War Baby (19 page)

Ruby was speechless. She hadn't moved from the door. On the other side of the counter stood a man of average height with the deepest blue eyes and a familiar smile. He was also wearing an RAF uniform. On the shoulders were the insignia of the Free Polish Air Force. Ivan Bronowski was becoming a habit.

His grin almost split his face in half. An infectious grin. His hair was like ripe corn.

‘Have you any more pasties?'

He had a quirky glint in his eyes that made her think he might be teasing her. Not that she cared. He was here and she was glad that he was here.

Seeing as Ruby was standing there speechless, Frances carried on talking to the Polish pilot as though she wasn't there.

‘We don't have enough flour to make cheese pasties
and
fish pasties today. Sometimes we've got rabbit pie but not today. Or we might have pheasant or pigeon pie but that all depends on Mr Martin running over a pheasant or shooting a pigeon. Quite a few pigeons sometimes …'

Frances was chattering on like a train rattling on the rails.

‘Shut up, Frances,' Ruby said.

‘But all I was saying—'

‘Here. Take this sixpence and buy some sweets at Miriam's shop. There's enough there to cover your week's rations I don't doubt. Don't forget your book.'

The prospect of buying bull's-eyes and any other sweet she fancied might once have appealed to Frances. But that was when she was younger. She was not far off fourteen, and not so easily swayed by sweets, besides which adult conversations were becoming increasingly attractive.

‘Now,' snapped Ruby.

Frances sighed with an air of disconsolate boredom. ‘All right.'

‘She is your sister?' Ivan asked once the door had banged shut behind Frances.

‘My cousin. Her name's Frances. She's thirteen years old and thinks she knows it all.'

He rested one arm on the counter, one ankle crossed over the other. By doing that he was slightly lower than she was, his face looking up into hers.

‘She did not want to leave us alone?'

Ruby blushed. ‘She's at an awkward age. She wants to know everything I'm up to and listen in on every conversation I have.'

‘Are you up to anything at present?'

His eyes sparkled. Her heart leapt. She had no doubt as to what he was
really
asking her: did she have a regular boyfriend.

Ruby rested her folded arms on the counter so her face was level with his and there were only inches between them. She loved the way his flesh crinkled at the side of his eyes, the way he smiled as though he knew the biggest and best secrets in all the world. He made her skin tingle. He made her heart beat faster and her pulse race.

She smiled beguilingly. ‘I could be. Depending who I was with.' She said it huskily, just like a film star when out to get her man.

‘How about I take you out tonight?'

Ruby smiled at the same time as wishing she'd renewed her lipstick after answering the phone. It had to be smudged by now. She only hoped her eyes weren't too red from her earlier tears or the lipstick hadn't left smears of red on her teeth.

‘How could I resist?'

‘I have a motorbike. I will collect you at seven?'

It could have happened then and there, the lightest of kisses, but it didn't. Perhaps it was the uniform, perhaps it was the cheeky grin or the glint in those sparkling eyes, but Ruby wanted to wait for that kiss. Waiting until this evening would heighten her excitement and thence her enjoyment. Kissing Ivan, she decided, was worth waiting for.

The shop door closed behind him.

Too late she remembered baby Charlie's imminent arrival. Flicking the thumb of her nail against her mouth, she weighed up whether she should run after her Polish pilot and arrange another time for their date but she didn't want to put him off. She wasn't expecting her father and sister to be back until later, though she guessed they'd likely be tired after the journey. Were they expecting her to take charge? Coping with a baby was something her father hadn't done for years and her sister had never done, after all Frances had been a toddler when their father had taken her in.

Be here for them or out with her newfound beau? The choice was perilous. It was her duty to be here awaiting their arrival. On the other hand, she had been left to run the business. I'll be tired too, she told herself. I'm here all day looking after the store, even mixing up a fresh batch of dough this afternoon and setting it out to prove by the time they get back.

Anyway, Frances would be here and there was always Bettina who couldn't wait to see the baby. Besides the baby wasn't going anywhere.

She made her decision: Ivan Bronowski was too good a chance to miss. She deserved to go out and enjoy herself. She vowed not to be too late home. It didn't matter if the baby was in bed by the time she got back – she could volunteer to get up for him during the night. She'd be there for him and for everyone else later.

 

 

THE TRAIN PULLED
out of Paddington on time, but the journey was ponderously slow and the carriages packed with people, most of whom were in uniform.

Baby Charlie was asleep in Mary's arms. She kept looking down at him, humming a little tune, smelling the sweetness of him, feeling the warm weight of him in her arms. His eyes flickered open.

‘Give him here,' said her father. ‘Let me hold him.'

Reluctantly she passed the sleeping child to her father, though her eyes stayed fixed on the round, pink-cheeked face.

The moment she'd set eyes on young Charlie, she was smitten. As for Stan, he couldn't stop cuddling the little boy while telling him all about where he was going and what a lovely life he would have in the village.

The other people in the carriage looked on with amusement.

Mary leaned closer and whispered. ‘Dad, he's a baby. I don't think he understands a word you're saying.'

‘It doesn't matter. He likes the sound of my voice, don't you Charlie my boy.'

A pair of dark brown eyes looked up at them from beneath a thatch of black curly hair. Young Charlie's looks took after his mother rather than his father, but Stan Sweet didn't care. This little boy was a victim of war as much as his parents. He was his grandson and he loved him already.

Mary had been a little down on the journey up, but occupied with keeping Charlie amused, fed and changed helped her forget about her wedding night. Mike had promised her that he would write but he'd managed to telephone her just twenty-four hours after he'd left.

The sound of his voice and what he'd said made her feel guiltier than ever about their disastrous honeymoon.

‘I've no wish to force myself on anybody,' he'd said, ‘I can wait, though only because I love you.'

She hadn't argued with him. She desperately wanted a second chance, to put right what had been so wrong.

‘So when will I see you again?'

‘That's why I rang. Because I was called back off our honeymoon early, they've given me extra leave.'

‘That's wonderful.'

God bless the RAF, she thought. He was coming home. This would be her chance to make amends.

‘Yes. Wonderful!' He sounded edgy, almost evasive.

‘What's wrong?'

‘This is special leave. There's a chance I might be posted to a different outfit. I'll tell you all about it when I get there.'

On the journey to London both she and her father had pondered where Mike might be posted.

‘In his last letter he talked about applying to be transferred to fighters just to vary his experience. He thought it might be useful.'

She suspected it might also have something to do with getting posted to a base closer to the West Country. The bomber bases were in the east of the country where the land was flat and closer to the bombers' targets. The West Country, being further away, had mostly fighter bases.

‘Well, let's hope it won't be too far,' her father had said, giving her hand a quick squeeze.

He knew nothing about their wedding night and she wasn't likely to tell him. She couldn't even tell her sister in case Ruby laughed and told her she should have considered becoming a nun instead. Mary would be mortified if she did that, but perhaps Ruby was indeed the right person to ask. Her sister was so much more experienced – or willing – whichever the case might be – than she was. It wasn't even that she knew that Ruby had already lost her virginity; it was more that she clearly liked men and was so much more at ease with them than she was.

The train groped its way along railway lines cloaked in darkness, the driver easing his way forward. Every so often, he left the fireman stoking up the fire bed with coal while he hung out of the cab, using a railway issue storm lantern in order to see the signals telling him whether it was safe to continue. There had been instances of trains colliding, the driver unable to see whether the signal arms at the side of the track were up or down. They'd be best lit, but the dictates of the blackout banned this.

The journey took twice as long as in peacetime so by the time they got home Mary was using the torch to see their way ahead while carrying the baby's few things – milk, bottles, nappies, etc., in a canvas knapsack given to them by the adoption society. Her father carried Charlie, the baby's head resting on his shoulder, eyes closed in deep slumber.

‘He's been so good. Good as gold,' her father whispered, his voice full of pride.

It was almost ten o'clock by the time they gingerly made their way home from the station. Because of the blackout the bakery, like every other house and shop in the village, was in darkness.

The jangling of the bell above the shop door sounded before the weakening beam of her torch reflected off the glass. Mary made a mental note to seek out new batteries.

Frances was calling to them from the open door and just for once she'd remembered to turn off all the internal lights. The ARP warden – Malcolm Chance, their postmaster and one time member of Oswald Moseley's blackshirts – wouldn't hesitate to shop them if a light showed.

‘Uncle Stan! Have you got the baby? Can I see him? Can I?' Frances didn't attempt to keep her voice down.

‘Shush,' Mary called back. ‘You'll wake up the whole village.'

‘We've got him,' said Stan Sweet, sounding as though he'd won a million on the football pools, though to his mind his grandson was a better prize than that. ‘Where's our Ruby? Go and tell her we're back.'

A figure loomed up behind Frances, smothered in darkness.

Stan presumed it was Ruby. ‘Ruby! He's here. He's a right little corker!'

‘It's me, Stan.' Even before the torch caught her face, both Mary and her father recognised the voice of Bettina Hicks. ‘I couldn't wait to see the little chap. Now come on in and get your hat and coat off. I've made a stew for your supper and the kettle's boiling.'

‘Bet, you're an angel. I could murder a cup of tea!' Stan exclaimed.

Once they were inside, the door was closed against the darkness, the blackout curtain drawn across covering both the beige blind and the shop door.

Mary and her father blinked as the lights went on. They'd got used to the darkness and also to the gloominess of the lighting in the railway carriage.

On clapping her eyes on the baby, Bettina Hicks clasped her face in her hands. ‘Oh, my! Isn't he beautiful? So beautiful. May I hold him?' She looked pleadingly at Stan.

For a moment Stan Sweet tightened his arms around the child as though loath to let him go. ‘He's a bit of a buster,' he proclaimed. ‘Might be a bit heavy for you.'

‘I'll sit down,' said Bettina firmly once they were in the kitchen. ‘Mary can pour the tea and Frances can dish up the stew. It's rabbit stew and I made dumplings. Please,' she pleaded. ‘It's been such a long time since I held a baby.'

Stan Sweet couldn't ignore the tone of her voice or the imploring look in her eyes. She was a good sort, was Bettina, and he'd treated her badly during the past few months. Anyway, it was thanks to her that young Charlie had been born, seeing as it was at her house that Charlie and Gilda had made him – so to speak.

‘Well?' Stan shrugged off his coat. ‘Go fetch our Ruby to come and see her nephew. She's missing out. Where the devil is she?'

Bettina didn't look up from cooing at the baby and stroking his soft pink cheeks. He was still sleeping soundly. ‘She's not here, Stan. She had a date.'

‘Had a date?' His expression clouded as he looked around him as though half expecting her to leap out from playing hide and seek.

Frances piped up from counting Charlie's fingers and feeling for the tiny toes in the canvas boots he was wearing.

‘She's gone out with a man on a motorbike. I saw her go.'

Stan's face clouded over. ‘What man?'

Frances chattered on, unaware of her uncle's angry expression, too wrapped up in baby Charlie. ‘His name's Ivan. He's that pilot from Poland. He bailed out from his plane in the middle of Clancy's field when everybody was at our Mary's wedding. Ruby stopped them from sticking him with a pitchfork. And she gave him a pasty. He was very hungry, though I expect he would be after shooting down enemy bombers, don't you think?'

Stan Sweet prided himself on supporting anyone who had the guts to challenge the people who had killed his son; however, the fact that Ruby was not here to greet them and the baby overrode anything else. Her first duty should have been to her family. It didn't occur to him that his daughter might not be as engrossed in his grandson as he was. He expected everyone to feel as he did; in fact he couldn't imagine them thinking any other way.

Just as he was about to put his feelings into words, some of which would be downright angry, the sound of a motorbike engine came from outside, then fell to silence as it stopped outside the bakery.