Not2Nite

by Barbara Burke

  “Not serious! I’m already planning how many kids we’re going to have. Don’t tell me not to be ridiculous.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she turned her head away.

  “Don’t you see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not real. How could it be?”

  “How could it not be? Do you think people can’t fall in love in an instant?”

  “No, I think they can. And then I think they fall out of love just as quickly. What happens to wartime romance when it’s suddenly confronted by reality? By the realization that it’s committed itself to years of staring across the breakfast table at a complete stranger?”

  She could see the confusion in Guy’s eyes.

  And then, astonishingly, growing realization.

  “You didn’t love him. Your husband.”

  She’d never admitted it. Not even when her mother begged her to cry. Not even when her closest friend wept for her. Not even alone in the dark. Not fully.

  And no one had guessed.

  “No,” she said, “But I thought I did once.”

  “And so you decided that love at first sight can’t be real.”

  “No, I don’t think it’s quite that simple. I decided that love at first sight can’t last, not without the opportunity to grow into something else. It’s like mist on the mountains at dawn. It’s there for all to see, but come the harsh light of the sun and it’s gone as surely as if it had never existed at all.”

  “But that doesn’t stop it from hurting. Is that it? You don’t want to go through that again for something you’ve decided cannot possibly last?”

  “But it didn’t hurt. That’s the worst part. I felt nothing at all.” She tried hard to explain something she’d barely been able to acknowledge to herself. “Can you imagine that? We thought we meant the world to each other. He was in the Royal Navy, and when he sailed away, I truly believed my heart would break. We’d only been together two weeks. It was so little time. And then, three months later when the telegram came I could barely remember his face. How could I mourn someone I hardly knew? I couldn’t.”

  “And you still feel guilty about it.”

  “I hate myself for it!” The admission was wrenched out of her like a cry of sudden pain, and for the first time, there were tears in her eyes.

  She didn’t feel him move, but suddenly his arms were around her. There was nothing romantic in his grasp, just comfort. Comfort, warmth, and acceptance. As if she wasn’t a bad person despite what she’d just confessed.

  It was irresistible.

  Even as she told herself she should pull away, she tucked her head into his chest and allowed him to envelope her. Allowed herself to pretend she could be comforted. That this was something she could get over.

  And as she stood there in his arms under the dark sky, a strange feeling of peace came over her. The tears, which had been so long in coming, dried. Dried and disappeared as if they hadn’t been stubbornly lodged inside her for so long. It was as if a hole had been blasted into a dam, and it turned out that there was nothing but a trickle of water on the other side. As if they were no longer necessary.

  And Guy stood there with her. A silent presence. Demanding nothing. She had the feeling that he would stand there forever if she needed him to.

  But she was a big girl. And she fought her own battles.

  Even when they were against herself.

  She lifted her head and pushed him away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was inexcusable.”

  He made a sharp movement of protest, and she stepped back abruptly, lifting a hand as if to ward him off. It was enough. He made no further move toward her. She convinced herself that she should feel grateful.

  “Molly, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “No, of course not,” she agreed, almost politely. “It was the circumstances. A repeat of which I’m attempting to avoid.”

  “If you think not kissing can have any effect on falling in love or not, you’re either incredibly naïve or you’re attempting to fool yourself.” For the first time he sounded almost angry.

  “Then perhaps you’d better go,” she replied instantly, her chin coming up.

  “No,” said Guy immediately, as if such a consideration wasn’t even possible. “I’m leaving tomorrow for Leicester, where Uncle John lives, but tonight belongs to you.”

  He forestalled her before she could protest. “We might not have known each other long enough for you to allow for the possibility of…let’s call it a romance, just for yucks. However, in that short time I have come to know you well enough to recognize that you’re duty bound to stay on this rooftop and nothing short of a direct order from Winston Churchill will get you off it, and I know myself well enough to know that there’s nothing you can do to make me leave. Stalemate. So you might as well just accept my presence here.”

  “You’re wrong, you know. There is something that would make you leave.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Molly smiled, and even though it was dark and he couldn’t see her, she was smiling for him. “You might know my sense of duty, but I know your sense of chivalry. If I really wanted you to leave, if your remaining up here with me would truly make me unhappy, then not even a direct order from your President Roosevelt would make you stay.”

  Guy thought about that for a minute.

  “Okay, you got me. But watch who you’re calling chivalrous. If the boys back home heard you speaking of me like that, I’d be a laughing stock,” he joked. And then his voice turned serious. “Are you going to make me leave? I don’t want you to be unhappy, but I really want to stay here with you.”

  “Why?”

  “I probably can’t answer that fully without getting into trouble. Can I just say it would make me happy?”

  “Are you going to behave?”

  “Well,” he answered dubiously, “I’m going to behave some way or other. I can’t just stand here like a mannequin in a department store window. I’d freeze to death if I didn’t die of boredom first—or worse yet, bore you to tears. Whether you approve of my behavior or not is something else entirely.”

  Molly knew that he was trying to get them back onto an easier footing. Perhaps the string of confessions and highly strung emotions had frightened him as much as it had her. She also knew she didn’t want to spend the rest of the night up here alone with nothing to do but watch an empty sky and nothing to think about but him.

  “I should send you away. Even without everything else, you have no business being up here. You should―”

  “I know, I should be tucked safely under the covers with a cup of cocoa and nothing but a raggedy teddy bear and the monsters under the bed to keep me company, just like poor little Angela.”

  “I doubt she’s tasted cocoa in months.”

  “Don’t be pedantic. Just tell me I can stay.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t care. And for once in your life, don’t you care either.”

  She took a deep breath. “All right. You win. You can stay.”

  She expected him to do something outrageous. Whoop like a cowboy or swing her up in the air. Something no Englishman would dream of doing. Instead he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead, his lips only briefly touching her cold skin.

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  He’d completely defied her expectations, and now she didn’t know what to think. That simply wasn’t fair.

  “None of that,” she finally warned for want of anything better to say.

  “Okay, no kissing unless you start it,” he conceded. “You’re the boss.”

  “Yes, when it suits you!”

  “Well it suits me now. And, I might add, it suits you, too. In fact, it’s very becoming.”

  “All right. Stop.” She went back to the edge of the parapet and perched herself on it. “Let’s see if we can have a normal conversation that involves neither little green men nor overly personal revelations. Tell me abo
ut yourself. You design aeroplane parts, and you’re devoted to your mother. What else?”

  “Well,” he replied mischievously, “maybe it’s because my mother rules the family with a velvet fist, but I’m quite drawn to dictatorial women. I just thought I should warn you.”

  “So you think I’m dictatorial, do you?” she asked.

  “I was just telling you something about myself. If you choose to interpret it to be about you, I can’t stop you.”

  “Oh, Guy, you wretched man,” she exclaimed. “So I’m either bossy and conceited or just plain conceited. What a choice. Here I am trying to be on my best behavior and you insist on bringing out the worst in me.”

  He laughed and sat down beside her. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation I don’t think you’re either of those things. Now, what would you like to know about me?”

  To Molly’s relief, they managed to settle into easy conversation, sometimes laughing, sometimes speaking thoughtfully. She learned that Guy’s favorite book when he was growing up was Tom Sawyer—“why am I not surprised by that?” Molly wondered—and told him she had a cat, D’Artagnan, who sported a plumed tail and had no hesitation in taking on three foes at once—“why am I not surprised by that?” Guy retorted in his turn.

  And though it was the middle of winter, Molly found that having someone to share the long night’s watch with kept the cold at bay like a warm quilt. As they chatted she completely lost track of the time until Guy brought the state of the sky to her attention.

  “If I’m not mistaken, it’s starting to lighten up. In fact, I think I can see the sun on the horizon. It’ll be morning soon.” He sounded as surprised as she felt at his words. “How many hours have we been up here?”

  “A great many, though it doesn’t feel like it. The all clear will be sounding soon, and people will be getting on with their lives again.”

  “And Londoners go through this every night?”

  “Don’t I wish!”

  Guy was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “We didn’t get bombed, did we? This is a good night.”

  She smiled up at him and realized that she could see his face quite clearly. It was indeed the start of a new day. She could relax.

  As if on cue, a wailing sound cut through the morning air. Molly quickly covered her ears and motioned for Guy to do the same. One long note, it seemed to go on forever before eventually dying out.

  “Wow!” Guy exclaimed. “Is that the all clear? I thought the baby was loud.”

  “It is noisy, isn’t it,” Molly agreed. “Especially for us up here. We’re quite close to where the siren is mounted. But other people are asleep in shelters, some very deep underground, and they have to be able to hear when it’s safe to come out again. Come on, now that the siren’s sounded we’re officially off duty.”

  She carefully picked up the tray with the two tea cups that Angela had delivered to them hours before. “Can you open the door, please?”

  Guy jumped forward. During the night they’d stacked the bits of wood that had impeded their access to the door against the wall and the way was clear. “Should we just leave this stuff here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what else to do with it. We’ll just have to hope that they build more carefully next time, or at least farther away from the door,” Molly answered as she manoeuvred her way through the door and onto the landing. “Turn on the light, please.”

  But Guy didn’t immediately comply. He stood for a moment looking about him. The roof top where they had spent the night was completely visible now, right down to the slate tiles and smoke-blackened bricks. “I just want to see where I spent the night,” he explained.

  “Of course,” she said. She stepped back out onto the roof and put the tray down. “I’d forgotten you were a stranger here. How odd to have spent so much time in a place without knowing what your surroundings look like.”

  She walked with him to the edge of the parapet and surveyed the city, where the tops of the buildings that made up the skyline of London had become easy to distinguish in the growing light. It wasn’t a particularly tall city, not like New York with its skyscrapers, but it seemed to stretch for ever, whichever way one turned.

  In the distance Guy could see St Paul’s Cathedral, still standing amidst the rubble around it. Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of the toll that months of bombing had taken. Churches with only half a spire and no roof. Piles of collapsed masonry where apartment buildings had once stood. Below them, just across the street, was a gaping hole where a large building, perhaps more than one large building, had once stood.

  It was chilling and he said so.

  “Yes,” Molly said. “Believe it or not, we’ve almost stopped noticing. We’ve forgotten that the city didn’t always look like this.” She paused for a moment, thinking about the changes that had come over London in the last year. “I know they’re not really important in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes I think it’s the trees that make me the saddest. We’re a very small island surrounded by enemy patrols, and so now we need to grow as much of our food as we possibly can rather than importing it as we’ve done in the past. So most of our green spaces and private parks have been planted over with vegetable gardens. Of course the trees had to be cut down, both to make room to grow more practical things and to allow what little sunlight we get to reach the crops. But some of those trees had stood for hundreds of years and I regret their loss. Silly, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all. Buildings can be replaced when this is all over, maybe even with something better, though that’s hard to imagine now. But nature can’t be hurried. Those scars will last. And a tree that one of King Charles’ cavaliers or a Regency buck might have kissed his true love under is now gone for good. That is a tragedy.”

  “You do understand. Most people think I’m just being foolish. And, naturally, when you compare the worth of a tree to the thousands and thousands of lives that have been lost, they’re right.”

  “But why should you compare them? Regretting the loss of the trees doesn’t diminish any sorrow you might feel about something else. How parsimonious humans would be if we had to dole out our feelings. Look at it the other way round. I’ve got two older siblings. I’d hate to think that my parents had to be careful they didn’t love them too much in order to ensure that they’d have some left for me when I came along.”

  “How right you are,” Molly said, struck by his words. “Thank you. From now on I’ll mourn the trees without the slightest shame.”

  “Good.” He grinned at her. “Now let’s celebrate that decision by getting off this roof and finding some breakfast. I know there’s a war on, but I’m starving. Any chance of finding somewhere that can rustle us up some grub?”

  “I know the very place,” she said with a smile and led him off the roof and down the stairs.

  Chapter Seven

  “Do you suppose there’s any actual meat in these sausages?” Guy asked, dubiously poking the contents of his plate with a fork.

  “Don’t be silly. Of course there’s meat in them. If there weren’t you wouldn’t be able to distinguish the bangers from the bread.”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  Despite any reservations Guy might have had about the food, the café was full. Every chair was occupied, and there was a line up at the door. For those who had a few pence to spare, but limited time before heading off to work, it was easier to grab some breakfast in a restaurant than it was to try to put together something at home. Especially since restaurants weren’t subject to the same rationing restrictions that home cooks were.

  “Then put a bit of butter on them and eat up.”

  Clearly unsympathetic, Molly tucked into her sausages, fried potatoes, baked beans, and bread with a will, washing the lot down with strong, black tea.

  Guy took an experimental bite and then a larger one. He was even hungrier than he’d thought and he ate steadily for a few minutes before stopping to ask: “This meal is safe to
eat, isn’t it?”

  “Why shouldn’t it be?”

  “I’m concerned about the fact that you call the sausages bangers. Are they likely to explode?”

  Molly laughed. “Since you’re eating your breakfast without complaint, I don’t think it would be wise for me to explain that term to you and put you off your meal again. Will you just trust me if I tell you they won’t hurt you?”

  “Absolutely not.” Guy put his knife and fork down resolutely.

  Molly rolled her eyes. “All right, you win. They’re called bangers because they may be of slightly lower quality than sausages that are made of pure pork.”

  “Aha! So they don’t have any meat in them. I was right.”

  “No, they have meat in them. But they also have other ingredients as well.”

  “Just as I suspected,” he muttered darkly. “But why are they called bangers?”

  “Not for any reason that you need worry about. It’s just that they tend to…well…explode when they’re frying.”

  Guy didn’t pick up his fork. “And we’re meant to eat exploding sausages?”

  “Well they don’t explode on your plate!”

  “Thank heavens for small mercies. I guess if I survived a night on a rooftop in the middle of a war in the middle of winter I can survive this.” Guy picked up his cutlery and resumed eating.

  It didn’t take them long to finish their meal, and they didn’t linger after they were done. There were still quite a few people waiting for seats.

  Outside the air was fresh and clear, and the clouds that had protected them from bombers all night had been swept away by the morning sun. They stood for a moment in front of the still intact plate glass of the café’s large window watching the increasingly heavy crowd bustle past.

  “You must be off to catch your train, and I’ve got to get back to my digs so I guess this is good bye for real this time,” Molly said.

  “To hell with that. I’m not letting you go that easily. I want to see you again.”

  “Guy, it was lovely spending the night with you—” She blushed a fiery red as a passerby snorted in amusement and gave Guy the thumbs up.