When Tommy saw Polly and the rest of the women welders spill out of the Admiral, he felt his mood plummet further. When he had seen the women from afar, linking arms, all leaning into the strong winds and the lashing sheets of rain, their coats pulled tight around them to keep out the cold, he could still make out Polly. Tommy felt as though he could pick her out of a blizzard.
He had immediately breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t with Ned, and that she was just with the other women. He knew Polly had spotted him as he had seen her head turn towards him when he’d started up his bike. But there had been no smile on her lips. Lips he’d touched with his own, and which he’d enjoyed tracing with his fingers when they had been alone together. They were lips he’d felt he could have kissed for ever and a day.
When he had seen Polly this evening he knew he should have turned off his engine, walked over to her and asked to talk to her. He needed to talk to her. He wanted to ask her so many questions, and more than anything he wanted to ask about this Ned. But he hadn’t. He had done what he’d always done in his life: he’d turned his back on what mattered.
As Tommy rode home he didn’t thrash the bike and release his pent-up emotions by opening up his throttle, like he often did. His mood was too low even for that. He just wanted more than anything to be on his own, to stew in his own misery. But when he pulled up outside his home and walked through the front door, as soon as he saw Arthur sitting in his armchair, bending forward and giving the fire an enthusiastic poke, it was clear the old man was full of beans and after a bit of chat.
It hadn’t escaped Tommy’s notice that his granddad seemed to have a new lease of life since he’d started to go round to Agnes’s for his tea on a regular basis. Nowadays he seemed to be out and about more, going to the market from some offcuts of meat, or to the fish quay to get a choice bit of haddock or cod. There had even been a number of nights when Tommy had come home and Arthur hadn’t been in, which Tommy didn’t mind in the least. If anything, it put his mind at rest that if there was an air raid, he would be forced to go to a shelter with Agnes, Bel and Lucille and not stubbornly sit in his armchair, daring the Jerries to bomb him. The two families had become close and he knew Arthur felt the same way about Agnes’s as Tommy did – that it was the kind of home they had both yearned for over the years.
‘How yer been today, lad?’ Arthur asked.
Tommy felt that his granddad was scrutinising his face, trying to read his troubled thoughts.
‘Busy,’ he answered. What else could he say? That his heart was breaking? That his mood felt as dark and as murky as the river he spent so much of his time in?
‘No time to see that lovely lass of yours?’ Arthur prodded, knowing he was venturing into dangerous waters, but determined all the same.
He had never interfered in his grandson’s business before, especially when it came to women, but this, he felt, was different. This was important. Arthur couldn’t keep quiet, especially after what he’d learnt the other day when he had been round at Agnes’s. Bel had moved her chair a little closer to him and in a conspiratorial but concerned tone had started to ask Arthur a few questions. She hadn’t had to quiz him for long, for as soon as Arthur heard the name ‘Helen’ he knew in an instant what was up.
‘Yes, pet, I know Helen. Jack and Miriam’s daughter,’ Arthur had told her.
‘That’s her,’ Bel’d said, checking Agnes was out of earshot. ‘Polly told me that you and Tommy know the family quite well, from way back, and that Helen and your Tommy are quite close?’
Arthur had looked straight into Bel’s big, blue, inquisitive eyes. He had never beaten about the bush, and so he’d asked straight off, ‘What’s been going on?’
‘Oh, nothing… I hope,’ Bel had said. ‘It just seems that this Helen, well, to put it bluntly, is all over Tommy, and that the two seem to spend a lot of time together. Or at least Helen always seems to be about when Tommy’s on his breaks.’
Arthur might have been an old man, and not exactly up to date with the younger generation, but he knew exactly what was going on. Knew how this would make Polly feel. How she was a lovely lass but lacked confidence. He’d then done something he probably wouldn’t have done before and had told Bel the story of Jack, Miriam and Gloria, which Bel had listened to thoughtfully.
Tommy opened a bottle of beer and asked Arthur if he wanted one.
‘Go on then,’ Arthur said, ‘let’s live dangerously.’
Tommy went into the kitchen and opened another bottle, grabbing a half-pint glass and handing it to Arthur, who carefully poured himself his drink.
‘Ta, lad,’ Arthur said, before taking a deep breath. He was annoyed at himself that he actually felt a little nervous. ‘Now, about this Helen…’
Tommy looked at Arthur as if he were going senile. Why on earth was his granda asking about Helen? It was Polly he really needed to talk about. Tommy wanted to know what was going through Polly’s mind, not Helen’s. Once again Tommy’s mind went off at a tangent and the same old thoughts thrashed around in his head. His heart told him Polly loved him, but if she was seeing another bloke his head told him this most certainly wasn’t the case, far from it.
‘Well, you know what Helen’s like, don’t you?’ Arthur asked.
‘Aye,’ Tommy answered without much thought.
‘Yer know she’s just like her mam, don’t you?’ Arthur persevered.
‘Aye,’ Tommy repeated. He really had no interest in talking about Miriam or Helen. Why was the old man obsessing about the Crawfords?
Arthur looked at Tommy and was stuck for words. Why was this so hard? He again felt that familiar anger and resentment towards his daughter, who’d left him to fulfil the role of both a father and a mother – never mind that of a grandparent.
He tried to find the words to ask Tommy if he was interested in Helen, or if he had considered that Helen was interested in him. He wanted to warn him that, like her mother, Helen had the capacity to be very devious in order to get what she wanted. Arthur had seen Helen grow up from a little girl – if she wanted something, she had always got it. Now she was a young woman and, from what Bel had told him, Helen wanted Tommy. Arthur tried but he just couldn’t find the words to articulate these concerns. He kept opening his mouth to speak, but no words found their way out. By the time he had finished his drink, still nothing was forthcoming and Arthur resolved to try again another night.
Tommy, who had taken a chair from the kitchen table and was now sitting next to his granddad directly in front of the fire, was also stuck for words. He too had given up on speech and was lost in his own thoughts, drinking his ale straight from the bottle and gazing at the small mound of hissing coals.
Both men sat and stared, their frustrations pushed down but, like the fire, still burning hot.