Rising Summer (28 page)

‘Had a nice evening, Minnie?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘He’s a Yorkshire boy, your dad said.’

‘He’s not a boy, he’s in the RAF,’ said Minnie.

‘Well, the very best of luck, Min—’

‘Yes, all right, goodbye,’ she said and came through the gate, her elbow brushing me. There she was, still a schoolgirl, the apple of her dad’s eye and a treasure to her mum. A young girl with her own way of being saucy and teasing.

‘So long, then, Min, and I shan’t forget you.’

‘Yes, goodbye,’ she said again and I realized that at last she was going off me.

‘Bless you, Min,’ I said and left.

She called me back. ‘Oh, blow, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t not wish you good luck, you been nice to me mum an’ dad. I – well, look after yourself.’

‘I’ll drop your mum and dad a line,’ I said and bent my head to kiss her on the cheek. She avoided it, turned away and walked up the path and into the cottage. The door closed behind her.

I felt a bit sad then.

Young Wally brought the rabbits on Wednesday afternoon, handing them over to me at the gates. I gave him half a crown as a parting gesture and his eyes rolled about in rapture.

‘Cor, good on yer, Tim,’ he said, ‘I ’opes yer win the Victoria Cross.’

‘Leave off,’ I said, ‘I’m not going in for any charge of the Light Brigade. Off you go, Wally, and don’t smash up Mrs Ford’s apple tree.’

‘Course I won’t, yer me ’ero, Tim,’ he said and went happily back to the village.

Carrying the rabbits to my quarters, I came face to face with Major Moffat. And his dog. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ he asked, pointing with his cane at the wrapped rabbits.

‘Present from one of the evacuees, sir,’ I said. His daft dog, sniffing the parcel, dribbled with excitement and made a mad attempt to get its teeth into it. The major asked what kind of a present it was. ‘Couple of rabbits, sir, and could you call your dog off?’

‘It’s your problem, lance-bombardier,’ said the major
and
went on his way, his fiendish grin undisguised. I had a running fight with the hungry Dalmatian all the way to my sleeping hut, where Frisby got me out of trouble by chucking a spare boot at it. It had its own back by running off with the boot.

‘Get after it,’ I said, ‘it’ll chew that boot to pieces.’

‘It’s your boot, not mine,’ said Frisby.

I had the devil’s own job rescuing one half of my spare footwear. I couldn’t get a replacement from the stores. The stores had closed down and everything had been packed up. I cornered the animal on the first floor of the mansion and tickled it with a bicycle pump I’d picked up on the way. It howled and dropped the boot. Major Moffat came out of his office.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Have to inform you, sir, that Jupiter pinched one of my spare boots and this bicycle pump. Thought I’d better pinch ’em back, sir.’

‘I heard it yell for help,’ said the major.

‘Not Jupiter, sir. He’s always been able to stand up for himself. Good dog, Jupiter, good boy. Sit now.’

‘What a specimen,’ said the major.

‘Yes, dog and a half, sir.’

‘Not him, you,’ said the major.

ON MY WAY
home to begin my embarkation leave, I thought I’d call on Charlie Chipper and his fish stall again. I hadn’t bothered him on my last leave. I’d got the rabbits, but no perks from the ration stores. All surplus rations had been returned to the main Naafi depot at Earls Colne. I thought some prime fillets of smoked haddock or a couple of fresh haddock might be welcome to Aunt May.

The East Street market was a jostle and bustle and stallholders who knew me let me know they’d seen me. Charlie had customers at his stall. I waited.

‘’Ello, ’ello,’ he said, when he’d finished serving them, ‘is that you there, Tim old cock?’

‘Still surviving,’ I said.

‘Glad for yer,’ said Charlie. ‘Mind, I ain’t got nothing for yer in the way of kippers.’

‘All right, I’ll do you a favour,’ I said, ‘I won’t ask for kippers, I’ll take some fillets of smoked haddock.’

‘Ain’t got none of them, neither,’ said Charlie, straw boater on the back of his head. ‘Bleedin’ shame, I grant yer, but I ain’t.’

‘All right, I’ll just have two and a couple of fresh ones to make up.’

‘’Ere, yer comin’ it a bit, ain’t yer, me old cockalorum?’

‘Wrap ’em up before there’s a crowd, Charlie.’

‘That’s it, break me arm,’ said Charlie.

‘I’m on embarkation leave,’ I said.

‘Gawd blimey an’ now yer pullin’ on me ’eart-strings,’ said Charlie.

‘You’ve always had a warm heart along with your cockles, old mate.’

Charlie grinned, shook his head in defeat and came up with two fresh haddock. ‘No smoked, cross me warm ’eart,’ he said.

‘OK,’ I said and he wrapped the fish up and charged me a packet. On account of the war, he said.

Aunt May wasn’t around when I arrived home. I wondered if she’d got my letter. Everything looked in apple pie order, as usual, everything tidily in place, except for her veneered box of little personal items. Normally, she kept it in her bedroom. There were old photographs in it, family photographs of herself, her parents and my parents. Also letters and other little things. The curved lid was open. I took some of the photographs out and saw her as a small girl, a growing girl and a young woman. They’d turned sepia with age. I’d seen them before, on the occasions when she’d sit with the open box on her lap and reminisce. I wondered if there were any snaps of the man she’d lost, I’d never seen any. No, I couldn’t rummage, not sporting.

I saw her birth certificate. I’d not seen that before. May Elizabeth Hardy, born in New Cross of Arthur Henry Hardy and wife Margaret Lilian, 19 March, 1904.
Funny.
That made her thirty-nine, not forty-one. She’d always given her age as if she’d been born in 1902. I took a look at her National Identity card, issued to the population at the beginning of the war. That showed her born in 1904 as well. I’d thought she was twenty-one when she took on the responsibility, with her parents, of looking after me when I lost my own parents. Perhaps the little deception was something to do with legalities, perhaps the law would not have allowed her to have me unless she’d come of age. But then I suppose the law would have required to see her birth certificate. Or perhaps it was her parents who took formal charge of me. Whatever the reason for saying she was two years older than she was, I’d have thought that after a while she needn’t have bothered.

Should I ask her questions about it? No. She had had her reasons and they were her own business. All the same, it was very unusual for a woman to keep up the pretence of saying she was older than she was.

I put the items back in her box and left it as it was, with the lid open. I put the haddock in the larder, on a plate. I stowed the rabbits in too, then took myself, my kitbag and my rifle up to my bedroom. I’d left Suffolk for good and on Sunday week would rendezvous with the rest of the regimental personnel at Liverpool’s main railway station.

I heard Aunt May come in. I called down to her. ‘I’m home, Aunt May.’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ she called up, ‘sorry I had to go out, love. Come on down, let me take a look at you.’

I went down. We met in the passage and she gave me the customary kiss and cuddle.

‘How’s tricks?’ I asked.

‘I can’t grumble,’ she said, looking very personable in her hat and coat. We went into the kitchen. I showed her the fish and the rabbits. ‘Well, you don’t ever come home empty-handed, do you?’ she smiled. ‘I didn’t want to be out when you arrived, but I had to go to the doctor’s.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

‘No, of course not, just some twinges from eating something that disagreed with me.’

‘What kind of twinges?’

‘Just the twinges you get when your stomach’s not well,’ said Aunt May. She took her medical card and a bottle of medicine out of her handbag. She put the medicine on the mantelpiece and the card back where it belonged, in her veneered box. She closed the lid. ‘Now why did I leave that box there? I hope I’m not getting absent-minded, that’s a sure sign of old age.’

‘You’re a youngster,’ I said. ‘Were the twinges painful?’

‘They caught me a bit sharp,’ confessed Aunt May, ‘so I thought I’d better go to the doctor’s and get some medicine. But I’m all right now.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m fine. The twinges have just been catching me now and again. No need to fuss.’

‘Still, would you like to put your feet up while I get some lunch? Or are you off food?’

‘I’m not off food, not now I’m not and I’m not putting
my
feet up,’ said Aunt May. ‘I’ll get the lunch, but before I do, I want to know something. Are you in trouble, Tim?’

‘I could have been. The major’s dog could have had those rabbits and my right arm as well yesterday.’ Aunt May knew all about the ravenous and scatty Dalmatian. ‘But I won that one.’

‘What I mean is why are you on leave again, love?’ Aunt May was gently enquiring. ‘You had your usual leave only a little while ago. You haven’t gone absent, have you? You just said in your letter you were getting more leave and I thought that’s funny.’

I wondered if I should tell her the reason. I thought I’d better. ‘It’s ten days embarkation leave,’ I said.

‘Oh, I see.’ Aunt May took that with a wry little smile. ‘I see, you’re going overseas.’

‘I’ve been lucky so far, I’m not complaining.’

‘Yes, we’ve both been lucky, Tim, so I won’t complain, either,’ she said, and gave my arm a squeeze. Then she got on with preparing lunch. Aunt May never went over the top. Although she never hid her likings and her affections, she never became emotional.

I kept glancing at her over lunch, seeing her now as a woman who was under forty, not over. Perhaps there wasn’t much difference between thirty-nine and forty-one, but it was one reason why I’d thought she never looked her age. Another reason was her equability. It kept away frowns, lines and creases.

I asked how Bill Clayton was. Aunt May said he was in the pink the last time she saw him. I wanted to know why she still hadn’t made her mind up about him. She
said
it was something she needed to think long and hard about.

‘You don’t usually shilly-shally,’ I said, ‘you usually make your mind up fairly quickly. Bill would be good for you.’

‘I don’t have to have anyone just because he’d be good for me,’ she said.

‘But you’re fond of Bill,’ I said.

‘I’m fond of the vicar and some of the market stallholders,’ said Aunt May, ‘but I don’t have to marry them.’

‘Be a sensation if you did. But I thought Bill was a bit special.’

‘I’ll make up my own mind, Tim.’

‘Well, it’s your life, Aunt May,’ I said, ‘but it strikes me you’re playing hard to get.’

‘The very idea, as if I’d do that,’ she said. She was hedging. It was most unlike her. ‘You haven’t mentioned that American girl,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Is it really all over? From your letters, I thought you were keen on her.’

‘I am,’ I said, ‘and I’ve got news for you. It’s on again. Well, more than that. She’s said yes and if the war’s kind to us we’ll marry as soon as it’s over. Next year, I hope.’

Aunt May beamed. ‘Well, I’m glad for you, Tim,’ she said, ‘but when am I going to have the pleasure of meeting her?’

‘I’ll give her your address when I write to her, I’ll suggest she pays you a visit. How’s that?’

‘Well, I would like to meet her,’ said Aunt May and
asked
me to tell her more about Kit. So I did and Aunt May said she sounded as if she’d make a nice efficient wife.

‘I shan’t worry if she turns out slightly inefficient,’ I said.

‘Now then, Tim, you don’t want a wife like that.’

‘Why don’t I? I’m a bit inefficient myself. Two of a kind’s best, Aunt May.’

‘Go on with you,’ said Aunt May and she laughed.

The days went fast. I looked up old friends and neighbours and heard that Meg Fowler had become engaged to a PT instructor in the Marines. That would suit exuberant Meg. She liked a wrestle and a PT instructor in the Marines would be just her kind of playmate. I spent a couple of evenings in the Browning Street pub with some of the locals and joined in a cockney singsong. And I took Aunt May on a day trip by train to Brighton, one of her favourite places, although the pier was closed and there were certain wartime restrictions to be observed. But we had fun.

I noticed she had thoughtful moods, as if there was something on her mind and I wondered if that something was the reason why she wouldn’t give Bill an answer. He called one evening. Aunt May treated him like an old friend, which was nice enough, but not quite like treating him as a lover. He and I repaired to the pub for half an hour, Bill saying he’d like the pleasure of buying me a jug of ale, seeing I was due to go overseas. In the pub, I asked him what he was doing about Aunt May’s indecision.

‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘it wouldn’t be too clever to start pushing her.’

‘I wonder what’s holding her back? You haven’t got a wooden leg and a glass eye, have you?’

‘I’ve got a bit of a limp,’ said Bill, ‘but no glass eye and all my own teeth. All the same, I don’t fancy pushin’ her. She’s been a long time unmarried and she’s looked after you nearly all your life. That could mean she wants to stick to what she’s used to.’

‘Well, she knows that’s going to change after the war, when I get married.’

‘Hullo, are you givin’ me news?’ asked Bill.

‘Yes, I’m fixed up to get spliced as soon as the war’s over, Bill,’ I said. ‘An American girl.’

‘Ruddy fireworks, that’s good goin’,’ said Bill.

‘A Wac sergeant,’ I said.

‘You’ve pinched one of theirs?’

‘Their GIs have pinched most of ours,’ I said.

‘That calls for another jug,’ said Bill, ‘a quick one. Drink up, Tim, I like a celebration.’

‘All ready to go, love?’ said Aunt May, as I came down the stairs on the morning of my departure.

‘I’ll keep the letters coming,’ I said.

‘You’d better,’ she said, her smile a bit unsteady.

‘I’ll get the war over as soon as I can.’