‘Wha…’ I started, thoroughly embarrassed by my mode of stranger greeting.
He raised his head and for the first time I understood the phrase ‘twinkling eyes’ I so often read in novels. His eyes positively sparkled with amusement, the skin at the sides crinkling a little while his firm, even lips quivered as he fought to imbue the occasion with some element of dignity. In that split second as I thought, he’s nice-looking and why have I never seen him before and what sort of idiot does he think I am?, I also realised that he was not laughing at my expense, but, in returning my dramatic greeting with a theatrical one of his own, was sharing a joke with me and making me immediately feel at ease as if we were long-time friends. So, rather than retreat to a hole in the ground to swallow me up, I turned my hand in his and shook his firmly, as if my doorstep greeting was the most normal greeting in the world.
‘Hello, I’m Patricia Roberts. Everyone calls me Pat,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he answered.
I was nonplussed. ‘How do you know? Am I the only girl expected at this gathering?’
‘I’ve seen your photograph,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ I said, feeling wrong-footed again. ‘Photograph?’ I repeated a little faintly. Bill’s small album, like mine, included one of him and me standing with arms round each other aged about ten. Surely I’m not recognisable from that? I suddenly understood. The photograph. I just hoped it was the distance gazing photograph and not the fly catching one.
The young man smiled and I thought, my God, not only is he even more handsome when he smiles, he’s got dimples. He must have a string of girlfriends already. I brought myself up short. String of girlfriends? Already?! Whatever are you thinking?! I inwardly shrieked. Stop it at once!
Sweeping a second low bow, he offered, ‘Jonathan Dorringham at your service, ma’am. Everyone calls me Jon.’
The afternoon passed in a daze. I felt I was a split personality. Outwardly calm, poised, sociable and politely conversational, my pulse raced and I felt a desperate urge to run wildly around whooping loudly. Thrills coursing through me when Jon spoke, acutely aware of his proximity. Quite how he came to be sitting beside me I didn’t remember. The pale mid-April sunshine illuminating a corner of the garden made everything seem bright and polished. We played charades and I found myself paired with Jon as we played in three teams of two, Bill pairing up with his cousin’s friend Mary, a vivacious brunette with a ready laugh, and Bill’s willowy cousin Helen, a mop of curly black hair, partnering Edward, himself tall, dark and slender, a mutual friend of Bill and Jon’s from their school days. Later, as the evening shades deepened, distances in the blackout were compared and Edward gallantly offered to ensure Mary and Helen’s safe return to Helen’s home just off Clapham Common Southside where Mary was to stay the night.
‘I’ll walk you home, Pat,’ said Bill.
‘Brixton Water Lane?’ queried Jon. ‘I’ve an aunt lives Tulse Hill way and my mother would be pleased if I call in to check on her while I’m over in this neck of the woods. I might as well go via Water Lane, in fact it’ll cut the corner off for me. If there’s an air raid I can shelter for the night with my aunt’s family.’
Although there had been a lull in air raids since 20th March, the threat hastened our departure.
Jon and I stepped out into the chill early spring evening, weaving our way through the back streets laughing and chatting as if we had known each other for ever. As we neared the front door I slowed, panic rising.
‘How far up Tulse Hill is your aunt? Would you have time to stop for refreshment?’ I asked a little breathlessly, wondering at my own daring.
‘Chatsworth Way. And I’d be delighted to accept.’
I frowned. ‘I don’t know a Chatsworth Way at Tulse Hill. There’s one at West Norwood, where we lived a few months last year…’ My voice tailed off as I caught his wide grin.
‘West Norwood.’ Jon nodded.
‘Goodness, I must have walked past her place many times last year and not known of a connection with you. What a small world.’
Jon followed me upstairs and I introduced my gallant escort to my parents. He shook their hands, exchanging pleasantries and within a few minutes conversing as if he had known them for years. I studied him surreptitiously, marvelling at social skills exceptional for a young man of barely seventeen. He even charmed Booty, casually lifting and stroking him, and allowing a forefinger to be batted and nuzzled and chased around his lap. When he rose, apologising for the interruption to their evening and indicating the twilight gloom, my mother gushed, ‘You’d be most welcome to call in any time you’re passing on your way to your aunt’s,’ and my father shook his hand firmly and said, ‘Nice to meet you young man, call again.’
I took Jon downstairs and we stood a moment on the pavement, he seeming as hesitant as me to bring the evening to a close. I can’t bear to not know when I’ll see him again.
‘Do you like walking?’ Jon asked. ‘With the recent lull in the bombing I thought I’d take the opportunity to go over to the City on Monday to see how it’s surviving.’
‘I’ve been thinking the same myself,’ I lied. As the corner of his mouth twitched, I added truthfully, ‘I’d be pleased to join you.’
‘Shall I call for you eleven-ish?’
I nodded as he stepped back. My disappointment that he was not stepping forward to embrace me was immense. Whatever are you thinking, you flibbertigibbet!
With a conspiratorial smile, Jon swept me a low, theatrical bow, and, taking my hand, brushing my fingers with his lips, he turned, disappearing along the road with a wave, and it was only as I mounted the stairs that I thought, he went back the way we came. Does he even have an Aunt in West Norwood?
That night I lay awake enjoying Booty’s scrabbling antics before he settled, stroking him as he stretched out on my bed. ‘Well, well, little Boots. What a turn up for the books. I’m going to let you into a secret.’ Whispering now, I added, ‘I think I’ve fallen in love.’ A faint echo, ‘I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you at my feet and picked you up off the floor.’ And I suddenly and piercingly understood.
Easter Monday dawned bright and sunny. Jon and I took the tube to Tower Hill, emerging to the warmth and light like flowers opening to the dawn. He was lively and serious at the same time, full of amusing anecdotes yet ready with a moral punchline, laughingly recounting slapstick tales from his trip to France with the cadet forces in 1938, while respectfully and concernedly telling me of an older cousin trapped with the retreating forces in 1940 and now in a prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in the depths of the Sudetenland countryside. He made no demands of me, yet drew out of me memories of childhood I had thought well buried and he seemed as equally fascinated by me as I was of him.
We wandered the ruined churches, offices, warehouses and homes and sometimes Jon paused, looking down on a rubble-strewn crater, standing to respectful attention, honouring the strangers who had died there.
Two days later the bombers returned to London with a vengeance. Sirens sounded shortly before nine o’clock and my mother and I retreated to the garden shelter with our neighbours, all squashed in together. This time Booty was older and wiser than the little inquisitive and excitable kitten of Christmas time, staying in his box, jumpy over the bangs peppering the long night till shortly before dawn.
Jon cycled round to us after work late the following afternoon to check we had survived the previous night. My mother, preening at his concern, invited him to stay for supper, but he said,
‘That’s very kind of you but I should be going back. My mother’ll worry and I don’t think last night was a one-off. I think they’ll be back.’
Jon was right. The remainder of my Easter holiday nights were spent in the garden shelter and I longed for a whole night in bed. As we stumbled out to the sound of the All Clear and the chill of the early mornings I found myself longing for the comfort and relative safety of my billet.
11
Jon
&nbs
p; ‘That Jon of yours has a lot of aunts dotted around South London,’ said Mummy the second Friday of May, scraping carrots for dinner. Divesting myself of my bag and jacket, I moved into the little kitchen to join her. It was my first weekend home since the Easter holidays.
‘Really?’ I said as casually as I could, my heart suddenly racing.
‘Oh, yes, he’s been calling in here regularly these past three weeks on his way to see them, or on his way back,’ said Mummy, looking over her shoulder to me with a tilt to her head and amused creases around her eyes.
‘He’s not my Jon, you know,’ I said, colouring under her scrutiny.
‘He’s very solicitous about my welfare and has had a good natter or two with your father about cricket and suchlike. But I’m not convinced we’re the main attraction.’
Grabbing the potato peeler and busying myself at the sink, I said,
‘I’ve had a letter from Becky. We’re going to try to meet up tomorrow in town.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ said my mother. ‘That boy’s sweet on you.’
‘Mummy, he’s said nothing to me and, besides, I don’t want a young man. I’ve got all my studying and then teacher training to do.’
‘Of course he’s said nothing to you yet, he’s not seen you since Easter. Still, you’ll have a chance to catch up this evening.’
‘What?’
‘He should be here fairly soon.’
Lighting the gas, my mother set two saucepans of water and dropped the chopped carrots into one.
Speechless, my task completed, I picked up Booty scrabbling around my feet and carried him and my case up to my room. Shutting the door, dropping the case, setting Booty on my chair and perching on the edge of the bed, I demanded, ‘Now, young man, tell me what’s been going on in my absence. Have you been sucking up to this Jon? Eh? Making a fuss of him and telling him all my secrets?’
Booty, meowing, stretched and leapt onto my lap.
‘No? Well, I jolly well hope not!’
Jon, seated across from me at the dinner table, was charm personified. He got my father reminiscing about his naval days and my mother advising the intricacies of poor man’s goose (‘My uncle’s a chef at the Carlton,’ said Jon, ‘and he’s always on the lookout for something different’) and when my father, leaving for work, offered to walk part way with him in the direction of his West Norwood aunt, Jon declared it a splendid idea. He turned to me.
‘Tomorrow? Another walk round the City, or shall we go to a park?’
‘I’m meeting my friend Becky at the Nash Gal. There’s another War Artists exhibition. I saw last summer’s and it was so moving I suggested to Becky we could see this year’s.’ Angry at Jon’s arrogance in making assumptions, desperately wishing we could spend the day together.
‘What time will you be back? I could call in then.’
Admiring his persistence, I suggested half past five-ish.
‘What a lovely young man,’ said my mother as the fading sound of Jon and my father walking and talking along the street drifted in through the open window.
Becky was waiting for me on the steps of the National Gallery the next morning and, hugging and exclaiming at how terribly long it had been since we’d seen each other, we dived inside to avoid a sudden shower. The War Artists’ exhibition of 1941 had just opened, and we wandered the exhibition galleries.
I suggested that we find out about summer concerts.
‘Do you remember that dreadful man swearing about Germans and Italians?’ said Becky.
‘I do,’ I said, laughing. ‘I was surprised they didn’t ask him to leave.’
Deep down I doubted that we would recreate any more such schoolgirl outings after today. Already I was aware of time passing and the journeys we were making in different directions. Becky seemed much older and more serious. Without her father’s radical views, her mother was leaning towards more traditional Jewish practices and Becky said, ‘Reuben’s family’s more traditional, too. I don’t mind really. I don’t suppose it was very bad of me to have eaten pork but on the whole it’s easier to conform anyway. Today’s probably my last out and out rebellion.’
‘Oh, Becky, the Sabbath!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry, I forgot. It’s good of you to meet me today.’
Becky smiled wryly. ‘Well, I can’t say anyone at home was too happy but I so wanted to see you. It’s been so long since we met up.’ Becky hesitated. ‘The wedding plans are going ahead for the first Sunday after my eighteenth birthday. Pat, I hope you won’t be very offended not to get an invitation. I’ve told my mother that I want you to come but she’s in charge of the guest list and…’
‘Becky, please don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t be offended. Honestly, I wish you well…’
‘But the subject of weddings isn’t exactly top of your agenda after last year?’
I looked around, memories echoing, and, perhaps sensing my dipping mood, Becky suggested moving off up Charing Cross Road to drop into a café for a light lunch followed by a browse in Foyles as she had a couple of books to order.
‘And while we’re eating you can tell me all about him.’
‘Him?’
‘Pat, you’ve got a look about you. I saw it last summer when you called in to see me after my father’s funeral and now you’ve got it again. Who is he?’
‘Just a friend of a friend.’
The friend of a friend was waiting for me when I arrived home.
‘Goodness, am I late?’ I exclaimed, as he hopped off the front wall. ‘You’ve got wet. It’s jolly cold sitting around. I know it’s unusual for this time of year but we had overnight frost in Leatherhead last week.’
‘Army cadet training soon knocked the edges off me,’ said Jon. ‘Besides, hanging around in the cold and wet’s good practice for when I’m called up.’
‘That’s not for years.’
‘Less than eighteen months.’
I shivered.
‘Come on, let’s get you into the warm and I’ll say no more about it. Instead,’ ushering me up the stairs ahead of him, ‘d’you fancy a movie next weekend? D’you like Bob Hope? I see The Road to Zanzibar’s coming soon.’
I stopped halfway up the stairs, turning. ‘As long as you promise you won’t do what Bill did.’ To Jon’s quizzical look, I replied, ‘Grab my hand halfway through, give yourself pins and needles and mimic a mini-earthquake trying to bring your arm back to life. And don’t you dare tell him I told you,’ I added hastily as Jon rocked with laughter
Jon didn’t go home that night. In any other circumstances it might have been quite romantic, but Hitler unleashing one of the heaviest and most brutal nights of the London Blitz that started early and came dangerously close to us meant that we were heavily chaperoned in the garden shelter by my parents, our ground floor neighbours and Booty (Mr and Mrs Weston of the middle floor being away), with bombs and shrapnel raining down near and far, and the sky glowing eerily. A particularly loud whistle ended abruptly and, peeking out from the entrance, my father cried, ‘Incendiary!’ and Jon leaped across me and out in a split second, grabbing the bucket of sand on his way. My father followed, as did Mr Haywood, and thudding, banging and yelling could be heard above the distant booms. My mother wailed and threw her apron over her head, Mrs Heywood following suit, and though I detachedly thought, how bizarre, I thought hysterical ladies only did that in novels, my stomach was churning and my legs trembling with fear while I clutched Booty tightly as he wriggled and squirmed in terror.
Thrusting his head into the shelter’s aperture and illuminating his face with a torch like a ghoul, bringing forth a wild shriek from my mother tentatively emerging from her shroud, Jon cried triumphantly, ‘It’s out!’ and I nearly wet myself with relief. Holding the flow back with a painful effort, I slipped Booty into the box, shutting the lid firmly, and exited, pushing against Jon in my haste.
‘Where’re you going?’
‘Where you can’t go for me,’ I replied, hurrying into the ho
use, desperately feeling my way upstairs and throwing up into the basin from nervous relief while evacuating my bladder into the toilet at the same time. A distant banging on the front door below grew insistently louder and, finishing in the bathroom, splashing my face and mouth with water and feeling my way down to the hall, I opened the door. Two air raid wardens rushed past me, lights from torches bobbing. ‘Where is it?’ one cried. ‘Back garden,’ I replied and there ensued a stream of people running through the house intent on tracing the incendiary they had seen fall from the sky and eliminating it. Jon slipped through the pandemonium of the tiny back garden and caught my hand.
‘Are you all right, Pat?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ but he must have felt my trembling, for he put his arm round me comfortingly and we stood just outside the back door letting the inquest as to who had seen and done what and when wash over us.
‘Booty!’ I exclaimed after a few moments, guiltily remembering, and we crept back into the shelter to retrieve and comfort.
The night of Jon’s calming embrace proved to be the last night of the Blitz, and, as the year wore on and war raged elsewhere, Hitler reneging on his non-aggression pact with Stalin and invading the Soviet Union on 22nd June 1941, the country breathed a collective sigh of relief. I feared and equally hoped that Jon would repeat his gallant and comforting gesture as the weeks and months passed and his visits became a routine part of our lives. I didn’t know what held him back, part of me appreciating the opportunity to develop a new, close, friendship uncomplicated by physical expression while another part, one I desperately endeavoured to suppress, wanting him to hold me close, explore my body and recreate exquisite, otherworldy sensations I should never have known about.
Several times that summer Bill, Jon, Edward, Mary, Helen and I got together, perhaps taking a picnic to Clapham Common where the boys played cricket and us girls chatted, or cycling further afield as the threat of bombing became a fading memory. Sometimes I caught Bill looking broodingly, calculatingly, at me, but, shifting his attention to Mary, his dreadful jokes and accompanying laughter ringing out, he would be the same old Bill and I would be sure I had imagined it. Jon gave no indication in company of any preference for me, being equally gallant towards Mary and Helen.
The Keeping of Secrets Page 20