When the Lights Go On Again

FIVE

‘Oh, you’re still awake.’

The tone of Sasha’s voice made it very clear to Lou that Sasha didn’t welcome the fact that Lou was sitting up in bed in their shared bedroom, instead of being asleep.

Lou had been giving a great deal of thought to Sasha over the course of the evening, her concern for her twin growing with everything that her mother had said about Sasha – and, more importantly, everything she had not said.

Lou had learned that ‘Sasha isn’t doing Bobby any favours by trying to force him to turn his back on his comrades in the bomb disposal service by asking for a transfer into other military duties’ – her father’s comment.

And, ‘I can understand that poor Sasha worries about Bobby doing such a dangerous job, but having a go at your dad because he won’t help her to persuade Bobby to ask for a transfer isn’t the right way to go about things. Your dad’s a man of principle and he respects Bobby for insisting that he intends to stick with his comrades’ – their mother’s statement. And all the things in between that hadn’t been said but which Lou had been able to sense with the maturity that being in uniform and having to work as part of a team with others had brought her.

‘I could tell this afternoon that she wasn’t herself,’ Lou had admitted to her mother when they had been in the kitchen together after tea, washing up the tea things, a family ritual that Lou had once done everything she could to escape, but that today she had loved because of the opportunity it gave her to share a special closeness with her mother, as two adult women.

‘I thought that it must be because of me and because she thought I’d been talking about her behind her back.’

Jean had sighed and shaken her head. ‘There’s no reasoning with her these days. I wouldn’t mind so much if I thought that she was happy, but when I can see that she isn’t…’ She’d turned to Lou, her hands still in the washing-up water, red and slightly chapped from all the hard work they did. Looking at them, Lou had felt a surge of fierce love for her mother, and an equally intense wish that she could do something not just to put things right between her and Sasha, but to help her mother as well.

‘I’ll try and talk to her, if you like,’ she had offered. ‘I’d planned to tell her anyway how sorry I am that I was so mean to her when she and Bobby first started going out, because I didn’t want things to change and I just wanted it to be me and her, like it had always been.’

Lou had guessed that their mother had expected Sasha to return home early from her tea out with Bobby because Lou was home, and that she was upset because Sasha had not done so. Because of that Lou had set herself the task of showing her parents, and especially her mother, that she was not upset or offended and that she was happy in their company, telling them about her own life in ATA, or at least giving them a carefully edited version of it so as not to alarm her mother, listening to the news with them, laughing when her father reminded her of the racket she and Sasha used to make with their music and their dancing, and listening with genuine interest whilst Jean brought her up to date on things that were happening within the family.

But all the time Lou had been trying to think of the best way to break down the barriers between her and Sasha.

‘No,’ she answered her twin now with a warm smile, ‘I wanted to wait up for you so that we could have a proper chat. Do you remember how we used to talk so late into the night that Mum threatened to make us sleep in separate rooms?’

When Sasha didn’t respond but turned away from her instead, and started getting ready for bed, Lou tried again.

‘Mum and Dad were both saying how much they like Bobby.’

Sasha, who had put one foot on their shared bentwood chair whilst she removed her stockings, stiffened but didn’t say anything.

‘I’m really sorry that I was such an idiot and behaved so badly when you and Bobby were first seeing one another, Sash,’ Lou apologised generously. ‘I was so immature and selfish, wanting to keep things between us the way they had always been.’

Sash had returned to removing her stockings. Her twin had lost weight, Lou recognised. Even the dim light of the bedside lamp couldn’t conceal how pinched her face looked. Lou looked towards the window with its heavy blackout covering. If only Sasha would just make some response, but her twin was behaving as though Lou simply wasn’t there.

Lou wasn’t going to give up, though. Not for one minute.

‘I was so jealous of Bobby,’ she continued, laughing at herself, ‘him being with bomb disposal and being a real hero. You must be so proud of him, Sasha.’

Now at last her twin reacted, turning to face Lou, her eyes blazing with emotion in her pale face.

‘Proud of him for risking getting himself killed when he knows what that would do to me? When he could ask for a transfer out?’

Sasha’s voice held so much anger and so much pain that Lou could feel that pain in her own heart.

‘I hate this war. I hate it and I just want it to be over, before it can take Bobby from me,’ Sasha burst out.

In a flash Lou was pushing back the bedclothes and getting out of bed, her one thought to comfort her twin, as she ran across the space that divided their single beds.

‘Oh, Sash, I’m so sorry.’ Lou reached out to put her arms around her twin.

‘No you’re not. You’re enjoying this war, like everyone else: Mum and Dad, and Grace and Seb, and…and everyone. Well, I’m not enjoying it. I hate it. I hate everything about it, everything.’

Sasha had torn herself free from Lou’s embrace before Lou could stop her, snatching up her toilet bag, obviously intending to go to the bathroom.

Lou watched her go, her heart aching for her twin, knowing instinctively, because they were twins, that what Sasha had really wanted to say was that she hated everyone involved in the war rather than merely everything.

Poor Sasha. Of course her twin must be worried about Bobby, especially with him having such a very dangerous job. Lou wasn’t in love herself so she felt that she couldn’t truly appreciate how it must feel to know that the person you loved and wanted to spend the rest of your life with might be taken from you. On the other hand, she did know girls who were engaged and married, and whilst they were naturally anxious for their loved ones their feelings about the war did not match Sasha’s. Feeling very troubled and concerned for her twin, Lou went back to bed.

Sasha was an awfully long time in the bathroom. Because she was upset or because she was hoping that Lou herself would be asleep by the time she returned, Lou wondered. If that was the case, perhaps right now the best thing she could do for her twin was grant her that privacy, Lou accepted tiredly as she stifled a yawn. It had been a very long day and hopefully there would be time for them to talk properly to one another tomorrow, when Sasha was feeling calmer.

When she opened the bedroom door and saw that the room was in darkness, Sasha let out her pent-up breath in shaky relief. There was no point in her trying to explain to her twin how she felt. Lou simply wouldn’t understand.

Putting her wash bag on the dressing table, Sasha felt in the pocket of her dressing gown for the familiar reassuring security of her small torch. She had bought it and its batteries on the black market, and it and Bobby’s engagement ring were her most precious possessions. Both of them gave her comfort and helped her to feel safe.

Very carefully she put the torch under her pillow and then quickly removed her dressing gown. If she concentrated and didn’t think about the dark and the ice-cold shudders of fear it sent crawling down her spine, she could be in bed and reaching for her torch before it had the chance to take hold of her. What she must not do once she was in bed was think about how the weight of the bedclothes reminded her of being trapped in the bomb shaft, knowing that if Lou let go of her she would slip completely beneath it, swallowed up by the darkness, and the weight of the bomb and the earth around it pressing down on her smothering her.

She was in bed now but she was trembling so much she couldn’t get hold of the torch. A cold sweat was filming her forehead, panicky nausea gripping her stomach, her heart pounding and her lungs refusing to expand to take in air. A horrible choking sensation tightened her chest, as the seconds ticked by, her panic only releasing her when she finally held the torch and switched it on. Light. It made her feel so much safer and calmer. With the little torch on she knew she wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night fearing that she was still trapped beneath the bomb and that she was going to die.

It had all been so different when she had first been rescued. She had been so happy then, so grateful to Lou for staying with her, and even more grateful to Bobby for taking her twin’s place and then her own so that she could be rescued. It had been only after Lou had joined the WAAF that she had started having these awful feelings of panic and fear, flashbacks to how it had felt to be trapped under the bomb. At first she had tried to ignore those feelings, hoping that if she did they would simply go away, but they hadn’t. Instead they’d grown worse, tormenting her at every turn, making her afraid to go to sleep in case she woke up in the darkness thinking she was still trapped. The torch protected her, keeping the darkness at bay, but nothing could protect her from her fears. Fears that were all the worse for her knowing that every day Bobby risked losing his own life because he worked in bomb disposal. The thought of him being trapped as she had been terrified her. She had forbidden him to talk to her about his work because she simply couldn’t bear hearing about the shafts they had to dig to get down to some of the bombs. She had nightmares about those shafts; about being trapped in one of them with the earth burying her, slowly choking her to death.

There was no point in her trying to explain to anyone how she felt. Who would understand? Not Bobby, who laughed at her when she said that his work was too dangerous, not Lou, who loved nothing more than risking her own life flying in a plane, not the girls she worked with at the telephone exchange, who all had boyfriends or husbands, doing their bit for the country, not her elder sister, Grace, either, who talked about the bravery of the wounded soldiers she nursed, and certainly not her parents, who were so proud of Luke. They would all think she was a coward and be ashamed of her. She felt ashamed of herself. Ashamed and afraid and so very alone.

Tears trickled down Sasha’s face, her hold on the little torch tightening, her last thought before she fell asleep that she must wake up before Lou so that she could switch off the torch so Lou wouldn’t know about it.

SIX

‘That’s nearly a full week’s ration of butter you’ve just spread on your toast,’ Bella pointed out crossly to her brother, as she poured herself a cup of tea. Her mother’s kitchen was nothing like as pretty as her own, or as homely and comfortable as her aunt Jean’s, even though Vi had had the kitchen newly fitted out with the very latest gas oven, and a smart metal unit painted cream and green, as well as a brand-new table and four chairs, when the family had moved into the house just a couple of years before the start of the war.

‘Well, you can get some more easily enough from that nursery of yours, without anyone being the wiser, since you run it, can’t you?’ Charlie demanded, without lifting his gaze from the paper he was reading.

‘You may think it acceptable to steal from others, Charlie, but I certainly don’t,’ Bella told him pointedly.

Charlie heaved an irritable sigh. ‘Oh, for God’s sake stop moralising, Bella, just because you’ve become a Goody Two-Shoes. I remember how you persuaded Alan to marry you, even if you’d rather forget.’

Bella wasn’t going to deny that she had tricked her first husband into marrying her. She had been a different person then, a stupid shallow selfish person who had learned the hard way that what she had done was wrong. Alan was dead now and she had been given the chance to make a new life for herself with the man she loved.

‘What I did was wrong, but I’ve paid for my wrongdoing. Unlike you, Charlie.’

Charlie threw down the paper. ‘If you’re referring to that brat you keep insisting is mine, I’ve a good mind to go round and see—’

‘Don’t you dare go anywhere near Lena. She’s happy now, with Gavin, and she doesn’t need you upsetting her,’ Bella interrupted him, realising too late when she saw the look in his eyes that she had said too much and by doing so had created exactly the situation she had wanted to avoid, sparking Charlie’s interest in Lena, instead of protecting her.

‘Who says I’d be upsetting her? She might be glad to see me. She certainly was the last time I saw her.’

Charlie goaded Bella with a leering smile that made Bella fear even more for Lena. Lena had loved Charlie so much. He had broken her heart, and even now she was still so young.

She was worrying over nothing, Bella told herself. Lena had no interest whatsoever in Charlie. She wasn’t in love with him and she didn’t secretly yearn for him. She had told Bella that herself when she had told her how much she loved Gavin. But even so, Bella felt anxious on Lena’s behalf.

‘Do you see much of the old man?’ Charlie asked, judging it wise to change the subject.

‘Nothing at all,’ Bella answered. ‘Nor do I want to. He’s treated Mummy dreadfully. And if you’re thinking of taking your sob story about Daphne to him, Charlie, in the hope that he’ll be as easily taken in and as generous as Mummy has been, I really would advise you not to. Pauline will soon see through you and she certainly won’t let Daddy give you any money.’

Bella was too shrewd by half, Charlie acknowledged.

‘She never had that kid she was supposed to be expecting, did she?’ he asked.

‘No. I think she must have been pretending to be pregnant as a way of making sure that Daddy left Mummy, but once she realised that Mummy wasn’t going to divorce him and that the best she could hope for was to be his mistress, a pregnancy was probably the last thing she wanted.’

‘Hmm, well, I still might as well go and visit the old man, seeing as I’m up here,’ Charlie told Bella, ignoring the look she was giving him. ‘He’s still living out at Neston, I take it?’

‘As far as I know, yes,’ Bella confirmed. She didn’t think for one minute that their father would be as generous towards Charlie as their mother had been, but at least while he drove out to the Wirral she wouldn’t need to worry about him deliberately trying to cause trouble and upset Lena.

‘Thanks for agreeing to come with me to this official do at the American Embassy tonight, Katie, especially at such short notice,’ Gina told Katie gratefully as they sat in the café in Peter Jones in Sloane Square, drinking tea.

Katie smiled at her friend. They had originally met at work and had got on well from the moment Gina had introduced herself. Although she came from a well-to-do county family, there was no edge to Gina.

Gina told Katie ruefully, ‘I dare say I only got the invitation myself because they’re a bit short of females and my name happened to be on one of those dreadful lists of “respectable and acceptable” young women the American top brass seem to insist on.’

They smiled at one another in mutual amusement, two stylish young women anyone observing them would think acceptable anywhere. The camel-coloured coat Gina had on toned perfectly with the fallen leaves outside, her brown beret toning with her hair and matching her well-polished dark brown shoes. She was taller than Katie and her good complexion was her best feature.

Katie was wearing a cherry-red hat trimmed with some feathers from one of her mother’s old stage outfits, with her own grey winter coat, the little hat tilted at a slight angle like the hats on the models in Peter Jones.

‘I wouldn’t go, but one feels it’s one’s duty to represent our own Armed Forces and remind the Americans how proud we are of them. Of course, I wouldn’t be going if Leonard wasn’t at sea,’ Gina continued.

Katie eyed Gina affectionately. Leonard, Gina’s husband, was a captain in the Royal Navy, and they hadn’t been married very long.

‘I was only thinking this morning of the way things work out.’ Gina shook her head. ‘If you and I hadn’t gone to Bath when we did, then we would never have met Leonard and Eddie.’

‘You and Leonard were obviously meant to be,’ Katie responded gently. She knew from what Gina had told her when they had first become friends, just after Katie had transferred to the Holborn Office of the Postal Censorship Department, that Gina had expected to marry another young man before she had met Leonard. That young man had been killed in action and it had taken courage on Gina’s part to risk loving another man in uniform.

‘What about you and Eddie?’ Gina challenged her. ‘After all, one day he will inherit his father’s title.’

Katie laughed and shook her head. Eddie was Leonard’s younger cousin, Leonard’s mother and Eddie’s father being sister and brother. Like Leonard, Eddie was also in the navy. Terrific fun and an equally terrific flirt, Eddie made Katie laugh and she liked him as a friend, but that was all.

‘Eddie and I are just friends. I’m glad that you’ve asked me to go with you,’ Katie responded to Gina’s initial comment. ‘I know this sounds selfish of me but it will be a pleasant change to go out and be a guest instead of being the one running around after others.’

‘You, selfish?’ Gina scoffed. ‘You are the least selfish person I know, Katie. You’re working far too hard, you know, all day at the Censorship Office and then nearly every single evening at Rainbow Corner. I thought you were only going to be there three nights a week?’

‘I was, but they’ve got so busy with all the Americans being brought over that they’re desperately short of volunteers.’

‘Do you think it’s true, Katie, what everyone’s saying about the Forces getting ready to invade France?’ Gina asked.

‘Well, we shall have to if they’re going to defeat Hitler,’ Katie answered.

‘I know,’ Gina acknowledged, ‘but after what happened to the poor men in August last year when the invasion of Dieppe failed and so many men were killed and wounded…’

The two girls exchanged sad looks. The young men who had gone so bravely to their deaths had all been Canadian volunteers from overseas, who had wanted to do their bit for the country with which so many of them had family ties.

‘I’ll come to you for six o’clock, shall I? Then we can walk round to the American Embassy from your billet?’

Katie agreed.

‘I’m hoping to visit Leonard’s parents next weekend,’ Gina told her as they both stood up. ‘I promised Leonard that I’d try to go and see them and the children as often as I can whilst he’s away.’

Leonard had two children from his first marriage to a Frenchwoman, a son and a daughter of four and three. Odile, their mother, had been killed in a car accident with her lover, and the two children lived in the country with Leonard’s parents.

‘The children are so sweet,’ Gina confessed. ‘Little Adam asked me ever so seriously the last time I saw them if he and Amy could call me Mummy. Poor little things. Leonard told me that Odile didn’t have much time for them. I’ve never thought of myself as maternal, but now…I’m really beginning to miss them when I’m in London.’

‘I think that they are very lucky to have you as their stepmother, Gina.’