by Lucy Gordon
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were loving it.’
‘Well, some of it.’
‘Being one of “the few”, having your picture in the paper. After that photo appeared in the national press, the local paper used it as well. Now there’s a copy hanging up in the church hall with “Our Hero” written underneath.’
‘Please, Dee, you’re making me blush.’
‘Nonsense, I know how conceited you really are.’
‘Oh, you do!’
‘Yes, I do,’ she said, laughing as she spoke. ‘And you bask in the spotlight. Oh, Mark, what is it?’ The bleak look had appeared again. ‘Am I being clumsy? I’m sorry.’
‘No, it’s just that…well…it’s not like the romantic picture they give you. When you take off, you never know what’s going to happen.’
‘Of course not, how stupid of me. It must be scary. Are you-?’
‘Am I scared? Yes, but not in the way you think. If you get shot down it’ll all be over soon. I can cope with that. It’s when I shoot one of them down that it gets hard.’
His fingers tightened on her hand and she clasped him back, waiting silently.
‘It’s all right when they’re at a distance,’ he went on. ‘But sometimes it happens close up and you can see them, even hear them scream over the engines as they go down to their deaths.’
‘But otherwise it would be you,’ she urged.
‘I know. You tell yourself it’s them or you but that doesn’t always help. If you see their faces they’ve become real, and you know you’ve killed a man.’
‘A man who was trying to kill you,’ she said firmly.
‘Yes. It’s just a bit of a shock at first. Ah, well, never mind.’
The last words were like a barrier set up suddenly, as though he’d seen where the conversation was leading and didn’t want to go there.
‘Mark, please talk to me if you want to-’
‘I talk too much,’ he said heartily. ‘I can remember when you used to say so.’
‘That was in another world. If you-’
‘Hey, who’s that?’
There was a movement from outside the window and another airman looked in, jerking his head when he saw Mark. ‘We have to get back now,’ he said tensely. ‘Take off in an hour.’
‘Goodbye,’ Mark said, rising and leaning forward to kiss her.
She had a thousand things to say. I love you. Take care. Call me when you get back. But she said none of them, just followed him to the door and stood watching as he walked away. The girls of easy virtue were still there and one of them tried to stop and talk to him, but he shook her off and hurried on.
Mrs Gorton came to stand beside her at the door. ‘Is he your fiancé?’ she asked.
‘That’s him,’ Dee replied, her eyes on Mark’s retreating figure.
She wasn’t really listening to Mrs Gorton, and so missed the slight curious note in her voice. Nor did she hear the way she said, ‘Hmm!’ or see the pitying look the older woman gave her.
In fact she saw and heard nothing in the outside world. Now her whole universe was taken up by the feel of the ring on her finger, and joy that he’d remembered it in the middle of so much else.
There was another happiness, too. She treasured the moment when he’d come so close to confiding in her about the horrors of his job. That was what she could give him, what would draw them closer. All she needed was time. But time might yet be denied them. As night descended and she pictured him high up, making life and death decisions, she knew a return of terror and fiercely clasped the ring on her left hand.
He had said they wouldn’t catch him and it seemed as if he was right. He survived that night’s sortie and many others to come. Now the bombers focused all their attention on London in what became known as the Blitz. Dee and her parents took refuge in the Anderson shelter in the garden while the noise thundered around them and far off they could hear the screams of the injured and the crash of collapsing buildings. By a miracle, the Parsons’ house was left standing, but when they emerged in the morning there was always devastation to be witnessed.
During that time she saw Mark once more, meeting him at the café. When he left she strolled with him as close to the airfield as possible and blew him a kiss as he vanished. The way back lay past the café. To her surprise, Mrs Gorton was waiting for her at the door.
‘You’ve been good to me, so I thought I’d warn you,’ she said. ‘Are you really planning to marry that one?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Well, don’t, that’s all I’ve got to say. I told you last time how some of them carry on, but I didn’t tell you he’s one of the worst.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘Is it? Look at him. A feller like that can have any girl he wants, and don’t kid yourself that he’s all faithful and perfect because he isn’t. He takes what’s offered, like they all do.’
‘Why are you trying to turn me against him?’ Dee asked desperately.
‘Because I like you and you deserve better. Look, my dear, I can understand that you want to grab him while you can. After all, he’s a catch and you’re no great beauty. No offence meant.’
‘None taken,’ Dee assured her quietly.
‘But give him a miss. He’ll break your heart.’
She could stand it no more, but fled blindly, at first not even noticing that she was heading back to the airfield. She stopped a few yards from the wire perimeter, breathing hard. In the distance she could see lights, young men coming and going, laughing. They were ready for anything but expected no call tonight. Some of the figures in shirts and trousers were actually female, taken into the Air Force to serve as mechanics. She remembered how she and Mark had shared a joke about that long ago.
And then she saw him, walking across the grass in the company of two other young men, their laughter carried on the evening air. Three young women, also in uniform, were with them, in a high state of excitement.
Suddenly Mark stopped, turned to one, took her face in his hands and delivered a smacking kiss. Then the next. Then the third, while his male companions cheered and clapped. While the girls giggled and mimed shyness.
At this distance Dee knew she couldn’t be seen, but she still began to move backwards, seeking the protection of the shadows, talking sensibly to herself.
What she had seen meant nothing. Nothing at all. He hadn’t kissed those girls romantically or passionately, but swiftly, one after another, in front of an audience, as if in fulfilment of a bet. Yes, that was it. A bet. Now they were all headed for the tent where the six of them would spend the evening together in innocent camaraderie.
But Mark was the last one to go into the tent, held back by a girl who grasped his hand and seemed to be pleading with him. He was arguing, laughing, refusing her something she wanted. Dee held her breath, knowing that the decision he took now was crucial.
But he made no decision. The others came out, seized him and hustled him in. The tent flap descended. Silence. Now she would never know what he would have done.
Be sensible. You’ve always known he was a flirt, and these are special conditions. Anything that happens now doesn’t count. He didn’t go with her, and he probably wouldn’t have done.
But now Sylvia was there in her head, saying, ‘If he wanted to flirt, he flirted. If I showed that I minded, I was “making a fuss about nothing”.’
Mrs Gorton seemed to be there as well, joining in the chorus of warning, but Dee refused to listen. She began to run in the direction of the bus stop, but when she reached it she raced on, faster and faster, as though in this way she could outrun the truth. She ran until she could run no more, then slowed to a walk and groped her way through the darkness for an hour, until she reached home.
It took a while to talk herself into calm, but she managed it. Mark was risking his life for his country, and if he was occasionally tempted to look away from his fiancée-a fiancée who he didn’t love, she reminded herself-who knew the strain
he was under? What right did she have to judge him?
Bit by bit, she persuaded herself that she was in the wrong. It took much effort for her sensible side kept fighting back, saying that he was selfish and immature. After a while she managed to silence common sense and send it slinking off into banishment, but it cast a grim look at her, warning that it would be back.
It tried one assault in a conversation she had with Patsy, who lived in the next street, whose husband was known as a ‘bit of a lad’, unable to resist temptation, but always returning home in the end with a sheepish look and the plea of, ‘You know it’s you I really love.’
Recently she’d heard that he’d been captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. After sighing about how much she missed him, Patsy added wryly, ‘But at least now I know where he is every night.’
Dee smiled and escaped as soon as she could, but she couldn’t escape the voice that said she’d just seen her own future.
There were small incidents that might mean nothing, like the weekend he was supposed to come and stay the night with the family, but cancelled at the last moment.
Be reasonable, she told herself. He’s a fighter doing his duty. He can’t put you first. The phrase even if he wanted to floated through her mind and was finally dismissed.
It was Pete who delivered the final blow. Granted a few days leave from the airfield, he sought to earn a little extra money at the garage. Joe was glad to see him. Since Mark’s departure he’d been working alone and needed help.
‘He’s a good mechanic,’ he told Dee when she came home that night. ‘And I’ve said he must have supper with us tonight, because I knew you’d want to talk to him about Mark.’
Delighted, she hurried out to find Pete just tidying in the garage.
‘Did he give you a letter for me?’ she asked, ‘or a message?’
He seemed embarrassed. ‘No, I don’t see much of him. We’d better hurry in. I promised your dad not to keep supper waiting.’
‘But you can talk to me about Mark first, can’t you?’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ he said desperately. ‘He’s the highest of the high and I’m the lowest of the low. We don’t talk.’
She waited for the desperate feeling to settle inside her, enough for her to speak calmly.
‘What is it you don’t want to tell me, Pete?’
‘Look, it’s nothing. Something and nothing.’
‘Go on.’
‘They all fool around-not much else to do-and Maisie’s just there for the taking-it didn’t mean anything, only he was a bit late getting back and the top brass got mad at him.’
‘Was this two weekends ago?’ she asked, referring to the time he’d been expected but didn’t come.
‘Yes.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks, Pete. Don’t worry about it, and don’t mention it to my parents.’
‘Look, honestly-’
‘I said it’s all right. The subject’s closed. Finished.’
He wasn’t an imaginative man, but the sight of her face alarmed him. A woman who’d aged five years in five seconds might have looked like that.
He shivered.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WASN’T easy to set up the meeting but Dee managed it, choosing another café near the airfield, not the one where they had met before and where Mrs Gorton’s presence would be all too evident.
While she waited, she took a few long breaths to calm herself. What she had to do now must be done carefully, with just the perfect air of amused calm. At the last moment she felt she’d got it just right, and when Mark appeared she was able to regard him with her head on one side and a faint smile touching her lips.
‘I’m glad you could find the time for me,’ she teased.
‘Yes, well, my commanding officer-’
‘Actually, I meant Maisie.’
Only now did she understand how much she’d longed for him to deny it, but his appalled face made any such fantasy impossible.
‘How the hell did you hear about that?’ he demanded violently.
‘Oh, you’re famous for your exploits, in and out of battle.’
‘Look, it meant nothing. Don’t get it out of proportion. It started with just a few drinks and-’
‘And Maisie came, too,’ she supplied. ‘These things happen, I know. It’s not important.’
He regarded her curiously. ‘Not important?’ he echoed, as if unable to believe his ears. ‘You really mean that?’
She made a wry face. ‘It’s not important because it brings us to a point we’ve been approaching for some time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, let’s face it, this never was a real engagement, was it? You only proposed in order to shut my mother up, and I suppose I said yes for the same reason. What else could we do, caught like that? Since then we’ve seen so little of each other that it’s just drifted, but maybe the time has come to be realistic.’
‘Meaning what?’ he asked in a strange voice.
‘You never really wanted to marry me any more than I…well…’
‘Any more than you wanted to marry me,’ he supplied.
‘It was an act of desperation,’ she said merrily. ‘You proposed marriage to get yourself out of a hole, I’ve always known that.’
He was very pale. ‘Meaning that you think I wouldn’t have gone through with it?’
‘Gone through with it,’ she echoed. ‘That says it all, doesn’t it? You only have to go through with something if it’s an effort, and I think you would have done. You’d have made the effort and done your best to be a good husband. But you wouldn’t have been a good husband because your heart wouldn’t be in it, and I don’t want a man who has to force himself.’
She paused. He was staring at her. Slowly, she lifted her left hand and slid the ring off her finger.
‘I’ve always known you didn’t love me,’ she said. ‘Not enough to marry. It’s better to end it now.’
She held out the ring but he seemed too dazed to move.
‘You’re dumping me?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘That’s all you really care about, isn’t it?’ she asked with a touch of anger. ‘You’re afraid people will know that I broke it off. Don’t worry, everything’s different now. You’re a hero, one of “the few” and girls are queuing up for the honour of your attention. When they know you’re free, they’ll throw a party. You won’t remember that I exist.’
She said it lightly but he stared at her in shock. ‘That’s the first time I’ve known you to say anything cruel.’
‘I’m not being cruel, Mark, I’m being realistic. You’ll find another girl, like you did last time. Our marriage would have been a disaster. Here.’ She held the ring closer to him. ‘Take it.’
Glaring, he did so. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘What I want,’ she murmured. ‘I could never tell you what I wanted. We didn’t have the chance.’
‘And now we never will,’ he said, looking at the ring in his palm.
‘Mark, when you think about it, you’ll see I’ve done the right thing for you. You’re free, as you need to be.’
‘Free,’ he murmured. ‘Free.’
She gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, my dear. Take care of yourself.’
As she slipped out of the door his eyes were still fixed on the ring in his hand. She couldn’t even be sure that he knew she’d gone.
That night her dreams were haunted by a little boy running through an empty house, opening door after door, calling, ‘Where are you?’ with mounting despair.
She awoke, shivering. After that she couldn’t get back to sleep, but lay weeping in the darkness.
The Blitz lasted for eight months, officially ending in May 1941, although attacks on London continued sporadically for long after.
Somehow Dee kept going. With Mark’s departure, all hope seemed to have fled from her life, but there was too much work for her to brood. The hospital was overflowing with the wounded.
> Even so, there were moments when she couldn’t escape her thoughts, when she would lie awake longing, with every fibre of her being, for the man she’d lost. It was useless to tell herself that he’d never really loved her, that they would have had no chance and she was better off without him. Somewhere in the depths of her misery a voice whispered that she’d been too hasty, that she could have managed things better, bound him to her and won his love.
Instead, she’d done the common sense thing because that was her way. She was wise, realistic and sensible. And her heart was breaking.
She knew that a really sensible woman would discard Mad Bruin rather than keep a constant reminder of an unrequited love, but she couldn’t bring herself to go quite that far.
She knew when the planes took off for a sortie because their route lay over the city. Londoners would come out and stand looking up at the sky, not always able to see the aircraft through the clouds or the darkness, but listening until the sound faded. Hours later, they would come out again to hear the return, wondering how many planes and men had been lost.
She had no news of Mark. He never wrote. He’d accepted her rejection as final.
‘How’s that fiancé of yours?’ Mr Royce asked one day.
‘I don’t know. He’s not my fiancé any more.’
She described their breakup briefly and without visible emotion. He listened sympathetically and never mentioned it again, except that he always seemed well informed about the activities of that particular squadron and was able to assure her that Mark was still alive and unhurt. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known.
At work her life was filled with satisfaction, yet there was no joy. In the evenings she would travel home on a bus that crawled along at a snail’s pace because the whole country was under ‘the blackout’. When she got off, she felt her way carefully home in the near darkness. Curtains and blinds kept the house almost invisible from the outside. Once inside, there was the relief of a small lamp.
Joe had joined the Home Guard, a civilian ‘army’ consisting of men who were too old to join the regular forces, or in reserved occupations such as doctors, miners, teachers and train drivers. Their job would be to fight off an invasion, and they were equipped with uniforms and weapons. Joe was proud to bursting point and regular visits to the local church hall for training sessions helped keep his spirits up.
