Chapter 8

Dear Rowan,

This is a bit awkward but here goes.

Would you like to come to Portsmouth to visit my parents? (And in that case, would sometime this week suit you?)

I had, of course, intended to fascinate you more thoroughly with my charming and witty conversation before my family revealed what an idiot I really am, so I'm taking a bit of a risk here. The thing is that Father has been promoted, and that Rear-Admiral Walker has been duly dispatched to foreign parts – in this case the Caribbean. Or rather he will be soon, and Mother is going with him nearly as soon. So, if you don't meet each other now, it may not happen for a number of years – and I would rather like you to meet them.

I can promise you they are nearly as non-embarrassing as one's own parents can ever be, if that is any inducement.

I hope you don't think this is too much of a cheek, and whether you can come to Portsmouth or not, I hope I'll see you soon. A week is a ridiculously long time.

I'll telephone on Monday evening, shall I?

Roger

He didn't think she would notice that the gap between the "I" and "l" was rather long, as if they had started as two separate words.

"I'm just going to the post." Roger stuck his head around door to the sitting room, where his mother was kneeling on the carpet; sorting books into three piles after his father had pulled them from the bookcase and dusted them. "Is there anything you want posting?"

"There's a letter to Susan on the mantelpiece with John's card. You did remember to sign the card didn't you?"

"Of course I did, at least, I think so. Is it still open?"

"Yes"

Roger checked.

"Please could I borrow your pen, Father?"

A few minutes later, the front door slammed after Roger.

Mary sat back on her heels and smiled up at her husband who was perilously perched on one of the dining room chairs.

"You know, I think he's taking this girl rather seriously."

Ted grinned. "I wonder if she has any idea what she's letting herself in for."

"Ted, it's not that bad! He's a lot more responsible than he lets on."

"Some of the time anyway." Ted got down from the chair.

"Well, I've managed to put up with you all these years. I'm sure this Rowan Marlow can manage Roger if she wants."

Ted put out both hands to help Mary to her feet.

"I'm very glad you're can come with me."

He had been saying the same thing, more or less, at least once a day for more than a week. Mary didn't mind how often she heard it.

RAF Benson

29th July

Dear Rowan,

How are you?

You mentioned that the time between hay and harvest was less busy. How would you feel about coming to Oxford for the day? It doesn't look to be too bad a journey by the train, and I thought a day in Oxford might be more of a change for you than surveying fields full of other people's pigs. Would this coming Saturday be alright for you?

Benson is OK. Quite good fun really. Still flying Mosquitoes and doing a certain amount of instructing, which I find I don't mind as much as thought I might, although it's not my favourite part of the job.

I'll telephone tomorrow to find out you can come to Oxford on Saturday, or if we need to make another plan.

See you soon, I hope,

Roger.

Roger was waiting to meet her on the platform, wrapping one arm around her waist and kissing her as soon as she had stepped out of the way of the other alighting passengers

"What would you like to do first?" He asked her. "A cup of coffee?"

"Yes, please."

"Come on then. I passed a place that looked promising on the way here. I should think it will be open by now."

It was indeed, and they had coffee and fruitcake.

"What would you like to do now?" Roger asked her after he had paid the bill. "Sightseeing? The shops?"

"Wouldn't that bore you?"

"I've been round Cambridge when Dick was there; not Oxford though. And I'm quite well trained in shopping. I do have three sisters. You couldn't possibly spend longer in a book shop than Titty – or look at more different versions of a thing than Susan before she makes up her mind."

"Maybe a bit of both." said Rowan, and they wandered further along the High looking into shop windows that caught their fancy, deciding to give the botanical gardens a miss and ducking into any colleges which looked interesting for a quick look around.

"I can see the attraction of university life." Roger admitted as they made a dignified but brisk exit from the main quad of Queen's College, having decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

"We did think it probably wasn't open." Rowan said.

"And there's no point courting trouble we don't have to." Roger agreed. "And a hat like that on a day like this is bound to put any chap in an unfortunate mood."

"Was it that funny?" he asked a few moments later, as Rowan still hadn't succeeded in stifling her chuckles.

"Just the phrase unfortunate mood." she said. "Do you regret it? Joining the RAF instead of going to university?"

"Who says I'd have got in?" Roger said, "Actually, the Physics master was rather keen on the idea of me having a bash at a schol. and after I'd visited Dick at Cambridge I thought I might enjoy three years of something like that – not that Dick got half the fun out of it that he could have. I still hadn't made up my mind about applying when it was made up for me. Anyway, the blighter always was an optimist although he liked to pretend otherwise. The physics master I mean, not Dick. What about you? Would you have thought of it – if you hadn't had your mind made up for you?"

"I thought I was in two minds about it. I mean I was doing OK at school, and I quite like learning things, and I would have enjoyed the societies and things, and the sports. But I didn't have any definite plans, so I wondered if it was justified. And then when Karen chucked it in I realised I minded dreadfully, only by then it was far too late to say so, and there were other things I minded too, more at the time."

"I'm sorry." said Roger squeezing her hand gently. "Poor choice of a place to meet then?"

"Still a good choice." said Rowan returning the squeeze as they wandered down to Magdalen Bridge.

"Would you if you could? Do a degree, I mean."

"I haven't even done my Highers," Rowan pointed out," so there's a fat chance of that. No, not unless it was a definite step to something else. Just doing a degree for the sake of it now, no. The right time has gone. Would you?"

"Wouldn't dream of it." Roger replied cheerfully. "Flying every day. Seeing a beautiful girl every weekend. What more could I want? Except seeing the beautiful girl during the week too. You do blush rather nicely – I didn't think I could make you blush."

Despite herself Rowan laughed as they turned and went up the gentle curve of the High again.

They threaded their way north, past the Radcliffe Camera and the Bodleian Library until they reached the junction of Broad Street and Holywell Street, then they turned right and left again into a little alleyway called Dogge Street, too narrow for any vehicle but a bicycle.

"One of the chaps at Benson told me there was a good place to eat along here." Roger explained to Rowan.

There was indeed, and both of them enjoyed the savoury crepes and had ice-cream for pudding in the tiny, higgledy –piggledy connected rooms that made up the café.

Rowan protested when Roger paid the bill again although she did wait until they were outside in the alleyway .

"I ought to pay my share – or I wish you would let me treat you sometimes."

"Don't worry about it – I rather like treating you. And I don't imagine Jon left very much apart from the farm – about the only thing that he wasn't daft enough to invest in was a haggis farm."

"Yes." Rowan replied.

That's me told. Roger thought.

Aloud he said "Do you want to go to Blackwells, since we are so near?"

They spent a pleasant half hour in Blackwells and emerged with the latest Harriet Vane, neat wrapped and carried by Roger.

"It seems extravagant not to wait for the cheap edition for a whodunit." Rowan remarked.

"It depends if you reread them. I'll admit I mostly don't, but then I read Susan's copy when I go to stay with her. Anyway, the only time I met her I liked her. She laughed at my jokes."

"Don't people usually?"

"It matters more when you're the best man and the jokes are in the speech."

"I can see that it might."

They wandered north a little and then back towards the centre of the city before having milkshakes and doughnuts at an American style café.

"May I see you next week end?" Roger asked.

"We'll have started the wheat harvest by then," Rowan said, "so I really can't take another day off."

"If I ride down to you?"

"I'll still be working."

"Could you use another pair of hands?"

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Of course I don't. It probably seems more tedious for you because you do it all the time. I will work properly and not mess about, honestly."

"Which ever day suits you then. And yes, I shall be glad of an extra pair of hands."

Holding hands and grinning at each other across the table didn't seem such a daft thing to do after all.