Chapter Thirty-Eight

Willie got a job, working with his brother, Charlie on the building site, shortly after he left school. The work was hard, but he was happy and he had dreams of becoming like Charlie, at least with his gorgeous and admirable tan, which he had envied for quite some time. He couldn’t wait to get up that scaffold and get his clothes off ... What would Lindsey Peters think of him then, he thought, with a roguish smile, but if his dreams were super-abounding, the weather was most unsympathetic. It rained hard for the first few weeks of his employment as an apprentice bricklayer and being a ‘Brickie’ didn’t have the same allure somehow, but there was always the consolation that when he returned home in the evenings after a hard days work, he had a bed to himself ... at last. He was a man now; a working man and that was his due, wasn’t it? He would curl up and stretch across the bed in every possible way, claiming every inch of that slumber mattress as his very own. It was sheer joy to have such privacy and yet ... he missed Charlie’s ragging and the fun they used to have together.

***

Meggie was home on her ‘Embarkation Leave’, but she had no idea where she was going. She was told it was ‘ somewhere in the Middle East’ and that was all. For security reasons, any further information was withheld as it announced in large print all over the train platforms and on stiff placards. ‘THE WALLS HAVE EARS ...’

Meggie and Sadie took the baby for a walk in the park and sat down under an oak tree with some stale bread to feed the birds. Sadie threw the bread clumsily as she rocked little Fiona in her arms.

“Let me have her for a wee while, Sadie?”

Sadie passed Fiona to her sister and they talked together as they continued to feed the hungry gulls.

“Good afternoon, ladies.”

The girls looked up to see Ross Schofield smiling down at them. It was Meggie who took the initiative.

“Good afternoon,” she said very breezily, but Sadie scowled and stood up as she dusted her skirt and was about to leave the place where they had been sitting, taking the baby hurriedly from her sister’s arms.

“I have often wondered how you are,” he said, “I mean your family and ... how is your mother ... and how are you Sadie?” He asked as he studied the baby in her arms and began to play with the little tot’s fingers.

Meggie was surprised at his question and more particularly at the fuss he made over Fiona.

She looked from Ross to Sadie and back again in confusion. There was an intimacy between the two of them that she did not understand, even if the atmosphere did have a hostile undercurrent and a few trivialities were exchanged, but very coldly on Sadie’s part.

“Can we go home now Meggie. I think Fiona has been out long enough and there’s a wind starting to blow up.”

As they made their way across to the park main entrance, Ross called out after them.

“Good-bye Sadie Meggie. I hope I shall see you again soon.”

Meggie answered politely but curtly and with a tone of finality in her voice.

“Good-bye Ross,” she said and lowered her eyes as she walked away.

Sadie said nothing, but Meggie saw the look on her face as they walked home slowly together, hardly speaking a word as they went.

“Are you alright, Sadie?”

“Yes,” ...

“I don’t suppose he knows I’m in the W.R.N.S. with me not wearing my uniform, eh?”

Meggie tried to make conversation, but Sadie still remained silent. Fiona cried and Sadie hugged her closer to her breast.

“There, there my Love ...Don’t cry. Mummy will soon have you home and you can have a nice dinner,” she said, but she still ignored her sister as they walked.

“Can I give you two ladies a lift?” Someone shouted.

Sadie stood in horror when she heard the voice but she gave a sigh of relief when she turned round and Tom Carey appeared from nowhere in the new car, he had only recently bought. It gleamed as he drove up slowly towards the girls and they wasted no time in scrambling in as Tom drove them swiftly home.

***

Tom cleaned the car as he waited for Aggie to cook the lunch. She was chief cook for the day, in fact, she had given up her job at the fish factory to look after the family, now that Mary had got married. It was Aggie’s idea, to give her mother more time with her new husband and as all the family agreed, she needed a well earned rest. A honeymoon had been planned for later on in the year, but that too, was to be a big surprise. In fact, life was full of surprises for Mary and she began to look younger as the days went by. There was happiness in the air that was new to the Blair family, or to the new Mrs. Carey, as was now the case.

***

Meggie never mentioned Ross Schofield’s name to Sadie, but she was anxious to know why he should have taken such an interest in them and especially in Fiona. She asked herself many questions, but the answers did not sum up and anyway, she was due to return to her unit on Friday and she only wanted to enjoy the holiday with the family to the fullest extent. Besides, she herself had a very specific reason to be so joyful about her return to her unit and it was personified in the young Medical Officer she had met a few weeks before and with whom she had quite a few happy evenings out and enjoyed the occasional romantic dinner. Lieutenant George Ambrose R.A.M.C. was beginning to feature as someone quite special in her life.