‘Mmm—’ she purred, savouring every last particle.
‘You like them?’ Bobby Joe asked.
‘They’re wonderful, just wonderful.’
Nothing as luscious as this had ever passed her lips before. Even before the war and rationing, even at Christmas, a box of chocolates had never been found at Marsh Edge Farm. She had occasionally been offered one when round at Gwen’s house and had agonised for ages over her choice, but those ones had not been as delicious as these, and now she had a whole tray to share with just one other person. The pleasure was almost too much to bear. She ran her fingers over the different shapes—long, round, smooth, textured—which one to have next? It was such a gorgeous dilemma.
When the lights came up, Annie realised that she had hardly noticed the first feature, beyond its being an old comedy.
‘I saw that one back in Illinois,’ Bobby Joe told her.
‘Illinois—’ Annie repeated.
It sounded the most exotic place in the world.
‘Is that where you come from?’
‘Sure do. Town called Fourways, on account of it was built where the highway crossed the railroad.’
‘Is it in the Wild West?’ Annie asked. She had no idea where in the U.S. the state of Illinois was to be found.
Bobby Joe laughed out loud. ‘What, do you mean do the cowboys and the Indians shoot it out round the wagon train?’
‘Sort of,’ Annie muttered, embarrassed. Her only knowledge of what his country was like came from films.
Bobby Joe patted her arm. ‘You’re just so cute. No, it’s just a regular town, honey. Got everything in it a town should have, just like your Wittlesham.’
‘Wittlesham’s boring,’ Annie said.
She was sure that Fourways was a hundred times more interesting than Wittlesham.
‘Not when it’s got you in it, it ain’t,’ Bobby Joe said.
Annie glowed with pleasure. He must like her! This exciting soldier from the glamorous town of Fourways, Illinois liked her, Annie Cross, from Marsh Edge Farm.
The lights dimmed again and the newsreel came on, showing the tanks and the infantry of the U.S. First Army entering Cologne. There were cheers and applause from the audience. Annie was filled with pride. She was sitting right next to a GI like those storming across Germany.
‘Nothing can stop us now, honey,’ Bobby Joe told her.
She believed him completely. The Americans were invincible. Soon the war would be won.
The main feature started. Lush music filled the auditorium, the titles rolled, Annie settled back in her seat. But the usual magic didn’t work. The whole point of going to the pictures was to get lost in the story. She generally got so involved with the heroine that she completely forgot herself. For an hour and a half, she became someone else. It was the perfect escape from the dreary reality of her life. But this time it was quite different. Instead of losing herself, she became more and more aware of her body and of Bobby Joe’s, so close to her in the dark. The scent of the chocolates left in the box wafted round her and those she had eaten lay rich and heavy in her stomach. Bobby Joe’s elbow touched hers on the shared armrest, then his leg fell against hers as well. Rushes of pleasure ran up her thigh and into her groin, exciting and disturbing. She knew she ought really to move her leg away, but it seemed very unfriendly and perhaps he hadn’t put his there deliberately. He was a tall man and took up a lot of space. But then he gently moved his knee against hers and she knew it was entirely deliberate, but so nice that she didn’t want it to stop.
Bobby Joe shifted in his seat and, in what seemed like a innocent move, stretched and rested his arm along the back of hers. She could feel the warmth of it, just a fraction of an inch away from her. It made all the nerves down the back of her spine tingle. She sat staring at the screen, not taking in a thing that was happening, not daring to steal a glance at Bobby Joe, not daring to move. For what seemed like an age his arm just lay there, so close and yet not touching. Then his hand slid on to her shoulder and his thumb caressed the hollow above her collar-bone. Annie caught her breath. Sensation shot through her breasts and over her belly and down between her legs, a pleasure that was almost a pain, exciting and dangerous.
The rest of the film passed in a blur. Bobby Joe gradually drew her closer to him, until they were head to head, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, with only the hard ridge of the armrest keeping them apart. Annie was in a ferment of indecision—if he tried to kiss her, would she let him? The girls from Sutton’s were very clear about the rules. You never kissed on the first date. A man would think you cheap. Annie did not want to be thought cheap, but she did desperately want to be kissed. Maybe with Americans the rules did not apply. She did not know whether she was relieved or disappointed when the closing credits rolled and he had not made a move. The National Anthem played and they stood with the rest of the audience. Her body felt exposed and lost not to be touching his any more.
Bobby Joe picked up her coat and held it for her to put on. Annie was enchanted. She really was being treated like a lady.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asked as they shuffled out between the seats.
‘Oh, yes!’ Annie enthused.
‘Margaret Lockwood was great, wasn’t she? I’ve seen all her movies. I think she’s wonderful.’
‘Wonderful,’ Annie repeated.
They emerged from the gilded womb of the cinema into the chill drizzle of a March night. Bobby Joe turned up his collar.
‘This sure is a damp country,’ he commented. ‘Can I walk you home?’
‘Oh—no. No, I live quite a way away. Out in the country,’ Annie said.
The last thing she wanted was her father seeing her arrive home with a GI. The very thought of it made her go cold with fear.
‘All the more reason. How are you going to get back? Is there a bus?’
‘Yes—no—’ Annie could feel herself blushing with embarrassment. ‘I—er—I’ve got my bike.’
It was just so humiliating to have to admit to something so unsophisticated as cycling to meet a boyfriend. She was sure that it was unheard-of in America.
But Bobby Joe sounded really impressed.
‘You cycled here? Say, that’s just so cute. You British girls are something else, d’you know that?’
Annie collapsed inside with relief. It was all right. He didn’t think she was a country bumpkin.
They walked round the corner into the side street, Annie very conscious of the small space between them. Once or twice his arm brushed against hers. She wanted to put her hand into his, but did not dare. She found she was chattering nineteen to the dozen just to cover her uncertainty, and when they reached her bike she grabbed it from where it was leaning against the wall so that both her hands were occupied. Bobby Joe rested one of his on the handlebars.
‘Are you sure you’re OK to ride home from here?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes, I do it all the time. It’s quite safe,’ she assured him.
‘I’ve sure enjoyed this evening,’ he told her.
‘So have I,’ Annie said.
She saw his white teeth gleam as he smiled in the dark.
‘Does that mean you’ll come out with me again?’
It was amazing. This man from across the Atlantic with his boxes of candies and his worldly-wise ways wanted to see her again. But it would be difficult. She didn’t have to act her hesitation in order to make herself seem hard to get. Getting away would be a real problem.
‘I … don’t know,’ she said.
‘I thought you said you enjoyed yourself,’ Bobby Joe said.
‘Oh, yes, I did, but … I don’t know. I’ve already been out two nights running …’
They debated it to and fro until Bobby Joe put a huge hand over hers.
‘Just say you will. Just for me. I could be going over to Europe next week and then I might never see you again.’
Never see him again! The world suddenly seemed a bleak and dull place. She couldn’t let th
at happen.
‘I’ll try,’ she promised.
‘You’re a doll,’ Bobby Joe said. ‘How about Wednesday? Seven o’clock outside the Toledo? Say you’ll be there.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Annie said recklessly.
She didn’t know how, but if she had to move heaven and earth, she would do so.
Bobby Joe squeezed her hand and let go.
‘You’re the cutest little thing I ever did see,’ he said.
Annie rode home in a dream.
The cutest little thing he ever did see! Her, Annie Cross!
But as she bounced up the track to the farm, reality kicked in. If her father found out, there would be hell to pay. She could imagine his cutting words if he knew she was seeing a GI. Worse still, his actions. Her body recoiled from the imagined blows. Her stomach, unused to the quantity and richness of the chocolates, rebelled. She rode into the yard, stumbled off her bike and doubled over, throwing up until there was nothing left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘WHAT’S happening? This is the third bloody day without a proper meal. It’s against the Geneva Convention, that is.’
‘So what’s new? We ain’t had decent meals for months.’
‘This is a prison camp, mate. Not the bleeding Ritz.’
Tom stared down at the food in his mess tin. Four boiled unpeeled potatoes. It wasn’t a lot to sustain a man who had been digging ditches all day. Not that they had been exactly breaking their backs over the work. They’d all learnt how to pace themselves through the long days, how to go through the motions, pretending to work when in fact they were doing hardly anything.
‘It’s got to mean something,’ someone was saying.
‘Means they’re bleeding starving us, that’s what.’
‘Too true, mate. What I wouldn’t give for a plate of ham and eggs. Ham, eggs and sausages, with a big fried slice. No, make that three fried slices.’
‘Fish and chips, that’s what I dream of. Dream of it, I do, night after night. Cod and chips, to be precise, with a nice pickled egg.’
‘Boiled eyeballs.’
‘What?’
‘Boiled eyeballs, that’s what me and my kid brother used to call ‘em.’
The conversation ran along a well-oiled track, as favourite meals were brought forward. A more developed form of it was the café menu, when they debated the best selection you might hope to find when sitting down at a café table. That one could last for hours sometimes, while its exact make-up was decided upon, together with what the waitresses should look like and what other services might be offered … the fantasy went on and on.
But today Tom couldn’t raise the will to take part. He felt weak and ill and demoralised. How long had he been here now? He had long since given up recording the days, now that they had run together into weeks and months and years. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever get out of here. It was nearly a year now since the last consignment of prisoners had arrived, bringing them news of how the war was going. It had sounded fairly hopeful, with Allied troops fighting their way up Italy and rumours that the invasion of Europe was imminent, but since then they had heard nothing reliable, and who knew what might be happening out there? Maybe the invasion had failed. Maybe the Nazis were even now tramping through India and China. Maybe they were going to fight on and on until they took over the world. Which meant that he could be in here for the rest of his life.
‘You know, this could be a good sign,’ someone was saying.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘It could mean that the Jerries are losing. If their people are on short commons, they’re not going to give stuff to us lot, now are they?’
Several men looked cheered by this thought.
‘Or it could be a bad sign. It could mean that the Nazis are so well in power that they don’t give a damn about the Geneva Convention or the Red Cross any more, so they’re treating us how they like,’ Tom said.
‘You’re a right little ray of sunshine, you are,’ someone commented.
‘Yeah, we can do without thoughts like that,’ someone else put in.
‘So when did we last have any Red Cross parcels?’ Tom asked.
They all considered this.
‘Too bloody long.’
‘There you are, then,’ Tom said.
He ate his potatoes very slowly while the debate went on round him. He wanted to be proved wrong, but he had been here for so long now that he could hardly imagine being let out. He looked at the men around him. None of them were in good condition. It had been a long, cold winter, the standard of the food had been going down steadily and there had been an outbreak of sickness and diarrhoea recently. They all looked pale and gaunt, and any sores or small wounds they had healed very slowly. It had been some time since there had been any serious attempt at an escape. They still talked about it, but the fanatical edge had become blunt.
That night Tom dreamed he was on the other side of the wire, but he didn’t seem to be glad. On the contrary, he was lost and bewildered, running on and on through the pine forest on legs that were as heavy as lead with something or someone pursuing him, while nameless dangers lurked in the dense shadows beneath the trees. He knew he had to get somewhere, but he had no idea of the way. He was relieved to wake and hear the familiar sound of snores and grunts and shifting bodies around him. They were his brothers now, these men in the hut—his security. Sleeping, eating, working together every day as they did, they knew each other better than some married couples did. Like married couples, they sometimes loved and sometimes hated each other. Tom shivered in the chill of the small hours and pulled his thin blanket more closely round his shoulders. He knew he had to make the effort to reach out, otherwise he would sink into believing that the Stalag was the universe and the real world outside was just an illusion.
Morning brought a change in the usual routine. After roll call, the Commandant announced that there was to be no work detail that day. The men cheered. Tom felt deflated. He liked going outside the gates, even if it was just to dig all day. The man next to him in the line elbowed him.
‘Good, eh? A whole day off. What’s got into Fritz? Is it his birthday?’
‘God knows,’ Tom said.
Whatever the reason, it couldn’t be a good one.
On the Commandant’s order, an NCO bellowed at them to be quiet.
‘You will return to your huts. There will be no fraternising. Your rations will be brought to you at midday. That is all,’ the Commandant told them.
‘Return to our huts? No bleeding fraternising? What’s all that about, then?’
Around Tom and all through the assembled ranks of men, there was a rumble of discontent. A day off was no use if they weren’t allowed out in the compound. Their Commanding Officer immediately asked for an interview with the Commandant, but in the meantime the men were escorted back to their huts and locked in. For a while Tom’s companions debated the meaning of this break from routine. As usual there were those who thought it was a good omen and those who disagreed. Nobody had any real grounds for their opinion, but it passed the time to give it all a good airing. After that, they drifted into their usual occupations, mending their clothing, cobbling their boots together, playing cards and chess.
Tom lay on his back on his bunk and reread all his letters until he had conjured up a clear picture of home. The pit and the men with their blackened faces, the town and its streets of terraced houses, the corner shop, Amber Drive, his house. His mam doing her knitting, his dad tamping down tobacco in his pipe, his sister Joan thumping out scales on the piano. So far, so good. It all gave a secure feeling of everything going on as it should do, real life, away from the grey routine of the Stalag. But then he turned to the letters from Moira—the girl he had only known for the space of one leave. The girl who referred to ‘we’ and ‘us’ all the time, meaning him and her. The girl whom his mother said was not going out with anyone else even though she had plenty of offers. Sometimes he was very flattered. After
all, she was a pretty girl and he had been away for a long time now. She certainly didn’t have to save herself for him. But part of him felt trapped. There was a huge weight of female expectation hanging over him.
He sighed and sat up, and searched for his last stub of pencil and scrap of paper. For a while he just stared at the small grubby corner. He wanted to create a sense of space, a landscape totally different from the looming pine forest that surrounded the Stalag. The windswept height and rocks and heather of the Peak … or the wide salty expanse of the marshes. He could see it clearly now—the wide horizon where the sky met the sea, the silvery luminous quality of light reflecting off mud and water. He could smell the seaweed and the shellfish. He could hear the curlew. He was standing on the sea wall, with the sun on his face and the wind at his back.
He lifted the pencil. There was not enough paper for him to record all that. Instead he began to draw a small wooden chalet with a veranda all round it. With infinite care, he detailed every shingle, every window-pane, the sunray pattern of the veranda rails. Sitting on the steps was a girl with fair curly hair. Annie. Whom he had not seen since she was sixteen. Who was a young woman now. Who had not answered his letters and probably never even thought of him any more. And yet … and yet she was more real to him than the faithful Moira.
‘Hey, Tom! Get off your arse and take a hand here. We need another player.’
Tom put the tiny picture with the pile of letters and went to join the card players. There was no point, after all, in dreaming of the outside. They were probably stuck here for ever.
That night the searchlights went on as usual. Tom, who slept fitfully, heard the sound of vehicles leaving, but as their hut was on the far side of the compound from the main gate, he did not see what was happening. In the morning, there was an eerie silence.
‘Here, look at this!’ one man called. He was looking out of the window at the perimeter fence.
‘What?’
Some of the others crowded round. Tom looked out of the window nearest to him.
‘Christ!’ he breathed.
The man from the bunk below his stood up.
We'll Meet Again Page 18
