Ellie (31 page)

‘Childish, am I?’ She put her hands on her hips and looked scornfully at him. ‘Well, I wasn’t too childish to be picked out of two hundred girls. Mr Dingle said I was the best dancer he’d ever seen.’ In fact there were no more than sixty girls and Mr Dingle hadn’t singled her out in any way from the ten he’d finally chosen, but Bonny always added a great deal of embroidery to every story.

‘I’m really glad for you.’ Jack lowered his voice again. ‘I want to take you out and celebrate. I want to hear every last thing about the audition. Please be reasonable.’

‘I’ll think about it.’ She turned away and walked off.

Jack stood for a moment, tempted to run after her, but he looked back at the car and decided against it. Bonny Phillips wasn’t reasonable. She probably never would be. Perhaps it was as well that he’d had his call-up papers today. As Mrs Baker had said, ‘A spell away from that young minx will do you a world of good.’

‘Ambrose Dingle is an excellent choreographer,’ Lydia said reluctantly. She didn’t know him personally, only by reputation. ‘But he’s a hard, difficult man, Bonny. I’m glad, of course, that you’ve been chosen, but I think you’re too young still for this.’

Lydia had guessed Bonny had something up her sleeve when she disappeared this morning, but it had never occurred to her she might go to an audition without talking about it first. Now Bonny was saying she’d not only been taken on but would have to stay in digs once the show left Littlehampton and moved on to Bognor and Worthing. And she wanted to leave Mayfield right away to start rehearsing.

‘But it’s what I want,’ Bonny said indignantly. ‘Some of the other girls are my age too.’

‘Have you thought about what your parents will say?’ Lydia asked, imagining Mr and Mrs Phillips arriving on the next train, blaming her. ‘I don’t think they’ll be happy about you living in digs. And what happens at the end of the summer? You can’t just go back to Mayfield when you feel like it.’

‘I don’t want to go back there.’ Bonny folded her arms and looked insolently up at the ceiling. ‘I’m a dancer, not a shorthand typist. When this show’s over I’ll find another job.’

‘Now look here.’ Lydia felt anger rising. She loved Bonny, but at times she didn’t like her one bit. ‘You are only fifteen, and I’m responsible for you in your parents’ absence. They’ve paid good money for you to go to college and they’ll be bitterly disappointed if you don’t finish your course. You think you can run rings around me, them and everyone else, but it’s high time you stopped being so selfish and gave a moment’s thought to those who care about you.’

‘It’s my life,’ Bonny said, walking away from Lydia towards the door. ‘I’m going to do what I want with it.’

Lydia felt deeply for Mr and Mrs Phillips. She had helped in Southampton during the bombing and she’d experienced first-hand the terror, the loss of life, homes and dreadful injuries that city dwellers had to endure. Bonny’s parents had been bombed out twice, returning to their house in the middle of winter with just a tarpaulin over the roof until it was mended. Looters had taken many precious belongings, furniture damaged by fire and broken glass. Mr Phillips not only worked by day but stayed behind at Ford’s to fire-watch, and in one raid he’d been burned so badly he was hospitalised. On top of the lack of food, and the shortages of everything that made life bearable, they were separated from their only child. Yet Mrs Phillips strained her eyes nightly making dainty underwear for Bonny, all their clothing coupons were used for things Bonny needed, and they’d saved every penny for her future.

The war had hardly touched Bonny. Aside from bombers flying overhead, a few explosions in Littlehampton when mines on the beach blew up in bad weather and reports of bomb damage in Chichester and Bognor, she knew little. The closest she’d come to the war was on one trip home to Dagenham when her parents had insisted she spent the night in their Anderson shelter. Even a bus ride out through the devastated East End of London hadn’t really brought home the hardships city people suffered. Bonny was well fed, and she had pretty clothes and dancing lessons when other girls her age were hunting for fire-wood on bomb-sites, or queuing for rations. She knew nothing and cared less.

‘Don’t be like this,’ Jack pleaded with Bonny as they got off the bus in the village. She had been silent all the way home, refusing even to hold his hand. They had gone into Belinda’s Tearooms in Arundel and failed to notice the time as they were talking. By the time they got to the cinema all the seats for
Clive of India
were taken. ‘We can go and see it some other time. I didn’t realise you wanted to see it so badly. It’s an old film anyway.’

‘I didn’t,’ she snapped. ‘But seeing drippy Ronald Coleman is better than talking to you. All you’ve done is take Aunt Lydia’s part and throw cold water on everything. Now you tell me you’ve been called up. What am I supposed to do?’

It had never occurred to Bonny that Jack might want to go in the army. As an apprentice he could probably get out of it. But to her surprise, Jack actually welcomed conscription, believing he would gain valuable experience working on army transport and help his country at the same time.

Jack caught hold of her shoulders, pushing her gently towards the shelter of the churchyard wall. It was still light and people were out in their gardens. Jack was very much aware that his every last move was reported back to Miss Wynter.

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he said, looking right into her eyes, trying hard to articulate all the conflicting emotions inside him. ‘You know I love you, but everything’s against us right now because you’re so young. I’m not pouring cold water on your dancing job either. I only tried to point out your parents won’t like it any better than Miss Wynter. Please kiss me and say you aren’t mad with me?’

‘I’ll kiss you if you come in with me now and try and talk Aunt Lydia round,’ Bonny sniffed.

‘Okay,’ Jack said wearily. He didn’t believe he could influence Miss Wynter, but perhaps she’d see his call-up as a sign that one of her problems was shortly to be solved.

Bonny softened the instant Jack’s lips touched hers. She adored kissing and hours and hours of practice had made her very good at it. Hardly a night went by with Jack when she wasn’t deeply tempted to let him go further, especially on those warm evenings out in the fields when no one was about.

Jack groaned softly as Bonny pressed herself closer to him. He wanted her so badly that at times it consumed him. How many more nights could he stand the torture of constant arousal with no relief?

Bonny opened the door and went into the hall. The sitting-room door was open but Lydia wasn’t there.

‘She must’ve gone out.’ She turned to Jack, hovering nervously on the doorstep. ‘Come in anyway, maybe she’s left a note.’

Jack shut the door behind him and followed Bonny.

A note was propped up on the sofa table.

‘I’ve been called out to Bognor,’ Bonny read aloud. ‘Lock the door but don’t bolt it. I can’t say what time I’ll be back so don’t wait up.’

‘I’d better go, then,’ Jack said, knowing Miss Wynter might be angry if she found him there when she got back.

‘No.’ Bonny’s eyes sparkled, her tongue flickering across her lips. ‘You’ve got the perfect excuse for being here. If she turns up we’ll just make out we’ve just come in and you want to tell her your news.’

Jack knew it wasn’t a good idea, but Bonny was already pulling over the black-out and curtains. ‘Just for a short while, then,’ he said reluctantly. ‘If she isn’t home within half an hour I’d better go.’

They rarely had the comfort and privacy of a softly lit room. As Bonny snuggled into his arms, Jack soon forgot about Miss Wynter and the promises he’d made to her. Within minutes they were lying together on the big sofa and passion flared up like fire in dry hay as one long kiss led to another.

‘I love you,’ Jack whispered, his finger fumbling at the buttons on the front of her dress, reaching in to cup one full breast in his hand. ‘You are so beautiful, I want you so badly.’

She had allowed him to stroke her breasts on many an occasion, but he’d never seen them naked before. He looked down at the small hard nipple between his fingers and squeezed it gently. Her eyes were closed and her mouth open slightly, soft moans of pleasure coming from deep in her throat. Jack moved down to take her nipple in his mouth and her moaning grew louder, her hand reaching out to stroke his head and neck, urging him closer still.

‘That’s wonderful,’ she gasped. ‘More.’

Jack forgot all the warnings. The taste and smell of her skin drove out all thought but to possess. He sucked on her nipples, his hands roaming down her body, fingers pressing into all the soft, hidden places. Even through her dress he could feel the heat of her, her thighs yielding to his touch, opening enough to let his hand in.

She drew his face back to hers, her lips hot and insistent, tongue probing sensuously against his. Jack’s hand rested for a second on her knee, then slowly slid up her thigh under her dress.

He expected her to stop him, but instead she moaned again, arching her body against his. Slowly his hand crept up, stroking and smoothing the hot silkiness of her inner thighs until it reached satin knickers.

Jack could hardly contain himself as he rubbed her there. The combination of silky damp satin, the triangle of soft pubic hair and the soft womanly folds of skin that he’d dreamed about for so long was unbearably erotic. But instead of Bonny stiffening as he expected, her thighs parted further, urging his fingers deep inside her.

Jack’s knowledge of women’s bodies came only from crude male jokes. He hadn’t expected it to be so hot and slippery or to feel such awe and tenderness all at once. He found as he slipped his finger in and out that Bonny’s moans grew louder and his desire to please her was greater than his own need. He grew bolder as she writhed under him, pulling her knickers to one side and experimentally stroking her all over. The musky smell of her, the whispered cries for more, her darting tongue against his, her hard nipples against his chest were inflaming him to such a pitch he had to unbutton his trousers.

‘Hold me,’ he begged her, pushing his fingers deep within her, hoping that she wouldn’t suddenly push him away. ‘Please hold me.’

‘I love you, Jack,’ she whispered huskily in his ear. ‘It’s so wonderful.’

Her hand closed round Jack’s penis willingly, but she was insinuating her body towards it too, drawing him on to her.

‘No,’ Jack whispered with little conviction. ‘No, we mustn’t.’

‘But I want you, Jack,’ she said, her hands reaching down the back of his trousers and cupping his buttocks. ‘Please!’

Nothing on earth was as wonderful as the moment when he thrust himself deep inside her. It was like the thrill of driving a motorbike at full throttle down an empty road, the blast of heat on opening a furnace door, and yet the sweetness of stepping into a garden after a summer shower.

‘I’ll love you for ever,’ he heard himself call out at the moment of eruption and all at once he was crying.

‘What’s the matter?’ Bonny whispered, lifting his face from her shoulder to kiss him. She wiped away his tears, her blue eyes troubled.

‘I don’t know,’ Jack whispered.

Bonny had never looked more beautiful, her hair tousled, lips swollen with kissing, her face rosy. But it was the tenderness in her eyes which affected him the most. She’d never looked quite that way before.

‘We shouldn’t have done it,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’re under-age. We should’ve saved it till we got married.’

The purr of a car engine outside startled them. Jack leaped up, fastened his trousers and tucked in his shirt. Bonny was quicker still. She buttoned her dress, smoothed down her hair and pushed her feet back into her sandals all in one swift movement.

They had just plumped up the sofa cushions as Lydia opened the front door.

Lydia saw Bonny sitting sedately on the sofa as she came into the hall and didn’t immediately notice Jack in an armchair tucked behind the door. It had been a long, weary evening, trying to sort out a home for a young, pregnant woman with two small children who had turned up in Bognor after her house in London had been bombed. On the drive home Lydia had thought long and hard about Bonny and she had come reluctantly to the conclusion that it would serve no purpose to oppose the girl about this dancing job.

‘Still up?’ She smiled warmly. ‘Was the film good?’

Lydia took a step closer, about to suggest they had some cocoa. When she saw Jack, her smile faded.

‘Jack came back to tell you his news,’ Bonny said too quickly. ‘He’s got his call-up papers. He’s joining the Royal Army Service Corps.’

Lydia didn’t need any sixth sense to tell her what had been going on. Jack’s eyes were puffy, he was very flushed and his eyes didn’t meet hers. Bonny’s dress was a mass of creases and there was a faint odour in the room which Lydia instantly recognised.

‘What have you two been doing?’ she asked. She was wearing her WVS uniform. She withdrew a long hat-pin and put her hat down on the coffee table.

There was a highly charged atmosphere between them. Jack looked guilty, standing awkwardly at the fireplace like a burglar interrupted mid-job. Bonny was too calm; normally when she was with Jack she was giggly and restless.

‘Just waiting for you,’ Bonny said innocently. ‘We haven’t been in long.’

Lydia looked at the clock. It was half past eleven, so this last remark was a lie. ‘From what I can see it’s just as well Jack’s got his call-up papers.’ She turned to look directly at him. ‘I’m not a fool, Jack, I know what’s been going on here tonight. I trusted you. How could you do such a thing?’

Jack blanched. He had visions of Miss Wynter calling a doctor to examine Bonny, then having him run in to the police.

‘We haven’t done anything.’ Bonny stood up, her eyes flashing defiantly. ‘What do you mean?’

Lydia knew Bonny would continue to lie to her last breath. ‘Go to bed,’ she snapped at her. ‘I’ll talk to you in the morning.’

Jack sidled towards the door.

‘You can sit down.’ Lydia pointed towards the chair. ‘I’ll talk to you alone.’