When the Lights Go on Again (14 page)

Eddie’s impressed look and teasing wolf whistle when she walked back into the drawing room turned her face slightly pink but she still shook her head at him in reproof.

‘I’ll have every man in the place envying me tonight and wanting to change places with me,’ Eddie told her.

‘Now you are over-egging the bread,’ Katie smiled, but nevertheless she was pleased by his admiration. There was nothing like having a handsome escort who was prepared to pay you compliments for boosting a girl’s ego, Katie admitted as Eddie opened the drawing-room door for her.

‘Do you have much contact with Leonard?’ Katie asked once they were in the taxi, which Eddie had somehow miraculously managed to conjure up.

‘Not since he was posted to his new destroyer.’

‘Gina’s hoping that he’ll get leave over Christmas. She says it would be the best Christmas present she could have.’

‘Would you like to know what I want for Christmas?’

Katie eyed Eddie’s deadpan expression with suspicion. ‘Somehow I think that is a question I shouldn’t answer.’

‘Ah, cautious Katie, I wonder what it would take to make you abandon that caution. Don’t you sometimes yearn to find out what it’s like to walk on the wild side of life?’

‘No,’ Katie told him promptly and truthfully. ‘Being cautious is part of me and the way I am. Besides, no woman with any sense would be anything but cautious with you, Eddie. You have “Danger – charmer at large” written all over you.’

They had reached their destination and the taxi was already pulling up, depriving Eddie of the opportunity to retaliate.

Feeling femininely smug and light-hearted, Katie didn’t stiffen or pull back as she would normally have done when Eddie put his arm around her as he guided her into the hotel. In fact, having the arm of such a handsome and charming naval officer holding her close to him was rather nice, Katie admitted.

‘You should smile like that more often,’ Eddie told her,

‘Like what?’ Katie pretended not to understand.

‘Like you were once a very mischievous little girl who liked to have fun, and to tease the poor little boys who adored her,’ Eddie told her with a smile of his own. ‘Come on, I’m dying for a drink, let’s head for the bar before we go in for dinner.’

Katie agreed.

The American Bar at the Savoy was perhaps not unnaturally the chosen favourite haunt of American newspapermen and women, and many of the American top brass working in London, as well as being one of
the
places that British Society and those with enough money in their pockets to afford it headed to when in the city.

In the Grill, table number 4 was always reserved for Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, and Katie was not surprised to see that the bar was packed with men in uniform, reporters in trademark shabby raincoats, and, of course, cohorts of beautiful women dressed up to the nines, their glamorous appearance in direct contrast to the few women who were in uniform, and mostly attached to groups of very important-looking men. Katie guessed that many of them would be official drivers, stenographers, PAs and the like.

Miraculously Eddie managed to get them a table close enough to the bar for them to sit and discreetly watch the show of activity there.

The bar was very busy indeed, the majority of the voices engaged in conversation American, several smartly and expensively dressed middle-aged American wives, in clothes their British counterparts could only dream of having access to, looking askance at the pretty, young, and often a little ‘too glamorously’ dressed young women hanging on the arms of much older and mainly American men, who, Katie thought, it would be extremely naïve to assume were actually their husbands.

‘Spoils of war,’ Eddie told her in a quiet murmur, studying them with her.

Katie pulled a face. ‘I hate to hear women being described in that way, even when it is obvious what’s going on,’ she chided him.

Eddie shook his head and informed her bluntly, ‘It’s the men I meant, not the girls. Would you like another cocktail?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Eddie teased her. ‘I shan’t be embarrassed if you get a little tipsy and try to seduce me.’

Katie had to laugh. ‘There is no danger of that happening,’ she assured him sweetly.

‘Pity,’ Eddie murmured in her ear as a waiter approached to inform them that their table was ready. ‘I’ll just have to try and seduce you instead then.’

There was no reason for her heart to give that unfamiliar little flurry of thuds that wasn’t far short of a surge of anticipatory curiosity, Katie warned herself. She had no intention of allowing Eddie to seduce her, or of encouraging him to think she wanted him to. Nevertheless, it was pleasant to be escorted by someone so charmingly attentive, who seemed without any effort to ensure that things went smoothly and that, despite the crush, they were attended to as though they were regular and cherished diners.

Katie felt a little for the pretty girls in their finery with their much older men friends, an envious look in their eyes as they watched her walk past with Eddie. Perhaps their ‘spoils of war’ tasted a little bitter and unpalatable at times.

The Grill Room was every bit as busy as the
bar, most of the tables occupied by at least one man in uniform, if not more.

Eddie and Katie were shown to an excellent table with a good view of the room, their waiter even unbending enough to say to Eddie, ‘I trust her ladyship is in good health?’

‘Thank you, Joseph, and yes, my grandmother is well. I shall tell her you were asking after her.’

Rather ruefully Katie acknowledged that the waiter’s comment was a sharp reminder, had she needed one, of the social gulf that existed between her and Eddie, and the very different lives they led.

It was different for Gina. For a start, Gina herself was definitely upper class and Leonard’s father, whilst well-to-do, was not titled.

Menus were produced, and Katie decided on the leek and potato soup and then the fish, sole, although she doubted that it would have been caught anywhere near Dover with all the war activity taking place off the South Coast.

‘This is such a treat,’ she told Eddie warmly.

‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed, his voice for once free from its familiar teasing note and the look he was giving her so very warm and meaningful that Katie was glad that the arrival of their soup meant that they were interrupted.

With wine so hideously expensive, Katie would quite happily have done without any, but Eddie had insisted. This was luxury indeed, Katie reflected, but by far the best part of the evening was being with Eddie, who was such good company and so much fun.

She couldn’t remember when she had last enjoyed an evening so much. The conversation between them flowed naturally and easily, like her own laughter, so that by the time they had finished their meal and were ready to go down to the ballroom, Katie felt so utterly relaxed and at ease with Eddie, that she actually snuggled closer to him of her own accord when he put his arm protectively around her to guide her from the Grill Room.

The Orpheans were, of course, playing, and Katie automatically looked for familiar faces amongst their number, as she and Eddie sat down at a table close to the edge of the dance floor, her foot tapping happily in time to the music.

She mustn’t have been listening properly when Eddie had asked her if she wanted another drink, she decided, because she would quite definitely have refused. Now, though, with the champagne cocktail in front of her, it seemed churlish to say she didn’t want it.

‘See, I told you I was going to get you tipsy and seduce you,’ Eddie teased her wickedly.

‘That’s what you might think,’ Katie joked back, ‘but I know otherwise.’

Of course they danced; impossible not to with such a good band and when Katie loved dancing so much. It was surprisingly easy to slip into Eddie’s arms and let him guide her round the dance floor, enjoying the sensation of moving in time with the music.

‘You are a very good dancer,’ Eddie murmured against Katie’s ear during one of the slower numbers, the movement of his lips and the warmth
of his breath sending exhilarating
frissons
of pleasure sliding over her skin.

‘You aren’t bad yourself,’ Katie joked back.

‘And you know what they say about people who dance well, don’t you?’ Eddie demanded, continuing without giving her the chance to reply. ‘They say that people who dance well, make love well.’

‘They say or you say?’ Katie laughed, but there was no denying that there was something very pleasurable about the confident but relaxed way in which Eddie held her, both through the fast and the slow dance numbers. And yet despite all his teasing Katie felt safe with Eddie, and as though she had known him for years, as though they had been friends and had grown up together, and knew one another so well that there was no need for any pretence between them. Being with Eddie was relaxing, Katie acknowledged, and that was because she wasn’t in love with him.

Not in love with him but, to her own surprise, not averse to being kissed by him and then kissing him back, as she discovered when they made their slow way back to her billet, on foot, hand in hand, later in the evening – after Eddie had surprised her with that first unexpected kiss – Eddie’s arm around her, all the better for them to draw close together to enjoy further kisses when the opportunity arose.

‘It’s been a lovely evening,’ Katie said when they had eventually arrived back.

‘It could be even lovelier, if—’ Eddie began.

But Katie shook her head and told him firmly, ‘No.’

‘Not this time,’ Eddie agreed,

‘Not any time,’ Katie insisted, but her rejection was given with a smile and the knowledge that she had thoroughly enjoyed their date and would be happy to repeat it.

Later, lying in bed thinking about the evening, Katie reflected on how much she had enjoyed herself. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so…so light-hearted and ready to laugh before, the desire to laugh and be happy bubbling up inside her like the champagne she had drunk.

She felt that way in part because of Luke’s letter, she recognised. Receiving it had freed her from what she now realised had been a deep-down need to prove and keep on proving to herself, and therefore inside her own thoughts to Luke, that she was the sort of girl who took her responsibilities seriously, the sort of girl who did not go out and have fun, who did not flirt and who certainly did not have lovely, fun, light-hearted evenings out with handsome charmers, with whom she then exchanged utterly delicious goodnight kisses. There was, though, now no need for her to feel guilty about doing any of those things any more because somehow that would make the cruel words Luke had written about her when he had ended their engagement true. She was free from the restrictions she had placed on herself, free from being tied to past unhappiness, and most of all free from feeling that she couldn’t get on with her life because Luke had branded her as an unfaithful fiancée.
That sense of freedom was a heady and wonderful feeling, and she thanked Luke from the bottom of her heart for writing to her as he had. In a funny sort of way she almost wished that Luke was here so that she could tell him how happy she was and how grateful she was to him, because only he would understand exactly what she meant.

Lying in the lovely comfortable double bed in the equally lovely and comfortable bedroom in Bella’s house – the house Bella had insisted on letting her and Gavin rent for next to nothing so that they could be a proper family – Lena felt the sudden soft kick of the baby within her. Tears burned her eyes as she put her hand automatically over her body, soothing the baby, letting it know that she had felt its movement and that she loved it. Such a precious moment and one that she should be sharing with Gavin, only Gavin was already asleep, lying with his back to her, instead of cuddling up to her, and holding her in his arms.

What had gone wrong between them? Lena wished she knew, but every time she tried to say something to Gavin about his sudden coldness towards her, the words just would not come.

Because she was afraid of hearing his answers? Because she was scared silly that he might be regretting having married her and that he didn’t love her any more?

Lena felt as though there was a heavy weight
of misery around her heart, a horrible burden of guilt because she had let Gavin marry her when part of her had known all along that this might happen and that he would regret being so very kind to her. He was such a wonderful man, was Gavin, strong and protective, and yet soft-hearted at the same time. She only had to see him with Janette to know that.

Janette. The thought of her daughter brought a fresh lump to Lena’s throat. Janette adored the man she thought of as her father. She couldn’t wait for him to come back from his work as a pilot on one of the Liverpool pilot boats that brought in the shipping over the Liverpool bar. At least Gavin hadn’t turned his back on Janette like he had on her. Only this morning Lena had seen Gavin holding Janette tight, when he didn’t know that she was there; a look on his face of such pain and anguish that Lena had wanted to run to him and offer him his freedom, anything just so long as he didn’t look like that. But of course she hadn’t, because she was too much of a coward, and because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

They had been so happy – too happy, perhaps. A small shiver racked Lena’s body. Gavin hadn’t really wanted another baby so soon, but Lena had desperately wanted to give him a child of his own and so she and nature had united against him. He had seemed so pleased when she had first told him, though, laughing and shaking his head and saying that she’d have her hands full with two little ones so close together, and then he’d kissed her and
held her and she’d thought that he’d been as pleased as she was herself.

But now he never mentioned the baby. Never talked to her at all, really, retreating into silence and a place where he had shut himself off from her as surely as though there really was a door between them that he closed and locked.

Lena didn’t know what on earth she was going to do. She couldn’t hold him to their marriage if he wasn’t happy. She loved him too much for that, but what about Janette and this new baby? Hot tears spilled from her eyes, the sound of her misery smothered against the pillow.

Gavin lay stiffly against the mattress, lying as far away from Lena as he could get. If he didn’t, if he accidentally touched her, then that would be it, he would be taking her in his arms and shaming himself by begging her to love him and only him. Where was his pride? After what he had seen, his Lena with that ruddy Charlie, he had felt like giving the other man a taste of his fists and knocking him to the ground, showing him that Lena was his now and sending him packing. And if Lena had loved him she would have asked him to do that. She would have said that Charlie was trying to make a nuisance of himself, and he, Gavin, would soon have made it clear to him what was what. Instead, though, Lena had said nothing, not a single word, even though he had waited and waited, and now all Gavin could think and believe was that Lena didn’t want him, she wanted that stinker who had treated her so badly, and had left her pregnant and little Janette without her father’s name.

Now, much as he longed to ask Lena for her promise not to see Charlie ever again and to remind her that she had two little ones to think of – Janette, who Gavin thought of as his own daughter, and the new baby she was carrying – and that his children, like his wife, belonged here with him, he was too much of a coward to do so. A ruddy coward, that was what he was, so afraid of losing Lena that he couldn’t bring himself to challenge her and to tell her what was what, and that she was staying here with him and their children, no matter how much she might want to go running after someone else. In the darkness Gavin felt the weight of his grief as though it was the heaviest of anchors pulling him down with it into the depths of despair and misery.

Luke leaned against his kitbag, enjoying the unexpected warmth of the early November sun. They were on their way to Rome, travelling along the Amalfi coast of Italy, the sparkling blue Mediterranean to their left, below the winding road cut into the hillside, marvelling at the small villages clinging somehow to the steep hills.

He had seen so much these last few weeks, experienced so much, good and bad, cruel and kind, things he could never talk about back at home to his family, things that troubled him and disturbed him and that he longed to share with someone who would understand, and so that they would not be forgotten, fading from his mind once the war was over and the world returned to normal.

Here in the sunshine it was hard to think about
Naples and all that they had found there, and yet at the same time it was impossible for him to stop thinking about it.

He reached for his cigarettes, the letter he had received from Katie crackling in his pocket as he did so.

Katie. He could tell her. She would understand.

Half an hour later Luke looked at the words he had written on impulse, his thoughts and feelings pouring from him onto the paper.

Dear Katie,

We are now on route to an Eternal place, having passed through the hell of somewhere a person might die to see.

Would the censor allow those words? Katie would understand, Luke was sure, that he was referring first to Rome and then Naples, without naming them directly.

In that latter place there were things that it will be impossible for any of us to forget. The enemy before retreating had deliberately destroyed the city’s sanitation system and water supply, and that was after having abused and starved the local population.

The ‘bad smell’ I carry with me now is not due just to the filth and the stench of the place but due also to what its people have been reduced to. Boys, as young as five and six, all bones and big eyes sharp with anxiety and distrust approach us all the time, offering
us the use of their sisters in return for ‘dollars’. When I think of our Italian communities at home and the ferocity with which they guard their young women, one can only imagine what these people must be going through to do what they are doing. It is a sickening aspect of war, made all the worse when I see some of our own men taking advantage of what is being offered. Not my men, though.

Before we left we gathered together what we could spare from our rations and distributed it amongst the children that came closest to us. What will happen, I wonder, to those girls who were forced to prostitute themselves to feed their families? What will happen to the children some of them are bound to have? I try to think of how I would feel if this was my country, and my family, my sisters. The thought is too unbearable to entertain. What I do know, though, is that I would still love them even though I would hate myself for not being able to protect them. This war has shown me so much, Katie. Those girls – girls who once I would have labelled as ‘no good’ – prepared to sell all that they have left for the sake of their families are as brave as any soldier. A soldier is praised for his sacrifice in a time of war, but these girls will be condemned and shunned for theirs.

I am sorry to burden you with such unpleasant things, Katie, but you are the only person I can talk to about them. I’m afraid of
forgetting them, you see, afraid that they will be put to one side when this war is over, when they must not be.

The shame I could see in the eyes of those young boys is or should be the shame of all of us, and in some ways it is. I see it in the faces of the men who have weakened and given in to the urge to take advantage of what is being offered, and I wonder what they will tell those at home they love, and how we will all live with what this war has done, once we are no longer at war.

Luke

Having read the letter Luke folded it up, making neat straight creases as he did so with a thumb and forefinger hardened with the work of being a soldier, putting it in an envelope, carefully writing the address from the top of Katie’s letter to him on it and then sealing it. Only when he had done all that did he suddenly have second thoughts. The actual weight of the letter balanced on his hand. It didn’t weigh heavily but its contents did. They weighed very heavily indeed – on his heart and his conscience.

He should not send this letter to Katie, he decided. It simply wasn’t fair to her to burden her with the turmoil of his own thoughts, especially now, when they were nothing more than two people who had once believed they would love one another for ever, and who had since found out that they had been wrong.

He went to tear the sealed envelope in half, only
to stop as they were given the order to move out, pushing the letter into his kitbag instead, before standing and picking up his kitbag.

‘Here we go again,’ Andy grimaced,

‘At least we’re advancing and not being held up by any ruddy Germans,’ Luke reminded him.

‘Not yet,’ Andy pointed out, adding, ‘Here, there’s a letter just fallen out of your kitbag, Corp.’

Luke looked at the letter he had written to Katie. He bent to pick it up but Andy reached it first, telling him cheerfully, ‘I’ve got a couple to get sent home. I’ll take yours with mine and hand them over before we get started.’

Luke wanted to stop him and to reclaim the letter, but if he did then Andy was bound to ask him why he had written it if he didn’t want to send it. Andy was the kind of person who was very open and direct – too much so sometimes, perhaps – and Luke didn’t want to have to answer the questions Andy was bound to ask him if he demanded the letter back. He’d look a real fool having to admit that he had poured his heart out in the letter and was now having second thoughts about the wisdom of sending it.

In combat conditions a man saw things that made him think more seriously about the role that fate played in human lives. Why should it be that a spray of enemy fire could take out several men but somehow leave one of their number unscathed? Luke had lost count of the number of stories he had heard about men being fated to live – or die. Maybe it was the same with his letter, he thought wryly as Andy turned and loped off, carrying his letter with him.

Sasha was happier than she could ever remember being and the reason for her happiness was the fact that because of a nasty cut to his arm, Bobby was on sick leave from his bomb disposal work.

It was wonderful not having to worry about him, not having to worry about anything, Sasha acknowledged. Bobby walked her to work every morning, met her at dinner time and waited for her after work. There was still the awful darkness to be faced at night when she went to bed, of course, but even that hadn’t seemed as bad since she’d not had to worry about Bobby’s safety. Her current happiness only went to prove that she had been right when she had said that she would be much happier when she and Bobby were married and he was out of the bomb disposal unit for good.

‘It’s silly us not being married just because of the war,’ she told Bobby now as he walked her home after work.

‘There’s nothing I’d like more than for us to be wed, Sash, you know that, but we’ve got to be practical. Even if your parents let us get married we’ve nowhere to live.’

‘We could find somewhere. There’s your billet, and…and, well, we could live with Mum and Dad until we found somewhere of our own.’

Bobby shook his head. ‘My landlady only takes in single men, and…and as for moving in with your parents…’ He hesitated and looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, the thing is, Sash, we’ll be a newly married couple and with them being your mum and dad, well, I just don’t see how it would work, if you know what I mean.’

Sasha did, but she wasn’t about to give up.

‘We’re bound to find somewhere,’ she insisted, tugging on Bobby’s arm and pulling him towards her as she told him fiercely, ‘All I want is for you and me to be married, Bobby, and for you to be safe. I want that more than anything else in the world. Other girls my age get married.’

Bobby wrapped her in his arms. ‘There’s nothing I want more than for you to be happy, Sash, you know that. Nothing. But your mum and dad have said—’

‘I don’t care what they’ve said. I want us to be together, Bobby, always. I don’t want to wait any longer.’

Bobby’s arms tightened compulsively, his heart thudding into Sasha’s chest at the thought of what she was saying to him. He loved her so much; there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her – except encourage her to go against her parents. That simply wouldn’t be right. But Bobby knew his Sasha. She’d argue and wheedle, there would be tears and recriminations. He decided to try to distract her.

‘I had a letter from me mum today,’ he told her. ‘She’s going on about us going up to Newcastle for Christmas, if I get leave. She says that you could share with our Jane, seeing as her hubbie will be away at sea over Christmas.’

Both Bobbie’s sisters were married to merchant seamen. Jane lived with her widowed mother, whilst Bobby’s other sister Irene and her two small children lived with her mother-in-law.

‘I reckon that me mam wants to show you off a bit, with us being engaged.’

Spend Christmas in Newcastle – away from Liverpool and her own family? Sasha opened her mouth to refuse and then closed it again. Her parents were treating her as though she were still a child. Well, she’d show them that she wasn’t by making her own plans for Christmas – with Bobby. Besides, Lou was bound to be coming home and Sasha knew that she didn’t want to listen to her twin going on about flying and talking about people – her new friends – who Sasha knew nothing about.