Where the Heart Is (27 page)

Wilhelm had been in the kitchen before so there was no reason for her feel like she was doing, all breathless and giddy, as though something important had happened.

As she bustled about the kitchen Emily took very great care not to look at Wilhelm or to behave as though there was anything out of the ordinary, but inside she knew that once she was on her own it wouldn’t be Tommy’s new pullover that occupied her thoughts but the lovely comforting warmth of Wilhelm’s arm around her, holding her as though she was fragile and precious and all those things that, as a girl, she had so longed to be.

‘Emily.’

The sound of Wilhelm’s voice so close to her ear as she stood in front of the cupboard about to lift the cups from it had Emily’s heart pounding.

‘I have wanted to say to you for a very long
time how much I admire you and how beautiful I find you.’

Unable to stop herself, Emily turned round, her chest lifting with her gulped breath as she saw how close to her Wilhelm was standing.

‘Beautiful in here.’ Wilhelm told her, touching his own chest over his heart. ‘The true beauty that comes from true goodness inside. But now you are very beautiful outside as well.’

Her, beautiful? Emily was about to deny that she was any such thing when she saw how sad Wilhelm looked.

‘Such a beautiful and good woman will have many men who admire her and who want to offer her their hearts. She would never want the heart of a man such as me, a prisoner of war, who is not worthy of her. I should not speak but my heart demands that I do.’

‘Oh, Wilhelm, how could you ever think you aren’t worthy of any woman?’ Emily protested with heartfelt emotion. ‘You are the most worthy man I have ever met. A good man, a kind man.’

They looked at one another, both of them hesitant and uncertain, and then Wilhelm stepped forward purposefully and Emily’s heart threw itself valiantly across the chasm that separated her from the happiness she longed for, forcing her body to follow suit, so that she was stepping into Wilhelm’s arms and he was kissing her gently and respectfully.

The boiling kettle whistled, and, startled, they separated and looked self-conscious, whilst smiling happily at one another.

‘Truthfully, Grace, I could hardly believe it, and nor could your dad. Both of us had to read the letter twice. Of course, your dad’s chest is swelled to twice its normal size, and I don’t think there’s a soul that works for the Salvage Corp that doesn’t know about Lou getting the George Cross. If your dad’s like this now, I don’t know what he’s going to be like after he’s seen King George giving Lou her medal at the investiture.’

‘Well, you’ve got to admit that it is exciting, Mum,’ Grace laughed. ‘And Lou, of all people.’

‘We said, didn’t we, when she came home how much being in the WAAF had done to help her grow up? Oh, and I’ve had a letter from your auntie Francine saying that we’re not to worry about hotel rooms or anything because that’s going to be her treat. You and Seb will be able to come, won’t you?’

‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Grace assured her mother as they stood together in Jean’s kitchen, drinking the tea she had just poured.

‘Sasha will be going, of course, but what about Bobby? I know that Lou wasn’t keen on him.’

‘Lou said in her letter that she’s got tickets for all of us, including Bobby, but that she doesn’t know if she’ll be allowed to have much time with us. The George Cross isn’t a purely military award, of course, but she’ll be in uniform and I dare say there’ll be things she’ll have to do, although she did say that she’ll be able to stay at the Savoy with us.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to wear, mind, although again your auntie Francine has said not to worry. It’s not until late October, and I’ve been thinking that I could wear the outfit I had for your wedding. I was going to save it for … well, it seems silly not to wear it.’

Grace knew perfectly well what her mother had been about to say before she had stopped herself: she had been intending to save the lovely outfit her sister Francine had brought home for her from Cairo for Katie and Luke’s wedding. But now, of course, Katie and Luke weren’t going to be married, and Grace knew how very disappointed and sad that had made her mother.

However, since 25 October was the date when Lou was to be presented with her medal by the King at the investiture ceremony in London, it did make sense for her mother to wear the outfit. Grace had already decided that she was going to wear her own going away suit for the occasion.

Grace had been as thrilled as Jean when she’d learned about Lou’s George Cross, and Seb had been the first to insist that they must make every effort they could to be at the investiture. He couldn’t have been more proud of Lou if she had been his
own sister, but then of course they were both in the same service, although very different parts of it.

‘I’d have liked to have taken Bella with us,’ Jean continued. ‘It’s such a shame that Vi treats her the way she does, and Bella with all the responsibility for that nursery on her shoulders …

‘Lou put in her letter that the RAF is making arrangements for Luke to get to know.’ A shadow crossed Jean’s face, and Grace knew why. It wasn’t just Luke’s broken engagement that caused her mother concern.

Everyone knew how vitally important it was that the British troops stopped Rommel from overrunning the Middle East, taking control of the Suez Canal and the vital supply of oil. The Afrika Korps Radio had already warned the ladies of Cairo to ‘make ready for us tonight’ and naturally, with Luke fighting with the British Eighth Army and the previous month’s fall of Tobruk, Jean was concerned for her son’s safety.

Later, after she had seen Grace off on the train back to Whitchurch, Jean thought over her one plan for their trip to London that she had not revealed to her daughter. It wasn’t that she would be meddling or anything, she assured herself. She had liked Katie for herself, after all, and it was only natural that if she was going to be in London she should try to see her ex-billetee. The trouble was that her ex-billetee was also Luke’s ex-fiancée, and Sam would not approve of Jean making contact with her for that reason. But Jean wanted to see Katie; she missed her and she wanted to reassure herself that Katie was all right. It wasn’t
as though she was actually going to lie to Sam; she would never do that. No, it was simply that she wasn’t actually going to tell him that she had written to Katie’s parents telling them what was happening, and enclosing a letter for Katie, suggesting that if Katie was willing, they could meet at the Savoy for a cup of tea. There was no harm in that, was there? No, there wasn’t. And she wouldn’t even mention Luke–well, at least not unless Katie mentioned him first and wanted to talk about him and perhaps have news of him.

It had been such a relief when he had written to them after the fall of Tobruk to reassure them that he was safe and well. Not, of course, that he’d been able to write anything specific, not with the censorship rules that forbade people refering to anything that might help the enemy if it should fall into their hands. Families soon learned to put two and two together, though, listening to the news on the wireless, reading the papers and knowing where those members of their family were serving abroad.

Luke was still in the desert, but now the newspapers were full of the progress the British Eighth Army was making under its newly appointed generals–Alexander and Montgomery–against Rommel, saying how Rommel’s tanks had become embedded in the sand.

Jean couldn’t bear to think of her Luke having to face those tanks. Every night she prayed for all those she loved but she always said an extra special prayer that Luke would return home unharmed.

Sam was worrying too, she knew, even though
he didn’t say so. The anxious frown with which he read the evening paper told its own story. Not even his allotment could keep him from coming in in time to sit down with her to the nine o’clock news.

Jean couldn’t imagine what being in the desert must be like. All that sand. The most sand she had ever seen had been at Southport when the tide was out, but according to Francine the sand in the desert wasn’t flat like it was in Southport. Instead it formed hills and valleys, which could change overnight with the wind, burying whole villages, never mind brave English soldiers whose mothers were worrying themselves sick about them.

‘I wish we didn’t have to go to London, Bobby.’

‘Aww, come on, Sash, don’t be like that. You’ll enjoy it.’ When Sasha hunched a shoulder and turned away from him on the bench in Wavertree Park, where they’d been sitting together in the warm evening sunshine, Bobby reached for her hand and, holding it tightly, added, ‘And don’t forget that we’ll be there in London together, and won’t that be something? And seeing King George, and all.’

Sasha managed a small smile. ‘Well, if you want to go, Bobby, but I don’t want Lou treating you like she normally does, as if you and me aren’t together.’

‘I don’t reckon she’ll do that. I know me and your Lou haven’t always seen eye to eye, and that she took against me when you and I first got together, but that’s all in the past now.’

‘All everyone seems to be able to talk about at home these days is Lou and her medal,’ Sasha complained. ‘Even Dad seems to have forgotten how angry he was when he found out that Lou had gone behind his and Mum’s back and joined up.’

‘It’s only natural that they’re proud of her, and I bet you are too really. After all, she is your twin.’

‘Well, yes, of course I am, but I know Lou, and when we get to London it will be all “I’ve done this” and “I’ve seen that". It makes me feel as though I just don’t matter any more.’

Sasha had to squeeze her eyes tightly together to prevent them from filling with tears.

‘Of course you matter.’ Bobby’s hand tightened comfortingly round hers. ‘You matter to me. You matter to me more than anyone else in the world, Sasha,’ he told her gruffly. ‘And if I had my way … well, let’s just say if I thought for one minute that your mum and dad would let me put it there, you’d be wearing my ring when we go to London.’

Her unhappiness forgotten, Sasha turned towards him.

‘Oh, Bobby …’ Her eyes were shining now, her cheeks flushed as soft a pink as the evening sky at sunset.

‘One day, Sasha, when this war is over, if you’ll have me, you and me are going to be married.’

‘Oh, yes, Bobby,’ Sasha breathed happily, her earlier misery forgotten in the delight and excitement Bobby’s words had brought.

Lou could have her medal; she had Bobby, and his love.

* * *

‘So you’re to get the George Cross then?’

‘Yes, not that I deserve it, not really.’

‘You can’t expect me to agree with that. You saved my life, after all.’

It was silly to feel so shy and self-conscious, Lou knew. After all, this was the man she had virtually dragged bodily from the cockpit of his burning plane.

But of course that had been then in the heat of a few dangerous minutes; this was now, and the company and the attention of the tall, handsome squadron leader walking beside her in the gardens outside the officers’ mess, the only visible signs of what he had been through a few telltale marks on his hands and the sling still supporting his broken arm, was making Lou feel rather shy.

‘It’s very kind of you to come and see me like this,’ Lou told him politely, feeling awkward as well as self-conscious. It had been such a surprise when she had been told that Squadron Leader Maitland was coming to see her to thank her personally for what she had done.

‘He’s terrifically well-connected, you know,’ one of the other girls had told Lou knowledgably. ‘Posh family and that kind of thing.’

‘Not at all. I owe you my life, and I wanted to thank you personally for what you did, at such a risk to yourself. If there’s anything I can do to show my thanks …’

‘Thank you, but I’ve already benefited enough. I’ve passed my exams and I’m being posted to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire next week. I’m getting a medal I don’t really deserve. The only thing that
could make things any better would be going up in a plane, but of course that’s forbidden.’

Lou had only been speaking in an effort to pass the time and for something to say, but instead of agreeing with her, Squadron Leader Maitland stopped walking so that she had no choice other than to do the same.

‘If you’re serious about that and it’s really what you want, then I dare say it can be arranged.’

Lou shielded her eyes from the sun to look uncertainly at him. He had thick brown hair, bleached by the sun at the ends, and very blue eyes, and that air about him that flying men just did seem to have. Cockiness, Luke would no doubt have called it, but it wasn’t, not really. It was, though, a very special sort of confidence, and it made the RAF men so attractive to the opposite sex.

‘But it’s not allowed,’ she protested.

‘Well, yes,’ he agreed with a smile, ‘but I think there is something I can arrange. Leave it with me. You’re being posted to Lyneham, you say?’

Lou nodded.

‘I’ll be in touch there then, but in the meantime, mum’s the word, eh?’

‘Bella, the doorbell’s ringing. Fancy anyone being thoughtless enough to come calling at this time on a Saturday morning. Whoever it is, send them away. I’m still in my dressing gown.’

Bella tried not to feel irritated by or impatient with her mother but it was difficult at times. There was, after all, no reason why her mother shouldn’t go the door herself. It was half-past nine and the
only reason she was still in her dressing gown was that she had come down to complain that Bella was late in taking her cup of tea up to her. Since Bella had been up since seven o’clock trying to catch up with some paperwork from the nursery, and hadn’t had time to have a drink herself, she had had to bite on her lip and not say anything.

It wasn’t that she actually minded being the one to answer the door, it was just her mother’s attitude that jarred on her. Indeed, there were occasions on which she actually found herself understanding why her mother’s selfishness might have driven her father into the arms of a man-eater like Pauline–not that he was any less selfish than her mother, although Bella suspected that Pauline would soon put an end to that.