Not2Nite

by Barbara Burke

  “Well, that’s the beauty of these things. It can mean whatever your mind can twist it to mean.”

  Molly had been about to pop the candy in her mouth, but his words stopped her. “That could come in very handy,” she said. “I think I’ll hold on to this.” She dropped it into her pocket. “Now I can pull it out every time a young man who’s one over the eight decides to make me the object of his dubious intentions.”

  “Well, if you think that will stop him, go ahead. It might even work. But then I’m kind of inclined to believe that anyone who’s already drunk eight pints shouldn’t be too hard to manage anyway. I’ve tasted English beer. It’s not for sissies.”

  “Well I’ll keep it as a reminder of the lost American, then.”

  “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you keep the lost American instead?” He held out his arm, clearly expecting her to take it.

  “What on earth do you mean?” she asked, holding still and ignoring his arm.

  “You don’t seriously think I’m going to let you sit on a roof all by yourself while I trot off to bed, do you? I’m coming with you.”

  “You certainly are not! It’s too dangerous.”

  She couldn’t be serious. Like he was going to let her go, if that were the case.

  “Then I’m definitely coming with you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s my job. I’ve been trained to do this. You’re a civilian, and it’s not your war. You could get hurt. Even killed.”

  “Nope, not going to happen.” Since she seemed to have no intention of taking his arm, he reached for her hand and carefully tucked it into the crook of his arm.

  “What do you mean it’s not going to happen? How on earth can you say that?”

  “Easy. Just look at the candy.”

  There it was. Bright green on a pastel pink background: Not2Nite.

  Molly laughed reluctantly. “You’re completely absurd.”

  “Maybe,” Guy conceded. “But I’m coming with you just the same.”

  Chapter Three

  Molly couldn’t believe how easy it was for Guy to break down her defences. It was completely absurd of him to think he could just trot along beside her like a puppy on a walk in the park, sure of its welcome by all and sundry and completely oblivious to any other considerations. Yet here she was, letting him do just that.

  The trouble with American men was that they all sounded like Hollywood movie stars—creatures from a glamorous world that, after almost two years of war, seemed as remote as the most distant edge of the galaxy. How on earth was it even possible to deny someone who talked like Clark Gable or Gary Cooper anything he asked for? There may be some girls in the world with inhuman amounts of self-control who might possibly be able to say no to such a man, but Molly was fairly sure she’d never met one. And she was absolutely positive she wasn’t one herself.

  And to make matters worse, or better depending on your point of view, Guy even looked like he could comfortably take his place on the big screen and give the most handsome actor in the world a run for his money. Admittedly she was a sucker for a good head of dark hair. One of her deepest, darkest secrets was the fact that as a teenager she’d spent all her pocket money to sit in the stalls at a west end theatre week after week gazing longingly at Laurence Olivier as Romeo simply because she adored his dark good looks. Yet now that she’d met Guy, she didn’t think she’d give a second glance to the man who’d gone on to play Mr. Darcy on the screen so perfectly that Jane Austin must have had some sort of supernatural vision of the future when she wrote Pride and Prejudice. There would never, ever again be a Mr. Darcy as perfect as Olivier.

  Not that looks were important. She’d certainly had that drummed into her head all her life after once being caught by her nanny preening in front of a mirror, and it was absolutely true.

  Yet.

  Guy’s hair was so very thick and wavy. She didn’t know why he wasn’t wearing a hat, but she thoroughly approved of the result. The slightly windblown look with the single lock falling across his forehead did things to her insides that surprised her. Surely no respectable girl should get so…visceral over a simple bit of dishevelment. She had to curl her hands into fists to stop herself from reaching out and touching it. The temptation was so overwhelming she seriously thought there ought to be a law or something to force men to keep their hair under control. It simply wasn’t fair to the fairer sex.

  Other than that, he looked quite respectable. Good tweed suit, properly knotted tie, and shoes polished to a high gloss. Shoes were something Molly noticed. A gentleman was always decently shod, her nanny had insisted, and it was too late now for Molly to overcome her early training. She wasn’t sure if her nanny would approve of how much Molly appreciated the breadth of Guy’s shoulders or the length of his legs under the fine merino wool, but she was a big girl now and perfectly capable of granting aesthetic approval on her own. And Guy’s long, lean physique was definitely aesthetically pleasing. The golden ratio made manifest in human form—a perfectly proportioned man.

  As for his face. It was almost an afterthought.

  But then, sometimes the best part of the letter follows the P.S.

  This was getting ridiculous. She wasn’t a teenager any more. She was a respectable woman with a responsible position, and she was much too old to fall for a pretty face, thank you very much. Even if his eyes were almost black and practically begging to be gazed into.

  Stop it.

  Just accept the fact that he had insisted on accompanying her and be very, very glad of the darkness, she told herself firmly. That way she wouldn’t be distracted from her duty by a pretty face and a fine pair of eyes.

  But were they really black? She couldn’t help wondering. Was that even possible?

  It didn’t matter. A few hours on plane spotting duty and he’d be out of her life forever, taking his mysterious black eyes and licentious lock of hair with him. Because just like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, and even Laurence Olivier, although she’d once seen him in Harrods clutching a woman’s handbag like harried husbands the world over, he existed somewhere completely outside her universe. Her happy universe where she was content to reside (when there wasn’t a war on).

  “Which way?”

  “What?” Heavens! Molly had been so distracted not thinking about Guy that she’d completely lost track of her surroundings. She came back to herself abruptly to find herself standing on the pavement outside the American Embassy completely immobile. “Oh. Sorry. I, uh, was thinking of something else. Back down the alley, I’m afraid. We’ll need to retrace our steps to a certain degree. The building we’re looking for is just a couple of blocks from where I found you.”

  Guy laughed again a little ruefully. “You make me sound like a glove or something, accidentally discarded when the owner was thinking about something else.”

  “If you were a glove, I would have left you there. I can’t think of anything more useless than a single glove.”

  “Well, I probably shouldn’t open myself up to an honest answer like this, but I’ve kinda got the feeling that you probably think that description applies to lost Americans, too.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive. I specifically didn’t call you useless. Although at this rate, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have preferred finding a glove. At least it wouldn’t have shone enough light to draw all the bombers for miles around into my neighborhood, and I might have run into a one-armed man one day for whom it would be a perfect gift.”

  “But think of the disappointment if it had turned out to be for the wrong hand. Or a woman’s glove. You’re much better off finding me instead.”

  “I should have been on my roof twenty minutes ago. I would probably have been much better off leaving you to wander the streets.”

  “Wait until you see how good I am at plane spotting. You’ll wonder how you ever managed without me.”

  “Have you ever done it before?”

  “No, but how difficult could it be? I mean, there’s some kind
of machine in the sky coming toward us. Logic dictates that it can’t be a boat or a train or a car. Ergo, it must be a plane. Done. Spotted. Piece of cake.”

  Molly thought of the hours she’d spent learning by heart to distinguish the silhouettes of the different aircraft, both British and German, that might possibly fly over London. She thought of the even more monotonous training to discern the differences in their engines so she could tell them apart by sound as well as sight. She even knew how to recognize the different types of bombs the Luftwaffe dropped on a regular basis and was fairly accomplished at estimating exactly where they’d fall. And that was the easy part. It was during the chaos that followed a raid, chaos that it was her job to avert and mitigate as much as possible, when she really earned her keep. Piece of cake indeed.

  “Don’t quit your day job,” she advised.

  It didn’t take long to reach their destination. Molly walked along with the confidence of someone who had made these streets her home for a long time. For the last year and a half, sunset had meant the end of any kind of visual cues to one’s surroundings. Londoners had quickly learned to either adapt or stay home. And staying home became a less and less appealing option as the war dragged on. Even with the extension of daylight saving time into the winter months, it quickly became unbearable to dash home every night before it got dark and then sit and wait for the sirens and, hopefully, the all clear. If one didn’t just automatically head for the nearest air raid shelter or tube station, of course, where one could spend the long night neither comfortable nor able to sleep.

  Not really much of a choice in most people’s opinion.

  So they learned how to negotiate the blackness of a world at war—coming home late after a blessed evening of forgetfulness at the pictures or the pub, or staying out of the shelters until the barrage got so bad that even the bravest soul was scared underground.

  Much to Molly’s relief, the front door of the six storey building yielded to her touch. It had been left unlocked by the tenants for her use, which saved her having to bang on the door and hope someone was close enough, and had the radio turned down low enough, to hear her knocking. She and Guy carefully stepped into the passageway, and when the door was safely shut behind them, she flicked the light switch that dimly illuminated the hallway.

  “Up these stairs all the way to the top,” she said. And let’s hope the door onto the roof isn’t locked either, she added silently. “I’m afraid this building doesn’t run to a lift.”

  “I should be able to manage as long as we stop for a rest several times along the way,” Guy assured her.

  Molly gave his long, lean frame the once over. “Yes, you look like the slightest bit of exertion would knock you out for the count.”

  “Come on then,” she added, before he could protest. “Let’s see how far we can get before you need a lie down.”

  In fact, they only made it to the second floor before their ascent was interrupted by the abrupt opening of a door at the top of the landing. It didn’t open very far, and it took Molly a second to realize who had opened it. At first there appeared to be no one there. It wasn’t until she lowered her gaze that she saw a pair of blue eyes peeping out at her from behind the door frame.

  “Hello,” she said.

  The child stared back at her solemnly without speaking.

  “Everything all right?” Molly asked.

  The child continued to stare.

  Guy knelt down at the top of the stairs, bringing himself down to the child’s level. “How you doing, kid? Everything okay?”

  The child’s eyes widened. “You’re a Yank.”

  “Yep.”

  The door opened a little farther, fully revealing what it was now clear was a little girl clutching a ragged doll in one hand and the heavy door in the other. She was neatly dressed, but her clothes were old and designed for someone at least two inches shorter. One white sock was pulled up tidily, but the other languished around a skinny ankle, its elastic long since gone.

  “Have you come to help?”

  “Help with what, Sweetie?”

  “Help to make the Nazis stop,” she answered. “I want them to go away. They bombed my school, and now Bobby Higgins says Adolph Hitler is his best friend, but I don’t like them.” She stopped for a minute before whispering what she clearly considered a shameful secret, “I like school.”

  Guy nodded. “You know, I don’t blame you. I liked my school, too. I guess I’d have been pretty mad if someone had come along and dropped a bomb on it.”

  The little girl’s eyes rounded. “I didn’t know boys liked school.”

  “Well, some of us do. But we don’t tell just anyone.”

  “I won’t tell anyone at all,” she promised.

  “Why aren’t you in a shelter?” Molly asked when the small exchange seemed to be concluded to the satisfaction of both participants.

  “Mam says if she has to spend another night listening to everyone else snore while she doesn’t get a wink of sleep herself she’ll go starem berserk and won’t be held responsible for her actions.” She seemed to suddenly recollect that she was talking to the ARP warden, a person of some authority in the neighborhood, and her eyes widened in alarm as she quickly added, “She doesn’t mean it.”

  “No, I know that,” Molly reassured her. “I’ll tell you a secret. Sometimes I feel like that myself.”

  “Me, too.” The little girl nodded

  “I think we all do,” Guy said.

  The little girl turned her attention back to him. “So, have you come to help?”

  Guy hesitated. “Well, Molly is here to help, and I’m here to help her. So I guess I am in a way.”

  “Good. Mr. Mullins at the fish shop says we’ll soon get the Germans sorted when the Americans finally get involved.” She smiled at him, revealing a gaping hole where at least two baby teeth must have once resided.

  “Angela!” a voice cried out from inside the flat. “What are you doing at the door?”

  “I’m talking to a Yank who’s come to help us win the war,” the little girl shouted back.

  The door was suddenly wrenched open, and a worried looking woman peered out at them suspiciously.

  “Go and get ready for bed,” she ordered the little girl, who made no move to do so.

  “Is there something you want?” she asked, as Guy rose to his full height.

  “I’m the ARP warden,” Molly explained, pointing to the badge on her cap. “We were just on our way up to the roof when you little girl—Angela, is it?—opened the door to see what was going on. We didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  The woman looked them up and down before turning to the child. “Go on, it’s long past your bedtime. I don’t know what I was thinking letting you stay up so late.”

  The child reluctantly stepped away from the door after whispering a hurried “Good bye” and the woman stepped out into the hall, pulling the door to behind her.

  “I’m sorry if she was bothering you. She’s looking for her da,” she explained. “Every step on the stairs she thinks is him coming home, and she rushes to the door.” Her eyes filled with tears and a look of desperation crossed her face. “But he’s not coming home. And I don’t have the heart to tell her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” was all Molly could say.

  “Yeah, well, we’re all sorry, one way or another, aren’t we?” the woman said, drawing herself up to her full height and lifting her chin. “We just have to get on with it, don’t we?”

  Before they could think of a response, she’d stepped back into the flat and closed the door.

  Molly and Guy continued up the stairs in silence. Though they could hear the occasional muffled noise from behind the doors they passed, no one else came out to question their presence in the building.

  Molly was quite out of breath by the time they reached the top floor. “I’m going to have to take up calisthenics,” she groaned. “I’m dreadfully out of shape.”

  “Your shape looks just fine t
o me,” Guy reassured her. “And I’ve been watching it very attentively for six floors, so I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Cheeky sod.” Molly laughed as she carefully switched off the staircase light before reaching for the door. “I should have sent you first.”

  “I wouldn’t have gone,” Guy responded promptly. “I wasn’t just admiring your figure, you know. I was keeping an eye on that ankle. I would have made you stop if you’d started to look like you were beginning to favor it. How does it feel?”

  “I’d forgotten all about it,” Molly said, a hint of surprise in her voice. “I told you it wasn’t badly injured.”

  “Well, I guess I’m glad to hear it, but I’m disappointed I won’t get the chance to sweep you into my arms and carry you everywhere you need to go.”

  “Well, this is where I need to be now, so you’ve lost your opportunity.”

  To her relief the door handle turned easily. But when she went to push it open, it didn’t move.

  “That’s funny,” she said. “I know the door opens outward, but I can’t budge it.”

  “Let me give it a shot,” Guy said, putting his hand out carefully to ensure that Molly wasn’t in the way. Standing sideways and with the handle turned, he drove his shoulder into the door. At first it didn’t seem like it would open, but then something gave and it swung a few feet before smacking into something else.

  There was enough room to get through the doorway, and Molly and Guy carefully stepped onto the roof. Out under the night sky without the looming presence of other buildings, it was a bit lighter than it had been on the streets where the shadows had the upper hand. Or perhaps it was just the lifting clouds.

  In any case, when her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Molly could make out a scattering of planks and broken pieces of wood stretched out before them. It was apparent that some kind of makeshift shed or shelter had been rather poorly constructed and then inevitably collapsed in the first strong wind. The detritus had fallen against the door, effectively blocking their attempt to open it until Guy put his back into it.