Rising Summer (34 page)

‘Tim, you again?’ said Missus, big-eyed with surprise and not too certain that my arrival was the best event of the day.

‘Is Minnie around?’ I asked, hoping I was going to be able to cope with the situation.

‘She’s upstairs,’ said Missus, leading me into the living-room. ‘But she’s goin’ out soon, to meet her GI. I won’t say he’s not a nice chap and I won’t say he’s not genuine keen on her. Makes a change, considerin’ what most of them have got up to durin’ the war. He’s goin’ back to America in two weeks and it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t ask our Min to go with him.’

‘Then I’d better see her, Missus, before he beats me to her and carries her off.’

‘What’s that you’re sayin’?’ asked Missus.

‘I’ll say it to Min.’

Missus eyed me shrewdly. Then her smile showed up, soft and creamy. ‘I’ll call her,’ she said. She patted my shoulder with motherly affection and sat me down in a fireside armchair. ‘Best if I don’t say it’s you, though. She might not come down if she knows it’s you again.’

She disappeared. I heard her call up to Minnie, telling her she was wanted in the living-room. Minnie came down, walked in and stopped dead. She was in her Waaf shirt, tie and skirt. Her dressed hair was full of harvest gold. Seeing me, colour swept her face.

‘Oh, no, not you again!’

‘A bit sickening, I suppose,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Still, as I’m here, I’d like to—’

‘What d’you want, free eggs?’

‘Not today, Min. It’s you I’m after.’

‘Oh, don’t talk daft. What’ve you come for, to invite me to the weddin’?’

‘There’s no wedding, Min. We met, we talked, we said goodbye and that was all.’

Minnie stared at me. ‘She didn’t want you?’ she said.

‘Not really.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It was mutual, Min. We both had the wrong ideas about each other. She wanted her dad to look after me while she ran a store in Boston and I wanted someone who’d stay home and make the beds.’

Minnie looked as if she couldn’t make me out. That’s some kind of a joke, I suppose,’ she said. ‘No-one ever gets any sense out of you, you don’t know what serious life is all about, nor what people feel. You’ve just come back again to send us all daft. I’m goin’ out.’

‘To meet Harvey?’

‘I said I would.’

‘Well, don’t go yet, Min, I want to talk to you.’

‘Oh, really? Well, hard luck, I’m goin’.’

‘I’ll tan you if you keep on like this,’ I said. ‘Do you good, it will, stop you from giving me all this sauce.’

‘Stop talkin’ like that!’ Minnie showed agitation. ‘Just go away, just push off.’

‘I’ll chuck you in the pond in a minute,’ I said.

‘Like to see you try,’ she said, ‘you’d get a broken leg.’

‘Now look, Min, you’ll be coming out of the Waafs soon. It’ll be time then for you to settle down and behave yourself—’

‘Oh, you cheeky devil!’

‘Listen, I’ve just come to after years of being unconscious. How about if we settle down together? Legally, I mean. Holy wedlock, like your mum and dad. How about it, love? You’re a Camberwell girl who’s turned herself into a lovely country girl and I’m a Walworth bloke willing to turn myself into a country
bloke.
And it hit me yesterday, the fact that I’m gone on you.’

Minnie’s face flooded with colour. ‘Oh, it’s not fair,’ she breathed, ‘you’re havin’ me on, it’s a joke.’

‘No, it’s true, Min. Love you, I do. Can’t we give it a go? I like it here. My Aunt May’s getting married, which makes things right for me to get married myself. But only to you. We could take over Mary Coker’s cottage. I’ve got a bit of money saved and there’s my war gratuity. I’d like to have a wife, I’d like you, Min, if you’d have me.’

‘Have you?’ she asked, more agitated.

‘Would you, lovey?’

She rushed at me then. ‘Oh, you Tim, I’d have you anytime!’ She jumped me. I fell over, landing on the hearthrug and Minnie piled herself on top of me. Her Waaf skirt was any old how, her legs all over the place.

‘Get off, Min, you’re showing your militaries.’

‘Don’t care,’ she said, excited little breaths escaping.

I kissed, she kissed, we kissed. I ate her, she ate me, we ate each other. Lovely meal, it was. But there was something wrong about her being on top.

‘Min, get off.’

‘Won’t,’ she said. ‘Got you, I have, and goin’ to hit you, bite you and twist your arms off for givin’ me all the miseries.’ She sounded like the old Min. But she wasn’t the old Min, she wasn’t a schoolgirl any more, she was a young woman and she already had me where she seemed to want me. I’d got to fight this, or she’d always be on top. ‘Goin’ to have my own back on you,’ she said, ‘goin’ to kiss and bite you all over.’

‘What, now?’

‘Every Saturday night,’ she said and she laughed, her face above mine, her eyes sparkling with light.

‘Get off,’ I said. ‘If your mum comes in—’

‘Don’t care,’ she said, ‘and Mum won’t, either, when she knows I’m your best girl and goin’ to be your best wife.’

‘Best? I’m only goin’ to have one.’

‘Yes, me.’

I shifted her and we lay on our sides in front of the fire. ‘Listen, Min, you don’t mind cooking and baking and making the beds?’

‘Oh, you daft thing, what a silly question.’

‘And ironing my shirts?’

She gurgled with laughter. ‘Oh, you’re funny, you are, Tim, and don’t I know it. Always made me laugh, you did. Oh, I thought you’d never want me. Months after you’d gone I woke up, I thought no wonder you only saw me as a silly schoolgirl, because that’s what I was, wasn’t I, when I played you up, and Mum an’ Dad too, over that business about if I was in the family way or not. You always said I wasn’t grown up, and I wasn’t, was I, actin’ like that, givin’ Mum an’ Dad all that worry and makin’ them think you’d seduced me on risin’ summer night. Before that, I was only teasin’ those times when I told you you’d been lovin’ to me that night.

‘Then you started making eyes at that Waac, and it nearly made me ill. Yes, it did and it did make me sick up once or twice, so when Mum started to think I was pregnant, I acted up, I wanted you to come round and be nice to me. Oh, poor Mum, what she really wanted was
a
proper engagement and you marryin’ me when I was older, she didn’t like it a bit that you might have to marry me because of doin’ right by me. She was so relieved when I stopped actin’ up, but she told me I’d been the silliest girl ever. She told me I’d lost any chance I ever had with you. On risin’ summer night I’d have let you love me if you’d wanted to, I was so gone on you, but you just slid to the ground and some GI came up and said he’d give me what I wanted. He tried it on too, and I kicked him so hard he could hardly walk.’

‘Good for you, Min.’

‘I won’t ever be silly again, really I won’t. Tim, you’re not cuddlin’ me proper.’

‘I thought I was doing quite well.’

‘Yes, nice, but cuddle me here.’

‘Here?’

‘Oh, yer daft thing,’ said the old Min, ‘that’s me Waaf tie. Here, you silly.’

‘Feels all right. Well, you’re grown up now, Min and that’s a fact. Min, are you still—’ I hesitated.

‘Am I still what?’

‘Never mind,’ I said, but there it was again, my old-fashioned self hoping Min was old-fashioned too.

‘Well, I do mind. I know what you mean. I could have, lots of times, specially since I’ve been in the Waafs. But I always thought about Mum an’ Dad and besides I only ever wanted you, Tim, no-one else and I kept hopin’. I kept thinkin’ suppose he does come back. Then when you did, I just felt it wasn’t really because of me—’

‘Enough said, Min.’

‘What about you, anyway?’ she asked. ‘I bet you’ve been with Italian and French girls.’

‘Well, I haven’t. I’ve been brought up not to do things with girls.’

Min looked wide-eyed at me then. ‘Tim, are you sayin’ you’ve never had a girl? I don’t believe you.’

‘You’re really still a virgin, lovey?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I am,’ she said firmly.

‘So am I.’

She sat up. ‘Oh, you Tim, I’m goin’ to be your very first girl? Lovely, that is, the best thing I’ve ever heard. You haven’t and I haven’t. Oh, bless yer, Tim, isn’t that magical? All that bliss, learning each other how to make love?’

‘I hope we don’t fumble it,’ I said, at which point the front door shook to a peremptory rat-tat.

‘Oh, help,’ gasped Min, ‘me skirt.’

‘Could that be Harvey?’ I asked.

‘No, Aunt Flossie,’ said Min, scrambling to her feet. ‘That’s her knock, she always makes the door shake.’

I got up. Missus put her head in. She looked at Min’s flushed face, then at me. ‘No-one answering the door to Aunt Flossie?’ she said and went herself.

A few moments later I had my first look at Aunt Flossie. A sweet-looking old lady of about sixty. She was apple-cheeked, button-eyed and alert. She wore a grey coat and a black hat, the hat sitting neatly on her silvery hair. She gave everything and everyone a quick, inquisitive glance.

‘My, my, what’s going on?’ she asked in a pretty piping voice. ‘Who’s this young soldier chap?’

‘That’s Tim,’ said Missus, who was eyeing Minnie shrewdly.

‘Ah,’ said Aunt Flossie and her bright button eyes quizzed me. All over. I hoped I hadn’t picked up any of the hearthrug. ‘So you’re our Tim,’ she said.

‘And you’re our Aunt Flossie,’ I said.

‘Oh, saucy chap, are we?’ she said and quizzed Minnie. Minnie turned pink. ‘What’s our Tim been doing with our Minnie?’ she asked Missus.

‘It wouldn’t be nothing disrespectful,’ said Missus, ‘our Tim’s a well-behaved young man.’

‘What’s our Minnie blushing for, then?’ demanded Aunt Flossie.

‘I’m all giddy, Aunt Flossie,’ said Minnie. ‘I don’t know what day it is, Sunday or Monday or what.’

‘It’s not what, it’s Friday,’ said Aunt Flossie.

‘Friday’s special, then,’ said Minnie, ‘Tim and me are goin’ to be married.’

Aunt Flossie lifted her gloved hands. ‘The Lord be praised,’ she said, ‘our Minnie’s ship has come home. Not before time, though.’ And she embraced Minnie and gave her a pat. And she gave me a wink. The racy old darling.

Missus smiled. Her teacup had been right and she knew it.

THE END

Mary Jane Staples
was born, bred and educated in Walworth, and is the author of many bestselling novels, including the ever-popular cockney sagas featuring the Adams family.

Down Lambeth Way

Our Emily

King of Camberwell

On Mother Brown's Doorstep

A Family Affair

Missing Person

Pride of Walworth

Echoes of Yesterday

The Young Ones

The Camberwell Raid

The Last Summer

The Family at War

Fire Over London

Churchill's People

Bright Day, Dark Night

Tomorrow is Another Day

The Way Ahead

Year of Victory

The Homecoming

Sons and Daughters

Appointment at the Palace

Changing Times

Spreading Wings

Family Fortunes

A Girl Next Door

Ups and Downs

Out of the Shadows

A Sign of the Times

The Soldier's Girl

 

Two for Three Farthings

The Lodger

The Pearly Queen

Sergeant Joe

The Trap

The Ghost of Whitechapel

Escape to London

The Price of Freedom

A Wartime Marriage

Katernia's Secret

The Summer Day is Done

The Longest Winter

Natasha's Dream

Nurse Anna's War

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RISING SUMMER
A CORGI BOOK : 9780552138451
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446488300

First publication in Great Britain

PRINTING HISTORY
Corgi edition published 1991

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Copyright © Mary Jane Staples 1991

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