I yawned, sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. ‘Sorry. Was I snoring?’
‘No. You looked as peaceful as a baby. I didn’t want to wake you.’ Her front looked just as good as her back. It must be one of God’s tricks. I tried two no trumps.
‘Are you Mrs Holroyd?’
‘No: I’m one of Mrs Holroyd’s neighbours. She told me there was an RAF boy stuck up in the hospital, who didn’t know anyone in Egypt.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘I know. Nurse Haye told me. She said that you were obviously recovering, and for me to stay out of reach. I brought you a book: I know you men like war stories.’ It was about Navy frogmen.
‘That was a kind thought. Thank you. I do get very bored. All the other men here have got the shits. I think they get to talk to each other in the lavatory. So I get to talk to no one except the nurses and the orderlies. Then I say the wrong things.’
‘I thought that you would be younger.’
‘So did I. It’s what I think every morning when I wake up . . . and then I look in the mirror. Disappointed?’
She didn’t answer immediately; then, ‘Not yet.’ So far she’d stood up to me like one of those dames in a Hank Janson book. She hadn’t disappointed me either.
‘I’m Charlie. Charlie Bassett: last in a long line of liquorice allsorts jokes. I’m also an optimist.’
‘Jill Paul. Pessimist.’
There were several ways on from there. ‘Married lady or unmarried lady?’
‘Both.’ That was interesting.
‘It’s kind of you to visit someone you don’t know.’
‘Service tradition. Don’t think about it; it’s expected of us.’
‘Is it too early to say that the chain around your ankle is driving me wonderfully insane?’
‘Definitely.’
‘When can I say it?’
‘After you’ve had tea with me. Tomorrow afternoon, OK?’ I probably gave her the dumb-show nod. ‘This is my address. In the married lines; you’ll find it easily.’ She handed me a small white card on which she had written an address with that kind of small, clear handwriting that always makes you jealous.
‘Thank you. When?’
‘Say fifteen hundred.’ She picked up a small white purse from my bed. I hadn’t noticed it. ‘I’ll be off, then . . .’
‘OK.’
I watched her walk down the ward. She didn’t look back. Her hips swayed from side to side under the floral print. Even one of the squitter merchants hauled himself upright to speak to her. Then he ducked, because she’d scooped something from a medical trolley, and shied it at him. Then I realized that she hadn’t smiled much. Yes; interesting, and at least I knew where the ginger biscuits had come from. All that, and she could cook too?
Later in the day – in the early evening – I sat on the veranda with Nurse Haye-with-an-e: she was about to go off duty. The smoke from her cigarette mingled with smoke from my pipe. I thought that was very romantic. I asked her, ‘Who was that woman?’
‘Just one of the wives. They visit from time to time; to keep morale up.’
‘She was friendlier than I expected, that’s all.’
Long pause and intro . . . Tommy’s ‘Smoke gets in your eyes’.
Then she asked, ‘Have you ever heard that phrase the Yanks use about long-term prisoners, Charlie? They say they go stir-crazy.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard that. Someone used it on me not long ago. I forget who.’
‘Well.’ Deep breath. ‘One way or another, we’re all stir-crazy down here, Charlie. You shouldn’t forget that.’
Watson sat with me on the same veranda, and we both smoked. The morning sun was so bright that the dirt of the parade ground looked almost white. I hadn’t realized how quickly you could fixate on a woman who replenished your tobacco stock.
‘Am I shallow, sir?’ I asked him.
‘Exceptionally, old fruit.’
‘Really?’
‘Really and truly. You are about the shallowest person I’ve ever met.’
‘So why do some people like me?’
‘Because they know exactly where they are with you, Charlie. It’s very easy to have low expectations of you, at a personal level.’
I thought that was unfair. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever let you down, sir.’ He was already beginning to piss me off.
‘That’s because my expectations were always low. Can we now talk about when you’re coming back to work?’
‘They haven’t told me yet, but I’m feeling almost a hundred per cent, and I’m bored beyond belief. Why don’t you ask them?’
‘I have done, actually. I’ve arranged for you to get a medical in two days’ time if that’s not inconvenient. If they say yes you’ll be ready to come out to play again.’
‘I lost all my kit.’
‘I know. But Daisy got your measurements from the records, and re-indented for you: a lot of it’s already arrived.’
‘Is she over here with you? If so, she must be madder than you are.’
‘You said that before, Charlie, and it annoyed me then. Say it again, and I’ll lend you to the Brown Jobs for permanent guard duty, and painting coal. They have vays of making you squawk.’ In his part of England they would have found that very witty. I made a job of refilling and relighting my pipe – you tend to make a bit of a pig of yourself if you’ve been without it for a couple of days – and kept my head down.
‘Where will my permanent
