Betty and Rita exchanged a glance. ‘Cheek of the devil,’ Betty said, fluffing her hair.
Douglas laughed, holding out his hands in supplication. ‘No offence, ladies.’ He fished in his pocket and pulled out two packages. ‘I just thought perhaps you could make use of these.’
Tearing open their gifts, the girls exclaimed over the nylon stockings, whilst May watched enviously and glanced down at her own thick lisle ones. Betty threw her arms round Douglas. ‘Oh, you darling. I might have known. There’s nothing you can’t get, if you’ve a mind, is there?’ She drew back and glanced at Luke and then at May. She prodded Douglas in the chest. ‘So if there’s anything you want, he’s your man.’
‘If I’d known there was another lovely young lady, I’d have brought another pair.’ Douglas gave a little bow towards May and murmured, ‘Maybe next time, eh?’
May smiled uncertainly but Luke’s only response was to turn on his heel and leave the house.
Thirty-Five
Douglas became a regular visitor to the farm, along with other ‘followers’ of the two girls. One was a very good-looking RAF pilot with wavy black hair.
‘He looks like a film star,’ Anna breathed, watching him with wide eyes.
‘Aye aye,’ Betty said, winking mischievously. ‘Our Anna might only be thirteen but she knows a good-looking feller when she sees one. I’ll have to keep me eye on you, pet, else you’ll be stealing them from under my nose with those lovely eyes of yours.’
‘Oh I reckon you’re safe, our Betty,’ Rita chirped up. ‘Anna’s got a boyfriend.’
Anna turned wide eyes on the grinning girl. ‘What do you mean? I haven’t got a boyfriend.’
‘Haven’t you? You could have fooled me. Well, I know a very nice young feller who’d like to fill the part.’
‘Who?’
‘Jed, of course.’
‘Jed? But he works here. And he’s heaps older than me.’
‘Yeah, course he is. All of five years, but it doesn’t stop him making sheep’s eyes at you. Oops, sorry for the pun.’
‘He doesn’t,’ Anna denied, but could not help blushing.
‘You know Charlie, the pilot officer,’ Betty said one evening, only a week later.
‘That handsome one with black hair?’ Anna asked as May looked up enquiringly.
Betty nodded, biting her lip. ‘His plane never came back. Went down somewhere over the Channel, they say. The whole crew are missing.’
‘That’s terrible,’ May said, her hand to her mouth to still its trembling. ‘Oh the poor boy. He was only nineteen, wasn’t he?’
Anna bent her head over the rug she was learning to make from scraps of material so that the others would not see the tears in her eyes. To think that that lovely-looking young man was now dead brought back vividly all the sadness about her own daddy.
Betty nodded. ‘Yeah.’ She sat for a moment as if lost in thought, then she stood up quickly, ‘Still, life has to go on, pet, hasn’t it? At least there’s no chance of that happening to good old Douglas.’
In his chair in the corner, Luke shook his newspaper and sniffed.
‘What was that, Pops?’ Betty said.
‘Nothing,’ came the short reply. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Are you serious about this Douglas?’ Luke asked after supper the following evening.
‘Me?’ Betty laughed. ‘I’m not serious about any feller, Pops.’ She beamed at him. ‘Only you, mebbe.’
They all laughed, but no one had missed the underlying message of Luke’s question. Betty put her head on one side. ‘You don’t like him.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
Luke shrugged but said nothing.
Betty laughed again. ‘I’ll take that as a “no” then, shall I?’
Now Luke muttered, ‘Seems a bit of a flash type to me. What I’d call a spiv.’
‘Dad!’ May exclaimed, scandalized at her father’s blunt remark, but Betty only grinned. ‘You could say that, Pops, yes.’ She winked at Luke, as if sharing a secret. ‘But he’s good for a pair of stockings now and again, chocolates and even a new dress when my clothing coupons run out, to say nothing of keeping me well supplied with knicker elastic.’
Luke grunted and bit hard on the end of his pipe. He tried to look disapproving, drawing his shaggy white eyebrows together, but even Anna could see that he was having difficulty hiding the amused twinkle in his eyes. He removed his pipe from his mouth and jabbed the end of it towards Betty. ‘Just be careful, lass, that’s all.’
‘I will, Pops, don’t you worry,’ Betty said merrily in her lilting accent, yet there was an underlying seriousness to her tone. ‘He’d have to get up early to get one over on us Geordie lasses.’
May pursed her lips and said primly, ‘It sounds to me as if it’s you that’s taking advantage of Douglas’s generosity.’
Betty’s eyebrows rose and she glanced at Luke and then back to May. Betty opened her mouth to make some retort but evidently thought better of it and closed it again, but suddenly there was a pink tinge to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled with anger.
‘How’s he come to be in these parts?’ Luke put in, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. ‘He’s a Londoner by the sound of him, ain’t he?’
‘Yes. He worked in the West End theatres, but when the war started the audience figures dropped off and then the government closed all the theatres throughout the country. Course they opened up again after a few months, but even then what with the evacuation of a lot of people, the blackout and a lot of restrictions the government imposed, Dougie said it was hardly worthwhile opening. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘he’d got this mate in the Midlands, so he came up this way and now he’s got a cinema in Lincoln and reckons he’s doing very nicely, thank you.’
‘You mean he owns it?’ Luke asked.
Betty stared at him and blinked. ‘Well, I never really asked him outright. But – well – he acts as if he does.’
Luke only reply was a disbelieving grunt.
‘I think he seems rather nice,’ May ventured, though she cast a nervous glance at her father. ‘He’s taking us all to the pictures on Friday night. He’s asked me to go too.’ She glanced at Betty. ‘I – I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Course I don’t, pet,’ Betty said, her good humour restored. ‘The more the merrier.’
It was certainly a merry outing on the following Friday evening. Douglas arrived with his usual flurry.
‘I’m so sorry I can’t fit you all into my car,’ Douglas said. ‘Maybe Anna could squeeze in the back seat, but it won’t take all three of you ladies.’
‘That’s all right,’ May said. ‘We’ll take the bus into town and meet you and Betty somewhere.’
‘Nonsense,’ Douglas retorted. ‘You’re our guests. You and Anna must come with me.’ He turned to Betty. ‘Sweetheart, you and Rita won’t mind catching the bus just this once, eh?’
Betty glared at him but then, seeing the disappointment on Anna’s face as if she feared the whole outing was suddenly in jeopardy, she shrugged her plump shoulders and smiled. Wagging her finger playfully at him, she said, ‘Just this once then, mind.’
Douglas was a charming and attentive host. He took them for tea in a small cafe before the film. As they left, he crooked both his arms and offered one to Betty and the other to May. Rita and Anna fell into step behind them and, laughing, they walked towards the cinema.
As they stepped into the foyer a youth of seventeen or so was waiting for them.
‘Here he is,’ Douglas boomed, obviously expecting the boy to be there. ‘Ladies, may I introduce my son, Bruce. Bruce, this is Betty, Rita and May. And this . . .’ he gestured with a flourish, ‘is May’s daughter, Anna. Now I’ll get the tickets. Front row circle and you two young ones can sit together.’
Bruce was thin, gangly some might have said. He had dark brown eyes and carrot-coloured hair. As often happened with his colouring, his face was covered with freckles. He grinned a welcome and nodded
. ‘Hello.’
Betty pulled her hand from Douglas’s arm. ‘I didn’t know you had a son,’ she said tartly. ‘Got a wife hidden away somewhere an’ all?’
For a moment Douglas’s mask of jollity slipped. His mouth tightened and his eyes were resentful. ‘For your information,’ he snapped, ‘I’m a widower. My wife died giving birth to our son.’
Betty, red in the face, was immediately contrite. ‘I’m sorry.’ She turned to the boy too. ‘Oh pet, I am sorry.’
Anna’s glance had gone at once to the boy. He had an odd expression on his face. He was looking at his father, Anna thought, as if he were surprised at what Douglas had said. But surely, she thought, he must know how his mother died? Feeling for him, she moved to his side and, trying to change the subject, whispered, ‘It looks like you’re lumbered with me. I – I hope you don’t mind.’
The boy dragged his gaze away from his father, who had gone to the box office and was now leaning forward to talk to the girl behind the glass. Bruce looked at her for a moment and then grinned suddenly. ‘Course not. Pretty girl like you.’ He leant closer. ‘You’ve got lovely eyes. Almost violet, aren’t they? Anybody ever told you that?’
Anna blushed and glanced down. Unused to compliments from strangers, she did not know how to handle it. He’s like his dad, she thought, envying the boy his confident manner. He’s very different to Jed. Jed was kind and always ready to help her but he was quiet and shy. This youth was outgoing, ready to take the lead and anything but shy.
‘Come on,’ he was saying. ‘Let’s go and find the best seats.’
‘But – but we haven’t got our tickets yet.’
‘Ne’er mind about that. Dad’s fixing it.’ He took her hand and began to pull her towards the stairs leading up to the circle. ‘Come on.’
‘But won’t the girl inside want to see our tickets?’ Anna remembered her father taking them to the pictures. The usherette had inspected their tickets and torn them in half before guiding them down the steps to their seats with the narrow beam of light from her torch. Tears threatened at the memory, but Bruce was saying, ‘Nah. Me dad runs this place. The girls all know me. I’m always here.’
Her eyes wide, Anna asked, ‘Does he own it?’
The boy glanced at her, seemed to ponder for a moment and then said, ‘Not exactly.’ He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. ‘But, like I say, he runs it.’
‘I see.’ Anna wasn’t sure she did. But she surmised that Douglas must work for the people who did own it, that he was some kind of manager.
By the time they had chosen their seats, the adults had caught up. Their faces illuminated by the light from the screen, they sat in a line in the front row of the circle, Douglas between Betty and May, then Rita, Anna and, finally, Bruce on the end of the row.
Anna leant forward and glanced along the row. Douglas was laughing again. He was leaning towards her mother, whispering to her. May was smiling and nodding. Anna leant further forward to see Betty on Douglas’s other side. She was staring straight ahead at the screen with, for her, a morose expression on her face.
In the intermission between the feature film and the supporting picture, the Pathé News boomed out the latest about the war, how the RAF had begun a round-the-clock bombing campaign. Sitting two seats away, Anna heard her mother’s gulp and glanced to her left to see that May’s head was bowed and that she had covered her face with her hands.
‘There, there, May. Don’t cry,’ she heard Douglas say as he proffered a white handkerchief. Then Anna saw him put his arms along the back of the seat and around May’s shoulders. He now sat half twisted towards May, his back towards Betty.
Throughout the whole of the second film, Betty stared stonily at the screen, looking neither to right nor left and speaking to no one.
Thirty-Six
They left Bruce on the steps of the cinema. ‘You go straight home, boy,’ Douglas instructed. ‘I have to take these lovely ladies home and I might be late.’ Anna caught him winking at his son.
Douglas had borrowed a bigger car so that he could take them all home together. As he drove, he sang at the top of his voice, but the three women and Anna were silent. When they arrived at the farm, May, sensing the atmosphere, hustled Anna upstairs to bed, with a hurried, ‘Thank you for a lovely evening.’
Rita too yawned and said, ‘Well, I’m for bed too. Nighty-night.’
‘Don’t I even get a cup of cocoa?’ Douglas asked, pretending peevishness as the door closed behind the others, leaving him alone with Betty.
Betty flung her handbag on the table, sat down in Luke’s chair by the range, kicked off her shoes and began to massage her feet. She glanced up at Douglas. ‘You’ll get a thick ear, m’lad, unless I get an explanation. And it’d better be good.’
Feigning innocence, Douglas said, ‘Now what have I done?’ Before Betty could answer, he grinned and wagged his forefinger at her. ‘Oho, I do believe the lady’s jealous. Just because I was kind to little May.’
‘Jealous? Me? Huh, don’t flatter yourself. It’s nothing to do with May. It’s your son I want to know about. You never told me you was married.’ She glared up at him. ‘That you’d been married.’ She corrected herself, but even so her look suggested that she doubted his story. She nodded at him. ‘I saw how your son looked. Surprised, that’s what. As if he’d never been told. Now, sorry, but I don’t believe a lad of his age hadn’t been told before now that his mother had died having him. And if he hadn’t,’ she went on pointedly, ‘then it wasn’t a very nice way to break the news to the lad, was it?’
Douglas sighed and sat down opposite her. Adopting a hangdog look, he said, ‘Betty, you’re a woman of the world.’
Betty grimaced comically. ‘Aye, aye, there’s something coming if the flattery starts.’
Douglas gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Like I say, you’d understand, but I wasn’t sure that May and her family would.’
Betty raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh aye. It matters what May thinks, does it?’
‘Not just May. All of them. You’re living here and I want to keep seeing you. I want to be able to come here. And I’m not sure the old man likes me much anyway.’ He laughed. ‘I didn’t want anything else rocking the boat.’
‘So?’
‘Well, it’s not something a chap likes to admit. Dents the old confidence a bit. My wife left me five years ago. Ran off with some wide boy . . .’
Betty laughed inwardly. She liked Douglas. He was all right for a laugh and a good touch for the odd pair of nylons and other scarcities that made a girl’s life a little easier in wartime, but she had no illusions about him. A wide boy, indeed! Seemed the former Mrs Whittaker went for the same type each time, then. For if ever there was a wide boy it was Douglas himself. Old Pops was no fool. Betty smiled inwardly. He’d sussed out Douglas Whittaker from the moment he’d clapped eyes on him.
She managed to keep her face straight but she couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her tone. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Left her lad an’ all, did she? Tut, tut. Some women. I don’t know. Divorced, are you then?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s it. We’re divorced.’
She eyed him shrewdly, wondering. Still, it didn’t make any difference to her. She was only out for a bit of fun. She was never going to be serious about a man like Douglas Whittaker.
Now that handsome pilot officer, Charlie – the one whose plane had gone down – now she could have been serious about him, poor boy.
Betty banished the unhappy thought and smiled. ‘Well, pet, I won’t tell anyone. Your secret’s safe with me.’
Douglas leant across the hearth and planted a kiss on her mouth. ‘You’re a smasher, Betty. Now, about that cocoa . . .’
On the following Sunday afternoon Douglas brought Bruce out to the farm. ‘He’s done nothing but talk about you since Friday,’ Douglas whispered to Anna. ‘Quite smitten, he is.’
Anna blushed. At school the girls teased each other about different boys and Anna had a crush on a bo
y who sat two desks in front of her. She would sit in class staring at the back of his head and daydreaming until she earned a sharp reprimand from the teacher. But now here was Bruce’s father telling her that his son was ‘smitten’ with her.
‘Don’t you tell him I said so, though,’ Douglas was saying. ‘It’ll embarrass him. You know what lads of his age are like.’
She didn’t really. The older boys at school took no notice of the younger girls, though she had to admit one or two had winked at her as they passed her in the corridor. There was really only Jed and he didn’t count.
‘Take him and show him the animals. He’d like to have a look around,’ Douglas urged. ‘Now, where’s Betty?’
‘She and Rita have gone on a bike ride. She thought you weren’t coming today.’
‘Ah yes, that’s right. I did say I might not be able to make it, but then I found I could.’ His smile widened. ‘Then I’ll just go and talk to your pretty mother, shall I?’
Anna nodded as Douglas beckoned his son over. ‘Now you two, off you go and enjoy yourselves. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t, eh?’ He guffawed loudly.
He turned towards the back door of the farmhouse, where May had appeared in the doorway. Arms outstretched, he walked towards her. ‘Ah, May, how lovely you look.’
Anna watched the tinge of pink in her mother’s cheeks and heard her girlish, nervous laugh. ‘Betty’s not here . . .’
Douglas lowered his voice, but Anna’s sharp ears still heard him say, ‘I know. I was hoping she wouldn’t be. It’s you I came to see. And I had to bring the lad. I hope you don’t mind . . .’
‘Of course not. He’s very welcome. You both are.’
Anna watched them disappear inside. Then she turned to Bruce. ‘What do you want to see? Cows? Pigs? The sheep?’
The boy shrugged and kicked a stone. ‘Don’t mind. Let’s just go for a walk, eh?’
‘Right. Well, we’ll see the sheep as we go. We’ve some lovely lambs . . .’ Her face sobered. ‘But they’ve to go soon.’
‘To the market, you mean?’
Red Sky in the Morning Page 26
