‘Thank you,’ Bobby murmured, glad to have someone to tell her what to do while she felt so helpless.
‘Don’t forget your letters,’ Mike said, scooping them up from the latrine floor.
Bobby eyed them listlessly. ‘I’m not sure I want them. They only remind me of him.’
‘You won’t say that tomorrow.’ Mike tucked the letters into her pocket and took Bobby’s arm.
Mike was right: Hut 17 was indeed deserted. Bobby sat on her bunk, feeling numb now her tears were spent. It didn’t feel real. And yet it had to be, didn’t it?
It was over. Charlie Atherton, the man she loved, the first and only real romance of her life, was no longer hers. And perhaps soon she would receive a letter from Mary to say someone else was going to be his wife, and she would have to go to the wedding in the little chapel in Silverdale, hear them say their vows and smile as if she didn’t care…
It was the sheercowardiceof it that she couldn’t understand. The silent treatment, when he knew she would hear from Mary that he was still in touch with the folk at Moorside. Why would he do that? Whatever else she had thought Charlie was capable of, she would have believed that to be beneath him. If he had met someone else, she’d have thought his honour would prick him to confess it to her frankly, like a man. Just a few short weeks ago she would have sworn it wasn’t in his nature to be so underhanded, or so unkind. It felt like such a whimpering, pathetic way for their love story to end.
Mike placed Bobby’s post on her bunk.
‘You’ll want these later, I’m sure.’ She picked up the copy ofThe TykeLilian had sent. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s the magazine I used to work for,’ Bobby mumbled. ‘I was a journalist as a civilian.’
‘Were you? You never told us that.’
‘I thought you might tease me.’
Mike flicked through the magazine, smiling. ‘It’s rather a sweet little thing. Did you get any good news from home to cheer you up?’
Bobby appreciated her friend’s attempts to take her out of herself, but she wished Mike would go drink gin with the others in the recreation hut. She didn’t have any energy for small talk.
‘Not enough,’ she said quietly.
‘Read your letters again. Perhaps there’s more in them than you noticed the first time.’
Bobby ignored her. She just sat staring at Charlie’s photo on the chest of drawers, and tried to understand how that familiar, handsome face – those lips that had told her so many times between kisses that they loved her entirely and devotedly – could have caused her such deep, deep pain.
After a while the numbness started to fade, however, and her gaze drifted to the pile of letters. She picked up Mary’s and read it through, trying to banish thoughts of Charlie so she could appreciate what her friend had to tell her.
Soon, a very small smile appeared on her face. Mary wrote about Jessie’s fears for her hens when she moved out of the farmhouse, and how she had created little box-nests for each of them so they could stay sometimes at the Parrys’ new cottage ‘for holidays’, as the little girl said. Bobby could just picture it.
‘That’s better,’ Mike said when she saw her smile. ‘Read the others.’
Obediently, Bobby took up Lilian’s letter.
That was all good news too, now she read it with fresh eyes. Tony seemed to be behaving himself, both as a husband and employee, and the truce with their father held strong. There had been no increase in their dad’s drinking. It was hard to tell from a letter, but Lilian sounded happy, and spoke of the preparations she had been making for the arrival of the baby.
‘I wonder if I might be able to get a pass out next Saturday,’ Bobby said to Mike. ‘I’d like to see my family, even if it’s only for a few hours.’
‘I don’t see why not. Get a form from Bennett, then you can ask Stewpot to sign it at dinner.’
Bobby read her letters from Piotr and Jolka, then finally the one from Topsy – it was signed by both Topsy and Teddy, but she could tell from the exuberant style which Nowak had been responsible for its composition. It was full of the lovely things they had seen on their honeymoon in North Wales and Norman and Jemima’s babies, all of which Topsy had named after famous film stars.
And you absolutely must come to visit very soon, Birdy, the letter ended.
There’s something I’m dying to show you, up at the airmen’s hospital. I’m still going to be nursing there, even though I am a married woman, and I know you’d be so interested. Next time you have some leave, come straight to us. Don’t bother answering this letter – we’d much rather have your own self than words on a page.
Yours, Topsy and Teddy
Bobby wondered why Topsy should be so keen to show her something at the hospital. That was Topsy’s domain, not hers.
‘You see, I told you they’d make you feel better,’ Mike said. ‘Now wipe your tears away and I’ll help you do your make-up for the dance. You look a fright, Bobs.’
