by Annie Groves
‘There’s no need to hold me as though you think I’m going to break, you know,’ she told him.
‘No, ma’am,’ Walter apologised earnestly.
‘Walter, there’s no need to call me “ma’am”, either,’ Jess reminded him. ‘I thought we’d agreed on that.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Jess burst out laughing. She felt so sorry for Walter. It was so unfair that the other GIs, apart from Glen, whom anyone could see was a real softie, didn’t seem to include him in their conversation or treat him as one of their group. Walter’s plight aroused all her protective instincts and she was determined to show him that British women knew how to treat the men who were risking their lives on their behalf.
‘Hello there, Carrot Top.’
Jess gave an indignant glower in the direction of the familiar voice. ‘Billy Spencer, how often have I told you not to call me that?’ she told him as he steered his own partner close enough to her and Walter to grin down at her. Billy was equally as tall and broad-shouldered as Walter, and it was plain from the look on her face that the girl who was dancing with him was more than happy to be in his arms. Talk about looking like the cat that had got the cream, Jess thought irately.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’ he asked, ignoring her rebuke.
Walter was giving Billy a hesitant, wary look that caught at Jess’s tender heart. Poor Walter, why should he look as though he had done something wrong when if anyone was at fault it was Billy for butting in like he had?
‘Why should I do that—’ she began.
But Billy was speaking as well, drowning out her question as he announced firmly to Walter, ‘Sorry to barge in, only I promised her dad I’d look out for her. She doesn’t mean any harm, but what with her being a bit flirty, like, some lads can get the wrong impression. Not that you’re one of that sort. I can see that.’ Releasing his partner, Billy extended his hand to shake Walter’s, causing Walter to release Jess. As he did so, his wallet slipped from his pocket, but it was Billy who retrieved it from the floor, where it had landed, closing it and handing it back to him.
By this stage Jess was almost hopping up and down with fury. If she and Billy had been on their own she’d have given him a piece of her mind and no mistake but they weren’t, and what with Walter looking all-self conscious, and Billy’s dance partner throwing daggers at her, she had no choice but to content herself with a murderous look in Billy’s direction and a warning.
‘You know, Billy, I could swear that nose of yours is getting longer by the minute.’
‘Don’t mind her,’ Billy told Walter with a smile. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to get her out of some trouble or other. Grown up together, we have, and she’s like a sister to me.’
‘Don’t pay any attention to him, Walter,’ Jess warned her partner angrily, forgetting her decision not to react. ‘He’s off his head and talking rubbish. And if he was my brother, I’d have asked me mam and dad to drown him long before now.’
‘She loves me really,’ Billy told Walter genially, going on to ask, ‘Walking her home, are you, only if you are we might as well walk back together?’
‘Well, I—’ Walter began uncomfortably but Jess’s blood was up now.
No way was she going to have Billy thinking she didn’t have a chap to walk her home when he was with someone, so standing in front of him with her hands on her hips she announced fiercely, ‘Yes, he is walking me home and we won’t be walking along with you.’
‘It’s your choice but don’t forget what happened to you the Christmas you were fourteen and you refused to let me see you home safely.’
Jess stared at him blankly. ‘Nothing happened the Christmas I was fourteen.’
‘You see,’ Billy appealed to Walter. He reached up and patted Jess on the head. ‘I’m sorry I brought it up. I should have realised that you wouldn’t want to talk about it.’
‘Talk about what? There is not anything to talk about.’ Jess was almost yelling, she was so furious. What on earth did Billy think he was doing? Couldn’t he see that he was scaring Walter half to death? The poor boy now looked as though the last thing he wanted to do was walk her home, and who could blame him?
‘Where are you sitting?’ Billy asked casually. ‘Only we might as well come and join you.’
‘No!’ Jess burst out, thinking angrily, over my dead body, but it was no use, Billy was already sweeping them all off the dance floor and heading for the table where Ruthie and Glen were sitting holding hands, looking like a pair of wide-eyed kittens and oblivious to everything and everyone else.
‘Jeez, I thought this tower was supposed to be high?’
‘It is,’ Myra confirmed
She and Nick were standing on the pavement looking up at Blackpool Tower. A crowd of RAF men hurried past them, causing Nick to reach out and put a possessive arm around Myra’s shoulder. She smiled secretly to herself. It wouldn’t do him any harm to recognise that other men found her attractive.
‘Well, the Empire State Building sure ain’t got anything to worry about if this is what you call high,’ Nick boasted.
‘Tell me more about New York,’ Myra begged him. ‘I’d love to go there.’
‘Everyone wants to go there, sugar.’ Nick was eyeing a gang of young men pushing their way through the crowd gathering outside the Tower. Heads down, and their hands in their pockets, their swarthy complexions marked them out as being different.
‘They’ll be from the gypsy families who run the fairgrounds,’ Myra told him, sensing his interest.
‘They look like hoods,’ Nick told her as he chewed on his gum.
‘Hoods?’
‘Yeah, hoods, gangsters, the men who run the real show behind the men who like to think they’re running the show.’
Myra looked uncertainly at the group slouching down the road. She would never have thought of them in that light, seeing them instead as outsiders, which in turn led to her feeling angered by them and her own feelings of reluctant pity for them.
‘Come on, let’s go inside,’ she urged him.
They had arrived just over an hour ago and had walked along the front, arm in arm, buffeted by the wind before queuing to eat a fish-and-chip supper.
‘Where’s the steak?’ Nick had demanded irritably when the waiter had shown him the menu. Whilst the waiter had been explaining that there was no steak, the RAF men at the next table had looked over at them a bit grimly but Myra had affected not to notice.
‘What the hell is this?’ Nick had demanded in a loud voice when their fish and chips had eventually arrived, adding, ‘Jeez, I wouldn’t give this to my worst enemy.’
‘It’s because of the shortages,’ Myra had had to explain, although personally she had thought that their fish and chips were tasty and had felt that they were a bit of a treat. Perhaps they didn’t eat fish and chips in New York, she had thought, acknowledging that she certainly couldn’t remember ever seeing any of her favourite actresses doing so. Well, in future she wouldn’t eat them either, she had decided. Not if it wasn’t the ‘done thing’ to eat them in America.
It would be exaggerating to say that Nick’s reaction had scared her, but it had left her feeling on edge. Only because she so desperately wanted him to fall for her and take her back to America with him, she had assured herself.
The Tower Ballroom seemed enormous after the Grafton, all decorated with Stars and Stripes in honour of the Fourth of July, and Myra could not help but be impressed by its décor and the famous Wurlitzer organ, although she was disappointed to learn that Reginald Dixon, the famous organ player, wasn’t going to be there, because he’d joined the RAF.
‘Well, this certainly beats the Grafton hands down,’ Myra enthused. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked uncertainly when she saw the contemptuous glance Nick flicked round the room.
‘Nothing, sweet stuff. If you like it, then that’s fine.’
‘But you don’t like it, do you?’ Mrya persisted.
‘Well, it ain’t exactly Times Square.’
‘Times Square? Why? What’s that like?’
‘It’s the heart of New York, the city that never sleeps. Me and the guys used to go up from the Bronx to have some fun there. There’s this diner where you can get the best pastrami on rye…’
The animation that had glowed from his face left it as he shook his head. ‘They’ll be having Fourth of July parades there like you just can’t imagine. The whole city will be celebrating Independence Day with everyone having themselves a good time. Come on,’ he demanded reaching for Myra’s hand, ‘let’s go dance.’
He was an excellent dancer, light on his feet but powerful enough to guide her, and Myra could see the looks they were attracting from other dancers. They could tell that she and Nick were different; and that they belonged somewhere better than this, Myra decided, quickly losing herself in a wonderful daydream in which the war was over and she and Nick were paying a sentimental visit back here before leaving for New York and the Bronx, wherever that was. Myra pictured it as somewhere breathtakingly wonderful, peopled by men and women who all looked like film stars, and where everyone had more money than they knew what to do with.
‘What do you say we turn tonight into something special?’ Nick murmured in her ear, causing Myra’s heart to turn over with excitement and triumph.
Things were working out just as she had hoped. Nick was falling for her. They hadn’t known one another long but everyone knew how quickly people fell in love in wartime You could see it everywhere; no one wanted to delay or wait just in case…
‘What kind of special?’ she demanded breathlessly. What was he going to suggest? If he proposed to her then she was going to accept, she decided fiercely, husband or no husband. She’d worry about getting her divorce later.
‘Well…’ Nick whirled her round so fast that she had to cling to him.
‘Yes?’ Myra pressed him impatiently, clutching at the sleeve of his jacket.
‘Well…how about instead of going back tonight we find somewhere to stay…somewhere where we can be together…?’
‘You really don’t have to do this, you know. I mean, I don’t want to take you out of your way, or—’
‘I’m walking you home and that’s for sure. You’re my girl now, Ruthie.’ Glen lifted her hand, clasped tight within his own. He had such strong capable hands, with square fingers and nice clean nails, working man’s hands, but the hand of a working man who took a pride in himself. The kind of man her dad would have approved of.
Tears pricked at Ruthie’s eyes as she remembered the way her dad used to scrub his hands under the kitchen tap when he’d come in from his work at the grid iron railway yard. He’d been promoted to foreman at the beginning of the war – on account of so many of the young men going off to fight, he had always said modestly, but Ruthie and her mother had known differently and had shared their delight in this official recognition of his capacity for hard work.
‘Hey, what’s this?’
‘Nothing,’ Ruthie choked back her tears when she saw the concern in Glen’s eyes. ‘I was just thinking about my dad.’
‘I sure would have liked to have met him, to thank him for producing such a lovely daughter. But at least I’ll get to meet your mom so that I can ask her permission properly to date you.’
Ruthie shivered slightly. She hadn’t told Glen anything about her home life other than that her father had been killed in the blitz.
‘Now I’ve got even more reason to win this war,’ he had told her fiercely.
She looked across the table to where Jess was sitting close to Walter, whilst the handsome man she had introduced as Billy was sitting on her other side. The girl who had originally been with him seemed to have disappeared. Did Jess realise how hungrily Billy looked at her when he thought no one else was looking? Ruthie could see that Jess seemed very taken with Walter, but Glen had already told her, stumbling uncertainly over the words, how difficult it would be for them to ‘date’.
‘Are you two ready to leave?’ Jess asked now, leaning across the table towards them. ‘Only Walter says that their transport is coming to pick them up at one o’clock and if he and Glen are going to walk us home and get back for it, we need to go soon.’
‘Glen, there’s no need for you to walk back with me,’ Ruthie began. ‘Not if—’
‘It’s only right and proper that I see you home safely. Sides,’ he admitted softly, ‘I want to see where you live so that I can picture you there when I’m back at camp. It will make me feel closer to you. Then next time I can come and collect you so that I can introduce myself to your mom and get her permission to date you. We know you do things differently over here on account of these books they gave us to read, coming over,’ he told her earnestly.
‘What books?’ Jess demanded curiously.
‘Well, there were these little books,’ Glen explained, suddenly looking bashful, the tips of his ears glowing bright red as Ruthie had already grown to expect when he was embarrassed. ‘They said how we were to remember that the British do things different from us and that we weren’t to grab hold of folk or shake them by the hand unless they shook ours first. There was lots about rationing and how when we went visiting we should remember this and take something with us if we’d been asked to stay to eat. Just stuff like that.’
‘Nothing about British girls, then?’ Jess asked innocently.
‘No…’ Glen’s ears had gone even redder.
‘I think we’d better let the girls have the dope,’ Walter told him uncomfortably.
‘Well, OK then, there was a bit…’
‘Saying what?’
The two men exchanged looks.
‘Oh, nothing much, just a reminder to those of us who had girls and wives back home to remember where our loyalties are, you know that kind of thing.’
‘You mean you’re not supposed to get involved with us?’ Jess guessed.
‘Stop giving the poor chap a hard time, Jess,’ Billy intervened. ‘Of course they’ve been warned to watch it. The USA forces will have heard all about girls like you. And as for them that’s got a girl at home…’ Billy was looking at her, Jess knew, but she refused to return his look. Why should she? Besides, he couldn’t know about Walter’s girl, and even if he did she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Far from it.
Ruthie knew they were all only joking but she was feeling more worried by the moment. What if by falling in love with Glen and letting him talk to her as she had she was getting him into trouble?
She looked uncertainly at him, and as though he had read her mind he told her firmly, ‘There’s no rules that say anything about a guy falling for a girl if he’s free to do so.’
‘Well, there’s already been a lot of talk about some GIs making out that they are when they aren’t, if you know what I mean,’ Jess told him forthrightly. ‘A shocking thing to do a girl, that is: lead her on and then leave her to find out that she’s been told a pack of lies. Not that it takes an American GI to lie to a girl,’ she added darkly, looking at Billy. Let him see how he liked being ‘looked at’, she decided firmly.
TWELVE
‘You’re going to love Iowa, Ruthie, and my folks are going to love you. I can’t wait for them to meet you.’
They had left the others now to continue their walk back to Ruthie’s alone. It was a clear balmy night, the ack-ack guns silent, and the sky filled only with stars and a soft moon.
‘You know, I think I could get to like this blackout of yours,’ Glen chuckled as he drew Ruthie into the shadows.
She was so nervous. She had never done anything like this before nor even imagined that she ever might. What if they bumped noses or she did something wrong? She felt Glen’s lips touch her own and she drew in a sharp breath.
The kiss they shared was slightly clumsy but totally satisfying, filling Ruthie’s heart so brimful of joy that she could feel it spilling over inside her. When Glen took her back in his arms, she lifted her face to his this se
cond time with shy eagerness. It was quite amazing how quickly a person could get used to this kissing business, Ruthie decided happily as she hugged Glen back as tightly as he was holding her.
‘Come on, I’d better get you home before I take you back to camp with me and ask the padre to marry us straight away.’
Ruthie was still laughing as they turned the corner into the Close, but her laughter stopped when she saw the figure standing desolately in the middle of the road, wearing a dressing gown, her feet bare. She was looking vacantly around herself.
‘Say, what’s this?’ Glen queried in concern. ‘She looks—’
‘It’s my mother,’ Ruthie interrupted him quickly not wanting to hear him say what she knew he was going to say. Shame and guilt brought an ache of misery to the back of her throat. Why had this had to happen tonight of all nights?
‘Your mom?’ She could hear the shock in Glen’s voice but what else was there with it? Disgust? Horror? Was he regretting saying what he had said to her now?
‘She does this sometimes,’ she told him with quiet dignity. ‘She hasn’t been herself since my father died. And…and sometimes she…she forgets what happened and she goes out looking for him.’ Tears were pricking the backs of her eyes. ‘I must go to her,’ she said, stepping back from him and hurrying into the Close without looking to see if he was standing watching her or if he had turned his back on her and was walking away.
* * *
Myra looked at Nick without saying anything. She wasn’t naïve. She knew exactly what he was suggesting. She also knew that the answer she gave could change her whole life.
‘We can’t do that,’ she told him. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’ She could see the angry impatience in his eyes and added coyly, ‘It would be different if we were going steady, and you’d said that you wanted me to be your girl.’