For there, sitting on the steps leading to the front door of the flat, was a tall, slender young man in RAF uniform. His head was in his hands and his cap hid his face, but I hadn’t any doubt as to his identity. Who else could it be, except Toby? I dropped my burdens and began to run.
As I drew closer, he heard my footsteps, and he sat up straighter and pushed back his cap. Now I saw his hair was not blond but black, that he was older than Toby, that he was family and yet . . . unfamiliar. Because it was Simon, but when he turned his face to me, I scarcely recognised him. It wasn’t just that he was pale and unshaven and hollow-cheeked – he looked utterly defeated. I slowed to a walk to give myself time to prepare for what was obviously going to be horrible news.
‘Hello, Simon,’ I said unsteadily, when I stood at the foot of the steps.
He nodded at me and said nothing. His eyes were sunken and dull.
‘You gave me quite a shock,’ I said, trying to smile at him. ‘I wasn’t expecting you. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. Veronica’s not here, of course, she left three days ago for Spain –’
I think I had the notion that if I kept babbling, he wouldn’t be able to tell me anything awful. Actually, an even more effective way of avoiding the news would be to remove myself from his presence altogether, and it was then that I recalled my scattered shopping.
‘Here,’ I said, pushing past him to unlock the door. ‘You go in and put the kettle on, and I’ll go back and collect my things, and then we can have a nice cup of tea and we can, can –’
I couldn’t get any further. I rushed off, back down the path. ‘Get a hold of yourself, Sophia!’ I scolded myself. ‘For Heaven’s sake! Yes, this might be easier to bear if Veronica were here, but really! You’re a grown woman of twenty-one years, not a child! Stop being such a coward!’
And by the time I walked into the kitchen, I was reasonably composed.
I couldn’t say the same of Simon, though. He’d managed to seat himself at the table, but I wasn’t even sure if he knew where he was. I pulled my chair up close to his, and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder.
‘Simon?’ I said quietly. ‘What is it?’
In response, he laid his head down on his crossed arms. Then he made a horrible rasping sound, and it took me whole seconds to understand what he was doing. But the poor man simply didn’t know how to cry. He probably hadn’t done it since he was an infant. I reached out to stroke his back, and when he didn’t shrug me off, I moved closer and put my arms round him and rested my cheek on the top of his hair. I didn’t cry myself. I was too frightened, I think. I felt as I had when I’d seen the bombed Houses of Parliament last year. That was when I’d understood that nothing was safe any more – that everything, no matter how old or powerful or important, could be reduced to dust and ashes.
Simon’s agonised gasping didn’t last long – certainly not compared to some of my own crying fits. I handed him a tea towel to wipe his face, because I didn’t think my tiny lace-trimmed handkerchief was up to the task, then I got up and bustled about the kitchen, putting together a pot of tea in the noisiest manner possible.
‘Sorry,’ he said at last, in a voice that sounded as though it were being dragged over gravel.
I placed a mug of tea in front of him and stirred in most of our remaining sugar. Wasn’t that meant to be good for shock? I could have done with a few tablespoons of it myself. My hands were trembling as I sat down opposite him.
‘I think,’ I said, rather bravely, ‘that you should tell me all about it.’
‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ he said, staring at the tablecloth. ‘Except . . . I didn’t know where else to go. Sophie, I think I’m going mad.’
This was not what I’d expected.
‘You aren’t going mad,’ I said, with more certainty than I felt. ‘You’re just upset. We all are. It’s perfectly understandable –’
‘But I can’t get it out of my head,’ he said. ‘I keep hearing it. Over and over again, all the time, even when I try to sleep! I think it’s in my blood.’
‘In your . . . Simon, you aren’t making any sense.’
‘No, because I’m going mad! Like my mother. Like my father.’
‘What?’ I said, now seriously alarmed. ‘No, listen to me. Your parents weren’t . . . that is, they were, but only because they’d had terrible things happen in their lives and –’
‘And I haven’t?’ he asked, and I had to admit that he had had some fairly terrible things happen to him. I mean, we all have, really.
‘But what exactly do you mean?’ I went on, speaking as calmly as possible, because he did look a tiny bit mad at that moment. ‘Tell me, what is it that you keep hearing?’
He swallowed. ‘I . . . I used to listen to the pilots getting shot down,’ he said. ‘If their radios were still working, I’d hear everything they said. Every last word. While the cockpit was filling with smoke, after the engine cut out. They’d always know what was coming, always. They’d say, “That’s it, lads” or “It’s over”. Or just . . . swearing. Cursing Hitler, cursing God. I even heard some of the Luftwaffe boys. They used to say exactly the same things, except in German.’
‘Did you . . .’ I cleared my throat and started again. ‘Did you hear Toby, the day he was shot down?’
‘Yes . . . No. I don’t know.’ Simon raised his anguished eyes to mine. ‘No, no, I couldn’t have, I don’t even work in that section any more! But I keep hearing him, anyway. All the time.’
‘What does he say?’
‘What all the others said. But it’s his voice, I know it is!’
‘It isn’t him,’ I said firmly. ‘Simon, you’re just imagining it. I dream of him, too. But it’s not real. It’s only happening because we’re so worried and we just don’t know the truth –’
‘Yes, we do! He’s gone. I know it. And it’s all my fault, I’m to blame –’
‘Have you heard something?’ I demanded. ‘Something official?’ After all, that was what I’d assumed when I’d realised it was Simon sitting on the steps.
‘No, the air force doesn’t know anything else. But Sophie, you’re not listening to me. I mean it – I’m to blame for everything. I was the one who passed on the order to his base that day. I sent his squadron out, knowing he was on duty. And I knew other planes had been shot down in that area a few weeks before. I knew that even if they hit the target they were aiming at, it wasn’t worth the risk. But I still gave that order.’
I stared at him.
‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ he said despairingly. ‘You hate me.’
I shook my head, still searching for words.
‘You ought to hate me! I hate myself!’
‘Oh, Simon! Of course I don’t hate you,’ I said, grabbing his hand. ‘But you sound as though you want me to hate you. As though you’re waiting for me to punish you. Well, I’m not going to do that.’
He looked down at our hands as I tightened my grip.
‘Toby was the one who signed up first,’ I said. ‘He didn’t have to, but he did, before the war even started, and if it weren’t for him, you probably wouldn’t have joined the air force. Toby was doing his job – a job he chose – the day he got shot down. And you were doing your job. I know the air force sometimes gets it wrong, but don’t you believe in what you’re doing, on the whole? I do. I think the air force saved this island from invasion. I don’t exactly understand your job, but I do know that you’re not the one in command. You couldn’t have changed anything about that day. You’re not that important.’
He made a snuffling noise that might have been a laugh.
‘If you insist on wallowing in guilt and self-pity, I can’t stop you,’ I added, releasing his hand. ‘I think it’s a waste of your time and energy, though, when you ought to be concentrating on your job.’
I know that last was rather hypocritical of me, but I’m better at giving advice to others than to myself. And he did look slightly less anguished by the end of my s
peech.
‘But Sophie, I don’t think I can do that job any more,’ he said. ‘I just keep sending men off to be killed. I dread the thought of going back, of having to –’
‘Simon,’ I interrupted, struck by a horrible notion, ‘you do have a leave pass, don’t you? I mean, you haven’t just . . . deserted?’
‘What, you think I care about what they’d do to me?’ he said. ‘A nice, quiet prison cell sounds a hell of a lot better than what I’ve got now.’
But he was joking – mostly – and he sounded a little more like himself. I got him to finish his tea, and made us both a sandwich, and then he fell asleep on Veronica’s bed. By the time he’d woken, I’d had a bath, mended a hole in my only pair of silk stockings and located my missing pearl earring, which had slipped down behind my chest of drawers.
‘Go and shave,’ I told Simon, when he appeared in my doorway with his hair standing on end. ‘Do you have a clean shirt in your bag? I’ll iron it while you’re having a bath.’
‘What?’ he said.
‘It’s Julia’s birthday,’ I explained. ‘We’re going to the Mirabelle for dinner.’
I didn’t mention Daphne, because he can’t stand her, but even so, he protested. I stood firm. I wasn’t going to disappoint Julia, and I wasn’t prepared to leave him alone in the flat. I had a suspicion he didn’t really want to be alone just then, either – although, when he finally agreed to accompany me, he said it was only because he didn’t like the idea of me taking taxis alone at night. He trudged off to the bathroom, and I ironed his uniform and laid it out on Veronica’s bed. Then I rushed back to my room to get dressed – and froze.
Because I’d just remembered my evening gown fastened up the back with fifty-two tiny buttons that were impossible to do up by myself. I’d always had Phoebe or Veronica to help me with them in the past. I stared at the rack that held my dresses, hoping some alternative outfit would suddenly appear. Perhaps I could wear my good suit? I’d seen girls in khaki uniforms at nightclubs; once, even a girl in a boiler suit and steel-capped boots. However, I could just imagine Daphne’s reaction if I turned up in anything other than my nicest evening dress. The shabbier and gloomier London became, the more determined she was that we should always look bright and glamorous. I considered racing up to the house with a torch and rifling through my old debutante dresses, but even if I found something clean and free of moth holes, nothing would suit me as well as the blue gown Julia had helped me alter. It had become one of those rare, perfect dresses that was both comfortable and flattering. It clung in the right places and draped exactly where drapes were needed. It matched the blue of my eyes. The soft, heavy silk felt like some magical liquid splashed against my skin, transforming me into an elegant figure quite unlike my usual daytime self . . .
Well, I’d just have to ask Simon for a hand. Goodness knows he’d had enough experience doing up girls’ dresses – or at least, undoing them.
I wriggled into the gown, managing to fasten about a dozen of the buttons after much contortion and peering over my shoulders, and I slipped on my shoes. I twisted my hair into a knot and secured it with a handful of pins, and I rubbed on some of my carefully hoarded lipstick. Then I raised my chin and walked into the next room, where Simon was peering in Veronica’s tiny looking glass to check that his tie was straight.
‘Could you do up the buttons on the back of my dress?’ I said. ‘Only I can’t quite reach all of them.’
Simon stared, then blinked. No, I suppose he hadn’t seen this dress before. Perhaps he thought it too grown-up for me? Well, too bad. About time he stopped treating me like a child.
‘Hurry up, or we’ll be late,’ I added imperiously, swivelling away from him. I heard him move behind me and felt his touch at the small of my back.
‘You’ve done them up wrongly,’ he said, and he slid his hand around to my hip and tugged me closer. ‘Stand still.’
So I stood still for what seemed like hours as his fingers slowly worked their way up my spine. I felt my face grow warmer. My pulse pounded in my ears. When he brushed against bare skin, I had to suppress a shiver. I hadn’t acted so idiotically around him for years.
‘That’s it,’ he said at last, in a low voice. One of my shoulder straps slipped, and we both reached for it. I jerked my hand back when it came into contact with his.
‘Thanks,’ I said, pulling away, my face aflame. But my awkwardness appeared to be contagious, and a strange tension persisted between us all the way to the restaurant. As we approached the table where the others were gathered, Daphne stood up and shrieked out a greeting, and I felt Simon’s arm tighten under my hand, as though he were battling the urge to bolt.
‘We don’t have to stay long,’ I whispered. ‘It’ll be all right. We’ll just wish Julia a happy birthday, and have a nice dinner, then go home.’
He glanced down at me, his jaw clenched, then nodded.
Unfortunately, Daphne was in excessively high spirits that night, and she’d brought along her latest American, a Lieutenant Colonel with very strong opinions. As we sat down, he was holding forth on how unnecessary this war was.
‘All you needed to do,’ he said, ‘was be firm with old Adolf, right from the start. But you Brits, you’re too polite! You never come right out and say what you mean!’
The Brits at our table were certainly too polite to tell him to shut up, not that he would have listened.
‘Between you and those damn useless French,’ he went on, ‘it’s no wonder Adolf gave up on talking and figured it’d just be easier to invade Poland. Now, don’t get me wrong – I love you guys – but you’ve never learned to talk tough. Talk tough or fight tough, neither one of ’em. You gotta be able to do both in this world!’
‘Then why didn’t you lot join the League of Nations?’ snapped Simon, sounding remarkably like Veronica at her most acerbic. ‘You could have talked tough to Hitler and saved everyone a lot of trouble. Failing that, why didn’t you join the war in 1939? If you’d thrashed the Germans with your tough fighting when they invaded France, it’d all be over now.’
‘Now you’re talking!’ cried the Lieutenant Colonel. ‘You’re right on the money there, pal!’ And off he went on a long rant about the incompetence of the British Army. Finally Daphne interrupted with a ‘Yes, darling, we know all that,’ and dragged him away, onto the dance floor.
‘Are there any quiet Americans?’ wondered the girl sitting opposite Julia.
‘Yes, but Daphne only ever goes out with the loud ones,’ sighed Julia. ‘The loud, handsome ones.’
‘Do you really think he’s handsome?’ said the naval officer beside her, his face falling. I’d met him before, but I’d forgotten his name. I knew he was in love with Julia, and that she was too kind to banish him entirely from her presence, even though she wasn’t interested in anything but friendship.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get married again,’ she’d told me sadly, late last year. ‘Well – perhaps when the war’s over, to some nice man who’d make a good father. But I don’t think the war will ever be over, not really. Do you?’
And, studying Simon’s tight, shuttered face that evening, I realised the war would go on forever. Even if it ended tomorrow, we’d still have to live with its consequences until the day we died. I reached out and touched his hand.
‘Dance with me?’ I asked, and he rose at once and led me into the middle of the swaying couples. Things were better there. With his arm round my waist and his other hand clasping mine, I could feel him begin to unwind. The band segued into a slower song, and I rested my cheek against his shoulder. He drew me in closer, gazed down into my eyes and smiled. How odd, I thought. I probably know him better than anyone, right at this moment, and yet I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s thinking.
Two songs later, our main courses arrived and he led me back to our table. Under cover of the clink of silver on china, Julia leaned over and whispered, ‘Is he all right?’ But then Daphne and the Lieutenant Colonel starte
d up a noisy debate about where we ought to go dancing after dinner.
‘Julia, you absolutely must come with us, I know you’re not on duty tomorrow,’ Daphne shouted across the table. ‘And you too, Sophie and Simon!’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said, with a glance at Simon. ‘Not tonight.’
Later, as I was saying goodbye to Julia, I had the impression she wanted to say something further. But then Simon walked over with my wrap, and she simply smiled and thanked us both for coming. Then we left.
The night, when we stepped out into it, was cool and quiet after the bustle of the restaurant. I tilted my head back, and a roll of black velvet, sprinkled with diamonds, unfurled before my eyes. It went on forever. It was almost like being back at Montmaray. It was dizzying. Simon grabbed my hand to stop me falling backwards, and he kept hold of it after he’d helped me into the taxi, and he was still holding it as I searched for my key outside the flat, even though it would have been more sensible to use both hands. But I didn’t want him to let go. And he didn’t want to let go, either.
I think, now, that I knew what was about to happen. It was as inevitable as the sun setting at the end of a long, hot day.
Anyway, we got inside. He closed the door (one-handedly) and we walked straight through the kitchen and the sitting room, down the narrow hallway into my tiny bedroom, and I turned on the light, and then he took me in his arms and kissed me. I’d been kissed before, of course, by Peter, that Polish pilot. That had been lovely. But it bore about as much resemblance to Simon’s kiss as a flickering candle does to the blazing sun. I felt as though I’d burst into flame, using up all the oxygen in the room. I gasped for air and he did, too – it was both of us burning up.
The FitzOsbornes at War Page 25
