by Annie Groves
‘I’ve brought you here to Blackpool, haven’t I?’ Nick challenged her.
‘For all I know you could have a steady girl back home,’ Myra pointed out, ignoring his irritable challenge.
‘If I had then I wouldn’t be here with you, would I?’
‘Some men like to act like they’re free to make up to a girl when they aren’t. And, like I said, if you’d asked me to be your girl before you’d suggested we stay over then it might be different. After all, no girl wants to think of her chap going off to war without her having shown him how much he means to her, does she? Just like no chap who really cares about a girl would ask her to show him how much she cares if he wasn’t serious about them being together for always. I’m not saying that I agree with those couples who fall in love one night and rush out to get a special licence the next, but when there’s a war on, no one wants to wait for their happiness, just in case of what might happen.’
They had stopped dancing and it was obvious to Myra that Nick wasn’t very pleased about what she was saying but she was not going to give in. No way was she going to allow Nick to use her and then leave her. He needed to understand that she wanted to have a future with him; the future he could provide for her – in America. And if he refused to understand and accept that? A fierce surge of determination spiked through her. He must accept it. She could feel Nick watching her, waiting for her to succumb to his silent pressure and change her mind. She refused to look back at him whilst the tension between them stretched as tightly as her nerves. How much did Nick really want her? Enough to pursue her and go on pursuing her, giving her time to work on him to give her what she wanted, or was his desire for her not strong enough for that? If he did want her as much as she hoped then holding him off and making him wait could only work in her favour, she reasoned.
‘Listen, babe.’
The coaxing note in Nick’s voice told her all she needed to know. Very slowly Myra exhaled an unsteady breath.
‘You are my girl,’ Nick continued. ‘I was kinda taking that for granted, otherwise I would never have suggested what I did.’ He reached for her hand, sliding his fingers between her own, his voice soft and husky as he added, ‘I’ve been thinking about you and me being together all week, thinking about it…All I’m asking is that you let me show you how good we would be. Who knows how much time we’ll have together? I don’t want to waste a minute of it. We could be seeing action any time now. You don’t want to think of me dying without knowing the sweetness of being with you, do you, babe?’
Even if she hadn’t already experienced sex and known that for her it was simply a means to an end, nothing he was saying to her would have persuaded her to drop her guard, Myra decided. Instinctively she sensed that Nick was the kind of man who would use every ounce of charm and power of persuasion he had to get what he wanted but that, once he had it, it would lose its value. He would have to give her far more tangible evidence of his commitment to her before she gave in to him. He might have picked up her cue and said that she was his girl but she wanted more than easily retracted words.
‘We can’t stay over, Nick,’ she told him. ‘For one thing I’m on duty tomorrow, and for an other…well, I want to believe what you’re saying about me being your girl, but how do I know that you mean it? I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. But if I am going to be your girl, then we don’t need to rush, do we?’ Myra darted a quick look at him, wondering how far she dare go. There were plenty of other GIs around, she reminded herself practically, but since there was no saying when the war might end, it made no sense wasting time on one who wasn’t going to give her what she wanted so much. Her mind made up, she gave Nick a soulful look, reaching out to touch his arm as she said softly, ‘After all, when you take me back with you to America to meet your family, I don’t want them thinking that I’m not a respectable sort of girl.’
She could feel the tension gripping him. What was he thinking? Was she scaring him off by letting him see what she had in mind? It would be a pity if she had. Although she was reluctant to admit it, there was something about him that appealed to her, though she disliked the thought of being vulnerable to him through that feeling.
They had stopped dancing whilst they talked, too engrossed in what they were saying to leave the floor, and now the dance floor was filling up again with eager couples.
A group of young men and women, the boys in RAF uniform, were hurrying onto the floor, in a colourful surge of airforce-blue uniforms and party frocks. Engrossed in their own fun, they didn’t see Myra and Nick standing in the shadows with their backs to them until it was too late and one of the boys had bumped into Myra.
As she turned round he gave her an admiring look and invited, ‘Dance with me, lovely lady?’
‘Hey, buster, butt out. She’s with me,’ Nick told him furiously.
The young man laughed and turned his back on Nick, saying to Myra with a wink, ‘Ignore him and come and dance with me instead.’
Nick’s reaction was immediate. He swung round, grabbing the lapels of the young man’s uniform jacket and then lifted him clear off the ground before smashing him back against the pillar he himself had been leaning against while he and Myra talked.
‘That’s my girl you’re coming on to, buddy,’ Nick warned the young airman. Triumph surged through Myra. But then, as she saw the young man’s friends rushing towards Nick, the reality of what he was doing came home to her.
‘Nick, don’t. Leave him alone. Let’s go,’ she protested, but it was too late. The RAF men rushed at Nick, who immediately swung round, throwing a couple of ferocious low stomach punches, which caused the two men they connected with to double over.
Some of the girls that were with the airmen had started to scream, whilst others burst into noisy tears. Nearby dancers stopped to see what was going on. Three GIs came running over to join in the affray and within seconds a full-blown and sickeningly violent fight had broken out.
Myra had grown up witnessing physical violence. She had seen her father return home drunk from the pub and then lay into her mother; she had learned young to keep her distance from him when he was in a bad mood. Now, watching Nick, she did what she had always done as a child, which was to shut herself away from what was happening in a safe place deep inside herself, so that whilst physically she was present, emotionally and mentally she was not. Then someone blew a whistle, a shrill warning sound that jerked her out of her self-imposed trance.
‘Nick, stop it,’ she screamed, alerted to the potential danger to the future she wanted for herself. ‘The police will be coming…’
Like snow on a summer’s day those on the periphery of the fight melted away, leaving Nick and a couple of the RAF men. Nick’s fellow GIs were pulling him off the young man he had first attacked, and who was now on his knees beneath the blows Nick was raining down on him.
‘Are you with this guy?’ one of the GIs asked Myra tersely.
She nodded.
‘Well, you’d better get him back where he came from, because if the MPs get here and find out that he’s half killed that kid, he’s going to be in the slammer for the rest of the war.’
The other GIs finally succeeded in restraining Nick and dragging him away from the boy, whose face was now a pulped mess of bloody flesh.
‘Get the hell out of here whilst you still can, buddy,’ the biggest of them warned Nick, giving him a push in Myra’s direction.
Grabbing hold of his arm, Myra tugged him in the direction of the exit, only too glad to have the silent watchful escort of the pair of GIs alongside them as they made their way towards it.
‘Think he’ll be OK, Tex?’ one of the GIs asked when they had finally reached the parked Jeep.
‘Sure,’ Tex responded laconically, ‘but I ain’t so sure about the poor bastard he was beating up.’
Nick wasn’t saying anything, and he wasn’t looking at any of them either. He swung himself into the driving seat of the Jeep, leaving Myra to struggle into the passenger
seat as best she could.
The GI named Tex was huge – tall and broad-shouldered, with close-cropped fair hair and a slow drawl of an accent she could hardly understand because of the cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth.
‘Where you from, buster?’ he asked Nick.
‘New York – not that it’s any of your business.’
‘When I see a GI beating up some kid still wet behind the ears, I kinda make it my business, buddy. Where I come from we don’t do that to kids.’
Myra tensed as she saw the feral glint in Nick’s eyes.
‘He was coming on to my girl, and where I come from we don’t forget an insult – not ever,’ Nick told him through gritted teeth. ‘And we repay it with a bullet and a block of concrete.’
Through the open window of the Jeep Myra could hear one of the other waiting GIs saying under his breath, ‘Let’s get out of here. This guy’s connected. Mafiosa,’ he explained to his companion meaningfully, whilst Myra frowned, not understanding what was going on.
The tall fair-haired GI stepped back from the driver’s window as Nick started the engine and put the Jeep in gear.
The protective bubble Myra had created around herself earlier had gone, leaving feelings of nausea and fear she would once have connected with her own father. But her father was dead, and she was with Nick. Nick, who was going to make her his girl, his wife, and take her to America.
She made to snuggle closer to him, but he shook her off, telling her curtly, ‘Stupid bitch, that was your fault, winding me up and then dropping me flat. And as for that Texan asshole…’ Nick spat out of the window of the Jeep.
Myra shrank down in her seat, her stomach churning with a mix of dread and angry resentment. But she couldn’t afford to be angry with Nick, she reminded herself, comforting herself with the assurance that things would be different once they were married and the war was over and they were living in America.
‘Ruthie, love, I’m that sorry,’ Mrs Brown apologised as she puffed her way up to where Ruthie was trying gently to coax her mother home. ‘I dunno how she managed to slip away wi’out me seeing her. One minute she was there and then the next minute she’d gone! Given me ever such a bad turn, she has.’ Their neighbour’s kind face was flushed and anxious, and despite her own misery and embarrassment Ruthie hurried to reassure her.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Brown. It isn’t your fault. There’s no way of stopping her when she gets her mind fixed on going looking for my dad.’
‘Well, that’s true enough. Like I said, though, I dunno what sparked her off. Nodding off in her chair, she was, and so I thought I’d just nip to the lavvy and then when I got back—’ She broke off and stared down the dark street.
‘Where’s that handsome young fella I saw you with when I come out of the door?’
‘He had to get back to his camp.’ Ruthie was astonished at how easily the lie slipped from her lips.
‘Well, at least he saw yer home first,’ Mrs Brown commented comfortingly. ‘Pity he couldn’t come in and mek himself known to me and Mr Brown, though, proper, like.’
‘There’s no reason for him to have to do that,’ Ruthie told her with forced dignity. How it hurt her to say those words after the joy she had known so intensely and so very briefly earlier. Tears pricked at her eyes. Had it been seeing her mother that had scared him off or had he just been heartlessly flirting with her without meaning a word of what he was saying all along?
‘Well, I know that it’s none of our business, Ruthie,’ Mrs Brown was saying, ‘but I wouldn’t feel right in me mind if me and Mr Brown hadn’t acted like we know your dad would have acted himself if he’d been here. Stands to reason that your dad would have expected us to look out for you and your mam, us being close neighbours all these years. Yes, that’s it, Mrs Philpott dearie,’ she coaxed Ruthie’s mother sturdily. ‘Soon have you home now, love. My, but you give me a shock. Shivering, she is now, an’ all, Ruthie. I’ll mek up a couple of hot-water bottles for you to put in her bed. That’ll help tek the chill off of her a bit. So you had a good time at the Grafton, did you?’
‘It was very nice,’ Ruthie said quietly. She could feel the pain burning its way right through her poor breaking heart. But she couldn’t really blame Glen, could she? Even if he had fallen for her like he had said, she couldn’t expect him to understand how it was with her mother. Perhaps what had happened was for the best. Now, more than ever, she realised she would never be able to leave her mother to live on her own without her.
Nick hadn’t spoken one word to Myra since they had left Blackpool, and now they were back home. What was Nick thinking? It was all very well for him to blame her for what had happened but it hadn’t been her fault, she assured herself virtuously.
A part of her quite liked knowing that he was so mad for her, and it was that that she intended to focus on and not that sickening feeling that had gripped her stomach, or the childhood memories that had gone with it. In fact, knowing that he was mad for her had done wonders for her confidence in her ability to get what she wanted from him. And she certainly wasn’t going to have him thinking that she intended to let him get away with speaking to her the way he had. No, not for a minute she wasn’t. Fighting was one thing but speaking to her like that…
Myra had perfected the art of the sulk long ago, and she used it to good effect now, matching Nick’s silence with her own, refusing to turn her head to look at him. The minute he turned into Lime Street and brought the Jeep to a halt, without giving him the chance to say anything, she opened the door and jumped out. Although it was nearly two o’clock in the morning the station was still busy with people coming and going. Myra took a deep breath and then started to walk away from the Jeep – and Nick – without looking back. Let him drive off in a sulk, as she knew he would; he would soon come round once he realised what he was about to lose.
Confidently she set off to walk back to her digs.
She had got as far as the end of the street and had just turned the corner into unwelcome darkness when she heard the sound of the Jeep being driven slowly behind her. All at once her confidence deserted her. Fear filled its place. She desperately wanted to run but she refused to let herself, despite the images now flooding her mind: Nick hitting the defenceless young man; her father laying into her mother as she curled up in a corner trying to protect herself. The entrance to a narrow passageway loomed alongside her. Quickly she turned into it. It was too narrow for the Jeep, and darkly shadowed by its buildings, except for the gap midway down where a bomb had hit two of the houses.
She couldn’t hear the Jeep any more. She started to relax and then stiffened as she heard the sharp slam of its door and then the sound of footsteps following her.
Now she really did want to run but before she could do so, Nick had reached her, his hand on her shoulder, spinning her round.
‘No dame ever walks out on me,’ he told her furiously, giving her a fierce shake. ‘And if you’re going to be my girl you’d better understand that.’ He pulled her into his arms and kissed her angrily, forcing her lips apart and grinding his mouth down on hers whilst she stood unresistingly in the darkness, feeling the heavy pounding of his heartbeat against her own body. It felt like a lifetime before he stopped kissing her.
‘I’ll pick you up at the station Tuesday evening. We’ll have dinner.’
It wasn’t a request, Myra recognised, it was a command.
‘No guy cuts me out with my girl and gets away with it,’ he told her, and then added, ‘and no girl of mine gives out to another guy if she knows what’s good for her – capisci?’
Myra nodded, too weakened by her own overwhelming relief to be able to speak. He wasn’t going to hurt her – hit her – after all. And in fact he was offering her what she had wanted.
‘I guess what happened back there in Blackpool kinda scared you, did it?’
His words caught Myra off guard. She hadn’t expected him to speak openly about what he had done. Her father certainly would
not have done. He had liked to pretend that nothing had happened. There was a certain sense of extra relief in being able to tell herself that Nick wasn’t like her father.
‘Well, it was all down to you, sweet stuff. Because, you see, I’m a jealous kinda guy, Myra, and I don’t like to see another guy looking at my girl and having her look back at him, especially when she’s just made me as mad as hell and as wrought up as an angry bull.’
Her relief made her smile up at Nick and then smile again when he squeezed her hand. A heady sense of power filled her.
‘See ya Tuesday, honey bun,’ he told her, after they had walked back to the Jeep. ‘And remember, keep away from those other guys, if you don’t want to make me mad again. You’re my girl now.’
Diane sat up in bed as Myra opened the bedroom door. She had woken up when she had heard the other girl come in.
‘You’re late,’ she told her tiredly.
Myra gave a dismissive shrug. ‘So what if I am? It’s no one’s business but mine.’
‘Yours and your husband’s,’ Diane corrected her. ‘He was round here earlier. He’s on a forty-eight-hour-leave pass and he came here looking for you.’
Jim was home? Myra sat down abruptly on her own bed. ‘What did you tell him?’ she demanded sharply.
‘I said that I thought you’d gone to Blackpool with some friends and that you might be staying over,’ Diane informed her evenly. It confirmed everything she already thought about Myra when she didn’t bother to thank her for covering up for her.
Instead she asked, ‘So where is he now?’ ‘Down the road at number forty-five.’ ‘What? What’s he doing there? Whose idea was that?’
‘Not mine,’ Diane replied. ‘Mrs L came in whilst he was here and she suggested it.’
Myra thought quickly. The last thing she needed right now was a husband, but at least he was only on a forty-eight-hour pass. It was a pity that their interfering busybody landlady had taken it upon herself to get him a bed so close by. That meant she had no excuse for pretending she couldn’t get to see him.