I'll Be Seeing You (21 page)

She said, ‘It's good to see you back safely, Don.'

‘Yeah . . . it feels pretty good. Didn't seem like there was too much hope but then we've got one hell of a good pilot.'

‘How's Gene?'

‘Well, I reckon he's going to be in the hospital a long time, but they seem to think he'll pull through. He's a lucky guy. Ham stuck with him, even though it looked like the plane was never going to make it. The rest of us could've bailed out, like Ham offered, but we figured we'd stay along for the ride. I'm sure glad we did.'

‘Is Ham all right?'

‘Sure. He's around somewhere. I guess he'll be in here later.'

She didn't see him, though, until the evening, when he turned up at the farmhouse. She'd been bathing Madeleine and Peter and was reading them a bedtime story.
Once upon a time, there lived a poor woodcutter and his wife. They had two children: a boy called Hansel and a girl whose name was Gretel
 . . . She'd got to the bit about them seeing the gingerbread cottage in the wood with the roof made out of marzipan and windows made out of sugar when Madeleine started giggling and she looked up and saw that he was standing in the doorway, leaning against the post, arms folded, listening. He smiled.

‘Hey, don't stop. I want to know how it ends.'

She carried on reading the rest of the story – about the kind old woman who was really a witch and locked poor Hansel into a cage to be fattened for eating . . . about clever Hansel who poked a chicken bone through the cage for her to feel . . . about brave Gretel pushing the witch into the hot oven . . . and the happy reunion with the father.

When she had finished she said goodnight to the children and turned out their light. On the landing they looked at each other.

He said, ‘I haven't heard that story in years – not since I was a kid. It sure is gruesome.'

‘It's one of their favourites.'

‘Well, I guess most kids can take it.'

She said quietly, ‘I thought you were dead, Ham. I really did.'

‘So did I, for a while. It was a close call.'

‘Gene's going to be all right, isn't he?'

‘The medics think so. But I guess the flying part's over for him.'

‘You stayed with him and brought him back home.'

‘We all did. That's what good crews do. Stick together.'

‘What about your forehead? The plaster?'

‘Hell, that's nothing. It'll mend in a couple of days.'

They went on looking at each other.

‘So, what happens now?'

‘Well, they're giving us a week's leave. Packing us off to a rest home to forget all about the war. One of those gracious English country houses that've been commandeered by us rough Yanks: beautiful grounds, tasty food and even tastier American girls dancing attendance. I hear they even have hot water and clean sheets, too.'

‘It sounds wonderful.'

‘Yeah . . . the other guys are looking forward to it.'

‘Aren't you?'

‘I'm not going.'

‘Why on earth not?'

‘I'm going some place else,' he said. ‘Some little old country pub. The kind that has soft feather beds and big log fires and where the landlord's stashed away a barrel of good beer in the cellar.'

‘It sounds wonderful, too.'

Downstairs, somebody had put on a Frank Sinatra record. The song floated up to them, so poignant and so confident: ‘I'll be Seeing You'. It would always remind her of Halfpenny Green; and of him.

He smiled down at her. ‘And guess what else is going to be wonderful about it, Daisy.'

‘What?'

‘You're coming with me.'

The pub was called the Cat and Mustard and it was in a village that was very nearly as lovely as Halfpenny Green. He'd been told about it by one of the other guys, he said, and English pubs sure did have some oddball names. It was nowhere near any airfields, nowhere near anything much at all. Sandy Dimmock had wangled her some leave and they had taken the train from Bury St Edmunds, changing to a branch line and a two-carriage train that chuffed unhurriedly through the winter countryside. Black trees, brown fields, patches of frost, a lemon-drop sun.

The only other occupant of the compartment – an elderly woman in headscarf and thick woollen stockings, a big wicker basket covered by a cloth on her capacious lap – had been fascinated by Ham in his uniform. Why didn't his trousers match his jacket? What foreign country was he from? She had wanted to know all about America. Where was it? How big was it? What language did they speak? What was he doing here? Why hadn't he come before? Since neither she nor Ham could understand each other, her questions were all addressed via Daisy, who had acted as interpreter. From time to time, whatever was in the wicker basket had moved under the cloth and the woman had lifted a corner and muttered something soothing.

Daisy had watched the American sitting opposite her in the compartment, politely fielding the barrage of ignorant, if well-meant questions. It didn't seem to matter much any more whether what she was doing was right, or sensible, or wise, or anything else.
He
was all that mattered.

They never did find out what was in the basket.

‘What do you reckon?' he'd asked when they had got off the train. ‘My money's on a cat.'

‘Something edible, more probably. A chicken.

Or a duck. Or a pigeon. Or a rabbit.'

‘I still say it was a cat. You wouldn't be that nice to something you were going to eat.'

The landlord of the Cat and Mustard was very nice to them as well. He'd lit a fire in the open fireplace in their room and turned down the bed.

‘What did I tell you?' Ham prodded it approvingly. ‘Feathers.'

There was good beer in the cellar and another log fire blazing in the inglenook in the bar, and, for supper, a pigeon casserole cooked by the landlord's wife with country cheese and apples to follow. And there was mustard on the table and a cat curled up on a fireside chair. Nobody asked any more questions and nobody stared suspiciously at the brass curtain ring she was wearing on her left hand. The locals, absorbed in their darts and their shove-ha'penny and their dominoes, left them alone.

He said, ‘Will you marry me, Daisy? Soon as I'm through with the tour?'

‘You really mean it?'

‘I'll say I do! And don't give me any more of that stuff about me being far from home and your not being my kind of girl. I told you, you're the girl I love and I'll always love. You're the girl I want to marry. And I'm asking you right now.'

‘We're from two different worlds, Ham.'

‘Sure. You're from the Old, I'm from the New. We'll make our own kind of world together. Whatever kind suits us. So, is the answer yes?' He looked at her and smiled his smile. ‘It'd better be.'

The fire was still burning cosily in the bedroom upstairs but she was shivering and shaking like a jelly.

‘I'm not cold,' she told him when he asked. ‘I'm scared. I've never done this before, Ham. And I'll bet you have lots of times.'

‘A few,' he said. ‘But never with a girl I really cared about, so I guess you could say this is a first for me, too.'

‘I'm still scared.'

‘Hell, there's no need to be, Daisy. No need at all.' He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently. ‘You'll see.'

At Christmas, the Group gave a tea party in one of the hangars for the Halfpenny Green village children. Spam, jellies, candy bars, chewing gum, oranges and ice cream – some of the guys had taken the ice cream up to 25,000 feet in a bomb bay and flown it around to keep it frozen. Most of the English kids had never seen an orange or eaten ice cream. Hamilton watched their round eyes and the shy wonder in their faces. They'd sure had a hard time of it over the past four years. Their faces were all pale and pinched and some of them seemed badly undernourished. He guessed they'd put their best clothes on for the party but they were still patched and darned and shabby. He helped a small boy peel an orange and took it apart for him, but the kid sat and stared at it on his plate. It needed a lot of persuasion to get him to try it: he had to crouch down to his level and take a bite himself before the kid would even touch it.

Across the crowded hangar, he could see Daisy doing much the same with a cute little girl who didn't know what the hell to make of her ice cream. He went on watching for a while – how she was coaxing her so patiently with a bit on the end of a spoon, smiling at her, pretending to eat some herself.

Santa Claus came stomping in wearing RAF flying boots – ho-ho-hoing and clanging a hand bell – all dressed up in a red robe with big white whiskers and a sack over his shoulder. The small boy, nibbling wonderingly at his orange, promptly burst into terrified tears. Hamilton picked him up in his arms.

‘Hey, it's only Santa Claus. He's a real nice guy. See that sack he's carrying – he's got a present for you in there. Something special.'

Daisy was looking his way and he looked back at her over the boy's head. He thought – ignoring his golden rule one more time – soon as we're married, we'll start our own kids. They'd talked about that, too, along with everything else they'd talked about during the week at the Cat and Mustard. Lying in the feather bed by the firelight's glow, smoking a cigarette, he'd told her all about the rule and how he'd figured it was better never to think about anything beyond the day. Never to think about tomorrow, or next week, let alone the future.

But then he'd gone on talking recklessly about the future that he might never have. He wouldn't go back to Berkeley; instead he'd start work with his father's company. They'd buy a house on the edge of Los Angeles, in a good neighbourhood – somewhere like Westwood or Santa Monica or Pacific Palisades. He'd drive her around, show her some places, so she could choose where she'd want to be. Maybe she'd like a house with a view of the ocean.

‘Oh boy, you should see the sunsets, Daisy.'

‘We have sunsets in England, too.'

‘Yeah, I know. I've seen them and they're great. But not like these ones out over the Pacific. The whole sky looks like it's on fire. They can be like that in the desert, too.'

‘You have desert? I didn't realize that.'

‘Sure. We've got desert, we've got mountains, we've got lakes and rivers, we've got the ocean. California's a big state. I'll fly you all over it in our plane. Take you up north to see Santa Barbara and Carmel and San Francisco and down to San Diego, right by Mexico. We'll fly across Death Valley and go down the Grand Canyon; I'll fly you all the way along right down inside it – that's a hell of a thrill.'

‘It sounds terrifying.'

‘I've done it lots of times. You'll love it. And I'll tell you what – we'll go to Palm Springs.'

‘Where's that?'

‘Right out in the desert. We'll stay at the Ingleside Inn. That's a beautiful old place built in the Twenties – all the Hollywood stars used to go there.'

She'd said wryly, ‘It all sounds a bit different from Ealing. Are you sure I'll fit in?'

‘Sure I'm sure. You'll love it and everyone'll love you.' He'd propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at her. ‘I swear you'll never regret marrying me, Daisy.'

He'd spoken as though they were already married, as though nothing stood in the way of their happiness, and he knew that he was tempting fate. He'd broken the rule again and again and again.

She'd pressed her fingers to his mouth. ‘Don't let's talk about it any more, Ham. Don't say another word.'

‘OK. Suits me fine.' He'd turned away from her to stub out his cigarette. Then he'd leaned over her. ‘Not one more word.'

After the children's Christmas party, they biked down to the Mad Monk – round the peri track and down Nightingale Lane to the green. It was a clear, frosty night with a skyful of glittering stars and a brilliant moon shining on the village. The landlord and his wife had decorated the inside of the pub with coloured paper chains strung all along the bar and round the walls, and there was a Christmas tree in the corner by the old piano festooned with coloured lights and shiny glass ornaments and fake cotton-wool snow.

Ham came back from the bar with their drinks. He clinked his glass against hers. ‘Hey, maybe this time next year you'll be having Christmas in California. If I can fix getting you over there somehow.'

‘I can't imagine Christmas in warm weather. It must be so different.'

‘Yeah, I suppose it is. It can get kind of cool at night but we almost never get frost, though there's plenty of snow up in the mountains – you can see it from the city. And you can go skiing, if you want. It's not far up to Big Bear – only a couple of hours' drive – and we've got a great cabin up there.'

‘I've never skied. Have you?'

‘Since I was a kid. I'll teach you.'

‘I'd like to try. Is it difficult?'

‘Easy – once you get the hang of it.'

‘How about Christmas decorations? Do you have those?'

‘Sure we do. Lots of them. Trees, lights, all the trimmings. We just don't have the White Christmas, like in the song – not in Pasadena, anyway.'

Ray, Ham's new co-pilot, came up then and somebody went over to the piano and started to play ‘White Christmas'. She watched him drinking his beer and talking to the co-pilot. She didn't mind where she went, or what it was like, so long as he was there. He was all that mattered. Absurdly, she envied the watch on his wrist because it was always with him. When she'd told him that, he'd laughed, but actually she'd been perfectly serious. And now they'd broken the golden rule yet again. They shouldn't have talked like that about the future. They shouldn't have thought about it at all.