When the Lights Go on Again

by Annie Groves

  ‘Eddie, we can’t get married,’ she told him gently. ‘Your grandmother would never approve.’

  If she had hoped to bring the discussion to an end by mentioning Eddie’s grandmother, she quickly discovered her mistake.

  ‘Of course she will,’ Eddie insisted. ‘Why shouldn’t she? Oh, I know she’s dropped a few hints about some girl whose grandmother she was at school with, but I dare say she’s plain and as dull as ditchwater. Not like you, Katie. No,’ he shook his head, ‘you’re wrong; I shall prove that to you. And when I do, Katie, I shall expect you to say yes.’

  He was cutting the ground from under her feet, although thankfully it sounded very much to Katie from what he had let slip that his grandmother had already selected a possible bride for him.

  However, before she could say so he continued, ‘I’m on leave at the moment, but I’ve got to go down to my ship tomorrow morning for a meeting. I could be tied up there for a couple of days or so, but as soon as I can I shall go home and tell my parents and my grandmother that I want to marry you.’

  ‘And if they disapprove—’

  Then you’ll drop the whole idea, Katie had been intending to say, but before she could finish her sentence Eddie cut in determinedly, ‘They won’t disapprove. The next time I see you, Katie, it will be to put an engagement ring on your finger, with my family’s blessing and approval. We won’t want to wait long to get married. The sooner the better, in fact.’

  ‘Eddie…’ Katie tried to stop him, before giving a small sigh, and reflecting that there was really no point in her trying to make him see reason when he was so determined not to listen to her. He would, though, listen to his grandmother and his parents, and they would, Katie felt sure, make it plain to him that they would not want him to marry her.

  ‘Let’s make a date for Valentine’s night,’ he told her.

  What could she say? How could she refuse?

  ‘Very well,’ she agreed, but she felt very cowardly for not telling him straight that she didn’t want to marry him, and letting his family be the ones to make him see that a marriage between them would never work.

  ‘Of course it would be much better if you said “yes” now,’ Eddie told her. ‘Then we could buy your ring, and we could tell the family together. Present them with a fait accompli. I’ve got a room here – we could have celebrated our engagement there, in a very special way. What do you say, Katie?’

  She said ‘no’, of course, and something in the look Eddie gave her told her that it was the answer that he had expected.

  It was only as they were leaving that he said something that really did weaken her resolve, holding her hand in the hotel foyer as he drew her to one side and told her emotionally, ‘It will work out for us, Katie, I promise you. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. Our children will play in the fields where Leonard and I played as boys, they’ll explore the same woods, and laugh at the same dull family portraits in the long gallery. They will be the promise I made to Leonard in church on the day of his memorial service. Help me keep that promise.’

  Listening to him, Katie had to blink away her tears. The picture he drew of the children had really touched her heart.

  It was an intrinsic part of her nature to want to help others where she could, and Katie could feel herself weakening. She couldn’t marry Eddie, of course. She didn’t love him in that way but she simply didn’t have the heart to refuse him outright when it was so obvious that he was desperate to do the right thing by his family.

  There was no harm, after all, in allowing him to think that she would agree to marry him, not when she was pretty sure that his grandmother already had a prospective bride, who, Katie suspected, would be produced in double-quick time once Eddie had informed his family of his desire to marry her. Eddie was an easy-going young man, who would soon see the sense in marrying someone his family thought suitable. Was it selfish of her to wish that she could turn to Gina to confide in her? Of course that was impossible with Gina so newly bereaved, even if her friend had not been on compassionate leave and staying with Leonard’s parents. Gina might often have teased her about Eddie being sweet on her but Katie knew that Gina would feel as she did herself: that a marriage between them was out of the question. There was no one else she could discuss the situation with. She got on well with the ATS girls but she wasn’t close enough to them to want to confide in them. Her parents, especially her father, for all their bohemian friends and way of life, would be outraged at the idea of her not being considered good enough to be someone’s wife. Of course, had she loved Eddie it would have been different. But she didn’t. She liked him, but liking wasn’t love. Even so, she couldn’t help feeling a sense of responsibility towards him.

  ‘Very well,’ she agreed. ‘We’ll have dinner together on Valentine’s Day.’

  Was it wrong of her not to refuse him outright? Katie didn’t know. She only knew that she couldn’t turn him away with a flat refusal when he was so obviously in so much despair and need.

  ‘I’ve found somewhere to rent in Whitchurch, it’s only a small cottage, but it does have two bedrooms, so that Jack can stay overnight…’

  Jean gave her younger sister a troubled look. She could understand how she felt, of course she could, and she was glad that Francine had taken the trouble to stop off on her way back from Whitchurch to bring her up to date with her plans but in her heart of hearts Jean couldn’t help but think that it might have been better for everyone if Francine had never learned that Jack was still alive. Not that she could say that to her, of course. She knew too how she would have felt had she lost one of her children and thought them dead, only to discover that they were still alive. She wouldn’t have been able to rest until they were home again with her.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Fran asked. ‘You don’t really approve of what I’m doing, Jean, do you?’

  Jean picked up one of the delicate teacups she had just washed – she had got out the precious teaset in honour of Francine’s visit – and started to dry it slowly and carefully, finding comfort in the familiar chore.

  ‘It isn’t a matter of me not approving, Fran. It’s just that…well, Jack’s settled now, by all accounts, and doing well, and I can’t help thinking that being uprooted all over again after everything he’s been through won’t be easy for him. You see, children like things to be the same.’ Jean groped for words that wouldn’t hurt her sister. ‘They don’t like things that are important to them changing.’

  ‘You mean that Jack won’t want to leave Emily? But I’m his mother, Jean. He’s my son.’

  ‘You and I know that, Fran, but Jack doesn’t. It seems to me that it’s the kind of mothering they get that’s important to children – not the person who gives it. You love Jack, of course you do, but you don’t know him, Fran, not really. Not like she will know him, and that’s important to youngsters. He’s a bright boy, a clever boy, since he’s at grammar school, but he’s never said a word to anyone about who he really is and it seems to me that he’s done that for a purpose.’

  ‘Because he doesn’t want to go back to Vi and Edwin, and I wouldn’t let that happen, Jean. I’m not a child any more, I’m a married woman. Marcus and I can give him so much. Marcus can be a proper father to him, not like Edwin was.’

  ‘You said yourself that he’s very attached to that German POW,’ Jean pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but that just shows how much he needs a father.’

  ‘It will be hard for her to give him up, loving him like she does, and thinking that no one would ever claim him.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s been hard for me, thinking that he’s dead, and now seeing him with someone else? He’s my son, Jean.’ There were tears in Fran’s eyes and her voice was shaking.

  Jean put down her precious teacup and her cloth and went over to her younger sister, putting her arms round her. ‘I know it’s hard for you, love,’ she tried to comfort her. ‘It’s hard for all of you. That’s the trouble. In the end so
meone’s going to be badly hurt.’

  ‘I just want the best for Jack, Jean. I just want the chance to show him how much I love him and to make it up to him for letting Vi and Edwin have him.’

  Jean nodded. She could see that Francine had made up her mind.

  Katie looked at her watch. Eddie should have been here by now. Seven thirty, they’d said they’d meet here in the American Bar, and now it was almost a quarter to eight.

  It wasn’t like him to be late, but maybe his train had been delayed or he’d been unable to get a taxi from the station. If he’d been delayed for some reason in Dartmouth he’d have found some way of getting a message to her, Katie knew. She had actually been half expecting to receive a letter from him, telling her that she had been right and that his grandmother did not want him to marry her. Perhaps she was too used to reading ‘Dear John’ letters, Katie thought ruefully, thinking of all the letters they had to read and then pass on, from men and women who had found out that they had made a mistake and wanted to end a relationship. Just like Luke had ended theirs…

  This was no time for her to be thinking about that, Katie told herself sternly, switching her thoughts from her own situation to Gina’s. Her friend was still on compassionate leave and Katie missed her. Katie had written to her but as yet had not received a reply, which was unlike Gina, but Katie had told herself that her friend would write back to her as soon as she felt able to do so.

  As usual the bar was busy, filled with couples, since it was Valentine’s night, the meaningfulness of the date, in the midst of war, being even more poignant and precious for those couples who were lucky enough to be together to celebrate it, Katie suspected.

  However, she was beginning to feel slightly selfconscious sitting at a table on her own, on such an evening. She’d seen the speculative looks one or two of the handful of men unaccompanied by women and standing by the bar had given her, and she was praying that none of them would take it into his head to come over to her, thinking that she was here on her own because she was hoping to be picked up.

  She’d dressed carefully for the occasion – more because she felt morally obliged to do so than for any other reason, in the dress she had bought in Bath the weekend she and Gina had first met Leonard and Eddie. She felt such a fraud, though, being here amongst so many couples who were quite plainly in love with one another. It felt horrible being what, to Katie, was really quite deceitful, and all because she had been too much of a coward to refuse Eddie outright. What was she going to do and say to him if by some awful chance his grandmother did not object to his plans to marry her? That wasn’t going to happen, Katie reassured herself, but knowing that only made her feel worse. Poor Eddie. She really ought to have spared him the upset of incurring his grandmother’s rejection of his plans. Eddie was charming but immature, really. She couldn’t imagine Luke allowing anyone to tell him who he should and should not marry.

  Luke. Katie’s heart gave an unsteady thump. Luke would understand how she felt, even if he might not approve of what she had done. It would be a relief to confide in him as well. He had mentioned Eddie in his latest letter and asked if she was still seeing him.

  Eddie? Where was he? Katie was beginning to feel not just self-conscious because she was on her own but also slightly angry. She could understand that Eddie might be embarrassed about telling her that he didn’t want them to be engaged after all, but that was no excuse for standing her up and leaving her here on her own. What did he think she was going to do? Make a silly fuss? Men didn’t like that, of course. Perhaps his grandmother had insisted that he take her friend’s granddaughter out for the evening. Katie’s face began to burn with righteous indignation. At the very least Eddie could have written to her, even if he hadn’t felt up to telephoning her. She hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d telephoned her from Dartmouth three days ago to say that he was leaving for his home in the morning and that he’d see her tonight.

  A waiter approached Katie’s table, coughing discreetly and bending his head towards her to inform her that a ‘gentleman’ by the bar would like to buy her a drink.

  Embarrassed, Katie shook her head. ‘No. I’m waiting for…for someone,’ she told him, feeling horribly self-conscious.

  Why wasn’t Eddie here?

  She would wait until nine o’clock and if Eddie hadn’t arrived by then, or sent her a message, then she would leave, Katie told herself, feeling decidedly cross with him.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ Lou hissed at Kieran as he handed her her drink. ‘No one’s watching us.’

  They were in the same pretty thatched pub where Kieran had told her that he thought they should become a couple, but this evening the bar was filled with airmen and their partners, who had come, like Kieran and Lou, to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

  ‘I’m just getting in some practice,’ Kieran told her, ‘and making sure that if anyone is watching they know that you are my girl.’ As he finished speaking he leaned closer to her as though he was going to kiss her, making Lou edge back apprehensively, the look in her eyes giving away more than she knew.

  ‘Keep still,’ Kieran told her. ‘You’ve got a piece of twig in your hair. If anyone sees it they’ll be ribbing us about indulging in a bit of al fresco lovemaking.’

  Lou tensed as she felt his fingers in her hair, wondering why such a mundane task as him removing a twig from her curls should send such an intense zigzag of sensation racing down her spine. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her forehead. Her gaze was on a level with his throat, his skin a warmer tone than her own. She had a sudden desire to reach out and touch it, to see if it felt as warm as it looked and she had to curl her fingers into the pocket of her jacket to make sure that she didn’t.

  What was wrong with her?

  ‘Come on, you two, that’s enough of the sweet nothings, even if it is Valentine’s Night,’ Hilary, the senior ATA pilot who had befriended Lou, told them, taking one of the empty chairs at their table.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t forget to miss me,’ Kieran told Lou, dropping a kiss on the end of her nose before heading back to the bar.

  ‘Cigarette?’ Hilary offered Lou, but Lou shook her head, leaving Hilary to light up, inhale slowly and then exhale.

  ‘Been meaning to have a word with you,’ Hilary continued, ‘just to say that I’m glad the two of you decided to go public and scotch certain rumours that were doing the rounds. We all know that there are girls who go off the rails in wartime, but in ATA we like to think that our girls are above that sort of thing.’ She gave Lou a friendly smile and stood up.

  ‘Better go and join the others. I’m on taxi duty tonight. Oh, and jolly good show on completing so many ferries – top of the list, weren’t you, for Spits? It isn’t easy flying in the winter months. It takes guts and strong nerves as well as good training and sound sense.’

  Lou’s hands were trembling as Hilary walked off. She knew perfectly well that the older pilot had been making a point to her, making it plain that the approval she had just given her would not have been forthcoming if Lou and Kieran had not been legit.

  A burst of laughter from the bar had her looking towards it and straight at Kieran. He was doing it again, she recognised, as the heat crawled up her throat and burned her face: he was looking at her like that – as though…as though they shared something special and private and, well, intimate.

  Standing at the bar, Kieran watched Lou, telling his companions without taking his gaze off her, ‘Scuse me, chaps, but I’ve just remembered something very important,’ ignoring their bantering as they followed his gaze, to leave them and lope speedily back to Lou.

  ‘Give us the thumbs up, did she?’ he asked, nodding in Hilary’s direction.

  ‘How long are we going to have to do this for?’ Lou demanded, ignoring his question.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ Kieran told her, pulling out his cigarettes and smiling at her. ‘Why? Not found someone to re
place me already, have you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. That’s the last thing I want to do.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  Lou shook her head and objected crossly, ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that after all the fuss this has caused, the last thing I want is to get involved with anybody.’

  ‘Apart from me.’ He’d lit his cigarette now, knowing that Lou wouldn’t want one, but suddenly he put it down and reached across the table to cup her face in both his hands and kiss her – very fiercely.

  Kieran’s kiss tasted of freshly lit cigarette, warm beer, and something else, something that had Lou’s heart thudding into her ribs and her pulse racing. She badly wanted to pull away from him but she also equally badly wanted to stay where she was, and that was dangerous. Quickly she made herself pull free, demanding, ‘What was that for?’ looking and feeling red-faced and on edge.

  ‘It’s what promised-to-one-another couples do, especially when it’s Valentine’s Night,’ Kieran answered her unrepentantly before changing the subject.

  ‘We’ve got a new op on tomorrow night.’

  Now Lou’s heart bumped into her ribs for a very different reason. Everyone knew how many crews and planes Bomber Command were losing, and how dangerous their bombing missions on German towns were.

  ‘France. Dropping supplies for the Resistance. Safer than bombing German cities, at least if we manage to avoid the Luftwaffe.’

  Lou’s eyes widened. ‘You aren’t supposed to tell me things like that.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to worry about me.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Every girl worries about her chap.’

  ‘You’re not my chap. Not really.’

  Kieran was looking at her in a way that Lou didn’t like, as though he knew something that she didn’t, as though he knew how she felt when he touched her and when he kissed her, as though he knew what she didn’t want to allow herself to know.