Shamrock Green (36 page)

Gowry read the letter five or six times before he folded it into his pay book, then, grinning, went off to his tent to count the money he had saved from his meagre pay and plan how he would blow it all on impressing Becky in Amiens in three days' time.

*   *   *

‘Are you sure you know what you're doing?' Angela said. ‘After all you've only met the chappie under sterile conditions, one might say, and for all you know he could turn out to be a cad.'

‘A cad?' said Becky. ‘In what way?'

‘Well – demanding.'

‘Gowry isn't demanding.'

‘How do you know?' said Angela. ‘He could be one of those dreadful rebels we've all been reading about.'

‘If he were a rebel he'd hardly be fighting on our side, would he?'

‘Bobby says—'

‘I've no interest in Bobby Bracknell's twisted opinions,' said Becky. ‘Sometimes I think Captain Bracknell would like to see us all shot. Scots, Irish, English – all those of us who lie below the salt.'

‘Rubbish!' said Angela. ‘In any case, we're not discussing Bobby. I do hope you won't let this Gowry chap land you in trouble.'

‘If you mean what I think you mean…'

‘However meek and mild your Irishman may seem to be, he isn't going to treat you to five days in Amiens without expecting something in return.'

‘We're just going to get to know each other a little better.'

‘Now where have I heard
that
song before?'

‘Certainly not from me,' said Becky.

‘Would you like me to give you some advice?'

‘What sort of advice?'

‘Concerning what to do while you're getting to know each other.'

How typical of Angela to assume that she had only one thing on her mind. The truth was that she
did
have only one thing on her mind. And Angela did have a point; Gowry's letters revealed little of his character. She wondered if he would turn out to be shallow and duplicitous, if the blandness of his letters had been designed to deceive.

Angela shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘Oh, what does it matter? He's a married man; I expect he'll know what to do. However, at least take this.'

‘What?'

Angela held out a diaphanous garment that Becky had never seen before.

‘What is it?'

‘A nightdress.'

‘I have a nightdress, thank you.'

‘But not one like this?'

‘I should hope not,' said Becky.

Becky could see the flesh of Angela's arm quite clearly through the transparent material. Embarrassed, she looked away.

‘Take it,' said Angela.

‘I couldn't possibly…'

‘It's perfectly clean.'

‘It isn't that. I'd just feel such a fraud wearing it, especially if…'

‘Really, my dear, you
must
learn to finish your sentences. Even the Irish know how to finish their sentences.' Angela shook out the nightdress once more and raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Now, do you want it, or don't you? It takes up very little space in one's luggage.'

‘It – it isn't my size.'

‘Let it drape loosely about you,' said Angela. ‘I always do.'

The evening was warm and from the window Becky could see the tennis court and two officers in shirt-sleeves thrashing a ball about.

She had been slightly put out when Mr Sanderson had signed her request for leave and the CO had endorsed it, for a little part of her resisted meeting Gowry in Amiens and she had hoped that the decision would be taken out of her hands. She had been dreaming again, not dreams of death, of Robbie naked on a table, but dreams involving Gowry. She wakened from these dreams in a sweet, moist sweat, smiling and relaxed and filled with astonishment that this thing could be happening to her in the midst of so much bloodshed.

‘All right.' Reaching out, she took the nightgown and folded it carefully, ready for packing. ‘Thank you, Angela. I'll make sure it comes to no harm.'

‘Harm?' said Angela. ‘Dear God, Becky, it's only a nightgown.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘Yes,' said Angela, gently. ‘Of course I know what you mean.'

*   *   *

Paris was eighty miles away, Boulogne seventy. Trains on the Nord railway carried troops and ordnance towards the front, though where the front would finally be established not even the know-all corporal in the crowded compartment would hazard a guess. The corporal was a notorious pain in the arse and Gowry was relieved to stumble out of the carriage and watch the corporal vanish, still yapping, into the crowd.

Paris, though: he could picture himself in Paris with Becky. Could picture himself in Boulogne too, looking out over the sands at the Channel, with London just three hours away. That, Gowry thought, was something for another day. Right now he was in Amiens, a stone's throw from the Somme with the faint grumble of guns in the distance and, much closer, a French military band playing a sprightly tune.

French soldiers were everywhere. They mingled with the British in well-cemented friendship; what did they call it – an
entente cordiale?
He lingered on the steps of the railway station for a moment, watched the band pass the mouth of the street and inhaled the rich, pervasive aroma of coffee and the muffled odours of the fustian factories, and thought how pleasant it was to be in a place that hadn't been pulverised by shelling.

Twenty-one months ago the Iron Guard had goose-stepped through these same streets, singing songs of victory. They had forced the ancient capital to surrender and had torn down the tricolour from the town hall before marching on to take Paris. But the Jerries hadn't taken Paris and would never take Paris and the Iron Guard weren't singing songs of victory any more. How did he know such things? How did any soldier know anything? By rumour and gossip, tales told over cooking stoves and in the dark watches of the night. As he loitered on the step under the station arch, Gowry wished that he could have been here when Froggie fought back, when the Jocks and the Lancers joined the fray and Paris was saved and this town, Amiens, relieved.

Slapping him on the back and yelling, ‘Buck up, McCulloch. Don't keep the lady waiting,' Burke brought Gowry to earth again.

Shaking his head and laughing as Burke and Paddy Morgan brushed past, Gowry stepped down on to the cobbles and set off to find the Cathedral Hotel where, with luck, Becky was waiting to welcome him.

*   *   *

At that hour in the afternoon the foyer was deserted. It smelled of aniseed and wax polish, was shabby but clean. Above the staircase a huge electrical fan softly paddled the stale air.

Becky was seated on the staircase, anxiously watching the door and looking, Gowry thought, like a little Dublin flower-seller. He felt a pang of remorse at all the lustful thoughts he had harboured towards her and was glad that they were alone. Becky rose timidly. She wore a navy sports coat with a shawl collar and a round, stiff-brimmed hat. She had applied some face powder and a touch of rouge that made her cheeks glow brightly. Her eyes glistened and he wondered if she'd been crying and if so what she had been crying about. Then, putting the question behind him, Gowry slipped off his pack and took her in his arms and let her lean on him, as if weeks of parting had wearied her and she needed rest. He held her without pressure and only when she leaned back to look up at him did he kiss her.

She thrust her face up, eyes closed, and drew him to her so tightly that for a moment he could hardly breathe.

He smelled of sweat and tobacco smoke, of packed railway carriages, trench latrines and the dust of the training grounds, the stink of war that no amount of yellow soap and lukewarm water could remove. He had shaved carefully, though, and his cheek was fairly smooth, and Becky didn't seem to mind what he smelled like, and she was so flowery and fresh that Gowry, the bold, brave soldier, suddenly found himself crying.

‘Oh, Gowry, dearest darling,' Becky whispered, ‘what's wrong?'

With the same embroidered little handkerchief with which she had wiped his eyes on the lawn at Saint-Emile, she dried his tears once more.

The wife of the hotelier appeared behind the upright desk.

She was a large woman in her fifties, sallow-skinned and hollow-eyed.

‘Monsieur, êtes-vous malade?'

Becky answered,
‘Non, madame. Il a simplement le mal de guerre.'

‘Le pauvre. Tu sauras le guérir, alors?'

‘Oui, Madame Gaubert. Je ferai de mon mieux.'

‘What did she say?' Gowry asked.

‘She asked if we were lovers.'

‘What did you tell her?'

‘I told her we were,' said Becky and, lifting Gowry's pack, led him to the room upstairs.

*   *   *

‘Are you feeling better now?' Becky asked

‘I am,' Gowry answered. ‘Sorry I made such an exhibition of myself. I don't know what came over me.'

‘I didn't think I was
that
ugly,' said Becky.

‘It wasn't you who reduced me to tears.' Gowry rested his cheek on his hand, an elbow propped on the chequered tablecloth. ‘Well, perhaps it was. You looked so – I don't know – so lovely, I just couldn't help myself.'

‘That's an awfully nice thing to say to a girl,' Becky told him. ‘Are you buttering me up by any chance?'

‘Why would I want to butter you up?' said Gowry.

‘Because I'm here with you. Because we're here together.'

‘I meant it,' Gowry said. ‘I'd never lie to you.'

Becky adjusted the dessert fork and spoon for the umpteenth time since they had seated themselves at the corner table in Madame Theo's, a back-street restaurant off the Boulevard Baraban.

There were too many red-hatted staff officers present for Gowry's liking but several of his cronies from the Rifles were unconcernedly scoffing oysters at a table by the window, for Madame Theo's was an open house and anyone was welcome here, provided they could pay the bill. Brusque, statuesque Madame Theo and three young serving girls apart, Becky was the only woman there and Gowry was well aware that half the men in the room were giving her the eye.

They had eaten lentil soup, stew and sweet potatoes and had mopped up the gravy with pinches of bread from a long soft oatmeal loaf. Gowry had drunk two glasses of beer and Becky a glass of wine and now they were waiting for a cream cheese pudding and a jug of real coffee to finish off with. He felt much better now, better than he'd done a couple of hours ago when he had lain chastely with Rebecca on the quilt of the bed in the room in the Cathedral Hotel and Becky had soothed his distress with funny little Scottish endearments.

‘You needed something in your stomach, that's all,' Becky said.

‘Is that a medical judgement?'

She laughed, though she was still rather tense.

She had been anything but tense on the bed in the room, though there had been no hanky-panky. He wondered what her friend had told her, the buxom blonde nurse. He blew out cigarette smoke and watched Becky manoeuvre the fork into a new position on the chequered cloth.

‘I just didn't expect you to – to react the way you did.'

‘Believe me,' Gowry said, ‘I didn't expect it either.'

‘I thought when we were upstairs together you'd…'

‘What?'

‘I thought you'd want to…'

Becky's sidelong glance reminded him of a love long since lost. He had been young then and bubbling with sexual need and had stolen Sylvie from his brother to prove himself the better man. He couldn't explain why the Scots nurse had captured his heart or why, in a smoke-filled restaurant in a French town only twenty miles from the front, he was suddenly reminded of Sylvie.

‘I do,' he said. ‘I do want to, but I don't want you to run away with the idea that's all there is to it.'

‘To what?'

‘Us, to our meeting again.'

‘I'm not a wee girl, Gowry. And there aren't any rules, are there?'

‘Damned few,' Gowry admitted. He paused, then said, ‘What'll you do when the war's over? Go home to Scotland, or stay in nursing?'

‘I've no idea,' Becky said. ‘What about you? Back to Dublin?'

‘There isn't much for me in Dublin any more.'

‘Your daughter, your wife?'

‘My wife's taken up with another man.'

She covered his hand with hers. ‘Oh, Gowry, I'm sorry. I had no idea.'

‘She's had a child by him.'

Again, ‘Oh, Gowry.'

‘It started before I enlisted.'

‘Did she tell you,' Becky said, ‘about the child?'

‘My mother wrote me. It's the only letter I've had from anyone back home. Even my daughter cut me off when I joined the army. I reckon my dear old darlin' mother wrote me more out of spite than pity. Sorry if I sound bitter, Becky, but I thought I should tell you before we become too fond of each other.'

‘I didn't mean to pry.'

‘You're not prying. You're entitled to know how it is with me.'

‘Am I?'

She had her hand in his now, fingers entwined.

‘I've no wish to deceive you into thinking I'm better than I am. I've only myself to blame for what happened to my marriage,' Gowry said.

‘
You
didn't have a lover, though, did you?'

‘No, I did not.'

‘You drove an omnibus,' Becky said.

Gowry tried to laugh, to make light of his confusion.

He said, ‘Aye, that's vice enough for any man.'

‘Were you involved in the troubles?'

‘My father and brothers were. I don't even know what's happened to them and, callous as it may sound, I don't much care. I'd like to know about my daughter, but I'm blowed if I'll go beggin' for news.'

‘Is there no one back home you can write to?'