Nowadays, there was nothing on the wireless to make anybody happy, no comfort for a population that was sick and tired of war. Even though there was occasionally some good news from France, the expected Allied victory had not materialised.
London wasn’t the cushy number it had been in spring. Since June, the Germans had been sending over their new flying bombs, and these rained down on London with terrible effect, coming out of nowhere and killing people travelling into work, standing on railway station platforms, walking home from school. The anti-aircraft batteries shot some down, but plenty more got through.
So Cassie was glad to spend a couple of days later that month in the peace and quiet of Melbury, seeing Rose and Tinker.
‘We must hope for the best,’ said Rose. ‘We have to keep our spirits up.’
‘You haven’t heard any more then, Rose?’
‘Not yet, but when I do, you’ll be the very first to know.’
Rose looked at Cassie and she smiled encouragingly. ‘In spite of what his CO said, I still feel optimistic. Robert will want to live, I know, and that must mean a lot.’
Who are you trying to comfort, Rose, thought Cassie – you or me?
One September evening, when they were both off duty, Stephen suggested going out for dinner at the Ritz. Cassie had never seen inside the Ritz, and she was curious, so she agreed to go.
She thought the place was grubby. The brass all needed polishing, and Lily Taylor would have had a fit. The food was muck. All messed about and titivated, served on great big plates, it was clearly trying to be something it was not.
The meat was raw inside, and Cassie knew you shouldn’t eat raw meat – unless your meat was boiled or roasted, you’d certainly get worms – and so she didn’t eat it, even though Stephen told her it was meant to be like that. She could have fancied a plate of mince and onions, or a nice pork pie.
She didn’t like the way the waiters fawned and sneered and grovelled, all at once. It must be because her escort was an officer, but she was just an NCO.
Afterwards, Stephen wanted to go drinking. Cassie was tired, she’d had a busy week, and she had to drive a truck to Hull the following morning, so she wanted to go home.
But Stephen looked so hangdog when she said she was going back to Chelsea that she agreed to go and have a drink.
‘Just one or two,’ she told him, ‘and then I must go home.’
‘Just one or two,’ he promised.
The night sky was deep purple, and the moon was up. Cassie hoped there wouldn’t be a raid. She hated it when flying bombs came over, hated waiting for the aftershock, hated seeing flames light up the sky. These days, she hated any kind of fire – even the comfortable red glow from the bailiff’s cottage kitchen range, when she went down to Dorset to see Rose.
They walked up Piccadilly and ended up in Soho. They went to a louche club in Wardour Street, packed with army officers and their women. The place was full of smoke and smelled of stale fried food, men’s sweat and women’s scent.
The women looked like a lot of tarts, thought Cassie. Daisy had taught her how to recognise good quality in clothes, and she could see the frocks these women wore were not the real thing.
Although they all looked confident and flash, their evening gowns were made of rayon, they all wore too much make-up, their hair was badly bleached so that it looked like straw, and their jewels were obviously paste.
Stephen signed Cassie in and ordered drinks.
Stephen was drinking whisky. But Cassie stuck to tonic water, and she made each drink last for an hour, sipping slowly, savouring the pungent, bitter taste.
On a little stage, there was a band, playing the kind of music Cassie liked, and on the dance floor couples swayed and shuffled, cheek to cheek.
She wouldn’t have minded dancing, and she liked to dance with Stephen. He was strong and solid, and he always held her nice and tight. But he didn’t tip her backwards so she felt off-balance, or tread on her toes, or stick one knee between her legs, like so many other soldiers did.
She smiled at him, one eyebrow raised enquiringly. She nodded at the dancers, hoping he would take the hint.
But Stephen didn’t seem to want to dance. In spite of promising to have just one or two, he was drinking steadily to get drunk, and soon he was getting maudlin, too.
‘But Steve, we haven’t heard anything for certain,’ Cassie told him, when he started on his favourite topic and was fretting about Robert once again. ‘So we must go on hoping for the best.’
‘I tell you, Robert’s dead!’ Stephen took another gulp of whisky, and fumbled in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. ‘I’m his twin,’ he muttered. ‘I would know if he were still alive. I know he’s dead.’
‘Steve,’ said Cassie gently, ‘you know we’ve not had any definite news. So we mustn’t write him off just yet.’
‘When we were at Dunkirk,’ continued Stephen, as if Cassie hadn’t spoken, ‘when we were both lying on that bloody awful beach, both of us half-conscious, and both of us shot up, I was pretty sure he’d be all right. Then, when we were finally picked up by two different ships, and some boats got torpedoed – Rob’s was hit, you know, and lots of chaps on it were killed – I knew he was alive. He knew I was, too. Twins always know these things.’
‘But now you think he’s dead?’
‘Cass, I know he’s dead!’ cried Stephen, banging his glass down on the sticky table and making people turn to stare at him. ‘My mother thinks so, too.’
‘But that isn’t what she said to me,’ objected Cassie. ‘She said I had to hope for the best, and try to keep my spirits up.’
‘Mum doesn’t want to admit it, but she knows.’ Stephen clicked his fingers at the barman for another whisky. ‘Cassie, love, you haven’t seen the letter, have you?’
‘No, but – ’
‘Rob’s CO explained to Mum that Rob and a few other chaps had gone to sabotage some German guns. The Jerries must have caught them. I reckon Rob’s been shot.’
Cassie wished that Stephen would stop talking, and stop drinking, too. Daisy had said he wasn’t supposed to drink more than a pint or two of beer, at the very most, and Cassie was sure he shouldn’t be drinking spirits.
So, feeling guilty – for, after all, she had let Stephen take her to the club – Cassie peered through the haze of smoke, looking for a waiter, someone she could ask to find a taxi.
But Stephen must have read her mind. He stood up, rocking slightly, downed his drink. ‘Let’s go on,’ he muttered.
‘Go on where?’ asked Cassie.
‘Oh, I don’t know, another club or something. Maybe the Embassy. They’ll let you in, if you’re with me.’
‘I don’t think so, Steve.’
‘Cass, we’ve done our grieving.’ Stephen lurched against the table, nearly sent it flying. ‘Let’s go and have some fun.’
They climbed the steps up from the club, and then emerged into the moonlit night. Cassie decided she would try to get him to the house in Berkeley Street, where he was billeted.
Or maybe she should take him back to Daisy’s place? It wasn’t that much further, and Daisy could look after him if he had an attack, which Cassie feared he might. Then he could sleep it off.
Yes, that might be better.
Taking his arm, she steered him west along the broken pavements, heading for Park Lane. She didn’t see a single taxi, but she didn’t mind walking. When she was off duty, she often walked for miles and miles on these warm summer evenings, with other ATS girls or even by herself.
Now, she knew central London very well, and she loved it, too. Bruised and bashed and battered, it was still a city of wonders, of amazing places which suddenly appeared like magic amidst all the chaos. Palaces, cathedrals, castles, towers and bridges, which had been there for centuries, and after the war would be there still.
They were going down a narrow side street, taking a short cut she had discovered a few weeks ago, when Stephen stopped and grabbed at Cassie’s sle
eve.
‘What’s the matter, Steve?’ she asked, hoping he wasn’t going to have a turn. ‘You look very pale. Do you feel sick?’
‘No, Cass, I don’t feel sick.’ But his speech was slurred, he stank of whisky, he was ashen, and she didn’t quite believe him.
‘Let’s get on,’ she told him. ‘We need to get you home.’
‘Just hang on a minute, eh?’ He took her by the shoulders and then he pushed her up against a wall, so now she was off balance. He was going to kiss her – more than kiss her, she could feel him hard against her, and she didn’t know what to do.
‘Stephen, let me go,’ she said.
‘Oh, Cass, don’t go all maidenly on me!’ Stephen’s dark eyes glittered, and he gripped her harder.
So Cassie kicked him sharply on the shin.
He yelped in pain, but let her go. ‘Why did you do that?’ he cried, his brown eyes wide with shock. ‘Christ Almighty, Cass – that bloody hurt!’
‘Listen, Steve,’ said Cassie carefully. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you. You’re my friend, and I don’t hurt my friends. But, friend or not, you don’t have any right to maul me.’
‘Jesus, I was only going to kiss you!’
‘I don’t want you to kiss me!’ Cassie pulled her jacket straight. ‘Stephen, you forget I’m not a lady,’ she continued, walking on. ‘You do anything like that again, and it’ll hurt much more. You understand me?’
‘Yes, I understand you.’ Stephen shook his head as if to clear it, and suddenly he seemed to sober up. ‘I’m sorry, Cass,’ he said.
‘That’s all right, forget it ever happened,’ murmured Cassie.
‘But I wouldn’t have thought that Robert and I were very different?’ Stephen fell into step with Cassie, ambling along, matching his walk to her much shorter stride. ‘You can’t always tell the difference, can you?’ he persisted. ‘There was that time at Daze’s place, remember? When you thought I was Rob? We’re practically identical in looks, you must admit, and we must sound the same.’
‘But, Stephen, you’re not Robert!’ Cassie didn’t want to hurt him, knew it must be worse for him, because while she was hoping for the best, Stephen had convinced himself that Robert must be dead. But Robert was the one she loved, and she couldn’t transfer this love from Robert to his twin.
‘I know what it is – I’m not a hero.’ Stephen was kicking at the bits of rubble which were lying everywhere. ‘Rob was out in Italy, killing Germans. I’m a head-case, stuck behind a desk. Cassie, you’re like all the rest of them. You think a man who isn’t shooting people is not a man at all.’
‘Oh, God, it isn’t that!’ Cassie would have hugged him, tried to soothe him. But she didn’t dare, because he might have thought she’d changed her mind about the kiss.
‘What is it, then?’ he growled.
‘Yes, all right, you’re twins,’ said Cassie. ‘Yes, you look the same. But you’re individuals, with different ways of thinking, different ways of talking – everything! Steve, I’m fond of you – you know I am. But I love your brother. What don’t you understand?’
‘My brother’s dead.’
‘So you keep saying.’
‘Cassie, you can’t mean to stay in love with somebody who’s dead?’
‘I – oh God, I don’t know what I mean!’ Cassie was aware of Stephen’s closeness, and her body was responding, even though her mind was quite determined to keep him at arm’s length.
She bit her lower lip, afraid she’d start to cry. ‘If you’d been the one in Italy, and he’d been here in London, it would have made no difference,’ she insisted. ‘Robert would still have been the one I loved. Please, Steve, could we be friends?’
‘No more than friends?’
‘Yes!’ cried Cassie, desperately.
‘Oh, all right, then.’ Stephen’s laugh was bitter. ‘Okay, Cassie sweetheart, we’ll be friends. I’m sorry I made a pass at you just now. I misinterpreted the signs. I’m rather drunk tonight.’
But, as they made their way towards Park Lane, Cassie was aware of feeling warm, aroused, excited. Stephen hadn’t got it wrong. If he hadn’t been so drunk, if he hadn’t smelled like a distillery, it would have been so easy to be held in Stephen’s arms. It would have been so nice to kiss him.
More than kiss him.
In spite of what she’d said to Stephen, he and Robert weren’t so very different, and Stephen was a very attractive man.
As the weeks went by and there was still no news of Robert, Cassie started to agree with Stephen – Robert must be dead.
She blamed herself. She was a wicked person. She hadn’t been inside a Catholic church for months, for years. She hadn’t spoken to the Catholic chaplain. She hadn’t answered Father Riley’s letters.
But how could she, when she knew he wanted her to tell him she was going to church and to confession, and that she was mindful of everything he’d taught her when she was a little girl, that she was staying pure?
She still went to church parade, of course. She went inside the church. She hadn’t travelled so far along the road which led to hell that she was like the atheists, who were obliged to stand out in the rain.
But she went to Church of England services, along with all the other heretics, and so it didn’t count. She had been committing fornication, which was a mortal sin. She had allowed herself to feel attracted to her lover’s brother. She was a scarlet woman, a corrupter of mankind.
So God had taken Robert, and it served her right.
But, a little later, she began to feel annoyed with God. Then she was cross, then downright livid. She finally decided that if God had taken Robert just to punish Cassie, God wasn’t worth believing in, and so she jolly wouldn’t, any more.
She took the holy medals from round her neck, and threw the whole lot in the bin. Then, remembering they were made of metal, she fished them out again, and put them in the box for salvage. They could be useful, she decided, made into bits of bombs.
In any case – Lily or Father Riley would very soon be sending her some more.
‘But isn’t he still seeing some girl from Shropshire?’ Frances asked, when Cassie wrote and told her what had happened.
‘I don’t know,’ wrote Cassie. ‘I’m worried about Steve. Robert being missing is upsetting him, of course. But he’s also fretting because he thinks he’s not a hero. He seems to feel that if he’d been in Africa or Italy, killing people, I would want to kiss him.’
‘Men are dim,’ wrote Frances. ‘Simon’s very clever at masterminding transport and ordering supplies. But if I’ve explained just once that I can’t sleep with him until he gets divorced from Caroline and marries me, I’ve explained a hundred thousand times. He seems to think I’ll change my mind if he can only get me tight on gin.’
‘But don’t you want to sleep with him?’ wrote Cassie.
‘God, yes – more than anything,’ wrote Frances. Cassie could almost hear her wistful sigh. ‘But I don’t want to have an illegitimate baby. Mummy would be livid. She’d throw me and the baby out into the street. We’d have to beg for bread.’
Chapter Fifteen
Cassie had never quite got round to telling Lily Taylor she was engaged to Robert, and now she was glad. If his twin was right, and Robert was really dead, there would have been no point.
Now, if Lily heard about a missing or a dead fiancé, it would only make her start to cry. Then it would get her going on the wickedness of the world, particularly the wickedness of men, warmongers all – except for Father Riley, naturally, for he could do no wrong.
Lily’s most recent letter had been full of awful news. Over the past few weeks the tannery, the railway goods sheds and a whole row of shops had all been bombed. Jerry was trying to hit the Spitfire factory at Castle Bromwich, Lily thought, but that was several miles away.
Their own street was a mess, with broken pavements, fractured water mains, and burnt and twisted cables everywhere. On Lily’s side of Redland Street, only Lily’s house and Mrs Flynn�
��s next door were still unscathed. Across the way, only nineteen houses out of fifty-odd were still inhabitable.
Poor Mr Mallory at number 27 had had his windows broken and half his roof blown off, but he was refusing to go and live with his daughter in Halesowen. He’d lived in Smethwick all his life, he said, and he’d be dying there.
‘The same goes for me, love,’ Lily wrote, as Cassie shook and shuddered and worried about her granny being exposed to all this danger, knowing she couldn’t do a thing about it, that Lily would never move from Birmingham. ‘I couldn’t leave your mother all alone, in any case.’
She meant she had to make her weekly visits to the graveyard, to tidy up the gravel and have a little chat with Geraldine, who Lily knew was listening to every word she said.
There was the shrine, as well. She seemed to be convinced that if she kept the shrine as holy and immaculate as she had always kept it, if she got Father Riley round to sprinkle holy water every other month or so, God wouldn’t let the Germans bomb her home.
‘I hope you go to church and say your prayers,’ continued Lily. ‘Father Riley tells me London has some lovely churches. There are Catholic missions to servicewomen, too. He’s going to write to you and give you some addresses of nice Catholic families in London. He’ll write to them as well, telling them to expect to see you soon.’
Cassie pulled a face.
Frances wrote long screeds from Chester, saying how happy she was with darling Simon, and how she hoped that things would all work out, even if it might take several years.
Simon said that Caroline would probably hold out for several mints of money. So if he and Frances ever married, they would be very poor. But Frances wasn’t worried. She could always work and earn a living. If her parents didn’t like it, that was just too bad.
‘I’ve talked to Mummy and Daddy,’ she went on, ‘and to my surprise, they don’t seem too bothered about me seeing Simon, even though he’s married.
‘Of course, my mother said, she’d always thought that nobody would ever want a great, fat lump like me.
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