Chapter 2

Summer 1950

Roger felt cheerful enough about accompanying his parents to the summer ball, even though the evening would involve less drinking than his usual idea of a really good party. After all, you never knew your luck; the band might yet show they could play something a bit livelier by the time the dancing really got going. It would be foolish of the musicians to waste much energy when everyone was still at the introductions stage and waiting for the dance floor to fill up a little lest they made themselves conspicuous.

Father was introducing him to three other captains. Roger might even have remembered the names of the first two, for the course of the evening, if the third hadn't been…

"We've met before, at Trennels, sir." Roger said, with an apologetic sideways glance at his father as he held out his hand to the third captain. Geoffrey Marlow, Jon's cousin, had unlike Jon evidently not returned to civilian life for to do his duty by the ancestral acres. "Jon was a good friend."

Captain Marlow hadn't recognised Roger, perhaps understandably given the circumstances of the last time they had met, but he reacted quickly enough saying all the right things and introducing his daughter, Ginty. Roger duly asked her to dance. They weren't the very first couple on the floor.

Ginty danced well and was probably, so far as Roger could tell without staring around rudely at the other dancers, the most beautiful girl in the room. Her long frock was made of some sort of floaty turquoise fabric and somehow looked more sophisticated than his sisters' first grown-up evening dresses had been. Conversation would be a little easier if Roger could remember which of Jon's cousins she actually was. Not Rowan, who had proved oddly unforgettable, nor the girl who had walked with him to the station – Ann? Mary? Something like that. Was his dancing partner the one reading Classics at Oxford? Or would she have finished? Was this one of the little schoolgirl ones – but surely three years would not make so much difference? He had the vague idea that there had been another girl, or maybe two, absent from that lunch – it would be awkward if he said he remembered Ginty and she hadn't. Ginty had asked him all the usual polite questions; he really would have to ask her something about herself in a minute.

"And what about you – what do you enjoy doing?" Roger hoped her answer would give him enough of a hint to carry on the conversation without putting his foot in it too badly.

Ginty needed little encouragement to talk about her horse Catkin, which didn't give Roger much of a clue until she mentioned school. That ruled out the reading Classics one. She was one of the schoolgirl cousins then – although presumably one who had just left, since she was here at this summer ball. Ginty enthused further about Catkin and hunting. It was quite reasonable of her to assume that Jon's friend would share the same interests as Jon. Roger nevertheless found the distance between the Jon Marlow he had known and the life at Trennels described by Ginty somewhat disconcerting. The dance ended. He asked Ginty for a second dance. She asked him about his hobbies and he mentioned fishing.

"Oh, Dad likes sea-fishing, but I suppose you don't get much of a chance."

"Not as much chance as I'd like – but I mostly fish in rivers and tarns."

"Tarns?"

"A small lake, in the Lake District – I don't know whether they use the word elsewhere - too small to sail on but enough to fish in would be a description."

"Oh – do you come from the Lake District? I've got a friend who lives in Keswick."

"I'm not from the Lake District, but we went there on holiday a lot when we were kids. I suppose you could say my brother lives there – at least his wife and kids do. He's on HMS Bravery* somewhere in the Atlantic at the moment, I suppose. Have you visited Keswick much then?"

"A couple of times – Monica - my friend was terribly badly injured in an accident a few years ago and so of course I went there for the Christmas holidays."

"I'm sorry to hear that – I hope she recovered well?"

"Of yes," said Ginty, "Pretty well, only she's not quite as good at diving or swimming as she was – nor at tennis."

Conversation lapsed into a brief silence that might have been uncomfortable, had they not been dancing.

"I haven't seen much of Derwent Water – I've only been to Keswick once, in fact. Did you like it?"

It had been not long after the end of the war, when Nancy and Peggy and their babies were still living at Beckfoot and Bridget was still working at Low Farm. Mrs Dixon's father had been taken ill, and Mrs Dixon had been sent for urgently. Roger had had just enough petrol to get them to Keswick and (probably) back on the Norton. It had been half-day closing in Keswick and he had wandered around the town in between wintery showers until it was time to take Mrs Dixon back. He had never known her be so quiet. Roger realised that he had forgotten whatever it was that Ginty had just said. Luckily the number was drawing to a close. Was this ball so formal that he should escort Ginty back to her mother? No, because Mrs Marlow was managing to keep her feet from under those of an awkward lieutenant very creditably, but there, talking to a middle aged lady was the Marlow girl who had walked him with him to the station. Roger still wished he could remember her name. He remembered it was something plain.

The middle aged woman was one of the gushing sort. "Well it so nice to see you again, Ann, I haven't seen you since you were ten, I think. And here's Virginia all grown-up too. What a lovely dress, Virginia, is this the one made by the wonderful Doris your mother has been tell me all about? I dare say you don't remember me, but I remember you very well of course….."

Roger didn't hear the rest, because as soon as he murmured "May have the pleasure?" Ann gave him a beaming smile and allowed herself to be danced off. They had quickstepped half way around the dance floor before it occurred to Roger that Ann might not remember him.

"I'm sorry, Ann," he said, "I suppose I should have reintroduced myself. I would quite understand if you didn't remember me, considering the circumstance the last time we met."

"Of course I remember you, Wing Commander Walker."

"I'm not that much older than you – I'd rather you called me Roger – unless you'd rather I called you Miss Marlow, of course. But then that would be your sister, whose first name I'm sorry to say I do forget."

They passed Roger's Mother, suffering under both left feet of another lieutenant with a determined smile.

"Although I do manage to remember she's reading classics. I supposed she must have graduated this summer?" Roger continued.

"Karen is actually Mrs Dodd now, with three children." Ann replied.

"Triplets?" Roger couldn't help sounding surprised.

"Stepchildren." Ann explained. "Their mother is dead."

Roger knew he wasn't the best at picking up nuances – all his sisters told him so regularly. He did get the impression that Ann was being rather determinedly positive.

"And I suppose you must have finished school a year ago? Or just this year? What are you planning to do?"

"Nursing. I've got a place at St. Thomas's, but I don't start until September."

"My eldest sister is a nurse. She trained in London too. Have you decided on any particular branch of nursing when you qualify?"

Unlike Ginty, Ann didn't have that indefinable air of being aware of her own beauty and wondering if you had noticed. Not that Ann herself wasn't pretty enough in her own way. Roger found dancing with Ann more enjoyable than dancing with Ginty. It was rather like dancing with one of his sisters, or one of the Amazons, except that Roger thought Ann danced rather better.