‘He’s noticed I’m struggling to focus, I suppose,’ Bobby said with a shrug. ‘A walk in the fresh air is just what I need to clear my head.’
Bobby didn’t tell her dad what else was on her mind, although she was sure she must have flinched when he had talked about her wedding plans. The fact she would be leaving on Monday, to face an unknown life among strangers, wasn’t the only reason she was struggling to concentrate at work.
There had been no letter from Charlie for a fortnight now. Normally she would get at least one letter a week from him – often more. She had kept an eye on the post to Moorside and knew that Mary, too, hadn’t heard from him in the last two weeks, although as he wrote to his sister-in-law rather less frequently than his fiancée, there wasn’t the same feeling of panic at the farmhouse as had taken root in her.
It felt like she was holding her breath constantly, feeling her innards plummet every time Gil or a boy from the village appeared outside Moorside with something to deliver. Always she feared that this time it would be the eternally dreaded telegram.
Of course it was possible that Charlie’s letters had only been held up, but Bobby couldn’t help fearing something far worse. She knew her mind would remain unsettled until she had been reassured all was well.
She breathed deeply as she strode the lower flanks of Great Bowside, the peak that towered over Silverdale. It was still ‘white ovver’ in places higher up, with a cap of snow at the summit, although the early spring sunshine shone brightly. Here and there, little patches of purple butterwort and golden tormentil shone among the brown heather, like heralds of the new season. The walk up the mountain held so many memories for Bobby, and she couldn’t blame the wind when sharp tears stung the corner of her eyes.
She had made the journey to the peak on several occasions, but there were three incidents that stood out in her mind. The first was when she and Charlie, in their early courting days, had walked to the shepherd’s hut halfway up and rain had forced them to seek shelter. That was when she had first woken in Charlie’s arms, and thought seriously about how it would feel to awake there every day. The second was the night of horror when a Wellington crewed by trainee airmen had crashed below the peak, and Bobby had led a rescue party to bring down the survivors. And the third, and sweetest, was the day Charlie had taken her to the summit and asked her to be his wife. Bobby rubbed her fingers over the engagement ring under her gloves, remembering how he had held her while they watched the sun set. She was glad she would get to see the view from the summit one last time before leaving Silverdale.
Charlie had looked at her with such admiration that night of the crash, when they had marched up here with only a dim torch and a bag filled with bandages and aspirin. And yet it had been Charlie who had shown a new side to himself at the top, when he had challenged a pair of village men who had mistaken the Free Polish survivors for German spies. Bobby realised now that she had been given a glimpse, that night, of the man war would cause Charlie to become. Or perhaps the man he’d always been, somewhere inside, just waiting for a crisis of life-or-death proportions to bring him to the fore.
That hadn’t been the first time Bobby had come face to face with death, but it had been the first time she had witnessed the sort of death war could bring. When she had seen the smoking bodies in the plane, it had brought home exactly what she had to fear when the man she loved left her to join the RAF.
It took Bobby nearly two hours to arrive at the spot where the Wellington had crashed. There was little left, now, of the fuselage. Most of the pieces had been plundered by local lads, supposedly to donate for salvage. Bobby had her suspicions that they had more likely been sold to Pete Dixon, who had a thriving side trade in scrap metal. But there were still a few shards of jagged aluminium lying around.
Bobby went to rest her hand on one, closing her eyes as she said a silent prayer for the men who had died here that night. She would think of them tomorrow, as she watched their comrade Teddy Nowak – who had so nearly joined them in the next life – marry the woman he loved.
When she had finished paying her respects, she continued on to the summit.
Her mind drifted back to Topsy, sitting between Teddy’s knees as she pretended to read his palm. She thought, too, of something Lil had said in one of her letters: about a girl in the Wrens who could tell the future by laying out cards. Such trickswere nonsense, Bobby supposed. Still, it would be a skill to have, wouldn’t it? To see the future.
She felt like thoughts of the future occupied most of her waking hours these days, making it impossible to live her life fully in the present. Big thoughts that affected the whole world, such as who would win the war and what would happen after, and little thoughts – although not so little to her – about what would happen to her, and the people she loved. What would be waiting for her in her new life as a WAAF? How would Tony and Lil get along after the baby arrived? Would her father’s mental state remain stable with his new living arrangement? Could Tony hang on to his job atThe Tyke? How would Topsy and Teddy fare as man and wife, given the physical toll placed on them by his injuries? Would Bobby’s hard-won career as a reporter still be open to her when she returned from the war? And above all, what would happen to her and Charlie in the face of all the changes happening both outside and within them?
Bobby had sometimes pondered why she didn’t feel more excited about her forthcoming wedding. That was how brides were supposed to feel, wasn’t it? She ought to be like Topsy, walking on air, hardly able to wait for the day she would be legally and spiritually joined with the man she loved. She had told herself it was because the date hadn’t yet been confirmed, which meant it didn’t quite feel real despite the ring on her finger. But it wasn’t that.
There was just so much uncertainty. How could she think about a wedding when every time a message came, she dreaded hearing that the man she had pledged herself to had been injured – or killed? When it seemed like the war would go on and on forever? It was almost as if her mind, trying to protect her, had created a barrier beyond which she was not allowed to peep. It struck Bobby that despite thinking constantly about the future, she didn’t entirely believe in it.
There was so much worry and fear that it felt hard to find the joy in anything. Even in moments of quiet content, when for a brief time she could forget the war and appreciate what was around her, a worried whisper soon dragged her back to the reality of what was happening out there in the world. Always she thought of Charlie, and where he might be, and if she would ever see him again.
At the summit of the fell, Bobby stood by the flat rock where she had sat with him the day she had accepted his proposal. She peeled back her glove to let her sapphire engagement ring catch the light of the sun.
Tears rose as she remembered his warm arms around her, and the soft chuckle of the grouse as they had looked down into the valley bathed in golden light. That peaceful moment, knowing Charlie belonged to her and she to him, had seemed to promise a better future to come – a future with a world at peace. But would it ever arrive?
Something about looking down on the settlement below, the houses little more than specks and the people who inhabited them invisible, brought a dizzying sense of perspective. It ought to make you feel insignificant, a view like that, but it didn’t – not for Bobby. It didn’t matter how numerous human beings were, or how small in the general scheme of things: they mattered, every one. Like the nail for want of which the war was lost, every tiny person could be the one to shift the course of the conflict. Even her.
As she looked down into the valley, Bobby felt herself in the grip of something for the first time. It was exactly what Charlie had once tried to describe to her – a sort of nervous euphoria; an overwhelming feeling of something that wasn’t joy but made her body feel as though it was. There was a dizzying, reeling recklessness to it. Could fear ever feel like joy? It wasoverwhelming, and intoxicating in a way she wasn’t sure was good for her.
She understood, finally, what Charlie had meant when he had said he felt ready to go out there and save the world. She understood why it mattered so much to him to have the wedding as soon as they could. It was about seizing control – about making a future of their own despite the buffeting they were being given by fate. Like Charlie, she no longer felt that she could wait. The world could do as it would, but this future didn’t belong to the world. It belonged to them.
But when she descended from the fells and returned home, there was still no letter waiting for her.
Chapter 25
Lilian and Tony arrived in the late afternoon. What with preparing for Topsy’s wedding and her own imminent departure, it had been over a month since Bobby had last been to Bradford to see her sister. She stared as Lilian struggled to get her huge frame through the door.
‘Oh my word! You’re enormous, Lil.’
Lilian laughed. ‘Thank you, darling sister.’
Tony followed her in with their suitcases.
‘I’ll put these in your room, shall I, Bob?’ he said.
‘It’s your room now,’ Bobby said, smiling rather wistfully. She turned her attention back to Lilian as he disappeared with the cases. ‘I’m serious though. You must have at least four babies in there.’ She frowned. ‘It couldn’t be twins, could it? They do say they run in families.’
