Monday Girl (23 page)

‘Oh.’ Mike was obviously astonished and wondering what had actually happened, but he made a joke of it.

‘He came in drunk, and made a nuisance of himself, I suppose?’

‘That’s right,’ Anne said quickly. ‘He must have picked up bad habits in the army, and I wasn’t used to that kind of thing. None of my other lodgers ever gave me any trouble, and I wasn’t going to let him upset me like that.’

She knew, as did Renee, that Mike had not been fooled, and that he had handed her the excuse to save her any further embarrassment, so she wasn’t surprised when he let the matter drop.

‘Tim should be home in a few weeks,’ he said. ‘According to Moira, anyway, though he does drop me a line now and then, as well.’

‘He writes to Renee sometimes,’ Anne remarked.

Mike nodded. ‘Aye, Moira told me. I think she’s a wee bit jealous of you, Renee, and she half believes you’re the reason Tim never asked her to get married.’

‘Oh, no!’ Renee was still recovering from the shock of him asking about Fergus, but this was something she could put straight. ‘There was never anything between Tim and me, Mike. I like him and he was good fun, but we all knew it was Moira he fell in love with. Please tell her that, Mike.’

‘I’ve tried to tell her already, but jealousy’s difficult to master, even if there’s no grounds for it.’ He wrinkled his nose and smiled.

‘He told us he didn’t want to tie her down,’ Anne volunteered.

‘He told Moira that, as well, but . . .’ Mike suddenly stood up. ‘I’ll have to go, though, or Babs’ll be wondering what I’m up to.’

‘Give her our regards, and I hope she keeps well.’ Anne saw him to the door, then came back and sat down. ‘Mike’s still the same, isn’t he? He’s always concerned about other people, and so thoughtful and dependable.’

Renee’s smile was wry. ‘He knows how to help people out of awkward situations, that’s one thing.’

Jack Thomson was in the house when Renee went home on Tuesday, and he greeted her with a kiss, quite naturally, in front of her mother, who smiled but said nothing. He held the girl away from him for a moment, saying, ‘You’re even bonnier than I remembered you,’ then he crushed her to him once again. Anne walked through to the scullery to dish up the tea, but also to leave them alone for a short time.

‘Oh, Jack, it’s good to see you,’ Renee breathed, as soon as she could. ‘How are you?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ he replied, formally, and they both flopped on to the settee, giggling.

‘What have you been doing with yourself lately?’ he asked.

She was disappointed that he was not being more sentimental, and said, in an offhand manner, ‘Oh, just this and that.’

‘I hope you’re still going out to enjoy yourself, like I told you?’

‘Yes, I am. I go out with Sheila from the office quite a lot. I wrote and told you – to dances, the pictures, the ice rink, walks even, if it’s fine.’

‘Good. I’m the same.’ He looked at her squarely. ‘Life’s too short to waste time dreaming, Renee.’

She understood that he was telling her that love shouldn’t enter into their relationship, and was suddenly angry with him. ‘I’ve met a few nice boys as well, and I’ve had a good time with them all.’ That might give him something to think about.

His smile was perhaps a little forced, but he said, ‘And I’ve met quite a few very nice girls, so we’re quits.’

The front door banged open, and he looked round in surprise at the clamour of footsteps and voices.

‘It’s only our land girls coming in,’ Renee told him. ‘I told you about them in my letters, remember?’

He nodded. ‘I’d forgotten for the minute. They’re a lively lot, aren’t they?’

Anne poked her head round the door. ‘Give me a hand, Renee, will you? That was the girls coming in, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, they’re home.’ Renee and Jack both rose and helped to carry through the various dishes to the dining room.

‘I’d better be going, though,’ he said after a few minutes.

‘You’ll be busy feeding your lodgers.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Jack. I’ve put out a plate for you.’ Anne guided him to a chair. ‘Just sit down and eat.’

Kitty Miller and Flora Sims were the first pair to come through. ‘Oooh! A real, live soldier. Bags me first refusal.’ Kitty sat down beside Jack, who turned pink.

‘He’s not booked, is he, Renee?’ Flora sat down beside her landlady’s daughter.

‘No,’ Jack said, before Renee could answer. ‘I’m not booked.’

‘Carry on, Flora. You’ll maybe have more luck with him than I’ve had.’ Renee couldn’t resist it.

Her mother looked at her quickly, and then at Jack, who looked away and started joking with the two land girls. ‘Ah, here’s Hilda and Nora,’ she said, when the last two appeared.

‘I’m Kitty, and I staked my claim first,’ Kitty declared and slipped her hand through Jack’s arm.

‘Sup that lentil soup and behave yourself,’ Anne laughed.

The chaffing and teasing carried on throughout the meal, then the four boarders excused themselves from the table. As they went out, Kitty, who was last, turned and said,

‘Cheerio, lover boy. Hope to see you again.’

‘Sure thing,’ Jack said, winking to her.

Renee had been surprised, and a little jealous, at the ease with which he had handled the flirting, but remembered that he had been coming in contact with lots of different girls since he left Aberdeen, and must have learnt how to deal with it, the same as she had learnt how to cope with advances from the various boys she allowed to accompany her home.

At half past seven, Jack said, regretfully, ‘I’ll have to go. I want to catch the eight o’clock bus. My mother’s expecting me home.’

‘What a shame you can’t stay longer.’ Anne glanced at Renee.

‘He has to go home, Mum, and we’ve no spare beds.’ Anne hesitated. It wasn’t up to her to plead with him.

‘Will you manage to drop in again before you go back?’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gordon. I just won’t have time, for I’ve dozens of relations, and friends of my mother’s, to go round, but I’ll see you on my next leave. So long just now.’

‘I’ll see you to the door.’ Renee made one last attempt to find out his true feelings for her.

‘Cheerio, then, Jack, and look after yourself,’ Anne said. On the doorstep, he gave the girl one gentle kiss then moved away. ‘Keep writing, Renee, please.’

‘You too, Jack.’ She watched him go down the path, then closed the door slowly and went back to the living room.

Anne looked rather surprised. ‘You weren’t long.’

‘No, he was in a hurry.’ Renee sat down opposite her mother and picked up the newspaper, so Anne knew that she was being warned not to ask any questions.

When Renee went to visit her grandmother the following Saturday, she said, ‘Jack Thomson came to see us for a wee while on Tuesday.’

‘Oh, how is he?’ Maggie McIntosh was always interested in everything the girl told her.

‘He was looking great. Kitty Miller could hardly keep her eyes off him, and he seems to be having a high old time with the girls at Catterick.’

‘Is the green-eyed monster rearin’ its ugly head, lassie?’ The old lady laughed, but watched the girl carefully.

‘A wee bit,’ Renee admitted.

‘But you’re havin’ a high old time wi’ the lads, as weel,’ Maggie reminded her. ‘It’s jist the same, and ye’re far ower young to be serious aboot onybody yet. Ye’re still only sixteen.’

‘I’ll be seventeen in September.’ Renee was indignant.

‘And you once told me you were only seventeen when you married Granda.’

‘Aye weel, but things were different in my young days, an’

ye’re surely nae thinkin’ o’ gettin’ married, are ye?’

‘No, I was just saying.’ Renee laughed at her grandmother’s expression, and the woman joined in.

‘Wile aboot for a puckle years yet, dearie, till ye get a man that’s right for ye. I was lucky, for I got the best man in the world for me.’

‘Yes, you did, you lucky thing. How’s Granda keeping?’

‘He’s nae bad, an’ he loves bein’ message boy for me. He’s gettin’ to be a dab hand at watchin’ the prices.

Naebody’ll cheat yer granda.’ Maggie looked proud. ‘Is yer mother aye busy wi’ her land girls?’

‘Yes, they keep her going all the time, but we get some good laughs with them and their stories about their boyfriends. Not boyfriends exactly, just boys they meet. But Mum was saying she’ll come to see you one of these days.’

‘Ony day, tell her. I’m stuck in the hoose fae morn to night, for my legs winna cairry me at a’. I need a stick to get to the lavvy, even. See, here it is, at the side o’ my chair.’

‘You always keep cheery, though, and that’s the main thing.’ Renee looked at her grandmother fondly.

‘Ach weel, it doesna dae to let yer heart doon.’

‘No, Granny, it doesna dae.’ She laughed at her own mimicry.

When the girl was leaving, Maggie said, ‘Ha’e yersel’ a good fling when ye’re young. Ye’ll meet yer Mister Right ane o’ these days, jist wait an’ see.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. See you next Saturday, Granny.’ Renee walked home slowly. It was probably true. She couldn’t have met her Mr Right yet. Jack Thomson apparently didn’t feel ready to be serious about her, or he might not consider that she was his Miss Right. He was ‘wilin’ aboot’ like Granny had advised her to do, and taking his pick from a lot of girls.

The evacuation of Dunkirk occupied all their conversation in a short time, and Renee was thankful that Jack had not been involved, nor Tim, who was still in England, nor Mike, who, presumably, was on his way to the Middle East or North Africa, although the news from there wasn’t any too good, either.

‘I was speaking to a boy who got out at Dunkirk,’ Kitty said one morning. ‘They just had what they stood up in, most of them. They lost all their gear.’

‘Gee whizz!’ exclaimed Flora. ‘That must have been terrible.’

‘Yes, he said it was something he wouldn’t want to go through again. They’d been on the beaches for days, hoping they wouldn’t be killed by enemy gunfire before they were picked up. He’d come to the Palais last night to try to forget, but it was haunting him. I could tell that.’

‘We don’t know we’re living, really,’ remarked Hilda. ‘It makes me angry to think of what these boys had to go through.’

‘They were the lucky ones,’ muttered Nora.

The others looked at her quickly. There had been something odd in the way she said it, but she said nothing more, so Anne changed the subject quickly. ‘Do any of you girls want to take a bath tonight? Because if you don’t, I won’t bother lighting the fire. It’s sweltering hot today.’

It was into July before Tim came on leave, and he took Moira to Cattofield on the Sunday afternoon. Renee re-called what Mike had said about Moira being jealous of her, and tried to allay the other girl’s fears by stressing how much she was enjoying herself with all the different boys she met, or went out with. After a while, she was pleased to see that Moira, and Tim, looked very relieved.

‘Jack was here a few weeks ago,’ Anne remarked, at a loss to understand why her daughter was going on so much about her boyfriends. The visitors wouldn’t want to hear about that.

‘Oh, how’s he doing? I bet he’s as fed up as me at still being in this country.’ Tim screwed up his face.

‘He didn’t say anything about that,’ Anne said, ‘but he seems to be enjoying life at Catterick.’

He certainly does, thought Renee. ‘There’s no word of you being shifted, then?’ she asked Tim.

‘Well, there’s word of us being sent to the Shetlands, but I’ve been away on a technical course in Dagenham, so I don’t know the latest.’

‘I hope he’s never sent overseas,’ Moira said quietly. ‘Babs is really worried about Mike. Sometimes it’s weeks between his letters.’

‘Is she keeping well?’ Anne asked. ‘We were very pleased when Mike told us they were having an addition to the family.’

‘Yes, Babs is fine, but she says she’s sure she’ll look like a tank before the baby’s born.’

They laughed, and Anne said, ‘Tell her we send our regards.’

When they went away, Renee was last in line in the hall, and Tim was just in front of her, so she whispered to him,

‘Have you changed your mind about asking Moira to . . . ?’

‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m sure she expects me to, but . . .’ Anne turned round and ushered Tim past her. ‘Cheerio, and if you feel lonely any time, Moira, there’s always an open door for you here.’

Renee added, ‘Yes, we’ll always be pleased to see you.’ Moira slipped her arm through Tim’s. ‘Thanks, but with Mum and Babs in the house, I never have the chance to be on my own, never mind feel lonely – though I do miss Tim.’ When the young couple had gone, Anne said, ‘I wish Tim would ask that girl to marry him. They’re made for each other.’

‘I know, but he told me just now that he hasn’t changed his mind about it.’ Renee felt rather irritated with him. He stood a good chance of losing the girl if he didn’t watch out. Just like Jack with her, although she wasn’t sure if Jack really loved her as much as Tim loved Moira, if he loved her at all.

Anne had been ashamed when her daughter told her about Maggie’s walking stick, and had resolved to pay more attention to her parents, so she accompanied Renee every Saturday afternoon now to the tenement in Woodside. Maggie was always very pleased to see them – Peter was usually out doing the shopping – and listened with great interest to the little stories they told her about their land girls and what they got up to.

First thing every week, however, she enquired about Jack Thomson, then about Tim Donaldson, then about Mike, and Renee took their letters for her to read – Mike wrote to Anne occasionally, so there were letters from all three men. After that ritual, Renee told her grandmother who she had been out with during the week. She couldn’t speak too freely because of her mother, but Maggie could read between the lines.

She could tell that Renee was sailing near the wind with some of the boys at times, but forbore to issue any warnings or advice, knowing that the girl would take her own way, whatever she was told. And, anyway, Renee had learned her lesson over that Fergus Cooper, so she would surely never go over the score again. Maggie also sensed if her grand-daughter felt a special attraction to any of her boyfriends – she would speak shyly of them and blush slightly – but nothing ever seemed to come of it.