Even without closing her eyes she could picture his face with its high cheekbones and the blue eyes she had once thought possessed a gaze that was both understanding and kind. Kind! He certainly hadn’t been kind to her when he had called her selfish and cruel for refusing to welcome his sister’s marriage to her father. It was true that with Callum blood was thicker than water, his loyalty to his sister far, far stronger than the relationship she had thought that they were beginning to share. The blood tie between her and her father, though, had not been strong enough for him to understand the revulsion she had felt, and still felt, at the knowledge that he wanted to replace her mother with her best friend.
Olive hummed to herself as she hung out her Monday morning wash, pegging the sheets firmly to make sure they stayed on the line in the warm breeze. She’d just finished and was about to position the wooden prop to lift the line when Nancy’s head appeared over the fence.
‘Morning, Nancy,’ Olive called out, with a smile, ignoring her neighbour’s downturned mouth and disapproving expression.
‘Mrs Morrison was telling me after church yesterday that Sergeant Dawson is going to be giving you and her driving lessons,’ Nancy announced without any preamble.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Olive agreed, checking that the prop was fixed firmly into the lawn, before bending down to pick up her empty laundry basket. A couple of stray curls had escaped from the headscarf she wrapped round her head to keep her hair out of the way whilst she worked, and she stood up to tuck them out of the way, still smiling as she informed Nancy, ‘It was Mrs Windle’s idea. She had the offer of a van for the WVS to use but she didn’t have any drivers. It’s so kind of Sergeant Dawson to make the time to teach us.’
‘Kind, is it? Well I’ve got to tell you straight, Olive, that that’s not what I think and it wouldn’t be what your late ma-in-law would have thought either.’
‘What do you mean?’ Olive asked, bewildered.
‘What do you think I mean? Sergeant Dawson is a married man. And I don’t think it’s right or proper that he should be giving you driving lessons. It’s all right for Mrs Morrison, she’s got a husband to keep an eye out for her, but you haven’t, and you know how people talk.’
Olive didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry.
‘I’m only warning you for your own good, Olive,’ Nancy continued. ‘A woman in your position, widowed, and with a teenage daughter to look out for can’t be too careful about her reputation.’
‘Nancy,’ Olive protested, ‘it’s Sergeant Dawson who will be teaching me, not some stranger. And Mrs Windle has already said how pleased she is. It’s for the war effort that I’m doing it.’
Nancy gave a disparaging sniff. ‘You can say what you like, Olive, but I don’t think it’s right, a single woman like you spending time on her own with a married man, and I’m only telling you what your own ma-in-law would say.’
As Olive listened to Nancy’s warning a surge of uncharacteristic anger filled her. She knew what Nancy was trying to do. She was trying to bully her into backing out of having her driving lessons. And besides, what Nancy was suggesting – but not coming out directly and saying – about her being alone with Sergeant Dawson possibly leading to some kind of hanky-panky on his part towards her was ridiculous. Sergeant Dawson was a respectable and an honourable man. Anyone who was in his company for more than a few minutes couldn’t help but know that. Olive had come across her fair share of the other sort during her widowhood to know the difference. Oh, there had been nothing directly said by those men – some of them friends of her late husband and her in-laws, and most of them married – but it had all been there in the looks they had given her in private, the hints they had dropped suggesting that she, a young woman without a husband, must be ‘lonely’. She had made it plain to all of them that she wasn’t interested. The very idea was an insult! And Nancy’s hints about Sergeant Dawson were an insult to him. Olive felt angry with Nancy on his behalf when the whole neighbourhood knew what a decent sort he was. She certainly trusted him. But even so, Olive knew that once she would probably have given in and done what Nancy wanted simply to keep the peace. Things were different now: there was a war on, and that was what she had to think about, not Nancy’s disapproval.
She took a deep breath and then told her neigh-bour firmly, ‘You might not approve, Nancy, but I think that Jim would. He’d want me to play my part and do everything I can to help others.’ And with that Olive picked up her laundry basket and headed for her back door without giving Nancy the opportunity to come back at her. She was not a young girl like Tilly, she was a mature woman and one who was perfectly capable of judging for herself whether or not a man could be trusted, and what was and was not appropriate behaviour for her, without Nancy trying to tell her what to do, Olive decided determinedly, as she opened her back door and stepped inside without giving Nancy a backward look.
Chapter Eleven
‘That was a lovely smooth gear change. You’re really getting the hang of it,’ Sergeant Dawson praised Olive as she drove down Article Row, changing through the gears as she did so.
Pink with delight and pride, Olive remembered just in time not to look at her instructor but instead to keep her attention focused on the road in front of her.
It was just over a month now since she had had her first lesson. The ending of British Summer Time and the shortening days meant that there were fewer daylight hours in which Sergeant Dawson could give both her and Mrs Morrison their driving lessons. She had been right to follow her own judgement and not listen to Nancy, Olive congratulated herself, because Sergeant Dawson’s manner towards her had been all that she had known it would be: kind and friendly, but never ever stepping over the line that divided their relationship as neighbours and friends, mixed with a dash of professionalism from him as her driving instructor, from one that involved the kind of looks, comments and hints that would have warned her that he was looking for something else. She felt completely safe in his company, and knew that even her critical late mother-in-law could not have found anything to object to in his manner towards her.
Had things been otherwise she could not have relaxed and focused on learning to drive, Olive knew, as she waited automatically for that second when the clutch bit and depressed slightly when she pressed down the accelerator pedal, heralding the right moment at which to change gear. She could still remember how anxious she had been during that first lesson when Sergeant Dawson had demonstrated this all-important skill to her and she had sat next to him, privately unable to believe that she would ever understand the mechanics of changing gear, never mind actually driving.
Now she was familiar with such terms as double declutching, knew what the ‘bite’ point for changing gear was, could turn corners neatly and even reverse, and during their weekly WVS meetings she and Anne Morrison sat together exchanging tips and horror stories about their lessons, both ruefully admitting to each other how nervous they had been about that first lesson and how thrilled they were now that they were actually driving.
Olive hadn’t forgotten Nancy’s warning to her, but even though her response to it had led to a certain coolness between them on Nancy’s side, Olive didn’t regret her decision or her defiance. Learning to drive made her feel that she really would be able to do something useful, should the need arise. Times were changing and her sex was changing with it: today’s women, with their men going off to war, were having to take charge of their own lives, make their own decisions, and take on the jobs that now needed doing. Today’s women weren’t shrinking violets who never stepped outside their front door without needing to ask a man’s permission, and she certainly wasn’t going to allow Nancy to tell her what she could and could not do.
‘You
