The Sea Change (10 page)

‘Now all we need is a ride,’ I
whispered, as we joined the Warminster road.

‘This is ridiculous,’ moaned
Annie, hitching up her skirt to avoid dusting the hem in chalk.

‘Don’t you dare back out on me,
Annie.’

‘But nobody’s going to give us a
ride – we look so silly! Besides, the road is always deserted at this time of
night.’

‘Nonsense. Somebody’s bound to
drive past and take pity on us.’ I sat down abruptly on the lump of chalk that
marked the
edge of the track to Warminster. From there we could see all
of Salisbury Plain; its contours curved in every direction from our point on the track
so that it felt as if we were teetering precariously on an upturned basin. As the light
began to leave us, the texture of the grass and the scars of the paths were soon
smoothed into the surface of the land, like clay on a potter’s wheel. I had grown
to love the feel of this unbroken expanse on the eyes; the awareness it instilled in us
of the distance between places. Imber was miles from any town, but at dusk it was as if
it didn’t exist. It stowed itself away in the base of the valley so as not to
disrupt the Plain. If Annie and I were travellers – strangers to Wiltshire – we could
have walked up to this point without ever knowing that there was a village beneath
us.

Just then, the distant sound of an engine
tapped its Morse code along the track.

‘Can you hear that?’ I asked
Annie, standing up. She stepped up to the road and stooped into the darkness to see if
she could make out an approaching vehicle.

‘Dash these blackouts! I can’t
see a thing! It’s probably not coming our way.’

‘It must be! It’s getting
louder!’ I said excitedly. ‘We should stay by the road and make ourselves
known.’

I joined her by the side of the track but
Annie shrank back into the grass. It was only when the vehicle was nearly upon us that I
realized it was a troop-carrier. By then, it was too late to hide ourselves, although
Annie did her best by jumping behind the chalk rock.

I could think of no other course of action
but to feign an attempt to walk to the dance so I turned as swiftly as I could and began
to pace down the track towards Warminster. Soon the vehicle pulled up alongside me and
the first of three officers leant out of the window.

‘Where can you be off to at this time
of night, Miss, and dressed like that?’

‘I’m going to the dance, sir, as
I’m sure you’re quite aware.’ My reply was curter than I would have
wished.

‘Walking? To Warminster Camp?’
He smiled at me to let me know he had seen straight through my ruse. ‘The dance
will be all but over by the time you get there! Hop in, there’s plenty of room in
the back. Your friend can come too.’ He nodded towards the rock. I was about to
deny all knowledge of Annie when again I caught his eye and realized there was no point:
he had definitely spotted her. Either I took the ride or missed the dance. And I
wasn’t about to turn him down for the sake of Annie’s pride. She could jolly
well look a fool.

‘Annie!’ I called, to little
effect. She remained behind the lump of chalk.

‘Annie! These gentlemen have offered
us a ride to the dance … They know you’re there. They saw you
hiding.’

I waited for a few more seconds, relieved
that my scarlet face was most likely masked by the darkness. Then she emerged, brushing
dust from her clothes and holding her head a little too high to conceal her indignation
at being caught. I watched as the gaze of the officer driving the van locked on
Annie’s dress and ran down its length, briefly pausing on the velvet that clung,
like a second skin, to her hips. She looked beautiful, and I was glad.

One of the other officers swung open the
door at the back of the van and offered us his hand, which I took first. Annie did her
best to hide her plimsolls.

‘You must be Imber girls,’ the
third officer said, once we were seated inside. I half nodded in reply, unsure how much
to tell him. If Father were to find out where we were going … It did not bear
thinking about.

‘It can’t be pleasant down
there, what with all the artillery fire. A proper flap, I imagine.’

‘Oh, we don’t mind it, do we,
Annie? It’s home, after all.’

Annie nodded, not daring to lift her gaze
from her lap.

‘Well, I’m jolly glad you’re
coming out to the dance. The folk on the Plain are known for keeping themselves to
themselves.’

The rest of the journey to Warminster was
conducted in silence. I noticed the officer at the wheel of the vehicle steal more than
one glance at Annie in his mirror. But she did not meet my eye when I tried to catch
hers.

As the vehicle approached the barrier to the
camp, I tugged at her arm and pointed at a string of women in high-heeled shoes and
coats queuing at the entrance to a hall. ‘Yours’ and ‘You’ll
Never Know’ crescendoed, one after the other, through the windows and doors,
making the air outside the hall feel warmer than it was. The women’s dresses
glittered like rivers at the edges of their coats. One of them balanced a cigarette
pencil-like between her painted fingers.

‘We can do it, Annie! We look just as
good!’ I whispered to her. But the sight of the women seemed only to make her more
sullen.

‘I’m afraid,’ said the
first officer, ‘that I’ll have to leave you by the barrier. I’m not
off-duty for another hour or so. And the officers on the gate will want to admit you
formally.’

My pulse quickened. I thought of Pete,
already inside, asking somebody else to dance. After the officer had let us out of the
troop-carrier, Annie seemed ready to turn back and walk home.

‘Don’t you dare leave me,’
I said, taking her arm. ‘It’s too late to go back.’ Before she could
pull away, I marched her to the barrier, my heart thumping faster than the Glenn Miller
song that was now playing. We joined the queue and waited our turn.

‘We’re here for the dance,
please,’ I told the officer at the barrier, making sure I met his eye with
confidence. There was a younger soldier standing behind him – he stifled a giggle at the
sight of us. He didn’t look much older than Pete.

‘What are you laughing at?’ I
turned on him, not knowing how else to react.

‘Looks like you brought half the county
with you, ma’am.’ He laughed, pointing at our muddy hems.

‘Indeed. Along with its
wildlife,’ the first officer added, gesturing towards the fur stoles. Annie looked
as if she wanted to curl up in hers and hibernate.

‘Hurry on in, then, or you’ll
catch a cold,’ called a voice from behind us. It was the officer who had driven us
to the barrier. Seeing Annie blush, he frowned at his colleagues as if to tell them off
for upsetting us. Then he waved us through, lifting the barrier, his stare lingering on
Annie.

He stopped me as we passed and whispered
that if we required a ride home at the end of the evening we should come and find him at
the gate.

‘Lucky he took a shine to you,’
I remarked to Annie, as we neared the hall.

‘I’m going to be sick,
Vi.’ She put two hands on her stomach and grimaced at me. ‘Please can we
just watch from the outside? I can’t bear being seen like this.’

‘That officer back there thought you
were beautiful,’ I said, spelling it out as plainly as I could. ‘You have
nothing to worry about.’

‘Please, Violet, I’ve come this
far. We can look for Pete without going in. It won’t be difficult.’ Her
hands had started to shake.

Swallowing my disappointment, I led her
round the side of the hall. I had secretly been imagining the look on Pete’s face
when he saw me. I hadn’t had much time to think of what he would say or what
explanation I would give for being there. But I had hoped that I would be prettier than
whoever he had brought with him and that, maybe, he might ask me to dance.

The windows were a foot higher than our
heads but Annie found a barrel for us to stand on. I could taste the warmth inside the
hall from the yellowness of the window panes, some of which had clouded slightly with
the heat. It was difficult to
make out the faces of the people on the
dance-floor. The band had been taking a break when we first climbed onto the barrel but
now they resumed their places, lifting trumpets and clarinets to their lips and starting
a tune I had not heard before. I spent many an evening in the parsonage with my ear to
Freda’s door when it was her night to use the wireless. She’d sing of grey
Decembers and faraway shores, of people leaving and then meeting again. I had learnt the
words to a lot of the favourites. I didn’t like to listen to her for too long. It
made me think of Father going away. I knew that was why Freda liked the songs. Perhaps
the singing made her feel better, as if rehearsing his departure might lessen the blow
when it came.

We watched as more couples made their way
into the centre of the hall, taking each other by the hand or arm and catching the
cymbals’ rhythm in the swish of their jackets and skirts.

It was then that I saw her. Dancing in her
best dress, every step perfect, in Pete’s arms. Annie gawped through the pane,
raising her hands to her temples to get a better view.

‘Is that …?’ She stopped
herself. We both knew what we had seen.

The rain came from above, filthy and
filmic, forcing us to leave the window. I was relieved to be away from the dance at
first. But as we sheltered under a garage awning opposite the hall, I couldn’t
help but replay in my mind what I had seen through the window. It’s all right, I
told myself. They seemed so awkward together and that means he doesn’t love her.
But each time I revisited the scene, Pete looked at my sister a little more fondly and
she took his hand a little more coyly until I could no longer bear it.

‘Can we go now?’ I murmured to
Annie, who was poised patiently beside me, pawing at my elbow.

‘We can’t just leave,’ she
whispered. I had forgotten for a
moment that she was as mad about Pete
as I was. ‘Not after seeing that.’

‘Father can’t have given her
permission to be here. He’d – he’d be so angry. I must tell him. And
Mama.’

I took my weight off the post I had been
leaning on and started into the rain towards the barrier.

‘Violet, wait! What will he say when
he hears that you’ve been here too? You’ll get in so much trouble! And then
your mother will tell mine …’

‘I have to do something! I can’t
just stand here getting wet while my sister waltzes off with – with
him
in
there!’ I thrust a hand towards the hall. Then I trudged down the path to the
barrier and waited for the scurry of her feet on the paving behind me.

‘Don’t ruin things just for the
sake of it, Vi,’ she called, catching up. ‘She’s your sister, after
all.’

‘What do you know?’

I pressed my lips together and took a breath
but it was no use. My eyes filled and I hoped the rain would hide my tears from
Annie.

‘Oh, don’t fret. It’s just
a daft crush,’ she soothed, braving a hand on my shoulder. ‘We’ll grow
out of it. Just you wait, when we’re older and we’ve left Imber behind,
we’ll have so many boys to choose from. It’ll be like one of those sweet
shops they have in Wilton with so many jars it makes your eyes boggle. You’ll see,
Vi. You and me, we’ll do perfectly well without him.’

We reached the barrier, me red-eyed and
hobbling in my too-high heels and Annie hitching up her dress to keep it out of the
puddles.

‘Leaving so soon?’ asked the
officer who had driven us there.

‘We’ve been jilted,’ said
Annie, with all the melodrama she could muster.

‘Gosh, I’m sorry to hear
it,’ he replied, looking not in the least bit sorry. ‘Our shift finishes in
half an hour. If you wait a short while, I can take you home.’ He was addressing
Annie
now; I had walked on ahead. ‘There is one condition,’
he added, with a lowered voice. ‘You must do me the honour of a dance.’

‘I can’t,’ I heard her
whisper. ‘I really ought to stay with my friend.’

‘But how will you get back to Imber,
miss?’

‘You’re quite right,’ she
said. ‘We are in need of a ride. If you could wait there for one
second.’

And with that, she skipped after me,
gathering up her dress as she came. I could hear the two other officers at the barrier
goading our new friend behind us.

‘Violet, that nice officer back there
is offering us a ride home. It’d be sensible to take it in this
weather.’

‘Will you dance with him?’ I
asked glumly.

‘No, I shan’t. I’ll ask
him to take us home directly.’

‘But he asked you, didn’t
he?’

Annie stayed silent and, with a tug on my
stole, persuaded me to retrace my steps to the barrier. True to her word, Annie refused
the dance and asked to be taken home. The officer must have caught sight of my blotched
face because he didn’t question her and instead went to fetch the troop-carrier.
Soon, we were negotiating our way back up Sack Hill in the military truck and riding
along the potholed track to Imber. The rain had cleared to reveal a crowded sky – stars
scattered across it like dropped sprockets. Just this once, I willed the enemy planes to
come. I wanted them to tear open the Plain with craters to match the one Pete had
inflicted on me. But the air above us remained blank and beautiful.

‘You’re dressed for bed
already. Good girl,’ my mother remarked, putting down her book as I entered the
kitchen in my nightgown. I had had to wait in the bedroom for at least half an hour so
that my rain-soaked hair could dry off. I had hidden Freda’s dress under my bed,
quelling the urge to cut it into a million pieces with Mama’s sewing scissors.

‘How was dinner at Mrs
Shelton’s?’ Father asked.

‘Delicious,’ I murmured.

‘It was so kind of her to have
you,’ mused my mother. ‘I’d like to call and thank her, but clearly I
can’t.’