Katie’s Hero

by Cody Young

  “Out, the pair of you!”

  Reluctantly, the smaller boy scuttled out of the room and Roy sauntered off.

  Katie was left to ponder two important questions. Had Roy’s late mother really been a “one-woman knocking shop,” and was he right about his lordship’s intentions?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Katie grabbed her hat and coat and picked up her bag from where it was sitting on the concrete bed. She checked her makeup in the tiny mirror and hurried downstairs to the front hall, where Michael was waiting for her. Her heart almost died when she saw him.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” she said, in alarm.

  It was six o’clock in the morning. He was wearing his RAF uniform — the whole outfit, including the peaked cap. The dress uniform of a flying officer. It was air force blue, like his eyes, and it suited him.

  “I’m perfectly entitled to wear it,” he said tersely. “I’m still in the RAF.”

  She tried to slow her breathing down to normal. She was anxious enough about this trip to London, without this. It probably was the same jacket. The one he had worn that night in the Tube station. She could remember the rough texture of the wool against her face. She remembered him calling her a brave girl. And then the pain and the heartache that came after.

  “Technically, I’m still on sick leave,” he explained.

  “Sick leave?”

  “Yes. I’ve come up for review a few times, and I keep putting them off.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake? They’ll have to discharge you in the end.”

  “Not if I get better first.”

  But you aren’t going to get better. She stopped herself just in time from saying it aloud.

  Hammond arrived to take them to the station. It was a cold, crisp morning and Katie shivered as they loaded Michael and the wheelchair into the old black Austin. She tucked a plaid blanket over his knees.

  “Don’t,” Michael grumbled. “I feel like some decrepit relic from the Boer Wars when you do things like that.”

  “I don’t want you catching a chill.”

  Perhaps it was too late. His manner was very chilly indeed.

  • • •

  Michael picked at the plaid blanket that lay over his knees and fumed. For years he had caught trains at this platform — trains that took him away to boarding school or to the seaside during the holidays. Trains to Cambridge University where he was a madcap student with all his friends. Trains to London to see shows, and to flying school, and away to the war.

  Never before had he caught a train looking and feeling like this.

  “Bloody train will be late, of course.”

  Katie smiled weakly at him. “It isn’t even ten to, yet, sir. If it came now it would be early.”

  He ignored her and made a few more gloomy predictions about how long they might have to wait. “These days the trains don’t run according to the timetable at all. I think it’s a deliberate strategy to confuse the enemy — and it will, if the invasion ever comes.”

  “God willing, it won’t,” Katie said. “You RAF boys have seen to that.”

  Michael was rather gratified to hear her talk about him like that. RAF boys. That was the world he knew. That was where he belonged. Miraculously, the train steamed into the station only seven minutes after it was due.

  Michael bore the indignity of being carried onto the train in the porter’s arms as stoically as he could, and finally they were on board, in a compartment all to themselves.

  Michael arranged his useless legs in front of him so they looked like the legs of any languid young man. His smartly pressed RAF trousers were loose enough to hide the wasted muscles, and his black leather shoes had been polished to a high shine.

  Katie was sitting beside him, wearing brown hand-knitted gloves — awful things some elderly aunt in Ireland must have given to her for Christmas, he supposed, and Katie was much too thrifty to throw them away. He’d love to get her some new clothes, but that was complicated, what with the shortages. He supposed he’d have to get her something on the black market. He’d like to get her out of those clothes, though. Then he smiled. Yes, he’d love to get her out of those clothes.

  She seemed determined to engage him in conversation, although he would have been quite content to gaze out of the window and watch the melancholy English countryside slip by. But she was a chatty little thing. Michael tried to resist her conversational gambits at first, giving only clipped, defensive replies. Katie, quite clearly, had other ideas.

  “Why does Mrs. Mallory owe you a favor?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Tell it to me.”

  He sighed before smiling. Resistance was useless.

  “Marjory’s son Peter was a flyer, like me,” he began. “We trained together, with several other friends of mine, from school.”

  She leaned forward expectantly, and he could see from the way her eyes sparked with interest that she was hoping for a good yarn. He’d do his best.

  “We were great chums … ”

  “Oh, I love the way you say chums! I’ve never heard anyone say that before.”

  Michael scowled. “Don’t keep interrupting. We were the best of friends. But Peter was in a couple of nasty dogfights — one of them badly damaged his plane and he limped back to the aerodrome with the wings full of holes and smoke pouring out. He belly flopped on the runway. All the emergency vehicles had to scoot over and put him out. Peter climbed out of the hatch without a scratch on him, but his nerves were shot to pieces. Usually we laughed off such things in the officers’ mess and we were fine next time we had to go up. But not Peter. He said if he got back into that cockpit one more time, he was a dead man. He convinced himself he’d die if he flew again, because his number had been up that time and yet somehow he had managed to bring his plane in. His whole attitude changed, and people started calling him a coward.”

  “Is that the reason Mrs. Mallory is so keen to do her patriotic duty, because of Peter?” Katie interjected.

  “Marjory has patriotism like the rest of us have sandbags, Katie. Peter was tremendously patriotic, too, at the start of the war. But the near miss broke him. Of course, that kind of attitude didn’t go down too well and the RAF was desperately short of good pilots. The medical officer said he was fit, and I knew if I didn’t step in, Peter would be hauled up in front of a disciplinary committee. I pulled some strings for him. I got him sent to a different MO, who wrote up a report about Peter’s nerves. Then I called up a fellow I knew from my Cambridge days and got Peter assigned to a desk job. Peter didn’t feel good about it. In fact, he hated himself, but he accepted the job. I have to say, flying a desk suits him, and he’s still alive. He’s the only one left out of the whole gang of us apart from me. And I hardly qualify as being alive, do I?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re alive.”

  “Alive, but not kicking, Katie. Not unless these doctors can sort me out.”

  Yet today, he did feel alive — the train was steaming through the countryside and he was sitting beside a very pretty girl.

  Since the wheelchair was in the guard’s van, people passing up and down the corridor might not even notice that he was disabled. He felt a little surge of satisfaction at the thought. The waiter brought them some coffee and offered him the morning paper, which Michael accepted, though he didn’t even bother to glance at it. He was too busy enjoying sitting next to Katie, chatting brightly to her, seeing her smile back at him, while the soft gray-green English countryside slipped by and they rolled closer and closer to London.

  • • •

  Katie swallowed hard when the train pulled into the station. She hated London. It brought back too many memories. She adjusted her hat and checked her gloves, pulling them more firmly up to her wrists.

  Michael seemed to sense her disquiet. He gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry, you’ll be all right with me.”

  They had to wait until most people left the train, and
then a brusque London porter helped them onto the platform.

  “I’ve just realized something,” Katie said. “We won’t be taking the Tube, will we, sir?”

  “Of course not. I couldn’t possibly get down there, so we’ll be taking a taxi instead.”

  “Good,” she said. She had seen enough of London underground stations to last her a lifetime.

  Michael was very quiet. She wondered if he, too, was remembering that time when he’d crossed the tracks and run lightly up the stairs two at a time. She still recalled how everyone on the crowded platform had stopped and stared at him — handsome, reckless young man that he was then.

  Michael dictated the address and the taxi headed for Harley Street. The city was busy now, as people hurried to work before nine. The taxi passed a lot of bomb damage: new sites where people were still scavenging the wreckage for anything salvageable, and old sites where the weeds had started to grow. The driver took a circuitous route saying that some streets were impassable. It might have been true, but Katie suspected he wanted to bump up the fare. It was an odd feeling, knowing that Michael had enough money not to care about things like that.

  The doctor’s was not like any Katie had seen. There were no hordes of people, hacking and coughing, queuing up to see the doctor. There were no harassed Irish mammies with children clutching at their skirts and sickly babies in their arms. There were no injured laborers nursing a nasty cut they acquired on a building site. Instead, they were ushered into a plush lobby beautifully furnished with mahogany furniture and thick deep carpets. A receptionist rose and greeted them with a crisp, cut-glass accent. They were shown in to the doctor’s room right away.

  A nurse wearing a starchy white headdress that looked like an enormous origami swan perched on top of her head preceded the doctor. She helped Michael undress and took his blood pressure carefully. Katie was surprised how much she resented seeing another woman touching him so casually.

  “I’ve already studied your old x-rays,” the doctor explained as he entered, pondering the case with enormous dignity. “We’ll do more today, of course, to see if anything has changed.”

  The specialist wanted to talk about the risks, but Michael only wanted to hear about the advantages and the marvelous improvements he might expect.

  “I know you’re keen,” the doctor counseled, “but it would be unprofessional if I didn’t advise you of the risks.”

  “Risks well worth taking, wouldn’t you say?” Michael’s face was eager and his eyes were so hopeful, Katie had to turn her gaze away.

  “I’m sure you have dreams of walking again, perhaps even of flying, but I must warn you that there are limits to what we can reasonably expect from this procedure.”

  But Michael acted as if he didn’t hear. He was all set to sign on the dotted line. “My mind is made up, doctor. How soon can you fit me in?”

  Katie knew she had to intervene. “Michael, you asked me to come along and listen, and the doctor seems to be saying this might not be such a good idea.”

  Michael frowned and she stopped speaking, not wanting to hurt his feelings. He had such a youthful, optimistic look on his face. She’d never seen him looking so elated, as if life were full of possibilities. Perhaps the only time she’d seen him looking anything like this was that day she gave him the ill-considered kiss.

  “You must think about the complications, Michael. It would be very disappointing if you went through this surgery and ended up worse,” the doctor chimed in. “It’s a big decision. You must talk things over with your lovely wife. Take your time, and let me know if you want to proceed when you have thought it all over properly.”

  Katie froze, awkward that the doctor misunderstood her role. She waited for Michael to correct him but he didn’t. He did blush, though.

  The doctor leaned forward and spoke again. “Is that a motivation for having this operation, Michael — to enable you to make love to your wife as before?”

  Katie blushed too and bit her lip, but she kept quiet. This was Michael’s show to run.

  Michael stammered his reply. “Every man wants to … ” His voice cracked.

  This must be awful for him, Katie thought. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to face this alone. Rashly, she took his hand and squeezed it to give him courage, though she knew it would continue to send the doctor the wrong message. The doctor smiled at them, sympathetically.

  “I would hope that, as a couple, you are exploring your sexuality to the full. Enjoying each other, giving each other pleasure, finding out what you can do, rather than worrying too much about what you can’t.”

  Katie knew her face must be scarlet now. She swallowed and prayed for fortitude. She glanced at Michael, who was staring angrily at his useless legs, unable to meet the doctor’s gaze. It was as if he had gone into a private world of his own, where all he could think about was how to get well.

  In direct answer to prayer, the nurse with the extraordinary headdress returned to inform the doctor that his next appointment had just arrived. Katie heaved an audible sigh of relief. Michael came out of his trance, too.

  “Thank you so much for explaining it all to me,” he said. “I shall read all the literature you’ve given me and inform you of my decision in a day or two.”

  In the taxi, Katie tried to reach out and take his hand again, expecting he would need sympathy. Instead, he was wildly optimistic about the surgery.

  “Did you hear him? He spoke about me walking again, Katie, flying again.”

  It was as if Michael hadn’t been in the same room as her.

  “He spoke about risks and dangers. He didn’t say any of those things were possible.”

  “Of course they’re possible, Katie! I’ve read about cases like mine, people who made a complete recovery.”

  “I know,” she said. “But the doctor said that there’s no guarantee. You must have heard him say that?”

  “That’s just medical waffle. This surgery is cutting-edge medicine. That’s why I want it so much. It will change my life. It will change our lives, Katie.”

  There it was again. Our lives?

  Katie sighed. And yet, she couldn’t ask him why he had let the doctor think they were husband and wife. She dared not return to that hideous moment during the consultation. But she didn’t want to hurt him, either. His hopes and dreams would be dashed soon enough, unless she could think of a way to talk him out of it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Savoy’s luxurious dining room overlooked the Thames, and tonight there was a band playing jolly dance music with the promise of a vocalist later. The tables were arranged around the edge of a lovely polished dance floor.

  Katie got Michael settled and found him a napkin.

  “I can manage that perfectly well myself. I’m twenty-six, you know, not eighty-nine.”

  She ignored him and laid the napkin carefully over his lap. He scowled at her in protest, which reminded her of Roy. She took her seat opposite him. The tables were small and intimate for a restaurant this grand. Katie studied the menu and noticed that the prices weren’t listed. She assumed Michael had been here before as he seemed perfectly at ease and not remotely concerned about the cost. He wouldn’t even look at the menu until he’d ordered a bottle of champagne. The waiter scurried off and fetched it straight away.

  The food was described in French, which Michael translated for her, putting on the most appalling French accent and adding a lot of “oui, oui, oui” noises to make her laugh.

  Only then did she reveal she’d learned French at the convent school where she attended and was perfectly capable of recognizing a “pomme de terre” when she saw one.

  “Forgive me, mademoiselle, for doubting any part of your education. I’m sure the nuns taught you everything a young woman needs to know!”

  “Well, not quite everything, no,” she admitted ruefully. “There were some things we had to find out for ourselves!”

  They both laughed at that.

  They ate their starters
and drank their champagne, and Katie began to feel merry and light-headed. It was lovely, sitting here like this, with a handsome young man. The main course was divine — she wouldn’t have thought it possible to get food like that in wartime.

  The music was louder now, and she had to lean forward to hear what Michael was saying. He leaned forward attentively, too, and his fingers kept playing with the stem of her glass. He told a joke he knew about drinking champagne, and she heard her own laughter bubbling over as if someone had popped a cork inside her.

  But now his fingers were no longer touching the stem of her glass; they were stroking hers instead, and all the time he was talking animatedly as if he didn’t know what he was doing. Except that she was sure he did. And the more she let him get away with, the more he did, and the more she realized that she liked it.

  A warm flush of desire rose inside her. Never in a million years would she have expected to have dinner with a man like this. The war had a lot to answer for, and a few things to thank.

  When the other patrons began to dance, Katie turned to watch. One girl in particular whirled around in a lovely dress, tight in the arms of a man in an RAF uniform. Katie wondered how on earth she could have spared the coupons for this latest fashion, now that rationing was in force. She snuck a peek at Michael, who was watching the couple with a longing, wistful look on his face.

  “I wish I could dance with you,” he said, and those few words said it all.

  Katie squeezed his hand. “But if we were dancing, we couldn’t do this,” she said. She scooched over to place the lightest, gentlest kiss on his cheek.

  The flicker of surprise was soon replaced by a teasing grin. “That’s not fair. You told me that was off limits.”

  She was so thankful she had made him smile again. “Blame the champagne,” she quipped.

  “Waiter!” Michael called out, in a loud, theatrical tone, “I shall require another bottle!”