The Girl From Barefoot House (14 page)

Josie nearly fell off the chair laughing. ‘The Army won’t have a cap to fit a head as big as yours, Lily Kavanagh.’

An outraged Daisy flatly refused to allow her identity to be used by her sister so she could join the Army, and Lily was forced to abandon the idea, though she claimed her heart had been broken for ever by Francie O’Leary.

It was Lily who saw the poster in Hewitt’s sweetshop window. She dragged Josie round to see it the same night.

The poster was printed in bright red on yellow foolscap.

Josie’s eyes sparkled. ‘Adventure!’ she breathed.

‘And boys,’ Lily said in an awed voice. ‘Stacks and stacks of boys, different ones every week. I’d be over Francie O’Leary in a jiffy. Oh, Jose, it’s only two months off. We’ll apply to be chalet maids the minute we get home.’

Over the next few weeks, they changed their minds a dozen times. They almost didn’t fill in the application forms when they came, but Josie persuaded Lily to do it, or it might have been the other way round.

Mr Kavanagh was dead set against the whole idea, ‘But when did anyone ever give a fig for my opinion?’ he said with a martyred air.

‘I wish I’d done something like that when I was a girl,’ Mrs Kavanagh said wistfully. ‘I think you’re showing a great deal of enterprise. You’ll easily get other jobs when you come back. And it’ll be nice to get rid of our Lily for a while. Anyroad, she’ll only make our lives a misery if she’s thwarted.’

‘Oh, I will!’ Lily said sweetly.

‘You’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you, Josie, luv?’

‘Yes, Mrs Kavanagh,’ Josie assured her. She had no intention of doing any such thing.

‘What do you think?’ Josie asked Aunt Ivy several times. Ivy still saw the mysterious friend, but he or she had never been invited to the house.

Her aunt was always encouraging, so much so that Josie had the oddest feeling that she actually wanted her to go. ‘As I said before, luv, it seems a good idea. I’m sure you and Lily will have a lovely time.’

‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Josie asked anxiously, the day the letters arrived confirming their employment.

‘Of course, I will, luv.’

‘I can still change me mind. It’s three days before I need to give in me notice at work,’ Josie assured her.

‘I’ll be all right,’ her aunt said irritably. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.’

Josie turned away, hurt. Since Vince had gone, she had got on well with Ivy. It came as a shock to find her aunt so willing to see her leave. She felt very unwanted. Even Ben hasn’t tried to persuade me to stay, she thought miserably.

She couldn’t have been more wrong about Ben.

Josie and Ben were sitting on the same bench on which she’d told Daisy about Uncle Vince eight years ago. It was Friday, and the girls had handed in their notices that afternoon, which meant there was no going back. They would leave for Haylands a week tomorrow.

‘Mr Short, me boss, said he was dead sorry to see me go. He made me promise to contact him when I get back. If there’s a vacancy, he’ll take me on again like a shot. I thanked him nicely, but there’s no way I’d work for an insurance company again. I’d love to work for
the
Echo
. It would be dead interesting, hearing the news before any one else. What do you think?’

‘Since when have you been interested in my opinion?’ Ben said coldly.

‘I’m always interested in your opinion,’ she replied. For the first time, she noticed they were sitting several inches apart, that he hadn’t automatically put his arm around her shoulder when they had sat down.

‘That’s not true. You haven’t asked what I think about you working in that camp, not once.’

‘But I’ve discussed it with you every day,’ she said indignantly.

‘No, you’ve
told
me about it every day.’ He leaned forward and folded his arms on his knees. His voice was stiff with hurt. ‘You haven’t asked if I
care
that you’re leaving, if I
mind
.’

‘But I’m not leaving for ever,’ she protested. ‘I’ll only be gone five months. It never entered me head you’d mind. I mean, you’re going away for three whole years in October. Have you asked if I mind about that?’

He gave her a curt glance. ‘That’s entirely different. I’m going away to learn, get a degree, so one day I’ll get a well-paid job. I’m doing it for
you
, so we can have a nice house, and a nice life, and you’ll never want for anything. Your only motive is to have a fine old time.’

‘What’s wrong with that? I bet you’ll have a fine old time at university.’ Josie laughed, but there was a prickly sensation in her stomach. They had never fought before, but she felt she had right on her side and wasn’t prepared to give in. He was being totally unreasonable. ‘And don’t pretend you’re doing it for me, Ben. You’re doing it for yourself, you know you are.’

‘No, I’m not.’ His lips twisted sadly. ‘I would have still gone, even if I’d never met you. But, you see, one day, I
was only eight, I was wrestling on the floor with our Robert, and when I looked up there was this girl, younger than me. Oh, if only you knew how sad you looked, Josie, how frightened. I felt myself go limp. I suppose I must have fallen in love then, but I was too young to know. I just knew I wanted to be with you for the rest of me life.’ He sat back in the seat, not looking at her, but at a couple with two small children by the stream.

‘So, you see, I am doing it for you. I do everything for you. Whenever I sit an exam, I think to meself, I’m doing this for Josie. You’re never out of me mind.’ He turned and put his arm around her. He kissed her hair, her forehead, her cheeks. Then he gently kissed her lips. ‘I love you, darling.’

He had never called her darling before. She saw his eyes were wet with tears, and felt ashamed of being the cause, because he was probably the best young man in the whole world. He put his other hand on her neck, and she could feel his thumb hard on her cheek. ‘I love you, Ben,’ she whispered.

They kissed again, and a kiss had never felt so sweet before, so loving and so tender.

‘Please, don’t go, Josie. If you truly loved me, you’d stay.’ His voice was hoarse with passion and pleading. But Josie couldn’t see the
harm
. Five months, that’s all, for just five months she wanted a bit of adventure. Once it was over she’d settle down, get another job, commit herself to him entirely. She’d even try to save up for the wedding, start a bottom drawer.

But she had hesitated too long. Ben stood. His face was bleak and raw with hurt. Josie was shocked to think she could cause such hurt to another human being. With a further shock, she realised that he wasn’t meant for her.
No matter what Ben did, he couldn’t possibly hurt
her
so deeply.

‘I’m sorry, Ben.’ She touched his arm, and they stared at each other. They both knew it was over.

‘I’m thinking of the day I first saw you.’ He almost smiled.

‘And me of that day we went to the pictures. You gave me some chocolate and took half back. Ben?’

He was already walking away. He turned. ‘Yes, Jose?’

‘If I asked you not to go to university, what would you say?’

‘I’ve sometimes hoped you would. Tara, Josie. I might not see you before you go, so have a nice time.’

She watched him walk away, a tall, loping, extremely nice young man with a broken heart. There was lump in her throat when she returned to the seat and watched Ben until he disappeared into the trees. She suddenly felt so lonely that it made her body ache. One minute she’d had a boyfriend, now she hadn’t. And it had all happened so quickly, the way the most profoundly important things always did.

The girls were very quiet on the bus that took them from the Pier Head to Colwyn Bay. Lily kept sniffing and burying her face in a hankie. They perked up when the coach stopped outside the camp, and they saw the gaudily painted ‘Haylands Holiday Camp’ sign on an arch above the gates.

‘You know what, Jose?’

‘What, Lil?’

‘Over the next few months, I’m determined to go all the way with a bloke.’

Josie smiled. ‘Good luck.’ She wasn’t considering
looking
at a man, let alone sleeping with one. She couldn’t stop thinking about Ben.

‘Oh, what pretty chalets.’ Lily’s voice throbbed with excitement. ‘Can we pick our own?’

The driver of the long open trolley carrying them and their luggage looked at her drily. ‘No, luv. You’re in the staff quarters behind the theatre.’

‘There’s a theatre!’ Lily nudged Josie in the ribs. ‘I wonder if there’ll be any famous stars.’

The pebble-dashed chalets had been built back to back, the fronts facing each other across a wide concrete path, with a strip of grass in the middle. Wooden tubs, each with an identical green shrub, had been placed neatly, about twelve feet apart. There were five long rows of chalets altogether. Like all the buildings in the camp, the chalets had been freshly painted cream.

They had already passed two bars, the Coconut and the Palm Court, a fish-and-chip shop called Charlie’s Plaice, a ballroom called the Arcadia, an amusement arcade, a parade of shops, a small fairground, a children’s nursery with swings and a see-saw outside, though there wasn’t a child in sight. In fact, there were few campers around and they were mainly elderly. Signs pointed to tennis courts and crazy golf. A few hundred yards in front, the Irish Sea glimmered dully, like pewter, the
waves as unnaturally stiff as freshly permed hair. The sky was dark and getting darker, and there was a touch of rain in the air. Despite all the gaudy entertainment on offer, the camp had a desolate, deserted air.

‘I love crazy golf,’ Lily remarked.

The man steered the trolley towards a large cream building with ‘The Prince of Wales Theatre’ over the entrance in unlit neon. A poster announced that night’s play was
Strip Jack Naked
.

‘I wonder who it’s by?’ Lily mused aloud as the trolley veered violently to the left and they clung on for dear life.

‘I don’t know, luv,’ the driver said, ‘but it ain’t Shakespeare.’ He veered to the right and stopped. ‘This is youse lot here.’

Josie stepped off the trolley and hauled her suitcases after her. ‘Oh, dear.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Lily went pale. ‘Is this what they meant by “Accommodation Available If Required”? It looks like a concrete bunker left over from the war.’

Hidden from view, no one had bothered to paint the grey slabs of the long, single-storey building, badly joined together with lumps of cement. The windows were slits, presumably for guns, now fortunately glazed. A thin woman in a white overall came out of a door marked ‘Women’ and marched towards them. She regarded them sternly. ‘Are you Kavanagh and Smith?’

‘We’re Lily Kavanagh and Josie Smith,’ Josie said icily. She wasn’t prepared to live in a concrete bunker
and
be treated like a second-class citizen. She vaguely hoped the woman would take offence and they’d be sent back to Liverpool on the spot. ‘I didn’t think we’d joined the Army.’

‘Good for you, Jose,’ Lily said under her breath.

To their surprise, the woman laughed. ‘I’m Mrs Baxter, the women’s supervisor. I
was
in the Army, so I suppose surnames have become a habit I must get out of. Come on, Misses Kavanagh and Smith, and I’ll show you where you’ll live for the next five months. I hope you didn’t expect the Ritz, because you’ll be sadly disappointed.’

‘We already are.’ Josie picked up her cases and followed Mrs Baxter into a badly lit corridor with numbered doors each side. She opened number five, and entered a small room in which two double bunks and four green-painted lockers had somehow been crammed. A small mirror was screwed to the wall. Josie was immediately put in mind of a prison cell.

‘I told you not to expect the Ritz,’ said Mrs Baxter. ‘Your two companions won’t be joining you till next week when the camp will be busier. There’s not many people here at the moment, and you’ll find they’re all very old.
Very
old,’ she added with a grin. ‘This is the cheapest time, you see. So if you were hoping to cop off with a fella tonight, girls, you’ve got another disappointment in store, I’m afraid.’

‘There’s no sink,’ Lily complained, ‘and no lavatory.’

‘You’ll find plenty of sinks and lavatories behind the door marked “Ablutions”.’

‘You mean we have to get washed
in public
?’

‘I’m afraid so – are you Kavanagh or Smith?’

‘I’m
Miss
Kavanagh.’

‘Well,
Miss
Kavanagh, I suppose it is like the Army in a way, though you won’t be put on a charge. You will, however, be ordered to leave immediately if you’re found with a man in your room, or you consistently fail to turn up promptly at eight o’clock for work. I don’t care if you’ve got a hangover, as long as you turn up.’

‘What’s a hangover?’

‘I think I’ll let you find that out for yourself, Miss Kavanagh. You must be the first chalet maid I’ve ever met who didn’t know. It’s rather refreshing.’ Mrs Baxter rubbed her thin hands together. ‘Well, girls, the rest of today is yours to do with as you please. The staff have their tea in the dining room after the campers, around seven. Tomorrow, being Sunday, you can have a nice lie-in, otherwise breakfast’s at seven, but I shall expect you in the laundry at twelve to show you round and tell you what you have to do. You’ll find overalls in the lockers. Always keep the key on your person, or you might have your valuables nicked. Oh, and I’d like your ration books, please.’

‘What about Mass?’ Lily enquired.

‘You’ll find a list of church services in Reception. I think the Catholic Mass is ten o’clock.’

‘Ta.’ Josie made a face as soon as Mrs Baxter left the room. ‘I might pray to be released. We’ll never get all our clothes in them lockers, Lil. I’ve brought virtually everything I own.’