It was a wonderful evening. From the first moment they walked into the extravagant foyer, Abby was in awe of her surroundings, even before James purchased tickets for the royal circle at two whole shillings each. A large box of chocolates tied with an enormous pink bow followed, and when they were shown to their seats she felt like pinching herself to make sure it wasn’t all a fantastic dream.
The cinema’s band, the Eagles, played before the programme commenced, and again between the main film, the newsreel, the magician doing his tricks and the short cartoon, and in the interval the Regal’s mighty Compton organ came up and the organist entertained everyone while they ate their ice creams. By the time they re-emerged into the warm darkness of the late July evening, Abby knew James must have guessed she hadn’t been to the Regal before, but by then it didn’t matter.
‘I don’t want the evening to end.’ In the car, James turned to her, his blue eyes glittering in the shadows.
Neither did Abby. She had noticed more than one pair of female eyes turn in his direction for a second look, and although she’d felt proud he had chosen to be with her above any other lass, she’d been surprised at how jealous she’d felt too.
‘Do you fancy coming dancing on Saturday at the Empire? Lew Stone was there a few weeks ago and I think Billy Cotton’s on for Saturday. Anyway, it’ll be a good band at the Empire whoever it is, it always is.’ Added to which he’d get to hold her as close as he wanted, for some of the evening at least.
She didn’t have a dance dress or shoes but she had Saturday to find what she needed. Abby nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Great.’ He smiled at her. ‘My pals are going to be pea-green with envy that I’ve got the most beautiful girl in the world on my arm.’
She giggled, and then, as his face came nearer, she knew he was going to kiss her and she became very still. His mouth was warm and firm, the kiss was everything she’d dreamed her first kiss from a lad would be and now he was so close she could smell a faint spicy perfume coming from his skin and it was intoxicating.
As for James, he couldn’t believe what the feel of her lips, even tightly closed as they were, was doing to him. He had sown quite a few wild oats during his university years; the sudden freedom from the tight restrictions of being an only child and the apple of his mother’s eye, not to mention the willingness of some of the liberated young ladies with whom he had associated, had gone to his head. But not even with Mary, his first lover who had taken great delight in initiating him into the pleasures of the flesh - she was studying to be a doctor and needed to be conversant with the male anatomy, she’d teased - had he felt like this. But then he hadn’t loved Mary, nor she him for that matter, and therein lay the difference. He might have known her only a few weeks but Abby had taken over his mind and his heart.
‘I’d better get you home.’ Reluctantly he forced himself to draw away and start the engine, his body as hard as a rock beneath the wide trousers he was wearing. Glancing at the box of chocolates Abby was clutching, he added, ‘What are you going to do with that? Your mother will guess you’ve seen a lad if you walk in with it.’
Abby looked down at the box. It was beautiful, a picture on the lid of a thatched cottage with roses round the door, and it still contained half the chocolates even though she and James had eaten loads. She would keep this box for ever and ever as a reminder of this magical night. ‘I don’t care.’ And suddenly she didn’t. ‘I’m nearly eighteen, for goodness sake, it’s not as if I’ve just left school or something. I shall tell her about you if she says anything.’
‘You will?’ He suddenly felt ten feet tall. If she was going to brave her mother’s wrath, it had to mean she was serious about him, didn’t it? ‘You will?’ he repeated, his voice low now and soft as he touched the silky skin of her face with the tip of one finger. And as she nodded, blushing rosy pink but holding his gaze, he kissed her again.
PART TWO
Goodbyes 1939
Chapter Five
‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of Ten Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we had heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this nation is at war with Germany.’
‘Oh, Da.’ Abby was clutching her father so tightly her knuckles were showing white. ‘It’s happened.’
Wilbert switched off the wireless and looked at his sister, his voice verging on the scornful as he said, ‘You’re not surprised, are you? What do you think all the preparations have been about the last year or so, with the air raid wardens and the shelters and everything? You said yourself your firm’s organised their switchboard so it can be used by other companies and the ARP.’
‘Aye, that’s all very well, lad, but it’s still a shock when the unimaginable happens. And that’s what this war will be, make no mistake.’ Raymond’s voice was grim. ‘He’s a maniac, that Hitler, and he’s got to be stopped, there’s no doubt about that, but the cost’ll be high.’
‘That’s right, frighten everyone to death.’ Nora glared at her husband. Like the majority of the housewives round about she had refused to believe there would be another war, regarding the ARP service and especially the wardens with some contempt. The only time she had shown a spark of interest was when it had been suggested they might like to share one of the brick surface shelters with her sister’s household. This had come to nothing, however, when Ivor had insisted the backyards weren’t big enough what with the wash house and privies, even though several families in their street and the ones surrounding it had installed brick shelters. The upshot of Ivor’s refusal was that both families had taken an indoor Morrison shelter instead.
Abby glanced across to the steel oblong box which normally served as a table. Her father had insisted that blankets, cushions and a torch be put inside some weeks ago, and that they all got used to climbing inside and pulling the meshed panels at the sides and ends into place. Now it looked as though they would be using the shelter for real.
Abby had no sooner thought this than the wail of air raid sirens sounded, causing them all to freeze and stare at each other for a moment. ‘Quick!’ Raymond was shouting as though the rest of them were in the next room. ‘Into the shelter, all of you. Move!’
By the time it became clear that there was no immediate threat of aerial onslaught, Clara had bumped her head and was crying loudly, Wilbert had knelt on the torch and had a lump the size of a ha’penny gobstopper on his knee, and Nora had split the seam of her Sunday dress and was blaming her husband.
‘I don’t want to go in there again.’ Clara was hiccuping her tears now. ‘And I don’t want to put that on either,’ she added, pointing to the row of gas masks sitting on the kitchen window sill. ‘They’re smelly and horrible.’
‘Come on, pet.’ Abby lifted her sister into her arms. ‘I tell you what, if you’re a good lass you can come for a little ride in James’s car this afternoon. Just round the streets for a few minutes so Betty Skelton and Hilda Wright can see you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Clara grinned at Abby and nodded. Betty and Hilda were her two best friends but when she had told them that her sister had a lad with a big car and that they had taken her for a ride in it, they’d said she was telling fibs. But Abby had shown them, Clara thought complacently. The very next Sunday after she had come home in tears because they had fallen out with her for telling lies, Abby and James had taken her for a ride and stopped right outside Betty’s house. Betty’s eyes had been like saucers. Clara wriggled with ecstasy as she remembered. And the next day at school Betty had given her a whole bag of bullets and Hilda had let her play with her new skipping rope without taking turns, and they’d never called her a liar again.
Hugging Abby’s neck she planted a wet kiss on her sister’s cheek. She loved Abby the
best in all the world.
‘Excuse me but isn’t it his father’s car?’ Nora sniffed pointedly. ‘Good as James’s fancy job might be, I don’t think it would run to buying and running a car.’
Abby looked at her mother over Clara’s blonde head. Her mam never let up, not even on this day when war had been declared. She was like a dog with a bone as far as James was concerned and yet he had never put a foot wrong in all the time they had been seeing each other. But he’d never please her mam, Abby was reconciled to that now.
Right from that first magical night when she had walked into the kitchen with the enormous box of chocolates clutched in her arms and declared to her mother she had a lad, the atmosphere within the house had been such you could cut it with a knife. She could have understood it if she’d decided to walk out with someone like Jack McHaffie or Rory Fallow, who were no strangers to the local constable and the prison cells, but James? Her Aunty Audrey had declared James was the perfect suitor for any daughter. But when her mother had found out James was a doctor’s son and had been to university, and that he was training to be an accountant, you would have thought he was Jack the Ripper from the way she had reacted. Father Finlay had made another appearance, but the fact that James’s parents were Catholics, albeit nominal ones, had taken the wind out of the good Father’s sails to some extent.
Father Finlay had demanded - and demanded was the right word for his imperious manner - to have a meeting with James, and it was then that Abby realised just how much she had changed. She had looked steadily at the man she had been terrified of all her life and for the first time she saw him for what he was - a man like any other. She refused Father Finlay’s demand - what right had he to subject James to what at best would be an interrogation? - and the priest had left the house in a huff, with her mother flapping at his coat-tails.
Her father’s voice brought her back to the present. ‘You going for a run in the country again, lass?’ he asked, and she knew he was trying to pour oil on troubled waters.
She nodded, but before she could speak her mother said with some satisfaction, ‘According to the postmistress it won’t be long before they’ll stop such jaunts. Petrol will be needed for better things than waltzing about in fancy cars on a Sunday afternoon.’
Abby was on the point of firing back when the gravity of the day swept over her anew. Instead of responding to her mother’s sniping she remained quiet and walked out into the backyard with Clara. It was a perfect September day. The sky was blue and cloudless and somewhere high in the thermals a lark was singing.
Abby sighed. It seemed incredible war could have been declared on such a beautiful Sunday morning but already things were different. Normally the back lane would be ringing with the shouts of bairns playing their games in the ridges of dried mud and dust, but today there was an ominous silence. Everyone had been glued to their wirelesses since early morning, and the only life she could see was a solitary black cat stalking along a wall some distance away.
Oh James, James. She wished he was here right this minute. She hugged Clara to her. Although he’d said little about his intentions should war be declared, she knew from comments he’d made to some of his friends that he would enlist. They all would. Which was probably why she’d taken a leaf out of her mam’s book and buried her head in the sand. Even in the last couple of days, when the country had been under blackout regulations and the town hall clock light extinguished and its chimes silenced, she’d told herself Hitler would back down at the last moment.
‘Am I going to get any help with the vegetables or not? And put her down, for goodness sake. She’s not a baby.’
Her mother’s voice from the doorway behind her caused Abby’s mouth to tighten, but again she bit back the sharp rejoinder which came to mind. One half of the world seemed intent on invading and destroying the other half, and all her mam cared about was the Sunday dinner.
The toot of a car horn outside announced James was early. Abby jumped up from the kitchen table, only for Nora to snap, ‘You, sit down and finish your dinner. He can wait.’
Abby did not answer her mother but glanced towards her father, and when he gave an almost imperceptible nod, saying, ‘Let her go. No one wants to eat the day,’ she fairly flew into the hall.
Clara had been sick just before dinner and was now asleep in bed, so when Abby shot out of the house it was only she who climbed into the car.
‘That was quick.’ James bent forward and kissed her but did not prolong the embrace, being only too aware of staring eyes and flapping ears up and down the street. Now the shock of Chamberlain’s speech had diminished and Sunday dinner was over, most people had gathered on their doorsteps to discuss the war. Since courting Abby he had come to understand that although Felstead Crescent was only a mile or so from Rose Street, it could have been another country. There were two doctors, a solicitor and several businessmen of high standing living in the Crescent, and everyone - at least outwardly - minded their own business. But in the last twelve months he’d learned enough to know that any gossip right on their own doorstep would hold more appeal for Abby’s neighbours than Hitler’s possible strategies.
‘Da’s home for a few days.’
It was explanation enough and James nodded. He had tried his best to win Abby’s mother over in the early days of his relationship with her daughter, but had eventually admitted defeat, coming to the conclusion it was less traumatic for all concerned if he didn’t come into the house. Sometimes Nora managed to delay Abby for fifteen minutes or more before she was able to join him, but he did not mind this. He would wait all day for Abby. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked, starting the engine. ‘About the war, I mean.’
‘Awful.’ She waited until they were clear of Rose Street before she said, ‘How about you?’
‘The same, I suppose.’
No, he didn’t. Abby glanced at him. There had been a bubble of excitement he couldn’t quite hide in his voice. Fear for him turned her stomach over but her voice was calm enough when she said, ‘I suppose you’ll join up now.’
‘Would you mind?’
Of course she’d mind. She’d mind more than she could ever say. She smoothed the skirt of her pale pink georgette dress over her knees. She had made it from a pattern she’d found in one of the latest magazines and had been dying for James to see her in it all week. Now it didn’t matter.
He glanced at her, one hand going out to cover hers briefly before he brought it back to the steering wheel. ‘Look, we’ll discuss it over a pot of tea a bit later, all right? At our place.’
‘Our place’ was a sixteenth-century-style inn they’d found early on in their courting days, tastefully furnished with antiques and serving afternoon teas. The two of them were a favourite with the landlady and she always found them a table, however busy it was.
That afternoon James put himself out to be even more entertaining than usual and Abby’s mood lifted. But later, when they were sitting at a table overlooking the inn’s pretty Victorian garden, all her fears flooded back. The gleaming silver teapot, lovely crockery, crisp damask tablecloth and the black and white uniforms of the maids failed to hold their normal appeal; even the buttered teacakes kept hot in silver dishes and delicious cream and jam cakes tasted like sawdust. James, however, tucked in with as much gusto as usual so she waited until he had finished his fifth teacake before she said flatly, ‘You’re going to join up, aren’t you?’
‘Sweetheart, don’t look like that.’ He reached across the table and took her hands in his. ‘We’ve got to face facts here. The call-up for men of my age is probably going to come in a month or so and I’d rather not wait till then. Call it pride or whatever, but I’d rather enlist before I’m forced to. I can’t explain it any better than that. But I don’t want to leave you. Of course I don’t want to leave you.’
His hands were warm and strong. Abby looked down at their entwined fingers and found it hard to imagine his would soon be holding a gun. Nevertheless, in spite of how she was fee
ling, she could see he had a point even if she did think male pride was the most stupid thing on earth. James wasn’t in a reserved occupation or a member of the clergy, and he was twenty-four years old. It would be expected he would fight.
‘What if they find something wrong with you?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Nothing serious,’ she added quickly, aware she was tempting fate. ‘Just something that prevents you being accepted.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, come on.’ He smiled slowly. ‘I don’t think that’s at all likely, do you?’
No, she didn’t. She stared at him forlornly. Her James fighting people, hurting people, killing them? It was madness. He’d never hurt a fly. The only time she had ever seen another side to him, a darker side, had been when he’d taken her to meet his parents and his mother had been somewhat offhand with her. He had been angry that day and hadn’t tried to brush over the incident but had faced his mother head on, much to Abby’s embarrassment. But his mother was a snob, Abby had known that as soon as she’d set eyes on Mrs Benson, just as she’d known James’s father was lovely with no side to him at all. Mind, to give his mother her due, Mrs Benson had made an effort over the last months. It was probably partly for James’s sake and partly because Dr Benson made her so welcome, rather than that the older woman had begun to warm to her, but that didn’t matter if it made for an easy atmosphere.
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