They remained still for a while, recovering in a breathless silence that was punctuated only by the crackling and hiss of flames. Ilona wound her fingers through Ian’s tousled hair, content to remain entangled and warm. She willed time to stand still.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked.
“No, not at all.”
He kissed her. “Thank God for that.”
She smiled. “In fact, it was wonderful.”
He shivered when she touched him. “I want to remember everything, Ilke—every touch, every word, and every glance. I don’t want to spoil the moment, but we can’t be sure we will ever get this chance again.” He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her. “I want you do me a favor, darling. If anything happens to me, please don’t give up. Don’t mourn me for ages. I don’t think I could bear it if I thought you would spend the rest of your life grieving. I want you to live, Ilke. Promise me this.”
Ilona’s throat tightened. She touched his face. She knew that he was right but she hated that it needed to be said. “I promise. I really will try, I don’t want to think about losing you. It would break my heart but I will live, because you’ve asked me to and because I love you and I always will.” She gave in to tears.
He gathered her into his arms and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll always do everything I can to find my way back to you.”
“I know,” she sniffed. She would have given anything to remain like that forever—safe, warm and loved.
“I wish it was summer,” he whispered. “Because I would carry you off into the meadow and make love to you under the open sky, among the heather and the drowsy bees.”
Something inside her turned slowly at the thought. “That sounds wonderful, but, really, anywhere would do.”
“Miss Lowe, I do believe I’ve uncovered a wanton streak in you.” He kissed her, his lips warm. “I never would have thought it.”
“It’s your fault. I was an innocent until today. Now you’ve started me on the road to ruin and disgrace.”
He chuckled. “Nonsense. I was just a simple pilot before I met you. I’d never had an impure thought.”
“Yes,” she laughed. “Now you are talking nonsense.”
* * * *
Ilona gazed at the empty fields. They were washed with brilliant, gilded light from the morning sun as Ian guided the car away from the Dales. She was sorry to leave the fire-lit room and bed behind, but she had a wealth of memories to live on, as well as the certainty that she was entirely his and that he loved her beyond measure. She turned to look at him, wanting to touch him once more, to reassure herself that he was real. It seemed strange that, less than two hours before, they had been lying in a warm tangle of blankets and limbs.
“A penny for them.” He touched her knee.
“I was just remembering. That’s all.” She covered his hand with her own.
“I can’t blame you for that.” He smiled. “After all, I am unforgettable.”
“Trust you.”
He stared at her with mock indignation. “What’s so funny?”
“You are, and I love you for it.”
“I’m glad that you do, darling.” He took his hand from her knee with a sigh and changed the gears as the car eased down a steep hill. “I’ve decided that I would rather fly a plane than drive this old piece of tin. What on earth was Sandy thinking when he bought it?”
He pulled the car up to the gates of the airfield. Ilona stared at the dismal collection of buildings and wanted to cry. Even the sun had gone, lost behind gathering clouds that promised snow. The wind had risen from the north and hurled dead leaves across the road. She felt tired and wanted to retreat to her bunk to sleep for a while. She wasn’t ready for the reality that she had just returned to.
Ian took her face in his hands and looked at her for a long time. “Thank you, Ilke. Thank you for the happiest two days of my life.” He kissed her, a sweet, lingering kiss rich with memories.
“Thank you,” she replied, brushing the hair from his eyes one last time. “I love you, Ian.”
“I love you, too.” His hands fell away. “I will see you tonight, ACW Lowe—same place, same time.”
“Yes, you will.” She climbed out of the car, wincing as the cold wind whirled around her. The bicycle was in the same place she had left it and Ian put her case in the basket for her. He kissed her one last time. She hitched up her coat and climbed on, aware that he watched her, as she pedaled away.
* * * *
“This looks like a good place.” Ian eased the car off the narrow track that had taken them away from the main road. It led onto the open moor where a tumble of gray stones scattered across the heather. Ilona climbed out of the car and tried to take in the view and the sheer breadth of cloudless summer sky. The drowsy hum of bees and the occasional bleat from a distant flock of sheep punctuated the silence.
“It’s perfect. It’s beautiful here.”
After four months, they had finally managed to escape the war for a couple of days, to a cottage in a village on the edge of the moors.
Ian spread a blanket across a small hollow between the boulders. “We’ll be out of the wind here. Nice and sheltered.” He lay down on his back, arms behind his head and gazed at the sky. “Private, too.”
Ilona settled down beside him, resting in the crook of his arm, not wanting to spend a moment separated from him. She watched a kestrel soar overhead while it searched for prey hidden somewhere in the trembling carpet of heather. Suddenly it swooped, tucking in its wings as it plunged earthwards. At the last minute it rose again with empty talons and called out in apparent frustration when it soared away, leaving the moor quiet again.
“Are you happy, Ilke?” Ian asked.
“Very,” she replied. “I don’t believe I’ve ever felt happier.”
He turned on his side to face her. “Really?”
She touched his face. “Yes, really.” She waited as the breeze played with his hair and watched unspoken thoughts shift across his face.
He trailed one finger down her neck, raising delicious shivers. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Ilke. We’ve been caught up in a whirlwind, you and me, one that really isn’t of our own making.” He sighed. “I don’t have any idea how long this war is going to last and I was going to wait until it was all over, until I was sure that we would both see it through, but I can’t. I can’t see the sense of waiting for much longer. I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and have lots of little freckly, red-haired children. I can’t offer you much. I’m a teacher and I’ll never be rich.” He smiled, a smile touched with uncertainty. “Will you marry me, Ilona Lowe?”
Ilona didn’t even need to think as she brushed the hair from his forehead. “Yes, Ian Carstairs, I’ll marry you.”
“You will?”
His incredulity made her want to weep. “Yes, as if I would ever deny you anything.” She kissed him. “I love you.”
He grinned. “I know I’m irresistible, aren’t I?”
She wound her fingers through his hair when he kissed her. “Yes, you are.” She began to cry again, with the sheer joy of loving him.
“Ilke, darling, you’re crying again. I seem to be making you cry a lot.” He slowly unbuttoned her blouse. “I can make you better, you know.”
She laughed. “You have made me better.”
“But I’ll make you even better.”
“I know you will but…out here in the open?”
His lips lingered in the hollow of her throat. “Did I not say when we were in Middleham, that I would make love to you in the heather among the drowsy bees?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, here we are, surrounded by heather and bees. It’s a lovely, warm sunny day. There’s no one around for miles, apart from the occasional sheep, so…”
“You are impossible.”
“No, not impossible. I’m just hopelessly in love.” His eyes were warm and Ilona was left in no doubt as to
how much he loved her in the sunlit hour or so that followed.
* * * *
Ian pronounced himself satisfied with the sandwiches and with the two bottles of beer that she had packed. The early afternoon sun was warm and the breeze that had dogged the heather and swirled around the stones dropped, leaving the moor in silence. Even the bees seemed to have stilled. They fell asleep, Ilona lulled by the familiar song of his heartbeat. She was the first to wake to the weight of Ian’s head on her breast and his arm thrown across her waist. She watched him for a long time. The workload and the strain of the previous few months had etched new lines around his eyes. She felt a fierce protective rush of affection for him. She sighed and held him closer, hiding her face in his hair. It smelled clean—of wind, heather—and felt like silk against her cheek. She could have remained that way, the moment captured forever in amber like the light of the afternoon sun. She didn’t know how much time passed. The return of the kestrel distracted her when it glided down between the stones, settled on the largest one and regarded her with unblinking brown eyes. It ruffled its wings as she stared back. It was so close that she could see the gleam of its talons while it clung to the stone, bristling with defiance.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
It continued to stare but refused to budge. Ian stirred, tightening his arm around her waist. “Who are you talking to?” he murmured.
“It’s all right,” she soothed. “It’s just a kestrel. That’s all.”
“You’re talking to birds, now?” He lifted his head and, with a hurried whisper of wings, the bird took flight. “Huh, it didn’t like me.” His head dropped to her breast again, “But I know you like me. It must be madness in you. You talk to birds and you’re in love with me.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “That explains everything. I’m mad.”
“But you’re beautiful and you’re mine.”
* * * *
“I never noticed this last night, did you?” Ian twiddled with the tuner of a wireless that sat in the corner of the small sitting room of the cottage.
Ilona handed him a glass of wine. “We were otherwise engaged, I believe.”
“Och, yes, so we were.”
The evening sun slanted through the window and fell across the floor in a sweep of coppery light.
“Where’s the bloody BBC?”
“I have no idea.” She sipped her wine. “Keep going. You’re bound to find it sooner or later. Perhaps if you weren’t in such a hurry, you’d have more luck.”
“You’re no help, are you?” He winked at her. “Not when it comes to radios, anyway.” He bent to his task once more while she watched him weave through the static then, suddenly, there was a voice followed by music. “Here we are,” he announced, grinning. “Music, perfect.” He sat on the settee beside her as the familiar sounds of the Beer Barrel Polka escaped from the wireless. “Not the most romantic of tunes.” He wrapped his arm around her. “But it’ll do.”
Ilona rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s lovely just to be able to sit and listen to the radio in peace. It feels so…so…normal.” It did. It was right and timeless, feeling the warmth of him beneath her cheek.
“Aye, I know what you mean. It makes a nice change just to sit in a room with just the two of us and this wine.” He took a sip. “What is it, anyway?”
“The landlord said it was blackberry. That’s what it tastes like.”
“It’s not bad.” He surveyed his glass. “Not bad at all.”
The wine reminded her of autumn and the taste of blackberries lingered on her tongue. It conjured up images of hedgerows heavy with berries, glistening in heavy dew with strands of cobwebs strung between them like fragile, silver garlands. She heard the wind in the trees along the lane and could smell the tang of wood smoke. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she had been home in the autumn. For a moment she felt a twinge of longing until Ian took the glass from her hand and kissed her, a gentle reminder that he was all that she needed.
“Shall we dance, Ilona Lowe?” he asked when the polka gave way to Moonlight Serenade.
She smiled at him. “I love this song,”
He pulled her to her feet and they danced, cheek to cheek, in a tiny, sleepy circle, defined by the clutter of furniture in the room. They matched each other step for step while dusk stole through the open window and softened the corners with shadows. Ilona felt Ian’s hand drift down to the small of her back while his lips moved against her ear. She closed her eyes and everything else but him faded away. She pushed thoughts of the days to come aside. She needed these memories untouched because she had a feeling that, when they returned to Catterick, they would be stepping into a whirlwind and somewhere on the other side of the storm, they would get married and there would be a lifetime of evenings of dancing to the radio in the gathering dusk.
Chapter Six
Ilona was grateful to fall into her cot. Most of the girls were beginning to stir as she pulled the covers over her head to hide from the noise and the light of day. It had been a long night. The squadron had returned only just before the sunrise and word had been sent to her that there would be no debriefing to give the crews some much-needed sleep. Instead, she had driven the bus directly to their barracks. The men had filed off the bus, bidding her weary goodnights, leaving Ian sitting behind her. He’d gathered up his gear and kissed her with more warmth and energy than she’d expected. He trailed his hand across her cheek as he backed off the bus. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She watched him walk away, the morning sun brilliant on his hair, and ached with love for him.
When she drifted off to sleep amidst the usual morning hubbub, she kept the image in her mind hoping that, in sleep, she would find him once more.
* * * *
Ilona awoke to the afternoon sun streaming through the western windows of the hut. It found dust drifting through the air as it slanted across the bleached wooden floor and rows of tidy cots. She wondered what time it was and turned to grope for her clock. As she did, she found Faith, sitting bolt upright on her cot, watching her.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Faith? What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
Faith looked at her hands where they rested on her lap. “I’m so sorry, Ilke,” she replied, her voice faint.
Ilona swung her legs out of the bed and took her hand. “Is it Sandy? Has something happened?” She felt a knot in her stomach, cold, heavy and unmoving. “What’s happened?”
Her friend lifted her head, her face wet with tears. When she spoke, it was scarcely a whisper. “No, Ilke, it’s not Sandy.”
“Oh, no, Faith, no…please, no.” Blood pounded in her ears, the knot unfurled inside her and she began to shake.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so very sorry,” Faith sobbed. “Oh, Ilke, it’s Ian.”
“What’s happened?” Deep inside, ice spread through her veins. “Please, Faith, tell me what happened.”
Faith started to weep. “The Germans sent over fifty planes. They were headed for the docks at Sunderland and for Driffield. They scrambled the Spitfires first, you know, to go out and head them off, but there was so much going on they asked for the Blenheims too. There was a lot happening. Sandy isn’t quite sure what happened. There were fighters everywhere trying to knock the bombers out of the sky, bullets everywhere, and a lot of enemy planes went down.” She stopped and scrubbed her hand across her face. “Sandy said that one minute Ian was off his starboard wing and then, in the next, he wasn’t. He called for him on the radio but there was nothing and then someone else said they saw the plane go down. One of their bombers was shot down and it nosedived into Ian’s plane,” she cried. “There was a huge explosion and that was it.”
“Are they sure?” Ilona wasn’t sure if the words had actually left her lips.
Faith nodded. “They’re sure.”
Ilona sat up and let Faith’s cold hand fall away. The daylight began to recede until she saw nothing but darkness, a great gapi
ng maw of nothingness. Somewhere, from far away, she heard a thin, high-pitched keening. It was a horrible sound, heavy with all the sorrows of the world and it surrounded her. She realized that the sound came from deep inside her and that someone was reaching through the darkness trying to comfort her, but the words were meaningless. They brought nothing and fell away into the abyss that had closed itself around her.
She curled up on her side, seeking the solace of sleep to escape from the nightmare. In a moment, she would wake up for real, to sunlight and empty barracks and, somewhere, Ian would be waking too, thinking of her and getting ready for another night. Faith was still there, and she was crying and saying that she was sorry. It was the last thing Ilona heard as she sought refuge in the darkness, hoping that somewhere beyond the grief, she would find Ian’s light once more. He couldn’t be gone. Hadn’t he always promised to find his way back to her?
* * * *
Faith was still there when she came out of the empty, starless night. This time she wasn’t alone. When Ilona opened her eyes, she counted half a dozen other girls, all huddled together on Faith’s bunk, watching her with sorrow in their eyes. It looked like all of them had been crying. One or two of them still were and a couple began to weep again when she sat up and stared at them. She felt nothing. Her throat was raw and she found it hard to focus. It took her a little while to realize that it was evening and the sunlight spilled in coppery pools across the floor. Soon, someone would have to draw the blackout curtains and shut away the glorious night and the cooling breeze.
It hadn’t been a dream. There was no Ian waiting for her in the darkness—no tiny, steady light, no gentle touch or whisper. He had gone and Ilona couldn’t find him. There was nothing inside her. The ice had frozen everything. There were no words left, no way to say what she could not even begin to describe. The abyss was there and she clung by her nails to the edge of it, wondered whether she was just waiting to let go and let it claim her.
A Kestrel Rising Page 5
