“That really burns me,” Bryant was going to say, but Robin turned to him and smiled, unconcerned.
The sky was blue and clear and free of the sounds of engines. Robin and Jean were politely happy but also a little jittery and hardly overwhelmed and Bryant wondered if they wondered if they’d done the right thing. He tried to exchange worried or even wounded glances with Snowberry, but his buddy was still cocking his head around, taking in the sights.
At the cottage Elizabeth Lea stood shooing geese. She held a hemp doormat at arm’s length and beat it with what looked like a small hoe. She met them at the iron garden gate, repeating their names as she took their hands in a way that was both warm and businesslike, so that Bryant felt both grateful and excluded. She was a thin woman with a posture like a question mark who somehow managed to convey the impression of standing straightbacked with dignity.
There were more, borrowed, bicycles alongside a shed black with creosote — Bryant was heartened to think of the work that must have gone into Robin and Jean’s assembly of four bicycles for the afternoon — and the plan was to drop off their things, and tour the countryside as their first activity. They were to go straight inside, Robin directed, and change into their bathing trunks.
They rode out onto the lane in a shaky cluster, Bryant having all kinds of trouble with his bicycle (“Mine’s defective,” he kept calling, to the girls’ delight), the chain slipping disastrously on the sprocket teeth every few revolutions. He was forced to work twice as hard to keep up, but looked up and beamed sweatily whenever they sent a questioning glance back.
They passed a chemist with a kelly green sign, a baker’s window with golden and glazed buns. The huddled windows and doors and forehead-low roofs all seemed to him vaguely reminiscent of children’s books. They rode through lanes shaded bottle green by overhanging trees, one of which Robin would occasionally single out as particularly old. “She’s showing us trees?” Snowberry said as an aside at one point. Bryant kept his eyes on her back, rising and falling gently with the action of the pedals, damp enough now across the delicate wings of the shoulder blades that her blouse was clinging, and he focused on the simple pleasure he derived from that, as they soared down through curves, passing through shaded breezes that cooled his forehead. The leaves on the trees above them turned with the wind like schools of fish.
At a pleasing wide bend in the river they stopped, and rattled their bikes down a short embankment to the water’s edge. Jean led them further along a path until a crescent of lawn shielded from the road appeared, and there with a sigh she dropped onto the grass two small satchels that had jounced patiently on the bicycle baskets during the ride. They peeled off tops and shorts and settled down to the water and the sun. The undressing seemed illicit and exciting and awkward, though it was all on the up and up.
“This is something,” Bryant enthused. “This is okay.” He gave Robin’s arm a squeeze. He could feel the sun drawing the smell from the damp earth.
“I love hearing men talk. That’s what I miss most,” Jean said. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks were pink in the sun.
Robin murmured something reassuring. Her bare arm indolently extended in his direction. Her eyes were closed and relaxed despite facing the sun and her mouth was slightly open. He guessed she didn’t feel like conversation. From somewhere he caught the faint and pleasant smell of an oxidized apple. Above them the sun shining through some birch leaves gave them the translucence of fresh grapes.
He thought, I could retire to a place like this, and then grimaced. Retire from what? He saw himself a fat hatless old man in shorts, still unable to track a German fighter with a Sperry turret. But it seemed foolish and wasteful worrying while on leave with Robin, and he settled to face the sun. It bloomed a luminous red beneath his closed eyelids.
Now I’m thinking about Lois, he realized morosely.
“It’s very good to see you, Bobby Bryant,” Robin said. She was slowly smoothing her hair back from her ears.
“You look great,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure out some way of saying it that doesn’t sound sappy.”
She had a winning way of snorting in amusement at herself. “I’m vain, really,” she said. “Comes from my grandmother Janie, I’m told. I’ll tell you about her sometime.”
Bryant didn’t answer. He had the awful feeling at times like this, when he was at a loss for a response, that Robin was inexorably coming to realize that he wasn’t good enough for her.
She got up onto one knee, lifting her hair from the back of her neck, and straightened her arms languidly. “I think I’ll have a paddle,” she said.
At the edge she hunched low and swept water up over her arms and chest, giving a little shake as she did so. He closed his eyes again, and heard the splash of Robin diving in and opened his eyes and immediately she surfaced making crouping sounds. “It’s like ice,” she was finally able to say.
Her mother had dinner ready when they returned. There was a small pewter pot of horseradish on the table as well, which did not seem to be a mistake, though none of the women used it. Snowberry spooned a small portion onto the outside of his plate. While they ate, Elizabeth recounted in some detail her first sighting of Americans.
“One of them gave Mother a flower,” Robin said. “She’s been a supporter of the Yanks ever since. I think he in point of fact gave her one of her own bluebells.”
“Nonscriptus,” Bryant said, remembering Robin’s water-color, and her mother smiled, pleased that this American had a finer side.
The women talked about where rationed commodities were becoming available. They talked about the war in the village. “We had a Wellington crash nearby some months ago, as well,” Robin said. “Near the cottage of an elderly friend. We went straight off to look in on her and we found her drinking port in the front room, with a kettle lid on her head, tied with a regimental tie.”
Bryant laughed in a way he hoped maintained decorum. Snowberry grinned.
“She was ready for another blitz, I suppose,” Elizabeth said.
After a custard made from white powder from a lidded tin, Snowberry held out for nightlife, so they walked the half mile or so through the cool twilight to the local pub. At the door Snowberry pointed up to the overhanging sign, “Ye Silent Woman Pub.” Underneath was carved a decapitated woman. “Very sweet,” Robin said.
They sat around a table and listened for a short while to the patrons. Snowberry cleared his throat and smiled and sat up straighter in the chair. “So what did you girls think of a couple of enlisted men asking you out?” he said.
“I put it down to the immaturity and egotism of youth,” Jean said.
“You know the British attitude towards the Yanks,” Robin said. “Eager blunderers who succeed through sheer weight of numbers.”
Bryant could see Snowberry fingering something in his pants pocket and hoped it wasn’t the condoms. Snowberry said, “So why date us when the RAF is full of Leslie Howards?”
“Well, you’re still to some small degree British,” Robin conceded. “Unruly colonials come over to help. There is that.”
“And of course, you have chocolate,” Jean said. She had large round eyes which frequently lent her expressions a misleading suggestion of credulousness.
“Unruly is right,” Snowberry said with enthusiasm. “The other night you should have seen us. We were at The Hoops and from there we flattened this chemist’s shop. Looked like someone had backed a truck right through it.”
“How does one ruin an entire chemist’s shop?” Robin asked. She did not sound pleased.