A Song At Twilight

by Lilian Harry

  ‘What does Ben think about that?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He don’t seem to have thought about it at all. Tell you the truth, I don’t really know what he thinks, but I do know he’s getting too fond of me. And I can’t tell him to stop, can I, not when he’s putting himself into danger night after night, and he’s lost his brother and his poor mother’s so upset still.’ May lifted her head and a tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I can’t hurt him now, but if I lets it go on any more he might be even more hurt when – when …’ She sniffed and felt in her sleeve for a hanky, then burst into tears.

  ‘May!’ Alison came out of her chair and went to put her arms around the sobbing girl. May leaned her head against her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come over all unnecessary.’ She blew her nose. ‘It’s just that I’ve been worrying about it, and I keep thinking I must tell him we didn’t ought to see each other no more, but I haven’t got the heart to do it. And I wants to see him,’ she finished piteously. ‘I wants to go out with him and – and all that. Even though I know it isn’t right.’

  ‘But why isn’t it right?’ Alison asked. ‘I know you’re from different backgrounds, but I don’t think that matters so much these days. Not with the war on, and everything. People are getting all mixed up now, they’re not so separated as they used to be. And Ben’s a nice boy.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ May said. ‘He’m still a boy really, for all he goes up fighting in the air. He’m three years younger than me, and it ought to be the man that’s older.’

  ‘I don’t think three years matter all that much,’ Alison said. ‘It’s not like ten or twenty. What do your parents say?’

  ‘I haven’t talked about it to them. I haven’t talked about it to anyone, to tell you the truth. It’s not as if Ben’s said anything, you see. I might be reading more into it than there really is. Maybe he just wants a bit of fun.’

  ‘I don’t think Ben’s that sort,’ Alison said. ‘And I think you know how he feels, without having to ask, don’t you?’

  May nodded. ‘I just don’t know what to do about it,’ she said despondently.

  ‘Do you have to do anything? Can’t you just enjoy it, and let things develop as they will?’

  ‘But I’m going to have to stop it in the end. I know his parents wouldn’t want me as his wife, I know it! His father’s a vicar. They’ve got education. They’ve got a lovely home, I’ve seen photographs of it. I wouldn’t fit in at all. They wouldn’t think I was good enough for Ben. And my mum and dad – they’d tell me to stop putting on airs and keep my place. They’m beginning to think something’s going on as it is.’

  ‘But they like Ben, don’t they?’

  ‘Of course they like him! Everybody likes him. That don’t mean to say they want me marrying him. I tell you, Alison, they wouldn’t want that at all and it’s me they’d be annoyed with. They’d think I’d led him on, or set my cap at him, or something.’ She blew her nose again. ‘I tell you, I’m proper mazed with it all.’

  Alison felt helpless. ‘I don’t know what to say. I think you and Ben would be very happy together. I don’t think the differences matter at all, but I know they would to a lot of people, and that might make it hard for you both.’ She sighed and moved back to her chair. ‘If only you could just forget all the problems and enjoy the time you have together.’

  May glanced across at her. ‘And that’s another thing, isn’t it ?’ she said quietly. ‘Us don’t know what time us do have together. I might tell Ben it’s all over and the next day he might go and get killed, and I’d never know …’ She began to cry again. ‘All I’d know would be that I’d made his last day miserable. I can’t do that. I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can’t.’ Alison wanted to take the girl in her arms again but at that moment Hughie burst in through the back door, his face scarlet with distress. Both women moved automatically, but he ran straight to his mother and buried his head in her lap.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter? Have you hurt yourself? Stop crying, sweetheart, and tell me what it is.’

  He raised his face. It was wet with tears and contorted with fury. ‘It’s Oscar!’ he bellowed. ‘My snail! He’s all broken up! He’s all smashed! A bird came down and pecked him and now he’s dead! My snail’s dead!’

  May and Alison gazed at him, then each other and their mouths twitched. Then May got up and went out to the kitchen.

  ‘Come on, Hughie,’ she said. ‘It’s time for your milk. And I brought some of Grandma Prettyjohn’s special biscuits with me this morning. You can have one of those.’

  He hesitated, still snuffling, and Alison got up too and took his hand.

  ‘Let’s go and see if we can find another snail, shall we? You remember how we saw them all sleeping in the cracks in the wall? I expect they’re all waking up now – Oscar must have been the first – so there’ll be lots in the garden and you can give them names as well.’

  May gave her a wry look. ‘Don’t let Grandpa hear you say that,’ she cautioned. ‘He’ve got only one name for snails, and it’s not one you’d want Hughie to hear!’ She smiled, looking a little more cheerful now that she’d unburdened herself. ‘Thanks for the talk, Alison. I still don’t know what to do for the best, but I feel better for talking about it. And I suppose there isn’t anything much I can do, for the time being anyway. I’d best just let things take their course, like you say.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s the best thing,’ Alison said gently, touching May’s arm as she passed. ‘Why not make a cup of tea now, while I take Hughie out into the garden and look for snails?’ She smiled. ‘It might be a good idea to collect a few up in a bucket anyway – we don’t want them on our cabbages!’

  She went out into the fresh March air. A thrush was singing on a nearby branch – probably he was the culprit who had killed Oscar – but even as she listened, his song was drowned by the roar of aircraft taking off from the airfield. She lifted her eyes and watched as a formation of Typhoons flew overhead, climbing steadily into the pale spring sky.

  May was right. How could she possibly tell Ben their friendship was over, when he might be killed at any moment?

  May walked home without noticing the primroses that spangled the grassy banks, nor the violets nestling like purple shadows beneath them. She scarcely heard the birdsong that filled the air once the roar of the planes had faded into the distance nor revelled, as she usually did, in the unfurling of the pale, fresh green leaves along the hedges. Her mind was completely taken up with Ben.

  She hardly knew how they had fallen so deeply in love. It had begun at Christmas, of course; she didn’t count the party at Alison’s house where they’d met, but on that Christmas night, with the stars so thick across the sky that you could have pulled them down in handfuls, when Ben had kissed her by the stile, she’d known what was going to happen. It already had happened – the touch of his lips, so firm yet so soft and sweet, had set her whole body tingling. It was like a moment of revelation, as if she had been waiting for this all her life, and only now understood what had been missing. She felt as if she had been made whole at last.

  And he’d felt the same. She’d known it from the shock that sprang between them and by the tone of his voice as he whispered her name. ‘May …’

  There had been more kisses after that, yielding and tremulous, before they’d walked back to the cottage hand in hand, both a little shaken by the feelings that had swept over them. And when Ben had finally left, after the supper and games and songs they’d shared round the fire, May had walked to the gate with him and they’d shared another kiss.

  ‘I can see you again, can’t I?’ he’d whispered into her hair, and May had nodded. ‘Soon? Tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said regretfully. ‘Uncle Percy and Aunt Mary are coming round. They always do on Boxing Day. And it’s a Sunday, so there’ll be church in the morning. I’ll have to stay home.’

  ‘Can’t you even come out for a walk?’
he asked, but she shook her head. ‘The day after, then.’

  ‘I’m working in the morning.’

  ‘The afternoon. The evening. We’ll go out somewhere. We’ll catch the bus and go into Tavistock and have some tea. There’ll be places open, won’t there?’

  ‘Well, Perraton’s might be, I suppose. But it’s only just after Christmas.’

  ‘There must be somewhere,’ he said, and she touched his cheek.

  ‘I don’t mind if we don’t go anywhere. Let’s just go for a walk.’

  ‘So long as we’re together,’ he said, and she nodded in the darkness.

  ‘So long as we’re together.’

  After that, they had spent as much time as possible together, walking the fields and the parts of the moor not taken over by the airfield, occasionally going to the picture show or to a dance but happy to be on their own. For May, it was a magical time, a time of frosty mornings and starlit nights, of scarlet and orange sunsets, of the gradual awakening of spring and the song of birds at dawn and at twilight; a time of the tender blossoming of love, even though its delicate tints were shot through with the dark knowledge that it could all be taken away at any moment; that Ben could be lost to her. That one day, it would all come to an end.

  She never thought for a moment that it could last. Even if Ben survived the war, he would leave her when it was over. He might come to see her once or twice after that, but then he would go back into his own life and it would be no more than a memory, to be carried in her heart for the rest of her life. And at first, she’d believed that it was the same for him.

  But then, one day in March, things had changed.

  They’d been deep in the valley, where the two rivers Tavy and Walkham met in a tumble of rocks and foam. Once, long ago, there had been mines down here and you could still come across the narrow adits, leading deep underground, and the low hummocks of spoil heaps, grown over with furze and silver birch. The valley rose high and steep on either side and on the opposite bank there was a heronry in the tall trees. The nests swayed high in the branches, an untidy jumble of sticks; soon, the birds would be back to start their families again and the air would be filled with their harsh, guttural voices.

  It had been frosty for several days and the rocks glistened with half-frozen water. Icicles hung in fringes on their shaded sides, the tips constantly washed away by the broken water. The sunlight filtered down through the branches of the trees, glittering on the flying spray and turning it to diamonds in the cold, bright air.

  ‘There’s a kingfisher!’ May exclaimed in a low voice, and pointed up the river. ‘There – see?’

  The blue flash was like a swift bolt of electricity, gone in an instant, but Ben nodded. ‘I just caught a glimpse. And there’s a dipper on that rock, see him? Like a robin with a white breast. This is a nice place, May.’

  ‘We used to come here for picnics a lot when I were a little maid. Double Waters, we call it. Must have been a bit different when the miners were here, but ’tis quiet enough now. Pretty, too.’

  ‘It’s very pretty,’ he said quietly. ‘But not as pretty as you, May.’

  ‘Oh, Ben! Don’t be so foolish, now. How can you compare me with a place?’

  ‘I can compare you with anything I like, and you’d still come out best.’ He slipped his arm around her waist. ‘You know how much I think of you, May.’

  She was silent for a moment, her heart beating fast. ‘I know, Ben. I think a lot of you, too.’

  ‘Not just a lot,’ he said. ‘You’re the whole world to me, May.’

  May turned her head and looked into his eyes, her heart turning over as she saw the darkness in them. She opened her mouth but, before she could speak, his lips were covering hers and she gasped as she was caught up in his kiss. The sound of the tumbling water combined with the rush of her own blood in her ears and she felt herself melt in his arms. They lay back on the moss and Ben ran a trembling hand over her body.

  ‘Ben …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered, though his voice sounded ragged. ‘I won’t do anything you don’t want. I love you too much.’ He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes, repeating in a tone of wonder, ‘I love you, May.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she returned, her own voice shaking, and buried her face against his chest. They lay together, not speaking, hearing the rustle of the wind in the branches above, the splash of the water at their feet and, in their ears, the whisper of the grass. The sweet trill of a robin sounded from a nearby bush and the faint cry of a buzzard, like the mew of a lost cat, from high in the sky. For May, it was a moment of perfection, one she wished would never end, one which would stay with her for ever.

  After a little while, Ben raised himself up on to one elbow, and looked down at her.

  ‘We’ll always be together, May, won’t we?’

  ‘As long as we can be,’ she said, though her heart had already sunk a little. How could they always be together?

  ‘As long as you want me, anyway.’

  ‘Then that’s always!’ His arm tightened around her. ‘I’m going to want you for the rest of my life, May. You know that.’

  ‘Ben, that’s silly.’

  ‘Silly? What’s silly about it? We love each other – we’ve just said so. We’re going to be together for ever, for the rest of our lives. It’s what we both want.’ He looked at her again, his eyes dark with anxiety now. ‘It is what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. It’s just – well, I don’t see how it’s possible, Ben. There’s your mother and father …’

  ‘What do they have to do with it?’ he asked, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘They have a lot to do with it. They won’t want you taking up with a girl like me – an ordinary country girl. They’ll want you to settle down with someone of your own sort. Someone who can live the kind of life you live at home. Someone like Alison, for instance. I wouldn’t even know what knife and fork to use,’ she finished miserably.

  He stared at her. ‘What do knives and forks matter? I don’t see what you’re worrying about.’

  May was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘Don’t let’s talk about it now, Ben. Let’s just go on having a nice time, like we’ve been having ever since Christmas, and not think about the future. Let’s just have what we can for now, and be thankful for it.’

  He looked away from her, over the river, and she was afraid that she had angered him. Then he turned back and kissed her again, lightly.

  ‘All right. We’ll leave it for now. But I love you, May, and I want to share my life with you. That’s not going to change, whatever else may happen. You’d better make up your mind to it.’

  He kissed her again, more passionately this time, and May closed her eyes and gave herself up to it. She pushed her anxious thoughts out of her mind and let herself be swept away, like the rushing stream, on a tide of love and longing. This is the day I’m going to remember, she thought as her senses swirled. Ben’s right. Whatever else may happen, this is never going to change.

  Later, however, her fears and anxieties returned, nagging at her mind during the day and haunting her sleep at night. I can’t believe it’s going to be all right, she thought as she walked home from Alison’s house after pouring her heart out to her friend. I can’t believe it will last for ever.

  One way or another, she was sure that her dreams would be shattered.

  Chapter Eighteen

  All along the south coast, something new was happening.

  On I April, an order was made to close a ten-mile-deep belt of coastland from Land’s End to the Wash. Nobody who lived outside the restricted area on that date would be permitted to enter it unless they were vital to the war effort, and those who lived inside must carry their identity cards at all times. Once again, the smell of invasion was in the air.

  This time, however, without it being talked about much, everyone knew that the invasion would come from the British shores. This time, the Allies would be invading O
ccupied France.

  ‘And let’s hope they make a better job of it than they did at Dieppe,’ Andrew said grimly.

  The RAF losses were still heavy, and every night, as the bombers and fighters took off, Alison would listen in dread, knowing that Andrew and his squadron were on another dangerous mission; she was always awake with the first distant snarl that meant they were coming back. After that, she stayed awake, unable to settle to anything until she heard Andrew’s key in the door and his voice calling down the passageway.

  Her parents came to stay for Easter, her mother fussing and anxious.

  ‘Why don’t you come home with us for a while, and have your baby there? We could look after you and help with Hughie. You can come back as soon as you’re ready.’

  Alison shook her head. ‘I can’t leave Andrew. He needs me here. And it’s not as if I were in any real danger. We get the occasional German plane over, but the boys soon see them off. And I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to him and I wasn’t here,’ she added quietly.

  Her mother sighed. ‘I knew you’d say that, of course, but I had to try. If only I could stay here, but I’m so tied up with committees and the WVS and the rest of my war work.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mummy. It’s not as if this is my first baby. I’ve booked into a nice little maternity home in Horrabridge, so even if Andrew’s not here I shall be all right. And May’s promised to come and sleep here when it’s nearly time, and she’ll take Hughie home with her when I go in. Everything will be all right.’ Alison got up and went indoors to put on the kettle. Her father had taken Hughie for a walk around the perimeter and Andrew was on readiness, so the two women were enjoying some peace and quiet in a patch of spring sunshine in the garden.

  ‘You do seem to have it well organised,’ her mother admitted when Alison came back, carrying a tray of tea. ‘I still don’t like being so far away, though. And you should have let me do that. I’m not here to be waited on.’