‘Your friend had agoosefor a page boy?’
Bobby laughed. ‘If you knew Topsy, I promise that would make perfect sense.’
Ernie smiled, his eyes cloudy with nostalgia. ‘They were happy times, weren’t they? Working on the pantomime with her and you and the old lady, watching Archie and Sandy play the fool while that feathery horror Norman glared at us. Sure took the edge off flying ops.’
Bobby sighed. ‘We talked about doingDick Whittingtonthis Christmas, didn’t we? But the war seems to have other plans for us.’
‘You know, there was a time I thought I’d never be happy on this wretched, soggy little island,’ Ernie said. ‘All I wanted was to go home and shake the dirt of it off my heels for good. But it creeps up on you, this place. The Dales, I mean. One day you wake up and realise that in spite of the rain and the grumpy natives and all the dashed sheep, it’s become a part of you.’
‘I don’t see what’s so special about the Dales,’ Carol said, sounding sulky about this conversation she couldn’t play a full part in. ‘I bet Canada’s a thousand times more beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it’s a hell of a country,’ Ernie said. ‘But a piece of me will always be here, I think, wherever I drag my tired old bones to after the war – if I get to the end of it.’
There was a moment’s silence after this sober reflection, Ernie and Bobby alone with their thoughts and Carol looking increasingly annoyed at being left out. She was waggling her eyebrows again, but Bobby paid no attention.
‘You going to go home then, now you’re allowed out?’ Ernie asked Bobby.
Bobby nodded. ‘Next Saturday. Mulligan said she’d sign a pass for me.’
‘I’m going back too, the day after tomorrow. I’ve a few days of leave due and I’d like to deliver my congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Topsy personally.’
Bobby smiled. ‘You’re right, that is what they ought to be called.’
Ernie took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘So how are you finding the Air Force, girls?’
‘I think it’s whizzo,’ Carol said, eagerly seizing on a subject she knew about. ‘The best service by a mile. Although I do think the Canadian uniforms are so much nicer than the RAF ones.’
‘They’re practically identical.’
‘Yes, but they look better, somehow.’
‘How about you, Slacks?’ Ernie asked.
‘What is this “Slacks” all about?’ Carol demanded, peevish at once again having failed to secure his undivided attention.
Ernie laughed. ‘When I met your friend, I don’t think I saw her in anything but pants for months. I was starting to wonder if she had legs at all.’
‘You’re so right. Women ought to be feminine,’ Carol said, nodding sagely, but Ernie had once again turned his attention to Bobby.
‘So?’ he said. ‘Think you’ll stick with us for the duration, Aircraftwoman Slacks?’
‘I don’t suppose I have a choice,’ Bobby said. ‘I can’t help feeling sort of… wrong about it though. Like I’m lacking a sense of purpose here. But I am trying to find my place.’
‘It’s a man’s domain, war. We can dress you dolls up like airmen, but it is just that, at the end of the day: dressing up. Trying to make a place for you where none ought to be.’
‘But it isn’t the other dolls – I mean, women,’ Bobby said. ‘It’s just me. I don’t fit, somehow.’
‘You’re not enjoying military life then?’
‘Well, some of it. I like the people I’ve met,’ she said, with a smile for Carol that did little to appease her friend’s bad mood. ‘And the route marches. Even when they’re wet, they’re my favourite part of the day.’
Ernie laughed. ‘Seriously? I’ve never met an airman who wouldn’t give his right arm to fling those accursed route marches into the sea.’
Carol nodded. ‘That’s what I think. Rotten, damp, dirty things.’
‘They make me feel like I’m at home,’ Bobby said dreamily. ‘You can see right over the fells – almost as far as Silverdale.’
‘You should see it from the air,’ Ernie said. ‘Now that’s something. I do it every day, teaching the sprog pilots how to handle their bombers, but it still blows me away.’
