CHAPTER 47
“So, Andrew, what do you do for work?”

Valerie was smiling and clearly doing her very best for her daughter.

“I’m a draughtsman, at Harwell’s out by Layerthorpe”

Pete looked up at that. “Bit of a narrow field, us three then. All engineers of one sort or another”

“I just do the drawings, Pete”

“Yes, but there’ll be a bit of insight there. Never looked at someone else’s work and thought that something didn’t look right?”

“Well, aye, but, well…”

I wondered just then if his lack of confidence was what drew him to Susie, the idea that if he couldn’t pull a ‘real’ girl he might succeed with the desperate ones, but I’d only just met the lad, so put the nasty thoughts away.

“What do you fancy, lad?”

He nearly blushed at that, and I revised my opinion upwards. Susie saw, and I caught a hint of a smile on her lips. Andrew made a point of poring over the menu.

“Happen I’ll go for roast beef”

The girls went for turkey, while Pete and I also opted for the beef. Pete was the only one drinking, but he kept it to three pints and then followed us onto tea.

“Where were you, Gerald?”

“Oh, in War? Normandy, at first, but we ended up right by Denmark”

Andrew looked up. “I bet you saw some things!”

Pete’s look was more measured. “Son, just a suggestion, but if what I suspect about where Gerald served is correct, it isn’t a dinner-time thing”

I shook my head, and Susie put her hand on my arm. “No, Andrew, not today, aye? Anyway, how’s beef?”

“Could do with it being a bit rarer, like. I don’t like it overdone”

She laughed. “Not like Gerald here, he likes it done to death, veg boiled to sludge, all that!”

“But he says you cook?”

“Aye, I do that, but I have to do my veg separate, like, keep some flavour and some bloody food value in it, right, Gerald my dear?”

“Aye, happen she does like her stuff almost raw. But she does do a lovely pork roast”

Susie snorted. “That’s different! Pork’s got to be really cooked through to be safe, and if you don’t cook it properly you get no crackling, and what’s roast pork without it? I’ll show you…”

Courage regathered, she spoke again. “If you like, I can do a dinner sometime, you come round and I’ll feed you. You an all, Pete, if you’d like”

The addition was obvious. Not really asking you round, Andrew, just including you in a group. I gave her arm a little squeeze and we settled down to the food, the silence being broken by Pete.

“You been back at all, Gerald?”

“No, not yet. We’ve got a trip planned later this year, though. Couple or three other old soldiers, take ferry across to beach we landed at, then sort of follow our route up through Germany”

“What are you going in?”

“Oh, I think one of lads has sorted out a people carrier thing, you know: seven seater”

“Well, I do have some to hire out if you’re stuck. Could do you a deal”

“Might take you up on that. One of lads is a bit limited. Stroke, like, and shy an arm, but that were Korea, not War”

Val spoke quietly. “It’s all war, Gerald, all same nastiness”

Andrew surprised me just then, and from her expression he caught Susie just as unaware.

“No, they’re not all same, Valerie. I’m guessing from what Pete here said that, well… Lads fought in the big war against something really evil, aye? Camps and gas and---sorry, Gerald. But, well, this last lot, it were all about who gets bloody oil, all about money, but people with the money don’t get shot at and…”

He ran out of steam, then found a last gasp. “Just don’t like the way this one was started. Shouldn’t be fighting wars for big business. I mean, Falklands, that were right thing, but we only had to do it cause government were more concerned about money than people. Sorry, I’ll shut up now. Bit too heavy for dinner, like last thing I said”

Susie was almost open-mouthed. “You didn’t say owt like that last night!”

Andrew stared at his plate. “Not best thing to talk about when you want to… when you… when you like a lass and want her to talk to you again”

She sat stock still for about fifteen seconds, then very quietly said, with a touch to his hand where it held his fork beside his roast dinner, “Thank you, Andrew”

It seemed his self-confidence only came in short bursts, so Pete changed the subject to sport, which allowed a truly animated argument about the relative merits of League and Union, and that in turn had Pete looking wistfully at his empty beer glass.

“No, I’ll just sleep all afternoon. Andrew, ever come out this way of an evening?”

“Not often. I tend to stick around Ouse Bridge or up by Shambles”

“Well, do you fancy taking an old man out for a beer Friday or Saturday?”

“Em, not this weekend. I’m, er, busy”

Not a word from my girl, till he looked straight at her. “I hope I am, any road”

She sniffed. “Haven’t seen what’s on yet”

“Well, there’s one with Meryl what’s her face and Clint Eastwood”

Her eyebrows went up. “That’s a real girly film! I thought you’d want, you know, flash-bang-boom stuff”

The first genuine and relaxed smile of the day came to him. “A lot you don’t know about me, Susie. I do a lot of reading”

Valerie coughed, and we all looked round. She shrugged and held up both her hands.

“Has to be said. Susie, boys can walk off for a bit if you’d prefer. No, not you, Andrew”

Val looked across to Pete and back to her daughter, who simply nodded, and her mother turned back to Andrew.

“Young man, we need to have a few things clear here, especially about my daughter. She’s been hurt, and hurt very badly. I won’t let that happen again. Pete, you need to know something here, but I feel you have common sense as well as courtesy, so, well—“

Pete smiled. “Not being funny, Valerie, nor in any way nasty, but I can see what she is. I have some… some experience there. Not now, though”

“Thank you, Pete. When you feel ready, could we talk? I’m out of my depth here, but I think, I know that Gerald and my girl know I am trying, that I mean well, aye? Well, do you?”

The two of us nodded and Valerie continued. “From what Susie’s told us, you know as well, Andrew. I need to be clear on this point, and I’m sorry if I come across as rude, but as I said I will not see my girl hurt again. Now, I need to know what you are after, and I need to know if I can trust you, because if I can’t, you will never, ever hear the end of it. What are you after?”

He was blushing like a stoplight now. “What can I say? I… I…”

He took a couple of deep breaths and tried again. “I do not have any sexual interest in willies, in men, in things like that, OK? Just there I am, sat in pub, and girl comes in, and she’s tall, nice legs and I’m going to be rude here and she’ll slap me, but not the best-looking, not some sort of plastic Barbie thing, and she gets a drink and sits down and takes a letter or something from her handbag, and it makes her smile, and room lights up she’s so happy”

Susie smiled in reality just then. “I took envelope passport came in, just to look at it, know it were real, like”

Andrew looked straight at her rather than at his hands. “Passport in real name and, er, you know?”

“Passport saying ‘female’, aye”

“Aye. So she smiles, and I think how lovely, how happy, and lads I were with were talking about bloody football again, so I think, go for it, Andy, so I says to her how she looks happy, and she says cause she’s had really good news, and I says like Lottery win, and she says no, better, so I says want a top-up, and---

“And so we get talking, and it’s like we’ve always known each other, it’s that easy, and I go to bar, and lad I know says you know that’s a tranny, and I says no, just a girl with some issues, but I can talk to her, and he says I didn’t know you went that way, and I say well, I don’t, so I turn around and go back, and I have one of the best nights ever, just chatting, so we end up in a place I know does a lock-in, and it’s too late for buses… So I walk her back to hers, and it’s comfortable, and nice, and there’s chill so we have to cuddle up a bit and, well…

“And we do the good-night bit, and she’s suddenly so shy, and there’s just enough from the street lights to let me see she’s trying not to cry, so I… so I say good-night properly after I get her to come out the next weekend. And I won’t say I don’t care that she’s, you know, because I do, but, well, I think we click, and that’s all I have to say”

Valerie’s mouth was hanging open at that point, only closing as Andrew’s flood of confession died away to a stammer and a blush. Pete reached across and patted his hand.

“Well said, son. Well done. Now, at risk of taking over this conversation, let me tell you a story of my own"