Rising Summer (12 page)

‘I’m Mary Coker,’ said Mary and shook hands with Kit over the little front gate. ‘I thought they might have sent Tim to Burma by now, but I see he’s still here.’

‘I’m happy to know you,’ said Kit, ‘but I don’t think Tim likes the sound of Burma.’

‘Still, it might win him a medal,’ said Mary and chuckled.

‘Give me jungle fever more like,’ I said. ‘And Burmese acne.’

‘He’s got a funny way of talking,’ said Kit.

‘Oh, he’s just a bit cockeyed,’ said Mary, ‘like Fred Plummer.’

‘Who’s Fred Plummer?’ asked Kit.

‘Village idiot,’ I said.

‘Don’t let’s stand talking out here,’ said Mary. ‘Come in both of you and I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘We really can’t impose on you like that,’ said Kit.

‘You’re not imposing,’ said Mary, ‘you’re company.’

We propped up our bikes and went in. The small porch was half-windowed on each side and the front door opened directly on to the living-room. The cottage was clean, tidy, comfortable and homely. The living-room furniture was a mixture of ancient and modern mahogany, all of it solid and durable. The floor was
polished
and a rug lay in front of the fireplace. On the left, a door led to a square kitchen and a brick scullery, with an old-fashioned copper boiler. On the right, another door gave access to a narrow staircase leading to the bathroom and two bedrooms. A small dining-table stood in the bay window of the living-room. The window overlooked the back garden. There were herbaceous borders, rose beds, a wide lawn, vegetable beds and a wired chicken run. The chickens were strutting and pecking in the sunshine. The lawn needed a cut.

Kit inspected everything with interest, particularly Mary’s brass and copper ornaments. ‘Is this place period?’ she asked.

‘It’s falling down, so Fred Plummer told me,’ said Mary. ‘Still, it’ll last me out, I dare say. Well, it had better had. Make yourselves comfy and I’ll get some tea.’

I followed her into the kitchen, fishing out two brown paper bags from inside my battle blouse. One contained tea, the other sugar. ‘Compliments of King and country,’ I said.

‘Tim, you shouldn’t,’ said Mary, but looked tickled. Then she quizzed me. ‘You didn’t pinch it, did you?’

‘Pinch it? Leave off, Mary. It’s American stuff, it fell off a Flying Fortress. But don’t tell my American sergeant.’

‘You sweet on her?’ said Mary, putting the kettle on. ‘She’s ever so nice-looking. Go and talk to her. You can’t leave her alone. I’ll bring the tray in a minute.’

Kit was at the window, looking at the garden. Her cap
was
off and she seemed pensive. The chickens were clucking.

‘OK?’ I asked.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘Has it occurred to you what a lousy war this is, but that it might not have happened if your little old island hadn’t let Hitler get away with murder? I mean, old buddy, think about appeasement and what it’s done to widows’ tea rations.’

‘I didn’t know you were passionate about widows’ tea rations,’ I said.

‘Stop being a comic,’ said Kit and she went on about what Hitler was doing to the world. I let her have her carry-on. All women like a good carry-on. Missus was a case in point. Thoughts of Missus brought on quivers. Ruddy unbelievable, that’s what Missus was.

Mary came in with the tray. ‘I’ve just brought a pot of tea for now,’ she said. ‘I’ll get proper tea later on.’

‘A cup now will be just fine,’ said Kit. ‘We won’t stay for anything else.’

‘You must now you’re here,’ said Mary. ‘Sunday company’s a nice change for me and I happen to have done a bit of baking.’

She poured tea, hot and golden. Kit hitched her skirt and sat down. Her legs had a delectable shine. Growing boys never really knew about women having legs until after the First World War. Before that, they only knew about bosoms. And when legs really arrived with the flappers, bosoms went out in favour of flat chests. No wonder we’re all a bit confused.

‘Mary,’ I said, ‘your grass needs mowing.’ I was fond of grass. There wasn’t much of it about in Walworth.

‘Me mower’s gone wrong,’ said Mary, ‘and George Whittle’s packed up doing repairs and gone to be a watchman in a factory in Ipswich doing war work. I’ve been waiting for Fred Plummer to come and have a look at it, but it’s like waiting for a blessed miracle.’

‘I’ll look at it,’ I said. With Mary and Kit already getting to know each other, I took my tea outside.

Mary’s mower was in the shed. The blades were jammed. One had a vicious kink. Mary must have hit Suffolk stone. I hammered out the kink, filed the edge and sharpened the other blades too. It worked a treat then, it was a good old reliable hand-mower. I spent the next hour mowing the lawns front and back and building up a compost heap with rich grass cuttings, while Mary had a nice time gassing to Kit.

It was good in the sunshine. Mary put her head out of the kitchen window and said I was a love. To me it was a pleasant way of spending a Sunday afternoon. Intellectual people despise suburban lawn mowers, but if we all took to living under railway arches or sharing a tent with Bedouins, think of what gardens would get to look like. And who’d grow the potatoes? Some of us have got to be homely and peasant-like.

Mary called to say proper tea was ready and Kit came out to tell me I was a welcome surprise to her.

‘You’re actually useful,’ she said.

‘Oh, Tim’s been useful to me in more ways than one,’ said Mary from the open window. That wasn’t the best way a widow could have put it. I saw a little smile creep up on Kit. ‘I wish there was more like Tim,’ Mary went on, ‘then I might get someone to look at my drain out
here.
I think it’s got blocked, me water’s not running away properly. I’ve told the council, I’ve told them I hope it don’t mean the cesspit’s full up and they said they’d come and see, but no-one’s been.’

‘Oh, we’ll get Tim to take a look at it,’ said Kit generously.

‘I’d be ever so grateful,’ said Mary.

‘First thing after tea,’ said Kit and that was something to be thankful for, that she realized tea should always come before drains.

Tea was scones made from a wartime recipe with Mary’s own strawberry jam, and slices of her honey cake. Kit ate with relish. It was, she said, her first genuine English country tea. She had discarded her jacket. Her shirt was impeccably buttoned, her tie pursuing a straight and orderly path between rounded turrets. Only the gentlest of motions disturbed her shirt, due no doubt to efficient bosom control.

Mary said the front door was getting a bit of a nuisance. It let in the devil and all his draughts in the winter.

‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘you can’t keep the devil out of any house, Mary, but as my Aunt May said once, as long as you don’t shake hands with him, he never takes the best chair.’

‘Old Fred says it needs taking off and re-hanging,’ said Mary over her teacup.

‘Old Fred is all say and no do,’ I said.

‘We’re glad you’re not, aren’t we, Mary?’ said Kit. She popped cake into her mouth and I thought of following it with the tea cosy, because I knew
what
was coming next. ‘You’ll look at it, won’t you, when you’ve seen to the drains? Mary will appreciate that.’

‘Oh, only if you’ve got time, Tim,’ said Mary.

Flying pancakes, they were already bosom female chums ganging up on me. I muttered something about I’d better see first how I got on down the drain, as drains could be lethal. They simply gassed on over my mutters. Best of pals they were, already.

I finished my tea and went to look at the swinish drain. I spent the next forty minutes poking it with bamboo canes. There was a messy blockage and an inescapable stink. The day didn’t seem like sweet summer any more. I got sweaty and bad-tempered, my army braces dangling, my shirt sleeves rolled up and my hands and arms filthy. But just as a squadron of Flying Fortresses flew thunderously over and I was essing everything in sight, there was a mushy, squashy gurgle and then a glorious mud-sucking rush. When Mary and Kit came out to inspect progress, the drain was clear, and the stink had transferred itself to me. Mary held her nose. Kit backed off.

Mary, seeing the unblocked drain, said through her pinched nose, ‘Oh, lovely, Tim.’

‘Pleasure,’ I said hypocritically.

‘All that muck gone,’ said Mary, ‘there’s just a bit of a pong now, that’s all.’

‘That’s me,’ I said, ‘I’m pong.’

‘Just a small stink,’ said Kit.

‘I’ll go and light the geyser,’ said Mary, ‘and you can have a bath. Thanks ever so much, Tim, I don’t hardly
know
how to thank you.’ Off she went to light the geyser. I heaved the drain cover back into place.

Kit gave me a kind smile. ‘You’re surprising me,’ she said again, ‘you can do things.’

‘I’ll go and grab that bath,’ I said.

‘What about Mary’s front door? You’ve still got that to look at.’

‘Stop organizing me,’ I said and went into the cottage after wiping my feet. ‘Or I’ll assault you,’ I said, but only to a piece of crest china from Norwich.

I climbed the stairs. Mary was in the bathroom where the antique geyser was making threatening noises and shaking itself silly. An eruption seemed likely. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘if that thing blows up while I’m in the nude, I’ll—’

‘It’s all right,’ said Mary and gave the geyser a bang with a back scrubber. It calmed down at once. She left me to my bath. I enjoyed a hot, wallowing soak. I thought about Kit. I thought about Mary. What a woman. She was a lively cockney who, like Missus, had taken on all the characteristics of a rural female. As for young Minnie, it beat me that she had a schoolgirl crush on me and not on some GI equivalent of Gary Cooper. It wouldn’t last, of course. With any luck by the time her birthday arrived she’d be looking at me as an uncle.

After my bath, I looked at the front door. It seemed a fine old piece of joinery to me, of solid, weathered oak, with a heavy brass knocker that Mary always kept polished. The door had a necessary clearance, but not an abnormal one. The trouble was, it opened directly on to Mary’s living-room, like so many cottage doors did
and
the draughts were bound to arrive around her feet, especially when her winter fire was drawing. I suggested fitting a draught-excluder.

‘Oh, them things,’ said Mary, which meant no thanks. I examined the porch, enclosed on both sides. It was a little less than four feet wide between the front supporting posts. With further posts butted on, a three-feet door could be hung. That would close the porch right up and turn it into a little entrance lobby that would kill the worst of the draughts. And if I still fixed a draught-excluder, that ought to button it right up. I thought I could manage the job, provided the battery didn’t get posted to some battlefield. I carried the idea to Mary and Mary said what a hope that was, trying to get a door and someone to fix it. Be like waiting for another miracle, she said, but I was a lamb to think of it.

‘Don’t worry, Mary,’ said Kit, who’d made herself really at home. ‘The miracle’s here. You’ll fix it, Tim, won’t you?’

‘I was going to say I’d give it a go.’

‘There’s a good guy,’ said Kit. ‘Mary, have you ever thought about central heating?’

Flaming Amy, I thought, she’s not just an American disturbance, she’s an interfering earthquake.

‘Oh, I don’t want no foreign central heating,’ said Mary.

‘But for someone living on her own,’ said Kit keenly, ‘it’s very labour-saving and much more efficient than an open fire. I’m sure Tim would—’

‘Pardon me, dearie,’ I said, ‘but no, I wouldn’t. I’m
not
a heating engineer, I’m just a bloke who drops in sometimes.’

‘Don’t be self-defeatist,’ said Kit. ‘Be a tiger.’

‘He looks nice after his bath,’ said Mary in an irrelevant, motherly way.

‘He smells better, I’ll say that,’ said Kit.

‘I think I’ll stick to my coal fire,’ said Mary.

‘Well, you do that,’ said Kit. ‘I guess some things shouldn’t get changed and this is a sweet old English cottage. Mary, this has been just the nicest Sunday I’ve had since I arrived. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it.’

‘Come again anytime,’ said Mary, ‘I like company.’

‘I might just take you up on that,’ smiled Kit.

We cycled leisurely back to BHQ. The May evening was warm and the lustre left by the morning rain was still evident. The setting sun was beginning to flush the countryside and to tint the tops of trees. I rode ahead, Kit behind me, keeping her legs to herself. The country quiet made the war seem remote.

‘Tim Hardy! Come back!’

I stopped and turned my head. She was off her bike. I rode back to her. She had a flat.

‘Hard luck, old girl,’ I said. ‘Well, stay here and guard the puncture and I’ll shoot back to BHQ and see if one of your officers will motor out and pick you up.’

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ she said, ‘you’re not dumping me here with a flat. You got me here and it’s up to you to get me back. How about some English chivalry, how about fixing the tyre?’

‘Take ages,’ I said and she gave me a crisp look. I’d
heard
that American men were brought up to do as they were told. I believed it. ‘OK, I’ll take a look,’ I said weakly.

Out of the quietness came the deep hum of a speeding car. It came careering round a bend, but slowed as it approached us. It was a Hillman, bedecked in WD war paint. It pulled up. At the wheel was Major Moffat. In place of Lance-Bombardier Burley, his driver, was his horse-faced Dalmatian, already licking its lips at the sight of Kit’s tasty legs. I saluted. The major put his head out. He didn’t look as if he’d had a satisfying afternoon. He looked as if he knew some traitor had sabotaged his plans to give site personnel a shake-up. Then he recognized Kit. His ruggedly handsome face creased into a smile. He saw her flat tyre. He glanced at me.

‘Trouble, Gunner Hardy?’

‘Sergeant Masters has a puncture, sir.’

‘Well, well.’ He seemed pleased about it. ‘You’re outside the permitted area. D’you have a pass?’

‘Yes, sir. And a chit.’

‘Come here,’ he said and I advanced so that he could address my ear alone. He was a military martinet, but preferred the unconventional to red tape. Kit looked on solemnly. ‘I know about chits, you fiddling Himalayan yak.’