Rosemary Aitken (8 page)

Effie shook her head. ‘Well . . . only a chat mind! I’ll look out for you. Now I mustn’t stop you walking with your beau.’

Bert gave a little bow. ‘And I see that yours is coming to claim you,’ he said.

Lettie whirled around. A young man was walking towards them down the path, a young man so handsome that it took her breath away. He was tall and fairish, with broad shoulders and long legs and in his smart Norfolk jacket, flannel trousers and tweed hat, even Valentino could not hold a torch to him. She found that she was boggling, and it took a tug upon her arm from Bert to bring her to herself.

Even Effie was looking quite surprised. ‘Why if it isn’t Alexander Dawes. I hardly knew you in those clothes!’

The newcomer was smiling down at her. He was so handsome that Lettie felt quite feeble at the knees. She extricated her right hand again and held it out. ‘Mr Dawes. I’m Lettie Pearson, Effie’s friend. I’m so glad that we’ve met.’ She was going to add something about having heard of him, but Effie was listening so she left out that. ‘And this is Bert Symons, from the grocer’s shop.’

Bert nodded vaguely. ‘Glad to meet you, sir, I’m sure.’ He turned pointedly to her. ‘Now Lettie, do you fancy a walk along to Devil’s Rock, today? I think we’ve just got time before it comes to rain.’

Lettie was reluctant to leave Effie with that vision of a man. ‘Would you like to come with us?’ she heard herself saying. Bert looked at her surprised, but she ploughed desperately on. ‘I haven’t seen Effie for simply weeks and weeks – to talk to properly.’

Bert was looking daggers. ‘It’s a nice thought, Lettie. But I’m sure this young man would prefer to have Effie to himself – and I feel the same. We haven’t had much chance to talk for weeks, ourselves.’

‘Besides,’ the vision gave her a slow smile that knocked Bert’s cheerful twinkle into a cocked hat. ‘We don’t have much time – not enough to go as far as that – and I’m not really dressed for muddy paths. Some other time, perhaps.’ He tipped his hat and – bold as you like – offered his arm to Effie, who took it with a blush.

‘Nice to see you, Lettie. I’ll look out for you next week.’ And she was gone.

‘Well!’ Lettie muttered. ‘I’ll be blowed. She’s a dark horse that one, and no mistake.’ She turned to Bert. ‘Imagine Effie with a man like that! He couldn’t be a cousin, or something, I suppose?’

Bert laughed. ‘Don’t be so daft! Do you mean to say you don’t know who it was? It’s that constable I saw her with the other day. I told you I’d seen them walking down the street, gazing at each other like a pair of fools. Mind, I’m not surprised he fell for her – a pretty girl like that.’

‘Pretty is as pretty does,’ she muttered with a sniff. ‘Don’t know what Mrs Thatchell would have to say, I’m sure.’

Bert pulled her round to face him. ‘I do believe you’re jealous, Lettie Pearson!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not enough for you to be Bert Symons’ favourite girl?’ He attempted to kiss her on the nose, but she resisted.

‘Don’t be daft, what are you playing at!’ She pulled away from him. ‘I’ve half a mind to leave you here and go back home again!’

‘And miss the chance to go and see the film with me next week?’ he grinned. ‘I can’t believe you mean it. Prettiest girl for miles and you’d walk out on me?’

She hesitated. The pictures? And Valentino was on another week. ‘You really think I’m pretty?’

He hugged her to him. ‘Course I do. Don’t they have no mirrors up there where you work? Prettier’n a picture. I’ve told you that before.’ This time he did manage to land a little kiss.

She stepped away and slipped her arm through his. ‘In that case I forgive you.’ She didn’t say for what and Bert did not ask her – which was fortunate, because she wasn’t sure herself. ‘Let’s go down to Devil’s Rock if that’s what we’re going to do.’

This was her beau, she told herself. A proper beau who took her to the picture-house. Effie might be pretty, but Bert liked Lettie best. And one day he had prospects of a business of his own, with a little flat above the shop and everything. Lucky Lettie! Really, she didn’t envy Effie in the least.

Bert’s voice broke teasingly into her reverie. ‘Now then, Lettie, what are you frowning at? Can’t have that, can we? A penny for your thoughts?’

This time, when he kissed her, she met him with her lips.

Alex’s meetings with Effie had become a settled thing. He waited for her on the outskirts of the town every second Thursday of the month. When it was not actually raining they still went for walks, though they tended to avoid Mount Misery for fear of meeting Lettie and her beau again. (It could have happened too, Effie told him earnestly, because Lettie’s household sometimes varied her half-day.)

When it was wet – or even hailing, as it had been once – he and Effie found a sheltered place to sit (usually the covered bandstand in the park) and simply chatted till it was time for her to go. He had suggested going to see the ‘flicks’, as people were calling the modern moving-picture shows – there was a brand-new picture-drome in town that had a matinee – but she was too afraid of being seen.

‘If Mrs Mitchell happened to come by – and she might do, ’cause she cleans for other people in the town – she’d report me to Mrs Thatchell sure as eggs. Besides, it’s a terrible lot of money, isn’t it? Twopence each and nothing to show for it afterwards!’

He would have paid much more than fourpence for the privilege of sitting close beside her in the flickering warm dark, but he didn’t tell her that. He tried another tack and lured her to a country tea-shop for an hour – thinking that a pot of tea and toast would be a treat – but she’d still been so nervous about being spotted with a man (and news of that reaching her uncle, this time!) that it was no treat at all and he hadn’t bothered to suggest it since.

But it did not really matter to Alex where they went; talking to Effie was a pleasure in itself. She was so different from the other girls he knew: she had a freshness and a frank good-heartedness which was lacking in the well-bred daughters of his parents’ friends, to whom his mother seemed peculiarly intent on introducing him on the rare occasions when he dined at home. These young women were always perfectly polite and tried to talk about the weather and the world, but they had nothing much to say and seemed much more concerned with how they looked and what they wore. Effie was pretty, but too artless to be vain.

He would not have minded if she’d met him every week, however cold it was – in fact he had proposed it several times – but Effie remained quite adamant that she dared do no more. He tried again today.

‘Couldn’t we meet more often? Now that I have got my duty roster for the next six weeks and can rely on Thursday afternoons to spend with you? It wasn’t easy to arrange you know, and it might not work out so well another time.’ He spoke with feeling there – no-one asked a junior policeman what shifts he would prefer. He’d managed to wangle it, three six-weekly rosters in row, by offering to work a regular late-evening shift that day.

Manning the police-station at night was not a favourite with his peers – a senior man stayed on duty and awake while the junior tried to snatch what sleep he could on a lumpy mattress on the back-office floor, ready to be called on if required. Most of his colleagues hated it, but Alex volunteered – in order to earn himself the precious afternoon – and there had been an unexpected bonus too. On the quarterly appraisal, for the powers-that-be, Sergeant Vigo had written ‘Constable Dawes (Police No. 663) has shown ability and should be particularly commended for his willingness to take on extra and demanding duties.’ Policeman No. 663 found himself smiling at the recollection even now.

‘Pity to waste the opportunity, when I’ve arranged it all,’ he said now to Effie. ‘Might not be so lucky next time round. Besides, think of all the lovely days like this we’d have to miss!’ He spoke as if the day was bright and warm, but in fact it was a chilly afternoon, with a stiff little April breeze in off the sea. They were walking on the country lanes round the back of Gulval, where the high stone hedges gave them shelter from the wind but kept the thin spring sunshine from really reaching them, though it gave a special lustre to the new leaves on the trees. ‘Couldn’t we make it every fortnight, perhaps?’

Effie had taken a fancy for picking violets and had brought a basket with her so she could take some home – doubtless to give herself a visible excuse for wandering down lanes if ever Mrs Thatchell got to hear of it. She turned away from him on the pretence of plucking another fragile bloom from a tiny crevice in the wall. ‘Alex, I can’t – I keep on telling you. If Mrs Thatchell gave me any other afternoon – like she did the first time that we met – of course I’d jump at it. But she doesn’t usually have meetings with the bank, so it has to be a Thursday and they expect me home, and even as it is I often miss my only opportunity of seeing Pa. Besides, if we met more often,’ she turned slightly pink, ‘I’d never hear the last of it from Uncle Joe, he’s always asking questions as it is, wanting to know where I went and what I did.’

‘And what do you tell him?’

‘The truth – that I have been out walking with a friend, although,’ she giggled, ‘I let them think that it’s a girl. That’s bad enough, to hear my Uncle Joe go on, grumbling that I haven’t brought my money home that week.’

She didn’t say so, but he was fairly sure that her aunt and uncle scolded her to death every time she ‘wasted’ an afternoon like this. She did make a contribution to the family purse, he knew – and no doubt they were concerned if that was late.

‘Why don’t I come out with you? Then you could do both – spend some time with me and see your Pa and give the money to your aunt at the same time. Anyway, I’d like to meet your relatives.’

Effie laid the violet with the rest and looked at him scornfully. ‘Get along with you! You don’t know what they’re like.’

‘Well, whose fault is that?’ he said, half-jokingly. ‘You keep them from me, though I go on asking you about them all the time.’

That was true. He often asked her questions, though she didn’t notice it, just to start her prattling about her life at home. It seemed so entirely different from his own. That tiny cottage – he had seen it once, of course, when he went with Sergeant Vigo to interview her Pa, and he still retained a vivid picture in his mind. All that crowd of people packed in like sardines! He’d often tried to visualize living in that way, but imagination failed. Effie said that when she was living at the house, the other children all slept head to tail – one bed for the boys and another for the girls – and ate in relays if someone came to call, because there weren’t sufficient stools and settles to go round.

Perhaps that’s why she shook her head at him. ‘Couldn’t take you out there. You don’t know what it’s like. Proper mayhem sometimes. You’re not used to it.’ She coloured, in that pretty way she sometimes did. ‘You were brought up with pianos and fancy ornaments. It’s different out the Terrace: earth floors in the kitchen and wet washing everywhere and always someone squabbling somewhere in the house, mostly because wherever you sit down and start to sew or draw, within five minutes you’ve got to move because somebody wants something the other side of you.’ She paused and went on in an altered tone. ‘And Uncle Joe would give you such a time of it – he doesn’t care for policemen and he’d very likely call you rude things to your face. I would be ashamed to take you there.’

He looked down at her. ‘Meaning – really – that you’re ashamed of me?’

Her eyes flashed hotly. ‘Of course I aren’t! Don’t be so bally daft!’

It was not like her to speak so sharply, and he realized that, although he’d only meant to tease, his remark had genuinely touched a nerve. He put his hand out to her, but she pulled away.

‘It’s just – I can’t explain it – you’re from a different world. You must know what I mean. Would you feel comfortable if you took me home and had to introduce me to your Ma and Pa?’ She shrugged him off and went back to looking for her flowers.

He said, ‘But that’s quite different, Effie. You know it can’t be done – not while we’ve only got an hour or two to spare. It would take us all that time to get there – let alone get back.’ He saw the look that she was giving him and he added, rather lamely, ‘Anyway, I’m sure my parents would like you very much.’ But it lacked conviction and he knew it did.

Secretly, he was aware that she was right. Mother would be charming, as she always was to guests, and would take pains to make Effie feel at home – no doubt offering sandwiches and tea. But afterwards, he knew, it would be a different thing.

He could almost hear his mother saying, outraged and aggrieved, ‘What can you have been thinking of, Alex, to bring that poor girl here? Can’t you see that you’ve embarrassed her? Didn’t know what on earth to say to us. And talk about a lack of breeding! Can’t hold a tea-cup properly and when offered sandwiches helps herself to a whole handful at a time! I can’t imagine what your father’s going to say!’ But Alex could, and he was squirming at the very thought of it.

Effie seemed to read this in his face. ‘There you are,’ she said triumphantly. ‘It’s clear as daylight that you know exactly what I mean!’

But he would not admit it, not out loud at least. ‘Well, I’ll have to meet your people sometime,’ he said stubbornly. ‘If we’re going to . . .’ He tailed off in dismay.

She was looking at him strangely, raising her head so that her bonnet slipped right back. ‘If we are going to . . . what?’

‘Go on walking out,’ he said lightly, realizing that he’d nearly said something far more serious. ‘And move on to doing this.’ He leaned over and brushed his lips against her hair. ‘I can’t be on kissing terms with just anyone, you know.’

‘Get off, you great lummox.’ She ducked away and laughed. ‘Whoever said you could be on kissing terms with me?’ But she didn’t seem displeased and – although she did not allude to it again – she kept on smiling at him all the afternoon, as they wandered down the lanes collecting violets.

They had gathered quite a number by the time they turned for home. ‘Going to bunch and sell them?’ He knew that people did, to earn a few pennies from the townsfolk on a market day. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d planned on doing that – though their walk together seemed a funny time to choose.