by Annie Groves
‘I want to stay with him so that I can be here when he wakes up,’ she told the nurse. ‘I want him to know the minute that he does that I’m here and that I love him, and that nothing matters to me except that he’s alive.’
The nurse’s expression softened. She patted Sasha’s arm. ‘I’ll go and see if I can scrounge you a cup of tea.’
What she had dreaded had happened; but Bobby was still alive and he would be safe now from having to go back into danger. If he lived. The tears she was trying to hold back made Sasha blink fiercely. He must live. She loved him so much.
His family would have to be told, of course, and his mum would want to come and see him, but for now Sasha wanted to keep him to herself. The only other person she could bear to share this time with, the only person she wanted here to support her, was Lou.
It had been another busy day. Lou had been asked if she wanted to work, given the news about Kieran, but working was preferable to sitting alone thinking about him, and having to think too about how desperately she ached for him still to be alive, and just what that meant.
Unusually, and because they were so busy with the impending invasion, she’d got a Spitfire to deliver down to the South Coast – a job that would normally have fallen to Hamble ferry pool – an emergency delivery, with Lou having to stand in for another ATA pilot who had gone off sick at the last minute, which had meant that she’d flown wearing her uniform skirt and blouse instead of her Sidcot flying suit. Of course, the most difficult part of the flight had been clambering down off the wing without her skirt riding up.
She was halfway towards the ops office when she saw him, standing outside the office, his hands on his hips, his cap pushed back.
Kieran – but it couldn’t be.
She must be hallucinating. But he started to walk towards her and suddenly she was running towards him, and then she was being scooped up into his arms and the way he was kissing her was way beyond the powers of any hallucination, Lou decided dizzily, as she wrapped her arms round him and kissed him back.
‘You’re alive. I was told that you’d been shot down.’ She was breathless, kissed breathless, her heart pounding like a drum as Kieran kept her close to his side, his arm around her waist.
‘I know. They told me when I rang Thame to speak to you. We did have to ditch after the Luftwaffe got us, but luckily the old girl stayed afloat for long enough for us all to get out. And even more luckily, a vessel on coastal defence duty saw us and picked us up. When I learned you were due down here I cadged a lift to the base.’
‘Oh, Kieran.’
‘Oh, Louise.’
The way he said her name might be teasing, but the way he was looking at her was anything but.
‘I’ve been given a temporary billet in a cottage less than five miles away, and you’ve been given leave, so how about I take you there so that you can change into that pretty frock you ATA girls are rumoured to carry around with you, and then we go out for dinner?’
Dinner? Dinner was the last thing on her mind, Lou acknowledged, blushing slightly as she realised what was, but she nodded, still trying to take in the fact that Kieran was actually alive.
RAF transport took them into the small village set back from the coast and from there they walked the mile that separated the village from the tiny farm labourers’ cottages that the War Office had requisitioned.
It was a long mile when walked hand in hand, and then tucked up against Kieran’s side with his arm around her, but Lou didn’t have any complaints. Not even when Kieran stopped walking to kiss her. Nor even when his kisses grew far more passionate than she had previously known them and his hand cupped the rounded curve of her breast over the fabric of her blouse.
‘I couldn’t die, Lou,’ he told her. ‘Not yet.’
‘Not ever,’ Lou answered fiercely, making him laugh.
‘We all have to die sometime, you know,’ he teased, before twining his fingers with hers and tugging her in the direction of the cottages.
Tiny and low, with thick thatched eaves, upper storey windows under them like eyes beneath bushy eyebrows, the cottages drowsed quietly in the spring sunshine.
‘Who else is staying here?’ Lou asked Kieran as he used a heavy iron key to unlock the door.
‘No one.’
Beyond the door the sunshine slatting into the small sitting room, with its huge fireplace, its wattle and daub walls and its stone floor, picked up speckles of golden dust in its beam. Lou stared at them as though her life depended upon doing so before finally looking up at Kieran. There was nothing in his expression to give her any clue as to what he was thinking. Her heart hammered heavily into her ribs – with apprehension, or with hope and expectation? That was a question Lou didn’t want to answer.
The door swung closed, shutting out the sunlight. The room smelled of beeswax and lavender. Curtains had been closed over the windows, no doubt a precaution in case the cottage was empty at night. A sofa, covered in faded chintz patterned with fat deep pink cabbage roses against a cream background, was drawn up invitingly in front of the fire, a sturdy-looking armchair set either side of the large inglenook fireplace.
‘I thought I would never see you again.’ The admission whispered from Lou’s lips like a sigh.
Without understanding how she had come to do so she discovered that she had lifted her hand and placed it against Kieran’s heart as though she needed to convince herself that it was actually beating.
‘When I knew I was going to have to ditch the plane, I thought of you and this,’ Kieran responded, cupping her face and kissing her slowly and oh so deliciously.
‘I’d better go and get changed, if we’re going out for dinner.’
Kieran nodded. ‘Bedroom’s on the left at the top of the stairs, bathroom’s on the right. I’ll make us both a drink whilst you’re getting ready.’
The stairs, narrow and twisting, led up from a small inner hallway onto a narrow landing.
In the bathroom Lou washed quickly, trying to avoid noticing the male ‘things’ – a razor, male cologne, a shaving brush. All familiar from her own home and her father and brother, but somehow so very different seen here, because they belonged to Kieran.
She’d left the overnight case, which all the girls flew with ‘just in case’ they had to spend the night away from their ferry pool base, in the bedroom, so she made her way back there carrying her uniform and wearing only her underwear. The bedroom was as cosy as the room downstairs, dominated by a large iron-framed bed covered by a quilt made from patches of pretty coloured fabrics in pinks and blues. A rag rug covered the bare floorboards in front of the fire, the rest of the space in the room taken up by a large mahogany wardrobe and a matching tallboy.
Putting her case on the bed, Lou was just unfastening it when the bedroom door opened and Kieran announced, ‘I’ve brought you your drink – a G & T – very weak. Is that…Oh.’ He stopped abruptly when he realised that she wasn’t dressed, putting down the glass he had been holding, his gaze moving swiftly over her body and then averted, as he said thickly, ‘God, Lou,’ and reached for her.
Lou didn’t make any attempt to stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. Not one little bit. In fact, what she wanted…what she wanted, she admitted, as much as she was capable of thinking logically about anything whilst Kieran was kissing her in the way that he was, was Kieran and exactly this.
Somehow it all seemed so natural and right, from lying on the bed in Kieran’s arms, to lying watching him whilst he undressed and then later watching him whilst he slid her underwear from her body and then kissed her so tenderly that her emotions filled her heart.
It was all wonderful and utterly perfect, from Kieran’s first passionately tender kiss to the moment when he had held her and watched the shock of her own pleasure seize her, and then beyond that, when they had finally been one and he had told her how much he loved her. So much more, in fact, than her naïve senses had longed for and thought she would ever know, that afterwards, when Ki
eran had fallen asleep, Lou propped herself up on her elbow and leaned towards him, studying the way his dark lashes shadowed his skin, the way he breathed and the way he turned in towards her, one leg thrown across her body as though to secure her close to him, just for the pleasure of knowing how much she loved him.
They had the evening, the night and the early morning in which to affirm and reaffirm their love for one another, with words and kisses, the feel of Kieran’s hand on her body and the feel of his skin beneath her own touch. It was heaven, an oasis of joy so deep and complete that Lou knew it had changed her for ever.
‘Now you’ll have to marry me,’ Kieran told her as they locked the cottage and walked back down the lane towards the village, with luck to find some transport to get Lou back to the Hamble ferry unit.
Lou turned her face up toward Kieran’s. There was nothing she wanted more.
‘I’ve got to stay down here for a couple more days whilst all the reports are filed but once that’s done, you and I are going to go shopping – for an engagement ring.’
It had been a nerve-racking twenty-four hours whilst they waited to see whether or not the wound from Bobby’s amputation would remain free of infection, but now the surgeon had said that he was pleased with the way things were progressing.
Bobby had told her over and over again just how much it had meant to him to open his eyes and see Sasha sitting beside his bed, but then he had started to talk nonsense about not wanting to hold her to their engagement because of his injury.
Sasha had soon put a stop to that, by bursting into tears and accusing him of not loving her any more, and had been delighted when her small ploy had worked and had had Bobby insisting vehemently that she was wrong.
The truth was that Sasha couldn’t remember when she had last felt so relieved and determined – relieved that Bobby would never be able to go back to active service, and determined that she was going to look after him and love him so much that he would never even miss his leg. But of course she couldn’t say that to anyone, especially not Bobby himself, because they wouldn’t understand.
She paused in the middle of the letter she was writing to tell Lou what had happened. Lou would understand.
Lou’s happiness lasted for just over forty-eight hours – the length of a weekend pass – destroyed by the two letters she received the day after her return from Hamble, one from her mother and one from Sasha, both of them telling her about Bobby’s accident and the subsequent amputation of his leg.
Sasha. How could she have overlooked the effect her engagement to Kieran might have on her twin, especially now, with Bobby so badly hurt. Sasha had originally fallen for Kieran every bit as much as she had done herself. She had told Lou that she never wanted to hear his name mentioned again, she had asked Lou to promise her that nothing would ever come between them again, and Lou had given her that promise.
How could Lou break that promise and let Sasha down, after the things Sasha had told her at Christmas?
How could she give Kieran up?
Lou closed her eyes against the tears burning behind them.
She had seen how hurt her mother had been by the distance that existed between her and her own twin sister, Lou’s auntie Vi. Her mother had often said that she didn’t want that happening to Lou and Sasha, but if Lou married Kieran it was bound to happen, because Sasha would never forgive her. She would think that Lou was deliberately going against all they had said to one another.
Sasha had written that she missed her, asking if there was any chance of Lou going home. Sasha needed her, Lou recognised, because of what had happened to Bobby. Lou couldn’t let her down. She mustn’t. She only had to think of the effect that fearing Lou would leave her to die in the bomb shaft had had on Sash to know that. No matter how much she loved Kieran – and she did – Sasha had to come first, at least for now, until Lou had had a chance to see her twin and assess the situation.
‘So when is it to be, this invasion?’ Francine asked Marcus anxiously.
Marcus looked at her and shook his head. ‘You know I can’t tell you that, but soon.’
‘And you’ll be going in when it does happen?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m such a coward,’ Francine told him from the comfort of his arms as they lay together in bed in their apartment at the Dorchester, with the spring sunshine pouring in through the windows, ‘and so afraid of losing you, Marcus.’
‘You won’t lose me, not ever. You and I are bound together for eternity, through this life and beyond it.’
Francine’s powder-blue satin négligé, with its swansdown trimming, lay across the chair where she had dropped it when he had taken her in his arms.
When he was away from her he always pictured her here in this room with its high ceiling and elegant plasterwork, the walls painted a soft silver blue that matched the heavy silk curtains.
‘Will you get any more leave, before…before it happens,’ Francine asked. She wished desperately that she could keep him safe here with her for ever. Their happiness was so precious and so fragile with the thought of Marcus going into action any day always to the forefront of her mind.
‘Probably not.’
Francine exhaled and looked at him, smoothing the blue satin of the bedspread in her fingers.
‘There’s something I want to tell you. I’ve been thinking…about Jack. He’s such a lovely boy, Marcus, and he can sing – he’s inherited that from me. He’s clever too, and he’s unbending a little towards me. The last time I went down to the cottage, he’d actually asked Wilhelm to look at the range for me. Apparently the chimney needed sweeping and now that that’s been done it doesn’t smoke any more. He’s very protective of Emily.’
Marcus smiled at her and stroked her hair back off her face. She was so beautiful, inside and out. He wished he could wave a magic wand for her and give her what she wanted.
‘He really loves her, Marcus. Really loves her,’ Francine told him painfully.
Marcus drew her against his side, holding her tightly. He knew how much she loved her son.
It was no use, there was no point in her trying to deceive herself or keep hoping. It was too late for that, and had been too late, Francine suspected, from the minute Emily had taken Jack in, giving him the love that had previously been denied him.
She swallowed against the pain constricting her throat and then raised her head so that she could look at Marcus.
‘I’ve made up my mind what I’m going to do about Jack…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You were right, Marcus. It wouldn’t be fair to him to separate him from her. If I took him away from her, no matter how much I love him I couldn’t ever replace what he’d feel he’d lost. He’d be hurt and he’d miss her. I can’t do that to him. I’ve tried to convince myself that he’ll be happy with us, but when I see him with Emily it’s obvious how much he loves her.’
Marcus’s arm tightened around her.
‘I haven’t said anything to Emily yet. I’m going to go down this weekend – but…I wanted to tell you now just in case I don’t see you again before “it” happens and just in case…’ She had to stop speaking as her emotions caught her by the throat, suspending her voice.
‘I don’t want you having to worry about me doing the right thing – or rather, doing the wrong thing. If anything should happen and we don’t…well, I want you to have only good thoughts and memories of me, Marcus.’
Her tears wet his shoulder as Marcus held her tightly in his arms.
‘I never doubted you for a minute,’ he told her emotionally. ‘I know how hard it’s been for you, and how much you love Jack, but I know too that you loved him enough to put him first.’
‘It hurts so much to have found him and to know that I have to lose him again, but I have to do it – for his sake and for my own. I couldn’t live with the guilt of taking him away from where he wants to be. I’m such a coward too because I don’t want you to disapprove of me for being selfish.’
‘You aren’t a c
oward. You are one of the bravest people I have ever met. You’ve faced and come through so much, Fran, things that other people have never had to face. You’ve been tested and you’ve won through. For this, for what you are doing now I am more proud of you than you can possibly imagine. And let me tell you that no matter what you had decided, my love for you couldn’t change because I know your heart and your goodness.’
‘You make me sound so much better than I really am,’ Francine tried to smile. ‘Just hold me, please, Marcus. Hold me and help me to have the courage to do what I know I have to do.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Katie looked down at the letter she had just finished writing, an outpouring of guilt and misery, written to the one person she knew she could trust to understand how she felt.
Luke.
Others might think it odd that she should write about Eddie to her ex-fiancé, but Katie could not think of anyone whose judgement and opinion she valued more. The letters they had exchanged over the months had shown her a Luke who had grown and matured to become a man who thought deeply and carefully about life and other people, a man who cared about those under his command, and those who were suffering because of the war.
Since Gina had told her about Eddie’s death Katie hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Nor could she stop worrying and feeling guilty, questioning whether, if she had refused him straight away, that could have made a difference and saved his life. Her guilt kept her awake at night and had now finally compelled her to unburden herself to Luke, holding nothing back of what had happened, how she had felt when Eddie had proposed to her and why, and how she now felt in the aftermath of his death.