Free Rising Summer by Mary Jane Staples Page B

will, both of ’em,’ said young Miss Beavers.
    ‘Listen, you daft infant—’
    ‘Ain’t an infant,’ she said, ‘nearly a woman, I am. You Tim, don’t you go takin’ American girls out or I’ll fall down dead. You wait for me, I’ll be old enough soon.’
    ‘I’ll fall down dead myself in a minute. Why aren’t you indoors doing your homework?’
    ‘Done it, now I’m going to see Aunt Flossie.’
    ‘You ever going back to London to live?’ I asked.
    ‘Don’t know, do I?’ she said. ‘Except I like it here. D’you like it here?’
    ‘Well, it’s got to be better than Burma.’
    ‘I know one thing,’ said Min and laughed and went on her way. She turned. ‘Goin’ to be your best girl, that’s what I know.’ And she laughed again.
    I went to Jim’s cottage and knocked on the front door. His missus appeared. I was fond of his missus. She was thirty-seven and as handsome as a squire’s wife. Suffolk had laid its rich rural mark on her too. She was brimful of female health. Her brown hair was thick, her brown eyes full of milk chocolate. She was generous and warm-hearted. Her smile showed it. And she looked a picture of Suffolk ripeness in a white sweater and a pleated brown skirt. The sweater was her own knit. She was what Aunt May would have been if life had been kinder to her, a complete wife and mum.
    ‘Why, Tim ducky.’ Her smile became even warmer. ‘Come in, do, there’s a love.’
    We were friends, me and Missus. I’d done one or two odd jobs for her, like re-hanging a door and fixing a couple of disjointed banister rails. Jim only did outside jobs. He couldn’t stand messing about in the house. There was no profit in it.
    ‘Jim in?’ I asked, stepping through the front door into a little hall and accompanying Missus into the parlour which was full of good old-fashioned furniture.
    ‘Jim’s down the pub,’ said Missus, ‘he’s had an ’ard day. Sit yourself down, Tim, you been up against it yourself lately. Still, it’s all come right, we heard.’
    ‘Yes, I heard you heard. How did you hear?’
    ‘Dicky birds, love. One come by and flew in.’ Missus sat me down on the sofa and plumped cushions up for me, her bosom softly brushing my shoulder. ‘All that fuss over a bit of petrol with a war on and all. You’re a nice young chap, Tim, like Jim was when I met him in Camberwell years ago. I’ll make us a cup of tea while you wait for him, he’ll only be a couple of hours.’
    ‘How long?’
    ‘Don’t you worry now, you and me can have a talk. And would you like a ham sandwich? I’ll make one.’
    ‘I don’t know I ought to be here two hours, Missus, with Jim at the pub and Minnie at your Aunt Flossie’s.’
    ‘Oh, you met her on the way did you?’ smiled Missus. ‘Growin’ up, that girl is. I sent her to Aunt Flossie’s so Aunt Flossie could give her a talkin’-to about growin’ up. Best if girls get talked to by their aunts and not their mums. Now you sit there, I won’t be a minute.’
    She wasn’t long. A pot of tea and a ham sandwich appeared in no time at all. Like Aunt May, she was a marvel in a kitchen. In a kitchen, women do wondrous works. Women are born to make men fit to face life. We all ought to have one. It hardly matters that some of them are a bit barmy.
    I didn’t ask where the ham came from. It was off the bone. Jim and Missus both had ways and means. She shared the pot of tea and the sofa with me.
    ‘Minnie says she likes Suffolk, Missus.’
    ‘Likes you better, Tim, a bit gone on you, that she is.’
    ‘Can’t you find her a growing Boy Scout?’
    ‘Our Min? That girl’s gone past Boy Scouts, love. Got her eyes on you.’ Missus frowned. ‘We can’t let her get you, though, not at her age, can we? Mind, she’s comin’ up for sixteen soon and fancying her chances. Jim and me can’t have that, sixteen’s still too young. Not that she won’t make a nice bride when she’s eighteen.’
    ‘I’ll be old enough to be her dad by