A Step Too Far

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘Eh Kate, you must be crackers to even think of givin’ stuff like this away!’ Alice had bounded across the room, her busy hands lifting one garment after another.

  ‘It would be more foolish to leave them hanging in the wardrobe when perhaps someone might find them useful.’

  ‘Well, Becky and me knows you’ve never gone short of clothes but . . .’

  ‘I will not be wearing any of those again.’ Katrin cut away Alice’s protest.

  ‘Ohh!’

  Becky’s sigh of admiration took their glances to the wardrobe, its open door admitting a glow which shimmered over sapphire silk chiffon.

  ‘Kate.’ Alice breathed appreciation. ‘That’s beautiful, the colour, the shine . . .’

  ‘It is the last dress my mother bought for me.’ Katrin swallowed hard on the lie. ‘She too loved the colour, she said it would be perfect for celebrating the end of the war.’

  Eyes soft as the silk she stared at, Becky’s reply came from a scene only she was imagining. ‘Or a wedding,’ she murmured rapturously, ‘a bride would look lovely in that.’

  The two girls left the house, the dresses along with them, and Katrin returned to her room.

  ‘A bride! A bride would look lovely in that.’

  ‘Yes, Becky,’ she murmured. ‘Arthur Whitman’s bride will look lovely.’

  25

  Coming into the office, Arthur Whitman looked at the desk – document trays empty, typewriter cover in place – then to Katrin, her coat fastened, gas mask case slung over one shoulder. ‘Good Lord!’ He frowned abstractedly. ‘Is it that time already?’

  ‘It is almost seven, Mr Whitman.’

  ‘Lord, so it is.’ He glanced at the watch strapped about his wrist.

  ‘I stayed . . .’

  ‘Oh hell!’ With a rueful smile he went on, ‘I didn’t put that very well, did I? Sorry Katrin, I hadn’t meant to imply you were skipping off before time, it’s very much the reverse with you, I know; you stay late more often than I have the right to ask, sorry . . .’ he apologised again. ‘That’s me, I just don’t think.’

  Taking up her bag, Katrin smiled. ‘It’s all right, no need for apology.’

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve known you make a mistake.’ Whitman’s deep brown eyes held a moment of teasing laughter. ‘You are mistaken and I am an ill-mannered lout. There is every need for me to apologise and I do so again in all sincerity. Forgiven, Katrin? I lose track of everything when I’m in the workshops,’ he went on, seeing Katrin’s nod, ‘and this latest request of the Defence Ministry has me not only forgetting time but my manners as well.’

  ‘And also food,’ Katrin remonstrated. ‘Missing meals won’t see that project completed any more quickly.’

  Watching him now, his eyes closed, neck and shoulders stretched back to ease a weariness she had come to see more and more often, Katrin acknowledged one more thing: her chance of becoming Mrs Arthur Whitman could easily be lost to this damned new project. Her employer was wearing himself out.

  He walked to his own office, tiredness bringing a stoop to his tall figure. Why? The door closed behind him and the questions which had occupied her mind on previous occasions rose again. Why was Arthur Whitman driving himself so hard? Pressure of work? Katrin stared at the door, unadorned except for a brightly polished brass handle. War had increased the burden on everyone, but was it only that had him so changed? Or was it more personal, was he punishing himself for the death of his wife, blaming himself for leaving her and her mother alone in that shelter? No, that aura had been there before. Something had been missing from Arthur Whitman’s life long before that bomb took his wife.

  The comforts of the marriage bed! A smile curving her lips, Katrin removed her coat.

  Arthur Whitman watched the girl preparing to leave his private office. Chestnut brown hair gleaming in the glow of the overhead light, hazel green eyes darting a smile, slender without being thin, Katrin Hawley was an attractive young woman. Given those looks, that well educated manner and her ability to deal with people, she was an asset to the business.

  ‘You didn’t have to stay, and you certainly didn’t have to do what you have.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything I didn’t want to do.’ Katrin smiled across the desk.

  She had wanted to do it. How long had it been since the same had been done willingly for him? Years.

  ‘Is there anything else you would like me to do before I leave?’

  Unaware he had closed his eyes, already half asleep, Whitman jerked upright.

  ‘What?’ He blinked, electric light brilliant against tired eyes. ‘What? No . . . no Katrin, thanks, I . . . I’ll be leaving myself shortly.’

  ‘Will that be before you have finished with that folder or after?’

  ‘Something else I forgot.’ He drew the folder to him, ‘Lord, the Ministry will want my guts for garters.’

  ‘Is it that important?’ She had read through the folder earlier in the day, but Katrin maintained a false air of concern.

  ‘Important?’ he answered. ‘Only if we want any chance of winning this bloody war!’

  ‘Well we both want that and no doubt the Ministry wants the same, so if I might make a suggestion . . .’

  Whitman ran a hand through greying hair made greyer by a liberal coating of foundry dust and sighed. ‘Suggest away, I’m ready to listen to anything that might get this business done and shifted off to London.’

  ‘I can’t help with the technical side, but typing up of the finished report is something I can do, so why don’t I stay and work with you? My father has a favourite saying, one appropriate to this present situation. He says, “Doing what you can today leaves tomorrow free for something else.”’

  Whitman pulled a wry mouth. ‘Free for what? More of the same!’

  ‘Probably,’ Katrin replied perkily, then, on a more serious note, ‘no, not probably – definitely; but at least what is waiting in that folder will not be a part of it. One more consideration.’ She smiled, ‘Doing it tonight means it can go by first post in the morning, thus saving a whole day . . . oh, and your guts, let’s not forget those.’

  ‘Lord, Katrin,’ Whitman shook his head, ‘what would I do without you!’

  He was not going to have the opportunity of finding out! Not, that was, until she was ready.

  In the outer office she glanced at the tray on a small table. Canteens had to open for set break times during the night as well as the day and the cook had gladly found sandwiches and hot tea for ‘the gaffer’.

  Arthur Whitman had been so grateful to her for bringing that meal. Taking up pencil and notepad, she turned back toward the inner office. If fortune smiled, then Arthur Whitman might be helped to more than a sandwich!

  They had worked together, he dictating, she taking notes then typing them up before returning them to be signed. Hour after tiring hour, the process had been repeated and through it all he had barely looked up from his desk. Finally, the last document sealed in its envelope, she had brushed aside his thanks with a smile while her mind raged. Each time she’d handed him papers, she had bent close, her shoulder touching his. She had even ensured, accidentally of course, that his hand had brushed across her breast when he had reached for a letter. All that, yet nothing achieved but a ‘goodnight and thank you’.

  It had been a futile exercise. Bottling the acid of failure, Katrin had been reaching for her coat when the first wail of the air raid alarm had sounded.

  Was Fate giving her one more go at the prize? The thought had glanced like lightning and like lightning she had acted upon it.

  Thank heaven she could force tears whenever they were to her advantage, and last night they had fulfilled their purpose. She had not screamed, but stood frozen as marble, her hands gripping her coat as if in terror; the only real fear had been of Arthur Whitman’s rushing down to the factory in search of help. But he had not, and she had silently thanked the Fates for their munificence.

  He had called from the doo
rway to his office, ‘Katrin, leave the bloody coat! Go to the shelter.’

  Even when the urgency of the moment made him grasp her arm, not a flutter of an eyelid, not a whisper of breath moved in her, only the tears she had squeezed from her eyes ran silently over her cheeks.

  His voice softened into compassion.

  ‘Katrin . . . Oh Christ, you’re terrified . . .’

  No, not terrified Simply a very good portrayal of terror.

  ‘Leave it Katrin, come with me.’

  Not yet! Not yet! Caution had counselled loud in her brain.

  ‘Katrin, you have to take shelter.’

  He had continued to coax while the siren died away, urging the need to go downstairs to the factory air raid shelter. But that had been nowhere in her intentions.

  The sound of an explosion, the rumble of it shaking the building, he had lifted her from her feet, sending the coat stand tumbling.

  That had been her moment. As if awakening from some horrifying nightmare, she had released the coat on to the carpet then twisted in his arms, pressing her body tight against his.

  ‘Don’t leave me.’ She had trembled convincingly. ‘Please, please don’t leave me.’

  His arms were around her, his mouth touching the side of her face buried in his shoulder.

  ‘We shouldn’t stay here, we need to go down to the shelter.’

  Need had echoed in his voice, but it had not been the need he had spoken of. Intuition had guided her as surely as it had guided Eve.

  ‘No! No . . . I can’t! I can’t . . . I’m afraid, don’t make me . . . please don’t make . . .’

  A bevy of heartrending sobs said the rest.

  ‘It’s all right Katrin,’ he had soothed, ‘we won’t go to the shelter.’

  ‘You.’ She had made it seem to take every ounce of her courage to say, ‘You must go to the shelter, you must not stay.’

  A second crash reverberated through the room, rattling taped windows, tipping chairs and throwing things around as though caught in a cyclone, flinging her to the floor, his body covering her own.

  He had murmured her name then his mouth had come down on hers. She had returned the kiss, lifting her mouth for more as his hand pushed aside her bra to caress the soft mound of her breast, and she dreaded him coming to his senses and moving away from her. That could not be allowed to happen; with a soft moan she had arched her body, pressing her stomach against him. His long quivering breath testified to the battle raging in Arthur Whitman. It must be now, or probably never. She allowed her tongue to slide, moist and warm, across his lips. He stiffened as though touched by a live electric wire, then his hand had left her breast.

  Groaning with the sweet torture of soft flesh beneath him, he ran his palm along her taut hip until his fingers reached into the cleft of her thighs and released the tiny buttons of her cami-knickers, pushing away the soft silky fabric.

  ‘Katrin . . . Oh Christ, Katrin!’

  As his hand touched against the soft downy vee, she had sought his mouth again, opening her own seductively to take his tongue, her legs parting in that same unspoken appeal. It had not been denied. He had groaned once, a deep animalistic sound, a cry of purely carnal desire then he had thrust into her the hard column of his roused flesh driving deep inside until, passion spent, he had rolled away from her.

  Back in the present, in the privacy of her bedroom, Katrin glanced at the drawer holding the box and scarf.

  ‘Game, set and match mother.’ She smiled dispassionately. ‘Game, set and match.’

  He had not come to the office. Katrin walked steadily across the factory yard toward the gate. He had phoned to say he had caught the morning train to London, that he would be away all week, could she manage to hold the fort? No mention of his making love to her, but then she had not referred to it either. But not speaking of it did not mean it had not happened. Arthur Whitman would be made quite aware of that fact.

  ‘Kate! Kate . . .’

  Katrin turned to the girls running to catch up with her.

  ‘Oh Kate, I’ve been dyin’ to tell you.’ Becky Turner bubbled happiness. ‘Saturday night, oh I’m dyin’ to tell you . . .’

  ‘Well, tell her before you drop dead.’ Alice fell into step on Katrin’s other side.

  ‘Oh, it was grand . . .’

  ‘That weren’t how you felt when we got to that dance hall, you were ready to walk straight out.’

  Unaffected by the sarcasm, Becky’s laugh trilled on the night. ‘That were when I thought Earl wouldn’t be comin’.’ She glanced at Katrin. ‘Alice and me ’ad gone all out to look our very best. I wore that white dress you gave me, I swapped Doreen Haywood five Woodbines for a blue belt—’

  ‘Let your dad find out about them fags and you won’t be needin’ of no belt, he’ll tie your entrails around your waist.’

  ‘He ain’t about to find out though, is he Alice?’

  Unless someone not totally deaf were walking behind! Katrin declined to share her observation while Becky went on. ‘Anyway, it were me got them cigarettes, not me dad.’

  ‘So you did,’ Alice returned. ‘But like I says, don’t let him find you give him only five.’

  ‘What if he does? After next month he can have as many cigarettes as he wants.’

  Trying to sound flippant, Katrin gave a light laugh. ‘Oh, is that when the war will end?’

  ‘It’s when mine will end, but let me tell you from the beginning.’

  Katrin bit back the irritation Becky’s chatter was building.

  ‘Alice decided on the yellow dress, the snood her’d crocheted was just the same shade and they looked real glamorous together; but I didn’t wear anythin’ on my hair, Earl loves it loose, says it feels like silk.’

  The bus, full to capacity, sailed past their standpoint and Katrin’s displeasure surged anew. A low tut expressing her irritation, she began to walk away, hoping they would remain at the bus stop for another bus. She wanted to be alone to muse on that episode in Arthur Whitman’s office.

  ‘I were just about to get my coat and leave when there he was . . .’

  Bubbling like a running brook, Becky’s account of her latest amours flowed on, she and Alice walking one each side of Katrin.

  ‘Eh Kate, I wishes you’d seen him, he looked so ’andsome.’

  ‘Never mind the way he looked, tell Kate what he said,’ Alice chipped in testily.

  ‘He said I looked real beautiful in my white dress, just like . . .’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Alice snorted, ‘Kate don’t want to listen to you goin’ on about how you looked.’

  How right Alice was! In fact Kate didn’t want to listen to either of them!

  Becky continued joyfully.

  ‘It were durin’ the interval, Earl took me to our special place and it were there after we’d . . .’ she paused with a sudden attack of shyness, but with Alice urging her on she continued, ‘Well, it were there Earl told me he’d been called in to speak with the Commandin’ Officer, that were the cause of him bein’ late gettin’ to the dance . . . so that’s what I’ll become next month . . . a bride!’

  Like stones rattling against glass the words rapped against Katrin’s brain, slipping through her mental defences. The other two turned down Holyhead Road, leaving Katrin to make her way along Lower High Street, and she dug deep in her mind seeking the rest of what Becky Turner had disclosed.

  ‘He’d been given permission to marry, but first a check needs be made back in the States, seems they ’ave to be certain all be the way Earl says it is. They ’ave to make sure he don’t already ’ave a wife!’

  The trill of laughter suggested the absurdity of the very idea.

  ‘Earl said that would take no more than two, maybe three weeks and then we will be married. I shall wear that white dress, and you two will be my bridesmaids.’

  Becky Turner was to be married. In four weeks she would be left from Wednesbury!

  Crossing the almost deserted Market Place, Katr
in’s brain thundered with the revelation. Becky Turner would be gone, so where would be Katrin Hawley’s revenge?

  Four weeks! So little time. Would it be enough to make Becky Turner pay that long-held debt?

  Maybe now was the time to have Mary Turner learn of her daughter’s carryings on.

  She would have preferred something more damning, something that would follow Becky Turner through life as that prison sentence would always overshadow Freda Evans.

  Think! Katrin’s brain stabbed its own command. There has to be some . . .

  Half formed thought and breath were lost in the gasp of pain and fear as Katrin felt herself hurled viciously against a wall.

  26

  ‘Now if this ain’t my lucky night! Never thought to get what I wants so easy as this.’

  Winded, her sight fuzzy from knocking her head against the brick, Katrin fought to stay back from the brink of the void waiting to swallow her.

  ‘Y’ should ’ave walked by way o’ the town, there be folk comin’ and goin’ there, too many for me to go takin’ chances, but you chose this way and that be my good fortune.’

  Katrin would have fallen had not hands caught roughly at her shoulders.

  ‘No, not here!’ A low and menacing laugh carried briefly on the empty street.

  ‘I ’ave a better place for you to lie down, one where we won’t be disturbed; there you’ll spread your legs an’ I can take time to enjoy what you ’ave to offer, but then,’ the laugh sounded again, ‘offer be the wrong word since you don’t be gettin’ no chance to refuse.’

  The bite of cold night air or the gentle drift of snowflakes touching her face? Katrin could not tell, but suddenly her mind was sharp and clear. Slater!

  ‘You refused an offer once afore, one which were made civil an’ polite. But the one makin’ it were not grand enough for the hoity-toity Miss Hawley to be seen along of! Well, this time he’ll be takin’ no refusal.’