Our Yanks (36 page)

‘Isn't there anybody else you could ask instead?'

‘Huh. The rector, I suppose, but he's not much good. No point, really, unless you can have a decent game.'

‘I meant one of the Americans. Don't they rather like playing cards? They always seem to in films.'

‘You're thinking of those damn Westerns, Cicily. Gambling saloons . . . that sort of thing. That's hardly what I meant.'

‘Well, I'm sure some of them must play bridge, besides the colonel. Major Peters, the adjutant, for instance. He was a very nice man and just the type who would.'

‘Huh. I'll think about it.' He thought about it as he looked through the newspaper. Perhaps he'd give that adjutant fellow a ring and sound him out. There might be some others up there who played too. Ground officers, not the chaps who had to go off flying. Might be able to make up three or four tables and get a regular evening going. Make it a penny a hundred, say, just to liven things up. Not a bad idea of his at all.

He turned over another page and his eye fell on a piece about the American and Australian attack on the Huon Peninsula. Looked like they were making headway at last. Got a stronghold established there. He'd pinned several Allied flags on his wall map lately, a good many of them the Stars and Stripes. That chap MacArthur wasn't everyone's cup of tea but he'd got the right idea with the Japs. Give it to them with no quarter. Straight for the jugular. No pussyfooting around. And, by God, those American Marines sounded as though they were a pretty hardbitten bunch. They'd go for Rabaul next, he reckoned. Bomb the port to hell. Then land and take New Britain eventually. He wouldn't say anything to Cicily, of course. No point raising her hopes. He cleared his throat. ‘The colonel told me they've got some band coming to play up there next week in one of the hangars. Wanted to know if I thought any of the village would like to go. A chap called Miller, or something. Plays dance music, I gather. Confounded racket, if you ask me, still I said I'd put a notice up about it at the hall. If anyone wants to go, that's their lookout.'

He turned another page.

Sam Barnet gave the horse a flick of the whip, not that it made much difference. The old roan was getting on for seventeen and not to be rushed up steep hills. In her young days, when he'd first got her, she'd been in the habit of bolting and he could remember times when he'd had a hard job stopping her and there'd been loaves and cakes scattered all over the road. But, finally, she'd settled down. He ought to have got rid of her by now because she'd become a slow old thing, but she'd served him well over the years, pulling the van on his rounds in all weathers. People knew her as well as they knew the green van with its black lettering on the side:
S. Barnet. High class bakers and confectioners
. It needed repainting now and when the war was over it was one of the first things he was going to have done – soon as there was the paint. Roger would be demobbed and formally joining the business, as planned, and he'd change it to
S. Barnet & Son
.

He'd been the
Son
painted on the side once himself, when the van had belonged to his father. It must be close on sixty years old but, like the horse, it had served him well and he'd seen no good reason to change it for a newer one. He liked the traditional, old-fashioned look of it and the quality of the craftsmanship – the way the trays in the back slid in and out so easily and the doors fitted so well that no rain ever found its way inside. In winter, when it was dark, he'd light candles in the brass lamps on each side to see his way, same as on the coaches in the old days. Sometimes it was so cold on his round that his hands would all but freeze to the reins and the roan's hooves would slip and slide on the ice. There'd been no frosts yet but November was the month of fogs and, sure enough, there'd been one this morning. Not a real thick peasouper, like they sometimes got, but damp, grey, swirling patches of it and enough to have grounded the planes. None of them had come over and as he drew near the top of the hill and the horse clip-clopped along the old Roman road, he could see the shrouded outline of a Mustang out on the airfield, covered by a tarpaulin and pegged down close to a revetment.

He'd left the Americans until last. Delivering to them had always galled him, but, as he'd said to Freda, business was business and they put in regular orders for extra bread and fancy cakes for the Officers' Mess. Paid well for them, too. One thing about them, they didn't quibble about any bill. He drove on past the main gates to the woods on the other side of the road where the Messes were located. In the RAF days they'd been nothing more than shabby tin huts, but the Yanks had smartened them up and built onto them so that they were scarcely recognizable. He took the van round to the back of the Officers' Mess, unloaded the delivery into baskets and carried it in through the stores entrance. When he came out again he found a Yank waiting by the van with his bike.

‘Can I speak with you please, sir?'

He slung the baskets into the back and shut the doors. ‘I've nothing to say to you.'

‘I know that, sir. But I wanted to tell you something.'

He turned round to face the young man. A sergeant: he noticed that for the first time. Not a bad-looking sort. A lot tidier than most of them and respectful.

‘What is it, then?'

‘I wanted you to know that I love Sally and I want to marry her. If you'll let me.'

Sam stared at him. There was no doubt that the lad was serious and meant it. He could tell that from his face.

‘She won't marry you. Or anyone. Refuses to, point-blank. There's nothing I, or you, or anybody else can do to make her. That's all.'

‘You sure about that, sir?'

‘Quite sure.' The lad looked miserable and Sam, who'd felt such rage and bitterness against him, couldn't find it in his heart to feel it any more. He'd liked the way the boy looked at him, straight in the eye. Man to man. Facing up to things. And he liked the way he'd sought him out, never mind the consequences. He'd failed the same way himself when he'd been young, after all – let temptation get the better of him with Sally's mother. He knew all about how hard it was to resist a lovely young girl. And who could ever know if this one was the father? If what Sally had said was true, there were three other possibilities. Nobody would ever know whose it was, and yet this one still wanted to marry her. He went round to the front, climbed up on the box and took hold of the reins. The lad went on standing there forlornly, beside his bike. Sam said in a gentler tone, ‘I'd forget all about her, if I was you, son. Just forget all about her.'

He flicked the whip and drove the van away. The old horse, knowing that it was the end of the round, picked up speed almost to a trot. He steadied her down the hill, the van jolting and rattling over all the potholes and rough patches made by the endless procession of American trucks and jeeps. The encounter had upset him all over again. He felt worn out by the whole business and by keeping up the pretence that everything was normal. It had made him careless with the baking, short with customers, sensitive to every look and every word. Tongues would have wagged and the whole village must know by now of their disgrace, though nobody had said so to him outright. Another month and Mother Becket and the rest like her would be tut-tutting openly and turning down their vinegary mouths at him, while others sniggered behind their hands. The name of Barnet, painted so proudly on his van, would be pointed at and mocked. What would Roger think about it when he came home? He was like his mother in so many ways – never fussed too much about things. Easy-going. He could hear him saying, ‘What does it matter, Dad? There's more important things to worry about these days.' To him, it did matter, though. Families still counted. The unbroken, legitimate line was still worth something. Pride. Decency. Standards. Service. He clung to all that in a world where everything seemed to have gone topsy-turvy.

They reached the bottom of the hill and the horse clattered round the bend under the railway bridge, faster still as she sensed the closeness of home, the stable and her hay-net. She turned into the yard beside the bakehouse without him telling her and stood still for him to unhitch the van and to take off the harness. Then she walked straight into her stable and started snatching at the hay with her long yellow teeth. He closed and bolted the door and went into the house through the back door.

Freda and Sally were standing in the kitchen, side by side and facing him. He saw that they'd both been weeping and that Sally had an arm round her mother's shoulders, and he wondered wearily what on earth had happened now. Then he saw the yellow telegram in Freda's hand.

‘That American gentleman's here again, milady. Shall I show him in here?'

‘No, thank you, Doris. I'll come out.'

That American gentleman was standing in the hall, cap in hand, and when he turned and smiled at her she had to stop herself from walking straight into his arms. Doris was still hovering.

‘Hallo, Carl. How nice to see you.'

‘Any time spare to take another country tour?' he asked. ‘The car's outside.'

‘Yes, of course. I shan't be long, Doris.'

She grabbed her coat from the hall chair. He opened the front door for her and then the car passenger door. She sat at a careful distance from him. Doris would almost certainly be spying on them from a window.

‘Where shall we go?'

‘Anywhere,' she said. ‘Anywhere.' All that mattered was being with him.

‘I think I said that last time.'

‘I remember.'

He took the same turning he'd taken on that other drive and they ended up at the same spot as before, overlooking the wooded valley. He switched off the engine and reached for her.

Later, he said quietly, ‘Do you have any idea how much I love you, Erika?'

‘Yes, I do.' She smiled at him. ‘As much as I love you.'

‘I want to talk about us and what we're going to do about it.'

‘No, don't let's talk about the future, Carl.'

‘But we ought to, sweetheart. Because I'm not going to give you up.'

‘Let's leave it for now, though. It's better. Please.' She clung to him, burying her face in his chest; the metal wings were cold against her cheek. He held her close, stroking her hair.

‘I guess I'll have to get back. I'm sorry.'

‘Not your fault.'

On the way, she stared out of the window and thought of his wife, Jan, and the little girl, Kathy, waiting patiently for him to come home, and how hard a man like Carl would find it to let them down; and how she could never ask it of him.

She could see Miriam peering out of her bedroom window as they drove up to the Manor. Another confrontation. Another argument.

‘Don't come in,' she said. ‘Don't even get out. Just drive off straight away.'

‘I can't do that.'

‘Please, Carl.'

He hesitated. ‘OK, if that's the way you want it.'

Her throat had tightened up and she had to swallow hard before she could speak again. ‘Yes, that's the way.' She laid her hand on his sleeve – only for a second – and got out of the car. At the front door she turned for just one more look at him, and then went inside.

There had been so much rain lately and the ground was so wet and boggy that instead of cutting across the fields, Tom took the road up to the base. It had great tracks of mud all along it from the Yanks' comings and goings and he had to keep hopping from one side to the other. If Alfie had been with him he'd've trodden straight in it, but this time he'd given him the slip and left him behind. As well as the four loaves in the sack over his shoulder, there were half a dozen letters for Yanks from people in the village stuffed into his pockets. He charged a farthing a time to deliver them, each way, and an extra farthing to the Yanks if it was one where he had to hang about so he wasn't seen handing it over – to someone like Mrs Honeybun who'd been under the conker tree.

He gave a wave to the sentry, and went straight round to the radio shack. More mud everywhere on the concrete pathways and great oozing lakes of it where it'd been grass before. He jumped over a big puddle and opened the door to the shack.

They looked up from the workbenches, grinning at him. ‘Hi, there, Tom. How'ya doin'?'

‘Great.' He'd learned quite a lot of the lingo now and he could speak more or less the way they spoke.

‘What've you got for us, kiddo?'

He unhooked the sack from over his shoulder and brought out the tin loaves. ‘Here's the bread, like you asked for, and some letters. There's one for Dan and one for Russ. The rest're for other guys.'

Dan and Russ got a lot of whistling and leg-pulling about girls, though he knew the letters were only asking them down to a Sunday roast. Most houses in the village had a Yank they asked to things. It was a lot different from the beginning when nobody'd wanted them.

‘Have some toast, kid.'

‘Gee, thanks.'

They got the stove stoked up and the bread toasting away. There was a nice warm fug in the shack and Tom sat on the crate near the stove and ate toast and peanut butter, just like the first time he'd been there.

‘How's that kid brother of yours?'

‘He's OK.'

‘Bring him with you next time, he's real cute. Bring your little sister too, if she's growed any.'

They always laughed about Nell but he didn't mind.

‘Captain Mochetti's back, you hear that, Tom?' Mitch said. ‘Saw him this morning.'

His heart lifted. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yeah, saw him with my own eyes. Back doin' another tour here. The guy's plumb crazy.'

Mum'd be pleased, and not just for the washing. She'd always liked Ed. Alfie'd be pleased, too, but probably just for the candy and the gum. He didn't mind about the candy and the gum, himself. He just minded about Ed – that he'd come back.