‘I suppose the parade is a morale-boosting exercise,’ she said, trying to ignore the melting sensation Harry’s proximity roused. ‘To demonstrate the Empire rallying to the aid of the mother country.’
‘Actually, that’s a bit of a sore point with the Aussies. We don’t talk about the Empire these days. It’s the Commonwealth now. And to set the record straight, we haven’t been rounded up by the King. All the Aussies over here have volunteered.’
‘For which we’re very grateful.’ Georgina raised her glass again and gave a little bow of her head. ‘And full of admiration.’
‘Well, enough of that.’ Harry’s tone was dry, his eyes alight. ‘Let’s check out this menu.’
It all went too quickly of course. The champagne lunch and the hasty tour of London’s sights: the promised Buckingham Palace along with Oxford Street, Savile Row, the cathedrals and castles. At some point during the afternoon, they stopped playing it safe and they walked as lovers, with arms linked, or holding hands, or with Harry’s arm around Georgina’s shoulders.
In the taxi on the way to the Tower of London, Harry stole a long and lovely kiss. On the Tower Bridge, in broad daylight, Georgina stole one back. Such a heady experience, a sense of her feet not touching the ground, of knowing that she was living inside the most delicious, happy dream from which she never wanted to wake.
Too soon the daylight faded and blackout curtains were drawn. A chilling wind swept up the Thames and they hailed a taxi that took them to Waterloo station.
The platform was crowded and it was as if they’d come full circle. Was it really only twenty-four hours ago that they’d met?
Harry’s train pulled in and Georgina tried valiantly to smile. The doors opened and passengers clambered out, looking tired and hassled. Her lips were trembling so badly, her smile wouldn’t hold.
‘I’ll ask if I can have time off,’ she said. ‘So I can come to wave at your parade.’
‘It might not be worth the trouble.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I know you won’t be able to talk to me or anything, and you probably won’t even see me.’ But she would see him, she would watch him marching, looking soldierly and stiff and staring grimly ahead. It would be something.
Harry looked away and swallowed. ‘I’ve got your address, so I’ll write to you.’
‘That would be lovely.’
People were boarding the train. At any minute the guard’s whistle would blow.
‘And, of course, I want to thank you.’
‘No, don’t, Harry.’ Hot tears stung her eyes. ‘Saying thank you makes it – I don’t know – as if I’ve done you a favour or something, but it wasn’t like that, was it?’
His eyes shimmered and she heard the way he drew a quick breath. ‘Bloody hell, George.’
‘Yes, bloody hell,’ she said softly. ‘That about sums it up, doesn’t it?’
The train’s engine gave an impatient wheeze. A man’s voice called, ‘All aboard!’
Harry cracked a very lopsided grin. ‘Maybe you’ll come to Australia when this is all over and I can show you around.’
‘I might hold you to that.’
They shared tremulous smiles.
‘Bye then.’
Just one kiss, short and sweet.
Her throat was painfully tight, but she forced the words out. ‘Bye, Harry. Stay safe.’
The guard’s whistle blew and she watched through a blur of tears as he jumped on board.
‘Excuse me, sir?’
Captain McNicoll looked up from the pile of paperwork on his desk. ‘What is it, Lenton?’
‘I was hoping to have a little time off next Tuesday morning. I have an appointment.’
Her boss, a blue-eyed, sandy haired Scot with high cheekbones and a long, firm jaw that hinted at Viking heritage, watched her over the rim of his glasses as he waited for her to elaborate.
‘It’s a meeting with my family’s lawyer, sir. My father has asked me to see him.’ This wasn’t in any way true, and Georgina felt frightfully bad about lying. She hadn’t dreamed that she would go to such lengths to see Harry again, and the risk certainly came with a price in the form of her uneasy conscience. She took her job at the RASC very seriously.
Their unit was responsible for getting ambulances and drivers into the field as fast as British industry could deliver and, as well as their usual commitments, they were currently turning out one hundred newly qualified drivers each month. This meant that everyone in the office was busy – the men housed in small temporary offices and cubicles, the women in rows, working as typists and filing clerks, the runners and motorcycle dispatch riders. People were constantly on the phone, constantly coming and going.
It was like working in a busy beehive, a productive beehive with a purpose, thanks to Captain McNicoll, who made sure that his unit understood the importance of their work.
Early in the piece, he’d lined up all forty of the staff and had addressed them, not in his usual quiet tones that came with the remnant lilt of a Highland accent, but with the surprisingly passionate ferocity of a man who’d suffered in the trenches in the last war.
‘The boys in the frontline depend on the flow of our supplies. It will be winter soon and I’ve seen my friends die in their sleep for want of a hot drink or a warm blanket – it’s up to us to get these supplies through. We must never take the simple things for granted.’
Georgina’s job mostly involved typing memos and orders that would have been difficult and time consuming for Captain McNicoll, a natural right-hander who’d lost his arm in the Great War and was now struggling to use his left hand. She also acted as his driver and stepped in as his scribe at training and admin sessions, a task she’d quietly taken on without any fuss as soon as she’d seen him struggling with the blackboard.
But even though she was conscientious about her work, the Australians’ parade, scheduled for the following Tuesday, had become vitally important to her. How could she give up another chance to see Harry? She was planning to follow the marching soldiers till they came to a halt, and if there was the tiniest chance that she could speak to Harry, she would grab it.
‘There are no meetings scheduled for next Tuesday morning,’ she told Captain McNicoll, although they both knew that an unforeseen emergency could arise at any moment.
To her relief, he nodded. ‘Very well. At this point in time, I can’t see a problem.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The Fates, however, were not on Georgina’s side. There was a problem the following Tuesday morning, and it came in the form of a roadblock, which she stumbled into while she was driving her boss back from a meeting at HQ.
An ARP warden with a red face and a walrus moustache informed them that a demolition squad was at work on an unexploded bomb.
‘We’ve cordoned off all the streets in the block surrounding the emergency,’ he told them with an air of self-important officiousness. ‘And we’re clearing the entire area of all residents, pedestrians and traffic.’
Georgina might have been able to turn the car around to take a different route back to their office, but before she could attempt this, they became hemmed in by traffic backing up behind them. It was quite some time before a policeman arrived to redirect the flow, and by then vehicles were banked up for several blocks. It was clear it would be ages before everyone was moving again.
Miserably, she told herself that this was her punishment for telling the captain a lie.
The minutes crawled and they’d made no progress at all by the time the parade was due to begin. She tried not to think too much about it, but it was hard not to imagine the band music and the crowds. And Harry, marching with his fellow Australians. People on footpaths would be waving and cheering. Cheering Harry, while Georgina was stuck in this blasted jam.
She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter. There was no point in getting all worked up about a tiny glimpse of a man marching by. But foolishly, she’d spent every night of the past three weeks
imagining this day. She’d been so looking forward to another chance to see him, another slim but tempting possibility to say goodbye – this time with a smile instead of a tear.
‘Lenton,’ Captain McNicoll said, watching her with concern. ‘Don’t worry about taking me back to the office. As soon as we get moving again, you should drive directly by your lawyer’s rooms. I can wait in the car while you have your meeting with him.’
Georgina’s cheeks burned. ‘Oh no, sir, I couldn’t ask you to do that. It – the appointment’s not that important.’
‘I’m sure your father wouldn’t agree, Lenton. In times of war, it’s very important for families to have their legal matters sorted.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Georgina swallowed guiltily and found herself wondering about her boss’s family circumstances. She knew very little about him, just that he was a widower and that he had a son in the navy, a very handsome young man, judging by the photo on the office desk. ‘I’ll ring Mr Hartley as soon as we get back,’ she said. ‘I might still be able to see him later today, or perhaps I can re-schedule my appointment.’
Captain McNicoll nodded. ‘Very well. And you should use my phone. It will be more private.’
Georgina’s cheeks burned hotter than ever. ‘Thank you, sir.’
It was another hour before they finally got back to Dulwich, an hour during which Georgina thought almost constantly about Harry.
‘Sir?’ she found herself saying on an impulse, as she pulled into her boss’s allotted parking space.
‘Yes, Lenton?’ Already, his left hand was poised on the door handle.
‘I wondered —’ Sudden perspiration beaded her upper lip. Her heart fluttered wildly. ‘I wondered if you’ve heard any word about where the Australians might be heading.’
‘The Australians?’ Captain McNicoll looked almost as surprised as Georgina’s mother might have looked under similar circumstances. ‘Why do you want to know about the Australians?’
Her hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. She couldn’t remain calm if she tried. ‘It’s just —’ Her mouth was dry and she had to run her tongue over her parched lips. ‘I – I met an Australian chap and I . . .’
She couldn’t finish the sentence.
An interminable age seemed to pass before Captain McNicoll said quietly, ‘And you’re worried sick.’
‘Yes, something like that, sir.’
‘Well, my dear girl, it will be in the newspapers soon enough. I’m afraid the Australians are going to take on Mussolini. They’re heading for North Africa.’
10
As Lucy pulled up outside her grandfather’s house, she was rather relieved to see that it still looked the same, from the street, at least. A simple worker’s cottage, half hidden by two shiny-leaved New Guinea frangipani, it was built of timber and painted pale blue with white window frames and deep-blue guttering. The roof was silver ripple iron and the front verandah was enclosed by white wooden shutters.
The gate squeaked as Lucy pushed it open and brown frangipani blooms lay wilting on the path among the weeds that sprouted from cracks in the concrete.
The ruby-coloured glass panel in the front door was smeared with dust, the corners filled with fine cobwebs. Clearly there were limits to the assistance Blue Care provided. But that was okay, Lucy decided. She needed a project.
Standing on the front step, though, she had to take a deep breath as memories rushed in, distant memories of days in childhood when she’d trailed after her Harry-pa in his backyard, helping him to stake tomatoes and to pick slugs off his lettuce. She’d also gone down to the mangrove creek at the back of this house and helped Harry to pull up crab pots, and she’d sat on the back steps with him, eating fresh crab sandwiches made with soft, white bread and plenty of salt and pepper. Whenever her mum had gone out on a date, Lucy had slept here to be woken in the morning with a proper grown-up cup of tea and an oatmeal biscuit.
Gripped by nostalgia, she knocked and heard footsteps inside, slow and shuffling. Harry would be making his way down the hallway and, as she waited, the precious memories kept coming, tumbling and rolling – Harry cheering from the sidelines when she scored a goal at soccer, Harry consoling her when she got chickenpox and missed the finals, Harry smiling with a complicated mix of concern and pride when she told him that she’d enlisted.
Her throat was tight with emotion by the time the door opened and she saw her grandfather’s beloved wrinkled face.
‘Lucy!’ He looked frighteningly frail and stooped, standing there, clutching the doorknob for support. But beneath the shock of white hair, his light-grey eyes were as twinkling as ever. ‘Come in, come in.’ He stepped back to let her into the house. ‘It’s so good to see you, my darling girl.’
‘It’s good to see you too, Harry.’ Lucy resisted the urge to give him a bear hug. Instead she hugged him gently, kissed his thin cheek and then blinked madly to clear tears from her eyes.
Up close, she was reassured to see that the verandah looked much the same as ever, with Harry’s canvas-lined squatter’s chair, a cane occasional table and his tall timber bookcase still filled with old, faded hard-cover copies of the complete Sherlock Holmes and newer, thick paperbacks by his favourite authors – Ian Fleming, Clive Cussler, Alistair MacLean, John le Carré.
They went down the familiar hallway that divided the house down the centre. Opening to the right were the lounge and dining rooms, and to the left, the bedrooms – first Harry’s and then the little spare room where Lucy had so often slept. At the back of the house was the kitchen and even before Lucy reached it, she could see sunlight sparkling on the row of white daisy-glass windows. Off the kitchen were a bathroom and a separate loo and then, two steps down, the laundry.
Such a simple, humble home, but for Lucy a happy haven of love; a secure and cosy nest that had barely changed since she was in nappies. Through all the years of instability in her own family home, Harry had always been here. Steady, reliable and loving. Filling the gap left behind by the father who’d deserted her before she’d learned to crawl.
‘Sit down, Harry,’ she ordered as they reached the kitchen. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
To her surprise, her grandfather obeyed without question. The short trip to the front door and back had tired him, which was rather unsettling.
‘I’m so sorry you’ve been in hospital.’
‘It’s damn good to be home. I don’t like hospitals. Never have.’
‘Are you feeling okay now?’ It was a silly question. How could he be okay when he’d been told that his kidneys had packed it in? In six months, a year, he might . . .
‘Yes, yes,’ Harry said brusquely. ‘I’m fine. Truly. I might look shaky on my pins, but I’m still mobile and I don’t seem to have lost too many marbles.’
‘So you can still argue the toss?’
He laughed. ‘Just try me.’ His eyes glistened. ‘I’m just so pleased you’re home, Lucy-girl. Out of that damn war zone.’
She managed a wobbly smile. It was so like Harry to be worrying about her instead of himself. Quickly she turned and reached for the kettle and for the next few moments she kept herself busy by finding mugs, teabags, milk and sugar.
Through the open window came the sweet cloying scent of fallen mangoes lying in varying states of rottenness in the ankle-high grass. She could see the empty chicken coop under the mango tree and the old fibro shed where Harry garaged his car and kept an untidy workbench littered with tools and rusting paint tins. By the fence was the veggie patch where withered tomato vines hung from stakes. Lettuce and parsley had gone to seed. There was plenty of work to be done, reinforcing her decision to make Harry’s yard her new project.
Given Sam’s bombshell, she needed to keep busy.
The kettle came to the boil and she filled their mugs. ‘I brought ginger biscuits,’ she said, knowing they were Harry’s favourites.
When she joined him at the table, his eyes twinkled again as he raised his mug in a salute. ‘It’s so goo
d to have you home safely,’ he said again. ‘Out of harm’s way.’
‘Yeah.’ Lucy wished she felt happier about being home. She was still adjusting to Sam’s dummy spit, to her mother’s move from Mango Avenue and Harry’s failing health.
‘So, tell me. How was it over there in Afghanistan?’ Harry asked.
‘For me?’ Lucy pulled a face. She could tell him about the long hours working in logistics, organising the re-supply of fuel by air and road, of getting in enough food for the base, sourcing motor vehicles and their parts. Or the interesting, sometimes dangerous work she had done in the community, meeting with Afghan women as part of a female engagement team.
But Harry rarely spoke about his own war experiences, so she answered cautiously. ‘You know the army. Loads and loads of paperwork.’
He sent her a smile of sympathy. ‘It’s always been like that. Nothing’s changed. So you’re feeling okay, love?’
‘Yes, we had a good debriefing. Five days at Al Minhad in Dubai with teams of psychologists et cetera.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘Better than in your day, huh? When you were simply demobbed after five years of fighting.’
‘Yep. No victory parade for our lot.’
‘By the way,’ Lucy said, reaching into the shoulder bag she’d slung over the back of a chair. ‘I brought this back for you.’ She set his old biscuit tin on the table. ‘I’m assuming you didn’t want to leave this at Mum’s forever.’
Harry looked surprised.
‘Mum had it stored in the room where I’m staying.’
‘S’pose Ro’s too busy to bring it here herself.’
Lucy hurried to defend her mum. ‘Well, she knew I was keen to see you.’
He gave a resigned nod. ‘Thanks.’ Took a noisy sip of his tea.
‘I took a quick look at your medals,’ Lucy said. ‘You have quite a collection.’
The Secret Years Page 10