Annie Groves - The Grafton Girls

‘Oh, I thought you must have left,’ Myra greeted her unenthusiastically, immediately turning her back on Diane to move closer to the GI standing next to her. Myra said something to him and when he turned round to look at her, Diane recognised immediately what sort he was. He might be tall and good-looking but he was also a thoroughly unpleasant type, she decided as he subjected her to open appraisal, whilst draping one arm casually around Myra. It wasn’t just Myra who was hanging on his every word, Diane noticed. He also seemed to be the ringleader of a group of noisy GIs.

‘We must go, Myra,’ Diane told her crisply. ‘I’ve arranged to walk home with another girl, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.’

‘Well, don’t then,’ Myra told her sharply. ‘You go ahead and leave. Nick here will walk me home, won’t you, Nick?’

‘I sure wish I could, doll, but the MPs will have me by the balls if I did. Uncle Sam doesn’t want us getting ourselves into trouble with you Brits.’

‘ You get into trouble?’ Myra pouted.

‘Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it, guys?’ he demanded.

Diane winced as she heard the loud chorus of assent.

‘Sarge says to tell you the transport is about to leave.’

There was something about the coldly venomous look that the man with Myra gave to the young GI who had approached them that shocked Diane back to full sobriety. Poor boy, what on earth had he done to provoke a look of such openly vicious dislike? She watched in silence as Myra’s companion turned on his heel without saying a word and strode off in the direction of the other GIs, leaving the now red-faced younger man to trail behind him.

What on earth, Diane wondered, could Myra possibly see in a man like that?

‘So you walked home with young Ruthie Philpott last night, did you?’ Mrs Lawson commented as she poured Diane a cup of tea, and then continued without waiting for Diane to answer her. ‘Feel sorry for her, I do. Well, you can’t not do really, not after what happened to her dad, and then her ma taking it so badly, like. Tell you about that, did she?’

‘She said that her mother was a widow,’ Diane answered, ‘but she didn’t go into any details.’

‘No, well, she wouldn’t. She’s not that sort of girl. Her dad was in the ARP; got killed in a bomb blast, he did. A real shame it was ’cos they was a nice little family. Kept themselves to themselves, mind you. You’d see them walking to church together every Sunday. But Ruthie’s ma, she took her husband’s death real bad. Not bin the same person since she lost him, she hasn’t. One minute she’s out looking for him and won’t have it that he’s gone, and then the next she’s crying her eyes out and refusing to let young Ruthie leave her side. Dr Barnes has had to come out to her a fair few times, to give her something to calm her nerves. I’m surprised young Ruthie went out and left her. Not like her, that isn’t.’

‘I think, from what Ruthie said, that a neighbour was with her mother.’ Diane felt obliged to defend the other girl.

‘Oh, yes, that’d be Mary Brown. Her hubby, Joe’s, in the ARP as well. You was in later that I was expecting.’

‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ Diane apologised automatically.

Mrs Lawson gave a small sniff. ‘Well, as to that, I’m a martyr to not being able to sleep, I am, and that’s no mistake. Still, at least you’re up at a decent hour this morning. Unlike some people,’ she added, giving a significant look towards the ceiling.

‘Myra should be down soon.’

‘I should hope so. In my day a married woman didn’t go out dancing for all the world like she didn’t have a husband. I suppose there was a lot of them Americans there, was there?’

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