Barbara confessed to her Norfolk origins, and as the cheerful questioning continued, acknowledged that King’s Lynn was a long way away, explained that they’d had a week’s holiday and agreed that they’d ‘got the weather for it’, while Steve withdrew further and further into his thoughts, holding the letter between finger and thumb and tapping it absent-mindedly against his leg. But he didn’t open it until the postwoman had trundled round the bend in the path and was out of sight.
Barbara watched him as he read it. ‘Thass bad, ain’t it?’
‘I been called back,’ he told her, proud that his voice was calm. ‘I’ve to report to the Rail Transport Officer at Liverpool Street station by eighteen hundred hours tonight.’
Her face crumpled into distress. It was as if they were suddenly surrounded by guns, as if jack boots were kicking into their quiet house, trampling their lovely, fragile, short-lived happiness, as if he were being physically torn from her arms. ‘That ain’t fair! They’ve took our last day! Our very last day. They could’ve left us that. What’s a day to them?’
He pulled her into his arms to comfort her but now that she’d begun, she couldn’t stop. ‘This bloody war!’ she raged. ‘This bloody awful bloody war! Pullin’ everyone apart. Turnin’ us inside out. They don’ care. They could’ve let us have our honeymoon. That wouldn’t have hurt. One more day. Thass not so much to ask, is it? One more day. But no! They got to pull us apart. That ain’t fair!’
He let her weep, kissing her hair and wiping away her tears with his thumbs, touched and torn and infinitely tender. Being sent to France was as intolerable to him as it was to her. ‘It has to be done,’ he said.
‘I don’ see why!’
‘You do,’ he said gently. He wasn’t rebuking her. It was a statement of fact, spoken most lovingly. ‘We all do. It’s got to be done.’
She admitted it, even in the throes of her distress, sniffing back her tears, struggling for control. ‘Yes, all right. I know. I know I shouldn’t be goin’ on like this …’
He kissed her salty mouth. ‘Come to bed,’ he begged.
So they retreated to their kingdom to make love for the last time, as much for comfort as desire. But this time, they were driven by an anguished greed that left them both unsatisfied and weeping.
‘Don’t cry,’ he begged, hiding his face in her hair so that she couldn’t see his own tears. ‘There’ll be other times. They won’t send us straight away.’
But neither of them really believed it and when he made to move away from her, she clung to him, begging him not to move, her face anguished. ‘Cuddle me! Please! Don’t go.’
‘We shall miss our train,’ he said, trying to be sensible.
‘There’ll be another one. Please!’
He’d worked out exactly what train they had to catch so that he could escort her back to New Cross and call in and say goodbye to his parents. If they missed the next one, it would be a scramble, and he might be late reporting to the RTO. But how could he leave her, when her cheeks were damp with tears and she was clinging to him with such passion? So they stayed in one another’s arms until they were both quieted and they’d heard the missed train come and go.
Then they got up and made their last pot of tea together and took refuge in chores, working in harmony and saying little, contained in a protective gentleness. They did the washing up, packed the trunk and the kitbag, folded the blankets, swept the floor, gathered the remains of their food into the shopping basket, took one last look at their pretty living room and left, locking the door on their dreams.
It was a sad journey back to New Cross. They sat side by side, holding hands like children, while he told her what he planned.
‘You can stay with Mum and Dad till I know where I’ve been sent. You’ll get your wife’s allowance – you cash it at the Post Office – and I’ve arranged for an extra seven shillings a week to be taken out of my pay for you, so you’ll be all right. I’ll write as soon as I get there. You’ll have a letter first post on Monday, I promise. And as soon as I know where I’ve been posted, we’ll find a flat or a room or something near where I am, an’ we can be together when I get time off.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes.’ Trying to smile. But she could barely understand what he was saying.
They were still holding hands as they walked into his parents’ flat in Childeric Road.
His father was in the kitchen sitting in his chair in the corner mending his work-boots. There was a card half full of blakeys on the table beside him and the air was sharp with the smell of newly cut leather. ‘You’re back early,’ he said. ‘We weren’t expecting you till tomorrow.’
Steve explained, quickly and without emotion, suggested that Barbara could stay with them ‘for the time being. That’s all right isn’t it?’ while Barbara stood by the kitchen table clutching the basket before her like a shield, remembering the way his mother had looked at her and knowing that this wasn’t a good idea. But how could she tell him? In a matter of minutes they would be saying goodbye.
‘Leave it all to us, son,’ Bob Wilkins said. ‘She can have your old room. She’ll be all right with us, won’t you Barbara. Now have you seen your mother, Steve?’
Steve admitted that he hadn’t, explained that he had to catch the next train to London Bridge, avoided his father’s eye because he was ashamed to be rushing off like this. ‘I’ve got two minutes to change,’ he said, heading for his bedroom. ‘Give her my love. Tell her I’ll write to her.’
Before Barbara could make up her mind whether she ought to go with him, he was back in the kitchen in full uniform with his kitbag over his shoulder. Then they were running down the road to the station, rushing to buy a platform ticket, struggling through the barrier, as the train steamed in.
She stood on the running board and he leant out of the window to kiss her goodbye, quietly and tenderly but without making a fuss. It was far too public for that and there was too much noise, whistles blowing, doors slamming shut, people shouting at one another above the racket. But when the engine huffed into action and the train began to move, her face crumpled into misery no matter how hard she tried to control it.
‘Jump down, sweetheart,’ he warned. ‘It’ll be dangerous in a minute.’
She clung to him for the last torn seconds. ‘Write soon,’ she begged.
‘It’ll be the first thing I do,’ he promised. ‘You’ll be all right with Mum and Dad.’ And he tried a joke. ‘I’ve left you plenty of reading material.’
‘What?’ she said, as she jumped back onto the platform.
But it was too late for him to explain. The train was picking up speed, pulling them apart, the distance between them growing too far and too fast.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ he called. ‘I promise.’
But the engine was shrieking and she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
There was nothing for her to do now but stand on the platform and wave as the train swept him away, shrinking his tanned face until it was nothing but a pale oval framed by the window. ‘I hate trains!’ she cried into the noise of his leaving. He was out of earshot so she could say what she liked. ‘I hate trains an’ I hate stations an’ RTO’s, an’ platform tickets what won’t let you leave the platform an’ go with him, an’ officers what won’t let you finish your honeymoon, an’ being left with your mother-in-law, an’ everythin’ to do with this bloody, bloody war.’
It was suddenly much colder and the sky above the station was ominous with rain cloud. Now that the train had gone the track was revealed in all its squalor, grease-black and full of litter, dog-ends, crushed cigarette packets, bits of paper so ancient they were as brown as dead leaves. They shouldn’t allow that to get in such a state, she thought. Thass not hygienic. The sight of it reminded her of the yard at home. And, suddenly and unaccountably, she was miserably homesick.
Now stop that gal, she said to herself. There haint no point standin’ round in this nasty ol’ station feeling sorry for yourself. You got a
new life to lead now and you’d better get on with it.
Chapter Eight
Heather Wilkins was most upset when she got back from work that Saturday evening, hot, sweaty and bone-weary, to find that her son had come home a day early and left without seeing her. She knew instinctively that this was the invasion coming. It had to be. So how could he have gone without saying goodbye? When she might never see him again.
‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ she said angrily as she turned on the tap to wash her dirty hands.
The excuse sounded feeble even to Bob’s ears. ‘He was in a rush.’
‘Rush?’ she said, scrubbing hard to subdue her anxiety. ‘What d’you mean rush? He’s never in a rush. Not our Steve. He has everything planned down to the last little detail. Always. He could’ve nipped in and seen me on his way to the station. That I do know. It wouldn’t’ve taken him more than a minute.’ Then she noticed the straw hat and the shopping basket standing beside the dresser and was suddenly and bitterly jealous. ‘I suppose she was with him. That’s what it was.’
‘Well ’course she was,’ Bob said. ‘She’s his wife. And while we’re on the subject, I’ve said she can stay here till they know where he’s been posted.’
Heather’s frown deepened. ‘Why can’t she go home?’ she said, shaking the water from her hands.
‘Her home’s with Steve now,’ he pointed out, doggedly patient. ‘It’s only till she knows where he’s gone. Then they’ll get a room or a flat or something.’
The answer was sensible but she was still irritated. ‘I tell you what, Bob, I’m beginning to think the girls were right. She has run away from home. I thought they’d got hold of the wrong end a’ the stick at the wedding but I’m not so sure now. If she’s going to stay here …’
Bob picked up his repair box and put it away in the broom cupboard, hoping to placate her by tidiness. ‘It’ll only be for a little while,’ he said.
She wasn’t placated. ‘That’s all very well. How long’s a little while?’
His next answer made it impossible for her to argue any further. ‘Till they get a flat or till the invasion.’
So he’d worked it out too. ‘This is it then?’ she asked, her face set. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
He answered calmly. ‘Looks like it.’
‘Does she know, d’you reckon?’
‘She never said nothing,’ he told her cautiously. ‘Neither of ’em did, come to that. But like I told you, they was in a rush.’
She took her kitchen apron from its hook behind the door, put it on and started to unpack her shopping basket. ‘Oh well,’ she said wearily, ‘I suppose she’d better stay, if that’s what he wants.’
‘We won’t say nothing about the invasion, will we.’ It was half question, half command. ‘Let her tell us.’
‘Give me credit for a bit a’ sense,’ she said. ‘Where is she now, if I’m allowed to ask?’
‘Gone with him to say goodbye.’
‘She got the chance you notice. Which is more than I did.’ Beyond the kitchen window the sky was purple with rain clouds. ‘I don’t suppose they thought to take an umbrella.’
‘No.’
‘No sense, these young things,’ she said, studying the food she’d unpacked. She took her chopping board from the cupboard, picked the largest onion and counted out three rashers of streaky, comforted by the routine of domesticity. ‘Good job it’s bacon roll tonight. At least that’ll stretch to three. I got spring greens. There wasn’t much else. I told Mr Fisher that last lot a’ spuds was chronic so these had better be better. Right. That’s everything.’
The bacon roll was tied in its cloth and steaming gently and she was peeling the last of the potatoes when the doorbell rang. The peremptory sound brought a renewal of irritation. ‘You go,’ she said, without looking up. ‘I’ve got my hands full.’ She couldn’t face opening the door to the girl. Not yet anyway, and not in the middle of cooking a meal. Oh why hadn’t he called in to see her, just for five minutes? It would have made such a difference.
Barbara was standing in the porch with her chin in the air and a belligerent expression on her face. Her arms and shoulders were spotted with rain and there were drops spangling her dark hair.
‘You got back just in time,’ Bob said, standing aside to let her in, and thinking how pretty she looked. ‘It’ll be chucking it down in a minute.’
She recognised that he was trying to welcome her but she couldn’t respond to him. It was as if all her emotions had been turned on at full blast and then shaken together until she could barely distinguish one from another. As she followed him upstairs, she found herself observing things with a stupid intensity as if she were in enemy territory and her survival depended on it – Anaglypta halfway up the walls, dark brown and all swirls and ridges, lino on the stairs, six doors on the landing. She was quite sure there were six, because she counted them.
Bob was explaining the layout of the flat. ‘This is our bedroom,’ nodding at a closed door. ‘An’ that one’s your room and that’s the bathroom.’ But although she heard the words, their meaning wasn’t getting through to her. It wasn’t until he opened the kitchen door and strode through saying, ‘Here she is Heather,’ that the full scene came into focus and she knew, with a miserable certainty, that her mother-in-law resented her arrival.
Heather decapitated a potato and wouldn’t look up. ‘Did he get off all right then?’ she asked.
Barbara swallowed hard before she spoke. This was going to be very difficult. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said politely, and added, ‘He sent you his love.’
The sarcasm in Heather’s voice was too pointed to be missed. ‘Nice of him.’
Barbara looked at her mother-in-law’s closed expression and hardened herself for a struggle. You might not like me, she thought, but you can at least give me a bit of respect.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘That hain’t my idea, stayin’ here. Thass your son what want it. That hain’t me. I can always go somewhere else if you’d rather.’
‘No need for that,’ Heather told her, stung by such a direct challenge. She tossed the last potato into the saucepan. ‘We’ve got the room.’
‘I’ll pay my way,’ Barbara told her. ‘I shall get an allowance.’
‘Well there you are then,’ Heather said, salting the potatoes. ‘It’s settled. I’ll show you where to put your things.’ And she marched into Steve’s bedroom as if she were on her way to a war.
The sight of his room made Barbara catch her breath as if she’d been struck. It was so exactly what she expected, four square and neat, with the bed pushed against the wall to make more room, a wall mirror at his head height, prints of cricket and cricketers arranged in ordered rows on the cream wallpaper, and three long shelves full of books ranged above the bed, Penguins mostly and grouped in order, blue to the right, orange to the left. His books. I’ve left you plenty of reading material. But oh! Below the shelves, strewn across the grey-blue bedspread, were his discarded clothes, left where he’d thrown them and still warm to her touch. It was as if he were still in the room, as if she could turn and find him standing behind her, smiling at her, eager for kisses. She missed him so much she felt as if her ribcage was caving in. Oh Steve! My dear darling Steve!
‘Well!’ Heather said crossly beside her. ‘Will you look at that. He must have been in a rush. I never known him leave his clothes lying about, like that. Never in all my born days.’ She sounded surprised and exasperated.
‘He had a train to catch,’ Barbara explained. ‘He had to report to the RTO.’ And she began to retrieve the clothes, opening the wardrobe door to hang them up.
Heather went on complaining. ‘I don’t know what’s got into him, leaving everything to the last minute. It’s not like him. That shirt’ll have to go in the dirty clothes’ basket.’
‘I’ll wash it for him,’ Barbara offered and she held the shirt to her chest. It would be a labour of love.
That didn’t please her mother-in-l
aw. ‘No need for that,’ she said. ‘It can go in with the rest of the wash Monday. I always do a wash Monday. It’s my day off.’
For a second it felt as though they were on the verge of a quarrel. Then Barbara offered a compromise. ‘I’ll help you then.’
Heather hesitated. She could hardly turn down an offer of help, cross though she was. It would look churlish and petty. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ she temporised.
Thank God I shall only have to stay here a few days, Barbara thought, cuddling the shirt. I couldn’t stand much of this. She cut people to ribbons. And she made up her mind that she would certainly help with the washing and with the washing up and that she’d get out of the house as much as she possibly could.
That first supper was an awkward meal because they were all thinking about Steve and wondering where he was. None of them could find anything much to say, and although there was a play on the wireless, it wasn’t entertaining. Barbara had no appetite but she ate what was put in front of her and, when Heather cleared the table and boiled a kettle for the washing up, she took the wiping-up cloth from its hook on the wall and dried as Heather washed. Then her new parents settled down in their two armchairs by the fireplace, Heather boldly, with her knitting on her lap, Bob rather anxiously, cleaning his pipe, and left her sitting at the table feeling in the way.
The evening spread emptily before her. ‘Right then,’ she said. ‘I’m off to see Betty. Take the hat back. Thass orl right, ain’t it?’
‘You must feel free to do whatever you like,’ Heather told her, icily gracious. ‘We turn in at ten. Take the torch. It’ll be dark by the time you come back.’
Bob watched as she picked up the torch from the dresser and put it into the pocket of her red coat. ‘D’you know the way?’ he wondered.
She didn’t but she wasn’t going to ask for help. ‘I can find it.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ he decided, setting his pipe aside. And when Heather gave him a questioning look, ‘I need some fags for tomorrow.’
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