by Marie Joseph
His pipe going nicely, Stanley leaned sideways and tickled the baby’s head, running a finger round its Friar Tuck fringe of brown hair. ‘One good thing about it, little chuck, you couldn’t care less, not so long as you get your bottle at the right time.’
At a nod from his wife, he passed over the feeding bottle, testing the contents first by shaking a few drops onto the back of his hand. ‘Want me to do it, love?’
‘No fear.’ Josie guided the rubber teat into the baby’s wandering mouth. ‘You let air in last time, then who was it had to get up twice and wind him?’
Sally watched them carefully, her eyes slewing from one face to the other. She was writing to Lee, the notepad on her knee, only needing to lower her head to shut herself away completely from the conversation.
‘I can’t wait for next weekend,’ she wrote. ‘I may have to work Saturday morning, though. Boy-friends coming on leave don’t merit special time off. We’ve to treble our output before the end of the month! So it means still more overtime.’ She chewed the end of her pen for a moment, then went on:
‘They lined us all up in the canteen yesterday and showed us a film. It was about tanks we’re helping to make going into action against the enemy. I tried to imagine one of the little fiddling things I file being part of those great monstrous things, but it was hopeless. Maybe it’s as well. If I realized I was helping to make an end product geared to kill and maim I think my thousand-an-hour output would slow down. Is that terrible? I wish my ideas about the enemy were as clearly formulated as my father’s. He’s a gentle man and yet to him they are all so much fodder, to be killed as quickly as possible. But surely – surely, Lee, some of them are just ordinary young men like John? Are they all riddled through and through with evil?’
She looked up to see Josie winding the baby while Stanley cleared away all the paraphernalia necessary for bathing and feeding a tiny baby.
‘Leopards don’t change their spots,’ she wrote, starting a fresh paragraph. ‘My mother hasn’t suddenly become a different person since John’s baby came to live here. But she’s much happier. Before she was without purpose, now it’s as though she has put the clock back and is bringing up John again. Do you believe in miracles, Lee? Because from now on I certainly do.’
‘It’s like a miracle,’ Lee told her as they sat close together round a corner table in the saloon bar of a public house out on the main road the following Saturday evening. ‘I never thought it would come so soon, honey, but apart from a flight-engineer still to be roped in, the crew I’ll be flying with is all rounded up.’ He took a long sip of his warm beer and grimaced. ‘All volunteers, so they know what they’re at. Now it’s up to me to weld us into a kind of family. We depend on each other entirely. See?’
‘You mean regular airmen?’ Sally tried to hide the creeping sense of dread holding her still. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He had blown into the house like an invigorating wind, scattering presents, chucking the baby under the chin, sparring verbally in his good-natured way with Stanley, flirting with Josie, then whisking Sally off in the single-decker bus to a place where they could talk and be alone.
‘Nope, not regulars,’ he said. ‘My navigator was an architectural draughtsman in civvy life, and the rear gunner kept a stall on a London street market. The wireless operator held a first-class boat pilot’s licence before the war. He can read morse like you read a book. He’s a Canadian, honey, as smart as they come. There ain’t no flies on a single goddamned one of them! We did a two-hour trip over Scotland last week and we ran into a German raid – an unexpected bonus. There was flak coming up, but we never saw even the tail whisker of a Hun. The rear gunner came out of his turret as cold as if he’d been shut in an ice-box.’
Sally felt as if her smile might crack at any minute. She remembered David Turner telling her once about his own crew. All eager beavers, raring to go. Imbibing the atmosphere so completely that they saw themselves almost as a race apart. Boasting amongst themselves about their squadron scoreboards, dicing with death and glorying in it.
And now Lee was all set to join their ranks.
‘When will you actually start operational flying?’ Taking a sip of her beer she watched his face carefully over the rim of her glass.
Lee shook his head mournfully. ‘We’ve still got fifty hours of scheduled flying to do out of the seventy laid down in the rule book, worse luck.’ He grinned. ‘It’s my job to keep those guys happy till then. You know, raise their morale so they don’t get too goddamned bored. We’re all raring to go, Sally, and believe you me, it’s not true that the English all have placid temperaments. They’re like a bunch of fire-crackers with their fuses lit and no place to explode. It’s routine stuff day after day. Check and double check till we can all do our respective jobs with our eyes closed. But they rate me now, honey. Even the Limeys rate me pretty high. I reckon they realize I know what I’m at.’
He stared round the crowded bar. ‘I don’t rate this place all that much.’ He took a cigarette from the packet on the table and lit it. ‘Me, I like to drink my ale in a place where Queen Victoria slept on her way to somewhere or other. Or Oliver Cromwell. Didn’t he hang out somewhere round here?’ Without waiting for a reply he pulled a heavy glass ash-tray towards him and flicked the cigarette vaguely in its direction. ‘The kind of place I go for has sloping floors and oak beams spanning the ceiling. This one’s pretty new, isn’t it?’
Through his eyes Sally saw the dark red carpet with its geometrically designed whirls and triangles in royal blue, the glass tables with their chrome legs, and the hunting murals on the walls. She nodded. ‘I don’t suppose anyone of note sleeps here. Only commercial travellers with their cases of samples, though I suppose they’re all in the Forces now.’ She leaned sideways and kissed him lightly. ‘I’ll have you know, however, that this is a very posh place. Only the best people come here.’
‘But of course,’ Lee said promptly. ‘One day when I’m dead they’ll put up a plaque. “Lee Willis drank here.”’
A small drifting shadow flitted across Sally’s mind, then was gone in a second as Lee pulled her to him and traced a finger down her cheek.
‘Remember that old inn where we stopped over last summer? The day we rode our bicycles out into the countryside and forgot to pick bluebells?’
‘Do you remember an inn, Miranda?’ Sally said softly.
‘Miranda?’
‘Poetry, love.’
‘Ah, poetry.’ Lee dismissed poetry with a shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘Now that old inn was how I see England. Places like that link this country to its past, all kinda interwoven. You’re going to miss that when you live over in Texas after the war.’
Sally shook her head, glanced over to the bar then swiftly back, feeling her face flame.
‘Oh, no!’ She twisted round in her seat. ‘Don’t look now, but that girl with the army officer – the girl on the high stool – that’s Christine Duckworth, I mean Myerscough. You know. Baby John’s mother. Oh, Lee, she’s the last person I wanted to see!’
‘Why?’ After a quick glance, Lee covered Sally’s hand with his own. ‘There’s no call to get upset, honey.’
‘I’m not upset. I’m embarrassed.’ Sally moved her hand away. ‘Surely you can see why? If anything happens now to make Christine change her mind, it will kill my mother. There’s nothing made properly legal yet. Oh, suppose she sees me and suddenly decides she wants the baby after all? She’s quite capable of doing that. You don’t know her.’
‘Oh, but I do honey. I met her once only briefly, but that was enough.’ A flicker of impatience showed in Lee’s blue eyes. ‘Stop looking so stricken, Sally. You were bound to meet her sometime some place. Anyway, she’s seen you and they’re coming over, so relax. Okay?’
Christine was transformed. With her figure back to normal, there was a radiance about her that slewed all eyes in her direction as she led the way to their table. She was wearing a scarlet woollen dress, princess style, with a fu
r coat swinging from her shoulders. Her hair was burnished to the exact shade of a copper warming pan, curving forward onto her carefully rouged cheeks. Green eyes shone with amusement as she smiled at Lee.
‘Well! If it isn’t the American! A bit dryer than the last time we met, n’est-ce-pas?’
The tall man following on behind, carrying their drinks, tripped over what could only have been the pattern in the carpet. ‘Whoops!’ Nigel beamed at his wife. ‘Sorry, darling, it’s all right, no damage done.’
Lee stood up, holding out his hand. ‘Nice to meet with you again, Christine.’ He turned to Nigel. ‘And this is …?’
‘My husband, Nigel.’ Christine made the introduction hurriedly before sitting down, choosing the seat next to Lee. She was smoking a cigarette, and before she spoke again she blew out a stream of smoke. ‘We’re off in the morning at first light. Down to Cornwall.’ She laughed loudly. ‘Nigel’s wangled enough petrol, thank God. I couldn’t face the train with everyone breathing up each other’s nostrils. Hell’s bloody bells, it would probably take us a week to get there.’
She drained her glass and set it down again. ‘What are you two drinking? Nigel, be a lamb and fill us up. And if the man says the gin’s off, tell him to squeeze the bottle. I’ll have it with limejuice this time.’
Sally watched Nigel weave a rather unsteady path towards the bar, then glanced at Christine’s flushed face. As if reading her thoughts, Christine said: ‘We polished off the best part of a bottle of Daddy’s whisky before we came out, but I prefer gin, it makes me feel amorous.’ The fur coat slid from her shoulders and, reaching over, Lee hung it round the back of her chair. ‘Sally,’ she said, ‘you look wonderful.’ She raised her eyebrows at the glass of beer. ‘Maybe beer does for you what gin does for me? Oh, my God, what a dump round here.’ She smiled brilliantly. ‘Made any good tanks lately, Sally?’
Leaning forward she moved a finger round the wing above Lee’s breast pocket. ‘Why don’t you marry her, Yank? Marry her and turn her into a camp follower like me?’ She fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Honestly, love, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.’ She turned to Nigel as he set the drinks down on the table. ‘We can recommend it, can’t we, darling?’
‘A great life if you don’t weaken,’ Nigel said promptly and everyone laughed.
After another round of drinks fetched by Lee, Sally felt her head begin to spin a little. Lee had been right. There’d been no call to get embarrassed. He was enjoying himself hugely, she could see that, and that was how she had wanted it to be for him. Just for this one weekend she had wanted him to forget about the war, and here he was throwing his head back and laughing as if he was coming apart at the seams, swapping jokes with Nigel, flirting mildly with Christine, and oh, dear God, how beautiful he was. Sally allowed herself a little private giggle.
Beautiful wasn’t an adjective applied to men, especially in the north, but her American was a beautiful beautiful man. He was like a young god with his bright gold hair and chiselled features. And if the truth were told she felt a bit immortal herself, all floaty, as if being deaf and unable to follow most of the conversation bandied about round the glass table was of no consequence whatsoever. If she missed what was said she merely nodded as if following every word. If the others laughed, then she laughed with them.
Nigel brought her a gin and lime and she drank it down feeling foolishly and wonderfully happy, as if her head was up in spinning clouds. Underneath the round glass table her feet did a little dance. Her grey eyes shone, and the colour in her cheeks deepened to a wild rose. The drabness of her days spent at the factory bench was replaced by a feeling of marvellous euphoria, and she leaned against Lee, giggling happily.
‘Surely you’ll be joining your own lot now we’re all fighting beneath the same banner?’ Christine asked Lee. ‘Surely for lots of reasons you’ll be doing that? Won’t it be obligatory?’ She struggled with the last word.
‘Nope.’ Lee shook his head. ‘There’s no law against me flying with the British and Commonwealth boys as yet. Besides it might put me back a bit.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘So no dice.’
Christine raised her glass. ‘Here’s to you then, Yank. One of the death and glory boys, is that the score?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Lee grinned. ‘Wizard show. You bet.’
They all laughed again, then Christine touched Lee’s cheek. Sally noticed that her finger-nails were varnished the exact shade of her copper-tinted lipstick, and that the diamond solitaire engagement ring flashed fire as it caught the light from the table lamp.
‘Where did you get that tan?’ Christine was asking. ‘How, when the rest of us look like mushrooms grown in the dark?’
‘From the same place I get these high cheekbones, ma’am,’ Lee drawled. ‘My hair and my eyes I get from my pa, but the rest of me comes from my maternal grandma, honey.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘She was a genuine Indian squaw, ma’am. So it’s not a tan, it’s for real. Okay?’
Sally felt the gin rippling about inside her, and with an effort controlled an undignified snort of laughter.
Christine’s eyes stretched wide. ‘Oh, my God! You mean a real Red Indian?’
Lee nodded with exaggerated gravity. ‘Yes, ma’am. The kind who fight with the cowboys at the movies. My ole grandpaw had more scalps to his credit than you’ve had …’ He frowned, trying to think of the correct phrase. ‘Than you’ve had hot dinners,’ he finished on a note of triumph.
‘You’re kidding?’ Christine turned to Nigel as he set a fresh round of drinks down on the table. ‘Did you hear that, darling? Lee here has Indian blood in his veins. Red Indian. You know, feathers and totem poles, not Khyber Pass Indian.’
‘Is that so, old man?’ Nigel sat down in his seat next to Sally. ‘How spot on. How absolutely spiffing.’
Nigel was nice, Sally decided. Very very drunk, but nice. Overcome by a feeling of unbounded affection, she smiled blearily at him. In a strange way Nigel reminded her of David Turner, so correct and polite, so much a product of his old-school-tie syndrome. Like David he wore good manners like a second skin. Her smile became even more sentimental. He wasn’t even slightly pompous. Sally’s eyes watered as she decided Nigel Myerscough had too much self-doubt for that. Enclosed in her familiar silent world of observation, Sally embraced Christine in her smile.
‘You have to look at Sally when you speak to her,’ Christine said suddenly. ‘Otherwise she can’t tell what you say, Nigel. She’s deaf,’ she mimed, pointing to her ears in an exaggerated way.
There was a startled silence. Sally saw the way Lee’s hand tightened on his glass and the way his eyes hardened. She felt Nigel’s hand on her arm and saw his face colour with embarrassment.
‘I’m frightfully sorry.’ His bush moustache quivered as he spoke. ‘How ghastly for you. You must be very good at … I didn’t realize.’ He stared at Sally with awe. ‘Then you must be the daughter of the woman who … Oh, good Lord!’
Lifting his glass he drained it quickly. ‘I really think we must go, Christine. I’m due back at 21.00 hours tomorrow and that means an early start.’ He hiccoughed, covering his mouth politely. ‘I’m a teeny bit tight, I’m afraid. I hope I haven’t made too much of an ass of myself? Last night of leave and all that.’ Holding onto the table for support he stood up, holding out a wavering hand to Lee. ‘Nice to have met you, old man.’
‘Oh, sit down, Nigel!’ Christine knocked his extended hand away. ‘The war isn’t going to come to a sudden stop just because you arrive back an hour or so later than your bloody 21.00 hours.’ She smiled a glittering smile at Lee. ‘I keep wondering who it is you remind me of.’
‘Errol Flynn,’ Lee said promptly. ‘Same again all round?’
‘I’ll come with you, old man.’ Weaving his way single-file behind Lee, Nigel stopped to turn round and wiggle a finger in his mouth at the girls.
‘The Indian war cry,’ Christine explained unnecessarily. ‘Why do grown men behave like schoolboys when they’re
tiddly?’ She lit a cigarette and waved it around. ‘I wish you could hear this lot in here. One would think they were celebrating the end of the war.’ She squinted at Sally through the upcurling smoke. ‘I suppose being deaf has its advantages? My head’s thumping as if someone was using it for a bloody tom-tom.’
Now they were alone Christine would ask about the baby, Sally told herself. She would want to know how he was and how much he weighed, and how he was taking his feeds. With a determined effort Sally tried to still her rising panic. It had been agreed that it might be better all round if Christine did not see him again, but now, fuddled with drink she might – she might even decide she had changed her mind! Sally sent up a fervent prayer.
‘Oh, my God!’ Christine swivelled round in her chair. ‘Look at Nigel! He’s just kissed that little Wren in passing and spilled his drink down her uniform! He’s making a good job of mopping her up, I must say, and that great hairy sailor she’s with isn’t exactly seeing the joke. Oh, my God, Nigel! Don’t make a meal of it!’
‘Cheers!’ they said when the drinks came.
‘That Wren had a pair of nice titties,’ Nigel said, and they all laughed again.
‘Jolly good show,’ Lee said. ‘Piece of cake! Whack-o!’
Sally put her glass down and stared in astonishment to find it mysteriously empty. Suddenly the danger had passed. Christine had never had any intention of mentioning the baby. In fact, she had probably forgotten she had ever had one. This seemed to be such a hilarious state of affairs to Sally that she shook her head to and fro in quiet amusement. Now she could enjoy herself again.