Sally laughed. ‘And why not? Your sister is an attractive-looking woman.’ She had been going to say, for her age, but decided not to.
‘Well, yes … happen she is. But there’s never been anyone for Winnie – well, not that I know of – since Arthur was killed. He was her fiancé; at least, I think they were engaged, I’m not sure. I was only a young lad at the time. He was killed right at the end of the first war, not this last one.’
‘Good gracious! That’s a long time ago,’ said Sally.
‘Aye … er … yes, so it is. A lot of women were in the same boat, though. There was a great shortage of men and – like I say – she never seemed to be bothered once she had got over losing Arthur. Then, blow me down! She tells me she’s met this Jeff fellow.’
‘Have you met him?’
‘Yes, just once. He came to call for her last Saturday and they went off to the pictures. He’s quite a good-looking chap, I suppose, and he seems very nice. About Winnie’s age, I should say, and he’s a widower.’
‘So you’re thinking it will be more difficult if you both want to go out at the same time, is that it?’ asked Sally.
‘Aye … yes, I reckon it might be. But I’m sure there’ll be a way round it. I’ll have a chat to her … So, what do you think, Sally? You’ll risk another outing with me, will you?’
‘Yes, of course, Albert. Why not? I’ve already said so.’
‘So shall we say the cinema, then? Not this Saturday – our guests will be settling in. Is the Saturday after all right with you?’
They agreed that they would both consult the Evening Gazette and see if they could find a film they would both enjoy; there were cinemas enough to choose from in Blackpool. Albert would ring Sally at her home; fortunately they were on the phone.
‘Please don’t think I’m in the habit of doing this, Sally,’ Albert made a point of assuring her. ‘Taking young women out, I mean.’
‘I didn’t think so.’ She laughed. ‘Anyway, it’s really nothing to do with me, is it, however many lady friends you have had.’
‘But I haven’t,’ he insisted. ‘Not since Barbara …’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve never been interested.’
‘Well then, I’m honoured,’ she said quietly.
After they had finished their coffee Albert settled the bill and the waitress called a taxi for them. He shook her hand in quite a formal way when the car drew up at her door.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she said. ‘I’m pleased you invited me.’
‘And I’m pleased you came,’ he answered. ‘Good night, Sally. I’ll be in touch with you.’ He raised his hand in salute as the taxi drew away.
She was a little dazed with a surfeit of wine; between them they had emptied the bottle. She decided not to give too much thought to what the future might hold until she had had a night’s sleep.
Chapter Ten
When Sally returned to school after the Easter holiday she was surprised to find Phil Grantley waiting for her outside her classroom door.
‘Hello, Phil …’ She greeted him cheerfully, as though there was nothing amiss between them. There wasn’t, really, as far as she knew, apart from his recent aloofness, which had led her to think that it might be best if she tried to forget her awakening interest in him. ‘Have you had a good holiday?’ she enquired.
‘No … not really,’ he replied. ‘Actually, that’s what I want to talk to you about, so I thought I’d have a word with you away from the rest of the staff.’
‘Whatever’s the matter, Phil?’ she asked. He didn’t look his normal cheerful self, but then, as she recalled, neither had he seemed so for the last week or so, before the school broke up for Easter. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’ He did, in fact, look rather pale, with dark shadows under his eyes.
‘No, I’m not ill,’ he replied. ‘I’ve not been sleeping too well; I’ve had a lot on my mind … Look, I can’t tell you now. The bell will be going soon, and there isn’t really much opportunity to chat at school, is there? There’s always someone else around. I’ll run you home from school tonight, and then I’ll tell you all about everything … if that’s all right with you?’
‘Yes, that’s fine, Phil,’ she replied, feeling very mystified. ‘We’ll try and get away on time, shall we?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, and … er … Sally …’ He was looking at her rather solemnly. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit offhand with you lately. I realise now that I might have been. I didn’t mean it, and I hope you still think of me as a friend?’
‘Of course I do, Phil.’
He smiled then, but a little uncertainly. ‘OK then; I’ll see you later. Back to the grindstone now, eh?’ he added, sounding more like his normal self.
Whatever could be the matter? Sally wondered, as she went into her classroom, ready to greet the return of thirty-six eager children. Most of them were keen to get back to school at their age. It was only as they grew older, usually not until they were of secondary school age, that they could be compared with Shakepeare’s schoolboy, ‘creeping like snail, unwillingly to school’.
The bell sounded a few minutes later and there was a charge of small bodies into the room.
‘Hello, Miss Roberts …’
‘Have you had a nice holiday, Miss Roberts …?’
‘We’ve been away, Miss Roberts. We went to see my aunty in Wigan …’
‘We went on the sands, but it was a bit cold …’
She was greeted on all sides by her enthusiastic pupils. ‘Hello, everybody,’ she said. ‘Come along now and settle down. You can tell me all about your holiday later and what you’ve all been doing.’
She heard Timothy Fielding, as he passed by her desk, saying in an audible whisper to his friend, Stanley, ‘I reckon she’ll have us writing about it, don’t you?’
She smiled to herself. Spot on, Timothy! she thought. That would be one of the first things on the timetable, to discuss their ‘news’ and then to write about a day they had enjoyed during their holiday.
Katherine Leigh smiled shyly as she went to her table. Sally wondered if she knew that her father had been out on two ‘dates’ with her teacher. She and Albert hadn’t actually talked about whether he should tell Kathy. It wasn’t as if they were courting, she thought to herself, or regarding it as a long-term friendship, although she had agreed to see him again on Saturday. She suspected that Kathy might already know about it. Her smile, to Sally, had seemed to be rather a secretive one. But she hoped that the little girl would keep it to herself and certainly not confide in her friend, Shirley Morris! She was a little busybody, if ever there was one. Sally didn’t want it all round the playground that ‘Miss Roberts is going out with Kathy Leigh’s dad!’ Well, she would just have to trust to Kathy’s common sense, which she felt the child had in abundance.
Anyway, she had other things on her mind at that moment as well as her friendship with Albert Leigh. What on earth was the matter with Phil Grantley?
The infant classes finished at half past three, half an hour before the junior department. Sally tidied her desk, cleaned the blackboard and sharpened the pencils ready for the next day. Then she put on her coat and went out into the playground to wait for Phil.
She stood by his Morris Minor car and he arrived a couple of minutes later. ‘Hi there, Sally; sorry to keep you waiting,’ he greeted her.
‘You haven’t; I’ve only just arrived,’ she told him, clambering into the small blue car.
He got in beside her and soon they were out of the gate and bowling along the road at a fair pace. He turned into a side road where there were no parking restrictions and stopped the car.
‘Here we are, then, Sally,’ he said. ‘Time for us to have a little chat, I think. At least … time for me to talk and you to listen, if you will?’
‘Of course, Phil,’ she answered. ‘I’ve been rather concerned about you.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Where can I begin …?’ He smiled quizzically at her.
‘
Well, it’s usually best to start at the beginning,’ she said.
He nodded, then paused for a few seconds before he began to speak. ‘I’m not sure whether you know – probably you don’t – that I was engaged to be married before I came to Blackpool.’
‘No, I didn’t know that …’
‘Well, it came to an end, quite amicably, but I decided I was ready for a change. So, as you know, I was fortunate to get the post that I applied for here in Blackpool.’
She nodded. She knew that he had come from Yorkshire – a village near Bradford, she believed – and he now lived in a flat somewhere in the North Shore area. He would have been at the school for two years, come September.
‘I stayed on good terms with my ex-fiancée, Pamela,’ he continued. ‘It would have been hard not to do so, really, as her parents and mine had always been close friends. Anyway, about a week before the end of term I had a phone call from my mother, in great distress. Pam had been badly injured in a car crash and she was in hospital.’
‘Oh dear! What a shock for you,’ said Sally. She recalled that that must have been round about the time that Phil had started to be friendly with her, Sally, and then had so abruptly seemed to go off the idea. ‘And … is she all right now?’ she asked.
He shook his head slowly. ‘I realised then that although I was no longer in love with her – I wonder if I ever was, really; we had grown up together, you see, we were sort of childhood sweethearts – I still had feelings for her. I went over to Bradford that weekend, but she was in a bad way. She was still unconscious; she had internal injuries and broken bones and possibly brain damage.’ Sally remained silent, not knowing at all what she should say.
‘And then – actually it was on Easter Sunday – my mother rang me to say that Pam had died …’
Sally gasped. ‘Oh … how dreadful!’
‘Yes, it was … dreadful. It was the funeral a few days ago. I only came back last night in time for school; I’ve been staying with my parents.’ He shook his head in a bewildered manner. ‘I still can’t believe it, can’t come to terms with it all. She was so lively and pretty, like you, Sally. Well, no – not just like you – but you know what I mean. She had everything to live for. Life is so very cruel …’
‘Yes, it can be sometimes,’ she agreed. ‘Phil, I’m so terribly sorry. And I do understand. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t like to ask too much.’
‘And I didn’t want to talk about it,’ he replied. ‘But I do know that life has to go on. It’s a cliché, isn’t it, that folk always trot out at times like this?’
Sally nodded. ‘Yes, that’s very true. I know that from my own experience. I lost my fiancé, during the Battle of Britain. I don’t talk about it now; it’s quite a long time ago, and lots of other girls lost boyfriends in the war. Another thing that people say is that time heals.’ She smiled sorrowfully. ‘Well … yes … it does, but it can take a while. If there’s anything I can do, Phil, you know you can think of me as a friend.’
‘I know that, Sally. That’s why I’m talking to you, rather than to any of the others. Actually, I was wondering … would you come out with me tonight? Just for a quiet drink somewhere. I feel that I need to get out. There’s no point in sitting on my own, brooding. Like I said, Pam and I were no longer together, but I’ve been surprised how the fond feelings are still there, and about how upset I’ve been.’
‘I’m sure I would feel exactly the same,’ Sally replied. ‘Yes, I’ll go out with you, Phil. I shall look forward to it. Just what we need after the first day back.’
‘Good …’ He smiled at her. ‘Let’s get moving, then, now, shall we?’
They drove to her home, neither of them saying very much. ‘What time, then?’ he asked as he stopped the car outside her house.
‘Oh, half past seven? Is that OK?’ she asked. ‘It’ll give us a chance to wash off the chalk dust.’
‘Yes, that’s fine.’ He chuckled, seeming rather more cheerful. ‘Cheerio then, Sally. See you in a little while.’
Poor Phil! She was quite stunned at his news. It certainly explained his strange mood. She felt no compunction about seeing him tonight. She had agreed to go out with Albert on Saturday. But both of them, Albert and Phil, they were just friends and nothing more … weren’t they?
Phil seemed to want to talk about Pamela, and Sally didn’t mind listening. She knew that it was cathartic for him to do so. She remembered how, when Martin had been killed, she had felt the need to talk about him. It had seemed, somehow, to alleviate the grief she was feeling.
They sat near the window of the lounge bar of a seafront hotel, looking out across the promenade to the vast expanse of the Irish Sea. The days were lengthening now as it was well past the spring equinox. Dusk was falling and they watched the sun gradually disappear behind the grey-green sea. It was not such a spectacular sunset that evening – the sunsets in Blackpool were sometimes breathtaking in their beauty – but the mass of cloud, tinged faintly with pale orange and pink, was still a lovely sight.
‘I’m glad I came to live in Blackpool,’ Phil remarked. ‘It took me a while to get used to the flatness of the Fylde. Where my parents live, where I was brought up, in a village called Baildon – it’s a suburb of Bradford, really – it’s surrounded by hills. Factory chimneys as well, of course, although not so many as there used to be, but there’s a rugged charm to it despite the dark satanic mills. It’s much cleaner and fresher here, but, as I say, I miss the hills and dales.’
‘There are hills quite near here,’ Sally told him. ‘Not much more than half an hour’s drive away. There’s the Bleasdale Fells and the Trough of Bowland. And the Lake District, of course, further north. I went on a coach trip once, with my parents, to Ambleside on Lake Windermere; that was long before the war.’
‘Much easier to explore, though, if you have a car,’ said Phil. ‘I had a few days in the Lake District last year, with Alan.’ That was one of his colleagues from school. ‘We did a spot of fell walking. I’ve never been to those nearer hills, though, the Bleasdales. Perhaps we could go sometime, could we, Sally, just you and me, I mean? Have you ever done any fell walking?’
‘No, actually, I haven’t,’ she replied. ‘It’s something I’ve never really thought about. Fiona – you know, the girl who joined the infant staff not long ago – she was telling me that she’d joined a walking club in Blackpool. She seems to be enjoying it.’ Sally didn’t answer his question about going exploring with him. It would all depend on when, and on how things worked out for her.
‘Was it something you and Pamela used to do?’ she asked.
‘No, not really,’ Phil replied. ‘We used to go for short walks, but she wasn’t really an outdoor sort of girl, even though she was brought up in the country; well, I suppose Baildon’s sort of in the country. I think we both realised, in the end, that it wouldn’t work out for us. We weren’t very much alike – very few shared interests, you see.’
‘Was she a teacher?’ asked Sally.
‘No, she worked in the local library …’ He had told her earlier that he and Pamela had been in the same class at infant and then junior school, but had gone to different secondary schools. She had still been there, though, waiting, when he had done his two-year teacher training, and when he had returned from his war service. Sally already knew that he had been in the Eighth Army, in the Western Desert with Monty, something of which he was very proud, and he had returned relatively unscathed.
‘When I came back from the war – I was one of the lucky ones, although it’s something you never forget if you’ve been through it – I think I knew then that Pam wasn’t the right girl for me. But she’d waited so faithfully for me all the time I was away. My mother told me how she used to go round to see them every week, how she looked forward to my letters, and that she never thought of going out dancing and having a good time as a lot of her friends were doing. So I thought how callous it would be to let her down, how devastated she’d be … And so
we went on with it. We were actually saving up to buy a house; that was why we didn’t get married there and then. And for me … well … it was an excuse, really. But, as I said, in the end we both knew that it would not be right to carry on. She was really more like a sister to me, and that’s how I feel now, that I’ve lost a dearly loved sister.’
‘I’m sorry …’ Sally said again. ‘But it will get easier. ‘You’ve got your job – I know how much you enjoy it – and lots of friends around you.’
‘Yes …’ Phil nodded. ‘I’ve told Mr Williams, and Alan and Brian, about Pamela. If anyone mentions that I’m rather subdued, perhaps you could tell them why, Sally. But I will try and pull myself together. I feel I’ve made a start already, seeing you tonight …’
‘So, what about you and me, then?’ he continued. ‘We got off to a bad start, didn’t we? I must explain to you about the day we went to the football match. I would have liked to take you out that evening, but it was my flatmate’s birthday. He’d asked me, only the night before, if I’d go to the pub with him and a few more of his mates – strictly men only! – and I couldn’t very well refuse.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Sally, thinking that the explanation had been a long time coming.
‘So I thought I’d ask you out later on in the week, and then … well … there was all this awful business with Pamela, and I just couldn’t think about anything else.’
‘It’s all right, Phil, I understand …’
‘Anyway, I’ve enjoyed tonight, Sally. It was just what I needed. Thanks for coming and for being such a good listener. But I would like to see you again, and I promise I’ll be in a more cheerful mood. What about Saturday evening?’ Sally felt her heart sink; she had already had a feeling about what was coming next.
‘I remember you telling me that you enjoy those big musicals,’ Phil went on. ‘Well, they’re showing State Fair again at the Imperial on Saturday. A few years old now, I know, but it was one of my favourites at the time; Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews, they were wonderful singers.’
Time Goes By Page 12