We'll Meet Again

‘Can you play poker?’

Beryl looked a bit shocked. She shook her head.

‘It’s easy,’ Tom told her. ‘We’ll play for matchsticks.’

He explained about pairs and runs and flushes. Beryl nodded and said that it all sounded pretty straightforward. But she couldn’t get to grips with the timing. She had no idea when to raise and when to quit.

‘Shame it’s only matchsticks,’ Tom said as he swept her stake into his pile yet again. But there was no pleasure in it really. You needed really sharp competition to make it fun.

Tom shuffled the cards. If only Annie were here instead of this stupid Beryl.

‘D’you know a girl called Annie Cross?’ he asked suddenly. ‘She lives at the farm over the fields there.’

The minute the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them.

‘Yes,’ Beryl said.

Tom said no more, but carried on shuffling.

‘Why?’ Beryl asked.

‘Oh—no reason. I just met her the other day, that’s all.’

He riffle-shuffled the pack, neatly layering them together, not looking at her.

‘I was at school with her, at the elementary. I’m at the grammar now,’ Beryl told him.

It was a safe subject, so he took it up.

‘So am I, back home, that is,’ Tom said.

‘Annie stayed on at the elementary. She’s left now. At fourteen,’ Beryl told him.

Tom said nothing, hoping she’d drop it. He dealt the cards.

‘So she’s never done Latin or French or science,’ she pointed out. ‘Not like you do at grammar school. Not like us.’

There was an unpleasant edge to her voice.

Tom clamped his teeth together to stop himself from answering. He should never have mentioned Annie. Like his painting, she was something private, too special to share with the likes of Beryl.

He picked up his hand and studied it.

‘You playing?’ he asked.

He glanced at his watch. Only four hours till he might see Annie again.

Beryl and her family finally left. The time crawled round to evening. To his joy, Annie managed to get away from the farm. This time they decided to go for a walk along the promenade.

‘Just in case my mam takes it into her head to call me in,’ Tom said. ‘Every now and again she thinks I shouldn’t be spending so much time by myself, and makes me come and join them. I don’t want that happening when you’re here.’

They wandered along towards the town. The beach was deserted and there weren’t the crowds about that there were during the day, but there were still plenty of people enjoying the warm evening, couples strolling arm in arm, girls in chattering groups dressed up for a night out, men on their way to the pub.

‘I got good and caught today,’ Tom admitted. ‘That Mrs Sutton who owns the place came to call, and I got lumbered with her daughter.’

To his surprise, Annie stopped still and stared at him.

‘Beryl? You’ve been talking to Beryl Sutton?’

‘Well—yes,’ Tom said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Her, that’s the matter. I can’t stand Beryl Sutton. She’s my worst enemy.’

‘Oh—I see—you never said,’ Tom floundered. There was so much he didn’t know about Annie. ‘What’s she gone and done, then?’

‘Everything,’ Annie said. She started walking along again, her body stiff, refusing to meet his eyes. ‘She’s just such a stuck-up madam. She thinks she’s so much better than me, just because her dad owns a factory and she goes to the grammar. I could’ve gone, you know. I was always better than her at school, but she got to go to the grammar and I was stuck at Church Road Elementary.’

‘That’s so unfair,’ Tom said.

‘And another thing, she’s got the same birthday as me. Imagine that—having to share your birthday with your worst enemy. Her mum and mine met in hospital when they were having us, and now her mum comes over and has her clothes made by my mum—’

‘Your mam’s a dressmaker?’ Tom asked. This was a piece of information she hadn’t let drop before.

‘Yes. And you should see the flap she gets into when Mrs High-and-Mighty Sutton is coming! The best china comes out and the embroidered tablecloth. You’d think it was the flipping Queen coming to tea. Makes me sick, it does.’

‘It must do,’ Tom agreed, though he couldn’t really see what the problem was.

‘And now you’re seeing beastly Beryl behind my back!’

‘It wasn’t deliberate! I tried to get out of it, but Joan went and told Mam where I was and then I was stuck with her. It wasn’t any fun, I can tell you. She’s boring and stupid. Not like you.’

Annie flexed her shoulders and made a h’rmph noise in her throat.

‘You’re a thousand times nicer than she is,’ Tom elaborated.

Annie stole a look at him. ‘Really?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘If you really mean that—’

‘Look, we don’t want that great lump to spoil things, do we?’ Tom insisted, tired of these games.

Annie tossed off her bad mood like a coat.

‘No, we don’t,’ she agreed. ‘Tell me what else you’ve been doing today.’

Peace restored, they ambled along as far as the pier, then turned to go back towards Silver Sands. At one point they swerved to go round a large group of young men spilling out of a pub. Their hands touched, and then, of their own accord, it seemed, slid into each other. The warmth of their joined palms, the touch of their fingers, glowed all up Tom’s arm. The blacked-out promenade of a small seaside town was a place of magic.