14

I wish I could have stunned him with a new dress, preferably something long. (But at least he’s never seen my cobalt blue, which I wore to the Troc in 1939.)

I wish I could have had my hair done.

I wish I could have stupefied him with my jitterbug. (Or anyway, I mean, have had the fun of being able to fantasize a little.)

No, forget all the rest of it. I wish that as soon as we’d got there we could simply have enjoyed ourselves.

Because everything’s laid on for our enjoyment.

The dancing takes place in the main hangar, which is festooned with crepe paper. Balloons are hung at the entrance to the base and Chinese lanterns brighten several pathways. The refreshments are extraordinary, not just the profusion but the variety. Naturally I exclaim as much as anyone and hope that once I’ve tasted them I may even start to feel hungry.

Fat chance.

I’m not the only one without an appetite. You see them everywhere: the couples who are either clinging in barely concealed unhappiness or else putting on an act. I, too, am putting on an act.

I hate it.

And I resent Matt for appearing so very much as normal.

We walk out of the hangar into fresh air. From somewhere comes the unmistakable scent of wallflowers. Can someone on the base have made a little garden?

He’s not aware of it, he says, but that isn’t to say it hasn’t happened. “You’re not cold, are you?”

I shake my head.

“Yet after that great heat in there…” He offers me his jacket. “Wiser not to risk a chill.”

Who cares about a chill, I want to ask. Who cares about being wise? He puts the jacket round my shoulders. I don’t trust myself to thank him. The last thing I want right now is kindness.

We stroll a short way in silence. Not holding hands. Not linking arms. Nothing.

“Rosalind?” he says. “I am going to see you again, aren’t I?”

“On Monday, you mean, when your train leaves? Oh, yes, I’m pretty sure they’ll let me get away. And if not…I’ll come anyhow.” But the smile I give doesn’t in the least negate my briskness.

“You know that isn’t what I meant.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs, and suddenly I see that, after all, he too has been pretending. “I’ve got to try to work things out.”

“Why? What is there to work out? You don’t owe me anything. You’re engaged to a nice girl back in Connecticut and I knew that all along. It’s been fun, I’m glad to have known you, Matt. We’ll have to write to one another and, who knows, someday you and your family may come to London or I and mine may come to New York and—”

“Sweetie. Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Listen. Just answer me one thing. Will you miss me when I’m gone?”

“Oh, Matt.” My voice quavers, treacherously.

“No, but what I mean is—how much will you miss me?”

“Darling, this is pointless. Let’s go back and dance.”

“No, it isn’t pointless… Because… Well, you see…”

I give up every effort to be bright and brittle and to hold him at a distance.

“You know how much I’m going to miss you. But do you really want to make me spell it out and have myself in tears? That would be a fine way to finish, on a night so obviously intended to produce only pleasure and high spirits. You almost have to laugh: the band playing ‘The sun has got his hat on’ while nearly everywhere you look…”

“I love you, Rosalind.”

“There! Now see what you’ve done.” I fumble for my hanky.

He doesn’t let me—pushes my evening purse aside. I mumble that his shoulder will get wet; he doesn’t seem to care. Eventually I have to pull away. It would hardly be romantic to wipe my nose against his shirt.

“But, Matt, do be sure that what you decide is what you really want. We’ve known each other for three short weeks. Heightened atmosphere of wartime, of wartime coming to an end. It’s two years since you’ve seen Marjorie. Maybe one can forget a bit in two years but the minute you set eyes on her again—”

“Now you make it sound—what we feel for one another—” (because I had finally let on, a second or two before my nose began to run), “now you make it sound like some starlight-on-the-ocean holiday romance.”

“I only want to be sensible. I only want to be fair.” But how fair is it to come out with what I now come out with? “I shall love you, Matt Cassidy, until the day I die—and beyond that, too, if I have any say in the matter, but—”

I don’t get any further. Suddenly he lifts me off my feet and whirls me round. “No! No buts! That’s all I wanted to hear. Don’t say another word.” He kisses me, ecstatically. “And now let’s go in and dance!”

What’s more, I perform one or two pretty nifty pieces of jitterbug in the shortish time remaining. I’m only surprised the other dancers don’t give up and stand in an admiring circle—allow us room to show off our agility. They always do in films.

“Oh, you’ll love America!”

We’re on our own again and once more riding in a jeep. I can’t think how he’s pulled it off, considering the number of men there are at Halesworth.

“You might also get to care for Britain,” I remind him.

“I already do. Though I still can’t say a whole lot for your coffee.” There’s hardly any alteration in his tone. “You spoke earlier about a fine way to finish off things—wasn’t that the way you put it?—on a night so obviously intended to produce only pleasure and high spirits.”

I look at him and start to smile.

At that, he takes my hand and lifts it to his lips. He has avoided touching me till now; is evidently much fairer than I am. “Have you ever been to The Red Lion? In Southwold?”

I tell him that Trix and I have had drinks there a couple of times.

In fact I might have been scared to go back with her. I remember her, on that last occasion, queening it at the bar and adopting an ultra-refined accent in which to order pink champagne. She hadn’t made herself very popular. “Someday,” she’d said, “I’m going to run a little place like this. Waitresses and porters and chambermaids all at my beck and call. Yes, someday! You’ll see.”

But I don’t mention this and he completes what he was saying. “Well, the desk clerk may be getting his forty winks but I guess if I make it worth his while he won’t mind losing two or three.”

“Oh, you Yanks. You think mere money can accomplish anything.”

“No. If I thought that, I’d book for tomorrow night, as well.”

But suddenly he has to brake, to avoid something which dashes out in front of us. We think it was a fox.

“No,” I say, “I’m sure it was a fox. It had to be.”

“Why?”

“Like calling out to like. It heard the voice of its brother.”