Dora wished she’d had a bit of warning – she might have washed her hair, or put on something a bit better than her old flannel skirt and blouse! Still, there was nothing for it: at least she had her navy jacket and hat. Asking Kathy to wait, she ran a comb through her hair and swiftly applied a touch of lipstick. Even so, when they were seated at a table in the Tudor Rose, she felt like a sparrow next to a parakeet, and as Kathy began chattering away, the resemblance became even more marked.
‘Honest,’ Kathy began as Dora poured their tea, ‘I’ve been dying to meet you! Sam never stops talking about you! I was so sorry you couldn’t come over to ours that night but I was dreading it all the same! The way Sam raves about your cooking! I made a plum tart for afters and I was so glad you wasn’t there, because the plums were sour and the pastry was half raw in the middle! You’ll have to give me some lessons!’
She had a strong London accent and the way she spoke in exclamation marks left Dora blinking as they flashed in front of her. She pushed Kathy’s cup towards her. Had she really thought this girl – for that’s what she was, barely out of her twenties – was a serious threat?
Kathy had ordered a plate of cakes and Dora watched as she took a huge bite of an éclair. Her teeth were rather large and ersatz cream oozed down her chin. Laughing, she wiped it away and scrubbed at a blob that had fallen on her dress, its shiny rayon straining over her full figure.
Kathy took a sip of tea and her red lipstick left an imprint on the cup. She pushed a lock of brassy hair out of her eye and smiled. Dora smiled back broadly, and smiled even more inside. She’d seen at first glance Kathy wasn’t Sam’s type at all. If there’d ever been any romantic attraction, she knew for sure now it would have been all one-sided. Why had she fixated on what Dennis had said and not believed Sam’s assurances? What an idiot she’d been!
‘I don’t know what Sam’s been telling you, but it’s all nonsense,’ she said. ‘I’m a reasonable plain cook, that’s all. But not everyone’s got the knack, especially with pastry. I’ve tried to teach my daughter as best I can, but she still produces some horrors!’
Kathy laughed a pealing laugh.
‘Thank God it’s not just me!’ she cried. ‘Good job Dennis can get a decent meal at the base, or he has been able to up to now!’ She leaned forward and gripped Dora’s hands. ‘But this business he’s setting up with Sam, it’s going to be good, isn’t it? And I’m so relieved Sam’s part of it. I reckon they’ll be a great team. They sort of – go together, like two jigsaw pieces, don’t you think?’
‘That’s more or less what Sam said to me,’ agreed Dora, glad that the frenzied gabble seemed to be calming down a little. Luckily the Tudor Rose wasn’t busy, people preferring to be outdoors on this fine day. ‘He’ll keep Dennis on the straight and narrow. Steady the ship, was how he put it.’
‘Exactly! His steadiness, that’s what I always liked about Sam.’ Kathy smiled a wide smile and a girlish dimple appeared in each cheek. ‘He was always a bit different from the others, that bit older and wiser. I used to pour out all my troubles to him and he used to listen, bless him.’
‘He’s a good listener,’ Dora agreed. ‘What sort of troubles did you have, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Kathy rolled her big, blue, doll-like eyes.
‘Oh, you know, silly things, how the girl I shared a room with snored, dreadful problems with mice where we were billeted, the landlady that didn’t give me my rations …’
Dora felt a wash of sympathy. Those poor girls, sent miles from home in the first dark days of the war: it must have been so strange for them. At the same time she smiled to herself. All the intimate chats in dark corners of dance halls and pub inglenooks that she’d imagined between Sam and Kathy, and they’d been about mice infestations and snoring!
‘And Sam helped?’
‘He’s so practical, isn’t he?’ said Kathy. She’d demolished the éclair and her mouth was full of fairy cake. ‘He told me to sew a few pebbles or even buttons in the collar of the girl’s pyjamas so she couldn’t sleep on her back, and he brought me some mousetraps from their stores. And when he heard about the landlady, he made me insist on a new billet.’ She wetted her finger to pick up crumbs from her plate. ‘It was like talking to my dad, really, God rest him.’
‘Oh, you lost your dad, did you?’
‘Yeah, and my mum, in the Blitz. Our street disappeared overnight, more or less.’ Kathy snapped her fingers. ‘Pff! Just like that. I’d left home by then, and my brothers were away fighting.’ She paused briefly, then sighed. ‘But you’ve got to get on with it, haven’t you?’
Dora’s heart went out to her. She and Kathy were as different as chalk and cheese, in age, in looks, and in talkativeness too. But she was a good soul with no side to her, Dora could see that, and she could also see that Kathy and Dennis were made for each other. Their surface brashness hid a deeper insecurity. Future foursomes – and she was sure there’d be some – held no fear for her. And, if Sam could stand in for Kathy’s dad, maybe, somehow, here was someone else she could mother.
Dora was looking forward to telling Sam about her surprise visitor, but she might have known Kathy would have got there first. When he met Dora from work at the end of the day, it seemed Kathy had bowled straight back to the pub where Sam and Dennis had been poring over the small print in the Ministry’s contract.
‘Gushing like a geyser,’ he smiled. ‘You’re going to teach her to cook and bake, I gather.’
‘Am I?’ said Dora, astonished.
‘Well, yeah! She said Dennis can look forward to – how did she put it? Feather-light cakes and melt-in-the-mouth pastry in future.’
‘That’s your fault,’ teased Dora. ‘Singing my praises. How embarrassing!’
‘Well, you’re never going to do it for yourself,’ replied Sam, unabashed. ‘But look, I’m sorry if she took you by surprise. I wasn’t expecting her to turn up with Dennis, but she did, with the sole aim of hunting you down. Dennis had told her where you worked, see. There was no chance to warn you.’
‘Not to worry,’ Dora smiled. ‘I’m glad I’ve met her. And I liked her. She … she wasn’t at all what I expected.’
‘No?’
‘I don’t know about a Land Girl, I’d call her more a force of nature!’
Sam laughed.
‘You can say that all right. She’s quite something, isn’t she?’
Not so long ago, that phrase coming from Sam’s lips would have struck fear into Dora’s heart. Now she heard it differently.
‘Oh yes! She could talk the leg off an iron pot, as we say around here.’
‘And how!’ Sam agreed. ‘She’s a nice enough girl, but boy, she never lets up! To be honest, a lot of the time when she’d single me out to talk to, I used to sit there and let it wash over me.’
Dora thought that was probably a good tactic. Sam tucked her arm through his.
‘You know what I like about you, Dora?’ he said. ‘Among many things?’
Dora shook her head.
‘Ah, you see! That just proves it. You don’t say anything unless you’ve got something to say. You’re comfortable with silence. Not many women are.’
Dora said nothing in reply, but her smile said it all.