The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [75]
‘GI, is he?’ the other girl asked, drawing deeply on her cigarette.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you mek sure he treats you right,’ she warned Myra, suddenly becoming almost motherly. ‘They’ve got the money to give a girl a good time, and it does none of us any favours if you don’t mek sure they learn how to spend it. Too many girls are going out with GIs and letting them treat them cheap, if you ask me.’
‘How come he’s brought you down here, though? This ain’t an American bar,’ the gum-chewing one asked.
‘He was meeting a friend.’ Myra kept her answer deliberately vague.
‘Business friend, is he?’
‘Another American,’ Myra answered. She glanced discreetly at her watch. Fifteen minutes, Nick had said, and so far she had been here for just over five.
‘So how long ’ave you been datin’ this GI of yours, then?’ the gum chewer asked, whilst the smoker blew out a cloud of smoke.
‘Not long.’
‘Well, let me warn you that there’s them wot will have it in for you for walking out with him. Found that out yet, ’ave yer? Stuck-up bitches,’ she continued without waiting for Myra to reply. ‘Give me a GI over one of our own lads any day of the week. Mind you, you’ve got ter watch out for some of them. I heard of a girl last week wot got herself knocked up by one of them. Swore blind to her that he was going to marry her and tek her home with him, but then when she tells him she’s having his kid he didn’t want to know. Daft bugger,’ she said scornfully. ‘All she knew about him was that his name was Joe.’
Fourteen minutes…Myra started to head for the door.
She exhaled in relief as she looked across the bar and saw that Nick was on his own.
‘Want another drink?’ he asked her.
She shook her head. ‘Is Tony from the Bronx, like you?’ she asked him curiously. Immediately she knew that she had said the wrong thing.
Nick stiffened and put down his drink. ‘What do you want to know that for?’ he demanded sharply.
‘No reason. I just noticed that he speaks like you do,’ Myra told him truthfully.
‘Tony doesn’t like people asking questions about him, and if I was you I’d forget about ever seeing him.’ Nick looked at his watch, and Myra reflected again that it looked expensive. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back to the base.’
‘But you said you would take me out for dinner,’ she protested.
‘Aw, come on, babe. You don’t want me to get into trouble for getting back late, do you? Look, I’ll make it up to you. How would you like a trip to London?’
‘London?’ Myra stared at him. ‘I’d love it,’ she said truthfully, ‘but we won’t be able to get train tickets.’
‘Sure we will. Leave it all up to me.’ He put his arm around her and squeezed her. ‘We could take in a few sights, have some fun together, and now that you’re my girl…’ He paused meaningfully.
Myra looked at him, weighing up her alternatives. She couldn’t keep him dangling for much longer, without risking losing him and she didn’t want to do that. And, after all, he had publicly acknowledged her as his girl to a fellow American. But even so…
‘Saying I’m your girl’s one thing,’ she told him firmly. ‘Proving it’s another.’
‘Meaning what?’ Nick challenged her, his good humour fading.
‘The best way to show that you’re serious about a girl is to give her a ring,’ Myra informed him, adding pointedly, ‘especially if you’re thinking of taking her away to a hotel.’ She wasn’t going to let herself think about that other ring she ought to be wearing and she certainly wasn’t going to think about the man who had given it to her. She and Jim should never have got married, and Myra, with the mental facility for letting herself see and know only what she wanted to see and know, had convinced herself that they were as good as divorced already. Jim, who had gone back to North Africa now, would come round to her way of thinking. After all, he always had done in the past, hadn’t he?
Ruthie’s back was aching, from bending over her bench filling shells with liquid TNT, which had to be carried from the large mixer that contained the