by Juno Dawson
Strange, isn’t it, that sixth sense that somehow tells us when things turn rotten. I haven’t liked Bryn from the moment I set eyes on him, but he’d never scared me. Now things were different. It was dark, we were alone, he was drunk. He did scare me now, but I was determined to hide it. ‘Bryn, I mean it, I want to go back inside.’
‘Margot, Margot, Margot … you don’t have to play with me like this. I know you’re a good girl – you don’t have to lay it on so thick.’
I drew myself up as tall as I could. ‘I’m doing no such thing.’
‘I know what you girls are like. You all put on a show because you have to, but … it’s all right, I won’t tell anyone.’
I gave him a push. ‘Bryn, there’ll be nothing to tell. Now get off!’
But my anger only seemed to make him laugh. ‘God, you’re a live wire! Come on, you can trust me …’
‘No!’
As I squirmed to get away he pushed me into the corner, bearing down on me, his lips pressing against mine. The back of my head scraped against the church wall painfully. My nails are short from the farm work, but nonetheless I dug them into the soft part of his cheek.
He recoiled, pressing his fingers to the scratch I’d made. ‘Ow, you little—’
‘Is there a problem here?’ A broad silhouette emerged through the fog. An accent. American.
‘Who’s asking?’ Bryn said.
‘Lieutenant Rick Sawyer.’ He pronounced it the American way – ‘Lootenant’. ‘You OK, ma’am?’
I pushed past Bryn, freeing myself. God bless America. ‘I am now. Thank you very much.’
‘No problem. Did he hurt you?’
I’m not a girl who wants to be weak, to be vulnerable, and I like to show it even less, but I was shivering and couldn’t lie. ‘Yes.’
‘Oh, come off it, Margot! I didn’t even do nothing, like!’ He took a step towards us, but Rick pushed him back.
‘I think you better leave her alone, kid.’
‘Who are you callin’ kid, Yank?’ Bryn barged his chest into Rick’s, at which with minimal effort Rick took a step back and swung for Bryn. It all happened in a blink. His fist shot out, hit Bryn’s nose with a thud that sounded like kneading bread, and the next thing I knew, Bryn was on his knees, cradling his face in his hands.
‘Technically I’m Canadian,’ said Rick, flexing his fingers. I had to laugh a little. It was so suave it didn’t quite feel real.
‘You wait till my dad hears about this!’ Bryn yelped, blood running through his fingers. He sprang to his feet, retreating before Rick could floor him for good.
Rick simply laughed at his feeble threat. ‘Miss, can I walk you back inside?’ He offered me his arm.
‘Yes, please.’ I took it. He led me back to the path and my heartbeat returned to something like normal. With Rick I felt entirely safe. ‘I’m so sorry about that. Is your hand all right?’
‘Don’t you worry about me, ma’am. Do you need a doctor?’
‘Oh, goodness me, no. I’m more shaken than anything. I feel so foolish! I should have never come out here alone.’
‘It’s not your fault that guy’s a jackass, but after you asked about your friend, I came to offer a hand.’
‘It’s much appreciated. Thank you again.’ I felt faintly pathetic at needing to be rescued, but need I had. I dread to think what might have happened had Rick not come after me.
‘May I ask your name?’
‘Oh, where are my manners? I’m Margot Stanford. I’m staying at Ivor Williams’s farm.’
‘From London?’
‘Indeed. How about you? You’re from Canada? What on earth brings you here?’
‘Canadian British. My mother is from Sussex. I came over a couple of years ago.’
‘Just in time to fight!’
He smiled. ‘Just in time to fight. I was wounded last May. Spinal injury – and not even in battle; a jack gave out at the airbase! They tell me I’m lucky to be walking.’ Ah, so he was RAF, not Army.
‘And how are you now?’
He winced slightly. ‘I get by just fine, but there’s still pain. I feel like a goddamn old man at twenty-two.’ So that answered that question. ‘And it’s worse in the cold.’
I wanted to stroll with him for longer, but we came to a stop outside the hall. People were leaving now, wrapping scarves around their necks and buttoning up winter coats. I felt safe, the incident in the graveyard already seeming unreal. I wasn’t sure how I’d deal with Bryn, but I was scared no longer.
Bess burst out of the door, Reg following behind. ‘Goodness, Margot, there you are! We’ve been looking all over for you.’ She saw who I was with. ‘Lieutenant Sawyer. I didn’t know you were here.’ Bess used our pronunciation – ‘Leftenant’.
‘Good evening, Miss Jones,’ he said with a tip of his cap, ‘and, please, call me Rick.’
‘Where have you been?’
I considered telling her about Bryn, but decided to do so later. ‘I was looking for Doreen. Rick –’ no, that felt too informal – ‘Lieutenant Sawyer offered to help.’
‘My pleasure, ma’am. Say, I’d better be getting back to the others, but it sure was nice to meet you, Miss Stanford.’
I fought to keep a fuchsia blush at bay. ‘Not at all. Thank you again for your … assistance.’
He smiled a very handsome smile and bid us goodnight.
Now I can’t seem to rid my mind of his face. I close my eyes, but all I see are his eyes, his dimples and those perfect teeth. I explore other avenues of thinking, but they all lead back to pictures of Rick Sawyer. Finally I understand.
This is how it begins, isn’t it?
Chapter 14
I’m so angry about what Bryn did, I have to tell someone about it. With few other options, I opt for Danny and Bronwyn. We’re having our regular second breakfast in the library. ‘If I tell you a weird secret, will you keep it?’
‘Of course!’ Danny says with relish. ‘You were born a boy, right?’
My hands fly to my face. ‘No! Why? Do I look like a man?’
‘Duh, I’m kidding, you loser!’
Bronwyn suppresses a grin because grinning isn’t her style. ‘Is it about the farm? Did a cow birth kittens or something?’
‘Bron, let it go. The farm is not the Hellmouth,’ says Danny.
I pull the diary out of my rucksack. ‘I stole my grandma’s diary.’
They both stare at me blankly for a second. ‘OK, that is weird. Why would you do that?’ Danny says.
‘Is it all like “Today I went to bingo, got my blue rinse done”?’ says Bronwyn.
I smile. ‘It’s not from now, and she’s not exactly the bingo type. It’s from World War Two.’
Bronwyn visibly perks up. ‘Oh, OK, that actually borders on cool. Can I see?’
‘Sure, just be careful. I’ll have to return it at some point.’ Bronwyn carefully leafs through with fingers that could use a manicure. She hands Danny the loose photos.
‘Oh, she was gorgeous! She looks like a young Lauren Bacall!’
‘Who?’
‘Girl, do a Yahoo search.’
‘It’s kinda crazy. Like she was evacuated right here in 1941 to the farm. There were all these other evacuees. This ass-hat guy called Bryn Davies basically tried to rape her in the graveyard.’
Bronwyn and Danny share a loaded glance. ‘No way!’ says Bronwyn. ‘Bryn Davies used to be the mayor.’
‘Why am I not surprised? His dad was too.’
Danny raises an eyebrow. ‘He was caught having it off with a prozzie in the town hall and had to resign.’
‘Still not surprised.’
‘He died, a couple of years back, I think.’
Bronwyn hands the diary back to me and I put it safely away. ‘It’s so weird. She was like hella cool – my grandma. In the diary she was like a codebreaker and just this badass … but now she’s so … demon bitch from hell.’
Danny shrugs. ‘Well, she’s old. I wouldn’t
mess with my grandma either – she’s a nipper. I mean that literally. If you do something wrong, she will physically nip you.’
I laugh but it bothers me. ‘I guess so.’
‘Have you read the whole thing?’ Bronwyn asks. She runs a hand through her wild hair, a studded leather cuff around each wrist.
‘I’m about a quarter in.’
‘Well, maybe there’s a twist in the last half.’
I shrug. ‘I’ll let you know.’
We’re so lost in conversation I fail to see Thom emerge from his office with Sophie. ‘What do you guys think?’ he says. Today he’s wearing a long-sleeved grey grandad shirt that gives further hints at how toned his body is. My stomach and chest do the weird flippity-floppity lurch they’ve started to do every time I think about him. Stupid, I know, but I suddenly worry he can telepathically know what I’m thinking.
‘Think about what?’ Danny asks.
‘Shall we do The Chess Club Presents again this year?’
‘No,’ says Bronwyn.
‘YES!’ says Danny. ‘We have to! Last year was THE BEST.’
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
Sophie joins us at the table and takes a croissant. ‘Don’t tell my mam I had this, OK? It’s like a talent-night thing we did last year at the church hall.’
‘Oh, the talent show?’ I’d seen posters up around the school.
‘No,’ Danny said with disgust, ‘that’s for the popular kids. All the pretty girls get together and do the Spice Girls and TLC and that. It’s totally passé.’
‘We are sort of an alternative,’ Thom explains. ‘So many people in the Chess Club are so talented but don’t get a chance to perform, or don’t want to get up in front of the whole school. This is on a smaller scale – and outside of school – just for friends and family. That said, there’s no point in me organising it if there’s no uptake.’
Danny claps excitedly. ‘Well, I’m in. Last year I did “Memories” from Cats and it was a defining moment of my life to date.’
‘The cat ears were certainly something,’ Bronwyn adds with a slight smirk.
‘Don’t listen to her, Danny, Elaine Paige would have been proud. Fliss, will you do it?’
My swansong ballet performance comes flooding back. Painfully. I was thirteen years old, and my ballet school took part in a gala charity performance thing at the Albert Hall. A big deal, obviously – Princess Diana was there, God rest her soul. We did the ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ section from La Bayadère. Thirty girls, head to toe in pristine white, all en pointe in six rows of five – it should have been a sight no one would ever forget, and we’d nailed it in rehearsal, but the performance was all wrong, wobbly and ungraceful. I was no better than anyone else. We were a tutu-clad disaster. It was a sight no one would ever forget for all the wrong reasons.
I swear down I heard people in the audience actually tut.
Only afterwards did we learn that a scout from the Royal Ballet had been in the audience.
She came backstage to be polite but could hardly keep the disdain off her face. Madame Nyzda, our tutor, introduced me to the scout, who looked exactly as you’d imagine: retired ballerina, slightly reptilian-looking, who never quite made it big. She offered only the most fleeting, dismissive smile and wet lettuce handshake.
That was the night I gave up, to be honest. If it was going to happen, it would have happened there and then. That was my chance showing its face, and I was looking the other way. What was the point? What was the point in turning my feet into gnarled hoofs for nothing? Better to hang up the slippers and start on the cake.
‘No. I don’t think so,’ I say.
‘Didn’t you used to do ballet?’ Bronwyn asks.
‘What? How do you know?’
‘I searched for you online obviously.’ Typical. She probably thought I was a spy so she’d spied on me.
‘You do ballet?’ Thom’s eyes light up. ‘That’d be perfect.’
As much as I want to impress him, I don’t want it to be in a tutu. Ballet was part of my childhood, and I do not need him to see me as the Sugar Plum Fairy. ‘Past tense,’ I say, head down.
‘Please!’ Danny says. ‘Don’t make me do something by myself.’
‘I’m gonna sing,’ Sophie chips in.
I squirm. ‘Maybe.’ That meant no. But I do want to spend some time alone with Thom if I can. ‘I’ll definitely help out … like backstage and stuff.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ Bronwyn says, and I want to punch her.
The registration bell rings out and Thom stands to return to his work. ‘Well, it’s not until January so you have plenty of time to think about it.’
I walk in on something, an argument, when I get home. It’s never a good sign when all conversation halts when you step through the front door. I hang my coat and bag on the banister and walk into the kitchen. ‘What’s going on?’ I say. The chilly silence suggests they were talking about me.
Mum is sitting at the table, cradling a cup of camomile tea, while Margot is perched tersely against the work counter. ‘Nothing,’ Mum says. Margot purses her lips and, without a word, leaves the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.
‘What was that about?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you know Margot,’ Mum says, blowing her tea to take a sip. ‘She’s spent too long out here in isolation with the animals; she’s forgotten how to talk to human beings.’
I smile. ‘I’m not gonna argue with that.’
‘Any homework?’
‘No,’ I lie. All I want to do is find out what happened next with Margot and Rick Sawyer. I make a cup of tea and head straight to my room.
Monday 17th February, 1941
Today I saw him again under the strangest of circumstances. Last night, just after we’d finished supper, young Sergeant Huw Thomas from the constabulary came to the farm. I assumed the worst, thinking he must have brought dire news about Mother or Father, but not so, although he was here to see me. ‘Could I speak to Miss Stanford, please, Ivor?’
‘Aye, Huw, come on in. Margot in trouble, is she?’ he said with a hint of sarcasm.
I stood up from the table. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ I protested.
Sergeant Thomas removed his hat and waddled into the kitchen. ‘No, miss. We believe you witnessed an assault.’ Glynis lifted Jane off her chair. ‘Come on, children, let’s go play upstairs, eh?’ She led Jane and Peter out of the kitchen, leaving us alone.
What happened in the graveyard didn’t register in my mind as assault, even then. ‘Did I?’
‘The mayor has filed a complaint.’
It still took me a moment to put the pieces together. ‘Oh, you mean Bryn?’
‘Margot, what’s this all about?’ Ivor said gravely.
Sergeant Thomas took out his notebook. ‘Mayor Davies is alleging that a young RAF officer attacked Bryn at the Valentine’s dance and that you were present, Miss Stanford.’
Well, there was absolutely no way I was letting Rick get in trouble over that weasel. There was simply no option but to tell the truth. ‘Sir, the assault, if it could be called such a thing, was simply Lieutenant Sawyer protecting my honour.’
‘Go on …’
‘Bryn Davies was behaving in a most inappropriate fashion. Why, if Lieutenant Sawyer hadn’t come along when he did, I dread to think what would have happened.’
‘Margot … you never said …’ Ivor looked deeply uncomfortable.
‘I see,’ Sergeant Thomas said. ‘And you’d be prepared to say that under oath, would you, miss?’
‘I swear on my eyes, Sergeant, and if Bryn Davies said anything to the contrary, I can assure you he’s lying.’
Ivor stepped forward, towering over Thomas. ‘And what has this pilot said, Huw?’
Thomas’s face again turned the colour of raw bacon and I knew that I had confirmed what Rick must have told them.
‘I’m not at liberty to say, Ivor. You know that.’
Ivor came to my side. ‘Well, you tell Ow
en Davies that if his ruined little turd of a son comes anywhere near our Margot again, he’ll have more than a fat lip to worry about. You hear me?’
I couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘Sergeant Thomas, I am more than willing to stand up in front of the whole town and testify that the mayor’s son tried to attack a defenceless girl in a graveyard if need be. In fact, perhaps I should press charges … He did hurt my head in the kerfuffle.’
Thomas backed towards the door. ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Miss Stanford. Thank you for your time.’ He made a sharp exit before I could bring charges against a local hero.
‘Are you all right?’ Ivor said, not looking me in the eye.
‘Thanks to Lieutenant Sawyer I am.’
‘Well, then I owe that man a pint. You let me know if Bryn Davies so much as looks your way.’
‘I will. And thank you, Mr Williams.’
‘My name’s Ivor.’ He lumbered out of the kitchen and I felt a great surge of warmth for the big man.
And then today there was another, rather more welcome, knock at the door. ‘Margot!’ Peter called down the hallway. ‘It’s for you!’
I dried my hands on a dishcloth and went to see who it was – I imagined it must be Bess. Imagine my surprise when I saw Rick Sawyer’s broad silhouette in the doorway. In his hands was a bunch of freshly picked wildflowers: coltsfoot and glory-of-the-snow. So pretty and delicate, tied in a simple rose ribbon. I was taken aback, but my manners came to me promptly. ‘Lieutenant Sawyer, what a nice surprise.’ I swept a loose lock of hair off my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. And to think I wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up! How shameful!
‘Oh, it’s just Rick, ma’am.’
‘Very well, I shall call you Rick if you stop calling me ma’am! I feel about sixty years old!’ I suddenly remembered Peter was hovering between us. ‘Peter, run along, please.’
With a smirk, he did as he was told, and Rick handed his makeshift bouquet to me. ‘These are to thank you for getting me off the hook. And to say sorry … I hear you had a visit from the police.’
I accepted the flowers and instinctively took a sniff although they weren’t especially fragrant. ‘Not at all. It was the least I could do after you rescued me.’