At Long Last Love

by Milly Adams

  He nodded and as she walked to the microphone, the boys began to play.

  Chapter Three

  Sarah walked past prostitutes puffing on their cigarettes behind cupped hands. Would a warden shout at them, as Percy in the village shouted at the lads who did just that, when they had managed to get some from somewhere? As she grew accustomed to the dark she heard music from darkened clubs, and saw doormen moving their weight from foot to foot, making a show of looking up and down the dark street, not to mention doing the same to her. The moon was full and cast a cold light, which, when she turned a corner, didn’t stop her knocking over a dustbin. A cat yowled as the bin lid circled on its rim.

  She hauled up the bin and the lid, but left the detritus on the ground. Someone yelled, ‘What the hell is happening down there?’ Sarah hurried on, but the rubbish on the pavement bothered her and she returned, kicking it into the gutter. Let the rats enjoy it. She continued on her way. It wouldn’t take too long to reach Waterloo Station from Soho, which is where she’d have to wait for the early train.

  As she crossed Shaftesbury Avenue she heard the faint rumble of aeroplanes off to the west, and distant ack-ack as searchlights explored the sky. There were no air-raid sirens, so they weren’t heading here, but somewhere would be hit tonight.

  She hoped the walk through the night would air the stale smoke from her clothes and hair, in much the same way as if she hung herself up on a washing line. She laughed, thinking of Melbury Cottage, which belonged to her now. When her father died, Derek had strung a new washing line across the long, narrow back garden, so perhaps she could dangle from that when she arrived home. For some reason they still used the pegs bought from the gypsy encampment that used to be set up every year in the woods.

  She cut down a narrow street, heading south, knowing that once she reached the river she could follow the Embankment until she reached Waterloo Bridge. She should have thought to tell Kate it was only for a month right at the beginning. All right, it was a lie, but this was war and everyone should do their bit. Inside, Kate was a good girl and loved helpless things, or so Sarah told herself as she used her torch with its slit of light to illuminate her way, as clouds covered the moon. She skirted around a letter box.

  Kate had been fourteen, turning fifteen, when the gypsies came that last time. Even though she’d been sent to her room each evening by their father, she had clambered out of the window at night and sneaked off to the woods, or so they had pieced together afterwards. It was behaviour that had done untold damage and brought great changes.

  Sarah reached the Embankment and hurried along, hearing the wind over the river. Then over the bridge, until finally she reached the station, waiting for hours until she boarded the early train. Her brain was numb with tiredness, and her thoughts seemed orchestrated by the train’s motion as it rumbled over the points. Where are you, Derek? Wait for me, I’m coming.

  There were no lights in the carriage, but she could hear the snoring and snuffling of the five soldiers and two sailors who had stumbled into the carriage as the whistle blew at Waterloo. Perhaps the sailors were bound for Plymouth, and the soldiers for who-knew-where. Not Little Worthy – not yet, though it was said some GIs were due in the area soon.

  They passed through dark stations lit by the moon.

  Yes, the GIs were coming. Some were already here; there were a few in that club. The war would turn, and she would help it do so. ‘I will help,’ she whispered, repeating it in time with the wheels. ‘I will help, and I will find you, Derek.’

  Thank heavens she had noticed the advertisement requesting photographs of France, especially any coastal areas. She had sent some, explaining that they had been taken when she was living as a nanny in the early Thirties for two years south of Limoges. She had added that she was fluent in French.

  She had been invited for a talk with someone in Baker Street, London, and had gone, leaving Lizzy with Ellie Summers, the nanny. She had returned, her life altered by hope. Hope that she would pass her SOE – Special Operations Executive – training, which meant that she would be parachuted into France and might at last find Derek. She stared out into the night. Saying that she was a FANY hadn’t been a lie, because she actually had to become one to be able to carry arms, under international law. She had been asked if she had dependants. Warily she had said, ‘A sister.’

  She had not mentioned Lizzy at the interview, in case a child would prevent her being accepted. However, as the days passed and Ellie told Sarah of her decision to leave and join the WAAF, what appeared to be a disaster proved to be anything but. No doubt Lizzy’s existence would be discovered, but by then Sarah would have proved her mettle. If, in addition, a relative was in loco parentis, surely the problem was solved.

  The train was slowing. They had reached Dorset; soon she would be in Yeovil, then she had only a few miles to go. She would telephone Kate tomorrow for her answer. Mrs Summers, her mother’s old friend and Ellie’s mother, had said she’d keep Kate on the straight and narrow, and Sarah had to believe that. Oh, but that club; that dress, which left nothing to the imagination; and then there was all that flirting with the soldier.

  Across from her one of the sailors started upright, as though alarmed.

  She said, ‘We’re in Dorset and will soon be in Sherborne, and then Yeovil.’

  ‘That’s all right then, missus. Way to go yet.’ He slumped asleep again.

  The train was soon coming into Yeovil. She stood as it drew to a screaming halt. She stepped over the troops’ outstretched legs, opened the door and eased down onto the platform into the darkness.

  It went without saying that Kate would be needed for much longer than a month, if her training went well, but it was the least the girl could do. Anyway, there was time to sort out that particular problem.

  In London, Kate sat huddled in the hut with Frankie the barman, who led her ARP shift. She kept her uniform and tin hat in her dressing room, and the other girls laughed about it. As she left the club she had told Brucie of Sarah’s request. ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she had said when he had refused her leave, telling her she did more good entertaining the troops and their ladies than looking after a child for someone who had enlisted in the FANYs. She had replied, ‘If I have to go, even for the whole month, you must agree, or I leave altogether.’

  She sat on a crate alongside Frankie, cupping the enamel mug, which was warm from the weak tea he’d brewed over his Primus stove. Would she really leave the Blue Cockatoo? She had her flat, and supposed she could find work in any of the clubs, but Brucie was her boyfriend, and who else would have her, with a back like hers?

  ‘Dawn’s not far away, lass,’ Frankie said, slurping his tea. ‘You look as though you might need a gin, after that visit you ’ad this evening?’

  She laughed quietly. ‘Best not; we’ve another few hours on the clock, and I’ll end up snoring on our beat.’

  ‘Righto. Who was it – if I’m not stickin’ me oar in?’

  Kate drained her tea, shook it out onto the earth floor. The hut had been set up at the start of the Blitz so that the wardens could take five minutes’ break when the bombs were quiet, or to huddle in out of the rain from time to time. ‘It’s a long story, but she’s my sister. She’s joined the FANYs and is going off to train for a month, and she needs me to fill in until the new nanny arrives.’

  ‘Might be a good idea, Kate. You’ve worked non-stop for as long as I can remember. Gertie used to say you’d come to a sticky end, if you didn’t take a break. ’Ow long did you say it would be?’

  ‘Just a month at most – in a couple of days.’

  ‘After that it’s the nanny, is it, while she’s ’ere, there and everywhere with the ruddy FANYs?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Ain’t given you much notice.’ Frankie sniffed. It was the only thing about him that irritated Kate.

  ‘It must be an epidemic. The nanny didn’t give her much, either, I gather.’

  He wiped out his cup, stowing
it in his canvas bag. He took hers, doing the same. She was on her feet, her gas mask over her shoulder. She pulled her tin hat down, careful to tuck the strap under her chin. Together they went out into the street and continued to patrol.

  One of the terraced houses was showing a chink of light. She banged on the door, calling through the letter box, ‘Cover that window – you’re showing a light. It’s not dawn quite yet.’

  ‘Okey-dokey. Sorry, luv.’

  They moved on, greeting the prostitutes, who were making a better living, now the Blitz was over. ‘Puts the punters off,’ one of them, Gladys, had said to Kate during the Blitz. ‘Talk about the earth moving – it’s a bloody nightmare for business.’

  Gladys was on the street this evening. She smiled at Kate. ‘’Ow’s yer back these days, luv? Them bloody bombers should look where they’re chucking their eggs. Must be more than a year ago now, isn’t it? Lucky you’re not one of us and having to spend most of your time on it.’ They all laughed.

  ‘It’s all right thank you, Glad,’ said Kate. ‘Best be getting on, though.’

  Kate and Frankie walked further along.

  ‘D’you ever hear from Stevie, that little toerag you saved when the bombs fell that night?’ Frankie asked. He rattled the door of a bomb-damaged house, which was condemned as unfit for human habitation. It held.

  Kate grinned. ‘Every month, since I got hurt, he’s waiting outside the club with something he’s filched or found on the back of a lorry.’

  ‘Ah, well, as long as ’e’s still grateful. Your back took a right pummelling, and I don’t know how you managed that damned tango tonight. Even I can tell it still pains you, no matter what you say.’

  ‘Oh, stop fussing, it’s not too bad and I can’t let it take over.’ They turned down the very street that had caught the stick of bombs that particular night in May 1941. It was strange the things she remembered when they reached this part of their beat: it wasn’t the fear, but the smell of the sulphur, and the judder of the ground as the bombers dropped their loads, seeming to chase them as they ran faster and faster, beckoning and yelling at residents who dithered, ‘Get to a shelter.’

  It was then that they had seen several ARP wardens outside old Perkins’s furniture shop, heaving furniture into the back of a lorry.

  Frankie had called out, ‘Where you from, lads?’

  The men had turned, seen them and not replied, but had called to their mates who were coming out with another load to hurry up, while one of them had jumped into the driving seat and revved the engine. Frankie had turned to Kate, shouting against the noise, ‘It’s one of them masquerading gangs, stealing Perky’s stuff. Bloody buggers – where’d they get them ’elmets from? I’ll bloody show ’em.’

  He’d taken out the truncheon that he had ‘found’ heaven knew where. She remembered holding Frankie back. ‘You’ll get hurt, you daft beggar. Blow your whistle; that’ll scare them off, if they can hear it over the noise. We’ll tell the police later.’

  The bombs had been dropping closer and closer. The sky looked as though it had caught light, and buildings were burning; everywhere there were crashes and screams. The ground had shaken.

  ‘Bloody fools,’ she’d yelled at the men as Frankie dragged out his whistle. ‘Get to a shelter. Leave the damned chairs.’

  Instead the lorry had roared off past them, straight towards the bombs, whilst the men ran the other way, with Frankie giving chase. Another load of bombs had fallen. She remembered how the blast had flung her against a lamp post, knocking her helmet to one side. She had seen one of the gang running after the lorry, shouting, ‘Dad. Dad.’

  The lorry had copped it, a direct hit. She had taken off after the lad as another bomb screamed down. She’d just managed to grab him in time, but he’d kicked her away, screaming, ‘It’s me dad in the truck.’

  Here, in the calm of a post-Blitz night, with weeds growing through the pavement cracks, she stood quite still and looked at the spot where she’d brought him down. Yes, there, where number twelve had been. The bomb had landed in the street behind, and its blast had demolished numbers ten to fourteen. She had thrown herself on top of Stevie as another bomb blasted a further three houses to smithereens. Her helmet had fallen to the ground, but she hadn’t heard the clatter because of the bombs and falling masonry. Shrapnel, bricks and heaven-knew-what blasted through the air, slicing her arm, while her helmet rocked on the pavement. There was another crack, not a crash, and a burning lintel dropped to the road beside them. She had watched as it teetered, like a pillar. How extraordinary, she remembered thinking. How could it balance like that in all this chaos? It didn’t, not for long, for it toppled, impossibly slowly, across her back.

  There was such dreadful pain, and a smell of burning flesh, and then she remembered nothing else until she was in hospital that evening. There the nurse had cleaned and stitched the cut on her arm, and applied a dressing to her back. She discharged herself in the morning, pushing away the doctor who wanted her to see the burns specialist. His white coat was streaked with soot and blood, his face drawn with exhaustion, after a night of tending the wounded. Her hand had snagged the stethoscope hanging around his neck.

  ‘I’ll look after it myself – take your hands off me, for God’s sake, or I’ll strangle you with this,’ she’d yelled, yanking on the stethoscope. She remembered how sore her throat had been from the smoke.

  She’d dragged herself to the double doors, but before she could leave, a nurse came over and gave her a large packet of burn dressings, with instructions to collect more when she returned in ten days’ time, to have the stitches removed from her arm. She’d bandaged her back herself, and duly returned to the hospital when the stitches were pulling. The nurse removed them, then checked her back, gasped and called the doctor.

  Kate had pushed her way past the doctor once again. He called after her, ‘I’ll try not to hurt, but it really should be checked for shrapnel.’

  She’d just laughed, but it was a sudden, harsh sound.

  She had not returned. And now, in the quiet of the pre-dawn, she said, ‘It was one way to spend an evening, wasn’t it, Frankie?’ They both laughed.

  He said, ‘That’s one way to put it, lass, but it’s all part of the job, let’s face it.’ She eased her back now. Frankie said, ‘You all right, lass?’

  ‘You know I am. I always am, just like you.’ She tucked her arm in his. ‘We’re Derby and Joan, we are, Frankie, though neither of us is old enough. Did you know you’re only three years older than Stan, so you could be doing the tango every night and showing us all how.’

  ‘Not without my Gertie. Bloody bombs, they take out the good ’uns, lass.’

  ‘Indeed they do.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Do you think they have ARP wardens in villages?’

  ‘You going then? Cos I won’t ’alf miss you, if you are.’

  They were heading along the main road and would take the next right and come back onto their circular route as dawn began to break. ‘I’ve told Brucie I might, but I still don’t really know. There’s a scout coming, Frankie. It would be my big break, if he likes me. I could really make it then, because America would be part of the deal.’

  They waved at the milkman. It was a miracle there were any milk bottles left.

  ‘Tricky one, isn’t it? Not sure what Gertie would say.’ Frankie increased his stride, because a man had left his house, leaving the door open. Frankie called, ‘Hey, mate, you’ve left your door open. Enough robbers round here, without giving ’em a bleedin’ invitation.’

  Just then a woman popped her head out of the door. There were rollers in her hair and she wore a dressing gown. ‘Oh, stop your naggin’, Frankie Dawson.’

  He called, ‘Ah, didn’t know it was you, Lily. Sorry. And to you, mate.’ The man hurried along the pavement, his briefcase knocking against his thigh, his suit smart and pressed.

  Frankie came back to Kate, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what’s the world coming to. That Lily ain�
�t no better than she ought to be. Her ’usband’s overseas, and who the ’ell that is, I don’t know.’

  Kate laughed as they hurried past Lily’s house. ‘People said that about me in the village – and probably still do. Perhaps, like me, the truth is that Lily’s an angel and he’s a lodger.’

  Frankie looked up at the sky. ‘Just look at them flying pigs whizzing past. By that, I don’t mean you ain’t no better than you should be. You’re a doll, in my book. So, will you go?’

  ‘Not a word for years, and here is my sister.’

  ‘You ain’t said no, though.’

  ‘Not yet.’ They walked on, checking their watches. It was so quiet these days, so different. Would the bombers ever come back to London? There hadn’t been a raid on Exeter for a couple of months, either, but did that mean there wouldn’t be? Would Yeovil escape? Would Little Worthy? So many questions, so many answers not yet known, so many decisions not yet made.

  Chapter Four

  On Saturday, Kate waited until the train screeched to a halt at Yeovil, before swinging her case down from the luggage rack. She stepped onto the platform. Others left the train too, but she didn’t recognise anyone. She slammed the door shut. The guard waved his flag, blew his whistle and for a moment she was tempted to leap back on. Instead she made her way to the exit as the train chugged on to what was left of poor blitzed Exeter.

  Her feet ached in her high heels, but she was damned if she was going to disappoint the Little Worthy inhabitants, who were expecting someone who was to be disapproved of, so that’s what they’d get. She even wore silk stockings, courtesy of Tim Oliver, the GI who had been sad that she would be absent for a whole month. ‘Ya what?’ he had said last night, handing her a rose he held between his teeth as they danced to Manuel’s rendering of ‘Cheek to Cheek’. ‘What’ll we GIs do?’