“The shelter is this way I think, miss.”
“No, the nearest is just around the corner, follow me if you aren’t sure of the way.”
Crouched against the danger that threatened from above, he with a protective arm around the woman, they hurried around the next corner where a warden quickly ushered them in through the concealed entrance of the underground station.
Once inside, the low light revealed a plump, carelessly dressed young woman of about twenty-five. The wide smile of her face warmed him. Her sparkling brown eyes seemed to call to him, the full and generous mouth tempted him in an unbelievable way and he wanted the raid to go on all night. She wore slippers on her feet and a pair of stripy pyjamas over which she wore a skirt and a man’s khaki jumper. She smelled deliciously of soap. Around her shoulders was an army great-coat and a long hand-knitted scarf. They sat together and from her pocket she produced a flask containing tea.
“I was in the bath,” she laughingly confessed. “I just grabbed what clothes I could, picked up the flask I’d made ready and ran out.”
“Won’t your husband be looking for his clothes?” Sam smiled.
“These are my dad’s Home Guard things and he’s in hospital so he won’t miss them for a while. We were bombed out a couple of days ago and he was hit by shrapnel.”
“And you?” Sam asked, inexplicably concerned for her well being.
“Me? I’m all right, they can’t find a target as tiny as me!” she joked, her plump shoulders rising and falling with her laughter. “They miss me every time. D’you know we’ve been bombed out completely, twice, and had our house hit twice more? And there’s me as big as next year’s national debt and they miss me every time.” Her laughter was music and his heart sang to its accompaniment.
It seemed natural for them to leave the underground station together and walk through the littered streets as dawn broke through the smoke and dust and mist. Without any discussion, they went to the main line station and found the café open. Sam ordered tea and sandwiches.
“Don’t know what’s in them,” he said. He lifted the edge of his own and frowned. “Best we don’t ask!”
After they had eaten and there was a brief lull in their lively conversation, the girl looked at him and said, “My name is Lillian, Lillian Coleby, what’s yours?”
“Sam Jenkins.” He held out his large hand and took her surprisingly slim and beautifully shaped one into his own. It felt good and he was reluctant to let it go.
The formal introduction put a slight edge on their previous comfortable friendship and Sam stood up and hesitated, gathering his kit-bag and edging away from her a little, unconsciously waiting for her reaction to his imminent departure.
“Do you have to leave so soon?” Lillian asked. “Isn’t there a later train?”
“I don’t want to leave,” he replied honestly. “I want to spend the day with you, if you’re free.”
“Free as a bird.”
They went back to the flat where she and her large family were temporarily housed and he waited in the cluttered living room while she found some more suitable clothes. Then they walked around the city, stopping to look at bomb damage as hundreds of others were doing. One old man whose clothes had been made ragged by a blast but miraculously bore not even a scratch, was refusing to leave the scene. He was determinedly searching the wreckage for his lost dog. Sam and Lillian quickly realised that the dead animal had been found and offering reassurance and comfort, they persuaded the old man to go with them and have a cup of tea and some breakfast while the workers removed the body of his pet.
In the afternoon, they went into a cinema and watched each other more than the film. At ten o’clock, Sam reluctantly said goodbye to her and they prepared to swap addresses. He wanted to stay with this girl who in a few short hours had bewitched him completely. Would she want to be with him for the rest of his leave? He hadn’t let the family know he was coming home, there was no one expecting him. There would be an hotel near by if she’d… He looked at her in the dim light of passing traffic and knew that was out of the question. How well he knew her, and after only a few hours.
“I want to see you again, Lillian,” he said as, close together, hands held tightly, they waited at the bus stop. “Can we meet tomorrow? I can find myself a room for tonight?”
“I have to go to school tomorrow, Sam. And tomorrow evening I’m on fire-watching duty. I wish there was some way I could change things. But you’ll find me next time, won’t you? Please say you will?”
“I’ll count the hours,” Sam said honestly.
“I’ve written down my address, I suppose they’ll re-build our house eventually. And you know where I’m staying until it’s habitable again,” She reached up and kissed him, his arms held her close and for a moment they forgot the war, the bombs and their imminent parting.
“I’ll write as soon as I get back and let you know when I’m coming to London again,” he whispered against her soft cheek.
“Ask at the school on the corner of the road if I’m not at either house, it’s where I work.”
He wrote down his home address and the one for forces mail. Then he saw her onto the bus that would take her back to her temporary lodgings and watched until the bus was out of sight, lost in the blackness of the night-blind city.
Bitterly disappointed at the sudden end to their unbelievably happy day, he offered a short prayer for her continued safety in the fury of the air attacks on the capital, and turned to walk away.
The air-raid siren sounded. He didn’t want to be stuck in a shelter until the raid ended, so he walked quickly towards the station. He wanted to get away now she was gone, and hoped to reach Paddington in time for the next train home. He heard the bomb fall but couldn’t know it had hit the bus on which Lillian was sitting. She was shocked but otherwise unharmed, but the piece of paper bearing his addresses was blown out of her hand and lost in the chaos of the exploding darkness.
He sat in the train bemused by his feelings of loss. How could someone he hadn’t known until a little over twenty-four hours before have such an impact on him? And at his age, too! He wondered anxiously if he were too old. He was at least ten years older than her. But that wouldn’t, couldn’t, stop him seeing her again. On his next leave they would enjoy another day together, he was certain of that. And on that occasion he wouldn’t allow a bus to casually take her away from him.
He wanted to jump out of the train when it stopped at Reading and catch the next one back, but he didn’t. There was only one more day before he had to return to camp, he wanted more than a day with Lillian Coleby, he wanted the rest of his life.
At the end of his leave Sam found himself in London with a three-hour delay before getting on the troop train and he spent it with Lillian. He went to the house and, finding no one there, went to the school. She was just finishing clearing up after her class of five year olds had gone home.
Her clear brown eyes widened and her face, plump, rosy and more lovely than he remembered, lit up with pleasure. As if they had known each other for years instead of less than a day, they began to talk, make plans for how they would spend the precious time together.
The brief hours were filled with laughter and chatter, interspersed with long silences when they would just look at each other, unable to believe their luck in finding their way to that particular shelter on that particular night.
When Sam’s watch told him it was time to leave, Lillian’s heart lurched with despair. As Sam stood on the bus platform and waved to her she remembered that she had forgotten to ask him for the address she had lost. She ran after the bus uselessly for a few yards then gave up. He would find her again. He had to. Soon the war would end and she and Sam would be together.
Sam lived for days when mail was delivered to the ship. He sat with the other eager faces and waited hopefully for his name to be called. Gilly was a regular correspondent and his sisters wrote with news of home and of his brothers, Vic and Viv, when there was any
to give. But there were no letters from Lillian. He didn’t believe for a moment that she had forgotten him. In a city constantly attacked from the air she would be kept busy looking after the children in her care and trying to survive. That she was safe he also did not doubt. As soon as the war ended, he would find her. With the might of America alongside them, the Allied armies reaching deep into North Africa and the bombing of Germany by day and by night, it surely couldn’t be much longer?
* * *
In Cardiff, Lucy and her mother were working quietly in front of a low fire. They were preparing a new line of baby clothes. Polly was crotcheting beautifully patterned coats and matching hats and Lucy was trying out some patterns her mother and she had designed for knitted dresses with embroidered borders and yokes. Beside them the supply of garments grew.
“Tomorrow we had better start sewing them together,” Polly said. “It’s so tempting to just knit and crotchet but it’s the finished article you need to sell.”
“I was thinking the same,” Lucy sighed. “I’ll be glad when it’s done now. I’m so impatient to show them to the shops Teifion recommended to me.”
“Has he spoken to the buyers at these places as he promised?” Polly tried unsuccessfully to hide her doubt.
“Of course he has!”
Was Lucy’s defence of him too fierce? Polly mused sadly. Was Lucy as uncertain of Teifion’s assistance as she was herself? Such a pity she didn’t send the man away, there was no future for her daughter with him and, what was worse, Polly guessed Lucy knew it but did nothing.
Two days later Lucy met the first of the buyers Teifion had recommended to her. The woman looked puzzled and slightly amused. “We can’t sell these my dear,” she said. “What we sell is the yarn for mothers to knit their own. Or some simple garments we can sell cheaply. These are far too fancy and expensive for our customers.”
The story was very similar in the other places Teifion had mentioned. When Teifion called to take her out at the end of the day, Lucy was tired, frustrated and irritable.
“Why did you suggest those shops?” she demanded almost before she had opened the door. “Don’t you know you have wasted hours and hours of our precious time? Making rubbish to sell cheap isn’t what I want to do. I make quality garments and put my name to them with pride.”
“Lucy, love, I’m sorry. I really thought it would help. I’ve seen knitted coats and things for sale in their windows and thought—”
“Thought? When did you ever have a thought that wasn’t second hand?”
“Lucy, come out and we’ll have a meal and you can tell me how useless I am.” He grinned at her and her anger slipped away.
“Well, I suppose I might place them somewhere,” she said.
“Yes, there’s a buyer in the department store at—” His voice faded as he saw her expression change to a frowning glare. “But perhaps not.”
“Can we go to the pictures instead?” she asked, smiling at his discomfort. But her smile faded as he shook his head. “Oh, out of town again, is it? There’s a chance of your precious family seeing us if we walk the streets of Cardiff, is that it?”
“Something like that,” he admitted sadly.
“Why do you go out with him?” Polly asked when Lucy returned, later that evening. “Surely you can face the fact that there’s no future for you with a man like that?”
“It’s better than nothing, Mam, it’s better than nothing,” Lucy said sadly. “The town is empty of young men and when the war is over there’ll be plenty of girls waiting for those lucky enough to return.”
A few days later Teifion called again and this time took her into town to a rather smart hotel where they had dinner. Afterwards he was very attentive and somewhat ill at ease. There was an air-raid warning which forced them to go down into the cellars of the building and in the semi-dark he kissed her and began to explore her body with eager hands.
“Lucy, you’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “Why don’t we spend the night here? We’d really belong to each other then, and once things have been sorted with my aunt and uncle we could—”
“What did you say?” She pulled herself free from his wandering hands and stared up into his face. He kissed her again, more passionately that before and she found herself weakening and being filled with an alarming need of him.
“Teifion, don’t. I – I can’t think while you’re doing such things to me.”
“Don’t think. Follow your instincts. You know you and I belong together and we always will.”
She believed him. Now with his body pressed against hers, oblivious to the strangers who seemed unaware of their presence it was easy to believe him. And she wanted desperately to know that he belonged to her, that, with the exception of Polly, she wasn’t alone in the world.
Her body was on fire, her mind in a turmoil of need, yet the practical side of her demanded that she remembered the impossibility of doing what he asked.
“How can I?” she murmured. “How can I let Mam know I’m safe?”
“Phone the corner shop, tell them we’ve been delayed. They’ll run across and let your mother know. Please, darling, Lucy. It’ll be quite safe, trust me, I love you, and would never do anything to harm you.” When the All Clear was sounded the management offered coffee but they refused as Teifion led her towards the reception desk.
The desk-clerk looked at them without hiding the disapproval on his bewhiskered old face. Yes there was a room, and yes they could rent it for one night, would they be requiring breakfast?
Lucy shook her head. Her practical nature remembered that they had no clothes with them and the thought of a maid coming in and finding them naked made her shudder.
The love scene failed miserably. Teifion was too eager, she was too nervous and after several miserable hours each trying unsuccessfully to reassure the other, they slept.
While it was still dark and with no idea of the time, Lucy fumbled for her clothes, dressed, and slipped out of the hotel and set off to walk home. They hadn’t made love so why was she feeling more guilty than if they had? She felt as if her body had been half dismantled and was shaking loose inside her. She was crying as she let herself into the house where they rented a room.
She heard someone coming down the stairs and, stifling the sobs that spasmodically escaped from her lips, she hid among the abandoned coats and oddments in the hallway. In the shaft of light from the opening door she saw it was a man. He was dressed in white overalls over which he had slung a dark overcoat. There was a trilby hat balanced rakishly on his head. It must be the man who rented a room near theirs and about whom her mother talked incessantly. Where could he be going at such a time?
Slipping into bed without washing made her feel worse than ever but she didn’t want to risk waking her mother. Polly had been far from well these past weeks. The bed was cool and her body was hot and sticky. Out of the darkness, Teifion’s face kept appearing before her, pleading, then twisted in urgency then pale with humiliation.
Desperately pushing all thoughts of the catastrophic evening from her mind she forced herself to concentrate on her mothers’ mysterious friend, Gee. He worked in a bakery. Of course, that was why he was leaving at such a strange hour. She tried to remember what else her mother had told her about him but, exhausted by the events of the past hours, she slept.
* * *
Gerry wasn’t Maisie Boxmoor’s only visitor. She was a warm and friendly young woman and many found comfort and escape from the day to day problems in her slender arms. Like others before him, Cyril Richards resisted temptation for a while, until the stories told by others had persuaded him that he would do no harm by visiting her. He called at the house after dark, following instructions he had gathered over the past weeks.
On her back door a picture of the Mona Lisa hung, placed there, he had been informed, to tell callers whether or not she was available. He opened the door and went in and was welcomed as warmly as if he were a long lost lover.
After the f
irst time he went regularly and only once found the Mona Lisa absent. On that occasion he stood watching her back entrance and saw Gerry Daniels come out.
Cyril frowned. Funny that, him not long married. Perhaps his old reputation as a womaniser was still true. He shrugged and put the thought aside. It was up to Gerry what he did, after all here he was, a married man and doing the same. The fact that his marriage was as good as over was no excuse. But he didn’t go and knock on Maisie’s door that time.
Later a knock on his door surprised him. It was rare to have visitors. Perhaps his landlady had some query about his laundry, there was often a problem with a less than well ironed shirt or a missing sock.
He opened the door and stepped back in surprise. Marigold stood there, hands on her hips and the blaze of battle in her eyes. “You hypocrite! You disgusting, filthy hypocrite!” He tried to pull her inside, to hush her up, to prevent the whole town hearing what she had to say. What had got into her?
“Let me go, don’t touch me with those whore-stained hands, Cyril Richards! Treating me like you did, giving the whole town something to gossip about, playing for sympathy, and all the time you’re worse! Holier-than-thou Cyril Richards, going to the local—” she couldn’t bring herself to say prostitute, “to the local whore for comfort!” she shouted. “How dare you criticise me, making all the town treat me like a leper while you visit a woman like Maisie Boxmoor! I was weak and G… and he offered me comfort when I was lonely and frightened, afraid for you, wondering if you were dead!”
He wanted to gather her in his arms and let her cry out the anger and unhappiness, share in her tears, but some stubbornness remained and he was embarrassed, too, by the scene she was causing. It passed fleetingly across his mind that he would have to find new lodgings, his landlady would not take kindly to this behaviour.
Before his brain began to work out a response to her outburst she was gone, the door slammed, threatening to snap its hinges, her footsteps running down the stairs like the rumble of thunder.
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