Dressmaker by Beryl Bainbridge Page B

her head. It was like being caught fraternising with the enemy, alone on a country road with an
     Ameri can. He lounged against the tangled hedge, sucking a blade ofgrass, watching the squad of soldiers stamping round the bend of the road, feet splayed out like Charlie Chaplin, stub-toed
     boots black as soot.
My eyes are dim, I cannot see,
    I have not brought my specs with me …
    And a wail, drawn out, sorrowful, as if they howled in protest at walking through the warm afternoon:
I have not brought
    My specs with me.
    Ira whistled shrilly as they strutted past him, but he was ignored.
    ‘Don’t,’ she hissed, crouching in the wet grass, fiddling with her shoe.
    Eyes front, shoulders raised, they swung their arms and went mincing up the lane. The rooks left the elm trees and swooped
     down to the rusted roof of the empty barn.
    ‘Don’t,’ she cried again, jumping upright and dragging on his arm as he stood blowing between his fingers in the middle of
     the lane. She wrenched his hands from his mouth, her face flushed with anger. ‘Don’t make a show of yourself.’
    ‘What’s got into you?’ he wanted to know, digging his hands into his pockets and looking at her sullenly. Now that the soldiers
     had gone, she was sorry she had flared up at him.
    ‘It’s just that they don’t like you, do they?’
    ‘Who don’t like me?’ His eyes, grey not blue, reflecting the surface of the road, stared at her coldly.
    ‘Our Tommies. They don’t like the Yanks. It’s the money you get.’
    ‘We don’t have no trouble with Tommies. We’re allies.’
    ‘Well,’ she finished lamely, ‘they have fights in Liverpool, down by Exchange Station. Everybody knows.’
    ‘Is that so?’ he muttered, turning from her and kicking at the hedgerow.
    She didn’t know how to remedy the situation. Rather like her Aunt Nellie who could never say she was sorry. She twisted her
     hands together and gazed helplessly at his hostile back.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.’
    To her relief he stepped away from the hedge and shrugged his shoulders. But his face was hard. She looked at him furtively,
     trying to read his eyes, but they were guarded, revealing nothing.
    ‘I’m sorry, Ira.’
    Tears came to her eyes. He gave her a small lenient smile, and she was instantly restored, untroubled. The road led them towards
     the coast. They went along a cinder path over the railway and across another field.
    ‘We could go home on the train,’ she said, ‘if we wanted.’
    ‘I’m hungry,’ he complained, but she didn’t seem to hear him.
    The land was level, the sky heaped with white cloud. She raced ahead of him between hedges inclined inwardsagainst the constant wind blowing from the sea. They came to the long waste of foreshore and the row of empty houses heaped
     about with sand. He looked curiously at the deserted road and the front gardens run wild.
    ‘Was this the blitz?’ he asked.
    She didn’t know. ‘It’s near the docks and maybe people got scared and left. They don’t look bombed.’
    ‘They sure do,’ he argued, looking at the windows empty of glass and the debris spilling on to the road.
    ‘I think people are daft. I’d rather live here than Anfield.’ And she ran into the nearest house, through the open doorway
     into a long hall that led into a back room overlooking the beach. ‘Come on,’ she shouted. ‘It’s nice in here.’
    He followed her without enthusiasm, seeing the dog dirt on the floor and the human excrement and the soiled pieces of newspaper.
     Outside the window was a short garden with currant bushes and a broken wall tumbling down on to the sand.
    Nellie had made her two sandwiches for her lunch and wrapped some biscuits. She took them out of her handbag and showed them
     to Ira. He held his hand out eagerly, but she put them away again, closing the clasp of her bag with a decisive little click.
    ‘Later,’ she said. ‘I never have my dinner till one