29
MAISIE WAS FEARFUL of making a fool of herself.
When she reached the school gate, she nearly turned back, and would have done, if she hadn’t seen another woman older than herself entering the building. She followed her through the front door and along the corridor, stopping when she reached the classroom. She peeped inside, hoping to find the room so full that no one would notice her. But there were only seven other people present: two men and five women.
She crept to the back of the classroom and took a seat behind the two men, hoping she couldn’t be seen. Maisie immediately regretted her decision, because if she’d taken a seat by the door, she could have escaped more easily.
She bowed her head when the door opened and Mr Holcombe swept into the room. He took his place behind the desk in front of the blackboard, tugged the lapels of his long black gown and peered down at his pupils. He smiled when he spotted Mrs Clifton seated near the back.
‘I’m going to start by writing out all twenty-six letters of the alphabet,’ he began, ‘and I want you to call them out as I write them down.’ He picked up a piece of chalk and turned his back on the class. He wrote the letter A on the blackboard, and several voices could be heard in unison, B, a veritable chorus, C, everyone except Maisie. When he came to Z, Maisie mouthed the letter.
‘I’m now going to point to a letter at random and see if you can still identify it.’ The second time round, Maisie called out over half of them, and on her third attempt she was leading the chorus. When the hour was up, only Mr Holcombe would have realized it was her first lesson in twenty years and Maisie wasn’t in any hurry to go home.
‘By the time we meet again on Wednesday,’ said Mr Holcombe, ‘you must all be able to write the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, in their correct order.’
Maisie intended to have the alphabet mastered by Tuesday, so there would be no possibility of her making a mistake.
‘To those of you who are unable to join me in the pub for a drink, I’ll see you on Wednesday.’
Maisie assumed you had to be invited to join Mr Holcombe, so she slipped out of her chair and headed for the door, while the others surrounded the schoolmaster’s desk with a dozen questions.
‘Will you be coming to the pub, Mrs Clifton?’ asked the schoolmaster just as Maisie reached the door.
‘Thank you, Mr Holcombe. I’d like that,’ she heard herself saying, and joined the others as they left the room and strolled across the road to the Ship Inn.
One by one, the other pupils drifted off, until only the two of them were seated at the bar.
‘Do you have any idea just how bright you are?’ asked Mr Holcombe after he’d bought her another orange juice.
‘But I left school at twelve, and I still can’t read or write.’
‘You may have left school too early, but you’ve never stopped learning. And as you’re Harry Clifton’s mother, you’ll probably end up teaching me.’
‘Harry taught you?’
‘Daily, without realizing it. But then, I knew very early on that he was brighter than me. I only hoped I could get him to Bristol Grammar School before he found it out for himself.’
‘And did you?’ asked Maisie, smiling.
‘It was a damn close-run thing,’ admitted Holcombe.
‘Last orders!’ shouted the barman.
Maisie looked at the clock behind the bar. She couldn’t believe it was already 9.30, and blackout regulations had to be adhered to.
It seemed natural that Mr Holcombe should walk her home; after all, they’d known each other for so many years. On the way through the unlit streets, he told her many more stories about Harry, which made her both happy and sad. It was clear that Mr Holcombe also missed him, and she felt guilty for not thanking him many years before.
When they reached the front door of her home in Still House Lane, Maisie said, ‘I don’t know your first name.’
‘Arnold,’ he said shyly.
‘It suits you,’ she said. ‘May I call you Arnold?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And you must call me Maisie.’ She took out her front door key and placed it in the lock. ‘Goodnight, Arnold. See you on Wednesday.’
An evening at the theatre brought back many happy memories for Maisie of the days when Patrick Casey would take her to the Old Vic whenever he visited Bristol. But just as the memory of Patrick had faded and she’d begun to spend time with another man with whom she felt there might be a future, the damned leprechaun bounced back into her life. He’d already told her that there was a reason he wanted to see her, and she wasn’t in much doubt what that reason was. She didn’t need him to throw her life into turmoil yet again. She thought about Mike, one of the kindest and most decent men she’d ever come across, and guileless in his attempts to hide his feelings for her.
One thing Patrick had instilled in her was never to be late for the theatre. He felt there was nothing more embarrassing than treading on people’s toes as you made your way in darkness to the inevitable centre seats after the curtain had risen.
Mike was already standing in the foyer holding a programme when Maisie walked into the theatre ten minutes before the curtain was due to rise. As soon as she saw him she smiled, and couldn’t help thinking how he always raised her spirits. He returned her smile, and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
‘I don’t know a lot about No?l Coward,’ he admitted as he handed her the programme, ‘but I’ve just been reading a synopsis of the play, and it turns out to be about a man and a woman who can’t make up their mind who they should marry.’
Maisie said nothing as they entered the stalls. She began to follow the letters of the alphabet backwards until she reached H. When they made their way to the centre of the row, she wondered how Mike had managed to get such superb seats for a sold-out show.
Once the lights faded and the curtain rose, he took her hand. He only let go when Owen Nares made his entrance, and the audience burst into applause. Maisie became entranced by the story, even if it was a little too close for comfort. But the spell was broken when the loud whine of a siren drowned out Mr Nares’s words. An audible groan went up around the auditorium, as the actors hurried off stage to be replaced by the theatre manager, who efficiently organized an exit strategy that would have gladdened the heart of a regimental sergeant major. Bristolians had long been familiar with flying visits from Germans who had no intention of paying for their theatre tickets.
Mike and Maisie made their way out of the theatre and down the steps to a bleak but familiar shelter that had become a home from home for regular theatregoers. The audience grabbed any place that was available for the unticketed performance. The great social equalizer, as Clement Attlee had described life in an air-raid shelter.
‘Not my idea of a date,’ said Mike, placing his jacket on the stone floor.
‘When I was young,’ said Maisie, as she sat down on the jacket, ‘many a young fellow tried to get me down here, but you’re the first one who’s succeeded.’ Mike laughed, as she began to scribble something on the cover of the programme.
‘I’m flattered,’ he said, placing an arm gently around her shoulder as the ground started to shake with bombs that sounded perilously close. ‘You’ve never been to America, have you, Maisie?’ he asked, trying to take her mind off the air raid.
‘I’ve never been to London,’ admitted Maisie. ‘In fact, the furthest I’ve ever travelled is to Weston-super-Mare and Oxford, and as both trips turned out to be disastrous, I’d be perhaps better off staying at home.’
Mike laughed. ‘I’d love to show you America,’ he said, ‘particularly the south.’
‘I think we’d have to ask the Germans to take a few nights off before we could consider doing that,’ said Maisie as the all-clear sounded.
A ripple of applause burst out in the shelter, and everyone emerged from the unscheduled interval and made their way back into the theatre.
Once they’d taken their seats, the theatre manager walked on to the stage. ‘The performance will continue with no interval,’ he announced. ‘But should the Germans decide to pay us another visit, it will have to be cancelled. I’m sorry to say there will be no refunds. German regulations,’ he announced. A few people laughed.
Within moments of the curtain going back up, Maisie once again lost herself in the story, and when the actors finally took their bows, the whole audience rose in appreciation, not only for the performance, but for another small victory over the Luftwaffe, as Mike described it.
‘Harvey’s or the Pantry?’ asked Mike as he picked up the programme, on which each letter of the play’s title had been crossed out and rewritten below, arranged in alphabetical order, A E E I I L P R S T V V.
‘The Pantry,’ said Maisie, not wanting to admit that on the one occasion she’d been to Harvey’s with Patrick, she’d spent the entire evening glancing around the tables dreading the thought that Lord Harvey’s daughter Elizabeth might be dining there with Hugo Barrington.
Mike took a long time studying the menu, which surprised Maisie, because the choice of dishes was so limited. He usually chatted about what was taking place back at camp, or the fort as he liked to call it, but not tonight; not even the oft-repeated grumbles about limeys not understanding baseball. She began to wonder if he wasn’t feeling well.
‘Is everything all right, Mike?’ she asked.
He looked up. ‘They’re sending me back to the States,’ he said as a waiter appeared by their side and asked if they would like to order. Great timing, thought Maisie, but at least it gave her a little time to think, and not about what she wanted to eat. Once they’d ordered and the waiter had left them, Mike tried again.
‘I’ve been assigned to a desk job in Washington.’
Maisie leaned across the table and took his hand.
‘I pressed them to let me stay for another six months . . . so I could be with you, but they turned my request down.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Maisie, ‘but—’
‘Please don’t say anything, Maisie, because I’m finding this difficult enough already. Though God knows I’ve given it enough thought.’ This was followed by another long silence. ‘I realize we’ve only known each other for a short time, but my feelings haven’t changed since the first day I set eyes on you.’ Maisie smiled. ‘And I wondered,’ he continued, ‘hoped, prayed, that you might consider coming back to America with me . . . as my wife.’
Maisie was speechless. ‘I’m so very flattered,’ she eventually managed, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Of course, I realize you’ll need time to think it over. I’m sorry that the ravages of war don’t allow for the niceties of a long courtship.’
‘When do you go home?’
‘At the end of the month. So if you did say yes, we could get married at the base and fly back together as man and wife.’ He leant forward and took her hand. ‘I’ve never felt more certain about anything in my whole life,’ he said as the waiter reappeared by their side.
‘So which one of you is the chopped liver?’