Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings Read Online Free

to his credit, look as wretched as she felt. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘I wasn’t expecting you until Edward-John’s half-term.’ James got to his feet and walked about the room, making the loosened floorboards creak. His shoes were new and well polished.
    ‘This situation…’ he began.
    ‘So your wife and your child are “a situation”, are we?’ James sighed and sat down. After a moment he began again.
    ‘Penny thinks…’ So it was ‘Penny’ now. He paused. ‘No…I think…’ He wasn’t going to blame his lover or hide behind her feelings. Alice hated him for being so considerate, so noble. ‘I think it’s best if I remove the rest of the stuff I have here and…’
    ‘And leave us?’ Alice completed the sentence for him and stood, searching his face. ‘Just…leave us, James? Here?’
    The scene which followed, conducted in lowered voices so that neither the other tenants, Mrs Bowden or Edward-John should get wind of it, was bitter. As they argued James packed a suitcase with the clothes he had previously left in Exeter. He took several of his books from a pile that was stacked against a wall. Since bomb damage had forced the family from the house they owned in Twickenham, their furniture had been stored. Exeter had been thought of as a temporary refuge until a more permanent home, safe from the bombings, could be arranged. As a result of this, James’s personal belongings had been scattered between a warehouse, rented rooms in Exeter and the small flat in Finchley that he was currently sharing with a young colleague. He was closing the suitcase as his son came back into the room. Edward-John looked at the case and then from one parent to the other.
    ‘Say goodbye to your father, Edward-John,’ said Alice and she went to the door and stood, holding it open. Edward-John and his father shook hands. Then James took the weight of the suitcase and went out through the door.
     
    In a corner of the public bar of the Ledburton Arms two young women were sitting over half-pints of shandy. Their skirts were short, their jumpers tight and their hair, which had spent the day in curlers under headscarves, was marvellously dressed in sausage curls in the front and long, unravelling tresses at the back. Their eyebrows were pluckedinto carefully shaped crescents, their lashes were stiff with mascara, their lipstick was beetroot red and they sat smoking moodily. Marion, the taller of the two and who had dyed her mousey hair a rich plum colour, screwed her fag-end into the ashtray and sighed.
    ‘Sod Bayliss,’ she breathed.
    ‘Bugger hostels,’ echoed Winnie, blowing smoke. During the two years they had been deployed to work on the Bayliss farms, and while Roger had been able to retain the three labourers who had only recently been conscripted, Winnie and Marion had been billeted at the village pub. This had ideally suited them, for here, after work, when they could emerge from the chrysalis of dirty dungarees, rain-soaked coats and muddy boots and become the sort of creatures blokes buy drinks for, take to the flicks and to the dance halls in Exeter, they could meet whomever was on offer or had strayed in their direction from any of the several military and naval establishments in the area. Now it seemed that their boss was about to take on another eight girls and billet them in the disused farmhouse that he had acquired some years previously when he had bought out a neighbour. Once installed in the new ‘hostel’, which was over a mile from the village, Marion and Winnie knew how rarely they would encounter anyone but aged, groping farmhands or boys unfit or too young for the armed services and therefore too broke or immature for their purposes. Furthermore, the hostel would have rules. Anda warden to enforce them. And Mr Bayliss for her to report to if she was disobeyed. The news of this change in their circumstances had been broken to them earlier that evening on their arrival back from work