Starshine (20 page)

He smiled but looked back over his shoulder to see the man with the slicked-back hair turn up a side street and he made a mental note.

The days were cold now and Hickman ached to make love to Polly. She was affectionate as they did the normal things that courting couples did – go to the moving pictures, once to Aston Hippodrome at the bottom of Potters Hill to see Eugene Stratton and even taking a
tram to the Lickey Hills, as his walking improved – but she was careful to restrain him as they kissed and cuddled at the evening’s end. He wondered about Wagstaffe. Could there be something there? Then he dismissed the idea. Polly was not that sort of girl. Nevertheless, he decided that, once his foot had recovered, he would have a quiet word with the man with the shiny, wavy hair.

This peacetime idyll was disturbed about ten days after Jim’s return when they both – Polly and Hickman – received a letter from Bertie. He had secured leave! If the Holy Mother spared him, he reported, he would be back in Turners Lane within the week. They were both to meet him at the station, for he would catch a train from London that would arrive in the evening. And would they tell his father because the old feller couldn’t read, as they both well knew.

Jim felt his heart fall at the news. Then he felt ashamed. His best friend, the man who had saved his life, was coming home to join them for ten days – it should have been a cause for rejoicing. Now, he realised, he would have to share Polly. Well, he shrugged his shoulders, they always used to. They were inseparable. A trio linked by pure, unsullied love. No. He shook his head as he looked at the pencilled scrawl. There was no getting away from it. Things were, well, different now. He realised he was jealous. Ridiculously, stupidly jealous. Why had things changed? It was, he knew, the thought, the suspicion, that Bertie had made love to Polly that night in London. ‘With eyes of tender blue’ be buggered! That was why she was restrained with him now. She loved Bertie more. He felt a sadness consume him that was more acute than the pain from his wound. This, he realised, was going to be difficult to live with.

He put on a brave face with Polly who, of course, was consumed with delight that the three would be reunited for the first time since the war came to blight their existence. They must, she said, make
arrangements: a party at her house with her and their parents, visits to the picture palace and the theatre for the three of them and she would try and get the holiday time that was due to her so that they could spend days together. Why, perhaps they could all go away together! For one terrible moment, Jim thought that she was going to propose a few days in Malvern – and perhaps she was, for she suddenly fell silent and nothing more was said about that.

They dutifully paraded on Platform No 1 and waited for the London train to emerge from the tunnel. Polly perhaps sensed Jim’s ambivalence for, as they stood there, she suddenly reached up, kissed his ear and smiled up at him. Nothing was said. Was she trying to reassure him or was it the beginning of a long, rather sad farewell?

It was the old Bertie who half fell out of the train in his eagerness. His kitbag was undone at the top, of course, and what appeared to be a pair of long johns were beginning to trail from the opening. One of his boots was undone and he trod on the laces as he rushed towards them, falling onto the bag and then, getting up, and laughing, laughing.

They all embraced, with Bertie giving Polly the kind of kiss that Jim felt should be reserved for the bedroom. Then the talking began – or rather, Bertie began. His was stream-of-consciousness stuff: a non-stop recounting of the journey, the new battalion to which they both now belonged, how he missed them both, and wait until Polly saw the French perfume he had brought her, and how nothing had been seen of Black Jack Flanagan so perhaps the good Lord had taken him in his mercy … and so on.

Polly interrupted him. ‘Let’s go and have a glass of wine at—’ she began but Jim intervened. ‘No,’ he said hurriedly. Dammit, he was not going to share even that precious table in the corner –
their table
– with Bertie. ‘I think Bertie could do with a pint of ale. I could certainly do
with one. There’s a good pub around the corner. Come on.’

He bent to pick up the kitbag but Bertie was quicker. ‘Good idea, son,’ he said, throwing the bag over his shoulder so that the long johns hung down his back from the bag like some strange pennant. ‘How’s the foot and the leg, then? Looks as though you’re hoppin’ about quite well. Did I tell you about old George Cooper in C Company …?’

That night there was a convivial party in Polly’s house, to which other neighbours as well as the soldiers’ relatives were invited. Mr Johnson, of course, had an upright piano in the parlour and Bertie insisted on singing ‘At Seventeen’ to Polly, whom he lifted onto the piano top. Jim observed that she had the grace to look embarrassed, for what Bertie lacked in musicality in his rendition, he made up for in passion, clutching her hand at the end with the words ‘… And he loves her as he’s never loved before.’ Dammit, the little man was becoming almost proprietorial about Polly, in front of everyone, too!

For Jim Hickman, the ten days of Bertie’s leave seemed to drag slowly. Polly had been unable to get leave so the threesome were reunited only in the evenings, for she was on the day shift, and at one weekend, when they went rowing, as of old, in Handsworth Park and borrowed bicycles – by this time Jim had been able to substitute a stout walking stick for his crutches – and cycled up the dusty track to Barr Beacon, one of the original beacon signal points established across England to warn of the Spanish invasion. The old comradeship, however, seemed to have slipped away, to be replaced by a rather forced conviviality. At least, so it appeared to Jim – and, he sensed, also to Polly – although Bertie seemed sublimely happy in their company.

He and Bertie had taken to meeting Polly at the work gates every
evening and twice he had noted that Wagstaffe – he had learnt his name from Polly – had walked to the gates with her, earnestly chatting (or was it beseeching?) before peeling away when he saw the two men in uniform. He began to hate the appearance of the man, with his gleaming shoes and shining hair. This was matched with a growing annoyance at Bertie’s open flirting with Polly and his constant touching of her and snatched kisses. Hickman ached to be alone with Polly and was torn with a sense of disloyalty to his old friend. The result was that he became even more taciturn and monosyllabic in their company. He realised that this was doing nothing to help his relationship with Polly, who occasionally upbraided him with it: ‘Come on, Jim, love. Give us a smile.’

On the last day of Bertie’s leave, for which Polly had managed to wangle a day off, Jim deliberately arranged a hospital appointment, an examination he said had been set up weeks before and could not be changed, for it involved a complicated series of tests. In some sort of compensation for his behaviour, he argued with himself that it was only fair that the lovers should have the day to themselves. As a result, he brooded in the corridors of Birmingham’s General Hospital, deliberately wasting time before and after his appointment with the military doctor. It was only Polly, therefore, that went with Bertie to the station.

Sitting on a wooden bench in the hospital, Jim’s frustration grew until, at roughly the time that Polly would be kissing Bertie goodbye, he came to a decision. He limped out of the hospital, swinging his wounded leg with energetic conviction, and boarded the tram, getting off two stops later at Witton. He looked at his watch. Good, he had only about five minutes to wait. Taking up position behind the brick buttress near the Kymestons gate, he clenched and unclenched his fist as he reflected on his position. The girl he loved was undoubtedly in
love with his best friend – whatever she said, that must be the truth, otherwise she would have accepted his proposal of marriage. This was not Bertie’s fault, nor Polly’s. It was just sad, bloody sad. No, worse than that …

His internal fulminations were interrupted by the appearance of Wagstaffe, walking in his smart shoes and suit, head in the air, amongst a crowd of girls. He let the man pass him, then fell in step behind him, hurrying to keep up with his dot-and-carry gait until the man turned into the quiet side street into which he had made his way the first time Hickman had seen him.

‘Excuse me,’ Jim called. Wagstaffe turned and a quick look of recognition flashed across his face.

‘Sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘Can’t stop.’

‘Oh yes you can.’ Balancing unsteadily, Jim reached out with the curved handle of his stick and caught it underneath Wagstaffe’s chin and pulled him back as the man tried to walk away.

‘I want a word with you.’

‘Now, there’s no need for violence,’ said Wagstaffe. ‘I’ve never laid a finger on Polly. And besides,’ he gestured, ‘you’ve got a bad foot.’

‘Ah, you’ve noticed. Now I wonder how I got it?’ A slow burn of rage began to rise within Hickman’s brain. All the frustration of his love for Polly, his affection for Bertie and of the mess that it seemed his life was descending into came to a head within him. The man in front of him was not to blame but, by God, he was a mean, despicable object, the sort of man who was doing well in a safe job at home while good men were being killed!

He hooked his free hand under Wagstaffe’s tie and pulled him close. ‘I’ll tell you how I got it, friend. I was shot twice by a German machine gun on a day on the Somme when thousands of good men died. They died while you were feathering your nest back here and trying to pull
innocent young girls into bed, you fucking little twit.’ He released his hold, swung his fist back and hit the man on the cheekbone.

Wagstaffe immediately went down with a cry. In a fury, Hickman lifted his stick and beat the man about the head and shoulders, hitting him repeatedly as the foreman crouched, foetus-like, on the pavement screaming, his hands lifted in an attempt to protect himself.

How long the beating would have continued Jim had no idea, for he saw in the pathetic figure cowering at his feet the symbol of all his troubles. Then a firm hand seized his arm and a voice said, ‘Now, that will do, Sergeant. The man’s an Englishman, not a German.’

He turned, perspiring, to look into the eyes of a large, elderly policeman. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What? Oh, yes. I’m sorry. Dammit … lost control. Sorry. Sorry.’

The policeman said, not unkindly, ‘Now just you stand against that privet hedge there, Sergeant, while I help this man up.’ He turned to Wagstaffe, who remained crouched on the pavement. ‘Are you hurt, sir? Can you stand? Yes, get up now, I’m sure you can. There will be no further violence.’

The foreman scrambled onto his hands and knees, his oiled hair hanging over his forehead, blood on his tie and shirt and his suit covered in dust. Then he stood, unsteadily. ‘The man’s a lunatic,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t know the man from Adam but he suddenly starts hitting me. I think me collarbone’s broken. Bloody lunatic.’

‘I see, sir.’ The constable looked at Hickman and back at Wagstaffe. ‘I presume then, sir, that you will be proffering charges, in which case I must ask you both to come with me to the station.’

‘What? Er … no. Let it drop.’

‘What about your collarbone, then, sir?’

‘I think it’s all right.’ Then in a sudden burst of anger, ‘But this bastard should be locked up.’

The policeman waited a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this “bastard”, as you call ’im, is wearing the ribbon of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, ’e’s earned the rank of sergeant and ’e’s obviously been wounded. If you wish to have him locked up you must proffer charges. Which is it to be?’

‘Bah.’ Wagstaffe snarled. ‘Let it go. I’ve got to get home for me tea, anyway.’ He brushed his suit with his hand, pulled a comb from his pocket and adjusted the waves in his hair, glared at them both and walked away.

‘Now, Sergeant.’ The policeman turned to Hickman. ‘What was it all about?’

Jim found himself trembling. ‘Sorry. I lost it, I’m afraid. Glad you came along, otherwise I might have killed him.’

‘Exactly. So … what was it about? You obviously knew ’im?’

‘Yes, well sort of. He’s my girlfriend’s foreman at Kymestons. He’s a married man in what they tell me is a reserved occupation, but he’s been trying to get her into bed for over a year. She wants nothing to do with him, but he keeps bothering her. I was going to try and reason with him, but I saw red, I’m afraid. It won’t happen again.’

‘It had better not. He could ’ave brought a case of grievous bodily ’arm against you. You mustn’t be violent, you know. I should think you see enough of that at the front. Now, from now on, Sergeant, avoid the man – and tell your girlfriend to do the same. All right? If he carries on, then perhaps the thing to do is to ’ave a word with the management at the works. Eh?’

‘Yes, thanks. Thanks.’

‘Good. Now here’s your stick, son. Walk all right back ’ome?’

‘Oh yes, thank you. I’m all right now.’

‘Very well. Good day to you.’

‘Goodbye, officer.’

Hickman found he was still trembling and his foot was throbbing from where he had twisted it in making the assault, but he hobbled away, engulfed in a sense of shame and embarrassment. Thank goodness no charges had been made! Whatever would Polly have said if it had got back to her? He shook his head as he limped back to Turners Lane. He had undoubtedly become a violent man, there was no escaping it. If the constable had not arrived he could well have killed Wagstaffe. And killing now came easily to him, he recognised; a resolution to escape difficult situations, whether they were in the trenches or back home in peaceful Birmingham. Aah, he looked up at the heavens, this dreadful war had so much to answer for!

Polly had been put on night-shift working immediately after Bertie’s return and Jim did not see her for a couple of days, deliberately leaving her to herself as he wallowed in a mixture of shame and embarrassment. But he did not escape the aftermath of his attack on Wagstaffe.

‘Did you do it?’ she demanded the next afternoon, as they met to go to a Chaplin matinee at the Globe cinema.

‘Er … do what?’