‘You think he’s found someone else? Mike says all the airmen have got a girl on the side.’
‘They can’t have. Not all of them. Not Charlie.’ Bobby’s gaze drifted to her engagement ring. ‘But it’s so hard to know. He has changed, since he joined the RAF. He has these unpredictable dark moods, and he has to live with so much death and fear. I’m worried the war’s changed him so completely, it’s driven him away from me.’ She glanced at Dilys. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. You’ve got your own worries.’
‘No, it’s nice. I mean, it’s not nice what’s happening to you, but I like you telling me things.’ Dilys looked different without her customary expression of hostility: younger, sweeter, more like a girl than a woman. ‘And I won’t pass it around, I swear.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You shouldn’t give up hope though. It probably is just missing post. There might be a pile when we get back.’
‘Oh, I do hope so,’ Bobby whispered.
When they returned to camp, they found their letters had been distributed and left on the bunks. Bobby felt a smidgeon of relief when she saw that there was indeed a sizeable pile waiting for her, but she didn’t dare look at the envelopes. Instead she snatched them up, mumbled an excuse and ran to the ablutions block, where she could shut herself in the latrine and open her post without being observed.
There was one letter from Mary, two from Lilian, one from Topsy and Teddy, one from Piotr and one from Jolka.
But still nothing from Charlie.
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.
And… there was nothing. Mary wrote happily about the innocuous goings-on at Moorside: stories of the scrapes the two evacuees had been getting themselves into, and her difficulties finding suitable furnishings for the cottage they would soon be moving into with their father. There was only a single mention of Charlie, in a postscript where Mary enquired whether their wedding had been approved and if Bobby could let her know whether it would be the 2nd of May as planned so she could confirm with the vicar. Charlie, apparently, had said nothing about it in his most recent letter home.
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 wassafe 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 ofThe 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 sheremembered 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?’
