The Diamond Waterfall (84 page)

She explained about the Spam and Mrs. Parr. “I just couldn't face it.” She thought it might be bad form to add that she'd turned down her date.

“Let
me
take you for a meal, will you? Then we can talk, catch up with everything.” He suggested a little restaurant about ten minutes' walk away. “If you don't know it—it's Italian and really jolly good. Even if you're not sure these days what's in some of the sauces.”

They sat at a table near the door. Almost at once the owner, a small
woman in black, gray hair in a knot, came over to speak to them. Christopher told her Willow came from the same village as he did. Afterward he said:

“A friend, Tim, and I came in a couple of times, then one day got talking to her. Her husband was one of the aliens interned in the Great Scare in 1940. Then a casualty on the
Arandora Star
when it was torpedoed. Bad enough losing him for the duration—but to lose him altogether like that …”

He said suddenly,
“You
had a tough time, Willow, some years ago. I wasn't around at the time—but I thought you were frightfully brave. The business of your mother, I mean. And then, of course, the Café de P.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did, really.” She didn't want him to say any more about it. Turning spaghetti around her fork, she said, “I was born here in Harrogate, by the way. But quite by accident.” When he said, “Tell,” it was a relief to talk.

He filled her in with Flaxthorpe news. He said that two of the convent girls had walked into the Fox and Grapes last month—a bet or something— and ordered six
crème de menthe.
The landlord had gotten quite fussed and rang the Reverend Mother, who seemed remarkably
un
fussed by it all. “What was said to them in private, I don't know.”

“It doesn't sound like
our
convent. At Our Lady of V—” She stopped: another subject she didn't care to talk about.

Twice he mentioned a girl's name—the same one—saying,
“We
did this,
we
did that …” She wasn't surprised. What else could she expect?

When she'd asked him about his work and whether he expected a posting overseas soon, they discussed the fact that they both had American cousins. They seemed to have plenty to talk about.

She said to him then, “I used to think you were super.”

“Oh dear—don't you anymore?”

“The time we played tennis together, when you were just back from India, I really muffed it by being absolutely tongue-tied and blushing horribly.”

“You
were
rather red in the face, now I remember.”

He poured out the last of the wine and said, “Have you seen that film, the Astaire one?” She shook her head. “Because I've a confession to make. I was just about to go in to it this evening. So I wondered, Why don't we see it on Thursday, if you're free? It's on all week and I can come over that night. Please.”

She thought, What wonderful thing is happening? I'm sitting opposite the handsomest man I've ever known, and he's
asking me out again.
Part of her wanted to be home, curled up on the end of Diana's bed, telling her all about it.

When she did, Diana was amazed. “How
wizard.
Some people get all the luck. My evening was
ghastly. “

She'd been given some bars of Cadbury's Orange chocolate and Willow
managed one in spite of the meal. Diana said, “He sounds really keen. I've got a romance going for you already.”

“I rather think he's got somebody.”

When they came out of the Odeon, her head was full of rhythms. Fred Astaire singing “I'm Old-Fashioned” to Rita Hayworth, all that swinging hair and voluptuous figure. To dance like that, to
look
like that, must be marvelous. As they walked down James Street, she hummed, “You were never lovelier …”

“You
were never lovelier,” Christopher said. “No, I'm not just shooting a line. You are very lovely—and I expect you've heard
that
lots of times before.”

She had, now that she came to think of it. She said, “It depends, of course, who says it.”

He took her hand. She'd been surprised he hadn't done so in the cinema. “I've another confession to make.”

“Again?”

“Well, no, not a confession—something I ought to tell you. On Monday when we met I'd just ended a—love affair. At least, I'd just mailed the letter. It was when we were stationed in Edinburgh, after Dunkirk. I thought I was serious at the time. Just lately I realized it—wouldn't work. So I wrote to her. I was feeling a perfect heel when I ran into you.” He paused. “So the truth is that I'm quite free.”

When he walked her home the evening seemed velvety, the light only just going. She felt certain he would kiss her when they reached the step, but as they came to the portico, Mrs. Parr was just letting the cat out. She had on her dressing gown but her curlers weren't in yet. Willow had to introduce Christopher.

“He looks a nice lad, your latest,” Mrs. Parr said the next morning. She glared at Diana. (Diana's Pole had called to her outside the window on Tuesday night. Mrs. Parr claimed to have had no sleep at all. I'll send for the law next time.)

“A nice class of boy,” she told Willow. “Nice manners. And a
captain
too. If he ever visits at the house, I'd not object—he could have a little go on the pianoforty.”

Willow and Diana got the giggles on the way to work. “I don't even know if he can
play,”
Willow said. And: “The very idea,” Diana said.

The few days left of May, and on into June, July, she spent more and more time with Christopher. Since that first outing to the cinema, the tone had changed. Once he'd said, “You're very lovely,” they had stopped being two Flaxthorpe people meeting, enjoying a ready-made acquaintance.

“I told Mother we were seeing lots of each other. She's thrilled about it.
She still misses your grandmother enormously, you know. She said to especially give you her love.” Of the Parkinson's disease, which was making life so difficult for all the family, he said only, “My father's illness. It's pretty grim.”

Whenever he could get into Harrogate and she was free, they were together. Olga, at work, complained there were an awful lot of long faces now that Willow was never available. “That smashing flight lieutenant you cast off…”

She found she was thinking about nothing else but the next meeting. The kisses under the portico were long. They always had lots to talk about. She refused weekend invitations to Diana's home so she could be with him—even missing the chance to meet Diana's beloved brother, Peter, on short leave from his ship.

They borrowed bicycles and cycled to Fountains Abbey. Another time he got hold of some petrol and drove her out to Malham Cove. They took the footpath to Gordale Scar. Waterfalls rushing down a steep gorge made her think of the tale of his brother Jack. Perhaps he had not thought when planning the outing? But when they had walked a while, and were away from the waterfalls, he said:

“I was thinking. You and I, we're closer than we realize. Your Uncle Hal and my brother Jack—inseparable, evidently. Hal was there when it happened. And so of course was the boy who was Michael's uncle—Stephen, the one who took them fishing that day. The whole thing,” he said, “was a shadow over my life. Mother in some ways has never got over it. It wasn't that she was overanxious when I was small—in fact she went out of her way
not
to be. But I could feel it like an atmosphere. My father's never wanted to talk about it, he always changes the subject.”

Another day he was able to take her out to the moors near Linton. It was a fine day, and they lay out in the sun and talked and kissed and talked.

“You know what's happening, don't you?” he said. “I'm twenty-nine and
very
serious—about you. How is it with you, darling? Darling Willow. Do you like it when I touch your breasts?”

She said, “I wish they were like Rita Hayworth's.”

“Oh, that's all done with mirrors,” he said. “And anyway it's the girl that goes with the bust that matters to a chap. Honestly. You're just so … Brown eyes, fair hair. To me you're just gorgeous. And if that's corny, I'm unrepentant. Now, let me show you I appreciate you.”

She felt safe with him. “I'm only asking for this, lots more of this. I'd never ask … I'm old-fashioned, just like the song in
our
film. Not that it isn't what I want more than anything, here with you now. But I do feel enormously protective. You mustn't worry, because I won't—you won't be taken advantage of.”

“What if I'd like to be?” she asked, sick with sudden excitement.

“In that case—” He broke off suddenly. “Look, we ought to be going. One more kiss before you do your blouse up. I think there's something very serious I'm going to have to say to you.”

“Is it a telling-off? I'm pretty used. After the convent and Mrs. Parr

“It's not. And if you go on looking so lovely and not buttoning up your blouse—no, you won't get kissed again. Only surprised by those Home Guard just coming over the bridge.”

Christopher's friend, Tim, joined him a couple of times and they went out in a foursome with Diana. Diana was very aggravated with her Pole. He'd been seen at the Roxy cinema in Knaresborough with a friend of Olga's, or so Olga said. Tim was almost as good-looking as Christopher but in a swarthy way. His moustache was an RAF handlebar. The second time Christopher and Tim came to collect the girls, Mrs. Parr made them promise to come back for a cup of tea.

She came and sat with them. She had her curlers out and wore a blue frock with yellow marguerites which looked not unlike her housedresses. She brought up the subject of the piano again. Christopher, warned by Willow, explained that he couldn't play a note.

It appeared Tim could. Before Mrs. Parr could say anything, he had crossed to the piano stool.

“I'm sure that'll be all right,” she said feebly. Willow felt almost sorry for her.

“Bit dicky, your ivories, Mrs. Parr,” he said. He picked out with one finger “I've Got Sixpence,” then began to vamp with his left hand, a few agonizing chords. The sounds were terrible. He moved a vase off the top of the piano: “Excuse me.” Then, looking inside: “You've got moth in your dampers, Mrs. Parr. I should get that seen to.”

Sitting down again, he went straight into “You Are My Sunshine.” “And now one our hostess is sure to know … ‘Kiss Me Good Night, Sergeant Major.'”

“Sergeant Major, be a mother to me
…” all four sang, and enjoyed it. Willow was amazed to see Mrs. Parr, sausage curls nodding, as Tim thumped, trying to coax out notes. She seemed to have forgotten that pianos weren't meant to have their keys struck.

Afterward: “This moth now, Captain Jennings,” she said. “What's best to do about it?”

Willow
had
to ask Christopher. She felt it was foolish not to find out if he knew something. At the same time she couldn't
tell
him anything.

So one day when they were talking casually about his spinster sister
Edie, now doing very well in the ATS, about his sister Amy, her grown-up children all in the services, she said to him:

“When you were small do you remember a Dr. Selwood?”

“Selwood? The faintest of bells. Dr. Ash, I remember Dr. Ash. So will you. Dr. Sowerby when I was very small. But Selwood—”

“He wasn't there long,” she said, “I think less than a year. Anyway— you don't remember anything?” She didn't want to press him. Blurred memories of a child … what would she gain?

“Sorry, no. Why?”

“I just wondered. Something I'd heard about him.”

Something I'd heard about him.
I heard that he was my father!

Her excitement. In the daytime, bent over her typewriter, she often pinched herself. It wasn't real, as if part of her life were a fairy tale. Diana said, “It's all so—it's
absolutely
… If you're not in love with him, you jolly well ought to be.”

She supposed she was. In love. Since it was all much more intense than with anyone before—even Gerry, and she'd certainly been in love
then.

But sometimes, suddenly, she would feel that she was standing a long way away, watching both of them walking in the Valley Gardens, kissing. They were two other people, Willow and Christopher. But Willow is
me.
Then she would shiver, feeling icy. Once he said, “Shivering on a hot day. Did someone walk over your grave?”

“Yes.”

But it was another “yes” that worried her. Only a matter of time now. Even then it took her by surprise.

“I know you're not quite twenty. I hope you don't think, just another wartime romance. I hope you realize I really am terribly, terribly serious. We've had two whole months to get to know each other. What I'd love best…”

“Marrying,” she said, “I hadn't thought.”
(What a lie!)
“It's a big question. I wouldn't want to say yes unless I was absolutely sure. I know you love me. I
do
love you. I just want time to think.”

At the same time she was excited, wildly so. Christopher Hawksworth
wants to marry me.
It was suddenly so very serious and grown-up. If she said yes, when would they be married? She knew he could not be forever stationed in England. If and when he went overseas, would they be married first?

When he left her on the step, very late, she hurried upstairs to Diana's room, hoping she was in, wanting to sit on the end of the bed and talk about getting married.

Yes or no? To be or not to be?

But Diana was sitting, fully dressed, on her bed, her face puffy with weeping.

“Diana, love—”