Free The Daisy Club by Charlotte Bingham Page A

that it was noticeable.
    Jean was perfectly well aware that Joe Huggett was following her, why shouldn’t she be? He had followed her out of the ARP lecture at the village hall, assing about in the road with his gas mask on, as if it was quite a hoot to be given a gas mask, rather than a horrible shock.
    â€˜Can’t you find anything else to do, Joe Huggett? Surely there must be a tank or a gun somewhere that you could go and amuse yourself with? Or in your case an RAF aeroplane.’
    Jean turned briefly from staring ahead of her, waiting for the bus with every show of impatience, to look at him. Joe managed to smile his wicked smile before she turned back once again, staring ahead of her at the mackintosh of the lady in front of them, at the curve in the road where the country bus should at any minute appear.
    â€˜It just so happens that our journeys over the last twenty-four hours have taken us in the same direction.’
    â€˜Isn’t that a coincidence?’ Jean murmured, at the same time tossing back her mane of black curly hair.
    â€˜I, like you, am intent on – on going to Bramsfield.’
    â€˜As it happens I am going to Wychford—’
    â€˜Wychford, then Bramsfield.’
    Jean turned back to stare at him once again.
    â€˜At this moment you are carrying on more like the village idiot than a recent recruit to His Majesty’s army, but I daresay you know that?’
    â€˜I shall be gone tomorrow, to training school somewhere in England . Take pity, fair maiden, on a poor airman, take pity!’ Joe seemed to be dancing in front of her now, his blond hair – too long for the RAF, surely – tousled, unkempt, but somehow delightful against his uniform. ‘I shall be training through the snow and the ice, with no food and little sleep. Remember that in the weeks ahead.’ He leant forward and whispered in her ear, ‘And you will be sorry that you were not more kind to me while waiting for our bus, do you know that?’
    Jean pulled her beret further on to her thick head of curls. It was true, he would be gone for some sort of training, and she would be sorry if she was not kinder to him. Although war had not yet been declared, everyone all over the country was sitting on a pin, knowing that one way or another it would be along soon. Jean knew that the village schoolteacher had long ago laid contingency plans for dealing with the evacuation of city children, and that Twistleton village school, with its eight pupils – as well as the village itself – had long ago been marked out by the authorities. She hated to admit it, but in some ways, now that poor Czechoslovakia had been thrown to the Nazi wolves, she, as well as everyone else in Twistleton, was actually impatient to be getting on with everything. All this hanging about waiting for the inevitable was as bad as hanging about waiting for the village bus, and there was not very much to be said for it.
    â€˜I’ll take you to The Pantry for lunch, if you’re nice to me on the bus.’
    Jean turned and stared at Joe. Lunch at The Pantry was delicious, and they both knew it: chicken pie and home-grown peas, new potatoes smothered in butter and chopped parsley, lovely soft meringues filled with local cream.
    â€˜Oh, very well,’ she conceded, more because she had skipped breakfast than for any other reason.
    â€˜Sit at the back and hold hands?’ Joe asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice.
    Jean shook her head.
    â€˜Sit at the back and keep your hands to yourself,’ she murmured, above the sound of the bus arriving.
    Joe smiled down at her, knowing that he was half-way there already. His eldest brother had told him there was nothing quite like seducing girls with the thought of food.
    â€˜You will be mine by the end of lunch, Miss Shaw,’ he told her gaily.
    Jean sat back and stared ahead. She would be no one’s by the end of anything, but lunch at The Pantry