Down an English Lane (16 page)

At least that particular hurdle was over and done with, she told herself, but she was sure that the experience ought to be much more memorable and meaningful. She was determined to make sure that her first time with Bruce would be something to look back on with pleasure.

She was satisfied that she had made a good impression upon him. Not only had he fallen in love with her but she had managed to hide from him the truth about her background and upbringing. He had not enquired, as he might well have done, about any property or assets that her grandmother might have left. Did he not think it strange that she
had been left homeless? No; his trustworthiness meant that he accepted things at face value.

Since working in the mill office, rather than the weaving shed, Christine had made an effort to lose much of the broadness of her Yorkshire accent. Oh yes, she could speak very nicely when she put her mind to it; she had always had an eye for fashion and had dressed as smartly as she could within her limited means; and her name, Christine Myerscough, she had always felt had a certain ring to it, almost as though she belonged to the upper classes. Nobody would guess that her father, nowadays, seemed to be spending as much time in prison as out of it; nor that her mother was…a member of the oldest profession. Not even to herself would Christine admit the true word.

It was not very long, only a couple of weeks, before she found suitable accommodation. A client of Mr Gascoyne was looking for someone ‘nice and respectable’, as he put it, to rent the premises above his ironmongery shop, and when he met Christine he decided she was eminently suitable. The fully-furnished flat – at a rent she decided she could just about afford – comprising a living room, bedroom, small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom, was on Manningham Lane, near to where it started its rise from the city centre. Her new home was only a short trolleybus ride from her place of work, and it provided the solitude that she needed. She moved in at the beginning of October.

Chapter Nine

A
t the beginning of October Rebecca Tremaine sent out the invitations to Bruce’s party. His twenty-first birthday would be on the 22nd of November, which fell on a Thursday; so the party was to be held on the nearest Saturday, the 24th, in the large room over the Market Hall. This room, owned by the local council, had fallen into a state of disrepair over the war years; nevertheless it had been used for children’s parties and for meetings where the clientele were not too fussy about the venue.

Recently, however, it had undergone a complete overhaul. The floor had been sanded and re-polished; the blackout blinds taken down and replaced by dark green velveteen curtains to cover the once grimy – but now clean and sparkling – windows; the dais at one end of the room had been carpeted; the adjoining cloakroom and toilets spruced up and freshened; the walls distempered in
cream, and the woodwork painted a glossy brown. Loaned out by the council, the Market Room was now becoming a popular venue for more sophisticated parties and gatherings. It was licensed for alcoholic drinks to be served, and if the hosts did not wish to do the catering themselves they invited a firm of professionals to do it for them.

Rebecca had been quite carried away with excitement planning her son’s twenty-first party. She only wished she could have seen a comparable enthusiasm shown by Bruce, who had been home the previous weekend for a brief visit. She said so to Archie as she put the invitations into their envelopes and stuck on the stamps.

‘Really, Archie, I sometimes wonder why we’re bothering to go to all this trouble arranging this do. Bruce doesn’t seem to be the slightest bit interested.’

Archie smiled. It was his wife who was doing all the organising and, what was more, he knew she was thoroughly enjoying it. ‘Oh, come on, love,’ he said. ‘He’s not a kid any more. You can’t expect him to be bubbling over with excitement about a birthday party.’

‘But it’s his twenty-first, Archie…’

‘Aye, I know; but he’s not long ago finished fighting in a war, and happen he thinks it’s all – I dunno – unimportant, irrelevant, after what he’s been through.’

‘But he never talks much about what he did when he was flying, does he?’

‘No…happen it’s as well. I dare say he tries to put it to the back of his mind. Anyway, he’s got summat else to occupy his thoughts now, hasn’t he? There’s Christine…’

‘Yes, there’s Christine…’ Rebecca repeated. ‘And I have a feeling she might be at the bottom of all this, you know. This…disinterest in the party and everything. She’s got him twisted round her little finger. He couldn’t wait to get away from here and off to Bradford to see her.’

‘Well, that’s normal enough, isn’t it? Personally, I’m glad he’s got himself a lady friend at last. For years and years he never seemed interested in girls and…well, you begin to wonder…’

‘Archie! What a thing to say! I certainly didn’t. Anyway, he was friendly with Maisie, and with Audrey and Doris.’

‘Oh aye, I know that; but they were only kids, and I think he saw himself as a sort of big brother to them.’

‘Maybe…’ Rachel nodded thoughtfully. ‘But I’ve often thought that if Maisie was a few years older, then there could have been something between them. Of course I’m not suggesting that there was…’

‘No; she’s just a schoolgirl; Christine’s much more mature. I think she’ll be good for our Bruce.’

‘I hope you’re right, Archie… But the fact remains that he’s just left it all to me, the invitations and everything. He couldn’t even tell me who he
wanted to invite. I was the one making all the suggestions.’

‘Well, he’s probably looking on it as your party, and – let’s face it – that’s what it is, really, isn’t it? It’s summat that you want to do. Bruce hasn’t got any real close friends round here, with being away at school and then in the RAF. But he’ll go along with it and enjoy it, you can be sure of that, provided he’s got his lady friend with him. She’ll be staying here, I suppose?’

‘Yes, I suppose so… It’s where Bruce was staying when he went off to Bradford that concerns me. He didn’t say…’

‘Nor can you expect him to. Give over mithering, Becky. He’s a big boy now.’

‘Yes…yes, I know that…’ That’s what I’m afraid of, she added to herself.

‘Let’s have a look at these invites then,’ said Archie, picking up the pile of envelopes and thumbing through them. ‘Maisie Jackson, Mrs Lily Jackson… What about the youngsters, Joanie and Jimmy?’

‘Oh, I expect Lily will get someone to look after them for the evening; Mrs Jenner, maybe. I’m sure the last thing Bruce would want would be a tribe of children dancing around.’

‘Mr Arthur Rawcliffe… Well, you’d have to invite him, wouldn’t you, seeing as how he’s doing the catering?’

‘I would have invited him anyway, as Lily’s fiancé; but, yes, you’re right. He’ll be there in his
professional capacity. And so will his sister and brother-in-law, Harry and Florence Buttershaw, but there’s an invitation for them as well. I believe they’re doing very well with this new venture.’

‘Aye, they seem to have backed a winner there all right. And jolly good luck to them…’

Arthur Rawcliffe and his relations, Harry and Flo, who had now gone into partnership with him, had started doing outside catering for parties and functions. They had already taken a few bookings and this one, for the squire and his wife, promised to be quite lucrative.

‘The Rector and Mrs Fairchild, Audrey and Timothy Fairchild…’ Archie continued. ‘I reckon they’ll be needing a child-minder as well for their Johnny… The Nixons, all of them, yes of course… How many d’you think there’ll be altogether?’

‘Getting on for fifty, if they all come. And I’ve heard about a trio of musicians; well, you know, the sort that the youngsters like. They play for dancing and that sort of thing; a pianist, a drummer and a saxophonist, and I think they have a girl vocalist as well. So I’ll get in touch with them.’

‘And the cake?’ asked Archie.

‘Oh yes, I’ve thought of everything. Arthur Rawcliffe is going to make that. And he’s promised to put on a nice buffet meal; sandwiches, meat pies, sausage rolls, trifles and fancies; you know the sort of thing. I know we’re still rationed and we probably will be for ages, but he doesn’t think there
should be any problem in getting everything he needs. He says he’ll pull out all the stops…’

And there would be no stopping his wife either, thought Archie. She was revelling in it all despite the lukewarm reaction of their son. He only hoped that nothing would happen to mar her pleasure.

‘Have you got your invitation to the party?’ Audrey asked Maisie as they boarded the school bus.

‘You mean Bruce’s twenty-first?’ said Maisie, trying to affect an air of nonchalance.

‘Of course! What else could I mean? You’ll be going, won’t you?’

‘Yes, I expect so,’ said Maisie, sighing a little. ‘I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t… I’m not bothered about Bruce, you know, not any more.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

‘I should think Doris will be going, so I’ll be able to keep her company. I don’t want to play gooseberry with you and Brian.’

‘Oh, go on; we’re not like that!’

‘But he’ll be invited, won’t he?’

‘Yes, I should think so. Mr and Mrs Tremaine are quite friendly with Mr and Mrs Milner.’

‘It sounds to me as though it’s Mrs Tremaine’s party, not Bruce’s,’ Maisie remarked. ‘I know she’s been doing all the arranging. She’s asked Arthur to put on a buffet, you know, and to make the cake.’

‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ said Audrey.
‘It’s ages since we went to a proper party, and it should be quite a posh do. I wonder what we should wear? D’you think it’ll be long dresses an’ all that? You could wear that pink one that you wore for the concert, couldn’t you?’

‘No,’ replied Maisie, rather too quickly. ‘Er…no, I don’t think so,’ she went on less forcibly. ‘It might be just a casual sort of affair, and I don’t want to be dressed up like a dog’s dinner, do I?’ The truth was that the pink dress brought back unhappy memories. And another truth was that she did not really want to go to the party at all…

Christine didn’t want to go to the party either; in fact, she did not want the party to take place at all. She knew, though, that she would have to handle Bruce carefully if she was to persuade him to go against the wishes of his parents; well, of his mother really, she guessed. Archie Tremaine seemed to her to be a much more easy-going, relaxed sort of person, on the surface at least; quite an ordinary fellow. You would never imagine, unless you knew, that he was the local squire. He spoke with a broad Yorkshire accent and often used the vernacular of the area. Not like his wife, Rebecca. She was the one with the cut-glass accent and refined mannerisms, and Christine had known from the start that she would have to watch her Ps and Qs where Bruce’s mother was concerned.

The local populace appeared to kow-tow to both of them, as they did to the rector, the Reverend Luke Fairchild. Now there was a man – a very handsome man, Christine had noted – whose eyes seemed to be looking right into your soul. Visits to the North Riding of Yorkshire would be kept to a minimum, she decided, once she had got Bruce where she wanted him.

She met him off the train at Foster Square station on Saturday afternoon; he had spent the first night of his forty-eight hour leave in Middlebeck with his parents. He greeted her rapturously, kissing her quite passionately as they stood near the platform barrier, something he had seemed self-conscious about doing in public even for a long time after they had first met. They took the trolleybus up to her flat on Manningham Lane.

‘I’m dying to show you where I live, darling,’ she told him. ‘I couldn’t believe my luck in being offered a flat so quickly. Of course, it’s thanks to Bill Gascoyne, Sadie’s father. He recommended me to his colleague. He told him I was a nice respectable girl,’ she laughed. ‘That’s what he was looking for.

‘By the way, talking of Sadie, she and her fiancé, Roland, are getting married quite soon.’ Christine had received a letter telling her of her friend’s plans not long after the conversation with Sadie’s mother. ‘Soon after Christmas if they can arrange it in time. Mrs Gascoyne thought that a spring wedding
would be nice, but they’ve decided they don’t want to wait so long. You can’t blame them, can you, darling?’ She squeezed Bruce’s arm and gave him an extra loving glance, as they sat close together on the upper deck of the trolleybus. It would not do any harm, she decided, to turn his mind towards the thought of weddings.

‘No, of course not; absolutely,’ he replied.

‘And she wants me to be her bridesmaid. Well, not just me; Daphne and Vera, our other two friends as well, but I’m to be the chief one. They’re both still in the Land Army, down in Worcestershire, but they should be coming back soon.’

‘That’s nice for you, darling,’ he replied. ‘Roland – he’s the army captain, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Sadie’s at the same camp as he is, near Aldershot. But she’s being demobbed soon, and then, when they get married, they are going to move into married quarters. She’s getting really excited about it, them being together for good.’