Chapter 36
Bobby sat frozen, staring at the letters spread across her knees. For a moment she thought she might be going to vomit, and swept the letters to the ground to hold her head over the privy. Nothing came up but a lump in her throat, however, and the sting of tears.
But she couldn’t give in to them. Paramount in her mind was Charlie’s safety.
If anything had happened to him, it was his next of kin who would have been notified.
She knew Mary would have wired right away if there had been any bad news, but there was a chance even with a telegram that it might have gone astray somewhere between Silverdale and here.
As soon as she had suppressed the queasy feeling, Bobby snatched up the letter from Mary, which was postmarked two days ago, and quickly skimmed what it had to say.
Bobby pressed her eyes closed, trying hard to hold back tears.
The duty NCO would hear if she gave in to sobs, and demand to know what she was doing in there.
Her head throbbed, and her hands shook so much that she could barely keep hold of Mary’s letter.
Any relief she might have felt about the fact Charlie was safe was entirely squashed by the horror of the realisation that he hadn’t written.
No delays in the postal service could account for five weeks of missing letters.
And Mary, it seemed, had been hearing from him just as usual.
He hadn’t mentioned a word to his family about their wedding date, although he had surely received her telegram about it.
All his eagerness for that event seemed to have evaporated, just like his love for her.
Despair gripped her, but she didn’t entirely give up hope. Lilian had sent two letters, and one envelope looked rather fat. It was possible Bobby’s missing letters had gone to the cow house, and her sister had forwarded them on.
But again, Bobby was disappointed. The fat envelope didn’t contain letters but the latest number of The Tyke, which carried Tony’s first byline piece.
Bobby opened Lil’s other letter to see if there was any mention of Charlie, but once more there was nothing.
Lilian wrote with news of their father, who, she said, was adjusting as well as could be expected to their new living arrangements, and rather proudly boasted about how well Tony was settling down to his new job.
But again, the only reference to Charlie was tucked into a postscript – merely to say that no letters had arrived for Bobby, so Lilian hoped they had found her at her new address.
Then the tears came. She couldn’t hold them back. They fell silently, her body juddering, blotting the ink on the letters that had fallen at her feet.
It was over. He’d forgotten her. It was the only explanation that made sense. If he was writing to his family as usual with no mention of her… he must have found someone else. At any rate, he obviously no longer wanted her.
She took out her handkerchief to mop up her tears. It was one Charlie had given her, with his monogram and an embroidered horseshoe. Bobby struggled to keep her tears inaudible when she remembered the day he had given it to her, ‘for luck’, he had said – the day they met.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor of the latrine, hugging her knees and sobbing into the itchy lisle stockings of her uniform, but after a time a soft knock sounded at the door.
‘S-sorry,’ she managed to stammer, assuming it was the duty NCO. ‘I’m… not feeling well.’
‘Bobsy, it’s me,’ Mike’s voice said. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve been gone ages.’
Bobby hesitated, then opened the door.
‘Oh, honey lamb,’ Mike said when she saw the tear tracks down her friend’s face. ‘Nothing from the fiancé?’
‘I don’t think I’ve got a fiancé,’ Bobby whispered. ‘Not any more.’
‘Come here.’ Mike wrapped her in a hug, and Bobby squeezed a few more tears out on the shoulder of her friend’s WAAF tunic.
‘I know it feels like your heart’s breaking,’ Mike said quietly. ‘But this too will pass. One day, when you’ve found someone better, you’ll realise he never deserved you.’
‘He did,’ Bobby whispered. ‘I’m sure he did. I can’t understand how his feelings could have changed, just like that.’
‘He’s a man, my love. You can’t rely on even the best of them.
We all have to learn that the hard way.’ Mike let her go.
‘Come back to the dorm. Everyone else is in the rec hut, passing round a bottle of gin someone smuggled in before the dance. You take as long as you need to have a good old weep and I’ll ward off anyone who comes over to pry, all right? ’
‘Thank you,’ Bobby murmured, glad to have someone to tell her what to do while she felt so helpless.
‘Don’t forget your letters,’ Mike said, scooping them up from the latrine floor.
Bobby eyed them listlessly. ‘I’m not sure I want them. They only remind me of him.’
‘You won’t say that tomorrow.’ Mike tucked the letters into her pocket and took Bobby’s arm.
Mike was right: Hut 17 was indeed deserted. Bobby sat on her bunk, feeling numb now her tears were spent. It didn’t feel real. And yet it had to be, didn’t it?
It was over. Charlie Atherton, the man she loved, the first and only real romance of her life, was no longer hers.
And perhaps soon she would receive a letter from Mary to say someone else was going to be his wife, and she would have to go to the wedding in the little chapel in Silverdale, hear them say their vows and smile as if she didn’t care…
It was the sheer cowardice of it that she couldn’t understand.
The silent treatment, when he knew she would hear from Mary that he was still in touch with the folk at Moorside.
Why would he do that? Whatever else she had thought Charlie was capable of, she would have believed that to be beneath him.
If he had met someone else, she’d have thought his honour would prick him to confess it to her frankly, like a man.
Just a few short weeks ago she would have sworn it wasn’t in his nature to be so underhanded, or so unkind.
It felt like such a whimpering, pathetic way for their love story to end.
Mike placed Bobby’s post on her bunk.
‘You’ll want these later, I’m sure.’ She picked up the copy of The Tyke Lilian had sent. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s the magazine I used to work for,’ Bobby mumbled. ‘I was a journalist as a civilian.’
‘Were you? You never told us that.’
‘I thought you might tease me.’
Mike flicked through the magazine, smiling. ‘It’s rather a sweet little thing. Did you get any good news from home to cheer you up?’
Bobby appreciated her friend’s attempts to take her out of herself, but she wished Mike would go drink gin with the others in the recreation hut. She didn’t have any energy for small talk.
‘Not enough,’ she said quietly.
‘Read your letters again. Perhaps there’s more in them than you noticed the first time.’
Bobby ignored her. She just sat staring at Charlie’s photo on the chest of drawers, and tried to understand how that familiar, handsome face – those lips that had told her so many times between kisses that they loved her entirely and devotedly – could have caused her such deep, deep pain.
After a while the numbness started to fade, however, and her gaze drifted to the pile of letters. She picked up Mary’s and read it through, trying to banish thoughts of Charlie so she could appreciate what her friend had to tell her.
Soon, a very small smile appeared on her face.
Mary wrote about Jessie’s fears for her hens when she moved out of the farmhouse, and how she had created little box-nests for each of them so they could stay sometimes at the Parrys’ new cottage ‘for holidays’, as the little girl said. Bobby could just picture it.
‘That’s better,’ Mike said when she saw her smile. ‘Read the others.’
Obediently, Bobby took up Lilian’s letter.
That was all good news too, now she read it with fresh eyes.
Tony seemed to be behaving himself, both as a husband and employee, and the truce with their father held strong.
There had been no increase in their dad’s drinking.
It was hard to tell from a letter, but Lilian sounded happy, and spoke of the preparations she had been making for the arrival of the baby.
‘I wonder if I might be able to get a pass out next Saturday,’ Bobby said to Mike. ‘I’d like to see my family, even if it’s only for a few hours.’
‘I don’t see why not. Get a form from Bennett, then you can ask Stewpot to sign it at dinner.’
Bobby read her letters from Piotr and Jolka, then finally the one from Topsy – it was signed by both Topsy and Teddy, but she could tell from the exuberant style which Nowak had been responsible for its composition.
It was full of the lovely things they had seen on their honeymoon in North Wales and Norman and Jemima’s babies, all of which Topsy had named after famous film stars.
And you absolutely must come to visit very soon, Birdy, the letter ended.
There’s something I’m dying to show you, up at the airmen’s hospital.
I’m still going to be nursing there, even though I am a married woman, and I know you’d be so interested.
Next time you have some leave, come straight to us.
Don’t bother answering this letter – we’d much rather have your own self than words on a page.
Yours, Topsy and Teddy
Bobby wondered why Topsy should be so keen to show her something at the hospital. That was Topsy’s domain, not hers.
‘You see, I told you they’d make you feel better,’ Mike said. ‘Now wipe your tears away and I’ll help you do your make-up for the dance. You look a fright, Bobs.’
‘I’m not going,’ Bobby said, blowing her nose on Charlie’s hanky. ‘I’m really not in the mood for a party.’
‘Nonsense,’ Mike said stoutly. ‘Best thing for you. Take your mind off he-who-shall-not-be-named and remind you how many more fish there are in the sea. Better fish, who know how to treat a girl properly.’
‘Honestly, I can’t. I just know if anyone asks me to dance, I’ll blub all over him. I’ll bring everyone down with my miserable face.’
‘You’re coming and I won’t take no for an answer.
Have a few drinks with the girls and toast to the demise of every swine who thinks he can treat us like dirt.
Better than lying here sobbing on your own.
’ Mike picked up the photo of Charlie, waved a two-finger salute at it and shoved it in Bobby’s drawer. ‘There. A clean slate.’
Bobby gave a damp laugh. ‘I’ll go for a little while, but only if you promise to protect me. I swear I never want to see a man again. Don’t let Carol matchmake for me, and if you see any airman heading in my direction with longing in his eyes, just punch him right in the nose.’
Mike grinned. ‘It would be my pleasure. Come on, let’s get that face of yours washed up.’
‘All right.’
Bobby stood to follow her out. Then she paused, looking down at her left hand. After a moment, she slid her engagement ring off and put it in the drawer with Charlie’s photo. She shoved a pile of kit on top so they were hidden from view before following Mike to the ablutions block.