Wartime Sweethearts (18 page)

The time went quickly. As fast as she set things out, Mrs Darwin-Kemp whisked them off the table to serve to her guests, though not without Frances’s assurance that they were of the very best quality, and also not without scrutinising the thickness of the cucumber slices and also of the bread.

‘We have very important guests,’ Mrs Darwin-Kemp declared imperiously for the third time that evening. ‘They are used to eating the very best in the finest establishments.’

‘Sweet’s Bakery is the best for miles around. Everyone knows that Mary and Ruby are excellent bakers, and not just of bread,’ Frances said defensively. ‘They’re very good at recipes too and have entered some for the Best of British Baking competition in Bristol. Ruby won a place there with an apple loaf.’

Mrs Darwin-Kemp looked suitably impressed. ‘Really?’

Frances allowed herself a smug smile. Even though she was annoyed with her family she still loved them and would defend them against all comers.

After the food came the dishes. By the time she’d washed what was already in the sink Mrs Darwin-Kemp came out with the dishes from the tea tray in the drawing room. She also gave Frances a ten-shilling note.

‘My guests were very impressed, so impressed in fact that they noted the name and address of the bakery. You did say Mary and Ruby, didn’t you, and that they are also devising recipes for some competition?’

Frances said that she had, but wasn’t really interested in anything else that was said. She had earned ten shillings and intended not telling her family about it. Instead she would take it with her to the Forest of Dean – if she
really
had to go. Wisdom told her she might need it there, perhaps to escape and make a life of her own. Ten shillings should be enough.

It was gone seven o’clock and Mary was frantic. Tea was on the table, Ruby and her father were back, but there was no sign of Frances. She’d explained to her father that the woman up at the big house had demanded delivery and that she’d sent Frances along on Charlie’s bicycle.

Stan Sweet had been in the process of taking off his coat and settling down for the evening, not that he’d be able to settle much. Seeing Charlie off had aged him, though he’d controlled his feelings, putting on a brave front so that Charlie would go off happy. He knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight. There was just too much on his mind.

‘I’ll go and look for her,’ he said, reaching for his hat.

Ruby had seen through his facade of joviality. She threw a look at her sister. ‘I’ll go. It’s best you stay here, Dad. Our Mary wants to know all about the send-off. Be fair, she’s run the shop all day by herself. It’s a wonder she’s sold a thing, worrying about our Charlie.’

Mary agreed with the suggestion. ‘She’s probably met up with the village boys and is in the orchard climbing trees, everything else totally forgotten.’

They all knew their cousin’s love of the orchard – she’d been known to lose all sense of time in her favourite playground, and besides it wasn’t that dark just yet.

It was now early October. The nights were beginning to close in and it would soon be time for the clocks to fall back. Ruby wondered if it would happen this year as usual. Probably. The farmers and growers would be clamouring for longer hours of light so they could get in the crops.

Out of sight of everyone Ruby opened a kitchen drawer and grabbed a rolling pin. What few street lamps there were in the village were blacked out. The countryside was blacker than ever with not even a sliver of light coming out from a window. The blackout had made her nervous, or at least cautious.

‘I’ll go. I won’t be long,’ she shouted as she reached for the door latch.

Once outside, Ruby took three deep breaths. It had been difficult not to cry in front of Charlie, though she had dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. She needed this time alone to think about her own future. Charlie was off to sea, off to defy a vicious enemy, to crew on a merchant ship carrying food to England, now a beleaguered country. If she could, she would do something more worthwhile too, certainly something more important than baking bread and serving in the shop.

Her eyes ached and so did her feet. It had been a long day and she had been looking forward to putting her feet up, listening to the wireless or reading a magazine. Frances had put paid to all that. By the time she got back all she’d want to do was flop into bed with a cup of hot cocoa.

‘If that little madam is out larking about with her mates, she’ll get the sharp edge of my tongue,’ Ruby murmured as she marched off towards the steep hill that led down to Swainswick House.

Frances was thinking how pleased the twins would be to hear that Mrs Darwin-Kemp’s guests had praised their baking when the front tyre of Charlie’s bicycle hissed into flatness. She had a puncture.

Cursing naughty words that a grown-up might use, words she would never use in front of her family, she swung her leg off her bike. Curses and bad words were only for when she was out with the Martin boys and the village girls that didn’t mind climbing trees and getting their dresses torn.

The hill leading up towards the old toll house and the village beyond was steep and pushing a bicycle with a puncture was never easy. By the time she got to the top of the hill she was breathless, tired and very hungry. She wanted to get home quickly so rather than continuing along the main road that passed the front of big houses and opposite the tiny little railway station, she opted to head down Pool Lane.

The lane ran alongside the orchard where she spent many happy hours. It was where the wall was the lowest and the old five-bar gate falling to bits. It was the gate she and her friends usually climbed over depending on the amount of nettles growing there, too many and they vaulted over the broken wall. Along a bit further was a stile, a more favoured entrance than either the gate or the wall. For some reason nettles didn’t grow there.

The lane was narrow and wound away to her left, its hedges throwing dark shadows even in daylight. Dusk had come and gone and tonight the lane seemed to wind away like a long tunnel of blackness. No light shone from the windows of the few cottages bordering the narrow lane, their inner glow denied escape by the recent addition of hastily made blackout curtains.

Charlie had told her that an enemy bomber could detect the smallest glimmer of light from a great height.

‘Even from the burning tobacco in the bowl of your uncle Stan’s pipe,’ he’d said to her.

Wide-eyed, she’d hung on to his every word, believing him as she always did until he’d burst into laughter and winked at her.

‘Caught you there, mutt.’

Charlie wouldn’t be there when she got home and it saddened her. She wondered where he was now and what he was doing. He was probably still on the train taking him to Winchester. Travelling anywhere was taking longer than usual, so her uncle had told her.

‘The trains will be packed with lots of brave young men going off to war. Young men like our Charlie.’

Yes, she decided as she marched into the lane. Charlie was brave and if he could go off to fight nasty Nazis, then she shouldn’t be afraid of darkness. The sun had gone to bed. That was all that had happened.

The familiar sights of day were totally immersed in darkness. The sounds of night were different too: the call of a fox, the hoot of an owl piercing and unseen.

The flat tyre made a wheezing sound as she pushed the bike along, reminding her of an old man in the village who made the same noise and coughed and spluttered before he could say a word.

Tree branches creaked with age as the wind began to rise, tugging at her skirt and sending black clouds racing across the sky.

In a moonlit moment, she spied the tall chimneys of the Apple Tree pub, black and solid against the rolling clouds.

The moment didn’t last, clouds hiding the moon and returning the world to blackness. However, the end of the lane was in sight. A few more steps …

‘Come to see me then, my darling?’

There was suddenly a voice and the glow of a burning cigarette, the smell of strong tobacco.

Gareth Stead! His figure was black against the turmoil of sky, just like the chimneys of the pub he ran.

Frances stopped. It was no longer so easy telling herself to be brave just as Charlie was being brave.

‘No,’ she said, making herself sound as much like Ruby as possible because Ruby always sounded defiant even when she wasn’t.

‘Where you been then?’

His words were slurred. The air around him smelled much like the empty barrels left for the draymen at the back of the pub. As her Uncle Stan had said, a pub landlord should not indulge too freely in his own spirits and beers. She knew he’d meant that Mr Stead drank too much.

She gathered up all her courage. ‘It’s none of your bloody business. And you’ve been indulging,’ she retorted tartly, not caring about using a bad word when speaking to him. She didn’t like him. She remembered that he’d tried to put his hand up her skirt, though nobody had believed her. Perhaps she should have mentioned it to Uncle Stan or Charlie rather than Ruby, but she hadn’t because what he’d done had confused her. It was dirty and when she’d protested, Mr Stead had said she was just a tease and had egged him on. Ruby had made her swear not to repeat what she’d said. ‘Little liars get their tongues pulled out with pliers.’

Terrified at the thought of having her tongue pulled out with pliers, Frances didn’t insist that she was telling the truth. What if nobody believed you even though you were telling the truth? Would that still mean your tongue would be pulled out?

Gareth Stead did not like being sworn at. If she had seen his expression, she would have let the bike fall to the ground and run away. But it was now almost dark and she didn’t see. Besides, she had to put on a brave front, just like Charlie, just like the country as a whole.

‘You’ve got a sharp tongue and you’re a tease. Do you know that?’

‘And you’re a drunk.’

Gareth Stead had been drinking since lunchtime, partly because he was celebrating buying knocked-off booze straight from the docks, stuff that hadn’t so much fallen off a lorry as a ship. There was also the fact that the pub had been half empty and when there was nobody to serve, he served himself. No wonder the profits were down.

He was also commiserating with himself that Ruby had not come crawling to ask him for her job back. He’d fully expected her to, but she hadn’t. The cow!

Still, not entirely her fault. The bloody war again! That stupid brother of hers had gone to war so she and her sister were left with the job of keeping the bakery afloat, them and that sanctimonious father of theirs. He was getting to hate the Sweet family, though he had to smile at the thought of old man Sweet coming along to ask him if he would consider marrying Ruby so she wouldn’t go off and do something stupid like joining up. He’d actually told him he would think about it, figuring that way the old man might persuade Ruby to fill in with a little bar work now and again. It occurred to him that Ruby didn’t know her father had come pleading for him to take her off his hands. Silly old bugger. Why keep a horse if you only needed a ride? Not a bloody lifelong partner. Never again. Once was enough, and anyway, with the men off to war, the women of the village would be starved of male company. He’d have the pick of the crop! He wouldn’t be joining up, that’s for sure. Catching rheumatic fever as a child had put paid to that. A dicky heart, so he’d been told. Unfit for duty.

He kept a grip on the post at the side of the stile; his knees buckled when he tried to stand upright. His head was throbbing, his eyes stinging. He wished he hadn’t had so much to drink then he could see her better. It sounded like Ruby, though it was too dark to see her. Still, who needed to see the goose to stuff it? A grope in the dark was as good as anything. He’d know that body anywhere. It was just a case of getting close enough to feel her.

‘Come on then,’ he said enticingly, standing sideways so she could pass through the narrow gap. His head reeled every time he moved, but by leaning his back against the bushes and holding on to the post, he managed to stay upright.

Frances considered going back the way she’d come, but what if he came after her? There was a whole lane of darkness behind her whereas home wasn’t that far in front.

She gulped and decided to go forward. Despite her cocky manner, the landlord of the Apple Tree frightened her. But she had to get home.

Tightly gripping the handlebars of the bike she gave it a big enough push to get it going despite the puncture. The entrance to the lane was only just wide enough for her and the bike to get through. Gareth Stead’s thick-set body silhouetted against the light behind him narrowed it further.

As she came level she felt the heat of his body, the brush of his rough tweed coat against her hip. She smelt the tang of his breath and his sweat, heard the quickening of his breathing.

‘Gotcha!’

She screamed as he grabbed her with one hand before his other hand pressed over her mouth. She hung on to the bike.

His palm was fleshy against her mouth. She bit him.

‘Ouch! You bitch … I’ll teach you …’

Her skirt was hitched up to her waist. She should have dropped the bike, but sensed it was an encumbrance to what he wanted to do. She clung to it, like a shield.

‘Let me go!’

‘Ruby! Ruby my love …’ The moon suddenly shone clear. Stead looked at her with bleary eyes. ‘You!’

Frances kicked him.

‘You bitch! I’ll teach you …’

Gareth Stead didn’t get the chance to teach her anything. Ruby came across the pair and gasped in horror at the sight before springing into action.

‘Let my cousin go or you’ll get this rolling pin around the back of your head!’

‘Ooow!’ Gareth warbled contempt as he attempted to focus on the figure wielding the rolling pin. ‘Ruby, me darling. I’ve been waiting … I thought—’

‘Frances? Come here.’

Frances did as she was told.

‘Darling, I didn’t realise it was the kid. I thought—’

‘Don’t you darling me!’

Ruby posed quite a picture, standing there with her arm raised, though shaking with anger so much that even the rolling pin was trembling.