Polly's Angel (41 page)

Up the stairs the two of them went to the familiar landing, only it, too, had changed. It was clean, the floorboards actually polished, and the door to the Donoghue flat had been painted a bright, dark blue. A small brass lion's head hung in the middle of the door and Tad lifted it and let it bang down before pushing the door open and bellowing at the top of his voice: ‘I'm home, Mammy, and guess who I've got wit' me – only you never will!'

Polly stood in the doorway, her eyes rounding with astonishment even as her lips curled with pleasure. The room that she remembered as dirty and drab was shining clean and bright, the furniture polished, the big table in the centre of the room spread with a decent checked tablecloth, the fire burning brightly in the hearth and a large pot suspended over it, sending out delicious smells. There were three or four young people in the room, all neatly dressed, and Mrs Donoghue was dishing up potatoes from a pan which had been stood on the side, and turned a beaming face towards her son and his friend.

‘Polly O'Brady, by all the saints! Well, no colleen could be more welcome, alanna! Come in, come in – where did you find her, Tad me boy? What's that you've got? Don't say you've been to the chipper, spendin' your money like water when I've a pot full of taties on the stove and a fine stew on cookin'. But I know someone who'd rather have fish an' chips than the best stew in the world, so I do! Meg, go an' fetch up the little 'uns and tell them we've a visitor, and she's been to the chipper on her way back!' She turned, still smiling, to Polly. ‘Eh, we've missed you something sore, alanna, but you're here now, so take off that jacket an' hat, it's crushin' your curls, and come and sit down. The kettle's on the hob, I'll have a cup o' tay in your hands in one minute flat, then you can tell us why you're here! Tad, it's grand to see you, so it is, you sit beside our Polly and you'll be suppin' tay before you're a minute older. Then you can both tell us how you came to arrive together this day!'

Lying on her improvised couch later that night, when the fire had died down and the others had all gone either to their beds or off on errands of their own, Polly thought over her day. From the moment of meeting Tad, she reflected, all the fears and uncertainties which she had been suffering from had fled. She had felt at once, as she had felt as a child, that Tad was to be trusted; he would take care of her. And when, after they had eaten their evening meal, he had taken her off for a stroll around the familiar streets, they had talked over her errand. Tad had promptly solved all her problems regarding the things the girls craved.

‘Sure an' haven't I been doin' these deals for the past six months, meself?' he said cheerfully, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and grinning down at her. ‘What's more, alanna, there's no need for you to hang about in Dublin all day and then to spend another night wit' the mammy, glad though she would be to have you. We'll get up early – the mammy does so anyway, she's still cleaning in Switzers – and get all your shoppin' done and be back in Dun Laoghaire in good time for the ferry, never you fear.'

It had sounded impossible, but Polly had thought of the many times that Tad had managed to get her out of scrapes, and did not doubt that he could solve her problems now. If he said she would be on the ferry tomorrow morning, with all her wheeling and dealing done, then he was right. All she needed to do was to put her trust in Tad; he would not let her down.

But though she might tell herself that he was simply her old friend Tad, grown a little taller and a great deal stronger, she knew that this was not really the case. They were almost like strangers, and in the eight years or so which had passed between their last meeting and this one, they had lived different lives. If we're to go on being pals we've got to get to know one another all over again, Polly told herself just before she fell asleep. Tad's a grand feller, so he is, but when it comes down to it, I only know the chiseller he was, not the grown man he has become. Why, I know Sunny a good deal better now than I know Tad. Only Sunny's so far away, and letters aren't the same . . . Still an' all, Tad's me best friend, and it'll be grand being near one another on the island, and grand getting to know each other all over again too.

And on this happy thought she fell asleep at last.

‘Here we go, then! Give a wave to me little sisters, Poll. It were grand of them to come to see us off . . . Bye, Meg, bye, Biddy!'

Tad and Polly stood at the rail of the ferry, with their loaded knapsacks at their feet, waving lustily as the ferry drew away from the quay and the tiny figures of Meg and Biddy grew smaller and smaller. When they had melted into the distance, however, Tad took Polly's hand and lifted up both their knapsacks, slinging them over one broad shoulder. ‘Come on, there's coffee below decks. Might as well wet our whistles since we missed breakfast. Are you hungry, alanna?'

‘I am that,' Polly admitted, following him down the companionway to where a good smell of cooking came wafting up to greet them. ‘Tad, you've been a real pal to me, so you have! By the time I was halfway across, yesterday, I was beginning to realise I'd bit off more'n I could chew, and then along you came an' rescued me! I thought I'd find someone standing on the dockside waiting for me to offer him tea and sugar, I think, or I thought your mammy would tell me where to go and how to set about swapping one thing for another. Tell me, when did you do it all?'

‘Last night, after you were in bed,' Tad said, grinning. ‘Sit yourself down whiles I fetch us some food . . . Will you be havin' coffee, or is tay more your tipple this early?'

‘Coffee, please,' Polly said, and watched him shoulder his way to the counter, give his order and presently return to her, bearing two mugs of steaming coffee and two hefty-looking bacon sandwiches. ‘Oh, that smells so good!'

‘Yeah, no rationing aboard the
Hibernia
,' Tad said, taking a large bite out of his sandwich and sitting down opposite her. ‘Now, as to last night – have you never heard of the pubs, alanna?'

‘Ye-es, that's where they do a lot of black-market trading and so on,' Polly said. ‘But I've never seen anyone doing anything other than drink and sing and lark about. Not that I go into pubs all that often,' she added. ‘Because we've got the NAAFI, and the mess, and our wrennery, of course.'

‘That's right. Well, if you go into a certain Dublin pub and put it about that you've trading goods, sooner or later the person wantin' those particular goods will turn up and you do a deal. That's about all,' Tad said. ‘They know most of us who come across the water come over one day and go back the next, with no time to do much in the way of shopping. So they come to us, see?'

‘And they bought me silk, and sugar and tea, and sold you butter and stockings and lipstick?' Polly said incredulously. ‘It can't be that simple – I bet you've never wanted lipsticks before, have you? Let alone silk stockings!'

‘Well, I'm not in the habit of buyin' lipsticks,' Tad said, looking a little self-conscious. Polly realised that he might well have bought stockings for the WAAFs on his station and felt a stab of something remarkably like jealousy, which was a bit thick considering she had been telling herself ever since last night that the two of them were more or less strangers. ‘But I moved about a bit, and managed to get everything on your list. All right?'

‘Oh, sure an' I am grateful,' Polly said hastily. It was not fair to ask him questions, she thought guiltily, when he had done her such a favour. ‘That girl Angela – I suppose she doesn't want silk stockings or lipsticks, seeing as how she's still living in Dublin?' she heard her voice say as though it had decided to ignore the advice its owner had been handing out so prodigally. She clapped a hand to her mouth but Tad, heavily engaged in his bacon sandwich, seemed to notice nothing amiss.

‘Angela? I dunno. She's got another feller,' he said thickly. ‘How about the bloke wit' the peculiar name? Sammy, was it?'

It was tempting to ask what was peculiar about the name Sammy, but Polly reminded herself severely that she should never have mentioned Angela and bit her tongue. ‘Sunny,' she said in as offhand a voice as she could manage. ‘He's on the Russian conveys, so I've not seen him for months and months, they sail from Scapa Flow, you see. But he writes regularly, like I do, so I know he's doing pretty well. He's a leading signaller now, and hoping to become a yeoman of signals before too long, and he's only young . . . about your age,' she finished.

‘Oh aye? So you're still . . .?'

He didn't finish the sentence but Polly said quickly: ‘Friends, d'you mean? Yes of course we are. He's a grand feller, Sunny. You'd like him.'

She half-hoped that Tad would look glum and say roundly that he would not like Sunny at all, but instead, Tad said cheerfully: ‘Sure I'll like him if he's a pal of yours, Poll. And I daresay you'll like Maisie when you meet her.'

‘Who's she?' Polly said bluntly. She, too, continued to eat her sandwich as though it was the most important thing in her life at this minute. ‘Is there any mustard?'

Tad pushed the mustard pot across and took a long drink of coffee. Then he said: ‘Maisie? Oh, she's a little WAAF working on the station. She's in the control tower, talking the kites down safely. We've been seem' quite a bit of each other lately. You'll like her.'

‘So I will,' Polly said, inwardly deciding that she would heartily dislike anyone called Maisie, and wondering, just why the term ‘a little WAAF' should sound so exceedingly friendly. ‘If I meet her, that is. I don't get away from the old Bee all that much.'

‘I'll see you get asked to our next dance,' Tad said. ‘Want another coffee?'

Polly said that she would love another one, and watched his backview disappear into the scrum round the counter with an unaccountable feeling of annoyance. Why could he not have said
I'll ask you to the next dance,
instead of
I'll see you get asked to our next dance,
with its tacit inference that, since he would be taking the wretched Maisie he could not ask her, too. Not that it matters, she told herself fiercely, swinging round in her seat to examine the other people in the dining area. I've got Sunny so why shouldn't he have his horrible little WAAF? She's probably got sticking out teeth, frizzy hair and a bad case of dandruff.
And
she'll be flat chested. And have spots. And not all the stockings in the world will be able to make those matchstick legs look good!

Tad, returning with two more cups of coffee, changed the subject and for the rest of the voyage they talked about the changes – all for the better – which had taken place at the flat in Gardiner's Lane and the delights of visiting Dublin, albeit briefly.

‘Next time I come over I'll get in touch wit' you and we can go together again,' Tad said as they were queuing to leave the ship. ‘We might have a bit of a get-together wit' some of our old pals from school. We could go round to Swift's Alley too – you had a grosh of pals there when you were a kid.'

But Polly, agreeing, thought that this was unlikely. She had done what Diane had asked of her and saw no reason for a return trip to Dublin, particularly in the company of someone who was clearly in love with a skinny, spotty WAAF named Maisie!

Chapter Thirteen

It was a brilliant summer day and for once the wind, which seemed to Tad to blow continuously from the sea which was only just out of sight from where he was working, had dropped from a gusty force six to a gentle breeze. Tad was working on a Beaufighter Mark II belonging to number 456 Squadron fitted with Merlin XX engines, but he had just about finished and now he replaced the cowling, rubbed oil marks off with the piece of soft rag which hung at his belt, and jumped down on to the grass.

Finished now, he glanced at his watch, saw that it was time for his canteen meal, and turned back towards the huts. He would clean up, go and get himself some food, and then perhaps he would get out the old motorbike and go into Holyhead; you never knew, Polly might be at a loose end and glad of his company.

Accordingly, he turned his footsteps towards the hutments clustered at the end of the runway, beginning to think about Polly and how her being so near had complicated his life. The truth was that he had not really thought of her as a girl, let alone a breathtakingly pretty one, until that trip to Ireland. She had been his little friend, the kid he had bullied, protected and teased, he had never really thought of her as a young woman. Seeing her on Francis Street had been quite a shock, but then meeting her in the full splendour of her WRNS uniform had been an even greater one. The dazzling blue of her eyes, the soft primrose curls, the rosy mouth nearly always curling into a smile, had made her very much sought after, and it riled Tad to have to take his place in the queue, so to speak.

Not that he ever let Polly know that he was one of the many admirers who would have given a great deal to be able to call her his girl. No fear! He knew his Polly too well to let her see that he was just like the others. He took advantage of their old friendship, laughed at her, carefully asked other girls to dance at the weekly hops – and kept a jealous eye on her all the time, in case she began to show real favour to anyone other than himself. But it seemed that she was ‘just pals' as she put it, with half the armed forces upon the island, and that she was saving herself for that Sunny Andersen who had been such a bad influence on her as a child.

As he crossed the concrete apron in front of the mess hut he sniffed the air. ‘Bangers and mash and cabbage,' he decided, not ill-pleased, for he thought the RAF food very good indeed and was always ready for his meals. And then there was a homely sort of smell of boiling cloth, which probably meant a jam duff. It might be blackberry jam, or even rhubarb and ginger, but it didn't matter much to him. When you had spent your childhood and early teenage years fighting for a bit of bread and maggie ryan to keep off the hunger pangs then jam of any description was a treat.