A Family Affair (37 page)

Of course, she thought wryly, the contestants themselves might have something to do with it. It wasn't every day you got to watch a succession of fit, muscled young men wearing nothing but singlet and shorts and those flattering boots that managed to look softly pliant and tough both at the same time. There was something attractive about every one of those boxers, even the little ones – the flyweights – had that gritty look which Jenny found so appealing.

Marilyn's Keith had his bout fairly early on. He was boxing for the local boys – hand-picked from clubs within a ten-mile radius. Good as they were, quite a lot of them were losing to their opponents – a team representing the Armed Forces. Though naturally she supported the local boys, Jenny thought that in a way it seemed only right that the servicemen should be able to handle themselves so well – though they were using their fists, not guns, she felt she would sleep a lot more soundly in her bed at night knowing that such fine specimens would be defending England in the event of another war.

Keith's fight was a close one. Marilyn gripped Jenny's hand, hid her eyes, sobbed, screamed, shouted and held her breath until she turned puce. But in the end it was Keith's hand the referee raised and the whole hall erupted in a cheer of approval.

Between bouts Jenny looked round at the watching crowd – the officials of the Hillsbridge Amateur Boxing Club in their monkey suits and black dicky-bow ties, the local supporters, many of them men who had once been boxers themselves but had now either turned scrawny or gone to flab, and a handful of women who managed to make more noise than all the men put together. But there were also quite a few young men who had come along to support the Services team and several of them were very attractive.

One in particular caught Jenny's eye – a tall fair-haired lad with an angular chin and strong nose. From this distance she couldn't see what colour his eyes were, but she guessed they were blue.

In the interval, when Marilyn was hanging proudly on Keith's arm, she looked round for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Jenny was disappointed; she hoped he hadn't left. When the boxing began again she took her seat but found she was more interested in scanning the crowd for him than she was in watching the fights. Then she saw him, standing by the door that led to the changing rooms, wearing a towelling robe, and a moment later, when the next fight was announced, he made his way between the rows of chairs to the ring. For just a brief second she could have sworn he looked directly at her, then he climbed up on to the canvas and ducked under the ropes.

‘A middle-weight contest of three rounds,' the dinner-jacketed man with the microphone announced, ‘between, on my right in the red corner, Ray Comer of Hillsbridge Amateur Boxing Club, and on my left in the blue corner, Bryn Thompson for the Armed Forces.'

Jenny's heart had begun to beat so hard she could feel the reverberations in her throat. The fair-haired boy – Bryn – took off his robe and she saw that he had the most wonderful lithe muscled body and sturdy boxer's legs. Against him, Hillsbridge's Ray Comer looked positively clumsy; shorter, thicker-set and bobbling agitatedly from foot to foot so that his red sash swung and bobbled too.

As the referee motioned the fight to begin she saw that Bryn moved easily and even with her lack of expertise she guessed that Ray would be no match for him. But she had reckoned without the local boy's strength and skill and the advantage that came from having the home crowd behind him. As the contest got under way she realised it wasn't going to be the walkover she had imagined. First it swung one way, then the other; whenever Bryn scored a good punch, Jenny cheered excitedly.

‘I thought you were supposed to be supporting the local team!' Marilyn said in the break between rounds.

‘Not this time – not this one!' Jenny couldn't take her eyes off Bryn, even now when he was slumped, legs splayed, on the little stool in his corner whilst his seconds sploshed water over his face and anxiously inspected what might be the beginnings of a cut over his left eye. ‘He's gorgeous, isn't he?'

At last it was over. Jenny was on the edge of her seat as the referee called the two boys to the centre of the ring. Then, as he raised Bryn's hand high in the air, she whooped with delight.

‘Yes! Yes!'

After that, the remaining fights were something of an anticlimax. When the last one was taking place she saw Bryn again, standing at the back of the hall, and once again she had the fleeting impression that he had been looking at her.

‘Would you girls like a drink in the committee rooms?' Keith asked.

‘The committee rooms, eh?' Marilyn said, pulling a face at Jenny. ‘We are honoured! All right by you, Jenny?'

Jenny nodded. She had noticed some of the other team disappearing into the small smoke-filled room and the uppermost thought in her mind was:
Might Bryn join them? Or even be there already?

They squeezed through the door and a small bald-headed man with a red face and wispy white moustache bore down on them. Stan Parker was the secretary of the Hillsbridge ABC.

‘Keith! Well done, lad! You put up a good show out there.'

‘Not bad.' Keith grinned modestly. ‘This is my girlfriend, Marilyn, and her friend Jenny.'

‘Oh, I know Jenny.' Stan beamed at her. ‘What are you having to drink, then?'

‘I'll have a pint of bitter,' Keith said.

‘Girls?'

‘Gin and orange, please,' Marilyn said.

‘And you, Jenny?'

Jenny hesitated. She wasn't used to drinking. ‘Rum and black, please,' she said, thinking it sounded marginally more sophisticated.

The drinks arrived and Jenny sipped hers standing a little apart because Marilyn was hanging on Keith's arm and everyone seemed to want to talk to Keith. She couldn't see Bryn anywhere and she was beginning to feel despondent when suddenly a voice said: ‘Hello!'

She turned. He was standing right behind her. He had changed and his hair looked slightly damp as if he'd just washed it. She smiled.

‘Hello.'

‘I'm Bryn Thompson,' he said. ‘I'm with the Armed Forces team.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I know.'

‘Go on then,' he said. ‘Your turn.'

‘Jennifer Simmons. But my friends call me Jenny.'

‘Can I call you Jenny?'

She tipped her head to one side, looking at him over the top of her glass.

‘Why not?'

‘So – what are you doing here?'

‘Watching the boxing.' She wasn't trying to be clever, but it came out sounding pert anyway. She saw a light flush spread up his cheeks.

‘No – I meant … who did you come to support?'

‘Hillsbridge ABC, of course.'

‘Ah – the opposition. Anyone in particular?'

She realised he was fishing and grabbed the opportunity to let him know she was unattached.

‘My friend Marilyn's boyfriend – Keith Hicks.'

‘Oh, I see.'

There was a small awkward silence.

‘You're in the army then,' Jenny said.

‘No. The RAF. I'm stationed at Colerne. I'm doing my National Service.'

So that meant he must be somewhere between eighteen and twenty.

‘Did the RAF teach you to box?' Jenny asked.

‘No – I've been at it since I was ten or eleven. I boxed for my county when I was a schoolboy. Kent.'

‘Oh – right.'

‘What do you do, then?'

She told him, thinking how boring it sounded by comparison. But he listened with apparent interest and the way he was looking at her was giving her a funny fluttery feeling in her tummy.

He finished his beer and looked at Jenny's glass. ‘Can I get you another drink?'

She hesitated. The one she'd had already seemed to be going straight to her head, making her feel light and floaty to go with the butterflies. ‘All right. Why not?' she said recklessly.

He took her glass and headed for the bar, which had been set out on a trestle table.

‘You seem to be getting on all right!' Marilyn appeared at Jenny's elbow, smirking.

‘Yes,' Jenny said.

‘You want to watch it, though.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Servicemen,' Marilyn said darkly.

Jenny looked towards the bar. She could just about see him. He was saying something to what looked like another of the Service team and they were both laughing. She felt a moment's doubt.

‘You don't mean …'

‘Here today and gone tomorrow. Just be careful, that's all.'

Bryn was coming back with the drinks. Marilyn winked and considerately turned her back. The second drink slipped down more easily than the first as they went on chatting. Then a big burly man – one of those wearing a dicky bow, suddenly descended on them, intent on talking boxing to Bryn, and Jenny found herself sidelined. They were discussing some future event from what she could gather, and then the burly man dragged Bryn off to meet someone else.

‘Don't go away,' Bryn said to her.

But the minutes dragged by, he was still totally engrossed and Jenny began to feel awkward standing there alone. She looked at her watch – ten to eleven! She'd be in hot water with Carrie if she wasn't in by eleven. She waited a few minutes more and still Bryn didn't come back. She cornered Marilyn.

‘I'm going to have to go.'

‘OK. See you on Monday then,' Marilyn said breezily.

‘But … Bryn … I don't to lose touch with him …'

‘I did warn you,' Marilyn said.

‘He got called away.'

‘Oh yeah – as they do.'

‘No – someone wanted to talk to him. Look, if he asks, will you give him my address?'

‘OK. If he asks.' Marilyn's tone implied she was almost sure he wouldn't.

Jenny took one last despairing look at Bryn. His back was toward her and he didn't see. She buttoned her coat – her new peachy-coloured ‘car-length'coat which she had bought out of the club Carrie had started running – and went out. She felt like crying.

It was a clear cold November night, the stars very bright above the tall whispering trees, the moon making their shadows dance and sway on the broad drive. She started down it, knowing she should run at least part of the way home and this, being downhill, would be the easiest, but not wanting to, reluctant even now to put distance between her and Bryn.

And then she heard running footsteps behind her and someone calling her name. She stopped, looked around, almost afraid to hope.

It was him.

‘I told you not to go away!' he said, sounding almost hurt.

‘I had to,' Jenny said. And then, because she didn't want to admit to a mother who insisted on a curfew: ‘I thought you'd forgotten me.'

‘They were trying to fix up my next fight. I couldn't get away.'

‘Whatever's important to you,' Jenny said flippantly.

‘I'm sorry – OK? Look, I'd offer to walk you home but our coach leaves in ten minutes.'

‘That's all right.'

‘I'll walk you to the bottom of the drive, though.'

In spite of the moon, in spite of the stars, when they left the bright floodlights of the hall behind the darkness closed in with the tall trees. He put his arm around her.

‘Can I see you again?'

‘Well – yes,' Jenny said, her heart leaping. ‘But how … ?'

‘I've got a motorbike. I could come over one night. Are you on the telephone?'

‘No, 'fraid not. My gran is …'

‘I don't know that I want to phone your gran! Shall we say Tuesday?'

‘If you like.'

‘Where?'

Jenny thought for a moment. ‘There's a pub not far from where I live. It's on the main road to Colerne. The Jolly Collier. It's got a butcher's shop on the side of it. You can't miss it.'

‘Will you be all right going into a pub on your own?'

‘Oh, I won't be
inside
,' Jenny said. ‘I'll be outside. On the corner where my lane meets the road. There's a seat there.'

They were almost at the bottom of the drive now, the steep bit where cars got stuck in slippery weather. Ahead, the main road was brightly lit, with traffic going past spasmodically, but on the rise the shadow was still deep and made deeper by a high bank and retaining wall.

‘I'll see you on Tuesday then,' he said.

And he kissed her.

She stood in the circle of his arms, with the nearness of him and the unaccustomed alcohol making her head spin, and the collar of her coat tickling her chin in a sensuous way, and felt she was floating ten feet above the ground. He kissed her twice, three times, and then he drew back, trying to get what little light there was to catch the luminous hands of his watch.

‘I'm going to have to go or I'll miss the coach.'

She didn't point out that he couldn't miss it because the only way out of the Scouts'Hall car park was the steep narrow drive on which they were standing.

‘See you then.'

He turned to walk back up the drive and she went out on to the main road. The warm glow of alcohol and happiness went with her.

On Tuesday evening she was a bag of nerves. They jumped in her stomach and skittered in her throat as she hurried down the steep lane to the Jolly Collier. She'd been ready for the last hour, changing into a clean jumper and skirt as soon as she'd had her tea, putting on fresh make-up and trying to do something about her hair. It was due a wash but there was no time for that. She puffed some Gem dry shampoo into it and brushed it out again, and was pleased with the fluffy, nice-smelling result. When she was ready, she tried to do a bit of shorthand homework whilst she was waiting time, but she couldn't concentrate. She kept watching the minutes tick by – so slowly! – and then suddenly the hands of the clock seemed to move all of a rush and she realised if she didn't go now – this second – she'd be late.