Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [25]
Luke aimed a morose kick at the pebble in the middle of the pavement. It was just so ruddy unfair. Why couldn’t he make his dad understand how he felt? All the lads he knew, the ones he’d gone through Scouts and then the Boys’ Brigade Band with, were in uniform now, all grinning broadly as they talked excitedly about doing their bit, whilst everyone clustered round them, especially the girls, especially Pam Harrison. Luke’s scowl deepened. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched along the road.
He’d seen the looks they were giving him, looks that said he hadn’t got the guts to join up. Even ruddy Charlie was in uniform, although from what he said, he’d no intention of doing any fighting.
‘Fool’s game, that is, mate,’ he’d told Luke cheerfully.
There was no point in talking to his mum either. Normally he could rely on her to intercede for him with his dad, but everyone knew how mums were about this war. He’d already heard more tales than he wanted to remember from those who had joined up, talking about their mothers’ tears and protests.
‘Like I told me mam,’ Pete Riley, one of the other apprentices, had boasted only yesterday, after announcing he was joining the RAF, ‘I’m a man now, leastways that’s what the Government says. Mind you, I’m not saying there aren’t some advantages …’ He had grinned and winked before continuing, ‘That little redhead I’ve been running around after for the last six months is all over me like a rash now. Course, if me mam knew that she’d be making even more of a fuss.’
It was all very well for his father to talk about the importance of him getting into the Salvage Corps and saying that even if there was a war it wouldn’t last for ever, and he didn’t want to be in the same position as them what had come back from the last time with no job to go to.
‘You’ll be doing your bit, don’t you worry about that, son,’ he had told Luke. But to Luke the thought of working on dull salvage operations when all his friends were going to be heroes in smart uniforms, was one that only made him feel more desperate to join them.
He was beginning to suspect that even his boss thought he was a coward. There, he’d said it, the word that no one was saying but that he knew everyone was thinking. He could see it in their eyes when they refused to look at him properly and the way conversation stopped whenever he walked in on the lads he had grown up with.
‘You want me to what?’
Bella looked at her brother. They were sitting in his car outside their parents’ house, Charlie having brought Bella back from the Tennis Club.
‘You heard me, Charlie.’
He shook his head. ‘If you want to try and force Alan’s hand then you go ahead, but don’t involve me in it.’
Bella looked at her brother with irritation. Did he really think that she’d have bothered involving him if she didn’t have to?
She had been furious when Alan had refused to come in with her after bringing her home, and even more furious when he had told her casually that he couldn’t stay because his parents were entertaining Trixie’s mother and father and that he was expected to be there.
She had every right to expect him to marry her, and somehow she’d find a way of making sure that he did.
It hadn’t taken her long to come up with a plan, but in order for it to work she needed Charlie’s help and now he was being difficult. Well, she had the answer to that.
‘Of course I’ve got to involve you in it; otherwise it isn’t going to work, is it? How can you make a big fuss about Alan having to do the decent thing by me ’cos you’ve caught him out doing what he shouldn’t with me, if you aren’t involved?’
‘I still say it won’t work.’
A familiar stubborn look had tensed Charlie’s face and an equally familiar truculent note had entered his voice, but Bella was determined to get her own way.
‘Yes it will,’ she overruled him. ‘Look, all you have to do is come outside and find us, like I’ve just told you. And don’t forget, make sure you bring someone with you, like Mr Baxter.’
Charlie forgot about being stubborn, and twisted uncomfortably in his seat