When the Lights Go on Again

by Annie Groves

  ‘Yes,’ Francine admitted. ‘I loved him and I thought he loved me.’

  ‘Con never loved anyone but himself,’ Emily told her matter-of-factly, before adding, ‘You’d certainly never have known that Tommy was his. Tommy doesn’t take after Con, thank goodness. Never did have much patience with him, Con didn’t, especially when I first took Tommy in and he couldn’t speak.’

  Emily looked directly at Francine, so elegant and smartly dressed, and so ladylike too, with her expensive clothes and her officer husband, who plainly adored her and who equally plainly knew all about her past, Emily acknowledged with grudging respect. It couldn’t have been easy, admitting what she’d done.

  ‘I’d never have put you down as one of them that were daft enough to be taken in by Con,’ she felt obliged to say. ‘Not looking at you now.’

  ‘I thought he loved me. I was young and silly.’

  ‘And he had a smooth tongue and a handsome face,’ Emily supplied for her. ‘Well, you weren’t the first and you certainly weren’t the last. You know he’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. My sister mentioned it.’

  ‘There was no real harm in him, just weak, that’s what he was,’ Emily felt bound to say, although there was no real reason why she should defend her late husband, she told herself. ‘Weak and too good-looking for his own good, that was Con. They were the death of him in the end – that weakness and his good looks.’

  ‘I want my son and I mean to have him,’ Francine told Emily, gathering strength from having told Emily of her claim on Jack. She would never have recognised this trim determined-looking woman as the same worn-down creature she remembered Con’s wife to be.

  ‘I love Tommy just as much as though I’d given birth to him myself,’ Emily responded. ‘Him and me, we’ve been happy together. He loves it here in Whitchurch. Doing ever so well at school he is too, and the headmaster reckons he could go on to university if he applies himself.’

  Francine could hear the love and pride in Emily’s voice. She was still trying to come to terms with the fact that Emily had been Con’s wife, almost as though fate had decided that Jack should grow up living with one of his real parents. She pushed the thought away.

  ‘A boy needs a father,’ she told Emily, ‘and Marcus—’

  ‘When this war is over, me and Wilhelm will be getting married. Thinks the world of Wilhelm, Tommy does, and Wilhelm’s been like a proper dad to him,’ Emily immediately defended her own position.

  ‘He’s my son.’

  Emily took a deep breath. ‘You can say that all you like and it won’t make a bit of difference to me, but I’ve made Tommy a promise that I’ll make sure he gets to do whatever he wants, and be with whoever he wants, and I aim to keep that promise. I won’t stand aside and see him dragged away from here if that isn’t what he wants. I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. Of course I want him to stay with me, but I won’t stand in his way if he decides he wants to go back to his family. What he wants matters more to me than what I want.’

  Francine’s eyes stung with tears. She felt humbled and helpless, filled with remorse and longing, recognising that this woman truly loved her son, and had probably saved his life when she had taken him in.

  But he was her son.

  ‘What I’m going to suggest,’ Emily continued, ‘is that you leave him here with me for now, to give him time to decide what he wants to do. You can come and see him whenever you want. You can tell him the truth or you can keep it from him, but what I will not tolerate is you or anyone else trying to make up his mind for him. If, at the end of six months, he wants to leave here to be with you then I won’t stand in his way, and by the same token, if you love him only half as much as I do, you’ll feel the same if things are the other way round.’

  ‘I think that’s a very fair suggestion.’ It was Marcus who spoke, his arm around Francine’s shoulders as he pulled her close to him. ‘My wife loves her son every bit as much as you do, and, like you, all she wants is for him to be happy.’

  ‘That’s that then,’ Emily said firmly, her gaze turning to the back door as they all heard it opening.

  The dog came in first, followed by Tommy and then Wilhelm, both of them removing their boots and then their coats, standing the boots neatly side by side and then hanging up their coats on the pegs behind the door.

  Watching them, Francine felt her heart ache with longing and with a small pang of sadness when she saw how Jack, her Jack, echoed the actions and mannerisms of the big German. It should have been Marcus Jack was mimicking, Marcus who he was looking up to.

  Jack hadn’t looked at her at all, not properly, and now he skirted round her, rushing to Emily’s side and burying his head against her as he said fiercely, ‘I want to stay here with you. Don’t let them take me away.’

  Once again Marcus stepped in, saying gently, ‘No one’s going to take you anywhere you don’t want to go, son.’

  ‘Your auntie’s going to come to Whitchurch every now and again so that you and she can catch up with one another,’ Emily told Tommy calmly.

  She knew what Francine was hoping for. She was hoping that Tommy would change his mind once he got to know her. She was hoping that blood would be thicker than water. And maybe she would be right. Maybe Tommy would start to want to be with her and his family. But that was a chance she had to take, Emily knew, for Tommy’s sake.

  TWENTY

  ‘So, do tell, sweetie, was Kieran Mallory as good at you-know-what as he looks as though he is. You must know. After all, you spent the whole night in his hotel room with him. Ah, don’t try to deny it. You were seen leaving by a very old friend of mine who just happened to be staying in the same hotel, when Kieran hurried you out of his room.’

  Lou went white and then red. The gaze of all the other girls sitting round the table was fixed on her, she knew, but most especially June’s.

  This was worse than her worse nightmares. She hadn’t been particularly pleased when she and June and the two other girls from their ferry pool had ended up on a table in the makeshift ‘ballroom’ at the large American base where the dance was being held with a crowd of American ATA pilots, but she had never envisaged something like this happening. She’d recognised Nadine straight away, of course. After all, she had been the one who had given them their free drinks. It was quite plain to Lou that Nadine was enjoying the embarrassment and discomfort she was causing her. Did she know about the amphetamine that had been put in her drink, Lou wondered bitterly.

  ‘And to think we thought you Brits were staid and a bit on the prim side. Mind you, he is a honey. You’ve really got Patti’s back up, you know. She’d had her eye on him for ages before you popped up and got in first, and Patti doesn’t like being upstaged by other girls.’

  ‘I think there must be some mistake,’ was all Lou could manage to protest, but the American girl merely laughed.

  ‘Honey, the big mistake was yours when you didn’t take more care not to be spotted when you left. I can tell you that the gossip is buzzing everywhere, and we girls are all fearfully envious of you for being so…well, so daring when it comes to the conventions. We didn’t think you Brit ATAs did things like that. We thought you were all prim lips and firmly crossed legs. My friend says there’s a gang of bomber pilots all waiting to queue up to offer you a room the next time you’re on leave.’

  Lou’s face burned with shame.

  ‘The next thing we know you’ll be challenging one of us to a race to see who can fly fastest and lowest under the Severn Bridge, although I should warn you that Patti is an ace at doing it. She’s even beaten a couple of your Spitfire boys.’

  The bridge in question was notorious for attracting show-off pilots and equally notorious for the number of pilots who had lost their lives because of it.

  She was in trouble, Lou recognised, and the truth was that she didn’t know how to get herself out of it. She suspected that even if she had gone public from the start and had explained what had happened there would
still be those who would have chosen not to believe her and to make the same assumptions about the nature of her night in Kieran’s room that were being made now.

  Of course, whatever enjoyment she might have found in their New Year’s Eve dance was now ruined – along with her reputation, Lou acknowledged. From now on she would have to wonder if every man who so much as asked her for a dance was secretly doing so because of the gossip that would spread about her; and it would spread – like aero fuel deliberately spilled and set alight, exploding in a sheet of fire that would devour everything it could. Only in her case what would be devoured and destroyed would be her reputation.

  She glanced at June, her heart turning an uncomfortable somersault when her friend quickly looked away. June had every right to be angry with her, Lou knew, and she had never needed the support of a good friend more than she did now.

  The room had been decorated for New Year’s Eve with bunting in red, white and blue, and Stars and Stripes, and that theme had been followed with the food – American food made from American supplies shipped over to stock the American bases’ PX stores and canteens – luxuries such as cakes with proper icing, plates full of Hershey bars rewrapped in Stars and Stripes paper, and of course hot dogs and ‘sodas’, along with plates heaped with chicken, and bread that tasted of proper bread and not the horrible ‘national loaf’ that Britain was obliged to eat because there was nothing else.

  Prizes handed out to the winners of the games played by the Tables – pass the parcel being one of the favourites – were pairs of stockings for every girl seated at that table, and were received with delight. But when Lou and June’s table won, all Lou could feel was a tight numbness that isolated her and prevented her from joining in the fun and laughter.

  The band was excellent, but the last thing Lou felt like doing was dancing. When midnight came, instead of singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with everyone else whilst the lights were dimmed and the nets holding up the balloons above the dance floor were released, Lou was on her own in the ladies’ lavatory, feeling wretched and worrying herself sick about what the outcome of the gossip about her was going to be.

  June hadn’t spoken a single word to her since the American girl’s revelations.

  The evening was ruined, of course, and with it Lou’s composure.

  It was only when they had been dropped off at their base in the early hours of the morning and the two of them were trudging in silence towards their dormitory that June finally spoke to Lou, saying bitterly, ‘Well, I never thought of you as a liar, Lou. I thought you and me were good pals but it seems I was wrong.’

  ‘June, please let me explain,’ Lou begged her friend.

  ‘Explain what? If what Nadine said wasn’t true and you really did spend the night at your auntie’s, like you told me, then why didn’t you say so at the table?’

  ‘It isn’t as simple as that.’

  ‘It seems pretty simple to me. Either you spent the night at your auntie’s or you lied to me.’

  ‘I did spend the night in Kieran’s room,’ Lou was forced to admit. ‘No, wait, June,’ she pleaded as her friend made to walk away from her, Lou reaching out to grab her arm to stop her. ‘There was a reason why that happened.’

  ‘And we all know what that reason was.’

  ‘No!’ Lou denied forcefully. ‘No. It wasn’t like that at all. Me and Kieran go back a fair way. Me and my sister Sasha knew him in Liverpool. We were a couple of daft kids with stars in our eyes wanting to be on the stage. He was working for his uncle who worked in the theatre.’

  ‘So you were old friends and now you’re—’

  ‘We aren’t anything,’ Lou denied. ‘It wasn’t like that. Do you remember how I was dancing when we were at that club?’

  When June nodded, Lou went on quietly, ‘Kieran reckons that someone probably slipped a couple of those amphetamine pills into my drink.’

  June pursed her lips, looking far from convinced. ‘Amphetamines? You mean those pills some of the pilots take to help them stay awake?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Who would want to put something like that in your drink?’

  ‘That pilot Patti. You heard what Nadine was saying tonight. Kieran reckons she did it out of spite and to have a laugh at my expense when I made a fool of myself. And I was making a fool of myself before Kieran stepped in and stopped me, acting like a know-it-all older brother.’

  ‘Oh, a brother, is it? But he isn’t your brother, is he?’

  ‘Please don’t be like that, June,’ Lou begged. ‘I know I should have told you. I wanted to, but Kieran said it was better not…that it wouldn’t be fair to involve you.’ There was no point in making a bad situation worse by telling June that Kieran had suggested she might be tempted to gossip.

  ‘All Kieran intended to do was see me safely back to our hotel but I couldn’t remember the address and so in the end he took me back to his instead. Nothing happened between us, nothing at all. June…June,’ Lou protested as her friend pulled away from her and started to walk towards their dormitory without saying anything.

  Helplessly Lou began to follow her. It was plain that June didn’t believe her and if she didn’t then what chance was there of anyone else doing so?

  ‘I shouldn’t have left him with her, Marcus. He’s my son. I should have been firmer.’

  ‘No,’ Marcus told Francine as she paced the floor of their London apartment, her beauty only enhanced by the emotion gripping her. ‘No, you did the right thing, and I’m proud of you for doing that, for putting Jack first.’

  ‘He looked at me as though…as though he was afraid of me, and he looked at her…’ Francine’s voice broke on a sob. ‘I’m his mother but he ran to her as though she was the one who…’

  ‘He’s a boy, Fran. A boy who had a pretty miserable life with your sister and her husband, from what you’ve told me – no, that wasn’t your fault,’ Marcus went on when Francine would have interrupted him. ‘You did what you believed was best for him and out of love for him, when you were still only a child yourself. But it’s only natural that he has become attached to the person who, in his eyes, has given him the love he never had before.’

  ‘She said that she first saw him at the Royal Court Theatre. That’s where I told him he could find me, when…when Vi insisted on having him evacuated again. He had gone there looking for me, Marcus, for me, not for her. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have run away like I did, joining ENSA because…That’s twice now I’ve run away and left him. I shan’t do it a third time. This time I shall stay and I’ll prove to him that I love him. His place is with us, Marcus. Surely you agree with me. After all, you know what it’s like to lose a child…’

  ‘We both know that, but does either of us know what it’s like to be a child who is forced away from the one person he believes loves him, the person who has given him security, who has put him first? And Emily has done all of those things for him, Fran. You only have to look at the boy to know that.’

  ‘You’re taking her side.’ Francine’s voice was filled with despair.

  Marcus shook his head. ‘No. If I’m taking anyone’s side, it’s his, Jack…Tommy.’

  ‘He looked so frightened when he saw me. He looked at me the same way he looked at Vi when she came to Jean’s to take him away from me. I can’t bear to think of how awful things must have been for him, the farm being bombed and everything, and then him finding his way back to Liverpool to find me, but me not being there.’ She was crying in earnest now.

  Marcus took her in his arms and rocked her gently. ‘I do understand how you feel,’ he told her, ‘but we’re adults, Fran, and Jack is only a boy. We have to think of what’s best for him and not what we want.’

  ‘And you think that it’s best for him to be with her – Emily.’

  ‘No. What I’m saying is that I’m proud of you for holding back and for not forcing the issue, and that I think that the best thing you can do for him is to give him time to get to kn
ow you. Ultimately he must be the one who decides where he wants to be.’

  ‘How can he make that decision when legally Vi and Edwin are his parents?’

  ‘Without the boy’s co-operation there’s no way of proving that he is Jack, and he’s not going to give that co-operation if he thinks he’ll be forced to go back to your sister. Give him time, Fran, time and the confidence to know that he won’t be forced to do anything he doesn’t want to do.’

  ‘Time to recognise that I am his mother and that he should be with me…with us. Yes, you’re right, that is what I must do.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Katie paused to laugh out loud in the middle of reading Luke’s latest letter in which he described the delights of the army rations Christmas dinner ‘enjoyed’ by him and his men.

  ‘Even the stray dogs that have attached themselves to our camp turned up their noses at it,’ Luke had written.

  It took courage and fortitude to write so amusingly about the hardships of their situation, Katie reflected. Luke didn’t give any detail about the danger he and his men faced, but Katie had become avidly attentive to everything she could read and hear about the Italian campaign, her heart in her mouth every time there was any mention of the combat with the enemy.

  The Allied Forces were having to fight for every single advance they made towards Rome, through the rugged terrain of the Apennines, both from the east and from the west, where Katie had decided that Luke must be.

  She tucked his letter into her handbag as the train reached her underground stop.

  The January weather was cold and damp, and streets busy with people hurrying back to work after their lunch break, as she was doing herself.

  She had enjoyed herself with Gina and Leonard, and of course Eddie, on New Year’s Eve. With the threat of an invasion now over and Hitler no longer bombing the city, the atmosphere at the Savoy had been one of optimism mingled with an impatience for the war to be over.