When the Lights Go on Again (24 page)

‘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.

‘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 know 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.’

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.

‘We’ve got a long way to go yet,’ Leonard had cautioned. ‘The only way we can win is via an invasion of the north coast of France. We know that, and so too, you maybe sure, does Hitler.’

‘We’ll win. I’m sure of it,’ Gina had forecast determinedly, and that had been their toast when the bells of London – no longer forbidden to ring – had rung out to welcome in the New Year.

At the Postal Censorship Office, the large room in which everyone worked smelled of damp clothes and stale air, but at least it was relatively warm stale air, Katie acknowledged as she made her way to her desk. However, before she could sit down the girl in charge of her desk tapped her on the shoulder and told her quietly, ‘Miss Pearson wants to see you in her office.’

Since Miss Pearson, who was in charge of them all, rarely summoned anyone to her office, Katie tried to think of anything she might have done wrong, as she hurried into the corridor.

To her astonishment, Miss Pearson herself was waiting just inside the open mahogany door, with its scrolled and etched glass upper half, through
which one could only see the shadowy outlines of anyone inside.

‘Katie. Good. Come in and sit down.’ Ushering her inside, Miss Pearson closed the door behind them, reducing the busy hum from the main office to a faintness that only intensified Katie’s tension.

‘We haven’t got much time because Gina will be here in a second. You know one another very well, I understand.’

‘We’re good friends, yes,’ Katie agreed, bewildered by Miss Pearson’s questions.

‘You attended her wedding – you knew her husband?’

In her confusion Katie almost missed it – that significant and horribly meaningful use of the past tense, but when she realised what was actually being said, her heart started to thump heavily with dread.

‘I…yes. I was there when Gina and Leonard first met.’

‘She is going to need the support of a good friend, I’m afraid, which is why I’ve asked for you to be here. Ah…’ Miss Pearson looked up from her desk and over Katie’s head towards the door. ‘Here she comes now.’

Gina looked as bewildered as Katie had felt when she had first been ushered in to Miss Pearson’s office, giving Katie herself a look of enquiry before taking the chair next to her.

‘I’m really sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, my dear. There really is no easy way to tell you this,’ Miss Pearson announced without any
preamble. ‘This office received a telephone call half an hour ago from your father-in-law.’

Katie reached for Gina’s hand and held it tightly.

‘One of the children?’ Gina asked, anxiously half rising from her chair. ‘Something’s happened…?’

‘No, it’s not the children. The authorities have been in touch with your father-in-law to advise him that his son, your husband, is missing in action, presumed—’

‘No!’ Pulling her hand free of Katie’s, Gina stood up, her denial as sharp as a burst of gunfire.

‘I really am sorry. Your father-in-law has asked that you be granted compassionate leave in order that you can return home, and that of course has been granted.’

‘No. I won’t believe it.’ Gina overrode her superior. ‘Leonard can’t be dead. He can’t be. He mustn’t be.’

‘I’m so sorry, my dear.’

Miss Pearson stood up and looked at Katie. ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to assist Gina with making her preparations to return to her husband’s family home. I understand that her father-in-law is concerned for the health of his wife, and that as yet the news has not been broken to the children.’

Katie nodded.

They were alone in Miss Pearson’s office. Gina was sitting staring blankly at the wall, the silence of the room thick with emotion.

‘It isn’t true. I won’t let it be true,’ she told Katie.

Katie reached for her hand. It felt cold, Gina’s
wedding ring gleaming dully in the thin office light.

‘It can’t be true, Katie.’ Gina’s voice had started to rise, tears filling her eyes and spilling from them as she begged, ‘Please, God, don’t let it be true. Not Leonard.’

More silence and then Gina said fiercely, ‘It isn’t true. There’s been a mistake. There’s got to have been a mistake. Leonard can’t be dead. Not my Leonard. It’s too soon for me to lose him, Katie. God couldn’t be so cruel.’

‘Lou?’

June’s hesitant voice had Lou turning round to look at her former friend, as she headed towards the house. She’d had an unexpected day off after her collections had been cancelled, due to a holdup at the factory, so she’d walked into Thame, along the pretty Buckinghamshire lanes. It had been market day – not that there was much on the market stalls, thanks to rationing. After a cup of tea in a small teashop she had walked back. It was the kind of thing she would normally have done with June, had they still been friends. She and June had barely seen one another since she had tried to tell June the truth and June had walked off, because of the heavy workload the ferry pool had had to deal with, something for which Lou had been grateful. It was horrible knowing that the reason for the silence whenever she walked into a room where other pilots were gathered was because they had been talking about her.

Like June, this afternoon she was wearing her
uniform skirt and jacket, and, of course, her red lipstick – applying it automatically now.

Uncertainly she waited for June to catch up with her, astonishment widening her eyes when June said uncomfortably, ‘I’ve been thinking about…about what you told me, Lou, and…well, perhaps I was a bit hard on you, flaring up at you the way I did.’ She smoothed down the skirt of her uniform, looking embarrassed.

‘That’s all right,’ Lou answered. ‘I shouldn’t have lied to you about what happened.’

They exchanged uncertain looks, neither of them paying any attention to the comings and goings around them.

‘Kieran’s coming to see me.’

Now it was June’s eyes that widened as she moved out of the way of two other girls who were obviously heading for the girls’ wing of the house.

‘So the two of you
are
an item—’ she began, but Lou shook her head, squinting into the sunlight.

‘No. What I told you about him and me was the truth.’

‘Then why does he want to see you?’

‘I don’t know for sure, but I suppose he’s heard the gossip.’

‘He’s bound to have done. When are you seeing him?’

‘Tomorrow. I’ve booked a day’s leave. I’m owed some for working over Christmas. I just wish I had never touched that drink,’ Lou sighed heavily.

‘That wasn’t your fault. How were you to know? It’s that Patti who’s the one to blame, for ruining your—’ June broke off and looked flustered.

‘It’s all right, you can say it,’ Lou told her. ‘After all, it’s the truth. My reputation
is
ruined.’

‘There’s a lot of talk still about the whole thing,’ June acknowledged reluctantly. ‘I think that some of the Americans are deliberately stirring the pot and keeping it going. Has anyone higher up said anything to you about it?’

‘No, but some of the senior girls have been pretty cool with me.’

‘Oh, Lou, I’m so sorry, but people are bound to forget about it in time,’ June tried to console her taking a step closer to her and putting her hand on her arm.

Lou looked down at the grass. It wouldn’t do at all to start blubbing, even if June’s kindness was such a relief that she did feel like crying.

‘In time,’ she agreed, ‘but in how much time – before the end of the year? Before the end of the war?’ She tried to smile. The last thing she wanted was for June to think her self-pitying.

‘You’d think we all had more important things to talk about,’ she went on, ‘with all the losses sustained by Bomber Command. I heard someone saying in the mess this morning that she’d heard that when the men were told in their briefing that Berlin was to be their target again, the other night, there were gasps of horror. Twenty-eight Lancasters were lost in the first raid, and twenty-seven in the second, that’s seven per cent of all the planes dispatched lost.’

June shuddered. ‘I’d hate to be involved with a chap flying with Bomber Command.’

‘Me too,’ Lou agreed fervently.

‘Are you going back to your room?’ June asked.

‘I was.’

‘We may as well walk back together then,’ June told her, linking arms with her.

Christmas hadn’t been anything like as bad as she had expected, Jean admitted, as she rubbed a shine into the enamel of her cooker with a duster made from one of the twins’ old liberty bodices with the buttons taken off.

Of course it had been a shock when Francine had announced that she’d seen the son they’d all thought was dead. Sam reckoned that it would have been better for all concerned if Francine hadn’t seen him. By all accounts the lad was happy where he was, and very much loved by the woman who had taken him in. Jean felt for her younger sister, but there was no denying that it was demanding a lot of a young lad to expect him to take on board the fact that the woman he had thought was his auntie was really his mum. He was settled now and happy, even Francine had admitted that. But she was determined to win him round and to claim him.

She’d have to have a word with Bella, Jean decided, and put her in the picture, although it was probably best not to say anything to Vi, not after the upset she’d already caused over the way she’d treated the poor little lad, making him so unhappy that he’d never said a word to the woman who’d taken him in about his family.

‘So what is it you wanted to see me about?’ Lou asked Kieran.

They were sitting at a table in the corner of the centuries-old Buckinghamshire pub with its cavernous fireplace and its beams, the walls yellow with smoke, both from the fire and cigarettes.

Both of them were in uniform, and Lou so nervous that she was smoking.

‘You were seen leaving my hotel room.’

‘Yes, I know. One of Patti’s friends told me on New Year’s Eve, so you needn’t have driven all the way over here just to tell me that.’

‘I haven’t done.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘We’ve both got our good reputations to think about. It won’t do either of us any good to have everyone gossiping about the fact that we spent the night together. Questions are bound to be asked. Has anyone said anything to you officially about it?’

‘Not officially, although there’s been plenty of gossip,’ Lou admitted, telling him when she saw his frown, ‘I’m the one who’s going to get the worst of it, not you. After all, you’re a man, and spending the night with someone doesn’t count against men like it does women.’

Kieran shook his head in emphatic rebuttal. ‘I want to make a career for myself in flying after the war, and I’m not going to be able to do that if I’ve got the kind of reputation you’re talking about hanging round my neck. There’ll be money to be made and jobs to be found flying freight, after the war, and it will be pilots with good reputations, who are reliable and trustworthy, who’ll be taken on.’

Lou was grudgingly impressed that Kieran had
obviously given so much thought to his future. All those who flew knew that wartime flying had brought a new dimension to transport, but Lou hadn’t heard anyone else talking about transferring that knowledge to a peacetime job.

‘The war isn’t over yet,’ she reminded Kieran, ‘and by the time it is everyone will have forgotten about us.’

‘Not the kind of people I’m talking about,’ Kieran contradicted her. ‘I’ve got a suggestion to make – something that will benefit us both.’

‘If you’re talking about us telling the truth, then I wouldn’t bother. I’ve already tried that with my best friend and—’

‘No, it isn’t that,’ Kieran cut her short. ‘What I think we should do is let it be known that we’re an item and that we’re planning to get engaged.’

‘What? That’s ridiculous,’ Lou protested, almost knocking her glass over in her agitation. ‘Anyway, no one would ever believe that we would want to get engaged to one another.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well…we don’t act like…like a couple.’

‘We spent the night together,’ Kieran reminded her.

‘No. It wouldn’t work. Everyone would know that we were pretending.’

‘Would they? Are you sure?’ As he spoke Kieran reached across the table and took hold of her hand, lacing his fingers between hers with a lazy intimacy that made Lou’s heart skid into her ribs. The pub door opened, and two RAF men walked in, bringing with them a surge of cold air.

Lou could see them looking towards her and Kieran, and then one of them nudged the other.

‘We’re being watched,’ she warned Kieran, who was sitting with his back to the bar.

‘I know,’ he responded. ‘I saw them walk past the window.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, his gaze fixed on hers, his voice low but perfectly audible as he told her, ‘So it’s agreed then: as soon as this ruddy war is over, you and I are going to be married.’