Staring at the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

complaining that there wasn’t enough room for the three of them, let alone four, and on the Thursday Tommy Prosser arrived. He was a short, slim man in RAF uniform with black hair brilliantined down and a little black moustache. The case under his arm was circled by a leather strap. He looked sideways at Jean as she opened the door, then glanced away, smiled at the wall, and announced, as if to a superior officer, “Sergeant-Pilot Prosser.”
    “Oh. Yes. They said.”
    “Very good of you and all that.”
    His tone was expressionless, but his unfamiliar northern accent sounded scratchy to Jean, like a rough shirt.
    “Oh. Yes. Mother will be home at five.”
    “Would you like me to come back then?”
    “I don’t know.” Why didn’t she know anything? He was going to live with them, so presumably it made sense to ask him in. But then what happened? Would he expect tea or something?
    “It’s all right. I’ll come back at five.” He looked at her, glanced away, smiled at the wall and walked off down the path. From the kitchen window Jean saw him sitting on the verge acrossthe road, staring at his case. At four o’clock it began to rain, and she asked him in.
    He’d been posted up from West Malling. No, he didn’t know how long for. No, he couldn’t tell her why. No, not Spitfires, Hurricanes. Oh dear, already she was asking the wrong questions. She pointed up the stairs to where his room was, uncertain whether it was rude not to accompany him or forward to do so. Prosser didn’t seem to mind. Apart from his name, he had volunteered no information, asked no questions, commented on nothing, not even the way everything was freshly polished and smelt nice. They had given him the box room. There hadn’t been time to decorate it, of course, but they had hung Aunt Evelyn’s pictures on the wall for him.
    He kept to his room most of the time, appearing punctually for meals and answering Father’s questions. It was odd to have two men in the house. At first Father deferred to Sergeant-Pilot Prosser; he enquired with tactful admiration about the life of an airman, spoke with comradely contempt of “Jerry,” and would jokingly instruct Mother to “give another helping to our hero of the stratosphere.” But Prosser didn’t seem to answer Father’s questions in the right spirit; he accepted extra helpings without the extravagant thanks Mother clearly expected; and though he willingly helped with the blackout curtains, he appeared slothful in discussions about North African strategy. It became clear to Jean that Prosser was a disappointment to Father; equally clear that he knew it, and didn’t mind. Perhaps they just weren’t asking him the right questions yet. Perhaps heroes who flew Hurricanes required special questions. Or maybe it was that he came from another part of the country: somewhere in Lancashire, near Blackburn, he said. Perhaps they had different ways of behaving up there.
    Occasionally, when they were alone in the house, Prosser would come down, lean against the kitchen door and watch her ironing, or making bread, or polishing the knives. At first she felt embarrassed, but then less so; having a witness to her tasks made her feel more useful. Talking to him wasn’t any easier when herparents were out, though. He didn’t always answer questions; he could get prickly; sometimes he would simply look away and smile, as if remembering some aerial manoeuvre she couldn’t possibly understand.
    One day, as she was cleaning the stove, he announced crossly, “I’m grounded, you see.”
    She looked up, but before she could reply, he went on, “I used to be called Sun-Up, Sun-Up Prosser.”
    “I see.” This seemed a safe answer. She went back to smearing brown oven paste on the inside of the stove. Prosser stamped off to his room.
    For several weeks, the atmosphere in the house was uneasy. This is just like the Phoney War, Jean thought; except that there probably wouldn’t be any fighting at the end of