The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [95]
‘I reckon the US Army really knows how to treat people. Nick gets paid five times as much as a British soldier,’ Myra boasted, ignoring her comment.
Diane’s mouth tightened.
‘Nick gets an eight-day furlough every six or seven months and no messing. Like as not the next time we go away it will be more than for just a weekend. And the American Army is putting on special trains for its troops so that they can visit London on their weekend pass outs.’
‘But you won’t be able to travel on that with him,’ Diane pointed out.
‘That’s all you know. Nick’s had a word with someone he knows who owes him a favour and he’s got me a seat. The train goes from Lime Street tomorrow dinnertime and we’re meeting up for a drink first.’
Diane had finally got her hair into its chignon and, as she slid in the last of her precious store of grips, she turned to look at Myra. She didn’t like passing on gossip, but Myra’s own boastful comments about what Nick could do seemed to confirm at least to some extent what Jean had told Diane. Myra wouldn’t take kindly to any criticism of him, Diane knew, but her own conscience was still urging her to warn the other girl.
‘The kind of favours Nick seems to be able to call in aren’t given for nothing, Myra,’ she told her quietly.
‘Meaning what, exactly?’ Myra demanded, bristling.
Diane took a deep breath. ‘I have heard that Nick could be involved in some pretty dishonest stuff.’
‘You mean a bit of dabbling on the black market?’ Myra challenged her, tossing her head. ‘Is that supposed to put me off?’ She laughed. ‘Good luck to him, is what I say.’
Myra’s attitude told Diane that there was no point in her saying anything more.
‘That silk blouse of yours…?’ Myra was repeating.
Repressing a small sigh, Diane opened the wardrobe door and removed her best blouse from its padded hanger.
Bright sunshine bouncing off the pavement made Diane grateful for the fact that her mother had insisted on loaning her her precious pair of pre-war sunglasses. She stood waiting for the major to arrive. Her experience of the first day she had worked for him had taught her to make sure she always made herself some sandwiches to take with her, carefully preserving the precious greaseproof paper in which they were wrapped to reuse each day.
Today’s sandwiches were tomato with a thin shaving of cheese, but she considered herself lucky to have a landlady with access to an allotment.
‘Off out with the handsome major again today, Di?’ Jean grinned as she hurried across the road towards her. ‘Phew, it’s hot,’ she added, removing her cap. ‘I’m not sure whether I should thank you or curse you for giving me this thing,’ she added, touching the roll Diane had given her for her hair. ‘My hair looks better, but it’s dreadfully uncomfortable in this heat, and it’s making me itch like mad. Oh ho, here’s the major now, you lucky thing,’ she grinned enviously.
Giving her a brief smile, Diane stepped forward, hurrying round to the passenger door of the Jeep, but as always the major was there before her, holding the door open for her. Today, like her, he was wearing a pair of sunglasses – aviators, she had heard the airmen calling them – and something about the darkness of the lenses added an extra strength to his air of command. Sometimes she felt that this small act of his of managing to open the Jeep door for her before she could get out by herself had become a silent but fiercely fought battle between the two of them, and a battle in which he had the unfair advantage of longer and more powerfully muscled legs. But winning the skirmish of who could get to the door first didn’t mean that he would win the war, Diane told herself. She had her own battle tactics, one of which was to thank him with freezing politeness and then ignore him, thus, she hoped, making it plain to him that as service personnel she did not welcome being treated to his American gallantry. His wife might enjoy his acting as though