скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Hi,’ smiled Lyn, carefully pushing open the door, depositing tea and jam and bread on the chest of drawers. ‘I thought you’d be awake still. Brought you up a drink. Good leave, then?’
‘Great. And thanks for leaving the letters – and the welcome-back greeting.’
‘Keth all right?’ Lyn took off her jacket, eased off her shoes.
‘He’s fine. He still loves me, which isn’t a lot of use, him over there and me here. Any news? Scandal?’
‘News – yes. You know the buzz about the hats? Well, it’s official. New caps in clothing stores soon and we’re to swap the old ones for the new type. Not before time, either. Just like school hats, these things. The new ones will be a sort of cross between a matelot’s cap and a beret, I heard. Cheeky. Worn low on the forehead, an inch above the eyebrows. At least I’ll be able to wear my hair in a pleat and not have to screw it into a roll.’ Lyn Carmichael refused, unlike most other Wrens, to have her hair cut short. ‘Oh, and we needn’t carry our respirators everywhere now. Seems Hitler isn’t going to gas us! We’re only to take them when we go on leave. They’re going to let us carry shoulder bags. I’ve actually seen one, though we have to buy them ourselves. Fifteen bob, I think they’ll be. Quite smart. It’s all been happening whilst you were away.’
‘Things are looking up,’ Daisy smiled. ‘No more news?’
‘We-e-ll, yes.’ Lyn took a steadying gulp of tea. ‘I had a letter from Kenya. From my father. It took me ages to open it because for some stupid reason I hadn’t expected to hear from him again – well, not until the war was over. It seems, though, that he and Auntie Blod have written to each other regularly since my mother died.’
‘The lady you thought was your mother,’ Daisy corrected.
‘Thought. I never really liked her; that was why she had me sent to school in England, I suppose.’
‘But you like your Auntie Blod, don’t you?’
‘If you mean am I glad she’s my real mother and not my aunt, yes, I am. My father should have married her, though, knowing he’d got her pregnant.’
‘I think he might have done, Carmichael, if your Auntie Blod had told him.’
‘Then she should have and they could have married and I’d have had a proper mother and father!’
‘You’re still annoyed about it, aren’t you – annoyed with your father, I mean?’
‘Yes, I am. The randy old goat!’
‘Lyn! That isn’t kind! It must have been awful for your Auntie Blod, giving you up to her sister and thinking she would never see you again. And I think she still loves your father, else why did she never marry and why are they writing to each other all of a sudden?’
‘Why indeed, and me not being told about it! But I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash. Auntie Blod will tell me about it when I go on leave. And if she still loves him, well, what the heck!’
Blodwen Meredith, her real mother, if she wanted to be picky, must truly have loved her father, just as Lyn loved – would always love – Drew Sutton. It was like Auntie Blod once said: you couldn’t turn love off to order.
‘It’s their life,’ Daisy said softly.
‘Yes, it is. Want some bread and jam?’
‘Just tea, thanks. And, Lyn – about your father. You once said you liked him better than your mother; that he was quite decent to you, when she wasn’t there.’
‘I should think so, too! After all, I was his natural daughter. My mother must have hated it really, having me around. The one I thought was my mother,’ she amended, sighing.
‘Well, it’s all coming right for them now, and you should be glad about it if they want to get together after all those years.’
‘I suppose I should. I’ll try to be, if only for Auntie Blod’s sake. I love her a lot. Always did.’
‘Probably because some part of you knew she was your real mother.’
‘Probably. Sure you don’t want this bread and jam, Dwerryhouse?’
‘Sure. Eat it yourself, then get into bed. I’ve put a hot-water bottle in for you. Chop chop! Some of us want to get to sleep! And by the way – I missed you. I’m sort of glad to be back in the old routine.’
She pushed the empty mug beneath her bunk, then wriggled down into her blankets. Come to think of it, Liverpool wasn’t a bad old place to see out the war in, for all its faults – provided the Luftwaffe didn’t come back and blitz it again!
But anywhere would do really. Without Keth, one port was much the same as another. And Lyn was smashing to be with – when she wasn’t all quiet, thinking about Drew marrying someone else, that was. Poor Lyn …
‘Where are they, then?’ Tatiana Sutton smiled a greeting at Sparrow’s Joannie, who was quite high up, really, in the Women’s Voluntary Service.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind – taking on another one?’
‘Not at all. They aren’t a bit of trouble. It’s the one or two civilians who look at them as if they’ve got no right to be out in public that bother me!’
‘The air gunner is blind. Did Aunt Emily tell you?’
‘She did.’ Tatiana drew in her breath sharply. Tim had been an air gunner. ‘But he’ll like the music, even though he won’t be able to …’ Her voice trailed off, because it was awful enough having your face burned beyond recognition; to lose your sight as well must make you want to rage against the injustice of it.
‘The music will be an extra bonus,’ Joannie said. ‘Just going out on the town will be really something. It’s his first time out since – since it happened. You’ll have to play it by ear. You realize that, don’t you?’
‘I do. What’s his name?’
‘Bill Benson. How’s Aunt Emily, by the way?’
‘She’s fine. Sent her love. Joannie – just how old is she? I’ve asked, but she won’t tell.’
‘So have I and got one of her looks for it. But it’s my guess she’s nearer eighty than seventy.’
‘She’s a love. She bullies me, you know.’
‘I do know, but it’s really affection. She’s got to have someone to love. Here are the tickets.’ She handed over a re-used envelope, stuck down with an economy label. ‘They’re good seats. You’re to meet the chaps outside the theatre.’
‘The Adelphi, isn’t it? I’m looking forward to it. How are they to get back afterwards?’
‘There’ll be transport provided. There are quite a few lads out on the town tonight so wait with yours, can you, till a driver comes to pick them up?’
She said of course she would and that she knew which line to use on the Underground and where to get off. She was getting to be quite a Londoner.
‘One last thing, Tatiana. If there’s an alert, I think it would be best if you got them to the nearest Underground – then stay with them, till the all clear.’
‘I’ll look after them.’ There were fewer air raids on London since Hitler had invaded Russia. Very few people left a cinema when ‘Air-Raid Warning’ was flashed on the screen now. Usually it was only air-raid wardens, ambulance drivers and fire fighters who left to report to their nearest centre; just as Uncle Igor did. It was the same in the theatres. Someone – usually a pretty girl – stood at the side of the stage holding up a notice to the same effect.
But Londoners were getting blasé about the Luftwaffe. They had paid their money and were staying to see a show! It was as simple as that. And London was a big place, they usually reasoned; the bombs would probably drop miles away!
‘I’ll take them if they want to go,’ Tatiana smiled. ‘But best be off. Don’t want to keep the RAF waiting!’
She wouldn’t, she was to think afterwards, have been so eager had she known what would be there outside the Adelphi Theatre to greet her.
‘This is Bill,’ Sam said. ‘Sergeant Bill Benson.’ Which would have been all right, Tatiana thought when she had got the better of the cold, cruel pain that sliced through her, had he not turned, his hand searching for hers, and spoken to her with Tim’s soft way of speaking; had he not had a shock of fair hair like Tim’s, nor the wing of an air-gunner above his left tunic pocket.
Tim come back to her, his beautiful face burned beyond recognition; Tim, wearing dark glasses over sightless eyes. Not smiling, because to smile she knew to be difficult. But the hand she grasped was Tim Thomson’s hand and the voice that said, ‘Tatiana. Nice to meet you,’ was Tim’s voice. Even his height belonged to a sergeant air-gunner she had not seen for a few days short of a year.
She clasped the hand in hers, said, ‘Nice to meet you, too, Bill,’ then covered that hand with her free one and closed her eyes and whispered silently inside her, ‘God! How could you do this to me? How could you?’
‘We’re in good time.’ Sam speaking. ‘What say we find the bar and sink a crafty half?’
‘A crafty half it is!’ said a voice not a bit like Tatiana Sutton’s. Then she pulled Bill Benson’s arm into the crook of her own. ‘That okay with you, Bill?’
And he said it was and asked her to tell him – quietly, if she wouldn’t mind – when there was a step up or down; otherwise he could manage just fine.
And Tatiana thought it was just as well one of them could manage just fine, because she couldn’t. She was light-headed and hot and cold, both at the same time. And it hurt, almost, to breathe.
‘Give me your stick,’ she heard herself saying, ‘and you, Sam, walk on the other side. Relax, Bill. We’ve got you.’
Yet all the time she was shaking inside her. And her mouth had gone dry and it was hard, even, to think; think about getting Bill Benson up and down steps and stairs, that was, and fixing him up with a beer; finding a corner of the noisy, heaving bar where he could manage to drink it without being pushed or elbowed.
‘What are you drinking, Bill?’ Sam had asked when they had found a place to stand.
‘Heavy, please.’ There was no smile on his tight, rough lips, but there was a smile in his voice.
‘That’s bitter, in Sassenach,’ she heard herself explaining to Sam. ‘And I’ll have a glass of light, please, if that’s okay?’
‘You know your Scottish ales,’ Bill said with Tim’s voice.
And she took a deep breath and said, ‘But of course, hen.’
She hadn’t meant to be flippant, had not meant to use one of Tim’s words because Tim had often called her hen. And you shouldn’t be flippant, should you, when nothing about and around you was real; when all you could be sure of was the voice that wept inside you?
God! Why did you do this? Why did you take Tim away from me then send Bill Benson into my life?
Because Bill was Tim and Tim was Bill. Only sightless eyes and a cruelly burned face disguised them.
She found herself wondering if Bill liked to dance, only to hear a ragged voice whispering in her ear: It doesn’t matter if Bill Benson dances or not. He isn’t Tim. Tim is dead! He will never come back; you know he won’t.
She was grateful that Sam returned at that moment, carrying three glasses on a tin tray.
‘Y’know, Tatiana – there’s one good thing about being a wounded hero! You get served first!’
She took a glass, then said, ‘Bill,’ and he turned in the direction of her voice. ‘Your drink …’
He held out his hand and she arranged his fingers round the glass, then said, ‘Cheers!’ even though his hands had not been burned and could have almost been the hands that once touched and gentled her body.
Did you hear me, God? Why …?
Keth tapped on the door and pushed it open.
‘Hullo, sir. Come for your homework?’ asked the pleasant-faced ATS corporal.
‘Please. But tell me, Corporal, why are all the army girls around here sergeants but you?’
He felt pleased that his voice sounded so normal.
‘Because I’m not old enough. You have to be twenty-one in this setup. Only three months to wait!’
She looked very young; certainly not twenty and three-quarters. He wondered how much she knew; how far she was trusted, until she turned the dial on the safe to the left and right, then handed him a folder marked ‘237’.
‘This is yours, Captain. Will you sign for it, please?’ There was a docket stapled to the front of it and she wrote the date, the day and the time on it then offered it for his signature. ‘And will you sign the office copy, too?’
‘You look very young to be working in a setup like this.’ Keth initialled the second copy. ‘Do you find it a strain?’
‘No, sir. My own choice entirely. I wanted, initially, to be sent out into the field, but –’
‘Work for SOE, you mean? An agent?’
‘I work for SOE now,’ she smiled. ‘But yes, one day I’d like to go to France.’
‘But why?’ She was too young, too pretty, too vulnerable-looking.
‘For the same reasons as yourself, I suppose.’
‘Hey! Don’t get any ideas about me! I’m here because I made a bargain. I owe them one – and I suppose I’m going because I know more about – well –’ he faltered, ‘I’m going because I know more than most about what this particular trip entails. I’m certainly not going because I like danger, or anything like that. I want to get it over and done with, then settle into my boring routine again. And get married,’ he added, almost as an afterthought. Which was stupid, really, because he had become Gaston Martin only because he so desperately wanted to marry Daisy. ‘And should we be talking like this, Corporal?’ he asked more severely than he intended to. ‘What I mean is – well – will our conversation be reported to Himself in authority?’
‘No, sir,’ she said softly. ‘Not by me it won’t.’
‘Thank you.’ He smiled, relieved. ‘But tell me why someone like you should want to go on active service with SOE? Working here you must surely know what it entails?’
‘Yes, I do. But I love France, you see. All the special things in my life happened there. We went there a lot before the war, on holiday and every year to the same pension. I learned to swim in France when I was four. France was a happy place for me and my brother.
‘Then my parents sent me to school there, to finish me off, as they called it. I went when I was sixteen. When I came home for my seventeenth birthday they wouldn’t let me go back; they thought we’d soon be at war, you see, and home was the safest place to be. I’ve been trying to get back ever since.’
‘A young man?’
‘Partly,’ she said, without even the hint of a blush. ‘There was someone I was fond of, but his letters stopped. I suppose I’d be happy just to know what has happened to him – if he is still alive. But really, I just want to go back to France. Can you understand?’
‘Yes, I can,’ he said softly, knowing they shouldn’t be talking so intimately and that probably the place had hidden microphones. ‘But do you think –?’ His eyes swept the walls and ceiling.
‘They might be listening in?’
‘Nothing would surprise me here.’
‘No. This room is all right.’
‘But not Room 22?’
‘I didn’t say that. And, sir – can you go there now? They said I was to tell you.’
‘I’m on my way. ’Bye, Corporal.’
‘Goodbye, sir.’
