The Gunner Girl (31 page)

‘I've missed you,' she said, between kisses, but he didn't answer, found her mouth again, kissed her hard and felt the exquisite anguish of wanting her so much. They held
and stroked, fingers slick with wet, gas masks clunked and tangled; he didn't care. He could stay here in the rain in the middle of the London pavement with her for ever.

‘Would sir and madam like to step inside?' said a voice beside them. Rob turned and looked. A portly doorman in a top hat, stood underneath a vast umbrella, just at their side. How
long had he watched before he said something? His florid face and squinty eyes gave nothing away. Rob said yes of course, and allowed himself to be ushered up the hotel steps and into the lobby,
where another uniformed man, hatless, shiny hair thinning on the crown, asked if sir and madam had a room reserved?

Rob caught Joan's eye. With another girl, this would have been embarrassing, but she just laughed, threw back her head and laughed. Her ATS cap fell off and landed on the polished marble
floor, and she let the man pick it up for her. Then she gave him the flying jacket, saying thank you so much, we're just here for tea. He said very well, if you'd like to follow me,
madam, and she said, we have a reservation, actually; the name's Lightwater. And as she said the name, Rob noticed the man's body stiffen, ever so slightly, so he walked a little more
upright, to attention almost.

‘I thought your surname was Tucker,' Rob whispered, as the man motioned them through the doorway into the Palm Court. ‘They won't know that,' said Joan, ‘but
they'll know who Sir Neville Lightwater is.' She winked at Rob, and gave the maitre d' a gracious smile as he showed them to a table for two next to the window. Rob followed,
watching her sway easily ahead. Her hair was different, palest gold. There was the plink-plink of a piano and the smell of flowers and gilded edges; everything was pale, muted and discreet. The
room was almost empty; a couple of stout ladies at the far end, that was all.

Chairs were pulled out, napkins flapped like flustered hens. His cap was soaking; it left a puddle on the windowsill. He asked a waiter to take it and put it with the coats. The waiter held it
as if it were the corpse of a well-loved pet. Joan pulled her chair in a little closer and patted her hair. It was damp, raindrops like seed pearls on the ends. Catching sight of herself in the
mirror on the wall behind him, she took a lipstick from her gas-mask case.

‘Have you ever actually kept a gas mask in that?' he said, watching as she slicked red over her full lips and rubbed her top teeth once over with her tongue.

‘Never,' she said, clicking the gold lipstick lid on. ‘If they send in gas, I'll be a goner.' He laughed, and she put away her lipstick.

‘I like your hair,' he said.

‘Thanks, I fancied a change,' she replied.

The waiter came back, thrusting menus, solicitous. Rob asked him to give them a moment to decide. He scanned the curly writing, but it was all a blur. The box was poking hard against his leg,
now he was sat down, nagging. He turned his attention back to Joan. She wasn't looking at the menu, she was looking out of the window, watching the rain pelt down as a green coach throbbed
past, making the windowpane shudder. She looked very serious. He asked if everything was all right.

‘It's nothing,' she said. ‘I'll tell you one day.' And then she smiled and nudged her foot between his, underneath the table. He pulled his chair right
forward and she twined her other leg around his. Above the table they were perfectly respectable, but below, they were locked in an embrace. The box, trapped under the tight cloth of his uniform,
pressed hard into his flesh.

The waiter came back and Rob said tea for two and whatever the lady would like. Joan said, ‘I don't think what “the lady” would like can be found on a cake
trolley,' giving Rob a sideways look. And the waiter's eyebrows shot up. ‘I do like eclairs though,' she added, and the waiter replied, ‘Eclairs for the lady, very
good. Will that be all, sir?' Rob said it would and he glided away out of sight behind aspidistras. When he'd gone, they laughed, and Rob reached forward and took her hands in his.
There was the pulse of static as their fingers connected. For a while they just sat, looking at each other. Rob was trying to commit again to memory her eyes, the way her bottom lip pouted, the gap
between her teeth.

‘You looked different in the paper,' he said, and he noticed something pass over her face, like a cloud scudding over the sun. ‘You should've let me know – lucky
one of the other chaps noticed and saved me a copy.'

‘It didn't seem important,' she said.

He asked about the day of the royal visit, and her promotion, and work, and listened to her talk, and watched her eyes, her mouth, the way she looked sideways at him instead of full on. I could
grow old with this woman, he thought.

The waiter returned, piling the table with china and cutlery: translucent teacups and plates and cake forks and a vast silver teapot and a cake stand. There was no room for clasped hands.

At last, the waiter left again, and Rob thought,
Now, do it now,
and he disentangled his legs from hers, and pushed his chair out, stood up, pulled out the ring box and then got down on
one knee, right there, in the Palm Court in the Ritz Hotel. Because, like his old dad said, faint heart never won fair maid. She was looking down at him: hazel eyes, a flush in her cheeks. He
flicked open the lid of the box. He wasn't nervous at all, because he knew what the answer would be. Right from that moment when the bomb fell on Western Way, they were meant to be
together.

‘Joan,' he said. ‘Will you marry me?'

‘Well?' said Bea, the second Joan stepped through the hut door.

‘Well what?' said Joan.

Inside the hut, it was thick and warm, dense with the scent of sweat and drying wool. The rain rattled loudly on the corrugated tin roof. Sheila Carter was busy in the corner with the old Singer
sewing machine and a piece of striped seersucker.

‘Did he pop the question?' said Bea, her face an expectant blob. Joan looked round; the hut was full. It was barrack night and all the girls were busy darning, sewing and mending.
Even Edie was rubbing polish on her boots in languid curves, while staring out of the rainy grey square window. The sewing machine fell silent and six pale faces looked over at her.

‘Yes, he did,' she said, still standing right next to the door, wishing she could either bolt out into the rain or run to her bed and hide under the covers.

‘Oh, I'm so happy for you, girl!' shrieked Bea, dropping her crochet and running over. She hurled herself at Joan, and suddenly Joan was surrounded as all the other girls came
over, too. The entire hut was a squealing mass:
Did he get on one knee? Was it very romantic? Did he look nervous? What did the other people think? The ring, the ring, show us the ring!
Her hand was grabbed and Joan looked down with them, and for an instant she saw a different hand, with perfectly buffed oval nails and a thin gold ring studded with sapphires and pearls, and there
was a gritty feeling on her knees and a burning smell. That buzzing sound again. But in an instant the vision went, and it was her own hand there instead, with the chipped thumbnail, and the ring
had three aquamarines interspersed with two tiny diamonds. Why had she thought they were sapphires and pearls?

How lovely! Look at that, isn't it beautiful? It must have cost him a fortune! When's the wedding Joan? Who's going to be bridesmaids?

Edie came over last, getting up slowly from her bed. Joan saw her pale forehead and burnished hair through the throng. She took Joan's hand in hers. As she did so, she said, ‘But
Joan, you've got it on the wrong hand, dear.' Joan said nothing, and everyone just looked at her, and for a while there was just the sound of the rain on the roof and Edie's hard
little hand holding hers.

‘You did say yes, didn't you?' said Bea.

‘No, I said I'd think about it,' said Joan. There were mutterings of concern:
Playing hard to get? It's a dangerous game. Make him sweat, I say! You holding out for
some matching earrings?

‘Why did you do that?' said Bea.

‘Oh, you know, play 'em mean, keep 'em keen,' said Joan, affecting nonchalance. Edie dropped Joan's hand and it felt suddenly cold and empty.

‘What are you on about?' said Bea, stepping in close. ‘Robin is a good man. Why didn't you just say yes?'

‘I know he's a good man.' The faces were looking questioningly at her. Edie had drifted back to her bed. The others were waiting, sensing gossip, scandal, something to talk
about at NAAFI break in the morning. Well, she wasn't going to give it to them. ‘I don't see why it's any of your bloody business. And I don't know what you're
all standing about gawping for.'

The crowd shrank back. Sheila went back to the Singer, pulled her lip over her overbite and fretted with a bit of puckered hem. The others wandered back to their bunks, rolling eyes at each
other and muttering under their breath. Only Bea didn't move. ‘You don't know what's good for you,' she said sadly. Sheila's Singer began to stutter and hum in
the background.

‘And who are you, my mother?' hissed Joan.

‘You don't fool me. You make out that it's all about lipstick and dancing and gadding about, but if you carry on like this, you'll end up old and lonely,' said Bea,
under her breath. ‘Rob is a good man and you won't do better.'

‘I don't need you to tell me about Rob,' said Joan. ‘It's none of your business.'

‘Yes, it is. I don't want to see you throwing away your future. I'm thinking of you. Because I'm your friend.'

‘Are you?' Joan held her gaze, chin up, eyes narrowed. Bea shook her head sadly and sighed, turning away.

‘Oh, Joan,' she said under her breath.

The sewing machine abruptly stopped, and Sheila swore, loudly. Joan looked round.

‘Blasted thing,' said Sheila, sucking her finger where the needle had caught it and getting up. ‘I give up. I'm going to the NAAFI for a KitKat, anyone else want
something?' There was a murmur of assent and a scuffling as girls handed over change and Sheila pulled on her coat and headed off.

Joan went to sit down on her own bed. She should probably get on with something: the strap on her spare brassiere was almost worn through and there was a hole in the pocket of her work trousers.
She sat and thought about what she ought to do and looked outside. The little hut window was like a porthole and the rain sluiced down the pane. Joan thought about Rob and his face when she'd
left him outside the Ritz. Bea was right; he was a good man. Why hadn't she just said yes? She fiddled with the red stitching on her blanket until an end came loose. She pulled it, it started
to unravel and she watched as the stitches undid themselves, thinking back.

She'd felt him move his feet away from hers and watched as he pushed his chair back. It made a scraping sound on the marble floor. Then he pulled a little black box from
his pocket and half-knelt down in front of her. There he was, with his dark Brylcreemed hair and his blue-grey air-force uniform, and she thought, blimey, this is like something from the flicks,
and she half expected some soaring orchestral music to accompany the inevitable question. Robin – her Rob – looked up at her and flicked open the lid of the box and she looked down at
him, with his kind eyes and his crooked nose and she knew that she was going to say yes, because she loved him, and they'd live happily ever after, just like the films. And then he said,
‘Joan Tucker, will you marry me?'

She opened her mouth, but as she inhaled, ready to respond, she looked down into the box, at the ring – the gold ring with the blue stones – and the room tilted, and she heard again
the buzzing in her ears. Then, instead of saying yes, she said nothing, because her head was full of images of a hand, and a sapphire ring, and little almond-shaped fingernails, and blood and that
acrid smell, and the hand still warm and the settling dust. And there was that loud buzzing, filling her ears. Robin looked up at her, waiting. She held onto the edge of the table because
everything else seemed to be swerving away.

‘Joanie?' mouthed Rob – she couldn't hear him above the fuzzy roar in her head.

She tried again. ‘I—' she began, but no sound came out. She looked down at him, but couldn't focus; everything was shifting. Her hand tightened on the tablecloth. She
felt the soft cotton under her fingertips and she pulled it tight, and remembered holding onto the edge of a pinny, feeling the cloth like that, when there were strangers in the house. But what
house? Whose pinny?

Rob's face was pinkly indistinct, his features smudged. ‘Joan, what's the matter?' he said, but she could barely hear him. She looked at him, trying to focus on his face,
but his eyes were just full stops and his mouth a dark underscore.

‘Joanie?' He leant in. His sleeve brushed her knee. The box was almost in her lap. She looked down at him, his face on a level with her chest, and concentrated on his features until
they became clear. There he was, her Rob. He held her gaze without blinking, and she saw a reflection of herself in miniature, like a small ghost on the surface of his pupil, barely there at
all.

‘I can't,' she said at last.

The buzzing began to lessen, and from outside there was a swooshing sound as the traffic ran through puddles. The rain pattered against the hotel windows. Robin got up off his knees and sat back
down in his seat, slamming the open ring box on the table between them. The Palm Court doors swung open and three young women rushed in, laughing and chattering like birds and shaking out raincoats
and umbrellas. The waiter hurried over to the smiling women. Joan tapped the handle of her teaspoon, feeling as if she were about to snap.