Cousins at War

Unable to banish the memory of Neil’s face when he had seen her all ‘toffed’ up, Queenie Ogilvie wondered once again if she had imagined the admiration. She knew that she had looked good – Patsy had assured her of that, and even Uncle Joe had seemed proud of her – but Neil must meet some really lovely girls in Larkhill. It could easily have been surprise that he had registered not interest. Nevertheless she was delighted that he had noticed how she looked, and perhaps next time he came home, he might ask her out, maybe even fall in love with her. She was certainly well on the way to being in love with him.

‘Have you got another boyfriend, Queenie?’ Patsy inquired one night. ‘You’ve been looking kind of dreamy for days.’

Her cousin’s rising colour told Patsy that she was on the right lines. ‘Yes, you do. Come on, tell me. I won’t say a word to Mum or Dad.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Why couldn’t she just get some peace? She couldn’t tell Neil’s sister that she was dreaming of him. Patsy would think it was so funny she’d likely tell Auntie Gracie and Uncle Joe, though she’d promised not to.

Looking disappointed, Patsy slapped some Pond’s Cold Cream on her face. ‘I thought we weren’t going to keep secrets.’

‘I’m not keeping any secrets. I’d tell you in a minute if I’d a boyfriend, but I haven’t. Callum was enough.’

On terra firma now, Queenie giggled. ‘He was the same as the men in your office.’

Whipping round eagerly, Patsy said, ‘Out with it, my girl. What did he do?’ She, too, ended up giggling at how Queenie had fended off the unwelcome attentions and forgot what she had asked in the first place.

Looking up at his friend, Alf chewed the end of his pencil – his fountain pen had been lost, or more likely stolen, long ago. ‘We haven’t got very far. “Dear Olive, I regret having to tell you . . .”’

Neil frowned. ‘It sounds more like a business letter. We’d better start again. What about . . . “I am very sorry . . .?”’

‘She won’t know that. OK, then. “Dear Olive, You’re such a bloody pest, I . . .”’

‘Och, be serious. I wish to God I’d never got involved in anything like this.’

Smiling wickedly, Neil laid his finger against his nose. ‘It’s your own fault. I’d never have thought of it.’

‘You’ll have to get me out of this mess, though. If you don’t, I could end up having to marry the bally girl.’

Neil gave a howl of laughter. ‘I can just see you in a top hat and tails . . . and what a wedding night you’d have. I could bet Olive wouldn’t give you a minute’s rest.’

Straightening the threatened part of his anatomy with some difficulty, Neil gave the letter further thought. ‘You could put, “This hurts me as much as it will hurt you, but . . .”’

After scribbling down and discarding several more phrases, Alf was finally satisfied. ‘Read it out,’ Neil prompted, ‘so I can hear what it sounds like.’

Clearing his throat, Alf began, ‘Dear Olive, I trust you will not be hurt at what I am going to say, but I know you would prefer me to be honest, though I feel awful about it. The truth is, when I was in Elgin, I ran into a girl I used to go with and I discovered I still loved her. What I felt for you was just deep attraction, not love, and it would be wrong of me to let you go on believing it was. Please don’t think too badly of me, Olive. I couldn’t help what happened, and I will never forget you. I hope that you find a man more worthy of you some day soon. Yours sincerely, Alf Melville’.

Neil nodded gravely. ‘Just the job! That shouldn’t put her back up, though you never can tell with her. But I’m free of her now, thank God.’

‘Nobody knows apart from us . . . and Raymond, and he’ll never tell her. Anyway, she’ll have got over it long before I go home again.’

‘It maybe won’t be long before we get embarkation leave,’ Alf told him. ‘There’s word we’re being sent overseas.’

‘Thank God for that, I’m sick fed up here, and even if she still feels angry at you, she won’t take her spite out on me if I’m going abroad. It couldn’t have worked out better.’

Olive had given her two student acquaintances – they were not as close as friends – a detailed account of all that Alf had done and written to her, using him as a pattern for the boyfriend she had deceptively created. It sounded much more convincing when what she was saying was actually true and Polly, at least, listened eagerly. She had been longing for his first letter since his leave, and when it arrived, her heart accelerated as she ran her paper knife along the top of the envelope. This would be a proper love letter, since Alf had told her how he felt. The first two words alarmed her. ‘Dear Olive’? She had expected to see ‘My Darling’, or ‘My Dearest’. He hadn’t written a love letter, after all, he was preparing her for something nasty. Having worked this out, she was not so shocked when she read it. She was angry – no girl likes to be told that she’s been replaced in her boyfriend’s affections – but there was no misery, no feeling suicidal. Granted, she had thought that she loved him, even planned for a wedding, but she only felt let down, probably because she had not known Alf for very long. Well, that was that! She would have to resort to invention again to regale Frankie and Polly.

Giving a small sigh, she placed the letter on her dressing table, to be answered some time – it would serve Alf right to be kept in suspense for a while – and picked up her comb. As she ran it through her hair, she was glad that she hadn’t told her mother of Alf’s declaration of love. At least none of her family knew how far things had gone, and she would have to play down her resentment at being thrown over.

In the dining room, Hetty looked up with an arch smile, ‘I suppose Alf got back to camp all right?’

‘Is anything wrong? You’re usually full of beans after a letter from him.’

‘He’s found another girl.’ Olive hadn’t meant to tell them just yet – she didn’t want any sympathy and Raymond would likely gloat – but she hadn’t expected her mother to be so quick to notice. ‘Somebody in Elgin he used to go with.’

‘It’s OK. It happens all the time, doesn’t it? Now, can I just get on with my breakfast?’

Her father, engrossed in the morning paper, had not looked up, her mother seemed very concerned, but it was Raymond’s expression which disconcerted Olive. It wasn’t derisive – as she had expected – nor sympathetic, it was amused. When he realised that she was staring at him, the amusement vanished from his eyes, but there was still something there that she couldn’t place. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘I only went out with him a few times. There wasn’t anything in it.’

Nothing more was said on the subject, so she finished her breakfast and left the house, proud that she had handled the situation so well.

Her mother, however, was not so happy. ‘Olive’s had quite a shock,’ Hetty observed to Martin, whose head was still hidden behind the Press and Journal. ‘She’s pretending not to care, but she’s far too calm. She thought a lot of Alf, and she must be upset.’

‘I’d have thought she’d have flown into a temper, and it’s not natural, the way she’s taking it.’

Giving up, Hetty looked at Raymond. ‘It’s like speaking to a stone wall, trying to tell your father anything.’

Alf was astonished by the way Olive had accepted what he had written. He had thought that she would answer straight away, calling him every bad name she could think of, or pleading with him to change his mind, but it was ten days before she wrote that she understood, that she forgave him and that he was not to feel guilty. His relief was so great that he felt like jumping his own height, and Neil was equally relieved that she hadn’t started writing to him again. ‘That got her off my back,’ he laughed. ‘I’d say Operation Olive was a big success and nobody got hurt.’

Neil had been occupied for most of the day trying to find out what was wrong with the Royal Enfield he had been told to repair, but he had found the trouble at last and it was ready to be taken on a test run. It was no hardship to him, for he loved the feel of a machine like this under him, the thrill as the countryside rushed past, the exhilaration when the wind was whipping his face. All the other vehicles – the trucks, the officers’ cars, whatever he had to repair – were just routine. None of them could beat motor bikes! Revving up the engine, he listened for any alien noises and, hearing none, he engaged the gear and negotiated his way out of the workshop, waving to Alf as he passed.

Once on the open road, he opened the throttle and watched the speedometer climb higher and higher. She’s going like a bird, he thought happily, and his life was running just as smoothly these days, with Olive neatly disposed of, although Alf sneered at him occasionally for seemingly giving up his old philandering ways. ‘I can’t understand you, Neilly boy. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were in love.’

Content to laugh it off, Neil never rose to the bait. He wasn’t exactly in love with Queenie, but he didn’t want any other girl. He still accompanied Alf to dances, but he was too aware of his own failing to be as foolish as take any of his partners home, despite their blatant hinting.

He often wished that he had asked Queenie to write to him, but his mother would get ideas and he didn’t want that . . . not until he had diagnosed his feelings for the girl properly. He was sure that she had known he was attracted to her, and was almost sure that she’d felt attracted to him, but attraction wasn’t love, though love could develop from it, and he would wait until she left school before he said anything.

Realising how far he had come, he slowed down and turned the motor cycle round. If he followed his inclination, he’d be carrying on to Aberdeen to see her again, but if he did, he would be court-martialled for being AWOL or at the very least incarcerated in the glasshouse. Laughing out loud, he let the engine roar back along the road again.

‘To heaven and back,’ Neil smiled and removed the gloves with a theatrical flourish, adding, ‘Don’t take any notice of me, I’m just a silly bugger.’

Renewed rumours that they were to be posted made Neil think. It wasn’t definite, but it was more than probable that they would be sent abroad and he was quite pleased. He had been stagnating in Larkhill for too long, and he would welcome a change. The drawback was that he’d be separated from Queenie for longer than a few months at a time if they were sent to North Africa or the Far East. He was certain in his own mind now that he did love her – she was all that he could think of, dream of – but even if they got embarkation leave before they left, it was too soon to tell her.

Having thought about it from all angles, Neil wrote his first love letter one night. He had no intention of mailing it, but he had to get his feelings down on paper. He would carry it with him always, and if he were unlucky enough to be killed, it would be sent home with his other belongings and Queenie would know how he had felt about her.

My Darling Queenie,

I am writing this because there is word we will be sent abroad. Maybe this will be a big surprise to you, but I don’t regard you as a sister any longer. It came as a shock to me, too, but I love you with all my heart. I can’t stop thinking about you, and your lovely face fills my dreams every night. I was going to tell you next year, but I might not be in this country, so I am doing the next best thing and writing it down.

I don’t know when you will get this or if you will ever get it, but if you do you will know that you mean everything to me. If I survive the war, I will marry you as soon as I come home, and thinking about that will carry me through whatever I have to face. Goodnight, my darling.

Yours till the end of time, Neil

He read it over – it was no literary masterpiece, but he had never meant it to be – then put it in an envelope, wrote Queenie’s name on it and, as he slipped it into the pocket of his battledress wondered if any of the other men also writing letters were pouring their hearts out like he had done. Probably not. He had been over-sentimental as if he were sure he was going to be killed, but that was not how he felt – just the opposite. He was looking forward to the future . . . a future with Queenie. Positive, not negative.

As the weeks passed, Olive Potter began to think of Alf as having been just a pleasant interlude. His attentions had flattered her, had made her forget, but it was Neil she wanted . . . it had always been Neil. He must have been jealous when she was out with his friend, though he hadn’t given any sign of it, and she had better make it up to him and show how sorry she was. It would be some time yet before she saw him again, but it would give her time to plan her campaign.

Although Olive prided herself on having kept calm when she received Alf’s letter, it was that very calmness which had set her mother worrying, and with her daughter remaining so quiet, as if she were trying to come to terms with herself, Hetty suspected that she was still pining. ‘I wish there was something I could do to buck Olive up,’ she remarked to her husband one day.

‘You wouldn’t see sand supposing you were standing on the beach,’ his wife retorted indignantly. ‘She hasn’t got over Alf, that’s what’s wrong.’

‘I’m not, and she’s needing to be taken out of herself. I think, when Neil comes, I’ll get him to take her dancing or to the pictures or something.’

‘The only thing is, she used to be so fond of Neil. Maybe throwing them together again would be asking for trouble. It might escalate into something deeper than she could handle.’ Hetty waited in vain for an answer, and went on, ‘I suppose we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it . . . if we ever come to it.’

Gracie had been disappointed that Olive’s romance with Alf had come to nothing and, after worrying for some time, she decided to confide in Joe one night, ‘I’m scared that Olive starts with Neil again, for she’ll be more possessive than ever, and he’ll stand no chance against her.’

As usual, her husband laughed at her fears, ‘You’re always worrying about something or other. Neil’s not the raw laddie he was before, he’s had more experience with girls. He won’t knuckle down now, he’ll tell her straight out that he’s not going to stand any nonsense from her. Alf had the right idea, he’s well shot of her. Anyway, you’re maybe barking up the wrong tree. Now Olive’s been out with one lad, she’ll likely have got Neil out of her system. The next thing we’ll be hearing is she’s got another boyfriend.’

‘It’s usually their daughters women worry about, not their sons, but thank goodness our two lassies are sensible.’

‘Aye, you’re right there. I was wor- . . .’ She caught herself before Joe laughed at her again. ‘I wondered, the last time Neil was home, if he’d ideas about Queenie, but she doesn’t look at boys nowadays, not since that Callum.’

‘She’s young enough yet to have a steady lad, so’s Patsy,’ Joe grinned. ‘That’s when your worries’ll start.’

Their posting had come as an anti-climax to all the soldiers involved. Like all first-time travellers abroad, the thought of being in a foreign clime had filled them with a thrilling anticipation, and Northumberland was not what anybody could call exotic. Most of them, however, soon got back to the old routine of picking up willing girls, their libidos getting an unnecessary boost from the new variety of faces and figures. Most of them, but not Neil Ferris, although Alf Melville was always chivvying him to hunt with the pack and he could not explain why he wouldn’t. He felt a little foolish now about having written the letter to Queenie, but surely they would be sent overseas soon – he hadn’t been out of England and it was nearly a year since he joined up – and it would be best to keep it in his pocket . . . just in case.

Their camp was between Alnwick and Morpeth, with Newcastle not too far away, so there were many interesting places to see on their twenty-four-hour passes, not like Salisbury Plain, where the dominant feature was a circle of standing stones, though there had been several picturesque villages in the area. Both Neil and Alf had been raised in fairly close proximity to the sea so it was natural that they often landed up on the coast of Northumbria, watching birds and boats, and breathing in the bracing ozone of the same North Sea. Neil was fascinated by the causeway across to the Holy Isle, Lindisfarne, which was cut off twice a day by the tide, but when he suggested visiting the island, Alf said, ‘No bloody fear. We could be marooned for hours.’

Inevitably, on their walks, they met girls who stopped to talk to them. Alf, of course, was in his element when this happened, choosing his partner and walking off in front, leaving Neil with the other one. A few, accustomed to the procedure, took his arm and kept up a steady stream of talk which required little or no answer, but some were as embarrassed as he was, which made things difficult. On one such occasion, the girl was so shy that Neil had difficulty in getting her to speak at all, but he did eventually learn that her name was Alice, and that she lived in the village of Seahouses – ‘back there a couple of miles’.

Her shyness drew him to her, not in any romantic way, more as a friend who would pose no problems and she appeared to feel the same, opening up to say, ‘Betty and I came out for a picnic, it was such a lovely day.’

He responded to the overture. ‘We hitch-hiked to Bamburgh Castle, and we’re walking back a bit to shove in our day.’

A little farther on, they saw Alf and Betty sitting on the sands, unpacking the girl’s haversack. ‘You could have some of our sandwiches,’ Betty giggled.

The picnic let all of them get to know each other a little better, and when the empty paper bags and lemonade bottles had been stowed away, Alf took Betty behind one of the dunes but the other two stayed where they were, facing the wide expanse of gently rippling water which only ended where it met the sky, and letting the warm breeze ruffle their hair. Neil was completely relaxed with Alice now – she had turned out to be a good companion – and after a while she suggested taking a walk along the sands to search for seashells. ‘My mum makes pictures with them,’ she explained. ‘It keeps her busy in the winter.’

They chatted idly – about her work in the bank in Alnwick, about the stupidity of some army drivers which resulted in the burned-out gearboxes and cracked cylinder blocks Neil had to replace – the girl bending down occasionally to pick up a shell that had taken her fancy – but eventually, they turned to something more personal. ‘Have you a boyfriend?’ Neil asked, purely to make conversation.

‘Yes, Bill’s in the navy, and I haven’t seen him for eight months. We’re going to get engaged when he comes home again. Do you have a girlfriend?’

He hesitated for a moment, but the atmosphere was so easy between them now, and the balminess of the early evening so conducive to confidences, that he said, ‘Queenie’s not long sixteen, and I haven’t told her yet that I love her. I think she knows, though.’

Alice nodded, ‘A girl always knows that. Bill and I grew up together, and I knew he loved me long before he told me, and I was only fourteen at the time.’ Seeing the question in Neil’s eyes, she added, ‘We haven’t done anything wrong, but we nearly did, the night before he went away the first time. That’s why I didn’t let him go beyond a few kisses the twice he’s been home since.’

‘I’d never dream of doing more than kissing Queenie though I might feel like it. She’s still too young.’

It did not occur to either of them that this was a strange topic between two young people of different sexes, nor that, if they had been at all attracted to each other, it could have erupted into something they wouldn’t have been able to stop. ‘How old are you, Alice?’

‘I’ll be nineteen in November.’ Elation was surging up in him. He had actually voiced his love for Queenie, and even though it was to a girl he hardly knew, he felt as if he had sworn it on oath, legalised it, made certain of the outcome. Catching Alice round the waist, he whirled her into the air. ‘Oh, it’s great to to be young and in love, isn’t it?’

When their friends came into view, a few minutes later, it needed no clairvoyant to tell what they had been doing over the past half hour. Betty’s thin dress was dishevelled, her face flushed, and Alf wore a hang dog, but satisfied, expression. ‘I’ve promised to walk Betty home,’ he said, ‘so you can go with Alice, and we’d better put a step in, or else it’ll be dark before we get there.’

The sun was dropping behind the horizon, but Neil had been enjoying himself so much that he hadn’t noticed. ‘You don’t have to see me home,’ Alice murmured.

‘I’d like to.’ They waited until Alf and Betty went ahead before they followed, walking at a quick pace to keep up. It was only two miles to Seahouses, but another fifteen to the camp, and the soldiers dared not be late. When they reached her village, Alice pointed out a fishing coble, one of the many small craft tied up in the harbour. ‘That’s my dad’s.’

‘They’re nearly all fishermen here, and I’m sure he was a bit disappointed I wasn’t a boy to carry on after him.’

‘My dad was disappointed that I didn’t want to work in his shop, but I was more at home with engines than groceries.’

Alice lived in one of the terraced houses which overlooked the harbour, standing out starkly against the darkening sky, and looking just as grey and dour to Neil when he came close to them. ‘Can I see you again?’

She turned to face him, looking at him earnestly. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve had a really great time, but . . . I’ve got Bill and you’ve got Queenie.’

Her skin was brown with sunburn, her black hair was short, she was as tall as he was – everything that Queenie was not – but in some way, some indefinable way, she reminded him of Queenie, which made him ashamed of what he had asked. He had no romantic intentions towards Alice, though he had enjoyed the time he had spent with her, and it was probably best not to spoil it. ‘Cheerio, Alice, and I hope you see Bill again very soon.’

He walked to the end of the row of houses, where Alf was already waiting for him. ‘It’s been some day, eh, Neil? That Betty’s a humdinger. How was Alice?’

‘I didn’t try.’ He hadn’t even wanted to try, Neil thought in some amazement. He’d had Alice in his arms at one point, and had let her go without feeling a thing, when not so very long ago, holding a girl so closely would have aroused him into making at least some attempt. But that was before he’d fallen in love. He was a changed man now – sex was secondary to him . . . until he married Queenie.

Alf, forging on ahead, turned round impatiently. ‘Come on, or we’ll never make it back to camp in time.’

They hurried on, praying that they could hitch a lift once they were on the main road – they couldn’t depend on getting a bus, and luck was with them. They had just left the side road when a van pulled up. ‘Thanks, mate,’ Alf puffed. ‘I’m bloody sure I couldn’t have gone much farther.’

Alf snorted. ‘I have, but this dozey blighter’s either in love or he’s lost his touch.’

Chapter Eight