“There’s nothing doing,” Charley said, flat.
“Come off it,” Mr Middlewitch demanded. “Tell that to the Japs. What, after the greatest war in history, with everyone still at it, and all we’ve been through? Not to speak of these secret weapons.”
Charley laughed.
“You let the grass grow under your feet,” Mr Middlewitch exclaimed. “That’s your trouble, Charley boy. God bless me,” he went on, “Will you just look at the time. I must be off. Well, it’s been jolly running across you like this.” And he hurried out, after a blonde who was on her own. She was extremely small.
But it now seemed to Charley that he had known Dot too long to try and start anything. Also he knew he was right, for he had only to consider how she had edged away when he’d brought her tea that very morning. Though of course you never could tell, you could never tell with a woman.
He’d never once thought to visit Rose’s grave.
Then, about five o’clock, back at the house, as has already been described, there was the second lot of flying bombs. When James and Dot came back from the shelter Charley noticed nothing. He had at once begun a long complaint about his coupons, and how impossible it was to choose with the few he had.
They were to go back on the morrow, bed plus two day. Phillips and Miss Pitter seemed rather to hurry the evening. They all left the pub earlier than ever, although they’d been having a very pleasant little time. But when Charley got lonely between the sheets he found, as so often, that he could not sleep. He lay there nervously wondering if he should go in to Dot. He told himself that it would mean nothing, after everything was said and done; that is, if it came to nothing, then he was just paying a call, and if it did come to something, well, it would be as much her choice as his own. Because, either way, he wouldn’t be committed. Still, when it came to getting out of bed, he did not seem able to make up his mind.
At last, after a long time, he actually did go. Her door was open, the place empty. Moonlight, coming through a fake Tudor window, lay over her bed with the clothes pushed back like a breaking wave. There were no pillows, for she had taken these with her. And then he heard noises next door in James’ room. They were in the act.
Of course he felt cheated, but he slept well for once.
The next morning, no one brought Miss Pitter tea.
Then, with not a word said, they’d travelled back to London in a very crowded carriage.
When he arrived that afternoon at Mrs Frazier’s, he found a letter from the handwriting expert. It said there was definitely no resemblance between the two scripts, that Miss Whitmore’s note inviting him round and the letter from Rose, which he had cut out of all the love letters she had ever sent him, were written by two different people. Somehow this did not seem important now. It was out of date. Also Dot’s treachery with Phillips was beginning to rankle, unsettling him. So he put Nancy’s invitation in a pocket, and started off to walk in her direction. He had not decided if he would go up, before he surprised himself knocking on the pink door.
She had been in tears.
“It’s Panzer,” she greeted him, making way so he could enter.
Perhaps it was because of Dot, but he was very taken by how she looked.
“That’s my precious puss,” she explained, when he stayed silent. “I’m afraid she’s been getting into bad company, the naughty girl.”
“Oh,” he said vaguely. He fed his eyes on her.
“I get so upset,” she explained. “Of course I should have taken her round to the cats’ hospital to have a little operation, but I never seemed to spare the time. Now it’s too late.”
“What’s the matter?”
“She’s to have kittens, the wicked girl, her first.” As Miss Whitmore told him, two huge tears rolled down from her eyes, while her face remained expressionless. He actually laughed. Then she giggled.
“Oh, I know, I’m making a fool of myself, you don’t have to tell me,” she said, very friendly.
“Made more of an idiot of myself, for that matter, when I was round here,” he muttered, shamefaced at once.
“I don’t know. Did you?” She was sitting opposite, with the cat on her lap. “Oh, Panzer, how you could? But I’d rather you didn’t give it another thought,” she said to him. “It takes two to get into an argument, as my mother always will insist.”
He suddenly found he was thinking of Nancy’s mother as of someone quite separate from Mrs Grant. But he did not stop to consider this.
“It’s no trouble to them, is it?” he asked.
“What d’you mean?”
“They have their kittens without any fuss, don’t they?”
“But I might be out at work.”
“Where d’you work, then?”
“I’m on nights at the G.P.O.”
He was beginning to feel easy and comfortable.
“There’s this about kittens, they don’t have to bother with clothing coupons,” he remarked.
“You’ve said a whole lot there,” she agreed. “I don’t suppose it can be easy for you people back from Germany.”
He could talk coupons as freely as he could technicalities in the office. He at once plunged into a long description of what few clothes he had, including the pink tweed he was wearing and which was useless in London. She listened with more than good grace. She joined in. And couldn’t help reminding herself how she had not meant to be so friendly. It turned out his main trouble was, that he hadn’t yet received the coupons to which he was entitled on discharge from the Army.
“The others said I should apply to C.A.B.” he told her. “Which is that?”
“Citizens’ Advice Bureau,” she explained. “But who are these people you’re mentioning?”
“Why the ones I was staying with.”
“Over the holiday?” she asked. “Well come on, be a friend. Who were they, then?”
“As a matter of fact one was the man I brought here.”
“Oh that fat man again.” That was how she dismissed Phillips. “And the other?”
“She was a girl I work with in the office.”
“I thought so,” she said. “It’s you quiet ones all over. You’re not satisfied with the life we others must lead, you have to have romance.”
He was embarrassed and delighted. He laughed.
“There wasn’t much of that for me believe us,” he said.
“Which is what you say,” she countered. “And how am I to credit anything you tell me? After what’s occurred before my eyes, and in this very room?”
“Well, it’s true enough,” he said. “Jim snitched her from under my nose.”
“I’m not sure this is quite nice,” she remarked, gravely.
“You’re dead right,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want you to think you could tell tales, here. After all, this is my place we’re sitting in.”
He made no reply. Again this did the trick.
“You were too slow, I’ll bet, now weren’t you?” she asked.
He laughed. Then she laughed.
“It takes all sorts to make a world,” she said.
“Certainly does,” he agreed. He was astounded that he could be so easy, sitting opposite. Perhaps she thought that, in the circumstances, it was too comfortable for him, because she next said, with obvious malice,
“If you’re short of clothing coupons, why don’t you ask my precious dad for some of his?”
“How on earth?” he asked, taken aback.
“Well you seemed very thick together. I only wondered. After all, at the age he is, he can’t have much need.”
“I couldn’t,” he objected cautiously.
“That’s you all over,” she said. “The few times you’ve been here I’ve watched you. What harm could there be to have a go?”
He did not reply.