‘Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere in Wiltshire, I think—’
‘Really? My brother used to be stationed in Wiltshire, but I don’t know where he is now. I haven’t heard from him in ages. I wonder if his unit will be invited as well?’
‘They usually bring in all and sundry – including local girls, more’s the pity. I know you’re partial to these RAF bods, but they can’t hold a candle to the Yanks. There’s going to be a dance later on in the canteen,’ she added.
‘You be careful, Rita. You know what I mean.’
The other girl giggled, tossing back her fair hair.
‘I know, but heck, there’s a war on. We might all be dead tomorrow, so if you can’t be good, be careful!’
Wenna had to smile. Whatever happened, nothing was going to get Rita down. She seized any opportunity for fun, and sometimes Wenna wished she could be more like her. If she was, she might not have snubbed Group Captain Harry Mack quite so obviously. She hadn’t heard from him in a long while either, but then she hadn’t even answered his last letter, simply because it had got over-familiar and frightened her off.
After what had happened to Fanny and then Austin, and knowing how difficult a time her cousin Seb was having getting used to civvy street again, she had no intention of getting involved with anyone.
There was a war on, but that didn’t mean you had to seize every moment with reckless abandon. It was what many girls did, and a lot of trouble it got some of them into. One of their own section had been ignominiously dismissed through having got into trouble with a sailor.
She sighed with irritation at her own thoughts, knowing how pompous they were. What right did she have to think herself above everybody else, when she knew she would be no different from the next girl if the right man came along?
That was the trouble. She had a soft heart, and she knew she could easily fall in love again, if she wasn’t careful. She had fallen for Austin, giving him her heart, and more – and she could just as easily have fallen for Harry Mack…
‘Are you decidin’ whether or not you’re going to let your hair down at the dance, Pengo?’ she heard Rita say slyly.
Wenna laughed. ‘There’s not much of it left to let down now, is there?’ she said, deliberately misinterpreting, and patting the sleek new cut she had chosen to go beneath her service cap, with the dark fringe almost meeting her finely-arched eyebrows. It changed her appearance, and on anyone else it might have been almost mannish. On Wenna Pengelly, alias Miss Penny Wood, songstress, it was piquant and stunning.
‘Anyway, I thought you’d hooked one of these Yanks, as you called it,’ Wenna said with a grin, ‘so you shouldn’t be looking for another one so soon.’
‘Why not?’ Rita said lazily. ‘There’s safety in numbers. And you can stop nursemaiding me. He showed me this little instruction booklet they’ve all been given. It’s a scream.’
‘As long as that’s all he showed you,’ Wenna said.
‘Do you want to hear some of these bally instructions or not?’ Rita said, ignoring her.
‘Oh, go on then.’
Rita recited them so clearly, it was obvious that she and her Yank had studied them and found them hilarious.
‘It says that the GIs can make many boners in British eyes – that’s mistakes to you, Pengo – and that it isn’t a good idea to say “bloody” in mixed company,’ she gave a snort of laughter, ‘and that if you say “I look like a bum” the British will think you’re looking at your own backside.’
‘Rita, you’re making this up!’ Wenna exclaimed.
‘I am not, I swear! A couple of the other instructions creased me up too. “If you’re invited to eat with a family, don’t eat too much or you may eat all their weekly rations—”’
‘Well, that makes sense.’
‘We’re also supposed to be more orderly at football and cricket matches. The GIs are told that the men will be generous and shout out “good try” even if they louse things up. Oh, and they must never criticise the King or Queen, or tell us that the Americans won the last war, or mention war debts—’ She was laughing so hard now, she couldn’t go on.
‘Would any of them really bother about such things?’ Wenna said in amazement, remembering the happy-go-lucky audiences at several previous concerts when the GIs had just wanted to talk about home, or show pictures of their girl friends, or find out if the British girls wanted any chocolate or nylons or anything else that was in short supply here.
‘Dunno. The ones we’ve met so far have been extra polite, and I like being called “ma’am”, don’t you?’
‘Well, it’s better than some other things I could mention. Anyway, hadn’t we better go through some of our numbers for the next show?’ Wenna said pointedly.
* * *
By now, London had reasserted itself following the end of the Blitz, the dwindling of enemy air raids over the capital to little more than reconnaissance raids, and the advent of the flood of glamorous American servicemen into Britain.
Seeing the breezy GIs with their smooth, tailored uniforms and money to spend, and joining in the growing sense that victory might not be so far off now, others surged back to the once beleaguered city to join in the almost reckless enjoyment, eager to laugh at anything and thumb their noses at old Hitler. The warning phrase “the calm before the storm” was pushed aside in the new air of confidence that all would be over soon.
“Make do and mend” might be the stern instruction from the government, and utility garments might be the order of the day now, with home-sewn undergarments made out of scraps of parachute silk, but there was a longing for freedom and life after darkness that wouldn’t be denied. Gone with the Wind had been showing at the Ritz Cinema for four years, and attracted far more people than Pathe News. Life went on.
‘Why don’t we go down to London one Sunday?’ Rita asked Wenna, when the concert and dance at the US base was over, and they had jitterbugged the night away and were still too keyed-up to sleep. Rita’s Yank and his friends had related all that went on in the city and filled her with restlessness.
She turned her head towards Wenna when she didn’t answer. ‘Well, what do you say? We could get to London and back easily enough. You used to live there, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Wenna said tersely. ‘And I don’t want to go back.’
‘Why not? There aren’t any air raids now.’
They had both flopped down on their bunks in the billet after the vigorous evening, not even having undressed yet. Now Rita leaned up on one elbow, kicking off her shoes to ease her throbbing feet.
‘Did something bad happen while you were there?’ she persisted. ‘You never talk about it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it now, either.’
‘Why don’t you? You don’t have anything to hide, do you? Not you of all people!’
‘Of course not,’ Wenna snapped, all her nerves on edge now. ‘You’re so shallow, Rita. All you think about is enjoying yourself. You never think what terrible experiences other people might have gone through.’
‘Hey, I’m in this war as well, you know,’ Rita said resentfully. ‘Go on, then. What terrible experiences have you gone through, with your posh family house in Cornwall and your Swiss finishing school and your lawyer Dad!’
Her inverted snobbery made it all sound like less than nothing, thought Wenna furiously. Instead of which, it had all made her what she was – and proud of it.
‘If you must know, for months I spent every night in a London Underground, sheltering from the air raids, and trying to help keep up everyone’s morale by leading the singing,’ she snapped. ‘I’m no Vera Lynn, but it seemed to help. Anyway, one night after the All Clear I left the Underground to go and search for the woman who was my boss and my friend, and there was nothing left of her or the nightclub or the street where we lived. There was just rubble and dust and the stench of burning flesh everywhere. Is that terrible enough for you?’
‘Christ, Pengo, why didn’t you tell
me any of this before?’ Rita said in a hushed voice.
‘Because it was none of your business. Because it hurts like hell to talk about it or even think about it, even now. And that’s why I don’t want to go to London ever again.’
‘Well, that’s just why you should go,’ Rita said. ‘You’ll never get over it properly unless you do. What kind of woman was this friend, then?’
‘I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.’
Rita said nothing, and when the silence became too oppressive to bear, and the images of Fanny were all too vivid in her head, Wenna gave a small sigh.
‘She was flamboyant and brash and swore like a trooper, but she was the kindest, most big-hearted woman I ever knew. I loved her, and she loved me like her daughter, and I was bereft when she died, because it wasn’t her time. I never had the chance to say goodbye and there was nothing left of her to bury. Her whole life – everything – all blown to pieces, unfinished,’ she said bitterly. ‘Now do you understand?’
‘I daresay the street’s still there,’ Rita said. ‘So let’s get some flowers and say a few words over the place. I don’t believe in all that church stuff, but if it’ll make you think she’s resting in peace, then let’s do it.’
‘What good will that do?’ Wenna said.
‘What harm will it do?’
Wenna didn’t speak for a long while and for once Rita had the gumption to let her mull it all over.
‘I suppose my mother would approve,’ she said finally. ‘Fanny was her friend long before she was mine.’
‘That settles it then,’ said Rita. ‘We’ll make our pilgrimage to Fanny’s place on Sunday, and then we’ll go and whoop it up in Leicester Square. That’s where everyone hangs out nowadays,’ she said knowledgeably.
* * *
Wenna knew it had been the right thing to do, no matter how hard it had seemed at the time, when she received Skye’s emotional reply to the letter telling her about it. She scanned her mother’s words quickly.
It was a wonderful gesture, darling, and in a strange way it will have helped you to revisit the place you and Fanny both loved. I’m sure it put some sad ghosts to rest. Your friend Rita is a very wise young woman.
It wasn’t quite how Wenna would have described her, remembering how the glamorous Yanks in the Square had plied them with drinks and chocolates before they returned to their billet. Rita had got quite squiffy, and in daylight too. But it had also been a headier day than she had thought, and Rita and her mother had been quite right. In a very sad and loving way, it had laid a ghost to see the now flattened street where she had once known such happiness. She had placed her flowers there as reverently as if they truly marked Fanny’s grave.
She blinked back the tears and carried on reading the newsier part of her mother’s letter.
‘You would have been surprised at the numbers of people who turned up for the sale of Uncle Albert’s paintings, and the prices they fetched! I’m sure he would have been amazed to know he was so well thought of, all these years later. You might even see one of them turning up in some London art gallery, since I’ve no idea who some of the buyers were.’
Wenna doubted that she would, since she wasn’t in the least interested in touring art galleries. But she was pleased for her mother, and with the news that the purchase of the one-time Bokilly Holdings had gone ahead. It had been officially renamed Killigrew Clay, even though production was virtually confined to supplying the pottery now, and any post-war plans for the clayworks were to be kept strictly private for the time being.
‘I heard from Celia yesterday,’ Skye continued in her letter. ‘She doesn’t sound too well, and had a dreadful bout of flu recently, but she refused to come home to recuperate. She takes her job so seriously – to her credit, of course.’
Wenna studied those last words. The innocent comments made her feel less than adequate. Her sister was engaged on important work for British Intelligence; her brother was now a wireless operator in Bomber Command; her cousin Seb had been honourably discharged after being wounded in action; and Justin was a field doctor “somewhere in France”. She was just a singer in an ATS concert party who couldn’t ever compete with the popularity of Gracie Fields or Vera Lynn or George Formby.
For all the glamour of her one-time blossoming career, it seemed to be going nowhere very fast now, and sometimes she envied Celia very much for having such purpose in her life.
* * *
Wenna wouldn’t have been so envious if she could have seen her sister that evening. Celia had fallen in love with Norwich, much to her surprise. It wasn’t a large enough town to be pompous, nor small enough to be full of busybodies. In many ways it reminded her of Truro, and it was that very similarity that sometimes made her heart ache for the security of times past and the uncertainty of the future.
But she loved her job. It was intriguing, exciting, and sometimes hugely frustrating when the supposedly important coded messages turned out to be nonsense. At other times, when her expertise helped to thwart some enemy attack by providing their own lads with some prior information, it was more rewarding than anything she could have imagined.
There were also times when she wondered just where it was all leading. The war reports these days led them to believe that victory was just around the corner. Hitler was being defeated. The Japanese weren’t getting things all their own way, and the Allied troops had become a mighty force with the Americans behind them now.
One day, all this would be over, and as the song said, “there’ll be love and laughter and peace ever after”.
But not for me, she sometimes thought, in her gloomier moods. Not for Stefan and me…
She shuddered in the cool of the evening air, and pulled her jacket more firmly around her shoulders. The city was as dark as always, the black-outs in every building firmly in place now, the few cars that were in the streets with their headlamps shrouded and dimmed. Overhead the sky was overcast, with only a few breaks in the clouds to show that stars still shone in the heavens. Their star was still there, Celia thought fervently. Even when it was temporarily hidden from view by clouds and rain, it still remained, as constant as their love. Nothing could kill a star…
Her shoulders drooped as she leaned on the railings of a narrow bridge, looking down into a stream where her own reflection was no more than a shadow. Wondering, not for the first time, if she was holding on to a dream that was over. Because for all Captain Moonlight’s endeavours to find out more about Stefan’s whereabouts nothing had come to light.
It was as if he had simply disappeared, as so many others had done. Celia tried very hard not to let her imagination tell her what that might mean in these evil days of reprisals and death for such slender crimes.
She didn’t dare think about the future any more either. They had once envisaged such a bright tomorrow, but in her heart she had already begun to wonder if it would ever happen.
Even if they both survived this war, what did the future hold for them? Could Stefan return to his home, or even want to, knowing it had been violated by a regime he despised? Could she go back to Germany to work among people who would have been so recently her enemies? And how could Stefan go to Cornwall to be with her, when he would still be regarded as the enemy in many quarters? Old hates weren’t dispelled in a day or a year. She shuddered, wondering how he would view her part in decoding his country’s wartime activities.
Long before this war began, their dream had been to start a new life in Switzerland, in the place where they first met, near the beautiful Alpine village of Gstaad. It was still her dream, but how fragile it seemed now, without the touch of his hand, or the whisper of her name on his lips, or any communication at all to tell her if he was alive or dead…
‘I thought it was your delightful shape I could see,’ she heard a voice say, and her reflection in the stream was joined by another, more solid one. She swallowed the lump in her throat, knowing who it was without turning around.
‘Do you think I
’m a completely hopeless case, Moonie?’ she said sadly. ‘I know you’ve already pulled far more strings than you should on my account, and if you can’t trace him, I begin to wonder if anybody can.’
‘Now just you stop talking that way, Lieutenant,’ he said briskly. ‘I haven’t exhausted all avenues yet, and even if I had, you needn’t think the worst. Never give up hope is my motto, and since you look as if a bit of cheering up is in order, and the wind’s getting up, I suggest we repair to the local hostelry and drown our sorrows in whatever watery grog they call beer these days. Sometimes I swear it comes straight out of the North Sea instead of from our fine Kentish hops.’
Celia began to laugh. ‘Oh Moonie, you do me good.’
‘All part of the service, ma’am,’ he said, in a pseudo-American voice.
He held out his arm and she tucked her hand in it. He was her superior, but he looked after her like a Dutch uncle, she thought affectionately, and with no ulterior motive. He was right about the wind getting up, she thought. It was time to move on before she got thoroughly chilled. She glanced up at the sky where the clouds were scudding faster now, and her heart stopped for a moment as she saw her bright star shining steadily through the gap before they covered it once more.
* * *
With rationing extending to every commodity now, the local hostelries had a shortage of beverages. Spirits were limited to two drinks per customer, but there was always plenty of beer available to satisfy the many servicemen and women from the nearby camps.
They had to provide something, Moonie observed, if they were to keep open at all, and it was best not to ask where they got their supplies for customers who were specially favoured. The black market could supply anything these days, and it seemed that everyone knew someone who could get something…
Celia made do with a glass of the wishy-washy drink that passed for beer. She didn’t particularly like the taste at the best of times, and this weak variety suited her palate well enough. Moonie bemoaned the fact that the only decent brandy around these days was for emergency purposes only, and she asked him smartly if he’d like her to faint again so he could get them both a swig or two.
A Brighter Tomorrow Page 15
