by Julia Kelly
“Did it have to do with why you refuse to talk about that period in your life? I won’t judge you for the things you had to do. It was a different time,” said Cara.
“Don’t press me, Cara. Not about this.”
“But, Gran—”
Gran rose to her feet, imperious as a queen. “It’s time you remembered that you’re my granddaughter and that I deserve the respect of being left alone when I tell you I don’t wish to speak about something.”
“Iris, she just wants answers,” said Liam.
Gran rounded on him. “Really, young man, this is not any of your concern.”
“Don’t snap at him,” said Cara. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
“I think you both should leave.”
“Iris, if I said something to upset you, I apologize,” said Liam, clearly trying to mend what had suddenly broken.
Gran nodded stiffly, and for the first time in her life, Cara was angry at Gran. Liam was only trying to help and didn’t deserve to be a target of anyone’s ire. But it wasn’t just that. In that moment, she felt a loyalty to him and with it a protectiveness.
But this was not the place to parse that out. Instead, she picked up the box and walked to the door, Liam trailing behind.
“We’ll leave you alone, Gran,” Cara announced. “I’d like to take the box with me.”
“I doubt there will be much of interest in there,” said Gran reluctantly.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. Everything about you interests me. You’re my only family left, and it hurts to know you’re keeping secrets from me no matter how I ask.”
Gran’s eyes flashed to the letters, and she stooped to scoop them up and hold them to her breast. “Leave these with me.”
Cara softened a bit at the sight of her gran clutching the link to her past, as though holding them would connect her to her husband.
“Of course.”
She and Liam were out the door and halfway down the hallway when Cara realized that she’d left without saying a proper goodbye. Turning, she said, “I love you to the moon . . .” But all she saw was the door to Gran’s flat closing.
It was ridiculous, really—just a little silly thing they’d said since Cara was a girl—but it was the first time in her life that Gran wasn’t waiting with her usual, “And back.”
After she’d stared at the door for moment, a hand lit on the small of her back. Liam.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“She’s never been like that with me before,” Cara said.
Moving carefully, he took the box from her. She had been gripping it so hard her knuckles were white.
“Sometimes opening up the past can be painful. For everyone,” he said as they stepped into the waiting elevator.
“All I want is to know.”
“Even if you find out things you’ll regret later? I think you should prepare yourself for the fact that Iris doesn’t want you to know because there’s something she’s afraid will change your relationship.”
Just like the fight had marred Gran’s relationship with Mum just before Mum died. Cara felt a stab of pity for Gran then, knowing that her last words with her daughter would always be an argument with no chance of apology.
When they reached the car, Liam propped the box on one hip so he could open her door. He handed it to her before he slid into the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry that Gran was snippy with you,” she said, as he turned over the ignition.
He shook his head. “It’s no bother.”
“Why did you ask where she was based?” she asked.
Liam hesitated for a split second before shoving his glasses higher on his nose and letting off the parking brake. “I just become fixated on things sometimes.”
“Are you sure? Because if you need to look some things up, you could bring your laptop over. I could cook dinner and—”
“No.”
The flat-out rejection knocked her back hard.
Liam shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, it’s just that it’s been a long day and I have a lecture tomorrow on Charlemagne. I’m trying to figure out a way to make sure seventy-five eighteen-year-olds don’t use it as a chance to catch up on their sleep.”
The urge to offer to help tugged at her. She could listen to him run through his notes and . . . what? Help with his lecture prep? She wasn’t an expert or a trusted colleague. She was only his neighbor, a once-broken woman who was just now piecing her life back together. What man would want to get mixed up in all of that mess?
“No, you’re right,” she said, forcing a false cheeriness into her voice. “I should get ready for the week.”
“Maybe another time,” he said.
She nodded and turned to gaze out the window. She spent the rest of the ride home willing them to get to Elm Road as quickly as possible and wishing they could drive forever because she feared there wouldn’t be another time.
14 September 1941
I still haven’t had word back from Paul. I want to pretend that this doesn’t worry me, but in truth it’s gnawing at me. I told him I loved him, and nothing.
I shouldn’t have asked him to tell me the same. If he doesn’t love me . . . I don’t want to think about it, but I am. Constantly.
I thought I was hiding my worry well—not even Vera and Charlie have said anything—but this morning as we left the Ack-Ack Shack, Cartruse pulled me aside.
“Something’s wrong. You going to tell me what it is?”
I was so startled I stopped on the stairs leading down to the street. “What do you mean?”
He squinted up at me against the rising sun before shaking out a cigarette and lighting it, blowing the smoke out of one corner of his mouth so it didn’t stream at me. “We’ve known each other long enough that it’s obvious when something’s bothering you.”
“No one else has noticed.”
He opened his mouth but then closed it just as fast, sticking his cigarette in the corner and shaking his head. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. That’s your prerogative. Just know someone noticed.”
Maybe I should’ve told Cartruse my fears—that I’m losing Paul—but something held me back. It just didn’t seem right, and so we walked back away from Woolwich Depot without another word.
16
LOUISE
“Anything, Gunner Rogers?” Captain Jones shouted from his post.
Louise craned her neck to search the slowly lightening sky as Mary took another look through the viewfinder. The lights over London were still sweeping, but the spotlight operators hadn’t picked up anything for an hour. It seemed as though the last wave of German bombers had turned around and made for the coast just after four that morning.
“Nothing,” Mary confirmed with a shake of her head.
“Once the all clear sounds—” The splitting ring of the all clear cut the captain off and he gave a gruff chuckle. “Stand down. Good work today.”
It hadn’t been, really. A handful of fighters and three bombers had come within their sights, but none had been in range for B Section to get off an effective shot. The best they had done was create a bit of bother for the German fliers. But it was the last day on duty before seventy-two hours of leave, and all of them were relieved.
Now that it was mid-September and the nights had started to turn cold, these long, ineffectual shifts were becoming harder and harder to bear. Two nights ago even Captain Jones hadn’t objected when Hatfield convinced Lizzie to sing ballads while Williams whistled along.
The members of B Section groaned and stretched sore necks as they clattered down the five flights of stairs to the street.
“Aircraft identification lectures at fourteen hundred hours on Thursday when you’re back,” Captain Jones reminded them.
They nodded wearily and began the trudge back to their respective billets. The men had taken to walking the women back since the ATS billet was on the way to the Charlton Barracks. Cartruse
fell into step next to Louise as he’d been doing more and more in the last few weeks. Charlie liked to tease that he fancied her, but she brushed it off. She had Paul, even though it felt like a lifetime since she’d heard from him.
“How long do you think before everyone knows?” Cartruse asked.
“I’m sorry?” Louise asked.
He jerked his head behind him. “The lovebirds.”
She glanced back and saw Lizzie and Williams walking a little apart from everyone else, their heads close together. “Lovebirds?”
“Don’t you think?”
Glancing back again, she had to admit he was probably right. “A week, maybe less. We’re a nosy bunch.”
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, his large hands cupped around the flame to buffer it from the morning wind. “You are a nosy lot of women.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “No one is worse than you three men.”
“That’s not true,” he protested.
“Do you think Jones will have something to say about it, with them working together and all?”
“That was some of the worry when these mixed batteries were announced,” he said.
“And I thought it was just that we’re the weaker sex.”
“I think you’ve proven everyone wrong about that. You girls are made of sterner stuff than most of the men I grew up with. Then again, they’re not in the RA,” he said, tapping the Royal Artillery badge on his cap proudly.
“You RA men have a high opinion of yourselves, did anyone ever tell you that?” she asked as they rounded the last corner.
But however Cartruse answered was lost, because standing in front of the billet’s door in his well-tailored uniform was Paul. A group of ATS girls, up early, were smoking on the steps of the building and openly eyeing him, but he wasn’t looking at them. Instead, his eyes were fixed right on her, a smile blooming across his handsome face.
Her heart squeezed, stealing her breath until she almost burst with it. She broke out into a sprint and flung herself into his arms, her cheek pressed hard against his chest.
“You’re here,” she murmured. “You’re really here.”
A hand stroked down the back of her head—her cap must’ve fallen off.
“How could I not be, after your letter?” he asked.
Relief rushed through her. Her letter hadn’t frightened him off. He was here.
“I wanted to write back to you, but then I remembered that you’d told me about your leave. I did everything I could to arrange to be in London at the same time. I wanted to surprise you,” he said softly.
“You did.”
He pulled back, his expression serious. “I’m so sorry. The things I wrote to you last month—”
She cut him off with a kiss that felt like coming home. The lips she’d thought of, worried over, dreamed about, molded to hers, and she let herself fall back into the simplest moments of their relationship, when it had all seemed like it would go on for years uninterrupted by war or family. Her hands clutched at the lapels of his uniform jacket and he cupped her face.
Behind her, whoops and hollers rose up and she broke away with a grin. “We have an audience.”
He snuck another swift kiss. “I don’t care, but perhaps you should introduce me.”
Everyone crowded around except Cartruse, who stood a step away, assessing Paul with guarded curiosity. As she made the introductions, Paul pressed each of the women’s hands and shook the men’s with more vigor.
“We’ve heard an awful lot about you,” said Charlie, with a sly look at Louise.
“Hopefully none of it awful. It’s been a fight to get a week’s leave, but as soon as I had it, I left my base. I couldn’t wait to see my girl again. And”—he stepped back with a laugh—“when I get here, I find you in trousers!”
She blushed, suddenly aware of the fact that she was in battle dress, her hair windswept and wilted after a long night manning the predictor. “Trousers are better for long nights outdoors.”
“The last time I saw her she was wearing schoolgirl sweaters and old-fashioned skirts six inches past her knees,” he said.
His tone was light but there was the slight sting there. From the way Vera lifted her brows, Louise could tell her friend had caught it too, but she shook it off. Paul was here, and that was all that mattered.
“Well, I don’t know that any man dreams of asking a woman this while she’s wearing trousers but . . .” Paul got down on one knee, the long fingers of both his hands wrapped around hers. “Louise Keene, would you do me the very great honor of making me the happiest man in the world?”
The gasps of the women in her unit were lost in the sound of the blood roaring in Louise’s ears. The weight of nine pairs of eyes was bearing down on her, and she didn’t understand what was happening. How had they gone from kisses to months of letters to this? She loved him, but it felt as though he was skipping steps—important steps—and she didn’t know how to catch up.
“Paul.” She choked on his name and gave a slight tug on her hand, as though if she broke the connection of skin against skin she might somehow be able to think clearly again.
A brief flicker of doubt passed over his features. “Darling, I thought—”
“Paul, what exactly are you asking me?”
Then the brilliant, teasing smile that had dazzled her on the dance floor of St. Mawgan was back. “I’m asking you to marry me. Will you?”
A squeal burst out, and they all spun. Lizzie stood there, her hands clapped over her mouth and her eyes shining bright. “I’m so sorry,” Lizzie said, lowering her hands from her lips. “I was excited.”
Louise raked her gaze over all of her colleagues, each of them looking at her with barely contained anticipation except two: Cartruse stood, arms crossed and lips twisted, and Vera’s face was completely neutral as though she were waiting for the answer before calling up the right reaction to broadcast. Louise desperately wanted to pull the slightly older and slightly wiser Vera aside and ask her why. Why was she not thrilled like the other girls? Why was this all happening so fast? Did she really want to marry Paul after so little time around each other?
“Darling,” he prompted, shaking her hand a little.
She pressed her free hand to her forehead. “It’s all just happened so fast. We were just fighting in our letters last month.”
“And there’s no woman I’d rather fight with than you,” he said.
“Paul, be reasonable.”
“I don’t want to be reasonable. Maybe I should’ve waited, but I know I want you to be my wife. I want our lives to start now.” He slipped a hand in his pocket and when he opened it, she saw the little brass compass he’d tried to give her when he left Cornwall. “I haven’t had time to buy you a ring, but you know how precious this is to me. Nothing would make me happier than knowing it’s protecting you now, my wife.”
She swallowed. She loved this man—she’d told herself that enough times that it had to be true—and now he was standing here before her, asking her to leap with him. She was just nervous at the enormity of saying yes to such a simple question.
“You haven’t told me you love me,” she whispered.
His eyes crinkled. “Is that all, silly thing? Of course I love you, darling. I didn’t realize I needed to shout it from the rooftops.”
For some reason, his laughing words made her blush even harder. She should’ve known, he seemed to be saying. Maybe if she’d been a little more sophisticated, she would’ve known how to handle a man’s affection.
“Of course I will,” she said, swallowing around the lump in her throat.
A cheer exploded as Paul swept her off her feet and kissed her. Buoyed by the others’ elation, she set her head back and laughed, letting herself be carried away by the collective joy.
When he set her back down on her feet, Paul slung an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him before turning to the girls. “Which of you are staying in London?”
&nb
sp; “I am,” said Charlie.
“Then you’ll play the part of witness,” he said. “Make sure my girl doesn’t get cold feet on Wednesday,” said Paul.
“Wednesday?” Louise asked. That was just two days away.
“I’ve already written to a pastor who said he’d make all the arrangements and marry us. He has a soft spot for couples in service and knows how to make sure a quick wedding goes off without a hitch,” said Paul.
A quick wedding. In Haybourne, the only women who had quick weddings were those who had to. Claris Glisi, for instance, who married a man in a fast ceremony and had a baby six months later at seventeen. Thea White, whose husband left her pregnant with a second child two years after their vows. Louise’s own mother.
Louise tried to let the implications roll off her shoulders, knowing she was being horribly provincial about it all. Plenty of couples in the service married quickly, happy to grab whatever time they could while they were in the same place.
“All right,” she said, pulling her shoulders back. “Wednesday it is.”
Paul kissed her on the temple. “A wedding and then the wedding breakfast at the Dorchester, I think.”
Charlie cackled at the mention of the posh hotel, and all of the other girls looked downcast, no doubt regretting that they had plans to see worrying family members that they couldn’t break.
“Will your parents be there?” Louise asked, realizing with a pang that her own wouldn’t be able to make the trip from Cornwall in time.
“They’re off in the countryside, remember? Evacuated London as soon as it started raining bombs,” he said. “Now, what do you think about changing into a proper skirt again and letting me show you the real London?”
“Yes, of course. I’d love to see where you grew up,” she said.
“I’ll meet you down here in twenty minutes. We’ll get some breakfast into you and then set off.”
The girls crowded forward, each offering some way for her to change her appearance or brighten up the uniform she would have to wear for her wedding. When she turned back, Paul was accepting congratulations from Hatfield and taking a cigarette. She caught Cartruse’s eye. He nodded once before stuffing his hands in his pockets and continuing down the road back to his barracks.