CHAPTER 20
That night was the start of so much more than a ride in the back of a bread van. Once Tricia and I had broken the ice, it seemed as if her personality had expanded. The films we went to see in the cinema were in colour, more often than not, and so was she. Courting back then was different from what it would become only fifteen to twenty years later, and also from what it had been during the war. It wasn’t the formal dance it had been for Mam and Dad, but it wasn’t a headlong dive into intimacy.

We shared things, that was the simple truth. We were walking out together, officially now, and that meant that I could call at the shop for a sausage roll or a Chelsea bun for my snap, and I would get a hug to take away with it. We saw films and we sat in the milk bar near The Shambles, where we argued about which new record we wanted to play. Argued light-heartedly, with hands held under the table, and in the end I usually let Tricia win. I was finally being allowed to do the things that I would have done years before, if it hadn’t been for that nasty little Austrian and his friends.

The door was closed, for once, which was probably deliberate, and so I knocked once before opening it and walking in.

“Mam, Dad, just us!”

They were waiting in the front room, and Tricia did something just then that made me realise how much we were in tune. I made the introductions, Mam sitting primly in one of her best dresses, Dad in Jacket and tie, and my girl simply smiled and held up her gloved hands.

“Mr and Mrs Barker, it would be really nice if we could just be at home. Gerald sees me in shop, all hot from oven, so he knows I don’t hold with fancy stuff. Could I be really cheeky and just have a cup of tea in a proper kitchen? These gloves just look daft!”

Mam laughed out loud. “Happen you’ve got yourself a woman there, son, not a silly girl. Tricia, I’m Lily, and this is Sid. Come into kitchen by all means, and be welcome. These shoes is pinching, for a start. Gerald, get kettle on. Sid, get that tie off, you know you hate it”

Just like that, the formality was kicked straight out the door and Tricia was accepted and welcomed. Dad sighed with relief as he took off his jacket and pulled the tie from round his neck.

“I know your Dad, Tricia. We served together, back in eighteen. I can see him in you”

She put on a look of shock, hand to mouth.

“You think I look like a man?”

Dad just grinned. “No, lass. I don’t think our Gerald here thinks you do, either. What a blush, son! No, lass, Your Dad’s sense of humour. He were always one of the lads to pick us up when things weren’t so good, always had a song or a joke. You’ll have had someone like that with you, son?”

Yes, Dad, but a PAK round tore him to shreds and rubbish and left little pieces of him in the soles of my boots.

“Aye, Dad, we did. I…”

I gathered my strength, thinking of little Wilf. “One day, Dad, I’d like to go out and see him. He’s in Belgium”

“Ah. Sorry, son. Funny you should say that, but Legion were talking about trying to get some sort of trip organised. Bert were on about it in pub. Get train down to Dover and then have some charabancs at other end”

“Aye, dad, but where would they go? I mean, we were all over shop compared to your lot. And Bob, he were in Africa and Italy as well. Be a nice idea, but if I go I might just do it by me self. I mean, I might grab other lads, except Bill, of course. You know: Bob and Ernie”

I could see what he was hoping for, a trip together, Dad and Lad, but the hells we had walked eye-deep in were in different parts of the world. I had read that line in a poem Mavis had found and included in a letter to me, the first from Australia our house had ever received. She wrote about how the boys were getting on, how bad the flies were, how Bill was kicking less at night, and then added the poem, saying that while she had obviously never been there it seemed to her that he was hitting the nail on the head. Some Yank called Pound had written it, and he went on to dismiss the modern world as “a bitch gone rotten in the teeth”

I looked at the woman sat next to me, clearly wondering where the conversation was going, or perhaps if I was including her in my travel plans, and I realised that while Pound had been spot on about hell he was wide of the mark regarding the modern world. It was odd, but I felt hopeful and scared in equal measure. Hopeful that with Tricia I could match Bill’s quieter sleep, and terrified that I would do something to ruin it all. I mean, what did I know about courting?

She noticed, and squeezed my hand, which made Mam smile and Dad cough as my heart sang. It wasn’t just me courting, it was both of us, and with her beside me it all seemed so simple and obvious. Mavis had added some advice in her letter.

‘Gerald, Tricia seems such a nice lass and you seem so suited I am really sorry we will be so far away if all goes as well as I think it will. We’re all being given a chance to make a new world now, not the rubbish in that poem. I think Bill and me have made the right one for us and the boys so it’s down to you to do same for yourself. She’s a lovely lass, and that means two things. Either you end up wed, or you don’t, but if you don’t you will know that you are the sort of good man that a nice girl will smile at and for. Take it steady, treat her like a gentleman should, and you will do well, and I know that you are both a gentleman and a gentle man. Love from all of us’

I missed them all terribly, but her assumptions still made me blush. I had heard all of the stuff about true love, of course, but so many of the lads who truly loved their wives at home had been more than willing to love the girls in France and Belgium, or at least have sex with them. Even in Germany, despite all the lectures about fraternisation and Mr Nolan’s merciless tone, the boys had gone out and done the same. There were even lads who’d stayed out there on Occupation and married Jerry girls. And here I was with that word in my head: marriage.

Once again, I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel. I fancied her, I enjoyed her company, my stomach bounced each time I saw her and my body reacted when we cuddled, but was that ‘love’? I resolved to stick with Mavis’ advice and take it steady.

Steady it was. I had Christmas dinner with her and her parents, and we saw the New Year in with Mam and Dad, and all the time my horizons were widening. Once again, Mavis was right, and as the days lengthened again my nights became calmer. I went to sleep having seen her, and woke knowing I would again that day. Not only that, but her Mam started putting up sandwiches and the like for my workday meals. We made the rounds every so often, as a couple, seeing Ernie or Bob, or just as often some friend of Tricia’s to even the score, and I put that all into some long letters to Mavis, who had always seemed so clear-sighted.

We walked hand in hand or arm in arm everywhere now, My Tricia and I, and six months after that hearty shove from Mavis, I spoke to Cyril

“Can I have a word, Mr Hardy?”

“Very formal all of a sudden, our Gerald”

I felt myself blush, and he laughed happily, clapping me on the shoulder. “Aye, son! Aye! Have you asked the lass herself yet? No? Well, now I know what your intentions are towards my daughter, I suggest you get on with it and let her know what they are! Then we are off down pub!”

I looked him hard in the eye. “And what if she says no?”

A roar of laughter. “You must be bloody blind, lad! EDNA!”

His wife’s voice came faintly from the kitchen. “Aye?”

“Come on out here for a bit!”

He lowered his voice. “You got a ring, lad?”

“Er, aye, but it’s not much”

“It’s what it says, lad, not what it is. Go in and make us all happy”

She was sitting at the kitchen table, peeling sprouts, the faded and limp outer leaves piling up on old newspaper as she cut the cross into the base of each little green ball.

“Can you put knife down, love? I’m nervous already”

“Why are you nerv---you’ll get your knees all---OH! YES! YES I WILL!”

The ring sort of fitted, but we could sort that out, and then we had a quick kiss because her parents were coming back into the room and decorum was essential. Cyril just grinned and pulled his jacket on.

“I’m off to ask a favour of Bert, son. See if he’ll get his car out for you”

“What for?”

“Go and pick your Mam and Dad up, that’s what for. You HAVE told them, haven’t you?”

“Er. No. I didn’t, just in case, you know, Tricia didn’t…”

Yet another roar. “Bloody today’s youth! No sense whatsoever!”

Edna snapped “Language!” by reflex, and then just laughed. “Your Mam and Dad be at home, Gerald?”

“Aye, not Dad’s pub night”

“Then you go with him. Tell them yourself, aye?”

Bert drove steadily but efficiently, chuckling every so often and waving away my offer to pay for the petrol.

“Happen you did us proud in France and that, son, and Cyril’s right made up. Take it as a gift. Down here?”

“Aye, third door along, that one with the blue paint”

We pulled up, and I went in. “Mam, this is Bert Entwhistle, a friend of Mr Hardy’s”

Dad called across the room. “I know Bert, son, from Legion. She said yes then, son?”

How the hell did he know? Mam chuckled. “I found box with ring when I were making your bed, son. It is yes, then? Oh, come here!”

Dad was reaching for his cap. “Happen Mr Entwhistle is here to give us all a lift? That right, my friend?”

“Aye, Sid. Cyril’s off down pub”

“Then we shall join him and our future daughter in law. Gerald, son, you make me a proud man”

Tricia had already made me a happy one, and that mood stayed with me throughout the celebrations, right up until Ernie turned up at the boatyard three days later.