‘He isn’t the same scapegrace we used to know, Mary,’ she said quietly. ‘He isn’t so young any more either. At least, his mind seems far older, even if his body is still twenty-seven.’
Mary frowned. ‘This is funny talk. The two of you haven’t had a falling out?’
‘Nothing like that.’ Bobby stirred her tea thoughtfully, watching the thick evaporated milk they were forced to rely on when fresh was in short supply curl through the weak brown liquid. ‘I love him,’ she said simply. ‘He loves me. It feels like he loves me more than he ever has, when he holds on so tightly it almost feels like pain for him to let me go again. And I’ve never admired him more than I do now. But… he isn’t our Charlie.’
‘How so?’
Bobby smiled wistfully. ‘When I met him, it felt like Charlie Atherton was everything I wasn’t – carefree, fun, full of jokes and laughter. Exactly what I needed to help me find the joy in life instead of working all the time. He was good for me, and I felt I was good for him. Things are different now.’
‘He’s still the same old Charlie, isn’t he?’ Mary asked. ‘A little sober sometimes perhaps, as you’d expect given the work he’llbe doing shortly, but he was all games and merriment over Christmas.’
‘In company, maybe, and when he’d the bairns to entertain. But it feels less real than it used to. As if he’s putting on a mask for us all.’ She sighed. ‘If you could hear the way he was talking last night, Mary. Feel how he trembled…’
‘Trembled? Our Charlie?’ Mary came over with Bobby’s egg and sat in the chair beside her, looking worried. ‘Is he sickening for something?’
‘Not anything medicine could cure. It’s his nerves.’ Bobby cracked the shell on her egg absently. ‘I used to worry Charlie would never take life seriously. That no matter how much he loved me, our marriage would be a constant battle to get him to accept adult responsibilities. He seemed such a Jack the Lad, always gadding. These days…’ She bowed her head. ‘I love him so much,’ she whispered. ‘When I look into his eyes and see that brave, frightened, noble soul looking out at me, I feel like it’s physical pain how much I love him; that I can hardly bear it. But I don’tknowhim – not like I used to. And it scares me to death to think that by the time this war ends, I might find myself married to a stranger.’
‘Oh, Bobby.’ Now it was Mary’s turn to embrace her while Bobby shed tears. ‘I had no idea things had got that way.’
Bobby frowned at something in her tone. ‘You know, don’t you?’
Mary smiled sadly. ‘Aye, I know. Reg and Charlie aren’t so different as they like to think, for all that there’s twenty years separating them. My Reg was never quite as frivolous as his little brother, but he laughed a lot, once. He wasn’t the man you know now. The war did that to him – that and losing our little Nancy.’
‘Was it hard for you?’
‘Oh aye, very hard for a time. I felt much as you do. I loved him, still. Respected him with my whole heart, after what he’dbeen through. But he felt half a stranger when he came back to me, like you say. It’ll surprise you how many war wives will tell the same story.’
‘How did you get through it?’ Bobby asked wonderingly. Reg and Mary were such a devoted couple, it was hard to imagine a time when there hadn’t been perfect understanding between them.
‘I’m not rightly sure,’ Mary said. ‘There was a long time, after we lost Nancy, when I worried I wouldn’t. That we’d spend our lives sharing a home and never saying a word to each other.’ She smiled. ‘But Reg found his way back to me. I just kept still and quiet, kept on loving him and kept on showing him I loved him the best way I could, and eventually we grew closer for it than we ever had been as giddy young newlyweds. It’ll be the same for you and Charlie.’
‘Do you think it’s the right thing to do, going ahead with the wedding? Last night I asked Charlie if he wanted to wait, he was talking so strangely, but he’s still determined to do it as soon as we can.’
‘I do,’ Mary said firmly. ‘Atherton men don’t love by halves, Bobby, and no amount of war’s going to change that. Charlie will always be our own Charlie in his heart, never you fear.’
‘I do hope you’re right,’ Bobby whispered.
‘Of course I’m right. I generally am, you know.’ Mary tapped Bobby’s egg in businesslike fashion. ‘Now eat up. You’ll need your strength for this medical. And for Pete’s sake, don’t forget that form.’
Chapter 8
Bobby was rather relieved, as she sat on the train from Skipton to Bradford, that there was indeed a delay due to problems on the line – although it was the weather rather than the war that held them up. It made her feel better about the fib she had told Reg so she could get away early and see her sister. Even with the delay, she should still have an hour or two before she was due at the recruiting centre.
When she stepped off the train, she reflected on how different winter looked in the city than the countryside. Never had the sooty, smog-filled streets of Bradford looked as dreary as they did that January morning, with puddles of dirty yellow slush filling every pothole. Still, something about being back in her home town cheered Bobby in spite of that.
This wasn’t the Bradford she remembered, however. As she proceeded towards Southampton Street, she took in her surroundings.
The whole town seemed to have been repainted in khaki, blue and green. It felt like every other person she passed was in some sort of uniform: soldiers, ATS girls, Home Guard, ARP wardens, the firemen and women of the NFS. There was nothing gay or bright to be seen – the people felt as if they matched the soot-blackened buildings in their sombre attire.
The uniformed folk made her think of Charlie. He was leaving today for his new post. Did he tremble as he travelled, poor frightened boy, as he had in Bobby’s arms last night? Did his heart beat like something wild trapped in his chest? And oh, when would he be in the air? Bobby hated to think of him flying ops, never knowing if the next telegram she received would be the one every wife and sweetheart dreaded. But in some waysthat strange, blank look she had seen in his eyes frightened her even more, because it felt like there was something at work inside him that was changing him as a man. She wanted to comfort him so badly, and feared she no longer knew how.
Bobby walked in the road to avoid the harried Bradford housewives jostling each other in queues the length of streets, hoping they would be lucky enough to get whatever off-the-ration treat might be at the end before it ran out. There seemed to be little of the camaraderie she remembered, with women joking and laughing as they waited. Now everyone had a hungry look, and they eyed one another in silent suspicion.
It wasn’t on her way, but for some reason Bobby found herself wandering towards Hustlergate, where the offices of theBradford Courierwere located. She stopped outside the familiar black door with its brass plaque.
The scrim tape that criss-crossed the windows of her old workplace, designed to stop the glass shattering in the event of an explosion, was yellowed and peeling from neglect: a reminder of the bombs that had been expected to fall on Bradford but – with the exception of one terrible night in the summer of 1940 – had never come. Bobby could only imagine the horror of living in Birmingham, Liverpool or London: wheezing and cowering in cold, damp shelters every night while explosions rang out around you.
Nostalgia flooded her brain as she looked at the old building. She had been happy here. Not in her work particularly, which had been unchallenging other than the few pieces of copy Tony had given her to write, but she had loved being part of a team. The way Don had mentored her as a writer. Tony’s jokes, and his endless battles with Don over what programme to tune the wireless to. Young Jem, the seventeen-year-old cub, and his deep blushes whenever Tony teased him about girls. The weeklydarts match against the Home Guard men at the pub, and Bobby’s acceptance as one of the lads.
