by Annie Groves
There were tears in Gerry’s eyes as she mentioned her dead brothers, and tears in Katie’s too when she hugged her and told her how pleased she was for her.
‘It’s you I’ve got to thank, you and Peggy, for doing what you did for me. Putting me straight and, well, just being so kind to me. I’ll never forget that, Katie.’
They hugged again, and then Gerry detached herself with a small wail, protesting, ‘That can’t possibly be the time. I’m working this evening. I’m going to have to fly,’ before gulping down her now cold tea and racing for the door.
She was happy for Gerry, Katie acknowledged, washing their mugs and then drying them, but the other girl’s happiness had left a small ache in her own heart.
None of them would ever forget the dreadful fear that had accompanied the birth of Grace’s twins; for the babies – being born so early at seven months, and one of them so very weak they had feared he had not survived the birth; and for Grace herself, whose dangerously high blood pressure could have led to fits, which could have sent her into a coma and then death.
Emily thought she would remember for ever the anguish and love she had seen on Seb’s face when he had arrived at the hospital.
‘They said that Harry, the second twin, was blue when they lifted him out, and they thought that they’d lost him, but the nurse realised that his heart was beating so they cleared his lungs and he was as right as rain,’ Jean told Emily as they sat together in Emily’s kitchen whilst Jean went through the events of that night – events already described to Emily by Nurse Williams, but of course Emily didn’t say that to Jean, not wanting to deprive her of the right, as Grace’s mother, to relay the story to her.
‘It was nearly midnight when my train got in, but thankfully Seb was there to meet me. I’ve never seen anyone looking like he looked. I thought at first that our Grace had already gone and that we’d lost her, he looked so bad. Fair had my heart in my mouth, it did, but then he said as how she’d had the Caesarean and the twins were safe and well, that it was touch and go for her to see if she was going to pull through from the toxaemia.
‘Of course, he said that they wouldn’t let me see her, but well, the thought of her…of anything happening to her and me not being there – I just couldn’t bear that, Emily, I really couldn’t.’
‘Another cup of tea?’ Emily asked
‘Well, I don’t mind if I do. And like I was saying,’ Jean continued whilst Emily poured her a second cup of tea, ‘I told the sister in charge of the ward as much, and she said that I could sit with Grace just as long as I didn’t disturb her. Grace looked that pale that I really thought…but then she opened her eyes and looked at me.’ Jean’s own eyes filled with tears. ‘“I’m sorry, Mum,” she said. Her, sorry…“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Grace,” I told her, “except that them two little lads will be wanting their mum.” Did I tell you that they’re to be Sam and Harry, after Grace and Seb’s dads?’
Emily nodded.
‘Anyway like I was saying, no sooner had I said that than Grace was sitting up and saying that she wanted to see her babies, and then they were taking her blood pressure and saying that it was all right. Ever such a relief, that was, Emily, I can tell you. That’s the thing about motherhood: you don’t stop worrying about them just because they’re grown up, as you’ll discover once your Tommy becomes a young man.’
Her Tommy – Emily glowed with pride.
‘I still can’t believe that Dad’s actually given in and that he’s letting us get married as soon as Bobby is out of hospital.’ Sasha was plainly delighted and glowing with excitement.
The three of them – Lou, Kieran and Sasha – were all sitting round Bobby’s bed, an unheard-of concession from Sister, who had permitted this only because Kieran had promised her that they wouldn’t disturb the rest of the ward and because they were there to discuss their shared wedding plans.
The meeting Lou had been worrying about – between her and Kieran and Sasha – had gone far better than she had expected, Lou acknowledged. Kieran had kissed Sasha on the cheek and she had told him that he was lucky to have won Lou, and from there things had gone so well that Lou wondered now why she had ever worried that there might be some awkwardness. Now the four of them were busy making plans, with Kieran and Bobby getting on so well together and teasing both of them that the two men might have grown up on the same street.
Kieran had taken Lou to meet his mother, once her father had given his permission for them to marry, and Lou had immediately liked her mother-in-law-to-be.
It was a pity that their own mother was still away in Whitchurch looking after Grace and her new babies now they were all out of hospital and at home, and couldn’t join in the wedding discussions, but since she was due home at the end of the week Lou and Sasha knew they wouldn’t have to wait long to discuss their plans with her.
‘I can’t wait to see Grace and Seb’s twins,’ Sasha broke off from wedding talk to say, so easily picking up on her own thoughts that Lou had to smile.
‘Don’t you go getting any ideas,’ Kieran immediately warned Lou, with a teasing look. ‘I want you to myself for a while before any babies come along.’
He looked so handsome in his RAF uniform that Lou’s heart turned over. She was also in uniform, but she’d removed her jacket, and really the skirt was so smart that when she wore it with the cotton floral-patterned blouse she was wearing today it didn’t look ‘uniformy’.
‘It’s the same for me and Sash,’ Bobby chipped in, holding Sasha’s hand tightly.
She too was wearing a floral blouse, very similar to Lou’s, even though they hadn’t bought them together.
‘Now that Sash’s dad has got me a job as an electrician with his lot, I want to do my best to prove that I’m up to the job before we start having babies to worry about.’
‘Of course you’re up to the job,’ Sasha immediately scolded him, ‘and don’t you go thinking any different.’
A year ago she could never have imagined any of this happening, Lou acknowledged as Kieran reached for her hand and held it in his own. Or being this happy.
‘Well, these two are coming on nicely. Sam’s put on two ounces and Harry’s put on nearly as much.’
Grace smiled at her mother as Jean fussed over her twin grandsons, lying on their blanket on the grass under one of the apple trees, at the bottom of the garden of the house Grace and Seb were renting.
It was a perfect summer day, the twins protected from the glare of the sunshine by the shade of the tree. With her hair brushed back off her face and done in what they were calling a ‘victory roll’, Seb thought that Grace looked a picture in her pretty pink cotton dress.
Grace looked at her babies, her heart contracting with maternal love. She’d been so afraid when she’d been taken into hospital, afraid that the twins might die, afraid that she might die herself, afraid of everything, even the fact that she hadn’t told anyone how increasingly poorly she’d been feeling, but now thanks, so the doctor had told her, to Emily, all was well and they were all alive and healthy. If Emily hadn’t had that impulse to go and see Nurse Williams, and if she hadn’t come straight to the cottage, and if Emily had arrived at her normal time later in the morning, then it could all have been too late and she might well have already slipped into a coma, Grace knew.
‘I’m ever so glad that you’re here, Mum,’ Grace told her mother, ‘and I’m grateful to Emily too. Without her—’
‘I should have been here with you.’
Jean knew she would never have forgiven herself if anything had happened either to her daughter or to the two babies now lying peacefully on their shared blanket, and who already had curled their tiny fingers tightly into their grandmother’s loving heart.
‘Now don’t start that, Mum,’ Grace scolded her briskly. ‘I told Seb not to ask you to come and stay with us because I knew how Dad would be. I don’t know what I’d have done without Emily, though. I must say that I never expected to get on with her so wel
l, and in fact I was cross with Seb when he told me what he’d done, going round there and asking her to help, but now…well…she’s ever so easy to be around, Mum. She reminds me of Katie in a way.’
Jean nodded. She still missed her young billetee and regretted the fact that she was not now going to become her daughter-in-law.
‘Oh, look at that!’ Grace exclaimed, laughing. ‘They’re holding hands.’
Jean smiled tenderly as she looked down at the two babies, their tiny fingers entwined.
‘I can remember Sasha and Lou doing that,’ she told Grace.
‘I’m so happy, Mum,’ Grace said. ‘I was so afraid that something awful would happen and that I wouldn’t…’ She swallowed painfully as Jean hugged her. And then shook her head. ‘I’m just so lucky to have Seb, and these two, and you and Dad, and…everything.’
Jean patted her daughter’s back as Grace’s tears fell.
TWENTY-NINE
London was under attack. Just when everyone had been thinking that the war was all but over.
Hitler’s deadly V1 flying bombs were raining down on the city night and day. So far, in only five days, forty-two people had been killed, including twenty-four in one blast in a pub, with hundreds more being injured. In one day seventy-three of the deadly bombs had fallen on London. Sent from bases in the Pas de Calais, the flying bombs were fitted with a pulse jet engine programmed to cut out over London. Once the engine had cut out the bomb nose-dived silently to earth in fifteen seconds, with its warhead of nearly a ton of explosives.
One of the girls at work had told Katie that she had heard that the damage from just one bomb could spread over a radius of up to a quarter of a mile.
Anyone in the vicinity of a bomb when it exploded stood the risk of being killed outright, buried alive or being lacerated by the debris thrown up by the explosion.
From triumph over the D-Day landings, and the feeling that now it was only a matter of time before Hitler was defeated, those living and working in London had become fearful of the deadly effect of Hitler’s flying bombs.
People were saying that you knew your number was up when you could no longer hear the thudding roar of the bomb’s jet engine and instead there was silence. All you could do then was dive to the ground and hope for the best.
Sloane Street was busy, as always, with people in uniform and workers returning home after their day’s work. The dust from the destruction caused by the bombs hung over the city like a fine gossamer shroud in the warm June sunshine. You could feel the dust against your skin, taste it in your mouth, and Katie was tempted to head for Hyde Park instead of going straight to her billet, just for the hope of breathing in some fresh air, but she could do that later, she decided. The reason for her desire to go straight to her billet was the hope that there might be a letter from Luke waiting for her. She hadn’t heard from him since she had written to him about Eddie. Was that because he simply hadn’t had time to write back to her or because he had been put off by the intimacy of detail in her letter and had felt it best not to respond as a hint to her that she had overstepped the mark?
Another option, and one that she was not going to think about, was that Luke might have been injured again – or worse. Automatically Katie started to walk faster as though doing so could keep such thoughts at bay, her head down as she quickened her pace, so that she didn’t realise until she was only a few doors away from her billet that someone was pacing to and fro in front of the house.
Someone?
It took several seconds of disbelief and incredulity before she was able to say shakily, ‘Luke.’ And then run towards him, only to stop just inches short of him when she realised she had been about to throw herself into his arms.
Luke, for his part, had to remind himself that Katie was no longer his, and that overwhelming longing he had just felt to hold her tight was not one he was allowed to have.
‘Luke,’ Katie repeated, still feeling shaken as she looked at him, her gaze greedily observing the new breadth to his shoulders in the uniform he was wearing so proudly, his tanned face and hands, and most of all the fact that he was whole and uninjured.
‘I’m on leave. A troopship dropped us all off at Portsmouth. When I realised that I’d have to change trains here in London I thought I’d take a chance and see if you had time for us to have a cup of tea together and a catch-up.’
That was a lie. The first thing he’d thought once he’d known he was getting leave was that he’d be able to see Katie instead of merely being able to write to her.
‘Of course I’ve got time.’ Katie looked towards the closed door. ‘I’d invite you in but we aren’t supposed…I don’t really need to go in for anything. There’s a decent little café in Sloane Square we could go to, if you don’t mind the walk.’
Luke grinned at her. ‘Let’s go. You lead the way.’
Katie laughed, relaxing. Luke had changed – she could sense it in his relaxed good-humoured manner towards her. There was no sign of the dark angry jealousy she had witnessed in him before.
That impression of the change in Luke was reinforced for Katie as they walked together down Sloane Street. It was very obvious to her that he was far more at ease with himself, far more mature and relaxed about things, his conversation about his pals in the army showing her a sense of humour and a warmth that reminded her of why she had loved him.
Had loved him?
‘We’ll have to watch out for doodlebugs,’ Katie warned him, forcing herself to be practical rather than emotional.
‘Doodlebugs?’ Luke raised a querying eyebrow, looking so heart-stoppingly handsome that Katie had to fight hard not to move closer to him, just as though they were still a couple. ‘What the devil are they?’
‘Flying bombs,’ Katie answered. ‘They’re dreadful, Luke. First you hear them coming in and then there’s a silence as they start to fall.’ Katie gave a small shudder. ‘We had seventy-three of them yesterday alone.’
‘A bit like during the Liverpool blitz,’ Luke commented.
Katie looked at him and he looked back at her. They had discovered their love for one another during the height of the Liverpool blitz and now, looking at Luke, Katie was reminded of those days and how it had felt to tumble so head over heels in love with him that she had been left giddy with joy, and breathless. She was feeling rather breathless right now too.
‘Katie—’
‘The café’s just round this corner,’ she interrupted Luke as they turned into Sloane Square. ‘It gets very busy so I hope we’ll be able to find a table…’
‘Katie—’
‘It’s just over there…’
‘Katie!’
Now Luke had reached for her hand and was holding it firmly within his own. She could feel the calluses on his skin, put there fighting for his country and for the safety of all those in it.
They’d reached the café and nothing more could be said until they had found a table – outside, and facing Peter Jones department store on the other side of the square, and it wasn’t until they had given the waitress their order of a pot of tea for two that they were able to talk properly.
‘I got your letter about Eddie.’ Luke touched the khaki pocket of his battledress tunic.
‘I’m sorry if what I wrote was too…too personal. Me feeling guilty about whether or not I did the right thing isn’t something I should be burdening you with.’
Immediately Luke shook his head. ‘I’m glad you did write to me the way you did, Katie, although—’
He had to break off as the waitress brought their tea and, to Katie, it seemed to take an age for her to remove their cups and saucers, the tea and hot-water pots, the milk and everything else from her tray onto their table, but finally she seemed satisfied that everything was where it should be and they were left alone so that Katie could pour their tea and avoid making direct eye contact with Luke as she pressed him ‘Although what?’
‘Although I’m sorry that you had to bear so much alone.’
/> Luke was concerned for her? Katie felt her heart start to beat faster, far too fast, in fact. And there was certainly no reason for her to wish that she was wearing something a bit prettier than her dull navy skirt and pin-tucked cream blouse, something feminine like a dress and a dainty pair of sandals instead of the old ones she had from before the war. Luke looked unfairly handsome in his uniform, his dark hair flopping onto his forehead as well as curling slightly onto his collar. There obviously hadn’t been time for him to undergo the regulation services short back and sides. There were new lines fanning out from his eyes, put there by the desert sun? There was so much she wanted to ask him and so much she didn’t. Like, had he met someone else?
‘It’s Eddie’s family who have had much to bear,’ she told him, forcing herself to concentrate on what he had said. ‘I didn’t want to marry him, Luke. I liked him very much, he was good fun and I don’t think for one minute that he would have really wanted to get married at all – to anyone – quite so soon if it hadn’t been for Leonard dying. Eddie wanted to put his family’s mind at ease. It’s hard for people like us to fully understand how important passing on something like a title and an estate is to people like them. Really and truthfully, Eddie should have proposed to someone named something like Arabella, with a lineage and a pedigree as long as his own, but I think poor Eddie felt that there just wasn’t going to be time to find his Arabella.’
