by Annie Groves
‘Our gran’s on her own now, Mam, since our granddad died. And she’s got a spare room, Mam,’ Jane chipped in. ‘Bobby and Sasha can move in with her and then, wi’ Sasha being there to keep an eye on our gran, you won’t have to go running round there with Gran’s dinners and that. You’ll have to watch Gran, though, Sasha,’ Jane confided. ‘She’s gone a bit forgetful and there’s a couple of times when she’s bin found wandering in the street in her nightclothes.’
Sasha had heard enough. In a panic she got to her feet and told them, ‘No. When me and Bobby get married we’ll be living in Liverpool, not here.’
The silence that filled the small room as Bobby’s mother and sisters looked first at her and then at one another made Sasha’s face burn. She knew full well that had her own mother been there she would have had a sound telling-off for her lack of manners and tact, and now she felt very alone and very close to humiliating tears.
‘Had any Christmas lunch, have you?’ the officer temporarily in charge of the order room asked Lou after he had cleared the paperwork for the Spit she had just delivered.
Lou shook her head.
‘Well, since we’ve just had a report that the weather is about to close in, and we’re going to have to close the airfield until tomorrow morning, why don’t I see if the mess can manage an extra meal?’
She was going to have to spend the night here? It wasn’t unusual for ATA pilots to be grounded because of the weather during the winter months, but that wasn’t the reason Lou’s heart suddenly beat faster.
‘Could I possibly use the telephone?’ Lou asked the ops officer. ‘Only my twin sister is up here in Newcastle visiting her fiancé’s family, and since I haven’t seen her for months, if I can’t pick up another ferry until the morning I’d like to try and meet up with her, but I shall have to ring my family in Whitchurch to get her address.’
‘Help yourself,’ the ops officer smiled.
EIGHTEEN
It was just as well that the people of Newcastle were so very friendly and helpful, Lou decided, as she stood on the step outside Bobby’s mother’s house, giving her careful directions whenever she had asked if she was going the right way. She just hoped that Sasha’s reaction to her would be as warm. Their mother had certainly approved of what Lou was doing, and had said so when Lou had telephoned to Grace and Seb’s cottage to get Bobby’s mother’s address.
Someone was coming to answer the door. The nervous butterflies in Lou’s tummy grew in intensity.
Sasha was upstairs, lying on the bed in the room she was sharing with Jane, when Lou arrived, and feeling guilty and miserable, and wishing she had not rushed out and up to the bedroom in the way that she had, but not knowing how she could make amends for her behaviour.
Then Jane came pounding up the stairs to open the bedroom door and announce breathlessly, ‘’Ere, you’d better come down, ‘cos your sister is here. Looks just like you, she does, an’ all.’
All Sasha could do was stare at her. ‘Lou’s here?’ she demanded in disbelief. ‘But…’
‘Come down and see for yourself,’ Jane told her.
A little shakily Sasha got up off the bed and followed Jane out of the room and down the dusty stairs with their threadbare runner of discoloured carpet.
Bobby’s mother, Jane and Bobby himself were standing in the narrow hallway, with Irene’s two small children clinging to their mother’s side, Bobby’s mother and Irene both talking at the same time, and then as they turned towards her, she could see her twin standing there looking up at her.
‘Lou!’
Sasha’s voice caught on a small sob as she covered the short distance between them.
It was going to be all right. She had done the right thing, Lou recognised with relief as Sasha hugged her and she hugged her twin back.
‘I can’t believe that you’re really here,’ Sasha said for the umpteenth time later as she and Lou sat together on the leatherette sofa.
‘I was a bit worried that I might be intruding,’ Lou admitted. ‘But it just seemed too good an opportunity to miss, especially with it being Christmas. Mum and everyone send their love, by the way.’
‘You’ve spoken to Mum?’ Sasha’s voice was wistful.
‘I had to ring Grace to get your address,’ Lou answered her matter-of-factly, before adding, ‘The people up here are ever so kind, aren’t they? I had to keep stopping to ask for directions once my lift had dropped me off at the station.’
‘Oh, Lou, I’m so glad you’re here,’ Sasha told her twin, looking a bit teary.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Lou asked. ‘You and Bobby haven’t had a fall-out, have you?’
‘No, but, Lou, Bobby’s mother seems to think me and Bobby will be living up here once we’re married. She wants us to move in with Bobby’s gran.’ Tears glistened in Sasha’s eyes. ‘I don’t think I could bear it. I want to stay in Liverpool.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to tell Bobby that. Anyone can see that there’s not much he wouldn’t do to make you happy, Sash,’ Lou assured her twin.
Sasha managed a slightly watery smile. Lou had always had that way of making problems seem unimportant.
Sasha took a deep breath. The unexpected arrival of her twin had broken through the barriers Sasha had erected between them and now she had a longing to unburden herself to Lou.
‘I was thinking about you this morning,’ Sasha agreed. ‘And about Christmas.’
‘I was doing the same,’ Lou admitted. ‘I love being in ATA, just like you love being with Bobby, but that didn’t stop me feeling a bit sorry for myself this morning because I wasn’t at home.’
Sasha gave Lou a grateful smile. ‘That’s exactly how I felt.’ She added shakily, ‘Lou, you know the last time we were at home together, and I had my torch? Well, it wasn’t so that I could read in bed. Lou, don’t laugh at me but…’ Sasha took another deep breath, ‘sometimes I have these terrible nightmares that I’m back in that crater with the bomb. You’re there too and you’re holding my hand, stopping me from falling under the bomb, just like you did, but then you let go.’ Sasha managed a weak smile. ‘You don’t say why but I sort of think it’s because of Kieran and you wanting to get back to him ‘cos you’d left him to find me. Anyway, you let go and then I’m falling. I can’t breathe and it’s dark and the bomb’s there and I know that I’m going to die.’
‘Oh, Sash!’ Emotion dampened Lou’s eyes as she hugged her twin fiercely. ‘I would never let you fall, never, not for anyone, and least of all for Kieran Mallory. You and me, we’re a pair. You’re part of me and I’m part of you. If you were going to die under any bomb – which you aren’t ‘cos your Bobby rescued you – then I’d be there with you.’
This was why Sasha had been so withdrawn and had seemed so distant with her for so long, Lou recognised, and her heart ached for all that her twin must have endured, at the same time as she felt guilty because she hadn’t known, and because Sasha obviously hadn’t been able to tell her how she felt.
‘You should have told me before,’ she rebuked her gently.
‘I should have done,’ Sasha agreed, ‘but I was so mixed up inside myself, Lou, that I couldn’t. I knew you’d stayed with me but then in my dreams, when you left me, it made me feel…angry inside and hurt, and frightened. I couldn’t tell anyone what it was like, not you and not even Bobby. I feel ever so much better now that I’ve told you.’
‘And I feel better for knowing. I’ve been worrying, wondering what it’s been that has made you so unhappy.’
‘Oh, Lou, I’m so glad you came today,’ Sasha told her. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
Lou knew that Sasha wasn’t just talking about missing her because it was Christmas.
‘I’ve missed you too. We’ve had our misunderstandings,’ Lou said gruffly, ‘but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still…well, we are still us, Sash, and I mean that promise I made you. You can trust me never ever to do anything that might hurt you.’
‘I
know. I knew that all the time really, but my bad dreams just kept getting in the way of me believing it.’
As they hugged one another tightly, Lou made a silent prayer of thankfulness that the gulf between them had finally been bridged, and promised herself that she would never let anything come between them again. She could only imagine what poor Sasha must have gone through in that bomb shaft. She knew how terrified she had been that she might lose her grip on her twin. It was no wonder the experience had had such a misery-inducing effect on her twin.
They were laughing together when Bobby’s mother returned with the tea she had gone off to make, accompanied, of course, by her daughters, her grandchildren and by Bobby, who had tactfully left the sisters to have a few minutes together on their own.
‘Well, I just can’t get over how alike the two of you look. Got a young chap, have you yourself, Lou? Only if you had you and Sasha would look ever so lovely having a double wedding,’ Bobby’s mother commented.
‘No. I’m single and fancy-free,’ Lou answered her.
It had been a funny Christmas, Sasha thought sleepily later that night as she lay in bed. She had been so miserable earlier, but once Lou had arrived everything had changed. She’d got Bobby’s mother and sisters holding their sides laughing when she’d told them some tales of their childhood antics, and then somehow or other, the turkey carpet had been rolled back and she and Lou had given them a demonstration of their dancing. This had led to Lou trying to teach Irene and Jane how to jitterbug, which had everyone breathless and giggling. Then they’d walked round to another relative of Bobby’s mother’s and there’d been a singsong round the piano, which Sasha had joined in instead of hanging back, thanks to Lou being there.
Having everything right again between her and Lou had lifted a weight from her shoulders she hadn’t even known was there, Sasha admitted, and there’d even been enough time on the walk home, when Lou had linked up with Irene and Jane so that Sasha could fall behind everyone else with Bobby, for her to tell Bobby how much she wanted them to stay in Liverpool.
To her relief he had immediately reassured her, telling her ruefully, ‘The truth is that I’ve never fancied spending the rest of my life gutting fish, which is one of the reasons why I joined the army in the first place. If I could choose a job for meself when this war is over I’d go for summat like your dad does,’ he had confided. ‘He’s a grand man, your dad, Sash, one of the best.’
‘And so are you, Bobby,’ Sasha had responded.
After that they had had to run to catch up with the others on account of Bobby taking advantage of their turning a corner to hold Sasha back so that he could kiss her and whisper to her, ‘Happy Christmas.’
NINETEEN
‘Go for a walk?’ Emily looked reluctantly at the grey sky beyond the window, but Tommy was insistent, and Beauty was rushing to and fro, having heard that magic word ‘walk’, whilst Wilhelm was smiling at her and telling her that some fresh air would probably do them all good before they sat down to their Boxing Day tea.
‘Go on then.’ She gave in. ‘But not too far.’
‘We could walk as far as the Llangollen canal,’ Tommy suggested eagerly. The canal, with its flight of staircase locks at Grindley Brook, was about a mile from the town and slightly less from Emily’s house on the outskirts. The locks fascinated Tommy.
‘All right then,’ Emily agreed.
‘Happy?’ Marcus asked Fran as they walked hand in hand through the winter landscape of bare turned earth and leafless trees. They’d both agreed on how much they liked the small market town.
Marcus had been particularly interested in the history of J. B. Joyce & Co., a firm of tower clockmakers said to be oldest in the world, whilst both Fran and Grace had agreed that knowing that the heart of Sir John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, had been buried under the porch of St Alkmund’s church gave them goosebumps.
‘Very happy,’ Fran smiled in response to Marcus’s question. ‘Do you think it was just coincidence that our landlady decided to spend Christmas with her sister, or do you think she was being tactful in leaving us alone in the house?’
‘I don’t know, but whatever the cause I very much enjoyed its effect,’ Marcus teased her, referring to the long leisurely lovemaking session they had enjoyed before finally getting up. After a very late breakfast-cum-early lunch they were now on their way to Grace and Seb’s to spend the afternoon with the family.
Up above them the sky was a clear shade of winter blue, and in an adjacent field were sheep with coats so similar in colour to the frost-rimed grass that it was only possible to see them because of the black markings on their faces. The sight of a robin hopping from twig to twig in a nearby hedge made Fran pull on Marcus’s arm to draw his attention to it, leaning her head against his shoulder as they paused to watch the robin’s busyness, before continuing on their walk.
‘Being here, it’s almost possible to forget that there’s a war on,’ Fran told Marcus.
‘If you disregard the work that the Y Section are doing, and the fact that there’s an American hospital and an American base not all that far away,’ Marcus agreed, ‘although I do know what you mean. This is the England that we’re fighting this war for, the England we all carry in our hearts when we’re away from it.’
Fran shivered. She didn’t want the reality of the war to intrude on their happiness – not today, not for a few precious hours, when Marcus was safe here with her, and everything was so peaceful.
‘I really didn’t want to come here once I knew you’d got leave, but I really enjoyed spending Christmas Day with the family.’
‘And is that all you enjoyed?’
‘Marcus,’ Francine objected, but she was laughing when he stopped walking and turned her towards him, taking her in his arms.
With Tommy and Beauty running on ahead of them, Emily and Wilhelm were walking companionably together along the country lane that led eventually to the path to the canal, all three of them wrapped up warmly against the chill of the fresh winter’s day, its thin sunshine doing more to make the frost sparkle and glitter than it did to give off any warmth. To the west of them the Welsh Marches and the hills lay against the horizon in blue-grey smudges topped with white, a pair of reconnaissance planes leaving white vapour trails across the sky.
She had never felt happier, Emily reflected. This morning in church, after joining in the public prayers for the fallen and for those who were still fighting, she had added a special prayer of thanks of her own for the happiness Tommy and Wilhelm had brought into her life. She gulped in some of the fresh cold air, sniffing back her own silly tears.
A sudden bend in the lane hid Tommy and Beauty from them, and automatically Emily started to walk a little faster to catch up with them, but when they too turned the corner, instead of still racing on ahead of them Emily could see Tommy standing stock-still in the middle of the path, looking at a couple who were walking towards him. Since his hand was on Beauty’s collar, Emily supposed at first that he was simply holding on to his dog so that she wouldn’t run up to them, but then suddenly the woman pulled away from her companion and started to run towards Tommy, crying out, ‘Jack!’ and immediately Tommy turned and ran, not towards Emily, but across the field, fleeing as though for his life, his dog at his heels.
It was even worse than her worst nightmare, Emily recognised. The woman was standing white-faced, and in shock, staring, the man with her trying to comfort her, whilst Wilhelm had gone after Tommy, leaving Emily standing alone to confront what she had always dreaded.
‘That boy,’ the woman begged Emily. ‘Who is he? Only he looks so like…’
In the distance across the field Emily could see that Wilhelm had caught up with Tommy. She had had a chance to look properly at the woman now. She was very pretty and somehow familiar, her expression, a mix of shock, disbelief and hope, turning a knife in Emily’s heart.
The man was speaking, his voice calm and firm as he explained, ‘My wife lost her…a close relative in
tragic circumstances. He’d been evacuated to Wales and the farm where he was staying was bombed, and the boy—’
‘I should never have let Vi send him away again. I should have stopped her.’
Francine’s eyes were huge with shock, her heart still pounding from the moment when the boy had come running towards them, running exactly as Jack had run, and looking so like her dead child that her heart had immediately reached out to him, just as her arms had wanted to do. Then he had seen her and he had looked at her and in that second, when their gazes had locked, Francine had known that, incredible though it was, the boy was Jack.
‘It is him. I know it is. He recognised me, Marcus. He looked at me and…’
The woman looked close to collapsing, Emily recognised. She, on the other hand, felt as though she had been turned to stone, as though she was incapable of doing anything other than just standing there.
‘His name’s Tommy. Not Jack,’ Emily told the woman. She could see Wilhelm and Tommy making their way back towards the cottage, but keeping well away from the lane. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a shock. It can’t be easy – losing a child.’ Emily turned round, not wanting to prolong things; not wanting to give the woman the opportunity to tell her any more. She didn’t want to know any more. She didn’t want to know about her heartache, her heartbreak over the loss of her son, she didn’t want to hear anything that might tell her that that son was her Tommy.
She didn’t want to hear, but she had to ask, for Tommy’s sake, Emily acknowledged later that night, sitting beside Tommy’s bed whilst he slept, Beauty for once allowed to sleep on the floor beside him.
He hadn’t said a word when they had all got back to the cottage, but his face had been white and his eyes filled with dread.