by Anne Bennett
Her mother had dozed off in her chair, she noticed, and she crept quietly into the kitchen, thinking it would be great to drink a cup of tea by herself for once, for even her grandmother was out visiting her old next-door neighbour in Erdington.
She put the blackout shutters up at the kitchen windows so that she could turn the light on and made a swift cup of tea, then sat at the table savouring the peace and quiet.
A knock on the door, sudden and loud, made her jump and she almost spilt the tea into her lap. She went to the door, wondering who it could be, for they had few visitors.
Peering through the gloom of the winter’s evening, Jenny saw a young man dressed in Air Force blue, and, for a split second she thought it was Anthony. She staggered in shock and the young man’s arms shot out to prevent her falling. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, it’s just … I’m sorry,’ Jenny said. ‘For a moment, I thought … My brother was in the RAF.’
‘Was your brother Anthony O’Leary?’ the man asked.
Jenny gave a brief nod and the young man continued, ‘My name is Bob Masters and I was your brother’s squadron leader.’
It was what Jenny had longed for – someone to talk to about her brother, to tell her something of his life as an RAF pilot, and whether it was as marvellous as he always maintained. She opened the door wider and said, ‘Please come in.’
She supposed she should wake her mother, but she didn’t want to, not yet. She wanted to talk to Anthony’s squadron leader alone first. She put her finger to her lips and, understanding immediately the need for silence, he crept behind Jenny into the kitchen, where she immediately filled the kettle again and put in on to the gas.
‘I’m delighted to meet you at last,’ Bob said. ‘I feel as if I know you. Your brother spoke of you often.’
‘Did he?’ Jenny said. There were tears in her eyes. ‘We were very close, Anthony and I. I have three other brothers, but he was my favourite.’
Oh God, she thought, she was going to cry and in front of this young man whom she’d never met in her life before. God, he’d be so embarrassed. She got up and swilled the teapot out under the sink, though it probably would have taken more water, to try and keep a check on her emotions. Bob guessed she was trying to control herself and for a minute or so there was silence in the room, which was broken by the kettle coming to the boil.
Jenny poured boiling water on to the leaves in the pot and said, ‘Was he a good pilot, my brother? It matters, you see, because it was all he wanted to do. If he died doing … doing something he was good at, then maybe … maybe it isn’t so bad.’
Her voice was husky and Bob guessed that tears lurked behind Jenny’s eyes. Gently he took the two cups from her that she’d brought out of the cupboard, and pressed her down on to one of the kitchen chairs. He poured out the tea and passed a cup to Jenny and sat down with his own opposite her. Jenny sat clutching her cup as if she was mesmerized.
Now Bob leaned forward and said, ‘Let me tell you about your brother.’ And Jenny heard that her brother had been a first-rate pilot, brave and seemingly without fear, and his death had been a tragic loss to the entire squadron. Bob told her of the young man he’d come to love and admire as a brother. ‘For his sake I’m here today,’ he said.
Jenny looked into Bob’s dark brown eyes with the long black lashes, and read the sympathy there. ‘It’s so hard, you see,’ she said painfully. ‘We had the telegram, of course, and then his effects were sent over … and it was almost as though he’d never existed. It’s not having a grave, I suppose. It would help if we’d had a proper funeral service and a grave to tend, but there was just nothing but a commemorative Mass.’
‘Believe me, I know,’ Bob said, and he did, for this wasn’t the first visit he’d made in this way, but the one which had affected him the most. He took Jenny’s tiny hand between his own, and though she was embarrassed, she didn’t pull it away for she found it strangely comforting …
For the first time she realised how dark-skinned Bob Masters was. It was as if he had a deep tan. His mouth was wide and generous and his chin firm; his hair was so black and silky, it shone with a blue tinge. She noticed how powerful his hands were; she gazed at the black hairs on the back of them and his long fingers and square nails.
‘I’m holding you up,’ Bob said suddenly, dropping Jenny’s hands and getting to his feet.
‘No, not at all,’ Jenny said, although she hadn’t even started on the tea. Facing him she asked, ‘Do you think my brother died happy?’
‘I think he died doing something he loved,’ Bob said, ‘and when you think of it, few can say that.’ He put his hand in his inside pocket and said, ‘He gave me something for you. He left a letter with me in case anything should happen to him.’
‘For my mother?’
‘No, for you,’ Bob said. ‘He was quite specific.’ He withdrew an envelope from his pocket and placed it in Jenny’s hands. She looked at the dear familiar writing and felt tears well in her eyes. Bob saw the raw emotion in Jenny’s face and he said gently, ‘I’ll leave you now. You’ll need to read your letter in peace.’
And though Jenny did want to read her letter in privacy, she didn’t want Bob to leave. He was the last link with her brother. ‘No, please,’ she said. ‘Please don’t think you’re intruding.’
Bob stood up straight and asked, ‘May I call again? I have a spot of leave and nowhere particular to go at the moment.’
‘Oh, please do come,’ Jenny said. ‘During the day my mother will be here and my grandmother. I’m sure they’d be delighted to meet you. I will be at work, I’m afraid.’
‘Fort Dunlop – that’s right, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I told you – your brother spoke of you often,’ Bob said and added, ‘Could I pick you up from work tomorrow? Perhaps we could go somewhere and talk.’
And Jenny knew she would meet the good-looking man who had been her late brother’s squadron leader, whatever it took. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You could pick me up outside the factory at half-past five.’
‘Till then, Miss O’Leary,’ Bob said with exaggerated formality and with a slight bow he was gone. She didn’t see him to the door, but stayed in the kitchen with the letter crushed in her hand, and the second the front door closed behind Bob Masters, she ripped the letter open.
Dear Sis,
In some ways I hope you’ll never receive this letter, because that will mean I’m dead and there is so much yet I’d like to accomplish in my life. But I know that my death will not have been in vain and almost expected, for after every sortie, there are men missing. When the call goes to ‘scramble’ I feel my legs turn to water with fear. We are all scared, and anyone who tells you different is a fool, or a liar – and neither is to be trusted. But when you are up there in the sky, fear leaves you and yet you know that if you make one slight mistake, you will not get down alive. You face your own mortality daily, and the fact that you are reading this letter, means that I have come to the end of mine.
I believe I have played my part in attempting to halt the monster creeping over Europe like a vengeful dragon, burning and destroying all in its path. I believe if Hitler had succeeded in destroying the Air Force, he would by now be occupying our islands – our Navy would have been bombed out of the water. So accept my death as the sacrifice to be paid, remember me with pride, but please, Jenny, get on with your life.
I know you face as much danger as I do. I went out with a young Cockney girl once who told me how the ARP wardens beaver on throughout a raid to reach the trapped and injured. I won’t urge you not to take risks, for this war will not be won that way, and win it we must.
I will instead ask you to do the best you can and do not allow yourself to be a martyr to Mother. You’re not martyr material and remember, she is not half as helpless as she makes out. Remember also this is our one crack at life, and despite my death, I don’t consider I threw mine away. I’d hate you to d
o that with yours.
OK, lecture over – time to go.
Till we meet again.
Love, Anthony xxxx
It was as if Anthony was in the room talking to her, and Jenny felt profoundly comforted. She heard the front door open and knew her grandmother was back. And here she was, sitting in the kitchen with tea not even started and the blackout curtains not pulled across the living room windows. She pushed the letter into the pocket of her skirt and went into the room, knowing she’d have to tell them about Bob’s visit and knowing also she’d get it in the neck for not waking her mother up.
However, when Jenny did go in, her mother was already awake and she attacked her immediately. ‘Left me in the pitch dark, and the fire nearly out as well.’
‘I’m sorry, Mother, but you were asleep,’ Jenny said, pulling the blackout curtains together so they could turn the light on.
‘I was not. I was just dozing,’ Norah said indignantly. ‘And what’s more, I haven’t had a bite since lunchtime. You’ve not made so much as a cup of tea since you came in.’
Jenny poked up the fire and put on some small nuggets of coal before she said, ‘I’m sorry. I would have started the tea, but we had a visitor.’
When she said who it had been, her mother was further incensed that she hadn’t woken her up, and Jenny was tempted to say that if she’d just been dozing as she’d maintained earlier, she would have woken up herself.
‘Didn’t you think I had a right to see him too?’ demanded Norah, and Jenny knew she did and felt guilty. ‘You take too much upon yourself, young lady.’
‘I can’t believe you spoke to Anthony’s squadron leader on your own without informing your mother,’ Eileen put in. ‘Your selfishness leaves me almost speechless.’
‘He’s meeting me after work tomorrow,’ Jenny said. ‘You’ll see him then.’
‘And why, pray, is he meeting you?’
‘I don’t know.’ And Jenny really didn’t know. She couldn’t understand it; it must be something Anthony had asked him to do.
Despite that, she dressed with care the next morning, discarding her navy costume as dowdy and picking the dark red one with the soft pink blouse that she normally wore for Mass. She pulled on the pair of silk stockings she’d got as a Christmas present from Francis, and polished her best black shoes with a Cuban heel.
She didn’t normally wear much makeup, but that morning she creamed her face well and dusted it over with powder in an attempt to hide the freckles. She rouged her cheeks and put the merest touch of lipstick on her lips, but her eyes she left alone; they were big enough and the lashes long enough to need nothing else.
She gazed with despair at her unruly mop of auburn curls, pulling her comb through them ruthlessly; they went their own way as usual. But still, she told herself, Bob knew she looked like some sort of freak and he’d still said he’d meet her. Her hair would have to do. She dabbed the Californian Poppy scent Martin had given her behind her ears and on her wrists, and was ready for work.
A couple of hours before the hooter heralding the end of the working day, Jenny began to get anxious. She wondered what Bob meant about ‘talking to her’. Hadn’t he said all there was to say? She didn’t know how to talk to boys or men – she’d had no practice. She’d enjoyed her brothers’ visit home over Christmas, but she hadn’t talked to them properly; she’d only discussed current issues like how the war was going. And of course they were never interested in her views, only their own. They’d always managed to imply she was just a woman and wouldn’t understand.
Still, she had to meet Bob Masters now, she’d said so and that was that. And there was no point making a big deal of it either – so why did she feel the need to touch up her makeup and reapply her scent just before half five?
As soon as they left the office building, the icy blast of wind hit the huddle of people making for the gate. ‘Isn’t it perishing?’ one shouted.
‘Aye, it’s for snow I’d say.’
Jenny, tucking in her scarf and lowering her head against the onslaught, thought they could be right. She could smell the cold, and when she took a breath in, it hurt her teeth and caught at the back of her throat.
‘Too bloody cold for snow, mate,’ someone called.
‘Too bloody cold, you daft bugger? Have you seen the North Pole?’
There was laughter at this, but Jenny was too unnerved to laugh. She hoped Bob was waiting for her. If she had to hang around, she’d stick to the ground in cold like this. The grey-green mist from the canal just in front of the main gate began to swirl around them, only now it was mixed with the oily black smoke from the Smokey Joes that were lit every evening to cover everything with dense smoke to confuse the enemy.
Jenny hated the Smokey Joes. Everyone did. The acrid smell of burning oil was bad enough, but worse were the black smut particles that settled on clothes and was the very devil to get off. Jenny hoped anxiously her coat wouldn’t be spoilt. It was a saxe-blue colour with a wide full belt, and cut in military tradition. It was pure new wool and the smartest coat Jenny had ever owned. She’d bought it from a draper’s shop on the Kingsbury Road for £8 10s, and she’d had to pay in for it over eight weeks. She didn’t normally wear it for work, but kept it for Mass, like the jaunty tam o’shanter her gran had knitted for her in blue with stripes of cream and pink to match the scarf. But there, she’d worn it now and if it was ruined she had only herself to blame.
And then suddenly it didn’t seem to matter, for there at the tram stop Bob stood waiting for her, his hand stuffed into his greatcoat and his collar turned up against the cold. Jenny smiled; she wasn’t aware how it transformed her face or how Bob suddenly felt as if his heart had stopped beating. He went towards her and took her arm companionably, saying as he did so, ‘I thought we’d take the tram into Birmingham. We can eat there and then go to the cinema or something. Unless there’s something you’d rather do?’
‘I can’t,’ Jenny gasped. ‘I must go home, my mother—’
‘It’s all right – I’ve seen them,’ Bob said. ‘I called in this afternoon. I also visited your other grandmother, Mrs O’Leary. Anthony asked me especially to go there if anything happened to him, you know. Anyway, I explained to your mother that I was taking you out tonight and they’re all right about it – they said they’d manage.’
Surely though, this was beyond what could be expected, Jenny thought. Whatever Anthony had asked him to do, surely it hadn’t included taking his sister out for the evening? But she allowed Bob to help her into the tram and it wasn’t until they were sitting down together that she said, ‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’
‘Do what?’
‘Take me out like this.’
Bob looked at the girl he’d only just met but had heard lots about from Anthony O’Leary. He’d said his sister was a smasher and so she was. She was so dainty and small, she looked like a child, especially with the sprinkling of freckles across her face. But there was nothing childlike about her full sensual lips that he was very tempted to kiss, nor the large beautiful brown eyes. The auburn head of curls framing her face, despite the tam o’shanter, was her crowning glory. At that moment, Jenny’s eyes looked troubled and Bob said, ‘I know I don’t have to. I want to.’
‘But why?’
‘Why?’ he repeated in a surprised voice. ‘To get to know you better, to give you a good time. Why any man takes out a pretty girl, I should imagine.’
But she liked to get things straight. ‘I’m not pretty,’ she said. ‘And I’m not fishing for compliments, or being shy, so don’t think it.’
‘No, you’re right,’ Bob said. ‘You are more than pretty, you are beautiful.’ Jenny went to interrupt and he put up his hand. ‘Now, now, Miss O’Leary,’ he said with mock formality. ‘You must let me have my say, and I say you’re beautiful, and my opinion must be considered.’
Jenny smiled, ‘You are a fool,’ she said, and Bob felt his heart hammering against his ribs as he saw how the smil
e lit up her face.
Steady! He told himself. You hardly know the girl. But he was aware that he wanted to get to know her better, and Jenny felt the warmth of his praise wash over her. She didn’t feel such a freak now but she certainly wasn’t pretty or beautiful. The man was mad, she decided, but very kind. ‘And another thing,’ she said. ‘I’d say you need your eyes testing.’
Bob burst out laughing and squeezed Jenny’s hand tight. ‘Your brother said you were a smasher and he was right, you are.’ he said. Jenny blushed crimson and knew there was nowhere else she’d rather be at that moment than beside Bob Masters in a tram going towards the town and so she sat quiet with her hand in his and just enjoyed the experience.
Linda watched Jenny come into the ward with a young man following behind and she hoped she had a boyfriend at last. She’d asked her once about boys and Jenny had said she had no one special and wasn’t particularly bothered about it. ‘I’m not so popular with men,’ Jenny had said.
Linda thought that was plain daft, especially as Jenny was so pretty. Linda wished she had curly hair like hers, especially when it shone like gold in the light. And her face was so friendly looking, too; even her freckles seemed friendly. Anyway, she thought, she seems popular enough with the bloke she came in with because he keeps smiling at her.
Bob would rather have been holding Jenny close in some dim-lit cinema, than visiting a child in a hospital bed, but he hid his reluctance well. Jenny had told him about Linda as they’d eaten their tea in Lyon’s Corner House in Bull Street opposite the mound of rubble that had once been Grey’s Department Store. Bob hadn’t seen much of the pounding the city had taken, nothing could be seen through the blacked-out windows of the tram, and though he had a torch, the fuzzy pencil of light the government insisted on illuminated little. ‘Now,’ Bob said when their meals were in front of them, ‘Give me one good reason why you can’t go to the cinema with me this evening.’
