by Caro Fraser
‘And will you?’
Diana gave a half-smile. ‘I’m afraid war work is out, for the time being. I’m going to have a baby. I’ve only just found out.’
‘Oh, Diana, that’s wonderful!’
‘It is rather. Roddy doesn’t know yet. He’s due home on leave in a fortnight, and I’ll tell him then. I’m just so afraid that he’ll never live to see it. Fighter pilots die every day, and he’s bound to be one of the unlucky ones in the long run.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘That’s what he says. He’s so – what’s that American expression? – so gung-ho. The last time I was with him, he described what it’s like being up in a plane, fighting the Germans. It sounded frightful. The noise, and the fear, not knowing whether the enemy is going to come from behind you or under you. Roddy says it’s all a question of nerve, staying cool under pressure. I think he enjoys it even more than being a racing driver. Well, perhaps “enjoy” isn’t the right word. He thrives on it, says there’s something rather wonderful about getting up at daylight and listening to the dawn chorus over a mug of tea, fighting for your life by lunchtime, and back drinking ale with the locals in some quiet country pub after sunset. To me it sounds utterly absurd.’ She gazed at Meg. ‘How can he possibly go on doing that, day after day, and stay alive?’
‘If anyone has the right temperament to survive what he’s doing, Roddy does.’
‘I know, I know. And I’m so happy to be having our baby. But it’s just another person to be afraid for. And heaven alone knows how I’ll cope, bringing up a child on my own here. I mean, I have plenty of friends, but it’s not the same as having one’s mother or family on hand.’
There was a pause, then Meg said, ‘Why don’t you come and live at Hazelhurst? We would so love to have you. It’s much safer than here. In fact, the more I think about it, the madder it seems for you to stay in London.’
Diana looked doubtfully at Meg. ‘Do you think? I’m such a city girl at heart. You know how I detest the countryside.’
Meg laughed. ‘It’s not about all that any more. It’s about being safe. Honestly, you really should consider it. Will you?’
‘Yes, I’ll think about it. Thank you.’
They talked for another hour or so, then Meg glanced at her watch. ‘Heavens, look at the time. Mother’s expecting me for dinner at eight, and she hates people being unpunctual.’ She got up. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere special for lunch tomorrow, just as a treat? The Criterion, perhaps?’
‘That would be divine. I shall book us a table.’
Meg kissed her sister-in-law goodbye and left. It had been raining hard when she got off the train, but now it had thinned to a fine drizzle. Deciding against the bus, she began to walk to Chelsea.
*
Dan was due to have dinner with friends that evening. He reckoned it would probably be the last evening of its kind that he’d have for some time, and he was determined to enjoy himself; in three days he would receive his orders, and God alone knew when he would next be back in London. He bathed and dressed, and was searching in a drawer for a tie when he came across the jewellery roll which Sonia had given him to deliver to Meg’s mother, and which he’d entirely forgotten about. He swithered for a moment, then decided he probably just had time to make a detour to Chelsea to drop it off. He tied his tie, put on his jacket, put the jewellery roll in his pocket, and hurried downstairs.
‘Rather inclement out there, sir,’ remarked the porter as Dan came through the lobby. ‘I’d advise you take an umbrella.’ He reached behind the desk and handed one to Dan, who thanked him and hurried out into the street with it.
By the time Dan got to Chelsea the rain was petering out. He turned into Cheyne Row and was halfway down when suddenly the harsh, rising wail of the air-raid sirens filled the air. A warden in a tin hat came hurrying round the corner.
‘Where’s the nearest shelter?’ asked Dan.
‘The church down on the Embankment.’ He rushed off, peeping frantically on his whistle.
Dan started to run towards the church. People began to emerge from nearby houses, heading in the same direction. Evening mass had been about to begin at almost the very moment the sirens sounded, and Dan and the others joined the handful of worshippers being herded by the priest towards the entrance to the church crypt. The air was full of voices babbling in panic and consternation, but behaviour was calm and people moved down the stone stairs in an orderly fashion. Someone had gone ahead to light lamps, and the dimly lit interior of the crypt, which consisted of a series of three brick chambers leading into one another and running the length of the church, felt ghostly and strange. As people filed in their anxious voices echoed from the arched ceilings, and at the eerie sound a few children began to cry. Dan, tucking himself next to a stone pillar, glanced around; he estimated that at least a hundred people had sought refuge within the space of a few minutes.
Down in the gloom of the crypt the sound of the enemy planes was fainter. After a few minutes a series of explosions shook the building, and then came the hollow booming of the ack-ack guns. Threads of dust fell from the vaulted brickwork, giving off a faintly acrid smell. Dan could sense the collective prayer being offered up, that the church should not take a direct hit. The useless words, ‘please God, please God’ were not on his lips, but running through his mind, over and over. To distract himself from the dread of the next explosion, he began to study the faces of those around him. An elderly woman in a fur coat stood nearby, her husband’s arm around her, eyes shut tight. The priest himself stood a few feet away, eyes raised heavenwards as he listened, waiting, and looking, though he didn’t know it, like a martyred saint in a Renaissance painting. Next to the priest, crouched on the ground, was a young woman, her head tucked down, her arms around her knees, waiting fearfully. Something about her held his gaze. He waited for her to lift her head, so that he could see her face. Another juddering explosion, nearer this time, shook the earth, and people cried out in fear. The girl looked up, and Dan saw that it was Meg. He threaded his way past people and reached her side, laying his hand on her arm. She gave a start and got to her feet. Her expression, as she gazed at him, was unfathomable.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked incredulously.
‘I was on my way to your mother’s house. She left something at Sonia’s, and I was returning it.’ Whatever reply Meg was going to make was drowned by another explosion. They stood together, waiting, listening. ‘That one was further away,’ said Dan.
Conscious of the warm pressure of his hand on her arm, she struggled with the confusion of her feelings, glad he was there, but at the same time reminded of the hurt and humiliation she had felt after that last conversation with Eve two years ago.
Explosions continued, but the sound seemed to be receding. After a long while they ceased altogether. People’s voices rose in a hopeful murmur. The priest said he would go and take a look, and disappeared in the direction of the steps.
A moment later he reappeared. ‘They’re sounding the all-clear!’
In slow relief, people began to move back upstairs.
‘I was going to my mother’s, too. I’m staying the night,’ said Meg. She scanned the faces of people filing past. ‘I thought she might be here, but I don’t see her.’ They made their way up to the street.
They were met with a scene of devastation. A bomb had fallen on the Embankment, and the nearby houses lay in jagged, smoking ruins. The air was filled with brick dust and fires flickered among the rubble. Wardens, policemen and ambulances were everywhere. Meg hurried to the end of the street, which had been cordoned off by wardens and where teams of rescuers were working among the debris to find survivors.
‘Back you go, love!’ shouted a man.
Meg craned her head past the barriers to see if her mother’s house was still standing. It appeared to be. The evening air was filled with smoke and drizzle and the stench of burning.
‘What’s happened to the people in the houses do
wn there?’ Meg asked a warden.
‘If they weren’t already taking shelter they’ll have been evacuated. We’ve got an unexploded bomb. I’d make yourself scarce if I were you. It’s dangerous round here.’
‘But where have they been evacuated to?’
‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid. Stand back, now!’ shouted the warden, herding people away from the barriers as the bomb disposal came roaring down the street. The drizzle had become steady rain. Dan put up his umbrella.
Meg turned to him. ‘Whatever it was you were returning to my mother, you can give it to me, and I’ll see it gets to her.’ Her voice was shaking. Dan could tell that shock and anxiety had brought her close to tears. He looked into her face.
‘Meg?’
‘Please. I don’t need you to stay with me.’
He took the jewellery roll from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Where do you intend to go?’
‘Kensington. I’ll stay with Diana.’
‘I’ll walk with you.’
‘I don’t need you to.’
‘You’ll get soaked otherwise.’
But the area to the north of the King’s Road had been hit by the air raid, and everywhere streets were blocked off. The rain poured down relentlessly.
‘This is no good,’ said Dan. ‘Come on.’ When he took her arm she didn’t resist, huddling with him under his umbrella.
‘Where are we going?’
‘South Eaton Place, my father’s old house. You can shelter there tonight.’
Five minutes later they reached the house.
‘Thank God to be out of that,’ said Dan, shaking out the umbrella as they stepped inside.
Meg could see nothing in the darkness of the hallway, and the house had a cold, musty smell. Dan fished a torch from a drawer in the hall table and went ahead into the drawing room, the beam from the torch making a ghostly light. She watched in the doorway as he drew the blackout blinds, then switched on lamps.
‘Come in.’
Meg stepped into the room, still in her coat. Dan pulled dustsheets from the furniture.
‘Have a seat. Sorry it’s chilly. I’m not here a lot.’ A fire was laid in the grate. Dan found a box of matches and lit it. ‘I’ll find something else to warm us up.’
He disappeared and returned a few moments later with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He poured the wine and handed her a glass.
‘Here’s rot to Hitler’s guts.’ He stood by the fireplace and drank off a glass, then poured himself another.
Meg said nothing, watching the firelight play on his features. She drank some wine, feeling warmth kindle in her chilly limbs.
‘Three years,’ said Dan. He studied her face. It was closed, impassive. ‘Have they really made that much of a difference between us? You’ve hardly said a word tonight.’
‘We’ve nothing to say to one another.’
‘No? So everything that happened between us was utterly meaningless?’
‘No, not for me – but for you, evidently.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You told Eve about us. According to her, I was simply – unfinished business. A conquest.’
Dan stared at her. ‘What utter rot. When did she tell you this?’
‘Does it matter?’ The past swam into the present, then receded. Meg was suddenly aware of the intensity of connection between them, like an electrical current being switched on. ‘It was two years ago, just before Diana’s wedding. We met in town, and had lunch.’
‘Well, she was lying.’
‘I don’t see how she could possibly have known about us otherwise.’
‘She made a lucky guess. I never mentioned your name, but she knew there was someone I cared for. More than her.’ Meg said nothing. ‘Do you really think I would cheapen something so precious by talking about it – to Eve, of all people?’
Meg raised her eyes, scrutinising his face. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does.’ He put his glass on the mantelpiece and sat down next to her on the sofa. ‘I think about you every day. You made your choice to stay with Paul, but it doesn’t stop me loving you.’
Meg gazed at him, struggling to reconcile his words and the look in his eyes with the things she remembered Eve telling her. Then suddenly she saw very clearly that they must have been lies. Eve couldn’t bear the thought of Dan caring for anyone else. ‘And you still love me, too,’ Dan went on. ‘Don’t you?’ She shook her head, unable to speak. ‘Don’t you?’
She was filled with a sense of weariness and futility. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.
He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she gave in, as she had known she would. But after minutes of kissing him, of drowning in the pleasure of holding him, she pushed him away.
‘Dan, please, we mustn’t do this. Nothing’s changed. My life is with Paul and Max.’
Dan let go of her and stood up. He went back to the fireplace and poured himself some more wine, then stared into the fire for a long moment. He thought about Paul’s name on the list, about what it might mean for Meg, how disastrous it could be. He turned to look at her. ‘Don’t you understand, Meg? The rules don’t apply any more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re in a war. Things can change in a moment. You saw that tonight. I’m going away this weekend – I’m not even sure where yet – and there’s no guarantee I’ll come back. It isn’t about right and wrong, or who you belong to. Those ideas don’t matter. It’s about you and me, and the fact that we love each other. That’s all there is.’ He held her gaze. ‘This, here and now, may be all we ever have.’
It was enough. She rose and kissed him, and clung to him as though she would never let him go, overwhelmed by feelings she had been denying for three years. He led her upstairs to his bedroom. He was about to draw the blackout curtains, but Meg stopped him.
‘Don’t. The light is beautiful.’
Outside, the rain had stopped, and the moon was out. Clouds drifted across it intermittently, so that ghostly light came and went in the room. Dan cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, then began to undress her. She moved against him with an urgency which was so intoxicating that they made love before they even got between the sheets. The relief of having her was greater than he had thought possible.
‘I was afraid this would never happen,’ he told her. ‘I have lain awake at night thinking about it, tormenting myself with the idea that I could get to the end of my life and never be able to love you again.’
‘Hush.’ She put a hand to his mouth, her fingers warm against his lips. ‘Let’s get into bed. I’m cold.’
*
The next morning Meg was woken by early light streaming through the window. She turned over. Dan was still sleeping. She propped her head on her hand and gazed at him. How one’s life could change in the space of a few hours. It had happened once before, and she had never thought it would happen again. But here they were. The randomness of everything frightened her. What if she had got the bus, instead of walking… What if the air raid had been on another part of London… What if…
No, she decided – there was a destiny that meant they should be together. As she contemplated his features, she experienced an overpowering feeling of love, and her heart seemed to rise in her throat. Nothing would separate her from him again. But even as she vowed this, she knew how badly the odds were stacked. There was the war. There was Paul. There was the need for her to keep a stable home for Max. There was the mere practical difficulty of seeing one another in these fractured times. There would be so many moments of pain, and the first would come in just a few hours, when they had to part. She should not look ahead. She should simply exist for now, for this moment of being together. It so easily might not come again.
Dan opened his eyes sleepily, unaware of anything for an instant, like a child. Then he saw her and smiled.
She leaned down and kissed him. ‘Good morning.’
‘Morning.’
Dan yawned, and pulled her down to nestle against his shoulder.
‘Are you really going away this weekend?’ asked Meg.
‘Yes. I get my orders tomorrow.’ The thought of Dan in combat filled her with dread. This was what love did to you, made you a hostage to fortune. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll be back.’ He spoke with casual confidence, reaching out to the bedside table for his cigarettes.
She laughed sadly. ‘I don’t know how you can sound so certain.’
‘Because I am.’ He snapped his lighter and lit a cigarette. ‘I have something to live for now.’
‘You have everything to live for, regardless of me.’
He pulled away from her a little so that he could look at her face, then smiled. ‘The rest is just window dressing. You are what matters.’
She rolled away from him. ‘Don’t. It’s going to be unbearable, not knowing where you are, or what’s happening to you.’
‘If I can write, I will. I’ll send letters addressed to you here. Can you come here now and then? I’ll give you a set of keys.’
Meg thought. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t many excuses for coming to London. But I’ll try.’ If Diana came to live at Hazelhurst, that was an excuse gone. She would have to find others. Her mother, perhaps.
‘I’ll let you know every leave I get, if I can, and then we can be together, here.’ He set his cigarette in the ashtray by the bed and drew her to him. ‘And do this. Over and over.’
*
Later Meg walked to her mother’s house. Attempts at clearing up the damage wrought by the bomb which had fallen on the Embankment had already begun. She gazed at the awful destruction. Neat houses which she had walked past all her life were reduced to smouldering ruin, fragments of the lives of their inhabitants – flowered wallpaper, a broken bed, charred books – pitifully exposed in the morning sunshine. She picked her way through the litter of dust and broken brick on the pavements and made her way to her mother’s house. The cook-maid answered the door, an indication that some kind of normality prevailed. Meg expected to find her mother in a state of agitation, but in fact Helen was quite calm.
