Beneath Us the Stars (12 page)

Mary knelt down, and threw her arms around her father.

‘Daddy.’

Bill stood beside her, still unable to see the man’s face. He heard the voice of Mr Rice before anything else.

When Mary drew back he found himself looking down into eyes he already knew. There could be no doubt from which parent Mary had inherited them. Under dark eyebrows they stared back up at him, resentment already present even before he had opened his mouth. His nose was large, his thrusting jaw ended in a cleft chin. A once handsome face was now tinged with sadness, with defeat.

‘So, this is your American?’

He managed to make ‘American’ sound like an insult.

Bill held out his hand.

‘Pleased to meet you, sir’

Grudgingly a large hand took it.

‘Always the polite ones, especially when they want to marry your daughter.’

‘Oh John, don’t be so rude.’

Mrs Rice sounded anxious, as though she had been expecting it.

Undeterred, Bill produced a bag of food he’d scrounged from one of the mess hall sergeants.

‘Not only polite, sir, but I thought I might bribe you with food for your daughter’s hand.’

The eyebrows furrowed. ‘Clever with it as well, eh? But you know what they say….’

Bill nodded wearily. ‘Yes. Oversexed, overpaid, and over here – right?’

‘That’s right.’ There was a note of triumph in John Rice’s voice.

Mrs Rice took the bag. ‘Oh, Bill, that’s very generous of you. Really, you shouldn’t have done it.’

She shot a glance at her husband. ‘We girls need to talk.’

Mary bent down and ostensibly gave her Father a hug, but whispered fiercely into his ear: ‘Be good Daddy – for me.’

The two men were left alone together. Bill shifted from one foot to the other.

‘Very nice family you have, sir.’

Mr Rice grunted, tried to move, pushing at the wheels of his chair which slipped in the snow, failing to grip.

Bill went to help, but was waved off with a testy: ‘I can manage, thank you.’

Mr Rice got himself on to a part of the concrete path that had been swept clear of the snow and wheeled himself
along to its end. Bill followed, not knowing what else to do.

At last Mr Rice said: ‘How old are you?’

Bill lied, added a few months. ‘Twenty-one and a half, sir.’

Mr Rice shook his head. ‘I thought so. You’re just a boy.’

Irritated, Bill drew himself up.

‘Old enough, according to Uncle Sam.’

Mary’s father grimaced. ‘My family has already paid a heavy price in this war. Did Mary tell you about our boy? Went down in the Channel during the Battle of Britain. You Yanks weren’t around then.’

Bill was flabbergasted. ‘She never told me.’

Mr Rice took no notice, carried on. ‘Her telling us about you, and getting wed came as a hell of a shock I can tell you. We had her down as a dyed-in-the-wool academic – thought she might never get married. And you – a
pilot
.’ He shook his head. ‘She was very close to Mark. Now look….’

His shoulders slumped. ‘This war will just about finish this family I can tell you.’

A silence descended as Bill still thought about Mary’s brother.

Suddenly Mr Rice said: ‘The women have got a lot to talk about. Care for a pint? There’s a pub at the end of the road.’

Surprised and relieved, Bill straightened up. ‘I sure would.’

They went out throgh the back gate, the wheelchair bumping along down an unmade lane, at the bottom of which was a small pub. They went into the door on the corner, marked ‘Public Bar’. There was a counter with pump-handles, and a few mismatched tables and chairs
clustered on the sawdust-sprinkled floor.

Several men were inside. They turned to look at Bill in his uniform, which stood out in the dingy surroundings. John Rice wheeled himself across the room, Bill irrationally noticing the tyre tracks in the sawdust. He slapped his hand on the bar top.

‘Two pints of your best bitter, Mavis….’

The buxom barmaid eyed Bill appreciatively as she began her work, pulling the handle and releasing the gurgling beer into the mugs which she held at an angle. Every time the handle sprang back upright there was a dull thud. Eventually she set the two glasses of frothing beer down on to the mats and took the coins John Rice proffered. He passed one to Bill and took the other himself.

‘Cheers.’

Bill responded in kind.

After the first quaff John Rice wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and addressed the room.

‘This is … what did you say your rank was, son?’

Bill obliged sheepishly. ‘First lieutenant.’

‘This is First Lieutenant Bill Anderson, soon to be my son-in-law, and he is currently kicking the shite out of the Hun in his own backyard.’

The other men nodded or called out greetings of one sort or another. Bill held up his beer in salute, then drank long and deep. When he lowered his glass it was to find, for the first time, John Rice grinning at him.

‘It’s been that bad, eh?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Meeting me.’

Ruefully Bill ran a hand through his hair. ‘Shall we just say that I was worried that you probably wouldn’t like me.’

John Rice looked down into his glass. ‘I haven’t been easy to live with these last couple of years, Bill, I don’t mind admitting.’

He gazed sadly at the wheelchair. ‘Never thought I’d end up in one of these.’

They moved to a corner. Bill pulled away a chair to allow John Rice to get close to the table, and set down his beer.

They sat back, drinking in silence for a moment as the murmur of the voices in the bar returned to normal. At last John Rice said, in a lowered tone: ‘I’ve had nobody around here I could talk to, nobody who could understand….’

He dropped his gaze. ‘I was terrified.’

Bill, taken unawares, said nothing, then realized that his future father-in-law was waiting expectantly, that he was being given a rare opportunity, that Mary’s father had started to bare his soul to him.

He swallowed hard, said aloud, to the only person in the world he’d admitted it to before – even, he realized, to himself:

‘If you must know, I turned back on a mission, radioed there was a problem, when really there wasn’t. Nothing was ever said, but at that moment I just couldn’t do it.’ He shook his head. ‘I was overcome with fear, intense,
nauseating
fear.’ He shuddered. ‘You don’t know how bad it’s going to be until you’re buckling in on the day. That’s when it gets you – dread sits in your stomach like a cold dead animal. Most days you can get on top of it, but
sometimes
…’ His voice tailed away.

The older man looked into the younger man’s eyes, and in that instant a bond was formed.

Mary came in from the garden, frowning.

‘They’re not there.’

Mrs Rice, laying the dining-room table, paused with a fork in her hand. ‘Oh dear, I expect they’ve gone down to the King’s Arms. Your father goes there quite a lot
nowadays
.’

Mary came and stood by her. ‘Mummy, are you trying to tell me something?’

Mrs Rice’s lower lip trembled, and tears came into her eyes.

‘Oh, mother….’

That did it. Mrs Rice turned to her daughter, who cuddled her as great sobs racked her body.

‘There, there….’

It all came out. John Rice had been hell to live with, and had taken to going daily to the King’s Arms at lunch-times and then again most evenings. She’d had to put up with a lot of loneliness, and then being with a husband who
vacillated
between gruffness and great periods of brooding introspection.

‘Damn. Damn this whole bloody mess. It’s killed my son, it’s ruined our health, it’s … ruined our life.’

Mary had never heard her mother swear before. Almost immediately Mrs Rice dabbed at her eyes with a little bordered handkerchief.

‘I’m sorry, Mary – don’t take any notice of me –
please
. Dad’s all right really. Don’t let it worry you on your day
tomorrow. Really, I’m all right – just being stupid.’

Upset, Mary cuddled her again.

‘Don’t be silly, Mum. Is it the wheelchair? Is that what he can’t come to terms with?’

‘No.’

She felt her mother’s head move from side to side. ‘No, no. Something happened in France – when he was injured. He won’t talk about it.’

Frightened, Mary hugged her mother, rocking back and forth.

The ‘something’ that had been eating away at John Rice was now known to Bill Anderson. It was an incident that had lasted less than thirty seconds.

In the heat of battle, on the outskirts of a village, a soldier in his platoon had been injured while the platoon was in a forward defensive position. They had come under heavy mortar fire. The man had screamed for help, but John Rice had found himself unable to move, frozen to the ground in terror. It had only ended when there had been a whoosh, the man’s head had been sliced off and John Rice had found himself staring at somebody’s bloody leg. Then he had
realized
it was his.

Bill took the empty glasses in one hand. Before he moved to the counter he put his other hand on the older man’s shoulder. ‘Anybody who’s been there knows. You do your best. Sometimes it’s more than enough – sometimes it’s not enough. War is not logical. War is crap.’

Mary and her mother had restored themselves to a sad calmness. There was still no sign of the menfolk. Their eyes
met. Mary said: ‘Shall I go down and get them?’

Her mother was adamant. ‘Leave them alone, dear, your father will come home in his own sweet time.’

Mary raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you think is
happening
? I’m worried for Bill.’

There was a sudden shout from the direction of the garden. Mary and her mother watched in horror as a
charging
Bill, pushing John Rice in his wheelchair, tore up the path, weaving dangerously from side to side until in an explosion of snow the chair went sideways and rolled over. Its occupant was flung out and Bill fell on top of him.

Shocked, the women ran to help, appalled at the twisted bodies and still-spinning wheels. When they got there they pulled up abruptly and stared down in amazement.

The two men were shaking with laughter, tears
streaming
down their faces. When at last he caught his breath John Rice looked up at his wife, and for the first time in recent memory, she saw again the man she had married.

Then Bill and he giggled like kids, and the women
realized
that they were both heavily under the influence.

But her mother’s relief was so overwhelming that Mary’s anger at Bill evaporated. Mother and daughter hugged each other as they joined tearfully in the laughter.

John Rice looked up at his daughter and wagged a finger. ‘You’ve got yourself a good one here, Mary – even if he is a Yank. You take care of him now, or you’ll have me to answer to.’

Mary looked at Bill and raised an eyebrow. With mock severity she said: ‘Oh, I’ll take good care of him all right.’

They enjoyed a wonderful evening. Mary had never
known her parents to be so happy.

When the time came to leave the atmosphere became more sober. Her mother was growing tearful again, but with happiness.

‘We’ll be thinking of you both.’

‘I’m so sorry you can’t be there,’ Mary said sadly, ‘but it’s the only place we can do it really quickly, and Bill will have to return to the Air Force almost immediately.’

Her father patted her hand. ‘We understand, gal – all we want is your happiness. Anyway it’s not as though these are normal times eh?’

Her mother nodded. ‘That’s right, Mary dear, yours and Bill’s happiness.’

They stood in the hall, Mrs Rice with her hand on the blackout curtain, her other around Mary. The two women held on to each other for as long as possible as they talked.

The men made their own farewells. There was no
exhortation
to glory or the destruction of the enemy by John Rice.

They grasped hands as he said: ‘You take care of
yourself
, son, for Mary’s sake – and ours. No heroics, now.’

‘No heroics, Dad – that’s a promise.’

They finally left, kissing and shaking hands again in the dark of the front garden. Her parents were still there, despite the cold as they gave a last wave and turned the corner.

Down the next street the moon was riding between wildly scudding clouds, bright between the roofs and chimneys.

Mary had an arm around his waist, one of his was about her shoulders.

‘Bill.’ She suddenly stopped, the moonlight glowed on her upturned face.

‘Darling, I love you.’ It was said very seriously. He kissed her on her forehead.

‘Now, that’s what I like to hear – but why now?’

‘Oh, for what you did back there.’

‘You mean your father?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your old man is OK – one of the best.’

She was going to say something more, but he kissed her, long and hard.

They didn’t even notice a couple of giggling girls,
arm-in
-arm, who passed by and called out: ‘That’s it Yank, give her one. There’s two more here when you’ve finished.’

They were married by special licence next day at Cambridge Register Office. Bill slid the ring on her third finger, left hand, just after 11 a.m.

They dined at a reserved table at the Garden House Hotel, walked along the Backs, managed to get a punt despite the winter’s day – the old boatman, on hearing they were just married, got it out especially for them, and insisted on poling as they lay side by side under blankets. He joined them in a toast from the hip flask that Bill
proffered
to him.

‘Long life and happiness together.’

After supper they sat before a crackling log-fire in the
lounge, watching the world go by. It was Christmas Eve, 1944.

Glenn Miller was due to broadcast to America later – from Paris.

Mary sprawled in a leather chair, holding a brandy in one hand, her arm languidly outstretched. The flames of the fire were reflected in the glass of the balloon. She murmured: ‘Darling, this is the happiest day of my life.’