by Kate Hewitt
“Your book?”
“I’m hoping to write a book about wartime romances between British women and American GIs. There’s another couple nearby, in Genoa City, who said they would be happy for me to interview—”
“They’re alive?”
“No, but their children are. So if you do remember any more details…” Simon trailed off with seemingly deliberate casualness, his eyebrows raised.
Abby looked down at the medal and swallowed. For some reason, it felt different, knowing Simon would be nearby, that he was writing a book. She suspected her father wouldn’t be happy with either. “Of course, but I’m afraid I don’t think I will.”
“You have my email address anyway. Would you mind if I gave you my mobile number? Or cell, as you Yanks call it?” He smiled teasingly and she forced herself not to look away. He wasn’t flirting. He was just being friendly. But it still felt strange. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had flirted with her, at least anyone she’d consider attractive. And she did, Abby realized, consider Simon, with his floppy hair and kind eyes, attractive.
“Sure,” she said, and he held out his phone so Abby could type her contact details into it. “My father might come around,” she said as Simon prepared to leave. She didn’t actually think he would, but she felt she had to say it, and she realized she was reluctant to have such a final farewell. What if she never saw Simon again? She probably wouldn’t. “He might remember something.”
“I hope so. I wish I’d asked my grandmother for more details, but it made her so sad to talk about it. One of life’s big regrets maybe, eh?” The smile he gave her was touched with sorrow, and Abby found she couldn’t reply. Yes, life certainly had regrets, big ones. “Thank you for the lemonade, and your hospitality,” he finished more formally. “And perhaps I’ll see you again?”
“Yes, perhaps.” Abby didn’t say anything more as she stood up, and Simon walked to his car. He waved from the driver’s seat, and the dust kicked up, just as it had before, as the car headed back down the long dirt drive, from where it had come.
Chapter Two
London
January 1944
The American troops first started arriving in Britain in January 1942, but the Mather family did not meet any directly until two years later.
The Mathers had, by then, had what some might have called “a good war”. They had no sons who lay beyond rescue on the ash-strewn, bombarded shores of Dunkirk, or to fear might fall from the sky in a smoke-plumed arrow of fire. Their house had not been bombed in those dark, endless nights of the Blitz, although its foundation had been said to be weakened by a nearby blast, and a large crack now bisected the kitchen ceiling. None of their relatives had been killed; a nephew was serving in the Pacific, but, by all accounts, was still alive, and a cousin had been invalided out in 1943. The closest casualty was their neighbor’s boy, who had died at sea during the Norwegian Campaign in 1941, and a friend of the family who had died in an air raid, hit by flying rubble as she’d run for the shelter in the back garden.
Their two daughters, Sophie and Lily, eighteen and sixteen when war was declared in 1939, occupied themselves industriously throughout—Sophie had become a secretary for the War Office, and Lily a Wren in the Casualties Section of the Naval Office. Sophie had volunteered as soon as she could, eager to get involved in the excitement, and Lily had been conscripted in 1941, when she was eighteen.
Their mother, Carol Mather, was prominent in the local Women’s Voluntary Service, and she had been both delighted and determined to plow over tulips and azaleas to make room for a Victory garden behind their small semi-detached house in Clapham, to sew and knit and bake as much as she could, and to champion every cause, from hats and mittens for evacuees to serving tea to bombed-out citizens from mobile canteens, graciously officious with a large metal urn and a great number of rather stale buns. Carol reveled in the can-do opportunities the war presented women, although she was never so imprudent as to articulate it quite like that.
In January 1944, with the Americans firmly ensconced in their country and preparing for an invasion of Europe, for the Mathers, the end of the war seemed, if not precisely in sight, then at least flickering dimly on the horizon, a hope one could almost hold onto.
After nearly five years of relentless war and threat of invasion, of deprivation and death, of the long, lonely wail of the air-raid siren cutting through a clear night and one out of every four spent in clammy cellars or dingy shelters, of ration books and bacon and butter once considered enough for a day now meant to last a week, of dodging craters in pavements and walking past buildings that looked like broken teeth, the Mathers, like everyone else in the country, were desperately tired of war.
“I’ve invited two American boys to dinner,” Carol informed the family one evening, early in that cold, dark month, as they were having their usual bedtime cup of weak tea while the wireless played classical music after the latest nine o’clock news broadcast—a mixture of dour reporting and desperate hope. “They’re coming here on Sunday, after church.”
“Americans?” Sophie paused with her cup halfway to her carmine-red lips, her ash-blond head cocked at an angle. “Where on earth did you meet them, Mother?”
“The vicar asked me to have them over. He’s taken an interest in some soldiers who have been billeted nearby until they’re shipped to a proper base. He’s invited a few to church, and asked me to have them for dinner, after. The poor boys are feeling lonely, as they might do. They could all use a good square meal, I should think.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “As if one can be found.”
“Home cooking,” Carol informed her older daughter, with a touch of severity. “That’s what I mean, Sophie, whatever I manage to serve. Home cooking and decent company.”
Lily watched her sister’s expression turn milkily bland. As much as she couldn’t resist a sharp retort, Sophie, Lily knew, would not risk the possibility of soldiers—and American ones at that—not coming to the house. Their presence would be something different; it held the promise of adventure, or at least of change. At the very least, a decent meal for everyone, since their mother would want to impress.
Her sister lowered her eyes over her teacup, now all meek docility. “What shall we serve them?”
Carol pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I was thinking I’d see if the butcher had an ox cheek. He usually can find one for me.”
Lily knew her mother went to great pains to keep on the right side of their butcher, Mr. Allen. It meant that he sometimes “found” ox cheeks and tongue and other non-rationed cuts of meat—ones they would have all turned their noses up at before the war—for the Mather family. While others were thickening their meat stews with porridge oats, Carol was braising a cow’s tongue in red wine.
“A barley soup to start, and an apple crumble for dessert. There are still some apples from the summer.” Carol smiled in satisfaction before taking another sip of her tea. Clearly it had all been decided.
Later, after she’d helped her mother with the washing up, both of them standing at the sink, working in companionable silence in the creaking, night-time quiet of the house, Lily found her sister upstairs in their bedroom, her head craned out the window as she smoked a cigarette. At least the lights were off, in accordance with blackout regulations, the pale light from a half-moon filtering in through the window and bathing the small room, with its matching twin beds and bureaus, in silver.
“What do you think to the Yanks, then?” Sophie asked. She leaned her head back against the window as she inhaled deeply, regarding Lily out of sleepily narrowed eyes.
Lily shook her head. “You know Mother doesn’t like you smoking.” Carol thought it was common, even though many young women smoked these days, at least when they could get cigarettes. Lily didn’t smoke; she didn’t know how, and she didn’t want to, anyway.
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a bore, Lily, please. Do you suppose you could manage that for a moment?” Ther
e was a note of teasing affection to her sister’s voice that kept her words from being an insult.
“I know I’m a bore,” Lily replied with a small smile as she reached for her nightgown, tucked under her pillow. Her breath came out in a puff of frosty air, and she saw ice on the inside of the windowpanes. “Could you please close that window before you freeze us to death?”
“I’m almost done.” Sophie took another drag of her cigarette, which Lily suspected was one of those cheap, evil-smelling Spanish Shawls rather than from a pack of Player’s or Dunhill’s. Their mother would almost certainly smell it, just as Lily knew she would, as they all often did, and turn a rueful eye to Sophie’s minor misdemeanor.
Perhaps it was her sister’s irrepressible good humor, or maybe the fact that she made fun of herself as much as anyone else, but neither of her parents, nor Lily herself, ever took Sophie to task for the streak of wildness that ran through her like a tongue of fire. So far it had never singed anyone; it almost felt like a theory rather than a reality, a possibility rather than a promise. Sophie, Lily thought, was a good girl at heart—or perhaps she was wild at heart and a good girl on the outside. Either way, she didn’t get up to too much, although Lily suspected she wanted to. Still, she never dared.
“The Americans,” Sophie said now, almost dreamily, turning her cigarette over between her fingers. “Do you know, I’ve never actually met one of the doughboys properly?”
“Haven’t you?” Lily slipped out of her dress and into her nightgown as quickly as she could. Wherever the cold air touched her bared flesh, goosebumps rippled in its wake. Sophie, lying half out the window, in only her blouse and skirt, seemed indifferent to the freezing temperature.
“I’ve seen them, of course. They’re everywhere nowadays, swaggering about, aren’t they? I’ve danced with one or two, but it never went anywhere. They can be forward.” She giggled, then turned her bright hazel eyes on her sister. “Have you met one?” She didn’t wait for Lily to respond before she answered her own question. “Of course you haven’t. Who do you meet, at the Admiralty, besides some stuffy old generals snoring away at their desks?”
“There aren’t any generals in the navy,” Lily reminded her sister. It was hardly the first time she’d said such a thing. “And, in any case, it’s mainly women in the Casualties Section.”
“It’s mainly women everywhere,” Sophie answered dismissively. She flicked her cigarette butt out the window, a glimmer of orange against the endless dark of the blackout.
“Sophie,” Lily said in gentle reproof.
“There hasn’t been an air raid in over a week.”
“That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be one tonight.” There had been talk about the Germans launching another bombing campaign, now that the Allies were giving Berlin a beating. It had been fairly quiet for months, but no one ever knew what next hardship or tragedy lay ahead. The future felt like a minefield, littered with dashed hopes, and, worse, dreams that might never be realized.
Sophie rose from the windowsill and Lily moved to close the curtains, staring out at the night sky for a moment, a thousand stars glittering and twinkling amidst all the black, making everything seem wonderfully serene, frosty and still, like Christmas, although that had passed nearly a fortnight ago, a scant celebration with no Christmas tree to be found, although her mother had saved enough coupons to make a Christmas cake.
If she closed her eyes and breathed in deep, she could almost be lulled to sleep by that false yet alluring sense of tranquility, peace on earth, even though there was anything but.
Already she could imagine how the still silence would be punctured by that awful insistent whine that rose in volume and frequency until it was followed by far, far worse sounds—the loud buzzing drone of planes flying low over the city, and then the thud and crackle of bombs falling as the night sky lit up like an inferno, impossible to take in, to believe it was real.
Lily shut the window and drew the blackout curtains tightly across, closing out another night. “Let’s go to bed,” she said firmly and Sophie sighed and stretched languorously before flicking on a lamp, bathing the room in a warm, yellow glow.
“I bet you wouldn’t even know what to do with an American soldier if you met him,” she tossed over her shoulder as she started to undress.
“I wouldn’t know what to do with a British one, either,” Lily quipped.
Sophie started to unbutton her blouse. “You need a boyfriend, Lil. A proper boyfriend.”
“As do you, it seems.” Lily slipped beneath the covers of her bed, wincing at how icy the sheets were. She tucked up her legs and curled her toes, fighting to keep hold of what little warmth she had.
“Don’t I ever,” Sophie drawled. Neither of them had ever had a proper boyfriend. Lily hadn’t so much as said boo to a boy, and while Sophie had had plenty of admirers, she seemed content to preen and pet, flirt and fawn for only a brief while before she dropped them flat. He has bad breath, she’d tell Lily. Or his ears stick out, it makes him look like a monkey. Or, the most damning of all: I discovered he is simply too deadly dull.
Lily wondered if it would be different for Sophie with an American. Would a GI catch her interest for more than a moment? Long enough to last? It seemed unlikely, and in any case, she doubted their mother would approve of an American courting one of her daughters.
“Maybe I need an American,” Sophie stated, clearly thinking along the same lines. She glanced in the mirror, pouting dramatically at her reflection before she turned away with a laugh, unable to take even herself seriously. “You know what they say about them, don’t you?”
“Got any gum, chum?” Lily guessed. Although she’d never talked properly to any American soldiers, she’d seen them in the street and sometimes in the dance halls, when she’d accompanied Sophie, and stumbled her way through a jitterbug or two, before her partner inevitably found a woman who was more adept. Standing on the sidelines, sipping a glass of lukewarm lemonade, she couldn’t help but notice their smart uniforms and hear their brash accents, and see how free they were with cigarettes and chewing gum and wide, white smiles.
“No, not that,” Sophie said as she stripped off her blouse and skirt, dropping them carelessly onto a chair and standing before Lily, unabashed, in nothing but her brassiere and slip. How, Lily wondered, was she not freezing? “They say they’re overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” She giggled before shrugging out of her underclothes and then grabbed her nightgown and pulled it over her head.
“I wouldn’t know anything about any of that,” Lily said.
“Oh, don’t sound so prim.” Sophie turned off the light and jumped into bed, the mattress springs protesting at her actions.
“I can’t help it,” Lily returned with a little laugh. “I am prim.”
“Maybe you just haven’t met anyone interesting yet,” Sophie answered mischievously, her covers drawn up to her chin. “Perhaps you need to meet a GI—properly.” She imbued the innocent word with a melodramatic lasciviousness that made Lily smile, despite her tiredness.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, rolling over onto her side to present her back to her sister, not that she could see it in the dark, or if she could, that it would keep her from talking.
“Imagine having a GI as a boyfriend,” Sophie mused. “They’ve got ever so much money. Heaps and heaps.”
“And they live in America,” Lily pointed out. “Which is rather far away.”
“I wouldn’t mind living in America.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Lily couldn’t imagine living so far from her parents and Clapham, all that she knew and held dear. Yet, for a second, she imagined a GI—blond, brash, so typically American—favoring her with his smile. Asking her to dance, or to take a walk…
Inwardly, she laughed at her herself, and the vague daydream she couldn’t hold onto for long. Even her fantasies felt tame.
“No, I certainly wouldn’t mind,” Sophie declared. “I’d live like Marlene Dietrich or Joan Fontaine. Neithe
r of them was born in America, you know.” Sophie was a devout reader of Picturegoer—something else their mother disapproved of, and would throw into the fire if she caught sight of it.
“I doubt most Americans live like movie stars.”
“They live better than us.” There was no bitterness to Sophie’s voice, only plain statement of fact. She sighed, a soft gust of sound in the darkness. “I’m so bloody tired of this war. It’s gone on and on and on, and it’s made a ruin of the best years of our lives.”
Lily stayed silent, because there was nothing to say. She was tired of the war; everyone was tired of the war—of the bombed-out buildings, the grimy streets, the lack of food or fun or frippery, the dispiriting news on the wireless day after day after day, the fear and death that hounded everyone, kept at their heels. Of course they were all tired of the bloody war.
“And it’s not even as if I’ve been able to do anything exciting,” Sophie continued. “I know there are girls doing properly exciting, important things, not just taking dictation and typing letters for some pompous fool, while that old trout Mrs. Simmons polices our every move. It’s dire.”
“All war work is important,” Lily protested quietly. For eight hours a day, all she did was type letters, too, but she believed they were important. Not essential to the war effort, perhaps, but a ministry of compassion to those the war had sacrificed. She had to believe that, otherwise what was the point? “Anyway, it might be over soon,” she added, without any real optimism.
“Yes, thanks to the GIs.” Lily heard the creak of springs and the slide of covers as Sophie turned over on her side. “What do you think they’re like?”
Lily knew Sophie meant the two soldiers coming to dinner, rather than the entire American army. “I have no idea.” She pictured two bland, blank-faced soldiers, dummies rather than men, and then she pictured Gregory Peck or Gary Cooper in uniform. Neither were real.