Read Online At the Break of Day by Margaret Graham - Free Book Online Page B

coming back?’ he asked.
    Rosie kept her eye on the ball, waiting for it to come again, feeling the stinging in her hands, seeing the two small boys running over from the swings, leaving a space beside her for them to join in. Waiting, too, for Sam. The ball came. She hurled it back. He caught it; she heard the slap of skin against leather. She needed her leather mitt.
    ‘You can’t blame Norah, she had a lousy time, like the rest of you,’ she panted.
    She caught the ball again, then batted it back but Jack intercepted and passed it on to the small red-haired boy. Rosie felt the throbbing in her hands, but she wouldn’t look at them. She looked instead at Sam. What would he do now?
    ‘No way that old bag had a bad time. Come on, let’s sit down,’ Dave called.
    Sparrows were sitting in the clubbed trees around the rec, singing and flying. Jack walked to the bench and the others followed. Sam took Woodbines from his pocket, shaking his head, looking at Rosie, his eyes still cold. His hands were red, like hers. Did they throb like hers too?
    ‘Your Norah should have gone too. Bloody unfair, I call it.’
    Jack looked up at Sam, then at Rosie and she shook her head again.
    Ted said, ‘That’s a load of rubbish. She was billeted with the doctor over in the next village. Had a life of old Reilly, never even had to flick a bleeding duster.’
    They were sitting and leaning on the bench now, cigarette smoke drifting up into the air, watching the two small boys kicking the ball from one to another, hearing the thuds. Rosie said nothing, not yet.
    Sam flicked his ash on to the ground, rubbing it in with his shoe. ‘I bet Rosie never had to flick a duster either. Bet she never had to queue for food. Bet she stuffed herself with ice-cream, steak, got taken out by flash American boys, the brothers of those GIs who swanked over here.’ Sam laughed but it was a hard sound. ‘Well, go on. Did you?’
    Rosie flushed, looking across at the two boys, then back at Sam again. ‘What’s wrong, bud, did a GI steal your girl?’
    Ted laughed, clapped Sam on the shoulder. ‘She got you there.’ They were all laughing now, Jack too, but his eyes were still watchful. Sam did not laugh.
    He stubbed out his cigarette carefully on the sole of his shoe and put it back in his cigarette packet. Rosie watched. She had forgotten people did that. She had forgotten that they needed to and she wanted to say she was sorry, but no, she had to fight Sam. That’s all there was to it, or there was no place for her here, with them.
    ‘No,’ Sam said, ‘nobody stole my girl. I just don’t like freeloaders who come back home and lord it about in their new clothes, expecting everyone to bow and scrape because they’re back. This is the real world here.’
    They were all standing now and Rosie looked at all their faces. They were uncertain, all except Jack, who was looking at her, waiting to see if she could make it on her own. It was only if she couldn’t that he would come in. He had always been like that. He had always been there behind her.
    Sam turned to her. ‘You’ve had it on a plate. No rationing, no bombs, just bloody everything you want. So just don’t come back here, Rosie Norton, and drawl all over the rest of us.’
    There was silence. Jack was still watching her. ‘There
was
rationing,’ she said but that was all because they were never really short of anything, and there was no danger for her.
    ‘Oh yeah, when did you last have a banana?’ Sam said, his eyes narrow. Jack’s were, too, but they were looking at Sam.
    Rosie couldn’t answer because Frank had exchanged a piece of pork for a hand of bananas last year and the year before. She looked at them all, at their pale skins, their tired faces, and said, ‘You’re right. I had it cushy, I have a drawl. I had bananas last year and I’m sorry. It’s not fair. Do you think I don’t know that? But I’m back. I haven’t changed.’
    There was silence as they stood