by Pamela Evans
‘I’m not a complete idiot, I know that,’ she made clear. ‘Will you paint in your spare time then?’
‘I might if I’m in the mood,’ he replied, and there was no mistaking the sharpness in his tone.
‘All right, there’s no need to bite my head off.’
‘Well I don’t know if I’ll do any painting,’ he explained. ‘I haven’t even started the new job yet. I might not feel like it after being at work all day.’
‘I thought you creative types felt compelled to follow your inspiration under any circumstances,’ she said. ‘But anyway, I was making conversation, not asking for a declaration of intent.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Apology accepted,’ she said. ‘Why are you in such a bad mood tonight?’
‘I’m not,’ he denied.
‘Yes you are,’ she said. ‘In fact you’ve been like a bear with a sore head ever since war was declared.’
‘No I haven’t.’
‘Yes you have,’ she insisted. ‘I remember it distinctly. You came over on that first Sunday afternoon and were irritable and peculiar.’
‘Was I?’
‘Yes, and you’ve been moody ever since.’
‘Really?’
‘None of us like the fact that there’s a war but we have to make the best of things and you should try doing the same.’
There was a silence, then Doug said, ‘I’ll consider myself well and truly told off.’
‘So you should.’
‘I didn’t realise I’d been moody, but if I have, it has nothing to do with the war,’ he said.
‘What is it all about then?’
‘There isn’t anything,’ he said.
She halted in her step and turned to him, even though she couldn’t see him very well in the dark. ‘Look, Doug, if you want to stop seeing me, you only have to say.’
‘Stop seeing you?’ he said as though astonished by the suggestion. ‘That’s the last thing I want.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ she said, not convinced. ‘But as I’ve been taking the brunt of your bad temper, don’t you think that entitles me to some sort of an explanation? Something is obviously bothering you.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ He explained briefly the problem with his parents, and added, ‘Something else has upset me too.’
‘What exactly?’
‘I’ve been told that I am unfit for military service because I’ve had TB,’ he explained. ‘Which is why I decided to get a useful job.’
‘Mm, I see,’ she said, slipping her arm through his as they moved on slowly. ‘Well, I suppose you can see their point about the services.’
‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he retorted. ‘I thought you were against prejudice.’
‘I am, but when it comes to the services in wartime it’s about common sense, not prejudice,’ she said. ‘Working in a shop is one thing, being a soldier quite another. You could put your mates’ lives at risk as well as your own if you are not on top form; if you can’t run as fast as the others for instance.’
‘Who said I can’t?’ he asked. ‘Anyone would think I still had the wretched illness.’
‘Be reasonable, Doug,’ she said. ‘It probably will have left its mark on us somewhere and made us a little weaker than other people; it was a serious illness, so it stands to reason.’
‘Maybe,’ he agreed unconvincingly.
‘So can we have a little less gloom and moodiness please?’ she suggested. ‘Anger is a pointless exercise.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘We’ve enough to put up with with this ruddy blackout, we don’t need you putting the dampers on things even more.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, stopping and drawing her into his arms. ‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘I won’t argue with you about that,’ she said, teasing him.
There was a sudden jolt and Doug was pushed away from her.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ said a man’s voice. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘Are you all right?’ May asked the stranger.
‘You should have been more careful,’ objected Doug. ‘You could have hurt my girlfriend.’
‘I’m fine,’ May assured them both.
‘You shouldn’t be doing your courting in the middle of the pavement,’ said the man gruffly. ‘That’s what back alleys were invented for.’
‘Sorry,’ said May with an embarrassed giggle.
‘Yeah, sorry, mate,’ added Doug.
The diversion had eased the tension between May and Doug and they were companionable for the rest of the journey.
‘Oh, by the way, May,’ said Doug as they reached the end of her road, ‘I won’t be able to see you at the weekend. I’m going away.’
‘Really?’ she said, curious but careful not to be presumptuous by asking more about his plans.
He offered the information anyway. ‘I’m going to see my parents in Sussex. I might not have much time to travel once I start the new job next week, so I’d better do it before I start. Duty calls and all that.’
‘Good idea,’ said May, trying not to feel hurt because he hadn’t asked her to go with him.
‘Sorry to spring it on you like this.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said.
‘What will you do with yourself?’
‘I’ll find something to do, don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘My friend Betty could do with a night out, so if her husband will babysit maybe I’ll go to the pictures with her.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you won’t be lonely.’
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ she urged him. ‘You enjoy your weekend away.’
‘I will,’ he said.
‘Cor, am I glad to get out of the house,’ said Betty as she and May walked to the cinema on Saturday night, a clear sky and the moonlight helping them to see their way. ‘It’s like a ruddy asylum in there.’
‘Why?’
‘Mrs Bailey is in tears again because George’s call-up papers have come and Sheila is threatening to join the ATS, probably to get away from her mother’s weeping and wailing.’
‘George has been called up?’ said May, sounding worried.
‘That’s right. He’s going next week.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘I just did.’
‘I mean straight away and bursting with it.’ May was surprised that they hadn’t been the first words her friend had uttered, such was the magnitude of the news. ‘You seem very calm about it,’ she said.
‘We were expecting it, so it’s no surprise,’ Betty explained airily. ‘All the boys will be going so there’s no point in getting into a state about it, is there? Joe will miss his dad, though.’
‘So will you, won’t you?’ said May.
‘It hasn’t happened yet so I don’t know how I’ll feel, but I’m sure to I suppose,’ she said, sounding almost casual. ‘But like everything else that’s happening lately, including the blackout, we just have to put up with it, don’t we?’ They were approaching the cinema and even in the dark they could see the queue. ‘Like long queues at the pictures as well; it has to be done. And I’d sooner be here waiting in the cold than in that house tonight.’
‘Mm.’
May couldn’t understand her friend’s offhand manner about her husband’s imminent departure to terrible danger. If she herself was married to George she’d be worried sick. In fact she was anyway.
George came round to the Stubbses’ to say his goodbyes. When May went to the door with him to see him out he said, ‘It was you I came to see actually, May. As well as saying goodbye, I need a favour.’
‘Anything at all, George, you know that,’ she said.
‘I wonder if you could keep an eye on them round at my place while I’m away,’ he explained. ‘Mum’s practically a nervous wreck, Sheila’s got no patience with her and wants to join the services as soon as she can anyway, and Betty, as we both
know, tends to look after number one. They rely on me to keep the peace and I’d feel a bit easier in my mind if I knew you were around every now and again as a stabilising influence.’
‘Of course I will,’ she assured him at once. ‘I’ll be looking out for little Joe anyway.’
His brows knitted into a frown and she knew how painful being away from his son would be for him. ‘Thanks, May. You’ll be the voice of sanity in that madhouse, and knowing that means I can get on with whatever is asked of me by the army.’
‘We’ll miss you, George,’ she said.
‘Same here, but the job has to be done, whatever that job might entail.’
There was a curious sense sometimes for May of wondering what the war was all about. New restrictions appeared almost daily and men were being called up in their thousands. But there was a feeling of going through the motions and not getting on with the actual war.
‘I shall keep up to date with news of you from Betty,’ she said, feeling emotional.
‘You make sure that boyfriend of yours takes good care of you,’ said George, who had met Doug briefly. ‘The lucky devil doesn’t have to go.’
‘Come off it, George,’ she said lightly. ‘You’d hate it if you couldn’t go.’
He gave a wry grin. ‘Maybe,’ he admitted.
‘There’s no maybe about it,’ she declared.
‘All right. There is a slight sense of adventure about it, I admit,’ he said. ‘Sailing off to foreign shores, that sort of thing.’
‘Well I wish you the best of luck,’ she said, feeling a burning sensation at the back of her eyes.
‘Come here, you,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head. ‘You take good care of yourself. You are my dearest friend.’
She was sniffing into her handkerchief as he headed off down the street and she knew he would be too if it was acceptable for a man to cry. But George’s male pride wouldn’t allow him to indulge in such a feminine activity.
‘Personally I think it’s a damned cheek,’ said Doug after May had happened to mention George’s request when they were walking by the river at Richmond the following Sunday afternoon. ‘You shouldn’t have to worry about his family.’
Shocked by his interpretation of what George had asked her to do, she said, ‘And I won’t have to.’
‘But you just said he wants you to keep an eye on them,’ he reminded her.
‘Well yes, he does; just to sort of be there every now and again, which I would be anyway because of my godson and because the family are my friends,’ she explained. ‘I don’t have to move in and look after them or anything.’
‘I still think he’s got a nerve,’ he persisted.
‘How can you say such things?’ she began, her voice rising emotionally. ‘George was going away to face who knows what, so of course he would be worried about his family, especially as his mother is a very nervous woman. There’s a war on; we are meant to be looking out for each other.’
‘My concern is you in all this.’
‘I’m not so sure you’d be behaving like this if it wasn’t George who’d asked me.’
‘Well, he’s going away covered in glory and he expects you to do his job for him, and him a married man too.’
‘Doug,’ she almost screeched in an effort to stop him ranting. ‘George has been called up and there’s nothing he can do about it. He has a mother with bad nerves and a wife and young child. Of course he’s worried about them. It’s only natural he would ask me to keep an eye on them. I am his friend.’
‘Humph. I sometimes wonder about that.’
She threw him a cold look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem a bit too pally with him for my liking,’ he declared. ‘It’s always George this and George that. Of course I am going to wonder what’s going on.’
‘So, are you suggesting that I would have an affair with a married man, especially one who is married to my best friend?’
‘If the cap fits . . .’
Her hand hit his cheek with a resounding slap and she turned and marched towards the town in a fury to get the bus home. He came chasing after her, holding his face.
‘May, please let me explain.’
‘There’s nothing to explain,’ she said angrily. ‘You’ve made it clear what you think of me, so now just leave me alone.’
He grabbed her arm. ‘Please come back to the boat,’ he begged. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was jealous. Just give me half an hour. I’ll make you a cuppa and try to explain.’
‘Half an hour then,’ she said. ‘Not a minute longer.’
‘Thank you, May,’ he said with ardour. ‘Thank you.’
‘It was the green-eyed monster, I’m ashamed to admit,’ he told her as they drank tea in the cabin of the boat, where the stove was glowing warmly.
‘That’s no excuse for such a horrible accusation.’
‘I know, and I really am sorry.’
‘All right, apology accepted.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You don’t really think I would carry on with a married man, do you?’
‘Of course not. I was just hitting out.’
She gave him a searching look. ‘It wasn’t only about my friendship with George, was it?’
His grim look gave her an answer.
‘This is all about you not being able to join the services, isn’t it?’ she guessed.
He nodded, looking sheepish.
She sipped her tea, looking at him over the rim of her cup. ‘Do you actually want to go away to war?’
‘Of course not. No sane man would.’
‘So why make such a fuss?’
‘Because I feel I should go,’ he replied. ‘I am fit and healthy so it feels wrong being on Civvy Street, and I know people around me think that too.’
‘I can understand why you might feel that way,’ she told him. ‘But I don’t think you should waste your time and energy. Anyway, what it’s really all about is your manhood and male vanity.’
He shrugged. ‘Probably,’ he admitted.
‘So swallow your pride and behave like a grown-up,’ she said. ‘You are doing war work and therefore your bit for the war effort, so just be grateful that you don’t have to go into battle.’
‘Easier said than done, but I’ll try.’
‘Good. As for my feelings for George,’ she went on briskly. ‘He is very, very dear to me, I won’t deny it, as is Betty, and that won’t ever change no matter who else is in my life. So if you want us to carry on, you’ll have to accept that.’
‘Yes, I realise that, May, and I’m sorry for my childishness earlier,’ he said sheepishly.
‘Let’s forget it.’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘I’ve never heard you mention friends. I assume you have some.’
‘No one close, not since I’ve been an adult. I had friends when I was a kid.’
‘You didn’t stay in touch?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t miss the company?’
‘I’m a bit of a loner,’ he said.
‘You seemed sociable enough when we were at Ashburn and you took the class.’
‘A class is different,’ he said. ‘The teacher is set apart so can keep their distance.’
‘Don’t you want the responsibility of close friends?’ she asked, trying to understand him. ‘Close friends do need to be given time and attention.’
‘It’s probably more to do with the fact that I’m not always easy to get along with, as you will have noticed lately.’
She gave a wry grin. It was true, he wasn’t the easiest of men to have as a boyfriend. He could be so charming as to dazzle her, but his glum and distant moods left her reeling because she tended to think she was the cause.
‘Yeah, your moodiness is upsetting,’ she admitted, glad of the chance to bring this out into the open.
‘It’s nothing personal to you,’ he assured her. ‘You just happen to be there when the gloom descends. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long, actua
lly. All my other girlfriends have given me the elbow after a few low moods.’
‘I presume if you could stop them from happening you would,’ she suggested.
‘Exactly.’
‘If you can’t snap out of them, can you not act your way through them?’ she suggested. ‘Then no one else is upset.’
‘I do try but it doesn’t always work,’ he admitted. ‘Sometimes all I want to do is stay here on the boat and shut myself away from the world.’
‘Oh dear,’ said May. ‘That doesn’t sound very healthy.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ he said, looking round the cabin. ‘But here is where I’m happiest. I love this place; it soothes me like nowhere else. It’s full of sunny memories.’
‘They say that childhood memories are always sunny, don’t they?’ she said. ‘Even if things weren’t that good in reality.’
‘Maybe they do say that, but mine really were good.’ He looked at her. ‘So now that you know what an odd bod you’re going out with, do you want to call it a day?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘You don’t give up on someone just because they can be a bit peculiar at times.’
‘Who are you calling peculiar?’ he said jokingly.
‘You,’ she said. ‘You are very peculiar indeed and I shall try to make you less so.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘Nor do I. It could be that you just need someone to listen to you,’ she suggested.
‘Could be,’ he said. ‘And if that someone is you, all the better as far as I’m concerned.’
All the bad feeling following their argument had dissolved and Doug seemed happy again, which led her to believe that he needed to talk his problems through more often.
‘Let me get you another cup of tea,’ he offered, giving her one of his most gorgeous smiles then coming over and kissing her before taking her cup for a refill. ‘We might as well make the most of it before tea goes on ration.’
She smiled. When he was like this he was irresistible and the moodiness didn’t seem to matter one little bit. He really was a very attractive man, even if he was rather strange.