My Little Blue Dress (7 page)

Cooing playfully, I rolled over and tickled his mustache with my finger. “ 'Cause you're a weirdo. 'Cause you're a crazy, kooky dreamer who's always got some kind of crazy . . .
thing
going on in his head.”

“Tha's mockin' me. Why does tha allus 'ave to mock me?”

I hovered over him, smile fading, then with a snort of exasperation scrambled away to the far side of the rock where I drew my knees to my chest and glared out at the noisy black water. “You know, Davey, I really wish you'd warned me that you wanted to have some Big Conversation. I really thought we were here just to fuck and have a nice time. I'm just not in the mood for one of your . . .” I deepened my
voice and made it go all stupid, “. . . ‘Tell me 'ow tha feels about me, lass' discussions.”

“Oh aye?” I heard him prop himself up on an elbow. “And when is tha ever, eh? When is tha
ever
in t'mood to do owt but 'ave relations? When do the pair of us
ever
get to talk about 'ow we're
feelin'
? Oh aye,” he scoffed, “tha comes on all soft and nuzzly when it's time for fleshly union, when tha craves t'feel o' me 'ardness inside thee. But then after? When an ordin'ry lass'd be askin' me 'bout me dreams an' me fears, me plans for t'future? Alls I see is the back o' thine form as tha disappears o'er t'dale, thine ponytail reet near 'orizontal wi' t'speed o' ye. It's like tha's . . . like tha's
frit
, lass. Frit o' intimacy or summat. Either that or tha 'ates me.”

“Yeah, and what makes you think I
don't
hate you, Davey? You know they say the simplest explanation is often the best.”

These were harsh words, I knew, and sure enough Davey started to cry. Karen's worried face appeared over the crag. “I've just dumped him,” I mouthed, making a slashing gesture at my throat. She nodded and disappeared.

“Lass?” sniveled Davey eventually. “Lass, please don't leave me.
Please
. Tell me tha's not leavin' me.”

“I don't know,” I lied. “I haven't decided. I don't like how things are between us.”

“Oh
please,
lass! Gi' me one more chance. I'll be better, I swear it. I'm so in love wi' thee I can't
stan'
it! What tha's lookin' for I 'ave reet here! Tha'll never find another lad as good as me!”

“Don't be so sure,” I said.

But he was right.

Suddenly I knew he was right.

Or that he might be.

I mean think about it.

If I
did
jettison Davey and find another boyfriend, and then found myself running into the same emotional blockage . . . well, then I'd be in trouble. I'd have no choice but to admit to myself that my deepest fear was a reality, that there was something wrong with
me
, something profound, maybe a fear of intimacy like Davey was saying. Maybe something worse.

Damn.

“Look, I'm tired,” I told him truthfully, getting up. “And I'm drunk. Davey, I'm not going to leave you, but I am . . . I do need some space and some time to think.”

“I unnerstan', lass. Take all t'time tha needs. I want nuthin' more than for thee to be 'appy. For thee to be 'appy wi'
me
,” he added.

You know, reader, the Chinese have a saying: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Little did I dream that evening, as I trudged miserably up the hill from Murbery, that within a few short hours I would get more “space,” more time to think than I could shake a stick at—and from the unlikeliest of sources:

Germany.

“W
HERE'S ME DA
?”

I was nursing a coffee in my pajamas at the kitchen window while me mam finished cooking my breakfast. In the field below our house the large piece of farm machinery that me da worked on, the fangle, was unstaffed and draped with a black tarpaulin, which made it look a lot like a giant, folded umbrella.

“Why 'e's gone off to war, lass. Battlin' the Germans and keepin' us safe.”

“The Germans?” I blew on my coffee. “What did
they
do?”

“Doesn't tha know?” said me mam, expertly shuttling kippers from the oven to a large white plate that was already heaped high with mushrooms and fried bread and baked beans. “P'raps tha's been too busy with a certain young gentleman to keep abreast o' world affairs!”

“Oh me
mam
!”

While I ate, me mam explained about the political situation in Europe: the man who'd been assassinated, the role of the French . . . It was scintillating stuff, but the big news as far as I was concerned was that the army had put out a call to essentially every male in England to come and help them with the fighting. Would that mean Davey? I wondered. He was only fourteen, of course, but the size he was he could probably pass for about forty-five, if he chose to . . .

My thoughts were interrupted by someone calling my name at the end of the path. I craned my neck.

It was Davey.

And he seemed to be wearing some sort of uniform.

“S
O THIS'LL BE
good,” I told him, reaching up across the gate to straighten his soldier's lapel. “For us. You know . . . I didn't mean the things I said last night, Davey.” I squinted up at him in the bright morning sun. “I was drunk and I was tired. I really
do
care about you. But, like you say, I do need to do some growing up. Which I can do while you're away at war.”

Davey smiled. He looked tall and noble in his new green uniform and was clearly feeling very virile and mature. Whatever dents I'd put in his manly façade the night before had been popped right back out again by the news that his country needed him to go kill people. “Aye lass,” he rumbled philosophically. “It's mornin's like this that really put things in perspective.”

“Yeah, you're right.” I nodded sagely. “Anyway. Look. You won't do anything stupid over there, will you?”

“Not wi' thee to come back to, lass. For thee I shall keep meself safe. They're saying it'll all be over by Wednesday any'ow.”

“I'm sure they're right. Well, look . . . Bye.”

I squeezed his hand, let him kiss me on the forehead, and then off he went: Davey McCracken, my first boyfriend, marching inexpertly away down the road that would carry him to Murbery, and then to the train station in Hughley, and beyond that, obviously, to the battlefields of the First World War.
O England,
I somberly extemporized,
Thy daffodilled lanes do yea o'erun this morning with doomed and dismal youth
, and scuttled thoughtfully back inside to my cooling breakfast.

The First World War was a really black time for me. I rose late. I never bathed. Every once in a while, at me mam's insistence, I went for a walk so halfhearted that from a distance it probably looked like I was checking the house for structural damage, and the rest of the time I spent in my bedroom with the curtains drawn, staring numbly at the radio with an ashtray on my tits until unconsciousness came to claim me. Karen stopped by a few times, but she rarely lingered. It seemed we had nothing in common anymore. All
Karen wanted to talk about was how much she missed Greg, and all I wanted to talk about was when she was going to leave so I could return to the bucket of beer I had stashed beneath my bed.

D
ESPITE THE GRISLY
reports filtering back from the War, I had a strong, inexplicable feeling that Davey was going to survive it. Sooner or later he'd be back, possibly injured, possibly fine, and when the next spring turned to summer I would drape myself in white and become his bride, willingly condemning myself to a life of excruciating intimacy and stilted conversations with a sweaty hulking man I had no feelings for. I had no choice. I was tired of fighting the system, and too terrified of finding myself at odds again with the rustic world around me and this time having no grand-da to bail me out.

To the extent, that is, that he
had
bailed me out. More than a decade had passed since that hallucinatory afternoon when he'd given me the little blue dress and informed me that I spoke the way I did because I was “allergic to the past,” and I was still no closer to understanding what he'd been talking about. Not that it mattered. The nonsense me grand-da had spewed had all been focused on why I said “okay” instead of “alreet” like a normal Murberyite. He hadn't mentioned anything about my not being able to feel love for a man.

S
URE ENOUGH, IN
December of 1918 the 'phone rang. The thing had just been installed and it took me a second to remember which was the mouthpiece and which was the earpiece.

“Hello?” I said eventually.

“. . . (lass?) . . .”

“Davey? Is that you? Are you okay?”

“. . . (nay) . . .”

The line was faint and crackly, but Davey's voice triggered an avalanche of memories. I could practically taste his mustache down the 'phoneline as he spoke.

“Are you . . . are you injured?”

“. . . (aye) . . .”

“Badly?”

“. . . (aye) . . .”

“Well, you're alive. That's the main thing. You're coming home, is that right?”

“. . . (aye) . . .”

“Well that's fantastic news. I'll see you at the station.”