so have I.’
‘Can we meet again then?’
‘If you want,’ she agreed. ‘When?’
‘How about tomorrow?’
‘I help out at the Whimsey tomorrow.’
‘Well, I could come and walk you back after.’
‘My dad will walk me back. We’ll have to leave it till a night when I’m not working.’
‘When’s that?’
‘Thursday.’
‘That’s the night of my bible class.’
‘Oh.’
‘But I could meet you later.’
‘How much later?’
‘Just after nine, say.’
‘My mother wouldn’t let me out that late. She reckons I should be abed by then.’
‘What if I call for you?’
‘And let you meet my mother?’ He saw the look of doubt in her eyes. ‘I don’t know, Arthur. I haven’t told her about you.’
‘What then?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘How about Saturday afternoon? Or Sunday?’
‘Saturday afternoon I sometimes go to Dudley with my friend Miriam. I could meet you Sunday afternoon though.’
‘It’s a long time to wait, Lucy. Nearly a week. I’ll have forgot what you look like by Sunday.’
She shrugged again. ‘Maybe your toothache will have gone by then.’
‘It’s gone already,’ he said brightly. ‘Maybe I’ll come to the Whimsey one night when you’m working. Just to say hello.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’
‘You don’t sound very bothered,’ he suggested.
‘I just don’t see the point. I won’t be able to walk home with you. Not with my father there.’
‘But I’ll see you Sunday at any rate, Lucy. Does three o’ clock suit?’
‘Yes. And thanks for asking me out, Arthur.’
She sounded sincere, he thought, and was encouraged. ‘It’s been my pleasure …’ He grinned like a schoolboy. ‘And thank you for the kiss earlier. I shan’t be able to sleep for thinking about it.’ He turned and went on his way, euphoric.
Arthur could not help himself. So taken was he with Lucy Piddock that he could not sleep properly at night for thinking about her. He fought the urge, but found it impossible to keep away from the Whimsey any longer, where he knew she would be. He would have gone on the Tuesday, the evening after their first tryst, but had the sense to realise that he might appear too keen. If he’d had even more sense he would have known he should keep away altogether and let Lucy wonder why he hadn’t been nigh, let her watch the door every night to see if the next customer entering would be him. But Arthur was unacquainted with the foibles of young women and how to better gain their interest. So, on Wednesday evening at about nine o’ clock, just two nights after their outing, he sauntered into the taproom, his heart a-flutter, aching to see again this delightful girl who had turned his world upside down.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ Lucy remarked when she saw him standing at the bar waiting to be served.
‘Hello, Lucy.’ He grinned amiably, but was deflated by what he perceived as aloofness in her greeting. ‘A pint please.’
She held a tankard under the tap of a barrel and placed it, full and foaming, on top of the bar before him. ‘What brings you here?’
He handed her tuppence ha’penny. ‘Well, I’ve a right to come in here if I’m of a mind,’ has answered defensively. ‘But the real reason I came was to see you.’
‘But you can see I’m working, Arthur. I thought I wasn’t seeing you till Sunday.’
‘I just wanted to come and say hello.’ He smiled again perseveringly.
Lucy turned and afforded a polite smile to her next customer, however, a young man who had a confident bluster about him. Arthur leaned on the bar and lifted his tankard to take a drink, watching her and the young man. Her blue eyes seemed even wider by the glow from the lamps that hung from the ceiling, and that look of ethereal gentleness and perilous vulnerability they exuded wrung his heart with longing and a desire to be her guardian angel for eternity. This was how true love felt, this delightful yet sickening feeling that filled his breast, that made his heart hammer inside and his head swim with emotions. It was a sensation that neutralised all physical, gastronomic hunger, save for his raging hunger for her love. He felt no physical lust, no carnal desire for her, for to engage in such activities would be to violate her, and how could he violate somebody so soft and gentle, so innocent and susceptible? Even if she were to consent, which was unlikely.
Lucy smiled coyly at the young man with the confident bluster and he made some comment to her, which Arthur was fortunately unable to hear through the high ambient noise. Then the man turned to his mate who was standing behind him and made a gesture that signified a dark and dangerous lust for the girl. Arthur was incensed, indignant and utterly resentful of the man for having elicited an innocent smile from Lucy with his contrived ingenuousness. He prayed silently that she was not gullible and unable to see through it. Yet what could he do? He was not a fighting man. And even if he was, he was not certain of his standing yet with Lucy. He had no prior claim on her, save for this searing love he felt that so far had not been entirely reciprocated, nor yet showed many encouraging signs. This, he realised for the first time in his life, was how it felt to be jealous, and it was not a feeling he enjoyed.
Nobody else was clamouring to be served just then and Lucy turned to Arthur, moving along the bar to stand closer to him and so obviate the need to shout. ‘How’s your toothache, Arthur?’
‘It’s come back,’ he said and rubbed his cheek gently to indicate where the pain was centred.
‘Oh, that’s a shame …’ He had a short nose hair protruding from a nostril and Lucy focused on it almost to distraction. ‘Where’ve you been working today?’ she asked, managing to look away for a second.
‘Netherton. I had to work on a stone in St Andrew’s churchyard.’
‘Pity the weather’s turned, eh?’ But again she could not detach her eyes from this obnoxious nose hair, and yet she longed to. It was so off-putting.
‘You’re telling me! The wind blows up there at the top of Netherton Hill like it does in St Michael’s graveyard up the road. I swear I’ve caught a chill.’
‘Maybe you should have an early night then,’ she suggested, in the hope of avoiding any embarrassing situation later with her father present. ‘Have a nip of brandy and get yourself tucked up in bed all nice and warm, and sweat it out.’
‘I
