Our Yanks by Margaret Mayhew Page B

this?’
    â€˜Still too much. That’s a florin.’
    That was a new one to him. ‘A florin?’
    â€˜Two shillings. That’s twenty-four pence. Look, I’ll just take it, shall I? It’ll be quicker.’ He held out his hand and she stirred the coins round on his palm with one finger. Her hands were small and slender with nails the colour of seashells. ‘Here we are: a sixpence and one penny.’ She looked up at him, smiling. ‘It’s easy.’
    As he put the coins away in his pocket, a middle-aged guy wearing a white overall came in through the side door she’d used. ‘You can leave off now, Sally,’ he told the girl. ‘Your mother wants you. I’ll look after things here.’
    She shrugged. ‘All right, Dad.’ She smiled again at Chester over her shoulder as she went.
    â€˜Anything else you want?’ The guy leaned both hands heavily on the counter, sleeves rolled up above muscled forearms and looking
real
unfriendly.
    â€˜No, sir. Thank you.’ The sheep’s bell jangled as he opened the door to go. He’d got two messages loud and clear. Her dad didn’t like any Yank hanging round his daughter. And her name was Sally.
    â€˜I don’t want you talking to those Americans, Sally.’
    â€˜I can’t serve them if I don’t talk to them, can I, Dad? They spend good money. You ought to be glad.’
    She was a sight too pert for his liking, sometimes. ‘You know what I mean. Serving them’s one thing, chatting to them’s quite another. You were being much too friendly to that American. You don’t want to encourage them.’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘I was helping him with the money, that’s all. They can’t work it out. Theirs is different. They have dollars and cents. A hundred cents to a dollar; it’s much easier than our old shillings and pennies and things.’
    She’s been doing a lot of talking to them, he thought anxiously. Not just to that Yank today. She was putting on her coat now and tying her scarf round her head. ‘Where do you think you’re going, then?’
    â€˜Round to Doris, like I always do on Fridays.’
    â€˜I don’t want you going out alone after dark. It’s not safe. Not with those Americans about.’
    â€˜Doris is three doors away, Dad. And I’m not staying in all evening just cos you don’t like the Yanks.’
    She was gone before he could think of anything else to say. He sat down slowly in his armchair.
    â€˜You can’t stop her, Sam,’ Freda said, needles clicking placidly. ‘You can’t keep her prisoner. And you won’t keep the Americans away from her.’
    â€˜I’ll have a bloody good try,’ he burst out, swearing in front of Freda for once. ‘Damned if I won’t.’
    She came to the end of a row and turned the knitting. ‘You go and put the kettle on, Sam, and make us a nice cup of tea.’
    Ed Mochetti took the bend under the railroad bridge fast. It was raining hard and the jeep skidded as he hit a mud slick but he corrected easily and roared on. The rain was pelting down on the canvas tilt and gusting in through the jeep’s open sides and he had to keep working the windshield wipers with his left hand so he could see where he was going. In the back there were ten bags of laundry – his own and nine from other pilots: shirts, underclothes, socks, pyjamas . . . everything they’d collected up. He slowed his speed as he entered the village, overtaking a coal merchant’s horse and cart trundling along and stopping dead with a screech of brakes for an old woman who stepped straight out in front of him and tottered across the street. She was dressed in long black garments and took her time, shooting him a malevolent look. Probably put some goddam spell on him. He turned into what they called the high street. Number fourteen, the kid had said.