Wartime Sweethearts (22 page)

‘I thought all girls liked new dresses.’

‘I’m not all girls.’

There was a firm set to her chin and a proud look in her eyes. He wanted to say that he agreed with her. She certainly wasn’t like all girls. She was special, but was now the right time to say that? He decided a rain check was in order.

‘Sure you’re not. All the girls I’ve ever met preferred powdering their noses with fancy stuff, not flour … what I mean to say is …’

It was too late. He could tell by the look on her face that he’d done it again, opened his mouth and shoved a foot in it. What was it about this girl? What was happening to him?

Mary tossed her head and looked away. ‘So. First my dress isn’t up to standard, and now I’ve got flour on my nose.’

‘I didn’t exactly mean you have, well not at this moment in time, but that morning …’

She rounded on him swiftly. ‘Stop making fun of me, Mr Dangerfield. I fully admit that I’m not one of the sophisticated girls that pilots of aeroplanes are used to. Now perhaps we can concentrate on the judging? I dare say that’s what you’re really here for?’

The result of the competition was important and she knew Ruby would be very disappointed if she didn’t win. So far the signs were not good. Lady Huntspill had looked totally disinterested in the more humble fare ordinary folk might make and consume. Mary was also possessed with an overwhelming desire to find a mirror and check whether she really did have flour on her nose. She settled for getting out her handkerchief and blowing into it, dabbing at the tip of her nose just in case.

‘I think I could win this,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘For the wrong reasons …’

She frowned, not understanding what he meant until she saw her ladyship smile in his direction and she knew, she just knew that he was right.

‘You know the judge?’

‘Ahuh!’

He looked straight ahead, thinking girls weren’t usually this difficult to get on with. Despite the lovely letter she’d sent him, he presumed it was out of pity – make the dude in the air feel good. He’d put his foot in it too many times already. She was bound to brush him off if he asked her out.

Mary too was having second thoughts. Men like him loved receiving letters from naive girls like her. They thrived on it, naive young girls being putty in their hands. Well, she wasn’t going to fall for him. That’s what she told herself.

There was a reason they were here and she determined to stick to it. And now he was telling her that he knew the judge. She couldn’t help but have a dig at him.

‘Don’t you think it was a good idea to challenge the competitors to create recipes to suit war rations? None of this foreign muck. Italian and suchlike. Just good British food.’

Michael Dangerfield eyed her sidelong. So that was the way it was going to be. He cleared his throat, shoved his hands in his pockets and put on the kind of voice a pal back in Canada used to use: Bragging Billy they called him.

‘Nothing to do with the competition. Not really. It’s all about the baking and her ladyship has very definite views on what makes a good meal. She has very cultured tastes. You can tell that by the way she dresses. Very elegant. She’ll go for something very upmarket or foreign. One of my Italian breads perhaps, brioche, or that French lemon tart. Did you see that? Light as a feather and a very piquant taste. Very piquant!’

He’d heard a lot of French people use the word piquant. Sharp as a lemon, he thought. Very apt.

Mary scowled at him. He was making fun of her again and smiling at her, then smirking, then smiling again as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind how she would react. If she’d been able to read his mind she’d know just how clumsy he was feeling, undecided on how to get her to go out with him. But she didn’t. Her tone was sharp – as
piquant
as the lemon tart he’d been praising.

‘Surely not! If this war isn’t over by Christmas, the ingredients will become scarce. Dishes calling for special ingredients – and lemons will be special seeing as they don’t grow in this country – just won’t be practical.’

‘She wouldn’t agree with you. Anyway, you might as well prepare yourself. I’m going to win.’

He didn’t want to believe it, but Lady Huntspill knew his family. All the same he wanted to lose. He wanted to make it up with Mary. He wanted to do a lot of things with Mary.

Mary clenched her jaw while recalling how Ruby had felt over misinterpreting Gareth’s intentions. It now looked as though she too had foolishly misinterpreted Michael Dangerfield’s intentions towards her.

‘I believe you’re telling the truth,’ she said solemnly.

‘You mean that?’

He winced under the power of her beautiful eyes, detecting a hint of violet in the piercing blue. Perhaps it was her dark lashes aiding that impression, so black they looked as though they’d been dipped in soot.

Mary eyed him steadily, not caring to admit even to herself that she’d misread him so totally. She looked for some sign that she had not. Although the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes were still obvious, the eyes themselves held a cynical look.

‘That would be so unfair.’

He shrugged. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’

He wanted to add ‘and with us it could be love’, but he did want to win that prize. He had plans for it and, besides, his mother would be so pleased.

This time when she looked at him he thought he saw contempt in her eyes, certainly not love.

Mary turned angry. ‘You had no business entering if you know that woman. It’s unscrupulous!’

Heads turned at her raised voice.

Michael shrugged helplessly, aware that he’d gone the whole hog and blown any chance of getting to know Mary better.

‘I don’t care about winning. It’s not why I’m here. It just doesn’t matter. I had a plan for the money—’

‘Yes. Your bar bill. You said so.’

‘And for my mom. She’d be so proud if I won. Things haven’t been—’

Mary failed to pick up on everything he said, failed to ask him why he was really there. All that mattered was the competition and it being fair to everyone who’d entered.

Her eyes were blazing. ‘My sister and I put a lot into those recipes and our entries. We used our brains to work things out based on what ingredients would be available. You upper-crust types just don’t have a clue!’

‘I’m sorry—’ He laid his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

‘I’m sorry too. Forget I ever sent that letter.’

‘I don’t want to forget it.’

‘Your aunt thought it would be a good idea. She asked me so I did it. She’s a nice lady.’ She hoped her words would hurt him, hoped he would take it that she had not written the letter on her own volition but at the request of his aunt.

Up until now Michael had believed she had fallen for him on the first occasion they’d met, just as he had fallen for her. That was why she’d written to him.

The disappointment stung. Baking competitions were fun and he prided himself on what he did. As it was, his duties with the RAF now took up most of his time, but he’d managed to wangle some time off – not really so much for the competition, but to see Mary again. He’d even held off replying to her letter because he much preferred to see her in the flesh. He had been going to tell her that. The situation had changed. It seemed things were not as he’d thought.

‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ he said disparagingly, his hands in his pockets, smiling as he shook his head. ‘It isn’t as though I’m starved of female company.’

She felt her face reddening and knew it wasn’t just anger. The Lord Mayor called for their attention.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. Pray silence!’

All heads turned to face the front. In an attempt to calm herself Mary placed her hand over her racing heart. This was it. This was the moment they’d been waiting for, but instead of excitement she was already feeling dejected.

Lady Huntspill was once again introduced, this time by the Lord Mayor, returning the favour of her introducing him.

A picture of total confidence and upper-class poise, her ladyship rose to her feet and began to speak, her accent as plummy as a BBC announcer.

‘It was with great pleasure that I accepted this opportunity to officiate at this glittering event. Let me begin by saying that just because there’s a war on does not mean to say we can let standards drop. There is no excuse that nutritious, economic meals should become bland and unappetising. We should aim for the kind of standard we’re likely to be served in some very good restaurants, and I am not talking about the Ritz: excellent food is readily available all over this country. Therefore, with that premise in mind, I hereby announce the results of each category in turn.…’

At the sound of her ladyship’s crisply pronounced vowels, Mary felt a chill emptiness in her stomach that had nothing to do with not eating any breakfast. The results were announced and none of them included anything she or Ruby had entered.

Each announcement was followed by titters of approval from well-turned-out women in expensive hats; women who indulged in cooking as a hobby – and with help from professional cooks they just happened to employ.

She felt Michael Dangerfield stealing furtive glances at her, but could not bring herself to face him. The class system was alive and well. She found herself hoping that by the end of this war it was dead and buried.

In her opinion the ingredients of the winning entries were far beyond the purse of an ordinary housewife, but then it was unlikely that Lady Dorothy Hunstpill had ever met an ordinary housewife, certainly not a working-class one!

One prize after another was handed out to prim women whose husbands had well-paid jobs in banks and offices and who lived in spacious detached houses complete with a cook and a maid.

As at the regional contest in Oldland Common, the winner of the bread category was the last to be announced. Although she already guessed what was to come, she couldn’t drag herself away and run outside to tell her father and sister their journey had been for nothing.

‘I’d like to see you again.’

His voice was barely audible among that of the crowd. Presuming she hadn’t heard, he repeated what he’d said.

‘I heard you,’ she snapped back.

Still she couldn’t look at him; not until this was over, and even then the anger would persist.

‘I have the feeling I need to say something really dramatic to grab your attention. Or perhaps an apology?’

She remained focused on Lady Huntspill, a woman who had never in her life had to make a meal from scraps left over from earlier in the week. Who’d never made brawn from a pig’s head or begged a ham bone or bacon bones from the butcher in order to make soup. She knew plenty of people who did have to do that.

Mrs Hicks’s nephew repeated what he’d just said. ‘It appears I was right,’ he added.

‘Does it?’

He assumed he had some of her attention. ‘How dramatic shall I be?’

‘What?’ She glanced at him briefly, her attention swiftly going back to her ladyship. This was it. The winner of the bread section.

‘How about I ask you to marry me?’

Mary looked at him and frowned. Surely she’d misheard.

‘And finally the speciality bread. And the winner is … Mr Michael Ricardo Dangerfield …’

His name rang out louder than that of the previous winners. The applause was louder too, mainly because he was the only entrant wearing a uniform.

‘Mary—’

Mary spun on her heels, her flight impeded by the press of the crowd. All she wanted was to get away. He’d lied to her. He’d said he was here because he knew she would be here too. But that wasn’t the reason at all. He’d come to take the prize. He
knew
he would take the prize.

‘Perhaps we could share …’

She didn’t wait to hear the end of what he was saying and she certainly had no intention of sharing the prize with him.

Angrily, she pushed through the crowd. Her face was flushed, her heart racing. Michael Dangerfield had won outright.

Before passing through the double mahogany doors and leaving the building, she heard his name called again.

‘Mr Michael Ricardo Dangerfield, please come forward to claim your prize.’

Michael Ricardo? The woman even knew his second name. Perhaps he’d entered under his full name. But then, he’d told her his family was known to her ladyship so she was likely to know his full name!

Pulling the brim of her hat more closely over her eyes, she went in search of her father and Ruby. She found them among a group of people gathered around the WVS van. Their expressions were stiff, as though already gearing themselves for disappointment. Mary concluded they’d guessed the result.

‘I see you’ve heard the news. Oh well. It’s not the end of the world,’ she said as brightly as she could. ‘I think we were too downmarket for her ladyship.’

To her surprise, the expressions of her father and sister were unchanged. Suddenly she saw the pain in their eyes. Her heart missed a beat. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.

Her father pointed to a newspaper seller’s billboard displaying the latest headline. ‘Never mind the bloody baking competition. Look at that. Would you just bloody look at that.’

Mary looked to where he indicated. The headline read: G
RAIN
S
HIPS
S
UNK IN THE
S
OUTH
A
TLANTIC
.

Somebody passed her a newspaper. Her heart that had been racing during the baking competition now raced for a very different reason. She read the list of ships. One of them was very familiar. Its name was
Baltic Legend
.

‘Oh my God!’ She turned to her father. ‘But we haven’t heard anything. It doesn’t mean that Charlie … he could have been rescued. That’s right, isn’t it? He could have been rescued.’ She was fully aware that she was screeching, but she couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t help it.

Her father chewed thoughtfully on his unlit pipe and nodded. ‘If you read on, it says that there were casualties but also survivors. The survivors were picked up by the battleship that sank her. They think it was the
Graf Spee
, a surface raider anyway.’