Wartime Family (11 page)

A flight of steps led up to the hall’s entrance. An arched pediment frowned over a huge door of oak planks studded with iron nails. Usually Lizzie could see Hunter’s impatient figure, blacker than the building he stood against, pacing up and down, his head bowed and a cigarette hanging from his hand. But there was no sign of him today.

She waited, unsure what to do.

The sentries posted at either end of the building then passed by. Light shone through ancient windows and fell in diamond shapes on the frosted grass.

Finally the door opened and a figure emerged. She immediately got out of the car, standing to attention as she opened the rear door. The handle was icy beneath her fingers. It surprised her that the car had started at all.

‘At ease, miss.’

It was not Hunter.

‘The wing commander begs your pardon, miss, but says he is just finishing breakfast and, as the hour is early, would you perhaps care to come inside?’ The man who addressed her so informally wore the insignia of a warrant officer.

Surprised by the invitation she blinked and slammed the door shut. Her feet crunched on the gravel drive as she followed the man up the steps.

The interior hall was panelled with oak screens. Lighter patches showed here and there where ancestral portraits might have hung, now stored for the duration of the war.

‘You can sit here if you like,’ said the man. ‘I’ll tell Wing Commander Hunter you’re here.’

The smell of fried bacon and eggs wafted out into the hallway. Her stomach rumbled as she sat down. What was it about food that made her stomach do that? It had never been quite so vocal before the war. The less food there was, the more you craved, she decided.

‘The wing commander asks if you’d like to join him.’

She looked up to see that the warrant officer had returned. She wondered if she’d heard him correctly.

‘Would bacon and eggs be alright?’ he continued.

Her stomach rumbled.

The warrant officer grinned. ‘Sounds as though it would be very satisfactory indeed. Would you like to follow me?’

She
had
heard correctly, there was no doubt about it. The warrant officer led her to a table set close to a huge, lead-paned window. Wing Commander Hunter was tucking into a plate of bacon and eggs. He looked up when he saw her. ‘Take a seat. Venables will get you a cooked breakfast. And toast, please, Venables. And more coffee.’

‘Very good, sir.’

He held the chair out for Lizzie before taking the empty coffee pot and disappearing.

She rubbed her hands together and couldn’t resist one last shiver. The room had raftered ceilings and was not that well heated, but was still in comfortable contrast to outside. And the smell!

Although she’d never had much response from him before, she felt obliged to make conversation. ‘That looks good.’

‘I thought you’d like some, and from past experience I don’t think you eat enough for breakfast.’

She winced beneath his searching look, knowing he was referring to the bread and cheese he’d paid for at the Swan.

‘That’s very kind of you, sir.’

‘An army marches on its stomach. That’s true of any guy – or gal. You can’t do a good job running on empty.’

She took in what he was saying and liked the way he said it. She’d never heard an American, except at the pictures, but the Canadian accent was very similar.

Up until now she had only really studied him through the rear-view mirror of the car. Now she was sitting opposite him and, bearing in mind that he was a senior officer and she mustn’t appear rude, her eyes flickered between the room, the table and his face. She repeated the manoeuvre, all the time taking in something different about his features.

By the time she’d taken in his dark hair, his grey eyes and his wide mouth, the warrant officer had come back with her breakfast. A whole egg! A whole rasher of bacon and a shiny, deliriously greasy sausage. And bread, fried to golden perfection!

Just as she picked up her cutlery, her stomach rumbled. ‘Pardon me.’

Hunter raised his eyes, but not his head. His eyes met hers and he smiled. ‘Eat up, Randall. I like a quiet drive. You should know that by now.’

She didn’t need him to repeat his order, but attacked the plate with gusto. Between mouthfuls of sausage and bacon, she sipped at coffee and nibbled buttered toast.

‘When you’ve finished and have readied yourself, you can join me outside.’

He picked up his newspaper and stood up.

Fearing she might be remiss in her duty if she didn’t, Lizzie started to stand up too.

‘No rush,’ he said in that honeyed voice. ‘I need to fetch some notes from my office. Finish the toast. It’s an order.’

‘I will.’

By the time she had finished and gone out to the car, he was already sitting in the back seat.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she said, a little flustered that he’d beaten her to it.

‘No need to be.’

‘I expect the driver who covered for me didn’t keep you waiting.’ She didn’t know why she said it. Not really curiosity, perhaps just a desire to keep open this channel of communication. Who knows, perhaps she would get to go to the dance this evening after all.

His response surprised her. ‘I didn’t have one. I wasn’t here.’

She didn’t know whether she sighed with relief or satisfaction, but she was glad no one had taken her place. It somehow made her feel special. She started the engine. ‘Where to, sir?’

One of the airfields? she wondered. Or perhaps one of the radar stations, huge sentries of iron and radio waves guarding the east coast of England, giving advance warning that enemy planes were heading their way.

‘London.’

‘
London?
’ she repeated, incredulous.

‘London. Whitehall. War Department. I’ll give you the directions when we get there.’

Using only his fingertips, Michael smoothed away Mary Anne’s hair from the nape of her neck. Warm as velvet, his lips brushed her skin. She moaned and flexed her spine, stretching like a cat luxuriating in attention.

‘I love it when you do that,’ she whispered.

‘I love it when you do a lot of things,’ he replied, his lips following the sweep of her shoulder.

She opened her eyes. It was still dark outside; she guessed it was about half past seven.

‘I have to get up,’ she said, swinging her feet to the side of the bed. One foot ventured out from beneath the bedclothes, but retreated in response to the chilly morning air.

Strong arms reached across and hugged her close to his naked body. He was warm and all night she’d snuggled up to him, deliriously happy that her bed was not hers and hers alone.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he said and kissed her hair, smoothed it back and kissed her ear, her neck and her cheek.

‘We can’t stay in bed all day.’

‘Why not? It’s been so long.’ His voice was deep and languorous, as sensually fulfilling as the fingertips that stroked her spine all the way down to the cleft between her buttocks.

‘We have tonight,’ she murmured, her voice, even to her own ears, seeming to purr with satisfaction. ‘And the one after that, and the one after that …’

And then I’ll be gone.
The words were unspoken yet she felt their silence echo in her heart. Just a few days together and she must be grateful. Usually he wore the uniform of the Royal Signals Regiment, although he was part of no battalion or battle fleet. All he’d told her about his work was that he translated messages but as few people as possible must know this, hence arriving in civvies.

‘I’m sorry about the shop,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘Why should you be?’

‘I feel I should have been more … careful.’

‘Careful about what?’

She couldn’t answer.

He kissed her shoulder. ‘Marianna, I know that people can be cruel for no apparent reason. It was not your fault.’

She finally managed to struggle – reluctantly – away from him. A little more persuasion and she’d gladly make love again. It had been so long – too long – since she had experienced the feel of his body against hers. Kisses and caresses mixed with the exhilaration of knowing what would come next. She’d revelled in the hardness of his thighs between hers, opening up like a flower welcoming his intrusion.

‘I have to get up.’ She slid from his arms, tiptoed to the window and peered out through a gap in the curtains. ‘Gertrude and the others will be here soon.’

‘Not in this room I hope. One woman at a time is quite enough,’ said Michael, falling back on the pillow, his arms crossed behind his head.

‘I’ve promised to make some more clothes from the odds and sods people have brought in. And there’s knitting to unpick and re-knit. And things to mend.’

Since Gertrude’s suggestion, it had become something of a challenge to make new things from old. She had found herself enjoying it. The women were good company and all kept in order by Gertrude Palmer, whom they openly termed ‘The General’.

Michael lay in bed silently, his eyes half closed.

After washing in the small bathroom with the requisite minimal water, she came back into the bedroom. Michael had not moved. He seemed thoughtful, his eyes still hooded as though something was troubling him.

‘Is something wrong?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I was just thinking I might call in at the police station and get them to confirm what they told you.’

Mary Anne knew he was referring to the fire that had destroyed the pawn shop. ‘It was a fireman who told me, not a policeman.’

He shrugged. ‘I doubt it would make much difference. Anyway …’ He swung his legs out of bed, stood and stretched.

Flushing but unable to tear her eyes away, Mary Anne studied his body. He was still young – younger than her. She questioned her own reasons for her involvement with him. Was it just because of his youth, his vigour, and also, of course, his kindness? Was their love just physical? Most of the time she believed otherwise; that theirs was a deep and lasting love, two people escaping from a cruel past. But sometimes, like now, she felt her age and worried how long things would last.

After the police had confirmed that the pawn shop had not been bombed but set on fire, Michael called round there to inspect the damage.
Perhaps I might also rescue a few items
, he thought. He soon saw that there was nothing to rescue. All that had been salvageable had already been rescued by Mary Anne or it had been looted.

Looking at the blackened walls, the supporting beams overhead, skeletal against the sky, a great sense of melancholy came over him. In the midst of a bombing raid greed had overruled fear.

‘Nothing much left now.’

He turned round to see the policeman he’d spoken to at the station.

He nodded. ‘They’ve taken everything.’

‘They have now,’ said the bobby. He lifted the front of his helmet so he could swipe at the redness it had left on his forehead. ‘There was quite a lot of stuff here when it first happened. I was surprised having been on other looted sites. Looters take all they want, you see, then set fire to the place. Didn’t look as though that much was taken. The cupboards were still full.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of the glass-fronted cabinets in which most of the silver and jewellery had been kept. ‘Them there,’ he added.

Michael frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘That’s what I thought. Don’t stand to reason. Yer missus came back and took what she could on the first trip. She came back a second time and course most of it were gone by then.’

Something glinted amongst the coal-black rubble. Michael’s eyes narrowed.

‘You shouldn’t be going over there. That’s dangerous,’ shouted the policeman as Michael clambered over the shifting heap. Loose stones and grit tumbled out behind him. He slipped but managed to keep his balance as he grabbed at something gleaming in the dirt.

‘What’s that then?’ asked the policeman.

Michael wiped the object against his thigh and then held it up. ‘A crucifix. A silver crucifix.’

He recognized it as being an item Mary Anne had brought from her old washroom from where she’d run a small but thriving pawn shop of her own. Just as with this place, she’d sneaked back there after the house was bombed to see what she could retrieve. He vaguely wondered whether the beautifully modelled silver had brought bad luck to its owners. No, he decided. It was a holy thing and well crafted.

‘I’ll keep this,’ he said.

‘Certainly. It’s yours anyway, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

Or someone’s
, he thought, but didn’t know whose. Only Mary Anne would know that.

That night he showed it to her as they walked along East Street.

‘It was John’s,’ she said. ‘He pawned it so he could buy a ring for our Daw when they got engaged.’ She smiled at it as she cradled it in the palm of her hand. ‘It’s Italian. I remember him telling me it had belonged to his mother. Both his parents were killed when he was a child. That’s why his aunt and uncle took him in.’

‘Has Daw heard from him?’

‘He’s coming home for Christmas. I’ve been invited to join them for Christmas dinner at the corner shop.’

‘And Henry has also been invited.’

It was one of the things she hadn’t voiced herself. The other thing was that Michael had not been invited.

He smiled wanly and squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t worry. I have to be back at my base before Christmas so I can’t come anyway.’

‘Oh well. Never mind.’

It hurt him. She could see it. But what could they do? That was the way it would always be, especially as far as Daw was concerned. Lizzie was different. So were Harry and young Stanley. They accepted that Michael made their mother happy. Henry had made her miserable and she’d had the bruises to prove it.

Young Stanley was with them now, roller-skating ahead of them on a pair of skates that Mary had told him were his Christmas present. She’d bought them in the Red Cross shop, and Stanley had seen her doing so, which was why he’d been given his present early.

‘He’s growing up,’ said Michael suddenly.

Mary Anne shivered. ‘As long as he doesn’t grow up in time to serve in this war. Having one son and one daughter serving is quite enough.’