Valentine Joe (9 page)

They had arrived at a place which looked vaguely familiar where the street passed through a gap in the city walls. The dog was sitting in the snow with his back to them, staring at the wall.

‘What have you done with poor pussycat, matey?' said the boy. ‘We could do with him down the barracks, nice big cat like that.' He looked at Rose. ‘Rats, you see. Crawling with them, it is.'

Rose remembered a song Grandad used to sing when she was little. She sang a snatch of it:

‘Rats, rats, big as pussycats—'

The boy joined in: ‘In the stores, in the stores . . .'

They looked at each other and laughed.

‘You know that one, do you?' he said. ‘Our rats are bigger than pussycats, as it happens. Horrible things.' He did a little mime of firing a rifle. ‘Boom. Where'd puss go? Come on, chum, out the way.'

‘What are you doing?' said Rose, crouching down by the dog and scratching his ears.

‘Going to catch old puss. Take him down the barracks. Like a mascot or something. Keep the rats down.' The boy squatted down beside the ancient rampart. ‘He's gone in here, found himself a hidey-hole.' He pointed to a gap among the stones. ‘ Come on, puss, come to Joe.'

Joe?
He was called Joe?

It was a common enough name, there were two or three
Joes in Rose's year at school, but even so . . .

‘Keep hold of the dog, will you, angel? Don't want him scaring puss away.'

‘What? Oh, yes. Yes.' Rose held on to the dog, her fingers in his rough coat, as the boy – as
Joe
– peered into the hole in the wall.

‘Goes back quite a way. Come on, puss. I know . . .' He rummaged in his pocket and brought something out. ‘Look at this, lovely bit of biscuit. Out you come.'

‘He won't come. Not for that.'

‘He will. I've got a way with animals. That's it, mate. Come on. See?'

As the cat emerged from the hole in the wall, the dog went mad, slithered out of Rose's arms and launched himself at him. The cat rocketed off down the road, with the dog after him. Joe stood up and watched them disappear into the night.

‘Oh well. It was worth a try.'

He turned back to Rose with a grin. It had stopped snowing now and the moon was shining, bleaching the colour from the world and making it look like a black-and-white photograph. The grin faded as his eyes rested on her.

‘Look at you. Standing there in the moonlight.'

If anyone else had said it, Rose would've felt embarrassed. Especially if they were looking at her the way he was. But with this boy it was different. She didn't feel embarrassed at all. She felt special.

He didn't take his eyes from her face. ‘Where did you come from?' He sounded puzzled, but also grateful, as if someone had just given him the most amazing present.

Rose shrugged. What could she say? She couldn't explain what she was doing there. She didn't know herself.

‘I – don't know.'

‘What? You must know where you come from.'

‘I thought I did, but . . .'

‘You've got to have a name, though. I can't keep calling you angel.'

‘It's Rose.'

The boy sighed as if he was pleased with the information. ‘Of course it is. Of course! You're a rose in no man's land.'

‘What?'

‘It's another song. You don't know that one?'

Rose shook her head.

He sang, posing as if he was onstage:
‘“There's a rose that grows in no man's land–”'
He stopped. ‘I'd sing you the rest, but I don't want to scare you away.'

Rose laughed. It was true. She did feel like she was in some sort of no man's land.

The boy held out his right hand. ‘How d'you do, Rose? I'm Joe.'

Rose took his hand and for a moment they stood there in the moonlight looking at each other. ‘Hello, Joe.'

‘It's my birthday tomorrow,' he said, releasing her hand and throwing her a sneaky look.

Rose caught her breath. He was called Joe and his birthday was on Valentine's Day? ‘February the fourteenth?' she said. She couldn't believe it.

‘Not just a pretty face, are you, Rose?' No one had ever called Rose pretty before. Well, except for Mum and Dad, but that didn't count. ‘Yup, same day every year. Comes around like clockwork. Tick tock, tick tock.'

‘Valentine's Day . . .'

‘That's right. You can't say no to me now, can you?'

It's a coincidence,
thought Rose.
It has to be.
She shook the thought away. ‘Depends what you're asking.'

‘Ah ha! I'm asking you to join me for a bite to eat at a little estaminet what I happen to know in the vicinity. It ain't far and they do a cracking egg and chips.'

Was he asking her out? Like
– on a date?

Rose had often thought about this moment , talked about it with Grace and Ella: what you'd say when someone asked you out. If you didn't like them, how would you say no without hurting their feelings, and if you did like them, how would you say yes without looking too keen? And it was funny, because now it had happened she knew exactly what to say. She said:

‘All right.'

‘All right!'

Joe held out his hand. Rose took it and they walked down the street together, leaving a trail of footprints behind them in the fresh snow.

A
s they turned into the little side street, picking their way across broken pavements and slithering in the snow, Rose began to feel she'd been there before.

‘There she is,' said Joe. ‘The finest estaminet in town. Well, the only one open this late.'

There was a window lit by a single flickering candle. And now Rose realised where they were. It was the street she'd walked down when she'd gone off on her own after dinner with Grandad. The street where she'd seen the little girl in the doorway of the café .

‘Look at it,' Joe went on. ‘The light of the world, shining in the darkness, calling out to us, “Egg and chips . . . come and get my egg and chips . . .”'

Rose giggled. ‘It's a caff,' she said.

And it was the same café , she saw that now. But something had happened since she was last there. The shutters were open, and the windowpanes were broken. There was rubble on the pavement outside.

‘Call it what you want, sweet,' said Joe. ‘Long as it's got a bit of a roof and serves hot grub, it's good enough for me.'

As he made for the door, Rose stopped him. ‘I've been here before,' she said. ‘What happened to the window?'

Joe shrugged. ‘Caught the force of a blast, by the looks of it.'

He held the door for her, and she stepped inside. The café was a tiny place with only a couple of tables and a small counter at the back. It was just as cold inside as it was in the street and there was snow on the floor that had blown in through the broken window. Joe made for the table furthest from the door and pulled out a chair for Rose. They were the only customers.

‘Egg and chips, m'lady?' said Joe.

‘I'm not hungry, thanks.' She was still full of the pizza she'd had earlier.

‘Sure? Well, you'll just have to watch me eat. Not a pretty sight.
Bong jour
?' he called out. ‘Madame?'

Rose waited, wondering if the same woman would appear, the mother of the little girl who'd been so frightened of her. But it was an elderly woman who emerged from the back room. She was dressed entirely in black and wore a scarf over her hair.

‘
Erfs?
' said Joe. He used the same voice that Grandad did when he was talking to foreigners. ‘Chips? Bee-er?'

The old woman nodded and said something in Flemish.

‘
Merci
,' added Joe as she trudged away. He pronounced it ‘mercy'.

‘They don't speak French here, you know,' said Rose.

‘Neither do I, so that's all right.' He grinned at her across the table. ‘Poor old soul, she ought to get out while she can.
A lot of the people have gone already.'

‘Gone?' said Rose. ‘Gone where?'

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. France, I think. Holland? Some to England. Where you from?'

‘London.'

‘London! Straight up? You'll be looking down your nose at me then. Dorking,' he added in answer to her unspoken question.

‘I've never been there.'

‘You don't want to. Well, you do now, of course. You'll be coming to see me when we get back.'

Rose raised her eyebrows. ‘You reckon?'

‘I reckon.'

He was very sure of himself, this boy. But Rose didn't mind. She quite liked it, in fact.

‘I'll show you all the sights,' he continued. ‘The horse trough. The duck pond. The coal yard.'

‘Sounds exciting.'

‘It do, don't it? It's not, though. It's the most boring town ever. That's why I joined up.'

‘Joined up?'

He patted his uniform. ‘The army, you know. Your country needs you, all that guff? I'm one of Kitchener's boys.'

That was just ridiculous. Rose couldn't believe it. ‘You joined the army because you were
bored
?'

‘Why not? Me and my two best pals went along to the recruiting office. We reckoned it'd be a laugh. Better than staying at home anyway. In
Dorking.
'

‘What did your mum say?'

‘Mother? Lor', what didn't she say?' Joe rolled his eyes. ‘She shouted, cried, threw a scrubbing brush at me head,
shouted again. Cried again. Got over it in the end, though. Give me this.' He reached in his pocket.

‘What is it?'

‘Her lucky sixpence.'

He put it on the table. It was an old silver coin with a hole roughly drilled through the middle. A leather thong had been threaded through the hole. Rose picked it up by the thong and held it up in the candlelight. The markings on the coin were nearly worn away.

‘It belonged to her dad,' Joe was saying. ‘He was in South Africa, fighting the Boers, and it brought him back in one piece. So Mum reckoned it'd bring me back in one piece an' all.'

‘So now it's your lucky sixpence.'

‘Yeah, I suppose it is. Ah, here we go, grub up.'

The old woman came out with a plate of food and a glass of light-coloured beer. She put them down in front of Joe, who paid her with a handful of change. ‘Mercy!' he called after her retreating back then started on his meal, wolfing it down as if he hadn't eaten for days. He paused, looking at Rose over a forkful of fried egg.

‘Sure you don't wish to partake, m'lady?'

‘So sure.'

He waggled a chip at her. ‘Go on. It's trez beans, you know.'

‘What?' Rose looked at him. ‘What did you just say? Trez—?'

‘Beans.' He grinned and ate the chip himself. ‘Trez beans. I was lying before, wasn't I, when I said I couldn't speak French.'

Rose laughed. ‘Oh, I get it! Trè s bien! “Very good”!'

‘Oooh! Hark at you with your frenchifiediness!' He
looked across at her, the grin fading from his face. ‘What did you say you was doing here, Rose?'

‘I didn't.'

‘No, you didn't, did you. How old are you?'

‘Fourteen.'

‘Fourteen?' Joe looked as if he was going to say something, but changed his mind. ‘Bit young to be wandering the streets of a strange city by yourself, ain't you?'

‘You can talk.'

The words slipped out before Rose could stop them. Joe paused, his fork halfway to his mouth.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘It's your birthday tomorrow, yeah?'

‘That's what I said.'

‘Valentine's Day.'

‘So? You going to give me a birthday kiss?' His bright brown eyes danced around her face. ‘When I've finished me egg and chips, of course.'

He went back to his enthusiastic food shovelling. Rose watched him for a minute.

‘So how old are you going to be?' she said.

Joe looked up from his food. There was a moment's pause before he replied.

‘Twenty,' he said. Rose detected a note of challenge in his voice, as if he was expecting to be contradicted.

She put her head on one side. ‘
Really?
' she said. There was no way this boy was nineteen.

‘Cross my heart, Rose. I would say hope to die, but that might be tempting fate.' He pulled a face. ‘Any more questions, m'lady?'

‘Just one.' Rose took a deep breath. ‘Is that your only name? Joe? Your only first name, I mean.'

Joe put down his fork. ‘Have you been spying, Rose? Did my mum send you to keep an eye on me?'

She shook her head. ‘No. It's just—'

‘JOE!'

She was interrupted by a shout from the doorway. Two young men in khaki were standing there, grinning.

‘Thought we'd find you here!'

‘What you been up to, you dog? Met some young mamselle, did you?'