The Forget-Me-Not Summer (46 page)

‘What a mean pig,' Miranda muttered. But some men were like that; if you proved you were as good at your job as a man, they resented you all the more. And this elderly air commodore was probably bursting for a pee – she was herself – and so had not dared to stop and throw even a word of thanks to the driver who had managed to get him to his destination with thirty minutes to spare.

Despite her hopes and everyone's expectations, however, the trials took longer than expected and it was full dark when the big car eased out of the tall gates once more and headed for the main road south. Miranda had managed to grab a second meal of sorts at the cookhouse as soon as she realised that they would not be leaving until much later than planned, and she supposed that someone must have fed her officer, so when he climbed into the car, smelling faintly of both food and alcohol, she hoped that his temper would be much improved. In her experience a man who has been well fed and watered was usually either chattier or more comatose as a result. After a mere couple of miles, a peep in the rear view mirror showed the air commodore comfortably settled in one corner of the long leather seat, eyes tightly closed, little bubbles of saliva coming from the corners of his mouth. Miranda could not help a little chuckle of pleasure escaping her. Thank God! If only he would sleep all the way to his quarters, how happy she would be. In order not to wake him she took extra care, and of course care was necessary due to the blackout, but even so she only took forty minutes longer on the return journey than she had going north.

As she drew up beside the administrative offices, she wondered for the first time how she should wake her passenger. She could imagine his rage if he realised she had known he was sleeping, had seen him dribbling – disgusting old man – on to the leather upholstery of the beautiful car. But the orderly officer, who had no doubt arranged the trip with considerable trepidation, must have been keeping a lookout for them, because he popped out of the offices like a jack-in-the-box, and when she tried to get out of her seat and go round to open the rear door he shook his head and put a finger to his lips. ‘I'll wake him gently, but don't expect any thanks for your good driving,' he whispered. ‘And as soon as he's awake and on his feet you'd best get rid of the car and see if the cookhouse can dream you up char and a wad, late though it is.' He patted her shoulder and even in the pale light she saw the flash of his teeth, white against tanned skin. ‘Many thanks, LACW Lovage; I take it all went according to plan?'

Miranda nodded. ‘Yes sir. We arrived early and left late,' she said cheerfully. She lowered her voice. ‘I don't envy Corporal Jones, sir.' The orderly officer chuckled, but just at that moment there was a heaving and a muttering from the figure slumped on the rear seat and Miranda, quick to see the good sense of a speedy disappearance, only waited until her passenger was out of the car before making off without a backward glance.

She decided to see if Avril would accompany her to the cookhouse, for there are few things worse than sitting down to a plate full of lukewarm food, the only person in a great echoing room set with dozens of tables and chairs, all of them empty except one's own. Upon
investigation, however, she discovered that there were only two girls in their hut, neither of them Avril. She emerged from the hut, closing the door softly behind her, and almost immediately came face to face with another Waaf. ‘Hiya, Lovage,' the girl said cheerfully. ‘Lookin' for your pal? She's gone to the NAAFI; said she'd wait up for you when you weren't in for a meal earlier.'

‘Thanks. I hate eating alone in the cookhouse, so I'll get Avril to keep me company,' Miranda said. When she got to the NAAFI, however, expecting to find Avril the centre of a group, she saw her friend sitting alone at a small table, industriously scribbling. She had a mug of coffee before her but when Miranda got near enough she could see that the drink was cold by the skin on it, and the way Avril was hunched over the page upon which she was writing warned Miranda that something was up. She slid into the seat opposite and tapped the other girl's mug. ‘You've let your drink go cold,' she said disapprovingly. ‘What's happened?'

Avril said nothing but fished in her tunic pocket and handed the letter to Miranda, who read it at a glance and then whistled softly beneath her breath.

‘Oh, Avril, poor old Pete! But missing doesn't necessarily mean . . .'

‘I know, I know,' Avril said impatiently, ‘I'm being sensible and telling myself it just means more waiting. He – he gave me as his next of kin, otherwise I really would be waiting, and wondering, too. But since his squadron leader says they saw chutes open, at least there's hope. Oh, Miranda, I wish I'd been more generous! To pretend he meant no more to me than the other fellers I'd gone with was just plain stupid, and now I'm payin'
for it.' She gave her friend a watery grin. ‘I'm writin' a letter to him now. I'm going to add a page or two each day and then, when he comes home – I suppose I should say
if
he comes home – he'll get a whole batch of news in one go. And I've started the letter by sayin' I won't go out with anyone else because he's the only feller that matters to me and always will be. Do you think I'm doin' the right thing?'

‘Yes, of course you are,' Miranda said, keeping her inevitable reflections to herself. Avril loved dancing, the cinema and the company of young men. Miranda could appreciate her feelings, but doubted whether Avril would be able to stick to a nun-like existence. However, only time would tell, and right now her friend was undoubtedly sincere.

It was four whole months after the squadron leader's first letter telling her that Pete was missing before Avril got another letter, this time with Pete's familiar handwriting on the envelope. On their way to breakfast they had stopped off at the bulletin board in the Mess and Avril had taken down the letter, her heart hammering in her throat. Seeing Miranda's interest, she shook her head. ‘It's probably been in the post for months, or stuck in the wrong pigeon hole, so I don't mean to get all excited,' she said. ‘I won't wait till we reach the cookhouse, I'll read it now.'

She slit open the envelope with clumsy fingers and pulled out the printed sheet it contained. ‘I told you it would be nothin',' she said bitterly. ‘It's one of them forms . . . oh, my God, my God, my God!' And Avril, who never showed emotion, who had not cried even
when Gary had been killed, or not publicly anyway, burst into tears.

‘What is it? What is it?' Miranda asked agitatedly. ‘Oh, Avril, I'm so sorry . . .'

Avril raised a tear-drenched face, her mouth beginning to form into a watery smile. ‘He's a prisoner of war,' she said huskily. ‘It's one of them standard letters giving his address and saying he has been in hospital but is out of it now, and he's scrawled on the bottom
Love you, Avril. Pete
.' Miranda was in the middle of telling her friend how happy she was when Avril gave a whoop and bounced across the Mess. ‘I'm goin' to get that letter, the one I'd been writin' for the past four months,' she said jubilantly. ‘It'll take him a month of Sundays to read it, but I'm sure he won't mind that. And I promised him that we'll get together just as soon as he's back in Britain.' She gave Miranda a defiant look. ‘That means as Mr and Mrs Huxtable, even if we can't marry straight away, because I was a fool, and wasted the time we could have spent together.'

‘Oh, Avril, I'm so happy for you, and I'm sure it won't be long before the war's over and Pete can come home,' Miranda said. She grinned wickedly at her friend. ‘Does this mean you'll come to dances and start flirting again, the way you did before Pete went missing?'

Avril laughed with her but shook her head. ‘No point,' she said. ‘I'm a one man girl now, and it means just that. And now let's get to the cookhouse because I'm absolutely starving; no matter what rubbish they're handing out I'll eat every scrap.'

‘How do I look?'

The war had been over for several months and Miranda
and Steve were alone in the living room of the small flat into which Avril and she had moved only the previous week, because despite Avril's brave words Pete had said that he would prefer to start their married life after the wedding rather than before it. This had made Avril go scarlet to the roots of her hair, whilst Miranda, who had been present at the time, had had to stifle a laugh.

Pete had returned from the POW camp thinner and sporting a black beard streaked with grey, and looking, for a moment, a dozen years older than the Pete she had known. Avril would have walked straight past him, and when he had grabbed her, accusing her of forgetting him, Avril, once so proud of never showing emotion, had wept bitterly. But the weeping had been of short duration, and the kissing and cuddling that followed had been quite sufficient to prove to Pete that, beard or no beard, he really was her dearest love.

Now, however, Miranda twirled until the skirt of her new-second-hand dress flew out, showing her petticoat, and Steve got up from the creaking sofa to grab her and give her a kiss whilst assuring her that she looked gorgeous; so pretty, in fact, that she would outshine the bride. Miranda smiled. She had seen Avril's dress and knew that though her own blue cotton was both fresh and attractive, it would be totally eclipsed by Avril's long white gown, borrowed from a theatrical costumiers for this special occasion.

She and Avril had decided that they would like a double wedding but this had been impossible since Pete's first action on arriving in Liverpool was to buy a special licence, something which neither Steve nor Miranda had even heard of before; they themselves would be married
conventionally after the banns had been read three times in their local church, and they had arranged with Mrs Mickleborough to have a small reception at her home. It had never occurred to either Miranda or Avril that Pete owned other premises, as well as his cycle shop, in the city. They both knew of course that Pete was ten years older than Steve, and had not wasted those ten years. He had been not a spender but a saver, and before the war had gone in for property, so that now he had a comfortable sum in the bank just waiting, he told them, to be spent on a home for his wife to be.

Realising that a double wedding was out of the question, Miranda had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the preparations for her friend's great day. She had agreed to be a bridesmaid and had found a pretty dress on Paddy's Market, and she and Steve had put their gratuities together to buy a small kitchen table and two stools for the newly-weds, which had just about cleaned them out financially.

As soon as the wedding was over, Pete would move into the flat in which Miranda and Steve now waited, and the lack of somewhere of their own was the main reason why Miranda and Steve had still not settled on the wedding date. Because of the bombing every single room in Liverpool was bulging with occupants and as soon as a property came up for rent it was grabbed. When Miranda moved out of this flat she would have no option but to go back either to share with Aunt Vi or to accept a put-you-up in the Mickleboroughs' front parlour. She told herself it was unfair on Steve's mum to add yet another person to a house already bursting at the seams, but Steve assured her that his mother would take an
extra non-paying lodger in her stride, especially if that person was willing to help in the house and even do a bit of cooking.

The door opening put an end to Miranda's thoughts and she beamed as Avril bounced into the room. She had always been a big, tall girl, but dressed in dazzling white satin with a wreath of lilies of the valley crowning her smooth flaxen head she looked like a princess, Miranda thought. Steve wolf-whistled, his eyes rounding. ‘Avril Donovan, you look fantastic!' he breathed. ‘Wait till Pete sees you; he'll be over the moon to think you're his and his alone. Can I kiss the bride? 'Cos I am acting father of the bride, after all.'

Avril curtsied. ‘Ta very much; I thought I looked good, but now I'm sure of it,' she said. ‘You ain't one to pay compliments you don't mean, old Steve. But just remember this 'ere bridal gown is the very same one what Miranda will be wearing in a few weeks, so just you keep your kisses for her, young feller.'

Miranda was about to make a joking remark when something occurred to her and she clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘The bridegroom isn't supposed to see the bride before the wedding, because he won't be so astonished at how lovely she looks in the dress,' she said. ‘Oh, hell, does that mean, if I wear that dress, we'll have bad luck?'

‘No, of course not . . .' Steve began, but Avril interrupted.

‘You're mad, you. It ain't the dress, it's the woman,' she explained. ‘It's something to do with ancient times, when they rigged some girl up in wedding finery with a real thick veil in front of her face, and passed her off
as the bride, or so I've heard tell. So you needn't worry, Steve – oh, heavens, where's me perishin' veil? Miranda Lovage, you're supposed to be helping me to get ready, and you never even noticed I'd not got me veil on yet.'

Miranda shot out of the room, fetched the veil and draped it elegantly over her friend's coronet of the tiny sweet-smelling flowers. She stepped back to admire the effect just as a taxi drew up in the street below, and sounded a toot-toot-ti-toot-toot on his horn.

Both girls squeaked and headed for the stairs whilst Steve, following, told them that they had plenty of time and reminded Avril that if she didn't pick up her skirts she would soil them on the piles of wet snow left over from the storm a week before.

The three of them bundled into the taxi and Avril grabbed Miranda's hand. ‘I hope I'm doin' the right thing,' she muttered. ‘I hope Pete is, for that matter. We've been apart for so long that sometimes he seems like a stranger. Partly it's the beard, but I can't expect him to shave it off just because it makes him look so different. Besides, I know he's rather proud of it.'