their post-war careers, Gwennan in Wales, managing her uncle’s funeral parlour and Winnie as landlady in the public house she was to run in a northern town. In the meantime they relished the plentiful supply of hot water, the pub food and the social life the saloon bar provided.
Marion, Winnie’s childhood friend, who had become a GI bride when she married Sergeant Marvin Kinski, sent her friend glowing reports of life as an army wife in the US.
‘Ever wish you’d married a GI and gone to live over there?’ Gwennan asked, her Welsh accent as strong as it had been on the day she arrived in Post Stone valley two and a half years previously.
‘If I’d met a bloke like Marvin I might of,’ Winnie said, blowing on her varnished nails. ‘But there was only one Marvin and Marion got him!’
‘She pregnant yet?’ Gwennan asked, eyeing her unremarkable reflection in the dressing table mirror.
‘Come off it, Gwennan!’ Winnie scoffed. ‘She on’y got wed a couple of months ago!’
‘How time flies. As far as I know none of our brides is pregnant. Not Annie. Not Marion. Not Georgina.’
‘What about Mabel’s twins, though, and Hester’s Thurza!’ Winnie laughed.
‘Oh, yes indeed. Forgot about them!’ Gwennan applied crimson lipstick and worked her thin lips together. ‘Georgie was married in June. She could be in the club by now’!
‘Shouldn’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be much fun, would it, having a baby out there, thousands of miles from your mum and everything …’ The noise from the bar reached them through the uneven floorboards of their room. ‘Sounds like there’s a good crowd in tonight.’
‘Not like when them Yanks was here, though, is it!’
Gwennan sighed.
‘Them was the days, eh!’
‘Guess we’ll always remember them days …’
‘Yep. Guess we will. But you was never as keen on kickin’ your heels with the GIs as some of us was, Gwennan.’
‘No. But looking back …’
‘Wish you’d let your hair down a bit more, do you?’
‘Not really.’ Gwennan’s expression tightened into its more familiar cast of faint disapproval. ‘Not when I remember where it landed you, Winnie!’ Gwennan was referring to the unwantedpregnancy and the narrowly avoided disaster that followed it.
‘Thought we’d agreed not to talk about that no more?’ she said, sharply.
‘Yeah, we did,’ Gwennan conceded. ‘Always sayin’ the wrong thing, me! Famous for it!’ Screwing the top onto her bottle of varnish, Winnie smiled magnanimously.
‘Get movin’, girl!’ she said. ‘There’s a gin and orange on the bar what’s got my name on it!’
Edward John selected a robust young beech tree in the Bayliss hardwood plantation. He carefully incised the outline of a heart into the smooth bark, pierced it with an arrow and added the relevant initials. He was slightly ashamed of defacing the tree but such was the level of his passion for Pamela that, on balance, and because it was absolutely necessary for him to express it in some way, he felt justified.
A small cloud on Edward John’s horizon was the fact that his father, James Todd, now remarried and with a young daughter by his second wife, insisted that he should abide by a clause in his parents’ divorce settlement and spend each half-term holiday with his father and his new family.
Edward John still nursed strong feelings of disapproval of the way his father, after moving him and his mother out of London when the family home was bombed, had abandoned them in rented rooms in Exeter with so little financial support. Alice had been forced to take the only work she could find which provided a home for herself and for the small boy who had then watched his mother struggle with her excessive workload in the primitive hostel, in anenvironment and amongst people who were mostly alien to her previous experience of life. He had seen her attempt to win the confidence of the land girls, of the acerbic,
Marion, Winnie’s childhood friend, who had become a GI bride when she married Sergeant Marvin Kinski, sent her friend glowing reports of life as an army wife in the US.
‘Ever wish you’d married a GI and gone to live over there?’ Gwennan asked, her Welsh accent as strong as it had been on the day she arrived in Post Stone valley two and a half years previously.
‘If I’d met a bloke like Marvin I might of,’ Winnie said, blowing on her varnished nails. ‘But there was only one Marvin and Marion got him!’
‘She pregnant yet?’ Gwennan asked, eyeing her unremarkable reflection in the dressing table mirror.
‘Come off it, Gwennan!’ Winnie scoffed. ‘She on’y got wed a couple of months ago!’
‘How time flies. As far as I know none of our brides is pregnant. Not Annie. Not Marion. Not Georgina.’
‘What about Mabel’s twins, though, and Hester’s Thurza!’ Winnie laughed.
‘Oh, yes indeed. Forgot about them!’ Gwennan applied crimson lipstick and worked her thin lips together. ‘Georgie was married in June. She could be in the club by now’!
‘Shouldn’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be much fun, would it, having a baby out there, thousands of miles from your mum and everything …’ The noise from the bar reached them through the uneven floorboards of their room. ‘Sounds like there’s a good crowd in tonight.’
‘Not like when them Yanks was here, though, is it!’
Gwennan sighed.
‘Them was the days, eh!’
‘Guess we’ll always remember them days …’
‘Yep. Guess we will. But you was never as keen on kickin’ your heels with the GIs as some of us was, Gwennan.’
‘No. But looking back …’
‘Wish you’d let your hair down a bit more, do you?’
‘Not really.’ Gwennan’s expression tightened into its more familiar cast of faint disapproval. ‘Not when I remember where it landed you, Winnie!’ Gwennan was referring to the unwantedpregnancy and the narrowly avoided disaster that followed it.
‘Thought we’d agreed not to talk about that no more?’ she said, sharply.
‘Yeah, we did,’ Gwennan conceded. ‘Always sayin’ the wrong thing, me! Famous for it!’ Screwing the top onto her bottle of varnish, Winnie smiled magnanimously.
‘Get movin’, girl!’ she said. ‘There’s a gin and orange on the bar what’s got my name on it!’
Edward John selected a robust young beech tree in the Bayliss hardwood plantation. He carefully incised the outline of a heart into the smooth bark, pierced it with an arrow and added the relevant initials. He was slightly ashamed of defacing the tree but such was the level of his passion for Pamela that, on balance, and because it was absolutely necessary for him to express it in some way, he felt justified.
A small cloud on Edward John’s horizon was the fact that his father, James Todd, now remarried and with a young daughter by his second wife, insisted that he should abide by a clause in his parents’ divorce settlement and spend each half-term holiday with his father and his new family.
Edward John still nursed strong feelings of disapproval of the way his father, after moving him and his mother out of London when the family home was bombed, had abandoned them in rented rooms in Exeter with so little financial support. Alice had been forced to take the only work she could find which provided a home for herself and for the small boy who had then watched his mother struggle with her excessive workload in the primitive hostel, in anenvironment and amongst people who were mostly alien to her previous experience of life. He had seen her attempt to win the confidence of the land girls, of the acerbic,
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