Home Sweet Home (9 page)

The route through the city was not as she'd expected it would be. Declan purposely avoided the heart of the city, which had suffered the worst bomb damage. They headed southwards and then followed the River Avon through the Avon Gorge and beneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge. In peacetime, the bridge was lit at night with over a thousand electric light bulbs. But not now. It seemed a reasonable enough subject for conversation.

‘They say this bridge won't be lit up until the war is over.'

‘Is that so?'

‘Yes. And the blackout will be over. The streetlights will come on too. And all the young men and women in the forces will be coming home. And you'll be going home too,' she added after a short pause.

‘I will indeed. What will you do when this war is over, Frances?'

His question threw her off guard. ‘I … I … don't know … not really …' It embarrassed her to hear herself stammering.

‘Ruby seems to think that you'll marry your Ed. Is that so?'

The question surprised her. ‘She told you that?'

‘Uh huh.'

Thinking he might be making fun of her, she chanced a quick glance.

Declan's eyes were narrowed and fixed on the road ahead. There was a firm set to his jaw, as though he were concentrating very hard, but somehow she felt that look was deceptive. He was only pretending to be serious; his sharp wit and sense of humour bubbled just below the surface.

Frances shook her head. ‘I don't think we're getting married.'

‘Has he asked you?'

‘Sort of.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘We've talked about what we'll do after the war. Nothing's set in stone.'

‘Has he proposed or hasn't he?'

Frances turned sharply to face the front and the road ahead. ‘I'm not sure it's any of your business!'

‘Has he told you what he intends to do when the war's over?'

‘Yes. He's going to open a hamburger shop when he gets home.'

It was something Ed had mentioned to her that she hadn't really thought about until now.

‘So you are going to marry him? Run it with him?'

‘I …' No words seemed to come out. She saw him glance at her, saw the mocking smile that he only just managed to keep under control.

‘Okay,' he finally said. ‘So it's none of my business.'

‘You're right. It isn't.' He'd managed to make her feel flustered when she'd least expected him to.

‘Do you think I should marry your cousin Ruby?'

This was not a question she'd expected to be asked. ‘Ruby?'

‘Yeah.' He nodded. ‘What are her good points? Tell me the reasons you think I should marry her.'

Frances found herself lost for words. At last she said, ‘You want me to tell you Ruby's good points?'

He nodded. ‘That's about it. List them by number. First: number one reason she'd make a good wife.'

Frances laughed. ‘That's easy. She's a good cook.'

He nodded again, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead. ‘Okay. She can bake a cake. What else?'

Frances thought hard. ‘She can sew and do housework. And she's very pretty …'

He seemed to think about this before nodding as he had done before. ‘So she's an all-round homemaker and easy on the eye. Is there any other outstanding reason you think I should marry her?'

It came to her that he was enquiring about more than Ruby's homemaking skills.

‘Do you love her?'

Although only knowing a little of his nature, she'd expected him to laugh. He didn't. He seemed to be considering his answer very carefully.

‘I like her. But I don't think I love her.'

‘How sad.'

‘No, it isn't. It's honest.'

‘Will you ever love her?'

‘No. I don't think so. There's no passion between us. I don't know why, but there isn't. It's love and passion that go together before love and marriage. Tell me, is there any passion between you and Ed Bergman, our young friend in the catering corps?'

It was impossible to stop her cheeks warming up. ‘I think so … I don't know …'

There had been passion. They were both young and he would soon be going away to fight a war. Not that she would let this self-assured, incredibly magnetic man know that.

‘If you only think so, then there isn't.' His lofty, slightly caustic tone was as evident as ever.

Not willing to be outdone, Frances adopted that same know-all manner and made a statement intended to knock him off that high perch of his. ‘Then that's it! I can't marry Ed and you can't marry Ruby. Do you think we should marry each other?'

‘Hey!'

His concentration wavered and the Jeep swerved from the centre of the road to the verge.

‘Steady, Mr O'Malley!' Frances smiled. Her eyes laughed.

‘That was one hell of a curve ball,' Declan declared.

‘Which is what?'

‘A baseball expression. Baseball is a sport we play. I thought you used the same term in your game of cricket.'

‘I wouldn't know. I don't play cricket.'

On the surface, she tried to seem detached and unaffected by his incisive charm; inside, she was both confused and intrigued. This mature man, older even than her cousin Ruby, had the power to turn her legs to jelly and make her feel her blood had turned to red-hot lava.

Ed had never made her feel that way. Ed was dependable, sweet and closer to her own age.

‘You're thinking of your cook again. I can tell by the look on your face.'

‘I am not!'

It astounded her that he had read her thoughts, but she refused to feed his arrogance.

‘He's too ordinary for you.'

‘That's none of your business!'

Her face burned. She glanced swiftly over her shoulder. The Gates children were now all sound asleep and snuggled down under the tarpaulin covering, their faces smeared with the stickiness of jam and chocolate.

‘Oh, I think it is. You've got too passionate a nature to end up with somebody like that. He's a cute guy – not that I would know that much about what a girl sees in a man, but I know what I see in a woman. And he's not brave enough for you. He'll let you down.'

‘How can you say that?'

His eyes seemed to burrow into her mind. She turned away, unwilling for him to see that he had hit the mark.

Declan carried on blithely. ‘Ed volunteered to be a cook not a soldier. He's got the kind of courage that opens a hamburger store, though not the kind that can start over when the going gets tough. You deserve better.' They stopped at a road junction to let a farm vehicle pass by in a cloud of smoke. He looked at her. ‘You're what we call in the States a gutsy broad.'

Frances gaped. ‘What does that mean?'

His smile was enough to make an igloo melt. ‘It means that you were born brave. No matter what life throws at you, you'll win through. Trust me. I know this.'

Smitten by his smile and those roguish dark eyes, she found herself speechless. Unsure what else to do, she faced abruptly forward.

Once the tractor had passed, they pulled away. The ferry wasn't far now.

Declan resumed the topic of conversation. ‘Do you want me to tell you what I see in you, Miss Frances Sweet, as a woman?'

Frances had mixed feelings about his question. On the one hand, she cringed at his impertinence and the uncertainty of what he might say. On the other, she adored the fact that he was referring to her as a woman – not a girl or a child!

‘I suppose you're going to tell me anyway,' she snapped, her full lips pouting and her heart steeplechasing around her ribs.

‘Now, let me see,' he said. Dark eyebrows frowned over his equally dark eyes.

Her attention was drawn to his hands. With easy confidence, he swung the steering wheel casually to right and left or held it firmly as he steered it straight ahead. Frances liked his hands. They were strong and tanned.

‘Right. Now let me tell you what I know about you, Miss Frances Sweet. You're Ruby's cousin. Ruby has a married twin sister named Mary. These kind folk brought you up, but they're not your parents. You're the outsider, the waif brought in from the cold, but you've weathered storms and you'll weather plenty more …'

Frances turned her gaze to her own hands. ‘I don't see …' She did not like the way he was relating details of her family and her life. The more he knew, the more he would want to know. She didn't know why she knew this, she just did.

‘Let me finish,' he said, taking his hand from the steering wheel, patting the hand resting on her right leg. ‘They took you in out of the kindness of their hearts and you feel you've got a lot to live up to. In fact, you really want to be like them, but you're not one of them and sometimes, just sometimes, you've a mind to find out who you really are. Especially now you're growing up and you're no longer a child. And I guess you would like to know where your mother is and why she let you down. I know that I would. There are rumours, and I guess you want to know about them too.'

Frances felt the force of his eyes burning into the side of her face. His assumption about her mother brought Mrs Powell's comments to mind. Only Pearl had been there when the old bitch had slandered her mother's memory. Had Pearl blabbed? Her face burned more intensely.

‘Do you know Pearl?' Her tone was indignant.

‘Should I? Oh, yes! I know who you mean. Ty's girl. I saw them together at the village dance. Right?'

‘Yes.' Feeling a deep sense of panic, she turned to face him head on. ‘What did she say to you?'

He shrugged. ‘Nothing.'

‘I don't believe you.'

A smile she could only describe as wickedly mischievous came to his face. ‘She's a nice kid, but that's all she is. A kid, whereas you, well, I get the impression you're something else. That's why I've taken to you. I like Ruby, but we're too alike. She knows it too. We're not a long-term contract. Anyway, I get the impression her heart's with that guy out east. She's Ruby and, well, you're something else.'

‘What does that mean? Me being something else?'

The air suddenly smelled of the salt-laden river. They were getting closer to the coast and the ferry. She wanted this out of the way before they got there.

‘It means that you're nothing like your cousin. But let me tell you about me. I fully admit that I don't always say what people want me to say or act the way they want me to act. I realised that even before I turned down joining the family business. I'm not a store-man, same as everyone else. I'm me – something different – and I can't be anyone else. Neither can you. Accept how it is. We can never escape from who we are.'

Frances was panic-stricken. How did Declan know about her mother? She didn't think Ruby would have mentioned anything. But if her friend Pearl hadn't either, then …… Ty! Pearl's boyfriend.

‘What did Ty tell you?'

He shook his head. ‘It doesn't matter. Whatever your parents were, it doesn't mean to say that you will make the same mistakes that they made and you pretty certainly won't follow the same path in life. Things don't happen like that.'

Frances instantly felt uneasy. Whatever her mother was or wasn't, it was family business and should not be common knowledge. She had to challenge him.

‘You know!'

‘I do?'

Again that mocking amusement. Was he laughing at her, her predicament or her manner? She couldn't work him out.

‘Yes. You know,' she said, adopting a malevolent glare.

Folding her arms over her chest, she continued to glare out of the window. The fact that Pearl had told Ty, who had in turn relayed the fact to Declan, was mortifying. Any light-hearted conversation she might have had with Declan O'Malley would not now happen, which seemed a great shame.

‘You may recall I was close by when you and your friend were discussing a secret. It wasn't far to go from there to finding out what that secret was. Don't worry.' He patted her hand, which she promptly withdrew as though he'd burned her. ‘It's safe with me and if at any time you want to unload more of it, feel free to do so.'

Frances sat unmoved, her face taut, her eyes wide and staring straight ahead.

‘Ah! I can see from your stunning silence and your interest in the passing scenery that you're angry with me.'

If Frances had been made of metal, coal and smoke, she would well and truly have let out steam by now. Instead, she adopted a defensive tone of voice. ‘I can't help thinking that you like upsetting me.'

‘Hah!' He looked amused.

‘Is that all you can say? Hah?'

‘No point in saying anything else when the corners of a woman's mouth are downturned and she prefers the looks of a grey river to … Hey. That looks like the river we're looking for.'

To their right was the silvery grey expanse of the River Severn. A stone building, the tollhouse serving the crossing, stood solidly at the head of the slipway. A few farm vehicles including a tractor and khaki-coloured army trucks were waiting in the queue.

As the vehicle they were travelling in came to a halt, Frances remarked that it looked as though they might not be able to get on.

‘We've booked a place. Of course we can get on. We just don't need anything holding us up. And nothing should.'

Roused from their sleep by the Jeep slowing down, rumblings of movement came from the children in the back.

Frances guessed what might come next. ‘I wouldn't count on it.'

‘I wanna wee!'

Her face broke into a knowing smile as other voices sounded from the rear of the Jeep. To her surprise, Declan refused them leave.

‘Sorry, guys. You'll have to hold on until we're on board the ferry.'

‘They'll never manage,' Frances protested.

‘They'll have to,' Declan pronounced grimly. ‘Hold on to your horses!'