He looked awkward, clutching his hat in his hands as they talked – a very un-Charlie-like attitude. Bobby felt awkward too. She wondered why. Was it the kiss they’d shared last night? The pact they’d made? Or could he sense that she’d spent an almost sleepless night worrying about their future together – if they had one?
‘Who’s there, Bobby?’ her dad called from his room.
‘It’s only Charlie, Dad!’ Bobby called back. ‘He’s got an early appointment in the surgery. I’m just showing him through.’
‘Aye, well. Tell him to make sure that’s all he’s here to see to, that’s all.’
Charlie smiled at her.
‘Your old man thinks I’m sneaking in early in the hope of catching you in your frillies,’ he whispered.
That seemed to lighten the atmosphere a little. Bobby smiled too.
‘Well, are you?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Would an Atherton stoop to such low tricks? I don’t know how you can think it of me, Miss Bancroft.’ He glanced down at her dressing gown. ‘What are you wearing under there?’
‘A woollen nightgown, some impenetrable winter drawers and several jumpers, if you must know.’
He laughed. ‘Good old Cow House Cottage. I feel terribly guilty at night, all warm and snug in my bed at the farmhouse. Mary always makes me a hot water bottle.’
‘There’s no need to rub it in, you know.’ She tapped his arm. ‘Off you go and mix up your dog drugs, or whatever you have to do. I need to finish getting ready, and I wouldn’t want to drive you mad with desire at the sight of me in my woolly knickers.’
‘You could drive me mad with desire in a siren suit.’ He glanced quickly behind him to make sure her father hadn’t emerged before stealing the opportunity to give her a kiss. ‘I’ll see you later, Bobby.’
Bobby went back to her room to finish getting ready, smiling to herself. The short encounter had cheered her up a little and seemed to have restored the balance to where it ought to be. She tried to push aside her worries about Charlie, the future and the war as she prepared for another day of work atThe Tyke.
Usually, she and her father joined Reg and Mary for breakfast, but her conversation with Charlie had made her late. By the time they entered the kitchen at Moorside, Reg had disappeared, and Mary was washing up their plates.
‘Ah, there you both are,’ she said in her usual warm way, giving Bobby’s arm a squeeze of welcome. ‘I hope you don’t mind us not waiting. Reg was as hungry as a hunter, he said, and you know how men get when they aren’t fed on time. I’ve kept it warm for you.’
‘Sorry we’re late,’ Bobby said as she took a seat. ‘Charlie came over early needing access to the surgery and started talking nonsense to me as usual, so it was really all his fault.’
Mary smiled knowingly. ‘Was it indeed?’
‘Can you pass the eggs, Dad?’ Bobby said, hastily changing the subject before he picked up on the suggestiveness in Mary’s tone.
Mary ran her gaze over the sparse offering on the table and sighed.
‘It’s not much of a breakfast, is it?’ she said. ‘I never thought the war shortages would hit us so hard out here. Never thought I’d see the day you couldn’t at least get mutton and milk for the asking in farming country. Seems you’ve to account for every bite and drop these days, and the Ministry of Food would fine a shopkeeper soon as look at them if they put a toe wrong.’
‘Better than we got at home,’ Bobby’s dad said as he helped himself to a sausage. ‘Us country folk don’t know how lucky we are.’
Mary smiled. ‘“Us country folk” indeed. Well, Rob, I’m glad to hear you think of yourself as one of us now.’
He smiled at her. ‘Aye, when the sausages are this good, I reckon I’m willing to be adopted.’
‘Still, wartime’s no time to be a housewife.’ Mary, who’d always prided herself on keeping a good table, eyed the few strips of stringy bacon and loaf of gritty brown bread glumly. ‘Meat ration of a shilling apiece since they dropped it again last month. How can I keep three grown men fed on that, I ask you? And cheese rationing will be starting next month. I wouldn’t wonder if they rationed milk next, it’s getting that hard to lay your hands on. The sooner this war is won, the better.’
‘But your food’s just as delicious as ever, Mary,’ Bobby said as she cut herself a thin slice of bread. It was a white lie, of course, which she thought must be permissible to spare her friend’s feelings. ‘And if there’s a little less of it, I suppose that’s a hardship we can bear when there’s men out there fighting.’
‘Well, happen you’re right. Our troubles aren’t so big compared to some. I shouldn’t be ungrateful. It’s only that it makes it all seem more real – the war, I mean.’
‘I heard in t’ village that there’s a batch of evacuees from London being sent here for billeting,’ Robert observed as he tucked into a sausage.
‘I heard the same. Poor loves, who knows what horrors they must have seen down there? It does feel as though this war that felt so far away is finally arriving on our doorstep.’ Mary turned back to her washing-up. ‘You’ll both have heard about Ida’s boy Billy, I suppose.’
Bobby nodded. ‘Lizzie told me in the Hart last night. Will you go to see her?’
