When the Lights Go on Again

by Annie Groves

  Lou and June exchanged glances.

  ‘I suppose the driver was talking about those women they’ve been going on about in the papers, who target young servicemen, especially the Americans,’ June commented to Lou a little later when they had paid their fare and were standing outside their hotel, a gloomy-looking building on the Edgware Road, its windows firmly blacked out.

  ‘You mean the ones they call Piccadilly Commandos?’ Lou asked, using the name by which the young women, both professional and increasingly amateur, who offered sex to the thousands of uniformed men who flooded the city on leave, were known.

  Nodding, June started up the flight of stone steps that led to the hotel entrance. Once they were past the black-and-white-tiled floor of the outer hallway, and inside the building proper, the smell of cooking cabbage, and paraffin from the heaters attempting to warm the hotel ‘reception’ made Lou wrinkle her nose.

  The bald-headed elderly man behind the desk greeted them without enthusiasm, sniffing, and then giving them a lugubrious look before demanding, ‘Booked in, have you, only we ain’t got no spare rooms?’

  ‘Yes, we are booked in,’ June confirmed firmly. ‘Miss Campion and Miss Merryvale.’

  The old man ran an arthritic-looking finger down the long list of names written into the book in front of him, the drip on the end of his nose gradually getting bigger, until just as Lou was holding her breath, expecting it to fall, he reached into his pocket to remove a handkerchief.

  ‘One double room with single beds. Room number six. You’re on the top floor. Bathroom’s on the floor below. You’ll have to carry your own cases.’

  ‘We’ve been travelling all day. Is there any chance we could have a pot of tea and something to eat?’

  ‘Dinner is at seven o’clock sharp,’ he answered Lou, relenting a little to inform her, ‘There’s a Joe Lyons round the corner – why don’t you take your cases up to your room and then go and have a cup of tea there? It will be warmer than it is here.’

  ‘It looks like we’re in the attic,’ June announced as they puffed their way up the final flight of stairs and onto a landing with a sloping ceiling and three doors opening off it.

  ‘This one’s number six,’ Lou told her, inserting the heavy key into the lock and then turning the handle.

  Their room was larger than Lou had expected, with a slanting ceiling that ran down to a small barred window, with a window seat. The two single beds had matching faded satin covers and eiderdowns that could once have been either pink or blue but which now looked unpleasantly grey.

  A mahogany wardrobe and a chest of drawers filled the wall opposite the window, whilst the space at the end of the beds was taken up by a dressing table.

  ‘Well, this is a real home from home,’ June announced. ‘I’d be thinking that the girl who recommended this place to me was having a joke at our expense if it wasn’t for the cabbie saying that he had brought some American ATA girls here.’

  ‘From the way I’ve heard them talking whenever I’ve met any of them, you’d think that even the Ritz and the Savoy aren’t good enough for them,’ Lou said bluntly, pulling back the satin bedspread to inspect the sheets, both relieved and surprised to see that they were pristine white and clean, if a bit on the thin side.

  ‘Well, at least we won’t be spending much time here,’ June told her, adding, ‘Come on, I’m gasping. Let’s go and see if we can find that Joe Lyons.’

  Another letter from Luke? Katie picked up the letter determinedly ignoring the small kick of curiosity-cum-pleasure from her heart as she automatically weighed it in her hand. She hadn’t been expecting Luke to write back. From the weight of his letter it was no mere bread-and-butter ‘thank you’ response.

  For once she seemed to have the house to herself. Peggy had gone to Aldershot to spend the weekend with her fiance, and the other girls were either still at work or had gone out for the evening.

  Making herself a cup of tea – she had eaten earlier with Gina – Katie sat down at the kitchen table and opened Luke’s letter.

  She had to read it three times before she was finally ready to put it down and reflect on its contents. It was obvious from the manner in which Luke had written to her how he felt about what he had seen; Katie could feel his raw despair. She felt it herself. Those poor girls. Once to have received such a letter from Luke would have shocked her and she would have recoiled from what he had written, not wanting to recognise the reality of war and the damage it did to those who witnessed its cruelties, as well as those who suffered them, but that girl, that Katie, belonged in the past. The Katie she was now had a clearer, sharper vision of the world and knew that people could not be divided into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

  She knew that what Luke had described to her so clearly would keep her awake not just tonight but for many nights as she contemplated the plight of those poor girls – and asked herself what she would do in their shoes.

  Luke had written to her with an honesty that stripped away the convention of protecting her sex from unpleasant reality, and she was glad of that. She welcomed the fact that Luke felt that he could write to her so openly. It put them on an equal footing, somehow, in a way that they had never been as an engaged couple, and it showed her a side to Luke that she could only admire. He had not been afraid to write about his vulnerability and his doubts; he had taken her into his confidence and trusted her with that confidence, which Katie had always sensed, during their engagement, he had not felt able to do. It was as though, being freed from the convention that said there was a certain way in which the relationship between a man and a woman must be conducted, they were now able to be open with one another and to trust one another where that hadn’t been possible before.

  Luke was a kind man, a good man, and if her heart still ached a little because things hadn’t worked out for them, well, she was mature enough to accept that ache and sensible enough not to try to turn the need of a man to tell those at home of the pitiful reality of war, into something that it wasn’t.

  His disclosures had shocked her, but not because of what those poor women had been driven to. Katie knew from listening to the women of the American Red Cross at Rainbow Corner, that already those in authority were expressing concern about the plight of Italy’s citizens, especially the women and children, and what might be done to alleviate it. Katie knew that the unwritten rules governing those at home doing war work meant that it was not acceptable for her to question the officers of the Red Cross directly, but surely she could make a few discreet enquiries? If things had been different and they weren’t all so strictly rationed themselves, Katie would have tried to organise a collection amongst the girls she worked with for spare clothes and non-perishable food for the Italian women and children who were now their allies, but the reality was that no one had anything to spare. Katie wanted to do something, though, even if all she could do was write back to Luke assuring him that she was doing her best to drop a few hints about the contents of his letter in the right ears at Rainbow Corner. Motherly Lady Irene Whittaker, a fellow volunteer who sat and sewed new stripes onto uniforms whilst the men waited and often unburdened themselves to her, would be a good person to talk to, as would Lady Charles Cavendish, another volunteer – if Katie could pluck up the courage to approach her. Lady Charles was in reality Adele Astaire, the sister and former dancing partner of the famous Fred Astaire. Both women were compassionate and friendly, and surely the right people to whom to discreetly mention the contents of Luke’s letter?

  Fired up by her determination to do what she could, Katie went up to her bedroom and got out her writing case, to write back to Luke.

  Dear Luke,

  Since receiving your letter I have been asking myself what I would do were I in the same circumstances as those poor women you described. All I can say is that since I read your letter I haven’t been able to stop thinking how lucky we are in this country. Yes, we have rationing and all that goes with that, but our country h
as not been invaded, our children and our sick are not dying of starvation. I ask myself, if things were different, would I have the courage to make the sacrifice that Italian women are making for the sake of those who might be dependent on me? I hope that I would, repulsive though the thought is.

  When I read your letter I felt so proud to know you, Luke, and proud too that you felt able to write to me as you did. I can’t pretend to be ignorant of what war means. Here in London, even though women are desperately needed for war work, there are still those who prefer to ply a certain ‘trade’ – and with the city full of servicemen there is no lack of custom for them.

  The area around Piccadilly has become notorious for the presence of these women – both professional and apparently ‘amateur’. It is hard to understand what might propel a previously respectable young woman into such behaviour, when there is no need for it – unless of course one feels unable to live without silk stockings, chocolate and chewing gum. Perhaps I’m being unfair, I don’t know. It isn’t pleasant, though, to hear the Americans who come to the Red Cross place where I work part time joking about other British women and their availability – there’s a joke currently going the rounds about utility knickers: ‘one yank and they’re off’ – but worse than that by far, we had one elderly resident coming into us to complain about the number of ‘rubbers’, as the Americans call them, littering the steps down to her cellar. I can understand how a member of my own sex would sell herself for money to keep her family from starving, but for the luxuries that a few dollars can buy? That is something I do not understand, and something that to me is shameful and unacceptable, but if this war has taught me anything it has taught me not to judge others.

  With your permission, Luke, I would like to mention your letter to a couple of people at Rainbow Corner. As you wrote, there are many Americans in uniform with family connections with Italy, and it may be that the Red Cross could do something to help, if they are not doing so already.

  We are getting a little war weary here, complaining about our lot, envying the Americans and resenting them for looking down on us, when they have not had to go through what our men have endured, grumbling about yet another Christmas with no end to the war in sight, even though everyone is also saying that it can’t be much longer before we are victorious. Your letter has shown me how little we really have to complain about and how fortunate we are that, thanks to men like you, our country has not been invaded.

  Please do keep writing to me, Luke. Your letters are showing me how much more there is to this war than we can always understand here at home.

  Katie paused and nibbled the end of her pen. Would Luke misinterpret her request and worry that she was trying to restart things between them? Should she cross out what she had put when the truth was that she did hope he would continue to write to her for the very reason she had stated. Luke’s letter had shocked her but had also made her think beyond the boundaries of the everyday, sometimes aggravating, small inconveniences of her own life.

  She had to make sure that Luke didn’t think she was running after him, but how? Katie exhaled in relief as she suddenly knew the answer.

  I had tea with my friend Gina this evening. She’s missing her husband, Leonard, who is in the navy. They haven’t been married very long. We met Leonard and his cousin Eddie when we went to Jane Austen’s favourite city. Eddie took me out for dinner a couple of weeks ago. He is great fun – a flirt and a tease, the kind of man who is good company but who no sensible girl takes seriously, especially a sensible girl like me who has made up her mind not to get involved with anyone whilst the war is still on. Not because I’m afraid of losing someone I love to the war, although I would be, but because the war makes us view things differently, and do things we wouldn’t normally do because the war doesn’t give us time to think things through properly.

  There, that should make it plain to Luke how she felt, and that he need have no fears about writing to her.

  ‘Oh, Jan, I wish that your leave was longer.’

  ‘So do I,’ Jan agreed as he held Bella tightly to him. He’d arrived on an unexpected forty-eight-hour pass two days ago, and now in just over an hour he’d have to leave.

  ‘We’d better get dressed,’ Bella told him, reluctant to leave the warmth of his arms, and not just because of the cold air in the unheated bedroom. It was funny how she never realised just how much she missed him until he was with her.

  ‘At least your mother isn’t likely to come back to say goodbye to me,’ Jan murmured as he bent his head to kiss her.

  Bella’s mother had not approved of their marriage. Not that Bella cared about that.

  ‘We’re lucky that Muriel from next door came round and took Mummy to the church Christmas fair with her.’

  It had been pure heaven to spend the final couple of hours of Jan’s precious leave up here in her bedroom, in bed. The room had last been decorated before the war, with pink and blue striped wallpaper overprinted with deeper pink roses, the curtains matching the wallpaper, and the pink carpet. It was a girl’s bedroom, the pink sateen eiderdown looking ridiculous against Jan’s tanned muscled body.

  ‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ Bella whispered to him as she kissed him. She wouldn’t tell him that she feared for him. He would know that. Nor would she tell him that she still sometimes had nightmares about him being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war again. Fighting men needed their womenfolk to be strong for them, so instead of crying Bella smoothed Jan’s dark hair back off his forehead and told herself how very, very lucky she was.

  FIFTEEN

  It was only ten o’clock and the private club they’d got into, thanks to Lucky Fairweather, the well-connected and very vivacious strawberry-blonde American ATA pilot, who was holding court in one of the leather upholstered booths that filled the back wall, was seething with a mass of young men and women, all of whom seemed to have heard about the club ‘from a pal’.

  As she sipped her drink – a shandy, having refused the offer of an American beer to drink from the bottle – Lou, who had somehow or other got separated from June, found herself part of a group that included several American ATA pilots all trying to out-do one another, ‘shooting a line’ about their hair-raising flying activities.

  In ATA such boasting was looked down on, as well as being against their code of practice, and Lou found herself growing increasingly irritated as she listened to one particular American pilot, who was boasting about buzzing unsuspecting ground-based vehicles.

  ‘You should have seen the look on the face of this farmer guy when I dropped down out of the sky heading for him. He ran for his life.’

  Unable to stop herself, Lou commented coolly, ‘I dare say he did. Anyone who has lived in this country through the blitz would have done the same thing. It’s easy to laugh at people when you haven’t been through what they have, easy, and something you Americans seem to be very good at.’

  For a moment there was silence and then the girl who had been boasting threw back her head and told Lou cockily, ‘Very good just about sums us up, as you Brits will find out when we win this war for you.’

  ‘A war you didn’t want to join until the Japanese pushed you into it,’ Lou pointed out.

  The American’s face was flushed with anger. Did she think she was the only one who didn’t want to hear her country or her countrymen run down and made out to be cowards, Lou wondered grimly.

  The other girl took a step towards Lou, her manner openly aggressive, as she raised her beer bottle to her lips.

  ‘Seems like you and me are going to have a little war of our own going on,’ she told Lou once she had finished drinking and wiped her hand over her mouth.

  Lou didn’t like the direction the situation was taking but she wasn’t going to back down, not with the American saying what she had about them winning the war. The other girl was plainly spoiling for a verbal fight and Lou was inwardly relieved when the girl next to her tugged on the sleeve of the low-necked dress she was
wearing and told her, ‘Don’t look now, Patti, but that good-looking RAF flight lieutenant you were making eyes at last night has just come in, and he’s looking right over here.’

  Automatically Lou looked towards the entrance to the club, her heart thudding into her ribs as she realised that the ‘good-looking RAF flight lieutenant was Kieran Mallory. Why did he have to keep turning up in her life when he was the last person she wanted to keep bumping in to?

  The American raised her hand and called out, ‘Hey, Kieran, honey, over here.’

  Now was her chance to escape, Lou decided, but as she turned to move away the American turned back towards her, grabbing hold of Lou’s arm and telling her, ‘You and me have got unfinished business that I won’t be forgetting.’

  Lou tried to pull away but the other girl wouldn’t let go of her, and then Kieran and a couple of other RAF pilots had joined the group, Kieran’s frown in Lou’s direction making it plain to her exactly what he thought about her being there.

  His curt and demanding, ‘Lou, what are you doing here?’ caused the American girl to give Lou a narrow-eyed look of increased dislike.

  Lou cursed under her breath and responded firmly, ‘What do you think I’m doing here? I’m on leave and I’m having a good time, just like everyone else.’

  ‘You two know each other?’ The American’s voice was cold and sharp.

  ‘We’re both from Liverpool,’ Kieran answered her without taking his gaze off Lou.

  Quite what would have happened if June hadn’t suddenly appeared at her side, Lou didn’t want to think. The American girl’s hostility towards her had grown with every second that Kieran’s attention was on Lou.