Two Silver Crosses, page 26
He was comforting himself as much as her, because it was proving extremely difficult to amass the necessary cash. Meanwhile, the weather in the Channel was getting worse and worse, which he knew only too well because he checked the forecast every day.
As the days passed and their separation extended, he was in fidgets of frustration. Grace was too caught up in her own affairs to be aware of it; Stan and Ruby noticed but kept their own counsel. It was Grandpa who spoke out.
‘Time you was back in France,’ he said, when he and Charlie were on their own in the kitchen one evening.
Charlie sighed wearily. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ he said.
‘Why?’ Grandpa asked. ‘Ain’t got the sack ’ave yer?’
‘No, no, nothing like that.’
‘Well then, why can’t you go?’
‘Because I haven’t got the fare,’ Charlie confessed. ‘I’ve been saving up for it, but I’m short.’ He sighed again.
‘It’s important, this trip a’ yours, ain’t it, son?’
‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘It is.’
Grandpa put down his pipe and considered. ‘How much you short?’ he said.
‘Too much.’
‘Put a price on it.’
‘Rather a lot.’
‘How much?’
Charlie thought about it. ‘You won’t tell Mum if I tell you?’
‘You know me better’n that.’
‘Well then, the fare’s three pounds five shillings. I’ve got three pounds and six saved up, but the trip’ll cost nearer five pounds, with lodgings and food and everything. I’ve been wondering if there was something I could pawn.’
Grandpa looked at him for a long second. Then he gave his wickedest grin. ‘What you’re saying is you need another two pounds. That right?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’
‘I’ll give you a lend of it, if you like.’
Charlie was shocked. ‘I couldn’t do that. You’re on a pension.’
‘Wouldn’t be a gift, mind,’ Grandpa warned. ‘You’d ’aveter pay it back. But you could do it bit by bit, couldn’t yer? Ten bob a week fer four weeks.’
Put like that the transaction was possible. ‘Well, it’s ever so good of you,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t know though. I don’t think I ought to.’
Grandpa grinned at him. ‘We can’t ’ave your young lady pining away in France and you stuck ’ere, now can we?’
That was rather alarming. ‘How did you know I’d got a young lady?’
‘Got eyes in me ’ead,’ the old man said. ‘All them letters with French stamps. Don’t worry. We won’t tell yer Ma.’
‘You’re a good old boy, Grandpa,’ Charlie said. ‘Thanks.’
So the money was provided, and a rapturous letter was sent to Jeannie that very evening. It was answered by return of post.
Shall we meet in Boulogne? she asked. I could travel there on Saturday morning. There is a milk train that gets in at half-past six. What do you think?
The milk train was agreed upon. And that Friday evening, at long last, Charlie crossed the Channel.
He was so taut with impatience and suppressed energy that he hardly noticed what a bad crossing it was, nor how persistently it was raining. To be so near to his lovely Jeannie and getting closer by the minute! It was happiness so intense it was actually painful.
Knapsack over his shoulder, he strode off the gangplank in the early morning, walking tall like a conquering hero. It was such a pleasure to hear French voices, to recognise this familiar, foreign place with its cobbled streets and shuttered windows — to peer through the rain for the first sight of his sweetheart. Where was she? Was that her train? She’d said six-thirty in her letter and it must be that by now. Oh come on! Come on! Where are you?
She was on the milk train from Amiens, heading north through the gusting rain. And she was in turmoil, too. When Charlie’s letter arrived, she’d been so happy because she was going to see him again that she hadn’t thought any further than their meeting. Since then, she’d been too busy to pay attention to her conscience. But an early morning journey on a half-empty train had given her the time and opportunity to feel guilty again. She still hadn’t said anything to her mother and she knew she ought to have done. At the very least she should have told her where she was going and whom she was going to meet, even if it did lead to a row. Allowing everyone to think she was off to a political meeting with Veronique was a sin of omission, and she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t. She should have told the truth and taken the consequences. But the consequences might have been dreadful. She could have been forbidden to come to Boulogne, forbidden to see him.
I’m thinking like Emily, she thought. Imagine me worrying about sin and confession. But it was only a small portion of her mind that was occupied with guilt, the rest of it was leaping to follow her senses…straight into his arms, to be held and kissed and told how much she was loved. How could she resist that? Even if it meant years in purgatory.
Oh, what a slow train it was! But at long, impatient last it was creaking into Boulogne. Ginny had the door open and had jumped down from the step before it could stop.
Which was how Charlie first saw her, leaping through the wild air with the wind pinning her blue coat against her body and her hat flying behind her like a one-winged bird. ‘Jeannie! Jeannie! You’re here!’
A madness of movement, running, throwing luggage aside, treading her umbrella underfoot, leaping into one another’s arms, and kissing, kissing, kissing, in a breathless, exquisite, passionate hunger. ‘Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Sweetheart!’ The rest of the world could do what it pleased. They were back with one another again.
‘Oh Charlie!’ she said, when they’d kissed to a temporary halt and stood back to look at one another. ‘It is good to see you.’ There was no doubt how much she loved him now.
He was drinking in the sight of her, lovely olive skin glowing in the rainy air, brown eyes luminous with love, chin determined, mouth red with kisses, breasts taut under her cotton shirt. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said. ‘Do you know that? So beautiful!’
So, naturally, they had to kiss again, just once, before they became sensible and picked up their luggage and retrieved her hat. Then they walked with their arms round one another, her breast warm against his side, his long stride tempered to fit her shorter one, thigh brushing thigh, in a trance of desire.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To breakfast,’ she said. ‘I caught the first train, you know. The milk train. I haven’t had anything to eat.’
‘You starved yourself for me!’ he said, teasing her. ‘What can I say?’
‘I’m noble!’ she joked. ‘Another Jeanne d’Arc!’
‘I’ll buy you the best breakfast in Boulogne to make amends.’
‘Come on then,’ she said, leading him across the square. ‘I know just the place.’
Talk of breakfast had given her a lovely superstitious idea. She would take Charlie to Madame Boulanger’s, where she and Emily and Maman had stayed when they first came to France. If the café was still there it would mean that this was supposed to happen. It would be a good omen, a sign. If it wasn’t…
But it was. Standing in the remembered street in its remembered place between those two remembered tenements, Boulanger de Boulogne. It had the same blue and white awnings, the same small crowded interior, wicker chairs, house plants, bead curtain and all. There was even a tabby cat asleep on the counter. Madame looked older, with white hair and fewer teeth, but she was still cosily plump, and her automatic greeting hadn’t changed at all. ‘M’sieur, M’dame.’
Ginny ordered breakfast and smiled at the old lady.
‘Madame,’ she said, ‘You are Madame Boulanger, n’est-ce pas?’
Madame acknowledged her name, patting the cat. ‘That’s me. Boulanger of Boulogne.’
‘I stayed here once, Madame,’ Ginny said. ‘Years ago, when I was a little girl, when I first came to France. We had the front bedroom, Maman and me and my sister. I wonder if you remember.’
Madame narrowed her eyes and looked at her customer for a long time, still patting the cat which was beginning to grunt under the weight of her hand. ‘Mais oui,’ she said at last. ‘I do believe I do. Twins, weren’t you? And your mother a war widow. She went to work in Le Touquet.’
It was wonderful to be remembered. ‘Yes, yes. That’s right.’
‘And now you return,’ Madame, keeping a wary eye on her next three customers who were walking towards the bar. ‘Breakfast for two, you said.’
They found a table in a corner and settled to enjoy their meal, sitting as close to one another as they could get.
‘Good?’ Ginny asked him.
‘Super,’ he said, kissing her nose. ‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘You never asked me.’
‘Older or younger?’
‘Older. Just. Did you understand what we were saying then?’
‘Bits of it. You said you stayed here once. You said “Maman et ma soeur.” And somebody worked in Le Touquet.’
‘We all did. Maman is a housekeeper. I used to help her when I was younger. How long are you staying?’
‘Till Sunday night. Back to work Monday.’
‘It’s such a little time.’
‘Then we won’t waste a minute of it,’ he said, taking her hand so that he could kiss her fingertips. Oh, the delicious smell of her skin!
The kiss stirred her so strongly she was afraid that everyone in the café would notice. ‘Where are you staying?’ she said.
‘Don’t know yet,’ he said, holding her hand against his cheek, the way they did in the films. ‘Somewhere quiet so I can kiss you.’
She was excited, and afraid, and tremulously happy. What they were doing was very daring. Almost illicit.
‘You could stay here,’ she said, returning his gaze as steadily as she could. ‘Madame has nice rooms and they are not expensive. If they’re available.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I could. What will you do?’
‘I ought to go home,’ Ginny said breathlessly. ‘But I suppose I could stay, too, if Madame has two rooms.’ Now what would he say. Would he…?
He swallowed. Bit his lip. Dared. ‘Would you stay here? I mean…’
‘Do you want me to?’
So much it was making it hard to breathe. ‘Yes.’
How could she deny him when he looked at her like that? Tense and hopeful and so full of affection, not saying anything, not even moving he was hoping so hard, those fine grey eyes huge in his pale face. Madame was edging her way through the tables towards them with an empty tray.
‘Do you have any single rooms?’ she said to her landlady, speaking French and delighted to hear how calm she sounded.
‘You are in luck, Mademoiselle,’ Madame Boulanger said. ‘I have two and both are empty until Tuesday.’
‘Alors. We will take them,’ Ginny decided.
‘I will show you up when you have finished your petit déjeuner,’ Madame said. ‘But you cannot occupy them until midday, you understand.’
They were two narrow rooms, side by side, with the flimsiest wall between them; neat, impersonal rooms with faded bedspreads and fawn wallpaper and identical washbowls.
‘Tiens! Such rain,’ Madame said from the window. ‘You will need your umbrella if you are sightseeing this morning.’
But the weather was irrelevant. They were warm with love, walking the rain-washed town with their arms about each other and the umbrella held with such lack of attention that their heads and shoulders were soon as wet as if they’d been swimming. Rain streamed from the wet curls on Ginny’s forehead, to run down her cheeks, along the ridge of her nose and even into her mouth, whence it had to be kissed away. Charlie’s summer trilby became a conduit for the shower, spattering raindrops as he moved. But what of it? It was talk that was important, talk and kisses, and the unspoken, daring, certain promise of the afternoon.
They wandered through the market stalls in the Place Dalton, watched the morning catch being brought ashore at the quayside, climbed the hill and dripped through the medieval gateway to explore the old town — and when Ginny stumbled on the rough cobbles, he had to hold her very close indeed, in case she fell. They ate fresh fish for lunch and watched the rain cascade down the windows of the café. And they both knew they were simply passing the time until they could be on their own together.
That afternoon the sun came out, but they didn’t notice it. By then they were lying together on the narrow bed in Ginny’s room, entirely given over to the joys of kissing, rousing each other more and more strongly — but safe in the knowledge that Charlie could control himself no matter what.
‘I won’t do anything more than kiss you,’ he promised, ‘not unless you want me to.’
She lay trustingly in his arms, saying, ‘Yes. I know.’ For a Catholic girl, kissing was daring enough without going any further.
That evening they went to the cinema and sat thigh to thigh in the back row, returning to eat what little supper they could before retreating to their magic world upstairs. It was three in the morning when they finally decided they ought to part. They spent the rest of the night virtuously alone in the propriety of their own beds, but they were both in such an acute state of ungratified desire that neither of them slept very much.
It was, as they told one another late on Sunday night, a blissful weekend.
It was followed by three more, each happier and more tantalising than the last. Each just a little more daring, as other embraces were discovered, permitted, and enjoyed.
When they weren’t kissing, they talked of the life they would live together once Charlie was qualified.
‘It won’t be long now,’ he assured Ginny. ‘I sit my final exams in June and then I shall be articled.’
‘When will you know the results?’
‘End of August. I can get taken on then, and we can make plans.’
She didn’t understand. ‘What is “taken on”?’
‘Given a job. As a solicitor. I shall be a proper solicitor then, you see, when I’ve passed the exams. I shall start earning money. It’ll make all the difference.’
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘I see. Don’t let’s talk about money, Charlie. Kiss me again.’
It was after the third weekend that Ginny finally told Emily how much in love she was and was kissed and hugged and congratulated.
‘I’ve known it all along,’ Emily said.
‘You and your ears.’
‘I’m so happy for you. Whatever will Maman say when she knows we both have lovers?’
‘We won’t tell her yet,’ Ginny urged. ‘After all, it’s early days. It’s not as if we’re engaged or anything like that.’
Emily decided not to think about the problem for the time being. ‘When are you going to see him again?’ she asked.
Charlie’s fourth trip to Boulogne was made in very bad weather indeed. There was such a storm that the ship stood to in mid-Channel for nearly two and a half hours and he was green with seasickness when he arrived.
‘Oh Charlie!’ Ginny said, torn with pity for his sickness and admiration for his steadfastness. ‘You are the dearest man to come all this way in weather like this.’
‘Quite right!’ he joked. ‘Glad you appreciate me.’
But joking apart, they agreed that the next trip would have to wait for rather better weather.
The weather got worse. Even the mail was delayed, sometimes for several days, and very difficult life in Boves was then.
The two young men wrote regularly to their loved ones all through the winter. Charlie’s letters were long and passionate. Ken’s short and informative.
At the end of November Ken wrote to tell Emily that the old Crystal Palace had burnt down in a blaze that lit up the whole of London and could be seen as far away as the south coast. ‘I wonder you didn’t see it in France,’ he added.
In early December, the papers were full of astonishing rumours that King Edward was going to abdicate, and Ken wrote about that, too. ‘Everybody is talking about it. Perhaps it is all only a rumour. I can’t believe it is true.’
It is all perfectly true, Emily dictated back. We have known about it for ages here in France. There have been lots of pictures of them in our newspapers, going swimming and on a yacht in the Mediterranean. She is very chic, so I’m told, but has an ugly face. They say Queen Mary doesn’t approve of her and that Mr Baldwin had been trying to persuade the King to give her up. It’s been going on for months. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it before now.
But what they both really wanted to write about was the success of the factory.
It was opened on December twentieth, a day that Ken Hopkirk told Emily he would remember all his life. ‘This is the first step,’ he wrote. ‘The second will be the bungalow. The third I will tell you about when I next see you.’
‘Ask him when that is likely to be,’ Emily said to Ginny. ‘No. On second thought, first say how glad I am to hear about the factory. Then I’ll ask him. Are you ready Ginny? Right then. “Dear Kenneth”…’
Ken Hopkirk carried her letter about with him all through those first satisfying days at the new works. It was talisman, love token and Christmas card all rolled into one — and a reminder that he shouldn’t get too swollen-headed.
It was hard not to feel proud. The sheer size and noise of the place were enough to lift his spirits into the clouds. And when he walked out of his office to tour the works, he felt like a general inspecting his army. He had created it: the corridors roofed with silver pipes, the auto shop buzzing, the well-organised drawing office, the tinsmith shop, the pressroom where the air resounded to the steady thump of his new power presses hitting old metal, and the new water pumps roared, the quiet well-lit room where a dozen women sat at benches mounting the indexes and testing them…
