by Vicki Beeby
‘Thank God,’ she gasped. ‘Are you hurt?’
She would have checked Vera over, but Milan tugged her arm. ‘We must get away before the fire reaches us.’
Jess nodded and put her arm around Vera to help her through to the street.
* * *
‘Thank you. For everything.’ Jess, feeling limp from delayed reaction, clung to Milan’s arm as they walked back to the car. ‘If it weren’t for you…’ she shuddered and pressed closer to Milan’s side.
It was several hours later, Jess not wanting to leave her family until she was sure they were well and had shelter. Vera, while being bruised and dazed, had miraculously escaped serious injury. Mrs Prosser had kindly allowed Vera, Jack and Hannah to use her spare room for as long as they needed. Once Jess had bathed the dust from Hannah and treated her numerous scratches, she had put her to bed, dressed in a borrowed nightie. The little girl had clung to her, crying, and it had taken over an hour for her to calm down enough to sleep, clutching a toy rabbit another of their neighbours had given her. Before leaving, she had also given Vera and Jack all the money she had in her possession, little though it was. She had been moved but not surprised by how the whole street had come out in support, rallying round with clothes, food and shelter for those who had lost their homes.
‘You do not have to thank me. I would never have let you face that alone,’ Milan replied.
Jess gazed into Milan’s face. ‘I know. And it means so much to me.’
She had first been drawn to Milan because of his good looks and the glamour that clung to him as a pilot. As their friendship progressed, she couldn’t understand what it was about him that made it so difficult to stick to her intention of having fun but not getting too close. Now it hit her that the strength of his affection had made it impossible for her to forget him. Not his feelings but the way he made it clear he would always be there for her if she needed him. While she had flirted with other men, her relationship with Milan had never felt like simple flirtation, no matter how many times she had denied any deeper feelings.
‘Why did you wait so long for me?’ she asked.
He frowned. ‘I couldn’t leave you. The underground will have stopped running by now.’
She bit back a laugh. ‘Not tonight. I mean, after I left Amberton.’
His face cleared. ‘Oh. That is easy. No other woman has the combination of fire and compassion and fun. You are the only one for me. I have always known that.’
Another time she could have resisted the surge of feeling for him. There was something so poignant about his simple declaration, said in such a matter-of-fact tone, said, she was sure, with no expectation of return. Combined with her relief and gratitude, there was no resisting the impulse. She couldn’t hold back any longer. Standing on tiptoe, she leant forward and pulled the peaked cap from his head. Then, bracing her hands on his arms, she pressed her lips to his.
For a moment, Milan stood motionless. That awful split-second when she thought he would reject her advance told Jess all she needed to know about her feelings for him. Then he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, deepening the kiss. It was a good thing he held her so tight, or she was sure her legs wouldn’t support her. She pressed so close she could feel the hammering of his heart. Or was it hers? She was no longer sure. She slid her hands up his arms then wound her arms around his neck. After holding back for so long, now she never wanted to let him go. All she was aware of was the feel of his lips upon hers, the warmth of his body in contrast to the chill night air and the roar of blood in her ears.
‘Steady on, you two. Ain’t you got somewhere else to go?’
Jess stepped back in time to see the dark shape of an ARP Warden walk past. For once she was grateful for the blackout, as it hid her face which burned red hot.
Milan took her arm. ‘Come. Let us find the car.’
They walked a few steps towards the road where they had parked. Then Milan said, ‘Just to be clear, I kissed you back because I want us to be together. If you do not feel the same, I trust you to say so.’
‘I—’ several conflicting thoughts came to mind, tying her tongue. She knew beyond any doubt that she wanted to be with him, but she also knew she wasn’t good enough for him. Well, wasn’t it time he knew that? She couldn’t break with him, not again. However, if he knew the truth, he would do it for her.
She gulped. ‘I do feel the same but there’s something you need to know.’
‘Jess, if it’s about the other men you saw after leaving Amberton, I do not mind.’
‘No. It’s something else. It’s important.’
Milan stopped, pulling them into a shop doorway so they couldn’t be overheard by any passers-by. ‘Then tell me.’
Jess drew a deep breath. It was all very well deciding to tell him the truth, but this was something she had hidden for years. Not even Evie and May knew. ‘It’s hard for me to say. I don’t know how to begin.’
‘Begin at the beginning. That is what my babi – my grandmother – used to say.’
Jess nodded. She found she was shaking, her stomach churning. Why was she doing this? If she kept quiet, Milan need never know. Never know the worst of her. Although telling him was the best way to put him at a distance, she dreaded seeing the change in the way he looked at her. The sudden coldness in his expression. How long before he would suddenly come up with an excuse to explain why he couldn’t see her any more?
She removed her hand from his arm, not wanting to experience the rejection of him throwing off her hold. Balling her fists at her sides to conceal the trembling in her hands, she began. But where was the beginning of this particular sorry tale?
‘You know I was an actress before the war,’ she said finally. When Milan nodded, she went on, ‘It was a tough profession to get into. Maybe I had my head turned by doing well in local plays when I was still at school, but I soon learned my mistake. I’d go for endless auditions, and the waiting room would be full of other girls, all better looking and more talented.’
‘I cannot believe that.’
Despite the cold nausea gnawing at her stomach, Jess managed to flash Milan a grateful smile. ‘Flatterer,’ she said. ‘But believe it. London was teeming with girls all wanting to make it big on stage or screen. There wasn’t much hope for a working-class girl like me with no connections.’
‘You did get work, though.’
Jess nodded, swallowing. Now she was getting to the point of her story and she was finding it harder to force out the words. ‘I got lucky.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘Or I thought I was lucky.’ The eventual consequences had been far from lucky. ‘My favourite teacher, Miss Barrows, married a playwright.’ Jess remembered Miss Barrows with affection. Miss Barrows had always encouraged her, telling Jess she had talent, feeding her dreams. ‘When he got one of his plays into a small theatre off the West End, she put in a good word for me. He got me a small speaking part. Once I got my foot in the door, I managed to get other roles. All small parts, but they gave me hope I’d get my big break.’ It was funny, she reflected, how she had never been satisfied. When she’d started out, she’d looked in awe at the young women who had managed to get small speaking parts, thinking she’d be happy if only she could do the same. Then, when she’d got her first role, she’d been envious of the actresses regularly getting major roles. She supposed that if she’d ever achieved top billing in a play, she’d have been envious of Hollywood actresses. She never felt that way in the WAAF, even though there was a rigid hierarchy. Maybe it was because everyone worked as a team, supporting each other, knowing how vital it was for each person to succeed.
‘Did you get your big break?’
‘Nearly.’ Her voice caught. ‘That’s when I met Leo – Leonard Steele. I’d got a part as a chambermaid in a murder mystery play, and he was playing the lead – the detective.’
The sky was turning a pale grey, heralding sunrise. Looking over Milan’s shoulder, she could see shopkeepers unlocking doors and opening awnin
gs. A newspaper boy was setting up on a street corner. Jess hugged her arms to her chest, shivering in the cold air. A new day was dawning, and she should return to Bentley Manor to snatch some sleep before going on duty later that afternoon. Now she had started, though, she wanted – needed – to finish.
‘Leo took an interest in me. Said I had talent. Said he could help me make it big if… if…’
She saw from the sudden widening of Milan’s eyes the moment when comprehension dawned. She hastily looked away, not wanting to see his expression harden. The disgust.
She rushed on. ‘I really thought I loved ’im. Leo was so charming, flattering me, telling me I was the only girl for ’im.’ She swallowed. ‘If I didn’t love ’im, I’d ’ave never…’ She wasn’t usually stuck for words, but she couldn’t bring herself to say what had happened next.
‘He made you promises. Said you were the only girl for him.’
Jess looked at Milan in surprise. While his expression was grim, there didn’t seem to be any disgust aimed at her. ‘Yes.’
‘And you thought you were the only one he spoke to like that.’
‘Yes,’ she said again. It was the only word she could manage. Any minute now he would turn his back, walk away. No, she corrected herself, he wouldn’t leave her here alone. He would see her safely back to Stanmore before coming up with a sudden reason why he wouldn’t be able to see her again.
Milan raked his fingers through his hair, leaving a fresh smear of grime across his forehead. ‘You are not the first girl to fall for a man’s lies.’
Lies? Suddenly she was looking at her early relationship with Leo through the eyes of experience rather than remembering it as it had happened when she had been so young and naive. ‘I… why didn’t I see it before? I was young. Only seventeen. He seduced me.’
Milan’s expression was grim. Any minute now he would make an excuse why he couldn’t see her any more. Oh, he’d be kind; he wouldn’t say it was because he couldn’t bear to be with another man’s leavings, but she would know.
Suddenly she was gabbling, almost pleading. ‘I ’ad no idea. I mean, my auntie ’ad warned me not to let my ’ead get turned, but I ’adn’t really understood…’ If someone had asked why she was trying to justify her mistakes when she had started her confession with the intention of driving him away, she couldn’t have said.
‘Jess.’ Milan’s voice was gentle. She dared to meet his gaze and found no condemnation. Nothing but sympathy. ‘You do not need to explain yourself to me.’
She shook her head as though it would help her make sense of her confusion. ‘I don’t understand.’ Where was the disgust, the angry declaration that he could have nothing to do with a girl like her?
‘You made a mistake in believing the lies of a vůl like Leonard Steele. I do not believe that means you should suffer for that mistake for the rest of your life. In my eyes, Leonard Steele was far more in the wrong than you. Do you see him suffer for it, or being eaten up by guilt?’
‘He wouldn’t, would ’e? He’s a man. Men can get away with murder, whereas women just have to wear their hemlines a fraction too high or their neckline a tad too low, and they’re labelled hussies to the end of their days. That’s the way the world has always been.’
‘That does not make it right.’
Jess searched Milan’s face, looking for any sign of revulsion. She found nothing but compassion.
The newspaper boy shouted out the daily headlines, making her jump, and there was a rattle as a greengrocer opened up the shutters of her shop. Milan made a move as though to turn away and resume their walk.
‘Wait.’ Jess grabbed his arm. She couldn’t let him leave without knowing the worst. She closed her fingers upon his sleeve, bunching the cloth and twisting it in her fist. ‘Hannah ain’t my cousin,’ she said in a rush. ‘She’s my daughter.’
Chapter Seventeen
Milan’s heart melted at the sight of Jess’s face, her eyes wide and fearful. He had never known her be anything other than courageous and unflinching, so for her to shrink from him spoke volumes about the burden her secret must have been.
He couldn’t bear to see her this way, hands clenched into fists at her side as though she were bracing herself for rejection. He pulled her into his arms; with a sound that sounded partway between a sigh and a sob, she rested her head in the crook of his neck. ‘Oh, Jess.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I understand now.’ It explained so much about her, why she had always tried to push him away whenever he got too close to her secrets.
She pulled back, although only enough so she could frown up at him. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.’
If he could lay his hands on Leonard Steele right now, he would make a mess of that handsome, cocky face. ‘If I were to reject everyone who has ever made a mistake, I would be very lonely.’ He caught both her hands in his own, warming the chilled skin, doing everything he could to reassure her with his actions as well as his words. ‘However, if I condemn you, I must also condemn my sister.’
‘Your sister?’ The frown line between Jess’s eyes deepened. ‘Then your nephew—?’
‘Is better off not knowing the conniving, smooth-talking bastard who is his father. He left my sister broken-hearted when she told him he had left her with child.’ He made no attempt to hide the rage that bubbled up when he thought of the speed with which the man had left his sister’s life after she had told him she was pregnant with his child.
‘Leo didn’t leave me. I left him.’ Jess held his gaze as though willing him to think worse of her. ‘I never told him I was pregnant.’
Milan wasn’t going to let Leo escape condemnation so easily. ‘Did he ever ask? It should have occurred to him it was possible.’
Jess shook her head and studied her shoes. He could see she had taken all the shame onto herself, was blaming herself and excusing Leo.
‘Jess,’ he said gently, ‘We all make mistakes. I do not believe it is right that women should be made to feel more shame than men.’
‘Then you don’t—?’
Milan answered her the best way he knew how. He tilted her face to his with a finger under her chin and kissed her, pouring all the love and comfort he wanted her to feel into the kiss. Above all, he felt light-headed with relief. He hadn’t known Jess long before her courage and loyalty, combined with her fun-loving nature, had made her stand out in his mind above all the other girls he had known. She hadn’t struck him as cruel, so had found it hard to understand why she had refused all contact with him after she left Amberton, declaring she had never loved him. Now it was clear she had just been trying to protect herself from the hurt of what she had foreseen as the inevitable rejection when he learned the truth.
When the need to breathe forced him to break the kiss, Jess laid her head upon his shoulder with a small sigh. ‘I’m sorry I doubted you,’ she said. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me once you found out.’
‘You could have kept it secret,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘Why did you not?’
Jess lifted her head and leaned back to look into his face, her blue eyes serious. ‘I could never let you go on believing a lie. Not when I’m…’ Something in her expression changed and suddenly she was the forthright, brave young woman he knew her to be. ‘Not when I’m falling in love with you.’
It was something he had known ever since their first dance before the Battle of Britain; he would never have pursued her so single-mindedly if he hadn’t believed his feelings to be returned. To hear her admit her feelings, however, made him giddy with joy. Finally Jess was letting him see the woman beneath the flashy, flirty veneer. ‘I am in love with you, too, but I think you already knew that.’
Jess’s answering smile made his heart skip. ‘Ah, but I don’t know what made you fall for me in the first place.’
He didn’t even need to pause to think. ‘It was the first time we all went to the pub together, after our first le
sson.’ By ‘we’, he meant the Czechoslovakian members of Brimstone squadron, whom Jess and Evie had been ordered to teach English. Newly arrived in England, burning with hatred for the Nazis who had overrun his country, he had been impatient with Fighter Command for denying him the right to fly combat missions and had taken out his impatience on Evie during their first lesson. Evie’s cool handling of the situation had impressed him, but it was Jess, and her loyal defence of her friend at the pub later, who had captured his heart. ‘Even then I saw there was more to you than met the eye. It makes me happy that you trust me enough to show me who you are at heart.’
Her smile growing brighter, Jess said, ‘You mean you can finally see the tree beneath the tangle of ivy?’
He laughed. ‘It is very beautiful ivy, but it cannot match the tree at the core.’
A playful light danced in Jess’s eyes. ‘Tell me, what kind of tree am I? If you say oak, I may need to stop eating all the potatoes we’re given in the mess.’
‘Not an oak. An oak is…’ he groped for the right word and could only adequately describe them using a musical term. ‘Is largo. Wide and slow. Dignified.’
Jess’s nose wrinkled. ‘I don’t think any girl would appreciate being described that way.’
‘I shall remember that.’
‘So go on – what am I?’
He paused for a moment while he thought. ‘You are a birch. Light and silvery. Shimmering. Allegro.’
‘Now you’re talking.’
‘Ah, but there are more to birches than meet the eye. They survive storms that can fell great oaks, and they thrive in conditions too harsh for other trees. They are beautiful but also strong. Very strong.’
Jess laid her head back on his shoulder, blinking. After a moment she ran her thumb under her eyes; her hand trembled slightly. ‘Do you really not mind about Hannah?’ she asked eventually. ‘I thought you would run a mile.’