fifteen

Steve’s date of demobilization was drawing near. End of August. He’d be out in time to go to medical school in the Autumn. The following Spring we’d get engaged. On my way to Dublin I’d break the journey at Crewe where he, having travelled down from Glasgow, would meet me in the middle of the night. Next day we’d choose the ring.

The thought of possessing an engagement ring occupied my thoughts. It was a status symbol. I remembered from the factory how we’d gather round newly engaged girls to admire their minuscule diamonds. Envious and hoping for the day when we had one to display. But thoughts of the commitment involved in this status worried me. Six long years with no dates. Only occasionally seeing Steve. We couldn’t afford to marry until he qualified. Six years. An eternity. No kissing and loving except when we’d briefly meet. Not that often. Neither of us had money for long train journeys.

A long, lonely time. Engaged girls didn’t date. They stayed in in the evenings. Saved for their wedding. Not such a hardship for civilians living at home. Living, usually, in the same vicinity as their fiancé. Family around them. Not so easy to cope with in the forces. Where you were surrounded by attractive men. Where apart from sitting on your bed there was only the recreation room. And for most of the week not a cup of tea or slice of bread between the last canteen meal and breakfast the next morning. For you wouldn’t have a date to pay your way.

Sometimes I’d fantasize. When Steve and I met at Crewe we’d elope. Go to Gretna Green and marry. I’d get my discharge. Find work in Glasgow. Find a room where we could live. My money would help him through college. The fantasy didn’t last long. Steve, though in the army labelled as unreliable and a tearaway, was determined to make a success of his medical career. He lived at home. His family weren’t poor. He didn’t need me to help pay his way. Nor would he, I believed, want to take me into a slum bedsit. One of his ambitions was to have me live in comfort when he was a doctor.

I loved him. I really did. I’d he devastated when he went. We’d write. And I consoled myself that my sentence in purdah didn’t have to begin until I was wearing his ring. When I wasn’t on duty I could still go to my favourite café, meet the boys and play dice for milkshakes. I never had to buy the round when I lost.

Amongst the crowd was a newcomer. His name was Johnny. Physically he was the complete opposite of Steve. Shorter, though not by much. Very dark. His curly hair and eyes black. His hair definitely and his eyes almost in certain light. His teeth were perfect and the whitest I’d ever seen. The only ethnic group I knew were Jews. I thought he might be Jewish. I knew several Jews with beautiful olive-coloured skin. Olive, perhaps a shade darker. Skin that appeared always sun-tanned. Johnny had that sort of skin. Sometimes our fingers touched and a shiver ran through me. A sensation like a shiver only it made me hot and cold. I knew he fancied me. But remembering Steve and our coming engagement I didn’t encourage Johnny.

* * *

Tomorrow Steve was going to Aldershot from where he would be demobilized. Tonight was the party in the village public house. There was a ‘kitty’, for the drinks. But men who liked and admired Steve bought him drinks outside the round. He was toasted and ribbed. Clapped on the back and plied with whiskey. With which he chased his pints of beer. There was a sing-song. Then individuals were called on to sing solo.

Steve sang to me, ‘I’ll Be Loving You Always, Till. the End of Time’ and finished his repertoire with our favourite ‘My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose’. Euphoric. If we had been alone in a sheltered porch or on our carpet of leaves I’m convinced Steve could have done anything he liked with me. I felt sad and romantic. Tears ran down my face. He kissed them away. Breda cried. Connie rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. Sylvia cried and recalled her love affair with ‘Hutch’, Katy asked why she never wore the fabulous ring? Why she had never shown it to us?

Why she and the singer hadn’t married? Sylvia sobbed convincingly. ‘It was the colour thing. I knew Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t have approved,’ she replied in her perfect imitation of the voice.

Breda, the soberest of us, lent close to me and whispered, ‘Sure according to her story they were dead by then.’

‘Shut up,’ I hissed. Sylvia was a liar. And I knew the old saying, ‘A liar needs a good memory’. The drink had addled Sylvia’s. Her lies were harmless. I liked her, felt sorry for her. She was pathetic in another of her dyed army uniform get-ups. The nigger brown with a pill box hat in matching colour and a veil pushed back over it to accommodate her long green cigarette holder.

Katy was like a terrier worrying a rat. ‘So, what did you do with the ring, flog it, pawn it?’

‘Katy! What a terrible thing to suggest. I did the honourable thing of course,’ replied Sylvia dabbing at her eyes with a wisp of lace trimmed cambric. ‘I gave it back.’

* * *

Passionately Steve and I clung to each other in a lecture hut porch. With great urgency his hands began to wander. And when my knees were beginning to feel weak and great surges of exciting feelings coursed through me his legs buckled and he fell to the ground.

I touched him and called his name. He lay still. He was dead, I thought, running from the porch screaming for help. Two soldiers, staggering, stumbling and singing were approaching.

‘Quick, quick,’ I shouted, ‘I think Steve’s dead.’

‘Bloody hell, that’s a rum do,’ one said. ‘Let’s have a decko.’

They lurched towards the porch. Then I heard a familiar voice roar. Ginger’s.

‘What, the bloody hell’s going on?’ I clung to him.

‘It’s Steve he’s dead. Oh my God what’ll I do?’

The soberer of the soldiers said, ‘Her bloke’s kicked the bucket, Sarge. Straight up.’

‘Get outta the way,’ Ginger ordered. ‘On the double.’ He bent over Steve. ‘Drunk.’ He declared. ‘Passed out. Warned you didn’t I, Pad.’

‘Then he’s not dead?’

‘No. The useless sod’s not dead. You’, he said to one of the soldiers. ‘Gimme a hand to stand him up.’ Steve was hoisted to his feet. I wanted to cradle him in my arms. And hated Ginger when he slapped him across the face, shook him roughly and roared for him to wake up. Steve muttered something unintelligible before falling asleep or passing out again.

Ginger and the soldier walked him out of the porch. ‘You.’ He pointed to the second soldier. ‘Grab hold of his other arm. Hold him here until I come back. I’ll walk you to your billet.’ He said to me.

I was still crying, but not so much. ‘He’s leaving at five in the morning. I won’t see him to say goodbye.’ I sobbed.

‘Good riddance.’

‘But he’s going away for good. We’ll be separated.’

‘That breaks my heart. You’re a little fool. That bloke’s no good. The sooner you forget him the better. Good war record. Nothing else to recommend him.’

‘He won’t die, will he, I mean he won’t die during the night?’

‘Not unless he chokes on his vomit.’

‘Oh Ginger.’

‘Don’t worry kid. I’ll lock him up for, the night. We’ll keep an eye on him,’ as we reached my billet. ‘And you take my advice, dump the Scottish git,’ he said.

I believed I was broken hearted. Breda and Sylvia tried comforting me. Not letting me get up for breakfast when I wasn’t working. Bringing me cups of tea and slices of bread from the cookhouse. Carrying the enamel mug up the wooded slope of the plateau. They spoke kindly and listened to my endless protestations of loss and grief. Katy made it obvious that she felt I was overplaying my hand. Never said so in so many words. I knew her so well I could interpret her every word and gesture. Her judgment was probably influenced by me going to the café when I had an afternoon free. On afternoons I knew Johnny would be there. But nevertheless, I truly believed my life had ended with Steve’s departure. I was inconsolable until his letters began arriving.

He wrote pages and pages in his small, square handwriting. How much he missed me. How much he loved me. He wrote descriptions of me. A me I didn’t recognize. A me of wondrous beauty. Soft, silky, sweet-smelling hair. A mouth that tasted gorgeous. My soft full lips. The smile that lit my face.

He imagined how I would look naked. How he would stroke my body, worship it.

He wrote that he thought of me all day and before he went to sleep willed himself to dream of me. He didn’t always but when he did hated wakening and losing me.

My replies must have been disappointing for although I missed him, his kisses, the sight, sound and scent of him, I could put none of it down on paper. I tried but on reading it back it didn’t ring true. It didn’t flow as his words did. So I settled for a few declarations of love and then wrote about the camp gossip.

How Miss Long had routed Marilyn and the post corporal in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. Knocked on the postroom door and demanded entry. Looked in each room and finally in a cupboard, where a naked Marilyn crouched behind mail bags. I told him that while none of us liked Marilyn, we felt she’d been treated badly.

‘Stripped and posted. And the creep only admonished.’

In another letter I wrote about Breda and her spiv. Reminding him of the many times he’d heard the story of Breda’s mother’s desperate need for oilcloth for the scullery. How Breda ranted and raved that with the war being over you’d think a bit of oilcloth wouldn’t be hard to come by. How on a date with the cockney spiv he was told of her mother’s predicament and offered a solution. If Breda let him feel her knee he’d get the oilcloth. How indignantly she related the tale to me and Katy. How hard we’d found it not to laugh. And then Breda’s final comment before she went to have a bath. ‘And in any case how could I have got a roll of oilcloth home to Southampton,’ where her mother had recently rented a house. Me and Katy were convulsed with laughter.

I didn’t mention playing dice in the café or how attentive Johnny was becoming. Instead I wrote that I was counting the days until we met at Crewe. That once Christmas was over the days would fly.

I also wrote that I was going to Brighton for New Year. Going to see my grandfather and a sister of my father’s.