house in Victoria Street in the old centre of Melsham and leased a builder’s yard from which he ran his business. But he had plans, had mapped out his progress through life as if planning the route for a long trek, step by step, including, it seemed, when he should marry. Thirty or thereabouts was the right time, he told her, when he’d had time to make something of himself, a little money behind him to offer a wife, to know what he wanted.
‘And what do you want?’
‘A thriving business, a motor car, a nice house, and a wife and family.’
She laughed. ‘In that order?’
‘It is the most sensible order.’ He seemed relaxed, but he was twirling the stem of his empty wine glass in his fingers and she realised he was nervous. It made him suddenly more human.
‘Are you always sensible?’
‘I try to be. It’s the way I’ve been brought up, I suppose. Having no father, I’ve been the man in the house since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. My mother made great sacrifices to give me a good start in life and I can’t let her down.’
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ she murmured, wondering how long it would be before the stem of the glass broke in his hands.
‘I served my apprenticeship with Gosport’s before the war. Even then old Gosport was a doddery old fellow, too slow by half.’
‘You didn’t go into the army yourself?’
‘Yes, I served nearly two years.’ He had been twenty-three when war broke out, fit and healthy, just the sort of man the army were looking for, but his mother had persuaded him she needed him more than his country did: he was her only support and without him she could never manage and so he had resisted the blandishments of the posters telling him his country needed him. That did not mean he was a coward but, as his mother pointed out, not everyone was a fighter and someone had to keep the country running. He could also see advantages: with so many men away, the war might provide opportunities for advancement if he kept his wits about him. In 1916, short on volunteers and with more and more casualties decimating the numbers of men in uniform, the government had introduced conscription and he had been called up.
To his mother’s enormous relief, he had not been drafted overseas immediately but set to work with a paintbrush on some barracks being built for the new intake, and later for the Americans who came over in their thousands. He had kept his head down and got on with his work but the time had come when he was put on a draft to go to France. The week before he was due to go, the war ended.
‘You didn’t go back to Mr Gosport afterwards?’ she asked.
‘No. I decided the time had come to set up on my own account.’
‘And stole his customers.’ She didn’t know why she made such a bald statement, except perhaps to pull him out of his complacency, but if that was the case it didn’t work.
‘It’s a competitive world out there, Barbara. Gosport understands that. I only took the small stuff he didn’t want. I’m not big enough to compete for anything else. But one day I will be. The profit I make from the flats will be ploughed back into the business, into getting more and bigger contracts. Then I’ll take on more men; I’m going to be somebody in this town, Barbara.’
‘Do you always get what you want?’
‘Not always right away, but I persevere until I do.’
He was insufferably confident and she didn’t know why she agreed to see him again but she did, and over the long vacation, except for the fortnight she and her father were walking in Scotland, they spent almost every evening and Sunday afternoon together. He treated her with courtesy, bought her chocolates and flowers and made her aware of her own sexuality, though he had done no more than kiss her. And that he did well, making her want more, but afraid of where it might lead. He must have known how she felt, because he always drew back from the edge, leaving her aching and breathless, but at the same time relieved. She didn’t think she would have the courage to say no if it came to the crunch. Was she falling in love with him?
When the new term started they would not be able to see each other so often.