He shrugged. ‘Why not? You could have a family of twelve and it’d still be less disruptive than my cubs getting called up every few months.’
‘The war won’t last forever.’
‘I used to think women weren’t meant for the newsroom. Since you left and I got stuck with two randy newspapermen who’d rather flirt with pretty girls in the pub than work, I’ve come to appreciate the good points of the gentler sex. Besides, you were a bloody good writer.’ He swallowed a mouthful of beer and wiped some foam from his upper lip. ‘Not that it matters because you won’t come back.’
‘Won’t I?’
‘Course you won’t. Nothing and nobody’s going to claw you away from that daft magazine you love – God knows I’ve tried my best. I wonder Reg hasn’t learned to set a bit more store by you by now. He won’t see commitment like that in anyone else he takes on.’
‘He’s a man of his time. He thinks there are jobs for women and jobs for men, and the job of a woman who’s a wife and mother is exactly that.’
‘And that’s why you’ve turned down this young man of yours, I suppose.’
‘I haven’t turned him down yet. But I promised him an answer before he leaves, one way or the other.’
‘When does he leave?’
‘The 7th of June.’
‘That’s this Sunday.’
‘I know. Only two days left.’ She stared into her beer, watching the wisps of froth swirl on the surface. ‘I think I know what that answer has to be. I didn’t until last night. But I wanted your opinion.’
‘What for? Affairs of the heart really aren’t my forte, as I said before.’
‘This is an affair of the heart and the brain. It isn’t just about Charlie – it affects my entire life. And… well, I respect you. I don’t have any other male friends I’d feel comfortable talking to about it.’
‘All right, if you’re going to butter me up,’ he said, smiling. ‘What was it about last night that made up your mind?’
She sighed. ‘It never was only about the magazine or giving up my job. There was always that worry about Charlie going off to war – that I might lose him. When I thought about being left alone as a widow and mother, it terrified me.’
‘Yes, I should imagine it would.’
‘I suppose at heart I’m nothing but a selfish coward. There are women bravely waving off husbands and sweethearts all over the country, because they know that winning the war is a higher cause. But when I thought about it happening to me… I wasn’t sure I could be that brave.’
‘This is a little hypothetical, isn’t it? Most of the men who go to war will come home safe and sound, I suppose.’
‘But a lot won’t. What about the men in the plane last night? What about Jem? They’re not coming home. Thousands of men aren’t – and there could be thousands more again before we see the end of this thing. The ones who do come home might not be the same as when they left.’
Don took out his pipe and started stuffing it with tobacco. ‘Ah. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s the men you saw in the plane.’
She lowered her gaze and nodded. ‘Whenever I close my eyes, I see them,’ she said quietly. ‘The smoking body in the plane and the pilot with half a face. They weren’t even part of the fight; they were only training. That could have been Charlie. They could all have been Charlie.’
‘But they weren’t Charlie.’
‘Not this time.’ She swallowed a sob. ‘We’re losing the war, Don. Planes are being shot down every day.’
‘Things look like they’re getting better. There’s not been a blitz on London for weeks.’
‘Hmm. And why do you think that is? Germany can’t have run out of bombers.’
He shrugged. ‘Demoralised, perhaps. They suffered heavy losses in the last attack. Hess has given himself up. Maybe the tide of the war is turning.’
‘That might be what the powers that be want us to think, but I don’t believe it. It’s too sudden. If Göring’s called off the Luftwaffe for the moment then it can only be because his boss has got something worse up his sleeve for us,’ Bobby observed darkly. ‘If I know Charlie’s out there, how can it not haunt me – especially if we start a family together? Every time I shut my eyes, I’ll see a burning body in a plane. Only after he’s gone, the body I see won’t be a stranger; it’ll be the man I love. The father of my children. I’ll go mad with it.’
Don smoked his pipe in silence for a few minutes.
‘I wish you hadn’t gone up that mountain, Bobby,’ he said at last.
