The Color of Secrets

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  “Let’s go and see what’s down there,” he said, pointing to a stream that wound along the boundary of the field.

  “What did you say to him?” Eva hissed as they strolled off.

  “I showed him these,” Bill said, pulling a pair of field glasses from his pocket. “I told him he could take her as far as the stream, but you’d be taking a peek at what they were up to every five minutes.” He chuckled as he passed them to her. “If that doesn’t put him off, well . . .”

  “My, aren’t you clever . . .” She took hold of his lapels, pulling him close. “You even managed to win Dilys over—she was so busy drinking that stuff, she didn’t say a word. What was it?”

  “Don’t you have it over here?” he murmured, nibbling her ear. “Gee, that’s too bad.” His hands slid from her head to her shoulders and down her back. She could feel the heat of them through the thin fabric of her dress as his fingers traced a slow, spiraling path down her spine. Then he knelt on the ground, kissing her bare ankles, her calves, her knees. She felt her legs buckle, and in a moment she was lying beside him, the pale stalks of wheat splaying out around their bodies.

  His fingers were on the buttons of her dress now, tugging at the fabric as his mouth slid down her neck. She could feel his breath on her skin as he paused, and glancing down she saw that he was gazing at her breasts above the low, lacy edge of her bra. The look in his eyes was so strange, like a child the first time he sees snow.

  “Is this okay?” he whispered, his hands sliding around to undo the hooks.

  She wasn’t sure if he was asking her or himself. She stroked his head, her skin on fire as his tongue slid between her breasts. Her heart was beating so fast she was sure he must be able to hear it. Now her dress was down past her waist. With a delicious flick of his tongue across her belly, he raised himself up and moved his body onto hers.

  “Bill, I . . .” she faltered.

  He froze for a second and rolled onto the ground. “You don’t want to,” he said, sucking in his lips as he stared at the sky.

  “It’s just . . .”

  “I know.” His voice was a gruff whisper. “It’s because I’m black.”

  “No! It’s not that!” She closed her eyes and drew in her breath, tugging the fabric of her dress together to cover herself. Oh God, she thought, what am I going to do? She wanted him so much she felt a physical ache where his lips had touched her body. Should she let him make love to her? Would that be such a wicked thing to do? More wicked than letting him think that she despised him? After a silence that seemed to last forever, she propped herself up on one elbow and slid her hand under his neck.

  “It’s not you,” she whispered, drawing him close. “I’m just worried about Dilys and Anton catching us.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

  “Is that all?” He reached for the field glasses, and Eva watched his mouth slide into a smile. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think they’re going to be too bothered about what we’re up to right now . . .”

  Eva almost snatched the binoculars from his hand. “They’re not . . . !”

  “Don’t worry—they’re just necking.”

  She flopped down with relief. Closing her eyes, she could hear nothing but the sweet, distant call of skylarks. The scent of earth and ripening wheat mingled with the scent of him. This is all there is . . . The words echoed in her mind. Without opening her eyes, she let go of her dress, allowing it to slide away from her breasts. She undid the rest of the buttons. The fabric slithered to the ground as she leaned across to undo his. She took off all his clothes, her hands working slowly and deliberately. For a moment they lay still, marveling at the strangeness of their limbs intertwined.

  “You sure?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she said, shutting out the nagging voices in her head as her fingers slid down the smooth slope of his chest. “I’m sure.”

  He cupped her breasts in his hands, kissing them before moving down her body. She had never known kisses like these. His breath and the flicker of his tongue made her shiver and cry out with delight. She felt his hand move across her leg to where his jacket lay, heard the rustle of cellophane. And then in one swift movement he was on top of her and inside her. She clung to him, oblivious of the coarse stalks of wheat rasping her naked back as she writhed beneath him. Her eyes were shut tight, but as she climaxed a rainbow of color exploded inside her head. She heard him moan with pleasure, felt him shudder and then settle against her breasts, his skin as wet as hers.

  When she opened her eyes, all she could see was the sky, clear and blue, stretching endlessly above them. She felt as if he had turned her body inside out, found her soul and set it free.

  Chapter 8

  SEPTEMBER 1943

  A cold wind tugged at Eva’s jacket as she picked her way past a line of women queuing for tangerines. The name of the fruit, scrawled on a makeshift cardboard sign, conjured the smell of the night before. As they had danced together by torchlight, the spiced orange scent of him had rubbed into her skin. She’d asked him how he always managed to smell so delicious. He had hung his head, embarrassed by the compliment. He seemed to have no vanity; no idea how good-looking he was. After much coaxing he had confessed that the scent of oranges came from a bottle of oil he used on his hair. All his friends used it, he said, because it made their hair look more European.

  Then he had stroked her long auburn curls and told her they had drawn him to her that first night at the Civic Hall. “I thought you looked like Rita Hayworth.” He smiled. “But when I got a bit closer, I realized you’re even prettier than she is.”

  Eva smiled at the memory of it. To anyone else it would sound like a lame attempt at flattery, but the way he’d said it, his eyes misty with longing, had made her feel very special. She forgot about her rough hands and her aching back when she was with him. She didn’t care about having to skulk about town, hiding in the darkness of the cinema; didn’t feel the slightest bit envious, waving Dilys off for a dance at the Civic Hall while she waited for Bill on the steps of the air-raid shelter.

  Last week he had surprised her. Coming out of the station after work she’d spotted him waiting for her by the ticket office. She’d dropped her head, fumbling in her bag, telling the others she’d forgotten something. Ten minutes later they were making love, urgent and frantic on a bed of soft grass behind the railway embankment. They had been so desperate for each other that neither had remembered the army-issue condoms in his pocket.

  As she hurried along the street, she caught her breath, her head reeling at the memory of it. She tried to put it from her mind, panic-stricken at the risk they had taken. She told herself that she would be all right; that it had taken her a whole year to get pregnant with David. But she knew in her heart that if things were different, she would be savoring it like a delicious secret, the possibility of Bill’s baby growing inside her.

  She thrust her hands into her pockets and felt the hard edges of a little bottle of Southern Comfort. He had given it to her last night. “Something to keep you warm on that goddamn railroad,” he’d whispered, as they held each other, hidden from prying eyes. He’d slipped it into her bag along with a tin of peaches smuggled out of the cookhouse stores. Her mother had stopped raising her eyebrows when such goodies appeared on the table.

  Sometimes, when they were sitting by the wireless in the evening listening to the news, Eva would catch a pensive look in her eyes. She never mentioned Eddie now. Had she heard some gossip? It was as if her mother knew what was going on but chose to keep silent. If that was the case, she was grateful for it.

  Glancing across the street she saw a newspaper boy blowing on his hands. On a board by his feet were scrawled the words: “ITALY SURRENDERS!” She quickened her pace, remembering a news report that had sent a chill down her spine two nights ago: “Now there is new hope,” the voice from the wireless had crackled, “for all those wives and sweethearts of the seventy thousand British, Commonwealth, and American servicemen held as prisoners of war in
Italian concentration camps.”

  New hope. She thrust her hands deeper into her pockets. The words made her feel like a traitor. What about those other women? Had they spent months, years, wondering whether their men were dead or alive? And what were those POWs going to find when they came home?

  Her head suddenly filled with an image of a weary-looking Eddie walking down the street toward the house. Was it possible? Could he have been taken prisoner? Surely someone would know if that had happened? Weren’t the enemy bound by some international treaty to inform the Allies of those held in internment camps?

  “Eva!” Cathy’s voice, calling from across the street, brought her back to the present. She was waving, a tangerine clutched in her hand.

  “I’ve been queuing since seven o’clock for these,” she said breathlessly as she caught up with Eva. “Did you get any?”

  “No, but Mum and Dilys were going to try—I hope they’re not too late.”

  Cathy stopped as they passed by the newsstand and rummaged in her bag. “I must get a paper—isn’t it fantastic news about Italy?”

  Eva murmured a reply, the words at odds with what she felt inside.

  “They say it’ll be France next.” Cathy glanced up as she located her purse. “I suppose that’s where Bill’s lot are headed.”

  Eva shrugged, not trusting herself to speak. She knew, of course, that Bill would have to leave sometime. But it was something neither of them ever mentioned. It was as if they were living their days in a kind of enchantment that could be broken by a few forbidden words.

  Eva kept her eyes fixed on the pavement as they neared the entrance to the railway. Inside the station there was no chance to talk. The other rail gangers were crowded into the women’s lavatories, changing into their heavy work boots, all chattering at the tops of their voices. It was a raucous mix of exclamations about Italy and gossip about what they’d been up to the night before. Eva and Cathy changed in silence and filed outside to collect their spades.

  By eleven o’clock a sudden shower had turned the stretch of track the women were working on to a quagmire. The rain stung Eva’s face, and she stopped digging for a moment, rubbing her raw fingers to warm them up.

  “Is it tea break yet?” Cathy groaned.

  “Half an hour to go,” Eva said. “Here.” She fished in her pocket for the little bottle. “Have a swig of this to keep you going—but don’t tell the others, they’ll all want some!”

  Cathy’s eyebrows arched as she read the label. “Did Bill give you this? No wonder you’re nuts about him,” she laughed, bending as if to dig and taking a crafty sip from the bottle. As she straightened up, her expression changed. “Have you told him about David?”

  “Not yet,” Eva said, looking at the ground. Cathy had touched a raw nerve. Ever since her first date with Bill, she’d felt guilty about this denial of her child’s existence. Felt guilty about the Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons when she left him with her mother. She could justify it if he was asleep when she went out, but last time he’d still been awake, peering at her curiously through the bars of the cot as she did her hair. It wasn’t fair, she knew that. He was too young to understand why she no longer spent every moment of her free time with him. It would be so much better if she could take Bill home. She took a breath. “I’m going to tell him on Saturday: I’m going to tell him everything.”

  Cathy nodded, raising the bottle to her lips for another sly nip.

  “And if he asks me, I’ll go with him. To America. When the war ends.”

  Cathy nearly choked as she swallowed. “Are you crazy?” Glancing at the women nearby, she lowered her voice. “I mean, even if he’s okay about David, who’s to say he’s still going to be around when the war’s over? Who’s to say any of us are?”

  “I know, I know,” Eva hissed, “but I can’t help it! He’s so . . .” she trailed off, crossing her arms over her chest, her hands gripping the fabric of her jacket. “He makes me feel alive.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Cathy replied. “You’ve been having the best time of your life—having some fun after months and months of just existing from one day to the next. But that’s all it’s supposed to be: a bit of fun. Everyone knows that.”

  Eva shook her head. “It’s more than that, Cathy. I had no idea what it felt like—being in love, I mean—until he walked into my life.”

  “But don’t you see,” Cathy pleaded, “it doesn’t matter if he’s the most wonderful man who ever walked this earth, sooner or later he’s going to disappear from here and he might never come back. You’ve got to think about that—otherwise he’s going to end up breaking your heart.”

  “But it’s not like he’s a normal soldier.” Eva’s voice had a defiant edge. “He told me the colored GIs aren’t allowed to fight: he just does the cooking.”

  “But he’ll still be there, won’t he? Go wherever they go? He could just as easily get a bomb dropped on him in the kitchen as anywhere else.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “I’ve got to say it,” Cathy sighed, “because it’s true. Do you know what Stuart did in the army?”

  Eva shook her head.

  “He was a mechanic. Mended trucks. Not exactly high-risk, I didn’t think when he told me. But he got killed waiting for a boat at Dunkirk. In the end it didn’t matter what job he had—he was just stuck there with all the rest of them.”

  “God, I’m sorry, Cathy. Really I am.” Eva dug her spade into the muddy ground. “I know how it must sound.” She shook her head. “A part of my brain—the sensible, logical part—tells me that you’re right to warn me off; that he’ll be gone soon and . . .” She kicked the pile of earth at her feet. “But I can’t allow myself to believe it. I just can’t.”

  At eleven thirty the women trooped into the canteen. They hunched over steaming mugs of tea, warming their numb fingers as they drank. Iris Stokes, who had taken to staining her lips with beetroot juice since the GIs arrived, pulled a magazine from her pocket.

  “Read us the agony column, Iris,” Betty Pelham shouted from the other end of the table. “I could do with a laugh!”

  Iris frowned and flicked through the pages. “All right,” she said, casting her eyes up and down. “Listen to this one: ‘Dear Leonora, my husband is a prisoner of war and I became so lonely and depressed without him. Then I met two Allied officers who took me out and really cheered me up. The friendships soon developed into something much more serious. Now I realize that I am going to have a baby, and I don’t know which of the two is the father . . .”

  Iris paused as gasps and titters rose from around the table. “‘I have just heard,’” she read on, “‘that my husband, who is sick and wounded, is about to be repatriated, and I do not know how to tell him. What shall I do?’”

  “Poor bugger!” Betty grunted. “Fancy coming home to that!”

  “What’s Leonora say?” another voice piped up.

  “She says: ‘Dear Mrs. X, I appreciate your problems of being lonely and depressed, but how a woman could do such a thing with two men is beyond my comprehension . . .’”

  This brought screeches of laughter.

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  The women went quiet and Iris picked up the magazine again. “‘The main thing to do is to avoid hurting him, isn’t it?’” she read. “‘I advise you, as soon as you know he has reached the country, to write to the matron of the hospital or the commander of the next camp to which he is sent, tell them the whole truth and ask how you can arrange some way of not seeing him until your condition is not apparent. Wait until his health is better before you tell him the truth. It might be the finish of everything if he knew it now.’”

  “What good’s that going to do?” Betty demanded. “She’s still going to have to explain the poor little bastard away, isn’t she?”

  “Not if she gets it adopted,” Iris said, a superior smirk distorting her puce lips.

  “I think she should keep it,” Eva said quiet
ly.

  The others looked at her.

  “Oh yes,” Iris sneered, “and get thrown out on the streets when her husband gets back? Fine mess she’d be in then, wouldn’t she?”

  Six pairs of eyes flicked from Iris to Eva, who rose to her feet. “Come on,” she said. “Tea break’s over.”

  The following Saturday Eva, Dilys, and Anton were sitting in their usual seats at the Savoy cinema. Jane Eyre had started more than half an hour ago and even the most passionate couples had paused to watch Orson Welles running into Joan Fontaine’s blazing bedroom. But Eva wasn’t looking at the screen. The seat beside her was empty and every few seconds she glanced toward the red exit sign.

  “Don’t worry,” Dilys whispered. “He’ll be here soon!”

  But Bill didn’t come. Eva tried to concentrate on the film, a host of possibilities running through her mind. What if his camp had suddenly moved to another part of the country? How would he have been able to let her know? He could have sent her a letter, but what if he hadn’t had time to write? How could she find out where he was?

  Then another nagging voice started up. What if he was tired of her? What if he had decided life was too short to stick to just one girl? All the presents he’d given her—the nylons, the chocolate, the fruit, and the whiskey—how many girls would give their eyeteeth for those things, especially when the giver was so gorgeous?

  Her fingers were on the straps of her handbag, pulling distractedly at them. There was a package inside it for him. She had felt so uneasy about his generosity and wanted to give him something in return. He had laughed when she asked if there was anything he needed, grabbing her around the waist and giving her a long, lingering kiss. “This is all I need,” he’d whispered, “nothing else.” But she had persisted, and in the end he had told her the one thing he really would like was a book.

  “Well, that’s easy,” she’d replied. “What sort of thing do you like?”

  He had looked away, then, and muttered something she couldn’t catch. When she’d prompted him, he said, “You choose. You’re the expert, aren’t you? Working in a library and all.” Then the penny had dropped. He’d hinted at a childhood where money was short. Were books as unattainable as musical instruments? If so, this was something she could remedy. Her books were among the few possessions to have survived the bombing. Stashed under her bed in wooden boxes, they had been better protected than almost anything else in the house.