Our Yanks by Margaret Mayhew Page A

dope, just staring at her. ‘Some of those, I guess.’ He pointed.
    â€˜The rock cakes? How many?’
    â€˜Huh . . . maybe six. And a couple of those there, please.’
    â€˜The raspberry buns?’
    He nodded. ‘They look real good. You make ’em here?’
    â€˜Oh, yes. Everything’s baked in there.’ She nodded at a big black iron door set in the brick wall at the back of the store. ‘Dad does the bread, and Mrs Trimwell and me do the cakes. Do you have a bag, or anything? To put these in?’
    â€˜Gee, I’m sorry . . .’
    â€˜I’ll see if I can find something for you.’ She vanished through a door and returned after a moment with a brown paper bag. ‘Mum hoards them. She’s got a drawerful.’ She put the cakes into the bag. ‘Anything else?’
    He wanted to delay things a little. ‘What are those over there?’
    â€˜Cup cakes they’re called. They’re just plain sponge. We used to ice them but we can’t get the sugar now.’
    â€˜I’ll take six of those, then.’
    She gave a giggle. ‘Goodness, you must be hungry. Don’t they feed you enough? I thought you Americans were supposed to have plenty – steaks and ice cream and things.’
    â€˜Not often – we don’t.’ He could have told her some things about the garbage they served up in the Mess: about the stink of the powdered eggs, the greasy mutton, the sweaty Spam, the chip beef that looked like vomit, or worse, the chalky dried milk, the endless Brussels sprouts . . . but he didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to find out more about her, and to know her name.
    She put her head on one side again. ‘What do you think of it over here, then?’
    He’d been asked that question lots of times since they’d arrived in Liverpool and he was always very careful what he answered. They’d been warned about giving offence: provided with a booklet all about the British. They’d been told not to criticize or complain; not to brag or throw money around; to keep out of arguments; never to laugh at a British accent, and never ever to talk about coming over and winning the last war . . . or doing the same again this time. ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘Everything’s just great.’
    She mocked him with her blue eyes. ‘You’re having me on. Just being polite. It’s awful here – with the war on. You must hate it. It’s lovely in America, isn’t it?’
    â€˜You been there?’
    She giggled again and he realized that she was younger than he’d thought at first; the lipstick and her hairstyle had had him fooled. Only seventeen or eighteen maybe. ‘Me? Go to
America
? What a joke! But I’ve seen it at the pictures.’
    â€˜Pictures?’
    â€˜On the films. At the cinema.’
    â€˜Oh . . .’ He smiled. ‘It’s not all like that, see.’
    â€˜Are you an officer?’ she asked, head on the other side now, looking him over.
    He shook his head. ‘I’m a sergeant.’
    â€˜You look like an officer. You all do. It’s the nice uniform, I s’pose, and the shirt and tie. Our lot look quite different – the officers and the men. It’s a lovely uniform, yours. So smart. Not like ours. What d’you do up at the aerodrome?’
    â€˜I’m ground crew,’ he told her. ‘An aircraft mechanic.’ He thought she looked a bit disappointed, maybe because he wasn’t a pilot?
    She put the cakes into the paper bag, twisted the top at each corner and handed it over to him. ‘That’ll be sevenpence, please.’ He pulled a bunch of change out of his pocket and sorted through it helplessly. ‘Heck . . . will this do?’
    â€˜That’s
much
too much. That’s half a crown. Two shillings and sixpence, see.’
    â€˜How about