‘Tom, Mam wants to see you.’
‘I can’t come now.’
‘You’ve got to.’
‘Tell her I’m busy.’
‘But you’re not. You’re not doing anything.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re just sitting.’
‘I’m thinking. Now, go away.’
It took a bit more arguing, but in the end Joan went.
Where was Annie?
He didn’t allow himself to look at his watch. He sang Over The Rainbow to himself all the way through, twice. That was Annie’s favourite song. Still she hadn’t come. Bursting with impatience now, he climbed up to the top of the wall and looked out over the fields.
‘Tom!’
It was his mother, standing by the fence.
‘Hell’s bells,’ Tom muttered.
‘Tom, come down here, will you? There’s something I want to speak to you about.’
Reluctantly, he went.
‘Come and sit down here, dear.’
His mother was using her Very Reasonable voice. It was a sure sign of trouble. Silently, he sat down on the edge of the veranda with her. The children could be heard playing in the garden at the back. The other grown-ups were nowhere to be seen.
‘Now, dear,’ his mother began.
Tom looked at his watch.
Where was Annie? Was she coming across the fields this very minute?
‘You know I don’t like to interfere with your friendships—’
That wasn’t true for a start. She never had liked his pal Keith, because his dad was a collier. He made a non-committal noise.
‘But I have to say, I am a little bit concerned—’
Tom looked at her. What was she on about?
‘What?’ he said.
‘I’ve just had a little chat with Mrs Sutton,’ his mother went on. ‘Such a nice woman. Very genteel. And very well-meaning. She has got your best interests at heart, you know, Tom.’
‘Who—Mrs Sutton?’ Tom said, puzzled.
‘Yes, dear. That’s why she thought she ought to speak to me. You see—’ his mother hesitated, then went on ‘—you’ve been seen, dear, walking along the promenade. With a girl. Hand in hand.’
‘What?’
Outrage flared through him. How dared people spy on him and Annie? How dared they? He felt as if something precious had been ripped open and exposed to the world.
‘Who told her that? I know! It was that beastly Beryl, wasn’t it? Great fat lump. She’s got no right—’
‘So it’s true, then?’ his mother asked.
Tom wanted to hit himself for being so stupid.
‘Yes,’ he had to admit.
His mother put a hand on his knee. He jerked his leg away.
‘Well, dear, I have to say that I think you’re still far too young to be having girlfriends—’
‘She’s not a girlfriend—!’ Tom protested.
And then stopped short as he realised that maybe she was. What he felt about her was quite different from what he felt for anyone else, boy or girl.
‘All right,’ his mother conceded, though he could tell that she was just going along with him in order to gain a point. ‘So she’s just a friend. But you see, dear, this girl—she really isn’t a very suitable friend for you. Mrs Sutton knows her, you see, and she says she’s a very coarse, common girl. Not at all the sort of person that I or your father could approve of.’
Incensed, Tom jumped up.
‘Oh, really? Well, that’s just too bad, because I’m not asking you to approve of her. She’s my friend and you’re not stopping me from seeing her.’
He ran down the steps, ignoring his mother’s protests. How dared she say that about Annie? Annie was—
‘She’s not coarse and she’s not common,’ he shouted back at her.
‘Tom, dear—’
‘She’s better than Mrs Nosey Parker Sutton and Fat Beryl any day!’
‘Tom—’
He bolted round the side of the house, across the garden and out down the track, heading for Marsh Edge Farm. Anger propelled him across the fields, talking out loud to himself as his mother’s words revolved in his head. That interfering old bag, Mrs Sutton. He wanted to wipe her face in one of the cow-pats he was jumping over. And his mam believed her! She had no right. Nobody was going to stop him from seeing Annie if he wanted to.
It occurred to him that Annie had told him never to come to the farmhouse. But this was important. This was their last but one evening. They couldn’t waste it.
He slowed to a trot, and then a walk. The field he was walking across had a shiny new piece of barbed wire fencing down one side. That must be what Annie had been helping with today. He had seen two figures working while he’d watched the battle in the air. He opened a gate into the track leading up to the farmhouse and closed it carefully behind him. The edge of his anger had dulled now. He just wanted to see Annie.
And then there she was, coming out of the farmyard. Joy glowed inside him, lighting a great big smile on his face. He waved his arm above his head.
‘Annie!’
She came trotting down the track towards him. Tom broke into a run and, as they got nearer to each other, he noticed that Annie was limping. She stopped before they met. Her face looked different. Pinched. Distressed. Anxiety threaded through his delight. Something was wrong.
He came up to her and put his hand out to touch her arm. She flinched.
‘Annie—what is it? What’s the matter?’
‘What are you doing here? I told you not to come.’ Her voice was sharp, not like her ordinary voice at all.
‘You didn’t come,’ he explained. ‘I wanted to—’
‘You can’t stay here. He’ll see you, and then everything’ll be spoilt.’
‘Who?’ Tom asked. But, even as he said it, he knew. ‘Your father? Is it him? What’s happened?’
‘Just go! Now!’ Annie was frantic. ‘Please. I’ll come and see you tomorrow. I promise.’
And she turned and hurried away from him, still limping.
‘But, Annie—’
He took a few steps after her, his arm reaching out. Then he stopped. She was in deadly earnest. Whatever the trouble was, she thought his being there would make it worse. Slowly, reluctantly, he made his way back.
He got very little sleep that night.
ON THE very last day of the holiday, Tom’s family went out to lunch at the Grand Hotel. It was far too stiff and starchy a place for Tom or the children to find enjoyable, but the grown-ups seemed to like it, and talked a lot about keeping up standards despite there being a war on. In the afternoon it rained and Tom was dragooned into playing an interminable game