Cousins at War (26 page)

‘How? By telling him more lies? You’ll never get him back, Olive, because you never had him in the first place, and I’m glad he’s happy with Freda, so you’d better
not try anything to drive them apart. I don’t believe you could, anyway.’

Stung, Olive tossed her head. ‘I could and I will . . . some day soon.’

Queenie, aware that her cousin was unsure of herself, let the matter drop and they carried on without saying anything until they reached the end of the prom, at which point, Joe turned round.
‘We’ll go back by St Clement Street and up to the Castlegate. That’s a nice circular tour, but we’d better put a step in, for it’s getting blooming cold. You two
OK?’

‘Fine,’ Queenie assured him and he took Olive’s silence as an agreement.

By the time they got back, the dinner was ready, and they took their places at the table while Hetty helped Gracie to serve. The others did not need Joe’s order to ‘Tuck in,’
but Olive, having something less mundane than food on her mind, only toyed with each course, which alarmed her mother but did not bother Gracie who had always thought that Olive was a queer fish.
Queenie, still smarting from Olive’s remarks, sneaked a quick glance at her and felt gratified that she looked miserable. It had been idiotic to argue with her but it had made her think.

Gracie suddenly caught Olive glaring at her malevolently and wondered what she had done to annoy her. ‘Would you like tea, Olive?’ she asked as cordially as she could, ‘or
would you rather have lemonade?’

Olive’s lips turned up scornfully. ‘Tea, if it’s not too much trouble. I’m twenty now, remember, not a kid.’

Feeling like wiping the sneer off her face with a smack, Gracie said, ‘I know that. You’re the same age as Neil.’

This remark led Martin and Joe to reminisce about the time of the births in the Gallowgate and Gracie breathed easily again. She shouldn’t let Olive upset her. It was a waste of time
trying to fathom out the imaginary insults the girl was harbouring against her. Olive’s thinking had no reason.

At the end of the meal, Joe further upset Olive by saying, ‘You and Hetty sit down, Gracie. Let the girls clear up.’

Both Queenie and Gracie expected an outburst at this but none came. Olive just stood up and started stacking dishes although it was clear that she was inwardly fuming.

Gracie had to wait until their guests left before she told her husband what she thought of him. ‘Did you have to tell Olive to dry the dishes? She was in a bad humour anyway.’

Joe gave his usual grin. ‘I could see that, that’s why I did it. She needs to be reined in a bit, that one, and when she finds a man, she’ll have to learn to do dozens of
things she’s never set her hands to before, though God help the poor bugger that ends up with her.’

The swearword made Gracie scowl but Queenie prayed that whoever ended up with Olive, it wouldn’t be Neil.

When the new semester began, Queenie threw herself into the business of finding someone to replace Neil. She went out so many nights that even Joe remarked on it. ‘I
can’t see where you find time to do any studying.’

She pretended to laugh at his ignorance. ‘We all study in the Common Room when we’ve spare time, or at the Union at nights, helping each other with notes and essays.’

‘Not copying from each other?’ This was a crime to Gracie.

‘Not really, we’ve all our own ways of putting things and the lecturers are quite happy.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Gracie said unnecessarily.

Queenie didn’t altogether like it herself but she would be leaving in three months so it didn’t matter. She had met some nice boys in the Union – a small place in Broad Street,
crowded and so smoky that her eyes nipped every time she was there – but hadn’t gone out with any of those who’d asked her, although she might start one day soon. Until she left
Aberdeen, and probably afterwards too, she would have to pretend that she was having fun, put on a face to the world. She would never stop loving Neil but that didn’t mean she should go into
a decline. He had found his true love in Freda and they would live happily ever after . . . as long as Olive did nothing to spoil it.

Neil had to put up with much teasing from his friends about his engagement, especially from Alf, who had said, ‘She got you hooked, then? She’ll have the ball and
chain round your neck in no time.’

Neil took it all with a laugh, but he didn’t tell Alf that his marriage would be in the dim and distant future – that was what it seemed to him – nor that Freda kept him at
arm’s length as far as sex was concerned. He couldn’t get her to understand that there was nothing rude about it, nothing to be ashamed of. ‘If you can’t wait till
we’re married,’ she had said last night, ‘I’d better give you your ring back.’

That had shaken him, and thinking about it again, he knew that she had meant it. Could he wait a year or would he be better to cut his losses and run? No, by God! He couldn’t do that, he
loved her too much. He would wait . . . but it might be worth trying again in a little while. She couldn’t hold out against him for twelve whole months.

Olive was glad that Frankie Lamont was off with tonsillitis and that she had Polly Frayne to herself. She always got the feeling that Frankie didn’t believe her stories,
but Polly took every word as gospel. ‘Neil wanted us to get engaged on his last leave,’ she began, ‘but I reminded him that I still hadn’t got my degree.’

Polly’s eyes darkened, ‘I don’t know how you can treat him like that. Didn’t he get angry?’

‘No, he loves me, you see, and he’ll do anything I want. I know he’s finding it difficult to wait but like I told you before I want to be a virgin on my wedding
night.’

‘I won’t be a virgin on my wedding night,’ Polly sighed. ‘I don’t seem to be able to say no.’

‘You should have had willpower, like me. It’s not that I don’t want him to make love to me, sometimes I want him as much as he wants me but I made up my mind long ago that I
wouldn’t give in to him and I’m sticking to it.’

‘Well, I hope you don’t regret it. You’ll maybe find, one of these days, that he’s gone off with somebody who’s not a cold-blooded fish.’

‘I’m not cold-blooded,’ Olive burst out indignantly. ‘I’m just being sensible.’

But she wasn’t being sensible, she thought, later. It was anything but sensible to carry on with these lies and she could never let Polly know that Neil was engaged to somebody else. Polly
would think that he didn’t love her, and while she knew deep down in her own heart that this was true, she didn’t want to believe it. He had loved her before and he would love her
again, once she found a way to get him back. It was this belief that had seen her through the awful weeks since he had been home, and she was determined not to lose sight of it. It would come true,
no matter what Queenie or anyone else thought.

Neil had grown more despondent and frustrated as the weeks crept past. Freda, despite the promise in her kisses, never let him go beyond that. She steadfastly refused to have
more than one drink, and jumped away like a scalded cat if he tried anything when he walked her home. She made him feel as if he were an unreasonable rotter, though all he wanted was a full
commitment on her part . . . just once.

When his leave came round again, he was actually relieved that she had caught a very virulent strain of influenza and couldn’t go with him. He had often felt like taking her by force and
damning the consequences – what could her parents do even if they found out? Put a gun to his head and force him to marry her? That was what he wanted to do anyway – but if he lost
control at home and his mother found out there would be hell to pay. Temptation was better left behind.

The train was late when it arrived in Aberdeen and both Joe and Queenie had left by the time he reached King Street.

‘I’m sorry Freda wasn’t able to come,’ Gracie said. ‘I was looking forward to seeing her again.’

‘It was just one of those things,’ Neil sang, putting on a sad expression and turning the palms of his hands upwards.

Gracie frowned at his flippancy, ‘Poor lass, she’s likely hurt at you for going away and leaving her when she’s ill.’

‘I did offer to stay there with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Anyway, her mother fusses round her like an old hen, and I’d just have annoyed her – Mrs Cuthbert, I
mean. She’s the boss in that house, and she’s too overpowering for me.’

‘I’m glad you came home.’ Gracie hoped fervently that he wouldn’t end up with an interfering mother-in-law.

After a breakfast of toast and tea, Neil went to bed – he had stood in the corridor of the train most of the way from Newcastle. Stretching out on top of the blankets, he looked round his
old room. He had occupied it little more than a year before he joined up, so it was strange how nostalgic he felt about it. It hadn’t changed much. The floral curtains had been replaced by
heavy blackout material, which made the room gloomy, even when they were pulled back. The chest of drawers had a new runner on it – it looked like tapestry though it probably wasn’t
– but the framed snapshot of Patsy and him as children was still there, balanced at the other side by a matching framed photo, the first he’d had taken in uniform. Between them stood
the alarm clock that used to get him up for work, its twin bells shrilling so noisily that he had often felt like hurling it out of the window. . . but he’d have had to get out of bed to do
it.

The same reproduction of ‘The Monarch of the Glen’ hung on the wall and he remembered being frightened of it when they lived in the Gallowgate. The stag was a magnificent animal but
it had seemed fearsome to a small boy and the only one he had confided in was his Granda, who had said, ‘He’s just defending his territory, lad. He’ll not attack man nor beast
unless they threaten him.’ This had eased his fears but he had sometimes worried that boys might not be as immune from attack as men and beasts.

If Granda had still been alive, he’d have been the person to ask about this latest fear, Neil mused. He had begun to wonder if he was unnatural in having such a steady ache for sex but
maybe it was just because he’d had too much of it before and was getting none now . . . like a drug addict whose supplies had been cut off, but the craving would surely wear off
eventually.

Neil spent that evening talking to his parents – ‘Queenie hardly ever stays in,’ his mother had said – but he went to see Hetty the next evening and was disappointed to
be told that Martin wouldn’t be home for a while. ‘He’s on another of his working late binges,’ Hetty said, pettishly ‘Well, he says he’s working
late.’

His aunt’s odd manner made him feel uneasy but Olive was speaking to him now and he had to turn his attention to her. While they were having a cup of tea, much later, it occurred to Neil
that several empty evenings lay ahead, and that he couldn’t impose himself on his aunt too often. He was afraid to ask Queenie out – he couldn’t trust himself there because he
still felt something for her though she seemed to have got over him – but why shouldn’t he take Olive dancing? He let this run around his brain for several minutes, wondering if it
would be asking for trouble, then decided to risk it. Surely she’d have given up on him now and he would tell Freda about it when he saw her. She wasn’t the jealous type and Olive was
his cousin, after all. He waited until Hetty went into the kitchen before he murmured, ‘Olive?’

‘Yes, Neil?’

Her old eagerness was gone, he was pleased to note. ‘Would you like to go to the Palais with me some night?’

‘If you like.’

‘Wednesday?’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll meet you at the usual place at eight.’

‘Fine.’

When Hetty returned, Olive said, ‘Neil’s asked me out.’

He felt he had to explain. ‘I’m at a loose end and I don’t feel like going to the Palais by myself.’

Hetty smiled indulgently. Neil was engaged and would just be needing company. ‘Olive doesn’t go out very much. It’ll be a nice change for her.’

Martin looked tired when he came in, Neil thought, but it wasn’t surprising if he worked late so much. ‘I was thinking I wouldn’t see you tonight.’

‘A last-minute hiccup in a house deal,’ Martin sighed. ‘I got it all sorted out but it took much longer without Evie. She was my secretary,’ he explained, ‘and she
was really efficient but she married a marine and left last week. The new girl’s still wet under the collar, she’s only just out of a business college but I believe she’ll shape
up. It’ll just take time to train her.’

‘Mum was a bit jealous of Evie,’ Olive chuckled.

Recalling his aunt’s previous remarks, Neil realised that this had been true but Martin said, ‘She has no reason to be jealous, of Evie or anyone else. I need a secretary, but
I’d never get involved with any of them.’

Hetty had the grace to look ashamed. ‘I know, Martin. I’ve been paranoid about it, but you’re so often late home.’

‘Pressures of work, that’s all, I assure you. Now, Neil, you must be bored with our little differences, and don’t let us put you off marriage. It’s the best institution
there is, no matter what anyone tells you.’

‘Nothing’ll put me off,’ Neil laughed, ‘but Freda’s mother wants us to wait. She’s a dragon and a half, that one.’

‘I was lucky,’ Martin smiled affectionately at his wife. ‘Hetty’s mother was a real gem. If it hadn’t been for her, I would never have told Hetty that I loved
her.’

It was after eleven o’clock when Neil stood up. ‘Mum and Dad will think I’m lost. I’ll see you on Wednesday, Olive.’

His parents were unhappy about the date he had made. As Gracie said to Joe when they were in bed, ‘After the way she used to run after him? He’s going to stir it all up
again.’

Inwardly, Joe agreed, but his wife looked so troubled that he tried to reassure her. ‘Olive’s changed. She knows he’s engaged, and I can’t see her causing any
trouble.’

Gracie snorted. ‘She thrives on causing trouble.’

Taking Olive home on Wednesday night, Neil felt relaxed. He had wondered, beforehand, what he was letting himself in for but he had thoroughly enjoyed their evening out. She
could be good company when she set her mind to it and if she had been like that all along it would have saved him many an anxious hour. Still, that was in the past and a man had to live for the
day, hadn’t he?