‘Tell that to the baker’s boy. Half an hour you were hanging over the fence chelping at him yesterday, and in the cold an’ all. The bread were half-frozen by the time your mam got her hands on it. I’ve a good mind to come out next time and ask him what his intentions are.’
The girl’s cheeks looked like tomatoes now. ‘Oh my word, Dad, please don’t! Jimmy’ll never talk to me again.’
Bobby laughed. ‘Don, don’t tease her. You know you’ll do no such thing.’
‘Aye, well, happen not. Sal, take your little brother upstairs and settle him in his cot. Your mam needs a rest.’
Sal approached to take the baby. Bobby felt the little fist slip from her finger as she reluctantly handed him over, and Sal tucked him expertly into the crook of her arm. She gave Bobby a wave before heading upstairs.
Don sighed. ‘She’ll be courting in earnest before long, and me halfway across the country not able to keep an eye on her. We’ve broken the back of this thing now, I hope, but still, it don’t look like there’s much chance of it ending any time soon. Scares me to death, Bobby, I don’t mind telling you.’
Bobby stood up. ‘Do you really believe that?’
‘What?’
‘That we’ve broken the back of the war.’
‘Why, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know. You keep hearing people say it’ll all be over by summer or winter or next spring, but nothing seems to change. Boys are still dying, food’s still short. Chamberlain told us to prepare for a three-year war, didn’t he? Well, it’ll be three years come September and there’s still no end in sight.’
‘Ah, but now we’ve got the Yanks.’
‘Yes, and Hitler’s got Europe. All those resources, as much slave labour as he needs. Anyhow, Churchill certainly doesn’t think it’s over. He was forecasting another invasion attempt in the spring.’ She pressed her palms to her eyes. ‘It’s the sheer on and on-ness that frays the nerves. It feels like it’ll carry on this way forever, Don.’
Don sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right and I’m kidding myself. Can’t face the thought of being gone for years; of coming home to find a daughter almost grown and a little boy who don’t remember me. It feels like Sal’s at that age where she changes every day. By the time they let me come home for good, happen she’ll be a young woman and I’ll have missed the last precious bit of her childhood.’ He sighed again before summoning a smile. ‘Same for dads the country over, I suppose. Anyhow, I wasn’t expecting to see you today.’
He shook her hand in a frank, manly fashion that made Bobby laugh.
‘I wasn’t expecting to have to come,’ she said. ‘Still, I’m glad to have the chance to say goodbye.’
‘Been for a medical, have you? They’ll have the whole bloody country in the forces before long.’
‘Joan says I’ve to take you for a pint and get you out from under her feet.’
‘That, young Bobby, is just what I need,’ Don said, clapping her on the shoulder. ‘It’s been driving me dotty hanging around this place all day. I’m not a man idleness sits well on, but that’s all I can be in this weather. Can’t even do a bit o’ gardening.’
‘Let’s go to the Swan.’
‘The Swan? That’s nearly a half-hour’s walk. There’s the Brewer’s not fifty yards away.’
‘I know, but… I feel that I’d like to go to the Swan. For old times’ sake.’
He smiled. ‘Feeling nostalgic, are we? I know what you mean. All right, button up and let’s go.’
Chapter 12
Bobby tied her pixie hood over her ears and pulled her coat tight around her as they set off walking towards the pub near their old offices. In her days at theCourier, they had visited every Tuesday for a game of darts after putting that week’s paper to bed.
‘Everything’s changing, Don,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Aye.’
‘Are you afraid?’
‘Of the Army?’ He shrugged. ‘At my age it’s bound to be Pioneer Corps they pack me off to. Not much danger there – just me and a load of other broken-down old buggers doing a bit of navvying. I’m more worried Clarky’ll get a taste for being a newspaperman again and I won’t have a job to come back to when I’m demobbed.’
‘I know how you feel.’
