by Annie Groves
Not in love with him but, to her own surprise, not averse to being kissed by him and then kissing him back, as she discovered when they made their slow way back to her billet, on foot, hand in hand, later in the evening – after Eddie had surprised her with that first unexpected kiss – Eddie’s arm around her, all the better for them to draw close together to enjoy further kisses when the opportunity arose.
‘It’s been a lovely evening,’ Katie said when they had eventually arrived back.
‘It could be even lovelier, if—’ Eddie began.
But Katie shook her head and told him firmly, ‘No.’
‘Not this time,’ Eddie agreed,
‘Not any time,’ Katie insisted, but her rejection was given with a smile and the knowledge that she had thoroughly enjoyed their date and would be happy to repeat it.
Later, lying in bed thinking about the evening, Katie reflected on how much she had enjoyed herself. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so…so light-hearted and ready to laugh before, the desire to laugh and be happy bubbling up inside her like the champagne she had drunk.
She felt that way in part because of Luke’s letter, she recognised. Receiving it had freed her from what she now realised had been a deep-down need to prove and keep on proving to herself, and therefore inside her own thoughts to Luke, that she was the sort of girl who took her responsibilities seriously, the sort of girl who did not go out and have fun, who did not flirt and who certainly did not have lovely, fun, light-hearted evenings out with handsome charmers, with whom she then exchanged utterly delicious goodnight kisses. There was, though, now no need for her to feel guilty about doing any of those things any more because somehow that would make the cruel words Luke had written about her when he had ended their engagement true. She was free from the restrictions she had placed on herself, free from being tied to past unhappiness, and most of all free from feeling that she couldn’t get on with her life because Luke had branded her as an unfaithful fiancée. That sense of freedom was a heady and wonderful feeling, and she thanked Luke from the bottom of her heart for writing to her as he had. In a funny sort of way she almost wished that Luke was here so that she could tell him how happy she was and how grateful she was to him, because only he would understand exactly what she meant.
ELEVEN
Lying in the lovely comfortable double bed in the equally lovely and comfortable bedroom in Bella’s house – the house Bella had insisted on letting her and Gavin rent for next to nothing so that they could be a proper family – Lena felt the sudden soft kick of the baby within her. Tears burned her eyes as she put her hand automatically over her body, soothing the baby, letting it know that she had felt its movement and that she loved it. Such a precious moment and one that she should be sharing with Gavin, only Gavin was already asleep, lying with his back to her, instead of cuddling up to her, and holding her in his arms.
What had gone wrong between them? Lena wished she knew, but every time she tried to say something to Gavin about his sudden coldness towards her, the words just would not come.
Because she was afraid of hearing his answers? Because she was scared silly that he might be regretting having married her and that he didn’t love her any more?
Lena felt as though there was a heavy weight of misery around her heart, a horrible burden of guilt because she had let Gavin marry her when part of her had known all along that this might happen and that he would regret being so very kind to her. He was such a wonderful man, was Gavin, strong and protective, and yet soft-hearted at the same time. She only had to see him with Janette to know that.
Janette. The thought of her daughter brought a fresh lump to Lena’s throat. Janette adored the man she thought of as her father. She couldn’t wait for him to come back from his work as a pilot on one of the Liverpool pilot boats that brought in the shipping over the Liverpool bar. At least Gavin hadn’t turned his back on Janette like he had on her. Only this morning Lena had seen Gavin holding Janette tight, when he didn’t know that she was there; a look on his face of such pain and anguish that Lena had wanted to run to him and offer him his freedom, anything just so long as he didn’t look like that. But of course she hadn’t, because she was too much of a coward, and because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.
They had been so happy – too happy, perhaps. A small shiver racked Lena’s body. Gavin hadn’t really wanted another baby so soon, but Lena had desperately wanted to give him a child of his own and so she and nature had united against him. He had seemed so pleased when she had first told him, though, laughing and shaking his head and saying that she’d have her hands full with two little ones so close together, and then he’d kissed her and held her and she’d thought that he’d been as pleased as she was herself.
But now he never mentioned the baby. Never talked to her at all, really, retreating into silence and a place where he had shut himself off from her as surely as though there really was a door between them that he closed and locked.
Lena didn’t know what on earth she was going to do. She couldn’t hold him to their marriage if he wasn’t happy. She loved him too much for that, but what about Janette and this new baby? Hot tears spilled from her eyes, the sound of her misery smothered against the pillow.
Gavin lay stiffly against the mattress, lying as far away from Lena as he could get. If he didn’t, if he accidentally touched her, then that would be it, he would be taking her in his arms and shaming himself by begging her to love him and only him. Where was his pride? After what he had seen, his Lena with that ruddy Charlie, he had felt like giving the other man a taste of his fists and knocking him to the ground, showing him that Lena was his now and sending him packing. And if Lena had loved him she would have asked him to do that. She would have said that Charlie was trying to make a nuisance of himself, and he, Gavin, would soon have made it clear to him what was what. Instead, though, Lena had said nothing, not a single word, even though he had waited and waited, and now all Gavin could think and believe was that Lena didn’t want him, she wanted that stinker who had treated her so badly, and had left her pregnant and little Janette without her father’s name.
Now, much as he longed to ask Lena for her promise not to see Charlie ever again and to remind her that she had two little ones to think of – Janette, who Gavin thought of as his own daughter, and the new baby she was carrying – and that his children, like his wife, belonged here with him, he was too much of a coward to do so. A ruddy coward, that was what he was, so afraid of losing Lena that he couldn’t bring himself to challenge her and to tell her what was what, and that she was staying here with him and their children, no matter how much she might want to go running after someone else. In the darkness Gavin felt the weight of his grief as though it was the heaviest of anchors pulling him down with it into the depths of despair and misery.
Luke leaned against his kitbag, enjoying the unexpected warmth of the early November sun. They were on their way to Rome, travelling along the Amalfi coast of Italy, the sparkling blue Mediterranean to their left, below the winding road cut into the hillside, marvelling at the small villages clinging somehow to the steep hills.
He had seen so much these last few weeks, experienced so much, good and bad, cruel and kind, things he could never talk about back at home to his family, things that troubled him and disturbed him and that he longed to share with someone who would understand, and so that they would not be forgotten, fading from his mind once the war was over and the world returned to normal.
Here in the sunshine it was hard to think about Naples and all that they had found there, and yet at the same time it was impossible for him to stop thinking about it.
He reached for his cigarettes, the letter he had received from Katie crackling in his pocket as he did so.
Katie. He could tell her. She would understand.
Half an hour later Luke looked at the words he had written on impulse, his thoughts and feelings pouring from him onto the paper.
Dear Katie,
> We are now on route to an Eternal place, having passed through the hell of somewhere a person might die to see.
Would the censor allow those words? Katie would understand, Luke was sure, that he was referring first to Rome and then Naples, without naming them directly.
In that latter place there were things that it will be impossible for any of us to forget. The enemy before retreating had deliberately destroyed the city’s sanitation system and water supply, and that was after having abused and starved the local population.
The ‘bad smell’ I carry with me now is not due just to the filth and the stench of the place but due also to what its people have been reduced to. Boys, as young as five and six, all bones and big eyes sharp with anxiety and distrust approach us all the time, offering us the use of their sisters in return for ‘dollars’. When I think of our Italian communities at home and the ferocity with which they guard their young women, one can only imagine what these people must be going through to do what they are doing. It is a sickening aspect of war, made all the worse when I see some of our own men taking advantage of what is being offered. Not my men, though.
Before we left we gathered together what we could spare from our rations and distributed it amongst the children that came closest to us. What will happen, I wonder, to those girls who were forced to prostitute themselves to feed their families? What will happen to the children some of them are bound to have? I try to think of how I would feel if this was my country, and my family, my sisters. The thought is too unbearable to entertain. What I do know, though, is that I would still love them even though I would hate myself for not being able to protect them. This war has shown me so much, Katie. Those girls – girls who once I would have labelled as ‘no good’ – prepared to sell all that they have left for the sake of their families are as brave as any soldier. A soldier is praised for his sacrifice in a time of war, but these girls will be condemned and shunned for theirs.
I am sorry to burden you with such unpleasant things, Katie, but you are the only person I can talk to about them. I’m afraid of forgetting them, you see, afraid that they will be put to one side when this war is over, when they must not be.
The shame I could see in the eyes of those young boys is or should be the shame of all of us, and in some ways it is. I see it in the faces of the men who have weakened and given in to the urge to take advantage of what is being offered, and I wonder what they will tell those at home they love, and how we will all live with what this war has done, once we are no longer at war.
Luke
Having read the letter Luke folded it up, making neat straight creases as he did so with a thumb and forefinger hardened with the work of being a soldier, putting it in an envelope, carefully writing the address from the top of Katie’s letter to him on it and then sealing it. Only when he had done all that did he suddenly have second thoughts. The actual weight of the letter balanced on his hand. It didn’t weigh heavily but its contents did. They weighed very heavily indeed – on his heart and his conscience.
He should not send this letter to Katie, he decided. It simply wasn’t fair to her to burden her with the turmoil of his own thoughts, especially now, when they were nothing more than two people who had once believed they would love one another for ever, and who had since found out that they had been wrong.
He went to tear the sealed envelope in half, only to stop as they were given the order to move out, pushing the letter into his kitbag instead, before standing and picking up his kitbag.
‘Here we go again,’ Andy grimaced,
‘At least we’re advancing and not being held up by any ruddy Germans,’ Luke reminded him.
‘Not yet,’ Andy pointed out, adding, ‘Here, there’s a letter just fallen out of your kitbag, Corp.’
Luke looked at the letter he had written to Katie. He bent to pick it up but Andy reached it first, telling him cheerfully, ‘I’ve got a couple to get sent home. I’ll take yours with mine and hand them over before we get started.’
Luke wanted to stop him and to reclaim the letter, but if he did then Andy was bound to ask him why he had written it if he didn’t want to send it. Andy was the kind of person who was very open and direct – too much so sometimes, perhaps – and Luke didn’t want to have to answer the questions Andy was bound to ask him if he demanded the letter back. He’d look a real fool having to admit that he had poured his heart out in the letter and was now having second thoughts about the wisdom of sending it.
In combat conditions a man saw things that made him think more seriously about the role that fate played in human lives. Why should it be that a spray of enemy fire could take out several men but somehow leave one of their number unscathed? Luke had lost count of the number of stories he had heard about men being fated to live – or die. Maybe it was the same with his letter, he thought wryly as Andy turned and loped off, carrying his letter with him.
Sasha was happier than she could ever remember being and the reason for her happiness was the fact that because of a nasty cut to his arm, Bobby was on sick leave from his bomb disposal work.
It was wonderful not having to worry about him, not having to worry about anything, Sasha acknowledged. Bobby walked her to work every morning, met her at dinner time and waited for her after work. There was still the awful darkness to be faced at night when she went to bed, of course, but even that hadn’t seemed as bad since she’d not had to worry about Bobby’s safety. Her current happiness only went to prove that she had been right when she had said that she would be much happier when she and Bobby were married and he was out of the bomb disposal unit for good.
‘It’s silly us not being married just because of the war,’ she told Bobby now as he walked her home after work.
‘There’s nothing I’d like more than for us to be wed, Sash, you know that, but we’ve got to be practical. Even if your parents let us get married we’ve nowhere to live.’
‘We could find somewhere. There’s your billet, and…and, well, we could live with Mum and Dad until we found somewhere of our own.’
Bobby shook his head. ‘My landlady only takes in single men, and…and as for moving in with your parents…’ He hesitated and looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, the thing is, Sash, we’ll be a newly married couple and with them being your mum and dad, well, I just don’t see how it would work, if you know what I mean.’
Sasha did, but she wasn’t about to give up.
‘We’re bound to find somewhere,’ she insisted, tugging on Bobby’s arm and pulling him towards her as she told him fiercely, ‘All I want is for you and me to be married, Bobby, and for you to be safe. I want that more than anything else in the world. Other girls my age get married.’
Bobby wrapped her in his arms. ‘There’s nothing I want more than for you to be happy, Sash, you know that. Nothing. But your mum and dad have said—’
‘I don’t care what they’ve said. I want us to be together, Bobby, always. I don’t want to wait any longer.’
Bobby’s arms tightened compulsively, his heart thudding into Sasha’s chest at the thought of what she was saying to him. He loved her so much; there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her – except encourage her to go against her parents. That simply wouldn’t be right. But Bobby knew his Sasha. She’d argue and wheedle, there would be tears and recriminations. He decided to try to distract her.
‘I had a letter from me mum today,’ he told her. ‘She’s going on about us going up to Newcastle for Christmas, if I get leave. She says that you could share with our Jane, seeing as her hubbie will be away at sea over Christmas.’
Both Bobbie’s sisters were married to merchant seamen. Jane lived with her widowed mother, whilst Bobby’s other sister Irene and her two small children lived with her mother-in-law.
‘I reckon that me mam wants to show you off a bit, with us being engaged.’
Spend Christmas in Newcastle – away from Liverpool and her own family? Sasha opened her mouth to refuse and then closed it again. Her parents were t
reating her as though she were still a child. Well, she’d show them that she wasn’t by making her own plans for Christmas – with Bobby. Besides, Lou was bound to be coming home and Sasha knew that she didn’t want to listen to her twin going on about flying and talking about people – her new friends – who Sasha knew nothing about.
‘All right then,’ she told Bobby, surprising him as he’d been expecting her to refuse and to insist that she wanted them to spend Christmas with her family. ‘But you’ll have to make all the arrangements, get the train tickets and everything.’
‘But what about your mum?’
‘What about her?’ Sasha challenged him.
‘Well, don’t you want to talk to her about it first? You know, make sure that it’s all right?’
‘I’m not a child, Bobby. I can make up my own mind how and where I want to spend Christmas. Besides, it’s time we went up and saw your family. We can talk about us getting married.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Seb asked Grace as he stepped in through the back door of the cottage. She’d been off colour for several days, unwilling to eat because it made her feel so sick, and Seb had been concerned enough about her to leave the Old Vicarage, which housed Y Section, a unit of the Government’s covert Morse code listening operations. Officially Seb was in the RAF but he had been seconded to the Y Section early on in the war.