by Jenny Holmes
That must be it, a frustrated Angela decided. Her journey back from Heathfield had involved delays and diversions and she’d arrived at the Grange after midnight, too late to speak to anyone. As dawn broke, after hardly any sleep and badly in need of a sympathetic ear, she’d discovered that Bobbie didn’t seem to be around. So Angela polished off her Sunday breakfast then dashed back to her room to write a letter to Lionel. Make it good, she told herself. Don’t beat about the bush. Tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
‘Dear Lionel,’ she began before tearing the sheet from the pad and screwing it up then starting a fresh one. ‘My dearest Lionel, I have to tell you about a terrible row that your last letter to Pa has caused. I’m sure you didn’t intend for it to have the consequences it did, but my dear boy, you shouldn’t have written and told him about my having to ditch the Spit. Knowing Father as I do, I would never have let you put pen to paper.’
Angela’s stomach churned and she put down her pen. This was true, but really what good did recriminations do now that the worst had happened? She tore a second sheet from the pad and it joined the first in the waste-paper basket.
‘Dearest Lionel, Pa and I have fallen out for good. The reasons why aren’t important; suffice it to say that he has ordered me out of the house and will have no further contact with me unless I bend to his will and give up flying for the ATA.
‘I can’t agree to do that. The work is too important and besides, the request is unreasonable. So I refused point-blank.’
Misery threatened to swamp Angela so she stood up and paced the floor. In reality, the argument went far beyond the matter of her continuing to fly. If it hadn’t been this, the break with her father would have happened over something else: perhaps his tyrannical treatment of her mother or of women in general, or some other important issue where he would have sought to override Angela and bully her into submission. Exercise of power was the only thing that mattered to Joseph Browne. Defiance led down a one-way street ending in exile and penury.
On the verge of tears, Angela sat down again and took up her pen. ‘I make this sound simpler and more clear-cut than it was. By deciding to stay in the ATA I know without a shadow of a doubt that Pa will carry out his threat to disown me. I’ll be written out of his will and won’t be allowed back to Heathfield to see Mother. Father will also try to influence Hugh against me, which will hurt a great deal if it comes to pass. And worst of all, dear Lionel, it will affect us badly – you and me. For I am penniless now and not the good catch you thought I was when you proposed marriage.
‘I imagine you reading this and springing to your feet to declare that it makes no difference; you will marry me in any case, because that is the good, kind-hearted soul that you are. However, I can’t let you do that. I thought about it long and hard during the night and know that it won’t do. Unless we continue as equals, there’s no hope for our future together. I need to be equal, Lionel.’ Angela underlined the word ‘need’ twice. ‘Not because people would think badly of me for marrying into money without a penny to my name (which they would), but because I would think badly of myself.’ She underscored ‘myself’ once. ‘I would be unhappy and that would make you unhappy, don’t you see?
‘No doubt you will read this letter and feel for a while that your heart is broken. But the Navy has given you many responsibilities and your mind will be taken up with fighting the enemy. In time I hope the broken pieces will heal.
‘I say this from my heart, dear Lionel; I truly wish you to be happy in your life. In years to come I hope we can meet as friends; me finding my feet in the commercial aviation field, perhaps, and you following your father into the highest ranks of the civil service. All will turn out for the best, my dear; believe me.’
The words came slowly and caused Angela much heartache. She signed it simply, with her name and one kiss.
Sighing, she blotted the page then reread the letter in its entirety. She’d done her best to express herself honestly but the words and phrases seemed flat and lacking in emotion. Why couldn’t she be softer? What was missing in her make-up that made even breaking her engagement sound formal and coldly thought out? Was it because, as she’d originally suspected, she was incapable of fully loving Lionel? Of loving anyone with her whole heart, for that matter?
Enough of that! Angela folded the letter and put it in an envelope. She would slip it in the village post box on her way to the ferry pool in the morning. The deed would be done.
Stan had second thoughts about taking a bewildered Bobbie to the canteen. It would be too noisy and crowded, he decided. Perhaps the women’s billet would be better. There again, it didn’t feel right to hand her over to an unsympathetic Olive.
‘Silly little fool,’ Olive had murmured behind Bobbie’s back when she’d brought back shoes and socks. ‘What’s the betting she’s had too much to drink and ended up doing what a nice girl oughtn’t.’
‘That’s not Bobbie’s style,’ Stan had objected. Then again, what did he really know about what went on at the Grange? ‘Ta for the clothes and the shoes,’ he said to Olive as he led Bobbie towards the control tower.
‘Tell her I want them back – when she comes to her senses.’
‘Will do.’ Stan noticed that Harry still hovered in the background, his chin covered in white shaving foam. ‘Thanks, I can manage now,’ he told him. Hoping that the squadron leader’s office would be deserted at this time on a Sunday morning, Stan steered Bobbie down the side of the building towards a back entrance but she pulled back from the shadowy alley and he decided not to force her to go on.
‘Fair enough,’ he murmured. Perhaps it would have to be the canteen after all.
They’d turned around and were heading in that direction when Mary turned up out of the blue. She emerged from the wood wearing an overcoat and a red scarf, her face flushed from a brisk walk. When she saw Stan she waved.
‘Come here, quick!’ He beckoned her across.
‘Stan, what’s wrong?’ One look at Bobbie standing in jumper and trousers that swamped her small frame told Mary that something was badly amiss.
‘I don’t know; I can’t get a word out of her. Why don’t you have a go?’
Mary frowned doubtfully. She’d never spoken to Bobbie except to ask for destinations and drop-off points. ‘Shouldn’t I run and fetch Angela?’
At the sound of the name Bobbie breathed in sharply and shook her head in agitation. ‘No! I’m all right. I don’t need Angela.’
‘You’re not all right,’ Stan insisted. He led Bobbie to a bench at the front of the building and sat her down. ‘Wait here with her while I fetch a hot drink,’ he told Mary.
He was gone before she could object so she sat down nervously next to Bobbie.
‘Don’t tell her.’ Bobbie clutched at Mary’s sleeve with a frantic look. ‘Don’t say a word to Angela.’
‘We won’t,’ Mary promised. Tell her what? she wondered.
‘I don’t want anyone to know.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.’ Mary tried to piece things together. Why was Bobbie in borrowed clothes? And why did she look like death warmed up?
Bobbie’s breath was ragged and she shivered in spite of the warm clothes. The gaps in her memory terrified her; one minute she and Teddy had been riding back to the Grange in Douglas’s car, the next they were together in some kind of barn or loft. It had been very dark. Then there were flames and the sound of logs crackling. She remembered the firelight reflected in Teddy’s eyes.
Mary sat quietly. Was this a bad hangover or something more?
Teddy’s voice. I won’t hurt you … Lie still. His lips, his hands on her. Bobbie shot to her feet and looked round wildly. ‘How did I get here?’ she begged.
‘I have no idea.’ Definitely worse than a hangover, Mary concluded. Bobbie’s face looked haunted. It reminded her of the dazed expressions of the people she’d seen wandering the corridors of the hospital at Highcliff on the night of the air raid: rela
tives of the dead and injured, the old man calling out his wife’s name and getting no response. She put her arm around Bobbie’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right; you’re not in any danger.’
Teddy’s voice and his cruel face and the sensation of falling out of control, of being helpless, of blacking out completely. Then a memory of coming round and it still being night and Bobbie remembered lying on a mattress, alone and undressed. Then there was another black, blank gap and the cold wind and sigh of leaves in trees. A maze of oaks and ash, beech and sycamores. Sharp thorns underfoot. Icy cold.
‘There, there,’ Mary said, holding Bobbie tight. ‘Here’s Stan with a hot drink. Sit down again; here, next to me. Let me hold the cup for you. Now sip this carefully in case it scalds your tongue.’
Before Douglas and Jean had parted the night before, he’d warned her of a busy week ahead. ‘Make the most of your day off tomorrow. We’re expecting another big push of the new Spits – out to Belgium and parts of northern France, as well as Scotland and Scandinavia. I might even have to fly the odd crate myself if we run short of pilots.’
But their evening had ended strangely after that first kiss; they’d left the lounge hand in hand and had reached the bottom of the stairs but then they’d stepped apart at the sound of someone moving along the landing on the first floor. Though no one had materialized, the interruption had broken the mood and an awkward exchange had followed.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ Jean had said.
‘My pleasure,’ he’d replied. ‘We must do it again.’
‘Yes, we must.’ She’d waited for him to kiss her a second time but it hadn’t happened. ‘Thanks again,’ she’d whispered, one foot on the bottom step.
She was too lovely, too perfect, too young. Douglas remembered with a sharp stab of shame the look of scorn on Teddy’s face when he’d spotted them together in the bar at the Spa Ballroom. Don’t be such a bloody fool, he told himself. On Monday he would sit at his desk and write out the chits. Jean would fly her plane. That summed them up: he the desk-bound crock, Jean soaring through the air in a magnificent flying machine. Leave it at that.
Though disappointed, Jean had followed Douglas’s lead. She got up the next day determined to have breakfast then set out on a bicycle ride along the lanes around Rixley. It was a cold morning so she wrapped up well in her sheepskin jacket, scarf and gloves then went down to the yard to borrow one of the Grange bikes stored in an empty stable next to the boot room adjoining the main house. There she ran into Teddy, similarly wrapped up and about to set out on his motorbike.
‘Good morning, Jean; did you sleep well?’ he called as he sat astride the bike and rocked it back off its stand.
‘Very well, thanks.’ Choosing a push-bike, she wheeled it under the arch, hearing Teddy start his engine then follow her.
He slowed almost to a stop as she mounted her bicycle. ‘Are you going far?’
‘No, not far. How about you?’
‘Maybe to the coast and back. Not much petrol since Douglas clamped down.’ He patted the tank then opened the throttle. ‘See you later, Jean.’
Relieved as always to see the back of Teddy, she watched him roar off around the back of the house then made her way out on to the lane. She chose a route that skirted the village and came out beside St Wilfred’s where a steady stream of churchgoers in Sunday best entered the church. From there Jean cycled on past the ferry pool; an easy, flat ride that allowed her to enjoy from a distance the autumn colours of Burton Wood. The sky above the bank of orange and gold was clear blue. A dog at a farmyard gate barked and strained at its chain. Further along, two little girls played hopscotch on the pavement outside their house and a lad perched on a low tree branch whistled cheekily at Jean as she rode by.
When she came to an unmarked crossroads at the top of a long hill she stopped. The wind had picked up and nipped her cheeks. Reckoning that she was about an hour from home, she was ready to turn around when Dorothy Kirk, the met-room typist, climbed a nearby stile and jumped down on to the grass verge. Dorothy was soon followed by Viv Francis from the ops room and Douglas’s secretary Gillian Wharton.
‘Hello, Jean, what are you up to?’ Dorothy was the first to greet her. ‘Silly question; you’re out on a bike ride.’
‘Keeping trim,’ Viv added. ‘Not that you need to.’ She was envious of Jean’s slim figure and gave her own stomach a quick pat. ‘Not like some of us.’
Dressed in walking gear of corduroy slacks and windcheater and carrying a rucksack, Gillian was the last to jump down from the stile. She approached Jean with a smile. ‘We’ve covered seven miles this morning; around the reservoir then on past the ruins of the old monastery. Do you know it?’
‘Yes, it’s a good long hike.’ Their three cheerful faces boosted Jean’s mood.
Dorothy’s nickname was Dotty and it suited her scatterbrained nature. She did everything in a rush and said whatever came into her head but she was funny with it and her jokey style made her popular with the boys in the met room. Viv was her opposite: easy-going and steady, with thick, straw-coloured hair that she wore in an unflattering short bob. She was the first to admit that her aim in life was to slip under the radar and escape the notice of her bosses. The way to do this was to work quietly and efficiently and to get on with everyone. This left Gillian to take the energetic lead whenever the trio went out on jaunts together. Today Viv was map-reader-in-chief.
‘We’ll ask you to join us next time,’ Gillian told Jean, ‘if you fancy it.’
‘Count me in,’ Jean agreed. ‘Or else we could all set out on a bike ride.’
‘No, thanks; that’s not for me,’ Dotty protested. ‘I’m not safe on two wheels. I collide with lamp-posts.’
The others laughed.
‘And I don’t have enough puff to get up these hills.’ Viv too was happier to walk.
‘Then it looks like it’s just you and me, Jean.’ Gillian slipped her rucksack from her shoulders then took out a vacuum flask and offered her a drink of tea. The tea was poured and the autumnal splendour of the valley below admired, after which the talk turned to recent goings-on at the ferry pool.
‘My boss had a proper dressing-down this week,’ Dotty reported gleefully. She was often in trouble with Fred Richards, the head of the met room, and couldn’t resist the chance to gloat. ‘Squadron Leader Stevens blamed him for not picking up sooner on the met report from Central Control last week.’
‘About the weather front rolling in off the North Sea?’ Gillian asked. The incident in which the new Spitfire had been lost was still a major talking point among office staff.
‘Yes. Fred was accused of not acting on the information soon enough.’
Jean was curious. ‘How long did he hang on to it for?’
‘Ten or fifteen minutes, that’s all. But, as the squadron leader was quick to point out, every minute is vital when Douglas is sending planes out.’ Dotty kicked her heels against the wall that they’d perched on to drink their tea. ‘Talking of which …’ She jerked her elbow into Gillian’s ribs.
‘What?’ Gillian pushed her short red hair back from her forehead so that it stood straight up in the wind.
‘Tell Jean what you were telling us – you know, about First Officer Thornton.’
Jean’s attention was sharpened further.
Gillian wrinkled her nose. ‘Maybe it’d be better to keep schtum about that.’
‘Go on, tell her,’ Dorothy urged. ‘Jean’s not the type to spread it around.’
Viv followed her usual course of saying nothing, but she listened and observed.
‘The thing is,’ Gillian quickly overcame her scruples, ‘you must have noticed this yourself, Jean – Douglas sometimes doesn’t listen to what people say.’
‘Or doesn’t hear,’ Dotty added pointedly.
‘He doesn’t listen or he doesn’t hear; which is it?’ Gillian confessed that she couldn’t decide and welcomed Jean’s opinion.
‘I don’t know. He hasn�
�t said anything to me.’ Jean’s chest tightened. Obviously, no one except Teddy and Bobbie knew about her and Douglas (if indeed there was anything to know) so she had to be careful what she said.
‘But you remember when you popped into our office on the day of Angela’s crash?’
‘Yes; to pass on Dotty’s message.’
Gillian nodded then hurried on. ‘You spoke and Douglas didn’t hear you? You had to raise your voice.’
‘I remember.’
‘That happens a lot with him, especially when there’s background noise. Believe me, I can count a dozen times in the last week alone.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘That he’s going deaf.’ Dotty interrupted with her usual bluntness. She turned from Jean to Gillian. ‘But First Officer Thornton is too proud to admit it. That’s what you think, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m just posing the question.’
‘What’s your opinion, Jean?’ Viv spoke for the first time. ‘You know him better than we do. Is Douglas fit to carry out his job?’
With a frown Jean handed her cup to Gillian. ‘Don’t ask me; I’m no expert,’ she said quietly. While the talk drifted on she firmly reknotted her scarf.
‘Who else might have a view?’ Dotty asked. ‘I suppose we could take it higher up, to Flight Lieutenant Ainslie, for example.’
‘Or Jean could take the bull by the horns and tackle it with Douglas himself.’ Gillian came down on the side of a direct approach.
‘Right, I’ll be off.’ Jean ignored the last suggestion. The conversation had rattled her and she resolved to be on her way. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
Viv, Gillian and Dotty watched her get back on her bike.
‘Don’t crash into any lamp-posts!’ Dotty called as Jean set off.
‘We’ll see you in the morning,’ Gillian added.
‘Bright and early.’ Jean waved and cycled on over the brow of the hill. She hoped that the tightness in her chest would fade but instead it got worse as she coasted down into the next valley. They’re right; Douglas can’t hear properly, she thought with another dull thud of certainty. But if anyone mentions it, he’ll deny it. She sped on, past five-barred gates and sheep grazing in fields. He’s proud. He won’t own up to any weakness.