‘Jeff,’ he said. ‘It’s Jeff.’
The yard was empty now, except for the three girls. The sun beat down on the dusty ground.
Beryl recovered from her brother’s interference. ‘You’re going to be late clocking on,’ she said to Gwen.
‘So are you.’
‘I don’t have to clock on. I work in the office.’
Gwen stood up. Clocking on late meant losing a quarter of an hour’s pay.
Annie was seized with inspiration. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be setting a good example?’ she challenged. ‘Can’t have the boss’s daughter coming in late. Your dad wouldn’t like that one bit, I’m sure.’
A flash of annoyance on Beryl’s face showed that she had guessed right.
‘I can do what I like,’ Beryl told her. But she started walking towards the outside steps that led up to the office. As a parting shot, she added, ‘I just can’t be bothered to talk to you, that’s all.’
‘Ooh!’ Gwen and Annie chorused, and giggled.
‘I got to run,’ Gwen said as Beryl started climbing the steps. ‘Here—’ She thrust a letter into Annie’s hand.
A shaft of delight thrilled through Annie. ‘Thanks a million, Gwennikins!’
‘Remember, half past six Friday,’ Gwen called as she raced for the main door.
‘I’ll remember,’ Annie promised, but Gwen had already shot inside.
She smoothed the envelope, feeding on the familiar writing. Tom was still writing to her. Despite all the distractions of his new life—the flying, the hard work and fascination of learning to navigate, the new pals—still he wrote to her. He had almost got over his disappointment at being turned down for pilot training and had thrown himself into being the best navigator in his class, and it was Annie he wrote to and shared all his experiences with, good and bad. But soon he would be going on ‘ops’ as he called it. Active service.
Annie pushed down the fear that always niggled at the edge of her thoughts, slid the letter into her pocket and put her foot on the pedal of her bike. She still had three lots of alterations to deliver for her mother and the shopping to get. As always, the letter was a treat to look forward to tonight. Perhaps this one would tell her when he was coming to see her. He had promised he would, when he got his end of training leave, before he went on active service. She patted it as she cycled along. Soon, soon, he would be here in Wittlesham again.
… and so it looks like I shan’t be able to come and see you after all. I can’t tell you how sick I am about it, but I know you’ll understand because you know what it’s like to have your mother ill. I really can’t not go and see her this time, but I promise I’ll come and see you the very next time I get leave.
If you’re not too angry with me, send your next letter to the airfield. I’ll be waiting for it.
All the best,
Your friend,
Tom.
XXX
With grave misgivings, Tom folded the letter into the envelope and set it out ready to go to the post. It was only three days since he had sent one telling Annie how and when he was going to visit Wittlesham, and now he was forced to write this. He couldn’t guess how Annie was going to take it. She was a great one for flying off the handle at him. But, as he’d said in the letter, she did know what it was like when your mother was ill, so maybe she would be understanding. Not too understanding, though. He wanted her to be disappointed. After all, he was disappointed. There was so much that had happened this year that he wanted to share with her. Writing was not the same as telling someone and seeing them react.
Two days later found him packing his belongings into his kitbag and saying goodbye to his pals. For a few weeks they had lived and trained together, suffered the same fears and hardships and triumphs. Now they were all posted to different airfields. It was unlikely that they would meet again for quite a while, if ever. Beneath the raucous cheerfulness and backslapping, they all knew the rate at which planes were being shot down.
The journey home was tedious and crowded. Tom had to wait on hot platforms and unexplained sidings and all the tea stalls seemed to have closed down. It was early evening before he got into Mansfield station, and he was thoroughly fed up with travelling. But there, waiting outside, was a Featherstone’s bus. The sight of it cheered him immediately. Home ground. There was nothing like it, after all.
His sister Joan opened the door before he could put a hand to the knocker and flung her arms round him.
‘Tom! You’re home!’
Her enthusiasm was infectious. He hugged her back, swinging her off her feet.
‘Hullo, our Joannie. Yes, here I am, back to annoy you.’
He put her down and looked at her. His little sister wasn’t a kid any more, he realised. She was growing up.
‘Well, look at you. Quite the young lady,’ he said.
Joan blushed and tossed her plaits back over her shoulders.
‘I’m in charge of your tea,’ she told him. ‘Dad’s gone to visit Mam in the infirmary. Come on in. It’s all ready for you.’
He followed her in, dumped his kitbag in the hall and went into the dining room. The smell of home enveloped him. Everything looked exactly the same, from the rug by the empty fireplace to the plates on the table and the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. It was as if it had been frozen in time. So much had happened to him since he had last been here that somehow it seemed odd that home had not changed as much as he had. The only difference was that it seemed smaller. He was used to eating in canteens and sleeping in Nissen huts. Home appeared to close around him.
He followed Joan into the kitchen, where she was fussing importantly with the kettle and the teapot.
‘How is Mam?’ he asked.
‘The doctor says she’s poorly but improving. She’s had an operation and once she’s over it she should be a lot better,’ Joan told him.
‘What sort of operation?’ Tom asked.
Joan made a mystified face. ‘You know what grown-ups are like. They don’t tell you anything. All they’ll say is it’s women’s troubles.’
‘I see,’ Tom said, none the wiser. ‘But she is going to get over it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Joan said.
She pulled the intricately knitted tea cosy over the big brown pot and carried it through to the dining room. The table was spread to make the food look more generous than it really was. There was a big plate of bread and butter, three types of homemade jam, Bovril and a tiny pot of fish paste, some tomatoes and radishes and a plate of rock buns. It was nothing to the glory of his mother’s pre-war high teas, but it was a good deal more than the usual fare. Tom recognised that a big effort had been made to welcome him home with a decent meal.
‘I made the rock buns,’ Joan said proudly.
‘I can see that,’ Tom said.
Joan pouted. ‘What do you mean? What’s wrong with them?’
It was pretty obvious. They were more like paving stones than rocks, and slightly burnt. A year ago Tom would have teased her mercilessly about them. Now he just tweaked her plait.
‘Nothing’s wrong with them. I bet they taste really nice,’ he said.
He was so hungry that he wolfed down plenty of everything, including two of the buns. They weren’t too dry if you washed them down with lots of tea. Joan filled him in on all the local news.
‘… oh, and best of all, there’s a new family moved in next door. The Butterworths.’
‘Really? Nobody wrote to me about that.’
‘They only came last week. They’ve got three girls and Vera, she’s the youngest, she’s in my class and she’s my best friend.’
‘Another best friend?’ Tom said.
‘She’s my very best friend. She wants to meet you. They all do. You can see them tomorrow if you like.’
‘Right,’ Tom said without enthusiasm.
He didn’t have much choice in the matter. He spent the next day with his father at the bus yard, then went up to the infirmary to visit his mother, who looked
frail but assured him that now he was home she would soon get better. When he and his father turned into Amber Drive, they saw two girls sitting on the front wall of their house.
‘That’ll be our Joan’s new best pal,’ his father said as the girls jumped down and came to meet them. ‘Funny little thing, she is.’
It was easy to see what the attraction was. Joan, who always liked to be in charge, had found someone she could order around to her heart’s content.
‘You’ve got to meet the rest of the family too, hasn’t he, Vera?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Vera agreed.
‘Well, go and fetch them, then. Tell them my big brother who’s in the RAF wants to see them.’
Vera nodded. ‘All right,’ she whispered and trotted off.
‘Does she beg and fetch sticks as well?’ Tom asked.
Joan glared at him. ‘You’ll like Moira,’ she said.
Tom rather thought not. Not if she was like Vera. He got a surprise. As the Featherstones reached their gate, the entire Butterworth family came out of their front door to meet them. Mr and Mrs Butterworth were pleasant enough. Mrs B asked after his mother and Mr B invited him for a pint at the Brewer’s Arms.
‘Got to build your strength up, lad. You’re the ones to go and give it ‘em back, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘That’s the idea, Mr Butterworth.’
The middle daughter was nothing out of the ordinary, just a chubby fifteen-year-old, but the eldest caught his attention.
‘Our Moira,’ as her father introduced her, was a tall brunette maybe a year or so older than himself, with a stunning figure.
‘Hello,’ she said and smiled into his eyes as she shook his hand.
Tom found himself smiling back. ‘Hello to you. Very pleased to meet you.’
‘Moira doesn’t know any young people round here yet,’ her mother said.
‘We’ll soon put that right,’ Tom said.
And for the remainder of his leave, he was as good as his word. He introduced her to those of his school and cycle club friends who were still in the area, and through them to their sisters. Moira was lively and chatty and fitted in right away. His leave turned out to be far more fun than Tom had anticipated. On the last evening, he went to see his mother at visiting time and promised her that yes, he would be careful and come back safe.
‘I’m glad you’ve had that Moira Butterworth to go around with. Your father says she’s a grand girl, and the family’s nice. What I call nice, you know. Refined.’
‘Yes, she’s good fun,’ Tom said.
His mother patted his hand. ‘Sounds very suitable, dear.’
‘Right,’ he said. He wasn’t going to argue with her on his last visit.
That evening he went to the Tennis Club with two of his old school friends and a bunch of girls. Moira, naturally, was one of the party. They walked back to Amber Drive together. At the corner of the street, where the front of the house was shielded by a high laurel hedge, she stopped.
‘It’s been lovely meeting all your pals,’ she said. ‘I thought I was going to hate it here, but now I think it’s going to be fun.’
‘Glad you like them. They like you,’ he said.
Moira put her head on one side and looked at him. It was difficult to see her expression by moonlight.
‘Do you like me?’ she asked. There was a world of meaning in her voice.
‘Of course,’ Tom said. ‘You’re—very nice.’
‘Nice? Is that all?’
Now she was offended.
‘No … I mean … you’re very pretty and … fun to be with … and …’
Moira moved closer to him. ‘I think you’re very nice too,’ she breathed, and put her arms round his neck.
Tom held her warm body. Through her thin summer dress, he could feel her breasts touch his chest. Excitement coursed through him, urgent and hot. He pulled her closer, pressing her against him. He ran a hand down the length of her back and over her buttocks and heard her give a little gasp. He half expected her to pull away, to be offended, but she didn’t. Instead, her lips found his, sweet and soft. First a testing kiss, then a deeper one, their mouths opening.
‘Will you write to me while you’re away?’ Moira gasped, her hot breath mingling with his.
‘Yes, yes of course.’
‘Promise?’
In the heat of the moment, he would have promised anything, just to keep her there, in his arms.
‘Promise.’
They kissed once more, long and searchingly.
Then Moira broke away and struggled out of his grasp. Before Tom could recover, she was hurrying away from him, up the street.
‘Mind you do,’ she called back, and then she was up her front path and inside her house, banging the door behind her.
In a daze, Tom followed slowly after.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dear Tom,
I hope you’re still all right and your pal who’s in hospital is getting better. You know I always think of you when it’s a moonlit night and I know you’ll be flying.
Annie broke off from writing to look out of her bedroom window into the night. It was reassuringly dark—not only a new moon, but cloudy as well. They wouldn’t send bombers out tonight. She focused on the close-written page again.
It’s been much the same here. We’ve been lifting the potato field. Everyone has to grow potatoes if they possibly can because they’re cheap and filling for people, and they break up the ground so you can grow other things. That’s what the War Ag committee says, but I hate the things because I’m the one who has to pick up every single one and carry them to the side of the field and store them in the clamp. Some farms have people to help with harvests—schoolchildren or office workers or Boy Scouts or whatnot, but you know my dad, he won’t let anyone on our land, so like I said it’s all down to me as usual. I hate potatoes.
Gwen and I went to the pictures on Friday. We saw Blood and Sand. Have you seen it yet? It’s ever so good. Gwen says she’s in love with Tyrone Power. But she was also saying (and I’m being serious now) how she’s fed up with her job and with Wittlesham. Beryl is getting on her nerves because now her big brother’s gone and joined the army, Beryl thinks she’s deputy boss and she can go round telling everyone they’re doing their work all wrong. Or she looks over your shoulder and says, ‘You’re really doing that quite well. Carry on,’ in a sort of teacher-y voice so that you want to smack her face.
Annie could just hear Beryl saying that. But even having to work with Beryl must be better than working on the farm with her father. As Annie pulled the counterpane up over her shoulders, she could feel the bruises from when he had hit her with a broom handle the other day.
Gwen says she’s going to join up as soon as she’s old enough. She says she can’t wait to get away and have some fun. I don’t know what I’ll do without her to talk to. I’ve got other friends but I don’t see them much because I can’t get out a lot and they’re not the same as Gwen. We’ve been friends ever since the first day in the Infants. And what are we going to do about the letters? I was really upset about it. She said I ought to join up as well but how can I? I’ve got my mum to look out for.
Gwen had argued with her for twenty minutes as they’d slowly moved to the head of the queue outside the cinema. Annie yearned to get away. She longed for it with a deep, constant ache. To be with girls her own age, to earn a real wage, to have some fun. Most of all, simply to get away from her father.
I dream and dream about getting away. I know you said I ought to as well. You said I ought to join the WAAFs. Sometimes I think, yes, I will, but I know I can’t. Not really. So you’ve got to keep telling me about all the things you do so I can picture it and think about where you are and who you’re with. I like to have something like that to think about when I’m out in the fields all day. Gwen says she’s bored but at least she’s got Music While You Work on at the factory and people to talk to. So it’s nice to hear about dances and things.
I hope you’re behaving yourself, though, and don’t forget all about me until my letters come. I think about you all the time. It seems like such a long time now since you were here. Every time I look across the fields to Silver Sands I remember how we got in the window and made it our little camp. Do you know when you’ll be getting your next leave? It’s such a shame you got posted to Lincolnshire when there are airfields much nearer to here.
If she could just know that he would be coming some day, then she would have something definite to look forward to, something to hold on to in her life. For between the bleak situation at home, the long hard days of work and the war that seemed to be going on and on, life sometimes felt very gloomy. She had her friendship with Gwen and her letters from Tom. They were the bright spots that kept her going. It was no use thinking ahead any further than some time when they might meet again.
Dear Annie
Sorry it’s been longer than usual since I wrote but it’s been a bit busy round here.
Tom rested his head on the metal frame of the bed and stared at the ceiling of the Nissen hut. Busy. Yes. It did get a bit busy when flak was coming up at you and fighters homing in on you and the stupid bastards in the plane alongside you were ripping you up by mistake and the one in front of you was losing a wing and going down in flames and … But he couldn’t write all that to Annie. She’d be worried sick.
We'll Meet Again Page 12
