Free Once a Land Girl by Angela Huth

missing?’
    ‘No. Just a silly moment of a minor triumph,’ Johnny said gruffly, and lowered himself onto a stool opposite her.
    The thing about Johnny, thought Prue, was that he never seemed to think that talking instantly was necessary and he wasn’t one for explanations. He’d leave you to marinate in silence
for a few moments, which indicated he was thinking seriously about whatever you had last said. Though probably he wasn’t.
    As she shuffled about in the chair during one of these silences, Prue studied his slightly out-of-kilter face in which the air of cheekiness seemed too young for it. He wasn’t the kind of
man she would have looked at twice a few years ago: too thin, a touch too tall, altogether too indeterminate. But now she was older – more mature, she reckoned – she found his outward
melancholy rather appealing. And the really intriguing thing was that she had no idea whether or not he fancied her. Usually she could tell in an instant. One flick of her curls, one moue of
her scarlet lipstick and men (so many) could hardly contain themselves. It had all been easy. But Johnny – did he even register that she was a pretty girl? They had seen each other most days
in the past two weeks, bonded by their project, but there hadn’t been the smallest signal that he had anything on his mind other than completing the chicken run. Ridiculous, thought Prue. Or
perhaps she was losing her touch.
    She put the cup of tea on the window-ledge, then leant back into the unstable arms of the chair, which creaked as she moved, and bent one leg up onto the seat. She gave a shake of her head, a
pat to her hair, the fraction of a smile. If he was inwardly on fire with lust for her, Johnny gave no sign of it.
    ‘Shall I put the lights on?’ he said.
    ‘Shouldn’t bother.’ Prue changed her position, now crossing her legs. ‘It’s nice in here, all grey.’
    Her movement stirred in Johnny a look that Prue interpreted as a first positive reaction, almost interest. She blinked at him slowly, aware of the weight of her black-encrusted eyelashes.
    ‘You know something funny?’ he said. ‘I always wanted to meet a land girl. I had this feeling they weren’t quite real. I used to look at pictures of them in Picture
Post – those sexy breeches and tight jerseys. Have you kept yours?’
    So odd, the extraordinary impression that land girls’ breeches seemed to have made on the men of the British nation. ‘I have.’ Prue felt a flicker of apprehension. ‘We
weren’t meant to – we were only allowed to keep our coats. But somehow I had two pairs so I kept one.’ Surely nice reticent Johnny wasn’t some kind of creep who wanted . .
.
    ‘You must put them on for me one day.’
    ‘Not on your life!’ Her answer was a squawk.
    ‘I was only joking.’ They smiled at each other, and the moment of awkwardness evaporated. But it was then that Prue decided she was not going to make any attempt to seduce him. She
liked to think that had she tried she would have succeeded just as easily as she had with all the others. But she wasn’t going to. Because somewhere deep within her lay the morals taught in
childhood: a girl could have as many boyfriends as she liked (this being her mother’s teaching rather than that of the Church) but once married, no matter how difficult, you remained
faithful. She liked to think she would remain faithful to Barry because he was – well, he provided many things she had always wanted, and he was kind and tranquil. He just wasn’t there .
    ‘Are you married?’ she asked suddenly, studying her cup and saucer with its prim roses.
    ‘Was once. Briefly.’ Johnny shook his head. ‘Pretty much of a disaster. Nothing in common. The wife was cursed with a vicious tongue and a pretty mean streak, though none of
that was apparent before we married. Or perhaps I was blind. Strange how you can be taken in, wanting to believe. What I thought, though, and luckily she agreed, was that