‘I don’t know,’ Tess said. She sounded doubtful. ‘It wasn’t easier the other night.’
‘No. But we didn’t give it much of a go, did we? A ten-minute walk up to the main road, a ten-minute wait for the bus? That’s not much of a go.’
‘You’re right.’ Her voice sounded light with relief. He realised he was smiling, that his heart was lifting. ‘Right you are then, outside the GPO at ten. Where we met that first time, in fact.’
‘Too right,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
He put the receiver down and went slowly back to his chair. He knew she was right, they must try, and just for a moment, when she’d sounded so happy, he’d thought that it really might work. But now, picking up the newspaper again, he acknowledged that this might well be wishful thinking. The trouble was, times had changed and they had changed with them. They were two very different people from the bright-eyed young hopefuls who had planned a spring wedding two years ago.
‘I’m meeting Mal in the city,’ Tess said when Susan and Molly asked what she was going to do that day. ‘We’re having a day out. It should be fun.’
But the trouble was, she was dreadfully afraid it wouldn’t be fun at all. It was raining, for a start. She didn’t have a lot of civvy clothes, so she wore an old brown skirt, a checked blouse and her Land Army mac, with the inevitable scarf wrapped round her head. She checked herself in the mirror and thought she looked deadly dull, but there was no help for it. She was damned if she would wear her only decent dress to get soaked in the downpour – she had borrowed an umbrella from Mrs Sugden but doubted that it would be much use, it was blowing a gale out there.
She was soaked by the time she reached the bus stop. Naturally. She was still wet when she got off the bus at Tombland and set off for the GPO. And this time, things were different because Mal had arrived before her. He was in uniform, standing against the very pillar she had leaned against, looking around him. Not as though he were searching for her, but simply idly scanning the people going by.
And then, when she was feet away from him, he turned away and began to walk rapidly along the pavement towards Castle Meadow. She had to run and grab hold of his arm.
‘Mal, where are you going? Changed your mind?’ She was panting, breathless. She felt angry, and also, at the same time, very sorry for him. What a business it was, meeting after a long parting!
‘Oh . . . Tess!’ he looked hunted, as though she’d caught him out in some immoral act. ‘I thought I’d got the place wrong, I might have said the Corn Exchange or . . .’
‘It isn’t ten yet, I wasn’t even late,’ Tess said. She sounded injured, even to herself. ‘Where are we going? It’s a filthy day – just my luck to get leave on a day like this.’
‘We’re catching a bus, I’m afraid,’ Mal said. ‘I don’t have a car, like Ashley; with me it’s bus or shanks’s pony.’
‘I don’t have a car either,’ Tess said. ‘What does it matter? Which bus, anyway?’
He was starting to speak when he suddenly grabbed her arm and began to tow her across the road. ‘This one! Hurry, or we’ve forty minutes to wait! Come on, give it your best, Tess.’
They both ran and got the bus when it stopped at the traffic lights. Tess collapsed, giggling, into a seat.
‘Oh, Mal, I’m soaked to the skin, out of breath, mud-splattered . . . and I was determined not to wear my best frock, because to ruin that would be the end, what with all the shortages and me needing all my coupons for something to wear to Freddy’s wedding. And I did so want to look nice for you!’
He turned to stare. Then he smiled, and it was his old, slow smile. ‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘As for rain, who cares about that? We’re together, aren’t we?’
Tess touched his hand timidly. Then, more boldly, took it in both hers. ‘Yes, we’re together,’ she said. ‘And we’re going to have a wizard day, rain or no rain!’
Sitting close beside her on the bus, Mal kept stealing glances at her. She looked lovely, he thought, with her face wet with rain and that scarf soaked with it and raindrops trembling on her long lashes. But he couldn’t tell her that, she’d think he was trying to outdo Ashley, so instead, he put an arm round her shoulders and drew her against his chest.
And it felt fine! It felt right, as natural as it had ever done and as different from the way he had felt the day before as could be. He squeezed her and then, highly daring, slid his hand down her arm and rested it gently against her side. He could feel the light, swift pitter-patter of her heart against his palm . . . it made him start to breathe more quickly, brought a surge of desire in its train.
‘Tess?’
‘Yes, Mal?’
‘Can you guess where we’re going?’
‘Blofield? Or Great Yarmouth? Only they won’t let us go on the proper beach because they haven’t dug out all the mines yet, I believe.’
He shook his head.
‘Wrong and wrong. Stokesby.’
She turned to stare at him. ‘Oh, but . . . what’ll we do there, Mal? It’s still raining like stink, if you ask me it’s set in for the day.’
Mal smiled at her and the hand which had been resting against her side tightened in a light squeeze.
‘The rain won’t matter. Trust me.’
‘Well, all right then,’ Tess said. ‘We could play dominoes, I suppose. I saw a box last time we were there, on that shelf behind the bar.’
‘Dominoes!’ he said scornfully. He was feeling better with every minute that passed, more in command. They had been so happy in Stokesby, now they were going back there, to find whatever it was that had somehow gone missing in the years between. He kept on smiling.
They sat in the bow window, at the very table they had sat at two years earlier. Tess said: ‘Why did you go to the bar and talk to Mrs Figgis whilst I was taking my wet things off in the toilet?’
‘How do you know I did?’
‘Because you were turning away as I came back, and Mrs Figgis took my coat and scarf and my wet stockings and said something about the forecast being better for tomorrow.’
‘Whoops,’ Mal said. ‘Did she?’
‘Yes, she did.’ Tess tried to glare, but giggled instead. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I told her we wanted a room for the night.’
Tess stared at him. ‘A room? One, not two?’
‘A room,’ Mal confirmed. ‘Why should we bother with two, when we’ve come away specially to be together?’
‘But we’re not –’
‘Hush! I think she thinks we
are
.’
‘I wonder where she got that idea?’ Tess said. ‘Could it have been something you said?’
‘I wonder?’ Mal said vaguely. ‘I booked dinner for seven o’clock and said we’d come down and have a sandwich lunch at around one, like last time.’
‘Come down?’
‘Well, we’ve got to see our room, haven’t we? And you might like a wash, or something.’ He grinned at her. ‘You might like to lie on the bed for a bit, relax. After all, there isn’t much else to do here, as you’ve pointed out.’
‘Mal, that wasn’t what I said! Well, it was, but it wasn’t what I
meant
. I meant we wouldn’t be able to walk or boat in the rain, that’s what I meant.’
‘True. But there are other things one can do, as I said at the time.’ He got to his feet and held out a hand. ‘Coming? Mrs Figgis says it’s left at the top of the stairs, the first door.’
‘How can I? Suppose she asks to see our wedding lines or something? Mal, I’d be embarrassed out of my life . . . I think we’d better have the sandwiches and go.’
‘If that’s what you really want . . .’
‘It is. And anyway, I haven’t got a nightie. Or a toothbrush. Or – or anything. What will she
think
?’
‘She’ll think we’re in love,’ Mal said softly. ‘She’ll think we want to be together and she’ll be glad we feel at home here. Tess, look at me!’
Tess got to her feet and met his eyes with some difficulty.
‘Love me, sweetheart?’
‘Yes, of course, only I’m all mixed up and . . .’
Mal took her arm and gently drew her towards the stairs. ‘Well, if that’s all, I am about to unmix you. There’s plenty of time before lunch. Come on, sweetie, up the wooden hill!’
They didn’t make love that morning, though Tess thought that Mal had probably expected they would. Instead, they lay on the bed and talked and held each other. And slowly, the fears and strangenesses which had bound them began to unravel. Mal told Tess how he’d been ill and unable to eat, how he’d felt caged from the moment he had arrived at the POW camp.
‘Lots of the fellers felt better, more secure, but I just felt . . . shut in,’ he said. ‘It was awful at first, I used to wake in the night thinking I was suffocating. I stayed sane, Tess, by fixing my mind on you. You were all that mattered, you were my past and my future. So when I got home and you seemed different – remote, beautiful, and very, very English – it . . . it kinda took the wind out of my sails.’
‘You seemed different, too,’ Tess told him. ‘Not so sure of yourself, not so dependable somehow. You didn’t seem . . . well, you didn’t seem to like me very much.’
‘Ho ho! I liked you
very
much, but I felt I couldn’t get close to you any more. It was odd, as if – as if I’d forgotten the language.’
‘The language of love,’ Tess said dreamily. ‘It’s so easy to say, but so difficult, too. I love you, Mal.’
He snuggled a kiss into the side of her neck just below her ear. ‘I love you, too, Tess. Shall we seal it with a kiss?’
‘Why not?’
They kissed. Tess said: ‘Why does that make my heart leap about I wonder?’
‘Because of what comes next, I daresay,’ Mal said. ‘Oh, Tess!’
‘Sandwiches come next. Lunch for two, Pilot Officer Chandler,’ Tess said, suddenly brisk. ‘Let’s pretend this is our wedding day, Mal. Downstairs, our wedding breakfast awaits!’
‘Spoil-sport,’ Mal grumbled, getting off the bed. ‘But I dare say you’re right.’
They went down to the bar and had the sandwiches, beer and ginger cake which Mrs Figgis had prepared for them, then spent the afternoon walking.
‘I didn’t intend to be this athletic,’ Mal grumbled, striding out along the tow-path with Tess tucked into his side. ‘Or at least, not on these marshes, with the wind coming across them like a drawn sword.’
‘Or a whetted knife, like in the Masefield poem,’ Tess remarked. ‘You said you didn’t get enough exercise in the camp, so don’t grumble about a brisk walk. It’s better for you than lounging about indoors.’
‘I didn’t say I wanted to lounge about indoors, I wanted to be very athletic indeed,’ Mal said, grinning down at her. ‘All right, all right, you can force me out into this bitter wind now, but my turn will come.’
It did. They had their dinner, which was excellent, and went to bed. And, held close in Mal’s loving arms, Tess discovered that there was an indoor game which was even more fun than striding across the Acle marshes.
‘So this is what they make such a fuss about,’ she remarked when they lay quiet at last. ‘Dear, darling Mal, we
are
going to get married, aren’t we? So that we can be together for always?’
‘We are,’ Mal said gently. ‘Will you give up all this and come back to the Wandina with me? Even knowing that I’ll just be the old feller’s manager for a while, at least?’
Coffee had left Uncle Josh, going into town one morning in the pony-cart and sending an ill-written note to say she was moving on. Uncle Josh had written at once to Mal, begging him to return when the war was over and assuring him that the place would be his, when he himself passed on.
‘Yes, of course I’ll come with you,’ Tess said without hesitation. ‘That’s how I first knew it was for real, Mal. When Andy said he wanted to live in Greece – sun and sea, you know – I knew I could never love him enough to leave England. But when you came along . . . oh, there was no question, no question at all. Whither thou goest, Mal Chandler, I goest also.’
‘It’s a harsh old life,’ Mal said. ‘Harder on a woman than on a man. There’s no softness in the outback and precious few amenities, either. On the good side, though, Uncle Josh is a man of his word; he’ll leave the place to us when he goes, so everything we do there will be for our own benefit, in the end. There is another option, of course; I could go for a job in the city, but I’ve never reckoned much to that.’
‘You wouldn’t consider staying here, getting work on a farm? Perhaps studying to be a farm manager, or trying to get the money together to buy a farm of your own?’
‘For you, anything. But I don’t think an English farm could ever mean what an outback cattle station means to me, and for the old feller’s sake I’d like to go back. Look, say we give it a go on the Wandina for a couple of years and if you hate it, we think again. How’s that?’
‘It’s very generous of you but there’s no need, really,’ Tess said sleeply. ‘I meant what I said. My home, in future, will be where you are, Mal.’
‘Oh, Tess, what have I done to deserve you?’
It rang a faint bell, but only a faint one. Tess sat up and put both arms round Mal, then squeezed him hard.
‘Nothing, I’m a pearl beyond price. And now let’s get to sleep. Tomorrow the weather’s due to improve and we can
really
go for a walk!’
They married quietly, in the village church of St Michael and All the Angels. Cherie was a bridesmaid and Freddy matron of honour, for she had married a couple of months before. Marianne, very pink and pleased, gave the bride away and the reception was held at Willow Tree Farm because the Old House still wasn’t habitable. The Knoxes came to the wedding, but Ashley was absent. He had gone up to London, his mother explained, for an interview.
‘He isn’t sure it’s a good thing to work for his father,’ she said, pulling a face at her large, quiet husband. ‘So he’s hoping to get some experience with a bigger firm which specialises in criminal law. I daresay he’ll come home again after a year or two, but he’s probably right. After the Air Force, practising in a provincial city is going to seem dull work for a bit.’
Tess was both glad and sorry that he hadn’t come, but when she mentioned it to Freddy her friend said it was definitely for the best.
‘He’ll see you before you go off to Australia,’ she assured Tess. ‘He’s taking your marriage pretty well, considering.’