Lover (11 page)

He didn't move. ‘Look here,' he said. ‘It belonged to my mother.'

‘But you… You need—'

‘I don't need it. Not any more.'

‘But you're not… not…' I faltered, not sure what I'd been going to say.

‘You can wear it for me. Now then, let's find you a place to sit down.'

We went in, and I sat down on one of the benches. I was jolly glad he was there, because I'd have been horribly embarrassed going into a shelter full of unknown people, raid or no raid. It was pretty nasty. Dank concrete, water on the floor and a strong smell of stale bodies, but I didn't really notice any of those things—well, apart from the smell—until after he'd gone.

He smiled at me, clicked his heels and made a funny little bow, then said, ‘Look after it, won't you?'

‘Of course, I—' I started to say,
I promise
, but he turned and walked away and left me staring after him.

I didn't open my hand until he'd left. It was a brooch: a dull, green stone, lozenge-shaped. Cheap-looking, not like an heirloom. Not from
that
sort of family, anyway. But it must be very special for him to carry it about like that. His mother must have been beautiful. I wondered when she'd died—if she knew. She'd have been so proud of him.

He hadn't seemed like a grammar school boy, not like Frank, too…
confident
. Not in a horrid, flashy way, swanking and swaggering, but something real and quiet that comes from inside. Perhaps that's how you tell a true hero—sharp and keen-eyed and straight-backed and…but that's only looks, comic book stuff. Dad would say it's all slop, but he agreed when Churchill said, what was it?
Turning the tide of the war by their prowess and devotion…
His speech about the pilots. Dad made a joke about how we need heroes so badly these days that we'd make them out of cardboard if we had to, but he'd be the first to agree that these men have qualities which set them apart from the common herd.

I'll keep this always, I thought, as long as I live, and wished with all my heart that I had given him a kiss.

I put it in my coat pocket. I shan't let Mums see it—she's bound to say a green stone will bring bad luck. Besides, I can hardly tell her what happened, can I? Thinking that made me remember the business with B in the restaurant, and I realised I hadn't given him a thought; but it all seemed so shabby by comparison, such a trivial, squalid concern when these men are fighting to save our country from Hitler… I suddenly saw how small-minded B is, and how foolish I'd been, and wanted nothing more to do with him. It's only when you meet someone like that, someone who's truly brave, that you realise. It seems all wrong for someone like that to sacrifice himself so that men like B can be free to carry on their squalid little intrigues in safety, but I suppose that's only a tiny part of the picture. It's the ideals that matter, not the petty things. Meeting
him
has given me something to live up to, at least, and when I think of how vain and self-centred I've been… Well, not any more.

I put my hand in my pocket and touched the brooch, then leaned back and closed my eyes. I only meant to do it for a moment but I must have been exhausted because I fell straight to sleep, and half an hour later I suddenly came to with absolutely no idea of where I was. The first thing I saw was a row of elderly ladies sitting opposite me with rusty black coats and kippered faces, sighing and shuffling and mumbling their jaws to ease their teeth, and a really nasty-looking one on the end in carpet slippers, snoring with her mouth open.

For a moment, I thought I must be dreaming, but then I found myself clutching the brooch in my pocket. The pin pricked me and woke me up, and I remembered what had happened. I thought I'd better tidy myself up a bit before heading for home, but I felt awkward about doing it in full view, so I twisted round towards the wall for a spot of privacy, and got my compact out of my handbag to inspect the damage. I must have picked it up rather awkwardly, because it was on a slant, and suddenly, a pair of eyes very similar to mine stared straight into the mirror from the other side of the shelter, and for a moment, just a moment, it was as if I was looking at myself, as if my body had reproduced itself and walked across the shelter of its own accord and was sitting looking back at me: same build, same coat, same hair style. But when I turned round for a proper look, I saw a woman, quite a bit older than me, plastered with heavy make-up, wearing high-heeled shoes—obviously a prostitute! Well, I thought, it just goes to show—I must be in a queer frame of mind if I can think something like that. Looking for a man, no doubt. I'm sure these people have to go somewhere, but a
public shelter
… You'd think the wardens would put a stop to it.

I suppose some of what I was thinking must have shown in my face, because the woman turned her head away quite sharply. I quickly righted the compact and got on with tidying myself up, because the real me was very dishevelled. I was jolly relieved to see that my eyebrows were still in place, but my hair looked a real fright. I tucked in the singed bits as best I could, then I went to work with my handkerchief, which at least got rid of the smuts, but the results weren't terribly satisfactory, and after a bit of scrubbing and rubbing, I gave up. Then I caught the woman looking at me again, and for one awful moment I thought she was going to say something, and wondered if she might be drunk. I don't see how you could do…
what she does
…unless you were. It's too revolting to think about.

I suddenly thought of B, and what I might have done with him, and felt hot all over. I was sure I was blushing, as if she could read my thoughts, and all I wanted to do was get out of there as quickly as I could, air-raid or no air-raid.

I hadn't heard the All-Clear, but it was fairly quiet outside. The darkness was threatening, and I found myself breathing in, hunching myself up, feeling my way along walls. I just managed to get the last train from Leicester Square and sat, head down, in the carriage, willing myself to stop shaking, desperately wanting to be home and safe and…I don't know…wishing that none of it was happening—the war, or B, or any of it. Wishing that nothing had
changed
. But it has, and we're not safe any more, none of us. The train was pretty crowded and the platforms heaving and I looked round at all the faces and thought, what are they going home
to
? Then I imagined the house in ruins and Mums and Dad and Minnie trapped underneath and me not there because I'd lied to them.

I put my hand in my coat pocket again and touched the brooch. I found the pin and pressed it against my fingertip so it hurt, and had a silly thought that as long as I did that the house would still be there and my family would be safe. I knew it was nonsense, but I couldn't stop myself, even though my finger was bleeding and staining the pocket and I was worried in case it seeped through the lining and made a mark. I kept thinking of the airman, his face in the flickering light of the burning shop, and I felt as if, in some odd way, I belonged to him. The bird's wings I'd found in the garden and the wings on his shoulder were the same shape, except that the bird's wings were folded, like a resting angel, and the airman's were spread wide as if they were flying. The prayer that I'd gabbled by the rosebush, perhaps it was for
him
, only I hadn't known it then. I decided I'd say it again, and maybe it would keep him safe for another day, because of the connection between us.

A voice in my head, sounding remarkably like Mums, told me sharply that this was romantic tosh, but honestly, I can't see why it isn't as good as anything else, when nobody knows what will happen. I kept the pin against my fingertip for the whole of the journey, but the petty little pain couldn't stop my thoughts going round and round in circles like a dog chasing its tail. Those burning dresses whirling up into the air and the dinner with B and what happened and the airman and the woman in the shelter… Especially her. I mean, imagine doing
that
with men who don't respect you—except I don't even know what
that
feels like—and I found myself looking round, as well as I could, at the men nearest to me, the bits of faces I could see, like a jigsaw: wrinkles and shaving cuts and pores and pocks, and hairs on the backs of fingers, dirt under nails, the squared-off shoulders and backs in heavy coats; and I could imagine the greasy insides of their hats, the rims of dirt on their shirt collars, the flakes of scurf in their hair…and I thought of being that woman and having them touch you and lie on top of you and squash you and breathe in your face because that's what she lets them do. It could have been any one of those men and she'd have gone with them and taken their money.

I couldn't keep my mind off it, and after a few stops I felt that if any one of those men so much as brushed against me I would be physically sick, so I breathed in and tried to make myself as narrow as possible, but even as I was doing it I couldn't help thinking, what difference does it make what anybody does, if we are all going to die?

It's all so confusing. And dangerous. I didn't want to have those thoughts. They're like ‘the thing', only worse, and they can't be right. I'm weak to have been taken in by nothing more than a handsome face and a few compliments. I felt ashamed of myself, but was jolted out of it by the thought that B might secretly despise me for being the sort of girl who would even consider doing what he wanted. The idea of that made me furious. The one he ought to despise is
himself
. And he must know how other people would despise him, which was why I suddenly meant so little to him that he was happy to abandon me in the middle of an air-raid. That made me think of my airman again, how different he was, calm and brave…
my
airman! Oh dear, how presumptuous. He isn't my airman at all. But I did wonder if maybe I might see him again. I thought, if I went back to that shelter, I might… Who knows?

I got home eventually. Mums launched in immediately. ‘My goodness, your hair! And your coat! What's happened to you? You could have been killed! I told you not to go!' I was very tempted to retort that she hadn't told me anything of the kind, but said nothing. Unfortunately, Mums took my silence as a cue for another barrage, this time along the lines of ‘Something has happened, and you're not telling us! I knew it! I don't know why you have to be so secretive, Lucy. Minnie always tells me everything, anyone would think you had something to hide,' and so on and so on. Of course, the awful thing is that she's right, I do have something to hide.

Fortunately, Dad stuck up for me, ‘Leave her be, she's tired.' When Mums left the room, he said, quietly, ‘Don't be hard on her, Lucy. She's worried about you, that's all.'

I said, ‘I know. I got caught up in a raid, but I'm fine, honestly. Just a bit shaken.'

‘As long as you're still in one piece. She's very fond of you, Lucy. That's why.'

‘I know. It's just because I'm tired, and when she starts on at me…'

‘It's all right, Smiler.' Dad patted my hand. ‘I do understand, you know.'

The All-Clear went early, for once—thank you, Hitler. I escaped up to bed leaving Mums under the stairs with Minnie. Didn't get into bed at once, but gave my coat a good brush to get the marks off. I must say, I don't think so much of it since I saw that woman wearing the same model, but I can't possibly afford another. Gas still off, so did my best to clean up with cold water. Ugh! But felt immense pleasure at putting on my nightie, instead of slacks and tennis shoes.

I took the brooch out of the pocket and put it under my pillow. Fell asleep eventually and woke at six after a
very
strange dream…not entirely sure that I want to remember it—or that I ought to remember it. There was a man in bed next to me, but not touching. I was most aware of his head. He looked like Robert Taylor, but I knew it wasn't him, just that whoever it was had decided to appear to be like him because he's my favourite film star. He kept asking me to put my hand under the sheets. At first I made excuses, worrying about Mums finding us and how it would look. He was very polite, but he insisted that I should do this, so eventually I did, and—this is the awful part—I touched him, and it felt soft and heavy—ugh—and I wasn't enjoying it, but he said, ‘Go on, go on,' and it got bigger and bigger like a balloon and I was scared because I didn't know what to do next, but then he put his hand down under the sheet with mine, and brought out a bunch of flowers, tied up in a bow made out of one of my stockings.

I said, ‘How did you do that?' but never got an answer, because after that I woke up, feeling surprised and terribly pleased. I was thoroughly alarmed at the direction my thoughts had taken, and found it quite impossible to meet anyone's eye when I went downstairs. Still, the stocking in the dream reminded me of the ones I need to darn, so I made a start on that at breakfast, much to Mums's disgust.

T
wo a.m. now. What a night! Funny, I ought to be tired after all that. Can't sleep, though. Better try and get some shut-eye: Reilly'll be in with the tea in three hours. Bloody dark getting back across the airfield—had to guess where I was going, then walked straight into the side of one of the hangars. Still, got back in one piece.

Matheson's feet hanging off the end of the bed, as usual. At least he's quiet tonight. Shouts sometimes. No words, just a noise.

A cigarette might help—I've run out. See if Mathy's got some in his jacket. Five left, and his lighter. Better sit down on the bed quietly, so the springs don't creak. Not much chance of disturbing him, though—he's out for the count.

Damn good scrap this afternoon, or rather, yesterday afternoon. Pity about Prideaux. Stupid bastard flew smack into the middle of a bunch of 109s. Didn't stand a chance. Noticed this morning he had the jitters. We were standing by the window in the dispersal hut, drinking tea, and he kept slopping it, couldn't seem to get it in his mouth. Hands weren't steady, face twitching. He didn't seem to be aware of it. Seen that before, so I looked him in the eye and acted it back to him, mouth jerking, tea going all over the shop. After a while, he realised what he was doing, and stopped. He turned away to look up at the sky, clapped me on the shoulder, said, ‘Thanks, old boy,' very quietly, and wandered off outside. Last I saw, he was standing with his back to me, looking over at the planes.