Wartime Friends, page 37
Nothing, it appeared, escaped the commander’s notice.
Noreen blushed, but said, ‘Yes, ma’am. He’s alive and well and coming back for me.’
‘Then you have my congratulations.’ She raised her voice and now addressed everyone in the room. ‘For anyone who’s arranging a wedding for when their other half gets home, let me know. I can try to arrange an earlier demob.’
It was towards the end of June by the time Carolyn’s name came up on what had become known as the ‘leave rota’.
‘I’m sorry I can’t make it longer than seventy-two hours,’ the commander said apologetically, ‘But I have to be as fair as I can and give everyone a chance to go home even if it’s only for a comparatively short time.’
‘That’s fine,’ Carolyn said. ‘I’m on earlies the day before my leave starts, so if I could go home that night, it’d give me a bit longer.’
‘Yes, I can approve that, Holmes. Have a good time. By the way, I haven’t asked you recently, how’s Beryl?’
Carolyn smiled. ‘In the pink. She’s married now.’
Miss Everatt’s eyebrows rose. ‘Married? Really? To the father of her . . .’ She fell silent as Carolyn shook her head quickly.
‘No, no. Someone she’s met where I live.’ She chuckled. ‘It was the young man who my mother and his mother were determined I should marry.’
For a moment, the officer looked unsure how to respond, but Carolyn put her at her ease swiftly. ‘But we didn’t want to marry each other. He’s a dear friend – my oldest friend – but there was never any romance between us. It was our fond mothers trying to run our lives. At least the war helped to put a stop to that.’
‘Well, there’s a saying, isn’t there? “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” But what about you, Holmes? Have you got a sweetheart?’
Now Carolyn’s face clouded as she said hesitantly, ‘There is someone I’m fond of, but he was sent abroad and I haven’t heard from him since.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but surely you would have heard if something had happened to him. His family would have let you know, wouldn’t they?’
Carolyn shook her head. ‘He hasn’t any family left. He was brought up in an orphanage in Hull and then – and then . . .’ Her voice faltered for a moment. She took a deep breath. ‘His wife and mother-in-law were killed in an air raid in the city.’ She said no more about the distressing circumstances of Sally’s death, but she felt the commander was owed a little more explanation. ‘It was early days after such a tragedy, but we’d become good friends and were taking it very slowly. But – but I did think he would have kept in touch.’ She shrugged and added bravely, ‘Oh well, time will tell, I suppose.’
Miss Everatt touched her arm and said gently, ‘Go home and have a couple of days with your family. I’m sure that will help.’
Carolyn smiled weakly as she thanked her. Her superior couldn’t know that Lilian would only add salt to the wound. She would undoubtedly talk non-stop about Steve and what might have happened to him. Still, Carolyn comforted herself, she had other family members she could visit who would take her mind off her worries.
Carolyn was walking back home from the farm. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She was thrilled to see Peter and Beryl so happy and her grandfather had recovered more than they could have hoped for and yet . . . She was heartbroken that she’d still heard nothing from Steve. Since he had gone away to war, there had not been a single letter and now that the war was finally over, she had expected to hear something – anything. She hadn’t been able to stop hoping that there would be a letter waiting for her when she arrived home. She realized now that she was in love with him, but she wasn’t sure about his feelings for her. Although he’d said the words ‘I’m falling in love with you’, and even though he’d said it wasn’t on the rebound, she couldn’t help feeling it might be exactly that. To be hurt in such a way by the girl he’d loved since they’d both been little more than children must have affected him far more than perhaps even he realized. It was a wound that went far deeper than anything Michael had done to her. She sighed. If only she could hear something from him – or even about him.
Tom was no longer required to do his ‘listening in’, as he called it, so there were no more visits from Gordon or anyone else collecting his notes each evening – although, of course, his keenness as a radio ham was still as sharp as ever. He was now applying to go to university. Things were returning to normal steadily, though rationing was expected to go on for some while, possibly even years. The whole country would take some time to recover. She expected to be demobbed soon, but wasn’t quite sure when that would be. Any girl getting married might be demobbed before the rest, as the commander had implied, but the authorities might want to keep a single girl like herself on for a while longer. And when that did happen, she had no idea what she wanted to do then. Settling back to life at home and working in the town would be very hard after all the excitement of doing such a worthwhile wartime job. But for now, Carolyn had a blissful three days at home.
It was dusk as she reached the lane and turned towards the cottage. In the distance she heard the sound of a motorbike coming closer and closer from the direction of the town. One of the soldiers from the Point, she guessed. There were still a few there, though not as many as there had been. The noise grew louder and she stepped onto the grass verge out of its way, but the machine drew to a halt beside her. The rider dismounted and took off his helmet.
‘Steve!’ Carolyn shrieked as she ran towards him, her arms outstretched. He caught her about the waist and picked her up, swinging her round as they both laughed aloud. When he set her on the ground, he bent and kissed her hard on the mouth. Then they stood back and looked at each other. With a semi-playful punch on the shoulder, she said, ‘You never wrote. I’ve been worried sick about you.’
His face clouded. ‘But I did write. Several times, but you never replied and I thought . . .’
‘Oh Steve,’ her voice broke. ‘I never got them.’
They stared at each other, both realizing that in the chaos of the last weeks of the war his letters had got lost.
‘So,’ Steve said softly, ‘when are you going to marry me?’
‘Tomorrow,’ she said promptly. ‘Then I’ll get demobbed quicker.’
They laughed, but then his expression sobered. ‘Carolyn – darling Carolyn – I’m serious. Will you please marry me?’
‘Of course I will.’
Their arms tightly around each other, he bent his head again to kiss her and that was how Lilian saw them when she opened the front door of the cottage to look for Carolyn. Smiling happily to herself, she closed it quietly and went to find Eddie to tell him the good news.
In the kitchen of the farmhouse, Beryl stood over the fire in the range, the little box she had kept hidden in the back of a drawer in her bedroom in her hand. She opened it and took out the doctor’s letter and the bag containing the small amount of rice. She paused a moment and then threw them both into the flames. The rice spat for a moment and the letter curled and crumpled as it burned. Peter came into the room behind her, put his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck.
‘What’s that you’re burning?’ he murmured.
‘Nothing important,’ she said as she turned to face him. She put her arms around his neck and lifted her face for his kiss. ‘Just something I no longer need.’
Wartime Friends
Margaret Dickinson, a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, was born and brought up in Lincolnshire and, until recently, lived in Skegness where she raised her family. Her ambition to be a writer began early and she had her first novel published at the age of twenty-five. She has now written over twentyfive novels – set mostly in her home county but also in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.
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First published 2022 by Macmillan
This electronic edition first published 2022 by Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5290-7793-3
Copyright © Margaret Dickinson 2022
Cover images: Women © Colin Thomas, background © Shutterstock
Author photograph: © Dennis Muggeson
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Margaret Dickinson, Wartime Friends
