‘If the war does finish because of Russia, are you and Uncle Charlie going to get married?’
‘Now why on earth would you think that?’
‘I think he’d like to. He looks at you sometimes like someone he wants to get married to.’
Bobby laughed. ‘How does that look?’
‘I don’t know, sort of silly and grown-up. But he’s really nice though, and he’s good at games and he likes dogs and children, and he always shares sweets and he’s got a horse of his very own. So if you did want to get married, I think you should marry Uncle Charlie because no other men are as good, except my dad but he don’t want to get married again.’ Florence paused. ‘And Reg is good as well, because he made up Ducking School and he makes a magazine, but he’s much more old than you and anyhow he’s married to Mary already. So really, it ought to be Uncle Charlie.’
She smiled. ‘Well, thank you for the advice. I’ll… bear it in mind.’
Florence shuffled up in bed. ‘I bet you miss him lots now he’s gone, don’t you? More than we miss him, even.’
‘I certainly wish he was at home again.’
‘See?’ She sounded triumphant. ‘That proves you should marry him, because you miss him when he isn’t there.’
‘All right, that’s enough of that talk. You’re too small to be thinking so much about grown-up things like marriage, Florence Parry.’ Bobby kissed her forehead. ‘Lie back down and go to sleep now, sweetheart. You want to be wide awake tomorrow so you can show your father all of Silverdale.’
‘OK. Night night, Bobby.’
When Bobby crept back downstairs, she didn’t immediately rejoin the men in the parlour. Instead, she went into the kitchen and leaned against the table with the heels of her hands, drinking in the darkness and silence and solitude.
It had been a strange day. Writing her piece about the airmen who’d survived the plane crash. Watching the girls reunited with their father, and the love and joy in his eyes when he’d held them against him once more. The changing path of the war. The lullaby she’d crooned to the children that had evoked so strongly memories of her own childhood when both parents had been alive, and of tucking Jake in when he’d still been a little boy of ten who was grieving for his mother. She felt tearful, for some reason, and oddly hollow. Or not hollow exactly, but more sort of… drained of life force, like the emotions of the day had wrung her out.
And she thought of Charlie. She tried not to, and she especially tried never to think of what married life might have been like with Charlie – ever since that day in the shepherd’s hut when she’d awoken in his arms and thought what a wonderful thing it might be to wake there every day. It was nothing more than a good way of torturing herself to give in to those daydreams. Still, she couldn’t help her thoughts turning that way now. That could have been her and Charlie, putting bairns of their own to bed at night, singing them lullabies in a duet just as her own parents had once done for her and her sister. Her mother and father had loved each other very much, and although money had never been plentiful, working days were long and her father’s mental state always shaky, Bobby had had a mainly happy childhood – until her mother had fallen ill, at least. The sort she’d have liked to provide for children of her own, if there were to be any. Putting the little Parry girls to bed tonight had made her realise all too strongly that – in spite of the war, the uncertainty of the world’s future and everything she wanted to do with her life and career – she did really want to be a mother.
Could Reg and her father be right? Might the Russians now see off the German aggressors and the war come to an end in a matter of months? Just six short weeks ago, the bombs had rained down on London night after night with no sign of letting up and the end of the war had been nowhere in sight. After today, everything was different. And perhaps Charlie would be coming home and—
She blinked as the kitchen light was switched on. Reg had appeared at the door, leaning on his stick.
‘You’re here, are you?’ he said. ‘What’re you doing standing about in the dark?’
Hastily, she dashed away the tear that had leaked out while she had been musing unseen. ‘I just needed five minutes to myself before I came back in to join you. It’s been a funny sort of day.’
‘You might as well have gone back to your barn. It’ll be bed for everyone when your father and the captain have finished their drinks. Heads are nodding left, right and centre in there.’
‘You like him? The captain?’
‘Aye, he’s a true gentleman – I mean the sort of gentility that comes from nature, not wealth and high breeding, which to my mind is the only kind worth reckoning. An affectionate father too. I’m glad of it, for the bairns’ sake.’ He carried the empty beer jug to the sink and glanced at her as he rinsed it under the tap. ‘All right, are you?’
She took out her handkerchief to dab her eyes. ‘I’m just being soft. The girls asked me to sing them a lullaby that my mam used to sing to me. It brought back a memory I’d lost long ago.’
He turned to face her. ‘Happen you’re thinking what it might feel like to sing your mother’s lullaby for little ones of your own one of these days, eh?’
She frowned. ‘I… the thought might have crossed my mind. How did you know?’
‘I’ve had my eye on you these past couple of weeks, since the boy left. I reckon I can see what’s going on in that brain of yours.’
She turned away. ‘I’d really rather not talk about this, Reg. Not with you.’
‘Answer me one question, that’s all, and I’ll let the subject drop.’
‘What question?’
‘Just tell me this: if the war ended tomorrow and our Charlie came back home for good, and he asked you again what he asked you before, what would you say?’
She stared at him. ‘You mean, if he asked me to marry him again?’
