins, they called him, although he wasn’t all that old. Old Mr Jenkins drafted in a joiner, also retired, to handle the various cabinets and shop fittings required, and between them they came up with a schedule that minimised disruption to the butcher’s. The plan was to get the empty premises ready and fitted out before breaking through the wall into next door. ‘It won’t be as bad as you think,’ Old Mr Jenkins assured them.
It sounded to Bryn like a big job, far more involved and time-consuming – and pricey – than he ’d anticipated. When he ’d worked out the original costings with David, they’d expected to do the bulk of the work between them. ‘I don’t mind painting,’ David said. ‘And we’ll be able to smarten up the display cabinets. ’
But it turned out they couldn’t. The wood was too flimsy and starting to go. Privately, Bryn wondered whether they’d taken too much on.
‘What if it doesn’t pay off?’ he asked Miriam one night, when David was out with Jenny and it was just the two of them.
‘You’ve been over the figures a hundred times. It adds up, doesn’t it?’
At a pinch, Bryn thought. Fortunately, he ’d had the sense to build in an amount they could draw on ‘just in case’. At this rate it would all be gone by the time they’d finished. ‘We’ll manage as long as things go according to plan,’ he told Miriam. ‘The trouble is, it’s not an exact science, shopkeeping, is it? And these are strange times. We don’t know what’s going to happen from one week to the next, what else they might decide to ration. We don’t know anything for sure. ’
‘We’ve always managed before. Whatever’s come our way, we’ve got through it. ’
That at least was true.
‘Are you worried we’ve done the wrong thing?’ Miriam asked.
He thought about it. ‘I don’t know, Mim. Sometimes. Maybe I’m too old to take on something this big. ’
She was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t think we had much choice,’ she said at last. ‘Once David made up his mind, we had to get behind him. And you can see what a difference it’s made. He’s been so much happier ever since. ’
Bryn smiled. ‘That may have more to do with Jenny than expanding the business. ’
Miriam hadn’t been sure about Jenny at first. She ’d always found her a bit on the brash side – full of herself, sharp-tongued, not the kind of girl she’d want for her son. She had been worried that Jenny would toy with David’s feelings, drop him at the first sight of someone better, perhaps one of those RAF boys. Not that there was anyone better than David, in Miriam’s view. She just hoped he had the sense to keep his wits about him.
Then, one Sunday, David asked if he could bring Jenny for tea and Miriam promptly changed her mind. Either she ’d been wrong about Jenny Marshall all along, or the girl had changed. Haven’t we all? she thought. Jenny seemed altogether softer, sweeter. She was definitely sweet on David, too – anyone could see that from the way she looked at him.
‘Besotted,’ Bryn had said later.
‘Jenny, you mean?’ Miriam had asked.
‘Both of them. ’
‘He was never going to be happy serving in the butcher’s for ever,’ Miriam said now. ‘We both knew it wouldn’t be enough. H
e needed something to get his teeth into, and it’s not as if he’s not thought it all through. Before he even ran it past us he ’d done the groundwork. He’s young, ambitious . . . looking to the future. And it’s not just him we need to think about – there’s Vivian, too. Everything we’re doing now is about providing for our children. We want them to have the best chance, don’t we?’
Bryn nodded.
‘The best thing we can do is give him our support. Let him know we’re in this together, that we believe in it. ’ She gave a shrug. ‘We need to have faith. ’
‘You’re good at this,’ he told her.
‘What?’
‘Making me believe everything will work out just fine. ’
‘That’s because it will. ’
Bryn decided to spend an hour in the cold store before bed. ‘Make a start butchering that pig. I was going to do it this afternoon before I got into a discussion with Old Mr Jenkins about shelving. ’ He suppressed a yawn. ‘It’ll be bedlam in the shop tomorrow if I don’t get some bacon cut. ’
‘Don’t be too long,’ Miriam said. ‘You look worn out. I’ll make us a hot drink when you come in. ’
She went upstairs and checked on Vivian, who was sleeping soundly, both arms raised above her head. Then Miriam sat down at the dressing table and unpinned her hair. She understood Bryn’s concerns about the expansion; he was a man who liked order, certainty. Regarding the business, he had always been cautious, not given to taking risks.
When it got to ten o’clock and he still hadn’t come up from the shop, she went looking for him. The door to the cold store was open a crack. ‘Bryn Brindsley,’ she called, ‘you’ll be fit for nothing if you don’t call it a night. Whatever you’re doing can surely wait until morning. ’
There was no answer. ‘Bryn?’
She pushed open the door and stepped into the cold store where the carcass of a pig was on the block. Her eyes went straight to the floor, where Bryn lay sprawled in the sawdust.
