Avalanche of Daisies (5 page)

‘Why thass Lynn,' Barbara said, leaning forward for a closer look. ‘Thass the station. I didn't know he was down here. That must ha' been las' week, when it snowed.'

‘That's right,' Steve said, his voice proud. ‘It was.'

‘Were you there?'

He tempered his pride with self-mockery. ‘I'm the third beret along on the left.'

‘Oh yes,' she teased. ‘I can see you. The ugly one.'

They watched as the great man addressed his troops.

‘Why don't he wear his jacket in all that snow?' she asked. ‘You know, that ol' sheepskin of his. He look a right fool standin' around with no coat on.'

‘He wanted us to see his medal ribbons,' Steve explained. ‘That's what the tankies said anyway. They were bellyaching about him for hours after.'

‘Why?'

‘He had the wrong badge in his cap. See it? The one this side's the General Staff badge. That's all right. But
the other one's the badge of the Royal Tank Regiment an' you're not entitled to wear that unless you're a tankie. They were up in arms about it.'

That intrigued her. ‘I thought he was their hero.'

‘He is,' he told her. ‘That's why they rib him. We go by opposites in the army. The more popular you are, the more you get ribbed.'

‘Do you get ribbed?' she asked, thinking, I bet he does. I bet he's one of the most popular men on the camp.

Steve was torn between an undeniable desire to let her know how well-liked he was and an equally powerful compulsion not to show off. Fortunately, there wasn't time to answer because the newscaster had turned his attention to the war in the Pacific.

‘
American troops storm ashore at Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands,'
he intoned, as the screen filled with approaching landing craft and hundreds of soldiers leapt into the water and began their dangerous wade ashore, rifles held above their heads, faces seamed and grim beneath their rounded helmets.

They're going to be killed, Barbara thought, and she was filled with a yearning pity for them. They're going to be shot down and killed the minute they get on that beach. Thousands of them. It was something she'd known all through the war in a vague, generalised way but now the knowledge was immediate and personal. These men, struggling through the water, were going to be killed. Were dead already in all probability, poor devils. That's what happens when armies invade. Men get killed. That'll happen when the Second Front begins. They'll be killed on the beaches in France too. Men like these. Men like Steve. And that made her heart contract with a new and personal distress.

‘I hate this war,' she said, passionately.

He turned to look at her in the light reflected from the screen and was torn by the distress on her face. ‘Let's
go,' he decided. ‘We don't want to see the rest, do we? It's only General Mac Arthur poncing about.'

The narrator was continuing his commentary. ‘
From a warship somewhere off-shore, the landings are watched by General MacArthur.'
And the plump general was holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes, watching the carnage he'd commanded. No, she didn't want to see any more.

They struggled along the back row, past the outstretched feet and busy hands of all the snogging couples, and emerged into chill air and the monochrome of ordinary life. Barbara put up her hood and tied her red coat tightly about her waist, and they set off as if they knew where they were going. In fact they were walking aimlessly, away from the thought of death and injury, heading east into the wind and feeling decidedly cold after the fug in the cinema. It was evening and extremely dark, for although the moon was almost full, the clouds were still low and fast-moving, so its light was intermittent and unpredictable.

Barbara tried to make conversation as they walked because she was still upset. ‘My ma loves the pictures,' she said. ‘Specially musicals. She say they take her out of herself. I ain't so sure that's a good thing.'

‘Why?'

‘I suppose thass because you come back with such a bump afterwards. I mean, all that colour an' everythin' bright an' a happy endin', an' then we come out to this, everythin' grey an' run-down an' dusty. Nothing changed. The war still goin' on. The Second Front coming.' She'd always thought her mother's escapism was pretty childish, now, shuddering with pity for those poor marines, it was an affront.

‘It won't last for ever,' he tried to reassure. ‘Once we get going.'

But that didn't comfort her.

They'd reached an open space where bare trees
rustled their branches and a footpath led into the darkness. ‘What's this?' he asked. ‘Is it a park?'

‘Thass the Walks,' she told him, pulling her mind away from death and invasion. ‘There's a tower bit further up.' And to prove her right, the clouds suddenly blew away from the moon and there it was in the moonlight, the Red Tower, stolid and hexagonal and faintly pink on its grassy mound. ‘Used to be part of the ol' city walls,' she said, as they walked towards it. ‘Part uv the ol' defences. War again, you see. There's never an end on it.'

‘When this lot's over,' he told her seriously, ‘the first thing we'll do is to find a way to stop the next one before it begins.'

‘Thass all very well,' she said. ‘But what about this one? Thass the one what ought to be stopped. I hate this war.'

Her voice sounded so wild that he stopped walking and turned to look at her. She had an odd, taut expression on her face, as if she was fighting back tears, and the sight of it made him feel as if someone were pinching his heart.

‘Please don't look like that,' he begged.

She blinked and scowled, angry to be so near tears. ‘I can't help it,' she said. ‘It's all so awful. People gettin' bombed an' shot an' blown to pieces an' drowned. An' all for what? Thass what I want to know. All for what?'

‘To stop the Germans,' he told her earnestly. ‘They won't stop till they're beaten and if we don't stop them they'll get worse and worse.'

She knew the truth of it. She'd always known the truth of it. But that didn't stop the anguish. ‘Why hain't there another way?' she said wildly. ‘There ought to be another way.'

‘We'll find it,' he promised. ‘Once there's peace.'

‘Once there's peace!' she echoed, mockingly. ‘Oh yes, I've heard all that.' Her eyes were dark in the
moonlight and lustrous with tears. ‘But when will it be?'

‘Soon,' he said. ‘Really.'

‘Not soon enough. When our Norman's at sea we never know what's happening to him from one week to the next … An' there's all these soldiers bein' killed an' people bein' bombed …'

There was no time to think of the proprieties. He put his arms round her, wanting to protect her and comfort her, acting instinctively. ‘Please!' he implored. ‘Please don't be upset. I can't bear it.'

She didn't scold him for taking liberties, but her expression changed in the abrupt way he'd come to expect. Now it was a question, eyebrows raised, eyes wondering. Why not? it said. What's it to you?

The answer was in his mind and very nearly spoken. But he couldn't say it. Not yet. It was much too soon. Instead he pulled her towards him and kissed her full on the lips.

It took them both by surprise, he because it was done so easily and naturally and because she answered it and didn't move away, she because it was the first time in her life that a young man had kissed her without asking permission first. By the time he lifted his head, they were both out of breath.

The silence effervesced around them, as they stood quite still and gazed at one another, his face full of affection, hers questioning. ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?' he asked.

The words spun like Catherine wheels in the little space between them, sparking disbelief and hope and amazement.

‘I don't know,' she admitted. ‘Thass what people say … I mean you hear of it, don't you.' Was he going to tell her
he
loved
her
? He couldn't. Could he? They'd only just met.

He cupped her face in his hands, drinking in the sight of her before he kissed her again. I love you, he
thought. I shall love you for the rest of my life. But he couldn't say it. Not yet. Not so soon. And in any case, there was no need for words. Desire was speaking for them, leading them on, gently, steadily, inevitably, like a field of daisies opening to the sun. And as the clouds drifted away from the face of the moon, he kissed again, this time with passion. Oh yes, they could say everything that needed to be said with kisses.

Afterwards they had no idea how long they stayed in the Walks that night. There is no such thing as time when you are caught up in the powerful magic of sex, especially when it's for the first amazing time. There is no such thing as place, either. They were vaguely aware that there were bare trees rattling and creaking in the shadows of the park but they could have been anywhere. There was no reality beyond the circle of their arms and within that circle it was all sensation.

Eventually they were called to their senses by the sound of a church clock striking the hour. But the significance of those repeated strokes didn't penetrate Steve's consciousness until they were an echo. Then he stopped between kisses to wonder what time it was.

She was dreamy with desire, her eyes half closed. ‘Midnight,' she said.

His tone and expression changed. ‘Oh Christ!'

She opened her eyes at that. ‘What is it?'

‘I'm late. I've missed the last bus. I should've been in camp a minute ago.'

‘Is that bad?'

‘Could be,' he admitted. ‘I don't know. I've never been late before.'

She was instantly full of practical concern. ‘How will you get back?'

That wasn't a problem. ‘I'll walk.'

She lay back in his arms again, enjoying their support. ‘Have you got to go now?'

It was too great a temptation. ‘Not yet,' he decided. ‘I'm so late another ten minutes won't make much
difference. I'll walk you home.' Whatever was going to happen would happen. There was no point in thinking about it. Not when her mouth was so close he could taste her lips before he kissed them.

They strolled back to the North End as though they were taking part in a slow three-legged race, thigh to thigh and holding one another about the waist.

‘I
must
go now,' he said as he kissed her for the last – or almost the last – time. ‘I'll see you tomorrow evening, if I'm still a free man.'

‘I'll be at the Corn Exchange seven sharp,' she promised.

And she was. But it wasn't Steve who came tumbling from the truck to sprint across the road towards her. It was a small, skinny soldier with mouse-coloured hair who said his name was Dusty, handed her a letter, and watched her as she read it.

And was watched in his turn by Victor Castlemain, from his carefully chosen vantage point on the other side of the square, half-hidden in the doorway of the Duke's Head Hotel. He'd followed all the comings and goings that evening, had seen Barbara arrive and watched her as she waited. Now he peered out to see what she would do when she'd read her letter.

It was short and to the point and didn't take her long.

Dear Barbara
,

I'm sorry about this but I'm on jankers so I shan't be able to get out until Thursday. Can we meet then, same place, same time? Just tell Dusty yes or no.

‘Yes,' she said, casually. ‘Tell him that'll be all right. And thanks for bringing the letter.' Then she tucked it into her pocket and strode off to see if any of her friends were in the queue for the pictures. She was disappointed but she certainly wasn't going to show it.

Victor, following at a discreet distance, was relieved
to see that the company she chose was female and that she was in cracking form, laughing and teasing.

‘Thought you were off with some ol' soldier,' Joan called out to her.

‘No,' Barbara said, her voice mocking. ‘Course I hain't. What would I be doin' with some ol' soldier? I'm in the pride of my youth! You took root on that pavement Mavis, or is there room for me?'

They made way for her, giggling and horsing around and telling her what a laugh she was. They sounded so cheerful that Victor was tempted to stroll across and join them. But he thought better of it. He was quite sure now that the ‘friend'
was
a soldier and that the skinny one had been a messenger. I'll watch every evening, he decided, and just see what happens next and who it is. The trucks always parked in the square at the same place and the same time, so it shouldn't be difficult.

Thursday was a very long time coming for all three of them, and when it did, it was one of those dark dank days when there is so much moisture in the air that your clothes are damp the minute you step outside the front door. Victor was cold in his doorway and by the time Barbara reached the square her hair was spangled with moisture.

But Steve was there, standing beside the column, smoking a damp cigarette and trying to look patient. This time there was no ribbing about being late. This time they hurled themselves into one another's arms and two kisses later they were heading off to the pictures, eager to be in the back row again. Neither of them noticed that they were being shadowed.

‘Was it bad?' she asked as they walked.

He'd forgotten all about his punishment. ‘What?'

‘Bein' in prison. Jankers.'

He was delighted by her mistake, delighted to be able to explain to her. ‘They don't lock you up for being late back,' he said, cuddling her into his side.

‘What do they do then?'

‘Make you march up and down all evening in full kit.'

‘Thass daft!' she said scathingly.