Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings (25 page)

‘’E asked me if I’d write to him, Win and I said I would. ’E said ’e’d write to me… Don’t suppose he will though. ’E’s being posted to somewhere over Dartmouth way for training. Slapton Sands I think ’e said. Funny, isn’t it! Usually I like ’em tall, don’t I!’

‘Yeah,’ said Winnie, ‘and dark and handsome!’

‘Well, he is dark.’

‘Yeah, he is dark… But not handsome, Marion.’

‘No… But he’s got something about him, Marvin has. If you’d spent all evening with ’im you’d know what I mean.’ Marion was wiping her make-up off and with it, Winnie reckoned, the face Sergeant Kinski had fallen for. ‘What was yours like, then, Win?’

‘He was OK,’ Winnie murmured vaguely. She had already almost forgotten the young corporal from Alabama who had attached himself to her for most of the evening. ‘Just a bloke,’ she said. ‘With pimples.’

Winnie had never considered the possibility that the burning ambition to open a pub that she and Marion had shared for almost as long as she could remember could be jeopardised by one or the other of them becoming seriously involved with a man, or that any man who would be interested in either of them would be able to offer them the things they wanted from life. To Winnie men were a faintly threatening necessity. A source of what she needed. First money for a down payment on a public house and then permission to assume responsibility for it. It was
unlikely, she knew, that she and Marion would be granted a licence. When they applied for one it would be Marion’s uncle Ronald, a publican himself, whom they would need to approach for legal, if not financial support. The idea of either of them losing interest in their plan sent a shudder down Winnie’s spine.

The kitchen table had been barely large enough for all the food. Everyone had loaded their plates more than once and carried them out into the cross-passage where a trestle-table, with every chair in the hostel, a couple of benches and even an old wicker seat from the porch, clustered round it, made an adequate dining table. When the meal was underway, with the gramophone blaring and thirty voices raised over it, no one heard the approach of the tractor.

Roger Bayliss had loaded sacks of potatoes and swedes, boxes of eggs and a churn of milk into a small trailer and carefully negotiated the slippery lane. He had guessed, as soon as he saw the Bren-gun carrier, that Oliver Maynard had seized the opportunity of the blizzard to further his obvious interest in Alice Todd. Roger experienced a pang of frustration that it had not been he who had arrived first with practical support for his warden.

Alice was sitting at the head of the table in a wicker chair that had once stood in his own conservatory. When, on the arrival of the servicemen, the land girls had put on their best frocks, Alice did the same. The garnet velvet of her dress suited her. Oliver Maynard was sitting on her
right. As Roger ducked his head under the lintel and stood, amazed by the scene, Alice and Oliver were sharing a joke. As soon as she saw Roger, Alice rose and made her way round the crowded table to greet him.

The noise of boisterous conversations interrupted by bursts of hearty laughter, all of this competing with the music of Glenn Miller at full volume from the gramophone in the recreation room, made it almost impossible for Roger to hear Alice as she explained how the day had developed for her and her girls. She invited him into the slightly quieter kitchen, encouraged him to help himself to the food and led him back into the cross-passage where everyone moved up enough to make room for him at the table. Oliver poured him a glass of wine and, in the manner of a victor, raised his own glass and proposed a toast to Alice, who responded with a short, charming speech of thanks to Oliver and his men for helping to give her girls such a splendid Christmas feast.

With the table cleared from the cross-passage and the sofas in the recreation room pushed against the walls there was space for some serious dancing. Dave took Hester in his arms and carefully circled the floor with her. Gwennan stumbled through a foxtrot with the cook, who, thanks to his chef’s hat, equalled her lanky height. Annie, much in demand, moved sociably from one partner to another, while Winnie smiled politely for her GI Joe and watched Marion and Marvin jitterbugging as though their bodies
were designed exclusively for that purpose. Mabel and her gran led the Lambeth Walk. Dave organised the
hokey-cokey
and Alice tried, without much success, to teach everyone the steps of Sir Roger de Covelly.

At ten o’clock, when most of the food and almost all the drink had been consumed, Reuben arrived. He had been walking for nine hours and stood, breathing hard, snow in his hair, packed ice falling off his boots, his skin glowing with exertion and exposure, his eyes scanning the room for his girl. Dave, waltzing with her, felt her pull away from him, watched her weave through the dancers and fling herself, to whoops of delight and applause from everyone, into Reuben’s arms.

‘’E needs feedin’, Mrs Todd,’ Hester said happily and taking Reuben by the hand, led him into the kitchen, closing the door behind them.

The Webster home, when Georgina and Lionel had reached it, looked much as it always had on Christmas Eve. The tall spruce standing in the hallway was decorated with familiar gilded fir cones, tinsel and lights, topped with the now bedraggled fairy that Georgina had made in kindergarten. The house was warm and in the kitchen festive food was being prepared. The snow, which had barely begun to fall when Lionel had collected his sister from Lower Post Stone, had become a wind-driven blizzard and by the time they reached their destination they were chilled to their bones.
Their father had led them into the warm sitting room and administered mulled rum-and-orange, watching them as they sipped. Later, after Georgina had lain for some time in a hot bath and was now wrapped in her dressing gown, Lionel wandered into her bedroom and sprawled across her bed.

‘Seen your chap lately?’ he asked her.

‘Which chap is that?’ she countered, adding, ‘If you mean Christopher Bayliss, no. Not lately.’ She had washed her hair and was towelling it dry.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s taken himself off somewhere and become a lumberjack.’

‘I heard that much from Annie. But it doesn’t explain why you—’

‘Why I what? You’re being very nosy, little brother! Stop it!’

He ignored the second part of her response and repeated his question.

‘Why, after visiting him in that hospital place, have you suddenly dropped him? Doesn’t make any sense to me!’

‘That’s because you don’t know—’

‘I know I “don’t know”, woman!’ he interrupted. ‘That’s why I’m asking!’ Georgina laughed, went to her bedroom door and opened it.

‘Can I have some privacy, please?’ She was teasing him. ‘I need to get dressed now. I promised our mother I’d help her
in the kitchen.’ As Lionel went past her onto the landing she added, ‘I will tell you all about it, Li… But later… OK?’

Georgina was grateful that the family had company for Christmas dinner, which they were to eat at three o’clock. It gave her a valid reason for not broaching the awkward subject of her future plans until most, if not all of the day’s festivities were over.

Alan and Pamela Marshall farmed nearby and the two families were well acquainted. The Marshalls put chains on the tyres of their car and safely managed the two-mile drive to the Webster house, bringing with them their younger daughter, Drusilla. An older girl was with the WRAC at Caterham. Drusilla, still at boarding school, was a pretty seventeen-year-old and had been in love with Lionel since she was twelve, a fact of which he remained unaware.

The afternoon and evening passed pleasantly. The two families played their own familiar versions of some Christmas games. At eight o’clock everyone went out into the garden and pelted each other with snowballs, returning to the warm house for a light supper followed by dancing to gramophone records. Lionel dutifully partnered his mother, Pamela Marshall and then his sister. After that, it was noticed, he danced almost exclusively, with Drusilla.

By midnight, with the guests departed, the house was suddenly quiet. Georgina had decided that rather than spoil the happy atmosphere, she would keep her difficult news
until the morning. She was about to switch off her bedside light when Lionel knocked on her door.

‘You said you’d tell me later, why you’ve dumped your mad airman.’

‘He’s not—!’

‘I know!’ Lionel interrupted her interruption. ‘I know he’s not mad and I’ve found out something about these guys… these pilots that crack up. Want to hear it?’ Georgina nodded and patted the bed, inviting him to sit, as he always had, for as long as either of them could remember, when they had something important to discuss. ‘It’s not always that they lose their nerve, you know, or even that they get traumatised by what they have to do – although that would account for some cases, but…’ He paused, trying to formulate the information he had for her. He told her about a friend of his who had been at university reading psychology when the war broke out. Because of this he had been given the opportunity to work with a group of consultants on cases where servicemen suffered breakdowns caused by what, in earlier conflicts, had been classified as ‘shell shock’. Frequently, brave men, having exhibited acute symptoms of distress, had been condemned to death and shot as deserters. Georgina said she knew this.

‘But did you know, Georgie, that front-line guys, like pilots, are regularly dosed with amphetamine these days?’ His sister was not absolutely certain what amphetamine was. ‘Stimulants, Georgie. Stuff that keeps you awake and
fired up when you’re exhausted but you need to keep going. You’ve heard of pep pills?’ She had. ‘Well, like that only more so. Now, some guys can cope with it. Others can’t and they get all sorts of problems with side effects. Black outs, breakdowns, hallucinations – a whole range of psychotic symptoms. I thought of your Christopher. I thought that could be the reason he’s, you know… Not…how he was. And maybe that’s why you feel…’ Lionel, watching his sister’s face, realised suddenly that this could not be the reason for Georgina’s rejection of Christopher Bayliss – if it was rejection. She had a more compassionate and sensitive nature than that. He fell silent, feeling foolish.

‘The thing is, Li,’ she began, ‘it’s not that I don’t want to see him, exactly. It’s that he doesn’t want to see me. He’s… well, he’s cross with me. He thinks I let him down. And in a complicated way…I did.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘It was the pacifism thing. We used to argue about it. After what happened to Chrissie – you remember? The girl who got killed in a raid on Plymouth? – and then Andreis and then Christopher himself – you didn’t see him, Li, when the military police arrested him… All of those things made me realise just how awful war is… What it had done… To just three individuals that I happened to know!’ She paused, scanning her brother’s face. ‘Anyhow, at the same time as I’d decided that pacifism is not the answer, Christopher decided that it is – and when I told him, he…’

‘When you told him what? That you’d stopped believing in pacifism?’

‘It was more than that, Li. I told him I was leaving the Land Army and joining the ATA. That’s the Air Transport—’

‘I know what the ATA is!’ He was staring at her. ‘God Almighty, Georgie! What will Ma and Pa say!’

‘It’s not the RAF, Li. It’s not exactly fighting! I shan’t go on missions! I’ll only be delivering planes to airfields—’

‘From which someone else does go on missions!’

There was a long pause. ‘You won’t believe this,’ he said at last, ‘but I’ve been having the same arguments with myself as you’ve been having. And I decided, the other day when I was watching the Pathé news in the cinema in Taunton and it showed people trying to escape from some French village while Jerry blew it up because the locals had been hiding members of the Resistance in their houses… And I thought… To hell with this turning the other cheek stuff! I need to have a go at those swine!’ He paused and then added quietly, ‘I’ve decided to enlist.’

‘No!’ Georgina’s voice was loud in the quiet house. ‘You can’t, Li! You mustn’t!’

‘Shush!’ he said, smiling. ‘You’ll wake the parents!’ Georgina’s expression changed from shock to controlled determination. She shook her head and lowered her voice.

‘You can’t enlist! You’re not to. There must be some other way you can—’

‘Fight? Without actually fighting? We’re not all as clever as you, Georgina Webster, with your “non-combatative” involvement!’

At the farmhouse Alice was dancing with Oliver Maynard while Roger Bayliss, having paid his respects, eaten some of the excellent food – his own plump goose having become somewhat lost amongst the mountainous contribution from the Fleet Air Arm kitchens – was wondering how soon he could decently make his farewells and leave the party. He would have very much liked to dance with Alice but she seemed always to be circling the floor with Oliver Maynard or attending to some domestic duty or other. From time to time she sought him out, making sure he had all he needed to eat and to drink but each time, just as Roger gathered himself to invite her onto the dance floor, Oliver Maynard appeared at her elbow and led her back into the jostling dancers where, eventually, Roger saw him put his lips to her ear and whisper earnestly.

‘I need to talk to you, Alice.’

‘You are talking to me, aren’t you?’ she laughed. He steered her through the open door to her sitting room. Roger, from the recreation room, watched them. They sat facing each other, she in a small upholstered chair and he on the window-seat. It appeared to be a serious conversation; Oliver, leaning slightly forward and looking into her eyes, Alice, sitting bolt upright with her hands
clasped in her lap. She looked, Roger thought, slightly ill at ease. Almost cornered. He wished he could lip-read.

‘It isn’t my intention to pressure you, Alice,’ Oliver said. ‘As you know, I never have and I’ve always accepted our relationship exactly as you wanted it to be. But my circumstances are about to change.’ He told her that he had just received a promotion that involved a posting to Greenock. This was to take effect in early January. Alice remembered him telling her about the house he and his wife had bought when he had been given a permanent, peacetime posting there.