Through The Storm

by Maureen Lee

  A shiver of desire passed through Jessica’s body which left her gasping, and it was a physical effort not to reach out and touch the broad taut neck which was so close. She made a sound and quickly put her hand to her mouth to prevent the sound from being heard.

  Too late. Jack glanced in her direction. ‘Did you say something?’

  Jessica shook her head numbly. Their eyes met and slowly, very slowly, his face flushed as he read the message in her eyes and on her face. Very carefully, he laid the bike on the floor and came towards her. She felt as if her insides had turned to liquid and could scarcely breathe as he approached …

  At that moment, Penny decided to wake up. There was a whimper, followed by a gurgle and a slight crash as she attempted to scoot the pushchair out of the office, which was something she’d lately started to do.

  The spell was shattered. ‘I’m coming, sweetheart.’

  Jessica rushed into the office and picked her daughter up. Still shaking, she buried her face in the plump body.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Jack was standing in the doorway, his own face expressionless. The last few minutes might never have occurred.

  ‘She’s taken to regarding her pushchair as a scooter. I daren’t leave her outside shops any more, even with the brake on she manages to get a few yards.’

  ‘I’ll tighten the brake up for you. By the way, I’ve still got our Tony’s scooter in the washhouse. I made it for him when he was two. She may as well have it. I’ll bring it round one day.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Penny beamed at Jack. ‘Dada,’ she cooed.

  ‘She calls everyone that,’ Jessica said quickly. ‘Me, Rita, everyone. Do you mind holding her for a minute whilst I take these overalls off? It’s one o’clock, I’m going home.’ It wasn’t fair on Penny to work six full days a week. She’d take her into town that afternoon to see the decorations which were already up for Christmas – and deliver the advert for the Echo at the same time.

  If only Penny hadn’t woken up, thought Jessica in the office as she struggled out of Dennis Mott’s overalls. Even so, it only brought the day when they’d make love again closer. She knew without a doubt that it was bound to happen some time, the sooner the better as far as she was concerned.

  Outside the office, Jack Doyle wiped his brow with his free hand. ‘Jaysus!’ he muttered. ‘What’s got into me? If the baby hadn’t woken up …’

  ‘Dada,’ said Penny. She arched her spine and suddenly swung herself backwards as far as she could go, as if daring him to drop her. Jack managed to catch her before she slipped out of his arms.

  ‘You little bugger! You nearly went flying then,’ he said, frightened.

  Penny pursed her lips and regarded him wisely. She clutched his ears and pressed her nose against his so he could scarcely breathe.

  ‘You’re a handful, Penny Fleming,’ he managed to splutter. ‘Just like your bloody mam, if the truth be known.’

  ‘Dada.’ She released his ears and laid her head on his shoulder. He glanced down fondly at the round curve of her cheek. Dada, she’d called him. He’d always loved children. It would have been nice if he and Mollie had had more.

  Jack suddenly felt his blood run cold! Dada!

  Sheila was always on about the similarity between Penny and Siobhan. ‘You’d think they were sisters. Wouldn’t you say so, Dad?’

  He couldn’t recall having answered. Women always seemed to be seeing a likeness between people who couldn’t possibly be related. It hadn’t crossed his mind to do so before, but he began to work out the length of time between the night he’d found Jessica in number 5 – January, it was, the snow was thick on the ground – and when Penny had been born, which was September.

  Nine months!

  And Jess had spent more than twenty barren years with Arthur.

  Penny raised her head and looked at him sleepily. Her blue eyes blinked with tiredness. Jack saw his own face staring back at him, just as he remembered doing when Eileen, his first-born, was the same age. Sheila had taken after Mollie. He knew without a doubt that this was his child.

  Jessica emerged from the office dressed in a royal-blue jacket, slacks and jumper. She had removed the scarf and her long hair was held back with a slide.

  ‘Ready?’

  He looked at her stupidly, his mind in a turmoil, until he realised she was waiting for him to put Penny in the pushchair.

  It seemed only natural that they should walk home together. Jack was too dazed to speak for most of the way. Jess mustn’t want him to know the truth, else she would have said something. Knowing her independent ways, perhaps she thought she’d be exerting pressure if she told him Penny was his child.

  Exerting pressure to do what?

  Christ knows, thought Jack, his thoughts wild. Even walking beside the tall, vibrant woman, their child in the pram, felt odd. It didn’t seem right, it didn’t fit in, it wasn’t proper. He was a widower and had no plans to be anything different until the day he died. Not only that, he was fifty-three …

  His thoughts veered crazily and he imagined them a couple, a couple with a young child, living in the same house together, Jess’s pliant body his to take night after night, but even that seemed wrong. What had happened between them wasn’t natural. Men and women weren’t supposed to act that way. But if that was the case, why was he aching for it to happen again?

  Harriet Mansell snapped her fingers in front of Kitty’s eyes. ‘Come on, Kitty, back to the land of the living.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Kitty groaned as Lucy began to drag her along Lime Street. ‘I want to stay where I am, in the pictures still watching Gone With the Wind.’ At least, that’s where her head was. She resented being jolted into the present.

  ‘It was the gear, wasn’t it?’ Lucy said with smug satisfaction. She considered herself entirely responsible for Kitty’s state of euphoria. Going to the pictures had been her idea.

  ‘The gear! That’s an understatement. It was wonderful, it was breathtaking. It was an experience I’ll never forget.’ She’d completely forgotten where she was during nearly four hours of total enchantment.

  ‘I must admit it was very enjoyable,’ conceded Harriet. ‘Certainly not something that could have been done in the theatre.’

  Lime Street was crowded with the post-cinema crush. For some reason, voices always sounded muffled in the blackout. A few cars crawled by, slits of headlights glinting weakly. It was a terrible anticlimax, Kitty thought, after the colourful glory of the American Civil War.

  ‘Would you two girls like a drink?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I’d love one,’ Lucy said. ‘Shall we go to Lyon’s for a cup of tea?’

  ‘I meant something stronger. It’ll be my treat.’

  Harriet plunged into the first pub they came to. The place was packed. To Kitty’s relief, she noticed there were plenty of women there, many in uniform. She’d never been in a public house before and had always assumed it was just not done for women to go in alone – except women who were no better than they should be, of course – but it seemed that this was one of the numerous customs that had changed since the war.

  They found three empty stools and put them in a corner and Harriet asked what they would like to drink.

  ‘Shandy,’ said Lucy.

  ‘I’ll have shandy, too.’ The only alcohol Kitty had ever consumed was a small glass of sherry at Christmas. It all felt very daring; her first pub and her first talking picture, both on the same night. Then she remembered Scarlett O’Hara, and it didn’t seem daring at all, not compared to the things she’d done.

  Harriet was ages getting the drinks. She returned eventually with them on a tray, having bought herself a pint of beer.

  ‘I haven’t had a beer in ages. We used to drink it by the gallon when I was a student.’

  ‘Did you go to university, Harriet?’ Lucy asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet said briefly. She didn’t elaborate further and looked as if she regretted what might have b
een a slip of the tongue. ‘I see there are some SBAs from the hospital at the bar.’

  Both Kitty and Lucy turned to look, just as the three young men turned to look at them. They spoke briefly to each other and came across. Sick bay attendants wore a different uniform from ordinary sailors; a peaked cap and navy-blue serge suit.

  ‘So, you three girls are out on the town, eh?’ one said jovially.

  ‘We’ve been to see Gone With the Wind,’ Lucy explained. ‘Poor Kitty still hasn’t come down to earth.’

  One of the men crouched down beside Kitty. He was the one who’d walked over her clean floor on her first morning at the hospital. Larry Newell had turned out to be an SBA, not a doctor. She’d come across him often since and he was always friendly and one of the very few who remembered her name. He was handsome in a suntanned, open-air way, with straight fair hair which fell in a little careless quiff over his forehead, and nice brown eyes.

  ‘Good, was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Very good,’ Kitty stammered awkwardly. She’d learnt to talk quite easily to the patients, but wasn’t sure if she could cope with a healthy man who wasn’t in pyjamas. She wished he wouldn’t stare at her so keenly, as if he was genuinely interested in what she had to say. ‘Oh, yes, it was very, very … good,’ she finished, blushing.

  ‘That’s a nice coat. Blue suits you.’

  Kitty blushed even more. ‘It’s new. Me friend made it for me.’

  ‘Go to the pictures often, do you?’ he asked conversationally. ‘I often wonder what you get up to out of working hours when I see you rushing round the hospital.’

  ‘Not really. This is the first time in ages.’

  ‘Fancy us going together next Saturday? The Road to Singapore’s on across the road, with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Kitty gulped. ‘I’m on afternoon shift for the next month. We don’t finish till ten o’clock.’

  ‘Of course, I forgot. I’m on afternoons, too. In that case, we can go on Sunday, a week tomorrow.’

  Kitty glanced across at her friends. Harriet looked quite content, sipping her beer and listening to what was going on, and Lucy was laughing uproariously at something one of the other SBAs had said. She might be plain, almost ugly, but Lucy had enormous confidence and was popular with everyone, particularly men. She always knew exactly what to say and when to say it and was forever ready with a quip or an encouraging word. Unabashed by authority, she’d been known to pass the time of day with Matron if she came within earshot. The only thing that worried Lucy was losing her job for being late. ‘If only I could be like that,’ Kitty thought enviously. ‘She’s eight years younger than me and she’s got more confidence in her little finger than I’ve got in me whole body.’

  Lucy would know how to deal with the young man crouched on the floor beside her waiting for an answer.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Kitty said eventually.

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’ He looked hurt.

  ‘Oh, I am,’ Kitty lied. ‘It’s just that I have stacks of work to do on Sundays. I was just wondering if I could fit it in, like.’

  ‘I’ll find out the time of the performance and we can arrange when and where to meet next week.’

  The three men left shortly afterwards. ‘I’m seeing Bob tomorrow for a drink,’ Lucy said with an air of satisfaction. ‘I’ve always fancied Bob Morrissey.’

  ‘You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a sixpence, Kitty,’ Harriet said with a grin. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Kitty said gloomily.

  ‘Yes, there is. Come on, love, what’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s just that I’ve been asked out, too, and I’m not sure if I want to go.’

  ‘That Larry Newell’s a bit of a dark horse. I’ve never known him ask one of the nurses out before,’ remarked Lucy. ‘You’ve scored a hit there, Kitty.’

  ‘She shouldn’t go if she doesn’t want to,’ Harriet argued. ‘Just because a man asks a woman out, she doesn’t automatically have to say yes.’

  ‘But she’ll never gain any experience with men, will she, if she refuses every time because she’s scared?’

  In the confines of their cubbyhole, when Clara Watkins wasn’t around, the three women had shared confidences and knew a great deal about each other’s lives. Harriet’s fiancé, Hugh, had been killed in the last great war, and Lucy felt deeply hurt that her mother had walked out on the three children when they were small, leaving them with a violent father. Both Harriet and Lucy were aware of the sheltered life Kitty had led so far, and her dad’s subsequent miraculous recovery was discussed in detail from time to time.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Kitty said miserably.

  ‘I think you should go,’ Lucy declared firmly.

  ‘And I think you shouldn’t,’ Harriet declared just as firmly.

  ‘You’re a lot of help, the pair of you.’

  ‘Let’s have another drink,’ said Harriet. ‘We’ll discuss it further over a liqueur.’

  In the end, it was Kitty herself who decided she must go. Because of the war, the warm, comfortable life closeted with her dad had come to an end, a life which she’d secretly resented for most of the time. She’d always been shy, and ten years of virtual isolation from company her own age had done her no good at all. Now she must learn to live as other young women did. She’d got a job she loved, made new friends, bought new clothes. The nurses in the hospital were forever giggling over the dates they’d been on the night before.

  It was time Kitty Quigley went on a proper date with a man.

  Larry Newell was waiting outside the Palais de Luxe, a navy raincoat over his arm. He was close to the front of the long queue, which meant he must have been there quite some time.

  ‘Hallo, there,’ he smiled when Kitty arrived. ‘I thought I’d come early so we’d get good seats.’ He caught her arm and pulled her protectively inside the queue so she was against the wall. ‘You’re wearing lipstick. I’ve never seen you with lipstick on before.’

  ‘It’s black market,’ she said. She’d got it off the Kellys the night before.

  He seemed to think this amusing and laughed heartily. Kitty noticed there were little shreds of orange and gold in his brown eyes.

  ‘These are for you.’ He handed her a box of chocolates. ‘I hope you like dark chocolate.’

  ‘I love Black Magic,’ Kitty gasped gratefully. She’d keep the nuts for her dad – unless Larry would like them, of course.

  The supporting film had already started by the time they went in. The usherette showed them to a row near the back, the most expensive seats. Kitty found the film very disappointing. Not only was it in black and white, but the actors seemed strangely wooden after Gone With the Wind.

  During the interval, conversation turned out to be easier than she’d thought because they had something in common to discuss, their work.

  ‘So, you’re under Bellamy, are you?’ he said with a shudder. ‘I must say I don’t envy you.’

  ‘She’s all right once you get to know her,’ Kitty assured him. ‘Her bark’s worse than her bite.’ Since her sacking and swift reinstatement, Kitty had begun to establish a wary sort of friendship with Nurse Bellamy. ‘Would you like a chocolate?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a nut if there is one.’

  The Road to Singapore was thoroughly enjoyable; Bob Hope was a scream, and Bing Crosby sang in a voice like velvet. Dorothy Lamour drifted in and out looking serenely beautiful.

  ‘Would you like a drink? We could go to the same pub as last week,’ Larry asked when they emerged into the darkness.

  Kitty ordered a shandy again. By now, she was beginning to feel exhilarated. Her first date, and it was all going so smoothly. She felt as if she’d known Larry for ages. He was incredibly easy to talk to. She watched as he stood at the bar waiting for the drinks, for the first time seeing him properly as a man, her date.

  He was very good-looking, as Lucy had been saying enviously all w
eek. Quite tall, he wore his uniform smartly and the jacket fitted perfectly across his shoulders. His thick blond hair gleamed under the lights from the bar. Kitty felt a pleasant little thrill. They got on so well, she felt positive he’d ask her out again. If so, she’d definitely say yes. Her mind drifted to the future, with Larry as her permanent boyfriend, then her fiancé. She visualised them getting married in St James’s Church – wartime weddings were so romantic. She wasn’t sure where they’d live, perhaps with Dad until the war was over …

  She already had two children, a boy and a girl, by the time he arrived with the drinks, and blushed furiously, worried he might read her thoughts. ‘Ta.’ She took a long mouthful to calm herself.

  He began to tell her about himself. Before the war, he’d helped his father run the family roofing firm in Dorset. ‘The business will be mine one of these days.’ He wrinkled his rather fine nose. ‘Not that I’m much interested.’ He preferred sport, boxing mainly. ‘The school insisted we take a course in first aid, which is why I was made an SBA when I was called up. I was the Southern Middleweight Champion at nineteen,’ he added proudly. ‘One of these days I’d like to start my own gymnasium.’

  ‘Me dad’s interested in sport. He used to play for Everton.’

  Larry was impressed. ‘Everton! I’d love to meet him some time.’

  ‘You can come to tea next Sunday if you like,’ Kitty suggested shyly, the sound of wedding bells beginning to ring in her ears – until she remembered church bells had been banned and were only supposed to ring if an invasion was imminent.

  ‘I’d like to very much. Do you want another drink?’

  ‘No, ta. I think I’d better be getting home.’

  ‘To your dad?’ he smiled.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘We can get the train together. You get off a few stops before I do.’

  He linked her arm companionably when they got outside the pub and began to stroll through the black streets in the direction of Exchange Station. Kitty doubted if she’d ever felt so happy. She had a young man and it had all happened so quickly. Wait till she told Sheila Reilly, and Harriet, and Lucy …