‘Nice to see you home, Mal,’ Susan said, holding out a hand and taking the one Mal was offering. ‘Well, this
is
a turn up for the books! We’d better get back to Willow Tree, though, then Tess can clean up.’ She looked Mal over. ‘And you, too,’ she added.
‘I’m willing,’ Mal said. ‘C’mon, let’s go. We’ve got a lot to talk about, Tess and me.’
In bed that night, Tess snuggled down and tried to think lovingly and optimistically of Mal and their future, but it was not easy. She had so longed and longed for Mal’s return, yet when it happened, it had been, in a way, an anticlimax. Oh, it wasn’t too bad whilst they were all there, Mal talked in a desultory sort of way about the prison camp, but he didn’t want to talk about ditching the Lanc, nor what had happened in the months between that and being taken prisoner.
‘You need building up, lad,’ Mrs Sugden said. ‘You’re nothing but skin and bone – didn’t they feed you?’
Mal said that they had, and added, reluctantly, that back in the spring he’d had a bad bout of flu, which had laid him pretty low. And then he refused apple pie, saying he’d eaten all his stomach could take, thanks very much.
He kept staring, too. First at her, then around the room, as though his eyes didn’t believe what they saw. And he looked so totally different! I fell in love with his chunky reliability, his – his
solidness
, Tess thought. But now it’s gone, he’s stringy and a bit twitchy, and he starts sentences and doesn’t finish them . . . he’s shy, I do believe!
When he said he must go, he had to be back at his station so must catch the last bus, she had walked him down to the main road. Once they were alone, she had thought, everything would be all right. But it didn’t work like that. Alone, they should have been totally relaxed. Instead, neither of them knew what to talk about. ‘How’s Ashley?’ Mal had said at one point after a rather difficult silence, and Tess had had to bite her tongue to stop herself saying:
What does Ashley matter? It’s us that matter, you and me, and all you can do is stare at me and mumble . . . or ask how Ashley is doing!
‘Ashley? Well, he was all right last weekend. He was supposed to be taking me dancing tonight, but something must have come up and stopped him. Why?’
‘Oh, I dunno. I guess you’ve been seeing a lot of him, these past two years?’
‘Quite a lot,’ Tess said coolly. ‘He’s been a good friend.’
‘Oh yeah, sure. I don’t blame you, exactly . . . I wouldn’t want . . . I didn’t mean . . .’
‘I know what you meant,’ Tess had said. Still cool. ‘Tell me, Mal, what are your plans? Will they demob you now you’re back or will they want to keep you on for a bit?’
‘I dunno,’ Mal said miserably. ‘I’m going to talk to my CO tomorrow.’
‘I see. And after that?’
‘Well, can we . . . I could come over . . . I guess I’ll ask for some leave if they aren’t going to boot me out at once.’
‘Right. Only I’m working from eight till eight tomorrow.’
‘Oh. Well . . . the next day?’
Why didn’t he insist that I tell Mr Sugden to find someone else?
Tess raged inwardly.
Why is he mumbling and looking at me sideways all of a sudden? If this is a new Mal, I’m not sure I like him – I’m certain sure I don’t understand him
!
‘I don’t know about the next day, yet,’ Tess said. ‘I think I’d better contact Ashley, in fact. I’m quite worried about him, he’s never let me down before.’
‘Yeah, reliable sort of chap, Ashley,’ Mal said. He said it in a mock English accent, which infuriated Tess. ‘Well, no doubt he has his reasons.’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you next,’ Tess said. She had striven for a light, teasing tone; it came out threatening. ‘Oh, here comes the bus. Good-night, Mal.’
‘Good-night,’ he mumbled and turned away from her, but just as the bus came alongside he turned back, grabbed her, kissed her so inexpertly that he missed her mouth altogether and then jumped aboard the bus. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he roared. ‘Tomorrow . . . if they let me have some . . .’
The rest of the sentence was lost in the clatter of the engine as the bus got into its stride. Tess had a last glimpse of him, straining to wave out of the back of the bus, of the conductor grabbing him, heaving him back from the step . . . and then darkness swallowed them up.
She had made her way home, entered the farm kitchen, and burst into tears. To the horrified enquiries as to what had happened, what was the matter, she had simply replied, snuffling, that Mal had changed, that she didn’t understand him, that he wasn’t the man she had known, and that she wished she were dead.
‘You’ll settle down,’ Mrs Sugden said. ‘It’s just a matter of relearning each other. He’ll be just the same, m’dear, once he’s used to being back, but I saw him show the whites of his eyes a couple of times over tea. Take it slow and don’t let anyone rush you. Now I wonder what’s happened to Ashley?’
She did not have long to wonder since ten minutes after she spoke, Ashley walked in at the back door.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ he said as all eyes fixed themselves upon him. He put both hands up to shield himself from an imaginary barrage. ‘The fan belt went. I had to walk miles and miles before I met a WAAF with a spare silk stocking. Tess, my darling, I know I’ve ruined your evening, but I’ll make it up to you. I’ve got two tickets for a dinner dance next week – how about that, eh?’
Tess gave him a watery smile. ‘Mal’s come home,’ she said.
There was a moment’s silence during which you could have heard a pin drop. Then Ashley said: ‘Well, that’s nice,’ and drew the tickets out of an inner pocket. ‘Now here’s a thing, I just happen to have two tickets for a dinner dance next week. Would you and Mal like them, Tess? As a present, of course. I don’t have a use for them myself.’
‘Oh, Ash,’ Tess said helplessly, and the next thing she knew, she was in his arms, crying that she was sorry, she was really sorry . . .
‘Don’t take on so,’ Ashley soothed, stroking her hair. ‘It’ll take some getting used to, old darling, but it’s what you’ve been praying for this past two years. Look, take the tickets with my blessing. And do stop crying all over my best blues, there’s a good girl!’
Tess laughed and pulled herself out of his arms. ‘Oh Ash, you are a fool,’ she said helplessly. ‘I’m in an awful state, I was so excited, and then . . . and then . . .’
‘She’s still excited, that’s the trouble,’ Molly said sagely. ‘We’re all excited. But I’m for bed, I don’t know about the rest of you.’
They all left them, eventually, even Mr and Mrs Sugden, who normally made it a rule never to leave a landgirl alone with a boy. But they sensed, Tess supposed, that the last thing on either her mind or Ashley’s was canoodling.
‘Talk about tact,’ Ashley said, when they were alone in the kitchen. ‘Poor old Tess, was it very difficult? Well, you shouldn’t expect to run before you can walk, you know. You’ve got two years apart to bridge and that takes time. Want to talk about it?’
‘No, not really. And thanks for being so understanding, Ash. You’re a very nice person really, underneath.’
‘I’m bloody nice on top, too,’ Ashley said, grinning. ‘Look, I’ll have to go, I only came over to explain why I didn’t pick you up as arranged. And remember, Mal or no Mal, I’m always there. Just pick up the phone and I’ll come running.’
‘I will. I’m so grateful – I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you,’ Tess muttered, rubbing her tear-stained cheeks. ‘Are you sure the car’s all right now? Will you go home, or back to Lincolnshire?’
‘Oh, home. I’ve got tomorrow off, so if you need me, it’s the Brundall number. Can I go now? You won’t dissolve into tears again the moment my back’s turned?’
Tess giggled. ‘No, it’s all right. I’m just all of a dither, I suppose. I – I somehow never really thought beyond the moment that we flew into each other’s arms, but now I know there’s more to it than that.’
‘Yes, a great deal more. And you have to work at it,’ Ashley said sternly. ‘And I don’t know why I’m talking to you like a Dutch uncle, when for two pins . . . but I don’t happen to have two pins on me, so you’re safe. Good-night, dear old Tess.’
He headed for the back door.
‘Good-night, dear old Ash,’ Tess said softly. ‘And thanks for everything.’
‘Ditto,’ Ashley said, half-way out of the door. ‘Be good.’
‘I will,’ Tess said with meaning. ‘Drive carefully.’
She started across the kitchen, to wave him off as she always did, then stopped herself. It wasn’t fair to either Ash or Mal, she thought confusedly. Better just go straight up to bed. Everything would look better in the morning.
Mal, sitting in the front seat of the almost empty bus, could have kicked himself for his ineptitude and stupidity. Fancy asking her about Ashley! Fancy acting like a tongue-tied kid, for that matter. But the truth was, he hadn’t remembered how slender and cool she was, how white-skinned, how softly beautiful, and it had knocked him back. She’s like a film star, he had thought wonderingly. There’s no way a girl like that will marry me, come back to the Wandina, slog through the wet and sweat through the dry, bear my kids and cook for me, work beside me, sleep beside me.
It was strange, too, how two years of inadequate diet and very little exercise could change you, physically. Oh, they’d tried to keep fit, eaten whatever was offered, but back in March, when it was so bitterly cold, he’d gone down with some sort of influenza bug. He’d been really ill and for weeks and weeks afterwards he had been unable to keep food down.
Of course he’d struggled back; he was far better now, but he knew that Mrs Sugden was right when she said he needed building up. Only his stomach had shrunk – that was what the MO had said – and he just couldn’t eat as he once had.
Outside the bus the dark countryside rumbled past, but when they reached the suburbs of the city he saw lights – wonderful to see lights at night, curtains pulled back so that the windows were like little glowing stages on which the actors and actresses moved, ignoring their silent audience.
He did not, in fact, have to go back to the station tonight, though he did have an appointment with his commanding officer next day, but he meant to go back because he didn’t have much money and squandering it on a night in an hotel seemed pretty silly. He cursed the fact that he’d told Tess a lie, but he had suddenly realised that he couldn’t take the strain of staying at the farm overnight, even if they did have a bed for him which he doubted. He wanted – needed – to be alone for a bit.
It was odd, he mused, getting off the bus at Castle Meadow and hurrying up to where the liberty trucks waited, that he should want to be alone. There was nothing quite so cramped and crowded as a POW camp, of course, but he had spent the last two years longing for Tess so why, when she was suddenly within his grasp, did he feel that he must get away from her?
He reached the liberty truck. The driver was snoozing behind the wheel, but he had said be back by twenty-three hundred hours so soon the fellows would start assembling. Mal climbed into the back and sat down on a small metal seat. She’s in love with that fellow Ashley and I can’t blame her, he thought miserably. I’ll back off, leave her alone, then at least one of us will be happy. And tomorrow morning, if the CO says I can go back to Australia, I’ll bloody well go! I’m not staying here to see my girl marry someone else.
The thought jolted him, brought him up short. What exactly do you mean, Malcolm Chandler? he asked himself severely. Do you want her or not? If it’s not, then why in heaven’s name shouldn’t she marry Ashley, greaseball though he is? You want her happiness, you just said so.
I want the old Tess, the one I left behind me, Mal’s inner self said after a moment’s thought. I don’t know this new one. This one’s . . . different. I feel like I never met her before. Why, she was smaller before, when I kissed this one I missed her mouth, I’d never have missed the old Tess’s mouth. So she really has changed – she’s different, she isn’t the girl who wanted me as much as I wanted her.
Voices came floating across the Cattle Market. Men began to climb aboard the truck. Someone asked him how his date had gone and he mumbled that it was all right, thanks. The men around him talked about the dance they’d attended, the girls they’d met, what they intended to do next night. Mal listened and longed for the solitude of his small room, his Air Force issue bed. When I’m by myself I’ll be able to work it out, he thought. I just need to be alone.
Mal was sitting in the mess next day, reading a paper, or pretending to read it, when the telephone rang and two minutes later his name was called.
‘Chandler! For you – a girl.’
His heart beat loudly. Tess?
He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes? Chandler speaking.’
‘It’s me. Tess. I – I wondered what your CO said?’
‘I’ve got some leave,’ he said. ‘They’re sending me back home in a few weeks. He said I can have some leave.’
The CO had told him to take himself off anywhere he liked because his demob would be through in a matter of days. He’d asked if Mal had any friends in England and had then said: ‘What a question, there was a girl whose name you put down as next of kin in England – you’re marrying, I understand?’
Mal had nodded, unable to risk speaking.
‘Well, then! Stay with her people for a few days. You can ring me in, say, four days. I’ll have definite news for you then, I hope.’
And now she was on the telephone, asking what his CO had said, which might be genuine interest . . . he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything any more.
‘Oh, wonderful!’ she hesitated. ‘Going to come and see me, then? Mal . . . we’ve got to try!’
It was a cry from the heart and it gave him courage. For a moment he felt confident, sure of himself. Like the old Mal, in fact.
‘Sure. Come into the city tomorrow, meet me at ten. Outside the GPO. Tell Mrs Sugden you won’t be back till late.’
She laughed. It was a happy, breathless laugh. ‘Gosh, a day out – that sounds exciting. But you can come here, you know. Mrs Sugden says . . .’
He cut across her.
‘That’s kind, but . . . well, I’m a bit awkward with a lot of people right now. If it’s just the two of us . . . we might find it easier, don’t you think?’