Trio - [33]

She had her hair cut to shoulder length and bought some setting lotion and jumbo rollers so she could make it flick out at the ends. It made her feel grown up.

He looked well when he arrived, face and arms brown from the weather, prompting her to ask if he’d been working outside.

‘Not working, studying. Balance isn’t good enough to work – fall over all the time like some old duffer. Scares the sheep.’ He gave a wry smile. He was more handsome than she remembered. Not film-star looks but nice. A lazy slant to his eyes like Dean Martin’s, his eyes were even bluer against his tan. His hair was longer, floppy at the front, a dark-blond colour. The sun had brought out the light parts of it.

‘I’ll tell you about it. But we’d better get going, it starts in quarter of an hour.’

They watched the new Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds. It was very scary and Caroline hid her face and gripped Paul’s arm when it got really frightening. At least it wasn’t a weepy. She had bought herself a block of mascara and some lipstick. Putting the mascara on had been a nightmare. Spitting on the little block then working up a paste then trying to get the stuff on her lashes with the little rectangular brush. So there was no way she wanted to see it all dribble down her face.

There was a coffee bar opposite the Odeon and they went there after. She got the drinks, realising it would be hard for Paul to manage with his stick.

‘How’s the hospital?’

‘Same as ever.’ She was sick of it, if the truth be told. The endless grind of dirty dressings and bedpans, the smell of sick bodies and pain and fear. Some days when it was time to get up she lay there and wished she could sleep forever. Once a month she made the trip home and there would be red salmon sandwiches and Victoria sponge and she’d get an hour or two up on the hills. She would go to Grandma’s grave most times and say hello and wonder whether life would have felt any brighter with Grandma still in it. And she would climb up to a vantage point, to Little Craven or Goat’s Head, and sit and let her eyes roam and let everything ebb away, all the feelings and the pictures and the words, let them empty from her, seeping into the earth like dew. Leaving her cleansed and grounded. Just bone and breath.

The city was choking her. Sometimes she felt like a mole, especially doing nightshifts – living underground, never coming up for air. Some of the other girls had got married and given up work. Married women weren’t allowed to nurse. But Caroline could see no end to it. She couldn’t go back and live at home again, the presence of her parents too much like a reproach. And what would she do all day?

She dropped two sugar cubes in her coffee and stirred.

‘You look tired,’ Paul said.

She concentrated on the spoon, the circles in the froth. She didn’t want his pity. ‘I’m fine.’

‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Don’t.’

She saw his jaw tighten.

‘So what’s this studying?’

‘Business. How to keep accounts, import and export, trading law, stock-taking. Correspondence course. I’ve picked quite a lot up.’

He missed me. She tried to concentrate on the conversation. ‘You’re thinking of setting up in business?’

‘Yes. I’ve got some compensation through. Not heaps but enough to start me off.’

A crowd piled into the coffee bar, voices raucous, the boys teasing the girls and the girls giving lip back. Someone put the jukebox on, ‘She Loves You’ blared out. Caroline loved the song, it was a new group from Liverpool called The Beatles, but it was impossible to talk above the noise.

‘Let’s walk,’ he said.

They headed for Whitworth Park. It was a dull evening, warm and humid, midges danced in clouds beneath the trees in the park, a gang of children kicked a ball about, their squeals punctuating the murmur of the city.

They stopped to sit on a bench. Paul propped his stick against the end. ‘Caroline, there’s something I want to say.’ He spoke quickly, tripping over the words. ‘I don’t know what your feelings are for me but I meant what I said. I have really missed you.’

‘Paul…’ She felt her mouth get dry, her hands shook a little.

‘Please, listen. The business idea. You talked about gardening. Well, I’ve been thinking, it could be a nursery. I’ve enough to buy some land and I could run the financial side, the paperwork. You’d be in charge of all the rest.’

‘You want to go into business with me?’ She was confused.

There was a pause.

‘I want to marry you.’

‘No!’ she exclaimed.

‘Caroline.’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Don’t you care for me?’

‘I can’t marry you,’ she repeated. You don’t know about me. You don’t know what happened. It wouldn’t be fair.

He stood up, his face flushed. ‘I thought you’d be sympathetic. See beyond the ruddy cane and the game leg.’ He grabbed his stick and slammed it against the bench.

She stood too. ‘Oh, Paul, it’s not you. Don’t think that. It’s me. I can’t. I don’t deserve you.’

‘Is there someone else?’ He said tightly.

‘No!’ She exclaimed, then, ‘There was before.’ Did he understand what she meant?

‘You still see him?’

‘No.’ She waited. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter, really.’ He felt for her hand, clasped it tight against his chest. ‘If it’s over, I don’t mind, Caroline, really.’