Pat Barker - Noonday

“No.”

“Somebody should shoot the bugger. Oh, and the other thing was…” She hesitated. “I had a boyfriend, we weren’t engaged or anything, and he was posted missing at Dunkirk. Of course his mam’s convinced he’s still alive — though I can’t help thinking the Red Cross would’ve found him by now — and of course I have to go and see her, I can’t not, and to be honest…Well, you know. I don’t think we’d ever have got married, but there it is, in her mind we were going to get married, and we still are. I feel such a hypocrite.”

“Well, you’ve no reason to.”

“No, I know. Anyway, I just thought I can’t go on like this, so what did I do?” She raised her glass. “Took a leaf out of me brother’s book.”

“And joined the Marines?”

She laughed. “Nah. Joined the Wrens.” She drained her glass. “I joined up.”

“Good God. I think you deserve another drink.” He picked up the glasses and stood looking down at her. “Something stronger?”

“I’ll have a port and lemon.”

In the last twenty minutes the crowd round the bar had thinned considerably, so he wouldn’t have long to wait. He could see her through the open door. She was tracing a pattern in a puddle of spilled beer, the sunshine finding auburn glints in her brown hair. So she was leaving, then, probably in a couple of weeks. Right from the start the affair, if there was going to be an affair, would be limited; in time and in commitment. Well. He picked up the glasses. That was the one thing necessary to make her utterly irresistible.

He put their drinks down on the table, sat on the bench beside her, closer than before. “Well, there is this: you’ll be a helluva lot safer in the Wrens than you are here.”

She smiled and they clinked glasses.

“By the way, have you told anybody yet?” He meant other members of the team.

“I told bloody Nick. Do you know what he said?”

“Let me guess. ‘Up with the lark, to bed with a Wren.’ ”

Nick was a strange lad. At times he seemed almost simpleminded, but he could spell any word backwards, and tell you in a second how many letters there were. He never looked you in the eye, so it was difficult to know whether you were making contact or not. And he was especially awkward around young women. He’d sidle up to them, make remarks he clearly intended to be flirtatious, but which many of the girls found offensive, even, some of the younger girls particularly, intimidating. No doubt about it, Nick was a problem.

“I hate all that,” Sandra was saying. “You know, the ATS being ‘officers’ groundsheets’—and the WAAF ‘pilots’ cockpits.’ It’s just not true. I know a lot of girls who’ve joined up and none of them are like that.”

“No, I’m sure they’re not.” He hoped Nick’s stupid innuendo wasn’t going to produce a backlash of propriety in Sandra. If it did, he’d personally strangle the little sod. “I think a girl who wants to join up should be entitled to respect, same way as a man.”

She smiled at him. “I suppose you were in the last war?”

“Ye-es.” He wasn’t altogether happy to see the conversation turning to his age. “Long time ago.”

Twenty minutes till blackout. A noisy group at the bar were bidding each other good night, setting off to the station, to wives and children and safety. Paul slid his hand along the bench towards her and let it lie there, palm upwards. Silence. He felt a pressure in his throat, he couldn’t breathe. After a while she glanced sideways, smiled again and covered his hand with her own.

Bloody desperate, this. Picking up her bag, Bertha braced herself to face the stairs. Never liked coming home. Every morning, she plunged onto the streets craving light and space. Every afternoon, she crept back, cowed by the vast expanse of sky. Mind, she wasn’t as bad as she used to be. When she first come out, she used to hide in shop doorways, because the bustle was more than she could stand. You didn’t get much bustle in prison, only the one hour a day in the exercise yard, trudging round and round in a bloody circle. You weren’t supposed to talk to the other women, not that she’d have lowered herself, the riff-raff you got in there.

Needed to do something, cheer herself up. Sing. “Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…” Singing always cheered you up. “But when ye come back, and all the flowers are dying, if I am dead, as dead I well may be…” Well, not always. What lifted her spirits was the spirits she had in her bag, but it was a bit early to be starting on that. Gin and cod’s head — dear God, what a combination. Hated bloody cod’s head, but it was cheap, and if it was a choice between food and gin — and these days it quite often was — gin every time. She was turning into a right old gin-lizzie — her mam would’ve been horrified. Though, truth be told, she’d liked a tipple herself. She’d been thinking a lot about her mam recently. Well, childhood, really. School. Didn’t do to think too much about that. Or anything else back then, really. Only she loved her mam.

Landing. Pause for breath — up we go again. Bloody stairs — they’d be the death of her. Still, the seances were picking up, partly because she was pushing the limits. All the time now. But forty people, ten bob a ticket, not bad, not that she’d see anything like her fair share of it. Howard would have told them. To be fair, whatever his faults, he was the one pushing her along. He’d seen the opportunities — she hadn’t. And the first few seances, my God…Every bloody spirit who showed up— manifested, Howard said — he was always correcting her — was fighting mad. Furious. “No use blaming the spirits, love,” Howard said. “It’s you, you’re attracting it.” “Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?” “Well, it’s not exactly your fault, but you’re going to have to calm it down a bit, love. Nobody’s going to pay good money to get whacked over the head with a chair.”

Last lap now. She was looking down at her feet — plod, plod, plod — so she didn’t see him at first. But she heard breathing, so she stopped and peered into the darkness. Couldn’t see a bloody thing, somebody had nicked the lightbulbs on the stairs, but then a long shadow peeled itself off the wall.

“Oh,” she said. “You.”

“Now, now, no need to be like that.”

He was smiling, big yellow teeth bared in a grin. She wanted to tell him to bugger off, but she didn’t dare. Feet squarely planted, he stood waiting for her to unlock the door. Bloody key wouldn’t work, her hands were shaking, and all the time he stood there, watching. Weasel-faced little shit. Said his name was Payne. Didn’t believe it. Said he was a policeman — didn’t believe that either. She could smell police a mile off, but — and this was the alarming bit — if he wasn’t police, what was he?

As soon as she got the door open, he followed her into the room, took his hat off, looked all round, taking his time, finally pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”

“Well, Mrs. Mason. What a pleasure to see you again.”

She wasn’t going to dignify that with a reply, so she went over to the window and pulled the blackout curtain across. Attic windows were always fiddly, but at least it give her a minute to think. She switched on the light, checked to see the chamber pot was well tucked under the bed, and turned to face him. “What do you want?”

“You did a seance last night.”

“Gave.”

“What?”

“You don’t do seances, you give them.”

“Bit rich, isn’t it, seeing you charge the poor buggers ten bob?”