Cousins at War Page 21

  Olive was glad that Frankie Lamont was off with tonsillitis and that she had Polly Frayne to herself. She always got the feeling that Frankie didn’t believe her stories, but Polly took every word as gospel. ‘Neil wanted us to get engaged on his last leave,’ she began, ‘but I reminded him that I still hadn’t got my degree.’

  Polly’s eyes darkened, ‘I don’t know how you can treat him like that. Didn’t he get angry?’

  ‘No, he loves me, you see, and he’ll do anything I want. I know he’s finding it difficult to wait but like I told you before I want to be a virgin on my wedding night.’

  ‘I won’t be a virgin on my wedding night,’ Polly sighed. ‘I don’t seem to be able to say no.’

  ‘You should have had willpower, like me. It’s not that I don’t want him to make love to me, sometimes I want him as much as he wants me but I made up my mind long ago that I wouldn’t give in to him and I’m sticking to it.’

  ‘Well, I hope you don’t regret it. You’ll maybe find, one of these days, that he’s gone off with somebody who’s not a cold-blooded fish.’

  ‘I’m not cold-blooded,’ Olive burst out indignantly. ‘I’m just being sensible.’

  But she wasn’t being sensible, she thought, later. It was anything but sensible to carry on with these lies and she could never let Polly know that Neil was engaged to somebody else. Polly would think that he didn’t love her, and while she knew deep down in her own heart that this was true, she didn’t want to believe it. He had loved her before and he would love her again, once she found a way to get him back. It was this belief that had seen her through the awful weeks since he had been home, and she was determined not to lose sight of it. It would come true, no matter what Queenie or anyone else thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Neil had grown more despondent and frustrated as the weeks crept past. Freda, despite the promise in her kisses, never let him go beyond that. She steadfastly refused to have more than one drink, and jumped away like a scalded cat if he tried anything when he walked her home. She made him feel as if he were an unreasonable rotter, though all he wanted was a full commitment on her part . . . just once.

  When his leave came round again, he was actually relieved that she had caught a very virulent strain of influenza and couldn’t go with him. He had often felt like taking her by force and damning the consequences – what could her parents do even if they found out? Put a gun to his head and force him to marry her? That was what he wanted to do anyway – but if he lost control at home and his mother found out there would be hell to pay. Temptation was better left behind.

  The train was late when it arrived in Aberdeen and both Joe and Queenie had left by the time he reached King Street.

  ‘I’m sorry Freda wasn’t able to come,’ Gracie said. ‘I was looking forward to seeing her again.’

  ‘It was just one of those things,’ Neil sang, putting on a sad expression and turning the palms of his hands upwards.

  Gracie frowned at his flippancy, ‘Poor lass, she’s likely hurt at you for going away and leaving her when she’s ill.’

  ‘I did offer to stay there with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Anyway, her mother fusses round her like an old hen, and I’d just have annoyed her – Mrs Cuthbert, I mean. She’s the boss in that house, and she’s too overpowering for me.’

  ‘I’m glad you came home.’ Gracie hoped fervently that he wouldn’t end up with an interfering mother-in-law.

  After a breakfast of toast and tea, Neil went to bed – he had stood in the corridor of the train most of the way from Newcastle. Stretching out on top of the blankets, he looked round his old room. He had occupied it little more than a year before he joined up, so it was strange how nostalgic he felt about it. It hadn’t changed much. The floral curtains had been replaced by heavy blackout material, which made the room gloomy, even when they were pulled back. The chest of drawers had a new runner on it – it looked like tapestry though it probably wasn’t – but the framed snapshot of Patsy and him as children was still there, balanced at the other side by a matching framed photo, the first he’d had taken in uniform. Between them stood the alarm clock that used to get him up for work, its twin bells shrilling so noisily that he had often felt like hurling it out of the window. . . but he’d have had to get out of bed to do it.

  The same reproduction of ‘The Monarch of the Glen’ hung on the wall and he remembered being frightened of it when they lived in the Gallowgate. The stag was a magnificent animal but it had seemed fearsome to a small boy and the only one he had confided in was his Granda, who had said, ‘He’s just defending his territory, lad. He’ll not attack man nor beast unless they threaten him.’ This had eased his fears but he had sometimes worried that boys might not be as immune from attack as men and beasts.

  If Granda had still been alive, he’d have been the person to ask about this latest fear, Neil mused. He had begun to wonder if he was unnatural in having such a steady ache for sex but maybe it was just because he’d had too much of it before and was getting none now . . . like a drug addict whose supplies had been cut off, but the craving would surely wear off eventually.

  Neil spent that evening talking to his parents – ‘Queenie hardly ever stays in,’ his mother had said – but he went to see Hetty the next evening and was disappointed to be told that Martin wouldn’t be home for a while. ‘He’s on another of his working late binges,’ Hetty said, pettishly ‘Well, he says he’s working late.’

  His aunt’s odd manner made him feel uneasy but Olive was speaking to him now and he had to turn his attention to her. While they were having a cup of tea, much later, it occurred to Neil that several empty evenings lay ahead, and that he couldn’t impose himself on his aunt too often. He was afraid to ask Queenie out – he couldn’t trust himself there because he still felt something for her though she seemed to have got over him – but why shouldn’t he take Olive dancing? He let this run around his brain for several minutes, wondering if it would be asking for trouble, then decided to risk it. Surely she’d have given up on him now and he would tell Freda about it when he saw her. She wasn’t the jealous type and Olive was his cousin, after all. He waited until Hetty went into the kitchen before he murmured, ‘Olive?’

  ‘Yes, Neil?’

  Her old eagerness was gone, he was pleased to note. ‘Would you like to go to the Palais with me some night?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Wednesday?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the usual place at eight.’

  ‘Fine.’

  When Hetty returned, Olive said, ‘Neil’s asked me out.’

  He felt he had to explain. ‘I’m at a loose end and I don’t feel like going to the Palais by myself.’

  Hetty smiled indulgently. Neil was engaged and would just be needing company. ‘Olive doesn’t go out very much. It’ll be a nice change for her.’

  Martin looked tired when he came in, Neil thought, but it wasn’t surprising if he worked late so much. ‘I was thinking I wouldn’t see you tonight.’

  ‘A last-minute hiccup in a house deal,’ Martin sighed. ‘I got it all sorted out but it took much longer without Evie. She was my secretary,’ he explained, ‘and she was really efficient but she married a marine and left last week. The new girl’s still wet under the collar, she’s only just out of a business college but I believe she’ll shape up. It’ll just take time to train her.’

  ‘Mum was a bit jealous of Evie,’ Olive chuckled.

  Recalling his aunt’s previous remarks, Neil realised that this had been true but Martin said, ‘She has no reason to be jealous, of Evie or anyone else. I need a secretary, but I’d never get involved with any of them.’

  Hetty had the grace to look ashamed. ‘I know, Martin. I’ve been paranoid about it, but you’re so often late home.’

  ‘Pressures of work, that’s all, I assure you. Now, Neil, you must be bored with our little differences, and don’t let us put you off marriage. It’s the b
est institution there is, no matter what anyone tells you.’

  ‘Nothing’ll put me off,’ Neil laughed, ‘but Freda’s mother wants us to wait. She’s a dragon and a half, that one.’

  ‘I was lucky,’ Martin smiled affectionately at his wife. ‘Hetty’s mother was a real gem. If it hadn’t been for her, I would never have told Hetty that I loved her.’

  It was after eleven o’clock when Neil stood up. ‘Mum and Dad will think I’m lost. I’ll see you on Wednesday, Olive.’

  His parents were unhappy about the date he had made. As Gracie said to Joe when they were in bed, ‘After the way she used to run after him? He’s going to stir it all up again.’

  Inwardly, Joe agreed, but his wife looked so troubled that he tried to reassure her. ‘Olive’s changed. She knows he’s engaged, and I can’t see her causing any trouble.’

  Gracie snorted. ‘She thrives on causing trouble.’

  Taking Olive home on Wednesday night, Neil felt relaxed. He had wondered, beforehand, what he was letting himself in for but he had thoroughly enjoyed their evening out. She could be good company when she set her mind to it and if she had been like that all along it would have saved him many an anxious hour. Still, that was in the past and a man had to live for the day, hadn’t he?

  They arrived at her house in a fit of the giggles at a rather risque story she had been telling but she held out her hand and said, more seriously, ‘It was good fun tonight, Neil, thanks for taking me. Have a safe journey back.’

  He kept hold of her hand. ‘I don’t have to go back till next Tuesday. You’ll come out with me again, won’t you?’

  There was no coyness, no self-satisfied smirk. ‘OK.’

  ‘Saturday, then?’

  ‘Fine. Goodnight, Neil.’

  When he went home, only Joe was still up. ‘How did you get on with Olive?’

  ‘Great! We’re going out on Saturday again.’

  Joe scratched his ear lobe. ‘Your mother’s not too pleased about you taking her out. It’s not that long since you were saying you couldn’t stand the sight of her.’

  ‘I used to call her everything, but she’s different now, no stupid nonsense. I think she’s grown up at long last.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll be all right, but . . . I’d watch myself if I was you. She’s got a . . . what’s the word? . . . voluptuous, that’s it, a voluptuous figure, and the best of men could be tempted.’

  Neil laughed loudly. ‘Freda’s the only one I want. Olive doesn’t appeal to me, not even her big tits.’ He looked at his father and grinned. ‘Sorry, Dad, it just slipped out.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘I see you’ve learned men’s talk?’

  ‘I bet if you heard some of the things we speak about, it would make your hair curl.’

  Stroking his balding pate, Joe observed ruefully, ‘That’d take a bit of doing, these days.’

  When he went home on Saturday night, Neil was thankful that both his parents were in bed. He couldn’t have faced them, not after what he had done. God, he’d been a bloody fool! It hadn’t been entirely his fault but that was no excuse. His mind jumped back a few hours.

  When he met Olive, she’d said, ‘It’s far too nice a night to be in a stuffy hall.’ That should have warned him but he had thought nothing of it. It was a nice night, warm and balmy although it was still March, and he fell in with the idea quite happily. They took the tram to Hazlehead and found that the park closed at sunset but they went past the locked gates and carried on along the rather rough road between the trees.

  After a few minutes, Olive said, ‘This road’s making my feet sore. I can feel the stones through my shoes.’

  Neil’s own feet were uncomfortable, so they moved on to the grass verge and when they saw a gap in the dyke, they went through on to the golf course, the springy turf feeling like a thick-piled carpet. They walked for perhaps half an hour, Olive sometimes running ahead and dodging behind one of the trees, waiting to jump out on him when he caught her up, the twigs snapping under their feet, the fallen needles sending up the fresh fragrance of pine as they capered about in the darkness like fauns.

  Neil couldn’t recall which of them had suggested having a rest but he was almost sure it was Olive. They had lain down side by side under the gnarled old trees, still breathless, and looked up at the scattering of tiny stars winking in the black sky. After a few minutes, when they got a second wind, they had exchanged more stories and their laughter turned to teasing, the teasing became fun-wrestling, until . . . his hands had accidentally brushed against her breasts and his long-suppressed urges had erupted. Not that she had objected. It was probably what she’d been leading up to from the minute he met her. She had returned his kisses with a passion that drove him wild, pushing him beyond control, encouraging him, helping him, towards the release that was his sole concern.

  Instead of the memory setting him aflame again, it made him feel worse than ever. Olive, of all people! It had been her first experience of sex, his first with a virgin, and he groaned now with the bitter shame of it. She had clung to him after it was over, whispering, ‘I always knew you loved me, Neil darling,’ and he had jumped up, too angry to argue with her. He had felt like walking away and leaving her but he couldn’t let her go home alone in the blackout and he’d waited until she made herself respectable.

  As they walked back the way they had come, she had crowed, ‘You’ll have to break off your engagement now,’ and had been astonished when he shouted, ‘You’re a stupid bitch, Olive Potter, do you know that? I love Freda, with all my being.’

  ‘But I thought . . . oh, Neil, you must love me, after that.’

  ‘I’ve never loved you, and I never will. I’m sorry for what I did and it’ll never happen again. A man doesn’t have to love a girl to make love to her, though it makes it more satisfying. It’s a need he gets and Freda respects her body, so I’ve never . . .’

  ‘You mean she won’t let you?’ Olive gave a coarse laugh. ‘God, Neil, I credited you with more gumption.’

  When they arrived at her door, he snapped, ‘Don’t write to me again, because I won’t answer any of your letters.’

  ‘Are you going to tell Freda about . . .?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He had left her and hadn’t even turned his head when she called after him, ‘Come back, Neil darling.’ He was up to his neck in boiling water and he couldn’t tell Freda what he had done. She would be shocked, hurt, and so angry that she wouldn’t marry him. A tremor of stark fear ran through him. Surely Olive wouldn’t be as vindictive as to tell her? Maybe it would be a wise move to get in first, to tell his fiancée everything and throw himself on her mercy, though it was unlikely that she would forgive him. It might be best if he arranged to see Olive again, to reason with her, to make her understand that nothing she could do would make him love her and to make her promise that she would never tell Freda by letter or by word-of-mouth. He would phone her tomorrow.

  Olive, too, was recalling what had happened. How could Neil deny that he loved her when he had whispered beautiful words of love all the time they were . . .? But possibly he wanted to wait until he broke his engagement before he told her? He might think that was the decent thing to do and she would have to be patient. Yes, she decided, it would all work out in the long run. Having thus convinced herself, she settled down to relive the most wonderful moments she had ever spent . . . so far. Her whole life would be even more wonderful, once Neil was free of Freda Cuthbert.

  She was dressing in the morning when her mother called to her that Neil was on the phone, so she ran downstairs in her petticoat. ‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Can I see you tomorrow night? I promised an old pal I ran into the other day that I’d go for a drink with him tonight and I go back on Tuesday morning.’

  Triumph surged through her. She had prayed he wouldn’t go without seeing her again. ‘Tomorrow’s OK. Same place?’

  ‘Same place, same time.’

  Worrying ab
out what he would say to Olive, Neil didn’t much enjoy his old pal’s company and they did not have much in common now anyway as Paul was in the Air Force and thought himself better than a REME. When he went home, just after quarter to nine, he was surprised to find his father on his own again. ‘Is Mum all right?’

  ‘She hasn’t been feeling great these past few days,’ Joe told him, ‘but she won’t go to the doctor.’

  ‘She should. I’ll have a word with her in the morning. She might listen to me.’

  They sat for about twenty minutes discussing the war, then Joe said, ‘I believe you’re seeing Olive tomorrow again?’

  ‘Did Mum hear me on the phone?’

  ‘Aye.’ Joe looked pensive. ‘I told you before, it’s not a good thing. That’s three times you’ll have been with her and she could start thinking things, you know.’

  Neil would have liked to reassure him but couldn’t. It was even worse than his father thought. ‘She knows I’m engaged,’ he muttered, a rush of guilty colour flooding his face.

  ‘That wouldn’t mean much to her. Go canny, lad.’

  Even though Neil had slept little the night before, he lay awake for some time thinking about the coming confrontation, but he was shaken awake by his father just before two in the morning. ‘Neil, phone the doctor . . . it’s your mother.’

  By the time the doctor arrived, Gracie was doubled up with pain. ‘It’s worse than being in labour,’ she gasped. A few questions and a brief examination resulted in the diagnosis, ‘A stone in the kidney. I’ll ring for an ambulance.’

  Joe accompanied his wife to hospital, holding her hand as they sped across the city to Foresterhill and Neil dressed himself, amazed that Queenie hadn’t heard all the commotion, but it was probably just as well. He’d have been left alone with her, both of them worried sick; that would be fatal. He had already blotted his copybook with Olive, and it would be so much easier to make a slip with Queenie. Back in the kitchen, he made a pot of tea, but it was after four when his father returned, grey-faced with anxiety. ‘They’re going to operate on her and I wanted to wait but they wouldn’t let me. They told me not to phone for a few hours.’