Polly's Angel (54 page)

‘Tad!' Polly said, her voice coming out high, and squeakier than usual. ‘Oh, Tad, it's me, Polly.'

‘Who?'

‘Polly O'Brady,' Polly said, dismayed to hear a slightly apologetic note creeping into her voice. ‘It's ages since we met . . . and though I wrote to you over and over, you didn't reply apart from a couple of notes. So – so I thought it might be nice to meet up again.'

‘You did?' He sounded so surprised that a hot colour rose in Polly's cheeks. ‘Well, it's always nice to meet old pals, but I don't get off the airfield much. Where are you, anyway?'

‘Lincoln. Staying at a guesthouse in town,' Polly said. ‘I – I had some leave and I thought it would be nice to – to see each other again.'

‘So you said.' There was a long pause. ‘But don't you think it might be better, perhaps, to let sleeping dogs lie? I don't want to upset you, but . . . Oh, how's Sunny, by the way?'

Polly felt like blurting out that she didn't know, hadn't seen Sunny for months, that it was Tad she cared about, Tad she wanted to see, but innate caution made her say airily: ‘Sure and he's fine, though he's at sea a good deal. How's Jenny?'

‘Jenny?'

‘When I phoned last night they asked me if I was Jenny,' Polly muttered. ‘So I know she's a friend of yours. How is she? Who is she, for that matter?'

‘Oh, Jenny. She's fine. She's one of the WAAFs on the station,' Tad said. ‘So you're in Lincoln. How long for?'

‘I'm going back to Liverpool tomorrow,' Polly said stiffly. ‘It doesn't matter, it was just a thought since I happened to be in the neighbourhood . . . It's been – been nice hearing your voice again, Tad, but—'

‘What are you doin' in the neighbourhood, anyhow?' Tad cut in. ‘We don't see many WRNs in this neck of the woods!'

‘Oh! I – I came . . .' Polly thought about inventing a friend, then abruptly changed her mind. She had come to see Tad, she was desperate to see him, if he was going to tell her he had met someone else, wasn't interested in her any longer, then that was sad, but she would at least know it was no good hoping. So she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and almost shouted into the receiver. ‘I came to see you, Tad, because you'd not writ, and we're old pals and I missed you. But if you're too busy to come down and meet me, that's all there is to it and I'll go back home.'

‘Well, I daresay I could spare half an hour,' Tad said cautiously. ‘Do you know the Albion Hotel? It's in St Mary's Street – not far from the railway station.'

‘Yes, I know it,' Polly said rather gloomily. She felt she could have answered a stiff examination paper on this wretched town since her landlady had turned her out at nine o'clock and she had spent the entire morning roaming the rain-soaked streets. ‘What time, Tad?'

‘Well, it's noon, or just after, now. Say, one o'clock? The landlord does quite decent sandwiches – I'll buy you lunch.'

‘Thanks,' Polly said. ‘Oh . . . the pips! See you at one, then. In the lounge bar?'

‘One o'clock,' echoed Tad and put his receiver down just as the operator asked Polly to cut her connection since others were waiting.

Polly came out of the box almost at a run, hot-faced and humiliated. He had not wanted to see her again, and she had more or less forced his hand, made him do the decent thing and see her. Well, when they met she would come out with it, baldly, tell him that she realised she had made a mistake, that she did not love Sunny, and ask him to give her another chance.

Outside in the rain, she turned up her coat collar, pulled her cap down further over her eyes, and sloshed through the puddles towards the Albion. This was easily the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life – she had thrown herself at Tad and he had, verbally, pushed her away. He had not wanted to meet her and she had insisted even when it was plain that Tad felt it was a mistake. I've cheapened meself, Polly thought as she slogged on. Oh, well. At least we'll get it over and then I can start trying to rebuild my life with someone else, not Tad, clearly, nor Sunny, but someone as yet unmet.

A trifle cheered by this thought, which sounded exciting, and even more cheered by the recollection that her shame and humiliation were hers alone, that no one else would know that she had chased all the way up here only to be turned down, Polly continued to slog onwards, with the rain now beginning to channel down her neck and find its chilly way to her uniform underwear. At least, she comforted herself, she was going to see Tad presently, and surely, once they set eyes on each other, they would speedily recapture their old friendship? But in her heart she was beginning to doubt it.

Tad came off the phone and stood in the mess for a moment, gazing in front of him and trying to conquer the big grin which was beginning to spread across his countenance. Polly had rung him, admitted she had come all the way to Lincolnshire especially to see him. Surely that must mean something, indicate that her old fondness for him was still there? He crossed the room and went out of the door to get his mackintosh, for there was no point in leaving the airfield it in this downpour. He was halfway back to his hut when someone caught up with him. Jim Stratton grabbed his arm.

‘Where you goin', Tad old feller? I thought you and me were going to have some grub in the mess and then going to see a flick? Who was it on the telephone, by the way? Jenny? Only I thought she was away on a course or something.'

Tad descended abruptly from the clouds. ‘No, it wasn't Jenny, it was a girl I was friendly with in Dublin,' he said slowly. ‘She thought she'd look me up – we were good pals once, so we were.'

‘Oh? But I thought you and Jenny had a thing going.'

‘I've told you often enough that me and Jenny are just friends,' Tad pointed out. ‘Anyway, meeting a girl doesn't mean you're going to marry her, does it? I'm only
meeting
Polly since she's in the neighbourhood.'

‘Oh aye? Isn't she the one who gave you the brush-off just before we all left for Rhodesia? Didn't she write for a bit, only you wouldn't reply, said it was best left.'

‘Oh damn you, Jim,' Tad said, grinning despite himself. He and Jim had been together now for more than two years and he must have told Jim a hundred times about his Polly and how she was going to marry another feller. ‘Yes, that's Polly. I don't know why she's come to see me, but . . . well, I can't help hoping that she's realised that Sunny feller isn't the one for her.'

‘And you are, I suppose,' Jim said, breaking into a run as Tad did so that they crashed into the hut together. ‘Remember the last time she got you to go chasing off after her? Someone had got fresh with her and who did she turn to? It'll be the same this time, you mark my words. She wants something, that one, and you'll go chasing after her all over again and get asked for . . . well, whatever it is she wants. Likely she's in the club and wants advice.'

‘In the . . .? Good God, Jimmy, whatever makes you think that? She said Sunny's mostly at sea, she didn't say she was in any sort of trouble, didn't even suggest that she was after help or advice. You're a bleedin' cynic, that's your trouble. Probably she simply wants to say she's sorry for the way she treated me that time. Anyway, I'm meeting her in the Albion in an hour. There's a bus which stops at the main gate in fifteen minutes, if I'm quick.'

‘Shall I come in as well, then? Oh, I won't come to the Albion, I do have
some
tact, but we could meet up afterwards to see that flick,' Jim suggested as Tad dived into his room and began to sort through his possessions. ‘Or are you going to spend the afternoon with her?'

‘I don't know,' Tad said. He sorted out some money and shoved it into the pocket of his tunic, then grabbed his mackintosh. ‘Look, I'm sorry about the flick, but I don't think it's on. I'll see you when I get back, though.' He grinned at his friend. ‘Come in on the bus by all means, but you'll miss whatever delicacy the mess has to offer, and the Albion only does sandwiches.'

‘I won't bother,' Jim said. He turned away. ‘Have fun, Tad, and don't forget, if she's after something just you think twice before knuckling down and handing it to her on a plate. Especially if she's looking for someone to take on responsibility for a bun in the oven.'

In too much of a hurry to answer him back, Tad merely cuffed his friend across the ear as he tore past, and by a dint of running, managed to get aboard the bus, which was early. He settled himself on the back seat, shook as much rain off his coat as he could, and then concentrated on getting his fare out of an inner pocket and asking the conductor what time he expected to arrive in the city.

Having satisfied himself that he would be on time at the rendezvous, Tad then sat there and began to wonder whether Jim could possibly be right; could Polly have come to see him because she was in trouble of some kind? The more he thought about it the likelier it seemed. After all, when he had been at Valley Polly had been friendly with him because she wanted to learn how to ride his motorbike, and to service it too. And the only time she had been in trouble, the night she had been more or less kidnapped by the lecherous lorry driver, she had rung him up, with just that little catch in her voice that he so loved, begging him to rescue her.

But . . . a baby? It just was not possible that Polly could be having a baby by some bloke, or that she would dream, for one moment, of turning to him for help if the father had not wanted to marry her. But there was, he supposed wretchedly, a fair chance that she was in some other sort of scrape, that she had felt he was the only person to whom she could turn. In a way, it was nice that she still trusted him, still felt he would help her, but dammit, that wasn't the way he wanted Polly to think of him, as a mug to get her out of trouble! He wanted . . . The truth was, he did not know what he wanted. I'll just have to wait and see what happens when we meet, he told himself, hunched down in his seat staring through the smeared window at the lashing rain outside. After all, this time he was in a much stronger position than she. She had come running to him and he could either accept her or send her home with her tail between her legs, depending how he felt. And as the journey continued he found that his intentions were crystallising into a firm resolve not to be hurried or pushed into anything again, not even mere friendship. She's let you down with a big thump in the past, Donoghue, he reminded himself. This time, play it a bit more cautiously. Besides, she'll have changed, as I have. We're almost like two strangers meeting after all this time, and strangers shouldn't leap into each other's arms. I'll play it cool, and remember what Jim said. If she's in trouble then she should ask her good friend Sunny to get her out of it!

In the train going home, Polly sat back in her seat and thought of the last couple of days and, most of all, of the meeting which had taken place between Tad and herself the previous lunchtime. It had been sticky, she reminded herself, especially at first. She had been sitting in a corner of the lounge bar when he had entered the room and had sprung to her feet and gone towards him, eager for his usual beaming smile, his hug.

Instead, he had taken her hands, gazed seriously down at her for a moment, and then said: ‘Well? What's gone wrong, Polly? Because I don't imagine you've come all this way just to tell me you're well and happy!'

Whether it was his words or the way he stared at her Polly could not have said, but suddenly it was just plain impossible to say: ‘I came because it's you I've wanted, all along. The whole business with Sunny was a dreadful mistake, and I've never thought of you as a brother, honest to God, Tad. Will you make up, so's we can go back to being friends? Well, I hope we'll be more than friends.' Instead, she stammered that of course there was nothing wrong, that she was in her usual good health and she had come to see him because . . . because they were old pals, weren't they, and she had some leave owing, and it had seemed like a good idea at the time . . .

Here she ran out of steam and Tad, guiding her to a corner table and going over to the bar, seemed not to notice the garbled half-sentences which she had uttered. He did not ask her what she wanted to drink but came back with two halves of bitter and the good news that sandwiches were on their way. Polly, who detested bitter, sipped cautiously and tried not to pull a face, and whilst they waited for the food, Tad first of all stared into space and then, apparently deciding that this was a waste of what little time they might have together, addressed her seriously.

‘Polly, it was good of you to come, I appreciate it, don't get me wrong. But you know, you've changed a great deal in the last couple of years and I guess I have too.'

Polly nodded, trying not to eye him too obviously. He was broader, more substantial altogether than the Tad she remembered, and his skin was so brown, so healthily tanned! In Dublin the pair of them might have given the outward appearance of a tan but it was usually dirt, particularly in Tad's case. This tan, however, was a real one, made by the sun which had lightened his hair from mid-brown to fudge-colour streaked with gold, and it gave him an additional confidence. So she had to admit that he had changed and supposed, with real uncertainty, that she, too, must have altered.

She had said as much in a rather small voice just as the sandwiches put in an appearance. Tad handed the plate to her, then took one himself and spoke somewhat thickly through his first mouthful. ‘Look, alanna, are you in – in some sort of trouble? Because if so, I've got to know about it before I can do much to help. If I can do anything, that is.'