by Annie Groves
Quickly Lou made herself think about something else.
‘Jack, surely you remember me, don’t you? We had such fun together.’ Francine could hear the note of panic and pleading in her voice as she tried to coax Jack to respond to her.
She’d been so full of hope this morning when she’d called at Emily’s, as they’d arranged, so that they could have some time together, imagining the two of them getting on, and Jack beginning to relax with her, but instead her son had made it plain that he didn’t want to be with her and that he resented having to do so.
‘Do I have to go?’ Francine had heard him asking Emily as the other woman fussed over him, tying his scarf, and tucking what had looked like a packet of sandwiches into the pocket of his coat.
Did Emily really think that she wasn’t capable of feeding him, Fran fumed now. She was Jack’s mother, after all. She’d brought some special treats down from London with her, cajoled from the Dorchester’s chef, only to discover that the range in the kitchen of the cottage she was renting billowed out smoke the minute she tried to light it.
‘Jack, speak to me, please,’ she begged. Nothing was turning out as she’d expected. She’d planned to take Jack round to Grace and Seb’s, thinking that that might help to break the ice between them, but then Seb had telephoned and said that Grace was feeling a bit under the weather and not really up to visitors, and now she was going to have to take Jack back to her cold cottage or spend the day walking round Whitchurch with him trailing behind her, and obviously wishing that he wasn’t with her.
She would have to be patient, Fran reminded herself. She’d have to win his trust slowly and let him take his time to get to know her instead of trying to rush him.
‘It’s rather cold in here,’ she told him as she unlocked the door to the cottage. ‘I think there’s something wrong with the range.’
The cottage was so small that there was only one room downstairs, which was both the kitchen and the living area. Despite her sheepskin-lined boots, Francine could feel the cold coming up from the stone-flagged floor. She could see Jack looking round and suspected that he was comparing the bare chilliness of the cottage to the comfort and warmth of the home he shared with Emily.
Her kitchen smelled of baking and warmth, whilst the cottage smelled of emptiness and damp.
Fran sank down onto one of the dilapidated chairs at the kitchen table. She refused to touch the ancient sofa, with its ominously worrying holes through which loose horsehair poked. The cottage was a world away from the comfort and elegance of the London apartment she and Marcus shared.
Marcus. She wished that he was with her now. He would have known what to do, how to make Jack relax and smile at her instead of refusing to look at her. Jack was her son, she reminded herself. They shared the same blood. They…
‘I know this isn’t easy for you,’ she told him. ‘It isn’t easy for me either.’
She saw the movement of his head as he turned to look at her.
‘You love Emily.’ How hard it was for her to say those words. ‘And she loves you. But we love you as well, Jack. We are your family.’ She reached impulsively towards him.
Immediately he recoiled from her, asking, ‘Can I go home now, please?’
Home. His home should be with her, not with Con’s wife, however good to him she had been or however much she loved him.
Emily couldn’t settle to anything. She’d cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, but she still felt too restless to sit down. The back door opened and she turned round anxiously, giving a small sigh when she saw Wilhelm. Not that he wasn’t welcome. She’d tried to explain as vaguely as she could to her neighbour about ‘some of Tommy’s family turning up and wanting to get to know him,’ but it was only with Wilhelm that she could truly express her feelings – and her fears.
‘I know she’s his real mother and that she’s every right to want him,’ she told Wilhelm now, ‘but when I had to stand here and watch her walk out with him this morning, Wilhelm, I could hardly bear it, I really couldn’t. I don’t know what I’m going to do if he decides that he wants to be with her. I love him as though he’s been mine all along, as though…’
She tried to smile through her tears as Wilhelm took hold of her hand.
‘It is for Tommy that you must do what is right, and because you love him. I know that that is what you will do.’
Jack/Tommy couldn’t wait to get home to Emily. It had made him feel funny inside hearing her, his aunt, talking to him in that cracked, upset voice, and he wanted to put his hands over his ears and not hear her.
He could remember the bedroom he had had at the house in Wallasey, the small back bedroom, which his mother had said was good enough for him, and where he had never been allowed to have any toys in case he made a mess. Now he had a great big room, with a deep chest of drawers where he could keep his Meccano and his jigsaws. He had a special shelf for all his annuals, and his bird book, and best of all, upstairs in the attic, Wilhelm had helped him to lay out his railway set.
He shivered, remembering too the pursed-lipped crossness of his mother’s face; the bad temper of his father, and the brother and sister who had always seemed alien to him. He didn’t want to go back to that or to them. He wanted to be with Emily.
‘You want to go home?’ Auntie Francine asked him. Her voice had that funny cracked sound to it again.
Tommy nodded. ‘Yes please,’ he told her.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was a shock to realise that it was now officially spring Lou acknowledged, as she climbed out of the taxi Anson at Thame after a very long day’s work, during which she’d moved seven Spitfires from their maintenance units to their new RAF bases. They’d been so busy these last few weeks, picking up and delivering planes, in the build-up towards the expected invasion of Northern France, that she’d hardly had time to notice how quickly the days were slipping by. Impossible not to notice now, though, with double summer time coming into force, making the days longer and the evenings so much lighter, the fields beneath her busy with land girls, POWs and farmers all doing their bit to help feed the country.
When she removed her helmet the evening breeze smelled of fresh air, and the last of the day’s sunshine. The sun was dying into a red sky, promising good weather, which, allied to the full moon – a bomber’s moon – meant that it would be a busy night for Bomber Command, still flying raids on Germany, and dropping guns and other supplies in France for the Resistance – work in which Kieran was heavily involved.
The gathering dusk, waiting beyond the blazing glory of the sunset, meant that there would be no more flying for her until the morning, which was probably just as well, Lou acknowledged. Beneath the adrenalin rush of non-stop pick-ups and deliveries, working always against the clock and praying for good flying weather, she was tired. They all were. It was rarely voiced but there was always the knowledge that men’s lives and the ultimate success of the war for the Allies rested in part on the delivery of much-needed planes to replace those lost in action, and to replenish those RAF bases desperately in need of more.
Lou had just signed off for the day and was about to leave the ops office when the relief ops officer called her back.
George Simmonds was ex-BOAC, a kindly avuncular man, with a wide warm smile, whom all the girls liked. Right now, though, his smile had been replaced by a more serious expression, his hand on Lou’s arm, obviously intended to be comforting as he drew her to one side and told her quietly, ‘Officially I shouldn’t be doing this but I thought you’d want to know that part of 184 Squadron were doing a French Resistance drop earlier today, and they ran into a spot of trouble from the Luftwaffe on the way back.’
Immediately Lou’s stomach muscles clenched. In fact the whole of her body was rigidly tight with apprehension whilst her heart hammered too fast and too hard as she anticipated what was to come.
‘Kieran?’ she managed to ask stiffly. But even before George Simmonds shook his head, she knew the answer.
; ‘Posted missing. He’d dropped back to protect the rest of the squadron. One of the other pilots saw his plane go down over the Channel.’
Lou nodded, too choked up to speak, her throat muscles as tight and strained as though she’d been screaming.
Kieran gone…dead. Kieran, who meant nothing whatsoever to her. Kieran, whose ‘girl’ she was supposed to be, but who would now never ever hold a girl he really loved in his arms ever again.
Kieran.
Dead.
Unsteadily Lou walked out of the office, her vision blurred by the tears she was determined not to cry.
Spring already and she felt ever so much better than she had done, Sasha acknowledged. Had felt better ever since they had made things up, Lou and her, and were close again. She still hated dark places, and she still sometimes had nightmares, but these days, in those nightmares, Lou was there to hold on to her.
She still wished that Bobby would get a transfer, but with her parents adamant that she and Bobby must wait for the war to be over to get married, Sasha had accepted that she would have to learn to live with her anxiety. Bobby’s safety and their marriage aside, all she really wanted now was for Lou to meet someone and settle down so that the two of them could share looking forward to the future. Lou’s letters, though, never mentioned men or dates. Sasha sometimes wondered if her twin had really got over her crush on Kieran Mallory. Sasha could smile now at her own adoration of him, safe in the knowledge that now she understood what real love was, thanks to Bobby. It had been daft, her and Lou falling out the way they had, first over him and then over her getting together with Bobby, but Sasha recognised now that they had perhaps needed that separation in order for them both to become young women in their own rights.
Now that they had made up their differences, though, there was no way that Sasha wanted them to fall out like that again. It was lovely being able to write to Lou openly about how she felt, able to tell her twin how much she had missed her. She thought about Lou every day but today she’d been thinking about her almost all the time.
Humming to herself, Sasha brushed her hair sitting down at the dressing table she and Lou had shared. Bobby was on duty tonight, but she would be seeing him on Friday.
She heard the knock on the front door and the sound of her father going to see who it was, but she didn’t pay much attention. It would probably be one of her father’s allotment pals or one of their neighbours
Only it wasn’t, and when her father called upstairs to her to come down she knew the minute she saw the grey-faced officer from Bobby’s unit standing in the hallway why he was there, her fiancé’s name escaping from her lips on a plea, as she begged, ‘Bobby?’
‘Gina.’ Katie hurried between the tables of the large sorting room to greet her friend’s unexpected appearance. ‘I thought you were still on extended…leave, otherwise I’d have made sure I got here earlier this morning. How are you?’
‘I’m not coming back, Katie. I’ve only come in to collect my things.’
Gina had lost weight. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and her eyes themselves held the brutal reality of her loss and her grief.
‘They need me at home. Losing both Leonard and Eddie has been terrible for both families, and—’
‘Losing Eddie?’ Katie couldn’t conceal her shock.
After she hadn’t heard from Eddie on Valentine’s Day, Katie had decided that she had been right to guess that he had had a change of heart and had been unable to face her with it, so of course she hadn’t made any attempt to get in touch with him, just as she’d felt it best to allow Gina to make contact with her when she felt ready to do so, rather than bombard her with letters at a time of such personal grief. That hadn’t stopped her from ending up thinking rather less of Eddie, though, and feeling that he should have had the decency to get in touch with her, even though she had known all along what would happen.
Now, though, Katie felt as if her heart had been gripped in a giant vice of guilt and shock.
‘Yes,’ Gina told her wearily. ‘I would have let you know only, well, it’s all been so dreadful. Eddie’s father collapsed with a heart attack when we heard the news. We were expecting Eddie, you see. He’d telephoned his parents to say he was coming, and that he’d got something important to tell them. We’ll never know what it was now.’
‘What…what happened?’ Katie’s mouth had gone dry and her heart was hammering. How awful to think she had felt so cross with poor Eddie for not keeping their date.
‘No one’s really sure. It seems that a fight broke out in a pub down by the docks between two sailors, and Eddie stepped in to intervene and break it up, only instead he ended up bleeding to death after one of the sailors turned on him with a broken bottle. First Leonard and now Eddie. It’s so hard to believe, and it seems so…so bloody unfair.’
‘Oh, Gina, I’m so sorry.’
Katie went to hug her friend. Gina’s rigid body felt so thin. Katie’s was filled with sorrow. Poor Eddie. What a dreadful thing to have happened.
‘We’ve buried him.’ Gina’s voice was muffled against Katie’s shoulder. ‘Oh, but Katie, it’s all so awful. Eddie’s grandmother had hoped to get Eddie interested in the granddaughter of a friend of hers. She desperately wanted him to get married and have a son. She’s taken his death very badly, as you can imagine.’
‘Yes,’ Katie agreed bleakly. She felt all trembly and sick inside. There was no point in saying anything to Gina about Eddie proposing to her. What was the point? But what part had her relationship with Eddie played in his death? Was she in any way to blame? Had he realised that his grandmother wasn’t likely to agree to him marrying her? Had that been on his mind when he had been struck down so that he hadn’t been concentrating properly on protecting himself? It was too late now to wish that she had been honest with him, Katie told herself.
Gina straightened up and gently freed herself from Katie’s concerned hold.
‘My place is with the family now, Katie. Leonard’s children need me. I’m all they’ve got, and…little Adam looks so like Leonard. Having them to look after helps, and I know it’s what Leonard would want me to do. You are so lucky not to be involved with anyone. Take my advice, my dear, and stay that way, at least until this dreadful war is over.’
Katie hugged Gina tightly, filled with admiration for her friend’s courage and steadfastness at the same time as she was struggling to come to terms with the shock of Eddie’s death, and all that it meant.
Had she in any way contributed to his death? That fear would haunt her, Katie knew.
Whilst the entrance to the hospital smelled of carbolic and starch, on the ward those smells were overlaid by the scent of blood and the other odours of damaged flesh and pain-filled bodies.
Sasha had wanted to come here last night the moment she had been told the news that Bobby was still alive but badly injured, but both Bobby’s commanding officer and her parents had insisted that she wait until the morning.
She hadn’t slept, of course, watching the dawn break, praying with all her might for Bobby’s life.
The bomb had gone off unexpectedly, killing the young sapper who had been tunnelling alongside it, and injuring Bobby, the officer had told them.
‘How badly?’ Sasha had asked, but the officer had said that he was unable to say.
Now, though, she knew. Both her parents had come with her, and the matron, remembering Grace, who had trained at the hospital, had waived the rules to tell them that Bobby had sustained several severe cuts to his arms, but that the worst injury had been to his left leg, which had been pierced by shrapnel.
‘He will live, won’t he?’ had been Sasha’s immediate anxious question.
‘We hope so,’ the matron had replied, but there had been a look exchanged between her and Sasha’s parents that had alerted her to something being concealed from her.
‘What is it? What aren’t you telling me?’ she had demanded.
It had been her mother who had given the matron a
small nod of her head, and then reached for Sasha’s hand, holding it tightly as the matron told her quietly, ‘I’m afraid the leg has had to be amputated. It was damaged so badly that to leave it would have risked gangrene setting in and Bobby losing his life.’
Sasha hadn’t said a word but she knew that she had dug her nails into her mother’s palm because she had seen the marks later when she had released her mother’s hand.
‘I want to see him,’ she had begged the matron when finally she had been able to speak. ‘I want to see him and I want him to know that…that nothing’s changed between us, because of what’s happened.’
The matron had given her a small nod of approval then and that had helped Sasha to refuse her mother’s offer to go onto the ward with her. She wasn’t a little girl any more. She was a woman, a fiancée of a young man who was going to need her to be brave for both of them.
The ward was quiet, the silence broken only by the squeak of trolley wheels and nurses’ shoes on the shiny linoleum-covered floor.
This was, Sasha had understood immediately without having to be told, a ward to which only the most poorly of patients came. Each bed contained a patient, and contraptions and cages protecting damaged limbs and bodies.
Bobby was in a small separate room close to the doors to the ward – rooms reserved for the most poorly patients of all, as Grace could have told her.
He was deeply asleep – ‘because of the anaesthetic he was given for his operation,’ the nurse who had shown Sasha to his bed told her.
Beneath the bedclothes, it was easy to see where Bobby’s leg had been removed because from his thigh downwards on the left side of his body there was nothing. No shape to match the right-hand side, just a flat sheet, empty of anything beneath it. Sasha forced back a sob. She must be brave – for both of them. She thought of Lou and drew comfort from thinking of her twin and of knowing that, more than anyone else, Lou would understand all that she was feeling right now. Even the mean nasty things that she was trying desperately to push to one side; the bits that said—But no, she must not think like that.