( Chapter Five: SCRIMP AND SAVE, THAT'S HOW WE MAKE DO )
STRAPPED INTO HER KITTEN HEELS ALL LOVELY AND NEAT, Robin Winifred looked straight-nosed and sweet standing on her doorstep, with her token Alice band and nice little tea dress. She'd never before been on a date of any sort, and irrational thoughts shined at the forefront of her mind like pearls; am I wearing the right thing? and does my hair look O.K.? She tapped the heel of her shoe against the flagstones.
After a while, she decided that she admired the silence. It was soothing: the emptiness of the air, the undisturbed benediction, especially when standing there on the porch. She could mull over the things that had recently happened to her, and relish in the fact that nothing was going on — that was, until; soft cheekbones and heart-shaped face and all, Jim Alley met her on that very same front porch at bang on six, his hands behind his back. He offered her his arm and a waggish smile, and she took it graciously, locking them together at the nooks of their elbows. After they'd passed the Hamilton driveway, she inquired in a docile tone, "Where do you go when you leave?"
"I'm over at the bar, most of the time, the Blue Boar," he decided, with a shrug of his sloping shoulders. Robin quickly deducted that by bar he was implying the pub nearby Reggie's Reels, "It ain't so bad being over there — we even get our juice on the house. Makes some of the fellas real mad, though. They feel like they're bein' patronised n' given charity just because they're soldiers — they didn't go through all that trainin' n' marchin' n' Sobel's screamin' for a free pint'a beer."
Swooshing a portion of her dress around using palm of her hand, she looked down at her skirt. It was a pretty lavender-ish colour, and had little clovers embroidered onto it by Olive, who'd done it as a favour to spice up one of Hermia's old dresses. She liked it. She smiled plainly to herself and asked him, "Who's Sobel?"
She glanced up at Jim, and he wore a more pensive look than usual. The wind raked through his hair and ruffled Robin's skirt. "A whackjob CO we had back at when we were back training to be paratroopers. We hated his Goddamn guts. Most men would'a jumped at the opportunity to shove him outta the airplane before the lights turned green," he concluded. "'Suppose, though, this was before we got our jump wings n' paratroop boots. I remember when I first got these babies. Felt like two chunks'a corrugated tin that I had'ta mould around my feet.
"Well, they do look quite swell," she admitted.
"I hope so. Battalion said that they'd wanna set aside half an hour to polish them most evenings. Nothin' says more about a paratrooper than his boots. What d'you think mine say 'bout me, Winnie?"
"Well ... they look as clean as most shoes do, but they have all those little nicks and chips," she scrutinised, trying to take his request at a half-humored angle, "What in God's name have you been doing whilst wearing them?"
"Oh. Ol' devil himself was always settin' us on this six-mile run up a hill called Currahee. 'Suppose they were bound to get all worn down at some point," he explained, "Once, on the way up, I nudged Lowrey and told him that we could hide at the bottom of the hill an' join the company when it came back down. Major Boyle found us out n' made us run the whole damn thing behind him, twice over, before lettin' us go — apparently Major Boyle's a cross-country runner n' that."
"Made you a good paratrooper, though, did he not?"
"I guess so. I've been called an accident-prone schmuck a couple'a times, though," he admitted, and Robin wondered what he could have possibly done to be coined with such a name. "They never quite knocked that outta me like they did Smokey."
The silence ticked inside her chest for a moment. You're accident prone? Have you met me?; on second thoughts, scratch that. "If you're accident prone, then that makes me a walking disaster, and that is in no way blown out of proportion," heat started to rise from her chest, absorbing her neck and reaching her cheeks as she lamented, "I just ... I get these bizarre moments when I feel so out of my own body that ... that I'm doing things before I even realise I've done them ..." she connected the dots thoughtfully, "Like when I hurt your friend. Or when I dived into the fountain to get my hatpin. That seems to be the root of all my faults, doesn't it? Perhaps I need a fresh start. Perhaps I need to get away from it all, again. I could go to America! I could go and see Lady Liberty and all the New York showgirls and Springtown and Periwinkle Street."
"I've seen the Statue of Liberty. I saw it in the flesh — or ... whatever it's made out of — when old girl Samaria took us to England from there, on our twelve day boat trip. Pal of mine said boats are big ol' floatin' graveyards, especially to the Navy boys, but ours weren't so bad. We passed the time munchin' on that flaky cornbread shit and shootin' in craps. Nearly lost my class ring to some D Company NCO."
He held out his hand between the two of them, where there was a ring on his index finger. Robin wrapped her hands around his as she inspected the ring with big eyes. His hands were very warm, for being out in the November cold. She didn't really wonder why that was, as she was far more interested in the class ring, curious as to what it was supposed to represent. "It's ritzy," she speculated, "What's it for?"
"Like I said, class ring. It represents graduation," he clarified nicely, "D'they not have them in England?"
"I wouldn't know. I — ah. It sounds potty. I never actually got around to finishing my education — it was my father's fault, actually. He decided to sweep myself and my sister to Ipswich as soon as she left school, at the proper age. She was about fourteen, I think, but I was only eleven. We both joined the Land Army the minute she turned eighteen. I was fifteen, so I had to fib about how old I was, but I slipped right under their noses. We spent two years there, up in Yorkshire."
And then Hermia met John whilst he was on a weekend pass, outside the local pub, since they didn't permit people of "his kind" to be served. And then they eloped a couple of weeks later, and left Robin Winifred all alone; torn between whether to anonymously make a claim against her father or not. Besides, there was a life for her up in Yorkshire — she had a well-paying job, a home, and friends, too. Once single thing had pushed her over the edge. And then it all changed.
"I wouldn't'a guessed, if that means anything. You're real well-spoken an' that," he complimented her prose and detrimental tendency of running her mouth, "You look like you live the highlife, in that big manor down the gravel pathway, teachin' little Cyril how to act all proper and nice."
She smiled rather queerly at him. "Thank you."
Inside the beer hall, the tables had been cleared towards the sides of the room, and there were a cascade of pleated skirts as arms clung to strong American shoulders. Now, she thought, this reminds me of New York. As swing music pumped through her blood, she decided that she'd never felt like so much of a socialite in her whole life. It wasn't like she was cooped up in plain ol' Aldbourne anymore; not even close — everyone seemed to be having a wild time; flirting back and forth and smoking for the aesthetic of it, all that jazz that Robin was too socially inept to join in on.
In the larger halls, the ones made for dance in the first place, they danced on sprung floors, or at least highly polished and prepared floors. In small halls like this it was plank floors with nails sticking up or concrete with linoleum squares glued down. NAAFI or Garrison Theatre type floors were often polished linoleum, she'd heard, but she wasn't an expert. Many saw the lights, the music and the company as a way to let them forget the misery, austerity and danger of the oncoming war for a few short hours. Everyone could live their dreams in a make-believe world on a par with a Hollywood film, and it made Robin's heart race.
"I should grab a table to put my things on," she announced, removing her cloche hat.
The swing music was too loud for them to be able to speak to one another at a pleasing and regular volume. There was a band in tuxedos with a Prima Donna Band Leader who stood up front. He waved his arms about, did his little dance steps and sang the odd song, smiling all the while at the ladies passing. Robin stood, watching. Turning in towards her side, Jim pressed his hand against the lower quarter of her back, and he spoke into her ear. "I'm gonna go get a drink," he said, and she turned and watched him walk towards the bar. Holy Mary Mother of God — she tensed up and inhaled sharply, folding her hands atop of one another as she placed her things down on the round table and taking off her cardigan to sling it over the back of the chair.
She wondered who Millicent was going steady with nowadays; she'd given Shifty the push, which was quite implicit — he was too nice for her. She wanted someone to give her a run for her money, and Shifty Powers wasn't the kind of man to do that. Robin couldn't understand why girls liked that out of their GI sweethearts. It occurred to her that perhaps rather than him chasing her skirt, she'd chased Jim herself, but if he was running, we wasn't running very fast.
Robin swivelled around and stole a glance back at him. She felt a surge of pride, at the thought of nabbing herself him, of all lads. Was that wrong? Surely not — surely she could pride herself in going out somewhere in the company of someone so chivalrous. Although, it wasn't as if that upped her confidence standards in any way. They weren't even courting properly, and therefore there was nothing around to be the buffer between Robin herself and him toying with her and sweeping another girl off her feet.
Looking around, there were other girls, an apple pie wannabe variety. In a nutshell: blondes and brunettes and redheads of every kind, some of which Robin knew and some she didn't. There was just so much movement, all combining in a cheerful kind of raucous. Kitty (from Millicent's Saturday bookkeeping class) and her CO sweetheart, as well as some other women that she must have known from elsewhere.
"Hey, Moe's broad ... hello?" a man leaned across his table and clicked his fingers to draw her attention (as if she'd be able to hear the tiny snapping of his fingers over the cacophonous twelve piece band), "Yes, you. You gonna have any hooch?"
Robin cocked her head to the side. She didn't quite recognise his face — or, perhaps maybe she did? Maybe he was one of those boys who slinked out around the outside of the Blue Boar with Jim. The man had a frothy mug of amber-coloured beer in his fist, nicely arched eyebrows, and was as much a brunet as the other Americans she'd met so far (whom had more or less all been brunets, if comparisons were being drawn).
"My what, sorry?" she politely asked him to reiterate, her accent local.
"Lay off with that, Tab," another man nudged him. Robin's face washed over with recognition. Alton! she squeaked inwardly, deflating with relief upon seeing the recognisable face of Alton More seated at the same table. A board and joyous smile broke onto her face at the sight of him. The other man — Tab being a nickname, Robin supposed — rolled his eyes, but allowed Alton to fill in for what he had to say, "He wants to know what you wanna drink."
Oh. As long as he wasn't trying irrationally to mock her doe-eyed obliviousness, she wouldn't hold that against him. American lingo was bewildering to say the least, but as long as he wasn't trying to baffle her on purpose, she resolved the brewing conflict inside her mind. Besides, she didn't even know what he was made of — perhaps, in a couple of weeks time, he would be Millicent's new man; she seemed to pick them up and unwrap them like those little Humbug sweets (in that way), so why not Tab too?
"Oh," she glanced over towards the semi-crowded bar, readjusting her positioning to try and spot the that cherry red glossed logo over the heads of greased hair and victory rolls. "Do you think they do Coca Cola?"
The American men erupted into a chorus of hearty laughter, mainly Tab and the cluster of comrades sitting around his table. Another — one stout man with bushy eyebrows who had been smacking his chewing tobacco since the brunette had arrived — stood up from the picnic bench, placing his pint glass down onto the table. "Just you sit pretty, I'll find somethin'," he said admirably, patting Robin gently on the shoulder.
"Alright," she nodded, her narrow lips forming a thinned line, "Thank you."
He strolled off, and Robin knocked the heels of her shoes together awkwardly. "Robin!" Alton beckoned her over with an easy smile, shuffling to the left and forcing the men up the bench a little to make room for her, and he patted the wooden panel to his left, "There's a space right here if you wanna sit."
She squeezed in beside Alton, who introduced his friends, all brash and self assured infantrymen. She did her best, but their names went in one ear and out of the other. She expected that she'd probably have forgotten all about them by the time she got home. Skip — another nickname, she guessed — was a man with a small mouth and golden blonde hair. Don Malarkey was the perky ginger man sitting to his left. Lieb was a cynic, and Smokey was the one who'd left to grab her something to drink — she remembered Jim mentioning him once or twice, but couldn't exactly remember what it had been about. Tab's real name was Floyd Talbert, and so on and so forth.
Come to think of it, she actually remembered spotting the name Malarkey tacked onto one of the men's jumpsuits from the evening that she'd lashed out on Wayne Sisk inside Reggie's Reels. She inwardly hoped that he didn't recognised her for that night, as it was an awful thing to uphold a reputation for. But even if he did recognise her, he didn't mention anything about the incident, and she was very thankful for that.
"So what do you do?" Skip asked as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and caught Robin's attention over the table. Her hands had been clasped in her lap, and upon the chance that she stole a glance upwards, she was drawn into the conversation each and every time. It was of no fault but her own, though, as they were only trying to be friendly, for the most part, but she found herself indulging more in her thoughts than the conversation that she dipped in and out of. "We've never seen you out and 'round here," he remarked, rephrasing, "D'you work nights or somethin'?"
"Well, I have a full-timer looking after a little boy for the Hamiltons so I spend a lot of time up there," she explained, but then, she added for good measure, "Although, after Christmas, I'm going to be starting my voluntary nurses training with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. I truly can't wait, it'll be great to chip in on the war effort."
The prospect of that alone filled her with more merriment than the thought of Christmas. Cyril had been counting down the days, as every toff child in England was, anticipating their rationed presents and hoping that the war would be over before the New Year, so they could live a day without the roar of Spitfire planes rumbling in the shells of their ears. Robin sort of hoped that it would draw to s close soon, too. One, stupid, naive part of her wished that Jerry would miraculously surrender, fall back, and have the Second World War be done and dusted before Churchill could say lickedy split.
"Woah-ho. Rookie nurse," whistled Floyd, "I do love nurses."
"I don't recall you ever meeting one," Don Malarkey queried, hiding his smug smirk in the glass curve of his pint. Skip snickered also and bumped his shoulder against his friend's, and they connived together continually throughout the night like two peas in a pod. From across the picnic table, Robin decided that she quite admired their friendship, and wished that she had someone to giggle with and confide in like that.
"Fuck has he met one — 'course he has, everyone's met them," jabbed Lieb, stoically swishing his glass around with his hand before upending it and finishing his drink completely, the amber remnants of the alcohol sloshing limply around, and then and nearly making an escape in beads from the corner of his mouth. He put his mug down. "There're a shitload of 'em here. Hard as flint. Don't scare so easy."
"Well, you see any of us boys whilst on call, you patch us up real good, yeah? Only the best for our Easy Company," declared Don with a kind of glowing smile, and he seemed to be making a toast towards the highly-spoken-about Easy Company, and he tipped the edge of his glass away from him.
Smokey Gordon reproached with a nonplussed Jim in tow. The former said, "Here ya go, chickadee. It was the weakest they'd hand over at this time of night. Drink up."
She swallowed a whole mouthful of the beverage and cringed as the taste resonated on the tip of her tongue, wincing and placing the glass down onto a coaster. Smokey chuckled. Her short attention span was diverted as she spotted a fine-looking band around Alton's finger. She poked at it, juggling multiple thought patterns at one time. "Is that a class ring? Jim was showing me his one on the way down. Neat, aren't they?"
"Wedding ring, actually. '42, June third," he said, twisting the said ring around his finger thoughtfully. Glancing up, Robin could have sworn that his smile was practically glowing with mirth, as he thought about his cherished girl from back in Wyoming. He added, "Was a gal from home called Erma Jean. Baby was born just after we arrived over here."
Her face lit up. "Awe, a baby!" she gushed, clasping her hands together.
"It was a girl," he added crassly, taking another swig from his glass, "We called her Janet."
"That's so lovely," the brunette mused.
As Robin babbled on, two people strolled leisurely towards their table, with florid personalities that were ever so prominent over the jazz band and the swing dancing. The duo was made up of a man with curly tufts of blonde hair and a gap between his two front teeth, who was at the heels of a slender woman, who was about an inch taller than him in her wedged shoes. At first glance, it was a sharp-looking strawberry-blonde; the kind that Robin always steered clear of in social situations. Up close, it was that Kitty Grogan girl that Millicent knew — the same one that Robin had managed to catch a glimpse of earlier. She'd seen the two of them dancing together.
The blond man beamed as broadly as the horizon. He was a CO, she'd been told that before, though whether it had been by Millicent or Jim, she couldn't remember. She didn't even know what CO stood for. "Evening fellas," he greeted in an accent as suave as any, tipping an imaginary hat towards the group. "Gotta say, I've been waiting for one of you lot to start brown-nosing up to Winters since Sobel got to boot to Chilton Foliat. I would'a. I have. Great guy."
"Na, we've been waitin' for him to turn up on the rifle range, though."
"Yeah, and for a valid excuse for why he ain't shown up for three days straight. Meehan's wearin' me down, man."
"I betcha he's entangled with some spunky secretary broad, all British and that," said Skip snidely, "They probably mack down somewhere real nice and cushy at Battalion HQ, and whilst we're sweatin' our absolute asses off try'na shoot straight enough to peg a bullseye, he's over there passin' the time by kissin' on her sweet — oomph! ... hey! You know I was kiddin', Mal, Christ Almighty, try me for a Purple Heart, why don't you?"
"Well, if that's what you call bitching and typewriting, then yes, that's how he's been spending his time."
"Yeah, fuck," Lieb added, dropping swears like Millicent did boys. "It's Winters we're talkin' about here, not damn Casanova."
It warmed Robin inside to see their camaraderie, knowing full well that the closest of bonds were made by men in combat. Yet, she thought, these men are still prewar. Still yet to brandish their trench knives and give the Jerry their all. Give it three weeks, she thought morbidly to herself, and all these men could be in unmarked graves in territory that isn't our own. Her heart felt like it was faltering in her chest, but she didn't know how to feel ... sad? afraid? there was too many emotions to feel and not enough time.
Robin Winifred mustered the courage to look up and meet Kitty Grogan's gaze. She was not left disappointed or anything — in fact, she was greeted by a face that was practically split with a grin. Undeniably, the brunette was marginally scared of Kitty, but when she thrust out a flat palm, Robin took the notion and accepted the brisk handshake. "Hello. I don't believe we've met before. It's Catherine Grogan, but God forbid anyone call me that other than my mother. Kitty suits just fine."
"Robin," the brunette offered, "Hubbard. I ... er, I work down at Hamilton Manor," she added, trying for an icebreaker, which was almost unheard of for someone of her own nature; however, the inability to restrict her motormouth was held accountable for men, almost exclusively. She felt more comfortable in the company of another woman, even if it was Kitty Grogan.
"Oh, you do?" her nose wrinkled, and some of her beige freckles folded into her laughter lines prettily. "With them? The toffs? My mother used to chat to Irene Hamilton down at the butcher's, when they used to by their own food, and not get that maid — what was she called, Cynthia? — to do it for them. I used to stand there for ages like a right chump — all I wanted to do was go and play hopscotch with Gladys, and there I was, faced by Irene and her daughter Millicent, for a good hour or so. We used to have staring competitions, me and her. We never got on."
"Yourself and Millicent? I'm not so surprised, you two seem very different from one another," Robin Winifred speculated offhandedly. She'd already taken a shine to Kitty, whereas Millicent was always so hot and cold when it came to their supposed friendship.
"How so?"
"Well, for starters, I'm starting to think that she likes her men in abundance," she chimed, having to stifle a giggle. She then drew back. Kitty had given no signs that she adored Millicent, yet there was nothing too predominant that led Robin to believe that she despised the blonde. The brunette knew better than to flippantly bash Millicent behind her back, after all, she seemed to have friends here there and everywhere. God knows who could be listening — and she'd certainly be in for it, then, if she was tattle-tailed on.
"Too right, though I think she's just unlucky in love," Kitty agreed, much to her relief. "May I sit?" she requested politely, and Robin shimmied up for the strawberry-blonde to perch on the edge of the plank beside her (Alton had stood up at some point and wandered off, allowing for a substantial potion of room for Robin and Kitty). "Someone in my gardening circle told me that she gave Shifty Powers the push back in October in favour of some other bloke in Easy. She just wants to find the right partner, is all."
"Gardening circle?" Robin reiterated with a quirked eyebrow, and Kitty thought she was being incredulous (and rightly so, because she certainly seemed like she was), but she was actually genuinely very interested.
Kitty giggled, "Yes! We have it down at the allotments on a Wednesday morning, but we've finished for the Winter now, since the ground is too ridden with permafrost. We don't start again until spring, but you're more than welcome to tag along when we do. It would be nice to have someone my age there, too. I've tried to get Harry along but he doesn't like gardening, do you, Harry?" she kicked him gently at the ankle, "Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"You don't like gardening, do you?" Kitty smirked.
Harry, the CO with the curly blonde hair, sighed deeply enough for it to be audible. "I've said it before, Kitty, I'd do anything for you, except kneel in the earth and dig up pumpkins for three hours."
"You don't unearth pumpkins, doofus," she chuckled impishly at him before he turned back to his comrades and continued on a tangent. Kitty turned and did the same, but she cast Robin a deadpan look. "Seriously, though, Mrs Crotchet is always bragging about her marrows. That, and she's always complaining about the men she has quartered at her house. Poor Skinny Sisk, for Pete's sake. All he wants to do is take a nap and she's there every damn morning with her ruddy wireless on the top notch — the moment he asks for her to turn it down just a bit, she's there making a king-sized deal about how ungrateful the boys are. It's tedious, truly."
Robin cast the other woman a suspicious-eyed look. Things were a little jumbled inside her mind. "Wayne Sisk, don't you mean?"
"The other chaps call him Skinny. I don't know why, particularly — they all have their nicknames for one another, don't they? It's quite sweet, really," she trailed off, smiling fondly to herself, before she snapped back into a chattery mode once again, "Anyways, like I was saying, I'd rather wear orange stockings than be compared to someone like Millicent Hamilton. And just a side note: I'd keep a right rein on yours, if I were you. It takes a while to find a good peach, and God knows where her hands wander off to."
Robin didn't know what she meant, but she didn't dare to ask, purely out of fear of being shunned, and partly because she really wanted to attend this Wednesday-morning gardening circle — she sure did love getting down and dirty, and she could make friends of once! Even if they are just a bunch of old complaining ladies. She opted for an easier conversational route. "You'd rather wear orange?"
She shrugged. "My mum told me once that it clashes with my hair. Besides, I'd say that it's one of the most putrid colours on the wheel."
"I think orange is quite a lovely colour," the younger of the girls claimed, thinking fondly of the charming little dress that she had in the same shade. It was one of her favourites. "Actually, I suppose all colours can be lovely colours, in the right context."
"Except brown," Kitty said knowingly, "If you ever meet someone who tells you that their favourite colour is brown, give 'em the push. They're backwards."
Robin Winifred breathed a volley of laughter from her chest. It wasn't obnoxious or loud, per se, but it was enough to make Kitty grin subtly. Then, that was that on the basis of conscious human conversation for the rest of Robin's evening, as Kitty soon went with Harry to go and grab dinner, and the brunette was left to prodding at her knee whilst the men around her roared and chortled at one another, beers upon beers sloshing around in their hands. It soon became apparent that the refills were free.
However, it only took three more units of alcohol down the hatch before Jim was practically draped across her lap with a semi-sober-yet-still-intoxicated-enough-to-seem-sleazy smile. He cooed, "So are we gonna dance or what?"
She cocked her head. "If you're offering."
It wasn't what the brunette had been expected. They rocked solemnly around for a little bit, bracketing one another. Is this what dancing is really like? It's dreadfully boring. At least he isn't treading on my feet or anything. She pressed her temple into Jim's shoulder, facing inwards, unable to see his face as she was just beneath his chin. Thanks to this inconvenience, it took quite a while for her to catch on, but she caught on in the end, and her climbing spirits were poured out like water onto the ground. She had bitten the bullet and glanced up, only to be greeted by him smirking and yawning over her shoulder, conveying bouts of disinterest. A little disorientated, she watched him for a second, unsure as to what he was attempting to convey. Put plainly, it seemed like he was mocking her, and she wasn't going to stand for that.
As mortified as she was, she didn't want to stand back and call him out willy nilly, because the attention that she could have drawn from such an act would have been quite undesirable. As a safe alternative, she instead stepped subtly back and claimed, "I need some air," not wanting to come across standoffish or anything. Jim didn't really react for a couple of seconds, but he did loosen his grip and she slid away. Even when keeping herself as level as she could, her leave was still passive-aggressive, and she still stomped down the steps descending from the beer hall double doors.
Perhaps she thought that stomping her heels down against the flagstones like a child would channel all her simmering anger down and out of her body. It did no such thing. In fact, she felt even worse than before. That man really had a brass neck to do that to her. His friends all probably thought her a fool. A little girl in an Alice band.
She ripped it off of her head and in her immediate anger, and forced it to bend the wrong way until it broke into two. The Bakelite plastic was cheap and brittle snapped in her hands without protest, and she was left with the two halves of a person she used to be. A stupid little girl with stupid little problems who would never catch on to the fact that she was always the one to be the butt of the joke.
Meanwhile, Jim sobered himself enough to gather up Winnie's things hastily from the roundtable that she'd set them down on. He remembered to pick up the soft cardigan from where it was draped over the back of the chair, thinking about how she must be frozen solid out in the November air that they'd walked to the beer hall in, a couple of hours prior.
"D'you think you just got pied off, Moe?" Tab joked.
"I'm just gonna grab her stuff," announced Moe upon receiving inquiring looks from his friends, inwardly fawning over the fact that she could possibly be sat spewing up in the grass outside. As far as he knew, she'd never had anything to drink before, and really wasn't aware of the consequences that came with drinking it all at once, no matter how much Smokey had assured him that the glass was so dilute that it was 'practically half full of water'. He commented, "I don't think she's well."
"Too right," agreed Floyd. "Honestly, she looks barely there half of the time — real piece'a work, she is. Don't you think you've had enough funny business with that cuckoo broad lately? Come sit with us."
"Nah, you're alright," Moe declined, "I'll be back in a bit."
"You sure 'bout that?" More teased, rocking forwards on his elbows, "You ain't gonna sneak off into the night for some scandalous on-the-steps-of-the-chapel kinda romance, are ya now?"
"She ain't that kinda gal, so I'm doubtful, yet as always, I shall remain hopeful ..."
Outside, Robin kicked aggressively at the grass. I bet he thinks he's the real top dog, now, she thought acridly to herself, probably inside there chortling with his friends about how he'd played her like a fool. Or, well, that's what part of her imagined. And another part of her imagined — no, hoped, actually — another part of her hoped that he would follow her and declare his love to her and then they'd get married and have the most wonderful babies. She paused for a second, and there was no sign of him in pursuit. She decided to go home.
Besides, why would anyone want to marry her? She'd truly make the most awful of wives. She could hardly even look after herself, let alone a whole other person (Cyril didn't count, she decided, as he only counted as half a person). And then she started to cry, and really cry, and she knew that whatever Smokey had whipped up was in no way alcohol free because the hotness paired with the emotions and her own physical stability led her to believe that she was drunk, of partly drunk, at least.
But it wasn't a bad kind of drunk, like the kind that swathed the foamy men that sometimes were kicked to the gutter by the Blue Boar's landlady. It was a sort of sobering kind of drunk — which was a very drunk thing to say indeed — but Robin knew what she meant. She thought beer was supposed to burn and make her hiccup — or maybe that was scotch? or whiskey? — but there was something very warm and fulfilling about the way she felt. The inside of her mouth tasted like honey and the colour amber.
And then Jim was stood on the stairway with her cardigan and he looked like an angel or a knight in shining armour or whatever and no matter how much she wanted actually approach and thank him, there was something quite formidable seemingly restricting her from doing so. Something inside her stomach was churning and knotting and she wanted nothing more than to blurt out everything. Thanks to loose lips and a weak mental strength, she spieled, "I know full well that I ought to keep a lid on it but I'd truly honestly make the most awful wife ever and you know how uncomfortable I get around groups and it's not once ounce your fault but I'd like to go home. Thank you for the wonderful evening, sir ... I thoroughly enjoyed myself."
He huffed, doing his best to placate her and ignore the frisson that tingled in the very tips of his fingers, "No lady should be walkin' home alone."
Especially not in the dark, her subconscious added. It ebbed and marauded across Aldbourne, especially with the ARP wardens extinguishing every flicker and every flame. It was desolate and it was no place for a girl like her. Robin placed her knuckles on her hips and stood straightly in protest. "I'm not a lady, am I? You take me for a child, don't you? Just like what you said about me yesterday."
This was out of the ordinary, see: Robin was never so unforgiving. There had to have been something wired up inside her that made her such a pushover, especially with how she acted towards Millicent. She had one of those "too much" complexes. She was too much of a motormouth. Too much of a pushover. She was too kind, and too self-deprecating. She got too frustrated too easily; this much was evident, as Jim persisted with her that evening, no matter how hard she was trying to shrug him away.
"Say, all the more reason for me to walk you. What kind of date would I be if I left you all alone?"
"A fantastic one," she bit back.
"So, what about it? I don't know what I did that made you so mad," he said straightforwardly and earnestly.
At the time, she felt quite unstoppable; it was the kind of surge that had led her to snapping her hairband, which she still held in two halves, one piece occupying each hand. "You were taking the mickey out of me! You didn't even want to dance with me, you just wanted a laugh out of it with your tosser buddies. I'm not just here for your amusement whilst you wait to get shipped out!"
"Are you feeling straight, Winnie? Where are you getting all this from?"
"You were yawning and you were laughing over my shoulder, you good for nothing, eagle-wearing, scruffy-looking Yankee doodle!"
"You're getting all pissy at me for some stupid bullshit like that? I yawned because I was tired, OK? Am I allowed to be tired after scouting across fields and sitting through briefings and shinin' my fucking boots all week!? Is that alright with you?"
"I think it's best you go," she said, and right then, she had completely and utterly sobered. Why is he yelling at me? she whined mutely, gnawing down on her bottom lip and teasing it back with her incisors. What was she doing so wrong? Why was she always being reprimanded for everything that she did? I want to be treated like an adult for once! not like a fool, and most certainly not like a child (the thing was: she was being treated like an adult, and it was too hard on her).
"I said already, I want to get you home," he snapped gruffly, only vaguely in her direction, "C'mon."
"Sod off, James," she snapped angrily, putting unneeded stress on his name. He seemed taken aback by her use of tone, as she was never rigid, nor as stony-faced as this. As far as he knew, there was never anything playing on Robin's mind. She was as open as could be. She spoke about anything and everything, especially when she was uncomfortable, and was keen to fill the awkward silence with something, or anything at all. "I want nothing to do with you," she added, and she turned.
As she stalked away, her fists were clenched rigidly and tightly and rightly so. Her short nails dug tiny crescent moons onto the palm of her hand, hard enough to reach her own pain threshold and force herself to stop. Nevertheless, she continued to bash herself under her breath; saying things that would never usually escape her lips when not in an inebriated state.
But he caught her, just after she'd passed across the Hamilton's gravel driveway. "Get off me!" she growled lowly and through her teeth, wrenching her arm away from him as if he'd just done something immoral or obscene.
"Winnie," he protested.
She reiterated swiftly, "Leave me alone, Jim."
"Win —" his words fell short.
"Leave me alone!" she barked, loud enough for a passer-by — or someone, at least — to hear her. Her tone resonated around somehow, diving into the cracks in the pavement and the cement gaps of the brick walls. She was being so unreasonable and stupid to a point that he was quite enraged; whatever had happened was her fault, and her fault alone.
"... You sound like you need a smoke," he announced warily, fishing out a pack of Lucky Strikes from his pocket and tapping out a cigarette into his palm. He had absolutely no reason to still be so good to her, yet he advanced still, quite undeterred by such an avid temper.
"Don't tell me what I do and don't need," she chided huskily as she rose onto her tiptoes to take the cigarette and the light that they shared for a short second, steering him towards her with a palm on his shoulder. It was a nasty habit they could have both lived without, compiling on with a trilogy of others that included swearing like a sailor and losing one's temper, etcetera, etcetera.
Due to their proximity there was only a short second that passed before Robin was thinking about her father. James was just as tall as he was handsome, and by no means was he like Abraham Hubbard, but she couldn't help herself. It had been a while since she'd tested that name on her tongue. Abraham. His name thwacked like a stick against dry grass. He used to tell her that he wouldn't do it again, and that he was succumbing to the urges less and less nowadays. And then he'd come back around again, and he'd reach for her like a malnourished child would scraps.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. Jim shouldn't have even been out in the first place. He checked his leather-strapped wristwatch. It read 10 PM. There'd be no way he'd endure one of Harry Welsh's classroom instruction lectures without doubling over with his head between his knees, more so if he returned back to the hall after dropping Winnie home. His comrades sometimes showed up hungover, but God forbid that he'd have to face directing around his mortar squad on shelling practice.
The scrimp and save attitude of the residents of the terraced house was so predominant that it was almost uncanny. Robin's grandfather had even gone as far as to paint the glass windows with black paint, from the outside. This was an efficient substitute for blackout draws, until it reached morning. Amos discovered it to have backfired accordingly. They had no way of seeing inside the sitting room unless it was by candlelight (hence the skyrocket in candle purchases made by the Hubbards).
Waggling the cigarette around between her fingers using her thumb, she clicked the front door shut in her wake and dropped her cardigan onto the hatstand beside her grandfather's bowler. Slipping off her kitten heels, she savoured enough time to get a good look at herself in the nicotine stained mirror: her hair was tousled, and not in a handsome way. It was more like an "I've-been-dragged-through-a-bush-backwards" sort of way, and it certainly wasn't working in her favour.
Her grandfather was standing there in the threshold of the kitchen when she turned back around, cheery and exceedingly eager to hear all about the evening she'd had. There was already a cup of piping hot tea on a saucer laid out on the table for her. However, as soon as he caught sight of her with that in her hand, his face fell. "Winnie? What on Earth are you doing with that?!"
It took a second or so of delay for her to clock what he was talking so incredulously about. Her grandfather hated cigarettes and everything to do with them — she was never explicitly told, but she had presumed that the death or her grandma Bessie had been something to do with a cigarette-based complication. Amos had been resentful towards them ever since, and he never in a million years expected his Winnie to succumb to the pressure of what all the young men and women were doing nowadays and join in on it.
"Oh bother, Grandfather, it's one of Jim's, but it's only just been lit," she claimed, attempting to play herself off with a excuse. Miraculously, she was now lacking the shell of alcoholic armour that she'd adorned whilst arguing with the said serviceman, "He offered me, and I felt like I needed one."
"Jim?" he seethed, his anger unsheathing and barreling into Robin like there was no tomorrow, "Did that bloody Yank nutter turn my granddaughter a smoker?"
"Grandpa, are you going steady?" she laughed nervously, and brought the implemented item back to her lip again for a drag. "Hell, it's just one cigarette, it's not a life or death situation or anything."
"It damn well is! Get that man in here," he ordered deafeningly. "At once!"
He's yelling at me. Robin's face crumpled. He hadn't been this angry with her since the time that she'd had nearly broken old grandma Bessie's hairpin into two halves during one of her infamous tempestuous riots. It was a family heirloom of sorts, and if she dared do anything that could cause it damage — eg. dropping it into a ruddy fountain! — then she was on the recipient end of a good old fashioned telling off and a slap on the wrist. This was worse. This was so much worse.
She felt her stomach doing somersaults as she hurried back out of the front door again, barefoot this time, dropping the half-smoked cigarette onto the pavement as she went. There was something inside her that made her want to curl up and cradle herself into as small of a being as possible, and just take the punishment as it came. "Jim!" she croaked, attempting to catch him before he got too far away, "Jim, I'm sorry, I'm so so so sorry, you have to come inside. You must, he insists that you do ... I-I-I ... he's angry with me, I hate it when he's angry with me. Please, I don't know what to do," she begged helplessly, and all of Jim's previously concocted plans were counteracted in an instant.
Contrary to how he'd looked when walking her down, he'd taken the garrison cap from his pocket and adjusted it onto his head at a slanted angle. She inwardly hoped that something such as that would make him look spick and span enough for her grandpa to take a shine to him. She was doubtful of it, though — that old man could be a true force of nature when things weren't going his way, and she prayed that Jim wouldn't be the recipient end.
Again, they didn't dare converse with one another as they walked back up the pathway and onto the porch. Even so, Robin was certain that he could hear her heart throbbing inside her chest. She didn't understand; Grandpa had wanted her to have a boyfriend, if anything. He'd chattered all about the compensation that widowed wives received when their husbands fell in battle (he thought that with any luck, it would be enough to pay off their electricity bill, as well as Robin's nursing lesson fees).
Her grandfather was stood in the exact same spot as he had been when speaking to Robin minutes before when they reentered, and Jim ducked to fit beneath the doorframe, just as if he hadn't budged an inch — it caused the brunette's stomach to churn, and tears to brim on the waterlines of her eyes. She couldn't comprehend how deep the trouble was that she was in; would he take away her right to leave the house? (it hadn't been so much of a problem to Robin Winifred previously, as she had no reason to before the servicemen were quartered in their town. She had always thrown herself into her work, eager to prove herself. Now she just wanted to prove herself to boys instead).
Her grandpa extended a wrinkled palm out towards the paratrooper stood idly opposite him. Jim didn't quite know what to do with himself either. He was only twenty, and more than anything, he felt like he'd earned himself a slap around the noggin from Winnie's grandfather too. Frankly, the old man was quite terrifying. "Amos," he offered curtly, not punctuating with a last name like most would. He expected the American to already know their family name of Hubbard, and if not, it was all the more of a reason to kick him to the curb.
Jim's larynx dipped as he gulped, and they shook hands. "James Alley."
Around two and a half minutes later, the three of them were sat at the family dining table, with Robin at the head, Jim on one side, and Amos on the other. Robin's grandfather had requested that Jim hand over his carton of Lucky Strike smokes, and then had gone ahead and forced Robin to chainsmoke the remainders under the threat of not allowing her to start her nurse training unless she did so. He thought it would teach her a lesson. It just made her cry.
She wanted to go to her nursing night classes so desperately that she went through with it without hesitation, taking the first of the cigarettes and setting it between her teeth. Jim retrieved the zippo lighter from his pocket and slid it across the table, under Amos' watchful eye. Robin picked it up. Their hands didn't touch. She didn't even look him in the eye, just merely muttered a thanks before she lit up the first of seven cigarettes.
Her breath chased the smoke into her lungs: the first two weren't so bad, but she knew nothing of what they did to her — something her grandpa said that night was: You'll be in luck if your lungs are just two lumps of coal by the end of this all, which sure did make her feel better. Partly out of defiance and partly out of stubbornness, she decided that night that she'd smoke as many cigarettes as she wanted, if her grandfather was going to be this cruel. He was mocking her and making fun of her in front of James. She couldn't be told what to do — she wasn't a child, and there was clarification for that; she could feel Jim's leg rubbing against her bare one beneath the table, offering her consolidation but mostly just a reason to feel incoherently guilty for her actions of that evening.
Her grandpa made small talk as the second crumbling stump of a burnt-out cig fell onto the table, and she was inclined to reach into the carton for a third. Feeling Jim's outstretched leg grazing her naked shin, she tossed her grandfather a resentful leer when he sat back and rested a hand on he armrest of her chair. "Jolly good, Winnie. Don't forget that I'm doing this for your sake. I know you'll learn to despise the taste soon enough."
There was a bitter silence, as if every atom in the air was charged with resentment.
"Enjoying it here in England?"
"Mm-hmm," hummed Jim skeptically. He didn't seem too keen on Winnie's grandfather. She wasn't surprised, actually — he was being a real wet blanket, come to mention it.
"Enjoying the women?"
At that notion, Robin Winifred clouted her first down onto the table with the rush of impulsiveness that throbbed through her brain. She hit the lacquered wood hard enough to send a brazen jolt of pain through her nerves in her arm, and to cause the table to clatter. The abrupt noise and sudden jerky movement made her grandfather flinch back, "Goodness gracious, Winnie!" he remarked, with a chesty chortle that seemed alike to his usual character, but not to James. The polar opposites of Amos' character were wayward.
The chesty chortle soon became a cacophonous hacking cough, though, a volley of unnatural sounding noises rising from his throat. Amos and Robin Winifred exchanged a sharp look, but the older man stifled his sickness with a shake of his head.
"I'm going up to bed," she spat, grinding the cig and thrusting it down onto the table in a crumbling mess, looking as unhinged and as teary as ever as she retreated back towards the staircase. "Goodnight."
There's no way in hell or high water that Jim will ever want to go out with her ever again. She burst into her bedroom and flopped into her bed like a sulky fish out of water, thereon diving headfirst into a dreamless slumber.