Polly's Angel (49 page)

On one of his leaves about a year ago he had had a stroke of luck. Grace Carbery had also been on leave, and they had managed to meet several times. Polly, wrapped up in her work, had been happy for her friends to get to know one another better, but Sunny had been rather guiltily aware that by the end of his three days at home, the relationship between himself and the young leading airwoman was possibly a trifle warmer than the old Polly, at any rate, might have liked.

For Sunny had found that it was easy to become fond of Grace. Of course she was not like Polly had once been, not by any means so bubbly and loving, but she had, he discovered, her own charm. She was far more serious, you might even say she was a bit solemn, but she was still a very feminine young woman. Polly, he thought now, had put away her femininity for the duration. She almost always wore trousers, bell bottoms, in fact, as he did himself, and now that he thought about it, he did not think she wore lipstick, or went to dances, or if she did, she had not done so when he was in the city.

Another thing about Grace was that he and she had had their fill of the horrors of war. Grace, working on an airfield in Norfolk, was used to the tragedy of the young aircrews who were laughing and fooling around in the mess one day and missing the next. And it had changed her, made her more serious, less light-minded. Polly, though she worked hard and did a job which could be dangerous, did not have the same proximity to death which had become a way of life to himself and Grace.

Even as he thought this, Sunny felt vaguely ashamed. He had been crazy about Polly for so long now that he took it for granted that other girls, whilst a welcome diversion, were just that. When the war was over, he was sure that Polly's conviction that she was as good as any man would change, that she would become his own his lovely, loving Polly once more. And heaven knew, by that time he would
need
the old Polly. He knew that a good deal of his own light-hearted approach to life had gone for ever. Gone with the companions who would not make it to the peace, the artificer who had been swept overboard as they passed along the Norwegian coast in a gale, with those poor devils, Martin amongst them, who had disappeared along with their ship whilst Sunny had been in hospital, suffering from the indignities of measles. He knew, now, that he had been a light-weight, someone who never thought about the morrow, who seldom worried about anything, never spared a thought for others.

It was different now. He was aware of a sombre streak in his nature, the realisation that every day might be his last. Someone had once said that the sea was a cruel mistress – well, she was that all right, but it was not simply the sea which had taken the feckless enjoyment out of his life. It was, he supposed, man's inhumanity to man, which struck home doubly hard when you considered the conditions. The icy cold which could kill you before ever you hit the sea; the sea itself, its very turbulence guaranteed to sink almost instantly any small life-raft which was cast upon its stormy bosom. Then there was the possibility of being iced to the deck, literally between one step and the next, and consequently drowned by the coming aboard of a great, heavy sea. And as well as all this, there were the U-boats, lurking beneath the surface, waiting to strike. Enemy war ships, prowling round the convoy, trying to stop the cargoes getting to their destination. And the aircraft, which came out of the blue and followed the convoy until other planes came up and the convoy could be efficiently attacked, dive-bombed, fired on, utterly destroyed.

So when he went home for his leave, it was nice to have someone who understood his sudden silence in the middle of a group of noisy drinking companions. Why he sometimes wanted to be quiet, to appreciate something other than war, violence, something other, even, than the ceaseless round of gaiety which seemed to satisfy some of the other combatants in what he was beginning to see as an increasingly terrible war.

Because of the conditions on the Russian convoys, most of the men had grown beards, and Sunny had a magnificent one. Long, blond and curly, he had grown it for a bet and now rather liked it, though it had an odd effect on girls. Some liked it, others seemed to hate it. Polly, for instance, had been instantly antagonistic, had said it was ugly, made him look old, got in the way of a kiss. Sunny had tried explaining about the cold, but Polly said flatly that she thought he had grown it more to impress than to keep warm. Grace, on the other hand, ignored it, simply, he thought now, because to her it was not important, any more than he suspected his looks were. Polly, bless her, thought that his beard detracted from his good looks, whereas he knew, or thought he knew that Grace liked him as a person and would have continued to like him had he gone bald as a coot and begun to squint. What was more they had soon discovered that they enjoyed the same sort of things – visits to the cinema, long walks on the shore, talks about what they would do when the peace came. And singing.

Sunny had not really thought very much about singing until he joined the Navy and had begun to sing with an amateur choir got up by the ratings on his first convoy to Russia. To his surprise, he had a good strong tenor voice and found it easy to keep a tune in his head. Singing relaxed him, gave him something to think about other than war. When he had gone to the Seamen's Mission for one of his leaves and had met up with Grace, staying with the O'Bradys, he had discovered that she, too, loved singing.

‘I'm a member of the Salvation Army, and I sing in the choir. I was a songster – that's what they call the younger members – from the time I went to the Strawb, pretty well. Why don't you come along to a service? I'm not trying to convert you or anything like that, but you'd be welcome, and I think you'd enjoy it. Our hymns are much . . . well, much
jollier
than the hymns sung in more established churches, and somehow we seem to sing them with much more joy, and – and verve. We've a great choral tradition, us Salvationists – I often think that the roof of the citadel must be fixed down extra strongly, or we'd sing it clean off!'

He had gone along, mainly, if he were honest, to be polite because Grace was Polly's pal and was staying with the O'Bradys. But after that first visit he had known that Grace was right; the enthusiasm with which both choir and congregation sang and the simple, unassuming friendliness, was a balm to his tired, overstrained mind and body. He found that he was returning to his duty not exactly uplifted by the Army, but somehow soothed by it, by the very ordinariness of singing along with people who sang quite simply for the love of God, without giving themselves airs, or having to create an atmosphere in which, Sunny now believed, pomp and ceremony played a more important part than simple belief.

So though he had no illusions about his relationship with Grace – they were friends, nothing more – he still found sharing his leaves with her was infinitely better than being in Liverpool alone, and did his best to arrange that, when they were home, it was at around the same times. Grace, working on her airfield in Norfolk, was able, to an extent, to choose when she would take her leave, so Sunny formed the habit, as soon as he got ashore in Scapa, of ringing her and telling her when he would be having sufficient time off to get back to Liverpool. If she was able to make it at the same time that was marvellous . . . not that he ever pretended to Grace herself that they were anything other than good friends, of course. Good friends who shared an interest in music, particularly singing, though Sunny had recently bought, from a fellow rating, a somewhat battered trumpet which he was learning to play. He was being tutored by the rating, who had bought a superior instrument but was happy to show Sunny how to get the best out of his old one.

But of course, Sunny reminded himself now as the ship began to nose into the clear-water path across the harbour, Polly was still his girl. She was wrapped up in her work as a WRN despatch rider, that was why she seemed not to have the time for him that she had once had, but when the war was over . . .

There was activity now on the bridge as the first officer gave the order to let go and the chocks were knocked out, allowing the anchor chain to run out. Above them, the sky was a cold grey and before them, the merchantmen were lining up alongside the quay. Sunny looked at the cleared path of water around them as the icebreaker, with a valedictory grunt like an old pig in a wallow, turned and made slowly for the open sea once more. He would go below now and get some rest, then when the ice had reformed and was hard enough to take a regiment of sailors, perhaps he and a pal would go ashore; there was not much to do when you got there apart from strolling along beside the ships they had accompanied to this place, and since they were, when on shore, representing His Majesty's Royal Navy they would have to wear their number ones, but it was better than spending the time below decks, or wandering round and round the corvette's tiny deckspace. Sunny wanted a long, brisk walk in this sort of weather and though they would be speedily turned back by the police if they attempted to go far from the quayside, you never knew. All Russians, his reason told him, could not be peasants bundled up in rags, too terrified of their own police guards even to exchange a smile with a visiting sailor. Somewhere, he imagined, there must be civilised men and women, some of whom might even have a few words of English. Whenever he went ashore he always took a couple of bars of the dark and bitter chocolate or even a screw of tea and sugar; one of these days he would find someone with sufficient courage to accept such gifts when offered – but so far there had been no takers. And he was sure that the people were hungry; he longed to make contact with someone, anyone, who would give him a smile, acknowledge that they were fighting the same war, facing the same enemy, damn it,
needed
each other. Why otherwise would he and his companions have come halfway across the world to this bitterly cold, dark land, bringing food, clothing, implements of war or agriculture? He didn't really know what they carried save that it was desperately needed; why could the Russians not behave as allies and friends, instead of looking at English sailors as though they might eat them?

But then Russia wasn't like other countries and Uncle Joe wasn't like other leaders, either. Sighing, Sunny went across the bridge to report to the first officer that he was going below. He would check the signal log and then get some sleep and by that time the ice would have formed again and someone else, with luck, would be awake and ready for a tramp outside.

Polly was sitting astride her motorbike at the top of Everton Brow, admiring the city and the burnished gold of the Mersey as it lay in the setting sun before her, when the engine gave an apologetic cough, a couple of hiccups, and stopped.

Polly, who had been feeling fairly peaceful, immediately felt annoyance start to tighten her muscles. It was not fair! For a start, she should not have been up here at all, feeling mistress of all she surveyed, when she had been sent from HQ to Birkenhead with important messages; she should, by now, have been back at the Liver buildings, informing her superior officers that her task had been successfully accomplished. But it was such a beautiful, golden late afternoon, and suddenly the temptation to go a bit out of her way for once had come over her. What was more, there was a sweet shop on Salisbury Street which sometimes had a few off-ration goodies which the proprietor, fat little Mrs Mobbs, handed out in tiny amounts to service personnel.

Then there was the fact that her engine had done quite a bit of sly coughing when she was actually doing her duty, on a part of the road which she should have been on, and she had done nothing about it. Now that she lived at home, she had reasoned, she could wait until the weekend and then strip the machine down in the back yard. Ivan would be delighted to give a hand and she was familiar enough with her engine to be able to pick out what was wrong pretty quickly. What was more, the engine had never actually died on her before, just spluttered a bit and then recovered. Dirt in the carburettor, Polly had told herself – and had ignored it, when she could easily have taken it into the transport section and got one of the mechanics to see to it for her.

Still, she had been well taught by Tad before he had gone off to train as a pilot, and usually did all her own maintenance. And at least it had happened at the top of one of the best hills in Liverpool, she told herself, reaching into her pocket for one of the homemade toffees which Mrs Mobbs had sold her and tucking it comfortably into one cheek. She would coast down the hill, get the engine going again, and make her way back to the Liver buildings, then on to the depot where she would hand her machine over for once, and take a tram home to Snowdrop Street.

For Polly had opted to live at home over a year ago, when she had returned to Liverpool as a despatch rider. After the awful business – she admitted, now, that it had been an awful business, and all her own fault – of the row when she had discovered that she was adopted, she felt that it was the least she could do for Mammy and Daddy. She had been forced to admit, soon enough, that they had treated her as well if not better than their own natural children; that they loved her dearly, with the sort of love that can't be put on or pretended. And though she had run away from them on that first fatal night, she had gone back a few weeks later, driven there, she had told herself rather sullenly, by Saint Grace Carbery, who had come to her in Holyhead and read her lectures and told her off just as though she had been a thoughtless and selfish school child.

For Grace had indeed travelled down to Holyhead the day after Polly's horrid adventure, if you could call it that, and had tackled her head-on about her attitude to finding that she had been adopted, and further, that Grace was her sister.

‘Peader and Deirdre have been kinder to me than almost anyone else, apart from Brogan and Sara, in my entire life,' Grace had said gently. ‘And just think, Poll, if you'd not been adopted! Why, the sort of life I led . . . I don't think I've ever told you about it before, but . . .'