Our Yanks (19 page)

‘I'm sure they'd appreciate your making allowances.'

‘I shall write a letter of thanks to Colonel Schrader tomorrow. The Americans really do have some
extraordinary
names.'

‘Make any headway with teacher, Ed?'

‘Some.'

‘I thought you'd given up on her. It sure is slow. Boy, what a collection they were! Only a couple of women under a hundred – teacher and the Lady of the Manor, and she wasn't playing ball.'

‘Don't tell me you tried, Ben?'

‘Sure. She's a widow, isn't she? It's always open season on widows. No dice, though. She's a good-looker and I could go for an older woman, specially a genuine live Lady. Tell you what, Ed, let's get down to London, next chance we get. Have ourselves a real wild time.'

‘No can do. I'm taking teacher out.'

‘Whoa! Hang on a moment. Careful, Ed. You're looking like you're real serious, or something. Easy does it. You want to keep it nice and casual or it's bad news for us guys. Gotta keep a clear head or some Hun's going to bounce you when you're thinking too much about a girl. And you're dead.'

‘OK. OK. I know that.'

‘Well, just don't you forget it.'

‘This is Hal,' Chester said. ‘Hal Hosterman. He's from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's the armourer on our crew.'

Doris giggled. ‘What's an armourer?'

‘I take care of the guns, honey.'

Doris was wide-eyed and Sally could see that she thought Hal was all right, though he wasn't anything much to look at – not compared with Chester. She made sure the two Yanks stood behind them in the queue, so nobody could tell they were with them. And on the bus she and Doris sat together with the Yanks further down. You couldn't do a thing in the village without some nosy parker noticing and telling everybody. Saw your Sally at the bus stop, they'd say to Dad. Going with one of those Yanks, is she? On the bus, though, Doris kept turning round and giggling, and Hal kept grinning and waving back, so she might as well not have bothered. When they got to the cinema, Chester and Hal paid for the dearest seats – not the cheap ones that she and Doris usually sat in – and the Yanks sat on each side of them, Hal next to Doris and Chester next to her. She loved going to the pictures. With everything so dreary outside, it was like stepping into another world. The Hollywood films were always the best, especially if they were in Technicolor. Everything looked so bright and clean; nothing was ugly or dirty. Hal was offering Doris a cigarette and lighting it for her with one of their snappy lighters. The Yanks were always quick to do things like that for girls, she'd noticed. Light cigarettes, open doors, offer their arm, carry things . . . they were a lot better at it than the English blokes.

After the B feature film there was a Donald Duck and the British Movietone News with pictures of British soldiers fighting in Italy and then some Yank Marines landing on a beach somewhere, and wading through a lot of surf with their guns at the ready. There was a bit showing the King giving out medals to some RAF pilots and the Queen visiting a hospital and talking to more soldiers – wounded ones in bed, this time. When the lights went up for the interval, she saw that Hal had his arm round Doris and Doris was looking like a cat that'd got the cream. Chester had lit a cigarette.

‘Can I have a cigarette, Chester?'

‘Sure. Sorry.' He groped for his pack. ‘Didn't know you smoked, Sally.' She'd only tried it once when Doris had pinched a Woodbine from her mother. They'd taken turns at puffing it out of the bedroom window. Chester flicked open his lighter and held the flame out to her. She tried to copy how she'd seen the film stars like Bette Davis and Hedy Lamarr having their cigarettes lit – bending forward to the flame and then leaning back, cigarette held out to one side, while they blew the smoke up into the air. Only when she leaned back and blew, she found the cigarette hadn't lit. Chester started to laugh. ‘Try again,' he said. ‘Only this time suck in so it catches.' But the next time it went out again and he took it away and put it between his lips and lit it for her. He was smiling as he passed it back.

‘I don't see what's so funny,' she said crossly.

‘I'll bet that's the first cigarette you've ever had.'

‘No, it's not. I've had lots.'

‘Oh, sure . . .'

‘Your Yank cigarettes are different.'

‘Oh, sure.'

When the lights went down for the main feature she was expecting him to put his arm round her, like Hal with Doris, but he didn't, not even when she shifted sideways a little towards him. That made her crosser still. She'd never hear the end of it from Doris.

When they came out of the cinema they found they'd just missed the bus back and had an hour to wait for the next.

‘Let's go to a pub, girls,' Hal suggested.

‘Sally's not allowed in pubs,' Doris said. ‘Are you, Sal? Her dad won't let her.'

‘He's not here, is he?' She glared at Doris. ‘And I'm not waiting in the cold.'

The pub was beery and smoky and full of Service men – RAF and army and lots of Yanks. Doris asked for a lemonade. ‘I'll have a port and lemon, if they've got it,' Sally said. She'd never drunk such a thing but it was Mum's favourite. She kicked Doris on the shin as she opened her mouth. When Chester and Hal had gone off to get the drinks, she hissed at her. ‘Don't you dare say a word.'

‘But they're not supposed to serve you anything like that until you're eighteen, Sal. It's against the law. You're under age.'

‘And who's going to know that? I told you, Chester thinks I'm eighteen. So you just shut up.'

Doris looked offended. ‘Anyway, I thought he was supposed to be sweet on you. He doesn't act like he is.'

The port and lemon tasted horrible but she pretended it was lovely, and when Chester gave her another cigarette she managed it better. Hal was talking away to Doris and Doris's face was all flushed and her eyes shining; she didn't look nearly so plain as usual.

‘We're having a dance in the Aeroclub Wednesday next,' Chester said. ‘Think you could come?'

She shrugged. ‘Maybe.'

‘I've been learning some new steps. One of the Red Cross girls has been teaching me.'

‘Has she?'

‘Yeah. There's a couple of them on the base now. American girls. They run the Club and they've been teaching some of us guys. They're pretty good.'

‘Then you'll be able to dance with them, won't you?' Sally puffed at her cigarette and blew the smoke up in the air, just like Bette Davis. Then she took another gulp of the port and lemon. A Yank standing over by the bar gave her a wave and she saw it was one of the ones she'd danced with at the hangar dance. She smiled and waved back and he came over with three more of them. After that she didn't take any notice of Chester.

In the bus going back to King's Thorpe, Doris and Hal sat together in the dark at the back and she plonked herself down next to some old woman so Chester couldn't sit beside her. When they got to the village, Hal said he'd see Doris home.

‘Don't bother,' she said to Chester when he started walking along beside her. ‘I can see myself back, thanks very much.' But he carried on, shining his torch ahead on the pavement. ‘How about that dance? Like to come?'

‘You've got your Red Cross girls to dance with. Doesn't seem you'd care if I came or not.'

‘I care a heck of a lot.'

‘Well, you don't act like it.'

He stopped walking. ‘You mean because I'm not all over you, straight off, like some of the other guys? Like Hal with Doris? That's not my way, Sally. I reckon it takes time. You need time to figure out what you really think about me. You don't know yet, do you? All the while you're still looking round at other guys, talking with them, dancing with them, to see if maybe you'd like them better.'

‘Well, how about you with your Red Cross girls?'

‘You've got that all wrong.' He sounded angry. ‘They're like sisters. And I sure as hell don't think about you like a sister.'

She tossed her head. ‘Oh
really
? Seems to me you do.'

‘Want me to prove it? OK.' He switched out the torch and the next thing she knew he'd pulled her to him and started kissing her. Nobody had ever kissed her like that before – only village boys who didn't know what they were doing, fumbling and slobbering. Chester knew how to do it properly. She put her arms up round his neck, like she'd seen in the films, and kissed him back. When he let her go, she could hear him breathing fast as if he'd been running. He switched on the torch again. ‘Guess I'd better get you home.'

Sam Barnet had fallen fast asleep in his armchair but he woke up the minute he heard his daughter come in. He took his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and looked at it. ‘Where've you been, Sally?'

‘The pictures. Like I said.'

He tapped the watch face. ‘Half past eleven! You ought to have been back an hour ago or more.'

‘We missed the bus.'

‘Who's we?'

‘Doris and me. Who else?'

He lurched to his feet. ‘Have you been smoking?'

‘Course I haven't.'

‘That's not drink I can smell, is it?'

‘Don't be silly, Dad.'

She looked flushed and sounded out of breath. ‘Somebody been chasing you?'

‘I ran the last bit, that's all. I was cold.'

She slipped past him like an eel and fled up the stairs. He called after her.

‘You'd better not have been with any of those Americans.'

He heard her bedroom door slam shut and trudged slowly up after her. Freda was in bed, the eiderdown pulled up so he could only see her hair, all rolled up in curlers. ‘Sal back, Sam?'

‘Yes. Half past eleven it is. She should have been home an hour or more ago. Says she and Doris missed the bus, but I didn't believe her. I'd like to know what she's been up to.'

‘Waiting in the cold for the next one, I should think. You were silly to stay up for her, Sam. You need your sleep.'

‘I could smell cigarette smoke on her.'

‘It gets on you in the cinema, with everybody smoking.'

‘I thought I could smell drink, too.'

The eiderdown heaved as she sat up. ‘Now, Sam, you're getting yourself in a state about nothing.'

‘If she's been in a pub . . .'

‘I'm sure she hasn't. And even if she had, it's legal, so long as she's over fourteen.'

‘It's not legal to drink before you're eighteen, though. I'm not having a daughter of ours arrested and bringing disgrace on our name.'

‘It's the landlord'd be arrested if that happened.'

‘It'd be all over the
Mercury
. We couldn't hold our heads up.'

‘Honestly, Sam, all you ever think about is your name.'

‘Well it's important,' he said. ‘It is to me, anyway. Once you lose your good name, you can't ever get it back. I've a business to run in the village. A reputation to keep up. Barnets have been bakers here for four generations. I've got Roger to think of and him taking over.' He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. His back was aching like fury and he felt tired to death. In another four hours he'd have to get up again and start work, never mind the tiredness or the pain. He bent down to untie his bootlaces. ‘I think she's been with some American, that's what I think. They come into the bakehouse and talk to her.'

‘Of course they do. Our Sal's a pretty girl. Of course they talk to her and flirt with her.'

‘I've seen her flirting back.'

‘That's only natural at her age. They're good-looking boys.'

‘They've no morals, Freda. Look at what's going on in the village. That Mrs Fitt, with her husband away in the Forces, carrying on with one of them, brazen as anything, and she's not the only one, not by a long chalk.'

‘You can't blame the Yanks for that. If it's offered they're going to take it, aren't they?'

Sometimes Freda shocked him. ‘Well, I think it's disgusting behaviour.'

‘It's nature's way, that's what it is. When people fancy each other, it happens. Don't you remember how it was with us, Sam? Have you forgotten that time in the hayfield, that summer?'

He reddened, remembering it. He'd courted Freda in the proper way for over a year. Calling to see her regularly and sitting for hours in the hovel of a place she'd lived in, with the five brothers and sisters hanging round and sniggering. He'd asked permission of her drunken old father to address her before he'd bought the ring in Stamford and gone down on one knee to propose. Everything done as it should be. All right and proper.

‘We were engaged, Freda.'

‘Weren't married, though, were we?' She smiled at him and wagged a forefinger playfully. ‘Jumped the gun, didn't we?' For a second, in spite of the curlers and the years in between, he saw the girl she'd once been with the long, nut-brown hair. ‘Now Sam, stop fretting and fussing so. Sally works hard for you. She's a good girl and she does well, so don't be too strict with her. It's only fair to let her have a bit of fun. The Yanks are here and there's nothing you can do about it. Besides, you've been making money out of them, haven't you? You can't grumble. Not when they're spending so much in the bakehouse and with all the orders you're delivering up there.'

It was true enough. He'd got a regular twice-weekly order and the Officers' Mess were always asking for special cakes. Tuesdays and Fridays he took the horse and van up to the American base to deliver it. It had gone against the grain with him but in his book you didn't turn down honest work, not if you could help it. He placed his boots neatly together by the bed and slid his braces down over his shoulders. ‘Business is business. That's a different thing from what I'm talking about, Freda.'