Read Avalanche of Daisies for Free Online Page B

‘
From a warship somewhere off-shore, the landings are watched by General MacArthur.’
And the plump general was holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes, watching the carnage he’d commanded. No, she didn’t want to see any more.
    They struggled along the back row, past the outstretched feet and busy hands of all the snogging couples, and emerged into chill air and the monochrome of ordinary life. Barbara put up her hood and tied her red coat tightly about her waist, and they set off as if they knew where they were going. In fact they were walking aimlessly, away from the thought of death and injury, heading east into the wind and feeling decidedly cold after the fug in the cinema. It was evening and extremely dark, for although the moon was almost full, the clouds were still low and fast-moving, so its light was intermittent and unpredictable.
    Barbara tried to make conversation as they walked because she was still upset. ‘My ma loves the pictures,’ she said. ‘Specially musicals. She say they take her out of herself. I ain’t so sure that’s a good thing.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I suppose thass because you come back with such a bump afterwards. I mean, all that colour an’ everythin’ bright an’ a happy endin’, an’ then we come out to this, everythin’ grey an’ run-down an’ dusty. Nothing changed. The war still goin’ on. The Second Front coming.’ She’d always thought her mother’s escapism was pretty childish, now, shuddering with pity for those poor marines, it was an affront.
    â€˜It won’t last for ever,’ he tried to reassure. ‘Once we get going.’
    But that didn’t comfort her.
    They’d reached an open space where bare treesrustled their branches and a footpath led into the darkness. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘Is it a park?’
    â€˜Thass the Walks,’ she told him, pulling her mind away from death and invasion. ‘There’s a tower bit further up.’ And to prove her right, the clouds suddenly blew away from the moon and there it was in the moonlight, the Red Tower, stolid and hexagonal and faintly pink on its grassy mound. ‘Used to be part of the ol’ city walls,’ she said, as they walked towards it. ‘Part uv the ol’ defences. War again, you see. There’s never an end on it.’
    â€˜When this lot’s over,’ he told her seriously, ‘the first thing we’ll do is to find a way to stop the next one before it begins.’
    â€˜Thass all very well,’ she said. ‘But what about this one? Thass the one what ought to be stopped. I hate this war.’
    Her voice sounded so wild that he stopped walking and turned to look at her. She had an odd, taut expression on her face, as if she was fighting back tears, and the sight of it made him feel as if someone were pinching his heart.
    â€˜Please don’t look like that,’ he begged.
    She blinked and scowled, angry to be so near tears. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘It’s all so awful. People gettin’ bombed an’ shot an’ blown to pieces an’ drowned. An’ all for what? Thass what I want to know. All for what?’
    â€˜To stop the Germans,’ he told her earnestly. ‘They won’t stop till they’re beaten and if we don’t stop them they’ll get worse and worse.’
    She knew the truth of it. She’d always known the truth of it. But that didn’t stop the anguish. ‘Why hain’t there another way?’ she said wildly. ‘There ought to be another way.’
    â€˜We’ll find it,’ he promised. ‘Once there’s peace.’
    â€˜Once there’s peace!’ she echoed, mockingly. ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard all that.’ Her eyes were dark in themoonlight and lustrous with tears. ‘But when will it be?’
    â€˜Soon,’ he said.