you say comely, George?”
“Definitely comely,” said George.
They were off again and she found that all that was required of her was to laugh, which was easy. They ate baked beans on toast followed by doughnuts and cups of strong tea. Bill tried to wheedle an extra spoonful of sugar out of the waitress, but she refused.
“Don’t you know that there’s a war on?” she said, and Bill pretended to be amazed and cried, “No one told me – how ghastly!” and made so much noise that she gave him some sugar just to stop him.
“You young gentlemen are so insinuating,” she said, snatching the sugar bowl away and, as an afterthought, “I don’t know what the Government would say.”
The idea of the Government worrying about Bill’s extra teaspoonful of sugar was so remarkable that George, Bill and Max all needed another doughnut to get over it.
Anna watched them admiringly. How witty they were, she thought, and how handsome, and how English – and how strange to see Max virtually indistinguishable from the other two.
“Actually it’s funny,” said George. “That business of ‘Don’t you know that there’s a war on’. It doesn’t really seem as though there were, does it?”
“No,” said Max. “I don’t know what I thought it would be like if there was a war, but you’d imagine something more – well, urgent.”
Bill nodded. “When you think about the last one. All those people being killed.”
There was a pause.
Anna took a deep breath and decided to contribute to the conversation. “When I was small,” she said, “I was always very glad that I was a girl.”
They stared at her. Max frowned slightly. She’d made a mess of it as usual.
“Because of wars,” she explained. “Because girls couldn’t be sent into the trenches.”
“Oh yes, I see,” said George. They seemed to expect something more, so she gabbled on.
“But later my mother told me that there’d never be another war. Only by then I’d got used to the idea – of being glad that I was a girl, I mean. So I suppose it was really a good thing. Because,” she added with a degree of idiocy that astonished even herself, “I am a girl.”
There was silence until, mercifully, Bill laughed.
“And a jolly good thing too!” he said.
Never again, thought Anna. Never again will I say anything to anybody, ever.
But George nodded just as though she had said something sensible. “My mother was the same. She was always telling us that there’d never be another war. She was quite upset when this one happened.” His normal look of astonishment had intensified and some sugar from the doughnut had become stuck round his mouth, so that he looked suddenly very young.
“But I suppose if someone carries on like Hitler in the end there’s nothing you can do but fight him.”
“Fight him to the death!” Bill narrowed his eyes. “My God, Carruthers, there’s a machine-gun nest on that hill!”
George raised his chin. “I’ll go alone, sir.” His voice trembled with emotion. “But if I don’t come back …”
“Yes, yes, Carruthers?”
“Tell them it was – for England.” George stared bravely into the distance. Then he said in his ordinary voice, “Well, I mean, it’s so silly, isn’t it?”
They finished their doughnuts thinking how silly it was. Then Bill said, “I must fly.”
“Literally?” asked Max.
“Literally,” said Bill. He belonged to the University Air Squadron and they practised every Saturday afternoon.
George struggled to extract his long legs from under the table. “Flicks tonight?” he said.
“Sure.” Bill waved in a way that might or might not include herself, thought Anna. “See you then.” And he loped off into the street.
They waited while George wrapped a scarf round his long neck. “Actually,” he said, “I suppose it must feel even funnier to you – the war, I mean.” He looked at Max reflectively. “I always forget that you weren’t born here. It never occurs to anyone, you see,” he explained to Anna. “I’m sure Bill thinks he’s British to the backbone.”
“Sometimes I almost forget myself,” said Max so lightly that only Anna guessed how much it meant to him.
They walked back to the digs which Max and George shared. The landlady had lit a fire in their little sitting room and Max at once sat down by it with a pile of books and papers to write an essay on some aspect of Roman Law. George disappeared with the intention of taking a bath and could be heard in the next room discussing with the landlady the chances of the water becoming hot enough in time for him to profit from it before he had to go out again.
“Max,” said Anna, “I’m sorry – I know I’m not good with people.”
Max looked up from his work. “Nonsense,” he said. “You’re all right.”
“But I say such stupid things. I don’t mean to but I do – because I’m nervous I suppose.”
“Well, so is everyone else. You should have seen George and Bill before you came. They don’t know many girls. I’m the only one who does.”
Anna looked at him admiringly. “The trouble is,” she said, “I’m not like you.” In a burst of confidence she added, “Sometimes I wonder if I really belong in this country.”
“Of course you do!” Max looked shocked. “You belong just as much as I do. The only difference is that you went to a lousy school and it put you off.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know it,” said Max.
It was an encouraging thought. Max seemed about to go back to his books, so she said quickly, “There’s another thing.”
“What?” said Max.
“Well,” said Anna, “don’t you ever feel that we’re unlucky?”
“Unlucky? You mean about being refugees?”
“No, I mean for the countries we live in.” He looked puzzled, so she said, “Well, look what’s happened to Germany. And in France we’d hardly been there a year before they had a Depression. And as for England – you remember how solid it all seemed when we came, and now there’s a war, and rationing …”
“But that’s not our fault!” cried Max.
Anna shook her head glumly. “Sometimes,” she said, “I feel like the Wandering Jew.”
“You don’t look like the Wandering Jew. He had long whiskers. Anyway, as far as I remember he wasn’t considered to bring bad luck.”
“No,” said Anna. “But I don’t suppose anyone was very pleased to see him.”
Max stared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. “You’re potty,” he said affectionately. “Absolutely potty. And now I must do some work.”
He went back to his books and Anna watched him. The room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire. How marvellous to live like this, she thought. For a moment she tried to imagine herself at University. Not, of course, that they’d ever give her a scholarship like Max. But anyway, what would she do? Study law like Max, or English like George, or engineering like Bill? No – the only thing she really liked was drawing, and that was no use.
“By the way,” said Max telepathically, “what’s all this you wrote to me about a secretarial college?”
She