At the Break of Day (20 page)

The Lake was great. Sandra sends her love and that young guy Joe too. Do you remember him? He’s doing quite well on the paper now. Wish it could have been you.

All our love,
Nancy

Yes, Rosie thought as she folded the letter and brushed her hair. Yes, she did remember him but like a distant shadow because Jack filled her life now. She put down her hair brush and read the letter again. How serious was all this?

That evening Jack came home, straight to her, his eyes angry, his lip swollen. Jones had wanted him to deliver stolen meat. He wouldn’t. He was sacked. He was no longer an apprentice. Jones would inform the Ministry of Labour and the Army would send for him. But when?

January 1949 was cold but there was still no call-up for Jack and so they didn’t feel the wind which cut into their chapped skin as they walked to the Palais. Sometimes they walked because it was better to be alone than with either family.

Spring came. The clothing ration ended and there was still no call-up but now, with each day, their kisses were getting stronger, their bodies pushing closer because it could not be long and there was so much love between them, and so much that was beautiful when they were together, so much that was dark when they were apart.

They walked to the rec on the last Saturday in April, when all the plates had been sold, and Ollie had gone to the pub, yet again. Rosie wouldn’t think of that as Jack swung lightly, his face tense. Instead she watched the shadows of the clouds scud across the park. There were buds on the clubbed trees. She heard the scrape of his shoes on the earth, the shriek as the chain jolted to a halt, felt him reach out and pull her to him.

‘Look after Maisie and Lee for me. Promise me. Promise me,’ Jack said as he sat on the swing and she moved to stand between his legs. He always asked her this. He pressed his head against her belly and held her tightly.

‘I will, don’t worry. It will be fine,’ Rosie said, looking at the fence which was being erected around the bomb-damaged houses. Work would begin soon. Then all this would be changed. She hugged him. Everything would be changed.

They’d had a letter from Sam this morning. He had only another six months to go before he came out.

‘See, it went quickly,’ she said now, listening to the foreman shouting as one section of the fence fell down.

‘He’ll be home soon. Nothing can happen in eighteen months. You wait and see. It’ll all be fine. Maisie and Ollie will sort it out. It’s already better.’ And sometimes it was, but not always.

She could feel his back lifting and falling with his breathing, feel his body heat, smell him. She didn’t need to say that each day for her would be endless without him. He already knew. She didn’t need to remind him that there were twenty-four hours in each day, seven days in each week, fifty-two weeks in a year.

She wouldn’t tell him that Norah was longing for him to go, so that she would also leave. That Frank and Nancy had written to her telling her to come when Jack had left. But she must stay here for now, alone, without him, without Grandpa, because she had promised him that she would. She would just hold him because he ached at the thought of the future too.

In May his call-up still had not come but the Berlin Blockade ended. Again there was a letter from Nancy talking of Sandra’s new hairstyle, Mary’s new Hoover. The target on the garage door which Frank had repainted for when Rosie came back out. She mentioned Frank’s stress again, but that was all.

The summer was hot and blistered the pavements. The stall did good business and Jack’s voice was hoarse at the end of each day but his lips were as soft and warm as always, his hands as gentle, his words of love as tender as they had always been.

And she wrote and told Nancy again that she would not be coming, not yet.

In July the sugar ration was put down to eight ounces a week, the sweet ration was back at four ounces and there was a further cut in tobacco supplies. Another letter from Nancy told her that Truman had tried but failed to dampen the hysteria which was spreading across America after the latest Soviet spy conviction. And had Rosie heard about the attempt to screen all school books by the House Committee for Un-American Activities? Didn’t they know that Goebbels had burnt books in the streets? Did this always happen after a war? Boy, is that goddamn Local Administrator having the time of his life!

It’s great that Jack hasn’t been called up. We’re sorry you can’t come. So sorry. But maybe later?

But Rosie wouldn’t think of this, she pushed it all from her because each dawn so far had brought the knowledge that Jack was next door, so close, so dear and nothing could spoil this love they had. Nothing. Not even absence, nothing.

They went to Southend with Maisie, Ollie and Lee. They ate winkles and she felt the wind in her hair and heard the laughter of the children who pushed go-carts, racing them, screaming as they won, screaming as they lost and she remembered the feel and smell of the old pram which Grandpa had kept and she missed him. But then she missed him every day.

She sat with Maisie, their skirts held around their knees, the wind tugging at their hems and sleeves, and they laughed as Jack rolled up his trousers to his knees, then ducked Lee down into the sea, then across to Ollie, who took him and held him.

Rosie looked at Maisie. ‘So, it’s all right?’

Maisie took a Marmite sandwich from the OXO tin, squashing the bread together, eating it with small bites. There were teethmarks in the bread. ‘Of course it’s all right, Rosie. Just you wait and see. You mustn’t worry your head about us.’

But behind the dullness of her eyes there was pain. And Rosie did worry. And all any of them seemed to do was wait. She didn’t ask about the man. She didn’t want to know; all she wanted was for it to be all right.

She watched Jack again, his strong back beneath his shirt, his pale legs in the rolled-up trousers. She wished they could both be by the lake, lying in the sun, tanned. She wished she could see his body. She wished they could lie together and she could feel his hands on her, his kisses on her breasts.

That night she clung to him in the yard, tasting the salt on his skin as she kissed him, seeing the pallor of it clear in the late evening light. She gripped his jacket, searching his face. She never wanted anything to come between them. Their love must never die and pain take its place as it had done with his mother.

‘I want to sleep with you,’ she said, holding his head close to hers, talking against his mouth, and she felt his arms tighten.

‘I want to sleep with you.’ His mouth was on hers. ‘But not yet. There’s time, my love. There’s time.’

But there wasn’t time. His call-up papers were in the hall when he came down the next morning and in her hall was a letter from Nancy telling her that the last American occupation forces had left South Korea. What would happen now?

She screwed it up and threw it across the yard because Jack was there, beside The Reverend Ashe, reading out his enlistment notice, and what the hell did she care about Korea, or Truman, or bloody witch hunts which were so far away and which had nothing to do with her or the boy who was now holding her, the lashes of his brown eyes throwing shadows on his cheeks?

They both cried, there, within the scent of the rose, and Jack felt he couldn’t bear to go and leave her here where he couldn’t touch her, hold her, love her. He couldn’t bear to go and leave his mum whose pain he could still see deep down but couldn’t understand, or Lee who would start school in September without him. What if the shouting began again?

He left two weeks later, on Thursday, from King’s Cross. Rosie came, but only Rosie. There were couples kissing, crying. There was the rail warrant in his jacket pocket. There were doors slamming, porters pushing through them. ‘Mind yer backs.’

The station smelt of dirt and heat and loss and he held her to him. Breathing in her smell, which drowned out all else, holding her face between his hands, kissing her lips, her eyes.

‘Be careful. Come back soon. Come back,’ she said, tasting his lips, but the whistles were blowing now and he heaved his case into the corridor, scrambling in after, leaning out of the window, sharing it with another boy, holding her hand, bending to kiss it, but the train was moving and he was leaving and he let her fingers slide from his grasp.

‘Stay with Mum. Look after Lee. Promise me.’

She was running along the platform now and her lips were smiling and she was nodding but there were tears all over her face, dripping down on to her blouse.

‘I love you, Rosie. I love you, little Rosie. I’m sorry I have to leave you.’ He gripped the window. Had she heard?

The station was still busy, there was another train leaving from the next platform, there were whistles, doors, calls, the tannoy, but all she could hear were his words. I love you, little Rosie. And they were Grandpa’s words too and now she was alone.

The train picked up speed as it left the station. Jack still waved, though he could no longer see her. The wind was too strong in his face, it made his eyes water. It had made his eyes water when he left for Somerset, leaving his mum behind in the bombs. He was leaving her again, with Ollie. He was leaving Rosie but there was nothing else he could do. He had to go. He had been told to go.

He drew his head back in, pulled up the window. It was quiet except for the voices along the corridor. He rested his head on the window. There was nothing else he could do.

He shoved his case back against the sliding door which was open then eased himself into the compartment, between two other boys. The air was thick with Woodbine smoke. He drew out a cigarette and struck a match, cupping his hands, sucking, smelling the sulphur, trying not to think of the oast-houses, the stream where she had paddled, her legs so slim, so brown. Trying not to hear Lee’s laugh, or see Maisie’s smile, Ollie confused, angry.

He leaned back, feeling the heat of the conscripts either side, hearing their jokes, their coughs, their laughs, and at last he was talking too, pushing them all down deep inside because there was nothing else he could do. Just nothing and it hurt too much.

And so he listened, but did not really hear, and laughed, but did not really mean it, and talked, but only with his mouth, not his mind. The train lurched and rattled over the points and a boy who spoke with a plum in his mouth sat by the window and told them how he had been a sergeant in the OTC and was going to apply for a commission.

‘Frightfully good management experience you know,’ he said. The compartment door slid shut, then open again. A boy looked in.

‘Seen Joe?’

‘Who’s Joe?’ asked the lad next to Jack, stubbing out the cigarette with his foot.

The boy walked on. There was laughter in the corridor and a packet of cigarettes was thrown past the door, caught and thrown back and still the train travelled on, roaring through tunnels, shafting out into sunlight, further from Rosie, from Maisie. And he didn’t want to leave them. Didn’t want to be sent to God knows where to do God knows what. He wanted to get on with his own life. But he had no choice, had he? Had any of them? He closed his eyes. There had to be more to life than all of this.

He thought of the sign,
ABSOLUTELY NO JITTERBUGGING ALLOWED
, thought of the sign,
12 YEARS AND UNDER ONLY
, thought of Ollie slapping Maisie, of himself pulling at his father, heaving him out into the yard, wanting to shout at them all to stop.

But it was all right, he told himself, as he drew on his cigarette, feeling the heat in his lungs, coughing, stubbing it out, leaning back. It’s all right, Rosie’s there. She’s strong, she’ll take my place. She’ll always love me. I’ll always love her.

He shut his eyes, shaking the thoughts from his head, making himself listen to the talk which was flowing past him. Really listen, hanging on to the words, the jokes, the questions, taking a newspaper when it was offered, reading it, passing it on.

He talked to Sid, next to him. He was just eighteen, never left his mum before. Never been evacuated. His hands were shaking. Jack, at nineteen, felt old. But they were all the same. None of them wanted to be here. They all had other lives.

The towns had gone, there was wild free country, not the sloping hills of Herefordshire, or Somerset. He remembered the picture he had unscrewed and sold, the milk chocolate they had been given, the corned beef. He had been sick.

‘I mean to say, basic training is absolutely nothing. When you’re experienced, as I am, it’s a doddle.’ The boy with the plum was speaking again.

Sid leaned forward. ‘What’ll we do then?’

‘A bit of marching, a bit of polishing. Getting fit, improving ourselves, you know.’

But they didn’t, not yet. All Jack knew was the ache inside, the loneliness of it all, the missing. What was Rosie doing now? What was Maisie cooking for tea? Had his bed been folded and taken from the kitchen? Was Ollie drunk?

The train pulled into the station at a platform which held kiosks selling books and sandwiches and tea, but Jack moved past with the others, his case heavy in his hand, banging against his leg, but this time there was no gas mask.

They hurried along, Sid beside him, skirting through the others, keeping ahead of Nigel, the OTC Sergeant, trying to lose him in the crush. They headed towards the branch line and the train full of conscripts. They tried one door. A boy with a crew cut and no front teeth leaned out.

‘Sorry, cock, full up.’

They moved on to the next and the next and by now Nigel was with them again and Sid cursed. Jack winked, opening a door, throwing his case in, Sid’s too, Nigel’s too. Whistles were blowing, boys were leaning out of windows whistling and shouting, and then they were in but there were no seats. There was singing though, and rampaging up and down the corridor, and Jack remembered how they had pretended to cry on the evacuee train as they passed through stations so that the onlookers got their money’s worth.

The moors stretched either side and there was beauty in the sky, in the bleakness of the dales, the scattering of sheep, the heather, the short-cropped grass. But Rosie wasn’t here, Maisie wasn’t here, and it was fear as well as loneliness that stirred him now because Sam and Ted had told him too much about the Army.