by Annie Groves
‘I never said that I believed him,’ Sheila laughed.
‘Just look at her,’ Audrey told Rosie when Sheila danced off to talk to someone else. ‘You’d never think looking at her now that only a few weeks ago she was all ready to go home because that George Duncan had scared her half silly. You think that would have taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget in a hurry, but then that’s Sheila for you.’ Audrey had had to raise her voice during the last part of her conversation, due to the sudden surge in the level of excited laughter and jollity behind them, when a couple more men in RAF uniform arrived carrying some bottles of spirits.
Rosie was still nodding in acknowledgement of the truth of what she had said when Audrey called out to her, ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink before it’s all gone.’
‘No, you can’t have a drink. This is for the punch,’ Ian’s best man, Tommy Lucas, refused, mock dramatically clutching the bottles to his chest and calling out to the other men, ‘Save me, lads. These girls are after trying to grab hold of me assets.’
‘We’re not going to let him get away with not letting us have a drink, are we, girls?’ Sheila challenged. ‘Come on.’
In the play fight that ensued, somehow or other the bottles remained intact and untouched, which was more than could be said for the modesty of the girls who had flung themselves at them, or the airmen’s clothes.
Rosie watched from the sidelines. The pressure of war meant that it was rare for healthy young people to get the chance really to let off steam with members of the opposite sex, and although the mêlée of arms and legs that resulted from the free-for-all went a bit further than Rosie would have wanted to go herself, she couldn’t help joining in the laughter when Sheila emerged from it, flushed and breathless and laughing triumphantly as she waved Tommy’s trousers in the air.
Completely unabashed, once he had struggled free, Tommy pulled them back on and winked at Sheila, telling her, ‘Now that you’ve had a bit of a look at what’s on offer, how about you and me cutting loose from this lot so that I can show you me tattoo?’
‘Oh, give over, do,’ Sheila laughed back, as unembarrassed as he was.
Such high spirits were only natural, and an acceptable part of the fun of the pre-wedding proceedings, when you didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and whether or not the young man you had flirted with tonight would still be alive then.
It was dark by the time the punch had been made and sampled. In view of its strength and the effect on everyone’s libidos of the alcohol, a wedding and a full August moon, it was no wonder that some of the girls paired up with the airmen for the walk back through the village to the hostel.
Rosie had already seen Mary and Ian slip away hand in hand, a look in Mary’s eye that made her own mist with emotion.
Not that she was the only girl to be walking back to the hostel without a partner. Audrey and Jean, who were with her, both commented ruefully that they suspected there would be some sore heads and red faces in the morning.
‘Sheila wants to do something with Mary’s wedding night suitcase – you know, put a bit of stuff in it for a joke, like, but I don’t know as we should. What do you think, Rosie?’
‘A joke’s a joke, and no one minds a bit of a laugh, just so long as it doesn’t spoil her clothes,’ Rosie answered her.
‘Well, there’s no confetti.’
‘I’ve collected some flower petals to throw, but they would stain her clothes. We could put a bit of rice in, perhaps.’
‘Yes. Good idea.’
Rosie hadn’t been sleeping properly since she had broken up with Ricardo, and when she saw Mary slip from her bed and go over to the blacked-out window, she went after her to ask if everything was all right.
‘Oh, yes,’ Mary whispered emphatically. ‘More than all right, Rosie. I can’t tell you how happy I am and how lucky I feel right now to be marrying Ian tomorrow. I’m too excited to sleep and somehow I don’t want to. I don’t want to waste a second of feeling like this. I wish that I could hold on to it and bottle it in one of them Kilner jars and keep it for ever. I never thought I’d be one to feel this way. Of course, I wanted to get married and have kiddies, but I’m the practical type and it’s our Sheila that I’ve always thought of as more the one who would fall head over heels in love and go mooning around all over the place. But me and Ian…I just love him so much.’
She turned her head and Rosie could see the tears filling her eyes. ‘I was just thinking about Peggy.’
‘I was thinking about her today as well,’ Rosie acknowledged.
There was a small silence, and then Mary said softly, ‘No matter what happens from now on, Rosie, I shall have had this. I never thought that I could be this happy or this much in love. Me heart feels that full of love and happiness I can hardly believe it.’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘Just listen at me. I sound more like our Sheila than meself, but I still can’t wait for tomorrow, and to be standing next to my Ian in church, exchanging vows with him.’
Rosie couldn’t speak. She managed to nod her head, though, and hug Mary back as fiercely as she was hugging her.
As she went back to her bed, the full force of what she herself had given up descended on her, enveloping her in bleak black misery.
There would never be another man she would love the way she loved Ricardo. She knew that instinctively. He had touched something deep inside her she hadn’t even known was there, awakening dreams and hopes so precious and private she wanted to wrap them away as carefully as Mary wanted to bottle her happiness. Only Mary’s happiness now was just the beginning of her love, whereas her own bittersweet memories were all that she would ever have of love.
It was a long time before Rosie was able to escape from her thoughts into sleep.
* * *
‘They’ve bin right lucky with the day, and our Mary’s bin so lucky with all her friends as well, especially you, Rosie. Why, these flowers you’ve done for her would be fit for the grandest wedding you could imagine. A real flair you’ve got, and no mistake.’
‘Indeed she has,’ the vicar’s wife added her own praise to that of Mary’s mother as they all waited outside the church where Ian’s comrades in arms were lined up, wearing their dress uniforms, to provide a traditional guard of honour for the newly married couple.
‘Here they are now,’ the vicar’s wife warned.
All the guests surged forward, throwing the rose petals Rosie had collected over the bride and groom so that their clothes and those of the guard of honour were scattered with petals.
It was a perfect day for a wedding – blue sky, sunshine, the village picture-postcard pretty, and the bride truly lovely in her glowing happiness as she held on to the arm of her new husband when they walked slowly amongst their guests and then on through the village to the church hall.
Rosie had deliberately kept herself as busy as she could, volunteering for all manner of necessary jobs in her desperation not to have to be aware of Ricardo. But of course that had been impossible. She had no idea where or how he had got the smart suit he was wearing, his thick curly hair neatly slicked back beneath the hat he had removed when they all went into church. He was taller than nearly all of the other men present, and broader too, and Rosie had overheard one of the airmen comment to him knowledgeably that he had the look of a boxer, to which Ricardo had replied that he wasn’t a fighting man but that he had grown up with a crowd of boys who had frequented one of the local boxing clubs and gyms that were part of the Italian immigrant social scene. Such clubs, as Rosie knew from her own growing-up, did a lot of good for their local communities, often sponsoring outings and charities, and were often closely linked to a church. Even her father had been heard to say that he would rather see young lads working off their energy at St Joseph’s gym, and learning a thing or two about handling themselves with the right sort of person, than hanging around the street and getting into trouble.
Rosie was acutely aware of Ricardo now, even though he was standing several yards
away from her and had his back to her. Somehow it was as though her very skin possessed the ability to know when he was there and react to that fact, she admitted wretchedly.
He had been given permission by the duke to whom he was now ‘paroled’, to attend the wedding, so Mary had told her, and to judge from the laughter coming from the group of airmen and land girls surrounding him, his company was very welcome. Sheila, as Rosie had already noticed jealously, was flirting outrageously with him, but then as chief bridesmaid no doubt she felt it was her duty to go round making sure that everyone was having a good time – just so long as ‘everyone’ meant all the best-looking men!
Not that Sheila was reserving her attentions exclusively for Ricardo, Rosie had to admit. She had seen her earlier clinging to the arm of the young airman whose trousers she had held aloft so triumphantly the previous evening.
She shouldn’t criticise Sheila nor be resentful of her because she was having such a good time with Ricardo, making him laugh in a way that showed how much he was enjoying her company, Rosie told herself. After all, hadn’t she herself told Ricardo that he must find someone else? Ricardo and Sheila. Rosie tried to smother the sharp pang that racked her.
It was too soon yet for her to expect to receive another letter from her father – he would probably only just have received her own letter to him – but she couldn’t help thinking about him now because although she was in a room that was packed with people, she still felt miserably alone. Sheila might have lost her parents in a bombing raid but at least she had a loving aunt and uncle in Mary’s parents, along with the comfort of a large extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles, whilst she had no one apart from her father, Rosie thought sadly.
‘Come on, Rosie. Sam here wants to dance with you but he’s too shy to ask.’
Politely Rosie suffered Mary’s mother’s kindly meant matchmaking as she introduced Rosie to one of Mary’s cousins, a bespectacled, earnest-looking young man, so shy that he was inarticulate, his Adam’s apple bobbling up and down wildly as he looked at Rosie and blushed, whilst making some strangulated sounds that Rosie guessed must be an attempt at conversation. It wasn’t in her nature to be nasty, so she smiled good-naturedly and discreetly managed to steer him round the dance floor.
Not that Sam was her only choice of partner. The young airmen weren’t backward in coming forward to ask her to dance and, of course, good manners meant that she couldn’t refuse. There might be safety in numbers, she acknowledged later on in the evening when she had returned to her seat after a dance with yet another partner, but a treacherous little voice inside her was telling her that there was something much sweeter and more alluring about having a one-and-only to dance with and be held tenderly by, the way that Ian was holding Mary now as they circled the floor together, lost to everything but their love for one another.
And Mary wasn’t the only girl enjoying being held close by her partner as the music changed to a smoochy romantic number. Sheila was dancing with Ricardo – again – her head nestled against his shoulder as she snuggled into him. The lights dipped and Ian took the opportunity to kiss his new wife. Everyone clapped and roared their approval and then when the lights came on again Rosie saw that Ian wasn’t the only man with a smudge of lipstick staining his mouth. Ricardo too had obviously made good use of the dipped lights to kiss his partner.
Rosie stood up, almost pushing her chair over in her sudden frantic need to be somewhere where she didn’t have to see Ricardo with someone else. Ignoring the concerned looks she was attracting from the others at the table, she almost ran towards the door, half stumbling as she did so.
Outside, a full moon washed the village in pale yellow light. In the semi-darkness, the scent of the land was so much sharper somehow, and so very different from Liverpool. Here she could smell sun-warmed soil, and the dried stubble from the fields, along with the closer scents of still warm tarmac, cottage garden plants, and even the beer from the local pub. Rosie leaned her head against the stone gatepost in front of the village hall. Almost without her being aware of it, she had grown fond of the country and would miss it when the time came to return to Liverpool. Soon Mary and Ian would be setting off on their short honeymoon, the beginning of their married life together. How must that feel? Being married to the man you loved, and knowing that tonight you would be together in every sense of the word, knowing that what you shared tonight marked the beginning of a new life, knowing that it must be guarded carefully because who knew what unhappiness war might bring?
‘Rosie, I have to talk to you.’
She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t heard Ricardo walking towards her until he spoke her name.
She spun round, her eyes huge with angry pride and pain.
‘What about?’ Rosie demanded. ‘You and Sheila? Well, you needn’t bother. I’ve seen for myself what’s going on.’
‘Me and Sheila…?’
She could hear Ricardo swallowing a sound that was a mixture of disbelief and a groan.
‘Don’t be silly. You’re the one I want. You know that.’
‘I certainly know what I’ve seen,’ Rosie agreed bitterly.
She didn’t want to stand out here with him in the moonlight, where she was all too vulnerable to her own feelings.
‘I’m going back inside,’ she told him, but as she went to walk past him he took hold of her. The feel of his hands on the soft bare flesh of her upper arms made her suck in her breath and give a small low moan of anguish.
‘Rosie. Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.’
He was rubbing the flesh of her arms gently, having mistaken the cause of her pain, whilst he pressed small pleading kisses on her face, begging her to forgive him.
Rosie couldn’t bear it. It was too much. She tried to pull away from him but somehow ended up in his arms, crying against his shoulder whilst he held her tight and begged her to tell him what was wrong.
‘I am wrong, we are wrong, this is wrong,’ Rosie tried to say but the words just wouldn’t come out and when she looked up at him to speak them, Ricardo cupped her face gently and kissed her so slowly and lovingly that Rosie wept even more.
‘Go back to Sheila,’ she stormed at him. ‘And see how she likes knowing that you’ve been out here two-timing her with me.’
‘Rosie,’ Ricardo protested, but it was too late. Rosie had taken advantage of his confused distress to pull away from him.
She couldn’t go back to the village hall, not with her face streaked with tears, and everyone there to see them and talk about them. Instead, she went back to the hostel, empty and quiet with all the girls and even Mrs Johnson down at the village hall enjoying the wedding celebrations.
Ricardo and Sheila. She couldn’t bear it but somehow she would have to.
TWENTY-NINE
September had given way to October and the weather had turned wet and windy. The gang had been set to work hedging and ditching, a horrible job that involved clearing ditches of brambles and weeds to drain the land. Rosie had developed a dry nagging cough that hurt her ribs and left her feeling deathly tired.
She shivered now in the driving rain. Ricardo and the other men were working several fields away and Rosie’s blurring gaze kept returning to the distant smudges of movement that were the men. It should have been impossible for her to tell which one Ricardo was, but somehow she could.
In contrast to her own despair, Mary was singing happily under her breath as she worked. She and Ian had just had three days off duty together in Ricardo’s cottage whilst he had bunked in with one of the other farm hands.
‘It was so kind of Ricardo to let us use the cottage. Our Sheila told me that it was ever such a cosy place, but I must admit I was surprised when I saw how nice Ricardo has got it. Given it a coat of lime wash right through inside, he has, and Mrs Graham up at the Home Farm has found him some bits of furniture she didn’t want.’
Rosie couldn’t muster the smile her pride was demanding. It had been weeks
now since she had given him up and yet, if anything, it hurt even more than at first knowing that Sheila and Ricardo were together. Not that anyone talked about it in her presence, but she had seen Sheila walking across the fields in the direction of Ricardo’s cottage on several occasions, and now here was Mary confirming what Rosie had guessed was happening.
Soon it would be a year since she had been trapped in the Durning Road Technical College bombing, and then after that it would be the anniversary of her mother’s death. Rosie shivered again. It wasn’t particularly cold but she felt as though she would never be warm again, as though the damp had forced its way right into the heart of her body and her bones. Several of the girls had commented on how much weight she had lost and her constant cough.
‘I suppose you’ll have heard – about our Sheila,’ Mary told her now, looking slightly uncomfortable.
‘I had guessed, yes,’ she admitted, her voice low.
‘Well, she couldn’t have kept it a secret for much longer. My mother wasn’t too pleased at having to sort out another wedding so soon after my own…’
Rosie felt a surge of sick faintness wash over her. ‘They’re getting married?’
‘They don’t have much choice, do they?’ Mary told her bluntly. ‘Not with our Sheila being in the family way. I’ve told her that she’s lucky that he’s prepared to do the right thing by her, and marry her, and that many a lad wouldn’t, but then he is a decent sort. I knew that she’d been sneaking away to see him, of course, but I didn’t realise she’d let things go that far. And you can’t blame him, not with the way she carries on. Rosie? Rosie, are you all right?’ Rosie heard Mary demanding sharply before the blackness overwhelmed her and sucked her down into its depths.
‘Rosie. Oh, thank goodness you’ve come round.’
Rosie looked up at Mary. She was, she realised, lying on the muddy ground where she had passed out whilst Mary and a couple of the other girls crouched over her.
