Upstairs in her luxurious bedroom, Daisy wallowed in the soft, comfortable bed and thought of Dotty and Frank Moran being at Rose Cottage together. Like Mar she had thought the affair was one-sided, but maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Frank had finally realised that he’d be far better off with Dotty after all. As Daisy fell asleep she was trying to work out why she felt good and not so good about that.
Daisy had been at Rose Cottage for a week and was beginning to feel she should go back to Langar. It was always the same, that’s what the other girls said when they went home. You yearned for it, but after you’d been back a couple of days you just wanted to leave again. Their war work had changed them; they had less in common with their relatives and friends at home, though they felt guilty about it.
Mar threw a spanner in the works, though, by producing a tall, thin American who had been sent by Dotty to recuperate.
‘Just wondering, Daisy,’ Mar said quietly, ‘if you’d do me a very great favour. I wouldn’t ask this of anyone else, but you and I know each other, don’t we, Daisy?’
‘Mar, what is it?’ Daisy asked.
‘Well, you know that lovely quiet chap, the one who survived being shot down in his Flying Castle?’
‘Fortress,’ Daisy said. ‘Flying Fortress, Mar.’
‘Really? Well you know these things, I suppose. Been here a month now, name of Hal. I think he needs some younger company and a bit of fun. Still a bit shaky, mind you, but would you take him to London for a few days, show him the sights, take him to a few parties perhaps? You can use the flat, Par’s never there, he’s always doing whatever it is he’s doing, probably sleeps at the Windmill, I shouldn’t wonder.’
What Daisy wanted to do was go ‘home’ to Langar. Apart from anything else she was anxious about Eileen, though she certainly seemed to be coping well, but Daisy knew there was no way of refusing Mar anything, especially after all Mar had done for her.
So Daisy took Hal to London, holding his hand because it was trembling, taking small steps and pretending to believe he was as strong as he pretended. He’d been the only survivor when his B-17 had been brought down, and, though he was badly hurt, he still felt guilty that he had survived and the others hadn’t. ‘One of the guys had only been married two weeks,’ he told her. ‘Another one had this beautiful kid, barely two years old.’
Hal was, as Mar had said, still pretty shaky and prone to crying at odd moments, and Daisy found it incredibly difficult to see this tall, good-looking and obviously once strong man in tears. Only he wasn’t a man, he was just like the others, a boy away from home and in danger. He wasn’t anywhere near recovered, he had no real strength, and when she took him to parties at the usual haunts he had had enough in a very short time, and she had to take him back to the flat and sit by his bed talking to him until he fell asleep.
It reminded her of Dotty’s descriptions of sitting by the beds of dying men, and Daisy understood her friend better for the time she spent with Hal. He was from Boston, his forbears were from Scotland, he told her, and she felt herself suddenly thinking of Calli, the Scot who was Canadian, Eileen’s lovely boy. Still, she listened, knowing that Hal would talk himself out, hearing the words grow fainter and his breathing deeper, before going to her own bed and weeping for everything, for everyone.
They were due back at Rose Cottage the next day, Friday, so she took Hal to a farewell party at the Dorchester, watching him for signs of weariness or distress, which she could tell by the tremor in his hands and the way his eyes darted back and forth so quickly that they couldn’t possibly be seeing anything. They left before the blackout to make their way back to the flat, her arm firmly linked through Hal’s, almost holding him up, when she heard her name being called and looked round to find Frank Moran with a very attractive blonde.
For a moment she couldn’t speak, only stared stupidly, then she tried to cover it by making it look like one of her dismissive expressions. It didn’t work, though, she couldn’t compose her features quickly enough, though she didn’t know if anyone else had noticed. If he had noticed, that’s what she meant, she realised.
‘What are you doing in London?’ Frank asked, examining Hal.
‘Seeing the sights,’ she replied as haughtily as she could, looking at the woman who was hanging on to Frank’s arm, ‘much the same as you are.’
‘This is a friend,’ he said in an irritated voice.
‘Ditto,’ Daisy said. ‘Hello, friend, this is Hal, he’s from Boston.’
‘So where are you staying?’
‘At Mar and Par’s flat,’ she said, and he nodded; he knew where it was and had obviously been there. Who with? she wondered, then wondered why she had wondered. ‘But we’re going up to Rose Cottage tomorrow,’ she said, to forestall any invitation being extended or asked for. He nodded again and they stood looking uncomfortably at one another. Daisy was glad the other woman was there, her presence stopped anything more meaningful being said by either of them, but at the same time she was annoyed, which made her feel as if the situation was slightly slipping out of control.
‘Well, we must get back to the flat before the blackout,’ she said. ‘Give my love to Dotty when you next see her.’
Frank looked distracted. ‘Dotty?’ he said. ‘Why would I be seeing Dotty?’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’ she asked. ‘You were at Rose Cottage with her, weren’t you?’
Frank’s woman was looking bored. ‘Look, how long does this old pals act go on for?’ she complained:
‘It’s finished as far as I’m concerned,’ Daisy smiled sweetly.
‘I wasn’t with Dotty!’ Frank said, his face flushing.
‘What? Oh, you still on about that?’ Daisy asked distantly.
‘I thought, well, I heard she was going to be there, but I’d hoped she wouldn’t be alone.’
‘Well, she wasn’t, was she?’ Daisy said. ‘You were there too. Anyway, what does it matter?’
‘It just does, that’s all!’
‘Look, if you two are just going to stand here and argue …’ the woman said.
‘We’re not,’ Daisy replied shortly. ‘Good night, and if you can’t be good, be careful!’ It was the kind of trite remark she hated, but he deserved it, she thought, though she didn’t really know why.
Daisy took Hal back to the flat and sat beside him till he slept, then she crept to her bed again and lay down, but she couldn’t sleep. Instead she went over every word, every look, every slight silence that had passed between her and Frank Moran. Her nerves felt jangled. All those nights in the tower dealing with really crucial stuff and she had never felt like this. Yes; jangled, that was the only word, and why? He was only a man, after all, and she didn’t want him, had pushed him away more times than he should have needed to get the message.
Daisy lay on the bed trying to make herself calm down and stop going over the shock meeting. Sleep would come, she told herself, if she composed herself.
Then there was a loud knocking at the door. Daisy looked at the clock: it was after eleven. Maybe the wardens had noticed a chink of light. She checked the curtains just in case on the way to the door, but they seemed all right. She was always careful about things like that. Then before she could open the door she heard Frank’s voice demanding to be let in. She opened it slightly and he strode past her.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she whispered fiercely.
‘I want to know why you returned my letters,’ he said, striding up and down angrily, and she realised he must have departed with the blonde and then worked himself into a temper.
‘I told you not to write, that’s why,’ Daisy said very calmly; she wasn’t going to allow him to dictate the tone of the conversation. ‘Now would you please leave, I don’t want you to waken Hal.’
‘What was wrong in my writing to you?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve already explained that. What was wrong,’ she said slowly and precisely, ‘was that I didn’t want you to write to me. Am I speaking to my
self here? And keep your voice down, I told you, Hal’s asleep.’
‘I don’t give a buggery damn if Hal’s asleep!’ he said loudly.
‘Well I do!’ Daisy replied. ‘Now why don’t you go? No one invited you in.’
‘I want to know why you keep running around with Yanks!’ he said, trying to lower his voice.
Daisy was surprised. She had never been out with a Yank up till now, and this was a duty rather than a tryst. ‘Why shouldn’t I go out with Yanks?’ she demanded quietly. ‘And more to the point, what business is it of yours?’
‘It demeans you,’ Frank answered. ‘It gives you a helluva reputation, or should I say it adds to it?’
‘Say whatever you want, I don’t care,’ Daisy said casually, Mae taking over. ‘But I don’t see why Yanks give me a helluva reputation. Isn’t it the same with Australians, then?’
‘The point is,’ he said, almost clenching his teeth, ‘the point is—’
She looked at him, arms folded, and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘—that you only seem to like these flash guys who’re only out for a bit of fun.’
Daisy shrugged and smiled. ‘Right so far,’ she said.
‘And I’m not offering a bit of fun, I’m offering something more than that, and you’re not interested.’
‘Well, we’re agreed on that, so why are you worked up? And while we’re on that subject, who are you offering what to? Dotty, or the blonde who was hanging on to you earlier on?’
‘She was nothing!’
‘Oh, nice,’ Daisy said sarcastically. ‘That says so much for you.’
‘Well, I won’t be sleeping with her if that’s what you mean!’
‘Blown you out, has she?’
Frank closed his eyes for a second and she could see the muscles of his jaws working. ‘Whereas,’ he said, opening his eyes, ‘you are sleeping with that Yank.’
‘And I repeat, this is your business in what way?’
He stared at her in silence, his eyes a mixture of anger and hurt. ‘I should’ve known what you were like,’ he said angrily. ‘The other boys told me. Word travels, but I wouldn’t believe them, I said there was something pure and good about you.’
‘Next time you’ll know better,’ Daisy told him icily, ‘next time you’ll believe your friends, who obviously know better than anyone else, and next time you might even have the guts to call a whore a whore. Now, if there isn’t anything else, I should get back to the bedroom before Hal wakes and realises I’m not there. Good night.’
As Frank’s footsteps retreated down the stairs Daisy moved to the window, opened the curtains a tiny chink and tried to watch him, but in the blackout she could only see a vaguely moving shape. Well, that was the end of him, she thought, and then she did something that she would regret for the rest of her life, that she would feel such shame over that she would never be able to think of it without her cheeks flaming. What possessed her she would never be able to fully understand.
Creeping into the bedroom where Hal was sleeping, she pulled back the covers and slid in beside him. Then, holding her breath, she placed her hand on his stomach and slowly slid it downwards.
Suddenly her wrist was caught in a vice-like grip. ‘I can’t, Daisy,’ Hal said quietly.
She was overcome with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, Hal … please … I don’t know … forgive me,’ and she tried to get out of the bed.
‘No, it’s OK,’ he said dully. ‘I mean, I can’t, physically, I mean. I’m sorry, Daisy …’
She felt even worse. After everything he had been through, to have put him in the position of having to admit that, to have made the boy say it to a female. What kind of person was she? She ran to the bathroom in the darkness, locked the door and was violently sick, then sat on the floor and wished she were dead.
If the roles had been reversed and she had been a man, what would she have done about Hal’s refusal? she wondered. When it came down to it, was she any better than Dessie or Celia’s Bobby? How could she have done that, or tried to do that, to a poor, defenceless boy, and could she have gone through with it?
Hal knocked on the bathroom door and she came out, head down with weariness and defeat. He put his arms around her. ‘It was that guy, wasn’t it?’ he said.
‘Yes, it was that guy,’ she admitted. ‘I’m sorry, Hal, it didn’t concern you, I shouldn’t—’
‘Ssh, I understand. You were mad at him, is all.’
‘Yes, I suppose I was.’ Her clumsy attempt to seduce poor Hal was a reaction to Frank’s contempt, that was clear, but why inflict it on the first vulnerable human being she came across?
The next morning, thankfully, Hal didn’t mention Frank’s nocturnal visit, nor hers, and neither did Daisy. They travelled to Rose Cottage, where she collected her things before climbing into the Rolls for the journey back to Langar. There were hugs from Mar and the usual hamper, of course, and all the time Hal stood in the background till the car door had closed, then he went to her window. The boy reached in and took her hand, his thumb making little circles between her thumb and first finger, and finally he whispered to her, ‘And when I can, Daisy, I’ll come looking for you. OK?’
He had such a gentle smile that she felt on the point of tears. ‘OK,’ she said, squeezing his hand but not making eye contact.
As the Rolls pulled away she reflected on all they had been told about the Yanks, that they were crude, had no manners, and were full of bluster and noise. Yet Hal had been so gracious, so kind, when she had been the one to overstep the mark. She hadn’t felt the least attraction to him, that’s what made it all so vulgar. Whatever the reason she had made the tacky approach, it had nothing to do with him, she had only been using him. God, but she was feeling so mixed up she didn’t know if she was standing or sitting. How could she let any man, least of all a Fly Boy, do this to her?
17
Once Daisy had arrived back at her hut in Langar she was met by a worried-looking Eileen. It must have hit her, she thought. As soon as Eileen had been left alone in their room, the reality of Calli’s death had hit her, and instinctively Daisy reached out to hug her.
‘It’s Celia,’ Eileen said, catching Daisy’s arms before they could go round her.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Daisy, sit down,’ Eileen said, still holding her arms and forcing her to sit on her bed. ‘Daisy, Celia’s dead.’
People talked about everything spinning; now Daisy knew it was true. ‘Was there a raid?’
Eileen shook her head. ‘They’ve told her relatives her appendix burst, but it wasn’t that.’
Daisy stared at Eileen.
‘After you’d been gone a week she came to me in a state. She was looking for you, really, not me, thought I’d know where you were. She was sure she was pregnant and wanted you to help her get rid of it.’
‘But why? She was married!’ Daisy gasped.
‘She said that it had been a mistake and the last thing she wanted was to be stuck with his child after how it had been conceived. She said you’d understand and that you were sure to know someone who’d help her. I told her I only knew you were in London, and that you’d be back very soon, and she nodded and left. I thought she would wait, but apparently she didn’t.’
‘What happened?’ Daisy asked, all sorts of horrific pictures forming in her mind.
‘I don’t know who she went to,’ Eileen said quietly, ‘and whoever gave her the name isn’t likely to talk now. Next day she went into Nottingham, as far as I know, that’s where she said she was going anyway. When she came back she was quiet, but she had been for a few days. It was the next morning she was found. She didn’t get up and everyone assumed she’d slept in, which of course she never did, and when they went to wake her she was unconscious. The bed was covered in blood, it was pretty awful. They took her to a civilian hospital, but it was no good.’
They sat together for a long time, Daisy on the edge of her bed, Eileen kneeling on the floor
, holding Daisy’s hand.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Daisy said miserably. ‘All she had to do was wait a few days and I could’ve arranged for someone to see her in London. She wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last, why didn’t she wait?’
Eileen shrugged. ‘All I can think of is that she really wanted it gone, that she couldn’t bear the thought of it being inside her any longer.’
‘But to think of her in such a state!’ Daisy whispered. ‘I never knew she was feeling so bad, I thought they’d just got off to a bad start.’
‘Who knows what anyone else is really thinking, Daisy?’ Eileen said sadly. ‘It wasn’t your fault, it was no one’s fault. It just happened.’
‘But she came to me so often, all I did was say it would all be better one day soon. What sort of a friend was I? I shouldn’t have gone, I should’ve taken her more seriously.’
Daisy had woven such a convincing fiction, aided by the constant movements of service life, that no one would have been able to contact her. Dotty, the only one who could have tracked her down, had been posted at least twice since leaving Langar, and the girls now in the hut, Eileen included, knew nothing of her friendship with Dotty anyhow. Daisy’s tracks had been superbly covered.
Celia’s new young husband, Bobby, suddenly sprang into her mind. ‘What about her husband?’ she asked.
‘He thinks it was her appendix, too. The other girls said she had been a bit off-colour for a few days, so that helped. One of the others said that was the usual story, that the girl had a burst appendix, but Celia was married, as you say, so, why did they cover up that she had been expecting?’
‘Oh, to save the boy, I suppose. Didn’t want him to feel it was anything to do with him and leave him feeling guilty about it,’ Daisy said wearily. ‘It’s a man’s world, Eileen, no matter which way you turn.’
They sat in stunned, sad silence for a moment.
‘And there’s the other thing, not wanting to raise suspicions,’ Daisy said.
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