The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [74]
‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask my ex-fiancé,’ she told him curtly, pulling away from him. Somehow their conversation had taken an unexpected and very dangerous turn.
She knew that this was not the sort of behaviour or the sort of conversation Captain Barker had had in mind when she had told her that she was putting her name forward for this extra duty. A sense of despair and loneliness filled her. She felt wretchedly aware of how alone she was, something that the major, with his wife waiting at home for him, would never be able to understand.
‘Your wife must miss you,’ she said, recognising immediately from his expression that he hadn’t welcomed her comment.
‘She knew she was marrying a soldier.’ His voice was clipped, warning her that she had overstepped the mark.
‘You don’t like it when I ask you personal questions – well, that works both ways,’ Diane told him.
‘You were happy to talk to your colleagues about your engagement,’ he responded.
‘That’s different,’ Diane protested. ‘I was talking to a friend, you and I aren’t…’
‘You and I aren’t what?’ he challenged her.
Something very odd was happening, something totally unexpected. Something she needed to bring to a halt right here and now before it went any further.
‘You and I aren’t anything,’ Diane answered flatly, ‘and now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and mingle.’
She didn’t give him the opportunity to stop her, slipping away before he had time to respond.
FIFTEEN
‘Who’s the broad, Mancini?’
Myra flicked a deliberately snooty look at the airman who had asked the question. When Nick had announced within a couple of minutes of them meeting up that he had arranged to see ‘a couple of guys’ at a bar close to Lime Street Station, she hadn’t been too pleased but she had hidden her displeasure. However, whilst she might be keen to make a good impression on Nick, she certainly did not feel similarly inclined where his fellow American friend Tony was concerned.
The minute the other man had come swaggering into the bar, Myra had experienced a sharp sense of antipathy towards him, and she had sensed from the look he had given her that it was one that was returned. Now, with his back to her, he was talking about her as though she wasn’t there, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was still not one hundred per cent sure of Nick, she would have made it clear to both of them that Tony’s company was not something she wanted. Tony was short and square, with sallow skin and a hooded, somehow reptilian stare that made her want to shiver.
‘She’s my new girl, aren’t you, babe?’ Nick answered, grinning at Myra as he put his arm round her and gave her a hug. ‘The other guys in the platoon understand when a guy has the hots for a girl and wants to get a bit of time with her, and they don’t mind covering for me,’ he told his friend.
‘The MPs are pretty keen,’ Tony commented.
‘They ain’t too bad if you know how to handle them,’ Nick responded with a wink, before removing his arm from Myra’s shoulder and telling her, ‘Why don’t you go and powder your nose or something, sugar, whilst Tony and I discuss a bit of business? We won’t be too long – just fifteen minutes or so – and then I’ll take you out for dinner.’
She was being told to make herself scarce, Myra recognised, and she could guess why. She wasn’t so dim that she hadn’t heard about some of the Americans supplying black marketeers with goods from the American bases’ PX stores. Personally, she didn’t give two hoots about Nick being involved with the black market. She had already noted the spivs clustered round the bar and had guessed that this must be one of their favoured meeting places.
There were two other girls in the small ladies’ room already, both peroxided blondes with over-made-up faces, one chewing gum whilst the other smoked a cigarette.
‘…And I told him straight that there was no way I were putting up with being treated like some cheap tart -’ one of them broke off from saying as Myra walked in. ‘Here on yer own, are yer, duck?’ she asked Myra in a decidedly unfriendly voice.
‘No. I’m