Our Time is Now 2

By Thomas Weaver

Mary is worried she is over-sexed, but that is the least of Tommy’s worries. Their love is strong, and yet as powerful as their passion is for each other, their physical relationship remains within firm, frustrating limits Mary has set. Tommy is more concerned about the likelihood he will be called up into the armed forces, or forced to work down the mines. Making plans for the future is difficult, but they are determined. With the prospect of a job for Tommy, it seems they may achieve everything they want, but Tommy is still struggling to cope with Mary, with her mother who looks and behaves more as though she is Mary’s sister, and with the young women who work with Mary at the factory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Strict Publishing International
• Release date: Jun 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9780857790859

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Our Time is Now

book two

by Thomas Weaver

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Thomas Weaver

Published by Strict Publishing International

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Introduction

Romance in 1941 was not easy for anyone, and yet the passions of maturing teenagers were as powerful and vibrant as at any time before or since. Rebelling against the conventional morality of the 1940s, Tommy and Mary’s discovery of their passion for each other took them on a journey of exploration of their powerful sensuality.

This is the story of the development of their love and their relationship, leaving little to the imagination, set against the background of the war and the fear not only of the almost nightly bombing of their town but also the likelihood that Tommy will be called up into the Armed Forces. Living for the day, each passionate moment they had together was precious…

In the first book in this series, the love Mary and Tommy had for each other was developing into steamy passion, and yet there were still limits defined by Mary and respected by Tommy. Tommy needs a job, and there is an ever-present fear that he will be called up into the armed forces, or compelled to work down the mines. Although he has no formal qualifications, his experience as a motor mechanic gives him a good chance of being taken on at the local factory. He sometimes finds Mary difficult to understand, and is struggling to cope with Mary’s mother, Pat, who looks and behaves more like Mary’s sister than her mother.

Chapter One: Pat’s Story

Mary kissed me and then Pat, and we said, Goodnight. After Mary had gone upstairs, Pat said, That’s a first, Mary kissing me goodnight. She doesn’t usually do that. She put the flagon of cider and her glass within easy reach on the edge of the table and sat on the settee.

Well, it is an important time, I told her. Or, at least, it’s a rather exciting time for both of us. I feel the same about my parents; like I want to hug them and all that. It’s like thanking them for having me or something. I think Mary is just the same. Maybe? I don’t know, but it feels something like that.

Yes, Pat agreed. But, you know, after all the trouble we went through holding on to Mary from the first second she was born, I’ve never regretted having her, not for one moment. I’ve travelled half way round the world and back to keep her. I thought I was going to lose her to that part of my life again, but good old Tommy came along to save the day! I say ‘the day’? Not the day. My whole life. Mary is all I’ve got, and I dreaded the thought of her going off to America and then Australia. She might never have come back. Pat paused, filling up my glass with beer from a new bottle.

Her father was Australian and an officer in the merchant navy. He was waiting for his papers to come through to be a captain when he met my mother. His family owned coastal ships, but they also had two sea going merchant ships, I think. I didn’t really understand it all, except that the shipping line was based in Sydney. My mum and I did not know this at the time, and we only found out later when I got pregnant with Mary. Her dad’s name was Malvin but we usually called him Mal.

Pat did not seem to be with me as she spoke, but back in time somewhere. Here? Australia?

He was very tall, very blond and like a man of bronze with his golden tan. He made a big fuss over me from the first time I met him, and every time after that he always brought me a present whenever he came back to us from his regular trip between here and Australia. I was swept off my feet by him. I saw him like one of those adventurers you read about in boys’ comic books, and I was very much in love with him. I could hear mum and him in mum’s bed sometimes of a night and I cried with jealousy. I knew what they were doing, and I used to lie there wishing it was me. Fourteen or twenty-one if you start early with your raging urges, what’s the difference? You satisfy them one way or another. That’s why you have to keep an eye on your daughters, because you need to remember what it was like for you.

Pat stopped talking. She was somewhere deep in her memories, but still drinking from her glass of cider and refilling it from the flagon. She was getting well little tipsy, to say the least. The thoughts and memories seemed to be taking her far off into a world of her own. I sat next to her on the settee with my glass and my bottle of beer. This, I thought, might be a long night.

You know, Pat continued, "We used to live in the city down by the docks. The house where we lived was not like this one. It was very old fashioned, and the doors inside were like outhouse or shed doors with a latch pretty much the same. When Mal was home, I never used to leave him alone and mum would get very annoyed with me. We never had a bathroom either, and we used to get bathed in a tin bath in front of the fire in the kitchen. Mal was having a bath one night and I lifted the latch and walked in on him. He was standing getting dried, as it happens drying his back and I saw everything. I just said. ‘Oops sorry,’ and I started to go back out but I could not take my eyes off him. To my surprise, he said, ‘No hurry,’ so I didn’t hurry. After that day I used to creep down to the door every time he was bathing and look through the hole where the latch was. It did all kind of strange things to my feelings somehow. I felt that he knew I was looking, but I didn’t care. Then one day he stepped out of the bath and came to the door, opened it and said, ‘You’re going to get a cold standing there in that draught. You had better come in.’ Now that it came to it, I was very hesitant, but I could not keep my eyes off him. He put his arm around my shoulders and guided me into the kitchen and, picking me up, he went with me in his arms to a chair by the table and sat down with me on his knee. He turned me to face him and he started kissing me and I was kissing him back. He started lifting my dress then. It was easy, I suppose, seeing I was astride his lap. He did it to me then and it was very rough and harsh; a very bumpy ride that I thought would never end, but it did and afterwards I just lay against him until he stood up pushed me out of the door.

"They say a girl never forgets her first time, and that was something I’ll never forget.

"After that we did it lots of times, but it was not rushed, rough or harsh as it was the first time. He seemed to know just were mum was and how long she would be out. I think he timed his baths for when he knew mum would be out for quite a while. because mum was never around when we did it. It did not stop there either, and we did it all over the house.

I asked him if he was going to tell mum because she should know that we were going to get married now, but he hit the roof and asked me if I wanted to see him go to jail. He said that if mum found out what we were doing, we would never see each other again. He also told me that he loved us both very much and wanted to spend the rest of his life with us, but if I was to tell anyone about it then it would be the finish, the end of it for all of us.

Pat moved on the settee, half turning to me. I never told anyone about this, not even my best friend Joan. You won’t repeat it, will you?

No, I would never do that, I told her. I was fascinated by what she was telling me. Go on, finish what you were saying, I said. I could see it was the drink that was making her talk, but now I had heard this much I wanted to hear all of it.

She moved, leaning against my arm and shoulder, and almost spilling some of her drink. She readjusted her position with her head on my shoulder until she felt comfortable. For a while, she was so quiet that I wondered if she had gone to sleep.

Oh, yes, Pat said suddenly, as if she just remembered she had been talking and where she had stopped.

"We were at it quite a lot for a couple of months, and then I got caught: pregnant. I did not know anything about it then. I knew something was different about me, but not what it was. Mum found out and then she found out who it was because I told her, but mum blamed me for ‘vamping’ him and said I would not leave him alone.

"Well, for mum a back street abortion was out of the question and against everything she believed in, but we could not stay around there; not with me in that state.

"Mum still wanted to marry Mal, and Mal probably thought he had no choice. I didn’t know that, and we were still doing it for a while. I was only sixteen, and I did not know a lot. In those days it was a case of ‘children should be seen and not heard’, pregnant or not, so it was all most confusing for me. Anyway, they decided in the end that we, Mal, mum and I, would pack up everything here and go to Australia where mum and Mal would be married. When it came to it the baby, it would be mum’s and not mine, making us sisters to everyone else. I learned, years later, that this was all Mal’s idea, but it sounded like what mum would have wanted because she loved Mal as much as I did. When we got to Australia, Mal put us in a house in Sydney, a better place than we had here but it was not one of the better places in Sydney either.

"We never met Mal’s family until after Mary was born. Mal still came and stayed with us whenever he came home, and mum went on at him about a better house outside Sydney. He must have been asking his family for the money as he kept saying he was trying to arrange it. When Mary was about six months old, we finally moved to a large house in the suburbs, but it was far away from his family home on the opposite side of the city. Then came the day that we met with his folks. They clearly did not like us before we met and liked us a lot less when they did.

"Eventually, Malvin and mum were getting ready to be married. It seemed Malvin stood his ground on this, even if his family objected.

"So far, he had not been near me since we got on the boat to go to Australia. I was yearning for some attention from him, but he seemed not to show the slightest interest in me.

"Something like a year after the marriage, Malvin seemed to be going away for longer and longer. Mum often went to see Mal’s family, but they were never very welcoming. It was very rare that I went, but the once when I did go, one of Mal’s family tried to get me to admit Mary was not Mal’s. Then one day when Mary had just had her fourth birthday, Mal’s father himself came to see mum with a proposition. They talked for a long time, but I wasn’t able to hear any of it. As far as I know, they agreed that they would settle a certain sum of money on Mary for the day she was twenty-one, and mum could sell the house and keep the money and go back to England. He, Mal’s dad would be in touch with their solicitor in England to get us a house that we could move into straight away so we would not be homeless when we got here. I don’t know what went on between mum, Mal and Mal’s dad, but mum agreed. She also agreed to a divorce.

"Mum never got divorced. Malvin, his ship and everyone aboard, were lost at sea. No one knows what happened. Some wreckage was found but that was all, and we’ve never heard from Mal’s family since.

Mum never said much to me about it; not then and not at any time since, but she was very bitter about it all. All she ever said was that Mary and I would be all right from then on, and here we are.

Pat yawned for the twentieth time since she started talking. There then, she said. What do you think of that little lot?

I would not call it a little lot, I told her, trying to be somewhat diplomatic. Things happen, is all I can say.

Mary’s never looked on me as her mother, only as her older sister. I don’t even think she thinks about it any more, or if she ever will.

I don’t know what to say about that, but ever since I’ve known you I’ve always thought of you as her mum, I told her. You know how things get about. I would not know how rumour, but something was said when we were at school. I can’t remember who or when, but somehow I knew.

Mum made no secret of it when we got back here, but most people still looked on us as sisters. A rather groggy Pat sat up and, with an effort, poked some life into the fire. Twelve o’clock gone, she said. Have you got to be anywhere in the morning?

No, the only one I’m meeting tomorrow is Mary, and we are going into the city. We’ve a ring to buy.

You two, Pat said, settling back down next to me on the settee again, Have got it all planned out, haven’t you? I’ll wager Mary gets one of those cottages, and she will make sure you open that business you talked about. She is so determined to make it all work for both of you. I don’t think anyone could be happier than she is now that she is engaged to you. I should hate to think this war is going to interrupt it all by you getting called up and going away.

I decided some time ago that I was not going to let that bother me, I told her. I used to worry myself sick about it and what it could do to me, but now I just don’t think about it at all. If it comes, it comes. I’ll just have to face it and pray for good fortune.

Good fortune? Everyone’s going to need lots of that, Pat said, picking up the cider flagon and looking down the neck to the bottom. Do you know you’ve drank all of this cider?

Have I? Oh yes, sorry about that, I answered. I don’t usually drink that much.

Done yourself proud tonight then, Pat said, swaying a little as she stood up. How you going to get home with the room moving around like it is?

I’ll just have to lean on you, I told her as I stood up. Placing my arm around her shoulders and taking her arm, I held her steady and started guiding her towards the stairs. After some unsteadiness, we managed to get halfway up.

You know, this is the closest I’ve be to a man in nearly eighteen years. On my stairs, I mean. In fact, there has never been a man on my stairs. No! Wait a minute, you can’t come up here, can you? she asked.

Only as far as your bedroom door. After all, I am a gentleman, you know.

Ar! Yes, well, keep away from the latch, won’t you? No peeping.

Agreed, I said. No peeping. We stopped at her bedroom door. Night, then, I said.

She staggered into the room and with a half hearted wave collapsed onto