Monday Girl Page 19

  ‘What have you been doing with yourself lately?’ he asked.

  She was disappointed that he was not being more sentimental, and said, in an offhand manner, ‘Oh, just this and that.’

  ‘I hope you’re still going out to enjoy yourself, like I told you?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I go out with Sheila from the office quite a lot. I wrote and told you – to dances, the pictures, the ice rink, walks even, if it’s fine.’

  ‘Good. I’m the same.’ He looked at her squarely. ‘Life’s too short to waste time dreaming, Renee.’

  She understood that he was telling her that love shouldn’t enter into their relationship, and was suddenly angry with him. ‘I’ve met a few nice boys as well, and I’ve had a good time with them all.’ That might give him something to think about.

  His smile was perhaps a little forced, but he said, ‘And I’ve met quite a few very nice girls, so we’re quits.’

  The front door banged open, and he looked round in surprise at the clamour of footsteps and voices.

  ‘It’s only our land girls coming in,’ Renee told him. ‘I told you about them in my letters, remember?’

  He nodded. ‘I’d forgotten for the minute. They’re a lively lot, aren’t they?’

  Anne poked her head round the door. ‘Give me a hand, Renee, will you? That was the girls coming in, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, they’re home.’ Renee and Jack both rose and helped to carry through the various dishes to the dining room.

  ‘I’d better be going, though,’ he said after a few minutes.

  ‘You’ll be busy feeding your lodgers.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Jack. I’ve put out a plate for you.’ Anne guided him to a chair. ‘Just sit down and eat.’

  Kitty Miller and Flora Sims were the first pair to come through. ‘Oooh! A real, live soldier. Bags me first refusal.’ Kitty sat down beside Jack, who turned pink.

  ‘He’s not booked, is he, Renee?’ Flora sat down beside her landlady’s daughter.

  ‘No,’ Jack said, before Renee could answer. ‘I’m not booked.’

  ‘Carry on, Flora. You’ll maybe have more luck with him than I’ve had.’ Renee couldn’t resist it.

  Her mother looked at her quickly, and then at Jack, who looked away and started joking with the two land girls. ‘Ah, here’s Hilda and Nora,’ she said, when the last two appeared.

  ‘I’m Kitty, and I staked my claim first,’ Kitty declared and slipped her hand through Jack’s arm.

  ‘Sup that lentil soup and behave yourself,’ Anne laughed.

  The chaffing and teasing carried on throughout the meal, then the four boarders excused themselves from the table. As they went out, Kitty, who was last, turned and said,

  ‘Cheerio, lover boy. Hope to see you again.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ Jack said, winking to her.

  Renee had been surprised, and a little jealous, at the ease with which he had handled the flirting, but remembered that he had been coming in contact with lots of different girls since he left Aberdeen, and must have learnt how to deal with it, the same as she had learnt how to cope with advances from the various boys she allowed to accompany her home.

  At half past seven, Jack said, regretfully, ‘I’ll have to go. I want to catch the eight o’clock bus. My mother’s expecting me home.’

  ‘What a shame you can’t stay longer.’ Anne glanced at Renee.

  ‘He has to go home, Mum, and we’ve no spare beds.’ Anne hesitated. It wasn’t up to her to plead with him.

  ‘Will you manage to drop in again before you go back?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gordon. I just won’t have time, for I’ve dozens of relations, and friends of my mother’s, to go round, but I’ll see you on my next leave. So long just now.’

  ‘I’ll see you to the door.’ Renee made one last attempt to find out his true feelings for her.

  ‘Cheerio, then, Jack, and look after yourself,’ Anne said. On the doorstep, he gave the girl one gentle kiss then moved away. ‘Keep writing, Renee, please.’

  ‘You too, Jack.’ She watched him go down the path, then closed the door slowly and went back to the living room.

  Anne looked rather surprised. ‘You weren’t long.’

  ‘No, he was in a hurry.’ Renee sat down opposite her mother and picked up the newspaper, so Anne knew that she was being warned not to ask any questions.

  When Renee went to visit her grandmother the following Saturday, she said, ‘Jack Thomson came to see us for a wee while on Tuesday.’

  ‘Oh, how is he?’ Maggie McIntosh was always interested in everything the girl told her.

  ‘He was looking great. Kitty Miller could hardly keep her eyes off him, and he seems to be having a high old time with the girls at Catterick.’

  ‘Is the green-eyed monster rearin’ its ugly head, lassie?’ The old lady laughed, but watched the girl carefully.

  ‘A wee bit,’ Renee admitted.

  ‘But you’re havin’ a high old time wi’ the lads, as weel,’ Maggie reminded her. ‘It’s jist the same, and ye’re far ower young to be serious aboot onybody yet. Ye’re still only sixteen.’

  ‘I’ll be seventeen in September.’ Renee was indignant.

  ‘And you once told me you were only seventeen when you married Granda.’

  ‘Aye weel, but things were different in my young days, an’

  ye’re surely nae thinkin’ o’ gettin’ married, are ye?’

  ‘No, I was just saying.’ Renee laughed at her grandmother’s expression, and the woman joined in.

  ‘Wile aboot for a puckle years yet, dearie, till ye get a man that’s right for ye. I was lucky, for I got the best man in the world for me.’

  ‘Yes, you did, you lucky thing. How’s Granda keeping?’

  ‘He’s nae bad, an’ he loves bein’ message boy for me. He’s gettin’ to be a dab hand at watchin’ the prices.

  Naebody’ll cheat yer granda.’ Maggie looked proud. ‘Is yer mother aye busy wi’ her land girls?’

  ‘Yes, they keep her going all the time, but we get some good laughs with them and their stories about their boyfriends. Not boyfriends exactly, just boys they meet. But Mum was saying she’ll come to see you one of these days.’

  ‘Ony day, tell her. I’m stuck in the hoose fae morn to night, for my legs winna cairry me at a’. I need a stick to get to the lavvy, even. See, here it is, at the side o’ my chair.’

  ‘You always keep cheery, though, and that’s the main thing.’ Renee looked at her grandmother fondly.

  ‘Ach weel, it doesna dae to let yer heart doon.’

  ‘No, Granny, it doesna dae.’ She laughed at her own mimicry.

  When the girl was leaving, Maggie said, ‘Ha’e yersel’ a good fling when ye’re young. Ye’ll meet yer Mister Right ane o’ these days, jist wait an’ see.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. See you next Saturday, Granny.’ Renee walked home slowly. It was probably true. She couldn’t have met her Mr Right yet. Jack Thomson apparently didn’t feel ready to be serious about her, or he might not consider that she was his Miss Right. He was ‘wilin’ aboot’ like Granny had advised her to do, and taking his pick from a lot of girls.

  The evacuation of Dunkirk occupied all their conversation in a short time, and Renee was thankful that Jack had not been involved, nor Tim, who was still in England, nor Mike, who, presumably, was on his way to the Middle East or North Africa, although the news from there wasn’t any too good, either.

  ‘I was speaking to a boy who got out at Dunkirk,’ Kitty said one morning. ‘They just had what they stood up in, most of them. They lost all their gear.’

  ‘Gee whizz!’ exclaimed Flora. ‘That must have been terrible.’

  ‘Yes, he said it was something he wouldn’t want to go through again. They’d been on the beaches for days, hoping the
y wouldn’t be killed by enemy gunfire before they were picked up. He’d come to the Palais last night to try to forget, but it was haunting him. I could tell that.’

  ‘We don’t know we’re living, really,’ remarked Hilda. ‘It makes me angry to think of what these boys had to go through.’

  ‘They were the lucky ones,’ muttered Nora.

  The others looked at her quickly. There had been something odd in the way she said it, but she said nothing more, so Anne changed the subject quickly. ‘Do any of you girls want to take a bath tonight? Because if you don’t, I won’t bother lighting the fire. It’s sweltering hot today.’

  It was into July before Tim came on leave, and he took Moira to Cattofield on the Sunday afternoon. Renee re-called what Mike had said about Moira being jealous of her, and tried to allay the other girl’s fears by stressing how much she was enjoying herself with all the different boys she met, or went out with. After a while, she was pleased to see that Moira, and Tim, looked very relieved.

  ‘Jack was here a few weeks ago,’ Anne remarked, at a loss to understand why her daughter was going on so much about her boyfriends. The visitors wouldn’t want to hear about that.

  ‘Oh, how’s he doing? I bet he’s as fed up as me at still being in this country.’ Tim screwed up his face.

  ‘He didn’t say anything about that,’ Anne said, ‘but he seems to be enjoying life at Catterick.’

  He certainly does, thought Renee. ‘There’s no word of you being shifted, then?’ she asked Tim.

  ‘Well, there’s word of us being sent to the Shetlands, but I’ve been away on a technical course in Dagenham, so I don’t know the latest.’

  ‘I hope he’s never sent overseas,’ Moira said quietly. ‘Babs is really worried about Mike. Sometimes it’s weeks between his letters.’

  ‘Is she keeping well?’ Anne asked. ‘We were very pleased when Mike told us they were having an addition to the family.’

  ‘Yes, Babs is fine, but she says she’s sure she’ll look like a tank before the baby’s born.’

  They laughed, and Anne said, ‘Tell her we send our regards.’

  When they went away, Renee was last in line in the hall, and Tim was just in front of her, so she whispered to him,

  ‘Have you changed your mind about asking Moira to . . . ?’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m sure she expects me to, but . . .’ Anne turned round and ushered Tim past her. ‘Cheerio, and if you feel lonely any time, Moira, there’s always an open door for you here.’

  Renee added, ‘Yes, we’ll always be pleased to see you.’ Moira slipped her arm through Tim’s. ‘Thanks, but with Mum and Babs in the house, I never have the chance to be on my own, never mind feel lonely – though I do miss Tim.’ When the young couple had gone, Anne said, ‘I wish Tim would ask that girl to marry him. They’re made for each other.’

  ‘I know, but he told me just now that he hasn’t changed his mind about it.’ Renee felt rather irritated with him. He stood a good chance of losing the girl if he didn’t watch out. Just like Jack with her, although she wasn’t sure if Jack really loved her as much as Tim loved Moira, if he loved her at all.

  Anne had been ashamed when her daughter told her about Maggie’s walking stick, and had resolved to pay more attention to her parents, so she accompanied Renee every Saturday afternoon now to the tenement in Woodside. Maggie was always very pleased to see them – Peter was usually out doing the shopping – and listened with great interest to the little stories they told her about their land girls and what they got up to.

  First thing every week, however, she enquired about Jack Thomson, then about Tim Donaldson, then about Mike, and Renee took their letters for her to read – Mike wrote to Anne occasionally, so there were letters from all three men. After that ritual, Renee told her grandmother who she had been out with during the week. She couldn’t speak too freely because of her mother, but Maggie could read between the lines.

  She could tell that Renee was sailing near the wind with some of the boys at times, but forbore to issue any warnings or advice, knowing that the girl would take her own way, whatever she was told. And, anyway, Renee had learned her lesson over that Fergus Cooper, so she would surely never go over the score again. Maggie also sensed if her grand-daughter felt a special attraction to any of her boyfriends – she would speak shyly of them and blush slightly – but nothing ever seemed to come of it.

  Just after her seventeenth birthday, Renee quietly told her grandparents about a sick-berth attendant in the Royal Navy. ‘He’s very nice, Granny, and he danced every dance with me. He didn’t come home with me, because he’d to meet a special bus to take him back to Kingseat Hospital, but he’s asked me to go to the pictures with him. He’s nearly six feet, and broad, as well. His eyes are greyish-green and his hair’s light brown, nearly auburn really, and lovely and wavy.’

  ‘A pin-up boy?’ Maggie teased.

  ‘What do you know about pin-up boys?’ the girl asked in surprise. ‘But no, he’s not just a pin-up boy, he’s got something about him . . . I don’t know, but he’s really nice.’

  Anne was washing up their afternoon teacups, and her back was towards them, so the old lady leaned across and whispered, ‘Mr Right, maybe?’

  Renee shrugged. ‘I only met him last night, Granny, so I can’t tell yet, but he could be.’

  ‘Be sure, mind.’ Maggie sat back in her chair again, then asked in a normal voice, ‘What’s his name, this sick-berth fellow?’

  ‘John Smith.’

  The old lady laughed. ‘Weel, he didna try to impress ye wi’ gi’ein’ himsel’ a fancy name, at ony rate.’

  ‘No, and that’s one of the reasons I like him so much. He acts naturally, not like some of them I’ve been out with, trying to make me think they come from rich families and all that kind of rubbish.’

  ‘I’ll likely be hearin’ mair aboot this John Smith, then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  They smiled to each other, conspiratorially, as Anne came over to the fireside. ‘That’s everything tidied up, Mother,’ she said. ‘It’s time we were going home, Renee, to get the girls’ tea ready.’

  ‘Thanks, Annie.’ Maggie looked up into her daughter’s face. ‘You’ll be back next week?’

  ‘Yes, Mother. Father’ll be in soon, won’t he?’

  ‘Aye, he usually comes back aboot half past four.’

  ‘Give him my love, and we’ll see you next Saturday.’

  ‘Cheerio, Granny,’ Renee said as she walked to the door.

  ‘I’ll keep you informed.’

  John Smith had asked her to go out with him the following Monday, but Renee kept Monday nights for writing letters, mending, and so on, so they had made it Tuesday instead.

  He took her to the Capitol cinema, and held her hand all through the two films, then treated her to an ice cream in a soda fountain in Rose Street.

  ‘I’m getting a lift at quarter to eleven, at the Queen,’ he said, as they came out.

  ‘I’ll walk down Union Street with you, and I’ll get my bus outside Falconer’s, that’s just round the corner from the Queen.’

  The Queen – a statue of Queen Victoria, which stood at the corner of St Nicholas Street and Union Street – was a popular meeting place, and was a straight walk down Union Street from where they were. As they walked, arms round each other’s waists, John told her that he belonged to Bristol.

  ‘My dad’s in the shipyard, a riveter, and my mum cleans offices.’ He glanced at her to see how she reacted to the information about his humble background.

  She smiled at him. ‘My mum takes in boarders. We’ve got four land girls just now. What did you work at before you were in the navy?’

  ‘I was an apprentice mechanic before I was called up.’

  ‘Didn’t they let you finish your time?’

  �
��I didn’t particularly want to. What do you do?’

  ‘I work in an office, clerkess/typist. I’ll show you when we go past it.’

  ‘Will I see you again, Renee?’

  ‘If you like.’

  He drew her into a shop doorway. ‘May I kiss you?’ She was astonished, but nodded. He was the first boy who had ever asked her permission, and it felt good to be treated in so mannerly a fashion. His kiss made her feel even more drawn to him, but he led her on to the pavement again and kept walking. Renee wished that he had at least repeated the kiss, but it was the first time they had been out together, after all, although that had never inhibited any of the other boys.

  ‘How old are you, Renee?’ he asked, suddenly. ‘You look too young to be going out with boys at all.’

  ‘I’m seventeen.’ Plus a few days, she thought, but she felt older than that, much older, and she’d had plenty of experience, good and bad, with boys.

  ‘It seems terrible that I’m not seeing you home,’ John remarked. ‘But it’s this business of getting back to Kingseat. They lay on a small bus for us, and if we miss it we’ve had it, unless we walk.’

  ‘It’s too far to walk.’ Renee was horrified at the idea, because Kingseat Hospital was about eight miles from Aberdeen. ‘You didn’t have to walk back last Friday, did you?’ She looked at him anxiously.

  ‘Oh, no.’ He smiled to reassure her. ‘The bus leaves at one a.m. on Friday nights to allow us to go to a dance if we want.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  They reached St Nicholas Street with five minutes to spare, so John snatched a few kisses before he boarded the Royal Navy bus. ‘Friday, outside the Palais, at half past seven?’ he asked.

  ‘OK.’ Renee crossed Union Street to wait for her own bus, but thought about John Smith all the way home.

  She loved his wavy hair, his craggy face, his eyes – oh, his eyes! She’d be able to tell Granny on Saturday that she did think he was her Mr Right. Disconcertingly, the image of a sandy-haired boy with a cow’s lick at the front came to her mind; a boy with laughing eyes which could turn serious and tender; a boy who wouldn’t admit that he loved her.