by Kate Hewitt
“I hope they’re handsome.”
“They probably will be.” Most American soldiers seemed handsome, with their bright uniforms, their faces radiating health and good eating, and most of life spent away from bombs and rationing and war.
“Good,” Sophie said with satisfaction, and snuggled down under the covers. “I just might snag myself a proper American boyfriend, then.”
“Then maybe you’ll smoke better cigarettes than those awful Spanish Shawls,” Lily said as she closed her eyes, more than ready for sleep. She had an early start tomorrow—as she always did—having to take the Tube to the Admiralty; it was unreliable on the best of days, and often she ended up having to hope for a bus, or simply walk.
“Yes.” Sophie laughed softly to herself, seeming altogether pleased by the notion. “Yes, then I won’t have to smoke those wretched Shawls.”
Chapter Three
On Sunday morning, the little house on Holmside Road was dusted and polished to a determined if well-worn shine, and the kitchen was full of tantalizing smells of braised ox cheek and apple crumble.
Carol was a briskly efficient mistress of the kitchen; she had the potatoes peeled, the beef in the oven and the crumble cooling on the kitchen table before they headed out to the morning service at Holy Trinity Church, where she’d gone every Sunday of her married life. Sophie and Lily went with her, as did their father, Richard; church attendance had never been a matter of negotiation in the Mather family.
Lily didn’t mind the service; she enjoyed the hymns, as well as the sense of something sacred, seeming closer there, yet still out of reach, a hope of something greater than anything she’d experienced so far. She also appreciated an hour of quiet.
Sophie didn’t mind it, either, as far as Lily could tell, restless though she tended to be. Church provided an opportunity to dress up and, more importantly, to flirt, at least with one’s eyes, and Sophie liked to flirt with every possible man. Not that there were any eligible ones in the dim and dusty nave of the church. Still, she’d give the balding, middle-aged shopkeeper with his hat in his lap a coy smile and then look away, causing him to blush and look confused. Lily watched it all with a bemused resignation; she knew it was just entertainment for Sophie, rather than anything meaningful or malicious.
That morning, however, there were far better prospects for flirtation. Two GIs were crammed into the back pew, looking far too big for it, their broad shoulders brushing, their smart army-green uniforms standing out amidst the sober Sunday coats and dark suits and dresses.
“Our Americans,” Sophie whispered with a meaningful nod.
Lily did not reply. She did, however, slide a quick, questioning glance at the two men as she reached for her hymnal; the servicemen were tall, one broader and blonder than the other, the epitome of what Lily thought of when it came to American GIs, with his wheat-colored hair, blue eyes, and quick, cocky grin as he caught her eye.
She looked away quickly, blushing. She hadn’t been able to see much of the other man, only that he was a bit shorter and darker, but still impressive and somehow alarming in his physique.
All through the service, Lily felt a burning awareness of the two men that was quite at odds with her usual, sensible self. Sophie felt the same, she knew, although perhaps with a bit more insouciance; she looked towards the back pew enough times to make their mother give her a quelling look, which Sophie ignored. Lily kept her eyes firmly to the front of the church, and listened to the sermon with more earnest attention than she had in some time.
At the end of the service, there was a shuffle of feet and hymnals as people began to move towards the doors; the weather was icy, even inside the church, and no one was minded to stay to chat. The two American servicemen stood by their pew, caps in hands, seeming unsure where to go or who to look for.
Carol approached them with her usual firm manner. “How lovely to meet you both. I’m so glad the vicar invited you along. I’m Mrs. Mather, and you’re coming home with us for Sunday dinner.”
Lily hung back, watching as the blond one smiled readily, shaking her mother’s hand, and then her father’s, and then Sophie’s. He came to her last, his smile as wide for her as it had been for everyone else. Too shy to do more than stammer some sort of hello, she felt his strong hand close around her fingers as he said his name—Second Lieutenant Tom Reese—and then the second man was being introduced.
“This is Staff Sergeant Matthew Lawson, but he’s a quiet one,” Tom said with a laugh. “You won’t get much out of him, I’m afraid.”
Everyone shook hands all over again, while Lily gave Matthew Lawson a quick, considering look. His smile was just as ready as Tom’s, but seemed contained somehow, the look in his dark eyes strangely watchful. His hand was cool as he touched Lily’s briefly, and then they were all heading outside into the wintry day, the sky hanging grayly over the city like a damp shroud, the air icy and still.
Sophie had managed to position herself next to Tom, just as Lily had known she would. Of the two men, Second Lieutenant Tom Reese was certainly the more attractive, as well as the more obviously American, with his blond good looks and his easy manner, his loose, long-legged stride and his slightly loud laugh. He was exactly what Lily might have expected of a GI, and that made him seem both comfortable and intriguing.
As for Matthew Lawson… he seemed far more mysterious, although Lily thought perhaps he was just shy. He spoke very little, and his guarded gaze moved silently from one person to the next. His skin was sallow, his eyes a deep brown, his hair just as dark, brushed back from a high forehead. Next to Tom’s blond radiance, he seemed even darker, but Lily admired the determined set of his jaw, the quiet containment she sensed from him that felt like strength, at least to her.
It was a ten-minute walk across Clapham Common back to Holmside Road, past the four big guns stationed there that Lily didn’t like to look at, and the neat rows of the community allotment that part of the Common had been given over to.
Lily hung back while Carol marched ahead, and Sophie’s tinkling laugh rang out among the stark, leafless trees as she and Tom chatted easily.
Her father, Lily saw, tried to engage Matthew in conversation, but didn’t seem to make much headway and eventually walked ahead with his wife, leaving Lily a few steps behind the strange soldier.
Feeling strangely reckless, her heart beating hard, she quickened her steps until he was obliged to fall into step next to her. They walked in silence for a few minutes, the only sound Sophie’s bright voice and Tom Reese’s rumbling responses from in front of them, with the occasional burst of laughter, making Lily think of a raucous birdcall.
“Where are you from in America?” she finally worked up the courage to ask, her voice a bit breathless.
“New York.” His voice was clipped, the simple answer spoken carefully, as if he parted with every word with both consideration and reluctance.
“I don’t know anything about America, besides that it’s big.” Lily flushed at how stupid she sounded. Surely she could do better than that. “New York… you mean the city, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen the Statue of Liberty? And the Empire State Building?”
“Yes.” His manner wasn’t unfriendly precisely, but neither did it invite further conversation, and, in any case, Lily couldn’t think of anything more to say than what she already had, pitiful though it had been. She didn’t know anything else about New York, or even America. Her paltry effort had fallen to the ground, unheeded. They walked the rest of the way in silence.
Back at the house, Carol set everything in motion, bringing dishes out of the oven while Lily helped. Richard stoked the fire before sitting down in front of it, and Sophie fetched the two men cups of tea, her voice carrying throughout the downstairs.
“We would offer you sherry, but we haven’t seen any in years,” she said with a laugh. “Do you even drink sherry in America? Or is it all whiskey and gin?”
“Sophie,” Richar
d admonished, but there was a smile in his voice.
“I believe my mother drinks it, ma’am,” Tom said as he took his cup of tea.
“Ma’am!” Sophie threw her head back with a throaty laugh. “You mustn’t call me that. I feel about a hundred years old.”
“You don’t look it,” Tom answered chivalrously, and Sophie laughed again, batting her eyelashes with such deliberate coquetry that no one could take her seriously, and all the men smiled.
In the kitchen, Carol pursed her lips, but her eyes twinkled. Lily concentrated on scraping off bits of browned potato from the pan, shooting occasional glances into the sitting room, feeling as if exotic creatures had landed there.
Soon enough, they were all sat down, with Carol dishing out bowls of soup as a first course, and a way to fill manly stomachs, before the meat was served. Then Richard was carving thin slivers of ox cheek, hoping to make the remaining meat last the week.
Tom enthused about the food and filled his plate; Lily saw Carol eye the heaps of food only slightly askance, but, of course, she said nothing. The two Americans would eat more food than the whole family normally had in nearly a week, Lily suspected, and not even realize it.
The conversation came and went in fits and starts, with Sophie and Tom leading the charge. It was clear that Sophie had marked Tom Reese for herself, in the way she poured his wine, and leaned closer to him as she spoke. Carol watched the pair in sharp-eyed quiet; Lily had the sense that her mother was not entirely impressed with Tom Reese, although she couldn’t say why. He certainly seemed charming enough to her, and if he was brash, well, that was because he was American, surely. Already Lily knew he belonged to Sophie.
And as for Matthew Lawson…? Lily snuck another quick look at his saturnine features, his neutral expression, and thought he belonged to no one. Although, she concluded upon another hurried glance, she couldn’t decide if he was gloomy or merely contained. He was certainly quiet.
“So when did you arrive in this country, Lieutenant?” Carol asked brightly, and Tom answered, while Matthew cut his meat—he’d only taken one thin sliver, while Tom had asked for three—into small pieces.
“Only a few weeks ago, ma’am. We’re greenhorns. The 82nd has been fighting in Sicily since April ’43, but we’re a new division just shipped over.” Tom smiled, flashing his teeth. “We were in training back in Louisiana for two years, and now we’re ready for some action.” He glanced at Matthew, whose expression was bland. “Although Matthew here didn’t join the 82nd until we were on the ship. I don’t know where he’s been.” He let out a laugh, which seemed too loud in the small dining room.
“The 82nd?” Sophie queried, looking between them both.
“82nd Airborne,” Tom explained. “We’re paratroopers. When the time comes, we’ll parachute into Europe.” He gave her what Lily supposed was meant to be a mysterious smile. “Can’t say more than that, though.” Lily doubted he knew much more than that.
“Goodness.” Sophie looked delightfully impressed. “And how long do you think you’ll be in London?”
“No one knows.” Tom shrugged. “A few months, I should think, although perhaps not in London. There’s talk about moving somewhere up north for more training, but we’re still waiting for our orders.”
“And what do you think to our country?” Carol asked. “Although I fear it is sadly diminished in these difficult times.”
Tom and Matthew exchanged looks, but neither spoke.
Sophie let out another pealing laugh. “Oh, go on and say what you really think, Lieutenant, Sergeant,” she said as her eyes danced and she looked at each of them in turn. “It’s all rather dreadful, isn’t it? Dark and rainy and so horribly shabby nowadays.”
“Sophie.” This time there was no smile in Richard’s voice. “We are a country at war.”
“Indeed you are, sir,” Tom said earnestly as he leaned over his plate. He’d eaten everything. “And we don’t forget it. We know we’re not seeing your country at its best, and that the houses aren’t painted bright as a new penny because your factories aren’t making paint—they’re making planes. Your gardens and parks aren’t as pretty because they’re needed for vegetables, and your cars look old because the British are building tanks. We know all that, sir.”
A resounding silence fell like a thunderclap over the table, and Carol and Richard exchanged inscrutable looks. Sophie pressed her fingers to her lips, her eyes alight.
“Well,” Richard finally said. “Indeed.”
“We were warned that the beer would be warm,” Tom continued with the same earnest look that made Lily’s parents glance at one another again. “But, to tell you the truth, I don’t find it so bad.”
“Heavens, Lieutenant, if all you have to worry about is warm beer, I shouldn’t be too concerned,” Sophie teased. “Really, we’ll start to think you Americans are all a bunch of complainers.”
“Not at all,” Tom replied with a gallant smile. Carol and Richard watched on, bemused, while Matthew continued to eat, his gaze lowered. “I love this country, or at least what I’ve seen of it so far. Although, I admit, there’s a bit more rain than we get back in Minnesota, but I don’t mind.”
“And it hasn’t even been that rainy,” Sophie answered as she took a sip of wine; Richard had opened a bottle for the occasion.
“Hasn’t it?” Tom’s smile was aimed just at her as he reached for his own glass. “Then I guess I’ll be in for it when it does start to pour.”
“Won’t you just?” Sophie replied, keeping his gaze, and Lily wondered how her sister managed to flirt so outrageously whilst talking about the weather.
Richard cleared his throat.
“Sergeant, you’ve only had one slice of meat,” he remarked. “Would you care for another?”
“No thank you, sir. This is sufficient.” Matthew spoke crisply, each word spoken with careful precision, as if formed and then cut off, and a look of curiosity rippled across Richard’s face as he observed the younger man.
“Where did you say you were from?”
There was the slightest of pauses, like a drawn breath. “New York.”
“I see.” Richard sounded nonplussed, and Lily wondered at it. What did her father know about New York, or any part of America? Yet she knew there was something about Matthew Lawson that seemed the tiniest bit odd, something just slightly off.
Was it his careful, clipped voice, or his intentionally restrained manner? The way his dark eyes gave nothing away, while watching everything? He seemed a man determined to keep himself in check, utterly opposite to his garrulous companion. They were certainly an unlikely pair.
“So how did you two meet up?” Sophie asked, nodding at both the soldiers, seeming to have the same thought as Lily. “Was it on the ship?”
Tom glanced at Matthew, who, as usual, remained silent. “Yes, we were bunkmates. And then I promised my mother I’d go to church while I was here, and the pastor of your church asked me along, and Matthew said he’d come as well, so here we are.”
“That’s very good of you, Lieutenant,” Carol said with a thawed approval. “It’s important to keep up good habits, even in the midst of a war.”
“So it is, ma’am.”
They retired to the sitting room after the meal, and Lily and Sophie cleared the table while Carol made coffee.
“Thank you for the dinner,” Tom said as she came into the sitting room with a tray of cups and saucers. “It’s mighty kind of you, especially when we’re so far from home, and, as we say in the army, it was some real good chow.”
Carol laughed a little at this; she seemed to have warmed slightly to Tom, despite his rather forward manner. “It is the least we can do,” she said as she handed him a cup of coffee.
They sat in the sitting room, with cups and saucers balanced on their knees, talking about the weather and the war and then the various sights of London the GIs might wish to see.
Tom and Sophie kept the conversation going, but, despite their bright e
fforts, it trickled out after a while and eventually Richard turned the wireless on.
The men drank their coffees and then stood to say their goodbyes.
“We’re on leave next weekend,” Tom said as he fixed his cap on his head, his words clearly directed at Sophie. They were in the front hall, with Richard’s hand on the front door. “Perhaps you young ladies would care to show us some of London’s sights? I’ve heard about the dancing at The Berkeley Hotel, and wanted to give it a whirl.”
Carol opened her mouth and then shut it. Richard took his hand off the door, looking surprised, and Matthew spoke not at all.
“Oh, we’d love to,” Sophie practically purred. “Wouldn’t we, Lily?”
Lily, who had said less even than Matthew all afternoon, merely nodded. She didn’t know how she felt about going dancing with the two servicemen, but she also knew their mother would not allow Sophie to go on her own, never mind that she was twenty-three years old. As far as Carol was concerned, her two daughters were still girls who needed protecting, and perhaps restraining.
“That’s settled, then. Shall we pick you up at seven?” Tom glanced at Richard, for form’s sake, who nodded rather stiffly. Moments later, they were gone.
That evening, after supper, while Richard and Carol listened to the wireless in the front room, Lily perched on the edge of her bed, while Sophie groaned at the lack of dancing frocks in the little wardrobe they shared.
“I’ve got nothing, Lily, nothing. Damn this war and the ridiculous clothing rations. As if I want to wear some horrid utility dress to go dancing with a GI.”
“Everyone’s in the same boat,” Lily pointed out. No one had had new dresses in years, save for the far too sensible utility clothing they had to make do with, or else mend something old. She pulled her cardigan tighter around her; the room was freezing and she’d rather be downstairs with her parents, sitting in front of the fire and listening to George Formby, but as usual Sophie had compelled her to stay.