Читать книгу We'll Meet Again - Patricia Burns - Страница 9

THE sun was already warm on the roof of the small ridge tent. The twins, as usual, were sprawled over far more than their share of the space. The elbow of one of them was jabbing in Tom’s ribs while the foot of the other was dangerously near to his face. They both had sleeping bags made of old blankets held together with large safety pins, but neither of them seemed able to stay inside them. But at least they were still asleep. Once awake, they were liable to start their favourite game of the moment—breaking wind in unison.

Cautiously, Tom moved his arm so that he could look at his new watch. Just gone half past six. He was wide awake now and, for the first time that holiday, filled with a sense of excitement. At last, somebody his own age to talk to, instead of being stuck in between the little kids and the grown-ups.

Annie.

Annie Cross.

A girl.

Girls were practically unknown territory to him. Since he’d been eleven, he’d been at an all boys school, and his sister was much younger than he was so her friends were just kids. Some of his friends had sisters, but they tended either to giggle and blush when he tried to speak to them, or were so adult and sophisticated that they might as well be on a different planet to him. Annie was different, though. He could talk to Annie, and she understood what he was about. And she was pretty. The artist in him appreciated her elfin face, her wide blue eyes, the wave in her fair hair, while the male wanted to reach out and touch the soft warmth of her skin.

Tom eased himself carefully from under the old pink eiderdown until he was sitting up. Still neither of the twins stirred. He reached for his clothes, in a heap by his feet, unlaced the first two eyelets of the tent flap and wriggled out into the morning.

The dew was still wet on the coarse grass of the wild garden, big droplets sparkling diamond-bright in the morning sunshine. A seagull wheeled across the blue sky, filling the silence with its raucous cry. Tom almost skipped as he walked barefoot across the grass to the wash house tacked on to the back of the chalet. By the time he got there, the ends of his pyjama legs were soaking and clinging to his ankles, but it was all part of the heightened pleasure of the morning.

His mood was knocked back as he studied his face in the small mirror above the basin. His features fell so far short of the mature, smooth, immaculately groomed look of all the film stars and band leaders that he couldn’t imagine Annie being remotely interested in him. He couldn’t even shave the night’s sprinkling of stubble off his jaw since that would mean going into the chalet and risking disturbing his mother as he heated the water. Instead he resorted to what his mother referred to as ‘a lick and a promise’ of a wash and dragged on his clothes. After all, Annie wasn’t going to see him now. She wasn’t free till the evening, and even then she hadn’t promised to come. As he went over this fact, how she had hesitated and said ‘I might’, he realised how very much he wanted to see her again.

Outside again, the heat of the sun restored his optimism. The chalet was still, so none of the grown-ups were awake, and the children slept on in their tents. Tom went out of the side gate and on to the sea wall. Usually the first thing he looked at was the sea, but today he faced the other way. Those fields belonged to Annie’s farm. The house in the distance with the collection of barns and outbuildings round it was her home. The sheep and cows … And then he spotted a herd of cows all going in one direction, with a small figure behind them. His stomach tied itself in knots. It was such a weird sensation that he felt quite sick. Annie. That had to be Annie, driving the cows along. He and she were both out in the early morning while the rest of the world was asleep.

He waved, first one then both arms at her, but either she didn’t see him or she didn’t want to respond. Perhaps she was too busy making sure the cows were going the right way. He tried again. Still no response. He watched as she shut a gate behind them and turned away, then waved once more, not realising that he was practically jumping up and down as he did so. The distant figure stopped and, to his joy, raised an arm and waved back. He waved with all his might until she went off across the fields the way she had come. He watched her out of sight.

That must mean that she would come and see him again that evening.

The day seemed to go on for ever. It felt as if he were in a strange parallel existence, talking and acting as usual, yet separated from the rest of the world. He went for walks, played rounders with the children, did chores for his mother, and all the while his thoughts were centred on one thing. Annie.

At last evening came. He escaped from the demands of family and bolted over the sea wall to wait for her. The relief of it. He didn’t have to pretend to be normal any longer.

He knew it was no use trying to paint. Instead, he wrote her name, over and over again, in different styles. Annie Annie Annie. After a while, he gave that up and just stared between the strands of barbed wire at the sea, waiting.

And then, just when he thought that she wasn’t coming, there was a scuffling sound behind him and there she was. Tom was at once delighted and excruciatingly embarrassed. What was he going to say to her? What could she possibly want to say to him? He felt himself going red.

She paused at the top of the wall.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello,’ Tom managed to reply. ‘You made it, then.’

And cursed himself for being stupid. Of course she had made it. She was here, wasn’t she?

She didn’t seem to think it was stupid. She just nodded and scampered down the wall to join him on the strip of sand at the bottom.

‘He gave me extra chores to do,’ she said with a backward motion of her head. ‘I thought I was never going to get away.’

‘Who, your dad?’

‘Mmm.’

Her face was dark and brooding.

‘Does he make you work hard?’

‘He’s a slave-driver.’

The edge to her voice shocked him.

‘Don’t you like your dad?’ he asked.

‘I hate him.’

She sat hugging her knees to her chest, glaring through the barbed wire. Tom felt at a loss. There were times when he hated his father, but most of the time he was all right. If pushed, he would admit that he loved him.

‘Why?’ was all he could think of to say.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

She picked up a stone and tossed it through the barbed wire. When she spoke again, it was cheerfully. It was as if a shadow had lifted.

‘Tell me all about your family, and your house and where you live. I want to know everything,’ she said.

Glad to be back on firm ground, Tom complied.

‘Well, you’ve seen my mam and my sister,’ he said. ‘Mam looks after the house and us. She moans a lot about all this rationing. Our Joan’s all right, I suppose. She used to be quite sweet when she was little, but now she’s getting right bossy. And our dad, he works all hours—’ He skipped over a description of his father, because it seemed like rubbing it in that his was nice when hers wasn’t. ‘And we live in this house on the edge of Norseley. Mam says she’d like to move somewhere nicer, and Norseley’s just an ugly pit village, but Dad says we shouldn’t be ashamed of us roots. And anyway Norseley’s all right. It’s just a bit mucky, that’s all.’

‘I wish I could see it,’ Annie said. ‘I’ve never been anywhere. Just Brightlingsea, where Gran and Grandpa live, and once I went to Colchester.’

Tom looked at her in amazement. Colchester was no distance. It had been the last main line town on their journey here, where they had changed on to the branch line for Wittlesham.

‘Where’s Brightlingsea?’ he asked.

‘Just down there a bit—’ She flapped a hand southwards, away from Wittlesham. ‘Tell me some more.’

So he told her about the rows of cottages and the fires that were always kept burning and the rattle of the winding gear, about the big house at Norseley Park and the family with their horses and their Rolls Royce, and about his school and his friends and the cricket club and the cycling club. And all the while Annie fixed him with her wide blue eyes, and asked questions and smiled or looked angry or sympathetic in all the right places so that he forgot all about time and place in the pleasure of talking to a willing listener.

‘Tom! To-om!’ His sister’s voice shrilled over the seawall.

Tom stopped in mid-sentence and put a finger to his lips. Annie grinned in instant understanding. Silently, they listened to Joan calling.

‘Tom, where are you? Mam wants you. Tom—’ She was puffing now as she climbed the grass slope.

‘I’m just coming,’ Tom called back. ‘Go and tell her I’m coming.’

He looked at Annie.

‘I’ve done nothing but waffle on about me,’ he apologised softly.

‘All right. But you’ve got to come right away,’ said an aggrieved voice quite close to them.

‘It’s nice. I liked it. It’s like seeing a different life, like when you go to the pictures,’ Annie whispered.

‘I said, you’ve got to come right away,’ the voice insisted.

‘All right. I am,’ Tom repeated. He smiled at the thought of his life being like a film. ‘I don’t think they’d put me on the pictures. I’m right ordinary.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re not at all ordinary,’ Annie said.

Tom felt oddly breathless. His heart was thumping in his chest.

‘Nor are you,’ he said.

‘Oh, there you are,’ exclaimed Joan.

Tom could have killed her. He swivelled round to glare up at her in the twilight.

‘Yes, here I am. Now clear off and tell Mam I’m coming, all right?’

He would never hear the last of this now.

‘All right,’ Joan repeated. ‘And I’ll tell her who you’re with, shall I?’

With an irritating laugh, she made off.

‘Blooming sisters,’ he groaned.

Annie stood up. ‘I got to run. It’s nearly dark.’

‘Will you—will you be back tomorrow?’ Tom asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth.

‘I’ll try,’ she said.

And that was all he had to live on for the next twenty-three hours.

The next day was broken up by a very different visitor. In the afternoon, Mrs Sutton, the lady who owned the chalet, arrived with her lump of a daughter and her small son. Tom heard them arrive, heard the mothers all talking together and the kid go off to play with his cousins. He kept very still in the sunny spot where he was playing patience, hoping he’d be forgotten. No such luck.

‘Ah, now, here’s poor Beryl with no one to play with,’ he heard his mother say. ‘Tom’s in just the same position. I’m sure he’ll be glad to entertain you. Tom! Where are you? Come over here!’

He ignored her, hoping she’d assume he was out of earshot, but again he was out of luck. Joan snitched on him and he was forced to make an appearance. The girl was standing there with a silly expression on her face while all three mothers smiled at them both.

‘Hello,’ he said, trying hard not to sound too put out about being interrupted.

‘Hello,’ the girl said, smiling for all she was worth. ‘My mum was coming so I thought I’d come along too.’

‘Oh,’ Tom said.

There was an awkward pause.

‘Well, run along, the pair of you,’ his mam told them. ‘Perhaps you’d like to show Beryl some of your paintings, Tom.’

‘Not on your life,’ Tom muttered. He caught his mam giving him a warning look. He suppressed a sigh. ‘Come on, then,’ he said to Beryl.

She followed him round the side of the chalet.

‘Do you do painting, then?’ she asked, in the same tone of cheerful politeness that his mam used with strangers she wanted to impress.

‘Not really,’ Tom said.

‘Can I see them?’ Beryl persisted.

‘They’re not good enough,’ Tom stated. He wasn’t sharing that with her. It was private. He stopped at the far side of the chalet from the grown-ups and the children, where his game of patience was laid out on a bare piece of earth.

‘D’you play cards?’ he asked to distract her.

‘Oh, yes!’ Beryl exclaimed, looking delighted. She studied the arrangement on the ground. ‘Look—you can put that seven of clubs on the eight of hearts.’

‘I know,’ Tom told her. ‘I was just going to do that.’

He squatted down and swept the pack up.

‘Patience is no good with two. What else can you play?’

‘We play rummy and happy families at home so that Timmy can join in too, but they’re a bit babyish. My mum’s teaching me canasta,’ she said.

‘That’s no good with just two,’ Tom said.

Snap and pelmanism were dismissed by both of them as stupid. Newmarket and chase the ace needed more players. Tom had an inspiration.

‘Can you play poker?’

Beryl looked a bit shocked. She shook her head.

‘It’s easy,’ Tom told her. ‘We’ll play for matchsticks.’

He explained about pairs and runs and flushes. Beryl nodded and said that it all sounded pretty straightforward. But she couldn’t get to grips with the timing. She had no idea when to raise and when to quit.

‘Shame it’s only matchsticks,’ Tom said as he swept her stake into his pile yet again. But there was no pleasure in it really. You needed really sharp competition to make it fun.

Tom shuffled the cards. If only Annie were here instead of this stupid Beryl.

‘D’you know a girl called Annie Cross?’ he asked suddenly. ‘She lives at the farm over the fields there.’

The minute the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them.

‘Yes,’ Beryl said.

Tom said no more, but carried on shuffling.

‘Why?’ Beryl asked.

‘Oh—no reason. I just met her the other day, that’s all.’

He riffle-shuffled the pack, neatly layering them together, not looking at her.

‘I was at school with her, at the elementary. I’m at the grammar now,’ Beryl told him.

It was a safe subject, so he took it up.

‘So am I, back home, that is,’ Tom said.

‘Annie stayed on at the elementary. She’s left now. At fourteen,’ Beryl told him.

Tom said nothing, hoping she’d drop it. He dealt the cards.

‘So she’s never done Latin or French or science,’ she pointed out. ‘Not like you do at grammar school. Not like us.’

There was an unpleasant edge to her voice.

Tom clamped his teeth together to stop himself from answering. He should never have mentioned Annie. Like his painting, she was something private, too special to share with the likes of Beryl.

He picked up his hand and studied it.

‘You playing?’ he asked.

He glanced at his watch. Only four hours till he might see Annie again.

Beryl and her family finally left. The time crawled round to evening. To his joy, Annie managed to get away from the farm. This time they decided to go for a walk along the promenade.

‘Just in case my mam takes it into her head to call me in,’ Tom said. ‘Every now and again she thinks I shouldn’t be spending so much time by myself, and makes me come and join them. I don’t want that happening when you’re here.’

They wandered along towards the town. The beach was deserted and there weren’t the crowds about that there were during the day, but there were still plenty of people enjoying the warm evening, couples strolling arm in arm, girls in chattering groups dressed up for a night out, men on their way to the pub.

‘I got good and caught today,’ Tom admitted. ‘That Mrs Sutton who owns the place came to call, and I got lumbered with her daughter.’

To his surprise, Annie stopped still and stared at him.

‘Beryl? You’ve been talking to Beryl Sutton?’

‘Well—yes,’ Tom said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Her, that’s the matter. I can’t stand Beryl Sutton. She’s my worst enemy.’

‘Oh—I see—you never said,’ Tom floundered. There was so much he didn’t know about Annie. ‘What’s she gone and done, then?’

‘Everything,’ Annie said. She started walking along again, her body stiff, refusing to meet his eyes. ‘She’s just such a stuck-up madam. She thinks she’s so much better than me, just because her dad owns a factory and she goes to the grammar. I could’ve gone, you know. I was always better than her at school, but she got to go to the grammar and I was stuck at Church Road Elementary.’

‘That’s so unfair,’ Tom said.

‘And another thing, she’s got the same birthday as me. Imagine that—having to share your birthday with your worst enemy. Her mum and mine met in hospital when they were having us, and now her mum comes over and has her clothes made by my mum—’

‘Your mam’s a dressmaker?’ Tom asked. This was a piece of information she hadn’t let drop before.

‘Yes. And you should see the flap she gets into when Mrs High-and-Mighty Sutton is coming! The best china comes out and the embroidered tablecloth. You’d think it was the flipping Queen coming to tea. Makes me sick, it does.’

‘It must do,’ Tom agreed, though he couldn’t really see what the problem was.

‘And now you’re seeing beastly Beryl behind my back!’

‘It wasn’t deliberate! I tried to get out of it, but Joan went and told Mam where I was and then I was stuck with her. It wasn’t any fun, I can tell you. She’s boring and stupid. Not like you.’

Annie flexed her shoulders and made a h’rmph noise in her throat.

‘You’re a thousand times nicer than she is,’ Tom elaborated.

Annie stole a look at him. ‘Really?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘If you really mean that—’

‘Look, we don’t want that great lump to spoil things, do we?’ Tom insisted, tired of these games.

Annie tossed off her bad mood like a coat.

‘No, we don’t,’ she agreed. ‘Tell me what else you’ve been doing today.’

Peace restored, they ambled along as far as the pier, then turned to go back towards Silver Sands. At one point they swerved to go round a large group of young men spilling out of a pub. Their hands touched, and then, of their own accord, it seemed, slid into each other. The warmth of their joined palms, the touch of their fingers, glowed all up Tom’s arm. The blacked-out promenade of a small seaside town was a place of magic.

Neither of them noticed a solitary figure behind them staring with outrage at those clasped hands.