Where the Heart Is

by Annie Groves

  Of course she was put straight back in bed, and the MO sent for, right in the middle of his tea. Sister left Lou in no doubt that she was in disgrace, as she pointed out severely that if Lou had fallen on theward’s shiny linoleum floor, it wouldn’t just be her wound she would have to recover from, it would be a broken bone as well.

  Bearing all that in mind, Lou quailed a little as, later, she watched Sister Wilson coming towards her, her cape on, obviously ready to change shifts with the night sister.

  No doubt she was going to be in for another drubbing, Lou thought warily, but instead of telling her off, to her astonishment Sister announced crisply, ‘From tomorrow morning you are to have two separate one-hour exercise periods a day, during which you will have one of my nurses in attendance and I shall be watching you to make sure that you do not try to run before you can walk.’

  A thin smile touched Sister’s mouth as though she was pleased with her own joke, emboldening Lou to say humbly, ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  ‘It is not me you should thank for the fact that you are able to undertake such exercise with two legs, Campion, it is Alexander Fleming, and the new drug that has resulted from his research.’

  When Lou looked blank, Sister explained, ‘Without the injections of penicillin you received after the operation to remove the piece of metal from the fuselage from your leg, it is more than likely that you could have succumbed to blood poisoning, which in turn would have meant the amputation of your leg. Now that you are aware of that I trust you will treat the limb that Professor Fleming’s research has allowed you to retain with a little more respect.’

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ was all that Lou could manage to say.

  TWELVE

  ‘Can you see Lou yet, Grace?’ Anxiously Jean craned her neck to search the faces of the mass of people on the platform of Lime Street Station.

  There must be nearly as many people in uniform as there had been when she and Sam had come here to say goodbye to Luke when he had left for France right at the beginning of the war, Jean felt sure. Only now, of course, it wasn’t just young men in army uniform, uncertain of themselves and new to war, but young men and women, in a variety of uniforms–so many, in fact, that Jean was worried that she might not be able to pick her daughter out amongst the sea of faces.

  ‘Lou will find us, I’m sure, Mum,’ Grace tried to reassure her. ‘We said we’d meet her here, near to the tea stand.’ Privately Grace had anxieties of her own for her younger sister. Being a nurse herself she had read between the lines of Lou’s nonchalant statement: ‘I shall probably still be on crutches, but they don’t hold me up very much.’ She worried about just how badly Lou had been hurt.

  The official letter her parents had received, andwhich her mother had shown her and Seb this morning when they had arrived in Liverpool ready to welcome Lou home, had not told them much other than that Lou had been injured ‘performing an act of bravery’ but that her life was not in any danger.

  Rather irritatingly, when she had looked at Seb for enlightenment of this military phrasing, instead of returning her look he had exchanged very male glances with her father.

  ‘It’s all very well Lou writing to say that we aren’t to worry and that she’s almost as good as new, I shan’t be easy in my mind until I’ve seen for myself. I just hope that she hasn’t been making a bad situation worse by acting daft and taking risks,’ Jean sighed, able to confide in her eldest daughter now that Grace herself was grown up and married.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll be allowed to do that, Mum,’ Grace comforted her. ‘Not if the WAAF is anything like being a nurse.’

  ‘Well, that’s another thing, Grace. Knowing what Lou’s like and how she only has to hear the word “no”, or be told to do something, for her to do her utmost to do just the opposite, I can’t help worrying about her being in uniform. Naturally, me and your dad were against it when we found out that she’d joined up, but we agreed that she’d have to take her medicine and stick with it–well, at least that’s what your dad said–but that doesn’t mean either of us wants her to be unhappy.’

  ‘As if anyone would ever think you wanted anyof us to be other than happy, Mum,’ Grace smiled, slipping her arm though Jean’s.

  Grace loved every member of her family, but in her opinion her mother was just the best mother in the world.

  ‘I’m surprised that Sasha didn’t want to come with us,’ Grace continued.

  ‘Well, I think she was afraid she’d be too upset and go and make a fool of herself. She’s not said a lot since we heard the news, but you can see in her face how she really feels, and how worried she is. I haven’t said too much to her, because the last thing me and your dad want is for her to go blaming herself for Lou joining up and then this happening …’

  ‘Mum! Grace hissed, nudging her mother in the ribs. ‘There she is with that young RAF chap.’

  Jean’s heart seemed to turn over as she focused on where Grace was indicating and she saw her daughter.

  After the initial shock of seeing Lou on crutches, an unexpected surge of pride overwhelmed Jean, bringing sharp tears to her eyes.

  That was her Lou, that surely taller, and definitely more shapely, although still very slender young woman, whose slimmed-down face, with its high cheekbones and delicately shaped jaw, gave her face a beauty Jean had never expected to see in one of the twins, who had inherited what she always thought of as her own rather ordinary looks.

  It was plain from the manner in which Lou was chatting to the young man, who seemed to becarrying her case, how relaxed and at ease she was in male company–another change Jean had not been prepared for.

  Fresh pride filled her. Watching Lou, Jean saw a young woman in uniform who was attractive and confident, and whose company was apparently courted by young men but whose manner towards them was so free of flirtatiousness and artifice that it would gladden any mother’s heart.

  As yet Lou hadn’t seen them but, as though she was sharing her mother’s thoughts, Grace squeezed Jean’s arm and said huskily, ‘Oh my, doesn’t she look grand?’ And then before Jean could say anything Grace raised her hand and called out, ‘Coooee, Lou, over here.’

  Although Jean would never have expected Grace’s voice to carry through the crowds thronging the station, somehow or other it must have done, because Lou turned in their direction, a wide smile curling her mouth as she waved back, and then turned to say something to the young man with her.

  ‘Oh, no, look at that. She’s telling him that she can manage with her case now.’ Grace clicked her tongue, suddenly a nurse before she was a sister. ‘Here, Mum, hold my handbag for me, will you, and wait here whilst I go and get her? The last thing we want is Lou being all independent and then coming a cropper.’

  And so it was that within a handful of minutes, Grace and Lou were coming towards her, Grace holding Lou’s case in one hand, her free arm tucked very firmly and protectively through Lou’s as she walked alongside her.

  ‘Honestly, Grace, it’s true, I don’t really need this. I just thought I’d bring it so that you’d all feel sorry for me,’ Lou was laughing as Jean opened her arms and hugged her tightly to her, before pushing her gently away and looking at her.

  ‘You’ve grown at least another half an inch,’ she announced a bit tearfully, ‘and you’ve lost weight.’

  ‘Three-quarters of an inch, and I expect that Sash has done the same. You’ll have to measure us back to back like you used to do when we were little, Mum.’

  ‘I remember Mum doing that, and I remember too that you’d always rise up on your heels and make Sasha do the same so that you’d look taller.’

  ‘That was because Mum said Dad wouldn’t let us go to the Grafton until we were at least five foot five inches.’

  Lou might not have said anything about her twin not being there but Jean, with a mother’s eye, had seen the way she had glanced quickly round when she had reached her, as though hoping that Sasha would appear.

  ‘Sasha said she couldn
’t trust herself not to disgrace you in public by bursting into tears, that’s why she isn’t here.’

  ‘This is better, like opening Christmas presents slowly,’ Lou smiled.

  It wasn’t just outwardly that Lou had changed, Jean recognised with another surge of shock tinged with pride, and her height obviously wasn’t the only way in which she’d grown.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ Jean asked.

  Lou shook her head. ‘I’d rather wait until we’re home.’

  ‘You just be careful with that leg,’ Grace was warning, as they made their way through the bustle.

  Where once Lou would have teased her elder sister, calling her ‘nursie’ or some such thing, now she nodded and replied, ‘Don’t worry, the last thing I want is to slow up my recovery and not be able to get back to my training. Sister’s promised me that if I do my walking exercises whilst I’m at home, she’ll have a word with the MO when I get back to see if I can be allowed to return to training a couple of hours every day, instead of having to wait until the PT instructor has signed me off as fit. It’s been ever such a bind having to miss out on lessons, especially when the other girls are talking about what they’re doing and I know that I’m falling behind.’

  Jean and Grace exchanged astonished looks. Was this the same Lou who had abhorred school and lessons and done everything within her power to undermine her poor teachers?

  ‘So you’re happy in the WAAF then?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I love it,’ Lou responded immediately, adding quickly, ‘Of course I miss home and all of you, but it really makes you think that you’re contributing something important towards the war effort, knowing that the work we’ll be doing on the planes will help to keep them flying.’

  Lou displaying tact and discretion, and actually thinking about how what she was saying might be received? If that was the effect being in the WAAF was having on her then Grace was impressed.

  Unaware of her elder sister’s thoughts, Lou continued, ‘So far I’ve only worked on pieces salvaged from crashed aircraft, and I’m just so envious of the other girls starting working on the real thing soon. Mind you, if I can get my leg passed by the MO then there’s no reason why I shouldn’t join them. I must have taken in more than I knew, listening to Dad talking about his work, because our sergeant says I’ve got a natural aptitude for the work.’

  Hearing her daughter talking so enthusiastically and confidently about what she was doing filled Jean with relief. But alongside that was a certain sadness. This Lou, the Lou who was walking along arm in arm between her and Grace as they started out towards Edge Hill and home, was not the Lou who had left Liverpool earlier in the year. That Lou had been a young girl, awkward sometimes in adult company, rebellious, stubborn and headstrong, filled with an energy she had not learned how to channel, and unhappy because of that–with herself as well as with others. This Lou was a young woman, poised, determined, confident, but most of all happy.

  Pleased as she was for her daughter, Jean still felt cheated that she had not been there to witness the almost magical transformation that turned all young human ‘cygnets’ into the adult ‘swans’, who filled their parents’ hearts with pride.

  ‘Oh, and you’ll probably be interested in this, Grace,’ Lou told them. ‘The surgeon who operated on my leg instructed that I was to be given a new medicine. Penicillin, it’s called. Have you heard of it?’

  Indeed Grace had, and Jean listened in silence as her daughters talked enthusiastically about the marvels of modern medicine and what a difference this penicillin would make to treating wounds that might once have turned gangrenous.

  ‘You’ll have had the drug by injection,’ said Grace knowledgeably.

  Lou laughed. ‘Yes, I was a bit like a pin cushion, but without it Sister said that I might well have ended up losing my leg.’

  Jean’s gasp had them both looking at their mother.

  ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ Lou was quick to reassure her. ‘I didn’t lose it and I’m not going to now. The MO says it’s a lovely clean heal and that I’ll only have a small scar.’

  ‘What happened to the pilot you saved?’ Grace asked diplomatically after a quick look at Jean’s pale face.

  ‘Oh, they shipped him off to another RAF hospital closer to his own base, in Leicestershire. He’d been on a bombing raid, and somehow or other they’d got lost on the way back.’

  ‘He was very lucky, and you were very brave,’ Jean told her.

  ‘I didn’t do anything that any other WAAF wouldn’t have done in the same circumstances, Mum.’

  There she was again: the new grown-up Lou, quick to be calm and modest, not at all like the younger Lou, who would have fought passionately with Sasha to claim the glory.

  Sasha! What would her twin make of this new Lou, Jean wondered a little anxiously.

  It was only when they turned into their ownroad, just on the border between Edge Hill and Wavertree, that Jean saw a glimpse of the old Lou when suddenly she held back and looked uncertain, saying with more than a touch of bravado, ‘I suppose I’m going to get it from Dad, especially since I joined up without getting his permission. He’ll be saying, “I told you so,” to me, I expect–and worse.’

  ‘Well, if your dad were to tell you off it would be no more than you deserve,’ Jean felt bound to stick up for her husband, ‘but, like me, all your dad really wants is your happiness and your safety, Lou, and you have to admit that going behind our backs like that would upset any man.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Lou agreed. ‘It was the wrong thing to do, I admit.’

  Again Jean and Grace exchanged astounded looks.

  ‘But I’m ever so glad that I did do it, Mum, because I’m just so happy now.’

  ‘You must miss Sasha, though?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Of course. It would have been wonderful if she’d joined up too, although I dare say they’d have been bound to separate us. But the thing is that I don’t think that Sash would have enjoyed it as much as I do, so it’s better that she’s here in the telephone exchange, like she wanted to be.’

  There was no truculence or resentment in Lou’s voice, only acceptance.

  ‘I had a lovely letter from Luke,’ Lou continued. ‘He didn’t say much about how things are for him, of course, but he did say that he was proud of me. I do wish that he and Katie were still engaged. Do you hear from her at all, Mum?’

  ‘No.’ Jean tried to smile. ‘She felt that it wouldn’t be right to keep in touch, on account of Luke, and of course she was right.’

  They were home now, Sam and Seb and of course Sasha waiting to greet them and to welcome Lou home, the family filling the small cosy sparkling clean kitchen with its bright yellow walls and its air of being the heart of the house.

  Lou hugged Sasha first, not trusting herself to say anything really meaningful to her twin until they were on their own, and having to make do instead with a muttered, ‘We can talk properly later,’ before releasing Sasha to go and hug her father.

  Watching Lou hug Sam, Jean knew that Sam was as aware of and bemused by Lou’s changed demeanour as she had been herself.

  It was only when Lou took off her cap, though, that Jean finally couldn’t control her emotions any longer.

  In place of the neat bob with which Lou had gone away, her hair–or what was left of it–was a mass of short feathery curls that somehow, instead of making her look boyish, had just the opposite effect and gave her a gamine femininity instead.

  All Jean could say though was, ‘Oh, Lou, your hair! What happened?’

  ‘What? Oh, this.’ Lou raked her fingers through her curls and looked rueful, giving them all an impish smile, before saying lightly, ‘One side of my hair was badly singed when I was draggingthe pilot free. I could smell burning hair but I was so busy trying to get him to safety that I didn’t stop to think that it might be my crowning glory. Obviously I couldn’t go around with a lopsided bob so it had to be cut. Luckily one of the other girls was a hairdresser before she jo
ined up and she offered to cut it for me, otherwise I’d have probably ended up with the RAF barber giving me a short back and sides.

  ‘It’s very pretty, isn’t it, Seb?’ Grace announced, asking for her husband’s support.

  ‘Very,’ Seb agreed with such relish that Lou promptly blushed and Grace turned on Seb with mock wifely anger, warning him, ‘That’s quite enough of you noticing that my little sister has turned into a beauty, thank you, Seb.’

  Standing on the sidelines, watching everyone gather excitedly about her twin, Sasha wasn’t sure just how she felt. She had been desperate to see for herself that Lou was, as she had written to her, recovering well from her injuries, but where there should have been relief Sasha found that what she was actually feeling was closer to anger, as though the changes she could see and sense in Lou–not just in her appearance but in her self–somehow took something away from her.

  For instance, their mother was going on about Lou having grown, and making a fuss about it, without making any reference to the fact that she had grown too, Sasha thought crossly, as she justified her feelings to herself. Her mother and Grace were talking about Lou as though being a bit thinner and having had to have her hair cut becauseshe had behaved in her normal reckless, unthinking way had somehow turned Lou not just into a heroine but also into a beauty. She was thinner too, but no one seemed to have noticed. It was Lou they were all fussing over, as though being away from home and joining the WAAF and risking her life had turned her into a new person, a Lou whom they admired and wanted to praise, instead of cautioning as they had done in the past.

  These were difficult thoughts and feelings for Sasha to digest and understand. She had been longing to see her twin and yet now, instead of being thrilled to see her, she was actually wishing that she wasn’t here, and that made her feel dreadful.

  ‘What I don’t understand, Lou,’ she challenged her twin, ‘is why you were the only one around when the plane crashed.

  When everyone turned to look at her with varying degrees of astonishment, Sasha realised that she had gone too far. But instead of backtracking, as she would normally have done, to her own confusion she heard herself saying even more challengingly, ‘Bobby says that it was more than likely that you shouldn’t have been there at all.’