For All Our Tomorrows (30 page)

The train was hot and uncomfortable, resonant with snores, and out of the window all she could see was a sun-baked landscape that seemed to stretch to the horizon, punctuated here and there by the thin ribbon of a river, an occasional swamp shimmering in the heat, or a rare and verdant patch of unfamiliar trees half clothed in moss, which she later learned were called live oaks. In the far distance she could see a range of blue mountains, though they never seemed to draw any closer. Barney had said that America was a big country but she’d had no real concept of what that meant in reality.

Would she ever get there, Bette wondered?

At the next station stop there was nothing to be seen but one guy standing on the platform in blue shirt and trousers and a wide brimmed hat, looking almost as if he’d stepped right out of Gone With the Wind. Behind him was a horse and cart. The girl sitting beside Bette began to cry.

‘Oh, God, that can’t be him, can it? Where’s his uniform? He looks so different. Where are we? I can’t even see a town. I’m not getting off here. I can’t, I can’t. I want to go home.’ She sounded so anguished that the baby on her lap began to cry yet again, this time in sympathy with his young mother.

The guard came and attempted to oust her from her seat. ‘Hurry along please, madam. We can’t keep the train waiting all day,’ which seemed a bit rich after all the delays en route. Still the poor girl made no move, and the other passengers began to watch this small side-show with open curiosity.

The guard tried a firmer line. ‘He’s your husband, honey, you gotta go to him.’

For a moment it looked as if he might be about to physically eject her from the seat and Bette quickly intervened. ‘Come on, love, I’ll hold the baby while you gather your things together. It’ll be fine. Look, he’s taken off his hat and he’s smiling and waving.’

She didn’t appear greatly reassured by this sight but somehow Bette managed to persuade the girl to get off the train. As it drew away, the pair were left standing on the empty platform, staring at each other.

Bette sank back into her seat, heart pounding. ‘What in God’s name have I got myself into?’

And then a couple of hours and three stops later, there he was, grinning from ear to ear, a whole crowd of people gathered about him, presumably all his family and friends. A great welcoming committee, in fact, who had turned up to view the war-bride. Bette could even see a man with a camera, who must surely be a reporter from the local paper. She felt a surge of relief and even excitement that her own welcome was to be so different from that of her travelling companion. And yet she experienced the same sense of panic and disorientation. A part of her wanted to turn the train around and rush back home, just as her companion had.

This was not the Chad she remembered, all big and brawny in his smart, US Marine uniform. This man was dressed in brown trousers, or pants as Americans seemed to call them. They were faded and stopped short of the ankle, and his shirt was a strange mustard colour that had seen better days. He had more hair than she remembered too, as muddy brown in colour as the pants, and he seemed thinner and shorter, as if there were much less of him than there used to be. He was walking along the platform beside the train as it shunted into the station, waving madly to her, limping slightly, with one sleeve flapping empty in the wind.

Her heart gave an uncomfortable thump. She’d forgotten about the missing arm. Bette took a deep breath, smiled and waved back. Now all she had to do was get off the train, meet his family and friends, tell him how much she loved him and wanted this baby, then be a good wife to him and not think of Barney at all. Quite simple really.

It was one whirl of activity and excitement from the moment she set foot on the platform. Never in her wildest dreams had Bette expected there to be so many people thronging the station, waiting to greet her. Far too many to even catch anyone’s names.

Local dignitaries from the nearby town of Carreville were there, worthy ladies in hats, businessmen in neatly pressed suits with their hair slicked down. Shops had apparently been closed so that the owners could introduce themselves and shake her by the hand. Everyone seemed friendly enough but stared at her as if she were some sort of oddity, a creature from another planet. They kept asking her to repeat things, saying how they just loved to hear her talk. Camera bulbs flashed and questions were fired at her by a local reporter who’d come especially to interview her as ‘You’re the first war-bride to arrive in our town.’

‘How many more are you expecting?’ Bette asked, casting Chad a hopeful glance of enquiry, since she’d be glad of some English friends to help stave off the first stirrings of home-sickness. He only shrugged his shoulders and looked perplexed.

Bette felt a wave of sympathy for him, and for herself. They hadn’t so much as shaken hands, let alone kissed, since the moment she’d arrived. Barely exchanged even a word of greeting.

Chad was feeling completely tongue-tied, unable to do little more than stand and stare at her. He’d forgotten how very pretty she was with her small nose, pointed chin and elfin face. Even with her hair all mussed up from the long journey, the golden brown curls straying free from their battery of pins, she looked so lovely he wondered what on earth had possessed her to travel halfway across the world to marry a great, gawking, one-armed lump like himself. There must have been any number of guys ready to snap her up the minute he’d left Fowey. Barney for one.

He’d need to talk to her about Barney, make sure his old buddy really had behaved himself. But not now. He should make her welcome, take her home, show her to his mom who had refused to come and ‘goggle like a fish-wife.’

He thought that perhaps Bette too was a bit overwhelmed by all the shindig. The moment of reunion was difficult enough, without having an audience.

He’d so wanted them to be alone when they first met, all quiet and civilised, with no hassle. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, except that he only had one arm now, so perhaps that wouldn’t work any more. She might not even want him to hold her till she’d got used to the idea of him being a cripple. Anyway, it was imperative he make her feel welcome but she seemed different, sort of distant and remote, like a girl in a magazine, somehow untouchable, beyond his reach.
 

Bette was flattered by all the interest, that everyone should consider her so important and give her such a royal reception. She rather hoped that someone would think to offer her some form of refreshment after her long journey over land and sea. Apart from the heaviness of the heat, she was faint with hunger. Her body felt as if it had been shaken to bits, and as the heat and humidity hit her, she came over all giddy.
 

As she wavered slightly, would have slid to the ground had he not caught her, she heard Chad cry, ‘Hey, give her some air,’ pushing everyone aside as he called for a glass of water.

Moments later she was sitting on the station bench thankfully sipping from a chipped mug, though still with her faithful bevy of onlookers. ‘Thanks, but could I perhaps have a cup of tea and a biscuit?’

Chad was quick to point out her mistake. ‘We only have cold tea here in the south, and what you call a biscuit is a cookie to us. A biscuit to we Americans is what you Brits would call a scone. Ok?’

‘I think so.’ He’d found his voice at least, she was glad to note, instead of standing there dumbstruck, but her brain seemed to be in even more a whirl. What did a name matter? Not a soul moved to fetch either biscuit, cookie or scone, and there was no sign of a cuppa, hot or cold.

Chad wiped the sweat from his one sticky hand down the back of his pants, took a steadying breath and was about to ask if she was ready to get on home when the town mayor launched into a speech of welcome, so they were forced to stand patiently listening, sweltering in the heat, swatting away flies and trying to look interested in his views on the American role in the war.

Thankfully, the speech soon drew to a close, promising a more formal reception later in the week, but then the band struck up the National Anthem, adding to the din and Bette felt as if she was slowly being cooked alive with no hope of escape.
 

Then someone rushed up, elbowing Chad out of the way, dragging her some distance from him so they could snap her with their Box Brownie. It was utter pandemonium and Bette offered him a tremulous smile of apology, for which he appeared pathetically grateful.

‘You must be plum tuckered out,’ he shouted above the rumpus, and she nodded, those green eyes so entrancingly flecked with gold, laughing impishly up at him.

‘I never guessed I would prove so popular.’

‘What?’

‘I said . . . oh, never mind.’ She was laughing now as it was quite impossible to hear a word either of them said as people milled about, but her laughter eased the tension in him and he grinned, finally summoning up the courage to reach forward into the melee, grab her by the arm and start to shoulder his way through the throng, dragging her behind him. The trouble was that the more he tugged and pushed, the more the crowds surged them back on to the platform, and the press were not done with her yet.

Bette was whisked off next to the local radio station to be interviewed, where she told all about how she’d met Chad, what her home town of Fowey was like, and agreed that the Americans had arrived in the nick of time to save the British from a fate worse than death: invasion by the Nazi’s.
 

Finally satisfied that everything possible had been done to welcome their newcomer, people wandered away and Bette was left to climb into the pick-up truck and be driven to her new home. She could hardly wait to see it.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

He found her carriage easily enough and slipped in beside her onto the seat without a word. Sara could hear her heart beating, even above the banging of doors, the hiss of steam and sound of porter’s whistles. Perhaps he could hear it too. If she was going to change her mind, this was the moment to do so, before the train left St Austell station. She could make a break for it and just run back to Hugh, to her life, and pretend she’d never met Charles Denham.

But how could she go home, less than an hour after she’d left, supposedly visiting a sick aunt? And it was only a weekend, she reminded herself. She’d be back in Fowey by Sunday, after all. It wasn’t as if she was leaving Hugh, or anything so dramatic.

No, simply intending to commit adultery.

She could sense a tension in Charlie too, which was comforting. She didn’t want him to be the sort of man who was accustomed to running away with other men’s wives. What they were doing was wrong, she knew that, yet here she was in her best navy blue coat and hat, a fetching new nightgown in the suitcase on the rack above their heads, and every muscle, every bone in her body, aching for him to touch her.

It was just as well that they were not alone in the carriage. The old woman, busily knitting opposite, sent her several sly glances. Sara had the awful feeling that she knew exactly what was going on, which was quite impossible. How could she know? Yet there was something in the way she covertly considered Sara, and then turned her attention to Charles, almost as if she were pairing them up.

Sara was on her feet the moment the train pulled into Penzance Station and left the compartment without so much as a backward glance, not at Charlie, nor even at the woman folding away her knitting and surely deliberately hanging back to check if he followed her.

They met up again in the station buffet where they sat sipping tea as if they were strangers who had met quite by chance.

Charlie finally cleared his throat. ‘Is it safe to talk now, or will we need to keep this up for the entire weekend, do you think?’

Sara giggled. ‘I suppose it is rather ridiculous. I was just a bit anxious, in case there was someone on the train who knew me.’

‘I realised that. Maybe I should have gone into a different compartment, or worn a disguise, a fake beard maybe. Would that help?’

‘Now you’re teasing me, and it isn’t fair.’

‘I just love to see you smile.’

‘We shouldn’t even be doing this.’

‘Yes, we should. It may be all we’re going to have, things are hotting up on the military front, but we sure as hell are going to enjoy these two precious days together. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough of the stink of soot and sulphur.’

They walked along the wide expanse of sandy beach hand in hand, breathing in the soft spring air, the sun warming them and making the sea shimmer to a clear and sparkling blue. Out in the bay stood St Michael’s Mount, its grandeur proclaiming that life would go on, war or no war; that nothing could destroy true beauty.

Sara said, ‘It started out as a Benedictine Priory, and has a twin in France, I believe.’

‘Yep, Mont St Michel in Normandy.’

Sara glanced at him quickly, noting a change in his tone of voice, realising that for some reason she’d made him think of something unpleasant. Guessing it was connected with the coming invasion, she slipped her arm through his and lightened her tone. ‘We used to come to Penzance for day trips when I was a child, visit Aunt Marjorie where we’d suffer one of those unendurably lengthy Sunday lunches in her stuffy house, and then be let loose to play on the beach. I thought this must be a fairy palace, and I would dig and dig, hoping to find treasure buried in the golden sands.’ She laughed. ‘I was a fanciful child.’