Polly's Angel (53 page)

But she had reached the lane which led to the backs of the houses in London Road and turned down it, reminding herself rather grimly that obstacles such as she had been outlining to herself were there to be conquered. Besides, she could scarcely rush off now, without a word to her hostess; Diane would be home from work in an hour; she would have a chat with her then and between them they could work out what best to do.

‘Ring him,' Diane said, when Polly had blurted out her sudden and surprising change of heart. The two of them were sitting in the kitchen, preparing high tea, for Polly had agreed to defer rushing off anywhere until the following morning at least. ‘No use tearing off to Lincolnshire only to find that your chap's gone off on leave, or is having a day's sleep before a big bombing raid or something. Ring first; be sensible for once.'

‘I don't know his number,' Polly wailed. ‘That's to say I don't know the number of the airfield, let alone what mess he's in. They're huge places, these airfields, Grace talks about them sometimes. What I t'ink is, Di, that they wouldn't wake him up for a telephone call from someone they'd never heared of, but if I was actually there, on the spot . . .'

‘Ye-es, I know what you mean. But – oh, hang it, Poll, you're old enough to realise that fellers aren't made of stone! You've not been in touch, not so much as seen each other, for nearly two years – what on earth makes you think he's not got himself another bit of skirt in that time?'

‘Another . . . oh, no, Di, you don't know Tad, he's not like that, he's—'

‘You got yourself a feller, and what's more, you more or less boasted about Sunny to Tad from what you told me. He might have got himself a girl in a fit of pique, almost, and then found . . . well, he might have discovered he really did like her. Didn't you tell me about some girl in Dublin . . . I can't remember her name . . .'

‘It was Angela,' Polly said, giving a derisive sniff. ‘Little miss Angela, all sweetness and light. Huh! She didn't wait for him for long either, did she? First it were undying love, then it got a bit cooler, and then she t'rew him over for someone who was on the spot and probably better off, too.'

Diane giggled. ‘I'm sorry, Poll, but whenever you get ratty your brogue comes back hot and strong,' she said, when Polly gave her an enquiring look. ‘Anyway, I'm just warning you for your own good. You've treated Tad badly, you said as much earlier, so you couldn't be too surprised, surely, if he – well, if he'd decided there was no hope and had – had moved on, could you?'

‘Yes, I could,' Polly said indignantly. She could feel the warmth rising to her cheeks at the mere suggestion that Tad might have looked at another girl. After all, they had been sweethearts for
years.
If she had been foolish enough to turn away from him for a matter of months, surely that would not change Tad? ‘I'm only a kid; Tad's a man grown and he made up his mind he wanted me so why should he have changed?'

‘You aren't only a kid or you wouldn't have been considering marriage to Sunny,' Diane reminded her shrewdly. ‘Honestly, Polly, when you want to twist things to your best advantage there's no one who does it better! Well, if you're determined to go rushing up to Lincolnshire don't blame me if you get given the cold shoulder and end up with a broken heart. In a way,' she added, frowning at her friend, ‘you almost deserve it, after the way you treated poor Tad.'

‘Oh, pooh,' Polly said rudely.

Polly spent the evening sorting herself out, as Diane put it. First she buttonholed a naval rating who came from up north and got him to explain to her the exact location of Tad's airfield and the railway station to which she must go in order to visit it. Then she got train times from the booking clerk at the station, and when asked, he proved enthusiastic over helping her to plan her rather complicated cross-country journey. That done, she sat down and wrote to Sunny.

‘What do you want to do that for?' Diane asked curiously as Polly settled herself at the kitchen table with a piece of borrowed writing paper and her fountain pen. ‘You haven't even spoken to Tad yet, you've no idea what you're going to find when you do see him. Why, he might be married with a kid for all you know.'

Polly looked up at her, puzzled. ‘So? What difference would that make? I'm writing to Sunny, not Tad.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake,' Diane said, really exasperated. ‘What can you tell Sunny when you don't know a bloody thing yourself, woman? Use your loaf for once, O'Brady!'

Polly laid down her pen and looked up at Diane, then took a deep breath. ‘Di, don't you
see
? You pretend I'm thick, but I can't compare wit' you! I've made up me mind that Sunny and meself really aren't suited, and that it's Tad I want – Tad I always wanted, I suppose. So the right thing to do is to let Sunny know as soon as possible. And don't think I'll be breaking his heart – Sunny's I mean – because it's my belief he probably hasn't really thought much past the end of the war and getting back to – to – well, whatever he wants to do in Civvy Street. Fellers don't think about marrying and such the way women do, I don't believe, so if he's thought of marriage at all it won't be with me. Just with some girl, I suppose. So you see, regardless of what happens when I see Tad, I've got to tell Sunny that there's nothing between us.'

‘Burning your boats, you mean, I suppose,' Diane said slowly. ‘It's all very grand and honourable, but what if . . . what if . . .'

‘If Tad turns me down I know, now, that if I love anyone it's him and I couldn't possibly turn to Sunny,' Polly said sturdily. ‘Surely you see that, Di?'

‘Ye-es, only . . . look Poll, a couple of days ago – no, a
day
ago, you were saying that you and Tad were just pals and the feller you really loved was Sunny! Don't you think it's just possible that when you see Tad again – and it's been two years, love, don't forget – you might easily discover that no matter how
he
feels, you – well, you don't really want to marry him, after all?'

‘Mebbe,' Polly said. She picked up her pen again and began to write. ‘But even so, I know it won't be Sunny. He's awful nice, but . . . Oh, I can't explain because you aren't in love with anyone, you don't know how different someone feels when . . . well, I can't explain.'

‘Then if it all goes wrong I suppose you'll end up a spinster,' Diane said. ‘What a waste that would be, you conceited little baggage! Oh, go on, burn your boats, chuck out the baby with the bathwater, cut off your nose to spite your face and all the rest. Only don't come crying to me when it all goes wrong.'

‘Yes, I shall, and you'll sympathise wit' me and tell me all men are bastards,' Polly said, and Diane, despite herself, gave a chortle of amusement. ‘Di, you're the best friend a girl ever had, but do buzz off and let me write me letter!'

It was a long and tiring journey across country to Lincoln, the nearest railway station to Tad's airfield, and then, Polly knew, a good taxi drive. As the train neared her destination, however, she became more and more worried by what she meant to do. Simply to turn up at the airfield, she was beginning to realise, would not get her very far – would get her nowhere, in fact. It was not as if she were in the WAAF; she was in another service and could scarcely expect to be allowed simply to walk across to the mess and demand to see Sergeant Pilot Thaddeus Donoghue – if that was still his rank, of course. By now he might be a warrant officer, or a flight lieutenant . . . Oh, anything might have happened to him, including, she supposed, demotion instead of promotion. No, she could not just walk in as she had planned, she would have to telephone first.

So when she reached Lincoln she went down the road, booked herself into a guesthouse where a wiry little woman in a stained wraparound apron was charging four bob for bed and breakfast, and set off for the nearest telephone kiosk. She found one only a few streets away and went rather timidly into its noisome interior, standing and dithering for several moments, undecided what to do. Indeed, it was only when a rat-faced RAF corporal rapped on the glass with a penny and mouthed at her that she snatched up the receiver, asked for the number and pushed her pennies into the slot.

She waited, moving restlessly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Suddenly, she was not at all sure that she was doing the right thing. Her mouth felt dry and her heart was bumping so loudly that she felt sure she would not be able to hear the voice which spoke when someone lifted the other receiver.

The bell rang, then stopped abruptly and a voice gave the name of the station in a clear, businesslike manner. Polly's heart, which had seemed determined, two seconds earlier, to crash its way out of her chest, was suddenly suspended, along with her voice and her breathing. For vital seconds she could not say a word, then began to speak whilst, on the other end of the line, the voice repeated, with some sharpness, the information it had already given.

Oh God, it must be one-way transmission, she could hear him but he couldn't hear her! What should she do? In another moment . . .

‘Press Button A, caller,' a small, impersonal voice said. ‘Have you pressed Button A?'

Polly's heartbeat returned to more or less normal and her ability to breathe came back. She pushed Button A, heard her pennies rattle irrevocably into the greedy maw of the telephone box, and spoke.

‘H-hello? Oh, I w-wonder if you could help me . . . I'd like to speak to Sergeant Donoghue, please.'

‘You've come through to the officers' mess,' the voice said a little impatiently. ‘Hold on, though . . . you don't mean Tad Donoghue, I suppose? He's Pilot Officer Donoghue.'

‘Oh! Y-yes, that's him,' Polly stammered, all her normal self-confidence gone. ‘Umm . . . is he there?'

‘Nope. Sleeping,' the voice said laconically. ‘Try tomorrow around lunchtime.'

‘Oh! But I only want a word wit' him,' Polly said pleadingly. ‘Won't he be around before then? Or is he flying tonight?'

It was the wrong thing to say. Walls have ears and telephones, Polly knew, were at the mercy of every interested girl on every little local exchange. So she was not unduly surprised when the voice said, suddenly suspicious: ‘Who
is
that? Because if it's you, Jenny, you ought to know better than I do what's going on up here. And if it isn't—'

‘I'll try tomorrer, around noon,' Polly gabbled. ‘Sorry to have troubled you,' and she slammed the receiver back on its rest and almost ran out of the kiosk, completely forgetting her gas-mask case and her purse until the rat-faced corporal shouted her back.

She almost ran back to her lodgings, tired after her long journey, hungry as a wolf now that the packed lunch the girls had provided was no more than a memory, and humiliated by the embarrassing telephone call. Who was Jenny, anyway? And what was she doing ringing Tad Donoghue, who was . . . Oh dammit, he
wasn't
her feller, that was the truth, and she was behaving every bit as stupidly as Diane had said, trying to run him to earth, never considering, not really, whether he wanted to see her again.

She went in through the front door and headed for the stairs to her attic bedroom, then paused in the small, square hallway. She was terribly hungry – she wondered if Mrs Rabbit or Tebbit or whatever she called herself might be willing to provide her with a cup of tea and a sandwich? She hadn't seemed a particularly welcoming woman but surely she would not see a WRN starve before her very eyes?

Polly was standing there, considering the question, when a door in the back of the hallway opened and her landlady appeared. She stared at Polly in a manner which seemed somehow accusatory, Polly thought.

‘Yes? Forgot your room key?'

‘No, but I've – I've rung me pal and – and he's workin' tonight and I'm starvin', so I am,' Polly said desperately, clutching her matelot's hat in both hands and feeling like a street beggar under the woman's sharp and condemnatory eyes. ‘I wondered if – if—'

‘Chip shop two streets away, but be sure you eat 'em outside and don't trek the smell of fish in here or I'll likely be havin' complaints,' the woman said so sharply that Polly jumped. ‘I lock the front door at eleven o'clock, but if you want a key . . .'

‘Oh! No, it's all right, I won't be long,' Polly said, and shot out of the front door before the older woman could say another word. Horrible old hag, she was thinking. Here's me, wit' me belly flappin' against me backbone and her not willin' to give me so much as an apple to keep me alive till morning. Still, I wouldn't mind some fish and chips. What's more, it'll give me something to think about until bedtime.

She found the chip shop, which had a couple of gingham-clothed tables in the window and bought a pot of tea and a plate of fish and chips which she ate on the premises, not grudging the extra sixpence since it meant she could have as much vinegar and salt as her food required. Then she made her way back to her lodgings and went straight up to bed. And though she had expected to lie awake half the night worrying, she was so tired, and so unhappy, that she slept as soon as her head touched the pillow.

Polly spent a miserable, rainy morning waiting for the time when she could ring the airfield once again and feeling frightened, apprehensive and generally far from her usual cheerful self. But the time passed and at last, at noon, she returned to the telephone box, lifted the receiver and asked the operator for the number and this time asked for Pilot Officer Donoghue.

‘I'll fetch him,' the telephone answerer said laconically, and Polly thought, a trifle dismally, that she should have left her name the day before, and asked that Tad be by the telephone at noon. It would have saved time . . . but she had a little tower of pennies standing on the side waiting to be put into the slot and anyway, it was no more than a couple of minutes later that Tad said: ‘Hello? Tad Donoghue speaking.'