Broken Rainbows

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Meet Vera and her younger sister … what is your name, sweetie?’

  ‘Harriet.’ The voice was muffled.

  ‘I met them at a chapel social.’

  ‘George persuaded us that there were better things to do than go to chapel on a Sunday.’ Vera managed to giggle and slur simultaneously.

  ‘You found somewhere to drink?’

  ‘All you have to do is knock on the back door of the right pub. Isn’t that so, ladies?’

  ‘George has bought a bottle of sherry.’

  ‘To go with the one of whiskey. How about it, Kurt, want to join us?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ve got rooms in a house on Broadway.’ Harriet swayed as she clung to George’s arm.

  ‘Lead me to them,’ Kurt said carelessly.

  George hesitated for a moment. Making a decision, he pushed Harriet towards Kurt. ‘Two are one too many, even for me, buddy.’

  Richard checked the blackout before switching on a second lamp. ‘Another?’ He picked up the bottle and waved it in front of Anthea.

  ‘I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not? You deserve a good time after years of austerity.’ He poured a generous measure before moving next to her on the sofa.

  ‘You’ve made these rooms really comfortable.’

  ‘Thank you. You do realise that I’m not just out for a casual fling, don’t you, honey?’

  ‘You’ve never said otherwise.’

  ‘It might be wartime and all that, and soon I’ll be going away to fight and I may not be coming back, but the minute I saw you, I knew, I just knew, something special was going to happen between us.’ He abandoned his glass on a side table and took her hand into his. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it as well?’

  Bewildered, she gazed mutely into his eyes.

  ‘Of course you did,’ he continued, answering for her. ‘You’re a gorgeous and unusual girl, Anthea.’ Leaning forward he cupped her face in his hands. ‘There isn’t anyone else, is there?’

  ‘No one in particular,’ she breathed headily.

  ‘I’m selfish enough to be glad.’

  ‘Why selfish?’

  ‘It’s a bit much to ask you to be my girl when I could be sent overseas at any moment.’

  ‘You could go any time?’

  ‘Any time,’ he reiterated. ‘I’m fully trained, unlike some of the other officers, and most of the men.’ He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed the tips one by one. ‘Would you be prepared to wait for me?’

  ‘Of course I would, Richard.’

  ‘I hoped you’d say that.’ He moved closer. Slipping his hand behind her neck he pulled her face to his and kissed her. A long, slow, unhurried kiss that ended only when he tried to put his tongue into her mouth. ‘Chuck won’t be back until tomorrow,’ he reminded her, slipping the buttons on her blouse.

  She closed her hand over his, trapping his fingers.

  ‘I’m not doing anything we haven’t done before,’ he remonstrated.

  ‘We’ve never been alone in your rooms before.’

  ‘You feel safer in the Jeep, or the front porch of your father’s house?’

  ‘There was no risk of you getting carried away there.’

  ‘I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want to.’

  ‘And I don’t want to do this. Not here.’

  ‘Come on, honey. Just a few memories to look back on when we’re apart? That’s not much for a fellow to ask from his girl.’

  ‘But I’m not that kind of a girl, Richard.’

  ‘You’re the kind of girl I love and respect. The kind I want to marry.’

  ‘Marry!’ Her eyes sparkled as they gazed into his. ‘But we only met a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Do you think I want to cram years of loving into weeks? I’d like nothing better than to carry on calling on you, enjoying a slow, leisurely courtship while I get to know you and your folks properly. But there isn’t time, honey. Besides, don’t you feel as though we’ve known one another all our lives?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Honey, I respect you. I love you. Come here.’ He kissed her again, his fingers busily flicking open buttons as he crushed her against his chest, so she couldn’t feel what he was doing. ‘My, but you’re beautiful.’ Pushing her blouse open he pulled down her bust shaper, exposing her breasts.

  ‘Richard!’

  ‘Even when I felt them I never dreamed they’d look this fabulous. No pin-up could hold a candle to you, honey. One glimpse of these would be enough to make any man take on ten armies and win.’ He bent his head and kissed her nipples, teasing them with his tongue.

  ‘Richard … no … at least turn the light off,’ she begged.

  He lifted his head surprised to see that she’d turned crimson. ‘Is this is the first time you’ve done this?’

  ‘What do you take me for?’

  ‘My special girl.’ He lay back, pulling her on to his chest, freeing his hands so he could continue to caress her. ‘If it will make you any easier, we could get a ring.’

  ‘An engagement ring?’

  ‘You do want to get engaged, don’t you?’ He slipped her blouse further down her arms.

  ‘I want it more than anything else in the whole world. But there’s Daddy and Mummy …’

  ‘I thought they liked me.’

  ‘They do. But marriage is such a big step. Where would we live? What would we do?’

  ‘For now, carry on as we are. But after the war we’ll live in Georgia. It’s a beautiful state. My family has a farm there. You’ll love it. Soft clean air, green trees, rolling acres of tobacco and cotton.’

  ‘You’re a farmer?’

  He burst out laughing. ‘Do I look like a farmer?’

  ‘No.’ In her limited experience farmers were part of the rough, uneducated, labouring class her mother had taken pains to shield her from; and farmhouses were badly furnished, rudimentary buildings that smelt of chickens and sour milk.

  ‘We’ve rented out most of the land, but we’ve kept on the big house.’

  ‘A plantation house? Like Tara in Gone With The Wind?’ she broke in, suddenly realising that an American farm could be a very different affair from a few windswept acres carved out of the open hillsides and scrubland of Wales.

  ‘It’s prettier and bigger than Tara. A real, old, family house. We have a lot of get-togethers there, but although I love the place, and we own it and all the land around it for miles, I have no interest in farming. I’m a lawyer, honey. A partner in my father’s firm in Atlanta.’

  ‘So that’s where we’ll live?’

  ‘We’ll get a great, big, modern apartment in the city for the week, and a house in the country for the weekends. One by a lake where we can swim and I can fish. I love fishing, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never tried.’

  ‘I’ll teach you. We could get a boat too. An oceangoing vessel so we can go out in the Gulf. Nothing beats the thrill of fighting a big fellow on the end of a line. I once caught a six-foot shark. It was touch and go for a while whether we ended up on land or in the water.’

  ‘There’s sharks in America!’

  ‘Only in the sea, honey.’ He bent his head and kissed her again. ‘So, you’ll marry me?’ he murmured, pulling her blouse down to her wrists.

  ‘Of course. But you’ll have to talk to Daddy.’

  ‘He’ll probably think we’re crazy for allowing things to move so fast.’ Finally succeeding in removing her blouse, he laid it on the arm of the sofa. Kissing the hollow below her neck he drew the straps of her petticoat and bust shaper to her waist.

  ‘Richard …’ Too embarrassed to look at him, she turned her head.

  ‘I never thought I’d have a wife who looked like you.’

  ‘You really think I’m beautiful?’

  ‘The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’ He fumbled with the buttons that fastened her skirt.

  ‘Richard, no!’

  ‘I tol
d you I respect you, honey. Far too much to do anything you don’t want, but just a little peek? What harm could that do? Think of me a few months from now, out there fighting for you? What we’d both give then, to be back here. Look, I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll take my shirt off first.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘There shouldn’t be any secrets or modesty between engaged couples. Here.’ He handed her his glass as he removed his jacket. ‘Drink that and you won’t be scared any more.’

  ‘What if I have a baby?’ Her voice dropped to a whisper at the shame of even mentioning such a thing in front of a man.

  ‘I want hundreds, don’t you?’

  ‘Not before I’m married. I’ve always dreamed of walking down the aisle in white.’

  ‘And you will, honey.’ He pulled a small packet from his shirt pocket as he laid it on top of her blouse. ‘Thanks to Uncle Sam’s, one hundred per cent foolproof, special issue.’

  ‘What if something goes wrong?’

  ‘What can go wrong with a girl like you?’

  ‘You could hate me afterwards. Mother always says -’

  ‘… and your mother would be right if it wasn’t wartime.’ He bent his head and kissed her lips. ‘I promise, honey, I won’t do anything you don’t want.’

  ‘The light?’

  ‘How about I put the lamp down beside the sofa? That way I can still see you.’

  ‘I have to leave soon.’

  ‘I’ll walk you home.’

  ‘You’ll speak to my father tonight?’

  ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘I do.’ She closed her eyes as he pulled her back down beside him and continued to undress her. ‘Do you think we’ll marry soon?’

  ‘The minute Uncle Sam gives us permission.’

  ‘You have to ask the army for permission to marry?’

  ‘Just a formality, honey.’ He slipped his hand between her thighs, gently moving it upwards. ‘We can’t have undesirables moving into America now, can we?’

  ‘Don’t. You’ll ladder my nylons.’

  ‘There’s plenty more where they came from.’ He pulled her French knickers down to her ankles. Leaving her suspender belt and stockings, he sank back on his heels and looked at her.

  Anthea clung to him mortified, hiding her face in embarrassment as his hands continued to roam freely over her body, stroking, caressing, and returning to what her mother had taught her was the most shameful part of a woman’s anatomy.

  ‘How about it, honey?’ He continued to fondle her as he moved back and looked down into her eyes. ‘I’m going to ask your father for your hand tonight. We’ll be married just as soon as I can arrange it.’

  A peculiar feeling coursed through her veins as his fingers continued to move, gently, insistently. ‘Yes, Richard,’ she breathed recklessly, seeing a golden future for herself as a lawyer’s wife in a world she had only glimpsed on a cinema screen.

  ‘This may hurt a little, but remember that I love you, honey, and you’ll soon feel the pleasure, not the pain.’

  ‘You’ve done this before?’ She was shocked at the thought.

  ‘It’s different for men, honey. You wouldn’t want an inexperienced husband now, would you?’

  ‘No, but …’ She winced as his fingers probed inside her. Clinging to his neck she closed her eyes tightly as he moved on top of her.

  ‘I’ve never done it with a girl I love before. So this is sort of a first for both of us.’

  ‘I love you too, Richard,’ she whispered. ‘With all my heart.’

  Feeling sick and disgusted with himself, Kurt closed the front door and ran down the steps of the house the girls had taken him and George to. George’s mocking comments at his insistence on leaving before the fun had started still rang in his ears. He could barely understand his behaviour himself. The house was grubby and shabby but he’d been in worse whorehouses in the States. The girls were drunk, but no drunker than others he’d had sex with. They were pretty enough and willing to strip but the minute the last of their clothes had hit the floor, he’d fled, leaving Harriet angry and George laughing. It was simply the contrast between them and Jenny … Damn the girl. She’d invited him into her bed when she was obviously seeing another man. She was no better than the two he had left behind. One had even mentioned a husband. Where was loyalty, faithfulness … the things a man had a right to expect in a wife?

  It seemed as though all the women in Britain were using the excuse of war to behave like whores. No, not all the women – there was the girl in the café, Tina. Attractive, with the kind of figure that gave a man sleepless nights, and from what the enlisted men had been saying most of the regiment had tried it on with her, and none had succeeded in getting more than a cup of tea or coffee – and paying for it. Even a smile would have been rated a success.

  He wondered about her husband. What kind of a man was he to inspire such devotion? He’d heard some funny stories about the cathouses in North Africa. Did Tina’s husband frequent the brothels, or, did he spend all his free time sitting in his tent writing letters home? Of course he went with other women. It was too much for a wife to expect a husband to be faithful. Men simply weren’t built that way. Women – decent ladies like his mother – were different. No lady liked sex. Professional whores were something else, they revelled in it, or at least the ones he’d paid had. They never wanted it prettied up in lies and declarations of love like the daughters of respectable families he’d dated.

  Suddenly he knew what was different about Jenny. Why he wanted to see her again. There was nothing false about her, including her modesty. She had behaved like a lady right up until the moment they had been alone outside her house. And in the privacy of her bedroom she had made love like a seasoned whore. What he wouldn’t give to have that in a wife. He almost envied her husband. He might be dead now, but if his wife’s performance was anything to go by, he would have done one hell of a lot of living before he went.

  Bethan heard the quiet tread of David Ford’s foot on the stair, and left the rocking chair to put the kettle on to boil.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked as he opened the kitchen door.

  ‘My own coffee, please.’ He handed her his tin before sitting in the easy chair set at the side of the range. ‘You would tell me if you resented me intruding on you every night like this?’

  ‘Of course. What makes you think that I do?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered the first conversation I had with you.’

  ‘I was being defensive.’

  ‘To the point of attack.’

  ‘I didn’t know Americans were human then.’ Pouring out his coffee and her cocoa she sat in the rocking chair opposite him. ‘To quote Ronnie, you all have two eyes, two arms, two legs and one head, just like us.’

  ‘And just like the Germans.’

  ‘Try as I may, even after what’s happened to Eddie and Andrew, I find it difficult to hate a whole race. They can’t all be bad.’

  ‘Just don’t go putting any thoughts like that into my men’s heads, Mrs John. When the enemy starts pointing guns at their heads I want them to shoot back, not wonder if the man behind the gun is good or bad.’

  ‘Don’t you ever wonder why we’re fighting this war?’

  ‘Wonder and questions are luxuries soldiers dare not indulge in. They get in the way of what has to be done.’

  ‘The killing,’ she murmured, thinking of her brother.

  ‘War is ugly, but occasionally necessary. Your politicians tried to talk Hitler out of trying to turn Europe into a German colony before he invaded Poland. Someone has to stop him before he annexes the whole world. And that’s what my government is paying me and everyone else in the regiment to do.’

  ‘And how many more will get killed before you succeed?’

  ‘That doesn’t bear thinking about, by civilian or soldier. Can’t we talk about something more cheerful like the dinner dance being held in the Park Hotel in Cardiff for American officers and their ladies next Sat
urday? I was hoping you’d do me the honour of accompanying me.’

  ‘I’d like to, but …’

  ‘… I hate buts.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to refuse.’

  ‘Gossips again?’

  ‘If my mother-in-law got to hear of it, I’d never know another moment’s peace.’

  ‘If we leave after blackout and return before dawn, who’s going to find out?’

  ‘Mrs Llewellyn-Jones. She has spies posted on every street corner.’

  ‘Surely that’s an exaggeration.’

  ‘They masquerade as wardens.’

  ‘We could ask Chuck Reynolds and Alma Raschenko to chaperon us?’

  ‘Then tongues would wag at double the pace, because they’d have two loose women to talk about.’

  ‘So the answer is definitely no?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not as sorry as I am, Mrs John. I think both of us would have enjoyed the evening.’

  *……*……*

  Kurt Schaffer heard the unmistakable sound of a champagne cork popping as he fought his way through the curtain that covered the inside of the Llewellyn-Joneses’ front door.

  ‘Kurt?’ Richard Reide opened the door to the formal parlour, a room Kurt had only seen opened up for the maid to dust under Mrs Llewellyn-Jones’s eagle-eyed supervision. ‘Just the man I need. Come and join us. You can be my best man.’

  ‘Best man?’ Kurt questioned dully, wondering if Richard was drunk. He walked in to see Anthea and her parents holding champagne glasses.

  ‘Aren’t you going to congratulate the happy couple, Lieutenant Schaffer?’ The smile on Mrs Llewellyn-Jones’s face broadened into a veritable sunbeam.

  Richard wrapped his arm around Anthea’s shoulders. ‘Kurt, meet the future Mrs Richard Reide the third.’ He countered Kurt’s astonished stare with a warning look.

  Confused and bewildered by the turn of events, Kurt held out his hand to Richard. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘We’re going to be married as soon as the army gives us permission,’ Anthea babbled, drunk on a heady mixture of whiskey, sex, love and the champagne her father had been keeping back for just such an occasion for the last ten years. ‘I am so glad you’re going to be our best man.’

  ‘We’ll have to start planning right away. A wedding takes some organising, even a simple, wartime ceremony,’ her mother warned. ‘We’ll have to have a cake, flowers and a dress. A dress … what about clothing coupons?’