No matter where Bobby went in the village, it was the same. When she stopped at the butcher’s to pick up their meat ration, there was an extra packet of sausages kept under the counter for her. Lizzie ran out from the Golden Hart to let her know there was a jug of beer for her and her father behind the bar whenever they chose to claim it, with the compliments of the establishment. Mrs Clough, who was pegging out her washing, dashed inside to give her a block of cheese she’d saved out of her ration. Bobby half-expected Jos the blacksmith to emerge from his workshop when she passed by and start piling horseshoes into her arms.
When she eventually mounted her bike to cycle back to Moorside, her bicycle basket was brimful of hams, cakes, sausages, cheese and other goodies. Bobby was a little worried she might be stopped by a policeman and arrested for smuggling black-market goods.
Back at the farmhouse, Charlie was leading Boxer from his stable to hitch him up to the little trap he used for getting around in.
‘What’s all this?’ he asked, nodding to the overflowing bicycle basket. ‘Did you discover cornucopia, the horn of plenty, when you were out on your walk this morning?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ Bobby said, still feeling a little dazed by people’s generosity. ‘Everywhere I went, people kept giving me things. I didn’t want to take them, but they got very offended when I tried to turn any of it down. They seem to think I’m solely responsible for bringing those airmen down from Bowside.’
‘And so you are. I told you you’d be a hero today, didn’t I?’
‘But I didn’t do anything. The men from the village brought them down, and you and the doctors treated them. All I did was raise the alarm, that’s all.’
‘You gave us leadership. Without you, no one would have known what to do or where to go. It’s a skill to keep your head in a crisis like that – one not many people have. You ought to stop playing down your part in it.’
‘I just feel like such a phoney.’
‘Well, you’re not. So stop being so daft.’ He finished hitching up Boxer and patted the pony’s flank. ‘I’m certainly going to miss you, old lad.’
Bobby rested her bike against the wall of the stable and approached to give Boxer’s nose a stroke. He whinnied appreciatively.
‘What will happen to him?’ Bobby asked quietly. ‘When you go, I mean.’
‘Reg is keeping him on. He’s going to struggle to keep the Wolseley running when they cut the petrol ration again next period, and besides, the bairns are fond of the old boy.’ He turned to look at her. ‘If you’ve ever got a sugar lump to spare then save it for him, eh? Tell him it’s from me.’
His tone was light, but Charlie’s eyes held a different expression than Bobby had seen there before. Perhaps it was because he was about to go to war, or perhaps it was because of what he’d seen the night they rescued the airmen. Perhaps all of them who’d been there that night looked different now than they had before: Topsy, Charlie. Her. Did her eyes hold that same sad, haunted look?
She could have stood anything except those eyes, looking at her, filled with so much pain.
‘Oh God, Charlie,’ she whispered.
The next moment she was in his arms, shaking with sobs while he covered her in kisses.
‘Hey. It’s all right,’ he whispered.
‘It isn’t. Everything’s… changing. It feels like nothing will ever be the same here again. Like there’ll never be joy again. The world feels so dark.’
‘I know. I feel the same.’
‘Aren’t you terribly afraid?’
‘I thought I was afraid before, but I don’t think I really understood what I had to fear until Bowside. I remember waking up in the night hearing your dad scream. Now I understand what he must have seen in his dreams.’
‘You can hear Dad from the farmhouse?’
‘Sometimes. Reg has nightmares too, at times. I suppose all those old soldiers do.’ He held her back. ‘But every storm has an ending, Bobby.’
‘Does it?’
‘It has to.’
She pressed her face against his chest, breathing in his scent as she let the tears she’d held back for too long flow. ‘I love you very much, Charlie. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘Not now.’ He lifted her face and kissed her softly. He kissed away the tears on her cheeks and at the corners of her eyes, and then he kissed her lips. ‘One more day with joy in it. Just one.’
‘You know, don’t you? You already know what I’m going to say.’
‘I knew the moment I saw you at the hospital, after we came down from the mountain with the airmen.’ He kissed her again. ‘But don’t say it. Don’t say it until you say goodbye. Just dry your eyes, put on your best dress and let me take you dancing one last time.’
