by Annie Groves
‘Goodness, I’m ever so hungry now. Poor Maria will wonder where on earth we are. Oh dear, you’ve got dirt all down the front of your lovely coat,’ Laura told Bella. ‘What a shame. We must get overalls for the nursemaids to wear at the crèche. Will you make a note of that for me, please, Bella?’
* * *
‘And like I said before, we wouldn’t have been late back for our lunch if Bella hadn’t gone and got involved by holding the baby.’
They were all in the morning room-cum-dining room at the back of the house next to the kitchen, and Bella’s dining table had been extended to accommodate the five of them.
Bella had been very proud of her reproduction mahogany dining-room furniture when she had first seen it in Gillow’s Furniture Emporium, the exclusive furniture shop just off Bold Street in Liverpool. The square table, which extended into a rectangle, could, when both its leaves were in place, seat eight. In addition to the six matching chairs, with their claret and cream Regency-stripe damask seats, there were two ‘carver’ chairs, and an elegant Georgian-style sideboard.
Even her own mother had been envious of the stylish elegance of her choice, Bella remembered. She had planned to hold dinner parties and show off her furniture and her Royal Doulton dinner service, but that that never happened. Bella looked down at her plate on which most of her lunch still remained. Not because there was anything wrong with her food – grudgingly Bella had to admit that Maria was a wonderful cook – but somehow the delicious smell of roasting lamb that had met them in the hall on their return had filled Bella with nausea instead of tempting her appetite.
Laura had insisted on telling the Polanski family all about the baby that had been rescued from the rubble, the minute they had all sat down for their lunch, and Bella had flinched angrily from the pity she had seen in Jan’s gaze as he looked at her whilst Laura was relating the story.
He would remember, of course, what had happened to her own baby and to her; they all would. Well, Bella didn’t want his pity. She did not want anyone’s pity.
‘What a shame to waste such lovely food. You aren’t dieting, are you, Bella?’ Laura asked. ‘Only I know that some girls have said that they’re worried about putting weight on with this war diet. I’m lucky, I never put on so much as an ounce.’
Normally Bella would have been so astounded at the suggestion that she, with her twenty-two-inch waist, might need to diet that she would have made a very sharp retort, but today her struggle not to think about the rescued baby and how holding it had made her feel was taking precedence over putting Laura in her place. That and the angry churning in her stomach at the thought of anyone, but most of all Jan Polanski, pitying her.
Bettina and Maria were getting up and removing the plates, swiftly helped by Laura, who went immediately to take Jan’s plate, Bella noticed cynically.
There was rhubarb crumble and custard for pudding, but Bella shook her head and refused a helping.
‘Bella and I were just saying whilst we were out, Jan,’ Laura began eagerly, ‘that if you’ve got leave over Easter it would be lovely if we could make up a party to go to the Tennis Club dance. I’m sure that Bettina would like to go, wouldn’t you, Bettina?’
‘There aren’t any tickets left,’ Bella interrupted her curtly. ‘My mother asked me to get a pair for my brother and his fiancée-to-be and I couldn’t.’
‘Oh, I’m sure the committee will be able to find tickets for a party that includes a Battle of Britain hero,’ Laura insisted warmly.
‘Charlie is a Dunkirk hero,’ Bella told her angrily. ‘He saved Daphne’s brother’s life,’ she pointed out, ignoring the fact that it was less than a week since she had been telling her mother that she was sick of hearing about her brother’s heroism.
‘But that was just one heroic act, Bella, and after all, everyone knows that the Polish Air Force accounted for over 600 enemy combat kills during the Battle of Britain. There was a huge amount in the papers about it, and everyone was saying how marvellous they were. Any tennis club would be proud to have a Polish Air Force pilot attending their dance, and any girl would be very proud to be his partner.’ Laura’s voice had softened as she had added these last few words.
Bella frowned. Laura making such a fuss of Jan, and going on about him being such a hero, made Bella feel as though she was out of step over something important that she ought to have known about. She didn’t like being made to feel as though she had missed out on something – or indeed someone – that other girls had taken up, and which had made it – or him – and themselves extremely popular.
Bella had been so caught up in her own resentment about the Polanskis being billeted on her that she hadn’t been aware that Jan being in the Polish Air Force made him the social asset that Laura was now implying. All this time, when Jan had been coming to visit his family and she had been shunning him, she could have been the one fussing round him and basking in what Bella was now beginning to suspect would be the reflected glory of partnering a Polish Air Force hero, she acknowledged crossly.
‘I suppose I could get some tickets,’ she told them, quickly changing tack. ‘After all, me and Alan were the most popular couple at the Tennis Club. I’ll have a word with the Treasurer.’
She certainly didn’t want the Polanskis thinking that it was because of Jan that tickets were forthcoming. No, she intended to make it clear that they had only been granted as a favour to her. That was the way to keep a man on his toes.
Laura might think that she could attract Jan by flattering him and making a fuss of him but she, Bella, the most beautiful girl in Wallasey, if not in Liverpool, knew that the best way to get a man interested was to pretend that you weren’t interested in him. That always brought them running.
‘But I thought you just said that you couldn’t get any for your brother?’ Laura pointed out.
‘Well, I couldn’t, not officially, but of course I have got them a pair.’ That at least was true since her mother had insisted that Bella ought to hand over her own to Charlie and Daphne. No way was she going to do that now. If there were only two tickets going, then they were for her and her partner of choice – Jan – but she needn’t say anything about that now.
She’d have to have a new dress, of course. The one she had worn last year wouldn’t do at all. She had been a girl then, now she was a woman – married and widowed, and thus entitled to wear something rather more ravishing and seductive than a mere girl might be allowed do wear. She would need to book a hairdresser’s appointment as well; perhaps have her hair styled like Vivien Leigh. And she’d need a new lipstick, something a bit darker than her usual pink. Maybe she should have lilac satin for her dress. Lilac was, after all, a sort of mourning colour, wasn’t it, and so perfect for someone with her colouring. She would look stunningly pale and fragile, Jan’s protective arm around her as they made their entrance; the handsome Polish Air Force hero and the tragic but oh so very loyal and brave widow, whom everyone wanted to see rewarded for the unhappiness she had endured so courageously and silently in her marriage.
Bella could see it all now. It would be wonderful. She would be wonderful.
She came out of her daydream just in time to hear Jan saying that he must leave soon otherwise he would miss his train back to his base.
‘I expect Laura and Bella will want to do the washing-up for you, Mama, by way of a thank you for cooking lunch. That will mean that you and Bettina can come and see me off.’
Bella looked at him, about to announce that there was no way she intended to do any washing-up, but Laura was already agreeing and simpering stupidly at him, leaving Bella with no option but to agree.
* * *
‘Well, that was a turn-up for the book, you and Andy’s corporal being at the Grafton on Saturday night. You could have knocked me down with a feather when we saw you,’ Carole announced on Monday morning when the two girls met up in the cloakroom at work. ‘You and him together put on a really good show on Saturday night. Everyone was saying so. F
air gave me a surprise, you did; after all, you never said a word to me about the two of you.’
‘That’s because I didn’t know I’d be going to the Grafton with Luke and his sister and her fiancé until Friday teatime, when they asked me,’ Katie told her truthfully.
‘Andy says that the corporal is ever such a good sort; all his men think well of him. Looks like you thought so too from the way you was cosying up to him during the last dance.’
Katie blushed furiously.
‘Oh ho, like that, is it?’ Carole teased her knowingly.
‘Katie, Anne’s just been asking if anyone’s seen you,’ one of the other girls interrupted them. ‘When I told her you were in the cloakroom with Carole she said to tell you to hurry and that it’s important.’
The enjoyment that had coloured her weekend and lifted Katie’s spirits every time she thought about the dance at the Grafton, and more importantly about Luke himself, was swiftly banished by Rachel’s words. Katie’s anxiety grew stronger when she reached their table to find a grave-faced Anne waiting for her with the news that she was to present herself immediately to their supervisor.
‘What’s going on?’ Carole demanded curiously, then nodding understandingly when Katie shook her head, indicating that she couldn’t say.
She was bound to have been wrong about the letter and now she would no doubt be in all sorts of trouble for wasting other people’s valuable time. Katie was feeling so apprehensive that by the time Anne had guided her to where a supervisor was waiting for her, her knees were knocking and she had convinced herself that she was about to be dismissed in disgrace.
The supervisor, though, was not ‘Frosty’, who was on leave, but a tall thin middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Linda Philpott. She greeted Katie with an unexpected and disconcertingly warm smile, thanked Anne, and then took Katie into a cold windowless room off a long corridor, illuminated only with one bare light bulb, which revealed the wooden panelling on the walls and an oil painting hanging over the fireplace.
Instead of seating herself behind the imposing wooden desk, the supervisor sat down instead on an upright chair on one side of the fireplace, indicating that Katie was to take the other chair.
‘This room was originally the office of one of the directors of Littlewoods Pools,’ she explained conversationally to Katie. ‘I dare say it must have looked very imposing in its day but sadly now the war has stripped it of its glory. War has a habit of doing that. It strips the life of those of us who must bear it right back to the bare essentials. In wartime, Katie, those essentials include loyalty, courage, the ability to put others before ourselves, the ability to put our country before ourselves. We see those virtues displayed every hour of every day in our country’s brave fighting men, and we see it too in those who have volunteered to do their bit for the war effort here at home.’
The supervisor was obviously leading up to something, Katie realised, but what?
‘Sometimes when we think that we are already doing our bit, things happen that require us to do even more, and even to put ourselves at risk.’
Katie’s stomach, which earlier had been churning with the apprehension that she might be dismissed, only to quieten when she had recognised the warmth with which she was being received, had now begun to churn again but with a different fear this time.
‘You have already shown commendable devotion to your work, Katie. Thanks to your quick-wittedness in spotting that error in the letter you referred to the head of your table, another department within this organisation has been able to break the code being used between the letter writer and its recipient. The sender has already been traced and is now under arrest. It is now, Katie, that I must stress to you how important it is that you understand that what we are discussing here must not go beyond this room; it is no exaggeration to say that the lives of many brave men and women may depend on you adhering to that.’
‘No, of course, I shan’t say a word,’ Katie told her quickly. She was beginning to feel rather sick and desperately anxious to escape from the slightly sinister room and the supervisor’s talk of secret codes and people’s lives being at risk.
‘No, of course you won’t. It is obvious to me that you are the kind of young woman who places her loyalty and her duty to her country right at the top of her list of things that are most important to her.’
Was the lecture nearly at an end? Katie hoped so.
‘As I have already said, the person who sent the letter has been apprehended. However, it has been decided that the recipient of the letter – and no doubt others – will now be used as a means of conveying false information to the other side via letters that we shall construct here using the code we have now broken. We shall pass on false information in response to the questions that the letter asks. To that end it has been decided that you will become part of the team that will construct these letters.’
‘Me? But—’
‘Obviously, Katie, I can only give information to you on a need-to-know basis, and that means that whilst I can tell you that it is now clear that a knowledge of popular music and those involved in it plays a vital role in the code within the letters exchanged, I cannot tell you any more than that.
‘Your role within this team will be to write a letter incorporating certain pieces of information that will be given to you by using a code, which will also be given to you. You will write this letter very much in the style of the letter you read, that is to say, in the style of a young woman replying to a letter from a young man in a mildly flirtatious manner that refers back to dances the two of you have attended and music you have enjoyed.’
‘But my handwriting will be different,’ Katie protested, ‘and—’
‘As I have just said, Katie, I can only give you information on a need-to-know basis. Your task is simply to write a letter using the information you will be given. The fact that your handwriting is your own handwriting is not something that needs to concern you.’
The supervisor’s voice was very firm now and Katie could only assume that she meant that someone else, possibly a forger, would copy what Katie had written in handwriting that mimicked that of ‘the person who had been apprehended’.
Another girl might have found the whole thing exciting but Katie found it daunting.
As though she could tell what Katie was thinking Linda Philpott reminded her calmly, ‘It is for your country that you do this, Katie, and for the lives of all those you will help to save.’
She paused for a few seconds and then said briskly, ‘Now, I want you to return to your desk and get on with your work. Not a word about any of this to anyone, mind – not that you will be asked. We all know why we are working here, after all. Your instructions will be passed to you later on today. Just to be on the safe side it has been decided that you should write your letter in your billet. I dare say it will take you several attempts, given the complexity of the code and the nature of the information to be relayed to the recipient of the letter. However, time as always in these matters, is of the essence.’
The supervisor was standing up so Katie did the same.
Having escorted her to the door and opened it so that Katie could step out into the corridor, she shook Katie’s hand and said firmly, ‘Good show.’
As she made her way back to her desk Katie felt almost light-headed with a mixture of disbelief and shock – a feeling that was strengthened when instead of asking her what had happened Carole behaved as though she hadn’t moved from her desk, and instead of questioning her started chatting about the dance at the Grafton, in between complaining about the food they were served in the canteen.
‘Andy’s asked me to go to the pictures with him on Wednesday. What about you? Has the corporal made a date with you?’
‘What? Oh, no. Well, not exactly.’
‘Not exactly? What does that mean when it’s at home?’ Carole teased her.
‘Well, Luke did say that he’d enjoyed dancing with me,’ Katie told her, deliberately withholdi
ng the fact that Luke had also said sort of casually, in a way that made it clear that he wasn’t being casual at all really, that he’d got a bit of leave coming up and that, since Katie was new to the area, he’d be happy to show her around if she’d like that.
Katie had been equally studiedly casual in her response when she’d replied that her parents had asked her if she’d seen much of the countryside around Liverpool and that she’d like to tell them that she had.
The result had been that Luke had said that he’d let her know when he could get his leave so that they could sort something out.
It was a prosaic enough arrangement but there had been nothing whatsoever prosaic about the kiss they’d exchanged when Luke had hung back to let Grace and Seb get ahead of them on the walk home, or the other kiss they’d shared when Luke had left his scarf on the table and Katie had seen it and run down the back garden in the dark to give it to him. That kiss had been the sweetest and the most headily intimate of all because when she had shivered in the March air, Luke had opened his greatcoat and drawn her inside its warmth so that they had been standing body to body, her heart hammering and racing at speed against the heavy fierce thud of his.
She’d never French kissed before, nor ever thought she might want to, but somehow it had just seemed so natural and so – so very exciting and wonderful with Luke. She had been trembling when they had finally stopped, and so had Luke. Something special was happening between them, so very special that Katie wanted to hug it to herself for now and only share it with Luke in the way that they had done when they had exchanged special looks and a final brief kiss before they had finally parted on Saturday night.