The Penny Bangle (22 page)

She was more than happy to walk around the town with him. She wanted to be seen with him, to show him off to all her friends in Alex, to make the point to people like snooty Jane MacFarlane that even though she’d grown up in a little terraced cottage behind a tannery, she could be the girlfriend of a gorgeous man like Robert Denham, a man who could have any girl he pleased.

After he’d gone back to his battalion, she cried herself to sleep night after night. After she’d finished crying, she realised she’d committed at least a dozen mortal sins, pride and lust and covetousness among them.

She found she didn’t repent of any of them.

So she was bound for hell.

She didn’t care.

‘Annie wants to see you,’ Sergeant Payne told Cassie. It was three days later, and she was in the motor pool. She was checking over half a dozen new arrivals, jeeps that had come from England and been bounced around a bit, had had some parts worked loose.

‘Why, what have I done?’ asked Cassie, crawling from underneath a jeep, and pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.

‘God, where would I start?’ groaned Sergeant Payne. ‘Go on, corporal, go and get yourself spruced up a bit. The major’s waiting.’

But I’m allowed to have a boyfriend, Cassie thought, as she washed her hands and face, and as she raked a comb through her fair hair, much blonder nowadays from all the sunshine.

So he’s an officer, and I’m an NCO, she thought, as she made her way across the compound. So what? It’s not against the law.

She had a sudden vision of Lily Taylor and Father Riley sitting in the major’s office, waiting to tell her off and say she had to come straight home.

‘You asked to see me, ma’am?’ said Cassie.

She was a little calmer now. This sudden summons from the major couldn’t mean anything more worrying than a special mission, perhaps to lead a convoy through the desert, or go and fetch a lorry from Port Said.

‘Ah, yes,’ said the major, who was writing something in a file, but then looked up and smiled. ‘They need you back in Blighty, Corporal Taylor.’

‘They what?’ demanded Cassie, shocked – for whatever she had really been expecting, it had not been this.

‘They what,
ma’am
,’ the major said severely. She looked hard at Cassie. ‘You’ve gone very pale. You seem surprised.’

‘I – I thought we drivers would all be going to Italy with the army,’ stammered Cassie.

‘Did you, now?’ The major put her pen down on the desk and narrowed her eyes at Cassie. ‘A few girls will be going, certainly. They’ll need some ATS to drive the lorries and supply trucks, I suppose, and maybe to drive ambulances as well. But they’ll be volunteers.’

‘I can drive an ambulance, ma’am!’ cried Cassie. ‘I’d like to volunteer.’

‘Cassie, my dear,’ the major said, and now her gaze was softening, ‘I’m not going to send you off to Italy. It’s going to be grim. The Germans and Italians won’t exactly welcome Allied troops. Our chaps are going to have to fight their way up that peninsula inch by inch.’

‘But, ma’am – ’

‘I know you must be worried about your boyfriend. But you must think about the army and your country now. You must go back to Blighty, where you’re needed. You should be all right on the trip home. The Med’s much safer these days, and so is England, too. The Germans aren’t still bombing anything and everything in our green and pleasant land – nowadays, they have other fish to fry.’

I’ll volunteer to go to Italy anyway, thought Cassie.

But when she did, she was turned down, and told her orders to return to England on the next available troopship stood.

She cursed the major, who had made a pet of her and wished to keep her safe.

She wrote to Robert straight away, to tell him the bad news.

But what if he’d already gone? What if her letter went astray, as so many letters seemed to do? What if they never met again?

But some kind saint or fairy must have heard her offering them anything they wanted, her heart, her life, her soul, if she could just see Robert once again. A week before she had to leave for England, she had a Forces postcard.

‘I’ve got a ride,’ he wrote. ‘I’ll see you Friday.’

Cassie was beside herself with joy. She rearranged her duties, getting Jane to take her place in a convoy of new lorries to be driven to Cairo, while she did all Jane’s driving jobs in Alex, ferrying army officers round the city in the big black staff cars.

Everywhere she heard the rumours, mutterings, whispers, guesses and speculations about what would happen next.

Mussolini would be overthrown by his own people.

Italy was going to surrender to the Allies.

Mussolini wasn’t finished yet.

The Italian army would fight on.

Germany would pour troops into Italy.

All Italian men would be deported to concentration camps.

The Germans had over-stretched themselves, and they would be leaving Italy to its own devices.

‘It’s going to be a mess,’ said Sergeant Payne.

‘I still wish I could go,’ said Cassie.

‘Taylor, you need your head examined.’ Sergeant Payne looked scornful. ‘We all know you’re in love, and I can’t say we blame you – he’s a very lovely man. But you don’t want to go to Italy. You’d never get to see him, anyway. Unless he got hurt, of course, and ended up in hospital, and even then you’d probably be stationed miles and miles away from him.’

Now Cassie shuddered, for this was her worst nightmare, Robert getting hurt. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about him being dead. It was bad enough when somebody she knew was even wounded, when somebody she knew albeit slightly was reported killed. There’d been that girl from Derby, she’d come out a week ago, and on her first convoy through the desert she’d crashed her jeep and died.

‘I’m sorry, Cass,’ said Sergeant Payne. ‘But it will be hell on earth in Italy, with the winter coming on, and the Italians mining all the roads, and the Germans blowing up the bridges, and – ’

Cassie stopped listening to Sergeant Payne.

Robert came to the villa to pick Cassie up. He put up with the remarks and innuendoes made by girls who happened to be at home, and then took Cassie out to dinner.

‘You’re excited, aren’t you?’ she said bitterly, as they drank their gritty, sickly coffee after they had eaten Cassie couldn’t remember what. ‘You can’t wait to go to Italy.’

‘I can’t wait to finish this whole tedious business.’ Robert took her hand and held it, massaging her fingers one by one. ‘We all want to get on with the job and go back home.’

‘Some of you won’t be going home,’ Cassie reminded him. ‘I sometimes think of all those men who won’t see home again.’

‘You mustn’t think about it.’ Robert looked at Cassie, his dark eyes almost black in the dim light. ‘Cassie, shall we go and see Madame Croix? We’ll just about have time.’

‘Robert, what’s that supposed to mean, we’ll just about have time? What else do you have to do tonight?’

‘Oh, Cassie darling, I wish we had all day, all week, forever!’ Robert sighed and kissed her finger tips. ‘But I’ll need to be back home by midnight, otherwise I’m going to miss my lift.’

So this might be the last time, Cassie thought. I might never see him again, in this world or the next. She refused to listen to her conscience, which was saying, now kiss him goodnight, then say goodbye.

‘Yes, let’s do that,’ she said.

So they went to the tall, white house, where the old French woman let them in, took Robert’s money, and then let them find their own way to their room.

Afterwards, they smoked Cassie’s cigarettes, and Robert drank some whisky from a flask.

‘What’s wrong, Cass?’ he asked, for Cassie was sitting picking at the sheet and wouldn’t look at him.

‘I’ve got my orders, and I’ll be on a convoy Tuesday week.’

‘Well, the Med is nothing like as dangerous as when you first came out, so that’s good news,’ said Robert.

‘No, it flaming isn’t!’ Cassie cried. ‘I don’t want to go back home to England, and in any case I like it here!’

‘You’ll be more use in England,’ Robert told her, pulling her close to him and giving her a hug.

‘I’m useful here in Egypt.’

‘I’ll say you are, my darling.’ Robert grinned. ‘But we must think of others, not only of ourselves.’

‘Oh, shut up, you so-and-so.’

‘You mean, shut up, you stupid bugger, don’t you, Cass?’

‘I’m trying not to talk like that.’ Cassie twisted round to look at him. ‘Robert, will you miss me?’

‘Yes, of course I will, my little bird, I’ll miss you more than anything.’

‘There’ll be birds in Italy, you know.’ Cassie looked down at her finger nails, which were begrimed and grubby from working in the motor pool. She couldn’t clean them, however hard she tried. ‘There’ll be lots and lots of pretty birds, with long dark hair and lovely big brown eyes.’

‘Maybe there will,’ said Robert. ‘But I have a preference for little English sparrows.’

‘Rob, stay safe.’ Cassie looked into Robert’s eyes. ‘Please don’t take unnecessary risks.’

‘Risks, she says – and this from somebody who braved the Bay of Biscay and the U-boats in the Med, when she could have stayed in Alsherdot, and ferried bridagiers around?’

‘You’ll never let me forget that night,’ said Cassie. ‘I tell you, Robert Denham, I’m never going to drink champagne again.’

‘Never, Cassie darling?’

‘Never, cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘You’re going to drink Tizer at our wedding?’

‘Our wedding?’ Cassie’s eyes grew as round as florins. ‘Did you say our wedding?’

‘Yes, that’s what I said.’

‘You’re asking me to marry you?’

‘Cass, you’re not usually as slow as this! Of course I’m asking you to marry me.’

‘Oh.’ Cassie suddenly felt very cold. She pulled the cotton sheet around her body, shivering.

‘Well?’ demanded Robert

‘But blokes like you don’t marry girls like me.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know,’ said Cassie, shrugging. ‘You’re an officer, I’m a – ’

‘But I thought you loved me?’

‘Rob, you
mean
it?’

‘Cass, of course I mean it!’

‘I’m sorry, Robert.’ Cassie took his hand. She stroked the long, tanned fingers which had given her such pleasure and which, like every other part of Robert, she loved with all her heart. ‘I’d love to marry you,’ she said.

‘Then we’re engaged?’

‘Yes, Robert, we’re engaged.’

He looked at Cassie, wondering if all men felt like this when they proposed, as if they’d just done something crazy, as if the ground had opened up beneath them?

Then he thought, but I love Cassie, don’t I? She means more than life itself to me? Of course she does!

‘We don’t have time to buy a ring,’ he said. ‘But when we meet again, we’re going shopping.’

He was relieved to see her smile.

‘I’m sorry, I’m going to need to leave,’ he added, reaching for his clothes. ‘I have to meet the other chaps at midnight.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘I must be going, too. I have to take the major to a meeting first thing tomorrow morning, and she’ll be so sarcastic if I’m late. Robert, what if – ’

Robert put his finger to her lips.

‘We’ll meet again, I promise you,’ he said.

Chapter Twelve

The Germans had been beaten in North Africa, but they’d got it right in Italy, Robert decided grimly. He took the bottle offered by his sergeant, drank some water, and stared down at the dizzying drop below him, glad he had a head for heights.

He’d known the Allies faced a bitter struggle on the European mainland. But, buoyed up by their victories in Africa, he and everyone else had hoped a month or two of fighting, together with bombardment from their heavy guns, would see the Axis armies on the run.